‘I hope she behaves with you just as she did with me. So you’ll know what you’re doing to me. But — no, you know what, maybe you’ve actually done me a favour, maybe you’ve just rid me of this disease, maybe you’ve finally shown me what scum I’ve been wasting my energy on all these years. But you — to be honest, I wouldn’t have expected this of you, Kitty. Why don’t you say something? Can you not think of anything, or are you going to turn this into one of your album tracks as well? Will you put us all into an amusing little song?’
She shook her head in incomprehension, as if trying to rouse herself to fathom the unfathomable. ‘This really is the limit,’ she added.
‘I didn’t want this. I tried for so long …’
‘Sure, of course you didn’t want it. As far as I’m aware, though, human beings don’t just have sexual organs, they also have brains. I thought you did, anyway! But it looks as if I was very wrong about that.’
‘Let me explain: I —’
‘Ha! I doubt I really want to know the details. I need to think. And you can tell this cowardly, lying bitch that she’s dead to me, and she’d better not dare to ask me for money or anything else ever again.’
‘There’s something wrong with her, Amy; there’s something really wrong with her lately …’
‘Well, darling, from now on that’s your problem. I’ve wasted my best years on this slut. And now I see working with you was a waste of time as well.’
‘She’s got problems; I think she’s —’
‘What a discovery! You should have thought about that before you jumped into bed with her.’
‘Amy, please, I’m asking you … I’m talking about a different kind of problem!’
‘You’re in no position to ask anything of me right now. And neither is she.’
Communists should set an example in study;
at all times they should be pupils of the masses as well as their teachers.
CHAIRMAN MAO
Wild times were coming, Brilka. The East envied the West its blue jeans, and young girls in the West fainted at Beatles concerts. In the West, people were demonstrating against the Vietnam War, which was taking on ever more absurd and bloody dimensions, and had become, like the Berlin Wall, a symbol of the Cold War power struggle.
In Paris, students occupied the Sorbonne and erected barricades. Parents no longer understood their children. They didn’t understand why these children, who had never lacked for anything, were suddenly taking a stand on behalf of unions and workers. Why they didn’t take their own national identity seriously, why they were dragging its values through the mud; why they were taking to the streets to demonstrate for women’s rights and against the military. Surely they didn’t seriously believe they were bringing peace to the world with a joint and a few flowers plaited in their hair, or by wearing ridiculous batik sarongs!
In our glorious and powerful land we were still a long way from shameless demands like these, but there had, at least, been a change of leadership in the Soviet Communist Party. The Ukrainian peasant had been replaced by a more gallant, pleasure-loving man, who dripped with medals and awards for heroism, and had the bushiest eyebrows in the world.
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia also had a new leader and, encouraged by this change, the people were calling for liberalisation of the system. Some straightforward reforms had been pushed through, and the populace — asked for the first time to help shape the future of their country — demanded further relaxation of laws, such as the abolition of press censorship and the democratisation of the Communist Party. A Kafka congress was held to rehabilitate the writer; more rehabilitations were set to follow.
The western protest movement seemed to have arrived in the East at last.
The Kremlin quickly felt that things were getting too complicated. Party functionaries grew uneasy. Comrade Brezhnev insisted that the reforms already passed be reversed, but his decree did nothing to check the wave rolling across the country, and there was a fear that the Czechoslovakian situation, as they called it, might find imitators in other sister states.
In August 1968, things came to a head. People stormed onto the streets, called for the restitution of human dignity, demanded the release of all political prisoners and the complete abolition of the totalitarian regime. Dubček, the head of the Czechoslovak Communist Party — removed from power by Moscow shortly afterwards — said later in an interview that he had not believed in August 1968 that his people wanted the complete abolition of the communist system; for him it had just been a question of ‘moderating the system’.
*
Stasia arrived in Prague on 20 August. She was picked up at the airport by Intourist staff and taken to a hotel, along with a few other Soviet fellow travellers. Kitty had arrived the previous day, and after a long and exhausting process at the airport, had been welcomed by two employees of the Komsomol Club and someone from the Ministry of Culture. She, too, was taken to a hotel — a much better one than her mother’s. There, Kitty got a telegram informing her that she would receive a call on the telephone in the hotel lobby in half an hour. She instantly felt as though she had been transported back in time and, as if under a spell, sought out the telephone booth.
‘Your concert on Wednesday has to be cancelled.’
He spoke more quietly and was more subdued than usual. He sounded nervous.
‘What’s going on? I’ve only just arrived.’
‘I know. The circumstances … It’s all got a bit out of hand.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. I just have to make sure that I get you out of there right away.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘There’s just been a crisis meeting in Bratislava to resolve the Czechoslovakian question. The Communist Party chairmen of the sister republics concluded that developments in Prague must be stopped by force.’
‘Stopped by force?’
‘That’s the situation.’
‘Who was I supposed to meet here? Tell me, who was supposed to come?’
‘You needn’t worry about her. She has a Soviet passport; you don’t. And in times of crisis like this, they don’t really like having western observers in the city, if you get my meaning.’
‘She?’
Kitty’s knees had turned to butter. Her mother. Her mother was here.
‘Don’t listen to the Komsomol people, wait for further instructions from me. Do you understand?’
Kitty hung up. She wouldn’t take a single step out of this city until she had seen her mother again.
That same evening, Kostya too received a phone call from his friend, explaining the situation and asking him to contact his mother and prepare her; she had to take a flight to Moscow within the next three days. Kostya, who had spent the previous night in the arms of a twenty-seven-year-old blonde and had drunk a little too much Crimean champagne, was immediately fully alert and promised to take care of it.
‘We shouldn’t have taken the risk in the first place,’ Alania sighed.
Kitty contrived to shake off the officious woman from the Ministry of Culture and slip out of the hotel. She wandered the streets of this city that had been the bridge to her new life, thinking back on the lonely months she had spent here. How long ago had it been? How many years was it since she had seen her mother? How many words, songs, meals, kisses, memories, how many disappointments, how many people, places, thoughts, encounters, borders, nights, and days separated the Kitty of today from the Kitty of then?
She walked along the cobbled streets of the Old Town, looking neither right nor left; she felt a tightness in her chest, and avoided people’s eyes; after London, they seemed to her so serious and downcast, so lost in thought. She had no destination, no idea where her feet were taking her. She just kept walking straight on, and realised that she didn’t know the city at all; that she had m
anaged, back then, to remain invisible here. Her thoughts ran into each other, creating a colourful mosaic in her head. The city was restless. Her nameless friend had been right, as always. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were marching against the desire for a different life. Battalions against a people. A whole army against her reunion with her mother.
She found herself thinking of Fred. Fred’s eyes. Glassy eyes. Eyes that flirted with death. Yes — that was exactly what it was: the way she stared into space, this mental absence. Had she ever truly recovered from Mödling? What was she taking? What kind of drug?
At seven o’clock, the delegation met in the lobby. Kitty acted as if she had just come down from her room. They were taken to a restaurant with a pseudo-folkloric atmosphere and state-approved background music. There was plenty to eat, lots of beer, and exhausting conversation about nothing whatsoever from the curious, excited Komsomol employees and the tedious woman from the ministry. Kitty did her best not to let her panic show. Panic at the thought of having to leave the city without seeing her mother’s face again. She smiled absently and asked no questions, but readily answered theirs about her songs. Everyone spoke Russian. Asked whether this was her first time in the city, she responded with a friendly ‘yes’.
At one point she went to the toilet and splashed her face with cold water. She had to maintain it, this face; it could not be allowed to slip. Upon her return to the hotel she would probably find a message from her personal guardian angel. And just this once she would defy him. For her, there was no going back without meeting Stasia.
As she cut the knedliky into little pieces and dunked them in the wild mushroom sauce, Amy’s shrill laughter echoed in her mind, the terribly artificial way she had laughed so as not to forfeit the last vestiges of her dignity when she found Fred half-naked in Kitty’s living room.
The call came long after midnight.
‘You must pretend you’ve got flu. You must leave the city as soon as possible. Cancel your performance before they come to you. You must do it, because I can’t guarantee anything in the current situation.’
Kitty feigned acquiescence, and agreed. Yes, she would cancel her performance, pretend to have a bad case of flu, and would fly straight back to London the day after tomorrow. But there was no way she was going to sleep now. She couldn’t leave. Her mother was here, all her old life was here. It was like a treasure chest, and all she had to do was open it. She couldn’t just leave again. She had to open this chest. She had to find Stasia. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers notwithstanding.
*
The invasion began that night. Half a million foreign soldiers occupied the country. These fateful events took the decision out of Kitty’s hands. Around nine o’clock in the morning, there was a knock at the door of her hotel room and, gesticulating wildly and bowing his head ever lower, the young komsomolets who had stared at her the previous evening with hostile admiration babbled something about politics, about Czechoslovakians and Russians, about the shadow now being cast over that great friendship between peoples, about her security, which, in the circumstances, the Komosomol Club could no longer guarantee, about her performance which now, unfortunately, had to be cancelled. All the leading party functionaries, including Dubček, had been arrested and sent to Moscow; all reforms were to be reversed immediately.
She stared at him, bleary-eyed, through the crack in the door. He told her he had been charged with taking her to the airport at once. The next flight left that evening, at nine o’clock.
‘You mean, they’re here already? Here, downstairs, on the street?’
Kitty was suddenly wide awake. She opened the door a little further and beckoned him inside, so he would have a chance to give her his own assessment of the situation instead of the stuff he had learned by rote.
‘Yes, Comrade Jashi,’ he continued in his faltering Russian, and entered her room with an awestruck expression. It was probably the most luxurious room he had ever set foot in. This huge, soft bed, the thick carpet, and the ornate, gilded mirror on the wall. She could already see his very own personal West light up in his eyes. This was how he imagined the West to be: beds like these, carpets and mirrors like these — for everyone.
‘The streets are full of people. The president has called on the populace to show prudence and obedience. But …’
He was clearly hesitating: he didn’t know how freely he could speak with her.
‘Tell me — it’s all right, go on!’ Kitty offered him a chair.
‘The students have set up a pirate radio station. Almost everyone from the university and the institutes is out on the street. I had to fight my way through to get here. People are marching between lines of soldiers, carrying home-made banners. Street signs have been reversed so that the …’ He faltered again. Which word did he want to use? The Russians, the enemy, the invaders?
‘The occupiers?’ she suggested. He seemed relieved.
‘Yes — so that it’s harder for them to find their way around the city. My brother told me people are being arrested every minute. And the Soviet news agency claims that the Czechoslovakian Republic turned to the Soviet Union with an urgent appeal for help. A complete lie! They’re actually claiming that we asked them to provide help through military force. Can you imagine?’
He had forgotten the Komsomol oath more quickly than expected; bit by bit, he revealed to her his anger and disappointment. Finally, he even confessed that he desperately wanted to stand by his friends and fellow students outside, but had promised his father that he would stay well away from the streets; one saboteur in the family was enough, his brother was very active in the protest movement and it looked as if he was about to be thrown out of university; besides, he had to get her safely to the airport, because he still hoped she would be able to give her concert one day after all; he was such a big fan of hers, such a big fan.
She fetched one of the ten copies of Summer of Broken Tears from her suitcase — she hadn’t been allowed to bring any more into the country — and signed it for him. She promised she would be in the hotel lobby at seven o’clock precisely.
The boy would keep his mouth shut, regardless of how this worked out. He wouldn’t denounce her. He would only give people the part of the truth they expected from him: I was there, she didn’t come, I looked for her, I didn’t find her, I did my duty, I couldn’t do more than that. He wouldn’t say: she seemed excited, curious, cross-examined me, asked me to report on the situation, gave me the feeling that she had anti-Soviet sympathies. Et cetera.
Yes, she had made him her accomplice, and the bed, the carpet, the mirror, and the album had been a great help to her in this.
In the collective memory of the West, Brilka, the ‘Prague Spring’ is celebrated as one of the biggest and most courageous revolts against Soviet tyranny. For the East, it was a threnody, a moment of sadness, because the curtain that had just been pushed ever so slightly aside would soon be drawn even more firmly closed.
*
Much has been said and written about the legendary tale of how Kitty, surrounded by tanks, took out her guitar amid the tumultuous crowd in Wenceslas Square and started singing an old folk song from her homeland. Some have claimed it was one of the Russian romances and not a Georgian folk song at all. Oh yes, there’s a great deal of speculation and discussion over what that song might have been.
Later, of course, in the West, people idealised her actions, glorifying them as a great advertisement for peace and freedom. The West, with its prejudiced viewpoint, was always misinterpreting the East; in this case, it saw a deliberate protest by a courageous artist, oblivious to what was going on around her, who sympathised with the people and was trying to soften the hearts of the brutal mercenaries. In reality, when she walked into the square and started singing, it was an act of desperation, and her motivation was purely selfish, not remotely intellectual or political. Her behaviour had nothing to do with courage or polit
ical convictions.
She went to the square as a woman uprooted, filled with rage, driven by the thought that her journey here, to this city, the journey into her past, might turn out to have been in vain. That she would have to leave the city without having had the chance to reconcile with the part of herself she had left behind. There was the profound pain of having to leave without seeing her mother and asking her why she hadn’t fought for her back then as, years earlier, she had fought for her son.
After the komsomolets left her room, Kitty started throwing her things into her suitcase, but stopped again a few moments later because she didn’t know what to do with it. Instead, she took her guitar, slung it over her shoulder, and hurried out into the street. For more than an hour, she wandered aimlessly, until she got close enough to the epicentre of events and was swept along by the crowd. Of course, she was afraid; of course, the guns, the tanks, the uniforms awakened her ghosts; of course, she would have liked nothing better than to flee, to return to the safety of London; for a moment, she cursed herself for having come here — and, of course, the West was deaf, later on, to her real motivation.
But that’s just the way it is, Brilka — we do things with a specific aim in mind and sometimes we achieve something completely different, just as you could never have dreamed, when you boarded the train to Vienna, that you would have to travel backwards, backwards to me, into the story you were so eager to leave behind.
And when an exhausted Kitty Jashi was swept into Wenceslas Square, took her guitar out of its case, and began to sing in an attempt to counter her own impotence, she too could not have imagined that a Magnum photographer would be standing nearby, would take a photo of her, would turn a woman who had seldom felt so discouraged, frightened, and lost into a figurehead of the resistance.
The Eighth Life Page 56