Gadfly in Russia

by Alan Sillitoe

  I closed my notebook, having seen enough, and drove to Malo-les-Bains, back in France, where I booked into a modest pension for the night. Would men in white coats have to drag me kicking and expostulating home? How long before I admitted that my time was up, and voted with my feet to go like a responsible person? I walked back and forth along the beach, with a westerly glance towards Dover, which I couldn’t see, reluctant to give up the false joy of having no roots anywhere, and break the calm achieved in the last month.

  Yet I must get back to work, having notions and material for much. In books it was easier to make others live for me, whether they wanted to or not. I would golemise to my advantage, until meeting someone from my pen I recognised as myself. Then I would stop, though it was an event hard to imagine.

  I was nothing if not a writer, and travelling had to lose its power. Better to go sooner rather than later.

  Dinner at the pension, a bottle of Bordeaux to hand, began with soup, then pâté de campagne, with toast, butter, and thinly sliced gherkins, followed by a main course of chicken; and then the inevitable feathery light crème caramel. Cointreau after the coffee called for a cigar, whose stub (it was a forty, George) sizzled into the water as I watched ships entering and coming out of nearby Dunkirk.

  Tuesday, 11 July

  It was an almost-nothing stage to Calais, hardly noticed in the pull of home, intentions that had been so subdued now automatically in motion. On the boat by midday, I first of all called at the wireless cabin to write a telegram telling of my arrival in London, even if only to stand outside the radio office window, opened due to the heat, and check the perfectly transmitted words of my message on their way in Morse, which told me more than anything that there was no turning back. I was not even certain it would arrive in time.

  Halfway across the water, standing on the topmost deck – so far from Russia – I looked forward to the future with interest and curiosity, no matter what the gypsy woman had said in Trogir. Revivified in the month since leaving Harwich, I had become another person, hardly as yet imaginable to myself, but on getting to England I must meet the old me to a certain extent, and become him again as far as I could. I was at heart a wanderer, but such a life could not go on for ever, and though I had often asked why not, 8,000 kilometres in the car had surely to be enough.

  From Dover I redrilled myself into hugging the left-hand lane, but since it was the natural side of the road for the car it was easy enough to go with the traffic, grateful for the bit of motorway between Faversham and Chatham.

  In little more than a couple of hours re-entry into the home atmosphere was cushioned on finding Ted Hughes and Assia Wevill (Guttman) in the house, where they’d had lunch. They watched with much laughter as I unloaded my Russian loot, which included, among much else, balalaikas, metal holders for glasses of tea, and art books. A bottle of vodka and a jar of caviar were soon unsealed, and we set to while David sat on the floor with his toys.

  Part Two

  Gadfly

  1967

  Friday, 1 September

  The four-engined Tupolev was some way from touchdown, but my popping eardrums suggested we were slowly descending. A flashing light on the horizon – as I looked up from another reading of Moby Dick – turned out to be a navigation indicator.

  A couple of months after the motoring trip I was going back to Moscow, with plane tickets and accommodation vouchers prepaid in hard currency. The visa classed me as a tourist, so I could not expect favours from the Writers’ Union. The treasury in London allowed me to take out the limit of fifty pounds in traveller’s cheques – a mean amount – but a few fivers smuggled in a back pocket were there to take care of any overspending.

  On previous visits I’d said little of what had been in my mind about the political situation, but this time, because of my independent status, I could come out with what I liked. Friends, such as George Andjaparidze, my companion of the summer drive, would I felt sure remain staunch.

  The track of the crowded aircraft followed the radio beam, until a grating under the fuselage, and the placid unwinking lights of rural Russia, told me we were close to landing.

  Oksana met me at the terminal – out of courtesy I had told only her of my visit – her friendly face as if to keep me from feeling bored or beleaguered during my stay, though I had no worries about that.

  After dinner in the hotel I went to the foreign currency bar, and met a group of men from Finland who were in Moscow to see a textile exhibition. One told me how happy he was that trade between England and his country was in such a thriving state. He was impressed by my recent automobile travels, and another Finn, curious to know whether I’d had any problems, said he wouldn’t imagine so because English cars, being the best in the world, were made for the rough roads in Russia. I thought he must be joking, in his tall deadpan way, though he seemed not to be.

  My first car had been English, I said, and while still brand new, during a trip to Morocco, the clutch went. When I wrote to the manufacturers, hoping to claim compensation on the guarantee due to careless workmanship in the factory, they huffily replied that whatever had gone wrong had been my fault and not theirs. It was up to me to have the matter put right – which I did.

  Going on with my story to the surprised Finn, I told how, while driving out of Tangier one day after heavy rain, the same car stalled in a sheet of water from an overflowing stream. A Frenchman, seeing my plight, locked the front bumper of his sturdy Peugeot 403 on to my vehicle and pushed it all the way up the winding road to where I lived. I offered him a drink in the house but he called with a friendly wave that he hadn’t time, though I’d taken him well out of his way. In England a couple of years later I bought the reliable Peugeot 404 that had taken me through Russia that summer.

  Talk spun on to other topics, and one of the Finns said that spending the night with a lovely Russian girl cost only ten pounds. After a second vodka – he and his friends were drinking the finest malt whisky – I left them chatting to two young beauties who came into the room like queens.

  In Moscow’s top-class hotels the oldest trade is a way of extracting hard currency from foreign pockets, and the women also seemed to be enjoying their status at the bar. I thought good luck to them, because it was all part of the black economy that kept the Soviet system running.

  At midnight I lay in bed listening to a melancholy performance of the Kinks on my tape recorder, relishing a further period of mindlessness in Moscow. How far out could one get? Further than that, I hoped, at the sound of giant street-washing vehicles growling by outside. Moscow must be the cleanest city in the world, washed, shampooed and set every night.

  Saturday, 2 September

  Breakfast came punctually to my room, avoiding half an hour’s wait in the restaurant. The first swig of lemon tea seemed to improve my eyesight, as if I had put on glasses.

  I met George at ten by the Gorki Street post office. After the embrace and backslapping we lit up cigars and talked all the way to Red Square, recalling the highlights of our motor trip. He asked about the latest interesting novels in London, and all I could do was mention again Smallcreep’s Day by Peter Currell Brown, a sort of Kafkalike incursion into the anonymous world of a vast factory.

  We lunched at the Writers’ Union, where Oksana joined us. George enthused about Gagra on the Black Sea, how delightfully sub-tropical it was, summer the whole year round, and full of lovely girls. ‘It’s far better than your Riviera on the Mediterranean,’ he said to me. ‘When it gets too warm you can go for a walk in the mountains. It’s the most beautiful spot, even better than the Crimea.’

  ‘Let’s go, then,’ I said. ‘I’ll see whether you’re right or not. A few days there would fit me up nicely. How much do the air tickets cost? We could go today.’

  ‘Not much. About 400 roubles.’ He knew that my luftmensch mind had no intention of clicking out of zero and and lighting off, but Oksana, as if to discourage me from doing so, asked what I had done after she had seen me to my h
otel the previous evening.

  Wanting to shake her Soviet complacency I told her that after supper I had gone into the foreign currency bar, but instead of paying ten pounds and waltzing off with a beautiful woman for the night, I decided to go for a walk, needing some exercise after more than three hours in the plane. ‘There weren’t many people in the streets by then, so it was pleasant. Turning off the boulevard I came to a block of flats that looked a bit run down, but out of curiosity I wandered into the courtyard, and saw a dim bulb over a doorway, where steps led down into a basement.

  ‘At the bottom I, pushed my way through a curtain made of what looked like sackcloth, and saw half a dozen men and a couple of women around a table, playing cards for money. It was like a scene out of Dostoevsky, but they were all quite jolly, and invited me to sit down. I needed no second telling, and in spite of my monkey Russian I managed to get through a couple of games. I seemed to amuse them very much, and one of the laughing women – a perfect Grushenka with exquisite grey Kirghiz eyes – poured me a glass of vodka. I was getting in touch with the real Russia at last. A man with a scar on his cheek, in an oilskin jacket even though the place was warm, said he was a train driver who made a lot of money smuggling people across the frontier – though he may have been joking. He gave me a piece of bread and some salty herring, and filled my glass again. I’d got my tape recorder with me, so switched it on and played them the Kinks, which they loved, and tried to dance to.

  ‘I lost a few roubles at cards, but when I offered to settle the debt with a couple of five-pound notes they took them gladly. The women loved the picture of Queen Elizabeth. After a couple of hours – it must have been midnight – I shook hands with them all and left. I pushed the curtain aside and walked back to the street. Half cut by then, I was just able to find my way back to the hotel.’

  What I had intended to be an amusing anecdote for Oksana’s benefit put a look of alarm and disapproval on her face. She was convinced that all I had said was true. She was flushed and fearful: ‘There are such people in the city, or so I’ve heard, but you shouldn’t have gone there. It’s very dangerous to mix with types like that. You were lucky not to have been robbed. The police catch them sometimes, and send them away from Moscow.’

  I regretted the tale, but hadn’t thought she’d believe it, while George was more familiar with my spiralling imagination. ‘It sounds a real cock-and-bull story to me.’

  I admitted that it was, though could never be sure Oksana finally believed me.

  In the evening we taxied to a party at Valentina Ivasheva’s. The vestibule of the block of flats was gloomy, a low wattage bulb showing broken bottles and a few tins underfoot. When I mentioned this to Valentina on getting upstairs she said anxiously: ‘Hurry inside. I know all about that. Hooligans come from the next block and throw bottles in the entrance. They don’t like us because we’re only writers and journalists in this building.’

  I was amused. ‘But if the housing authorities mixed everyone up a bit more you’d get to know each other and become friendly. Then it might not happen,’ I suggested.

  ‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘we wouldn’t want that sort of person in here.’

  Talk at the party was mostly about Ilya Ehrenberg, who had died and was to be buried on Monday. After telling Oksana I’d read his masterpiece The Fall of Paris, and very much admired other works of his, she promised to wangle a permit from the Writers’ Union, so that we could go to the funeral.

  On the boulevard at past midnight it seemed we’d never get a taxi. Even those showing vacancy lights went by as if with wings and about to achieve lift off. Whether set for home after the day’s work, or on call to special customers, I didn’t know, but damned them nevertheless, George solved the problem, by muttering into my ear: ‘Hold some foreign money up, and see what happens.’

  Rain was falling so heavily that few people were on the streets. Oksana said it was typical Moscow weather for the time of year. I took a few pound notes from my wallet, stepped into the road, and wiggled them high. Within minutes a car skidded to a stop. The cash was taken, we climbed in, and off we went, enough currency for the driver to deliver George and Oksana to their homes, and me to the hotel.

  From the window of my room I watched streaks of blue lightning tearing holes in the paperbag sky. Thunder rolled around the squares and boulevards as if Kremlin guns were celebrating another town taken from the Germans.

  Sunday, 3 September

  A pleasant time touring the town with Oksana’s daughter, who has the good looks of a Persian princess. We picnicked by the banks of the river, talking of many things.

  Monday, 4 September

  Grey street-cleaning wagons parked nose to tail, not an inch between, barricaded the road so that those going into the Writers’ Union to pay their respects would not be disturbed. Inside, ushers with black armbands slashed with red pointed me to the visitors’ book so that I could leave my simple message of condolence before following the file into the main hall where the dead writer lay. Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique’ played through loudspeakers.

  Ehrenberg was receiving honours that might have been more muted had Stalin been alive. He was born in 1891, into an assimilated middle-class Jewish family in Kiev. Because of his youthful revolutionary activities he had to leave Russia, and lived in Paris until the Bolshevik coup d’état in 1917. Four years later he left again, and only went back when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. During the war – the Great Patriotic War – he put his journalistic skills into encouraging hatred of Nazi Germany.

  His articles made him popular with the soldiers of the Red Army, and later kept him safe from Stalin. Always a writer of independent views, his novel A Prayer for Russia (1921) described the miseries of Bolshevik rule, while Julio Jurenito (1922) dealt with the dislike of intellectuals in both capitalist society and over-disciplined communism.

  His loyalty to the Soviet regime was always conditional. People and Life, his last book, gave a true account of the opinions of Russian and Western writers during the 1920s and 1930s. He had always done his best to steer a humane course through dangerous times, and was in the vanguard of liberalisation after Stalin’s death in 1952. So it was obvious that none of the crowd endeavouring to pay their respects held it against him for managing to stay out of the tyrant’s clutches.

  The face in the coffin, surrounded by flowers as white as snow, didn’t appear fully dead, as if he might impetuously sit up and wonder what was going on. Some who looked at his corpse seemed in a state of shock, as if not knowing what would happen in society now that he was dead, their sideways expressions followed by a glance at the huge framed photograph suspended above – before they drifted on.

  Officials from Czechoslovakia said their tributes, then Montague, the delegate from Great Britain, gave a short speech. I had been asked to, but preferred to be an anonymous mourner. A man from France commented on Ehrenberg’s years in Paris, and mentioned the prejudice he had always faced because of being Jewish.

  At the Novodyevichi Cemetery Oksana realised she had forgotten our passes for the graveside ceremony. Not wanting her to be upset at the mistake I told her it would be far more interesting to stay with the crowd held at barriers across the road by the entrance. Lorries of standing people cruised by, the sides crêped with red and black banners, while all the windows of neighbouring flats had their silent spectators.

  Young soldiers linked arms to prevent a rush for the gate, until shouts from the crowd deepened in tone, as if they could be angry now that the rain had stopped. With their wreaths and flowers they were tired of being kept in place, and determined to show their will this time. A sudden unrehearsed surge took them forward, and the line was broken. They ran across the space and scuffled with the militia as the coffin was going through, and I was pleased that scores made their way in behind.

  Tuesday, 5 Septenber

  After talking to people from Intourist about how much I was enjoying my holiday in the USSR, George took me to
a showing of Bondarchuk’s War and Peace. I had been interested in his work since seeing The Fate of a Man, based on a story by Sholokhov, which I came across in a Tangier cinema. Though subtitled and hardly a good print it was obviously a great film. A Red Army soldier is knocked out in battle, and before he can recover his senses and flee he is taken prisoner by the Germans. After the war many such returning men were packed off to camps in Siberia, though this soldier escapes at least that fate. Bondarchuk’s handling of someone who was regarded almost as a traitor for having, apparently, surrendered to the enemy, was humane and understanding.

  Back in Russia the soldier wanders about the country trying to make sense of what has happened to him. There’s a hint of some kind of future when he befriends an obviously abandoned child found pottering around in the squalor. He extends a hand to the orphan – no words necessary – and takes him away, presumably to bring him up.

  The film wasn’t much liked by the authorities, though it had after all been made. Some didn’t agree with my unqualified praise when talking about it, and I did not know enough Russian to ask an ordinary man in the street what he thought of it, but felt sure he would have been sympathetic to the soldier’s plight.

  Wednesday, 6 September

  A young woman from Intourist, Irena, who was to be my companion and guide, took me to an office where we booked seats on the train for Vladimir, 200 kilometres to the east. After nearly a week in Moscow I was glad to spend a couple of days somewhere else.

  The carriage was comfortable, with seating of similar style to those in an aircraft, though more spacious, and the electrified line gave a smooth ride. Shortly after departure, when a man leaned across the gangway and enquired if I was an Estonian, I recalled the old woman in Novgorod who had asked the same. This time also I had to say no.