But he was in Russia. Deep within.
The monumental urn just outside was particularly illuminated, and the effect was almost shocking. Intimidating, certainly.
Yevgeny noticed Butterbugs’ sensitive scrutiny of the image.
‘You like it!’ he gestured his tankard towards the window. ‘So do I! It is a presence. Not malignant, not benign. It is our national consciousness. I never forget. By this I am a Russian.’
‘The view… out there… It beggars description!’
‘Aha. You like our Seventeen Sisters on the perimeter, standing guard?’
‘Those distant spires? So strange! Cinematic!’
‘Lenin said the cinema is the most important cultural outlet for us.’
‘All of Moscow is a movie set!’
‘You like the urn. You like this audacious, upthrust building that harbors us? So do I! In my fancies, I sort of make it my ‘organic link’ to Siberia. As if, at any time, I could take the lift down to a sub-sub-sub basement, and the Metro would take me all the way out past the Urals. In just a few minutes, of course.
‘My life has often been by backward glances,
Few personal emotions, thoughts or wishes,
And in my life, its even turns and courses,
Some generous impulse but nothing finished.
‘Siberia – as big as the moon! I had a bizarre dream once. That an exponentially-larger version of this very Soviet cathedral was standing on the frozen Siberian plain. And my native place – Zima… Zima Junction – was buried beneath it. And the building’s shadow was cast over the entire length of… of… let’s just say, the entire landmass…!’
‘Stalin’s… sharp-nosed shadow…?’
‘Bang-bang! You’re one of us!
‘As we get older we get honester,
That’s something.’
He poured another round of clear ’n’ cold vodka.
‘Look not at my old national consciousness, but at your awards, Butterbugs. Numerous Oscars™. The new Nobel category of Performance Artiste. The Peking Duck Award, the Leaden Star of Karelia, the Peshawar Topee, the Solitary Urn, the plum BAFTRA, the UN’s commendation – eight times! Others. That’s something!’
‘Yevgeny Aleksandrovich, you turn my head!’
‘Poets are always good hunters and finders. Even your name has power: you know very well that the Oxford English Dictionary struck any prurient meaning out of the word ‘bug’ and all that it implies. Away all bum-boys! Isn’t that hilarious? Now there is no subversive undercurrent when we talk about Victor Hugo’s ‘bugpipe’!’
Butterbugs appreciated the poet’s sideways reference to the production of ‘Toilers’, which was in preparation.
‘Now you are really twisting my head!’
‘Twist it and twist harder then! You know you are without ego in these matters!’
‘It is true. I don’t know what that means.’
‘The Perfect Fool! The Holy Sinner!’
Butterbugs laughed.
‘That is why I designate you Transcendent. Incandescent!’
‘Now that you put it that way, I cannot question, let alone argue.’
‘I knew you wouldn’t! But you can if you want! For a man who has almost single-handedly restored hope and grace to the world through art, you are one who can be trusted! This, in a world full of power-mad sociopaths, losers, and cynics!’
‘But I thought you said I had changed all that??’
They both burst into rich laughter, and continued to toast each other until the snow fell in cold silence outside. The room became so overheated that Yevgeny opened the triple window. They went out onto the wide but sloping ledge, where the poet introduced him to the urn. It was an elongated thing, perhaps four meters high, with ribs all around, extending up past its body, terminating in a cluster of stone balls. The whole ensemble was of an extremely florid and almost ghastly character. A caretaker could live in it! Anti-aircraft guns could be mounted in its crown! They conversed with it, taking note of its mates on down the line, as well as the parapets and pinnacles, stacked 90 meters yet above, then all the way down to the street, about 150 meters below, until bell-pealed dawn broke over old Moscow.
No matter that their tipsiness brought them impossibly close to the edge. Just before Butterbugs most surely would’ve slipped, the Siberian iron-gripped the sleeve of his kosovorotka shirt and reeled him in. Without even interrupting his wonderstruck reverie, too. Bits of ice on the verdigris of the copper-topped flashing did not betray the needs of their roving shoes this day. The grit of the communion between them was their traction, and thus, on this high point, at this time, they were invincible. Call it poet’s luck. Or the luck o’ the yurodivy.
A largo from a Shostakovich symphony was certainly relevant about now.
Butterbugs was more hipsy than tipsy.
‘Makes you wonder if Stalin’s architects planned to link each of the Seventeen Sisters with a matching wall.’
‘To keep us worldly Muscovites contained?’
‘Or to keep everyone else out?’
‘You see them all out there, Butterbugs?’ Yevgeny asked, as wan grey light made the streetlamps fade. ‘Not the Sisters, but everyone else. They are all still asleep. Even though it is morning, they will still be unconscious. Our light here is not strong enough. Even in deepest summer.’
He paused, to prepare.
‘Your incandescence. It is needed in places such as this…’
His pronouncement needed no response.
After a time they withdrew inside, but the heavy drapes remained open, and the miles of snowy sky above only made the dawn look like dull twilight. They were ecstatically cozy, and full of Russki soul in the moment.
Yevgeny brooded benevolently, then made a further proclamation.
‘Everyone thinks they’re more fascinating than you are. Than I am. Than anyone but themselves. Really. Everyone has a confidence now in projecting such styles about themselves. A self-assignment of stardom! This is particularly inherent in the States, isn’t it, The Actor?’
Butterbugs pondered a moment and nodded.
‘But of course it happens here also. Dmitri Dmitrievich – er – Shostakovich, once told me of a daring skit by Ilf and Petrov, our beloved satirists of consequence. Two guys run into Lenin – yes, your same Lenin, our same Lenin – Ulyanov – but this is when he’s incognito, shaven, with a thing-um-a-wig, just before leaving for the Finland Station. They stop him and corner him and yak at him, on and on, about the fantastic things that they do, none of which are fantastic at all. After considerable time, Lenin politely interrupts with, ‘Yes, well, I’ve got a country to take over right now, so if you’ll excuse me.’ Ilf replies with, ‘That’s fine, but before you take off, you haven’t got a match, have you? I’ve a cig that needs lighting.’ To which Petrov adds, addressing Lenin, ‘Yeah! There are more important things in this world, you know.’
‘I think that should be in the picture,’ said Butterbugs, quietly and with a serious chuckle.
‘I agree. It will go in.’
‘That’s a contrast to the severity –’
‘A bit of levity, really. And, let’s face it, humanity. Ulyanov loved to have a cat on his lap. He had a tea service with purple flowers on it. His tastes bordered on the dainty. So yes, levity, but not just comedy. Levity. From all the otherwise powerful imagery of uncertain but significant consequence. I wanted all those graphic depictions of Lenin, the graphite leader, the metallic mind, the face, composed of pencil lead, the eyes like ball bearings, the Tartarish Ulyanov, from borderline-savage Simbirsk and Samara, the Brodsky paintings brought to life at the key moments – I wanted them because it all comes to a head in the assassination attempt scene. You have done it the way I wanted it. The way it happened. He was shot by a lady, thus was the romance of the machined and intellectual ruler shattered. Would that he had died that day, and they would have built another Cathedral of the Spilled Blood over the spot. Plus, Rykov or Kirov, o
r best of all, Gorky, would’ve gotten and kept the top spot instead of Stalin. Indeed, Russia needs to be run by a person of letters.’
‘A writer should write every day. Would he have time for governing?’
‘She can write and lead, believe me.’
‘Oh, you’re thinking of Meltova Vyostichonnyeva! She’d be perfect!’
‘Da, da. Perfect. Say, have you met Putin yet?’
‘Nyet.’
‘I’ll introduce you. Maybe next week. He’ll be at the War Star Thiertre gala.’
‘Goody! He’s a writer, then?’
Yevgeny snorted.
‘No way! We need a leader you can read!’
‘Yourself, then?’
‘If I am asked!’
They both guffawed.
‘Well… Anyway, Yevo… What you have written is – what would I call it? What would be good enough?’ asked Butterbugs, with sudden vodkavik gravity.
‘Hey kid, your praise has an incandescence all its own! Glow brighter, why don’t you?’
Hearty, hearty laughs reigned for a time.
‘You know, Butterbugs, in this picture, with you in it, I think that perhaps I am actually contributing something, for once.’
‘You are more than a mere contributor. You are a maker. A creator.’
Yevgeny smiled benevolently, but didn’t wish to pursue such talk. He could dish out the praise, but he couldn’t take it in. Not right now, anyway. Not until his poetry got better.
‘Butterbugs, lest I forget,’ Yevgeny went over to a cabinet and brought out a dark alabaster jar of pleasing shape. ‘Horseradish from the Bluryap Autonomous Region! This is first quality.’
Butterbugs was truly thrilled.
‘Speziba, my friend! Speziba ya kindly!’
Approaching an oval window, Yevgeny waxed into reverie, as if to continue the thoughts of earlier last evening.
‘All those opportunities! My precocious youth! I was priggish then, with all the analyses of the cocktail parties, the personalities, and their surrounding umbra. Now there is wisdom and experience – so much experience.’
‘I’m to the point where I might, if I allow myself, say the same thing.’
‘You can, and you will say it, more and more. I’m glad you are making motion pictures, Beebugzoff. To show us where we’ve been.’
‘And where we might go?’
‘Da. Yes, definitely. You know, Stalin used to tell us that we must all be like him. Not to rule the nation – there could only be one of him – but that we must all become as steel. Steel in our backbones, steel in our brains, steel in our genitals. We must become as metal. Metal survives. And metal can be molded. But it usually has to be hot.’
‘The ultimate in authoritarian dreams. But steel is also powerful against other steel.’
To that they toasted again.
‘Can I outlast you, tonight, er, today, Yevo?’
He laughed.
‘Always, Beebugzoff. I will out-toast you! But you will out-Lenin me!’
‘You give me all the insight to do so.’
‘Humans haven’t really evolved along in things like life that much, after all. I was so impatient, I thought I’d see it in my lifetime. I thought I’d be interacting with them, the advanced ones, and that they would help me to advance, too. They’d show us the way. Then came all the mocking talk about elitism, all here in egalitarian CCCP. Jealousy and envy. The thing is, Butterbugs, I think I have seen it at last.’
‘What?’
‘Signs of evolution.’
‘In nature? Society? Religion?’
‘In you.’
‘But… we all evolve.’
‘That’s not what I mean, Butterbugs. I’m assigning evolution in general – to you.’
The actor laughed.
‘A poetic notion!’
‘I believe I am serious this time. Most serious. And not poetic. Scientific!’
‘Another Schtoli! I need it for my metamorphosis.’
‘Of course. Where’s your beaker? Ah, here…’
‘Yevo, you’re always so generous. Always.’
‘It’s beyond the theory stage now. That’s why I called you The Actor. It’s becoming immutable fact. Truth.’
‘You’ve always searched for truth.’
‘Da, da. I have found it. I know it. For once!’
Butterbugs saw no reason to doubt a wise man, even if it was in playful form. If Yevtushenko said he’d found truth, who was he to question it?
‘Will you help me with it, Yevo?’
‘If I did, I’d only muck it up. I’d expect you to help me with it.’
‘I will, sir. With all my heart.’
After a time in which they both sat back and indulged in individual (and quiet) thought, Yevgeny stirred, got up, and then stood directly in front of The Actor. He reached out his hands and placed them on Butterbugs’ shoulders, encouraging him to stand facing him. As soon as their vodkakovna-influenced eyes balanced and connected with each other, the poet announced:
‘Oh, I understand you’ve got a week between shooting engagements. I invite you to be my guest. On the morrow, we leave for St. Petersburg. There’s someone I want you to meet.’
No answer was necessary. Butterbugs had more than an inkling of whom he meant.
Then:
St. PETERSBURG…
54.
Now Then, Dmitri
After Yevgeny dropped him in front of the great apartment block on Dyneyubdyenskaya Street, he entered it on deep, chemically-cleaned VIP carpeting and was instantly bathed in thick, closed air. The Stalinist interior lacked any Eastern Orthodox symbolism, but it presented the same exuberance via the medium of atheistic and metallic stone. Boris Iofan might have designed it! Maybe even Lev Rudnev! No doubt A.B. Minkus was involved!
Somewhat clumsily, Butterbugs prepared to present himself for his appointment at the agreed time.
‘You’re on your own now, Beebugzoff,’ the poet had said with a twinkle and a tear in his eye.
The odd and icy ornateness of the décor, the punctuations of wheat sheafs, stars, sickles and hammers here and there, the lurid bulbs behind the wall sconces, casting a glow decidedly different from anything west of the Neman, intermixed with a sort of comfortable, indefinable ambience. Within these strangely non-disturbing corridors, Butterbugs started to believe that where they led, and to whom, would somehow be a transporting experience.
No one else was around.
He couldn’t exactly say to himself, ‘I like it here’, but neither could he say, ‘This place makes me feel somewhat ill.’ Rather than the sepulchral architecture, it was he who lived here who formed the basis of the attraction.
‘I rang ahead,’ were Yevgeny’s sendoff words in the socialist realist taxi. ‘He’s expecting you, and looking forward to it.’
The crumpling of the paper bag that contained bread and salt, plus a liter of Vlakod vodka, resounded with peculiar effect in the padded hallway, adding to the anticipation, which spread ahead in unknown directions.
The lift was obviously one of those Soviet brick-shithouse vehicles. It was rather ‘Kursk’-like in lighting and appointments, though no submarine. It projected impregnability within this blast-proof hulk of a dwelling. There was a mirror at the back of the spacious car. How many questions had it ever been asked?
‘What does the Leader and Teacher want of me now?’
‘Will this be my last ride?’
‘Will I spend the rest of my existence beneath the iron statue of Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky?’
‘Will my blood even hit the ground…?’
On the 8th floor, the actor exited and followed Yevgeny’s detailed instructions in how to negotiate the truly confounding array of corridors that opened up before him. He figured though, that the layout probably made perfect sense to the inhabitants, and would to him as well, in time.
‘Like the St. James Hotel in London after a couple of days…,’ he mused.
If al
l the wattage of illumination along these halls had been consistent, which it was not, and perfectly placed, which it was not, the sequential numbering of doors could have been followed with total accuracy. There were regular dim-outs between lamps, and this left some doors open to interpretation. Only Braille-quality fingering might discern them, given the raised nature of the brass numbers, arranged by their own unique classification system. For example: Ц-8-Ц-245 translated into Corridor ‘C’ (stated in Cyrillic), ‘8th Floor’, ‘Chamber’ (stated in Cyrillic) 245. Or: Ц-8-C-549 translated into Corridor ‘C’ (stated in Cyrillic), ‘8th Floor’, ‘Suite’ (stated in Cyrillic) 549. The latter address was Butterbugs’ goal.
But, due to an unexplainable shakeup in floor designation during the Chernenko Era, attempts were made to show the floor number first, followed by a non-Cyrillic letter (anticipating something approaching glasnost and EU membership) assigned to each corridor. Alas, some of the work was never completed, owing to…
This was, however, a VIP building. Everyone made do in spite of it all. Come to think of it, Yevgeny had offered no explanation whatsoever as to why he hadn’t accompanied him on this expedition. Possibly to avoid the task as guide.
As the good vibes encountered in the foyer continued to occur through the present, Butterbugs was delighted to stand precisely under the next ceiling lamp and beheld, on the door just at hand, 8-C-549, achieved at last.
But did this mean it was a chamber, or a suite…? Was he on Julian time, or Gregorian?
The buzzer was not musical at all. It had a sort of squawk not unlike that of a Steller’s jay, which was in fact, a happy association at the moment. It took a while for some sort of activity inside to be detected, thus canceling the temptation to point for a second button-pressing. The wide barrier then opened, robustly, but silently.
For less than a second, Butterbugs thought of a statement Old Atrocity had made, when they were leafing through a copy of ‘Ogonek’ on the set at Mosfilm Studios, prior to his departure for Minsk and St. Petersburg. They had seen a photo portrait of DDS from the 1930s, touched up in Sovphotoshoppe style.
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