Vodka

by Boris Starling

  “Esteemed deputies,” Borzov began, “the time has come for Anatoly Nikolayevich to apologize. Your president has not been vigorous enough in discharging his duties. He has compromised and vacillated. This isn’t like him. It’s time to return Anatoly Nikolayevich to Anatoly Nikolayevich. And this is where it starts.” When he paused, there was silence; no one heckled. “The president refuses to accept the dismissal of Nikolai Valentinovich Arkin. In years to come, there’ll be a statue to Kolya in every square in Russia. The chief won’t have him removed before Russia has the chance to reap the rewards of his vision and courage. He will remain as prime minister until the chief decides otherwise.”

  Currents ran around the chamber as though it were a power station. The heat that glowed from the floor, where Borzov and Lev once more faced each other, felt positively radioactive.

  “The president has made many errors of judgment over the past few months,” Lev said. “Now, in expressly disobeying parliament’s wishes, he’s gone too far, and is clearly no longer fit to hold office. Yesterday, we gave him the benefit of the doubt. By his own actions, he has shown himself unworthy. A vote to impeach him should therefore be held. More specifically, two votes: the first a ballot to decide whether an impeachment vote should take place at all, and, if this motion is carried, we will proceed with the impeachment vote.”

  Lev had read up on his rules, that was clear enough. Parliamentary officials consulted hurriedly among themselves and agreed: the impeachment procedure was as he’d outlined. They called the first ballot.

  Of 1,012 deputies registered to vote, 338 were needed to carry the motion; Lev got 712. For the second vote, a two-thirds majority was required. If those same deputies voted against Borzov next time, the president would—technically, at least—be out of office.

  “The motion will be carried if 675 deputies support it. All those in favor of the president being impeached, please raise their right hand.”

  There was a speaker, of course, but Lev seemed to have usurped the role. Borzov was looking at the deputies who had kept their arms down, because they were easier to count. If he had enough votes to survive, it wouldn’t be by much. There was a long pause while the tellers counted, and then Lev spoke again.

  “All those against the president being impeached, please raise your right hand.”

  Borzov’s support showed in thickets, small copses of upraised hands dotted in the wilds of hostile seats. If anything, his position looked even more hopeless.

  “All those abstaining,” said Lev in a tone that suggested very strongly that there’d better not be any; and indeed there weren’t.

  The tellers conferred briefly, nodding in satisfaction that their figures tallied. One of them approached the speaker’s chair, his strides long and purposeful as the cameras tracked him; this was his few seconds of fame, and he knew it. He whispered the result in the speaker’s ear, cupping his hand around it to conceal his lips as he spoke. The speaker cleared his throat.

  “The results of the vote to impeach Anatoly Nikolayevich Borzov as president are as follows: abstentions, zero; votes against, 338 …” There was a murmuring among those sharp enough to do the math in their head. The speaker moved smoothly on, putting the others out of their misery: “Votes in favor, 684.” He raised his hand for quiet, but the deputies were too excited to pay him heed; they didn’t need to hear the rest. “I therefore declare Anatoly Nikolayevich Borzov impeached and, by order of this parliament, removed from the office of president with immediate effect.”

  The applause was thunderous. Borzov looked at the hands blurring as they slapped together in appreciation, the mouths stretching as they yelled their approval, and recalled the words of the poet Tyatchev: “It’s impossible to make sense of Russia, it’s not amenable to reason. It’s a place in which you simply have to believe.”

  Russians love the boss when he’s new but inevitably fall out of love and into hatred as time goes by. Each time they hope that the new man will finally prove worthy of their adoration; and each time they grumble about being deceived. They loved the czars for the grandeur of their empires; they loved Lenin for destroying the hated czarist kingdom; they loved Stalin for restoring a national empire and purging the hated Leninists; they loved Khrushchev for ending the hated Stalinist yoke and mass terror; they loved Brezhnev for ending the hated Khrushchev follies and arbitrariness; they loved Gorbachev for ending the hated Brezhnev stagnation and for introducing freedom; they loved Borzov for ending the hated Gorbachev vacillations and launching reforms, and now they hated him for the humiliation, chaos and poverty with which his rule had left them.

  “How about assassination?” said Arkin.

  “Of Lev?” Borzov waved his vodka glass dismissively. “Don’t be a fool, Kolya. The last thing we want is for Lev to be a martyr. No, he’s done this constitutionally, and that’s how we will respond.”

  “All right,” Arkin said. “Let’s take it to the people. A direct referendum, one question: who should be president?”

  “No. Borzov’s president, there’s no question of that. The only way out of this is direct presidential rule: suspend parliament, call new elections and govern by decree.”

  “And the West?”

  “They want the president to stay in office at all costs, as you well know.” He squinted at Arkin over his vodka glass. “You’re testing Anatoly Nikolayevich, aren’t you? You want to be sure that he’s as steadfast as you.”

  Arkin smiled in admiring acknowledgment of the old man’s perspicacity.

  “The chief knew he was right to stand by you,” Borzov said, pouring himself another hundred grams.

  80

  Wednesday, March 11, 1992

  Borzov’s appearance on Channel One for the most momentous speech of his presidency was a study in nonchalance. The bigger the crisis, the more in his element he felt.

  “Fellow citizens, your president”—he got that in early, to show them who was still boss—“is addressing you at a complex and critical moment. The Supreme Soviet is in a state of political decomposition. It has lost its ability to perform the main function of the representative body, that of concerting public interests, and has ceased to be an organ of rule by the people. It is pushing Russia toward the abyss. One can no longer tolerate this and do nothing.

  “As president, Anatoly Nikolayevich’s duty is to recognize that the current corps of deputies has lost the right to remain at the key levers of state power. As the guarantor of state security, Anatoly Nikolayevich—vested with authority acquired at the all-people elections in 1991—has signed a presidential decree suspending the exercise of legislative, administrative and supervisory functions by the Congress of People’s Deputies. The Congress shall no longer convene, and the powers of the people’s deputies of the Russian Federation shall be terminated. In the interim, Anatoly Nikolayevich shall rule Russia directly, aided by Nikolai Valentinovich Arkin, who remains prime minister.

  “Your president takes this decision to rule directly with a heavy heart, but he can see no other route out of the impasse. He is bypassing democracy in order to save it.

  “Anatoly Nikolayevich appeals to the leaders of foreign powers to understand the complexity of the situation here. The measures he has had to take are the only way to protect democracy and freedom in Russia, to defend the process of reform and the still weak Russian market. He has no other aims.

  “Most importantly, fellow citizens, your president appeals to you. The time has come when, by common effort, we can and must put an end to the profound crisis of the Russian state. Your president counts on your understanding, support, good sense and civic awareness. We have a chance to help Russia, and Anatoly Nikolayevich is sure we’ll be able to use it for the sake of peace and tranquillity in our country. We are the heirs of a great civilization, and its rebirth into a new, modern and dignified life now depends on us all. By common efforts, let us preserve Russia for ourselves, our children and grandchildren. Thank you.”

  The White House
was surrounded by a line of men, in turn sullen, wary and defiant. They weren’t in OMON livery or defense ministry regalia; they were from the parliamentary guard and the 21st Century. They were letting deputies, parliamentary staff and accredited journalists into the White House—no one else. They constructed makeshift barricades around the White House from whatever they could find: buses with their tires slashed, trolley cars, garbage trucks, fences, concrete blocks, metal railings, park benches, armatures, scaffolding poles, even tree trunks. Parliament was under siege, for the second time in seven months.

  At dusk, Borzov cut off the White House’s electricity, heating and phone lines.

  The assembly chamber, vast enough when normally lit, seemed even larger in the flickering light of hundreds of candles. The darkness that fled from the clutches of the glowing ellipses seemed to extend to infinity. Without a microphone, even Lev’s basso profundo barely made it to the back of the hall.

  “The government is scared,” he shouted. “They know they can’t win the argument, which is why they’re resorting to bullying tactics, and so soon in the struggle too—that tells you all you need to know about how rattled we’ve got them. Fear not, my friends; with every moment that passes, we consolidate our grip on the situation. But I can’t pretend that this is going to be easy. We could be here for days, even weeks. If you don’t have the stomach for the fight, then it’s better that you leave now. I need people who are with me fully or not at all. This is the last time I’ll say this: go now, or stay with me till the end.”

  His thinking was right on; better to have five hundred fanatics than a thousand waverers. If he kept the uncommitted in here against their will, he risked them spreading disillusion and dissent. Lev had spent half his life cooped up with others, and he knew that in such circumstances strains of thought spread and reinforce themselves, positive and negative alike; where willingness and zeal can strengthen the cowardly, disenchantment and grumbling can make doubters of the strongest. Nor was he under any illusions about the personal qualities of many of the little, grasping men who called themselves deputies. Given the choice, Lev wouldn’t have shared a jail cell with half of them, let alone a parliamentary building.

  Protesters started to gather in the streets around the White House after dark. They came in most of Russia’s myriad shapes and sizes—children, old women, rough-featured laborers and young professionals shivering in thin raincoats—and the majority were supporting Lev. Several people carried posters that portrayed Borzov as Hitler, bangs and mustache drawn on, with a vodka glass in his hand, a pentagram between his eyes and the Number of the Beast on his forehead.

  It was barely half a year since they—almost certainly even some of the same people—had come here to back the man they now lambasted. Russians like defenders, people who are protecting something, rather than aggressors. Last year, Borzov had protected the Russian people against the antisocial forces of an out-of-touch government; it was Lev’s turn now.

  81

  Thursday, March 12, 1992

  Patriarch Alexei took up the baton of conciliation, offering to chair negotiations between the two sides, and suggesting the Danilovsky Monastery as a suitably neutral location for talks. Portentous in his black robes and white headdress, Alexei’s proposal demonstrated how fully the church had been rehabilitated since the atheist years of communism. That the church now felt itself a guarantor of national stability betrayed the feebleness of Russia’s political institutions.

  Both sides turned him down.

  “We’re denied basic essentials,” Lev said. “Borzov has created a political concentration camp in the center of Moscow.”

  “Parliament doesn’t exist,” Borzov stated. “So how can the president talk to it?”

  Alexei asked that Borzov restore parliament’s lighting, heating and water supplies.

  Lev checked the stockpiles of arms dotted around the White House. Wherever you were in the building, the theory went, it should take you no more than a couple of minutes’ brisk walk to reach the nearest weapon. The parliamentary guard had brought some of them. Lev’s own 21st Century gang had supplied just as many. There were sixteen hundred automatic rifles, two thousand pistols, twenty machine guns and five grenade launchers in the White House alone, not counting the hundreds, perhaps thousands, hanging from the necks and shoulders of those outside.

  Every time Lev looked out, the numbers flocking to his cause seemed to have grown: there were three battalions of Moscow reservists, one hundred crack troops who’d been serving in Moldova, police troops back from Riga, a detachment of Cossacks, and paramilitaries from the Workers of Russia Union.

  Farther out, hemming the building in on all four sides, were the police.

  Alice stared at the television screen until her eyes began to fuzz, then she went to the window and looked out toward the west, as though if she stared long and hard enough, the intervening buildings would crumble and she’d be able to see the White House, ringed like Saturn with guards and police: arena, battleground, vortex, manifestation of this insane place that jabbed at her like a wire in her blood.

  Once again she was watching history unfold. That was all it was. She wasn’t thinking of Lev, leading the resistance; she didn’t even care what happened to him. Wasn’t, didn’t. He could die in there for all she cared. Perhaps it would be better if he did. He wasn’t in her life anymore, so what did it matter either way?

  Like all standoffs, the siege was at once excruciatingly boring and unbearably tense. Minutes crawled, hours flew. The only thing that everyone knew was this: the moment the first shot was fired, the situation would take off like a rocket leaving Baikonur, and there’d be no holding it.

  Alexei tried again to find common ground. Borzov refused to talk until Lev surrendered all the arms in the White House; Lev refused to talk until Borzov reversed parliament’s dissolution.

  Borzov summoned Sabirzhan to the Kremlin and, by presidential decree, placed him in charge of Red October. Sabirzhan’s efforts at ruining the auction were history. He and Borzov were united in their hatred of Lev, and as ever, an enemy’s enemy was a friend.

  Lev’s power at the distillery was absolute when he was there, but in his absence Red October was simply getting on with it—not without confusion or regret, perhaps, but those at the bottom in Russia keep going, no matter what happens up above. The workers didn’t have time to worry about politics and infighting; their job was to work, to make vodka.

  Lev had checked out the options for escape and evasion in case Borzov persuaded the army to storm the White House. He didn’t let on to the deputies how flimsy their choices were. The building had a bomb bunker—it had been built when fears of an American nuclear strike had been very real—but the doors were hermetically sealed and no one knew how to open them. The metro passed directly underneath the building—it was on the orbital line, between Kievskaya and Krasnopresnenskaya stations—but the tunnel from the White House basement to the line was rumored to be mined. If Lev came out of the White House, therefore, it would have to be onto the street, and he’d do that only in victory, if Borzov had capitulated. If he left the building in defeat, he wouldn’t be alive. He would die fighting, but he wouldn’t surrender.

  The White House’s power and water came back on late in the afternoon. It was a concession to which Borzov had agreed reluctantly, and only when he’d been convinced that continuing deprivation was simply making Lev appear a martyr. He soured the pill by adding an ultimatum: “To the criminals still inside the White House—you have until midday tomorrow to leave the building. Anatoly Nikolayevich personally assures you safe passage if you comply. After that, he will not be responsible for your fate.”

  With lights suddenly blazing and radiators creaking into action, rumors and counterrumors raced through the newly lit corridors like the west wind: Borzov had surrendered, Borzov was preparing for an attack, the American special forces were on the roof. Curiously, the restoration of the building’s power and water seemed to be hinder
ing rather than helping Lev’s attempts to maintain spirits. By imbuing the defenders with a proper Russian sense of suffering, the cold and darkness had fostered a spirit of solidarity. Now people were beginning to succumb to siege mentality in all its worst forms.

  Lev called everyone into the chamber again, the better to show that his authority here was absolute. “We must remain sober!” he yelled. “Whether that imbecile Borzov tries to attack us may depend on how drunk he gets. Heaven preserve us if we lower ourselves to his level.”

  There was an argument away to Lev’s left. It spun and escalated, sucking in more participants as it gathered momentum like a giant snowball, fragmenting, reabsorbing, reproducing. The deputies were middle-aged men two decades out of shape, and they fought that way, flailing ineffectually, pulling jackets and shirts over each other’s heads, swaying this way and that, and probably managing to land less than half a dozen decent blows between them.

  Lev waded into the mêlée, selected the two men nearest the middle, took a collar in each of his hands and cracked their heads together with such force that only his restraining grip kept them from bouncing halfway across the chamber. When he let them go, they dropped to the floor like sacks of grain. The others stopped fighting.

  “That’s enough!” he shouted.

  He sat in the speaker’s chair and led the deputies in a medley of old Russian folk songs: “Rustling Reeds,” “Slender Roman-Tree,” “Crimson Moon” and the “Song of Stenka Razin.” His voice cracked when he smiled through the words; they were going to win this thing.

  The police had been ordered not to fire. Everyone remembered what had happened on Defenders of the Motherland Day, when someone had been panicked into pulling his trigger. The memory seemed to inflame rather than frighten the protesters. They began to push against the police, confident that they of all people wouldn’t be up for a fight, and indeed they weren’t. The policemen glanced at each other with wide and frightened eyes. This wasn’t what they’d joined the force for, this wasn’t something that responded to bribery or extortion, and they were massively outnumbered to boot, the thinnest of blue lines without any backup from OMON black or army green. The retreat began almost imperceptibly, with the protesters disarming some policemen and beating others. As the pressure became greater, the line heaved and stretched and cracked, the policemen fleeing with their overcoats flapping, half marching and half running, looking like frightened penguins. One of them tripped and fell. Rodya and Galina, who’d come to support Lev, jumped instantly onto the fallen cop—not to hurt him, but to prevent him from being trampled to death.