by Tony Walker
The nurse said, "Of course. She's not on continuous obs any more." Then she left and closed the door. John sat down, shyly as if he didn't know her.
"I've missed you," Karen said.
"I missed you too. I was so scared."
"I was pretty scared too," she laughed.
"How do you feel now?"
"What do you mean? Does it hurt? Yes it does, like a bitch."
"No, your mood."
She shrugged. "I don't know. I'm kind of numb."
"What was the thing like - the electric treatment?"
"A blur. I was struggling and they gave me some anaesthetic and then it was darkness. When I woke up I didn't know where I was, but it came back. One of the nurses gave me toast and tea. They were kind. I think they were just glad I wasn't trying to punch them any more." She laughed again.
"I was so scared."
"You said."
"I know I shouldn't ask you this, but why?"
"Depression? It's in my family."
"It's just that I hoped I was enough for you," he said.
"You are."
"Obviously not if you want to die."
"It's not that. It's not rational."
"It makes me feel that I've failed you."
Coldly she said, "Don't take my depression as a personal insult."
He was suddenly anxious.
She said, "not everything that happens is because of you. That may be hard for you to believe."
"That's not fair. I didn't mean that."
"What did you mean? That you're so wonderful you make the flowers grow just by being here?"
"Just I don't understand it. It came from nowhere."
"Apparently that's what happens."
"Have you ever tried to kill yourself before?"
"No. But then I've never known you before."
"I thought you said it wasn't about me."
"I was being bitter."
He reached over the table. For the first time since they sat down in the room he touched her. He wound his fingers through hers. She let him.
"I love you," he said.
She met his eyes. "I hope that's true."
"It is."
"Then I forgive your narcissism and arrogance."
"Thank you," he said. "I think."
"It's difficult. My feelings. I can't trust them." She leaned towards him. "Come here and kiss me. But not too loud in case it makes the other patients jealous."
When she came out of hospital a week later, John met her with her mother and father at the front gates. Her father drove her back to Bonnyrigg in his Ford Cortina with John as a passenger. Her mother fussed around her. Her father talked to John about Hearts Football Club. John kept looking at Karen sitting with her mum on the back seat. He thought she seemed better. She smiled and held her mother's hand tightly. Later as they sat in her family's small front room in Bonnyrigg, she told John that some of her memory had gone after the electric shock treatment, "But maybe that's a good, thing," she laughed. "There are some things I don't want in my memory." The scars on her wrists healed well. In later years John bought her bracelets to hide the thin silver lines. He thought she was never the same - as if the hospital had taken away her fire and replaced it with a hesitancy and a seeking for comfort that had not been there before.
September 1972, Glasgow Airport. After two years at Durham and two months after receiving notice of his success at the scholarship interview, John boarded a flight at Glasgow Airport that would take him to Moscow. Karen and his mother were there to see him off. He knew no one on the flight and this was his first trip abroad. His mother had packed his bag and they were arranging to ship a trunk over to Moscow with the rest of his belongings which he hoped would be there by Christmas at least. His mother was crying.
"Oh, son. I'll miss you."
Karen said, "She's crying. But I'm not crying, see?"
He laughed to cover his anxiety and his aching sense of leaving. Her dark eyes were moist.
"I'm coming back!" he said. "At Easter if not before."
"It's so far," said his mother. "So far."
"And so expensive to fly there and back," said Karen.
"I don't know Aeroflot's pretty cheap. It's a bargain really."
"If they keep up in the air."
His mother wailed, "Don't say that Karen!" He wrapped his arms around his mother. "Don't worry, ma. I'll be fine." Then he turned to hug Karen.
He could see that his flight was being called to the gate and he knew he had to clear passport control so he was impatient. He looked at the two women who loved him more than anyone in the world. He kissed them and walked away backwards so he could see them as long as possible. He felt himself tear, one half yearning to stay in his old life and one half leaping at the new. "I love you both," he shouted but he turned before they could see him crying and hurriedly made his way to the air-side where they couldn't follow.
John was pushed back in his seat by the rush of power as the Ilyushin-62 climbed steeply into the sky above Scotland. He was sitting next to a plain but nice librarian from Falkirk. She was in her mid 20s and said she was on an Intourist trip to Samarkand. It appeared that the majority of passengers on the trip were with that group, including a delegation from the Scottish Communist Party.
"I'm not a Communist though," said the librarian, whose name was Rose. "Are you?"
"I'm only a fellow traveller," laughed John.
"What does that mean?"
"I'm open minded about the Soviet Union. They've done bad things but I think Communism is a good idea.
"In its pure form maybe. Stalin wasn't very nice," she lowered her voice to a whisper.
"No, but he was a despot, not a true Communist."
She pondered that a while then said, "I hear the food's horrible. I've stuffed my suitcase with Tudor Beef and Pickle flavour crisps just in case."
"Very prudent," said John.
"And what are you going to Russia for?"
"I'm going to Moscow State University to study Russian."
"That sounds nice. And unusual."
"I suppose so. There's only me going from my course."
"Very brave. I hope you don't get too homesick."
John said, "Home is behind, the world ahead,
And there are many paths to tread. It's all out there."
"If you say so. Keep off the vodka though. My father was an alcoholic, so I know. Drinking is a curse the Scots and Russians share."
The Aeroflot jet touched down at Sheremtyevo Airport and once it had come to a standstill, the seatbelt lights flicked off and people began to stir to get their hand luggage. John walked down the metal steps onto the asphalt of the airport. Rose tagged along. It was cold and the sky was grey. He turned up the collar of the good warm coat that his mother had bought him as a 21st birthday present. They made their way into the airport terminal building and went to baggage reclaim. After an age he picked up his suitcase and, still with Rose, went over to stand in line at passport control.
A large Russian in uniform scrutinised the passports of the line of people in front. He spoke little and looked unfriendly. He would nod to let someone through and with obvious relief they hurried off towards whoever was waiting for them.
"This is taking ages," said Rose.
"Aye. I think there's someone waiting for me from the British Council on the other side."
Then it was Rose's turn to be scrutinised. Just as she got the nod, she turned and said, "We'll say goodbye now then. I hope you have an interesting year."
"And I hope you have an unforgettable trip to Samarkand."
She disappeared into the milling crowd.
"Passport," said the Russian immigration man.
John handed it over. The Russian looked at it for an inordinate amount of time. Then he put it down on his desk but didn't give it back. "Bag," said the Russian.
"Vot - moya simka," said John. He thought speaking Russian might create some rapport with the Russian but the man's exp
ression didn't change. He took the bag, placed it on the counter and opened it. The contents had been lovingly packed by John's mother. There was a wash bag, towels and enough shirts, socks and underwear to last him for a couple of weeks. The Russian began to pull everything out. Underneath the clothes was a paperback copy of The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. The Russian took it and started at it, trying to decipher the Roman alphabet. Then he shook his head. "This. No." He looked at John and without any discernable expression said, "Come." He grabbed all of the contents he had removed from the bag and roughly stuffed them back, zipping up the bag and gesturing to John to follow him as he left his station to the consternation of the passenger waiting behind. With a sick feeling in his stomach, John followed him as he marched off and knocked on the door of an office that was one of a number in the wall by the passport area.
The door was opened by a stern woman in a blue uniform. The guard entered and put the case on the desk of a man in a brown suit who was sitting in one chair with his feet up on another. They spoke too quickly in Russian for John to follow well. He heard something about an Angliskiy student and zapreshschenya kniga "banned book". John stood like a lost boy while the uniformed woman glared at him with unwarranted dislike.
The immigration officer left the room without a backward glance and the woman closed the door behind him and, to his dismay, locked it.
The man in the brown suit, stood up and lit a cigarette without looking at John. The woman moved to bar the door - as if he had any chance of breaking his way out past her, past the locked door and out of the airport into the vast and hostile Soviet Union.
The man then turned and said in accented but good English, "Why have you come to the Soviet Union?"
"I'm a student. I've come to study at the Moscow State University."
"What will you study?"
"Russian. Ruskiy jazik."
The man then switched to Russian. "So you're a student of our language and literature?"
John answered in Russian. "Yes, I am a great lover of Russian literature."
The man nodded quietly and then suddenly yelled. "Then why do you disrespect us by bringing in a book written by a Counter Revolutionary - a White Guard?"
John flinched when the man shouted at him. Gathering his courage he said, again in Russian. "It is not true what you say. Bulgakov was never convicted of being a counter revolutionary and he never served in the White Army - though his brothers did. He was a doctor before he became a writer. The White Guard was Stalin's favourite novel and he and Bulgakov spoke personally."
At first the man merely looked at him but he had trouble controlling himself and finally laughed with a huge guffaw. Him laughing gave the hatchet faced female guard permission to laugh and he heard her masculine chuckling behind.
"You know Russian literature."
"And I hope to know it better."
"And what about your politics?"
"I am a Socialist."
"A bourgeois socialist? Little better than the Capitalists. You are their toys. They throw you scraps to buy off the working class while they continue their exploitation and heap up their wealth."
"I am working class. My father was a Communist." John felt the passion in his voice.
"Not you though?"
"I don't know enough about it. I like what I've read."
The man looked at him inscrutably then he nodded at the woman guard. She unlocked the door. John reached forward and took his bag, zipping it up properly. John felt an flush of relief as he went out of the door. As he left, the KGB man said, "Your Russian is good by the way. Not perfect, but good." They kept the book.
The woman guard took him through passport control and through customs. In the crowd in the airport hall he could see someone with a placard that had his name written on it. He nodded at the guard and she let him go. He walked over to the man holding the placard, who shook his hand heartily. "Hello John, I'm Sam Turnbull from the British Council." He gestured to a very pretty blonde woman in her early twenties who stood beside him. "This is Yelena." Turnbull seemed unaffected by how attractive she was. "I say, how was Immigration?"
"A bit intense."
Turnbull laughed. "It often is. Anything in particular?"
"They took objection to my copy of The Master and Margarita."
"They would. It's banned of course."
"I know. It just slipped my mind. I'm not used to censorship."
"No, we forget the benefits of democracy because we're so used to them." He looked embarrassed. "No offence Yelena." She smiled and shot John a curious glance. She still hadn't spoken.
"I'm sorry," said John, trying not to stare are her prettiness, "do you work for the British Council too?"
Yelena shook her head. "No, John. I am your Student Mentor."
John was housed with a group of other foreign students - a couple of Americans, three Frenchman, a very attractive Italian woman who totally ignored him, and two each of Canadians and Australians. The Student Hostel was on Lomonosovsky Prospekt. Yelena was ever present, smiling, making sure no one had forgotten their bags and that they knew the way to the stolovaya - to use the term restaurant would be dignifying it. John was put in a two bedded room with Joe Swain a Canadian from Hamilton, Ontario. Joe was into the hippy culture and had a long afghan coat which stunk of patchouli oil. After a week they transferred to the University District in the Lenin Hills. They were housed in Zone V in a five story Communist style tower block, indistinguishable from those that surrounded it. Blocks went on like a concrete army in every direction. In contrast to their initial shared room, John had his own room which he later realised was a luxury compared with the Soviet students crammed three in the space he had to himself. Moscow State University's main building was huge and imposing in a brutal Stalinist style. It had been built by forced labour. It was a huge skyscraper like something King Kong would climb. Perhaps Stalin had seen the movie. The Communist leadership had apparently wanted skyscrapers in Moscow after the war to impress foreigners. At the top it had a victorious Red Star. There were thousands of students at the university but foreign students had their own designated area. John was issued with an identification popusk which he needed to show to gain entry to University buildings and was generally useful as a form of identification around Moscow.
The interior hall of the main University Building was built on a grand scale with marble and gilt chandeliers. Also impressive - also built with forced labour. In Zone A John had to make appointments with the tutor who handled the foreign students and get his library pass and his academic timetable. The Soviet authorities did not like Westerners talking to Russians and the Soviet students were wary of associating with them in case they came to the notice of the KGB. Not so Yelena, who was with them nearly all the time. Her charms were not lost on the male Western students and they flirted and joked with her. She suggested they go into Moscow to buy some food. There were closer food stores where they could queue to get sausages and black bread and Russian beer, when they were available, but this trip was an excuse to show off the glories of the Moscow Metro and Yelena led them to Universitet Metro Station. They caught the Sokolnicheskaya Line and got off at Lubyanka Station. There were four of them. Canadian Joe, John, Yelena and Dave Richards - a serious Australian from Melbourne. They came up into Dzerzhinsky Square.
"Dzerzhinsky, wasn't he the founder of the KGB?" asked Joe, who despite his air of general befuddledness was rather clued up. John noted the torpedo Joe set running and waited for Yelena's response.
She nodded. John had noticed that like a tour guide she seemed to have set piece speeches. "Felix Dzerzhinsky was a great revolutionary and founder of the Cheka as the sword and shield of the party to protect the Revolution against Imperialist and Counter Revolutionary forces." She pointed to the statue of a bearded man that occupied the centre of the small traffic island in the middle of the square. John noticed how little traffic there was and how the cars looked boxy and underpowered compared with the Western
ones. But amongst the tin boxes, there was the occasional black Zil with its tinted windows, some with motorcycle escorts, ferrying around Party Officials. Everyone else seemed resigned to walk through the cold grey Moscow morning.
"Yeah, didn't they call him Bloody Felix on account of all the Counter Revolutionaries he murdered?" asked Joe.
Yelena looked embarrassed and angry. "There were some errors during the administration of Comrade Stalin, but severe measures were necessary to protect the Revolution. 20 million Russians died winning the Great Patriotic War against the Nazis."
Joe continued in his breezy way, "And a whole bunch of Canadians too, believe me. Hey, isn't that the KGB headquarters?"
Yelena was now very cross. "It is not permissable to talk about the organs of State Security." The flush to her cheeks made her more attractive. Dave the Australian had remained quiet throughout but now he said, "Can we walk on? I'm getting cold."
Yelena herded them in the direction of Red Square. Joe would have stared a bit longer in the direction of KGB HQ but John saw how no one lingered. All the Russians knew to keep going. He felt the atmosphere of menace that haunted the street. "Come on," he said, "Let's go."
They walked in a straggled line, Joe strolling ahead in his hippy coat, looking around happily as if he were on a trip to Middle Earth, serious Dave a little behind him and John beside Yelena.
"I hope you're not cross," he said to her.
"No," she shook her head in a way John noticed that women have of demonstrating they're angry even though they're saying they aren't. "I should not say this, John," she said confidingly, "but Joe is foolish."
John smiled. "He means well."
She raised her eyebrows in a Slavic gesture of disagreement.
Suddenly, John became aware of a commotion ahead. Joe was talking to a Russian, laughing and telling him in Russian that he couldn't sell his blue jeans because he didn't have another pair. The Russian was prepared to bargain and didn't want to leave without the jeans even if it meant leaving Joe in his underwear. Finally, he offered to trade his own trousers.