Piazza, the Boyarsky, Anna’s suite, the basement, and Marina’s office, he carefully calculated how many flights of stairs he had climbed or descended over the course of the day. Up and down he went in his mind, counting one flight after another, until with the final ascent to the twice-tolling clock he reached a grand total of fifty-nine—at which point he slipped into a well-deserved sleep.
Addendum
Uncle Alexander . . . ?”
. . .
“Sofia . . . ?”
. . .
“Are you awake, Uncle Alexander?”
. . .
“I am now, my dear. What is it?”
. . .
. . .
“I left Dolly in Aunt Marina’s room . . .”
. . .
. . .
“Ah, yes . . .”
1946
On Saturday, the twenty-first of June 1946, as the sun rose high over the Kremlin, a lone figure climbed slowly up the steps from the Moskva River embankment, continued past St. Basil’s Cathedral, and made his way onto Red Square.
Dressed in a ragged winter coat, he swung his right leg in a small semicircle as he walked. At another time, the combination of the ragged coat and hobbled leg might have made the man stand out on such a bright summer day. But in 1946, there were men limping about in borrowed clothes in every quarter of the capital. For that matter, they were limping about in every city of Europe.
That afternoon, the square was as crowded as if it were a market day. Women in floral dresses lingered under the arcades of the old State Department Store. Before the gates of the Kremlin, schoolboys climbed on two decommissioned tanks as soldiers in white fitted jackets standing at regular intervals watched with their hands clasped loosely behind their backs. And from the entrance of Lenin’s tomb snaked a line 150 citizens long.
The man in the ragged coat paused for a moment to admire the orderly behavior of his far-flung countrymen waiting in the queue. At the front stood eight Uzbeks with drooping moustaches dressed in their best silk coats; then came four girls from the east with long braids and brightly embroidered caps; then ten muzhiks from Georgia, and so on, and so on—one constituency waiting patiently behind the next to pay their respects to the remains of a man who died over twenty years before.
If we have learned nothing else, the lone figure reflected with a crooked smile, at least we have learned to stand in line.
To a foreigner, it must have seemed that Russia had become the land of ten thousand lines. For there were lines at the tram stops, lines before the grocer, lines at the agencies of labor, education, and housing. But in point of fact, there were not ten thousand lines, or even ten. There was one all-encompassing line, which wound across the country and back through time. This had been Lenin’s greatest innovation: a line that, like the Proletariat itself, was universal and infinite. He established it by decree in 1917 and personally took the first slot as his comrades jostled to line up behind him. One by one every Russian took his place, and the line grew longer and longer until it shared all of the attributes of life. In it friendships were formed and romances kindled; patience was fostered; civility practiced; even wisdom attained.
If one is willing to stand in line for eight hours to purchase a loaf of bread, the lone figure thought, what is an hour or two to see the corpse of a hero free of charge?
Passing the spot where Kazan Cathedral had once seen fit to stand, he turned right and walked on; but as he entered Theatre Square he came to a stop. For as his gaze moved from the Palace of Unions, to the Bolshoi, to the Maly Theatre, and finally to the Metropol Hotel, he had to marvel to find so many of the old facades unspoiled.
Five years before to the day, the Germans had launched Operation Barbarossa—the offensive in which more than three million soldiers deployed from Odessa to the Baltic crossed the Russian frontier.
When the operation commenced, Hitler estimated the Wehrmacht would secure Moscow within four months. In fact, having captured Minsk, Kiev, and Smolensk, by late October the German forces had already advanced nearly six hundred miles and were approaching Moscow from the north and south in a classic pincer formation. Within a matter of days, the city would be in range of their artillery.
By this time, a measure of lawlessness had broken out in the capital. The streets were