‘Eugene Onegin,’ he said. ‘Most of us know some of this text. What about you, Andrei Kurbsky?’
‘God grant that in my careless art,
For fun, for dreaming, for the heart . . .
You’ve found at least a crumb or two.’
Andrei’s reply earned a murmur of approval from the class. Serafima looked up, surprised – or did he imagine that?
‘Good! I bet it feels good to be back in Moscow,’ Benya Golden said, smiling at him.
Emboldened by Golden’s enthusiasm, Andrei continued:
‘How oft . . . forlorn and separated –
When wayward fate has made me stray –
I’ve dreamt of Moscow far away!’
‘Now I see why the director placed you in my class, Kurbsky.’ Golden climbed up to stand on his chair, holding his volume in one hand. ‘Nikolasha, blow your bugle!’
Nikolasha had taken an instrument from its case beside him and, self-consciously shaking his red locks, he stood up and blew his trumpet as if he was heralding a medieval king.
‘Your hair’s even longer this term,’ Benya Golden said to him. ‘Is this new coiffure a romantic affectation? My colleagues won’t like it. They might even think you were cultivating the un-Bolshevik image of a young romantic. Right! Now, welcome to Onegin. Prepare to be dazzled by the bard of Rus himself. There’s such richness in its pages that it never loses the capacity to surprise and delight us. Is this an “encyclopaedia of Russian life”? Is it a tragedy, comedy or romance?’
As Golden talked, Nikolasha had sat down, replaced his trumpet and was earnestly writing notes in an exercise book with scarlet velvet covers. When he saw that Andrei was looking, he muttered, ‘Mind your own business,’ and moved the book as far from Andrei as he could.
‘Is Onegin himself a dreary misanthropic narcissist or a victim of love and society? Is Tatiana a dull provincial, unworthy of such passion, or a paragon of Russian womanhood? Is this a guide how to love today? Yes, Demian Dorov?’
‘Surely only the Party can guide our lives today?’ Andrei recognized the pointy face and red scarf of the school’s Chief Pioneer.
‘And Comrade Stalin!’ interjected Marlen Satinov.
‘Comrade Stalin what?’ Benya Golden asked, still standing on his chair on the platform.
‘Only Comrade Stalin’, declared Marlen, ‘and the Party can guide our lives. You’re in danger of bourgeois sentimentalism.’
‘Well, thank you for reminding us,’ said Golden. ‘But I’m just teaching Pushkin here. Now let us begin. Ready?’ Benya Golden closed his eyes. ‘Mobilize the senses, dear friends, beloved romantics, wistful dreamers. Remember: life is short. It’s an adventure. Anything is possible! Breathe with me!’ He inhaled through his nose, and the children did the same. All exhaled together. Andrei looked around the room to see if anyone was laughing or rebelling, but Nikolasha gave him a grave look as if he was proposing blasphemy while Serafima took a breath with just a hint of amusement on her face to tell him that she knew he was looking at her. So he joined in with the insanity and had just exhaled again when Golden, not even opening his book, declaimed the first lines, his right hand raised and open as if reciting a spell: ‘My uncle, a man of firm convictions . . .’ And on he went, reciting the text with such grace that the children listened in silence – until George Satinov put up his hand.
‘Yes?’ said Benya Golden.
‘I just wondered what Pushkin really means by the mysteries of the marriage bed?’
This sparked much sniggering from the back of the class.
Nikolasha turned round. ‘This is about love,’ he hissed.
‘Grow up, George,’ echoed his ally, Vlad, who seemed to support Nikolasha in everything.
‘You’re thinking of Rosa, aren’t you?’ teased George.
‘No, he’s dreaming of Serafima,’ said Minka Dorova. More laughter. Rosa blushed while Serafima ignored Nikolasha completely; Andrei realized that she hadn’t so much as acknowledged him all morning.
Benya Golden put his hands over his ears: ‘George! Minka! How can you slaughter the poetry with your tawdry innuendoes?’ Andrei had never seen a teacher who so relished, even encouraged, the mischief of his class. ‘Back to the divine poetry!’ Golden sat back on his chair. ‘Serafima, are you with us this morning? Tell us how Onegin falls in love with Tatiana, an innocent provincial girl.’
As Serafima read, the class became quiet again. Andrei watched her, fascinated, and realized everyone else was watching her too. She wasn’t as pretty as Rosa, nor as alluring as Minka in the back row, yet her startlingly green eyes were sprinkled with gold that glinted from under her black eyelashes. Was she agonizingly shy and simply unaware of her power? Andrei couldn’t work it out.
‘Well done, Serafima,’ said Golden, stopping her at last. Serafima looked up at him and smiled. ‘That’s enough for today. Andrei, I want you to stay behind.’
The children gathered their books, chairs grinding on the echoing floors. As George Satinov passed their desk, Nikolasha showed him the velvet-covered notebook and whispered something.
‘As you can see,’ said Benya Golden when they were alone, ‘my pupils are as serious about their little knots of friendship as they are about their poetry. But although some of them are the sons and daughters of our leaders, they’re mostly good kids. Anyway, even they were impressed by your knowledge of Pushkin, as was I.’
‘Thank you,’ said Andrei.
Golden patted Andrei on the shoulder. ‘Cheer up. You’re going to be a success here.’
‘I’m . . . I’m very happy to be here.’
‘You’ll end up being friends with Serafima’s group, don’t you worry. But I know it’s not easy coming back.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes,’ said Golden. ‘Because I haven’t been back in Moscow for long myself.’
Andrei looked up at the teacher, at his receding, light hair now greying, his dimpled chin, his lined face. His smile seemed genuine – but was it? Andrei knew it was better to say nothing more. Consulting his timetable, he hurried to find his next class.
At lunchtime, Andrei ate his sandwich of black bread with a gherkin at his desk, content to be on his own for a moment while Nikolasha and his friends Vlad, George and Rosa pushed some desks together to form an ink-stained table where they shared their fish, beef, cheese and tomatoes. It seemed that Nikolasha was never alone, never without an entourage of pale, floppy-haired creatures who looked as if they never took any exercise or ventured outside. Nikolasha was reading to them from his red velvet notebook and they whispered excitedly. Andrei felt pangs of disdain and envy – but he remembered his father and he knew neither of these sentiments was worthy of him. He finished his sandwich and as he walked past them, he saw Nikolasha giving his notebook to George.
‘You can read it, George,’ he was saying, ‘but take it seriously and I want it back tomorrow. With your comments.’
‘Of course, of course,’ replied George jovially.
Afterwards, as Andrei was hurrying up the corridor to his next lesson, he heard the squish of plastic soles on the parquet floor behind him. He turned and a white, freckled face hove into view. Nikolasha Blagov was so tall that he hunched over as he walked. As always he was followed by the dark-haired cadaverous figure of Vlad, as well as the fey Rosa Shako.
‘What do you think of Teacher Golden?’ Nikolasha asked lugubriously. His voice was so deep that his words came out slurred as if his tongue were a wooden spoon. Vlad and Rosa both leaned in to hear his answer.
Andrei hesitated, cautious of making some terrible mistake on his first day. ‘Interesting,’ he said finally.
Nikolasha shook his head as if disappointed. ‘Is that all you have to say?’ He leaned over as if about to impart a most perilous secret. ‘You’d best be careful. Things are different here.’
‘Has Serafima said anything to you yet?’ asked Vlad.
‘Serafima? I don’t even know Serafima.’
 
; ‘Serafima really understands poetry,’ said Nikolasha solemnly. ‘Well, you obviously haven’t made the grade, even if you can pull a few Pushkin quotes out of the air.’
‘What grade?’
‘You’ll see. Think on it.’
He and Vlad slunk off around the corner. Rosa lingered a moment and touched Andrei’s hand. ‘He takes it all very seriously but he’s so clever and original, you’ll see.’
Andrei’s first day at School 801 was almost over. His last lesson: Communist ethics with Dr Rimm, a pedant compared with Benya Golden, Andrei thought. Rimm’s sand-coloured Stalinka tunic was so tight that it only accentuated the lumpiness of his figure. The class stood to attention when he entered and remained standing until he moved his hand downwards in a silent gesture of command. After a turgid hour, during which Demian Dorov and Marlen Satinov competed with Dr Rimm to quote from the works of Stalin and Lenin, while the rest of the class yawned, wrote notes to each other and tried to stay awake, Andrei was the last out of the room.
As he left, he noticed Nikolasha’s red velvet notebook on the floor next to George Satinov’s desk. I’ll return it to them tomorrow, he thought and put it in his satchel.
3
FIVE P.M. AT the Golden Gates. This, thought Andrei, watching the limousines picking up his schoolmates, truly was the age of new freedoms, new pleasures. Chauffeurs and army batmen leaned against the curvaceous flanks of their Packards and Lincolns, smoking cigarettes, sweating in the sun. There were some mothers waiting but most Bolshevik women worked. The nannies, a tribe of florid Matryoshkas, peasant women in housecoats, stood separately, laughing at their own jokes. You couldn’t mistake them for the mothers, thought Andrei, and the two groups never spoke.
He stopped between the gold-tipped pillars of the gates, looking for – what? His mother to turn up and collect him in a giant limousine? No chance of that, but he had half expected she might take time off work to meet him. Still, he was relieved that she wasn’t there. Instead he was hoping that he might see Serafima and her film-star mother again . . . when she slipped right past him.
‘You do know your Onegin,’ Serafima said softly. ‘I’ll bet Nikolasha’s jealous.’ He noticed, all over again, her heart-shaped face, her white skin, and those amused green eyes. She did not stop to hear his answer, which was just as well because he could not think how to respond. Later, a host of witty answers would come to him.
The Rolls was waiting for her, the chauffeur leaning on the grille, cigarette between his metal fangs. There was no sign of her parents. But she did not seem pleased: ‘Thanks for coming, Khirochenko,’ she said. ‘But I’ll walk. Tell Mama I don’t need the car.’ The driver shrugged as she walked away from him into the balmy streets; the poplar blossoms whirled around her like a haphazard escort.
As the chauffeurs pulled away, Andrei yearned to be part of the lives of these golden children. Calm down, he told himself, you’re in their school, you’re in their lives. Soon you too will be in their group.
Holding his school satchel, he walked through the streets. He could feel the heat rising from the paving stones. Around him, the capital of Soviet victory looked like a defeated city. He saw crumbling buildings, their façades peppered with shrapnel, windows shattered, roads pockmarked with bomb craters. Everything – the walls, the houses, the cars – everything except the scarlet banners was drab, beige, peeling, khaki, grey. But the faces of the passersby were rosy as if victory and sunlight almost made up for the lack of food, and the streets were crowded with pretty girls in skimpy dresses, soldiers, sailors and officers in white summer uniforms. Studebaker trucks, Willys jeeps and the Buicks of officials rumbled by – but there were also carriages pulled by horses, carts heaped with hay or bedding or turnips, right in the middle of this spired city with its gold domes. Sometimes, when he closed his eyes in the heat and the world went a soft orange, Andrei heard laughter and singing and he was sure he could hear the city itself healing in the sunshine. Down Ostozhenka he walked, then round past the National Hotel and the Kremlin, and up Gorky Street, past the House of Books on the right, and the City Soviet on the left.
When he peered through one of the archways, he saw goats and cattle in the yard, wrangled by an old peasant with a red kerchief on her head and a crook in her hand. Yet this was the city that had defeated the Hitlerites and stormed Berlin! What pride he felt in the greatness of his Motherland, what horror at its cruelties. The old hag squatted to piss, still with a cigarette between two stumps of teeth. Andrei sighed: he loved his Moscow. He was almost home.
He turned into the next archway, walked into the courtyard through the vegetable gardens planted amongst the heating pipes, and then entered the doorway of a 1930s apartment block. He climbed the concrete stairs with its fermented vegetable smell of shchi soup and vinegary urine to the second floor where he shouldered open the door of their apartment. A radio was on, Levitan was reading the news in his authoritative, sonorous voice and there was a row going on. In a corridor that had neither carpet nor paint, Ivanov, a middle-aged scientist from Rostov, was screaming at one of the skinny Goldberg children: ‘You little cockroach, you drank my milk. I’ll report you to the committee. I’ll have you slung out of here . . .’
The door to the left opened and the stink of fresh human dung made Andrei’s eyes water even before Peshlauk, an antique but indestructible colossus, staggered out, pulling up his giant-girdled trousers. ‘I’ve delivered a veritable baby in there!’ he boasted.
Another of the Goldberg children – how many were there: four, five? A plague of undernourished rats – shoved past Andrei. ‘Hey, don’t push me,’ he said, but then he remembered that no one in the Soviet Union respected personal space. Everyone existed in a state of neurotic anxiety, but as his mother always told him: The key to survival is to be calm and save yourself. Never ask anyone what they did before and what they’re doing next. Never speak your mind. And make friends wherever you can.
‘Mama!’ Andrei went into their little room with its two campbeds packed close together. It often smelled like a rabbit hutch but it was in Moscow and it was theirs.
‘Just close the door,’ said Inessa, who lay on her bed, reading about the Japanese war in Pravda. The European war was over and now Stalin was in on the kill of Japan. She patted the bed next to her. ‘Tell me about the school.’
‘Have you got any food?’
‘Of course, Andryusha. You must be so hungry. Cheese and black bread. Have a look in Aladdin’s Cave.’
Andrei climbed over the other bed and, crouching down, edged a breeze-block out of the wall and brought out the cool cheese. Their apartment had no fridge. In winter they kept their milk fresh by hanging it out of the window, but in summer, this was the best way to preserve perishables, as well as keeping it out of the hands of the Goldberg children or Peshlauk’s churning bowels.
Inessa smiled weakly as she watched him eat and when he’d regained his energy, he beamed at her.
‘Good news, Mama! I’m accepted into the school and my fees are paid!’
‘Oh darling.’ She hugged him, and then looked anxious. ‘Who by? What’s going on?’
Andrei told her exactly what had happened, and watched as his mother’s uneasiness cleared. Surely this was evidence of a new era? And a new era meant the return of Andrei’s father.
‘Andrei,’ she whispered, moving closer to him. ‘Do you think . . .’
‘Don’t think, Mama. How often have you told me that?’
‘Yes, but . . .’
‘Don’t hope, because if we’re disappointed again, it’ll kill us one more time.’
She nodded, and dabbed her eyes. Quickly, to change the subject, he told her about the school: about the director, and Dr Rimm – yes, every school had a few of those – and then he described the literature teacher Golden. ‘I’ve never had a lesson like that. It was such fun. He brought it to life and there was something in the way he talked about poetry . . .’
‘A teacher like that in a scho
ol like yours . . . something’s really changing,’ she said.
‘And, Mama, he said he’d only just returned to Moscow too.’ She was about to ask more about Golden but by now, he was describing Serafima (her eyes, the way she dressed), the airy swagger of George, and creepy Nikolasha and his Gothic retainers, Vlad and Rosa.
‘Be careful of these princelings,’ Inessa was telling him. ‘Factions are dangerous, Andrei. Remember whose children they are . . .’
But Andrei wasn’t listening: he was already on his way to the bathroom with his satchel. No one was in there because no one in their right mind would visit it after Peshlauk – but he didn’t care.
He locked the door. He could actually taste the shit in the air and he didn’t dare look down into the bowl, but just sat on the edge and, like a miner who has stolen a diamond, he pulled out his treasure, titled the Velvet Book of Love. It was just a plain exercise book with velvet glued on to the covers. But it was new and Nikolasha had only just started writing in it.
Agenda for the Summer Term
Top Secret
Thoughts on our new literary movement: the Fatal Romantics’ Club, founded December 1944 by me, Nikolasha Blagov. I shall record our meetings, rules and thoughts in this book.
So, thought Andrei, Nikolasha has a little club. Most schools had literary and theatre clubs, but this seemed different. He read on: Membership: secret.
Not that secret! Vlad and Rosa had to be members too, maybe Serafima, and certainly George.
Our inspiration: Pushkin
Our moments in history: just as for Christians, the Crucifixion of Christ is the moment. For us it is 1837, the death of Pushkin in a duel.
Our favourite teacher: Teacher Golden
A knock on the bathroom door made Andrei jump. He had forgotten where he was. The book showed that something, perhaps the war, perhaps their privilege, had changed these children, and allowed them the freedom to take a risk.