Stuart Kaminsky - Death of a Dissident

Moscow winters are really no worse nor much longer than the winters of Chicago or New York. If they seem so, it is because Muscovites like to think of their winters as particularly furious. It has become a matter of pride, an expression of unnecessary stoicism somewhat peculiar to the Russian psyche.

In truth, when the snow falls for three or four days and the temperature drops to thirteen degrees, the huge plows radiate down the wide streets from Red Square, clearing the way for the well-bundled pedestrians, who show no particular discomfort as they flow around the machines and past the dvornik -the teams of husbands and wives with brooms who sweep the smaller streets and sidewalks. Two hundred feet below the ground and the snow, millions of Muscovites travel in the warmth of the Metro to their jobs or to stores to wait in line for a dozen eggs or a pair of Czech shoes that look like those in American movies. At night, the same people and the more than half a million students in the city travel quietly home.

It is the silence of winter in Moscow that most strikes a foreigner. The crowds of the day and evening are enormous, but they hum rather than shout. If one passes the Aleksander Garden at the foot of the Kremlin, however, one might hear the laughing voices of children, who have been skating through the day.

In the evening with the coming of darkness, most of the almost eight million citizens of Moscow stay in their apartments, and the city appears almost deserted except for the bored youth, tourists, criminals and those with enough money to venture to one of the restaurants or movie theaters within walking distance.

It was on such a night that Aleksander Granovsky paced the living room of his sixth-floor apartment on Dmitry Ulyanov Street, not far from Moscow University. Aleksander Granovsky, once a teacher, was now an enemy of the state. As he paced the wooden floor of his living room, the ceiling of the apartment below shook. Part of the fault was in the construction of the twenty-year-old building; bribes and bribe-taking had resulted in corners being cut and floors having less insulation than had been specified. However, part of the fault also belonged to Granovsky, who refused to put even an old rug on the floor to cut down the noise of his nightly pacing. The old Chernovs on the fifth floor had once complained to the manager of the building’s housing committee and they had been visited by the K.G.B., the Committee for State Security-a rather extreme reaction, they thought, to so simple a complaint. As Granovsky became more famous in the neighborhood and the world for his dissident ideas, the Chernovs learned to suffer his noise in silence rather than risk another visit from the K.G.B. man with the flat nose who made them feel guilty. Besides, their complaint had had no effect on Granovsky’s pacing.

Misha Chernov, who cleaned the benches and walks in Pushkin Park, never considered a direct confrontation with Granovsky, a tall, dark crow of a man who never smiled.

On this particular winter night, the Chernovs’ ceiling shook more than ever, but they consoled themselves with the knowledge that their upstairs neighbor would be going on trial in a few days, and with any luck they would finally have their peace.

The Granovsky apartment was exactly like that of the Chernovs and the fifty other tenants in the building: two rooms and a small kitchen. The Chernovs and the Granovskys, however, were unlike most of the other tenants. There were only two Chernovs and three Granovskys. Some of the other apartments held as many as six tenants.

Granovsky’s pacing stopped abruptly as his wife, Sonya, and his daughter, Natasha, came out of the second room of their apartment and faced him. He looked at them clinically. They were of a kind, thin and pale and frightened. Granovsky was driven to near fury by their fear, but he had learned to pretend not to notice it. It pleased him that in seventeen years of marriage his wife had no idea how much her concerned cow eyes infuriated him.

“We thought we’d go to Kolya’s apartment for a little while,” Sonya said so softly that he barely heard her. “That is, if you don’t want us to stay and…”

“Dress well,” he said automatically. “Ask Kolya and Anna if they are going to try to come to the trial.”

“He’ll come,” Sonya said. “Anna cannot. It would be hard for her at work.”

Aleksander smiled, a dark, serious smile.

“Kolya will sit in the back and hide among the old women, the widows, and old maids who have nothing to do but watch the young lose their freedom,” he said. He looked at Sonya for an argument about her brother’s courage but as usual got none.

“We’ll be back soon,” Sonya said, avoiding his eyes and checking Natasha’s red knit hat. Granovsky nodded, turning his back on the two women, who left, closing (he door as quietly as they could.

“Justice,” he thought to himself, composing his trial speech as he resumed pacing, “is guaranteed us, but justice is not what we get.” He would wait to write it down. So far he didn’t like it. He moved to the kitchen and put on a kettle of water for tea and then strode to the window, where he parted the curtain and looked down into the street. He did not try to hide as he glared down with a sardonic smile at the K.G.B. man shivering in the street six floors below. Granovsky could see the winter steam freeze in front of the man’s mouth. Granovsky pushed the curtain over to be sure the man in the street would see him and then turned to find his cup.

The trial speech had to be very brief, for he did not know how much they would let him say. He had to memorize the words and give them to his friends before the trial to be sure they would be smuggled out to the rest of the world. Pravda might give the trial no more than a few lines on the back page if it covered the event at all.

Granovsky had no doubt that he would be found guilty of anti-Soviet activity, consisting primarily of smuggling articles on the Soviet penal system out to the West for publication. It was not the outcome of the trial Granovsky wished or expected to affect. He was concerned with a matter of principle. What was important to him was that his words be given to the Western press, that he become an international figure, a rallying point for action and protest. Considering America’s ideas of human rights, there was even the possibility that the Americans might be willing to trade his freedom for one of the Soviet spies they had. It would depend entirely on his speech and how much publicity he could generate.

The wording of the speech had to be emotional and precise. He could buy himself time and a little attention and sympathy at the trial by provoking the judge to anger. He considered the possibility of smoking during the trial, a gesture Judge Drinyanov would regard as extreme disrespect. Granovsky would feign surprise and innocence of the affront. But that was a minor gesture he couldn’t allow himself to fantasize about. What he had to do was complete the speech.

Drinking his tea, he began to go through his worn copy of Basic Principles of Criminal Legislation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and of the Union Republics, with the vague hope of discovering something he might quote ironically. He knew the principles too well to expect an idea simply to leap out at him, but perhaps a word or phrase might bring inspiration.