Andreï Makine - Brief Loves That Live Forever

The exuberance that filled us seemed illogical, almost uncanny. But the only yardstick we measure happiness by is our own lives, whether rich or destitute. After the midday meal we were entitled to a cup of hot liquid in which a few slices of dried fruit were macerating. Having the good luck to come upon a fig would transform one of our number into a “chosen one”; he would relish it, closing his eyes and concentrating completely on the indescribable taste that opened up inside his mouth. We would watch him dumbly, transported to the distant lands where such fruits ripened … Much later, in a book by Solzhenitsyn, I would come across a character in a gulag who was thrilled to trawl a tiny scrap of fish out of his bowl of soup when the ladle chanced to scrape the bottom of a pot. One day, talking to one of the countless prisoners from the Stalin era, I would learn that happiness could be based on even less: a grain left unmilled in a slice of bread …

Alongside these poor people’s pleasures an infinitely richer happiness was available to us, that of things imagined. We possessed so little, and for such a short time, that the whole world was there for us to dream about. That dazzlingly white city, for instance. I can still see its streets bathed in sunlight, its tall, serene inhabitants walking along unhurriedly, entering a store crammed with an abundance of things to eat: one of them selects a bottle of lemonade, another a chocolate bar (just one and yet there are thousands!), and they go on their way without having to pay anything … In answer to our questions about the nature of communism our teacher gave us this explanation: “Money will no longer exist. Everyone will be able to take what is sufficient for his needs …”

An incredulous murmur ran around the class in response to the vision we had just glimpsed: jubilant hordes storming the shops and running off laden with masses of cakes, chocolates, and ice cream … The teacher must have guessed at the looting we had in mind and hastened to complete her interpretation of the future: “The people who live in communist society will have a different type of conscience from ours. The shops will be full and everything will be free, but people will take only what they need. If you can return next day, why hoard?”

That scene occurred at the start of the sixties. The Party had just proclaimed that communism would arrive within the marvelously brief span of twenty years.

The idea of a new type of conscience struck my child’s mind like a flash of inspiration. Yes, a shining city, smiling, fraternal people, who, amid an abundance of desirable goods and food, do not lose their heads, choose the minimum, enough to feed themselves and devote themselves to a mysterious activity referred to by our teacher as “the edification of the future.” Such a task made ridiculous the desire to stuff oneself, thrusting one’s neighbor aside to grab the choicest piece … Childhood images do not fade or vanish. That shining city has often seemed more real to me than those where I lived.

Official propaganda congealed these dream visions together into tangible, simplified language, common to the country’s whole population. The two great parades of the year, for May Day and the October Revolution, gave substance to the symbolic, ideas were embodied in columns of workers, on Red Square the word was made tanks and rockets, History spoke with the voice of an endless crowd, processing from Moscow to the humblest township, past grandstands on which the leaders stood, saluting this dress rehearsal for the messianic society.

At the time I was incapable of understanding it, as I marched beside my comrades in the ranks, carrying a flag or a portrait of one of the Party leaders. Now what remains is the memory of a mesmerized sense of belonging to this human mass, dazzlement at the sea of red banners, a state of euphoria, ecstasy even, yes, some kind of trance. But I was too young then to perceive it like that, I simply felt happy.

The May Day ceremonies have ended up merging in my memory into a single celebration, resonant with loudspeaker slogans and prolonged cheering, spattered with sprays of sunlight and scarlet flags flapping in the wind.

The autumn parades, on the other hand, have left me with quite a different recollection, an upsetting sensation for a child who truly believed in this spectacle and suddenly felt himself duped by it. That was it, the feeling of a lie guessed at behind the mise en scène.

And yet the mise en scène for that parade, politically more important than May Day, was always impeccable. The strict hierarchy governing the placing of the leaders on the grandstand, the banners proclaiming the imminence of the radiant future or lambasting American imperialism. The nimble tread of those in the parade, grouped according to their professional affiliations, the impressive steadiness of the soldiers in the honor guard, a living bulwark against the enemies of socialism. As for the symbolism, every detail was respected: the people were advancing toward that white city of the future of which I had always dreamed.

And perhaps it took no more than a fine shower of icy rain to transform the meaning of the procession that day. A purely physical discomfort, that was it, irritating to the occupants of the grandstand.

The pupils from our orphanage came right at the end of the parade, given the lack of ideological weight represented by our soberly attired ranks, our close-cropped heads, with the pale, bony faces of poorly nourished children. Just as we reached the foot of the grandstand the apparatchiks abandoned their parade ground immobility, bestirred themselves, and, in emulation of the first among them, began to move off the grandstand, exchanging discreet remarks out of the corners of their mouths. The cheering rumbled on, far too loud for us to be able to hear any of this chat, but the drift of it was clear: the dismal weather, the cold, and the delights of a copious lunch that awaited them.

Without realizing it, I had seen the wrong side of the scenery, a stage from which those sinister actors were making their exit. The grandstand was emptying, losing its symbolic significance. Heady euphoria gave way to worrying surmise, doubts I quickly stifled beneath my comrades’ vociferous chanting and the smell of the red paint on rain-soaked banners … And yet that momentary “What’s the point?” had left its mark on my naive faith.

Two days later a hallucinatory nocturnal vision reinforced my disillusionment … We were often sent to work in big factories on the outskirts of the city, to prepare us for manual labor, which was the lot our condition destined us for. We cleaned workshops, raked yards strewn with scrap metal, picked up waste steel or timber. That evening the truck due to take us back to the orphanage broke down and we waited until late into the night, gathered together in a warehouse … As we were driving back through the city a distressing spectacle confronted those who, like me, were sitting at the back of the van: there on the central square, beneath spotlight beams, workers were dismantling the grandstand! I just had time to see long sections of the terraces and a stack of portraits piled on top of one another, at random …

The shock was as great as if in the middle of the screening of a film I had caught sight of technicians rearranging the furniture or even tickling one of the actresses. The blatant nature of what I saw blinded me: this dismantling was done at night to conceal from the people the fact that it was all no more than scenery, a painted facade, behind which there was nothing. And yet there was something: the asphalt littered with cigarette ends, the sad sleepiness of windows in ugly houses, the bare, shivering trees. The workmen’s gestures spoke of ill-tempered abruptness, weary disgust … The following day the square resumed its ordinary appearance, merely leaving me with a nagging thought: “That whole grandstand, they must hide it in a secret place.”