Andrei Makine - A Hero's Daughter

The head of the motor pool called Ivan in from time to time and lectured him indulgently, as if talking to a child who has done something silly.

"Listen, Dmitrich, this is not good at all. You've got another two years before you retire and you carry on like this. That's twice they've picked you up dead drunk in broad daylight. It's lucky the local militia know you, otherwise you'd soon have been sent to the sobering-up station. I know you've got your troubles, but you're not a finished man. And don't forget you're behind a wheel. You risk either knocking someone over or getting killed yourself. And look what a bad example you're setting the young people."

They summoned him to the District Committee and also to the Veterans' Council, but in vain.

At the District Committee, Ivan listened to the Secretary's catalogue of reproaches and admonitions. Suddenly he interrupted him in a weary voice: "That's enough pettifogging nonsense, Nikolayich. You'd be better employed working out how to feed the people. Instead of which you talk a lot of rubbish – the Communist's duty, civic responsibility… It's a pain to listen to you!"

The Party Secretary burst out furiously: "Your drinking makes you forget where you are, Hero! As a member of the Party, how can you say such things?"

Ivan rose to his feet, leaned across the table toward the Secretary and observed in a low, dry voice: "As for me, now I can do anything… Understood? And as for my Party card, I could chuck it right back at you here on the table, if I chose!"

At the Veterans' Council the retired officers gathered there were looking forward with relish to some free entertainment. Ivan disappointed them all. He offered no explanation or defense, and did not argue with his irate accusers. He sat there, nodding his head and even smiling. He thought: "What's the point of offending these old men? Let them talk! Let them feel good. There's no malice in them, they're just bored. Look at that one, he's getting so worked up he's making his medals jangle. What a funny old codger. All dressed up and no place to go…"

The entertainment did not take place.

Toward May 9, as if he were observing a self-imposed fast, Ivan stopped drinking. He ran a broom over the rooms that for a long time had looked uninhabited. He cleaned his best suit, polished his medals and his Gold Star with tooth powder, and waited for the Pioneers. They usually came a few days before the Victory celebration, presented him with an invitation on a colorful card, and, after stammering out their prepared message, bolted down the staircase shouting gleefully.

He spent nearly a week waiting for them. "The little rascals must have forgotten," he thought. "They've got other things on their minds. Well, all the better for me. It was tiring in the long run, telling the same stories year after year."

But on May 8 he put on all his medals and went out. He wondered curiously: "Why haven't they invited me? If they've invited someone else, who is it?"

He walked past the school twice, but no one came out to meet him. Then he sat down in a square from which the entrance to the school could be seen. People walking past him greeted him with little disdainful smiles, as if to say: "Aha! The Hero! You've been seen dead drunk under a bench…"

In his head, inevitably, he heard the echo of phrases from his talks in days gone by: "Now then, my friends, just picture the scorching heat on the steppe in the summer of ' 42. In the distance Stalingrad is in flames and we're just a handful of soldiers…"

He kept turning to look at the school gate more and more often, was annoyed with himself, but could not overcome his curiosity. At length the gate opened wide and the stream of schoolchildren poured out into the street, shouting and squabbling. The "lesson on remembrance and patriotism" was over. Then a soldier appeared in the doorway escorted by a teacher. The soldier was holding three red carnations in his hand. Ivan went up to him in the alleyway. He was a young sergeant, the son of one of the drivers in their motor pool.

"Alexei, you're discharged already?" asked Ivan, with genial amazement.

"Since last autumn, Ivan Dmitrevich. And after that I spent ages in hospital. I had a foot blown off. You can see the kind of clodhoppers I wear now."

Ivan looked down. On one of the young sergeant's feet he was wearing a monstrously swollen orthopedic ankle boot.

"And how's it going back there in Afghanistan? It's a funny thing, but they never mention it in the papers now…"

"Well, what could they say about it? Back there we're up to our necks in shit…"

"So, you've just come from the school?"

"Yes, they invited me to the lesson on patriotism."

"So what did the children ask you?"

"They asked about the duty of internationalist soldiers and about the brotherhood of arms. And one rascal at a desk in the back row stood up and said: 'Please tell me, Comrade Staff-Sergeant, how many mujahideen did you kill yourself?' Well, there you are… The artificial limbs they make for us are just god-awful. When you walk down the street you have to grit your teeth. And when you take them off your boots are full of blood. It's as hard as… Well, Ivan Dmitrevich, have a good holiday. Happy Victory Day! Here, look at these flowers. Take them, Dmitrevich. You're a Hero, you deserve them. Give them to your wife… What…? But when…? Good God! That's terrible! I knew nothing about it. I've only been out of the hospital for five days. Well, keep your chin up, Ivan Dmitrevich. And… Happy Victory Day!"

A year later Ivan retired. The head of the motor pool heaved a sigh of relief. They bid him a solemn farewell; they presented him with a heavy gray marble writing set and an electronic watch. The watch Ivan sold almost immediately: vodka had gone up and his pension was barely adequate. No one wanted the writing set, not even for three rubles.

That year Gorbachev came to power. Ivan watched his speeches on television. It was the month of May the time for his abstinence. This animated and garrulous man, Gorbachev, created a strange impression when he spoke, forever removing his glasses, putting them on again and cracking jokes: "We must develop the system of vegetable plots," he would say, waving his hands like a conjuror seeking to hypnotize his audience. "You know, little gardens, little vegetable plots. Several million men among us want to become the owners of land but we, for the moment, cannot satisfy their demands…"

There were very few people then who suspected that what this whole scenario, all these 'vegetable plots,' amounted to really was a magician's patter to lull people's vigilance. In Russia it was always necessary to act out this drama of humility as a preliminary to climbing onto the throne. Khrushchev performed folk dances in front of Stalin, Brezhnev feigned a heart attack in front of Kaganovich, Gorbachev performed magic tricks in front of the old mafiosi of the Politburo, whom he had to overcome.

That year, as in the previous year, Ivan pulled himself together for several days. He did the housework in the apartment, walked through the town wearing all his medals, visited the cemetery. The photo of Tatyana in its oval frame set in the monument had turned yellow and the rains had warped it. But to Ivan she seemed strangely alive.

As he passed by the town's wall of honor he saw they had already removed his own photo. All that remained was an empty metal frame and the stupid remnant of an inscription "Soviet Hero… from Motor Pool No. 1…"

People did not forget that he was a Hero. For old time's sake the militia would bring him home when he was laid low by vodka. When he did not have enough money for his bottle at the store the salesclerk would give him credit.

Gradually his apartment emptied. He sold the carpet he had bought in Moscow with Tatyana in the old days. He disposed of ll the salable furniture for almost nothing. Gorbachev's speech about little vegetable plots was the last transmission he watched: he swapped his television set for three bottles of vodka. He carried all this out with a casual unconcern that surprised even himself. He actually went as far as to get rid of the rings and earrings preserved in his wife's jewel box and several silver spoons.