Andrei Makine - A Hero's Daughter

"Maybe you need to grease the administrator's palm," said the other one.

"Oh sure. Then he'll sell us some! You bet. I guess he's desperate for our crumpled old rubles!"

Near the Bolshoi box office, across the square from the Kremlin, Ivan saw an enormous buzzing crowd, seething angrily. It began in the tunnel leading from the subway, stretched up the staircase and spilled out into the open toward the glass doors of the box office.

"It's always like this," grumbled one woman. "You come to Moscow once in a lifetime, and what happens? All the tickets go to the veterans!"

"What do you mean – the veterans?" someone else cut in. "Everything's put on one side, to be sold at three times the price."

"That's all poppycock. What they're after is foreign currency. There's no oil left, so they're selling culture!" shouted a third from the heart of the throng.

Unbuttoning his raincoat so his Star could be seen, Ivan threaded his way toward the box office. "I'll give Olya a surprise," he thought happily. "I'll come home and say in an offhand way: Why don't we go to the theater this evening? To the Bolshoi, perhaps?' She'll be amazed. 'But how? We'll never get any tickets.' And then, with a wave of my wand, 'Never get any?' says I. 'Look, here they are.' "

Outside the crowd was pressing against a metal barrier, beside which stood three militiamen. Seeing the Hero's Gold Star, they opened the barrier a little and let Ivan through toward the box office. There, in front of the doors that were still shut, a few dozen veterans had gathered. Ivan studied the rows of decorations on the lapels of their jackets and even noticed a couple of Gold Stars on one of them. Several of them looked as if they had been waiting for a long while and, to pass the time, they were telling one another about their war experiences. The sky had been overcast since the morning and now damp snow was falling, brought on by an icy wind. People shivered, turned up their coat collars. Near the door stood a disabled man in a worn overcoat, all hunched up, supported on his single leg.

"Hey there, old guard!" called out Ivan. "What are we waiting here for? Aren't there any more tickets?"

"We're waiting to be called," came the reply. "At midday they'll count us again and let us in."

And indeed at noon precisely the door opened and a sleepy woman with a discontented air announced: "There are a hundred and fifty tickets on sale. The rule is two tickets per person, which means one for the veteran and one for a member of his family. Those who've got numbered tickets form a line. The others, go to the back."

Large snowflakes were falling and a bitter wind was blowing. Not far away, emerging from the gates of the Kremlin, came a cavalcade of official cars, as long and gleaming as pianos. And there stood the crowd, thrust back by the barriers and the militiamen, a crowd awaiting a miracle and eyeing the veterans with fierce jealousy, as they formed into line.

"Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three…" mumbled the drowsy woman in haughty tones.

And the old men, giving a start, bustled up and hastily took their places in the column.

"Is this what we spilled our blood for?" called out a mocking voice in front of Ivan.

Looking more closely Ivan saw the face of a man of the people crinkled up in a smile. It was the disabled man who stood several places in front of him. The face struck him as familiar.

Ivan ended up as number sixty-two. He received two tickets for The Stone Guest. Emerging from the crowd, he went into the tunnel and headed for the subway. Passing a dark corner near some broken-down vending machines, he once more noticed the disabled veteran. Confronting him were two smartly dressed young men passing remarks at him while interrupting each other. Ivan stopped and pricked up his ears. Grasping the old man by the lapel, one of them barked at him sneeringly: "Listen, Pops, don't try to get smart with us. We don't want the prices to go sky high, do we? You always sell them for five rubles. Why are you screwing us around? Take ten and fuck off and buy a bottle. You're never going to find a anyone who'll give you fifteen, you old crook. They're not even in the orchestra."

"Well, in that case, I'm not selling them. You can take it or leave it," replied the veteran.

He swung around on his crutches and tried to move away. But one of them pushed him toward the vending machines and seized his collar.

"Now listen to me, you goddamned Hero of Borodino. I'm going to smash your goddamned crutches for you. You'll have to crawl home."

Ivan went up to them and asked in conciliatory tones: "Now then, what's going on? Why are you young fellows badgering this old soldier?"

One of the fellows, rolling his chewing gum around in his mouth took a step toward Ivan.

"Are you looking for a pair of crutches, too, Grandpa?"

And he gave Ivan a careless shove with his shoulder.

"That's enough. Leave it, Valera!" the other one intervened. "Let them go to hell, them and their Victory! Look, that one's a Hero of the Soviet Union. Let's go. Here come the cops."

And then they swaggered off toward the subway.

Ivan held out his hand to the man on crutches. Shaking his hand in return, the latter, half embarrassed and half mischievously, said: "Well, I recognized you right away, just now in the line, but I didn't make myself known to you. My, my. You've gone up in the world with your necktie and your Star… You must be a colonel at least, Vanya…"

"You're joking! I'm a general, old friend! Now… I remember your surname well enough. But I've forgotten your first name. Sasha? Yes, of course. Alexander Semyonov. It comes back to me now. As if I could forget those great big ears of yours. Do you remember? We were always pulling your leg about them. We said you'd have to have a gas mask made to measure. And then the sergeant used to tease you: 'Could you just tune in with your radar, Sasha, and find out if the Fritzes are coming over on a bombing raid?' But what about your leg? Where did you lose it? If I remember correctly, it wasn't serious, just a scratch. Back in the ranks we even used to say you'd done it yourself."

"You've got no right to say that, Vanyusha. Look, what happened to me I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I'll tell you about it, but come to my place. We'll have a chat over a glass or two. I can't stay here long, all the militia know me. They keep moving me on, as if I had the plague! Don't worry, you'll have time to get back to your Yassenievo. Come on. It's my treat. I live in a kommunalka just around the corner."

In the little room there was a touching sense of order.

"Look, Vanyush, they'd hardly finished butchering me when my wife left me. The way it happened… you see… was it all started with one toe. It was smashed up by a bit of shrapnel. They applied a tourniquet, but good God, it was so cold – do you remember? – minus forty, and the leg froze. Then gangrene set in. They amputated my foot… They look again and it's already gone black farther up. Then they cut it below the knee and it's started to rot above the knee. They cut it still higher, just leaving a stump they can fix an artificial leg to. It didn't work. So then they took it back just below the stomach… But what's the good of dredging all that up? Come on, Vanya, let's drink to the Victory!"

"Well, what do you know! The guys used to tell ah kinds of stories about you… You see, there we were in the trench frozen to the bone. Your name would come up and we'd say things like: 'Just think, that bastard Semyonov… his toe was buggered up and now he's snug in bed with his wife under a warm quilt…' So that was the truth of it…"

'Yes, Vanyush. Believe me, I'd rather have had five years in the trenches than this. And I'd have been happy to spend all my life single. From the age of twenty… And now that's it. It's all over. You know, at the hospital they were bringing us in by the wagonload, in whole trainloads. They had just enough time to disembark us. And of course they were hacking us about in double-quick time. Do you know, they severed all the nerves at the base of my stomach? It was just as if they'd castrated me. What woman would have wanted me after that?"