Gadfly in Russia Read online

  Forty-five minutes before midnight a special train left from the Kursk station for Orel 239 miles to the south. The delegation would see places written about in Turgenev’s novels, and the house where he had lived. Several carriages were taken up by members of the Writers’ Union and other officials connected to the anniversary. Some brought their secretaries, or girlfriends and, in a few cases, their wives.

  The further from Moscow the more the company relaxed, till the train seemed to have been hired for nothing less than a wild party. Ruth and I contributed a bottle of White Horse whisky, bought from a Beriozka or hard-currency shop, which the half dozen in our compartment began guzzling even before the lights of the conurbation fell behind. They had supplies of their own, especially vodka, but also Georgian wines and good things to eat.

  The engine with its large red star pulsated through the dark spaces, the jollification in our carriage making a place unconnected to any other, with the clinking of glasses, laughter, and the merry compliance of the girls. Much food and booze passed between the cabins, fuelling a party in the good old Russian mode. Handshakes and backslaps for foreigners, a constant plying of liquor, and kisses for the smart and agreeable young women – even for the not so young – went on through the night.

  Those in compartments who didn’t care to enjoy the beverages were mostly ladies from Latin America, wanting to discuss literature or the world political situation, though how they were able to, with such fraternal comings and goings along the corridors was hard to say. The only way to be at home in any country was to drink with those who lived there, and most needed no second telling to join in, which soon put levels of self-indulgence to the test.

  Saturday, 16 November

  At one o’clock in the morning, with no diminishment of uproar, the train halted at a station so that goods wagons could rattle through a junction further south. The stop promised to be long and, fresh air being needed after so much carousing, I stepped on to a long empty platform thinly coated with ice.

  In only a jacket, but warmed by vodka, I thoughtlessly propelled myself into a delightful slide of fifty or so yards. It was an exhilarating motion, more a reversion to childhood, as I scooted with arms spread to achieve an even longer lap, sailing like a bird from one end of the train to the other.

  Unaware of providing a spectacle, till hearing applause from the windows, I might have gone on with such madcapping all night, or until I dropped, but a shriek from the engine alerted me to get back on board. The inconvenience of being left alone in the unlit space of Mother Russia made me realise that I would either freeze to death on the icy platform, or have to fend for myself among astonished people, if I could find them, who would so little know what to make of me that I would soon enough not know what to make of myself, even if I didn’t already.

  Leaping for the steps as the wheels squeaked into movement, my berserker antics came to an end, as did the party soon afterwards.

  Shaken from a half sleep at six o’clock in Orel, and persuaded from the litter of cups, bottles, cigarette stubs and paper bags, we were led like a gaggle of walking wounded to a bus which took us to a hotel in the city.

  All everyone needed was sleep, but after breakfast we were marched back to our transport, which took us to lay flowers on the Turgenev monument, then to scenes in the district described in A Nest of Gentlefolk and A Sportsman’s Sketches. How much we would remember was hard to say.

  Still zombie-like, we filed through the Turgenev Museum, opened for the centenary of his birth in 1918. He was the first Russian novelist to be widely known and appreciated throughout Western Europe in the nineteenth century. Most of the furniture had been brought from his country place at Spasskoye Litovinovo, while the desk and chair of his Paris study was as if waiting for him to come in from dawdling in the garden and get to work. Glass sheltered copies of translations and first editions, and works of art adorned the walls. It was fascinating to hear that the rooms had been recreated exactly as those in his country house. The Karelian birchwood and walnut Russian Empire-style furniture was made by serf craftsmen, and I hoped they had been well treated for having such skills.

  Most of us began to stagger by the time we came out of the Museum of Painting, and welcomed the half hour’s rest after lunch, but then for the benefit of French visitors we had to see a street named after the Normandy–Niemen squadron which had fought for the Russians in the liberation of Orel. Afterwards we went to a meeting with students to talk about Turgenev’s life and works.

  At the end of the evening concert half a dozen students joined Ruth and myself saying they would like to take us on a walk around the town. We had the feeling that they didn’t care to be seen too openly going off with us. It was late, achingly cold, and mostly dark beyond the city lights.

  Some of the group may have intended to become writers, for they complained about the number of editors, publishers’ committees, scholars, and even more sinister people who demanded to see and approve an author’s manuscript before it could be given the go-ahead for printing. Luckily some magazine editors fought courageously to bring out good and often controversial work (they mentioned Boris Polevoi) which then appeared in book form, since they were already popular.

  We reminded them of Solzhenitsyn, Yevtushenko, Aksyonov and others, which surely showed that things had changed from the bad old days. That was true enough, they said, but your information is not up to date, because the lid is coming down again, and times are going to be more difficult.

  It was cathartic for them to talk, the discussion going on through several winding miles of glum suburban areas. Whenever the lights of the town centre showed in the distance we assumed the perambulation was coming to an end, but we were steered away so that the talk could continue. There were no complaints. In fact we were flattered at having been chosen from the delegation to broach such issues.

  We were still answering questions after midnight, about the lives of writers in the West. I said that while it might seem ideal to those in countries where novelists and poets were galled by the system, in the so-called Free World there were more subtle forms of censorship. It was unofficial, but publishers and editors could turn down a book whose subject matter they decided was distasteful, on the assumption that the reading public wasn’t yet ready for it, or for reasons impossible to fathom. At least that had been the situation until recently, especially with film scripts. Now it was more of a lottery to get a book into print, but there was always a chance, because not all publishers thought alike. Still, I admitted, things really were changing, and it was nowhere near as bad as in the Soviet Union.

  They eventually pointed out our hotel across the square, and thanked us with firm handshakes on saying goodbye. We wondered what our long talk-about had meant to them, and whether they would remember it.

  Sunday, 17 November

  The bus took us fifty miles northeast on a stretch of road George and I had motored along in 1967, unrecognised now because the nondescript country to either side was monochromed with snow. Beyond Mtsensk a bust of Turgenev and a finger post indicated the way to Spasskoye Litovinovo, the estate where the writer was exiled by the Tsar in 1852 for writing a laudatory obituary of Gogol.

  Under a line of birch trees flocks of snow like mice made of cotton wool parted from the occasional branch and melted into the ground. The plain wooden house, where Rudin was written, burned down in 1906, but was later rebuilt to look as it had in 1881, when Turgenev saw it for the last time.

  It was a large house, a nest of gentlefolk, painted white, with several columns along a railed terrace, but as our feet were coldly wet (or wetly cold: we couldn’t decide) we were satisfied with a glimpse of the outside, knowing that the best exhibits were in Orel.

  The bus took us to the station buffet in Mtsensk for lunch, hats and overcoats coming off at the abrupt change from bitter cold to the heat of warm stoves, turning us into a merry gang, as if a lever had been pulled over us on going through the door. The large windows gave much light, a
nd the half dozen at each table watched kerchiefed and robust women in white aprons come from the kitchen with bowls of steaming boiled potatoes, platters of gherkins, dishes of soured cream, soused herring, slices of black bread, plates of butter squares and, to send it down, quantities of ice-cold vodka. No sooner had a bottle been emptied another took its place until, going by shouts and laughter loud enough to burst the windows, we seemed back in the atmosphere of the train from Moscow. The serving women showed delight at our appetites, as they replaced dishes devoured with the gusto of the starving.

  Even the demure ladies from South America were coached to take a little vodka, for medicinal purposes of course, and they also were soon quite lively and red at the cheeks. Half an hour later it was plain that all we had eaten so far was only the first part, which I had thought of as being an excellent meal in itself, and more satisfying than any to be had in an expensive London restaurant, though cold and hunger, and plenty of vodka, may have distorted my judgement.

  There were many nodding heads on the coach to Orel, but in the afternoon we were treated to a film show about the Red Army defeating the Germans in the war, and the subsequent liberation of Orel. More than half the town was destroyed in the fighting. The Krupskaya Library, founded in 1843, had been plundered and burned but was rebuilt and now housed half a million books.

  Orel was the first big town to be liberated, and was given an artillery salute in Moscow. I recalled listening to many others on the wireless in our living room, as the Red Army went on its way to Berlin.

  It was dark by the time we filed into the train for Moscow, a trip more subdued than on the journey down.

  Monday, 18 November

  After breakfast in the hotel we packed our cases for departure in the evening. But our stint wasn’t finished yet. There was a meeting at Foreign Literature Magazine, to talk about what had been seen and enjoyed in Orel. Tanya Kudraevzeva took us to lunch at her flat, where we met her beautiful daughter, who danced with the Bolshoi. And just when we thought there would be nothing to do for the rest of the day we were asked to give an interview which went on for over an hour.

  George and Oksana came to put us on the train for the Polish frontier at Brest Litovsk, the first stage of 2,000 miles back to London. We thanked her for having made our ten days so pleasant, then told George, wanting Oksana to hear, that we expected him to be in London soon, somehow or other. He could rely on us feasting him well, as we talked about old times.

  ‘There’s nothing I would like better,’ he said, ‘and I’ll do all I can to keep the appointment.’

  ‘We’ll find a way,’ Oksana told us.

  Placenames familiar from looking at maps during the war were passed unseen: Vyazma, Smolensk, Minsk, Baranovichi, and I thought how interesting it would be to put up for a few days at each and see the sights, mix with people in the streets. But our throughway tickets wouldn’t allow it, and in any case we were tired, wanting only to get home – even though we had taken the slow way to go about it. The train bounded along swiftly enough, every turn of the wheels taking us closer to Holland.

  It was so black outside that the train might well have been stationary. There were hardly any other passengers, and we sat on our own in the restaurant car for a mediocre meal. Moscow seemed months behind, everything we had seen and done gone in the mist. London was still an enormous distance away, though we longed to be there.

  At Brest Litovsk, known for its treaty in 1918, when Lenin did a deal with the Germans and let down the Allies, though I don’t suppose he could have done much else under the circumstances, we were ordered out of the train and told to show our passports at a nearby office. That done, we roamed the half-lit platforms looking for a place to have coffee. There wasn’t one. In Baedeker’s time there had been ‘a very fair’ railway restaurant, but travellers were better catered for in those days.

  Back where the train should have been, it wasn’t. The vacant space was disturbing. Imagination works overtime when faced with the possibility of misfortune. Our visas said we were to enter Poland on a specific day, which meant within an hour or two, so where was the bloody train?

  There was no one to ask, even supposing we could make our meaning clear. When we tried to get to another platform a soldier signalled us to go back. Maybe if the train had been full the desolation wouldn’t have been so intimidating. I regretted again having been too idle to learn more Russian. And why had we been so foolish as to leave the carriage? The train seemed to have gone without us, and the passport office was in darkness. There was no one to ask about our plight. We had been given to understand – or had we? – that there would be at least an hour’s wait. Our luggage was still on board, which didn’t bear thinking about, so we tried not to or, being in a state of gloom, couldn’t.

  Then I remembered that the wheels of the train had to be changed to the West European gauge, but that was something I assumed would be done at the platform by a crew of dwarfish cloth-capped men tinkering musically with hammers between swigs of vodka. I didn’t realise the train had to be shunted to marshalling yards and the work done there. Half an hour later we saw the carriages parked further up the platform, so were spared the inconvenience of a few forlorn days in the fortress town of Brest Litovsk.

  Tuesday, 19 November

  At dawn the train pulled us over a long bridge into Warsaw, though we were too far north to see anything of the city. The Polish landscape beyond was misty and nondescript in its wintry cabbage-field gloom. A couple of books still unread saved us from riffling through a rack at the end of the carriage holding copies of the Daily Worker and Humanité, and booklets of tedious argument about the ideological differences between Russia and China.

  We had slept little in our bunks, so at dusk it seemed to have been dusk all the way through Poland. We stretched out early, but shortly afterwards the flashlight of Polish border guards dazzled us, and we showed our passports. Half an hour later soldiers of the German Democratic Republic barked for the same reason. Then the somewhat less brusque West German police wanted to know who was coming into their country. Another sleepless night.

  I suppose we must have gone through Berlin, but I don’t remember, though the lights of the world were gradually turned on for our locomotive’s race to the Dutch frontier – where we encountered two more sets of border police. Since leaving Moscow we’d had nothing to eat except the evening meal on the train twenty-four hours before, and our provisions basket was empty. There’d never been much in it anyway. In Moscow we’d been too busy to think of stocking up, and in any case didn’t know where to shop. Delicious meals with plenty of pleasant wine would be frequent on such a grand international express, or so we had thought. Luckily a railway-employed woman at the end of the carriage brewed lemon tea on a stove in her cubicle, whenever we wanted it.

  After breakfast at the Hook we dawdled an hour or so before getting on a ship for Harwich. The sea was bleak and grey – and bloody rough – but we’d had the foresight to book a cabin, so the crossing went easily. We were home by eight in the evening.

  In Moscow we were given a heavy metal medallion with the head of Turgenev stamped on it, very useful as a paperweight, and to remind us of a country we weren’t to see again for thirty-six years. Much happened in that time to George Andjaparidze, which affected my relationship with the Soviet Union.

  Part Four

  Kuznetsov

  1969

  Saturday, 26 July

  A tape recorder on my table, the speaker turned up full (probably driving the rest of the house mad, but I didn’t care) played Handel’s Messiah or grand choruses from Israel in Egypt, over and over. Inspiring sounds sent the pen across blank paper, its pile decreasing day by day.

  The themes of music and novel could not have been more different, for the latter was about the ‘start in life’ of a predatory young man from Nottingham ‘on the make’ in London. What began as a long short story (an oxymoron, if ever there was one) spun itself out into 500 pages. Constant invention
made it untrustworthily easy to write, but it was to sell nearly 200,000 copies in all forms and languages.

  Working on the second draft, the telephone morsed the usual letter M into my ear. I didn’t wonder who was calling. It could have been anyone. Though my number was in the book, people thinking it wasn’t often went by circuitous routes to find it, but I had always said that those whom the gods wished to drive mad they first made ex-directory.

  ‘Alan, this is George Andjaparidze, from the Soviet Union. Remember me?’

  ‘I certainly do. Where are you?’

  ‘In London.’

  A lifetime’s wish had come true for him when the Aeroflot wheels kissed the tarmac at Heathrow. His note of triumph was unmistakable, but tempered I thought by the shock of good fortune, as if some malign dagger of fate, or hitch in the Soviet bureaucracy, might at any time put the kibosh on his prospect of walking in the city of his dreams. He was vulnerable to superstition, Soviet upbringing nothwithstanding, or perhaps because of it, which was a mark in his favour.

  Delighted at hearing his familiar voice, I invited him to come right away for lunch, and thinking he might have a problem finding the house, I drove to the Apollo Hotel in Kensington where he was staying.

  Standing on the pavement to open the passenger door and let him in – doing the chauffeur act, as he called it – he smiled on recognising the same old Peter Peugeot Estate that had taken us on a happy trip through Russia two years before.

  Over lunch he told us he had been chosen, out of many who coveted the appointment, to be the minder, interpreter, and general assistant to Anatoly Kuznetsov, the author known for his novel Babi Yar. Oksana Krugerskaya had suggested him for the job, but the casting vote had been Valentina Ivasheva’s, who always helped personable young men – and what woman wasn’t able to look with favour on George?

  We talked about Kuznetsov’s Babi Yar, a ravine on the outskirts of Kiev, where the Germans and their Ukrainian helpers had, in 1941, massacred 100,000 Jewish men women and children. A survivor gave details of the atrocity to Kuznetsov (though the broad outline was no secret) and he based his novel on the event. It was also the subject of a poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, who with Victor Nekrasov and others frequently petitioned the Soviet authorities to put up a monument to the specifically Jewish victims. Such pleas were rejected on the grounds that only Ukrainian citizens had been murdered, and so Babi Yar remained a locality of desolate waste ground. Kuznetsov had been compelled to abbreviate or exclude parts of his book before it could be published.