History delighted in making a mockery of those who thought they could determine its course with impunity. Andropov died. Chernenko followed him. With the indecent haste of a comic strip, all of Brezhnev's entourage were dying off. They celebrated funeral rites to the tune of Chopin's funeral march on Red Square so often that the people of Moscow found themselves whistling the tune as if it were a current popular song.
But in the spring of 1982 no one could even imagine that History might be up to such tricks.
In March the head of the transport organization called Demidov into his office. "You've got visitors, Ivan Dmitrevich. These comrades are going to make a film about you." Two television journalists from Moscow were there, the scriptwriter and the director.
The film in question was to be devoted to the fortieth anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad. They had already shot the scenes of the memorial ceremony where, beneath the enormous concrete monuments, veterans from all four corners of the country wandered like ghosts from the past.
They had rediscovered documentary footage from the period, fragments of which they intended to use in the course of the film. They had already interviewed the generals and marshals who were still alive. What remained to be filmed was, in the eyes of the director, a very important episode. In this scene the principal role fell to Demidov. The director saw it like this: after the dachas on the outskirts of Moscow and the spacious Moscow apartments, where the retired marshals, buttoned up tight in their uniforms, command armies and juggle with divisions in their memory, there appear the twisting streets of Borissov and a truck splashed with mud driving into the entrance of a garage. A man gets down from the truck, without turning toward the camera, wearing a battered cap and an old leather jacket. He crosses the yard, littered with scrap iron, and makes his way over to the little office building. A somewhat metallic voice-over raps out the citation of the Hero of the Soviet Union: "By the decree of the Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, for heroism and bravery displayed in battle…"
The truck driver hands in some papers at the office, nods to a colleague, shakes hands with another and goes home.
In the course of this scene Demidov's voice, a simple, informal voice, talks about the Battle of Stalingrad. The sequence of shots that follows is in the context of a home: the celebratory meal, a spread-out copy of Pravda on a set of shelves; yellowing photographs of the postwar years on the wall.
But the high point of the film was elsewhere. From time to time the story of this modest hero "who saved the world from the brown plague," as the commentary put it, breaks off. The Soviet foreign correspondent in one or another European capital appears on the screen, stopping passersby and asking them: "Tell me, what does the name of Stalingrad mean to you?" The passersby hesitate, make inept replies, and laughingly recall Stalin.
As for the correspondent in Paris, he had been filmed in melting snow, chilled to the bone, trying to make himself heard above the noise of the street: "I'm standing just ten minutes' walk away from the square in Paris that bears the name of Stalingrad. But do the Parisians grasp the significance of this name, so foreign to French ears?" And he begins to question passersby, who prove incapable of giving an answer.
When they showed this scene for the first time at the studio one of the bosses asked the director: "So why couldn't he go to the square itself? What's all that about just ten minutes' walk away from'? It's like doing a report on Red Square from Gorky Park!"
"I already asked him that…" The director tried to excuse himself. "According to him, there's not a Frenchman to be found in the square. Nothing but blacks and Arabs. Yes, that's what he said. I give you my word. He said, 'They'll all think it was shot in Africa and not in Paris at all.' That's why he moved closer to the center to find some whites."
"Unbelievable!" bayed an official in the darkened auditorium. And the showing continued. The camera focused on a huddled clochard and a row of gleaming shop windows. And then once more there appeared yellowing shots of documentary footage from the period: the gray steppe, tanks bobbing up and down, as if at sea, soldiers captured, still alive, on camera.
And Demidov appeared once more, no longer in his grease-stained jacket but in a suit, wearing all his decorations. He was in a classroom, seated behind a desk that was decked out with a little vase containing three red carnations. In front of him schoolchildren were religiously drinking in his words.
The film ended with an apotheosis: the gigantic statue of the Mother Country, holding a sword aloft, towered up into the blue sky. Then the Victory Parade taking place on Red Square in 1945. The soldiers throwing down German flags at the foot of the Lenin Mausoleum. Hitler's personal standard could be seen in the foreground as it fell. After that, against the exultant sound of music, Stalingrad-Volgograd, in all its splendor, arises once more from the ruins, filmed from a helicopter.
And everything concluded with one final chord: Brezhnev appearing on the platform at the Twenty-sixth Party Congress, talking about the Soviet Union 's policies for peace.
By about the middle of April the film was ready. Demidov had patiently endured the excitement of the filming and, in answering questions, had even managed to include the story of the little wellspring in the wood.
"Well now, Ivan Dmitrevich," the director said to him, when it was time to say goodbye. "On Victory Day, May ninth, or perhaps the day before, you must sit down with all the family in front of the television."
The film was called: The Heroic City on the Volga.
On the afternoon of May 8, Ivan Dmitrevich was not working. He had been invited to the school for the traditional chat. He gave his usual talk and returned home with the three carnations in his hand.
Tatyana was still at work. He puttered about in the apartment. Then he draped his best jacket, with its armor plating of medals, over the back of a chair, switched on the set and settled himself down on the divan. The film about Stalingrad was due to start at six.
The workshop foreman flourished the bottle and began pouring alcohol into the glasses: "Very good, my friends, one last nip and we all go home…" They all drank, slipped what remained of the food into their bags and left. In the street the women workers wished one another a happy holiday and went back to their lodgings.
Tanya – no longer a girl, she was now known as Tatyana Kuzminichna – consulted her watch. "I have just enough time before the film to go to the store and pick up the veterans' parcel." Like all those who had served in the war, she would receive this package in the section of the store closed to ordinary mortals. People would watch the line of veterans there and quietly grumble.
This time it was a real holiday parceclass="underline" four hundred grams of ham, two chickens, a can of sprats, and a kilo of buckwheat flour. Tatyana Kuzminichna paid, loaded it all into her bag and started for the door. One of the veterans called out to her.
"Hi there, Kuzminichna. Is it a good one, today's parcel?"
"Yes, not bad. But there's no butter."
"There's butter to be had across the road today, at the Gastronom. But there's a line a mile long!"
Tatyana went over to the Gastronom store, saw a motley, winding line, looked at the time. The film was due to start in fifteen minutes. "Why not try to avoid standing in line?" she thought. "After all, it's my right."
She took her veteran s pass out of her bag and began to push her way toward the cashier.
The tail end of the line swarmed out into the street and inside the store everything was dark with people. They pressed against one another, beating a path toward the counter. They shouted, they hurled insults at one another. The ones who had already made their purchases were weaving their way toward the exit, their eyes shining feverishly