"1945-1985. Glory to the Victorious Soviet People!" Ivan stopped, screwed up his eyes, and groaned. His brow and eyelids became damp, he felt weak at the knees. A water cart drove by, enveloping him in a smell of wet dust: a huge Intourist coach sailed past with smoked-glass windows, behind which well-groomed ladies with silvery hair could be seen. Ivan retraced his footsteps.
At that moment above the glass door of a store he sensed, rather than read, in bulbous black lettering: "Beriozka." Without thinking, guided by an intuition about what would happen and anticipating it with spiteful glee, he went in.
A pleasant half light prevailed in the store. The cool temperature produced by the air conditioning was disorientating. Lightly clad tourists were talking among themselves beside a counter. A shower of shrill, discordant notes rang out, followed by a shout of laughter: one of them was buying a balalaika.
Ivan stopped near the counter. His gaze, scarcely taking in objects, slid over Palekh lacquer boxes, bottles of scotch whiskey, brightly colored album covers. Two salesclerks watched him attentively. Finally one of them, unable to hold back, said softly but very distinctly and without even looking in his direction: "This store, Citizen, is reserved for foreign visitors. Payment here is only in hard currency." And to show him that the conversation was at an end and that he had no more business there, she said to her colleague: "I think those Swedes have made their choice. Stay here, I'll go serve them."
Ivan knew very well that it was a Beriozka. He also knew what a despicable peasant he was in the eyes of these two dolls in their elegant makeup. But that, precisely, was fine. Yes it was fine that his head was exploding, his shirt sticking to his skin, that the foreigners – these extraterrestrials in their light T-shirts – should be buying things, laughing, their blue eyes staring straight through him into the distance.
"Go ahead, my girl. Go and serve them," mocked Ivan. "That's all we're good for. Serving them. Some in bed, some behind the counter…"
The salesclerk stopped, exchanged brief glances with her colleague and rapped out: "I repeat: rubles are not accepted here. Vacate the premises or I'll call the militia. And take your hands off that glass case." And in a lower voice she added: "Any old country bumpkin thinks he can come in here. And then we have to wash the glass."
Ivan clenched his teeth and leaned with ll his weight on the glass of the counter. There was a sound of the glass breaking and at the same time the sales-clerk's cry: "Lyuda, call the duty militiaman!"
"You see these hands," shouted Ivan. "I loaded a whole mountain of shells into the guns with them. With these hands…"
He said nothing more and erupted into laughter like a barking dog. The agony tore at his eyes. But through the morass of his confusion suddenly everything became clear to him: "All this is bullshit. To them I'm just a Neanderthal. Why am I telling them about those goddamned shells?" And, still laughing, he yelled out to the bemused foreigners: "Now just you listen to me! I spilled gallons of blood for you, you bastards! I saved you from the brown plague, ha! ha! ha…!"
The militiaman came in. Thickset, a dull face, a damp red mark on his forehead left by his cap.
"Your papers, please, Citizen."
"Here are my papers."
Ivan tapped on his Gold Star. There was a smear of blood on his raincoat. The palm of his hand had been cut by a fragment of glass.
The militiaman tried to grasp him by the elbow.
"You'll have to come to the station."
Ivan jerked his arm free with a sudden movement. The militiaman stumbled; the crunch of glass could be heard beneath his shoes. The balalaika slipped from the grasp of one of the Swedes, who were watching the scene in amazement. It fell onto the marble paving and emitted a pitiful groan. Everyone was rooted to the spot in a mute, uncertain pose.
"Just a minute, Lyosha," the sales assistant murmured to the militiaman. "First let me show the foreign visitors out."
At this moment two Japanese men came into the Beriozka, almost identically dressed. Had not one of them been slightly taller, they could have been taken for twins. Dark official suits, ties that glittered slightly
Smiling, they walked up to the counter and, as if they noticed neither the broken glass nor the militiaman, nor even the old man with a bloodied hand, they began speaking in melodious English. Pulling herself together, the salesclerk offered them a long black leather case. Ivan stared at them, almost spellbound. He sensed that life, like duckweed displaced by a stone, was about to settle back into the well-ordered equilibrium that was so alien to him.
The Japanese, having made their purchase, headed for the exit; the militiaman took a step toward Ivan, crunching a fragment of glass underfoot. Then Ivan seized a statuette that was standing on the counter and hurled himself, in pursuit of them. The Japanese turned. One of them had time to dodge the blow. The other, hit by Ivan, collapsed onto the pavement.
Ivan lashed out blindly, without really managing to harm them. What was more alarming was his yell and his bloodstained raincoat. The Swedes scurried toward the door, yelping and pushing one another. As Ivan's fingers struck out, they knocked over a bronze figurine of a bear cub, an Olympic souvenir, which shattered the glass storefront into fragments. Commemorative items of this kind had not sold well at the time of the Games, no one wanted to weigh themselves down with such a burden. The whole series had been shipped out to the provinces: only this one had remained. The salesclerks kept it on the counter as a paperweight…
Almendinger came to the Beriozka shortly before closing time. He was glad he knew Moscow so well that he could make his way there not along Gorky Street but following little shady alleys. One of them pleased him particularly. It was quiet, almost deserted. You walked along beside the old brick building of a tobacco factory. Behind its walls could be heard the low, regular hum of machinery. The slightly bitter smell of tobacco hovered all along the alley
"Little by little I'm going to forget it all," thought Almendinger. "All those figures, all those Moscow telephone numbers, all these winding alleys… And this smell, too. Now that's something to keep me busy until I die – forgetting…"
The side window at the Beriozka store was cordoned off with a rope stretched between two chairs. The sales-clerks were talking in whispers. All Almendinger could hear was: "Mad… completely mad…" A glazier was at work behind the counter. Bowed over the table, he scored a long groove with his diamond, making a dry, grinding sound. Then with a brief musical tinkling, he snapped the glass.
Almendinger smiled and asked the salesclerk to show him a small gold watch for a woman. "Or maybe it would be better to buy a necklace or a bracelet, this silver one with amethysts and emeralds? Of course, it would be much simpler to ask her what she would prefer. But what can you do? I'm getting old… It's tempting to play Santa Claus – or rather the Count of Monte Cristo of the third age…"
After a fine morning the sun was in hiding and the evening was gray, but, as always at that time of year, luminous and strangely airy. When he emerged, Almendinger turned left and entered a well-tended square in an open space that was rather provincial in style. At the center of the square a huge bronze column towered upward, covered with a tracery of writing in Russian and Georgian – the monument in honor of the friendship between the two peoples. He sat down on a bench, and, with a pleasure he could not quite understand, began watching the people and the long buses that drove around the square with weary dexterity. He caught gestures and snatches of conversation that were quite without significance for him and were for this reason utterly engaging.
Not far away there was a shoe store. People came by with their cardboard boxes, still flushed from the pushing and shoving and the joy of purchase. A woman sat down on the edge of the bench beside him, took off her old down-at-heel pumps and put on those she had just bought. She turned her foot this way and that, studying it from ah angles, then stood up, took a few paces on the spot – are they too narrow? – and made off for the bus. The toes of the old abandoned shoes were left sticking out from under the bench.