The storyteller’s voice, somber until then, suddenly became animated and emotionaclass="underline" “So, by way of encouragement, Lenin asked the mechanic to explain what was not working. Moved to tears by Vladimir Ilyich’s friendly tones, he started to answer his questions. And that’s how, guided by the great Lenin’s constantly judicious probing, he identified the cause of the problem. Within fifteen minutes the engine was running. The plow, drawn by the tractor, was digging its first furrow. The first furrow of the new life!”
The man clapped his hands together to trigger our dutiful applause. His story was faultlessly constructed. The best juggler in a circus is not the one who immediately demonstrates perfection, but that rare ace who, as he sets ten objects dancing in the air, allows one or two of them to fall so that the public can sense how difficult a feat it is. To whet their curiosity and increase the tension. And at length, when the spectators are beginning to doubt his skill, hey presto! all his playthings pirouette rhythmically in the air together, without a hitch. Our lecturer had used the same device: a tractor goes on strike, all hope seems to be lost, and suddenly the Guide steps in and a miracle occurs. At least that is how we perceived it, because for our generation Lenin remained a cross between a mythical hero and a wonder worker. A benevolent spirit, a just and indulgent grandfather, very different from the ferocious Stalin, whose infamous crimes had recently been acknowledged by the Party and who, as the lecturer hinted, would doubtless have thrown the mechanic into prison.
We applauded, but our hearts were not in it. His performance had been “over the top,” as we would say nowadays. For this “man who had seen Lenin” was a fairground barker, a ham actor, a spin doctor for official History … He sailed out of the classroom with the lithe aplomb of a pop singer, a winning smile on his lips, and another wink at our beautiful history teacher.
We were a long way from that austere veteran of Napoleon’s Old Guard, tanned by the smoke of battle.
Disillusionment caused a group of pupils, of whom I was one, to linger in the classroom. We surrounded the teacher, upset, puzzled.
“He was a bit too … too neat and tidy,” one of my comrades ventured.
This description, at first sight out of place (in fact, somewhat untidily used), nevertheless expressed the truth: yes, a man too meticulous, too smooth, lacking the bitter stench of History.
Our teacher decoded the thought behind it and quickly came to the rescue lest we lose our faith.
“Listen,” she murmured, as if sharing a confidence. “There’s something you have to understand. When he met Lenin he was a child, so, naturally, when he recalls this today it rejuvenates him … But look, I know, well, not exactly personally, an elderly lady … who was very close to Lenin and used to see him when he lived in Switzerland and France … She lives in a village about twenty miles from the city. I’ll try to do some research and discover her precise address …”
The old lady’s home was not easy to locate. It was not until halfway through June that our teacher gave us the name of the village, Perevoz, which could be reached by taking a little train that served a string of suburbs, hamlets, and simple stops giving access to forestry sites. She even showed us a black-and-white photograph in a big book, where we saw a woman of mature years with powerfully molded features and great, dark eyes. Her posture, both imposing and voluptuous, was evocative of the physical suppleness of Oriental women. Many years later I would realize that she resembled the famous portrait of the aging George Sand …
Since the lecturer’s visit most of the pupils had had time to forget about such ghosts from the revolutionary era, and on the day of the expedition there were only six of us to go. To cap it all, as no other boy wanted to come, I found myself in the company of five girls.
For them this outing represented a significant social event, we had never before set out to visit someone who did not belong to the closed world of the orphanage. I noticed they had got hold of some lipstick and had blackened their lashes and eyelids. It is well known that girls of their age mature quickly. I felt like a page boy at a wedding with five brides to escort. On the outward journey, fortunately, the train was almost empty.
More knowing than I, they must have sensed that there was something intriguing about this sudden appearance of a woman at Lenin’s side. The Guide, that completely asexual being, was all at once acquiring disturbing psychological depths that brought him mysteriously to life, much more substantially than the mummy on display in his mausoleum in Red Square, although that was real. It was like picturing a statue of Lenin starting to stir, making eyes, ready to reveal his intimate secrets to us.
At the address we were given in the village of Perevoz, we found a long single-story building lined with flower beds where mainly weeds were growing. The walls were painted a very pale blue, the shade of cornflowers on the brink of fading, losing their color.
There was clearly some mistake, it was impossible for “the woman who had known Lenin” to be living in such a dump. We rang the bell and, after a wait, pricking up our ears at the slightest rustle, pushed open the door …
The interior presented an even more wretched appearance: a long, dark corridor with little windows along one side, doors on the other, it looked like a barracks or a home for single women. Even our orphanage seemed to us more welcoming than this impersonal lodging. The shadowy depths were lit by a feeble bare bulb and a voice both weary and aggressive shouted out: “She’s not here. Gone to the city. Don’t know when she’ll be back …”
A housekeeper or caretaker appeared. We repeated the name of the lady we were looking for, certain we would now be given the correct address.
“Yes, that’s her,” the caretaker replied, “room nine. But she’s not here, I tell you. She’s at her son’s, in Moscow. Come back in a month …”
She stepped forward, ushering us gently toward the exit.
Disconcerted, we made a tour of the building, which might have seemed uninhabited had we not noticed ancient, wrinkled faces at two or three windows, peering out at us between a couple of pots of geraniums. It was a painful discovery: “the woman who had seen Lenin” was ending her days among these faded ghosts! It was rather like a den of witches …
Not really downhearted, the girls decided to look on the bright side: “Well, at least we can have a smoke here, without the supervisors getting on our backs.”
They lit up their cigarettes and strutted along the village street like film stars who had just arrived in the back of beyond. A single street, wooden houses with collapsed roofs, a feeling of great neglect, of life on the verge of extinction. It was a gray day; occasionally a gust of wind ran through the dense foliage with a hasty, plaintive whisper …
Only one inhabitant deigned to view the five young beauties: a man, obviously drunk, sitting in the open window of his izba. He wore a faded undershirt over a body all blue with tattoos. As the divas walked past, his unevenly bearded cheeks creased into a somewhat unnerving grin. And all at once, in an astonishingly fine voice, he recited: