It is?
Shit! There are no taxis. We’ll have to take the underpass, OK?
Whatever you say, Maruška! You know best.
We stand waiting to cross the street. A feeble glow comes from the shop windows. It’s as gloomy now as it was in the hotel dining room. The clouds overhead are still swollen, ready to let loose the snow.
A gap in the traffic opens up. We run across and then down some stairs into the underpass. There are flowers strewn all over the ground, flowerpots, wreaths, burning candles. Maruška leads me through the crowd, shouldering past anyone who won’t move for her uniform.
A chill comes from the concrete. Somebody strums a guitar. A couple of people light candles from each other. Behind them yawns the dark maw of the underpass. That’s where the cold is coming from. A draught tugs at the candle flames.
Maruška, look!
A rat flashes past through the shadows. Now I can make out words in the hum of the crowd. Somebody’s saying names, women’s names. People around us are crossing themselves and bowing at the waist.
I guess we’re not going to get very far with the underpass either.
She grabs my hand and drags me through the crowd, bumping into people.
We stop at the coffin. That’s what they were all bowing to. The coffin is surrounded by pools of red and yellow wax. A girl lies inside. In a white dress. No, silver. A princess. Long hair, headband covered with pearls and glittering stones. She looks nice. I lean over the coffin, look at her face. It’s a mannequin. A fake. Maruška’s still holding my hand. We slowly walk around the coffin. Now we’re right at the entrance.
That’s a bride, you saw a bride, Maruška whispers to me.
There are candles flickering here too.
The girls that died in here are called brides, Maruška says, in a normal voice now. There were fifty-three of them.
During the war, huh?
No. In ’99.
What?
There was a concert. Awesome line-up: Mango Mango, I love them, Maruška says. She points to the wall. Scratches in the plaster. You could see them in the candlelight.
There were claw marks all over, Maruška says. The crowd crushed them up against the walls and the bars, down there. She waves her hand, there’s a grille. They got suffocated and trampled to death. High-heel wounds all over their bodies. The girls had their nicest dresses on, for the concert, of course. And they wore really high heels back then. Stilettos, they call them. Nasty things. I never wore them. I was at the concert too.
You were there, huh?
The underpass is long and dark. I’m glad Maruška’s telling me about her life, but I’m ready to leave.
Yeah, I came too, but I ran into some guys I knew! Coincidence. They stole a keg of beer somewhere. So I went with them. Lucky me! A storm got up. The people from the concert ran to take shelter in the underpass here. The crowd squeezed up against the bars, people kept trying to push their way in. They didn’t know the grille was closed. Two or three militiamen also got trampled to death.
How did that happen?
It just did. Which proves it was really an accident. Some idiots forgot to open the grille! The government didn’t plan the massacre to disperse the youth, get it?
I don’t get it. She stares at me, I nod. Black shadows flash past on the ground. I wonder whether Maruška’s scared of mice. Probably not.
You know how much it costs to train a militiaman like that?
I just wave my hand, like it’s obvious.
They say there was blood up to their ankles, Maruška says. She waves her hand too. It soaked into the ground. Into the river that runs underneath here. The Niamiha. That’s the river Minsk was founded on.
Uh-huh!
The bloody banks of the Niamiha, as The Song of Igor’s Campaign says. Ever heard of it?
I take a deep breath, preparing to answer her truthfully, but just then we come out of the underpass and a blizzard swallows us up, the whooshing wind lifting heaps of snow in the air. I grope my way through the white fog, a red sign flies by, slams into the pavement. I stand, spitting snow.
Where are you? I shout.
The hum of engines drowns out the whoosh of the wind. Trucks emerge from the fog, stop, bundled figures jump out, soldiers.
Damn, these guys don’t take a moment’s rest, I swear under my breath. Maruška knows what to do and where to go, dragging me by the hand again, the wind whipping snow all around us. We walk along the wall, to the next street and the next, and there are trucks here too. I hear commands muffled by the wind, the stomp of boots, as the team comes running down the street. We duck into a passageway. I hear — can it be? — Maruška laughing. We lean against the wall of the passage.
You wanted to go to a pub, right? she says.
Yeah. But what about Kagan?
Kagan can wait. We can’t get out of here now anyway. She laughs behind her hand.
What are you laughing at?
You.
How come?
You’re our expert and you don’t even know how to walk!
Wait till she finds out that I’ve never been in a pub either.
She raises her hand and points to the wall. Aha, a bell.
I go to ring it.
Wait a sec, she says. She pulls the pouch from her satchel, fishes around, we pop some pills. Maybe that’s what people eat here.
She rings, standing on tiptoe, holding her finger on the bell. Not long and thin and nervous like Alex’s: Maruška’s sweet little finger is perfectly ordinary, the nail bare, no polish globbed on. She keeps pressing the bell until the door opens.
We walk down a corridor, it’s quiet here, another door opens, I see a set of stairs. Light, warmth, music, conversation, the blaring of a TV. We walk down the stairs, leaving the wind, snow and fog behind.
Salodky Falvarek. I read the words on the pink neon sign: ‘Sweet Court’. We’re in a bar.
Tea? says Maruška. Or what do you want?
Again I see people’s backs, they’re squeezed into the corner, in front of a TV. The volume’s on high and a man in uniform, pale-faced with a moustache, is talking. He opens and closes his mouth, but there’s no life in his eyes — like that mannequin in the coffin, the bride. I start cracking up. Maruška elbows me in the ribs and a tall guy in front of me, also in uniform, with a leather jacket over it — you know the type — turns, frowns at me. Stop laughing, Maruška says in my ear, that’s our president.
A wave of panic and rage runs through the people around the TV, I can feel it.
Wow! He just declared martial law, Maruška says.
Really? What does that mean? I act interested, seeing as it will probably be a while before I get that tea.
Now everyone is talking, so somebody turns up the volume to full blast. Luckily I know enough Russian, since that’s what he’s speaking, to understand: ‘The German order was formed over a period of centuries, and under Hitler it reached its highest point,’ the pale-faced guy on the screen thunders. ‘Not everything associated with Hitler was bad. This is how we see our presidential government in Belarus today.’ All of a sudden a big man pops out of the swarm in front of the TV, knocks it furiously to the ground, and starts kicking and pounding it. A murmur runs through the room, somebody screams, and a few people laugh. Somebody starts to clap.
A little fellow sweeps through the room and hops up on the bar, holding a piece of paper. Quiet! somebody shouts. He’s going to recite. Maruška tugs at my sleeve, tilts her chin towards the door. What, you want to leave? And go outside in that mess?
Let’s go, c’mon, she says in my ear. We’re on assignment. We can’t stay here. They’ll come, you’ll see.
Yeah, but they’re out there too. The street is covered with them!
This way. She gestures with her chin towards the toilets. The silence is so tense now, she doesn’t want to talk. The only sound is the papers rustling in the hand of the guy on the bar. He tilts his head back, lifts his hands, and shouts: