The Nevsky Prospekt in all its morning brilliance, veiled with a light-bluish mist, spread out before my astonished gaze. And at the very end of this luminous perspective, lined with sumptuous facades, shone the gilded spire of the Admiralty. I remained in ecstasy for several moments before the glitter of this golden sword pointing up into a sky that was slowly suffused with a pale Nordic sun. Through the mists that hovered over the Neva, the West was making its appearance.
In a blinding flash my gaze took in everything: the nostalgic charm of Olga's childhood as she walked, long ago, along the elegant streets of this city, to take the Saint Petersburg-Paris train with her parents; the noble soul of this ancient capital that would never become accustomed to the nickname its new masters had bestowed on it; and the shade of Raskolnikov, wandering somewhere in the depths of the foggy streets.
But most of all, I realized that in the midst of this scene tinged with autumn light, I would not have been excessively surprised to have run into Belmondo. In person. The one and only. His presence was becoming seriously conceivable… I readjusted my knapsack and, with a resolute tread, made my way toward a streetcar stop. I did not know if this was the best means for traveling to my college. But the sound of their bells in the morning air was just too lovely…
During my three years of studies, I had little news from Svetlaya. A few letters from my aunt, at first anxious and reproving, then calmer and filled with the details of a daily life that meant less and less to me. Absentmindedly, or quite simply so as to have something to say, she spoke in all her letters about the Olyei and the ferry: I was always watching Verbin repair the timbers or replace the cable… "The saga of the old Chinese still continues," I said to myself, as I walked through the city of our Western dreams…
There was also a card from Samurai. But it did not come from the village. It was, in fact, an amateur snapshot with a few sentences written on the back in a slightly distant tone. Evidently he could not forgive me for my flight, which he and Utkin considered to be a betrayal of our friendship… Samurai reported Olga's death and told me that she had continued her evening readings right up to the last moment and regretted that "Don Juan" was no longer participating… In the photo I was not at all surprised to see Samurai in the uniform of the marines on the deck of a ship. And hardly more so to see the white slabs of apartment buildings and the shadows of palm trees. The inscription in blue ink read: "The Port of Havana." I guessed that the deck of this ship represented a decisive step toward his boyhood project, his crazy dream that he had once told me about at Svetlaya, of joining the guerrilleros of Central America and rekindling the embers of the campaign of Che Guevara…
As for Utkin, he never wrote to me from Svetlaya. But two years after my flight I saw a silhouette I instantly recognized in the dark corridor of our student residence hall. Limping, he came to meet me and offered me his hand… We talked all night in the corridor, so as not to disturb the other three occupants of my room. Perched on the windowsill in front of the frost-covered glass, we talked as we drank cold tea…
I learned that Utkin, too, had fled from Svetlaya. He had even succeeded in traveling farther than me, to the West, to Kiev. He was studying at the faculty of journalism and hoping one day to get down to writing "real literature," as he called it in a grave tone, lowering his eyes.
And it was in the course of that night that I learned in what circumstances Belmondo had finally left the Red October cinema and disappeared, maybe forever, from the corner of Lenin Avenue.
It was the winter following my flight. Samurai and Utkin were slipping along on their snowshoes through the taiga. It was engulfed in the half-light of the early hours of morning. They were going to Nerlug for the six-thirty performance. Without me. Another film they wanted to see again? Or perhaps so as to demonstrate – to whom? – that my betrayal did not affect their own relationship with Belmondo?
The cold was bitter, even for winter in our country. From time to time you could hear a long echoing sound like that of a gunshot. But this was tree trunks exploding, split open by frozen sap and resin. In weather like this, women in our village taking wash down from the clothesline would break it like glass. Truckdrivers would rage around tanks filled with white powder: frozen gasoline. And children would amuse themselves by spitting on the rock-hard road and hearing the tinkling of their spit as it turned into icicles…
It was by the first rays of the sun that they saw it. On the fork formed by two thick branches of a pine tree. Samurai saw it first and had a moment of hesitation: should he point it out to Utkin? He knew his friend was going to be shocked by it. Always very protective of Utkin, Samurai had become even more so after my departure. So at first he wanted to walk past, as if there were nothing there. But in the absolute calm of the taiga Utkin must have sensed his hesitation, Samurai's intake of breath. He stopped in turn, looked up, and let out a cry…
On the tree fork, hanging on to the rough trunk, his arms wrapped around it, was seated a man, his face white, covered in hoarfrost, his eyes wide open. His pose had the frightening fixity of death. His legs were not dangling but rigid in space, six feet above the ground. He seemed to be staring at them, directing a horrible rictus at them. The snow around the tree was churned up with the footprints of wolves.
Samurai studied the frozen face and was silent. Utkin, appalled by this encounter in the sleeping taiga, sought to cover up his dismay. He spoke quickly, volubly, trying to sound tough: "That must be an escaped political prisoner. Sure. I'll bet he's a dissident. Maybe he wrote anti-Soviet novels and they threw him into the Gulag, and then somebody helped him escape. Maybe he has manuscripts hidden on him… Maybe he wanted – "
"Shut your trap, Duck," Samurai suddenly barked.
And with malevolent fury, speaking as he had never spoken to Utkin before, he went on: "Political prisoner! Gulag! Who are you kidding? The camp you can see from Svetlaya is a normal camp, Duck. You hear me? Normal! And there are normal men there. Normal guys who have simply stolen something or smashed someone's face in. And these normal guys play cards after work, in a normal way, write letters, or nap. And then these normal men choose their victim, generally a young guy who's lost at cards. You lost – now you have to pay. It's quite normal. And these normal men fuck him in the mouth and up the ass, the whole hut, each one in turn. So that instead of a mouth it's only beef hash, and between his legs it's mincemeat. And after that the poor guy becomes untouchable; he has to sleep next to the shit bucket; he can't drink from the tap the others use. But anyone can fuck him whenever he likes. And to escape that there's only one way: to throw himself on the barbed wire. Then the guard fires a few rounds into his head. Straight to heaven… That one must have got away when they were doing hard labor…"
Utkin uttered a strange sound, between a groan and a protest.
"Shut your trap, I tell you," Samurai rebuked him again. "Shut your trap with your stupid fucker's romanticism! That's what normal life is, do you understand? Yes or no? Guys who come out after ten years of that life and live among us… And we're all like that, more or less. This normal life is how we live. No animal would live like that…"
"But Olga, but Bel… Bel…" Utkin suddenly gasped in a tortured voice, without being able to continue.
Samurai said nothing. He looked around to mark the place well. Then he picked up his pike and motioned to Utkin to follow him… They did not go to Nerlug that day They missed their six-thirty rendezvous.
Later, sitting in the smoke-filled premises of the militia at Kazhdai, they spent a long time waiting for an official to be free to go with them to the site. Samurai was silent, shaking his head at intervals. His eyes were focused on invisible images of past days. Utkin watched these fleeting ghosts obliquely. He sensed that soon Samurai's voice would lighten, and in an embarrassed tone he would ask his forgiveness…