I remember every second of the events that followed. Here they come—they are getting closer, driving down Moskovsky. The presidential limo wasn’t first in the cortege, but the first car had already reached me, and then slowed down—there was a left turn coming up ahead. I’m looking, of course, at the president’s car. And others are looking too, not just me; other bystanders and people just walking by. And I’m looking and thinking, Is that really him in the car? Or is it just a decoy? A decoy in a real armored car? And then I see his hand. It’s definitely his, waving slightly in mute greeting—behind glass, in the backseat—and who’s he waving to, if not me? Sure it’s me! That was when he was right in front of me.
Putting on the brakes. Slowing down. (There’s a turn up ahead.)
Then something completely improbable happens. Someone’s shadow intercepts him. I couldn’t figure out who it was at first, a woman or a man. And when I saw that it was a woman, I thought, Could it be my Tamara? Did Tamara pick up my hint?
My heart started pounding, thinking about Tamara.
But how could it be Tamara, when she was in the shower? Of course it wasn’t her!
Then something even stranger happened—the car stopped. And others behind it. The whole cortege. And then the strangest thing of alclass="underline" he got out.
The door opened, and he got out!
It was the sixth of June, 1997.
He stood about ten paces from me, and that woman was standing there too—about fifteen paces away!
Pretty unbelievable, but that’s how it was. He got out of the car and went up to her!
And all his minions started to get out of their cars and go up to the woman in solidarity with him.
The mayor! He got out too!
And Chubais!
What, you don’t know Chubais? I’m not supposed to think about him. But how can I forget him? How can I forget?
And bystanders who just happened to be there, they started to go up closer to him too, and I went with them… Without thinking about it, along with them, step by step—closer and closer—to him!
It was like the way it used to be, before!
In the old days, when he—it happened a few times, actually— mingled with the people! At a factory, in the market, on the street, somewhere else…
He mingled boldly with the people.
I heard—we all heard—their conversation.
A woman of about forty. She stopped the presidential cortege. You’re not going to believe this, but she talked about conditions in the libraries.
She said: There are big problems with the libraries, I’m a teacher, I teach Russian literature and language, and I know very well how matters stand, Boris Nikolaevich. And what’s more, Boris Nikolaevich, librarians and teachers, not to mention doctors in the polyclinics, have very low wages.
And he answered her: That’s not right, we have to fix this.
And his assistant said: We’ll definitely fix the problem, Boris Nikolaevich.
And I thought: Where’s my gun?
I didn’t have my gun with me!
And suddenly she tells him who she is: My name is Galina Aleksandrovna, I live on 9-11 Maklina Street in a room that I share with my grown boy… The building is in terrible shape, I live in a communal apartment…
And he tells her: We’ll give you a new home.
And the assistant tells her: We’ll take care of everything.
And this was all happening right in front of me! I was there! And I didn’t have my gun!
Other people also started to ask him things, but they were more vague and confused. He wasn’t interested in them.
I wanted to ask him something too: Boris Nikolaevich, is it true you’re going to the ballet tonight? (Or the opera?) I still hadn’t lost hope. But just then a broad back blocked me off from the president.
But even if I had asked, they wouldn’t have told me a thing.
The investigator, by the way, was kind enough to show me a newspaper: Yeltsin, it turned out, laid a wreath at the Pushkin monument on that day.
Then the president put his heavy body back in the car. And all his minions and assistants ran to get into their cars. And the whole cortege started to move, and turned from Moskovsky onto Fontanka.
The teacher stood there and watched them drive off. Journalists from the president’s press corps surrounded her. A lieutenant-colonel asked us to clear the road.
Soon the traffic was moving again on Moskovsky.
And I snapped out of it.
I stood under the traffic light in my slippers and thought that fate would never give me another chance like that. Why hadn’t I broken down the bathroom door? But could I really have guessed that something like that would happen, and that he would get out of his armored car?
I could have! I could have foreseen it!
Coulda shoulda woulda.
I saw myself shooting the president. I saw him fall. I saw the expressions of shock on the faces of the bystanders who couldn’t believe they were freed from the tyrant.
I could even have saved myself. That wasn’t my aim, but I could have dropped the gun and run into a back alley to escape.
I could just see myself running into the courtyard at number 18 and crossing it. The ones who were smart and alert would race after me, then think, What kind of an idiot is this? There’s a dead end there…
Me, an idiot? No, you’re the idiots! How about the passage on the left? There’s a pretty wide opening between the blind wall and the corner of a five-story building. So I run past the poplar that they hadn’t cut down yet, and I head left, and now I’m already in an oblong courtyard that doesn’t have a single entrance into the building, not counting the doors to the former dry cleaners…
How’s about that, eh? There are two ways out of here— through the courtyard at 110 Fontanka, or through the courtyard at 108 Fontanka, past the concrete ruins of an ancient outdoor bathroom. Better through 108. No one is expecting me on Fontanka! Or I could race up the stairs to the roof, it’s amazing to walk on the roofs here! You can make your way all the way to the Tekhnologichesky Institute metro stop climbing from roof to roof. Or I could scramble up a blind brick wall, that’s an idea, onto the sloping roof of a structure they added on to the veteran’s hospital… Through the hospital grounds I could get to the passage leading to the Vvedensky Canal real fast. Or over the fence—to Zagorodny Prospect, from the other side of the block.
I could easily get away.
Or I could stay. I could give myself up. I could say: Russia, you’re saved!
Oh, they’d erect a monument to me! Right there in the park across from Tamara’s building. Right next to the marble mile-stone, nineteenth century, by the architect Rinaldi.
Only I don’t need a monument. And I don’t need a memorial plaque on Tamara’s apartment building.
You don’t know how much I loved Tamara!
You can’t imagine how much I hated Yeltsin!
And I missed my chance. I wandered through the city, over to Haymarket, then along Gorokhovaya Street. When I was crossing the wooden Gorstkin Bridge, I wanted to drown myself in the filthy waters of the Fontanka. Wooden posts poked out of the water every which way (they guard against the spring ice floes); I looked at them and wondered how I could go on in this life.
I should have drowned myself! It would have been much better.
I don’t remember where else I went, I don’t remember what I was thinking exactly. I don’t even remember whether I stopped into that lowlife pub on Zagorodny. The investigation proved I was sober. But I felt like I was out of my mind.
One thing I know for sure: I’ll never forgive myself.