"Please," he said, 'welcome to my house.~ His apartment was very small. That was my first impression as we stepped straight into the living room, which was cluttered with furniture and lined with shelves. Some held books and magazines, some vinyl albums. In one area Sasha's hi-fi equipment was stacked Teac amplifier and turntable, dating (by the look of them) from the seventies. At the tight-hand end of the room a table was laid for supper: blue-and-white check tablecloth, glasses, knives and forks, but only three place settings Beyond it a doorway gave on to a tiny cubicle of a kitchen, and in the opening stood a little old woman, rather bent, with her silver hair swept back into a bun, and wearing a shapeless dress of dark-blue covered in white polka-dots.
"Here is my mother," said Sasha, following up with a few words of Russian.
Rick, in the lead, did brilliantly, cracking off a "Dobriye ve cher (Good evening) and a couple more Russian phrases.
The broad old face startlingly like Sasha's creased into a smile, and the woman gave a little bob, inclining towards us. As we shook hands, I asked Sasha her name and he said, "She is Lyudmila."
The first few minutes were pretty difficult. Sasha insisted that we sat down, so I perched in an armchair and Rick on a sofa.
Because the flat was extremely warm, I asked what powered the heating. The answer was that all apartment blocks in Moscow are centrally heated that is, not from boiler rooms in individual buildings, but directly from power stations via underground pipes. Sasha said there was always plenty of heat in winter, even when the outside temperature was twenty below zero, but I noticed that there were no controls or thermostats on the old-fashioned radiators.
"How many rooms d'you have?" Rick asked.
"Living room, here. My mother's bedroom. Bathroom.
Kitchen. And balcony."
"Where d'you sleep, then?"
"There where you are!" Sasha laughed and pointed at the sofa Rick was occupying.
"I make bed." He obviously sensed that we found the place rather small, because he added, "For Moscow, this is good apartment. Besides, I am not very much here: always I have been away in army in Africa, in Afghanistan, in Chechnya. Not much time in Moscow."
In spite of his protestations, I felt a pang of guilt at having accepted hospitality in surroundings as humble as these. The idea of living in such cramped quarters eight floors up also brought on a surge of claustrophobia.
Looking round, I realised that there was a huge ginger cat asleep on a shelf above a radiator a welcome diversion.
"What's he called?" I asked.
Back came the answer, "Tigr."
Tiger the cat, Tiger Force. Of course. What other name could he have?
"Isn't it awkward for a cat; living high up like this? I mean how does he go about his business?"
"No problem," Sasha answered airily.
"He has box on balcony.
But two times every day, my mother takes him down in the lift for walk in the park. Also, he is very good hunter."
"What mice?"
"Birds. Here on the balcony. He can go for three flats along.
He is very quick' — a swiping motion with one hand 'he catch many birds."
I had a fleeting, uncomfortable vision of Tigr missing his grip and toppling eight floors to the ground only half the distance that wretched Igor had fallen. Even a cat with nine lives would hardly survive such a drop.
When I turned my head to look farther round, I realised that one wall was dominated by a large sepia portrait photograph, framed in a border of carved wood. I was startled, because the subject looked so familiar.
"Surely that's our old king, George V?" I asked.
"Not English king. Russian king! It is Tsar Nicholas."
"But it looks exactly like George."
"Konechno. These men were cousins. My mother, she is beeg fan of royal family."
"But the Russian royal family's long gone" English royals she likes. Prince Charles she likes very much.
"When Princess Diana was killed she felt vary sad." During our conversation Lyudmila had been bringing dishes of food out of the kitchen and setting them on the table. Now she murmured something to Sasha, who jumped up announcing, "Please! Dinner is ready."
He went to the head of the table, and indicated that we should sit either side of him. But his mother continued to hover in the doorway, and it soon became clear that she didn't intend to join us.
"Isn't your mother going to eat?" I asked "Later. She prefers to serve us. Now, please, we have teepical Russian meal. First, zakuski." He gestured lavishly over the spread of dishes.
"Such kinds of smoked fish, fish eggs, smoked meats, cheeses, cucumbers help yourselves."
I would have felt bad had I not known about the Mafia dollars which had obviously financed this banquet. As it was, I started eating fast, to provide some bedding for the vodka which Sasha kept pouring freely from a litre bottle. The food was delicious, and the vodka made a perfect foil for the sharp, salty, smoky tastes, especially of red fish roe. Whenever one of us paused for breath Sasha exclaimed, "Please, eat! Dreenk!" and waved us on.
"Take it easy," I muttered to Rick.
"I'm sure this is only the start."
Sure enough, the next course was bortsch thick soup, not full of beetroot as it usually is in England, but more subtle, with a meaty stock for background, small slices of various vegetables floating in it, and a good, peppery overall taste. Next came bitochki meat balls in a rich tomato sauce, with mashed potatoes and after that a special cake full of nuts, made by our hostess, with which Sasha served sweet Georgian champagne.
Throughout the feast his mother waited on us with embarrassing anxiety to please, bringing new dishes, removing empty ones, watching us, fussing around, gently urging us: "Yest! Yest! Eat! Eat!" Sasha, though clearly devoted to her, did nothing to help, but ate and drank to keep up with Rick and me.
By the later stages of the meal, the vodka had got to all three of us. Sasha was gabbling away about how his brother, a taxi driver, had made millions of roubles from illegal sales of booze in the period when Gorbachev tried to bring alcoholism under control.
"It was a kind of prahibeetion," he kept saying.
"Everyone was crazy for vodka."
"You mean booze was banned altogether?" said Rick incredulously.
"Not absolutely. But rationed. One half-litre of vodka a week that was all."
"Why, though?"
"Russian people were drinking all day, all night. They were falling down in street, running over by cars. They couldn't work.
Very many died. Alcohol was our national disease."
"And did the prohibition have any effect?"
"Konechno nyet! Black market was immense."
Rick began to converse freely with Lyudmila in Russian. I sat listening, smiling genially at everyone, but my spirits were sinking. Once again guilt was clawing at me.
After many entreaties, we finally persuaded Lyudmila to join us for tea, and she sat at the other end of the table, obviously pleased that we had enjoyed ourselves, but still watching anxiously for any possible deficiency in her arrangements.
Suddenly Sasha raised his glass and shouted, "Your Queen!"
"The Queen!" we echoed, slurping champagne.
"My mother, she say your Queen is beautiful woman.
"Thank you!"
"My mother is big monarchic."
"Monarchist."
"Yes big monarknik. She make beautiful book of royal peoples." He switched into Russian, asking Lyudrnila to fetch her prize tome. With a show of simulated reluctance she got up, opened a drawer and produced a large, cheap scrapbook carefully jacketed in tissue paper, which she laid on the table for our inspection. The pages contained dozens of photographs cut from newspapers and magazines, almost all to do with England, but including a few of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, taken in the last few months of their lives before they were executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918. Towards the end, the cuttings went fast forwards and pride of place inevitably was accorded to Diana, Princess of Wales.