All that remains of the jubilant enthusiasm for the carnival is this indifferent clustering of the crowd as it moves from place to place in search of the last stray sparks of the festival. On Palace Square Shutov listens to the performance of a former dissident singer. A familiar repertoire: camps, prisons, blood. The human mass laughs, yawns, moves off, and spills into the Nevsky Prospekt. There it divides up, Shutov is carried along by a section retracing its footsteps. He does not notice the precise moment when what he observes switches into a fantastic dreamscape. Perhaps when a batrachian figure breaks the surface of a canaclass="underline" frogmen are checking the place where tomorrow the procession of the masters of the world is due to pass. Or else when the smell of urine invading the streets becomes intolerable. “Silks for fine ladies at their toilet,” jokes an elderly man. “But no toilets for the people.” At the English Embankment the crowd is turned aside by a police cordon: a cruise ship is moored there, the floating hotel for the presidents of the former Soviet republics. “Nine suites at six thousand dollars a night,” a woman announces in bizarrely gleeful tones. “I read that in the paper.” Her partner hugs her tightly. “It’s a disgrace,” he retorts. “That’s what you get in a year. And look at Bush. He’s taken over the whole of the Astoria Hotel…”
The rain gets heavier, breaks up the crowd into narrower trickles. One of these expels Shutov onto the edge of the Field of Mars. He crosses the esplanade where groups of young people are hanging about. They are drinking, throwing empty bottles, scuffling, leaping over the flame in the monument to the dead. One of them unbuttons himself to urinate into the fire. Shutov tries to reprimand him but his voice is lost amid the shouting. This saves him, for those who heard him are already bearing down on him, he can hear oaths, almost good-natured in their mockery: “Hey, old man. Do you want your balls fried or roasted?” He edges away, trying to slow his pace so as not to betray the humiliating fear stiffening his back.
But what saves him is the final coda to this nocturnal phantasmagoria: they start raising the bridges over the Neva and he is forced to hurry, making long detours to avoid the trap of the now disunited islands.
Catching sight of his own distraught face in the elevator, Shutov concludes with philosophical gravity: “I think I understand it all now.” He does not know whom he is trying to convince, but the lie helps him to hold back his tears.
Vlad greets him with exaggerated benevolence. “I’ve prepared stuff for your supper. There’s smoked sturgeon, unless you’d rather… And there’s wine, but you’re probably choosy on that front, like all the French… Ma called. Unfortunately she wasn’t able to get away… There’s also some Far Eastern crab… So how was Saint Petersburg by night?”
His warm friendliness moves Shutov. A man with his back to the wall can feel choked by emotion. Why not make a clean breast of it? This abortive trip, the failed reunion with Yana… He sits down at the table in the kitchen (a place of long sleepless nights for Russians of his generation, during which things both spiritual and spirituous were shared) and begins talking. The crinolines in the Summer Garden, the city as it used to be, so far from festive, and yet…
He quickly notices that the young man is not listening. Vlad stands there glancing discreetly at his watch, then finally, unable to hold out any longer, ventures: “Let’s talk about it tomorrow, if you like. We’ll have all the time in the world… The thing is… I did have a favor to ask you… You see, I’ve been working at home for the past four days and it’s not easy…” Shutov supposes that Vlad is after some advice linked to his profession, his opinion on an author, on a translation… He even has time to feel important, endowed with great literary experience… And then the nature of the request becomes clear.
“The truth is, if I’m hanging around here it’s on account of the old man. Ma is terrified that something might happen to him just before the move…” Vlad lowers his voice: “It’s not so much that he might kick the bucket. That’s manageable, we call a doctor, he makes a report and hasta la vista! No, what would be more serious would be… you see, he can’t speak. Who knows what’s going on in his head. Just imagine if he cut his own throat. He’s got a perfectly good pair of hands, he could do it. They might accuse us of maltreating him and who knows what besides. Especially as my stepfather has a very public position! Ma’s worried. I help her as much as I can. It’s just that… Since I got back from the States I’ve seen nothing of my… girlfriend. OK, she did come in this morning to try on the clothes I brought back for her. But with that whole crowd milling around here, it wasn’t very private…”
Shutov was part of “that whole crowd” himself. Vlad hastens to clarify. “We can’t really kiss one another under the nose of a grandpa! You see, here we are in the middle of these celebrations and I’ve got to look after an ancient ruin! So I’m watching the carnival on TV. It’s worse than being in jail. Then my girlfriend called me. She came straight out with it: ‘You choose. It’s either me or that old basket case!’ Sure, women always go over the top… But that’s how things stand. So I wanted to ask you a big favor. If you could stay with the old man until morning… I promise, on my honor, at half past six I’ll take over from you and at eight o’clock the medics will be collecting him… Are you sure? That wouldn’t be a problem for you?”
Shutov reassures him, mentions the time difference (“In Paris I go to bed at two a.m., which is to say, four a.m. here…”). Vlad stammers out his thanks, gives some instructions: “He’s already had his ration of food, so that’s done. Now if you see his pot’s full… But he doesn’t urinate much. Listen, I’ll be in your debt for life! When you’re back in Saint Petersburg next time, don’t hesitate…”
The door bangs shut and out on the landing the young man’s voice can be heard yelling the good news to his girlfriend into a cell phone.
The television opposite Vlad’s office is showing an opera (the eyes of the forty-five heads of state staring at the beads of sweat on Pavarotti’s brow). Through the half-open door to the bedroom can be seen a green blanket, a hand holding a book. From time to time the rustle of a page can be heard.
Shutov laughs, chuckling inwardly at first, then, recalling that the old man is doubtless deaf as well as unable to speak, stops holding back, his chest shaking with an attack of hilarity. The wistful beauty of the reunion he planned is toppling over into burlesque. Having come as a nostalgic pilgrim, he finds himself surrounded by modernity gone mad, a mixture of American razzle-dazzle and Russian clowning. He has sought to understand this new country and they reject him, along with the worn-out relics of Soviet times, in the company of a bedridden deaf-mute, whose chamber pot he will have to empty.
He laughs, aware that this is the only way he can avoid lapsing into emotionalism over that lost paradise. His childhood at the orphanage, a paradise? Or his impoverished youth perhaps? Or the history of this country, written between two lines of barbed wire? No, no, let’s laugh about it, for fear of weeping. Occasions for uproarious laughter are not lacking. On the screen Pavarotti’s stentorian rotundity is now abandoned by the camera as it focuses on quite a different vocalist, Berlusconi, who is singing along with half-closed eyes while Putin casts amused glances at him. Shutov changes channels. A feature on the parade of old streetcars. When the Nazis laid siege to Leningrad these vehicles were used to transport the corpses of citizens who had starved to death. Shutov surfs the channels: an Indian film, a woman in raptures, a man on a smart motorbike crushes his enemy. CNN: the stock market is rising, a general talks about restoring peace. The Russian equivalent of CNN and the wonder of these endlessly repeated news items: Madame Putin once more urging women to choose a personal dressmaker, the Greeks yet again handing over the relics of Saint Andrei, and the two female rock singers complaining about the excessive prudery of British audiences… And when, switching to another channel, Shutov hits upon the same erotic film, the position of the bodies creates the illusion that their coupling has been going on uninterrupted for many hours. The commercial for canned cat food. A biker hastens to wash his “dull and tired” hair with nourishing shampoo. A car hurtles toward the sun: “To be on time, when every second counts!” An executioner snips the Saint Petersburg mayor’s tie. An obese young black man in an American sitcom has two slightly idiotic young white men in stitches. In a Baltic state a parade of former SS men. A shaving cream commercial…