I gave her a carnation. The girl took it and then began pushing her way with every bit of strength through the passengers, who were now muttering with envy and indignation, towards the rear platform. In an instant she jumped from the moving tram and disappeared.
‘Crazy fool!’ said the conductor. ‘The girl must be out of her mind! We’d all ask for a flower if we didn’t have a conscience!’
I pulled out one more carnation and gave it to her. She, an older woman, blushed and looked down at the flower, her eyes radiant and welling with tears. Immediately, several hands reached out to me. I gave away the rest of the flowers and then noticed that there, in that battered tram, I was now surrounded by more friendly smiles, more shining eyes, more joy than I had ever seen before or since. It was as though dazzling sunlight had burst into that grubby tram and brought all these weary, anxious people back to life. They wished me happiness, good health, the most beautiful bride in the world and Lord knows what else.
A bony elderly man in a worn black jacket lowered his close-cropped head, opened his canvas satchel and carefully laid his flower inside. I could swear I saw a tear fall from his eye. It was more than I could stand, and so I hopped off before we reached the next stop. As I walked I kept thinking about the memories – whether sad or happy – that the flower must have brought to life for this man and wondered for how long he had carried these feelings inside him until his heart had at last broken and caused him to cry in front of us strangers. Everyone, I am sure, treasures in their soul some memory, as delicate as the scent of the lime trees in Noevsky Gardens, of a glimmer of happiness long buried under the squalor of everyday life.
Wandering the outskirts of Moscow and through Noevsky Gardens, I escaped into a zone of silence that lay so improbably close to the city. These escapes from the overwhelming tumult of Moscow were understandable. Everything was happening so fast that events didn’t even have the time to follow one after another, but piled up in great heaps all at once, each and every day. Yet just a few steps away from this cataclysmic upheaval, normal life went on as before. This too, no doubt, had its own logic.
75
Revolt
The empty stage of the Bolshoi Theatre was set for the scene of the Palace of the Facets from Boris Godunov. A woman in a black dress, clicking her heels, came running out onto the stage and up to the footlights. A scarlet carnation was pinned to her bodice. From a distance she looked young, but in the glare of the lights you could see that her yellow face was covered with fine wrinkles and her eyes possessed a sickly, rheumy lustre. The woman was clutching a small steel Browning in her hand. She raised it over her head, stamped her feet and let out a piercing cry: ‘Long live the uprising!’
The hall cried out in response: ‘Long live the uprising!’
The woman was the well-known Socialist Revolutionary Maria Spiridonova.fn1 This is how we journalists learned about the outbreak of the Left SR revolt in Moscow. A great many events had led up to this moment.
The Congress of Soviets was in session. No one had better seats at the congress than the journalists. We had been seated in the orchestra pit and could see and hear everything perfectly from there. Of all the speakers the only one I remember well was Lenin, and not what he said, but his gestures and manner of speaking. He sat close to the table, hunched over, and writing quickly. It looked as if he were paying no attention to the other speakers. All you could see was his bulging forehead and the occasional mocking glint of his squinting eyes directed at the speaker. From time to time he looked up from his notes and uttered some light-hearted or biting comment in response to one of the speeches. The audience would erupt with laughter and applause. Lenin would lean back in his chair and let out an infectious laugh.
He did not ‘lecture’, but spoke in a simple, relaxed manner, as if he were talking with a friend and not before an enormous auditorium. He spoke without pathos, without pomposity, in a plain, everyday manner, with a slight rolling of his r’s, all of which lent an air of sincerity to his words. Sometimes, however, he would pause for a moment and then speak with a steely voice free of the slightest doubt. He walked back and forth across the stage as he spoke, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets or casually holding the armholes of his black waistcoat. There was nothing the least bit monumental about him, no awareness of his own greatness, no desire to utter sacred truths. He was simple and natural in word and gesture. You could tell from his eyes that along with matters of state, he was just as happy at a spare moment to talk about any sort of human activity or endeavour, be it foraging for mushrooms, fishing or the need for scientific weather forecasting.
At the congress Lenin spoke about the country’s need for peace and breathing space, about food and bread. The word ‘bread’, which in the mouths of other speakers sounded like some abstract, purely statistical concept, became something real and concrete when Lenin spoke, that very black bread for which the country hungered at the time. But in no way did this diminish the weight of his words or their political importance.
Sitting in one of the boxes during the congress was the German ambassador, Count Mirbach – a tall, balding and haughty man with a monocle. At the time the Germans occupied Ukraine, where peasant uprisings had been breaking out, raging and then dying away, in various regions. On the very first day of the congress the Left SR Kamkov took the floor. He unleashed an angry speech against the Germans, demanding a break with Germany, immediate war and support for the insurgents. An alarmed commotion spread through the hall. Kamkov marched almost right up to the box where Mirbach was sitting and screamed at him: ‘Long live the uprising in Ukraine! Down with the German occupation! Down with Mirbach!’
The Left SRs leapt from their seats. They shouted and shook their fists at Mirbach. Kamkov shook his fist too, and when his jacket fell open, you could see a revolver hanging from his belt. Mirbach sat unperturbed, not even removing his monocle, and continued reading his newspaper. The cries, whistles and stamping of feet rose to an impossible din. It seemed that at any moment the massive chandelier would come crashing down and the plaster mouldings would break loose from the walls. Even Sverdlov, with his powerful voice, couldn’t bring the hall under control. He kept ringing his bell, but only the journalists in the orchestra pit could hear it. The sound couldn’t make its way out into the hall, now given over to wild shouts. Finally, Sverdlov closed the meeting. Mirbach stood and slowly walked out of the box, leaving his newspaper on the railing.
The theatre’s hallways were jammed, and it was impossible to squeeze through the crowds. The guards had thrown open all the doors, but nonetheless the theatre emptied slowly. Emotions were running so high that physical confrontations and violence could have broken out at any moment. Yet, despite everyone’s fears, the rest of the day in Moscow passed with unexpected calm.
The next day, 6 July, I arrived early at the Bolshoi Theatre, only to find the orchestra pit already filled with the other journalists. Everyone had come early expecting something to happen. We waited for a brief statement from the government regarding yesterday’s demonstration by the Left SRs. The hall was full. The meeting had been set for two o’clock in the afternoon. But when the time arrived, the presidium’s table remained empty. Another half-hour passed. Still the meeting did not begin. Puzzled murmurs floated throughout the hall.