Trampling the tomb
Here's another story I wrote in the USA. It was really interesting to see the reactions of those Americans who read it as it gave them a totally different perspective on the place from what they were so used to having.
Trampling the tomb
The headache was growing stronger, and everything looked fuzzy in the whirls of the hot air. We walked on, trying to find a free bench under a tree to hide away from the sun. But all the seats had long been taken. The old fortress rose nearby, intimidating, with its turrets and thick walls, and beautiful, with the gold cathedral domes peering from behind it. The Kremlin seemed to be soaked in blood, and the sun was gleaming on the red paint of the walls and shining on the cupolas. My younger cousin kept whining about how tired he was. After all, he was only seven years old. I was already twelve, and, being the “grown up” that I was, kept silent. I did not want to tell my aunt about the headache so as not to make her worry.
We were traveling to Kirov, a large city in the North of Russia, where my aunt lived, and we had to change trains in Moscow. We had the whole day to spend there, and she decided to take her son and me to the Kremlin.
I remember how excited I was. I had been in Moscow several times by then, but I had never ever happened to actually walk into the fortress. But by the time we got to the walls, I was ready to give up the idea. After all, we had spent the night on the train, and arrived in Moscow at 6 in the morning.
Finally, we found a tiny café, where, thank God, there was a free table. We sat down, and my cousin stopped complaining immediately. I sat stooping in the chair, waiting for the ‘expedition” to be over.
As it turned out, all the tickets to the Kremlin had been sold out for the day. They were never easy to get, and aunt looked really disappointed. Silent, quiet joy began to fill me. I was just a tired kid, after all. “Aren’t we going to see anything, mummy?” - the little brat was going to start sobbing. Sometimes cousins are harder to put up with than younger brothers, especially when the age gap is that big. Six years make a lot of difference when you are only twelve. “Not again!” thought I, as another arrow of pain shot through my head. But it was too late. Aunt has always loved me no less than her own children, and she was set on doing something enjoyable for us. “I know!” she said, - “we can go and see Lenin!”
The idea fascinated me. Lenin was the leader and the mastermind of the Bolshevik revolution, and also the founder of the Soviet Union. When he died in 1924, people loved him so, as I was told at school, that they preserved his body and built a mausoleum for him. A tired excitement began to grow. It was like going to a museum, and I always loved museums! “Yes, auntie,” said I, - “can we go?”
We rose from the bench and stepped out into the heat. The garden near the Kremlin wall is a popular place, and there were many people there. But at one end of it there was a huge crowd. It was only when we came up to the crowd that I realized that all those people were waiting to see Lenin too. It was only the beginning of the queue, which, like a huge live serpent, encircled half of the Kremlin, and went all the way from behind up to Red Square.
The queue was motionless. There were different people there – old ladies with grandchildren, young men, pensioners and tourists. For many years they had heard stories about Lenin, and it felt now that they knew him as if he were a close relative. Few people were chatting. Most of them kept a revered silence, obviously preparing to see the “founding father” of the state.
Soon a policeman motioned to the queue to move on. We started to walk – ever so slowly, every step like the ones you would take at a funeral, except that the dead person was already in his grave We walked past the garden… slowly we moved on, past the Egyptian obelisk with the names of famous socialist revolutionaries on it, and on and on, past the eternal flame and the tomb of a soldier killed during WW2. There, at least, was something to see! There was a guard, standing in the blazing sun, holding a rifle. He did not move, and his face was stern and motionless, like that of some strange automaton.
The queue was still moving on. We were turning into Red Square now. We walked by the three hundred-year old building of Moscow University, now a museum, and stepped on the cobbles of the square. There was shade. To the right there were blue pines growing along the wall. Above the huge gates of an ancient tower there was a white square indicating the place where an icon used to be for centuries. “Every tower is named after a saint” quickly whispered aunt into our ears.
We were now coming closer. From Red Square you do not see quite as many cathedrals as from behind the Kremlin, but you can see the Grand Palace of Catherine the Great, who ruled Russia two centuries ago. At that time the red Soviet flag was floating on top of it, and I remember thinking that the ancient name really suited the square.
The mausoleum seemed to slowly grow in front of us. Dark granite and polished marble sent sparkles on the cobbles. Two sentinels were guarding the entrance. The small black gates were open, and people were slowly pouring in. By then the sun had risen high in the sky, and it felt as if melted lead was pouring on my head. I was feeling almost sick and longed for the darkness behind the doors.
We stepped in. What looked dark from the outside was a dimly lit hall with steps leading down, underground. Except for the same dark granite of the walls, it looked very much like some of the palatial stations of Moscow underground, so it did not feel like anything special at all. My cousin, who until then was preoccupied with staring at other people, wanted to say something, but my aunt pulled his hand quickly. “You are not supposed to talk here!” she whispered, and even that was enough to make one of the guards inside turn and look at us. Obviously, we were showing bad manners.
It was growing slightly cooler. We very soon reached the bottom of the stairs, and turned a corner. And there… I almost gasped. The huge hall was dark. On the reddish-brown granite walls there were zigzags of black marble. Several guards were lined along the walls, and their white gloves seemed to shine in the darkness. The place was silent, but it looked as though some solemn music ought to sound there.
There was reddish light in the centre of the hall. As we were approaching it, I saw a cube of transparent glass. Inside the crystal sarcophagus, on the bier, lay a short man, dressed in a dark suit. One of his hands was lying on his chest, the other was stretched along his body. He looked so small, and yet so important, all alone there, on the pedestal. A wreath of reddish hair set off his huge bald head, and I just had time to notice his polka-dotted, old-fashioned tie, the likes of which you could see in old photos and books.
People were moving on. If someone tried to slow down, one of the guards would say in a quiet but strict voice “Do move on”. I wanted to better see the person who changed the whole empire, but we were already emerging from the mausoleum into the blaze of the sun, near the Kremlin wall.
I did not feel much, neither did I think much. For some reason, the image of the great person, imprinted into us in the school, seemed utterly out of touch with this short man, lying there, under the ground, as if asleep. I was still thinking about it when we passed Stalin’s tomb and the tombs of other people who once led the country.
It was only when we walked back into the square when my cousin suddenly said: “I need the lavatory”. I realized that he had been silent all that time, and it amazed me more than the dead person we had just walked by. I looked around. Whether the cold of the underground, or the sensation of seeing history come true, but something melted the headache away, and the weak traces of it did not really bother me. I recalled the steps that led on top of the Mausoleum, the ones that the government members used to go up during demonstrations – and suddenly I shuddered. How could they do it, thought I, just go and stand above a dead person like that, and look happy, and smile, and wave their hands? I turned and looked at the Kremlin. The empirial glory still seemed to shine on the gold decorations of Catherine’s palace, but the Soviet flag was harder to see. Without the wind it was powerless. Some non-conventional thoughts began to form in my head, but my cousin demanded to be taken to the toilet, and we hurried along. The ancient fortress looked smug and arrogant, with the small tomb at her feet. These were the last years of the Soviet Union.
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