Читать книгу The Perestroika Effect - Cecilia Tanner - Страница 24

But this was the reality, and he had to find a way to survive. He knew there would be tension, confusion, some losers, and only a very few actual winners at the end of this siege. Sergey intended to be one of those winners.

He put on his coat, gathered up the snacks and vodka and headed down through the building and out to the guardhouse.

“Yuri. How about a snack?” And he pulled out the vodka.

“I’ll wait on the sauce til later, Serge.”

Sergey pulled up a chair and sat down laying out the snacks for Yuri.

“The General says things are heating up. He has confirmed our status, and we are on the alert should things go south.”

“We could join those things going south, man. It’s cold up here. How bad is it going to get?”

“Not sure.”

“We’re never sure.”

Sergey noticed the unusual lack of energy in Yuri’s response, and asked more seriously, “How are you doing since your mother died?” Yuri had taken her sudden death, a month after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, with difficulty.

“Well, you know, I think about her every day. When she was alive, I hardly thought about her, maybe once a week. But now, - every day. What is that all about?”

“It’s hell. They die and we go through hell, Yuri.”

“I had a friend years ago – not even a close friend. Sometimes I didn’t see her for months, then she died, and now I think about her so often, the memory is really meaningful, really important,” Yuri said, obviously uncertain. “Why are they not here?”

“Yep, I don’t want people to think about me like that when I die. I want them to remember me once in a while, maybe, but not everyday.”

“Right.”

Yet they both knew if either of them died, they would remember the other one every day.

“You know mom really believed she was going to a better place. Well, after what she suffered, anywhere would have been a better place,” Yuri said.

“My grandma used to say, ‘It’s God’s plan.’”

“OH, sure. Was it God’s plan to have my mom suffer like that? He should get a new plan.”

“You know, Yuri, that was one thing communism did right – reduced the power of religious leaders so that we had a couple of generations without their undue influence.”

“Has Russia ever had a religious war?”

“Not directly that I know of. As a smoke screen for other purposes, maybe. I don’t know anyone who would fight in it these days, although some of the old people are rejoicing in the new freedoms,” Sergey replied as he loaded up the untouched vodka and the food mess and buttoned up his coat.

“Thanks, Sergey. Hours are long out here in the guardhouse.”

“I hope to have something for us soon, my man.”

Sergey knew people who hated to be alone because they had time to think about painful stuff. Sergey’s thoughts usually defaulted to his Tanya and then to his brother. Why can’t he stop thnking of him. His brother probably never liked him otherwise how to explain his actions, but he kept popping up unbidden in Sergey’s mind.

When you are alone you think of things you would never discuss, not necessarily bad things - though some were – but the obsessions. If you think about someone or something everyday for a long time – it’s an obsession. He thought about Standa, Maria’s husband, who lined up his rakes and shovels beside the house exactly so every morning and every evening. You saw the mentally ill here, more obvious in such a small village, and all the degrees of those illnesses. At least Sergey could turn off the recurring thoughts. How unbearable to live with thoughts you couldn’t turn off.

Tracking back across the thin-packed snow, the snap in the air tingled his ears.

He remembered one of the agents telling him of the first night he had spent in Siberia: “I got into bed between two sheets of ice, in two pairs of socks and my parka and waited for the sheets to melt.”

Sergey was tempted to pull a cigarette out of the pack when he also remembered the list of survival rules for Siberia his comrades in Moscow had given him:

1) Don’t smoke outdoors – pulling the cold air into the lungs is not good.

2) Always wear a wide woolen scarf around your neck to cover the mouth and nose when necessary.

3) Wear fur hats with flaps that protect the back of the head and the ears.

4) At -25^oC, you can’t avoid frostbite and worse for longer than 20 minutes – 30 minutes the maximum

5) The best investment is in expensive warm clothes.

6) Take taxiis.

Sergey hadn’t seen many taxiis, and wondered where in Siberia the list maker had lived. How many taxi drivers wanted to hang around in cold cars waiting for business?