cap and inspiringly raised arm, the fingers clasping holy writ. Next to him the nation’s First Leader, who in a permanent gesture of political subservience loyally remained a metre or so shorter than the giants of Soviet Russia. And now came Stoyo Petkanov, displaying himself in various guises: as partisan leader with pigskin sandals and peasant’s blouse; as military commander with Stalinist knee-boots and general’s ribbons; as world statesman with boxy, double-breasted suit and Order of Lenin in the buttonhole. This close, select company, some of its later representatives roughly mutilated by an unsympathetic crane, huddled together in permanent exile, silently discussing policy.
Recently, there was talk of Alyosha joining them. Alyosha, who had stood on that low northern hill for almost four decades, his bayonet glittering fraternally. He had been a gift from the Soviet people; now there was a movement to return him to his donors. Let him go back to Kiev or Kalinin or wherever: he must be getting homesick after all this time, and his great bronze mother must be missing him badly.
But symbolic gestures can prove expensive. It had been cheap enough to sneak the embalmed First Leader out of his Mausoleum on a forgotten night when only one street-lamp in six was lit. But repatriating Alyosha? Thatwould cost thousands of American dollars, money better spent on buying oil or mending the leaky nuclear reactor in the eastern province. So some argued instead for a gentler, local banishment. Pack him off to the marshalling yard and let him join his metallic masters. He would tower over them there, for he was the largest statue in the country; and that might be a small, inexpensive revenge, the thought of those vain leaders discountenanced by his huge arrival.
Others believed that Alyosha should stay on his hill. It was, after all, indisputably true that the Soviet army had liberated the country from the Fascists, and that Russian soldiers had died and been buried here; true also that at the time, and for a while afterwards, many had been grateful to Alyosha and his comrades. Why not let him remain where he was? You did not have to agree with every monument. You did not destroy the Pyramids in retrospective guilt at the sufferings of the Egyptian slaves.
At nine thirty one morning, Peter Solinsky was standing beside his office desk, soundlessly interrogating one corner of the bookcase fifteen feet away. This was how he practised for the day’s work. He was midway through a question which stretched the legal rules a little, being less an enquiry than a factual hypothesis with implicit moral denunciation, when the telephone irritatingly announced a visitor. Solinsky briefly excused the bookcase, which was perspiring and mopping its brow in a guilty fashion, and directed his attention to Georgi Ganin, Head of the Patriotic Security Forces (formerly the Department of Internal Security).
Nowadays Ganin wore a suit, to indicate that his workwas an unthreatening, civilian business. But on that day, only a couple of years ago, when he had come to fortunate fame, his corpulence had been trussed up in a lieutenant’s uniform, and his shoulder-flashes pronounced him a member of the North-West Provincial Military Command. He had been sent with twenty militiamen to control what had confidently been described as an unimportant demonstration in the regional capital of Sliven.
It was indeed a small gathering: three hundred local Greens and oppositionists in a sloping cobbled square, stamping their feet and clapping their hands as much to keep warm as anything else. In front of the Communist Party headquarters rose a fat barricade of dirty snow, which in itself would normally have been sufficient protection. But two factors made the occasion different. The first was the presence of the Devinsky Commando, a student organisation which had not yet qualified for a security file. This was hardly surprising, since information on student
Recently, there was talk of Alyosha joining them. Alyosha, who had stood on that low northern hill for almost four decades, his bayonet glittering fraternally. He had been a gift from the Soviet people; now there was a movement to return him to his donors. Let him go back to Kiev or Kalinin or wherever: he must be getting homesick after all this time, and his great bronze mother must be missing him badly.
But symbolic gestures can prove expensive. It had been cheap enough to sneak the embalmed First Leader out of his Mausoleum on a forgotten night when only one street-lamp in six was lit. But repatriating Alyosha? Thatwould cost thousands of American dollars, money better spent on buying oil or mending the leaky nuclear reactor in the eastern province. So some argued instead for a gentler, local banishment. Pack him off to the marshalling yard and let him join his metallic masters. He would tower over them there, for he was the largest statue in the country; and that might be a small, inexpensive revenge, the thought of those vain leaders discountenanced by his huge arrival.
Others believed that Alyosha should stay on his hill. It was, after all, indisputably true that the Soviet army had liberated the country from the Fascists, and that Russian soldiers had died and been buried here; true also that at the time, and for a while afterwards, many had been grateful to Alyosha and his comrades. Why not let him remain where he was? You did not have to agree with every monument. You did not destroy the Pyramids in retrospective guilt at the sufferings of the Egyptian slaves.
At nine thirty one morning, Peter Solinsky was standing beside his office desk, soundlessly interrogating one corner of the bookcase fifteen feet away. This was how he practised for the day’s work. He was midway through a question which stretched the legal rules a little, being less an enquiry than a factual hypothesis with implicit moral denunciation, when the telephone irritatingly announced a visitor. Solinsky briefly excused the bookcase, which was perspiring and mopping its brow in a guilty fashion, and directed his attention to Georgi Ganin, Head of the Patriotic Security Forces (formerly the Department of Internal Security).
Nowadays Ganin wore a suit, to indicate that his workwas an unthreatening, civilian business. But on that day, only a couple of years ago, when he had come to fortunate fame, his corpulence had been trussed up in a lieutenant’s uniform, and his shoulder-flashes pronounced him a member of the North-West Provincial Military Command. He had been sent with twenty militiamen to control what had confidently been described as an unimportant demonstration in the regional capital of Sliven.
It was indeed a small gathering: three hundred local Greens and oppositionists in a sloping cobbled square, stamping their feet and clapping their hands as much to keep warm as anything else. In front of the Communist Party headquarters rose a fat barricade of dirty snow, which in itself would normally have been sufficient protection. But two factors made the occasion different. The first was the presence of the Devinsky Commando, a student organisation which had not yet qualified for a security file. This was hardly surprising, since information on student
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