To the Hermitage (43 page)

W
AKING UP
on a fresh new morning, cold and yet duvet-wrapped in my now familiar cabin, I’m at once reminded by the general silence that the ship I’m aboard is sailing no longer. Now we’re moored and docked it’s not only the engines and machinery that have ceased to function. The entire vessel is oddly empty. Since most of the passengers went ashore to continue their onward journey, the ship, just like the other liners moored at the waterfront, has turned into an exceedingly lethargic hotel – exactly like the grand hotels on the Venice Lido if you go there out of season, where the illusion of service somehow continues in a desultory fashion even while you can’t see why the place bothers to open at all. Here on board, a mood of tiredness has set in. Most of the crew has gone on a few days’ shore-leave. Those who have stayed behind to serve the few residentials have somehow changed in character. Lively stewards have turned into drab resentful hotel waiters, spry stewardesses into invisible chambermaids, as if the very fact of being in Russia has reminded them that a sullen hostility is the proper way of life. The bars that once pulsed with shouting and music have fallen quiet, left to the use of the odd gloomy drinker. The duty-free emporium is locked and barred, the Caviar Cabin firmly shuttered. The beauty shop retains just one magazine-addicted assistant who spends her long day doing simply nothing at all. The lounges and dining rooms have an air of dereliction, abandoned as they are to a few Japanese tourists, several tough German businessmen, and our own pilgrim selves.

And, I realize when I get down to the cavernous dining room for breakfast, some of the same dereliction is affecting our own party as well. The group at our special table seems strangely depleted – and that’s surely not just because I’ve come into breakfast late. It’s as if our serious dedicated company, which had set out so determinedly from Stockholm to take the great Enlightenment Trail, really isn’t that serious or dedicated after all. The group seems to be diversifying, fragmenting, maybe even dissolving entirely, splitting into quite different directions with quite different aims. Our Diderot lovers show no signs at all of being interested in Diderot, to the point where I’m beginning to wonder whether the whole confusing voyage was ever the kind of trip I’d supposed it was – or whether it was simply a cover for some much more mysterious and masonic enterprise to which everyone else other than myself had been made party.

For instance: for the last three days Jack-Paul Verso, our funky professor, has been telling me, over the various Jim Beams we’ve enjoyed together in the bar, about his own intentions: his interest in studying the future of Marxist-Leninist philosophy in Russia, now that it’s had to forget history and adapt to new gene-science and string theory, and the book or maybe article he means to write. Yet now I gather from the others at the table he’s already done an early bunk, leaving the ship first thing in a taxi, equipped with his Deconstructionist’s hat, several bottles of vodka and at least two and possibly three of his band of red-cheeked Tatyanas. According to unconfirmed rumour, they’ve set off on an extended excursion to the town of Pushkin (which was once called Tzarskoye Selo) and no one knows when they’re likely to come back.

Then, even as we drink our breakfast coffee (awful), and finish off our morning rolls (hard), a large black Zil limousine appears in the lens of the portholes, bouncing its way along the dockside. From it descends an elegant, black-caped, barrel-chested gentleman of distinguished bearing and late middle years. He carries a bunch of flowers, and looks up at our ship, waving frantically. Not very much later, our Swedish nightingale can be seen descending the gang-plank, clad in enfolding furs, looking yet more like a grand Brünnhilde. With appropriate gestures she accepts the proffered bouquet, and extravagantly embraces and fondly kisses the caped gent, who in turn takes up front-of-stage top tenor position. Behind her, evidently playing the old comedy role of extravagantly fussy servant, comes the obliging figure of Lars Person, bearing an armful of her topcoats and a couple of vanity cases. Having taken their bows, the entire trio get into the black limo with its grinning chrome grille, which then sweeps them off in the general direction of the city. Breakfast table gossip has it she’s going to attend some fabulous press conference at the Hotel Astoria, before being received at the Maryinsky Theatre – the place where, as it is well-known, all great divas now and then come to rest.

No sooner has she gone than Sven Sonnenberg and Agnes Falkman return from a trip to the bursar’s office which seems to have proved very productive. Gone, apparently, is the dark age when much of Russia was red-mapped and foreigner-hostile country, and where a journey off-course would inevitably lead to arrest. Personal touring is being encouraged, so Sven and Agnes have been able to arrange to rent bicycles and mean to set off into the countryside, hoping to find brute nature, the Russian spirit, the vastness of the steppes. In his very Swedish way, Sven has become quietly excited, saying he looks forward to meeting carpenters, and examining many tables; Agnes is longing to see the amazing achievements of the Russian co-operative farms. No sooner do we see them carrying their backpacks off on to the dockside than Anders Manders rises from the table, wipes his lips, and quietly excuses himself. He would, he says, have dearly loved to spend the day with the rest of us, looking round the shelves of the public library as Galina seems to have arranged. However, embassy contacts have arranged a diplomatic invitation for him to attend a grand banquet given by the mayor of Saint Petersburg, where, over champagne and Beluga caviar, various matters of Russo-Swedish co-operation will be discussed. Such a pity; but it really is one of those invitations a poor working diplomat can hardly refuse . . .

Glancing around the breakfast table, I suddenly realize that all this has stripped our party down to the very barest minimum. In fact there are only Bo, Alma and myself left to take care of reason and pursue the Enlightenment Trail. ‘I didn’t realize the others had been so busy making their own plans,’ I remark. ‘It looks as if our party to the public library is going to be pretty small after all.’

Bo and Alma look at each other.

‘
Jo, jo
,’ Alma agrees.

‘And what a pity we are not going to be able to spend the day with you either,’ says Bo.

‘Unfortunately Bo has been invited to Petersburg University to give a very important lecture,’ explains Alma.

‘As part of the Diderot Project?’

‘
Nej, nej
, not exactly,’ says Bo, taking up his paper napkin and wiping the crumbs from his lips. ‘I am giving a lecture about the great Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin and his role in the development of linguistics. I wish you could be there, but it is very specialist. Not your field, I fear.’

‘It’s just been arranged?’

‘
Nej, nej
, this was arranged many months ago. You see, it is always my habit to try to kill two different birds with one stone.’

‘It saves time,’ says Alma. ‘And you can use one grant for two things.’

‘Or even two grants for one thing?’

‘Some important professors are coming to meet us. Bo is famous, I think he is famous in every country in the world,’ says Alma complacently.

‘So was Carlos the Jackal,’ I say.

‘Pardon?’ says Alma, her face freezing.

Oh dear. Once again I’ve managed to say the wrong thing . . .

At any rate, all this explains why it is that, when Galina Solange-Stavaronova appears on the quayside at nine with the battered mini-bus, ready to guide her little party as arranged, I am the only member of the party waiting on the dockside.

‘
Salut, mon cher
,’ cries Galina, waving gaily, and wearing another splendid twenties outfit, a bright-red silk dress topped off with a lopsided beret with a pom-pom. Somewhere in the background I can see Bo and Alma being met by a group of grey-haired men in dull suits and put into the back seat of an old Lada; these must be the professors from the university.

‘
Mais tu es seul?
’ cries Galina, red dress fluttering, emanating the most wonderful fragrance of Chanel. Abjectly, I try my best to explain the situation. Galina shrugs her shoulders and shows no sign of surprise at all. Why not? Perhaps a lifetime spent inside the bitter framework of modern Russian history creates such saintly resignation. Perhaps she simply knows the ways of academics: a careless and unreliable bunch of wonderful people, who are capable of behaving like this anywhere in the world. Or perhaps the tour was never really intended in the first place, and she is continuing the charade only as a pleasant politeness to me.

At least that’s how she makes it seem.

‘
N’importe, mon cher, c’est plus intime, oui?
’ she cries, holding out her hands to me, and placing them in mine. ‘Then the two of us can spend a very nice day together! A delightful day all on our own! Remember, you are in a civilized city, you can do whatever you like. What do you like? Maybe you want to go to Pushkin? Return to the Hermitage? Or do you want to take coffee and cakes on the Nevsky Prospekt?’

‘I suppose I was really hoping to see the library.’

‘Oh, you mean those Didro books?’ asks Galina, as if this is a strange and absurd suggestion.

‘Yes. And his papers.’

‘But you really want to? You truly like our Monsieur Didro?’

‘Well, yes, I do. I’ve been reading him again on the voyage over and I start to like him more and more.’

Galina looks at me. ‘But don’t you want to see the writers’ Petersburg? The Pushkin Apartment Museum, the Dostoyevsky Apartment Museum?’

‘Well, yes, that would be nice.’

‘The Lermontov Apartment Museum, the Goncharov Apartment Museum?’

‘Yes, indeed. I’m fond of visiting writers’ houses. I might as well do the lot.’

‘And then you will want to go to the Alexander Nevsky cemetery and put a carnation flower on Dostoyevsky’s grave?’ says Galina, now bright-eyed with excitement over what she’s devising.

‘Well, yes, naturally.’

‘Also the graves of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

‘Good, I think you are quite Russian,’ says Galina, looking utterly delighted. ‘But we will do everything properly. First we will start where everything in our city starts.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘At the Bronze Horseman, naturally. I will tell the driver to take us there. Then I will tell him for the rest of our day we will not need his bus at all.’

‘Very well, fine.’

Once we are aboard the bus, with the disappointed-looking driver bouncing us along the potholes of Bolshoi Prospekt, I ask Galina about today’s news. I’m still worrying about how the Russian drama is unfolding. Galina silently raises her eyes to the heavens.

‘The same. Everyone tries to betray everyone else. Russia is one coup after another.’

‘But Yeltsin survives?’

‘Sure, Yeltsin rules okay. He always rules okay. Yeltsin will continue to rule even when there is no more Russia to rule over.’

‘You don’t sound too hopeful.’

‘Hopeful? Please, I am Russian. I live in a land of mad hopes, long queues, lies and humiliations. They say about Russia we never had a happy present, only a cruel past and a quite amazing future. Of course we worship another crazy leader, another false tzar. We are used to being repressed. We are the people who invented the equality of misery. All we like here is one strong man who tells us what to do. Yeltsin, well, think, he survives because everyone else is so much worse. But maybe you understand why I prefer to spend my days with Voltaire and Didro?’

And so once again we pass along the embankment by the university, and take the Palace Bridge over the Neva. Today, though, instead of going as far as the Hermitage, we halt in a square beneath the spire of the Admiralty. In a mess of touristic confusion, passengers are descending in crowds from Intourist buses. We climb down from our own. From somewhere over the far side of the square there comes a noisy crackle of loudspeakers, a great booming of voices. Another demonstration has gathered, much bigger than yesterday’s. People are marching under a flurry of waving red flags, watched by police and soldiers. Then, coming from somewhere near the Hermitage, an alternative procession appears, old Russian tricolours in red, blue and white, waving, shouts and chants singing through the air. Jeep-style police vehicles buzz around them.

‘Something’s happening?’ I ask Galina.

‘Nothing is happening. It is not happening and it will not. It was Didro who said the best thing about Russia. He says everyone in Russia acts as if they live in a place that has just suffered an earthquake, so nobody can trust the ground under their feet.’

‘But what are these demonstrations?’

‘Nothing, I told you. This thing, that thing. The past, the future. Old style, new style. Socialism, shopping. There are always demonstrations around here. Because this used to be Decembrists’ Square.’

‘Where they had the Decembrist Revolution?’

‘There was our famous song, “Don’t you come to the square, Will you be there at the square?” Only in the end, like all of those things, the December revolution wasn’t a real revolution. It was just an idealistic confusion. The nobles had gathered to stop Nicholas from becoming tzar, because they preferred his nicer brother. One problem, they were already too late. Nicholas was tzar already. And he sent in the soldiers.’