One can only demolish Zalozhnaya and move its residents into new housing. But the newer buildings are not much better. It is even possible that they are worse. Barely finished, the apartment blocks, constructed out of large slabs, are already crooked, cracked, and the plaster has fallen off the walls in sheets. Hot and cold water, as well as the entire sewage output, are conducted through pipes that run on the exteriors of houses and cut across yards, squares, streets, in all directions. One can see these pipes everywhere, wrapped in flocks and rags, in various metal sheets and tapes, and tied up with wire and ropes.
The pipes often burst. If it is winter (as it is nine months out of the year), huge mountains of ice that no one ever removes form in the cracks. One can see these mountains here and there — massive, heavy, glittering in the sun. This tangle of pipes, wires, joints, faucets, through which run the streets, makes the new neighborhoods of Yakutsk look like enormous factory workrooms over which there hasn’t yet been the time to put a roof.
In one of these workroom/neighborhoods stands a long, patient line. I come closer, up to the stand at which two saleswomen dressed in white aprons are working. I want to see what they are selling, what this crowd of people is waiting for. Cakes for sale. One kind of cake, one type only, with one pattern of pink icing identically inscribed on all. You can pick up the cake just like that — with your hands. It won’t fall apart — it is frozen solid.
SO INSTEAD of diamonds, gold, and Kuwait I found Zalozhnaya and an entire city of poverty. Yakutsk never sees or touches the diamonds. They are shipped straight from the mines to Moscow, where they are used to pay for the production of tanks and rockets, and for the international politics of the Imperium.
I return to Oktiabrska Street, to my hotel. I’m in room number 506. To open the door, one must try turning the key a number of times. It takes from eight to sixteen attempts. Expecting results at attempt number 8 is optimistic, but expecting them at number 16 is also in a certain sense optimistic, for by the sixteenth time the door will open for sure. The worst thing is that it cannot be locked from the inside, and it is hung in such a way that, unlocked, it opens of its own accord onto the corridor. I had no choice but to ask the tenant from the adjoining room (a Buryat, technician) to lock my door for me. (We developed a certain rituaclass="underline" I would knock at his door, my neighbor would come out, together we would open my door, my neighbor would lock it.)
In the little bathroom, there is both cold and hot water from the faucet above the washbasin, but in the shower there is only hot. Not knowing this, I turn on the shower. Seething, boiling water gushes forth with a roar. Because it is cold in the bathroom and in the room itself, thick clouds of steam form instantly. I cannot see. I throw myself at the shower, but it won’t turn off. I make a dash for the window, to let out the steam, but the window does not open; it is sealed up with adhesive plaster — and, anyway, the handle for opening it has been removed. If I open the door of the room, the steam will burst out into the corridor; I will create confusion and scandal. But why scandal? How am I at fault here? I’m already thinking about how to explain and defend myself. Everything in this country is somehow thought out, arranged in such a way that the man on the street — no matter what he is doing, in what situation he finds himself, in what straits and difficulties — will always have a feeling of guilt. Because (as I said) it is cold in my room, the steam immediately condenses on the walls, on the windowpanes, or the glass of a little picture frame, and on the sliver of a mirror. I make a final, heroic effort and, soaked through, half-suffocated, and scalded, I finally manage to turn off the shower, swearing to myself to touch nothing else. It is damp, water is everywhere, but for a moment it is also a bit warmer.
I walked out onto the corridor to check whether anyone had noticed the cataclysm that had just shaken my room. But it was empty, dead. A television set was on in the common room, but no one was watching. The writer Vladimir Solouhin was saying: “Because of Lenin a river of blood flowed in the Soviet Union, an ocean of blood was spilled.” He said that sixty-six million people died, not counting the victims of the Second World War. “All this,” said Solouhin, “was done in the name of creating paradise on earth.” And he concluded: “Paradise! Ha, ha! And today we are walking around without pants.”
After him a laborer came on, who, despite the fact that Lenin no longer counts, announced with pride that he had just read fifty-five volumes of Vladimir Ilyich in just several evenings. “It’s very simple,” he said, clearly pleased with himself. “I read each volume for no longer than one hour. I simply knew that Lenin wrote the most important things in his texts in italics. So I quickly flipped through the pages and read only the parts in italics. I recommend it to everyone!” he encouraged the empty room at the Hotel Yakutsk.
At the end of the program, Yuri Lubimov, the director of the Moscow theater Taganka, said in a critical but also despairing tone: “We have lost our minds, we have lost our conscience, we have lost our honor. I look around and I see barbarity!” Lubimov’s powerful, theatrical voice filled the common room, spilled out into the corridor and lobby.
At the newsstand in the lobby, the only foreign newspaper on sale was the French L’Humanité. I bought it for the sake of one photograph, to which normally I wouldn’t have paid the least attention. But now I sat in my room and stared at this picture on the last page. It showed an elegant and clean highway, L’Autoroute A6, along which stretched unending lines of elegant and clean cars. All this suddenly fascinated me: the white stripes on the road and the large, distinct road signs, and the bright light of the lanterns. Everything was washed; everything was clean; everything went with everything else.
“Le grand week-end pascal,” said the caption, “est commencé.”
People have had enough of Paris; they want to rest.
This is so far away, I thought, looking at the photograph. As if on Venus.
And I started to mop up the bathroom full of water.
IN THE MORNING hotel guests can buy breakfast in the bar. At that time of day, they are most often dressed in sweat suits. They stand in line. There is absolute silence. If someone wants to address his neighbor, he speaks in a whisper. This silence can at times be deceptive, treacherous. For suddenly, without reason, cries break out, yelling, a brawl! Two things characterize such situations. First, the cause is usually completely irrational. What was the reason? What happened? Why? It is impossible to ascertain; no one knows; everyone shrugs his shoulders. The atmosphere is charged with conflict, like a cloud packed with thunderbolts, and the slightest trifle can unleash the destructive energies. Second, the explosion occurs instantaneously; there are no intermediate degrees, no jeers, pouts, sulks, grimaces, only a straight shot from silence into screams — like a leap over a precipice! It is as if this war could take place on only one frequency, not one hertz lower or higher. This terrible, enraged, senseless shrieking and swearing lasts a short while and just as suddenly as it started — it dies out. Again, silence descends. Again, if someone wants to address his neighbor, he speaks in a whisper.
And now comes our turn to step up to the barmaid. The scene consists of a minimum of words and has a very businesslike character. The barmaid looks at the guest and remains silent — this means that she is waiting for the order. There is no “Good morning” here or “How are you”—the guest gets straight to the point. He says: A glass of cream, an egg, farmer cheese, cucumber, bread.