They paused at Raphael’s The Madonna Conestabil. He was struck by how the face in the painting resembled the woman standing next to him.
‘We were taught in school that art had a hierarchy’, Ekaterina was whispering in his ear. ‘First, there were the fine arts, then minor arts, then civilised art, and barbaric art. Painters were the same. Raphael’s beauty was superior to Da Vinci’s depth or Michelangelo’s form and texture. This is an early Raphael. He learned his trade in Perugino’s studio in Urbino.’
Tom’s eyes flowed over the blue cloak, pink neck, and red dress clasped over delicate breasts. ‘It is very beautiful.’
‘Pergino’s Madonna sequence greatly influenced Raphael’s work. There is no artifice, it is almost perfectly innocent, don’t you agree?’
‘Oh yes, most certainly.’ But Tom could not tear himself away from the face, a reflection of Ekaterina caught on canvas.
In the Chinese gallery, while she stood entranced before a fourteenth century silk tapestry, they met two friends who had been amongst the crowd at Marina’s the night before. After a few minutes of excited chatter, drawing disparaging remarks from uniformed attendants, Ekaterina asked if the young men would like to join Tom and her in the Persian rooms before getting a coffee and a bite to eat.
Yuri was an arts graduate with a warm, intelligent disposition. He wore a sheepskin coat and cowboy boots. His conversation was littered with references to poems by Constantin von Hoffmeister as he lit cigarette after cigarette and stirred sugar after sugar into his cup. Alexei was younger, still studying philosophy, pale and acne-riddled, his manners refined, almost effeminate, his voice light like a piccolo.
‘You have wonderful theatres and museums’, Tom said, throwing up his arms, opening them wide, trying to encompass the whole twenty kilometres of corridors and rooms above their heads.
‘But for how long?’ Alexei questioned, ‘We are under siege just like before. You know, in the Great Patriotic War the chief conservator here stockpiled crates and straw to protect everything. The staff would fetch and carry along the corridors and galleries for hours and hours, even during the German bombardment.’ Tom’s imagination was fired by spiralling lights cascading over the Neva, anti-aircraft fire pounding along the embankment, tracer shells like fireworks in the night. ‘Trucks were loaded and armed convoys took the artefacts away down the Nevsky towards the railway station. I think they smuggled out millions of items right under the noses of the fascist Tiger tanks.’
‘And those times have returned?’ Yuri shook the ash from his Marlboro.
‘Worse. At least the Nazis were cultured. Now we are besieged by svoloch.’ Alexei went on.
‘They broke up the Mad Crowd Gang, killing Dmitry Borovikov and arresting Ruslan Melnik.’
‘The ones who allegedly murdered the anti-fascist campaigner Nikolai Girenko?’
‘Girenko was pro-African. Did you read Novy Petersburg: “It’s obvious that these black-skinned Africans are coming to our country from stagnant places that are teeming with infections. Bacteria and microbes living in Africa represent a serious danger to the health of White people.” Just look at the outbreaks of tuberculosis in your own country, the viruses sweeping France. Girenko was a tool of the Sova Centre, acting against us.’
‘The us, being?’
‘Russky Obraz, Shultz 88, and Russian Republic!’
‘And Alexei Voyevodin and Artyom Prokhorenko?’
‘Heroes!’
‘But those not dead are in prison.’
‘Look, the cops were under orders. Putin was hosting big international meetings both here and in Moscow. But not all the cops are bad, many are on our side. Some, though, are like Kolovrat says: They do not have nationality or fatherland, Zionists turned them into house dogs”.’
‘He’s right’, Alexei chimed in. ‘Many have sympathy for the Boevaga Organisation Russkih Natssionalistov, some are even in our combat units.’
‘I’ve read that Nikita Tikhonov and Yevgenia Khasis were in contact with Leonid Simulin, one of Vladislav Surkov’s operatives.’
‘I was there when they were sentenced for executing that dog Markelov. They were holding hands, how you say, dignified.’
‘And Russky Verdikt continues to appeal for their release.’
‘But of course, there are many unanswered questions about that Moscow trial. We all know they were acting on orders from the top when Nikita fired the Browning pistol into that human rights activist’s head.’
‘Do you think they killed the anti-fascist militant Khutorsky?’
‘Someone did.’
‘And could you guys kill?’
‘Hell, yes, but we’ll only kill for Utro Rossii!’
‘Dawn of Russia’, Ekaterina interpreted. Tom nodded, knowing of the rise of the paramilitary group, similar to that of the Resistance in France.
For a time they sat in silence. Yuri stubbed his cigarette, Alexei bit into a sandwich. Ekaterina sipped her cappuccino.
‘Listen’, Yuri eventually said, ‘if you want to see what it is really like, come to my place. I’ve got a movie called Russia 88.’
‘That’s banned, right?’
‘Not at my place!’
They trudged past shuttered shop fronts and courtyards full of broken furniture, walking shattered streets littered with condoms and silver foil. Confronted by a sudden hole in the road, they skirted the web of rusted pipes feeding the apartment blocks, hissing steam and spitting vapour, noxious sulphur rising into the air.
Alexei caught the incredulous look on Tom’s face. ‘So much for communal services’, he explained. ‘It’s worse now than the Gorbachev time!’
‘Look, I was born here’, declared Yuri. ‘They built kindergartens next to factories. Can you imagine all this filth being breathed by kids? Alexei, on his case comes from Vyborg.’
‘Yes, Lenin’s land, they called me the Finn at college.’
‘And other things too!’ The two exchanged angry smiles. Ekaterina remained silent, walking arm-in-arm with Tom, picking their way through detritus.
They entered a mouldering entranceway, climbing staircases covered in anarchist graffiti. Curling As at the centre of swirling crimson circles had taken over from swastikas and the hammer and sickle. A fat rat waddled by, glass claws scurrying over tiles. Ekaterina screamed, jumping backwards. ‘Looks like they’re laying poison again’, Alexei said, pointing to the creature’s cannibalised companion, a tangle of ripped fur and warm blood.
Yuri’s flat was at the top of the block. Drafty and dark, a single lightbulb lit a faded poster of Spartak Moscow’s former Miss Charming, Olga Kuzkova, as they took seats around a low table and Alexei slopped vodka into freshly-rinsed glasses. ‘A toast’, he insisted. ‘To broadening cultural horizons!’
Yuri went to a cupboard and rooted around amongst the clutter, tossing Arkona CDs, flashcards filled with live performances by Solncevorot, and books by Louis Pauwels and Hermann Wirth aside. Meanwhile, Tom was going through his host’s back copies of radical journals: Russkoe Vremia, Elementy, Istoki, and Milyi Angel. ‘Here it is!’ Yuri declared triumphantly, ‘starring Pyotr Fyodorov, Kabez Kibizov, Aleksandr Makarov, and Vera Strokova.’ He was laughing. ‘I bet you never heard of them, right?’
‘They are pretty unfamiliar, I have to admit’, Tom was forced to confess. ‘Can I take a look?’ He reached out for the plastic box. The scratched cover read in English, ‘A cross between Romper Stomper and This is England’. Obviously an imported pirate copy. The photograph gave him no clue as to the identities of the actors. ‘Gangland?’ he surmised.