With my research privileges revoked by Valentina and whoever was pulling her strings, and with no lectures to attend, perhaps the urgency of tracking my every movement would diminish and in mid-May, I could go back to life as normal. I spent the days reading on my bed with the windows open to catch the warming spring breezes and tried unsuccessfully not to worry about the world around me.
23. Fifty Years Victory
On the morning of May 9th, the apartment was a flurry of activity with Natasha and Raiya preparing for the Victory Day celebrations and presentations. Natasha was to receive a medal and recognition from the mayor and she was as nervous as a prima donna going on stage on opening night. The ladies had pulled their Sunday best from the closet and were fussing about hair or headscarves. Babushka chose for a rich red and paisley headscarf. She was beaming that morning. I slipped out the door before her family arrived and purchased her a small bouquet of roses, red roses for the Red Army hero, which she carried with pride with her up the old city to watch the parade and air show and be ready for the presentations. I accompanied the family up to Minin Square but did my best to keep out of the family discussions. I was present but kept a low profile. We rode the bus to Gorkiy Square where the bus stopped as the city center was closed down for only pedestrian and parade traffic. We strolled down Bolshaya Pakrovskaya to Minin Square where the festivities and ceremony would be held.
Knowing that Del had returned to the city on Thursday night I was very anxious to speak with him. I brought with me my book bag with the two folders of research materials hoping that together, before I had to surrender them to Valentina Petrovna, that Del could help me complete my model of a small criminal organization, the little shark, growing into a great white shark with teeth that take huge chunks of capital and lifeblood out of a country with one big bite. Even if I was not going to be able to publish the research in Nizhniy Novgorod I had decided that I was going to process the information as deeply as I could before the materials were confiscated so that I could reconstruct it once I was free again to research and write what I wished, in an environment of academic freedom. Valentina would not be able to expunge the information in my head once she shredded my materials. I was determined not to let the investment I had made come to nothing.
Minin Square was filled with spectators both old and young alike. Banners proclaiming 50 Years Victory hung from every lamp post and flagpole. The square was awash in red flags. There were groups of veterans, seventy years old and a bit, marching in columns in their war time dress uniforms. Their shrinking frames and growing bellies made the jackets difficult to button. Their gray hair and gold teeth shone in the May sunshine. Medals hung from their chests; The battle of Moscow, The battle for Leningrad, the capture of Berlin! They were cheered as they marched as proud as the day they returned from saving the Motherland from the fascists. Military transport trucks, some modern, some dated, towing artillery pieces rolled down Minin Street and across the square. Small children on the shoulders of their fathers waved to the young soldiers in dress uniform, faces stern and turned, saluting the crowd, ceremonial rifles on their left shoulders. The crowd cheered the local brigades and they trooped through with their local colors.
As the last of the parade marchers passed over the square a faint pulsing could be heard in the distance; dug, dug, dug, dug, dug. It grew louder. As it grew louder the heads of the people in the crowds looked up, looked left and looked right. A squadron of attack helicopters had announced its arrival and they flew up from the river over the Kremlin and then directly overhead above the square and were launching fireworks from rocket launchers. The deep pulsing vibrations of the rotors shook our soft abdomens. The squadron split into different directions with a bit of acrobatic flying, causing the crowd to applaud and cheer with surprise. Young children cowered and cried. As the reverberations of the helicopters faded there was a rush up the river valley, like rushing wind, or rushing water. The crowd turned forty-five degrees to the north to watch six military jets, MIGs, flying low over the water in a tight formation, pull up and ascend into the air at steep incline and then branch out from each other like a blooming flower, petals peeling off in six different directions with afterburners thrusting them into the atmosphere before arching upside down and eventually back toward the earth. As they looped around and toward each other, they too launched fireworks in a celebratory dogfight. As the MIGs swooped out of sight around the river bend a large formation of larger transport aircraft, propellers grinding through the air, buzzed the river bluff tipping their wings back and forth; a pilot’s wave. The crowd was electric and the cheers spontaneous!
As the parade and the airshow eventually subsided the crowd milled about and welcomed the veteran soldiers into the crowd with handshakes and salutes. A color guard emerged from the Kremlin gates and marched through the crowd to the stage and risers where the government officials overseeing the festivities were gathering and shaking hands with the military colonels and generals that were there to issue the 50 YEARS medals to those who served and had survived. The loud speakers were switched on with a squelch and a deep man’s voice grumbling “test, test.” into a live microphone.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, behold our honored veterans! Glory to the Heroes of the Soviet Union!” came from the loud speakers.
The crowd answered “GLORY to our HEROES!”
“GLORY!” again from the speakers.
“GLORY!” the crowd answered back again and a loud cheer arose from the crowd as a division of the old generation who had won the war for their children and grandchildren climbed the stairs to the raised stage waving and smiling to their families.
A barrel-chested officer with his own left breast covered in his own heroism presented and pinned a 50 YEARs medal to the coat of each of the men who were well enough still to stand at attention. Each was saluted for his valor and returned the salute with his chest out and head high. The crowd applauded with appreciation for each in the unit. Bouquets of flowers were brought up from the crowd and given to each of the heroes. A few of the old men began weeping and wiping tears from their faces with their rough hands and wrinkled fingers. They all waved to the crowd one last time before stepping off the stage on the side opposite they ascended.
Raiya started to poke me in the ribs and pointed to the stage now where Babuska and her group of female heroes were now being signaled to come on stage for their presentation.
“Quick take some photos!” Raiya demanded of me.
The loud speakers boomed again.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, behold your heroes of the Red Army!” and the crowd answered again as in a type of religious ceremony, the priest an officer, the sacrament the sacrifice of years given in service. “Glory!”
I struggled to pull my camera from my book bag and had to put it on the ground between my feet before I could pull it out from between my folders of papers. I was able to still to find Natasha in my view finder and snap a few photos of her standing at attention while the medals were presented in long dark boxes, opened for viewing and presentation. In good taste, the General had not been tasked with pinning the medals on the ladies’ chests, but handed them over ceremoniously with a formal hand shake. No salute.
Babushka beamed on stage with the other few ladies that had survived another fifty years. The applause and the pageantry were less than with the soldiers who had fought and bled, but the ladies looked just as proud as they received their medals and flowers for their service in the clothing and boot factories, that kept the boys warm and well healed on their march to Berlin. Then the ladies filed off after their soldiers with waves and blowing kisses.