Drinking beer in a children’s playground is an old Soviet tradition. Where else could young people go when they wanted to drink … let’s say, beer? They had no money for restaurants in the USSR, there weren’t any pubs and bars, the tiny apartments were all packed with mum, dad, granny, brothers, sisters and relatives from the country who had come to town to buy salami … no way you could get it on there. So the over-aged children, who not so long ago were scrabbling about in the sandpits, sat on the children’s benches and swings in their own courtyards to drink their beer …
The USSR passed on, RIP, but the apartments didn’t get any bigger and young people didn’t get any more prosperous. Where the children’s playgrounds survived, they still served two shifts – infants during the day and senior-school pupils and students in the evening. The more stupid evening gatherings were rowdy, they dropped litter, played loud music and were aggressive with people walking by – for which they were dispersed by old grannies, who knew no greater joy than to ring the militia. The more cultured gatherings sat there quietly, concealed their alcohol, greeted passers-by politely and cleared up their own litter. I used to sit in one of those gatherings too.
Well, at least it seems to me that our gathering was cultured and polite, and it didn’t get on anyone’s nerves. But, of course, it’s quite possible that the inhabitants of the houses round about might have had a completely different opinion.
Anyway, one thing I could never have imagined, neither as a young dosser, nor even after I became a Light Other, was that late one evening I would find myself sitting in Princess Diana’s playground in Kensington Gardens, London, drinking beer with an ancient witch!
‘Luckily for me the prophecy was pretty clear,’ said Arina. ‘Masha was a diligent girl and she prophesied like that too – neatly. Only she tried to rhyme everything. She had it fixed in her head that a prophecy had to be in verse. So there I am, sitting in front of this nitwit and wondering what I should do. If I hadn’t understood who it was all about, I wouldn’t have taken any notice. What’s the point of complaining about what can’t be changed … right? But I did understand. It was 1915 – everything was quite transparent: “With the loss of his heir, the tsar is deranged, Bolsheviks are hanged in the cells. War lasts nine years, Moscow is consumed by flames and the country partitioned as well. Little Russia is German land, Siberia comes under the Japanese hand, a third of the people die of starvation, the world absorbs the rest of the nation.” ’
‘A genuine apocalypse,’ I said sarcastically.
‘I think that’s what it would have been,’ said Arina. ‘The death of the Tsarevich Alexei could have affected Nicholas in an unexpected manner. He could have crushed the revolution … and then lost the First World War. And Russia would effectively have ceased to exist. The Japanese in the Far East, the Germans in the West.’
‘It’s kind of hard to believe,’ I remarked.
‘It was a prophecy, Anton. It ought to have come true, people had heard it. But I intervened.’
‘You cured the tsarevich?’
‘Well, I didn’t cure him … let’s just say I prolonged his life. Nicholas dawdled and lost his nerve, the Bolsheviks took power. Blood was spilt, of course … but it could have been worse.’
‘So we could call you the salvatrix of Russia,’ I said acidly. ‘And a Hero of the Soviet Union into the bargain, since you helped the revolution to happen.’
‘Well, yes, pretty much,’ Arina said modestly.
The children’s playground that we had unashamedly occupied was luxurious. Standing at the centre was a wooden ship that looked as if it had sailed here from Never-Never Land and been abandoned by Peter Pan. During the day there was no space to draw breath on the ship, with squalling hordes of children clambering up the masts and the rope ladders, but now the two of us were sitting there, a Magician and a Witch, each clutching a bottle of beer that we hadn’t touched in ages.
‘Let’s suppose I believe you,’ I said. ‘Let’s even suppose that you’re not wrong and it was a prophecy and you managed to change it. Then what?’
‘The Watches have been messing about with petty nonsense for ages,’ said Arina. ‘Stewing in their own juice. Even their conflicts are basically make-believe.’
‘Would you like a war?’ I taunted her. ‘Which team are you playing for this season, the Light Ones? And what about the Treaty – do we honour it?’
‘I don’t want war,’ Arina replied seriously. ‘We Witches are a peaceful crowd. And Light Witches especially … Remind me of the Great Treaty, will you, Anton?’
I shrugged and recited what everyone is taught in their first lesson as an Other – no matter if it’s in the Night Watch or the Day Watch.
We are Others
We serve different powers
But in the Twilight there is no difference between the absence of
darkness and the absence of light
Our struggle is capable of destroying the world
We conclude the Great Treaty of truce
Each side shall live according to its own laws
Each side shall have its own right
We limit our rights and our laws
We are Others
We create the Night Watch
So that the forces of Light might monitor the forces of Darkness
We are Others
We create the Day Watch
So that the forces of Darkness might monitor the forces of Light
Time will decide for us
‘Excellent,’ said Arina. ‘The Treaty, you will observe, does not prohibit intervention in human life. It only limits the struggle between Light Ones and Dark Ones.’
‘So what?’ I was beginning to get fed up. ‘The Dark Ones have intervened, the Light Ones have intervened … who should know better than you? And what came of it? How many wars have been unleashed by experiments to create the ideal society? Communism, fascism, democracy, autocracy, glasnost, globalisation, nationalism, multiculturalism – how much of all this is human, and how much is ours? We prod people in one direction, then in the other. We observe how things have turned out. Then we cross out the result and start all over again. Ah, it doesn’t work … well, let’s try it in a different country, in a different culture, with different social attitudes … What, communism was hopeless? I don’t think so. But we got tired of that toy. What, democracy is false through and through? Hardly. But we’ve given up playing with that, too. But you know, it’s all the same to people what they die of – the building of communism or the introduction of democracy or the struggle for rights and freedoms. And I reckon the best thing we could do for human beings is leave them in peace! Let them live their own lives, think up their own rules, learn from their own mistakes!’
‘Do you think I shouldn’t have intervened in the fate of Russia?’ Arina asked.
‘Yes! No! I don’t know …’ I said, and shrugged. ‘But what if after all those upheavals the outcome had been better? If there hadn’t been any World War Two, for instance?’
‘I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing,’ said Arina. ‘And I couldn’t ask anyone for advice. Not Gesar, not Zabulon – they would both have tried to turn the situation to their own advantage. But you’re different, I can talk things over with you. You’re normal. You’re still human.’