Russka (154 page)

‘And thus his fear of the bear disappeared. And so, my children, we here are not without fear. We know what has passed in former decades in the Russian land. But in rebuilding this monastery, and in remembering the example of the Elder Basil, we know that we must not fear the bear. We must love him. For perfect love casteth out fear.’

It was just then that, to his surprise, Paul realized that his friend Sergei was trembling, and that he himself was crying.

The monks had fed them. They departed in the late afternoon with an extraordinary feeling of lightness. And for a long time they drove slowly back towards Moscow in silence.

Only after an hour did Sergei speak.

‘We shall do it. We shall rebuild Russia, you know.’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t think we want pure capitalism, though. A sort of mixed economy.’

‘I dare say it could be done.’

For another hour after that Sergei did not speak. It was not until they were entering the suburbs of Moscow that he suddenly, said: ‘How long do you think it will take? Five years?’

‘Perhaps longer.’

‘Well, you may be right. Not more than ten, though. We’ll catch up in ten years.’

‘I hope so.’

‘There’s nothing Russia can’t do, you know. Nothing.’

‘I’m sure that’s right.’

Sergei Romanov smiled. ‘It just needs the right leadership,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll do it.’ Then an idea seemed to strike him.

‘By the way,’ he said. ‘There was something I meant to ask you this morning, when you were telling me about your business. Something I didn’t quite understand.’

‘Yes?’

Sergei glanced at him with a slight frown.

‘What is a salesman?’

Paul Bobrov did not feel like sitting in the gloomy darkness of the dining room that night. He glanced at his watch. Eight forty-five. The bar on the fifth floor was open for another fifteen minutes. He went straight to the elevators. A minute later he arrived at the glass doors.

Varya was alone in the room. Eight forty-five had passed. She had nothing against the fellow from this morning who spoke so beautifully, but habit was not to be changed.

‘
Zakryt
!’ she called, and disappeared into the kitchen.

The sun was setting as Paul Bobrov sat at his window and gazed out over the rooftops of Moscow. To his left, he could see one of those tall thick-set towers with which Stalin had decorated the city in the last years of his rule. Symbols of a new age, like the Empire State Building; symbols of uncompromising power, like the bleak walls of the Kremlin.

Were they Russia, though?

He did not think so. Even now, he could not say, he did not know, what Russia was. That did not surprise him. She had always, down the centuries, defied definition. Was she part of Europe or part of Asia – what did those terms mean anyway?
There wasn’t a commentator he had read who could tell him what this vast land was or what it might become. To be sure, no one in the Kremlin knew.

But whatever it was, he thought he had caught a glimpse of it that day, at Russka.

The city was quiet that night; Bobrov, at his window, continued to watch and ponder till long after dark.

High in the starlit summer sky, pale clouds passed from time to time, drifting in a leisurely procession, glowing in the reflection of the crescent moon that was now arising in the south.

And softly the wind moved over the land.