Monumental Propaganda by Vladimir Voinovich

Author:Vladimir Voinovich
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780307426932
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

52

Divanich volunteered to see her off and lugged her suitcase to the station on foot.

Outside the station there were two police cars with blinking lights, a gray Volga and a military truck with soldiers under a tarpaulin.

There was a lot of noise on platform 1. A crowd of people Aglaya didn’t know were celebrating a wedding. The bride in a white dress and white veil, the groom in a black suit with a white rose in the buttonhole. The friends, girlfriends, parents and relatives of the bride and the groom. Lots of people, all different sorts. A bayan player with gold teeth was stretching open his bellows, a young man and woman were dancing, the woman shrieking out rhyming ditties of distinctly ribald content. At first glance it was a wedding like any other. Only there was something unusual about it. There were some people acting too tensely and keeping a sharp lookout on all sides. Aglaya recalled that later. But at the time, although she sensed something, she was too preoccupied with her own problems. She was afraid she might have been lured away with the travel warrant so that they could remove the statue while she was gone.

“Oh no,” Divanich reassured her. “That’s not the way it looks. Quite the opposite, full rehabilitation is what’s expected now.”

“Okay,” she said, “but if anything happens, you run straight down to the post office and send me a telegram. Not an open message, write: ‘Granddad not well.’ You understand?”

“And what if Granddad’s fine?” Divanich joked.

“If everything’s all right, don’t write anything.”

Carriage no. 4, the one Aglaya had a ticket for, stopped right in front of her. First the conductress jumped out of the carriage with her curls peeping out from under her red peaked cap, then behind her Shubkin and Antonina appeared at the top of the steps. “He’s been to Moscow again!” Aglaya thought furiously. He was surprised to see her and wondered what she was doing there, but he smiled and said: “Good afternoon!” She didn’t reply, but she said hello to Antonina. He jumped down onto the platform with a big, bulging briefcase and then helped his traveling companion down the steps. Aglaya had already taken hold of the handrail when Divanich tugged on her arm: “What’s wrong?” she was about to ask, but following the signs Divanich was making, she looked in the direction Shubkin had taken and witnessed an extraordinary scene. Shubkin was already nearing the station entrance when everyone involved in the wedding revels, including the bride, crowded around him and Antonina. Just then the gray Volga came hurtling onto the platform out of nowhere, and Aglaya heard first Antonina’s cry: “Mark Semyonovich!” and then Mark Semyonovich’s own voice: “What’s going on, Comrades? What is this? I protest!” Then there was the sound of doors being slammed, and a second later the Volga, its tires squealing, hurtled out of the crowd and raced along the platform with Antonina running along after it, her arms held wide open.

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