ignoramus. I couldn't educate Rosen in half an hour.'
'Did he ask about any paintings in particular?'
'No. But I catch your point and it is amusing. For years, the Party demanded Socialist Realism and people hung paintings of tractors on their walls and hid avant-garde masterpieces behind the toilet or under the bed. Now they're dragging them out. Suddenly Moscow is full of art curators. You like Socialist Realism?'
'Socialist Realism is one of my weakest areas.'
'Are you talking about art?'
'No.'
Feldman regarded Arkady with a more wan', interested eye. They were in the park behind the library, where steps ran between trees down to the river near the southwest corner of the Kremlin. Spotlights made the lower branches into lattices of gold that turned to black.
'I told Rosen that what people forget is that there actually was idealism at the beginning of the Revolution. Starvation and civil war aside, Moscow was the most exciting place in the world to be. When Mayakovsky said, "Let us make the squares our palettes, the streets our brushes," he meant it. Every wall was a painting. There were painted trains, boats, aeroplanes, balloons. Wallpaper and dinner plates and gum wrappers were all created by artists who genuinely thought they were making a new world. At the same time women were marching for free love. They all believed anything was possible. Rosen asked how much one of those gum wrappers would be worth now.'
'The same question occurred to me,' Arkady admitted.
Feldman stomped down the stairs in disgust.
'Since avant-garde art was not approved, you chose a fairly suicidal speciality. Is that how you got used to working late at night?' Arkady asked.
'Not a totally stupid observation.' Feldman stopped short. 'Why is red the colour of revolution?'
'It's traditional?'
'Prehistoric, not traditional. The two earliest habits of the apeman were cannibalism and painting himself red. Soviets are the only ones who still do it. Look what we did to the genius of the Revolution. Describe Lenin's tomb.'
'It's a square of red granite.'
'It's a Constructivist design inspired by Malevich. It's a red square on Red Square. There's more to it than just Lenin laid out like a smoked herring. Art was everywhere . in those days. Tatlin designed a revolving skyscraper taller than the Empire State Building. Popova drew high fashions for peasants. The artists of Moscow were going to paint the trees of the Kremlin red. Lenin did object to that, but people thought that anything was possible. Those were days of hope, days of fantasy.'
'You lecture on this?'
'No one wants to hear. They're like Rosen, they only want to sell. I spend all day authenticating art for idiots.'
'Rosen had something to sell?'
'Don't ask me. We were supposed to meet two days ago. He didn't come.'
'Then why do you think he had something to sell?'
'Today everyone is selling everything they have. And Rosen said he'd found something. He didn't say what.'
At the embankment Feldman looked around with such fervour that Arkady could nearly imagine painted trees in the Kremlin gardens, amazons marching on Gorky Street, dirigibles towing propaganda posters under the moon.
'We live in the archaeological ruins of that new world that never was. If we knew where to dig, who knows what we would find?' Feldman asked and trudged on alone across the bridge.
Arkady wandered along the embankment wall towards his flat. He didn't feel sleepy, but he didn't feel like an insomniac. Just the word made him restless.
He found no amazons along the river. There were fishermen baiting hooks. A couple of years of his exile had been spent on a Pacific trawler. He had always appreciated how at dusk the rustiest, most nondescript ship became a dazzling and intricate constellation of stars, with fishing lights on masts,
'Did he ask about any paintings in particular?'
'No. But I catch your point and it is amusing. For years, the Party demanded Socialist Realism and people hung paintings of tractors on their walls and hid avant-garde masterpieces behind the toilet or under the bed. Now they're dragging them out. Suddenly Moscow is full of art curators. You like Socialist Realism?'
'Socialist Realism is one of my weakest areas.'
'Are you talking about art?'
'No.'
Feldman regarded Arkady with a more wan', interested eye. They were in the park behind the library, where steps ran between trees down to the river near the southwest corner of the Kremlin. Spotlights made the lower branches into lattices of gold that turned to black.
'I told Rosen that what people forget is that there actually was idealism at the beginning of the Revolution. Starvation and civil war aside, Moscow was the most exciting place in the world to be. When Mayakovsky said, "Let us make the squares our palettes, the streets our brushes," he meant it. Every wall was a painting. There were painted trains, boats, aeroplanes, balloons. Wallpaper and dinner plates and gum wrappers were all created by artists who genuinely thought they were making a new world. At the same time women were marching for free love. They all believed anything was possible. Rosen asked how much one of those gum wrappers would be worth now.'
'The same question occurred to me,' Arkady admitted.
Feldman stomped down the stairs in disgust.
'Since avant-garde art was not approved, you chose a fairly suicidal speciality. Is that how you got used to working late at night?' Arkady asked.
'Not a totally stupid observation.' Feldman stopped short. 'Why is red the colour of revolution?'
'It's traditional?'
'Prehistoric, not traditional. The two earliest habits of the apeman were cannibalism and painting himself red. Soviets are the only ones who still do it. Look what we did to the genius of the Revolution. Describe Lenin's tomb.'
'It's a square of red granite.'
'It's a Constructivist design inspired by Malevich. It's a red square on Red Square. There's more to it than just Lenin laid out like a smoked herring. Art was everywhere . in those days. Tatlin designed a revolving skyscraper taller than the Empire State Building. Popova drew high fashions for peasants. The artists of Moscow were going to paint the trees of the Kremlin red. Lenin did object to that, but people thought that anything was possible. Those were days of hope, days of fantasy.'
'You lecture on this?'
'No one wants to hear. They're like Rosen, they only want to sell. I spend all day authenticating art for idiots.'
'Rosen had something to sell?'
'Don't ask me. We were supposed to meet two days ago. He didn't come.'
'Then why do you think he had something to sell?'
'Today everyone is selling everything they have. And Rosen said he'd found something. He didn't say what.'
At the embankment Feldman looked around with such fervour that Arkady could nearly imagine painted trees in the Kremlin gardens, amazons marching on Gorky Street, dirigibles towing propaganda posters under the moon.
'We live in the archaeological ruins of that new world that never was. If we knew where to dig, who knows what we would find?' Feldman asked and trudged on alone across the bridge.
Arkady wandered along the embankment wall towards his flat. He didn't feel sleepy, but he didn't feel like an insomniac. Just the word made him restless.
He found no amazons along the river. There were fishermen baiting hooks. A couple of years of his exile had been spent on a Pacific trawler. He had always appreciated how at dusk the rustiest, most nondescript ship became a dazzling and intricate constellation of stars, with fishing lights on masts,
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