great upheavals of '89 to '91. There was still a touch of grotesque comedy about recently acquired wealth, the new roles were not yet learned by heart, the new language remained hesitant. The actors made faux pas. Like the beggar trying to catch the warm gusts of air emanating from the door of a big store-a genuine war veteran, no doubt, but one who had attached all kinds of cheap insignia to his jacket to swell the numbers. These gilded disks eclipsed the tarnished silver of the medal "For Gallantry" that was hard won in the war. Or those two women waiting for clients outside a hotel for foreigners. Monumental in their fur coats, they seemed as immovable and unapproachable as statues of empresses. Their scenario consisted of pretending they had just emerged from the hotel, but the snow where they maintained their vigil had long since become pitted with little holes from their stiletto heels. "One day," I thought, "they, too, will have the right to a place in a heated window and even a little Christmas tree with a string of flashing lights."
It was a few blocks away from that hotel, beside the entrance to a restaurant, that we were caught up in the bibulous surge of a banquet that came streaming out onto the sidewalk. A score of men and women were roaring with laughter and congratulating one another on their great idea: to go and get themselves photographed between courses in front of the nearby Kremlin towers. "Get going, you guys!" yelled the ringleader. "Maybe they'll be putting up eagles instead of red stars tomorrow. This'll be a historic picture!" We stepped back to the edge of the sidewalk to let them pass. It was comic to see the clothes from fashion magazines on bodies that were too hefty or too square, all this stylish luxury combined with their broad, red, laughing faces. The women were rubbing their shoulders, shivering exaggeratedly with the cold, the men grabbed them by the waist, squeezed them, pawed them. One of them lifted his partner in the air and her dress rode up to reveal massive thighs, robustly and aggressively immodest. The ringleader banged with his fist on the door of a huge Mercedes and out jumped a sleepy man, his driver or his bodyguard, who handed him a camera. There was something undoubtedly legitimate and at the same time obscene about their merriment. I could not find a way to disentangle the two. I was waiting for your reaction but you walked along, saying nothing, occasionally raising your face toward the swirling of the snow.
"Behold, the new masters of the country!" I ventured at last, looking back toward the crowd of them as they returned to the restaurant. You said nothing. We were walking along an avenue beneath the walls of the citadel, beneath the towers surmounted by their mistily crystalline red stars. Faced with your silence, I wanted to provoke you, to compel you to reply, to drag you from your calm. "The masters change but the servants remain. How many years have we spent snuffling around like dogs in all those stinking little wars? And all for the greater glory of a dozen senile idiots barricaded in behind that wall! And now you're ready to do the same job all over again for that bunch of money-grubbers and their bimbos bursting out of their designer dresses!" I stopped, turned toward you, awaiting your response. But you went on walking, your gaze somewhat lowered toward the footprints ahead of us, which the snow was patiently obliterating. Soon there were a dozen paces between us, then a score, so that you looked to me as if you were all alone amid the trees with their snow-covered branches, very remote, and quite detached from the life I had been mocking. A moment before, stung by your absent air, I was on the point of turning my back and leaving you. Now that at every step you were becoming more and more of a stranger to me, I felt you within me with a violence that made my eyes swim. You were going away and I could feel the warmth of your breath in the night
It was a few blocks away from that hotel, beside the entrance to a restaurant, that we were caught up in the bibulous surge of a banquet that came streaming out onto the sidewalk. A score of men and women were roaring with laughter and congratulating one another on their great idea: to go and get themselves photographed between courses in front of the nearby Kremlin towers. "Get going, you guys!" yelled the ringleader. "Maybe they'll be putting up eagles instead of red stars tomorrow. This'll be a historic picture!" We stepped back to the edge of the sidewalk to let them pass. It was comic to see the clothes from fashion magazines on bodies that were too hefty or too square, all this stylish luxury combined with their broad, red, laughing faces. The women were rubbing their shoulders, shivering exaggeratedly with the cold, the men grabbed them by the waist, squeezed them, pawed them. One of them lifted his partner in the air and her dress rode up to reveal massive thighs, robustly and aggressively immodest. The ringleader banged with his fist on the door of a huge Mercedes and out jumped a sleepy man, his driver or his bodyguard, who handed him a camera. There was something undoubtedly legitimate and at the same time obscene about their merriment. I could not find a way to disentangle the two. I was waiting for your reaction but you walked along, saying nothing, occasionally raising your face toward the swirling of the snow.
"Behold, the new masters of the country!" I ventured at last, looking back toward the crowd of them as they returned to the restaurant. You said nothing. We were walking along an avenue beneath the walls of the citadel, beneath the towers surmounted by their mistily crystalline red stars. Faced with your silence, I wanted to provoke you, to compel you to reply, to drag you from your calm. "The masters change but the servants remain. How many years have we spent snuffling around like dogs in all those stinking little wars? And all for the greater glory of a dozen senile idiots barricaded in behind that wall! And now you're ready to do the same job all over again for that bunch of money-grubbers and their bimbos bursting out of their designer dresses!" I stopped, turned toward you, awaiting your response. But you went on walking, your gaze somewhat lowered toward the footprints ahead of us, which the snow was patiently obliterating. Soon there were a dozen paces between us, then a score, so that you looked to me as if you were all alone amid the trees with their snow-covered branches, very remote, and quite detached from the life I had been mocking. A moment before, stung by your absent air, I was on the point of turning my back and leaving you. Now that at every step you were becoming more and more of a stranger to me, I felt you within me with a violence that made my eyes swim. You were going away and I could feel the warmth of your breath in the night
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