Dreams of My Russian Summers by Andreï Makine Read Free Book Online Page A

my fitful sighs for a moment, and then, finding my palm in the darkness, slipped a little rough pebble into it. I closed my fist round it. Just from the feel of it, without opening my eyes, I recognized the “Verdun” pebble. From now on it was mine.

4
    A t the end of the holidays we left our grandmother’s. Now Atlantis was blotted out by the mists of autumn and the first snow-storms — by our Russian life.
    For the city we went home to had nothing in common with silent Saranza. This city stretched along both banks of the Volga and, with its million and a half inhabitants, its arms factories, its broad avenues with large apartment blocks in the Stalinist style, it was the incarnation of the power of the empire. A gigantic hydroelectric station downstream, a subway under construction, and an enormous river port proclaimed, for all to see, the very image of our fellow countryman — one who triumphed over the forces of nature, lived in the name of a radiant future, strove mightily for it, and cared little for the ridiculous relics of the past. Furthermore our city, because of its factories, was out of bounds to foreigners.… Yes, it was a city where one could feel the pulse of the empire very strongly.
    Once we had returned, this rhythm began to set the tempo for our own gestures and thoughts. We were drawn into the snowy breathing of our fatherland.
    The French implant grafted in our hearts did not stop either my sister or myself from leading an existence similar to that of our comrades: Russian became our regular language once more, school shaped us in the mold of exemplary Soviet youngsters, paramilitary exercises accustomed us to the smell of powder; to the crack of practice grenades; to the idea of the western enemy we should one day have to fight.
    The evenings on our grandmother’s balcony were no more, it seemed to us, than a childish dream. And when during our history lessons the teacher spoke of “Nicholas II, known to the people as Nicholas the Bloody,” we made no connection between this mythical executioner and the young monarch who had applauded Le Cid in Paris. Not at all; they were two different men.
    One day, however, more or less by chance, this juxtaposition took place in my head: without being asked, I began to talk about Nicholas and Alexandra and their visit to Paris. My intervention was so unexpected and the biographical details so abundant that the teacher seemed taken aback. Snorts of amazement spread around the classroom: the rest of the class did not know whether to regard my speech as an act of provocation or as a simple fit of delirium. But already the teacher was regaining control of the situation; he rapped out, “It was the tsar who was responsible for the terrible catastrophe at Khodynka Field — thousands of people trampled to death. It was he who gave the order to open fire on the peaceful demonstration of January 9, 1905 — hundreds of victims. It was his regime that was guilty of the massacres on the River Lena — a hundred and two people killed! It was by no means a coincidence that Lenin picked his name. He even used his own pseudonym to excoriate the crimes of tsarism!”
    But what affected me most was not the vehement tone of this diatribe. It was a disconcerting question that formulated itself in my head during the break, while the other pupils were assailing me with their mockery. (“Oh, look! He’s wearing a crown, this tsar!” yelled one of them, pulling my hair.) The question was apparently quite simple: “Yes, I know he was a bloody tyrant; it says that in our history book. But if so, what is to be done about that brisk wind, smelling of the sea, that blew over the Seine? about the music of those verses that were carried away by that wind? about the scraping of the golden trowel on the granite? What is to be done about that day long ago? For I feel its atmosphere so strongly.”
    No, for me it was not a