The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [54]
Despite the massive wealth of a handful of men, life for ordinary Russians remained unforgivably grim. Looking out onto the city, Stevie felt the weight of all those crushed generations crowded in the cold fog and the streets outside, and wondered how Russians found the energy to keep on going.
Vadim called from Moscow State University, told Stevie to come as quickly as she could. Stevie fastened fourteen buttons on her woollen sailor’s trousers, pulled on her fur-lined black boots and threw her astrakhan over everything. She was starting to get used to these morning calls.
Outside, a pale fog dimmed even the neon signs, shining like artificial suns from the tops of buildings. The thermometer read –41 degrees. It was getting colder. Head down, she made for the nearest metro. It was certainly the quickest way out to MGU—Moscow State University.
The heavy swinging doors at the entrance of the metro station are lethal. You have to time your entry just right—either moving through close behind the person in front, or far enough back from them that the door can complete its thudding back-swing before being pushed forward again.
It was peak hour and body after muffled body streamed through the guillotine doors—headscarves, fur hats, leather caps, woollen beanies, military hats—one after the other were fed in. Stevie knew a crack from the doors could knock her senseless, so she followed right on the heels of a dumpy babushka, knowing from experience that nothing ever got in the way of a babushka.
One, two, three—go!
The metro stations in Moscow are famous for their art deco celebrations of Soviet Glory. Each station has its own design, its own mood. Some are mausoleum-black, plated in heavy marble; others are dedicated to martial glory, overseen by monolithic metal statues of soldiers. Red hammer-and-sickles are studded on the vaulted ceilings in others. In all of them you can sense the power of history hanging over the rush of small men below.
Street life in a Moscow winter happens in these deep and beautiful tunnels. The underground arcades are well heated, with marble floors and carved benches. Young people meet after school, grouping in small knots of two or three or four. Above ground the snow is waist high so meeting in the metro made sense.
Stevie found herself squeezed next to a stout woman in a ginger fur coat and matching hat and hair. In her arms, the woman was carrying a ginger cat, invisible in the fur but for its green eyes and pointed ears. Was the cat afraid of all the fur, she wondered, or did it feel at home? Stevie reached out and secretly touched the woman’s fur. The coat was so soft. The cat glared at her.
The way a crowd moves in an underground train station says a lot about the character of the people trapped within it. Milanese crowds bustle, move quickly, shout, dodge umbrellas, and people move at different speeds. In London, travellers are brisk, polite and silent, all standing carefully to one side in the unspoken understanding that those not moving on the escalator should stand to the left.
In Moscow, the travellers mass at the top of the escalator, waiting their turn to descend to the trains below. As they inch forward, the crowd begins to sway, rhythmically, from one foot to the other like sailors on the deck of a rocking ship.
The babushki are so tightly bound in layers of clothing, scarves and tights that they feel completely solid to the touch, like logs wrapped in felt. They come up behind you and start rocking, propelling themselves forward, unstoppable in their steady, insistent motion that speaks of eternal resignation.
Resignation is different to patience: the latter is sustained by hope, the former has let