396
PARTISAN REVIEW
which is vaguely on my mind: "[the plague
1
brought terror to
Astrakhan, terror to Moscow...." The lines echo and unveil the
casual obituaries in
Pravda.
Drawn to public places and the solidarity of crowds, I walk
through a packed amusement park and into a theatre advertising a
new Russian production of
Crime and Punishment.
Raskolnikov leaves
the old woman's body and runs along a river. His heartbeat is a bass
drum in the background: the Russian touch. I am struck by how
melodramatic the film would seem to any Westerner and yet how
well it evokes the mood of my own experience in this country.
I stand in all lines - to be a Russian is to stand in lines - often
without knowing where they lead: lottery tickets, cotton underwear,
a fresh crop of apples, the bitter wormy green ones that are so
popular here. There are never signs of anger or fading endurance in
lines, only a periodic sigh from the bottom of the lungs which seems
to come from no individual .
One line turns out to be for circus tickets, so I buy one and float
with the crowd into bleachers surrounding a single ring. The
Russian circus. Bears lope into the ring wearing tennis shoes. Study–
ing their hourglass bodies, I mistake the line of white fur on their
chests for zippers. Suddenly they are waltzing, skating, doing
impossibly graceful gymnastics, their heads swaying dreamily from
side to side. White poodles ride in on a miniature railroad car and
hop off with suitcases in their mouths which open to produce more
dogs and more dogs, like nested
matrioshka
dolls.
Ten Kazak horsemen, all teeth, form a human pyramid on the
back of one Arabian pony, then flip off one by one, landing in head–
stands on horses that gallop by. Now the arena is illuminated only
by their ten Cheshire Cat grins floating in circles. The clown,
"Petrovsky and Sons," slam tennis balls back and forth with shoes on
their hands and racquets strapped to their feet until a rush of ozone
signals the spotlight to a steel globe which is suspended from the ceil–
ing. Two sturdy blondes in bathing suit zoom blindfolded on
motorcycles and, as their paths cross, miss each other by inches.
Fluorescent astronauts dive into space and catch each other beneath
a plastic moon.
A lady rides in on an elephant.
The elephant sways into the spotlight, his white tusks gleaming
against shiny grey hide. It is a scene set in slow motion. The lady
performer smooths back platinum curls and strikes a seductive pose
in her pink sequined sheath. When she points a stick
to
the floor, the
