Moscow Rules

Russian man, while an old babushka in a black headscarf looked on in bewilderment.
     
     
    They rode six stops to Sportivnaya. The watcher emerged into the hazy sunlight first and went to the left. Gabriel turned to the right and entered a chaotic outdoor market of wobbly kiosks and trestle tables piled high with cheap goods from the former republics of central Asia. At the opposite end of the market a band of Unity Party Youth was chanting slogans and handing out election leaflets. One of them, a not-so-youthful man in his early thirties, was trailing a few steps behind Gabriel as he arrived at the entrance of the Novodevichy Cemetery.
     
     
    On the other side of the gate stood a small redbrick flower shop. Olga Sukhova was waiting outside the doorway, a bouquet of carnations in her arms. “Your timing is impeccable, Mr. Golani.” She kissed Gabriel formally on both cheeks and smiled warmly. “Come with me. I think you’re going to find this fascinating.”
     
     
    She led him up a shaded footpath lined with tall elm and spruce. The graves were on either side: small plots surrounded by iron fences; tall sculpted monuments; redbrick niche walls covered in pale moss. The atmosphere was parklike and tranquil, a reprieve from the chaos of the city. For a moment, Gabriel was almost able to forget they were being followed.
     
     
    “The cemetery used to be inside the Novodevichy Convent, but at the turn of the last century the Church decided that there were too many burials taking place inside the monastery’s walls so they created this place.” She spoke to him in English, at tour guide level, loudly enough so that those around them could hear. “It’s the closest thing we have to a national cemetery—other than the Kremlin wall, of course. Playwrights and poets, monsters and murderers: they all lie together here in Novodevichy. One can only imagine what they talk about at night when the gates are closed and the visitors all leave.” She stopped before a tall gray monument with a pile of wilted red roses at its base. "Do you like Chekhov, Mr. Golani?”
     
     
    "Who doesn’t?”
     
     
    “He was one of the first to be buried here.” She took him by the elbow. “Come, I’ll show you some more.”
     
     
    They drifted slowly together along a footpath strewn with fallen leaves. On a parallel pathway, the watcher who had been handing out leaflets in the market was now feigning excessive interest in the grave of a renowned Russian mathematician. A few feet away stood a woman with a beige anorak tied around her waist. In her right hand was a digital camera, pointed directly at Gabriel and Olga.
     
     
    “You were followed here.” She gave him a sideways glance. “But, then, I suppose you already know that, don’t you, Mr. Golani? Or should I call you Mr. Allon?”
     
     
    “My name is Natan Golani. I work for the Israeli Ministry of Culture.”
     
     
    “Forgive me, Mr. Golani.”
     
     
    She managed a smile. She was dressed casually in a snug-fitting black pullover and a pair of blue jeans. Her pale hair was pulled straight back from her forehead and secured by a clasp at the nape of her neck. Her suede boots made her appear taller than she had the previous evening. Their heels tapped rhythmically along the pavement as they walked slowly past the graves.
     
     
    The musicians Rostropovich and Rubinstein . . .
     
     
    The writers Gogol and Bulgakov . . .
     
     
    The Party giants Khrushchev and Kosygin . . .
     
     
    Kaganovich, the Stalinist monster who murdered millions during the madness of collectivization . . .
     
     
    Molotov, signer of the secret pact that condemned Europe to war and the Jews of Poland to annihilation . . .
     
     
    “There’s no place quite like this to see the striking contradictions of our history. Great beauty lies side by side with the incomprehensible. These men gave us everything, and when they were gone we were left with nothing: factories that produced goods no one wanted, an ideology that was tired and bankrupt. All of it set to beautiful words and music.”
     
     
    Gabriel looked at the bouquet of flowers in her arms. “Who are those for?”
     
     
    She stopped before a small plot with a low, unadorned stone monument. “Dmitri Sukhova, my grandfather. He was a playwright and a filmmaker. Had he lived in another time, under a different regime, he might have been great. Instead, he was drafted to make cheap Party propaganda for the masses. He made the