Border Guard



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The sign has always been there, whitewashed galvanised zinc, painted with that cheerful welcome "You are entering the Soviet Union". The words have long since faded, leaving a faint outline of yellow, punctuated by spots of grainy rust. The barrier stands next to it in pinstriped glory; it had better be, or Boris will shoot you. This checkpoint has been in existence for a hundred years; it will exist for a hundred more.

Everyday you report for work, carrying a thermos of hot tea and the newspapers. You sit on that careworn stool in the guardhouse, your back ramrod-straight, and you wait. A poster droops behind your back as Lenin salutes the loyal sons of the Motherland; it means nothing to you now, but Boris will shoot you if you take it down. A symbol of power rests in front of you in the form of a large red button, worn right through the centre. You press it, and the barrier raises; you release it, and it falls back to bar the path.

You were once a captain in the Army, a model Comrade of the Soviet Union. Nadya fell in love with you and married you before bearing you Alexei and little Grishka; you earned your stripes quickly as a tank commander, even the treasured "Hero of the Soviet Union". Wounded on the banks of the Volga, you were deemed "unfit for combat" and shipped back home. But Comrade Stalin rewards loyal servants, and you were given the job of Border Guard. You ought to be happy, you know.

Everyday countless people submit to you for judgement, but you remember no faces, only their hands. Careworn and callused, pale and slender, four-fingered, buried beneath layers of mink, all clutching tattered papers in hopeful trepidation. Names, addresses, occupations all fade into irrelevance as your hands fly to the last line and affix a blood-red star. The barrier rises. The barrier falls. Some smile at you, some scowl, but you studiously ignore them - the NKVD are out to get you.

Occasionally you see little boys who remind you of yours. Your face then softens into happy recollection as your mind wanders into the happy sections of the past. Memories of flaxen-haired Grishka laughing and running free in the farm you used to own with Nadya, before the time of Stalin and Hitler. Memories of him listening in quiet rapture as you told him stories of distant lands, ommitting the necessary details. Memories of kissing him as you tucked him into bed. He left to go to Moscow, promising to write. Paper must be scarce in Moscow.

Today was no different. Boris shows up and hands you your monthly thousand-rouble note, which you finger greedily. You imagine the small fortune amassing in the pocket of your greatcoat, with which you will buy a small dacha upon retirement. You smile as you imagine bringing Grishka back from Moscow (hopefully with children!) and living happily with him for ever after. Oh, the stories you could tell him! Boris delivers something else; a letter! A crisp white rectangle, full of promise; Yeltsin waves at you from a corner. You slit it carefully and read the contents with trepidation, your aged eyes struggling with the tiny characters.

At first there is great excitement at receiving a letter from Moscow; this is slowly replaced by stark horror as your sluggish mind struggles to encompass the message. You break into a cold sweat, hands trembling as you read and reread the letter, hoping your eyes have been in error - in vain. The fatal words echo in your mind, "Cause of death: Suicide. Drug Overdose." Typewritten by an inhuman faceless bureaucrat. A predictable change occurs; the trembling stops, your back straightens. Sixty years fall from your face as an expression last seen on the face of a Captain of the Red Army reappears - iron discipline.

Your hands reach out for that drawer underneath the desk, and they withdraw a Luger. It is a good pistol, and good hands once wielded it. Yes indeed, your left kneecap seems to twinge in agreement, as you thank a dead officer of the Wehrmacht. It was last fired sixty years ago on the banks of the Volga, but it will work equally well in the North Caucasus. Your arm is surprisingly steady as you mechanically raise the pistol, prepared to carry out your duty. There is a crack, then blessed silence.

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