Fragmented Visions

МОЛНИЯ

The address that Gregor had given me was in one of the housing estates ringing Moscow. Rows of identical Brezhnev-era housing blocks had been built in what was once luxurious parkland, but was now littered with the debris of twenty-first century capitalism. The old symbols of the Soviet Union had been pried away, leaving irregular shadows on the crumbling concrete. Murals depicting the dignity of labour were now covered in graffiti. What was once meant to be a workers' paradise was now a place for the left-behind and the forgotten.

"You know about the Lost Cosmonauts?" Gregor has asked me.

"All hoaxes," I said. "Or misunderstood intelligence reports. The archives are clear."

"Well, what about the Found Cosmonauts?"

"The what?" I had a good knowledge of Cold War conspiracies, but this one was new to me.

Gregor smiled at me and handed me a piece of card. "Go here. Tell the man there that I sent you. And, if he won't talk to you, just tell him that it's about lightning."

So, here I was, climbing up five flights of stairs in a decrepit apartment block. I came out of the stairwell and into a dark corridor, full of the scent of boiled cabbage and mould. I found the door of the flat I was after and knocked. There was silence, then the sound of locks being fumbled open. An old man with tired eyes stared at me through the gap between the door and its frame. "Yes? What is it?" He sounded wary, hostile.

"I'm here to see ... ." I looked at the piece of card that Gregor had scribbled the details on. "To see Andreij Mikoyan."

"That is me. Now you know. But I do not know you. Go away."

The old man tried to push the door to, but my foot was in the way. "Gregor said that I was to talk to you about lightning."

The man stopped, opened the door, and glanced fearfully up and down the ill-lit, narrow corridor. It was empty, apart from the two of us. "In," he said in a voice that brooked no argument. "Now."

As he closed and locked the door behind us, I looked around Mikoyan's flat. It was small and decorated in primary colours in an attempt to relieve the gloom. A single lightbulb hung from a flex in the ceiling. In the corner, by a flatscreen television, was a two-ring electric hob. Low shelves were home to a collection of nick-knacks.

"What do you know about 'Lightning'?" Somehow, I could hear the capital letter.

"Nothing. But Gregor said it had something to do with you being a cosmonaut? I've never heard of any cosmonaut called Andreji Mikoyan."

"And nor has anyone else." The old man glared at me. "Tea?"

"Please."

Mikoyan went to the hob, put a kettle onto one of the rings, then started to assemble the tea things. "Lightning," he said. "It was a project that I was recruited into. A project to put armed stations into orbit to defend the Rodina against capitalist aggression." He snorted derisively.

"Like the Salyut armed stations?"

There was a crash as Mikoyan slammed the tray of tea things down onto a nearby table. "Toys," he spat. "Armed with aircraft guns. No wonder the Americans defeated us if that was the best that could be done." He stared at me. "You have a western accent. You are American?"

"British," I told him.

Mikoyan chuckled. "I like the British. You do not think you are morally superior because you are rich. You do not lynch negroes."

I took the proferred cupful of thick, black, aromatic tea. It was hot and sweet. "Good tea," I said.

"And you do not ask for milk."