(We just heard the news. This is from a letter sent to a friend in Russia last week.)
**
I met Gorbachev, you know. What a day. This was in Cambridge. The Friday before his arrival, A and I were strolling down St Andrew's Street in the city centre. There was a sign in the window of the bookstore about Mikhail Gorbachev coming on Monday for a book-signing.
'Oh we gotta go to that!' I told her.
So, on Monday, I drove us down to Cambridge city centre. We couldn't get in! There was traffic all over the place! We took a taxi for the final leg of our journey, but even that didn't help much!
We got down to the bookstore and it was JAMMED with people on all sides, all ends. Some of them were evidently queueing to get in the bookstore. The store wasn't opened yet. A and I saw that TWO queues were forming, on each side of the entrance! So I told her to go get in the other queue, and she did.
I just had to do this, darling. I can't explain it any other way. I had to do it.
I had to shake Gorby's hand and personally thank him, from one human to another, for helping bring an end to the Cold War.
Everything was nuclear threats once upon a time. The peaceful after-war 1950s? Were they peaceful? Ask your parents. Every Tuesday morning at 10:30 AM, sirens blasted out all across the huge city. Radio was interrupted. Every Tuesday. Radio on all channels blasted the sirens.
All schools everywhere started their drill. Designated students closed all the classroom windows. They all filed out and into the corridors. They sat on the floor with their backs to the walls. They pulled their legs up, and put their heads between their knees, and covered their necks with their hands. This went on for several minutes, every Tuesday, at 10:30 AM.
Then, when the sirens were silent, the head of the school came and inspected, and they were let back into their classrooms again.
Every Tuesday.
So shaking Gorby's hand and thanking him was a big deal.
I'd been a restaurant manager. I had some 60-80 employees under me. When I was finished on a Friday evening, I'd come home, PULL OUT THE TELEPHONE CABLE, draw a hot bath with BUBBLES, pour myself a huge Johnny Walker Black (or Red) on the rocks in a nice crystal tumbler, get a cheroot or two and an ashtray for the edge of the bathtub, then sink into that really hot water (it could take minutes to get used to it) and then just SOAK SOAK SOAK to get the stress out.
60-80 people I managed. 60-80. Gorby was managing 170 million!
I've only met two people like him in my life. The other one was Brian Fitkin, the head of our karate club in Stockholm. There was just something about him - there was like a 'tractor beam' of calmness and serenity about him. You felt drawn in. You knew he was built like a rock, totally indestructible, but there was such a tranquility about him.
Gorby had it too. I could feel it. I hadn't expected it. I didn't know what I'd expected.
A and I got in the store just before they closed the doors - there were too many people. The tables with the books were downstairs. I grabbed four copies. We made our way up the escalator to where Gorby was sitting, signing books.
I'd run up the stairs, I was so excited! Then Gorby saw me and talked to me right away. In Russian.
'Hey! You are so excited - you're huffing and puffing like an old man!'
I looked back at him, smile on my face. His daughter and one of his bodyguards offered to translate.
'No, thanks anyway, I got this!' I told them, then I thought for a second, because my reply had to be in Russian for full effect, and I had to think this through.
Then I looked around, behind me on both sides, and said directly to him (in Russian):
'You know, I don't really see any old men here - EXCEPT YOU, OLD MAN!'
And they all laughed - the daughter, both body guards, and Gorby himself. Mikhail Gorbachev, former premier of the Soviet Union.
It made my day.
Then I grabbed his hand and spoke in English to him.
'Your people can translate this if you can't pick it all up. But I just wanted to thank you, personally, from one human to another, for helping end the Cold War.'
Then A and I thanked them all and went back down the escalator and out the store.
We were still hanging out outside the store when Gorby came out too. He was finished signing books for the day. There were several hundred people gathered there, mostly across the street, so they could see better. I still don't know if any of them could understand Russian. I expect not.
There's this thing about Gorby. You have to meet him off-camera, so to speak, in an informal situation like we were in. Privately, he's the kind of guy that could be reading a phone book and he'd have people rolling on the floor laughing. Yes, it's true.
So now Gorby comes down and out the store, looks around, notices me there, there's a moment of recognition, a nod and a smile / grin to me, and then he addressed the crowd. And I swear, there was laughter from the crowd through the entire speech.
He spoke in Russian. It went something like this. The crowd interrupted (erupted) with laughter every time he paused.
'Hi! So I'm in Cambridge! And I've been in this bookstore signing my book! But I'm through with that now, and in the afternoon I'm going to my Peace Research Institute, but first I'm going to have lunch! Thank you! Goodbye!'
Like that. But he had them bent over in laughter the whole time.
And then he got into the automobile waiting for him. There was a driver in there of course. Gorby got in the back seat, closed the door. The driver tried to start the car engine. It wouldn't start! Gorby rolled down his window - swear to god, darling - and yelled out:
'Русский автомобиль!'
The crowd went wild.
I don't think they understood everything he said, apart from the last line, but even so he had them rolling in the aisles in laughter. I mean uproarious laughter. They adored him.
I know he's not popular in Russia anymore, darling, but that's my experience of him, and I think he had some extraordinary qualities.
'It was high time to put an end to the rulers' wild cravings and to their highhandedness.' - Mikhail Gorbachev