Nixon s last parting

Nixon's last parting

All this appeared to me with frightening clarity, as if in reality.
 I was walking along the corridor of an old train carriage; outside the window, a featureless stop glittered with lights,
covered with old, caked snow, and in the distance, misty hills were drowning in a gray haze.
The faces of the fellow travelers slipped away, losing their outlines—they didn't matter.
I found him without difficulty and, accepting the silent invitation, sank into the seat opposite.
His face, riddled with deep wrinkles, was almost indistinguishable from official portraits.
He looked calm, almost solemn. Although we weren't introduced, I recognized him unmistakably.:
Richard Nixon, the former president of the United States, whose image was always shrouded in a halo of big politics,
he was wearing a brown suit, a shirt with small oblique stripes and a dark green tie.
—An unexpected meeting,— I broke the silence.
"More like goodbye,— he replied.
"Here, at this stop?" It doesn't matter though.
— I just wanted to say a few words of... parting words, if there is someone who will hear them.
— The fog won't clear until morning.
"I'm going far away."..
   We spoke softly, barely moving our lips, but every word rang in the air,
as if we were communicating in some secret, mute language. I didn't know much about politics.,
I knew him only from the footage of the chronicle — a politician who leads a complex,
sometimes not entirely understandable and many objectionable game.
We had never known each other personally, but he always gave me a strange feeling:
behind the facade of a statesman, I saw a man with whom, perhaps,
it was possible to talk in order to find a common language.
Despite all the twists and turns of big politics, what is known about him?
Even as a child, he visited the Urals, went down to the mine with workers,
opened the Winter Olympics, brought an interesting industrial exhibition to Sokolniki,
admired the Russian ballet in Moscow and faraway Siberia, concluded important security agreements,
opened a page of cooperation in space, stopped the Vietnam war,
opened China at one time, conducted a peaceful dialogue with us.
     He recently visited snow-covered Moscow again. Now I understood:
There was more than just a diplomatic ploy behind every decision he made to engage in dialogue with us
.  In this quest for communication
and the unity of the great powers on important world issues, there
was something truly human, sincere and deep.
Now we were sitting at an unknown stop in a train car going nowhere.
"We've never met before,— I said.
"It doesn't matter if there's a thread of understanding between people,— he replied.
— I have to say goodbye, but I'm leaving in peace. If I didn't manage something,
then who could have done more? If something went wrong,
who could have done better?
   He looked out the window at the snow-covered platform and added:
— The snow is not gray because it is old. It's gray because it's dirty.
But I believe that the new snow will be white if it is not stained with dark intentions.
The train jerked, checking the coupling.
—I have to go," he stood up and held out his hand. It was sturdy, but it didn't feel cold.
    I went out onto the platform and watched the train leave.
He nodded at me through the glass, smiling faintly. I waved back in silence.
The last car disappeared into the fog, and I was left alone on the snowy platform.
     I woke up in a cold sweat, trying in vain to return to that dream.
A warm April morning was breaking outside the window. I told my wife about the strange vision,
and a few hours later the radio brought the sad news:
on this day Richard Nixon died, a man whose life was woven from many contradictions,
triumphs and falls, in his last "message" left a simple human hope.
    I remembered this story exactly one year later. At the end of April, Moscow,
as if by magic, drowned in fluffy white snow.  It was a sign from above.
Greetings from him...