Good Citizens Need Not Fear: Stories

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The statue of Grandfather Lenin, just like the one in Moscow, 900 kilometers away, squinted into the smoggy distance. Winter’s first snowflakes settled on its iron shoulders like dandruff. Even as Daniil Petrovich Blinov passed the statue and climbed the crumbling steps of the town council behind it, he felt the Grandfather’s 360-degree gaze on the back of his head, burning through his fur-flap hat.

Inside the town council hall, a line of hunched figures pressed against the walls, warming their hands on the radiators. Men, women, entire families progressed toward a wall of glass partitions. Daniil entered the line. He rocked back and forth on the sides of his feet. When his heels grew numb, he flexed his calves to promote circulation.

“Next!”

Daniil took a step forward. He bent down to the hole in the partition and looked at the bespectacled woman sitting behind it. “I’m here to report a heating problem in our building.”

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