When we got to the memorial, in the Alexandrovsky Garden just north of Red Square, rain was drizzling down and so we descended to the bowels of the mall. We wandered around for forty-five minutes or so, looking for a place to have a coffee. Crowds of New Russians in trendy sneakers and subtle colognes. Shops crammed with fashionwear price twice their western tags. We were wet, lightheaded, and it was a consumer phantasmagoria where we circled, passing other knots of people we knew were headed for the demonstration--furtive "hellos," after all we didn’t know each other---and somehow the most vivid images of this day get merged with rows of jockey shorts hanging off muscular mannequins behind plate glass, or expensive ice cream heaped in obscene multi-coloured coils. When we emerged the rain was pouring and I had to go back and buy two umbrellas and that was why we were slightly late to the first onslaught.
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