On the morning in question, I left my lodgings at 9:30 and got into Red Square at 10:00.  Right on time.  To my surprise, the mausoleum doors were open and guards were preparing for visitors.  Directly in front of the site a gaggle of tourists were gathered on what appeared to be a line for the tomb, which I joined.  Everything was going like clockwork until I saw one of the guards gesturing toward the Kremlin Wall that forms the border of the square.  I followed his fingers and the eyes of the tourists that pointed in the direction to what was, in reality, the actual line for the tomb.  There must have been over two-hundred people waiting on it.  

Realizing that my luck had just run out, I slowly began to exit the square where I unconsciously found myself joining the end of the line forming along the Kremlin Wall.. I must have thought that this was the best place to bide my time just in case, like at a grocery store, some magical express line would open to whisk me past the crowds.  While on line I instigated a chat with a college student from Birmingham, England.  The student informed me that the cue was made up of mostly British students on a group tour of Russia and that Lenin's Tomb was reserved that day, at least in part, for their use.  

As my mission descended into hopelessness, my attention was drawn to a conversation that a group of students were having about English soccer, a subject that I know little about, but for want of an excuse to remain on the line, I pretended that I was also a big fan.  The students reacted with amusement at my lack of knowledge on the subject, but something I said set off a debate among them, and as they quibbled, I used their diversion to cut the line. 

I must have been fermenting this coup in my subconscious because when the opportunity arose, I zigzagged down the line like I had planned it all along.  One by one, using the rain as my cover, I passed the students until, miraculously, I had reversed my standing in the line.  I was now the first person on it!  No sooner had I reached the front of the line when I was approached by a crotchety, middle-aged English woman in a yellow rain slicker and matching hat.  She saw me cut the line and busted me on the spot.  “Sir,” she said, “I am a professor and we are a group from England.  We have the express permission to be here and I am in charge.  You are not with our group and so I suggest that you return to the back of the line where you belong.  They do not take to such antics lightly here.”   The professor spoke as though she were channeling the ghost of Lenin himself, punctuating her words with her index finger while the Kremlin stood high in the background.  I took an immediate dislike to this woman, especially after she pointed at me to go to the back of the line the way she would order her dog to get inside the house.  "BAAACK!", she shouted.  The thought of reasoning with her seemed to be my only option until I realized that she couldn’t know where I was from or what language I spoke so, using this to my advantage, I just stood there staring at her, pretending that I didn’t understand a word she was saying.  After a few uncomfortable moments, the professor began to interrogate me.  By now the scene had drawn the attention of the students at the front of the line.  

“DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?” the professor shouted, as if yelling would make it so. “SPRECHEN SIE DEUTSCH?  PARLI ITALIANO?  ESPANOL?  PORTUGUESE?  FRANCAIS?”  The freezing rain fell off the brim of my peasant cap and onto my two week-old beard as the professor burrowed her eyes deep into mine, demanding a response.  With each question, I stood blank.  She waited.  I held firm.  It was a standoff.  

I must have looked like an idiot standing there in the pouring rain, gazing into nowhere and pretending I was dumb, but I couldn’t break my silence lest I risked what little chance I had of getting inside the tomb. 

“What language do you speak?” she finally asked in English.  

With Lenin’s Tomb in plain view and my eyes set upon the entrance just over the professor’s shoulder, I could think of only one thing to do: I pressed my right fore-finger to my thumb, put it to my mouth and made a half-turn.  “He’s a mute!” cried one of the students.  “He has no language!” proclaimed another, laughing.  “Maybe he’s a spaceman,” I heard one say.  Another, while raising his finger to the sky declared that I was “the man with no speech.”  And so I became known to them:  The Man with No Speech.

The students laughed and conjectured and just as the professor turned to reprimand them, like a phantom, I glided past the back of her yellow slicker, through a set of metal detectors, past the guards and right into the plaza that led to the entrance of the tomb!  I braced myself for an altercation, maybe even an arrest.  But nothing happened.  I waltzed right in.   

The rain turned to snow as I walked along the Necropolis Wall where monuments stood in honor of some of the twentieth century’s most notorious men.  It was surreal to be there, alone in the silence, in this Holy of Holies of Soviet Russia.  I felt like a visiting Commissar who’d been granted the privilege of inspecting the area unfettered by the masses of people who usually convene.  A surge of adrenaline shot through me as my eyes happened upon the clock tower that overlooks the square.  It was 10:22—I only had eight minutes.  I quickened my step and followed the chain-linked fence that ran along a line of spruce trees leading to the mausoleum’s entrance.  Next thing I knew I was at the portal: LENIN.

The doors were flanked by two bayoneted Russian guards whose shimmering silver blades were fixed at a trajectory I considered most ominous.  Maybe the professor was right, I thought.  Maybe they DON’T take to such antics lightly here.  I’d  be lying if I didn’t admit to having visions of being carted off to some gulag for my offense.  But for now, I just needed to make it past the doors in front of me.  

With the guards looking on, I paused and removed my cap.  I bowed my head with a certain reverence then slowly advanced towards the door.  With a shutter, I crossed the threshold, past the guards and into the vestibule.  I was in.  

Still not quite believing that I was pulling this caper off, I descended the black marble stairs that led to Lenin’s subterranean chamber.  With each landing, I passed more guards—mean lookin’ fellas who were a reminder of why the Cold War was called “cold” in the first place.  When I finished my descent, I entered the tomb.  It was just Lenin and me.  

Lenin’s body lay in state in the round and was illuminated by lighting that gave power to his features.  Viewing him from the front, he looked waxen but real.  A supreme silence filled the room as I meditated upon his corpse while thinking about the man’s deeds and the failed philosophy he had come to represent.  The silence was broken when my ears became attuned to the faint sound of a motor emanating from beneath the glass sarcophagus that encased his body.  My thoughts immediately turned from the subject at hand to that of Frankenstein’s monster and, with a healthy dose of the creeps, I took to my heels and got the hell out of there. Exiting the tomb, I ascended the stairs and popped out onto Red Square where I was again met by a group of guards, now flailing their arms and yelling in my direction.  I was relieved when I found out that they were only directing me back to the main part of the plaza and not on board some train bound for Siberia.  After following the guards’ instruction an eruption of fanfare came thundering from behind the barricade from which the English students were still waiting.  It was for me.  I had returned from the tomb to a hero’s welcome, but wasn’t sure why.  

I can only suppose that my new-found celebrity was due to the students realizing that I wasn’t a dummy after all, merely a Yank bent on seeing Lenin and who did whatever he could to pull it off.  My earlier encounter with the soccer fans from the back of the line must have made its way down to the front, and vise versa, to create the scene that was now taking place.  Whatever the reason, I was now standing in the middle of Red Square basking in the student’s applause.  As their cheers reverberated throughout the square, I doffed my cap and made a theatrical bow to them.  Why not?  This will never happen again!  And they responded in decibels.

Now, a good thespian would have just left the scene and said nothing.  But I couldn’t resist one final thrust of the sword.  The professor, who was now livid, stood in front of the throng, darting her eyes in my direction.  With her arms akimbo and the snow, which had turned back to rain, falling from the top of her yellow slicker, I approached her, while the students looked on, bursting with anticipation.  I, the man with no speech, the spaceman, the mute, the English soccer enthusiast, now stood face to face with the professor, separated only by a metal barricade behind which she was still enclosed.  I drew myself towards her, paused, looked over my shoulders; first the left one then the right.  After taking a final glance in the direction of the tomb turned to her, looked her straight in the eye and said, as though to inform her,   "He's still dead.”  

The students went nuts.  

To the sounds of an ad hoc sing-a-long celebrating The Man with No Speech and the chants of English soccer slogans, I left the square.  It was 10:30.