"That's what I dig in good old Russia's ruling caste. Light-years behind."
Zhenya completes this parable about himself in a beard-parting, self-esteeming grin. Not mentioning his sister's version of
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the story—which had him messing his underpants and sleeping in railroad stations for fear of returning home—I pass him my New York addresses, together with a guidebook procured by Joe Sourian. Jamming my offerings into his briefcase, he returns to his hammer. In the months of our acquaintance, I've given him shirts and Skira art books—which he sold at top ruble to bookshops—and paid his surprisingly stiff prices for three drawings. He never offered me so much as a cup of coffee, even when making one for himself, and now he's annoyed that I haven't brought the dollars he wanted. But he's been unfailingly entertaining, and I'm grateful for his talent. I think he's one of the few self-styled geniuses who'll achieve more in the West than a week's publicity as "dissident" victim.
In quick succession, two salvos of knocks shake the basement door. Enter a translator and an editor of a medical journaclass="underline" fortyish, leather-jacketed members of the joy-through-black-humor community of Moscow bohemians, as they solemnly call themselves. As if Zhenya's packing were for a weekend trip rather than the once-and-forever exodus, the three plunge into their daily conversazione about soccer scores, mutual acquaintances' follies and official stupidity. A program about quarterly production achievements in the Yakutsk Autonomous Republic coming from a kitchen radio augments the atmosphere's commonplace element. Learning my nationality—and, from Zhenya, that I'm okay to hear strong talk—the medical editor recounts an adventure that recently befell his best friend.
The friend is a poet whose samizdat verses about occupied Czechoslovakia put an end to his publication. Six weeks ago, he was invited to the Academy of Sciences, a bewildering honor occasioned by his consuming interest in extrasensory perception. Driven by forbidden-fruit curiosity and unrestricted by ideological prohibitions, many Russian hobbyists know more than professionals of such esoteric matters—especially, as in this case, where the subject is alien to Marxist-Leninist materialism and much Western research is written up by men, such as Koestler, who are anathema for coincidental reasons. But in this case, the poet's knowledge was not sought of and for itself. The Academy had been asked for an audience by a celebrated Californian
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parapsychologist visiting Moscow, and wanted to take this opportunity to interview an expert firsthand, without reveaUng its own weakness in the field.
Given money for new shoes, the poet was vaguely promised good things in return for playing professor for a day. His respectable English, in which he'd read most Western literature in the field, was a positive advantage. More so was his youth, which would help impress the visitor with the onrush of Soviet studies.
"How many people have you working in the field, Professor?" asked the Californian. The ingenuous man was on his first visit to Russia; but even such Americans are not always fooled, and a mistake would dash the poet's chances of coming out of this with something for himself Seeking guidance, he glanced at the Academy oflScials flanking him. But he was on his own; all the Secretaries and watchdogs together knew less than he.
"Actually, eight scientists at the moment." He added "full-time" in a feigned afterthought.
The intention of this outrageous exaggeration was to make the old Motherland look good. But the guest perceived it on the Californian scale: eight scientists meant eight lack-for-nothing laboratories—and if he knew anything about Russians, this was a cagey understatement. Weeks after his return home and an agitated report to Washington, the Nixon administration allocated twenty million dollars of unspent Health and Education funds to emergency parapsychological research, citing the Soviet threat in this potentially sinister field. Its own emergency over, the Academy dropped its recruit "like a Bible down a Kremlin John."
A month later, a cable arrived at his apartment inviting him to lecture at the California Institute of Technology and mentioning a round-trip ticket waiting at Moscow's Pan American oflfice. After his expulsion from the Writers' Union, he worked in a warehouse and lacked six rubles to telegram his refusal. In any case, he knew the genuine professor would not believe a word of the truth by now, regarding it only as a crude attempt to sabotage Washington's reply to the Soviet E.S.P. challenge. So much for mutual understanding. Nor does the editor now expect
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that I'll believe the story—although, as Zhenya can confirm, it is gospel.
By the sheerest chance, I happen to know that Soviet scientists have been experimenting with E.S.P. since at least the 1960s. But the translator obviously believed every word, and Zhenya shook his head "Yes" throughout, like a hippie listening to an expose of middle-class pretenses.
More knocks sound at the door, announcing the arrival of several beat-looking friends who exist on cigarettes and cynicism. Soon a small party is in progress, young men and women coming and going with an air of importance prompted by the occasion, and with a sense of the tragic, for the departure of so many Jews attenuates even further Moscow's already thin cosmopolitan atmosphere.
Pouring himself a large drink from a bottle brought by a provident acquaintance, Zhenya plays host with the residue. Preschool children play with mudpies in the courtyard while their grannies try to peer through the dirt obscuring the studio windows: our gathering is producing what they hear as fascinating noise.
The men at the center of the room's knots are mainstays of Moscow's "leftwing" intelligentsia. One critic is pronouncing Nabokovian scorn for stupes who fail to recognize Vladimir Vladimirovich as the greatest living Russian writer. (Much of the fortune he gives for Nabokov's black market books comes from his own snide articles about him for a literary newspaper.) Another principal is defending Solzhenitsyn against trendy belittling of his martyr complex. When all's said and done, the intense man argues, what counts is Alexander Isaiyevich's genius.
"Yeah, genius. For religious quacks and Western boobs who convince themselves of Russia's 'grandeur.' Why can't he see real people? Why the fuck doesn't he write about usP^^
"Of all the stupid . . . Whom do^ou represent? What the hell are we in this place but extraneous waste?"
"We're talking about Solzhenitsyn."
"About Jesus-pure Christ, who can't write without posing as Russia's new Savior. And who's got the answers for all mankind's salvation too, just for good measure."
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"Are we talking literature or idiocy? Name one great Russian writer without a cargo of crazy ideas. You've read Tolstoy's 'philosophical' articles?"
"The vegetarian who pretends not to notice the meat in his soup. And our new Saint Alexander plays his poverty bit. Praises black bread, damns Western materialism—on his way to a hard-currency shop."
"Old man, you've proved my point."
Elsewhere, the exchanges heat up in proportion to ignorance of the subject being discussed: the efficacy of Scandinavian medical care, Salvador Dali's artistic integrity. In defense of "fundamental principles" against the offense of seemingly innocent remarks, several interlocutors nearly come to blows. But the main debate lingers on Solzhenitsyn, especially his lament that the Revolution's most awful destruction was of the Russian people's friendliness. Every traveler since the sixteenth century, someone claims, spoke of the Russian peasant as essentially happy and hospitable; but that was when mere hundreds of thousands, rather than tens of millions, were exterminated by the country's tragedies. Now every day is a potential danger, and the people's traditional good nature is replaced by Soviet vigilance—