‘As might have been expected, there aren’t any places,’ Tarabukin said quietly.
It turned out, however, there were still empty places at three tables. As Tarabukin (who was a little flustered) was choosing where to sit, the cannery director rose a little and—pressing his necktie to his stomach—loudly invited the latecomer to his table. The invitation was accepted. Tarabukin proudly straightened his shoulders and began shuffling over to the director’s table.
Women from the cannery helped the cafeteria workers carry lunches to the tables. They built pyramids of dishes on flowered plastic trays, lifted them in one sharp motion, and, weighted down, transported them through the dining hall. They placed them on the corner of a table and neatly unloaded them with help from those sitting at the table.
The soup and main course were served in identical dishes inscribed SocNutr. The dessert was in cups with the same inscription; the handles were broken to stave off theft. The handles of the aluminum spoons had been twisted into spirals for the same reason. The fork handles had no spirals since they had been brought from the cannery for the conference (forks were not used in Cafeteria No. 8). As it happened, there were no knives, even at the cannery.
Despite the uniform crockery, the meal service was not identical for all attendees. Solovyov noticed that at his table (unlike at the others), some olives stuffed with shrimp had appeared and there was black caviar gleaming bashfully from a SocNutr salad dish with chipped edges. Dunya caught Solovyov’s gaze and, barely perceptibly, mimed a sigh. As someone clued-in, she knew there was no equality in the world.
‘I’d like to introduce you to Valery Leonidovich,’ said Grunsky, turning to the cannery director. ‘He’s one of the managers at the Solovyov Foundation.’
The director stopped spreading caviar on his bread and looked at Valery Leonidovich.
‘And I’d like to introduce Solovyov himself,’ said Dunya, with a smile.
‘At such a young age…’ began the director, but then he suddenly went silent and finished spreading his bread with caviar.
‘Why was the conference moved from Yalta to Kerch, anyway?’ Baikalova asked Valery Leonidovich. ‘After all, Yalta is the general’s city.’
Grunsky rolled his eyes, unnoticed by Baikalova. The same expression flashed across his secretary’s face; he was a young man with dark hair parted down the middle.
‘What, don’t you like it here?’ asked the director, making a showy gesture at the table.
‘I’ll answer your question about why it was moved,’ said Tarabukin. ‘The Fund simply didn’t have enough money for Yalta.’
Valery Leonidovich rubbed the end of his nose. He seemed to think it unnecessary to comment on Tarabukin’s statement. One of his eyes was directed at Baikalova, the other at the cannery director. It felt to Tarabukin as if they were not even looking at him. The reality of things was rather different.
‘Really, where, as a matter of fact, can that money come from?’ Tarabukin went on, his fury growing. ‘Where, I ask you, can it come from, if the Foundation’s renting half a palace in the center of Petersburg? If the salaries for people who help scholarship are the sort even a Nobel laureate wouldn’t dream of? Mind you, I’m only speaking right now about the legal side of their activities…’
Tarabukin had switched to an impassioned whisper and everyone sitting at the table stopped eating at once.
‘Forgive me, what’s your name?’ Valery Leonidovich asked Tarabukin. Baikalova and the cannery director simultaneously introduced themselves by name and patronymic.
Grunsky’s secretary giggled.
‘Valery Leonidovich asked for Nikandr Petrovich’s name and patronymic,’ said Dunya, unperturbed.
‘Nikandr Petrovich,’ said Valery Leonidovich, ‘do me a favor: never count someone else’s money. Never. That can end badly.’
‘Are you threatening me?’ Tarabukin asked slowly.
Those sitting at the neighboring tables began turning around. Valery Leonidovich’s eyes diverged to opposite ends of the room. Grunsky’s secretary sighed and served himself more shrimp-stuffed olives.
‘A young person’s body needs shrimp,’ said Grunsky.
‘Are you really Solovyov?’ asked the cannery director.
‘I really am,’ said Solovyov.
He felt Dunya step on his foot under the table. The director pulled a business card out of his pocket and handed it to Solovyov.
‘You don’t regret that the conference is taking place in Kerch?’
‘No,’ said Solovyov, ‘I don’t regret it.’
There was still an hour and a half of free time remaining after lunch. Dunya suggested to Solovyov that they go to Mount Mithridat. Dunya thought it should be interesting for him, as a historian. Solovyov nodded pensively.
They walked up the mountain along dusty little streets that had a slummy look. A foot could slip easily on the roadway’s loose cobblestones, and Dunya nearly fell once. She linked her arm through Solovyov’s after that. The trees ended with the last buildings, the cobblestones underfoot changed to crushed limestone, and, gradually, the road turned into a path. Solovyov thought they were wading in a sea of wormwood that hung over the road. A petrified, motionless sea. There was something biblical in that image that did not correspond to post-lunch strolls, and he tried to free himself from Dunya’s arm without being noticed. Dunya, however, noticed, but didn’t let on to Solovyov.
Dunya was talking about the city of Pantikapaion and King Mithridates. She was unexpectedly fervent in describing Pantikapaion’s vexed relationship with the superpower of his time. They approached the ruins of Mithridates’s palace. A large lizard was sitting on a chunk of a column.
‘After his own son betrayed him, Mithridates ordered a slave to stab him with a sword.’
Dunya made a dramatic stabbing lunge and the displeased lizard crawled down onto the ground. It did not like the sharp motions.
Solovyov sat down on one of the chunks of the ruins. It was hot. Warmed air was rising, visibly, over other chunks. It seemed to Solovyov that those hazy-transparent streams were ancient history that had lingered in some inconceivable way until his arrival but were now evaporating from the remnants of rock, under the heat of the sun. Might Mithridates have placed his palm on this column? In the evening, when the sea was already blowing cool air and the column was still warm? After ordering everyone to leave—concubines, bathhouse attendants, and bodyguards—did it really matter who? And then he himself would place his palm on this column and stand there? And sense its porous surface? And admire the fading strait? Looking out at where the sun turns into the sea, not tearing himself away until his eyes began to smart? Of course he might have. How, then, does his history differ from the general’s history? Both fought in Crimea. Neither could hold on to Crimea. Everyone falls into exactly the same traps.
The evening session bore a very promising title: ‘The Other General.’ Grunsky and Baikalova co-chaired again, this time sitting side-by-side in identical chairs. The throne and the previous scenery were gone from the stage. Instead of a medieval castle, a tavern on the Lithuanian border now swayed slightly behind the co-chairs’ backs. The cannery director thought this backdrop acclimated the audience to the session’s informal character.
As he announced the first paper, academician Grunsky expressed the hope that the post-lunch presentations would offer a fresh view of the question and that generaliana might possibly become a new word. The academician likened blind following of a source to splitting hairs and pledged his support to everyone unafraid of breaking with tradition. In passing, he recalled Prof. Nikolsky’s (Solovyov winced) proposed classification of researchers—offered in his Archivists and Orators—and declared Nikolsky’s approach methodologically unsound. After condemning traditionalism as a phenomenon, the chair turned over the floor to a presenter with the surname Kvasha. As Kvasha was coming on stage, Baikalova said she endorsed her colleague’s remarks and expressed certainty that the venerable scholar’s nontraditional orientation might be a good stimulus for many young people dedicating themselves to science. The audience looked spontaneously at Grunsky’s secretary.