The holes in his relationship with his wife, which refused to be darned and only grew wider, depressed him. His beloved daughter was too small to become his confidante. Their closest friends now were almost all under arrest: geneticist Ilya Goldberg, forensic pathologist Jacob Shapiro, ophthalmologist Petya Krivoshey . . . All except Sasha Maklakov, his old university buddy who had long ago left medical practice to become a bureaucrat and unexpectedly turned up among the more inspired Jew-hunters . . .
But the biggest surprise awaited Pavel Alekseevich in his own home—Vasilisa Gavrilovna, who sincerely and absolutely despised Soviet power, for the first time in her life had taken its bait: the idea of covert enemies, clever doctors, and Jewish sorcerers struck a chord in her medieval soul. All the pieces of the picture fit: the Jews had led the revolution, killed the tsar, and destroyed the church. What could you expect from the people who had crucified Christ?
Vasilisa quaked, gasped, and prayed. From the street and from lines in stores she brought back eye-popping stories of doctors infecting their patients with blood from cadavers, blinding newborn infants, and inoculating their gullible patients of Russian descent with cancer. An enormous number of eyewitnesses and victims emerged. People refused treatment from Jewish doctors, and a mass psychotic fear of poisoning and the evil eye set in . . . Staff reductions, purges, trial by rumor . . . Lydia Timashuk received the Lenin Prize for exposing an underground ring . . .
During these months Vasilisa had no choice but to remain Pavel Alekseevich’s sole conversation partner, or, rather, listener. Elena went off to work, and the girls—to school. Following her morning grocery raids, Vasilisa came back to find Pavel Alekseevich waiting for her in the kitchen with a pot of coffee. He displayed an extreme degree of insensitivity and completely ignored Vasilisa’s obvious lack of interest in, and complete inability to maintain, a conversation. While she unloaded her patched shopping bags, he would settle in with a cup of tea or something stronger and embark on an unrushed lecture . . .
In fact, the lecture was intended for a different audience, one more enlightened and more populous, but there was no other: he could not lecture students on his investigations—having nothing to do with questions of medicine—into the history of antisemitism and its religious and economic roots. Mommsen served as his primary source, after whom Pavel Alekseevich rummaged around in the works of Josephus Flavius and real authors from antiquity; he read Saint Augustine and some of the Church Fathers . . . He worked himself toward the Middle Ages . . . Antisemitism, to his amazement, had plagued all of Christian civilization.
Vasilisa gloomily peeled carrots, sorted millet and buckwheat, and chopped cabbage. You couldn’t say that she did not hear Pavel Alekseevich, but for her his brilliant lectures were written in a foreign language. She was able to extract only the general idea that Pavel Alekseevich did not believe in the insidiousness of the Jews, just the opposite—he even condemned those who attacked the Jews. As he got more and more worked up, Pavel Alekseevich quoted something in Latin and then in German, which confused poor Vasilisa even more. Maybe he’s a Jew? Until recently she had believed in Pavel Alekseevich as in the Lord God, but after his fatal revelation, after he himself admitted to doing everything in his power to legalize infanticide, she did not know how she should feel about him. How much had he given away without ever counting? How many people had he helped without even knowing their name? And he was cutting children out of their mothers’ bellies, killing little babies . . . Maybe he’s the Anti-Christ? She seemed not to distinguish the various shades of gray between black and white, not to mention pink and green, and for that reason, lips pursed, she fried onions and maintained total and disapproving silence.
Once, having consumed a bottle of vodka over the course of a two-hour monologue, Pavel Alekseevich noticed that Vasilisa had not touched the coffee he himself had made for her.
“Vasilisa, sweetie, why didn’t you drink your coffee? Don’t tell me you’re afraid it’s poisoned?” he joked.
“So what if I am?” Vasilisa muttered.
Pavel Alekseevich wanted to laugh, but stifled his laughter. As happens with alcoholics, his mood suddenly changed. He was overwhelmed by repulsion for his life. He became morose and slumped.
“A great nation, damn it . . .”
Vasilisa crossed herself and whispered a prayer for protection: Pavel Alekseevich was now on her suspect list.
15
THE STALIN ERA ENDED ON MARCH 5, BUT A LONG TIME passed before anyone figured that out. Early in the morning that day the leader’s death was announced over the radio. By this time he had been dead for several days, but those who were now supposed to steer the Soviet Union were so discombobulated that they decided first to inform the world that he was ill. These fallacious news flashes about a corpse’s health communicated more than just the gradual decline of his already nonexistent wellness. Medical terminology and statistics were cited that said little to the average person, but in itself the very phrase “the urine test was normal” conveyed that those on high also unfastened their fly, took out their member with thumb and index finger, and produced a certain quantity of urine. Even if it was of the very best quality, it was still urine! That was the first, devastating blow to the cult of personality. The new leaders also needed time to get accustomed to the idea that ultimately even the most immortal die.
The country’s population reacted stormily: they sobbed, fainted, and collapsed from shock-induced heart attacks. Others sighed with relief, secretly rejoiced, and gloated in their hearts. But even the deceased leader’s covert enemies—he hadn’t had any overt ones for a long time—were in a state of confusion: how could they live without him?
Pavel Alekseevich’s family represented the full range of possible reactions. Toma, who had surprised everyone with her businesslike cool at the funeral of her own mother, was now absolutely choked with grief. For a full two days she sobbed, taking short breaks to eat and sleep. She literally, in the biblical sense, ate her bread with tears.
Tanya experienced great discomfort and awkwardness: she found nothing in her heart comparable to the torrid emotions Toma displayed. She felt ashamed of her own lack of sensitivity, and, to the extent it was possible, she appropriated Toma’s grief. The latter wept so sweetly and selflessly that out of pity for her Tanya managed on someone else’s account to drop a few tiny tears of her own.
Pavel Alekseevich experienced a great sense of relief: there would be changes, now there would be changes. The absurd case of the doctors, in his opinion, would have to be dropped now. He expected controls to be loosened, and even pulled the folder with the dark-blue inscription PROJECT from his bottom drawer . . .
For her part, though, Vasilisa, who had long despised the powers that be and who gloated on the day Stalin’s death was announced, on the next day suddenly grew morose, fell into a stupor, and kept shaking her head and—making a fig with her small fist under her black rayon headscarf—repeating incessantly, “What’s going to happen now?”