Dinner with Stalin and Other Stories

Trubetskoy, Raevsky,Masha Malevich, andthe Death of Mayakovsky

187 Trubetskoy, Raevsky, Masha Malevich, and the Death of Mayakovsky Then, suddenly, I didn’t have any work. Neither academic, nor literary. This happened because we (my wife and I and our son) had applied for an exit visa to emigrate to Israel. We were fired from our academic jobs, and I was also expelled from the Union of Writers. For a year we had been waiting for the permission to leave. Then the war in Afghanistan began. The authorities turned down—refused—our request for an exit visa. We became refuseniks . One had to go on living: put food on the table, pay for the apartment, fill the tank with gasoline, mail letters, buy wine when we were going to a party or expected company. There’s always something to pay for! I had to find some paying work. I had an old pal by the name of Zhen’ka Fyodorov. Our connection spanned across many years of my scientific career, when I was a researcher at the Moscow Institute of Microbiology. As a graduate student, Zhen’ka took pains to complete his dissertation in our division of infectious pathology. We all helped him, myself included. I suppose I might have helped him a bit more than did others. Zhen’ka studied anaphylactic shock caused by infections of the bloodstream. I helped him inoculate rabbits. Eventually he completed his dissertation and found an academic administrative position at the Academy of Medical Sciences located downtown on Solyanka Street. Our 188 | DI N N E R W I T H S TA L I N A N D O T H E R S T OR I E S acquaintance continued, following a pattern of mutually-attracting opposites. I was a research microbiologist and a writer. He was a microbiologist (in a manner of speaking) and a musician—in the evening Zhen’ka played in a jazz band at the Metropol Restaurant. I was a Jew, he a Jew on his mother’s side. On the whole, Zhen’ka Fyodorov was one of those trusty people who, even if they don’t end up helping you, would at least not go telling the whole world that such-and-such a person is on the verge of disaster and from this low verge has crawled to them begging for help. Even if he couldn’t help with action, he gave sound practical advice. It was the end of June. Four-fifths of the twentieth century had flown by, but the good old Soviet tractor, squeaking and releasing exhaust fumes, still furrowed the hilly expanses of our fabulous homeland and all its Asiatic and European environs. I, having left behind first the bronze monument to the first Cheka leader Dzherzhinsky , passed the headquarters of the central committee of the Bolshevik party, the standing remnants of Moscow’s medieval walls, and the Choral Synagogue. Eventually I found myself on Solyanka Street. I located a barely legal parking space for my old Zhiguli on one of the side streets, and entered the building of the Academy of Medical Sciences. My pal Zhen’ka Fyodorov (round-faced, chestnut-eyed, clean-shaven, with pomaded dark wavy hair) was sitting in his office, its half-open door adorned with the sign “E. M. Fyodorov, Academic Administrator, Microbiology.” I knocked, he opened the door to let me in, I entered, he insisted that I sit in an armchair, I apologized for my invasion, he waved my apology away with both his hands, I revealed the purpose of my visit, he grew pensive, I continued to sit, he continued to think, I wasn’t leaving, he made some tea, I took a sip from a glass, he hardly touched his tea, I kept gulping with impatience, he slowly stirred his with a spoon, I . . . he . . . I . . . he . . . I . . . he. . . . Finally Zhen’ka came through: “Your situation blows, good pal.” Trubetskoy, Raevsky, Masha Malevich, and the Death of Mayakovsky | 189 “I know it does.” “How will you make a living?” “I’ll find something.” “First you’ll find something, and then they’ll find out you’re a refusenik and kick you out.” “So what can I do, Zhen’ka?” “Seek reliable connections.” “And?” “In a side street catty-corner across the road, toward Pokrovsky Boulevard, there’s a medical college. It’s part of our Academy system . So they’re looking for somebody to teach microbiology. You’ll...