He had been even more afraid that other people might encroach on his own field. This fear also proved groundless. 'I really am absolutely free,' he said to himself in surprise.
He thought once of what Artelev had said in Kazan about military factories: how well-provided they were with raw materials, energy and machine-tools, and how free from bureaucratic interference.
'Yes,' thought Viktor. 'It is in its own absence that bureaucracy reveals itself most clearly. Whatever serves the principal aims of the State is rushed along at great speed. Bureaucracy can have two opposite effects: it can halt any movement or it can speed it up to an incredible degree – as though freeing it from the constraints of gravity.'
Not that Viktor thought often about those long conversations in that small room in Kazan. He no longer thought of Madyarov as someone remarkably intelligent and altogether exceptional. He no longer felt a constant anxiety over his fate. He was no longer obsessed by the terrible mutual suspicions harboured by him and Karimov.
Without his realizing it, everything that had happened to him began to seem quite normal, quite natural. His new life was the rule; he had begun to get used to it. It was his past life that had been the exception, and slowly he began to forget what it had been like. Was there really any truth in those reflections of Artelev's?
In the past Viktor had felt nervous and irritated as soon as he crossed the threshold of the personnel department, as soon as he felt Dubyonkov even look at him. In fact, Dubyonkov was very decent and obliging. When he phoned Viktor, he said: 'Dubyonkov speaking. I hope I'm not disturbing you, Viktor Pavlovich?'
Viktor had always regarded Kovchenko as a sinister and treacherous intriguer who would happily annihilate anyone who stood in his way; he had seemed to come from another world – a world of mysterious unwritten instructions – and to be profoundly indifferent to science itself. In fact he was not like this at all. He came round to Viktor's laboratory every day; he was a true democrat and he didn't stand on his dignity at all. He joked with Anna Naumovna, shook everyone by the hand and chatted with the technicians and metalworkers; it turned out that he had operated a lathe himself in his youth.
Shishakov was someone Viktor had disliked for years. Then one day he had lunch at his house and discovered that Shishakov was witty, hospitable, a gourmet and a fine raconteur; he enjoyed good cognac and he collected engravings. And – most important of all – he appreciated the importance of Viktor's theory.
'I've triumphed!' thought Viktor. But he knew very well that it was not an absolute victory: if the people around him now treated him differently, if they now helped rather than hindered him, it certainly wasn't because he had won their hearts with his great charm, intelligence and talent.
Nevertheless, Viktor rejoiced. He had triumphed!
There were special news bulletins on the radio nearly every evening. The Soviet offensive was still continuing. To Viktor, it seemed quite natural to link the course of his own life with that of the war, with the victory of the people and the army, the victory of the State. At the same time he knew that it wasn't really quite so simple. He was quite capable of laughing at his childish habit of always wanting to see everything in black and white: 'Stalin's done this, Stalin's done that, glory to Stalin!'
He had thought that important administrators and Party officials never talked about anything, even with their families, except the ideological purity of their cadres. He had thought they did nothing except sign papers in red pencil, read A Short Course in the History of the Party out loud to their wives, and dream of temporary rulings and obligatory instructions. Now he had unexpectedly discovered that they had a human side too.
Ramskov, the Secretary of the Institute Party Committee, turned out to be a keen fisherman. Before the war he had gone on a boating holiday in the Urals, together with his wife and his sons.
'What more can one ask for, Viktor Pavlovich?' he would say. 'You get up at dawn. Everything's glittering with dew, and the sand on the bank's still cold. Then you cast your lines. The water's black. It's not giving anything away, but it's full of promises… Wait till the war's over – then you can become one of us yourself!'
Kovchenko once talked to Viktor about childhood illnesses. Viktor was surprised how much he knew about the different treatments for rickets and tonsillitis. He had two children of his own and had also adopted a little Spanish boy. This boy was always falling ill and Kovchenko looked after him himself.
Even dry old Svechin talked to him about his collection of cacti and how he'd managed to save them from the terrible frosts during the winter of 1941.
'They're really not such bad people after all,' he thought. 'I suppose everyone has something human about them.'
Deep down, of course, Viktor understood that nothing had really changed. He was neither a fool nor a cynic; he could think for himself.
He remembered a story of Krymov's about an old comrade of his, Bagryanov, a senior investigator in the Military Prosecutor's Office. Bagryanov had been arrested in 1937 and then, during the brief spell of liberalism under Beria in 1939, had been released from the camp and allowed to return to Moscow.
Krymov had described how, one night, Bagryanov had turned up on his doorstep; he had come straight from the station and his trousers and shirt were in tatters. In his pocket was his certificate of release from the camp.
That night, Bagryanov had been full of seditious speeches and sympathy for the other prisoners; he had intended to set up as a gardener and a bee-keeper. But as he was allowed to return to his former life, his speeches gradually began to change.
Krymov had laughed as he described the slow evolution of Bagryanov's ideology. First he was given back his military uniform; at that time his views were still liberal, but he was no longer a raging Danton. Then, in exchange for his certificate of release, he was given a passport allowing him to live in Moscow. He immediately began to take up the Hegelian position: 'AH that is real, is rational.' Then he was given back his flat – and began making out that most of the prisoners in the camps really were enemies of the people. Then his medals were returned to him. Finally he was reinstated in the Party without loss of seniority.
It was just then that Krymov's own difficulties had begun. Bagryanov stopped ringing him up. Krymov had met him by chance one day; he had two decorations on his tunic collar and he was getting out of a special car by the entrance to the Public Prosecutor's Office. This was only eight months after the night when a man in a torn shirt, with a certificate from a labour camp in his pocket, had sat in Krymov's room holding forth about innocent victims and blind violence.
'I thought then that he was lost to the Public Prosecutor's Office for ever,' Krymov had said with a wry smile.
It wasn't for nothing that Viktor remembered this story and recounted it to Nadya and Lyudmila. Nothing had changed in his attitude towards the victims of 1937. He was still as appalled as ever at the cruelty of Stalin. He knew very well that life hadn't changed for other people simply because he was now Fortune's pet instead of her stepson. Nothing would ever bring back to life the victims of collectivization or the people who had been shot in 1937; it made no difference to them whether or not prizes and medals were awarded to a certain Shtrum, whether he was called to see Malenkov or was pointedly not invited to a gathering at Shishakov's.
And yet something had changed, both in his understanding and in his actual memory of things.
[…]
Often Viktor would make little speeches to his wife.