“Hold on,” Pavel Alekseevich stopped him. “That’s called eugenics. We don’t need large quantities of geniuses. They’ll just wind up arrested and shot.”
“Pasha, we’re living the Inquisition right now. This has to pass, just like the Spanish Inquisition passed. The future belongs to us, to science. There is no other force capable of saving the world!” His long thin hands thrashed the air, and his bulging gray eyes shone with a sickly fire. With his yellowed hawkish nose, the enormous Adam’s apple on his wrinkled neck, and his slouched, bony figure he was going to save the world!
Pavel Alekseevich shook his head, blinked, and tried to hold his tongue: he’s mad, a holy madman! All that’s missing is the helmet of Mambrino . . .
THIS TIME THERE WAS NO NEED FOR A LONG DISCUSSION. Ilya was gloomy. After the first bottle of vodka he fell into a monologue.
“We’re losing time. We’re losing our advantage! In the last few years several works of paramount importance have been published in the United States. Alfred Sturtevant is on the path to explaining the emergence of new genes! Where is Koltsov? Chetverikov? Zavadovsky? Vavilov! The genius Lev Ferri? Don’t you understand that this is sabotage by enemies from within? The entire Lysenko campaign is sabotage! This campaign against cosmopolitanism is playing into the hands of imperialism, Pasha! It’s their clever way of destroying Soviet science . . . Science should serve mankind, but the imperialists would have it serve bare profit, the golden calf . . .”
His voice first rumbled, then lowered, as if it had dried up. Moisture filled his light, red-vein-streaked eyes, then trickled from under his glasses . . .
This silly pathos made Pavel Alekseevich feel terribly awkward, and he twirled his empty glass, unable to get a word in edgewise. Finally, when Ilya Iosifovich fell silent for a moment as he rummaged in his pockets for a handkerchief, Pavel quietly spoke.
“Ilyusha, I think you’re exaggerating, as always. Cosmopolitanism doesn’t interest them. I think it’s all a lot simpler: our Master simply wants to wring the Jews’ necks.”
Valya—once a skinny girl, then a fat matron, now having lost a lot of weight again—from time to time poked her curly head into her husband’s narrow little study, which resembled a prison cell, where the friendly conversation was taking place, and whispered imploringly, “Ilyusha, the children . . . ,” or “Ilyusha, the neighbors . . . ,” or simply “I’m begging you: keep it down . . .” They drank one more bottle and, as always, had a complete falling-out before parting. Ilya Iosifovich stood one hundred percent for global justice, beginning with science, and was ready to lay down his life for it. Pavel Alekseevich did not believe one iota in justice; what interested him were trifles—pregnant dishwashers and the vile operations about which Cicero had once addressed the Senate. Ilya Iosifovich brought up that last point. Pavel Alekseevich perked up—he had always valued his friend’s inexhaustible erudition.
“And what did Cicero say?”
“That,” Ilya Iosifovich shouted, “these women should be executed, because they were stealing soldiers from the state! He was right a thousand times over!”
At this point Pavel Alekseevich paled and got up, pulling on his coat angrily.
“You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, Ilya. Too bad it wound up on a fool. So, in your opinion, women are supposed to give birth so that the bastards can send them into the meat grinder?”
He slammed the door on his way out. “Devil take him, the fool!” But he remembered about Cicero, even though he was pretty well sloshed.
THE NEXT DAY THEY SEARCHED GOLDBERG’S APARTMENT and arrested him. His denunciation of Lysenko had reached its destination.
Pavel Alekseevich learned of the arrest only a week later, when Valya, after much hesitation, decided to call him.
THAT LAST EVENING IN MALAKHOVKA A DRUNKEN PAVEL Alekseevich searched a long time for the train station, arrived home after midnight, and barely remembered what had happened. The next morning he felt so miserable that he diluted a half-glass of spirit alcohol and chased the hair of the dog. That brought some relief; in fact, it gave rise to a certain—for him atypical—devil-may-care attitude, like that of the sun, uninformed of the bloodthirsty nonsense of newspaper articles and of the people who wrote and read them.
In the entranceway, Elena, unnerved by the late-night return of her drunk husband and not having slept half the night, was pulling felt boots over her old shoes, getting ready to leave for work. Pavel Alekseevich, dressed in the military long johns he had worn since the war, came out into the corridor, flung open his arms, and shouted.
“My little girl! Let’s go to the stables! To see the horses!”
Realizing that her husband was drunk, Elena was at a loss. She had never seen him in such dissolute condition, in the morning no less.
“Pashenka, what’s with you?”
Tanya, who had already put on her school uniform and brushed her hair, squealed happily, “Hurrah for Daddy!”
And flung herself on his arm. He picked her up.
“We’re playing hooky today!” he winked at his daughter.
“Call work, Lenochka, and tell them you’re not coming in today. That you’re sick. Leave without pay. Whatever!”
Something out of the ordinary was going on, something new. He was so reliable, there was never an ounce of doubt about his constant and invariable probity, and it was a joyous pleasure to comply with his wishes . . . With a perplexed smile Elena objected weakly.
“What stable . . . ? What horses . . . ? That’s an unauthorized leave . . .” But she was already reaching for the telephone to call a colleague and warn that she was not coming to work today . . .
Pavel Alekseevich pulled off her gray goat-fur coat and explained, “We’re going to the Institute of Horse Breeding. Prokudin has been calling me for ages to come and look at the horses. Let’s go! Let’s go! Tanya, put on your ski suit!”
“Really, Daddy?” Tanya still could not believe it. Vasilisa, on hearing the tumult in the corridor, peeked out of the kitchen doorway.
“Gavrilovna! Fried eggs! King-style!” Pavel Alekseevich ordered in a loud cheerful voice. Thoroughly perplexed, she went to carry out orders. King-style fried eggs were in fact country-style fried eggs, with fried onion and potatoes, which he ate only on Sundays; on weekdays, as in the past, he went without breakfast . . .
“And king-style for me too,” Tanya piped in, thrilled by the new adventure.
They sat down and ate breakfast Sunday-style even though it was just an ordinary Monday. Pavel Alekseevich also drank a shot of vodka, and Elena looked at him in bewilderment: this had never happened before, drinking in the morning . . .
Something disturbing loomed in this morning adventure, she sensed, and following her intuition, without giving it a second thought, she asked: “Pash, you’ve got that meeting at the Academy today . . . You’re obligated to . . .”
“I’m not obligated to!” Pavel Alekseevich bellowed. “I’m not obligated to anyone! Let them all get . . . !”
The vulgarism that had dropped from his large lips was forceful and weighty, like everything about him. The cloth covering the aluminum buttons of his shirt was washed out, exposing dull metal; gray chest hair like lamb’s wool issued from his open collar, and the enlarged veins on his bull neck darkened . . .
Elena embraced his neck.
“Calm down, darling . . .”
And he calmed down, pressing her to his chest.
“Forgive me.”
When they were all warmly dressed and already standing in the doorway with a sled for Tanya, Pavel Alekseevich issued instructions to Vasilisa Gavrilovna.
“If they call, say he’s gone on a drinking binge.”