‘I know, I know,’ Viktor interrupted impatiently. ‘But I got very depressed by the way we were so stuck. It made me feel quite ill.’
Then Sokolov began to hold forth. Though he understood the importance of Viktor’s work and praised it in superlative terms, Viktor hated every word he said. To him any evaluation seemed trivial and stereotyped.
‘Your work promises remarkable results.’ What a stupid word! He didn’t need Pyotr Lavrentyevich to know what his work promised. And anyway why ‘promises results’? It was a result in itself. ‘You’ve employed a most original method.’ No, it wasn’t a matter of originality . . . This was bread, bread, black bread.
Viktor decided to change the subject. He began to talk about the running of the laboratory.
‘By the way, Pyotr Lavrentyevich, I received a letter from the Urals. Our order’s going to be delayed.’
‘Well,’ said Sokolov, ‘that means we’ll already be in Moscow when the apparatus arrives. That’s not such a bad thing. We’d never have been able to set it up in Kazan anyway: we’d have been accused of failing to keep up with our schedule.’
He started to talk very pompously about matters connected with their work schedule. Although Viktor had himself initiated this change of topic, he was upset that Sokolov had gone along with it so readily.
It made Viktor feel very isolated. Surely Sokolov understood that his work was more important than the everyday affairs of the Institute? It was probably the most important of all his contributions to science; it would affect the theoretical outlook of physicists everywhere.
Sokolov realized from Victor’s expression that he had done the wrong thing. ‘It’s interesting,’ he said. ‘You’ve produced another confirmation of that business with neutrons and a heavy nucleus. We really shall need that new apparatus now.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Viktor. ‘But that’s only a detail.’
‘No,’ said Sokolov. ‘It’s very important. You know what enormous energy is involved.’
‘To hell with all that!’ said Viktor. ‘What interests me is that it’s a new way of seeing the microforces within the atom. That may bring joy to a few hearts and save one or two people from groping around in the dark.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Sokolov. ‘They’ll be as glad as sportsmen are when someone else sets a new record.’
Viktor didn’t answer. Sokolov was alluding to a recent argument in the laboratory. Savostyanov had compared scientists with athletes; he had claimed that a scientist had to undergo the same daily training as an athlete and that the tension surrounding his attempt to solve a scientific problem was no different from that surrounding an athlete’s attempt to break a record. In both cases it was a matter of records.
Viktor had got quite angry with Savostyanov, Sokolov even more so. He had made a long speech and called Savostyanov a young cynic. He had spoken of science as though it were a religion, an expression of man’s aspiration towards the divine.
Viktor knew that if he had lost his temper with Savostyanov, it wasn’t simply because he was wrong. He too had sometimes felt that same joy, excitement and envy. He also knew, however, that envy, competitiveness and the desire to set records were not in any way fundamental to his attitude towards science.
He had never told anyone, even Lyudmila, of his true feelings about science – feelings that had been born in him when he was still young. And so he had liked the way Sokolov had argued so justly, and so exaltedly, against Savostyanov.
Why then should Pyotr Lavrentyevich himself suddenly compare scientists with sportsmen? What had made him say that? And at a moment of such special importance for Viktor?
Feeling hurt and bewildered, he burst out: ‘So, Pyotr Lavrentyevich, someone else has set the record. Has my discovery upset you, then?’
At that moment Sokolov was saying to himself that Viktor’s solution was so simple as to be almost self-evident; that it was already there, on the verge of expression, in his own head.
‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I’m as pleased as Lawrence must have been when the equations he had established were reworked and transformed by Einstein.’
Sokolov admitted this so frankly that Viktor regretted his animosity. Then, however, Sokolov added:
‘I’m joking, of course. Lawrence is neither here nor there. I don’t feel anything of the sort. But all the same, I am right – even though I don’t feel anything of the sort.’
‘Yes,’ said Viktor, ‘of course, of course.’
His irritation returned. He was sure now that Sokolov did feel envy. ‘How devious he is today,’ he thought. ‘He’s as transparent as a child. You can see his insincerity straight away.’
‘Pyotr Lavrentyevich,’ he said. ‘Are you having people round this Saturday?’
Sokolov’s thick, fierce-looking nostrils flared. He seemed about to say something, but kept silent. Viktor looked at him questioningly.
‘Viktor Pavlovich,’ Sokolov said at last. ‘Between you and me, I no longer enjoy these evenings of ours.’
Now it was his turn to look questioningly at Viktor. Viktor remained silent. In the end Sokolov went on:
‘You know very well why I say that. It’s no joke. Some people really let themselves go.’
‘You didn’t,’ said Viktor. ‘You kept very quiet.’
‘Yes,’ said Sokolov. ‘And that’s why I’m worried.’
‘Fine! Let me be the host! I’d be only too delighted,’ said Viktor.
It was quite incomprehensible. Now it was he who was being hypocritical. Why was he lying like this? Why should he argue with Sokolov when he knew he agreed with him? He too was afraid of these meetings and would prefer not to continue with them.
‘What difference would that make?’ asked Sokolov. ‘That’s not the problem. Let me be quite frank with you. I’ve quarrelled with Madyarov, our chief orator, my own brother-in-law.’
Viktor wanted very much to ask: ‘Pyotr Lavrentyevich, are you quite sure we can trust Madyarov? Can you vouch for him?’ Instead he said: ‘What is all this nonsense? You’ve got it into your head that a few bold words somehow endanger the State. I’m sorry you’ve quarrelled with Madyarov. I like him. Very much.’
‘It isn’t right,’ said Sokolov, ‘for us Russians, at such a difficult time, to criticize our own country.’
Again Viktor wanted to ask: ‘Pyotr Lavrentyevich, this is something very serious. Are you sure Madyarov’s not an informer?’ Instead he said: ‘Excuse me, but things have just taken a turn for the better. Stalingrad is the beginning of spring. We’ve already drawn up lists of personnel to return to Moscow. Do you remember what we were thinking two months ago? The Urals, Kazakhstan, the taiga?’
‘In that case,’ said Sokolov, ‘there’s even less reason for you to carp and croak.’
‘Croak?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Pyotr Lavrentyevich!’
When he said goodbye to Sokolov, Viktor was feeling depressed and bewildered. Above all, he felt an unbearable loneliness. All day he had been longing to talk to Sokolov. He had thought this meeting would be very special. But almost every word of Sokolov’s had seemed trivial and insincere.
And he had been equally insincere himself. That made it even worse.
He went out onto the street. By the outer door a woman’s voice quietly called out his name. Viktor knew who it was.
Marya Ivanovna’s face was lit up by the street-lamp; her cheeks and forehead were shining with rain. In her old coat, with a woollen scarf round her neck, the professor’s wife seemed to embody the poverty of the wartime evacuee.
‘She looks like a conductor on one of the trams,’ thought Viktor.
‘How’s Lyudmila Nikolaevna?’ she asked, looking questioningly into his eyes.
‘The same as usual,’ said Viktor, shrugging his shoulders.
‘I’ll come round earlier tomorrow.’
‘You’re her guardian angel as it is,’ said Viktor. ‘It’s a good thing Pyotr
Lavrentyevich doesn’t mind. You spend so much time with Lyudmila. And he’s just a child – he can hardly get by without you for even an hour.’
She was still looking at him thoughtfully. She seemed to be listening without really hearing. Then she said: ‘Viktor Pavlovich, your face looks quite different today. Has something good happened?’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Your eyes have changed,’ she said. ‘It must be your work. Your work’s going well at last. There you are now – and you used to say you were no longer good for anything after all the unhappiness you’ve been through.’
‘Lyudmila must have told her,’ thought Viktor. ‘Women are such chatterboxes!’ At the same time, trying to hide his irritation, he asked with a smile: ‘What do you see in my eyes then?’
Marya Ivanovna remained silent for a moment. When she did speak, it was in a serious tone of voice, quite unlike Viktor’s.
‘Your eyes are always full of suffering – but not today.’
Suddenly Viktor opened up.
‘Marya Ivanovna, I don’t understand it. I feel that I’ve done the most important thing of my life. Science is bread, bread for the soul . . . And this has happened at such a sad, difficult time. How strangely tangled our lives are. How I wish I could . . . No, there’s no use in saying . . .’
Marya Ivanovna listened, still gazing into Viktor’s eyes. Then she said very quietly: ‘How I wish I could drive the sorrow out of your home.’
‘Thank you, dear Marya Ivanovna,’ said Viktor as they parted. He felt suddenly calm – as though it really were her he had come to see and he had now said what he wanted to say.
A minute later, walking down the dark street, Viktor had forgotten the Sokolovs. A cold draught blew from each of the dark entrances; when he came to a crossroads the wind lifted up the tail of his coat. Viktor shrugged his shoulders and frowned. Would his mother never know, would she never know what her son had just achieved?
7
Viktor called a meeting of all the laboratory staff – Markov and Savostyanov the two physicists, Anna Naumovna Weisspapier, Nozdrin the technician, and Perepelitsyn the electrician – and said that the doubts they had all had about the apparatus were quite unfounded. In fact it was the accuracy of their measurements that had led to such uniform results, despite variations in the experimental conditions.
Viktor and Sokolov were both theoreticians; it was Markov who was in charge of the experimental work in the laboratory. He had an astonishing talent for solving difficult problems and could always unerringly determine the principles of any new piece of equipment.
Viktor admired the confidence with which Markov would walk up to some new apparatus and be able, after only a few minutes and without looking at any instructions, to grasp both its essential principles and the tiniest details of its mechanism. He seemed to regard a complex apparatus as a living body; it was as though he were looking at a cat, glancing at its eyes and tail, its ears and claws, feeling its heartbeat, understanding what every part of its body was for.
As for Nozdrin, the haughty technician – he really came into his own when some new apparatus was being assembled in the laboratory. Savostyanov used to joke about Nozdrin, saying, ‘When Stepan Stepanovich dies, his hands will be taken to the Brain Institute to be studied.’
Nozdrin didn’t like these jokes. He tended to look down on the scientists, knowing that without his strong hands not one of them would be able to do anything at all.
The laboratory favourite was Savostyanov. He was at home in both practical and theoretical matters. Everything he did, he did quickly and effortlessly, almost light-heartedly. Even on the gloomiest of days, his bright corn-coloured hair seemed to be full of sunlight. Viktor would gaze at him admiringly, thinking that his hair reflected the brightness and clarity of his mind. Sokolov thought equally highly of him.
‘Yes, he’s not like us Talmudists,’ Viktor once said to Sokolov. ‘He’s a match for you and me and Markov put together.’
As for Anna Naumovna – she had an almost superhuman patience and capacity for work; once she had spent eighteen hours on end studying photographs under the microscope.
Many of the other heads of department considered Viktor extremely lucky to have such a brilliant staff. In answer to their comments Viktor replied jokingly: ‘Every head of department has the staff he deserves.’
‘We have all been through a period of depression and anxiety,’ he began. ‘Now we can all rejoice. Professor Markov has conducted the experiments faultlessly. The credit for this, of course, also belongs to the laboratory assistants and technicians responsible for so many observations and calculations.’
Markov gave a little cough and said: ‘Viktor Pavlovich, we should like you to expound your theory in as much detail as possible.’ Lowering his voice, he added: ‘I’ve heard that Kochkurov’s research in a similar area holds out great practical possibilities. Apparently Moscow has been asking about his results.’
Markov usually knew all the ins and outs of everything under the sun. When the Institute was being evacuated from Moscow, he had appeared in the railway carriage with all kinds of information – about hold-ups on the line, engine changes, stops where they could get something to eat . . .
Savostyanov, who hadn’t yet shaved that morning, said thoughtfully: ‘I’ll have to drink all the laboratory alcohol to celebrate.’ And Anna Naumovna, who was politically very active, sighed: ‘Thank God for that! At Party meetings we’ve already been accused of all kinds of mortal sins.’
Nozdrin remained silent, rubbing his hand over his hollow cheeks. As for Perepelitsyn, the young one-legged electrician, he just turned bright red and let his crutch fall to the floor with a bang.
It had been a good day for Viktor. Pimenov, the young director of the Institute, had telephoned him that morning and showered him with compliments. He was about to fly to Moscow; final preparations were under way for the return of almost the entire Institute.
‘Viktor Pavlovich,’ Pimenov had announced at the end of their conversations, ‘we’ll see each other in Moscow soon. I’m both proud and happy to be the director of the Institute at the time when you have brought your remarkable research to a conclusion.’
The meeting of the laboratory staff was equally agreeable.
Markov distrusted theoreticians and liked making jokes about the running of the laboratory. He was always complaining, ‘We’ve got a brigade of doctors and professors, a battalion of research assistants and one private soldier – Nozdrin. We’re like some strange pyramid with a wide top and a mere point as its base. Very unstable. What we need is a firm foundation – a whole regiment of Nozdrins.’ After Viktor’s talk, however, he smiled and said:
‘Well, so much for all my talk about regiments and pyramids.’
And as for Savostyanov, who had compared science with sport, his eyes took on a look of extraordinary warmth and joy. This was not how a football player looks at his coach, but the way a believer looks at an evangelist. Remembering Savostyanov’s argument with Sokolov and his own recent conversation with him, Viktor said to himself: ‘Well, I may understand something about the forces within the atom, but I really don’t have a clue about human beings.’
Towards the end of the day, Anna Naumovna came into Viktor’s office.
‘Viktor Pavlovich, I’ve just seen the list of people who are to return to Moscow. The new head of the personnel department hasn’t included my name.’
‘I know,’ said Viktor, ‘but there’s nothing to get upset about. There are two separate lists. You’re on the second one. You’ll be coming a few weeks later, that’s all.’
‘But for some reason I’m the only person from our group who isn’t on the first list. I’ve had enough of it here – I think I’m going mad. I dream of Moscow every night. And anyway how are you going to get the laboratory set up without me?’
‘I know,’ said Viktor. ‘But the list has already been authorized. It’s very difficult to change it now. Svech
in from the magnetic laboratory has already had a word about Boris Israelevich. Boris is in the same position as you, but apparently it’s impossible to do anything about it now. I think the best you can do is be patient.’
Then he suddenly lost patience himself.
‘Heaven knows what’s going on in their heads! They’ve included people we don’t need at all and for some reason they’ve forgotten you. You’re right – we do need you to set the place up.’
‘I haven’t been forgotten,’ said Anna Naumovna, her eyes slowly filling with tears. ‘It’s worse than that.’ She looked round quickly, almost furtively, at the half-open door. ‘For some reason it’s only Jewish names that have been crossed off the list. And I’ve heard from Rimma, the secretary of the personnel department, that almost all the Jews have been crossed off the list of the Ukrainian Academy at Ufa. The only ones left are the doctors.’
Viktor gaped at her in momentary astonishment, then burst out laughing.
‘My dear woman, have you gone mad? We’re not living under the Tsars, thank God! Why this shtetl inferiority complex? It’s time you forgot all that.’
8
When he got home, Viktor saw a familiar coat hanging on the peg: Karimov had called round.
Karimov put aside his newspaper. Viktor realized that Lyudmila must have avoided making conversation with him.
‘I’ve just come back from a kolkhoz,’ he said. ‘I was giving a lecture there . . . But please don’t worry. I’ve been very well fed. Our people are extremely hospitable.’
So Lyudmila hadn’t even offered him a cup of tea.
It was only if Viktor looked very closely at Karimov’s rather crumpled face with its wide nose that he could detect any differences from the usual Slavonic mould. But at odd moments, if he turned his head in a particular way, these slight differences merged into a single pattern, changing his face into that of a Mongol.
In the same way Viktor could sometimes recognize someone with blond hair, blue eyes and a snub nose as a Jew. The signs that revealed a man’s Jewish origins were often barely perceptible – a smile, the way he furrowed his brow in surprise, even the way he shrugged his shoulders.
Life and Fate Page 44