Journey of the Americanist by Stanislav Kondrashov - HTML preview

The sensation was unfolding. The lines of the initial report repeated for those who had just tuned in to the television screen, and they were enriched with new details, new actions. The most imaginative, insane, and talented playwright and director named Life once again

performed in his favorite genre of documentary and simultaneously fantastical realism, which Gabriel Garcia Marquez could not have dreamed of.

The granite obelisk is a kind of geographical navel of the American capital. If a straight line is drawn from the Lincoln Memorial to the Congress building on Capitol Hil and another straight line from the White House to the Jefferson Memorial, then the intersection of these lines is where the protruding Pencil is located. In any case, that was the plan a hundred and fifty years ago when the first monument project appeared, but during construction, which was completed a hundred years ago, the Pencil was slightly shifted because the intersection point turned out to be on unstable, marshy ground. "First in days of war, first in days of peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen"—this is the pathos about George Washington. From the monument of the first to the residence of the last, the current president, is within arm's reach. And the dynamiter, by intuition or calculation, fantastical y accurately chose the place from where fragments of the monument to the first president could be thrown at the White House, the residence of the last.

The stunning event overshadowed al others and was already going undefeated. American life often burst into his memory with unexpected characters in an unexpected place, and Amerikanist understood that, essential y, it was now writing an unexpected ending to his journey from his point of view. And if the news is number one, then there must already be cameras somewhere. Special mobile television crews must already be on-site. And switching channels, Amerikanist immediately stumbled upon the picture. They were broadcasting it live from the scene.

Ah, this is what it looks like, the lone man captured by the TV near the giant monument. There he is, the madman, stil nameless, bursting onto the stage, and from ocean to ocean in the television audience cal ed America, mil ions of people were already sitting, scrutinizing and deciphering the man who, before their eyes, face to face, was going against the nuclear superpower. It was his moment, a starry one, and perhaps the last. But if he had a portable TV in his hands instead of a remote control device, he would have seen that the camera observed him without any reverence, impassively and coldly, like some

experimental creature. It looked at him as if with the cold and keen eye of a god, who, from his peaks, observes another moment of human tragicomedy.

Yes, he was alone at the mighty base of the towering obelisk, and the camera wanted to, but couldn't capture both of them at once—the little man and the entire gigantic monument. And when the camera took the monument in ful height, the man disappeared, vanished—that's what he had aimed for. Then the man reappeared in the frame, alone with the gray wal of the base and his white, medical-looking van. He was strangely dressed—in a blue jumpsuit and a helmet with a lowered visor. And this motorcyclist's attire made one think of astronauts in their space suits. But his gait was different, not the gait of an astronaut walking with a briefcase in hand and in the eyes of the whole world to the bus that would take him to the cosmodrome, to the rocket, and to glory. The dynamiter's walk, strol ing back and forth near his van, was brisk and funny, the walk of a not-so-young, unremarkable, non-athletic man who nevertheless wanted to look strong and confident. In his hands, there was indeed some gadget with an antenna, and he held the device at some distance from his chest, as if wary of it.

He wanted to make an impression, but his appearance betrayed stiffness and tension, and despite the menacing gesture, the announced threat of a thousand pounds of explosives, the impression was pitiful. He seemed to be a late television debutant. Only for his debut, this man chose a fantastic place where retakes were ruled out, and it could wel become a frontal location for him.

On the side of the white van with dynamite, a short inscription outlined the noblest goal of the unknown: "Task number one - to ban nuclear weapons." The disparity between the historical scale of the task and the lone little man in a blue jumpsuit was even more striking than between him and the monument.

In the meantime, the action continued to unfold.

Reports came in: he released nine hostages without waiting for an official response to his demand.

It was reported that the assumption about a second person, an accomplice, turned out to be incorrect.

It was reported that the President and participants in the breakfast he hosted at the White House had been moved from the room where window panes could shatter in case of an explosion to another, safer room. The President's wife was advised to stay away from the rooms in the southern part of the White House. Official y, the White House did not respond to the threat to the monument, considering the incident within the jurisdiction of the police.

Engaging more people and institutions, the event spread like ripples in water. Employees of the Department of Commerce and the Department of Agriculture, located nearby the Pencil, were evacuated.

The National Museum of American History was closed to visitors. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, park police responsible for order in national parks and the preservation of national monuments, as wel as the Washington, D.C. police, formed a special group to handle the situation.

However, the culprit refused to make any contact with authorities, and the police did not want him to become overly nervous. Save the nerves of the madman with explosives!

Final y, a voluntary intermediary was found, to whom the dynamiter entrusted himself—a reporter from the Associated Press. He took on the task of assisting the public and, at the same time, zealously promoting his agency. Now the reporter appeared on the television screen, cautiously ascending the hil toward the monument, lifting the tails of his jacket and spreading his arms, showing the absence of weapons and hidden intentions. The unknown man paused his nervous pacing… The distance between them narrowed... They spoke about something, standing a few steps apart…

Then the reporter descended from the hil . And immediately through his agency, he disseminated the message of the man who, as the reporter expressed it, took the national monument hostage. The message was short and suffered from clichés.

"The blame lies with the President and the press," the reporter faithful y reproduced the words of the dynamiter. "They pretend that there is no threat of nuclear destruction hanging over us, they refuse to provide true information about the dangerous, uncontrol able situation in which the world finds itself."

Although he criticized the press, words stronger and more eloquent were printed in newspapers every day. What does he hope to achieve? Persuade the President? Ral y the nation against him? Does he real y believe that one act, no matter how dramatic, wil open the eyes of the blind and unite the divided? Does he think that everything wil change after his sacrifice in front of everyone or even from the sacrifice of the national monument?

Watching the unfolding events, the Americanist tried to understand the logic of madness.

On the other hand, he reasoned, does it real y matter what words are spoken? Al words have been spoken long ago. Only actions restore lost power to words. How do you ensure your word? What are you wil ing to pay for it?

For the prominent figures, words, even the emptiest or false ones, reach mil ions of others—they are already backed by their fame or power. But for the unknown and insignificant person, if he wants to be heard, there might be only one chance in life and one single payment—his only life. And this smal , unknown person, choosing a fantastic frontal location in the very center of Washington, was laying his head on the block so that mil ions could hear him for the only time in his life, to momentarily drown out the voices of the powerful, authoritative, greedy, and aggressive. With his act of madness, he appealed to the common sense of his fel ow countrymen.

This act could also be understood in this way. And the Americanist, sitting alone in his room in front of the television, also thought about it.

In the case of the biblical forefather Abraham, God demanded a terrible sacrifice—his only and beloved son, Isaac. Abraham obeyed God and rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, chopped wood for the sacrificial fire, and, with Isaac, went to the place designated by God to offer his son as a sacrifice, thus proving his faith in God and his fear of Him. Isaac sensed something was wrong. As they ascended the mountain, he asked his father: here is the fire and wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? Abraham replied: God wil provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering. They reached the appointed place, and Abraham set up the altar. He bound his son and placed him on the altar

on top of the wood. When Abraham took the knife to slaughter his son, Isaac, according to the Bible, did not utter a word. He was silent, like a sacrificial lamb. God stayed Abraham's hand and spared Isaac, testing the strength of Abraham's faith.

But what faith does the nuclear devil, possessing tens of thousands of pre-prepared megatons, expect from us? What kind of faith and fear? Wil we remain silent, like the biblical Isaac, under his raised knife?

The little man groaned on behalf of those as voiceless as him. He cursed both God and the devil, modern Caesars, and sacrificed himself on the hil to avert the holocaust of life on Earth.

This interpretation was given to his action.

He burst onto the scene with a high tragic note, halting the hustle of the pre-departure day for the Americanist. A moving, appearing, and disappearing color picture for everyone on the matte-shining glass screen. And there, on the hil , two hundred and fifty miles from Manhattan, not a picture but a living and terribly lonely man in the agony of mortal suffering. Television proximity is deceptive, television solidarity is ephemeral. Which of those sympathizing and empathizing through the TV would want to stand next to him, in the crosshairs of police rifles?...

The dynamiter's incognito was deciphered by the license plate of the van from the state of Florida. Besides, the police were already receiving phone cal s from those who recognized their friend, neighbor—in the blue jumpsuit, white van, brisk walk. Now, voices and lines from the television screen provided the initial data, depriving the hero of the day of anonymity.

Norman Meyer. Sixty-six years old. From the city of Miami, Florida.

Owner of a pension, already retired from business due to age, financial y wel -off, with some capital. They sought an explanation for his dramatic act on a national scale. Alone... Childless... Harmless... Never been to a mental hospital, not associated with anarchism, left or right radicalism...

A normal life of an American bourgeois. A citizen. And around him—southern sun, palm trees, and the sea. A resort paradise—and money for a carefree old age. What else? In Miami, there are plenty of such people. No mysteries. And suddenly this grand gesture with dynamite.

The visions of nuclear mushrooms did not let Norman Meyer live and rejoice. A private entrepreneur, believing in private initiative, waged his anti-nuclear struggle alone—walking with placards and placing paid advertisements in newspapers to ban nuclear weapons, just as he had previously placed paid ads for his pension in the same newspapers. In recent days, he occasional y visited Washington and picketed alone with a sign along the White House fence. No one noticed him or heard him.

There were many like him. And now he found his sacrificial place and his way to make his voice heard.

However, the White House continued to arrogantly remain silent.

The police, without giving up trying to dissuade and reason with the madman, did not utter a word about fulfil ing his demands.

...In the dramas that life spontaneously stages, there are dead-end situations when the characters, having said their words, drag on and hesitate with action, and the audience loses interest in the meantime. A lul occurred on the hil at the monument.

Meanwhile, other fictional characters of other events of the day crowded at the television platforms and demanded attention to themselves. And daytime viewers, unlike evening ones, were busy people, and each of them was cal ed somewhere even in those moments when the fate of the national monument hung by a hair. On his last day, the Americanist also could not endlessly sit in front of the television. Leaving the hotel, he merged with the crowd on the streets, ran through nearby shops and pharmacies, fulfil ing the requests of acquaintances for pipe tobacco and new half-dol ar coins with John F.

Kennedy's profile, door upholstery rivets, nail clippers, soy sauce, the latest numismatic yearbook, and so on.

Another short December day was running out, the last day in the life of Norman Meyer, an American citizen and resident of Miami.

There was no dynamite in his van.

He came up with the dynamite, knowing in advance that without it, he wouldn't last five minutes, but who would hear his voice, except the nearest police officer?

He came up with the dynamite, but he hadn't thought through the scenario of his threat to explode the Washington Monument to the end.

He seized the stage in front of everyone's eyes and had to hold it. He

couldn't turn off the TV and go about his business, hoping to catch up on what happened next in the evening broadcasts. Darkness was approaching, and his surroundings shrank to the mercilessly il uminated platform. Extreme exertion was required, and he was tired from a long walk under the barrels of rifles and TV cameras, and there was nothing around to give him new strength. The people for whom he undertook his risky action were silent. At least their connection with him was one-sided, and he did not know what invisible and perhaps truly nationwide debates took place in the souls of his fel ow countrymen who saw him on their TV

screens and pondered his actions. After al , he was sixty-six, retirement age, he hadn't eaten or drunk al day, and he could hardly endure by the granite pedestal even through the night—what could it add?

And so, Norman Meyer climbed into the darkness on the seat of the van and, without warning his pursuers, rol ed down Fifteenth Street.

The eager police, not hesitating, opened fire. From their point of view, the madman was driving a thousand pounds of explosives into the city.

The van swerved and overturned.

They awaited an explosion, but it didn't happen.

The police officers cautiously approached the overturned van.

Their bul ets hit not only the wheels. In the cabin, they found the lifeless body of Norman Meyer.

And late in the evening, when the workday had ended not only on the East Coast but also on the West Coast of the United States, viewers were shown the finale. They saw the overturned van, stretchers in the hands of paramedics, and something on the stretchers covered from above with a white sheet. Commentators explained that this was the body of the deceased Norman Meyer. In the evening darkness, il uminated by television lights, the stretchers disappeared into the depths of the "ambulance." Roaring its siren, the vehicle immediately set off and sped away. Then Norman Meyer, who had just been taken to one of the city morgues, was resurrected in video recordings on TV

screens—strutting with his lively and even more pitiful and funny gait, he once again began to strol by the monument under the final explanations of the TV commentators.

Now they were showing the chief of the park police live. He conducted an impromptu press conference, justifying the actions of his subordinates who had fired without warning. When he tried to explain the motives of the deceased, the Americanist thought that the police chief was taking on a task too heavy for his mind and imagination. Just as Norman Meyer had taken on another overwhelming task himself.

The little man ran out onto the Plaza of History with a cry of despair and curses—and crashed into the insensitive iron machinery of the state. A similar drama was described in eternal verses a hundred and fifty years ago. There was a little man and there was a monument—the Bronze Horseman. And there was the pitiful rebel ion of the little man—and the pursuit, the punishment.

And across the empty square,

He runs and hears behind him—

As if the rumble of thunder—

The heavy, resonant pounding

On the shaken pavement...

And the same, in essence, the finale:

...They found my madman,

And immediately buried his cold corpse

For God's sake.

The swift return journey began. Americannist was heading not from LaGuardia Airport, but to LaGuardia Airport, and he squeezed not a bottle of vodka, but a fresh copy of "The New York Times" with the story of Norman Meyer, transitioning from the front page to the twenty-fifth. On the Triboro Bridge, he didn't encounter, but bid farewel to the skyscrapers of Manhattan, which remained behind him with clear silhouettes in the warm and sunny December day. He sat not on a Montreal-bound plane going to New York, but on a New York-bound plane going to Montreal—and in the opposite direction, the stil snowless land of New England slid beneath the wing. But as they approached Montreal, he saw the sturdy white snow sparkling in the sun and rejoiced in it, like a message from home.

In Montreal, they took him from Dorval Airport to Mirabel Airport, where he was not supposed to say goodbye but to meet our plane. The

passengers on the bus were unfamiliar to him, but he perceived them as fel ow travelers from Moscow, who had scattered each to their own business on the North American continent a month and a half ago and now gathered again for a common cause—returning home, al together, including the man in a cassock who had kept to himself; the priest was also on an international mission, directed to one of the two Russian Orthodox churches in North America that is subordinate to the Moscow Patriarch.

There was no farewel , however, with Immigration Inspector Hayes and American customs officials on the return journey: as a man leaving the USA, Americannist did not interest American authorities, and only a clerk from Air Canada checked his passport, issuing a ticket to New York, and tore off the non-immigrant form on which Inspector Hayes stamped at the beginning of the journey—"Admitted to the USA" (for the forty-five already expired days).

They flew to America fol owing the sun, extending the October day.

Now the December sun had passed over Montreal to the west, and, settling in the Ilyushin-62, which had come from Moscow, they flew eastward, towards the sun of the coming day, shortening the long winter night.

Our plane, our pilots and flight attendants, our glowing displays, Aeroflot scents, food and drinks, towels and napkins—although not world-class in everything, in these first hours, Americannist decidedly found no grounds for criticism of Aeroflot. After a month and a half of wandering around, the discharge, in a sense, reigned in the joyful return journey. Inner tension gave way to relaxation, and even the passage of time seemed to slow down in the Moscow life of Americannist, who returned from America. And in the hourglass, meditations did not occur almost at al on the way home, and this journey left no traces in his travel diary. Discharge, in a way intercontinental, prevailed in the joyful return journey. Inner tension gave way to relaxation, and even the passage of time seemed to slow down in the Moscow life of Americannist, who returned from America.

Familiar faces peeking out from behind the barrier of the customs zone at Sheremetyevo Airport, the editorial driver, the recognition of the snow-covered outskirts of Moscow, a familiar house and courtyard, an elevator, a door—and a meeting within the wal s of his apartment. It's

good to arrive from a business trip on Friday. He had a good sleep, and he adjusted the biological clock of his body to the Moscow day and night outside the window. He went to the editorial dacha in Pakhra, and after a sauna, relaxing, sat with a friend at the table, and white snow lay on the ground, and bare birches speckled the snow with their trunks, it was cold and expansively spacious, and he again experienced the sweet power of his native nature and an inexplicable desire to dissolve in it.

The close ones were close again, not dear iconic images of memory but people in their everyday lives—and he could no longer tel them how much he missed being far away, and his feelings seemed to have hidden—until the next parting.

Every morning, he commuted to work. The editorial office had long become a second home, and on the first working day upon his return, he would enter the familiar building with a certain awkwardness and restraint, as if afraid that no one would recognize him, fearing that everyone had forgotten about him. In the long corridors, almost everyone was on familiar terms. Some expressed surprise: "Haven't seen you in a while. What's going on?" From this, he concluded that even his col eagues didn't read the newspaper attentively. Others would ask, "So, how was it in America?" — and didn't expect an answer. He had written about America in the newspaper for so long that his responses seemed implicit, lacking interest. When he was young and not yet an Americannist, people would inquire more thoroughly.

It was a home, not a foreign land, and at home, he was a wel -known figure, navigating life among his aging generation. His friends were among the al -knowing people who had stopped bothering their heads with details, and the younger col eagues, gaining experience and strength, with their stil unsatisfied curiosity, hesitated to question him.

What else? His correspondence on Catholic bishops and anti-war sentiments in Congress, transmitted from New York, was published.

Nothing more was demanded of him, no final pieces. Only the accounting department requested a financial report, and he compiled and submitted it along with the remaining government dol ars. When Americannist was home in Moscow, his work mainly involved reading

current materials and writing about current political events related to the relations between the two countries. After the initial adjustment days, he delved into this familiar Moscow work, especial y as the relations were more feverish than usual; Americans were deploying intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Western Europe, and an intense ideological and political battle was unfolding around this issue. The freshness of impressions from the last trip gradual y faded away. While strol ing through his hometown, he no longer engaged in the involuntary game of imagination, superimposing Moscow streets on those of New York or Washington. However, the feeling of dissatisfaction and the same damned outspokenness persisted. Again, he thought that he hadn't said the main thing. He didn't even know what that main thing was, but he understood that it should reveal itself in the process of work if he tried to describe his trip more ful y and candidly, which meant understanding and reliving it anew. In such work, he believed, there would be a real justification for his journey. However, immersed in the fluidity of editorial work, Americannist increasingly neglected to pul out and open the thick notebook with his new American notes, and he didn't find time even to type up this source material on the typewriter to see and feel it better.

Would everything that so infected and charged him there, al that intense mental work, be in vain, as it had often happened, and only four correspondences with their dense, almost encrypted, purely political, current content would remain of this trip? They had already disappeared into the bound volumes of newspapers — forever. Would this lifelong paradox prevail again — there was no time to tel about time and about oneself? Meanwhile, significant events were taking place in the country and in the newspaper. The chief editor, who had blessed Americannist for the trip, retired: "Act!" The old chief returned to the newspaper as the new chief, jokingly referred to as the "twice chief." He did a lot to inspire the team, print more sharp problem materials, and make efforts to boost the newspaper, which was losing subscribers. He knew how to extract and put to work the creative potential of every person and worker. The newspaper improved, demanding more time and effort. Six months passed. Americannist final y typed up his American notes on the typewriter, but he didn't make any progress beyond that. He was already consoling himself with the Oblomovian dream — to postpone the venture until tomorrow, after yet another trip.

You may wonder what happened to his television film about New York. This venture stal ed right from the beginning, and our debutant lost the desire to push it further. Admittedly, one television executive reacted quite sympathetical y to his script. He had once lived in New York himself and felt that the author had the right to his own perspective and approach to the subject. However, another television executive, who hadn't lived in New York but was directly responsible for TV film production, raised objections. He didn't know New York, but he did know what was required from a film about New York. He advised Americannist to see New York through the eyes of others— the eyes of the creators of previous films. Such advice didn't inspire any strength or desire.

Replicating would be both senseless and uninteresting. A young and energetic woman, attached to the film as a director, got excited about Americannist's idea. However, she also lacked her own vision of New York, and, of course, no one intended to send her there just for an extracurricular film. Thus, this television project with a prologue on the Hudson River bank and an epilogue on the Sunday streets of New York was abandoned. Time slipped away like sand between the fingers.

But one beautiful July morning, by some touch of providence, a traveler appeared to Americannist.

He was a middle-aged American, of average height, stout, with a smal beard on a round, broad face and blue, clear, attentive eyes.

Americannist offered him one of the two Finnish chairs in the corner of his office, and he took the other. They engaged in lively conversation, occasional y with gestures, for about an hour and a half. After escorting the traveler to the door, our hero bid farewel to him in the editorial corridor.

Why cal him a traveler? Our own wanderers and travelers have been translated, and foreign ones don't wander across state borders.

The American didn't come from the street; he was a wel -known journalist and writer, visiting Moscow as a guest of the Novosti Press Agency, and Americannist received him upon the agency's request. So why cal him a traveler?

The word arose primarily from the appearance of the American.

On a hot Moscow day, he was casual y and lightly dressed—summer cotton pants, a shirt without a tie, and a canvas bag slung over his

shoulder. It was this canvas bag, this semblance of a satchel on the foreigner, with whom a certain degree of formality was inevitable, that led Americannist to the Russian word suggesting not four wal s and a ceiling with a certain diplomatic air on the newspaper-magazine level but rather free skies over open spaces, the curly fringe of a forest, paintings like those of Nesterov, or verses like those of Blok: "No, I am setting forth uninvited, and let the earth be light to me..."

Not a foreigner, but a certain foreigner.

But the external comparison with a Russian traveler stopped there.

From his bag, the guest pul ed out not a crust of bread and a piece of salted pork in a rag but two large yel ow American envelopes of thick paper. From the envelopes, he extracted folded sheets of paper, and from his jacket pocket, a black, thick pen, one of those we used to cal

"everlasting" until they were supplanted by short-lived bal points.

And there, where the external comparison with the traveler ended, the secret and anxious comparison began.

The American came to Moscow to work on a book about strategic nuclear weapons—the very ones we are preparing for each other in that fateful event. He had studied the problem from the American side, but one side was not enough on the chosen subject. So, for two weeks, he came to see us and talk to us. Did the ancient philosophers foresee that this connection would emerge: weapon systems—politics—the meaning of existence? Between these three links, only three, there is no gap, and one could put an equals sign between them. A super-dense compression of everything. It has never been like this, although the Bomb has hung over us for forty years.

And a new traveler brought a blue-eyed, bearded American with a canvas bag to Moscow. Like other travelers.

Americannist

liked

him.

He

possessed

naturalness

and

intel igence, sincerity and that attractive boldness when a writing person, rejecting so-cal ed solidity, is unafraid to ask seemingly naive, childlike questions, answers to which seemingly adult, solid people already know.

He wanted to understand us and our attitude toward Americans. From his questions, Americannist felt that one very childlike and very wise question emerged: what are we (meaning us, them, and al of humanity) as people, and what awaits us, such people, in the future, given the presence of such weapons and such an international situation, and what

should we do? And you, sitting across, what kind of person are you?

Can we, on our common ship Earth, navigate between the Scyl a and Charybdis of our fear and animosity in a world where we can al sink together if we don't learn to save ourselves together?

This traveler came to our country because he saw in us fel ow travelers, and he could not separate his fate from ours. A common fate—and a universal human one. Americannist came to this conclusion when, bidding farewel to the American and thinking about how to write about this encounter and this American, he sought the hidden psychological layer beneath the surface of their conversation.

Sentimental notes came to him easily and joyful y, as everything does that is written without hesitation and from the heart.

"The world is smal ," he wrote about the meeting with the American traveler and companion. "The world is smal ... An unknown and wise ancestor boldly juxtaposed these two words back when his familiar world was enclosed by the dark thickets of forests on the horizon, and the unfamiliar extended who knows where, hiding the darkness of wonders.

Indeed, the world is smal ," chuckled old acquaintances who happened to meet a dozen versts from home. "Indeed, the world is smal ..." Try saying the same thing, good-naturedly laughing, about a bal istic missile that can, in just half an hour, deliver hundreds of thousands of inevitable deaths from one continent to another, packed into three or ten nuclear warheads with individual—and precise—targeting?"

"The world is smal ... The meeting struck Amerikanist also because he knew this American remotely. His name was Thomas Powers. In this smal world, roughly in the middle of our documentary narrative, where the characters, like travelers, appear and disappear, Amerikanist encountered Thomas Powers in the stratospheric pitch-black sky between Washington and San Francisco. Remember the anniversary issue of the monthly magazine 'The Atlantic,' with its bluish-silvery cover

— in it, there was an article 'Choosing a Strategy for the Third World War'? It captivated Amerikanist and made him forget about the comedy film offered on that transcontinental evening to the passengers of the wide-fuselage DC-10. He brought that magazine to Moscow in its entirety and kept it close at hand, not losing it in his archive. And now,

they met — in person. And Amerikanist, with renewed vigor and without delays, wanted to tel about this strange world, smal and tragical y torn, in which we are al travelers, and we are al companions."

"But another four months passed before he approached the chief editor with a request to grant him time to write. He said he could no longer postpone it, feeling like an unfulfil ed cow. The comparison amused the chief, but he delved into the request and approved the leave. 'Go and work — what's the fuss about?' he said, even offering to publish excerpts from what would be written in the newspaper.

Amerikanist left his office elated — and concerned. Now he had the time, and it was a time of trial."

On the very first evening, settling into a writer's retreat cel outside Moscow, he began his work and outlined his task on a sheet of paper:

"What you left unsaid—both this and that. Perhaps the reflections during the flight. Or Inspector Hayes—where their boundary is locked.

Typification of al things American, especial y upon entering their atmosphere. Your New York, entered at night.

But that's not the main thing left unsaid. You exist there in two extreme states, stretched, if not crucified, between them. Your private, personal—life, fate, melancholy, nostalgia. And just as intensely—your sense of the col ective at the intersection of two countries in one nuclear age. The private individual and the public individual, through whom time is intricately filtered. This is what is left unsaid, and this is why you torment yourself with unexpressed feelings, constantly traveling there, although burdened and increasingly realizing the arbitrariness of your life there.

This central thought, this explanation of your torment, suddenly comes to you on a frosty evening, with a high moon and sparks in the snow, when, sitting alone at the writing desk, you embark on another attempt to settle your accounts with your impressions..."

1983-1984

God is my witness, that on the high magnification, in the sparks on the snow, and in the thought of time that had become dear to him, whimsical y filtered through a person, the author intended to put a period in his description of the Americanist's journey. Or three periods, imagining them as traces leading into the distance, made by typographical marks, a hint that life continues, and the documentary narrative about it should be cut off somewhere. But time passed, and the author realized that with his three dots, he had posed a riddle that the reader would hardly attempt to solve. The author forgot about what he himself had been reminding throughout his narrative, namely, the specifics of the life and work of his hero as one of our Americanists.

Even the most insightful reader would hardly guess how this specific life continued and where the traces of the three symbolic dots led. And one more circumstance pushed towards writing either a continuation or an epilogue. While the manuscript lay somewhere in the publisher's cupboard among other stationery folders with ribbons, the Americanist, at the behest of his newspaper, undertook another journey to America, coinciding with yet another election.

The new trip was shorter, only two and a half weeks, and the elections were more important, not intermediate, but presidential. And in the White House, the voter left the same person whom he hadn't favored much two years ago. Didn't this fact by itself demand some kind of postscript?

With its fantastic authenticity, life inspires us to experiment in the genre of documentary prose. What can be more authentic and important than life itself? Moreover, it relieves the documentarian of the heavy work of imagination, which exhausts the fel ow artist, from the need to tie up loose ends because it takes on this difficult task. But in return, once the fel ow has tied up the ends, it's easier to put a period and do without an afterword. He won't be cal ed to account for new twists and turns that life throws, continuing to create, as if nothing happened, even when the document sheet is finished. That's why the documentarian's rightful place is not in a book that is long in the making and publishing, but in a newspaper, where what is written in the morning is printed in the evening, and by tomorrow, it may already be forgotten. And if it's forgotten, then they won't cal him to account, neither for responsibility nor for judgment.

Al true, but on a frosty and lunar November evening, on which we finished our narration, the Americanist, tearing himself away from the newspaper, disconnecting from the fleeting stream of newspaper life, immersed himself in a state of creative bliss. "Enough!" he said to himself, decisively discarding new impressions for the sake of returning to the old ones, from the aging American notebook, immersing himself in them again.

The month-long meditation did not take place on the plane, hanging over the ocean, but in the room of the Writers' House, without fril s, but with al the conveniences, on the third floor of a four-story panel tower, standing away from the central building, resembling a nobleman's palace, and yel ow mansions with columns, in the guise of which pre-war notions of a haven for muses were preserved. Double doors, covered with brown leather, preserved the silence. November and December days were short but clear, frosty, and strong. A mighty split oak-beauty on the way to the dining room, with the weaving of black bare branches, shaded almost Spanish blue sky. Lively birds sat on the interlacing of the open window, looking at the tenant with quick bead-like eyes, pecking at crumbs of white bread, and when the tenant came out, leaving their amendments on the sheets of his paper. And, blessing the therapy of work, the Americanist sat down at the table right after breakfast, stood up before lunch, and, crunching with crisp snow on a walk in the enchanted winter forest, after lunch, took up the matter again, and the shadows from the lanterns fel on the snow, and the birds fel silent, settling somewhere to rest.

The subject he was working on was gloomy, apocalyptic, and the mood born of early winter and advancing work was light and cheerful.

In the dining room, the Americanist sat next to a lover of ski trips from the Litipstitute and a Udmurt poet. An intel igent and modest poet, who came to Moscow with his shy wife, shared frontline memories and the special anxieties of a person who, by nature, does not know how to get along with translators and promote his poems to the al -union reader.

His imagination lived in the forested native Udmurtia, an employee of the Lit Institute translated from Latvian, the Americanist made his way through the description of arriving in New York or views of the Washington suburb of Somerset, and the images of these different

worlds hovered over the dining table in the corner near the door, over vegetarian shchi and meatbal s with vermicel i.

Political y charged days, of course, raised questions about America, and the interlocutors of the Americanist, with their distance knowledge, sometimes revealed annoying gaps in his personal but strictly politicized knowledge. Non-specialists, they looked to the root and sought there what concerned us. It was the questions of the straightforward Valya that were most memorable to him. Her husband was taken away by a cheerful, smoky, drunk life of a gasman. She raised her schoolboy son alone, although she stil lived with her ex-husband in the same apartment, which they couldn't exchange. Like a strong peasant woman, she sawed the neck with the edge of her palm, swol en from diligent American studies, and at the same time, having listened to the latest news on the radio and television, she questioned, complained, and expressed indignation: "Why are you silent? Tel me something. Wil there be a war or not? And what do they want anyway? Surely everything is in crystals, in gold, they go to restaurants. What else do they need?.." She fel silent, catching her breath, and easily linked her personal with the global, universal: "I've been thinking of doing repairs next year. But what if there is a war — what's the use of it then, this repair?! We have a military unit nearby. When they start their thing there, I close the little window so as not to hear. Surely, I think, it has begun?!"

And in moments of Valya's straightforward revelations, in the warmly heated medical office, outside the window of which stood trees in the snow and a frosty day sparkled with its diamond bril iance, the Americanist again convinced himself: yes, the world is smal ...

So, a month of vacation passed, and on the table, a stack of paper fil ed with writing slowly grew. He looked at it, satisfyingly counting the fil ed sheets but afraid to delve into the text, so as not to disturb himself with the imperfections of what was done. Returning to Moscow and typing the manuscript, he read it and saw that the text was even worse than he expected. A typical unfinished work. And it's awkward to ask for an extension of vacation because there is nothing to settle with the newspaper for its generosity.

Leaving the construction site, where he worked so enthusiastical y and joyful y, the Americanist returned to newspaper work with its

alternation of emergencies and pauses. That winter, the state of Soviet-American relations was most often defined by the phrase, "Worse than ever in the post-war period." In the race of arms and diplomacy, arms were leading more than ever. The Americans, with a position blocking an agreement, succeeded in disrupting negotiations in Geneva on medium-range nuclear weapons in Europe and strategic arms. For the first time in many years, representatives of the two states interrupted their dialogue, and weapons were arriving, with the first "Pershing-2"

already being deployed on combat positions in West Germany. A new term, previously known only to specialists, flashed in newspapers—flight time. The flight time for American nuclear missiles to reach their targets on Soviet territory was now six to eight, not thirty to forty minutes. The capture of tiny Grenada intensified the warlike chauvinism of Americans.

The battleship "New Jersey" loomed off the coast of Lebanon, firing one-and-a-half-ton shel s towards mountain vil ages near Beirut. Where else and when else would this provocatively imperialistic policy strike?

A leap year arrived, the year of presidential elections in America, but even through the pre-election noise of peace-loving phrases, the rumble of a fist demonstrating American power could be heard. The heat of ideological battles was growing, and it would be shameful to lag behind col eagues who actively spoke out in the newspaper. For a couple of months, the Americanist completely abandoned his unfinished work.

However, time threatened the building erected from the bricks of transient facts, and then he had to divide himself between the newspaper and the manuscript. The book was again a secret offspring, and in fragments, he transformed the first draft into the second, and the second into the third. When he got the third version from the typewriter, it stil wasn't right. He sat at home in the mornings, and family members disconnected the phone and tiptoed around, and the spring day resoundingly arrived outside the window, the voices of birds and children were heard from the yard, and from the adjacent highway, the rumble of trucks and panel vans was increasingly loud and harsh. Arriving at work, he saw that the April sun was gathering more and more of its young admirers on the famous square, where the bronze poet, raising his hand with a hat behind his back and tilting his head, contemplatively gazed at yet another generation bustling around his pedestal.

Only the youth forgot everything, listening to the victorious anthems of spring. Adults, briefly enjoying the sunshine, continued to live the prose of their everyday lives. Young men and women, arranging a meeting at the famous square, didn't know that in the nearby, external y unshakably calm newspaper building, a disturbed human hive was buzzing. The chief editor, who managed to uplift the team and move the newspaper forward, was taken upstairs. Without his authoritative hand, the newspaper seemed to drift aimlessly. They lived in anticipation of a new chief and new changes, with speculations, assumptions, and rumors wandering through the long corridors from office to office.

Uncertain days. Sharp transitions.

They bid farewel to the chief. In the round conference hal , nicknamed "the puck," fil ing al the chairs and seats, standing against the wal s and blocking the doors, employees crowded. The chief was excited by the gathering, attention, and the hidden excitement of the people. Words appropriate to the occasion were spoken in a respectful and playful tone, not without the newspaper's humor. But there was an air of another, different farewel hanging over the gathering, scheduled for the next day—a sudden death of the most prominent and widely recognized newspaper staff member, Anatoly A., whom everyone simply cal ed Tolya, even though he was over sixty.

The next day, in another room, long and low, a coffin covered in red stood in the place where the presidium table usual y stands at meetings, actual y on the same table where the presidium sits.

Newspaper staff, friends, acquaintances, admirers came to bid a fond and ironical y smiling farewel to the master, who achieved rare authenticity and truthfulness in his exemplary analytical essays. Just a few days ago, he strol ed with a soft cat-like gait along the long corridors, playful y and condescendingly addressing someone from the younger staff, praising, adding a textbook line that always circulates in such situations: "...and blessed as he descended into the grave..."

The mystery of life and death. Or life-death. The master died suddenly and absurdly—although does the last word apply to what is irreversible? Joyful y embracing the blue April, he went on Friday to relax at the editorial dacha, and on Saturday, they took him to Moscow as a dead man. In the fresh delightful evening, he walked along the al ey on the high riverbank, the sun stil hung over the slowly awakening fields,

tel ing his companion that his eldest son sent a letter from Ethiopia, proudly answering his father's question about the bread they eat there—it's their own, father. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, his heart squeezed—and the pain did not let go. They cal ed an ambulance.

The doctor suggested a local hospital, but Muscovites fear it. Neither Tolya nor Galya, his wife, understood the fatality of what was happening.

Towards morning, he died—reanimation was late.

The morning was Saturday, the best edition of the week was being made in the editorial office, and the news from Pakhra spread instantly.

The newspaper's nature—the mournful news—immediately became another material for it, and Tolya's friend, another wel -known essayist, taking his personal file from the personnel department and books from his library, wrote an obituary for the issue.

The dead body was taken from Pakhra during the day, but the Saturday sauna was never canceled. In the cramped space of lovers, there were more people than ever, and afterwards, they held a kind of wake—on a radiant April day, no one wanted to be alone, the elemental force of spring and life resisted the victory of death. Life-death.

A few days later, in the same long and low hal on the second floor, in the same place as the presidium, there stood a coffin, and in it, with a covered head exhausted by surgeries, lay Leonid S., a correspondent of the newspaper in a Western European country. Trouble doesn't come alone, but life has its momentum. An hour after the requiem—in the chief's office on the third floor, a new chief editor was presented to the staff. The new one was relatively young and unfamiliar; people looked at him with a restrained and testing gaze. He was nervous and said precise, necessary words, paying tribute to the newspaper's traditions, its team, and his predecessor. With the new chief, a new chapter in their work at the newspaper, and perhaps in their lives, began for those gathered.

The widow of the late Tolya recounted that in his last night, struggling, he repeated: "Maeta... Maeta..." Not understanding what was happening, the master uttered this precise word on his deathbed and left it to his col eagues as a testament, as a final discovery, a guess, a solution.

For a long time, the Americanist was impressed by this magnetic word—it fit into various situations and his life that year. Maeta... His journey concluded in a country hospital, where he was admitted with a duodenal ulcer, and where he final y finished his unfinished work. One July day, between a pil and an injection, he put three dots after words about the high moon and frosty sparks in the snow. Al is wel as long as work goes wel and gives meaning to life. The Americanist was treated.

Two copies of his work ended up in publishing folders with ribbons, and the third—in the editorial office of a thick magazine. The magazine agreed only to an abbreviated version. And in August, at the Zheleznovodsk sanatorium, he engaged in a new "maeta," a self-destructive maeta, three times a day joining thousands of other Slavophiles, i.e., lovers of Slavic water, and briskly, circling around, girding Mount Iron...

When he returned, new American elections were imminent.

Entering this second round, the author refers the reader back to the beginning of the narrative, where the typical procedure for preparing for a foreign trip was described: the consent of the chief editor, the resolution of the editorial board, fil ing out American questionnaires, and applying for a U.S. visa.

In the air, the inevitability of Ronald Reagan's re-election and the resumption of Soviet-American arms control negotiations loomed. After a long hiatus, our foreign minister met with their president again, who now often told Americans that— in his second term—improving relations between the two states would be his main task. Hope was once again born, vague and perhaps fleeting, expressing itself in smal positive signs, including the fact that the Americanist obtained his U.S. visa this time a few days before departure, not on the very last day.

And again, there was a spontaneous adjustment of the soul before the departure from the homeland and loved ones.

And again, the Americanist futilely tried to save himself from this great and unproductive expenditure of mental energy, mental y leaping over the eighteen days of the business trip to that Friday when the return

"Il-62," leaving the night ocean behind and meeting the late dawn over the Norwegian fjords, would land with a jet whistling over the snow-covered birch groves and touch the wheels to the familiar Sheremetyevo concrete.

Now, with this trip far behind him, he recal s it with a pleasant feeling. The work went smoothly, contacts with people were harmonious, and hopes, without which one cannot live, lingered in the air. If the author had described this new journey in more detail, his book might have turned out to be more optimistic.

Preparing for the trip in Moscow, the Americanist sought help from his long-time and good acquaintances in Soviet foreign trade organizations. They responded friendly. Telex inquiries were sent to New York, and clear answers came back: several prominent businessmen and wel -known lawyers, associated with big business and government circles, agreed to talk to the Soviet journalist. He flew to New York with a schedule of meetings with "interesting gentlemen" for each day and hour, as one of our most experienced foreign trade specialists, not without business admiration, cal ed his partners across the ocean. And none of them canceled the appointed meetings. Al of them displayed American courtesy at its best, as renowned.

The morning after arriving, together with his col eague and friend Victor Alexandrovich, he got down to work. Near the famous hotel on Park Avenue, he smoothly merged into the bustling crowd of Americans and

American

women

(in

jackets

with

broad

padded

shoulders—according to the revived old fashion), as if there had not been a two-year break in his New York observations. The warm sunny weather at the end of October helped, and, of course, the feeling that he was not wasting the sparingly given time.

The businessman they were heading to for their first scheduled meeting lived in the smal town of Dictator, Il inois, where the headquarters of his corporation was located. However, his business and pleasures often brought him to New York, and he kept a permanent apartment in the famous hotel. He was a major grain trader, dealing in grain with us, and therefore, natural y, advocated the expansion of trade relations.

Moreover, Duane Andreas, chairman of the board of Archer Daniels Midland (abbreviated as ADM), shortly before that, was elected co-chairman of the American-Soviet Trade and Economic Council, within which business people of our two countries maintain contacts. In the hotel tower, they were met downstairs by an elderly gentleman who introduced himself as the director of communications for the mentioned

council. From the luxury suite on the forty-second floor, an impressive view of the East River, the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, and the towering skyscrapers, seemingly becoming brothers in height and moving closer to each other, opened up. The rest of the concrete-and-stone chaos remained below, at the foot of the chosen ones. In this perfectly clean high nest, furnished with light antique furniture, a smal , nimble, energetic man with a sunburned face, age pigment spots on his prominent forehead, and a shirt with an open col ar that made him look younger, also—and rightful y—considered himself chosen. With him was a translator, whose services were not needed—a beautiful green-eyed young woman named Marina, a former Leningrader, a former Soviet citizen.

Seating the guests and looking them over with a cheerful and shrewd gaze, Mr. Andreas shared his predictions about the near future.

He had no doubts about Reagan's re-election, expressed cautious optimism about U.S.-Soviet relations but foresaw no major shifts in the trade of the two countries until the obstacle of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, linking the granting of most-favored-nation status (exemption from excessive customs tariffs) to Soviet goods with guarantees of "freedom of emigration" for Jews from the Soviet Union, was removed. He made sound judgments about some springs of American policy, not so hidden, and revealed some quite obvious secrets. He joked: "In some ways, our country is like a circus. If you want to succeed, juggle like a circus rider, on the backs of two horses—business and politics. Without politics and the support of politicians in big business, you won't get far."

Into politics, he said, he was introduced by Hubert Humphrey, now deceased, once a very influential Democratic senator who once held the vice presidency. Since those early days, the multimil ionaire grain trader had not forgotten to strengthen his political base, juggling in politics on two horses, relying on people from two parties—Democratic and Republican, not breaking with liberals, and establishing relations with conservatives, up to the far right.

Thus, the lessons of Americanism were renewed in the new acquaintance. In an hour and a half, our friends, having enjoyed the sunny noon on the way, were already sitting in a darkened conference room on the thirty-second floor of another building on Park Avenue,

talking to another prominent businessman and president of a major corporation, another "interesting uncle." James Giffey, a sturdy young man with a round boyish face and a fringe expertly laid on his forehead, was one of the activists of U.S.-Soviet trade. He was seasoned by trials, devoid of il usions, and yet retained faith in future times, although his hopes had become much more modest than those ten to twelve years ago. He had been to the Soviet Union dozens of times, said he knew us better than any of the employees of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, if only because they did not have his opportunities for contacts with Soviet officials. He shared a cherished thought: how useful it would be if Soviet leaders occasional y made working familiarization trips to the United States, and Americans of their rank—to the Soviet Union. Without knowledge and understanding, and without understanding—trust...

The old principle of maximum information per unit of time was adhered to by the Americanist this time. In New York, he expanded his acquaintance with the high world of big business. And indeed, in his meetings with businessmen, he and Victor almost never descended below the thirtieth floor.

Certainly, there was one suburban exception—a three-story building situated amidst lawns and meadows near a lake, with a sculptural representation of a grizzly bear emerging from it. Over two hundred thousand people work for the PepsiCo corporation, making it the tenth largest employer in the United States. It is led by a man who recently started introducing us to Pepsi-Cola, having obtained the right to sel "Stolichnaya" vodka in the American market in exchange. Donald Kendal , who was once a co-chairman of the American-Soviet Trade and Economic Council, is also a staunch supporter of good relations between the two countries. However, he remains puzzled by why, when it comes to contracts related to the food industry, he cannot deal directly with the ministries associated with this industry in our country and must take a circuitous route through the Ministry of Foreign Trade.

On the other hand, business, among other things, requires patience and waiting. Therefore, even the fact that the sale of Russian vodka in the American market fel by half or almost two-thirds twice or thrice due to acute but short-lived crises in American-Soviet relations did

not deter Donald Kendal from trading with us. American chauvinists satisfied their peculiar thirst for hatred through such boycotts.

He sent a large black limousine with a black chauffeur to transport two Soviet journalists to the town of Purchase, north of New York, where the headquarters of PepsiCo is comfortably situated away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Tal , strong, with bushy eyebrows, a red bald spot in his gray curls, and a swol en, pale face, Kendal , like other businessmen, spoke not about political theories and military doctrines but mainly about the personality of the American president, drawing cautious forecasts from it. Treating guests to lunch in the executive dining room, he speculated on how beneficial and important it would be to organize Reagan's trip to the Soviet Union. Perhaps he would change his opinion, reduce his distrust when he sees what wonderful and hospitable people the Russians are? However, Kendal seemed to favor another trip to the Soviet Union, already coordinated and scheduled—for his seventeen-year-old son. The private school the boy attended, a kind of incubator for future leaders, had its summer vacation trip financed by Kendal Sr. They were supposed to see with their own eyes the people and cities of another nuclear power. The boy was a late child, and it was evident that the distinguished father loved and pitied him tenderly.

Despite al his connections and capital, Kendal Sr. felt a parental complex of guilt and helplessness, worrying about his son's fate and the fate of the world he would live in when Kendal Sr. was gone.

In New York, there were also meetings with professional politicians and political observers. On the eve of the elections and the inevitable re-election of the president, they were even more reserved and cautious in their assessments of the future than pragmatic businessmen.

The editor of the most influential foreign policy journal, before moving to New York, had worked in the inner circles of the White House for a long time. He declared himself a supporter of Reagan but immediately expressed the hope that his victory in the elections would not be too overwhelming—otherwise, the president might interpret the mandate of his re-elected elector too freely.

New Yorker Marshal Shulman, who had been in Washington for a while, served as the chief Soviet affairs specialist in the State Department during the Carter presidency and Secretary of State Vance.

Under Reagan, he returned to New York and academic activities,

heading the Harriman Institute for the Study of the Soviet Union at Columbia University.

By the way, here is another American paradox: never has so much been said about the "Soviet threat" as in recent years, and never has there been so much lack of knowledge about the country from which, as they claimed, the threat emanated. The study of the Soviet Union, according to common opinion, deteriorated, and the number of young people entering this field decreased, which did not bother some wealthy and thoughtful Americans. Averel Harriman, the wartime ambassador in Moscow, and his wife Pamela al ocated five mil ion dol ars to Columbia University, after which the Russian Institute there was renamed the Harriman Institute. Marshal Shulman, becoming its director, pledged to raise a total of eighteen mil ion, and the goal was already close. In a conversation with the Americanist, he shared his joy: over the course of a year, the number of young people enrol ed in the study program almost doubled—to eighty people.

As a liberal democrat, Shulman did not even share the cautious optimism of other interlocutors.

"Uncertainty?" he asked when the Americanist tried to sum up his conversations in New York. "No, I would say that we are facing a continuation of difficult times. It is important not to let the relations deteriorate even further. Efforts should be directed towards safely surviving tough times and then moving on to building better relations."

Having gone through the disappointments of the past period, people were afraid to make mistakes. If things couldn't get worse, they must get better—usual y, this was the limit of their self-consolation.

...In his meetings with Americans, the Americanist never posed the seemingly simple question that Valya, the masseuse, asked as she worked on his neck in the radiance of a frosty sunny day—the question that most people, considering it the main and almost sole question in our relations with the United States, ask: "What do they want—war or peace?" He was confident that experienced and wise professionals he encountered on the thirtieth and fortieth floors of New York and later on lower, political y more important floors in Washington, as wel as ordinary Americans only connected to politics through TV screens and newspapers, al of them (or almost al ) wanted not to fight but to live in peace with us—under Reagan, just like under Carter, and even earlier

under Ford or Nixon, Johnson or Kennedy—during the presidencies he observed and expanded his experience as an Americanist. However, our world is not only smal but also complex. In this complex world, the simple question "war or peace?" transformed into another question:

"Certainly peace, but on what terms?" And there was no simple answer to this question...

After six days in New York, Viktor drove the Americanist to LaGuardia Airport, from where he flew to Washington. Two days remained until the elections, and he wanted to observe them in the political capital of America. But more on that later. For now, let's mention that even on this visit, he did not bypass the sturdy gray mansion behind an iron fence on Sixteenth Street and the meeting with the Soviet ambassador, Anatoly Fyodorovich Dobrynin. The ambassador worked in the same tightly sealed-off office, which embassy wits dubbed the bunker. He was in a good mood and warmly welcomed the Americanist.

The ambassador did not rule out that President Reagan was sincere when publicly expressing a desire to improve relations with the Soviet Union. But the question remained—on what terms?

From the New York entries in the Americanist's diary: "In the evening, I flew in from Montreal, and the next morning—stunning news that Victor excitedly shared with me before I even entered their apartment— the assassination of Indira Gandhi by two Sikh bodyguards.

The news was being covered on television screens, with reports from Delhi, and television hosts—ladies and gentlemen—instantly becoming experts on India, pushing even the final pre-election maneuvers of Republicans Reagan and Bush and their opponents Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro, Democratic presidential and vice-presidential candidates, into the background.

I remembered Sasha Ter-Grigoryan, how, returning from Delhi, he persistently pursued the theme of inter-community strife in India, an uncommon topic in our 'conflict-free' coverage of Indian life. How is he?

How did he receive the news of Indira's murder in his hospital room on the nineteenth floor of the oncology center in Kashirka, with the draft of his book on India on the hospital table?...

Last night, with Volodya O., we watched the musical "42nd Street"

at the Majestic Theatre on Forty-Fourth Street. Volodya bought the

tickets at Times Square, at the consolidated "ticket center," where unsold tickets are sold at half price before the start of the show. We got them for twenty-two dol ars each. The musical somehow reinforced my long-held idea about the national American hobby—mechanical y having fun to music and rhythm. Not long before my departure to New York, I watched in Moscow one of our plays, good—and heavy, about the post-war fate of women. Everything was correct, everything was true, but, my God, how the desire to show suffering and suffer over suffering stands out.

How to prepare for new suffering. That's our Russian trait.

The theater tickets were issued and distributed by computer. One of the strong impressions of this new trip was the rapid process of computerization of American life. A mini-computer, as calculated, is already in every tenth family, cal ed family computers. Connected to the telephone, equipped with the corresponding attachment, it, among other things, handles financial transactions with the bank, spreading some cashless dealings. Volodya, a doc in the library section, says that traditional catalogs have been eliminated in American libraries, transitioning to electronic ones, on computers. The central electronic catalog, located somewhere in the state of Ohio, memorizes the acquisitions of al libraries connected to it, whose book col ections are, in turn, entered into computers. The library computer at the University of California in Los Angeles has about six hundred outlets, while the lagging library of the UN headquarters has only a few dozen.

On the streets near banks, in stores, airports—everywhere, you see displays of bank computers. They 'communicate' with customers and issue money orders or cash if the customer enters their code, and, of course, by electronic means, checks their account in the bank.

The concept of 'computer' and 'pre-computer' is fading for students. The latter is becoming extinct like a dinosaur, but again, with electronic speed. Children easily, as if playing a game, master computer technology,

and

banks

sometimes

attract

them

as

'intuitive'

programmers...

Today, wel -known TV commentator Bil Moyers spoke in the morning on the CBS channel. The election campaign has ended, and the problems have stil not been discussed—the starting point of the commentary. Among them is the issue of federal budget deficits. Neither Reagan nor the Democrat Mondale has a real plan to rid the nation of

this deficit, now amounting to around two hundred bil ion dol ars a year, and the national debt approaching two tril ion dol ars. Congress and al of us, Moyers lamented, tolerate and do nothing. Meanwhile, our children wil pay for today's life not within means: for every dol ar borrowed by the government, they wil have to pay twenty-eight. The average taxpayer is already paying about a thousand dol ars a year to cover interest on the national debt. What kind of people are we, Moyers asked, if we live recklessly beyond our means, and our children wil have to pay for our extravagance?"

Americans have long been accustomed to living on credit as individuals. Now the nation, the country, its government, in a certain sense, also live on credit, enduring staggering deficits and attracting huge amounts of money from abroad by paying high interest rates. The powerful American economy acts as a magnet for global capital. Prices for local, Manhattan real estate continue to skyrocket, partly because the wealthy from everywhere buy the most luxurious apartments here—in advance!—for hundreds of thousands, for mil ions of dol ars. Arab sheikhs in the most fashionable neighborhoods, on Fifth Avenue, on Park Avenue, on Madison. Money flows here from everywhere, especial y from places where money is abundant and where there is a scent of nationalization or radical changes. The old image of the citadel of global capitalism has taken on a literal meaning in the brand-new shining skyscrapers of Manhattan, populated by the financial elite from al corners of the world. If the world is divided into the wealthy and the non-wealthy, then the former seem to believe that the island between the Hudson and the East River wil stand under al circumstances, shelter and protect them from the pressure and judgment of the non-wealthy.

Rich people of al countries, unite under the protection of America!...

True to habit, as wel as considerations of convenience, the Americanist, upon arriving in Washington, stayed in the familiar suburb of Chevy Chase, close to his Washington friends and col eagues. The familiar Holiday Inn Hotel was on the fifth floor. The view from the window overlooked a familiar square with a fountain and benches. At the end of the short, sloping street formed by five new huge houses—Irwin House, where five years of his life remained and somewhere disappeared.

He certainly visited Irwin House. The carpet in the corridor on the twelfth floor had worn out, the nameplates of tenants had been updated at the doors, on the old, wooden elevator cladding, there were additional scratches from children's knives—how to distinguish those that, perhaps, were left by his lively son at that time?—and old Jim, dear Jim, stil stood guard in the lobby of the front entrance, a Gogolian little man in an American way, with a gentle smile of porcelain dentures, with submissive courtesy to the residents—he always had a kind word ready for the children of Soviet tenants, and during a period of relaxation, having once gone with a tour group to the Soviet Union, he sent postcards to Irwin House with views of Moscow and words about the warmth of the Russian people...

In this area, nostalgia always lay in wait for the Americanist, but this time its attacks were not as strong. Perhaps because he had already overcome it in the pages stored in editorial folders with ribbons, awaiting their moment. Or maybe because, once again, old friends were nearby—Nikolai Demyanovich and Tanya, with whom he had settled into New York in bygone years and who now knew how to dispel nostalgia in the evenings.

Besides, there was no time left for nostalgia. He was ful y engrossed in his operational correspondent work—in fresh newspapers and magazines, in television broadcasts on al channels—al covering the same thing: the election results.

For them, the elections meant a celebration, and in early November of every even year, this issue of the incompatibility of national calendars came to the fore again. The elections fel on November 6th, and as a result, two festive days turned into working ones: he was preparing a comprehensive material for his newspaper.

The embassy staff went to their country house, about seventy miles from Washington. There, on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay, was their own vast territory, silence, autumn azure, sunlight glinting on the water, fields resting from labor, and bare permeable forests where deer occasional y flashed between the trunks. There was their holiday, their rest in the midst of America. Meanwhile, the holiday-deprived special correspondent sat in the hotel for two days. Again, a pile of clippings and notes, drafts. By the window, on an unstable, round,

non-working table, was a typewriter. He typed to see the text clearly. His newspaper did not plan to dedicate dozens of pages to the American elections, like The Washington Post or The New York Times. He needed to limit himself, to choose only the main aspects from the multitude.

What would they be? He did not find them right away and did not formulate them immediately. Ronald Reagan and the average American—this was what he eventual y settled on. How and where did they meet and seal their renewed al iance?

The Americanist is no novice in his field, but the trembling before a blank sheet of paper, before a task that cannot be postponed and must be completed within a tight deadline, has not left him. With each of his articles, he takes an exam. And although the examiners are not as strict, he does not know each time whether he wil pass. And on this evening, he is more anxious than usual, and the exam itself, it seems to him, is more difficult than the ones he is holding now in Moscow—no wonder he flew for three-quarters of the globe.

The fresh, vivid, strong impressions of the past few days surround him from al sides. The same transit Montreal, the beginning of a new continent and a new count of time. Then the Czechoslovak plane and the evening anthil of John F. Kennedy Airport, lights, planes, buildings, Victor coming out from the crowd of waiting outside the customs zone doors, and the waft of moist—New York—wind into the window of the Oldsmobile, the rhythmic pounding of the old Queensboro Bridge under the wheels, the familiar smel of the Hudson, deepening beyond the windows of Schwab House... And a series of meetings, impressions, pictures, a made-up smile and the tiny lacquered nails of a rich old man; the barking, abrupt laughter of the actor playing the great Mozart in a new wonderful film; the television screen onto which scenes of public unrest in Delhi after the murder of Indira Gandhi spil ed; glass skyscrapers and their distinguished inhabitants who made a career and a fortune, seemingly elevated above their inaudible, silently flowing life far below; and again, homeless old women carrying their random, lightly drawn plastic bags with pathetic belongings; a black chauffeur in a shiny limousine driving them out of the city and tel ing, almost cheerful y, how he traded houses in Harlem and went bankrupt himself; the spacious gym at the PepsiCo headquarters, peculiar apparatus and equipment, a young African-American woman with strong thighs striding widely on the

moving, tilted treadmil , simulating an ascent up a mountain; the lively agility and mechanical motor fun of the Broadway musical, as if conveying the spirit of American life...

A kaleidoscope in the consciousness of the Americanist—people, offices, gestures, faces, words, streets, houses, crowds, shop windows, doors, and the Sunday, cheaper than the ordinary ones, plane from New York to Washington, and Nikolai Demyanovich, who moved from the office on Pushkin Square to an office on F Street, hurrying with his swaying gait, smiling, towards him; Sasha with his grown son; the laughter of African American spectators who came to see a film about the adventures of a black officer; and the November reception at the embassy, a festive and idle crowd, more high-ranking State Department officials than two years ago, fragments of conversations with meaningful hints; observer Joe, equal y elegant and punctuated, smoothly moving along the table with treats, fol owing an informed White House official, snacking and gathering information on the go, and beyond the embassy wal s—election day for the American president and Congress...

Diverse. Chaotic. Variegated. Now, secluding himself within the wal s of his room, the Americanist strains his brain to rise above the unruliness of his impressions, to reconcile imagination with logic, to disregard the particular for the sake of the general, and to send a concise political analysis to the newspaper. The man, overwhelmed by spontaneous, fresh images of the world, battles with a professional analyst within him. However, the fight is uneven, and the outcome is known in advance: the professional wil triumph once again. For it is a professional, not a free-spirited artist, who was sent as a special correspondent to Washington.

And again, a phone cal around two in the morning. Once more, complete silence surrounds him; the hotel sleeps, and the Americanist hesitates to wake his fel ow guests. He jumps off the square "king-sized"

bed and, grabbing the prepared sheets, tiptoes barefoot to the bathroom where – time is money! – a telephone is embedded in the wal . He picks up the receiver, encountering the clear voice of an American operator, and later a Moscow operator, with excel ent audibility across ten thousand versts. Now, he transfers his words to the notepad of the editorial stenographer in a building that burdens the wel -known Moscow

square with its monotonous mass, currently empty and quiet, ten thousand versts away. Few pedestrians, each one visible, strol on the sleepy morning of the third – and last – day of the celebration.

Judging by the stenographer's voice, the Americanist senses that both the newsroom and the newspaper are vacant; even the holiday cannot spare the staff. The duty officers are on watch, and immediately a request from the deputy chief editor arrives: wil there be material? Hurry up. Patch through to the room.

"Wel , shal we work?" he hears a friendly female voice.

And he begins to dictate, surrendering the initial lines to a semblance of a picture where the reader should guess but undoubtedly won't guess that Washington evening on election day. They rode in two cars, first to the hotel where the Democrats gathered and then to the hotel where the Republicans celebrated their victory. The Democrats had half-empty hal s and forced cheerfulness that couldn't conceal the gloom. To reach the Republicans, they crisscrossed a dozen streets in the dark, searching for parking, barely squeezing their cars onto the curb in some sleepy corner. They walked a long way to the winners'

celebration, quickly leaving – strangers amid the crowd and mechanical merriment of self-satisfied bourgeoisie from the "Reagan country."

In the cool moonlit evening of the past Tuesday, two places in Washington differed significantly in the mood of the people gathered there, so he began. In the hal s of the "Capitol Hilton" hotel, subdued supporters of Walter Mondale didn't know how to handle the rather difficult task – with an impassive face, mark the devastating defeat of their man and the failure of their efforts to propel him into the White House. Meanwhile, at the even more expensive "Shoreham" hotel, corridors and hal s were packed with thousands of Reagan supporters, and the popping of champagne corks was accompanied by triumphant shouts of "Four more years!"

Yes, they achieved their goal. The American voter, giving Ronald Reagan fifty-two mil ion (or fifty-nine percent) of the votes, secured his second and final term in the White House. By midnight, appearing on the television screens, Walter Mondale (who received thirty-six mil ion, or forty-one percent, of the votes) congratulated the winner and, as is customary in such cases, cal ed on the nation to respect the elected president.

American elections, he dictated, are always accompanied by extreme excitement, primarily on television. This time it lasted a whole year and reached its climax on election day evening when the tongue-twisting of announcers and commentators was constantly interrupted by two magical words – forecasts and computers. However, the desired excitement was absent. Predictions made almost since the end of the previous year had final y come true – Reagan's inevitable victory.

To win the White House as a presidential candidate in long-term races, one needs a lot of money as fuel, open support from one's party, and the blessing of influential people working behind the scenes, along with, of course, the votes of the electorate. From the outset of Reagan's campaign, he had dol ars and essential y monopolistic positions in the Republican Party, as wel as the support of big business. Additional y, he skil ful y used the White House podium to appear in American homes through the television screen. This fact, not always apparent from a distance, cannot be dismissed...

The Americanist emphasized the last phrase in his voice, as if hoping that this emphasis would be conveyed to the reader.

...In general, he continued, no American political figure in the television era has possessed and continues to possess the ability to communicate with the masses and turn them to his belief as the current president. The image of a "strong leader," the pioneer of "new patriotism," which made America "feel good," was skil ful y projected into the consciousness of the average American from the television screen.

Nevertheless, the main network through which Ronald Reagan caught the bulk of voters was not in this television magic. Two years ago, even with record unemployment and deep economic downturn, the

"great manipulator" would have faced disappointment and defeat in the elections...

With this phrase, he was, in a way, explaining to the reader why everything happened the way it did, although in his correspondence sent from Washington two years ago, he assessed the results of the midterm elections as a blow to Reaganism.

...And now, since the beginning of the electoral struggle, knowledgeable people have been unanimous in the opinion that the

president's reelection is guaranteed if favorable economic conditions persist on the day of the elections: increased production, inflation tamed from its frantic gal op, and decreasing unemployment.

As someone who has covered six campaigns for the election of the American president from the scene in one way or another over the past twenty years, I have often noted that the United States is oriented towards the outside world through its foreign policy and is perceived by other nations through foreign policy...

...However, when you find yourself in this country, you are convinced anew that Americans are egocentrical y immersed in their internal, primarily economic, life, and that foreign policy and the external world are pushed to the background in their consciousness. Exceptions are periods of war accompanied by significant American losses and international crises fraught with nuclear catastrophe. But even now, in years of increased nuclear danger, which is precisely linked to the policy of the current president, the average American entered the voting booth not with the question, pressed like a gun to the chest: war or peace?

He emphasized this question as wel , as it was crucial in explaining to the reader who automatical y assumed that Reagan meant war.

Americans, he indicated to this reader, held a different opinion, and they were not voting for war.

...No, for many, this question was not as acute; they were more concerned about their wal ets, economic prosperity, or adversity,"

continued the Americanist. "Moreover, the election results indicate that the average American believed Ronald Reagan, who repeatedly assured that he considered peace and disarmament the top priorities of his second term in the White House and would do everything possible for good relations with the Soviet Union.

In brief notes, there is no space for a detailed analysis of the election results. Leaving the opportunity to return to these topics later, I would like to reflect a bit on who the average American is, who gave victory to Reagan, and what his political face looks like today.

The average American, or in local political terminology, the "middle class," the "political center," is an ambiguous, variable, and capricious entity. To find today's average American, one must look for him in the majority that brings the next winner to the White House. This majority itself is mobile and political y shifts the center to the left or right.

For example, in 1964, the average American gave victory to a Democrat of the same seismic scale as now, Lyndon Johnson, blocking the path for the then leader of American conservatives, Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, who is considered a precursor to Reagan.

Goldwater suffered defeat because he advocated cutting social assistance programs, wanted to limit state regulation of private entrepreneurship, and threatened to put blacks, who were actively seeking civil rights, in their place. A significant part of the "middle class,"

the average Americans, sided then with the disenfranchised layers of society, with blacks and ethnic minorities, with the poor living below the official poverty line, as wel as with unions traditional y supporting the Democratic Party.

Against this background of recent history, let's turn to the reasons for Walter Mondale's defeat. One of them, which condemned him in the eyes of today's average American, is that Mondale had the reputation of an old-fashioned liberal seeking the votes of union members, racial and ethnic minorities, and acting as their defender. Nine-tenths of blacks, as surveys show, voted for Mondale, and this helps explain why he lacked votes among the rising "middle class." Times have changed...

Here the voice of the man dictating his opus across the nocturnal ocean to his sole listener rose like that of an orator who, speaking before a large and eager audience, moves to the key moment in his speech...

...Times have changed. In this segment of American history, the average American has ceased to be a political al y of the disenfranchised and now considers them dependents and freeloaders living on his tax dol ars. The new-style average American supports Reagan's conservative philosophy, seeking to reduce government expenditures, not military ones—they are growing—but on social needs (although the president extracts a promise not to touch the program of social security pensions that affects tens of mil ions of people). The broad conservative shift is the decisive reason for the president's success, reintroducing into American life the selfishly cruel "virtues" of American capitalism, deeming the safety net of social benefits unnecessary.

The election campaign was declared a record in duration, but there was never enough time for a serious discussion of internal and external

problems. This also testifies to the imprint left on the presidential race by the personality of Ronald Reagan, who earned the title of "great at begging." In this sense, the current president and the average American, tired of the complexities of our world, have also found common ground, especial y valuing simple, albeit deceptive, answers to the troubling questions of our days.

The elections took place amid the frenzy of the "new patriotism,"

developed the Americanist's thought. In this patriotism, it is not difficult to discern a revenge for the humiliation in the Vietnam War, for the reduction of American influence in the world, for the moral and political crises of the sixties and seventies. Above al and better than anyone else—this "new patriotism" is covered with a thick layer of old chauvinism. The "new patriot" is ready to applaud the audacious seizure of Grenada but at the same time reconciles with the withdrawal of the U.S. Marine Corps from Beirut as soon as more than two hundred American soldiers die in a terrorist explosion. He is not against a demonstration of American military muscle but insists that it be without American losses. He supports the policy of "peace through strength" but does not want this strength to lead to the threat of nuclear war. By the way, Mondale's pre-election behavior testified quite wel to these sentiments. In a futile attempt to win over such a voter, he sang no fewer hymns to American military might than Reagan did.

Here are just a few strokes to the portrait of the average American—and, by extension, a few reasons explaining the victory of the conservative Reagan over Mondale, who failed to shed his now unpopular image of an old-fashioned liberal. They found each other, the current U.S. president and the current average American...

If it were up to the Americanist, he would highlight this key phrase in bold in the newspaper.

...However, it is not superfluous to add that the president's popularity extends beyond the popularity of his party, his policies, and even his philosophy. The election results in Congress testify to this.

Republicans, although maintaining a majority in the Senate, lost two seats, and in the House of Representatives, they remained in the minority, with their gains being half of what they had hoped for.

It's hard to say how long the artificial y heated optimism and

"politics of joy" wil last, but sober observers of American life, whom one

has to encounter these days, predict that the return of unpleasant facts to the earth from the clouds of exaggerated hopes wil have to happen fairly soon, and possibly without a parachute. One prominent economist from Wal Street cal ed the current situation a "fool's paradise," believing that those who think tomorrow wil never come are in for a rude awakening.

He recal ed an elderly man with a bow tie and a sagacious expression on his slightly pudgy face. The man was afraid of catching a cold and sat in a curtained, insulated office. His assessments reflected both concern and resignation in the face of circumstances: circumstances, even those blatantly foolish, remain stronger than us.

...He was referring to astronomical deficits in the federal budget, primarily generated by military expenditures. Deficits are increasingly being financed by money flowing into the citadel of world capitalism from abroad. Experts are plagued by nightmares: what wil happen to the American economy when, one fine day, hundreds of bil ions of dol ars are suddenly withdrawn by foreign depositors, losing the opportunity to clip coupons with high interest rates in the event of an economic downturn?

How long have they found each other, President Reagan and the average American? As the experience of the past decades shows, impressive victories can be short-lived. After the triumph of 1964, Lyndon Johnson refused to run for a second term in 1968, bogged down in the quagmire of the Vietnam War. Richard Nixon was elected to a second term in 1972 by an overwhelming majority, but two years later, he resigned disgraceful y due to the Watergate scandal.

In short, much depends on how the winner decides to use his victory. In the American tradition, often invoked today, a president elected to a second term cares about his place in history. There are proven ways to stay in the grateful memory of descendants and contemporaries. Perhaps that's why President Reagan, in his post-election statements, revived the theme of peace and arms limitation. Here, any sincere and concrete steps wil be met with reciprocal moves from the Soviet side. It is likely that they wil find approval among the overwhelming majority of Americans.

So, even before the elections, there was essential y certainty about who would occupy the White House for another four years. However, in

another sense, uncertainty remains after the elections: how wil the American president handle his victory, whether he wil fulfil his promises of peace and prosperity to the American people?

The Americanist ended with a question mark. Let's wait and see.

That's the best forecast. You can't go wrong with that.

He was connected to the deputy chief. The deputy chief asked straight away, "How many?" The Americanist replied, "Seven."

Although he felt that it was actual y nine pages. The deputy chief said, "Doesn't matter about the length, we'l manage."

The Americanist hung up, gathered the sheets lying on the sink, and parted ways with the tiled whiteness of the bathroom. He was excited and, without lighting a fire, stood by the window. Down the street towards Irin House, a lone car moved away, its rear lights glowing like rubies. In the dark masses of houses, only two or three windows were lit, their light shouting in the night about someone's joy or sorrow, an extraordinary event, an untimely affair, or simply insomnia. Suddenly, the phone rang again. A col eague from Irin House cal ed, asking what he had discussed with the deputy chief. The col eague's voice was anxious.

He had been woken up in the middle of the night with a cal from Moscow demanding some explanations. In Irin House, where the journalistic life was intertwined with the Moscow newspaper through a telephone umbilical cord, familiar yet somehow unfamiliar to the Americanist, because the work was the same, but the people doing it were different.

On a sunny and piercingly cold morning in Washington in November, they strol ed along the sidewalk on Seventeenth Street opposite the heavy and simultaneously fanciful old administrative building. If you looked from Pennsylvania Avenue, the building adjoined the White House on the right. In this building with dark gray rococo curls, some of the president's aides worked, as wel as the staff serving them.

Black-suited FBI special unit guards, checking the list, let in two Soviet visitors when a middle-aged lady came out to them. They went upstairs and, through a wide echoing corridor, with large high doors leading to it, forever strengthened in iron (as the lady reported), first entered a service "vestibule" of the American type, and then into the office of a stocky short man about fifty years old. He was a professional

diplomat, had worked for many years at the American Embassy in Moscow and in the central apparatus of the State Department, and knew the Soviet Union wel —according to the standards of American diplomatic service. Now, not only territorial y but also due to his duties, he had come closer to the White House, entered the apparatus of the U.S. National Security Council, and reported on Soviet affairs directly to the president.

The diplomat's predecessor in this important position with regular access to the president was a notorious anti-Soviet professor. He used his special proximity for self-promotion and incendiary speeches, for wide publicity of concepts suggesting that dealing with the Russians was impossible. Apparently, he whispered the same words into the president's ear as he trumpeted to the world. After toiling in this way for about two years, the professor returned to academic groves, and the public quickly forgot about the noisy anti-Soviet.

Or maybe they got rid of him because it was time for diplomats, to whom language was given, among other things, to know how to keep it between their teeth.

In any case, the unpretentious short man did not rush to spread his political philosophy in newspapers or on television. But he received two Soviet journalists in his office, overlooking green lawns and the White House through the windows, and kindly informed them that he regularly, twice a week, sees the president, sometimes spends an hour with him, and occasional y even two. What does he report on? How does the president react to his reports, and what questions does he ask about a country that is not important at al for his America and where he has never been? The American did not touch on these questions, and they understood that it would be simply indecent to inquire about them.

Nervously shrugging his shoulders, the official figure for a long time and energetical y developed one theme—that the president is absolutely serious about improving relations with the Soviet Union.

Contrary to persistent rumors about his carelessness and dislike for details, he takes this crucial issue seriously and thoroughly, in detail, and that his administration is ready for new negotiations with the Soviet Union, where al arms limitation issues would be discussed. But these must be— an essential condition! — confidential negotiations, so as not to tie each other's hands with public disclosure of positions, not to

narrow the field for maneuver and compromise, not to force the partner into a hasty and unequivocal answer—yes or no. Another motive in the responsible person's reasoning was that the relations between the two states are not so bad, that the rigidity of recent years is better than vague il usions of détente, as each side precisely knows where the other stands and therefore shows more "nuclear restraint."

The responsible figure preferred to speak rather than listen, which was fair given that journalists had come to listen. However, two of them, without violating the rules of courtesy and yet offering resistance, managed to stake out our view and argue with the American. They argued that it was not the "Soviet threat" that undermined détente but American exceptionalism translated into the arena of international politics—an dangerous inclination for supremacy, disregard for various commitments taken, and even signed but not ratified treaties. They did not see eye to eye in assessing the situation in hotspots around the world, particularly regarding Nicaragua, because the official close to the president outright rejected the right of this smal country to self-defense against the machinations of the North American colossus. Contrary to any logic except for the Superman-like imperialistic logic, he only saw and defended the colossus's right to self-defense against a midget.

Nevertheless, they parted with smiles and handshakes. Stil nervously shrugging his shoulders, as if discarding an annoying burden, the American, already in the doorway of his office, reassured them once again about the peaceful intentions of the president and his administration. He emphasized that the main thing was to hurry with agreements on reducing nuclear weapon levels, remembering that everything happening now was just the blossoms, and the berries were yet to come. The real danger would arise in about fifteen to twenty years if nuclear weapons spread worldwide, and other states, with irresponsible leaders, did not show the same "nuclear restraint" as the United States and the Soviet Union.

Wherever he could, the Americanist walked in Washington, fol owing the old trails, believing that through old acquaintances, one could better gauge the changes in the atmosphere and moods. This was not always successful. Violating the golden rule of timely appointments,

he cal ed the wel -known commentator Joe too late. Tireless Joe was flying to Seoul, and his time before departure was scheduled to the minute. They met in the crowd of a solemn reception at the embassy, and Joe, like a shadow, slipped between guests and tables with snacks.

The Americanist had to acquaint himself with his views only through the newspaper, where Joe's "columns" were stil printed with iron regularity, and he, along with other journalists, impressed upon the president that the two main problems on his agenda were the limping foreign policy and astronomical budget deficits.

During the hectic short business trip, the Americanist also failed to contact another acquaintance—an amiable bureau chief of a influential New York newspaper in Washington. But, glancing at his notes from two years ago, he was surprised to find that the charming chief's forecast from back then was perhaps coming true—Secretary of State George Shultz was gaining strength in the Washington hierarchy, and his voice in shaping policies on arms control and negotiations with the Soviet Union sounded more weighty.

During his last visit to Washington, the Americanist futilely sought conversations with typical Reagan conservatives and, as an exception, remembered a discussion with the only and probably not the most typical one—a young, flourishing scion of a wel -known political family.

Outwardly soft and delicate but internal y resolute and arrogantly argued that what is good for his America cannot but be good for the whole world.

The young man also retained memories of their meeting and debate, and wil ingly welcomed the Americanist into his office in the State Department building, where he was one of the official press advisers.

The exposition of their conversation needs a brief introduction.

Literal y the day after the November presidential elections, some provocateurs from the Washington bureaucratic depths fed the press so-cal ed raw intel igence data and inflated an incredible scandal: a Soviet ship al egedly delivered "MiG-21" combat aircraft to Nicaragua, which, they claimed, posed a mortal threat to neighboring Central American states and even the United States itself, as they were supposedly capable of carrying nuclear weapons if necessary. The ship was indeed there, but there were no planes, and thus no threat.

However, this is the provocative nature of raw intel igence data: we do not bear responsibility for lies because the data is raw. It's pure deception. But between the appearance of the deception in the press and the official acknowledgment by the Pentagon and the White House that it was a deception, hysteria and hostility toward the Sandinistas intensified. The new suspicion sought to strangle the faint hope for a turn for the better in relations with the Soviet Union, fostered by post-election presidential statements.

And so, because of Nicaragua, just like two years ago, the Americanist col ided with a young and beautiful idealist—imperialist.

"You don't have a single proven fact, and yet you deliberately inflated the scandal," accused the Americanist, habitual y using the plural form, including the sitting American in the ranks of political malefactors.

And the latter, although not assuming direct responsibility, did not want to break the unwritten rule of solidarity before a Soviet guest and initial y, it seemed, was not embarrassed by it. He believed obvious lies if they came from his side more than obvious truths if the truth belonged to the other side. And this morality perpetuated the cursed question because trust between the parties was fundamental y excluded. A deadlock. A complete deadlock.

And suddenly, as if sensing the mortal danger of such a moral and psychological impasse, the American stepped back. Some crack appeared in the patriotic ring of solidarity, some personal sincerity penetrated his reasoning. He admitted (and even seemed to complain) that within the administration, there was a struggle between different groups and approaches—ideological and pragmatic, irreconcilably rigid and reasonably moderate. Reasonable people found it difficult to resist intentional, provocative information leaks orchestrated by hardliners who supported a tough line. How not to get bogged down in such situations when dealing with outsiders against one's own?

So, asked the Americanist straightforwardly once again, does it mean that deliberate provocateurs and political mischief-makers can always take you—people who consider themselves rational—hostage to your col ective group suspicion, hostility, and hatred? And his interlocutor suddenly agreed: yes, that's how it is! Understand this, put yourself in our position, show tolerance, distinguish the official, more restrained

position from the statements and actions of those individuals and groups who would like even more discord, disagreements, enmity, and irreconcilability between the two countries. He even referred to some laws that essential y cater to provocateurs, do not al ow bringing to light and punishing those who engage in leaks of false, incendiary information.

His words sounded sincere. And again, the same cursed question of the divided era: to believe or not to believe him? To believe in his sincerity, or, fol owing the same logic by which he himself fundamental y excluded trust in Moscow's or Managua's words, to see deception, pretense, yet another mask of falsehood in his justifications?

One of the American's brothers was a high-ranking Pentagon official, successful y advocating for the expansion of the U.S. Navy, while the other held a prominent position in the State Department, and the family as a whole had a reputation in politics as hawks. The conclusion of the conversation required a joke, and the Americanist chose one that was not very successful: so which of you three brothers is more dovish and which is more hawkish? The American clarified: there are four of them, but the fourth is not in public service, and al four borrowed their views from their father, a former naval officer. He defended the brother who was vigorously strengthening the power of the naval fleet, saying that he was a hawk only in the matter of conventional naval armaments, and he supported arms control limitations.

"But stil , admit it, your family has a hawkish reputation?" insisted the guest and heard hidden offense—and wounded pride—in the American's response.

"Perhaps it does, but we are civilized people..."

He escorted the Americanist down the corridor and to the entrance, asking about the Moscow weather and in which season of the year it's most pleasant to visit the Soviet capital, where he had never been before.

Two years ago, during his last visit to Washington, the Americanist met Strobe from a wel -known political weekly.

At that time, the Americanist noted in his notebook that Strobe was not yet among the top American observers, but perhaps he would be over time, having learned to write more critical y and concisely. Strobe began writing longer, not shorter, published a book, and before the

elections gained wide recognition as the first political journalist of the season, which the Americanist learned about in Moscow. For many Americans involved in politics, Strobe's book became a desk manual on negotiations for nuclear arms limitation, on their current rather dismal state. It was used against Reagan by the Democrat Mondale during his televised debates with the president. Various notable people reviewed it, and it was hastily translated into Western European languages. Fame, as wel as misfortune, does not go alone. Signs of recognition and success showered Strobe. They decided to promote him to a higher position and made him the head of the Washington bureau, the most important one in the New York weekly, with two dozen staff members.

The bestsel er was sold in al reputable bookstores in New York, Washington, and other cities. Ahead, as usual, was a cheaper and more mass-market edition in paperback and inclusion in the list of books recommended to readers by consultants (and owners) of the popular

"Book of the Month" club.

Strobe, round by round and almost day by day, described the course of U.S.-Soviet negotiations on intermediate-range nuclear weapons and strategic arms. His extensive connections and reliable sources of information helped him take on the role of a modern political chronicler. Despite its apparent objectivity, Strobe did not hide his critical attitude toward the administration's strategy and tactics. The content of the book led the reader to the conclusion that the negotiations were doomed to failure from the beginning due to the position of the American side. He substantiated the conclusion so thoroughly that even those who would like to refute it did not dare. And readers, acquainting themselves with Strobe's book, could see that the tragic anxieties of our days are incapable of displacing the petty and pathetic in human nature, and intrigues of careerists do not cease even when faced with the threat of universal destruction, non-existence. The universal question: to be or not to be—to humanity?! But, on the one hand, the president, Strobe argued, did not delve into the details of the negotiations and did not strive seriously for a reasonable compromise. On the other hand, the

"war of two Richards"—Assistant Secretary of State Richard Burt and Assistant

Secretary

of

Defense

Richard

Perle.

The

two

officials—ambitious rivals vying with each other—played the leading role

in shaping the American line in the negotiations, and they fought each other, alas, only to undermine the agreement.

New York publishers did not lag behind, releasing Strobe's chronicle in the midst of the pre-election struggle. They hit the bul seye, right in the center of the discussion about dangerous discord and strife within the administration and its possible priorities in the future...

The downtown office of the Strobian weekly had managed to move from Sixteenth Street to a stylish building on the bustling Connecticut Avenue. The new building shone not only with its glass exterior but also with its wal s. Downstairs were spaces open to everyone on alternating levels, with strips of escalators, winter gardens and greenhouses, shops, restaurants, and cafeterias; above were business offices. Part of one of the upper floors was occupied by the Washington bureau, headed by Strobe.

When a young and fashionable African-American receptionist cal ed him, announcing the arrival of the guest, he came out to meet him from the inner rooms, equal y slender and light. A soft, dense package from a photo negative box protruded from under his arm, and in the package, prepared as a gift, was a thick bestsel er with a rocket on the dust jacket, another thin book, and a thick col ection where Strobe's pen contributed a significant article. "This year, as you can see, I have a rich harvest," he said to his Moscow acquaintance playful y, but not without pride. And the Americanist asked for copies of reviews for the popular book. Strobe, he decided, deserved favorable mention in our press.

Oh no, do not be mistaken, Strobe did not share Soviet positions and certainly did not defend them—what journalist from the major American press would you find doing so?—but he subjected the positions of official Washington to a thorough and critical analysis.

The high col ar of the beige turtleneck covered his thin, long neck, and in a similar turtleneck, leaning not against a rocket but against a tree, he was pictured in a photo placed on the back cover of the dust jacket. The Americanist noted to himself the striking photographic resemblance

between

two

seemingly

distant

individuals:

the

businesslike, meticulous chronicler of nuclear realities and the translucent figure, like his poems and the early departed Vologda poet

Nikolay Rubtsov—the same slender face on a delicate neck stem, a narrow high dome of the forehead, a scarf wrapped around the neck, and even the forest as if the same in the background.

They exited the building, crossed Connecticut Avenue in the bustling crowd of clerks pouring out of al corners for lunch hour. Stroeb walked slightly ahead, pointing the way, dressed with deliberate nonchalance—in a khaki-colored raincoat and a light hat of the same color with narrow brims. Without wasting time, he explained that he voted against Reagan and for Mondale in the elections, but—what can you do?—Reagan is irresistible for the average American, a phenomenon of a monarch-like president. It's interesting, how do you and your col eagues explain this phenomenon to the Soviet reader?

Although he voted for the loser in the elections, his mood, casual attire, brisk pace, and equal y fast words, mentioning that after lunch, he's flying straight to Minneapolis, to Mondale's territory, to meet with readers of his book—al indicated that the element of great success is carrying him, uplifting and giving him new strength.

This same element led him into a smal restaurant where waiters and patrons joyful y greeted him—even if briefly touching fame—and where, oh, it seems, he has signed his book more than once, right there in plain view of everyone, sitting in his favorite spot with other guests.

Certainly, reliable sources of information are important, and the more you take from them, the better, but above al , Stroeb was a persistent worker who didn't waste time. While working on the book and continuing to work for the magazine, he would get up at three in the morning, brew two mugs of strong coffee, and, without any discounts during the day, perform the duties of a diplomatic correspondent.

"Stroeb, you've achieved a lot for your thirty-eight."

"Because I started early..."

He started early and from a young age took on significant tasks.

And he enjoyed the support of influential mentors, who were not indifferent to the care of political successors.

They hadn't seen each other for two years, but it was easy for them together, not only because success helped Stroeb get along with people. They effortlessly navigated from one topic to another, knowing where their views intersected, where they disagreed, and how to jokingly

bypass zones of discord. The profession shaped both of them in its own way, baked them in the crucible of journalism, but the composition of the test and the baking were different—not only due to the properties of characters or the peculiarities of life paths but also because of fundamental differences in social systems and national psychologies, somehow refracted in each person. And when Stroeb, generously from the peaks of his success, asked his col eague what he was writing about, the Americanist replied that he was working on a book about his previous trip to the United States, which was stil far from the shelves of bookstores. He casual y mentioned that it briefly describes the meeting with him, Stroeb. Intrigued, Stroeb asked, "What's the book about?"

"What? You can't explain it in two words. About the journey of the Americanist." Unable to resist, he quoted a line from Afanasy Fet: "...

striving to draw even a drop of the alien, transcendental element."

In turn, he asked, "What's next for Stroeb?" They had already left the restaurant; it was a warm November day, and the streets were bustling with people. Continuing to immerse himself in the blissful waters of success, Stroeb jokingly regretted that he lacks a poetic leitmotif, and that's why he's writing just a continuation of his book, perhaps without jokes: "Even Deadlier Gambits"...

Two days later, when Stroeb returned from Minneapolis, the Americanist dropped by his house. The house stood on a quiet, low-rise street, lush green in the summer, among other private homes. Al the houses were connected with each other by wal s, each had its own entrance from the street, three or four steps to its door, and a smal courtyard behind, known as the backyard.

It was a Sunday, Stroeb's wife and two sons were absent, and he himself was working on the third-floor attic, accessible by a steep staircase. The smal office was fil ed with shelves of books and adorned with photographs of the owner with various world celebrities. An electronic word processor took the place of a regular writing desk.

Stroeb explained that this gadget cost him fourteen thousand dol ars but more than justified itself—fantastical y convenient and useful once you got used to it, and getting used to it was easy, much easier than getting unaccustomed to it. Using the word processor, he wrote his rocket-nuclear chronicle, gradual y accumulating rough material, entering

the acquired information into electronic memory every evening, supplementing and summarizing it as new information came in.

The fantastic office device was versatile. By connecting it to the telephone, Stroeb could instantly transmit the text of his latest article to the New York headquarters of the weekly magazine and equal y promptly receive any material from there—and from everywhere—on the display screen. In theory, the word processor could be directly connected to the printing machines in the printing house, located hundreds and thousands of kilometers away. In such cases, it eliminates the need for so many intermediate links, providing such savings that some publishing houses, such as the wel -known "Macmil an," already offer these word processors for free to the most famous authors, former presidents, and ministers, on the condition that they agree to enter the electronic age, working on their books about the past.

The American with the refined features of the Vologda poet sat down at the electronic wonder machine. On the screen glowed a draft of the speech he was preparing for the day when he would be ceremoniously inaugurated as the head of the Washington bureau. He silently tapped the keys, and the text on the screen slightly scrol ed down, making room for a new headline: "Glad to welcome my Soviet col eague to my home." He pressed something else, and the text on the screen expanded, providing space for a welcome line in the middle.

Then he touched his word processor, and the greeting disappeared from the screen.

Eighteen days— not a month and a half, it was time to start the return journey, beginning in New York, the springboard for the double jump home—via Montreal to Moscow. However, dividing his narrative about the new trip of the Americanist between the two capitals of the United States—financial New York and political Washington, we forgot about his deep-rooted childhood attraction to the hinterland, which he tried to satisfy every time he found himself in the overseas state.

Between Washington, with its post-election political excitement, and New York, where the final hours of his business trip were winding down like sand in the hourglass, he managed to fit a day and a half in the city of Decatur (ninety thousand inhabitants), the center of a farming district peaceful y lying in the state of Il inois, about an hour and a half's drive

from bustling Chicago, where we, by the way, stil haven't visited with our character, traveling not so much through cities as through years and people, from person to person.

Decatur... This name had once flashed in our story— in connection with the name of Duane Andreas, a slender and energetic man with pigment spots on his tanned prominent forehead, the head of the grain corporation "Archer Daniels Midland" (ADM), and the co-chairman of the American-Soviet

Trade

and

Economic

Council

(ASTEC).

The

Americanist met him in New York on the forty-second floor of the celebrity hotel, where he kept a permanent suite. But Andreas's main economic base and his corporation were located precisely in the backwater of Decatur, a visit to which was included in the Americanist's plans back in Moscow as he prepared for the trip. *

Oh, the powerful business circles—both Soviet and American!

Despite sharp changes in the political weather, they maintain a certain level of contacts for current affairs and in anticipation of a more favorable future. Assisting a journalist with his modest tasks is not a problem for them at al .

Passing on his vague desire to visit some American hinterland, the Americanist relayed it to a good acquaintance back in New York, who now represented the Soviet side as the senior vice president in the Moscow office of ASTEC. The obliging Boris Petrovich, from his seemingly Americanized office located on the Moscow embankment of Taras Shevchenko, immediately sent a telex (a message transmitted by telex) to New York.

The response telex in English translated the Americanist's vague wish onto clear business tracks. It read:

"Dear Boris, we would be delighted to arrange a trip to Decatur for your journalist friend, where he can meet with local farmers, with producer organizations like the American Soybean Association and the National Corn Growers Association, and visit farms, grain elevators, and processing plants. If he wishes, we wil also organize meetings with agricultural specialists from newspapers, radio, and television. Of course, we wil send our plane to pick him up in Decatur and return him to Washington or New York afterward. If you agree, the necessary preparations wil be made by Mr. Barker from ADM, and you can contact him directly or through your New York office. Best regards. Duane

Andreas, Chairman of the Board, ADM. Decatur, Il inois, USA, telex 25-0121."

Thus, through his acquaintances in Soviet business circles, our traveler temporarily became a guest in the world of major American business, which, in his case, was represented by a corporation with turnover in the hundreds of mil ions of dol ars, having several food production plants, sel ing thirty mil ion tons of grain and soybeans annual y, mainly in the domestic market but also engaging in international operations, including recently sel ing one and a half mil ion tons of grain to Soviet foreign trade organizations (and another mil ion tons through its branch in Hamburg).

Vain is the man. The plane they would special y send for him to Washington had already captured the imagination of the Americanist in Moscow, and he kept pul ing out the telex paper, reading the text to friends and acquaintances.

In life, everything worked as precisely as promised. Preparations were made through New York and Mr. Barker in Decatur, and on the appointed day and hour, a black limousine, rented by ADM people from one of the Washington car rental firms, pul ed up to the Holiday Inn on Wisconsin Avenue. After picking up the Americanist and his col eague Victor Alexandrovich, who had flown in from New York, the limousine, softly rustling with thick tires, slowly and solemnly delivered them to the National Airport. There, in a special building designated for servicing corporate and private planes, in an empty lounge, a brief pilot in a dark-blue uniform was already waiting, sipping coffee. The glimpses of gray in his hair reassuringly flashed as an indication of the number of flight hours accumulated and the necessary professional experience.

Only high-class professionals—no amateurism in aviation serving corporations and wealthy individuals. The third welcomed guest of ADM

was the Soviet representative in the world of American business, Yuri Vladimirovich L., also a senior vice president of ASTEC, working in New York. He was relatively young, with an attractive dimple on his chin, calm, and modern in a good sense.

"Ready?" asked the pilot. "Ready."

A smal jet with two jet engines, arriving from Decatur, was also ready right by the building. The extendable ramp with four steps touched the aerodrome concrete. Without tickets and flight attendants, with two

pilots whose backs were visible from the cabin, the eight-passenger plane, bouncing lightly as if not seriously picking up speed, quickly and seemingly playful y took off, pierced through the layer of low clouds, and shone in the sunlight. It was of French make, a "Falcon-20," and in terms of speed, it was not inferior to jetliner planes. In the United States, there were more than a hundred thousand private and corporate planes. ADM

had three of them: two for the domestic travels of the corporation's leadership, and on the third, larger and more powerful, with three turbines, the tireless Mr. Andreas made his frequent overseas voyages, only to London and Paris preferring to fly from New York on the scheduled, supersonic "Concorde."

During conversations, coffee, and drinks from the mini-bar, a necessity for any such business aircraft, they spent an hour and a half in the sunny glow beneath continuous layers of clouds before, breaking through the clouds, they saw beneath them the overcast flat land, long cultivated, fertile prairies slightly south of the Great Lakes.

The land lay wide and desolate due to the absence of giant human crowds; it did not scrape the sky with a palisade of skyscrapers. Only farmhouses and structures stood apart from each other amid harvested fields, and in the sparse light of a November day, metal ic poppies of silo towers and water pump spheres glistened in some places.

The smal airport, where the plane landed in a masterly manner, was also deserted. They were driven to the city in a van with soft seats and a sliding door along the hul . Everything around breathed cold and forebodings of snow.

From an unfamiliar name in the telex message, Mr. Barker materialized into Dick Barker, a provincial gentleman of middle age, a vice president of ADM, in charge of external relations.

They arrived on a Sunday. The city center seemed completely deserted. In the Decatur Club building, where they were accommodated in guest rooms by ADM, the offices on the ground floor were also closed for the weekend.

The guest rooms were lined with thick carpets; the taps of the sink and bathtub gleamed with old-fashioned copper, which had become a new sign of class and luxury. The elevator to the fourth floor only ascended with a special key, excluding access for outsiders. But the

hosts considered even this measure for ensuring the peace and safety of their rare guests insufficient. In the corridor on the fourth floor, a guy in a yel ow leather jacket sat, and beneath the jacket, from time to time, someone's abrupt voice reminded of a walkie-talkie device and surely concealed a silent firearm.

When they went downstairs for a walk, the guy accompanied them, acting in accordance with received instructions, although a half-hour walk revealed that no one and nothing threatened three Russians in the empty and standardly boring center of a smal town, blown by the cold wind.

He turned out to be a city policeman, earning extra money at ADM

in his free time. His "walkie-talkie" was connected to the corporation's security service. The corporation's operator answered when guests picked up the phone in their rooms, and a promotional souvenir, also from ADM, a cardboard box fil ed with cel ophane bags of ersatz nuts, ersatz candies, and ersatz cookies made from soybeans, stood in each room.

Alongside another grain firm, "Staley," ADM was the largest employer in Decatur and surrounded its guests with care and its own omnipresence. Only the television in Decatur was not from ADM but from three al -American television corporations—ABC, CBS, and NBC, which also kept local residents at home on Sunday evenings.

They had dinner at the deserted Country Club. Dick Barker, tearing himself away from Sunday TV shows, invited one of his col eagues, in charge of grain sales at ADM, and three middle-class farmers, also tied to the corporation by business ties. Two of the farmers were father and son. The son was already twenty-nine, and as it turned out, he himself was the father of three boys. The company occupied a separate room, where a blonde girl and a dark-haired guy, doubling as waiters, diligently and clumsily served them. The onion soup was cal ed French, the steak was cal ed New York, but the cuisine was uncomplicatedly Decatur-style, and the conversations at the Country Club were rural, farmer-like.

Farmers are not diplomats, and the presence of foreigners did not prevent them from complaining about life, primarily about low purchase prices. In supermarkets, food prices have doubled or tripled over the past decade, but three farmers sitting at the table were concerned about

another part of the economic picture. The prices at which they sold their grain and livestock to wholesale intermediaries were oppressive, if not ruinously low.

The three sturdy middle-class men were from those American families that rely on their own labor, and competition laws are pushing them off the land. They achieve unprecedented labor productivity on this land, record yields, but the higher the yield, the lower the purchase prices, the harder each dol ar of compensation for high-productivity work becomes. And yet, this work by its very nature requires maximum mechanization, new and more efficient equipment, and obtaining it requires loans from a bank. The machinery is getting more expensive, and the interest on loans is getting higher. If you don't keep up with others in the constant tension of competition, if you don't acquire even more modern equipment for even higher productivity—give up, get out of business, sel your farm, and look for a place in the city, where, with age, al family farmers somehow move, as working on the land becomes physical y and mental y unbearable.

Lifting their heads from the nursemaid—earth, these wonderful owners see a hostile world around them, which, it seems to them, has united to deprive them of the deserved fruits of their labor. And the three at the table in the Decatur Country Club were also ful of suspicions.

They believed that food prices were deliberately kept at such a level by big business so that the average American spent no more than fifteen to seventeen percent of their budget on food, leaving more money for a color TV or the latest model of a car, some personal computer, a video system, fashionable clothes—what temptations of a developed consumer society?

They looked at the workers with envy. Each of those sitting at the table had their own stories about these, in their view, lucky people. One, with a sense of a person deprived of life, told about a relative who worked for twenty years at the Caterpil ar company, producing agricultural machinery, retired at the age of fifty-seven, and receives almost as much as he earned, and they also pay his medical bil s.

Another complained about unions. The union of workers producing agricultural equipment and the automobile workers' union were demanding higher wages, and entrepreneurs were compensating for

their losses by raising prices for agricultural machinery and trucks.

Again, it turned out that the farmers were the ones suffering.

To the left of the Americanist sat the farmer's son, a handsome young man in a light suede jacket. He looked more like a graduate of a provincial col ege than a farmer. Farm work did not bend him to the ground, did not flatten him; his hands were cal us-free, although he claimed to toil from dawn to dusk. The young man talked about his trip to the state of Kansas, marveling at the considerably larger farms there compared to those in Il inois. Farmers like him had not two, but four or five tractors and twice as much other equipment. Col aborating with his father, the young man earned about one-third of their total income—thirty-five thousand dol ars a year. After the season, he planned to go on vacation with his wife, undecided whether to go to Miami or Bermuda. These plans for a trip to fashionable resorts, seemingly contradicting the complaints at the table, apparently reflected the dual nature of farm life in Il inois.

Meanwhile, the father of the young farmer complained not only about prices but also about presidents. He criticized Nixon and Carter because each of them, at some point in his presidency, imposed an embargo on the sale of grain to the Soviet Union. And as for Reagan, although he lifted the embargo, he showed complete indifference to the fate of the farmers.

On the first morning in Decatur, hastily washing and dressing, the Americanist dashed out of his room into the corridor. His appearance did not catch the new sturdy guard off guard. No, sitting at a table placed on the landing, the guard was not sleeping alone and inactive; he vigilantly accompanied the suddenly appearing Russian.

Instead of eight in the morning, the Americanist rushed out at seven, overlooking the time difference with Washington.

With nothing else to do, he decided to take a strol around the morning city. The guard didn't let him go alone and tagged along. At the beginning of the new workweek, Decatur was in no hurry to wake up.

Cars on the streets were scarce, and there were no pedestrians at al .

The big red sun, barely detached from the horizon, peeked out in the east through the openings of the streets. The ful transparent moon was

stil standing in the zenith amid the clear sky. The dawning day promised to be cold and clear.

A standard American city—concrete wal s and flat roofs, sidewalks, fire hydrants, signs, red brick of old warehouses, the dul gray stone of a Protestant church. Another, essential y random, city was on his way, and the Americanist suddenly caught himself thinking that he wasn't interested here. He pondered this and felt embarrassed about his own snobbery, especial y since one of Decatur's residents, guarding the guest, walked next to him with an expectant step, like a vigilant policeman. Tired of extensive superficial acquaintance with someone else's life? In general, of someone else's life? Of a profession that accumulates such fatigue? He remembered an old film by the Italian Antonioni, "The Passenger." The reporter, who accidental y got hold of the documents of a deceased person, suddenly, by some internal command, begins to live his life. This life is not the life of a reporter-observer but the life of a participant in various affairs, unclear, mysterious, and dangerous. The film convincingly conveyed the feeling of professional fatigue, homelessness, even despair. The reporter, who took on someone else's life and fate, was kil ed in the end in a hotel room somewhere in the depths of Africa, on the edge of an oasis, which, like a mirage, emerged among the sands. And he was ready for death; he reconciled with it, and it was so wel conveyed in the film—the oblique rays of the southern sun setting among the sands, their red light flooding the hotel room, and the homeless man who had traveled so many roads and now lay on the bed, tiredly waiting for the last minutes of his life, which never became stable...

A fleeting surge in consciousness.

But it was morning in Decatur. And in life, one wanted to believe, it was not yet evening. And the brawny guard was not disposed to philosophize. He silently walked alongside.

For the first time, a person from Russia is seen—and there is no curiosity. However, as the Americanist noticed long ago, most people are either uncurious or consider it impolite and tactless to ask questions to strangers. Other people's lives are not their business. But for the correspondent, it is a job, the main job. Out of habit, he started questioning the guard. While serving in the police, he also worked part-time at E-D-M. The Americanist learned that after twenty years of

work in the local police, one can retire at the age of fifty—with half the salary. And if you stay after twenty years, for each additional year of service, they wil add two percent to your pension. The guard mentioned that he planned to retire at the age of fifty-two, having worked in the police for thirty years, and that his pension would then be equal to seventy percent of his salary.

"Is it good?" the father asked. Remembering yesterday's complaints from the farmers, the Americanist agreed: it was good.

The day, as promised in the morning, was clear and cold. After having breakfast at the "Ambassador" hotel, where everyone knew Dick Barkett, and where he apologized to the guests for the sluggishness of provincial service, they settled into a comfortable van with shaded greenish windows. They traversed solid, quite urban, farm roads running along gleaming black soil fields, embarking on swift excursions in the surroundings of Decatur.

They were awaited everywhere—on the elevator, where one lone operator managed al the unloading of cars and the rumbling of grain from behind a control panel, and at the pig farm, where the owner, along with his wife and a swineherd, cultivated corn and soybeans on six hundred and fifty acres to feed a thousand pigs. Every Tuesday, like clockwork, they sent twelve to fifteen pigs to the slaughter, having reached the required weight.

They drove through the smal town of Blue Mound, merged with the rural district, where there were eight churches for every thousand law-abiding residents, the dry law was strictly observed, and most of the inhabitants had German roots. There, they discovered that Dick Barkett was a transformed German, Burkhardt, and the transformation occurred not with him but with his distant ancestor during the American Civil War of the 1860s.

After these excursions back to Decatur, they inspected part of the vast ADM complex— an automated corn syrup production plant and a large, humid greenhouse where twenty thousand bunches of lettuce were grown hydroponical y and sent to the market every day.

Next to the complex was the main office building of ADM, and there Dick Barkett, with a reverence commonly referred to as devout, hushing his voice and almost tiptoeing, showed the guests an empty shrine—Dwayne Andreas' office. Above the vacant chair and desk hung

the spirit of the Boss, the Master, the Thunderer. The office was furnished with provincial refinement, as if highlighting it from the surrounding simplicity, even with coquetry. Behind its windows, the factory buildings stood in al their unadorned work nakedness. On the office wal hung a painting, conventional y stylized, al egorical in meaning—five barefoot boys in short pants with uncombed heads. The al egory pertained to the five Andreas brothers. Their childhood was barefoot, poor, in an Amish family—members of a religious sect primarily living in Pennsylvania vil ages, rejecting electricity, plumbing, radio, television, and other attributes of technological civilization. From there, the five brothers began to march, breaking with the past and, nevertheless, sentimental y cherishing it in memories. One of them has already passed away; three are in control of ADM, and the chief—chairman of the board, the boss.

Dick Barkett did not leave the guests al day, and he was anxious al day. He was a widower with three adult daughters. One of them was expecting a child. The due dates predicted by the doctor had passed.

Unable to endure it, he took the guests to his farm. Strictly speaking, it wasn't a farm that provided a living, but a country house—old, spacious, wooden, in the middle of a plot of about fifteen acres with a smal bare November grove and a cooling pond.

He led the guests into the house, and they saw what had always been before his fatherly eyes: a young, embarrassed woman with a large bel y and a pale face. Her face expressed anticipation and guilt for the elapsed due dates, stil not giving birth and making her husband, who was at work, and her father worry. She sat at the table, and by her side was a telephone to immediately cal her husband and the doctor. She looked shyly at the unexpected guests, constantly glancing inward, listening to what was audible only to her—the secret life she carried in her womb that, for some reason, delayed announcing its arrival with the first cry into the world...

And it also imprinted in the Americanist's memory. A neat, white house—like a toy or an exhibition exhibit, seemingly dropped from above by some magical invisible hand onto a spacious, flat, and also meticulously cultivated land. Not a speck of mud, not a single rut, or a forgotten, overgrown pit, or a track pressed into the ground by heavy machinery, or abandoned rusty iron. No fences, hedges, picket fences.

An open-to-al -winds-and-views house of cards and a utility yard, neatly sprinkled with gravel. And also, resembling an exhibition exhibit, a tal barn where tractors, trucks, and combines stood—in cleanliness and order. And a similarly pristine and neat, round tin tower, a storage facility for selected corn grain; when you climb the metal ladder to the top of the tower and take it in your hand, it flows weightlessly between your fingers like amber.

But it was not an exhibition pavilion; it was the family farm of Uncle and Nephew Gulik, who worked three thousand acres of land, their own and leased, across the road. Perhaps it was a kind of model farm—after al , they wouldn't show foreigners a rundown farm, would they?

However, the Guliks clearly did not know how or did not want to boast about their work, considering it quite ordinary. And peasant superstition kept them from bragging.

On their land, within their wal s, the hosts felt a kind of helplessness in front of the guests. For the first time in reality, they saw Russians, whom they were constantly frightened of and who, at the same time, bought grain from them. For the first time in their lives, they gave something like an interview to journalists (did they know these sophisticated words—interview and journalists?). And unfamiliar people from an unfamiliar country puzzled the uncle and nephew with their non-farmer English and persistent questions about yields and productivity. For them, the two American farmers, the main thing was not the harvest, even if record-breaking, not the number of bushels per acre of land, but the cost of the product, the ratio in dol ars between the invested and earned. The most important thing was to stay at least at four percent profit on invested capital, because even the exemplary farm constantly faced the threat of bankruptcy, not al owing one to relax and forcing them to run and run in the ruthless race of competition, ensuring that a bushel of grain did not cost a cent more to you than to your neighbor. And how do you achieve that when more and more neighbors are becoming not family farms but industrial farms, grain corporations?

Competition has already driven many from the land. "Ninety percent of them would be wil ing to go back to the land... It's in their blood... It's priceless," repeated the elder Gulik.

The uncle's name was Richard, and the nephew's name was Herbert. Their roots in this land around Decatur went deep into a

hundred and fifty years, through five generations. There was one farm, cultivating one piece of land, but they lived in two houses—uncle with his childless wife, and the nephew, to show rare visitors, brought his two pretty high school daughters into his uncle's house.

And here, in the living room of the neat white house, from whose windows the nursemaid-earth could be seen on al sides, two businessmen—American and Soviet—awkwardly settled, two journalists and two farmers, already having stopped feeling like hosts and therefore knowing how to accommodate guests. From the adjacent room, Richard Gulik's wife and Herbert's two daughters peeked out.

It was like a home interview, it occurred to the Americanist. In big cities, and even in smal ones, work is separated from home, from family.

But here, both home and work were nearby, together—what a discovery he suddenly made in the living room of a farmer's house, accustomed to conversations in cities, in the offices of officials, businessmen, and journalists. Here, it was the farmer's wife who treated guests with a cup of coffee and homemade cookies, not a secretary. Here, when you lose your job, you lose your home too because al of this together is cal ed your farm, your land. Here are your roots, and if they pul you out of here, then for sure—with the roots.

Richard Gulik sat on a chair in the middle of the room for some reason—in his own home, as if under interrogation, forgetting to take off the red cap with a long visor. From time to time, he glanced, as if seeking help, at Dick Barkett. Herbert, the nephew, was sturdy and lanky, over two meters tal . He wore a work jacket, heavy yel ow boots, and the same red farmer's cap on his head, and his posture was also awkwardly constrained.

In the wind-beaten faces of the uncle and nephew, in their long hands and clumsy strong bodies, decades of labor were evident—years when a person, in a biblical sense, earns his bread with the sweat of his face, seeing it as his duty to his loved ones and his destiny on earth. And this sweat did not cease to rol , given that, in addition to two pairs of their own hands, there were tractors, combines, trucks, and other equipment, amounting, as the elder one reported, to no less than half a mil ion dol ars. Asking such workers, cultivators of the land, people of the earth, whether they want peace with us would be ridiculous! The answer was on their faces, in their hands: of course!

And from the adjacent room, two young girls peeked out—fair, fluffy, blood with milk, blooming rural beauties, quite suitable for the role of cover girls, meaning those girls placed on the covers of perfectly respectable il ustrated magazines. Their cheeks were glowing with youth, healthy outdoor life, and shyness; their eyes sparkled with curiosity.

But something else, something that seemed to hinder them from believing their eyes, seeing for the first time seemingly normal, peaceful, and even occasional y smiling people from distant Russia, was discernible in their expressions and eyes. What was peeking through in their fresh, lovely faces, something that distorted and clouded their open trust and friendliness, typical of youth, that time when a person is like a clean slate on which life has not yet had a chance to write its warnings, doubts, suspicions, and fears? What was it?

Ah, a familiar veil, a familiar tone. The adults had already written something on the clean slate during social studies and political literacy classes at school, and, of course, the television screen had also worked its magic. Despite the natural trust of youth, suspicions, bias, and prejudices of a divided world and era seeped through in the expressions of their faces, and the two girls didn't know what to believe—prejudices or their first personal experience.

They flew to New York on an ADM plane, along with Dwayne Andreas. He had arrived from somewhere the previous evening and was now leaving Dickitor again, heading to Paris for business. He was fresh, active, and, as usual, sarcastic. He took the host's place in the right corner of the sofa, located at the back of the passenger cabin, to have the radio telephone handset, tucked into the lining, at his disposal, and during the two-hour flight, he spoke five times with New York, Dickitor, and someone else. Since early morning, he had been provided with fresh New York newspapers and shared them with fel ow travelers, choosing the most business-oriented and useful one—"Journal of Commerce." He informed them that this newspaper was delivered to him in Dickitor by the private postal agency "Federal Express," and each issue cost twenty-five dol ars. "The most expensive newspaper in the world," he remarked with a smirk, a man who doesn't throw money away, even when paying nine thousand dol ars a year just for a newspaper.

They approached New York from the ocean, landed at Kennedy Airport, taxied to the private aviation building, where a summoned airport bus was already waiting. Andreas descended the ramp, the pilot handed the owner a coat and a flat case, and he gave a handful of green bil s as a tip to the bus driver. After bidding farewel to his fel ow travelers, the smal , wiry man departed to the airport terminal of Air France. In an hour and a half, he would take off for Paris on the supersonic Concorde and arrive there late in the evening. He was flying there for two days of negotiations with the French Minister of Trade. According to his story on the way, the French government pays good subsidies to its farmers for growing sugar. Thanks to this, sugar production in France has risen significantly in recent years, and the French, dumping it at low prices, are dominating the world market.

"We'l have to threaten the minister," Andreas joked. "If they don't address this issue, we'l unleash the U.S. government on them."

Contrary to expectations, the consideration of three points, evolving into another story of the Americanist's journey, dragged on.

Sitting down to write, the author, without haste, succumbs to the rhythm of work, which involuntarily fol ows the rhythm of the life he is describing.

Take, for example, the details that the author does not want to overlook, although the reader may consider them unnecessary. These details can easily be shortened when describing our familiar life; the reader wil fil them in with their own knowledge and imagination. But how do you briefly describe impressions of someone else's life, where even familiar objects are named and look different? And what about people? How can you skip details if the unspoken is what drives your pen?

Nevertheless, the author omits many impressions from the new journey of the Americanist, not intending to write another book. He just has to tel about the meeting with Thomas Powers, the same American journalist with a canvas bag, who once again led our traveler to the thought that the world is smal . Our divided and separated world, where al of us are travelers and companions, and where, in a fateful sense, we are al connected by one fate, like a little string. Wasn't this meeting in the end helpful in creating the emotional critical mass without which there would be no article by the Americanist about the smal world and perhaps no book about his journey?

After publishing his sentimental notes about the smal world, the Americanist secretly hoped for a response from there, from across the ocean, from the person he described meeting. His notes were not a confession, but there was undoubtedly sincerity in them, a sincere attempt to reach out to the bearded American with a bag, to one of the concerned Americans. And there was also, if you look more soberly and academical y, some experience: wil he understand this impulse? In the sentimental—and subjective—notes, a question of an objective nature was embedded: the possibility of understanding between two people, two journalists from different worlds. Wil a big article dedicated to the meeting with him, published with good intentions in a wel -known Soviet newspaper, reach him in America? Do they hear us? Do they read? Are they capable of contact? Not empty questions, because without contact, there is no understanding, and without understanding, do not expect anything good ahead.

Soon after returning from the Writers' House, where he blissful y created the first draft of his book, in the hectic hours of the pre-New Year's Eve, when old time accelerates as if a completely new one wil begin tomorrow, the Americanist suddenly received a congratulatory postcard from Sasha, his col eague from Washington. In the same envelope was a magazine clipping, thirty pages long, with a new large article by Thomas Powers, in which he described his impressions of his Moscow meetings.

The Americanist hastily flipped through the article and made sure: his experiment failed! The American did not read or hear the newspaper outpourings of the Americanist.

It was a sensitive blow not only to his self-esteem but also to his hope. They talk about contacts with extraterrestrial civilizations. But are there any among earthly ones? He was wel aware of the insignificance and particularity of his experience, but at the same time, he ruled out the randomness of the result obtained. Is the world so smal ? Do we find each other? And if such a troubled American does not hear you at such a dangerous time, then what kind of trouble is real y waiting? These questions could not be forgotten even in the countryside, amid the soul-healing white fields, on that night when, on the frozen bank of the Pakhra River, together with Yegor, Igor, and Victor, with wives and friends, they stormed the New Year, gril ing shish kebabs over a bonfire.

From afar, in the flickering firelight, the men in winter jackets and knit hats created silhouettes of medieval warriors. And up close, visions of a nuclear auto-da-fé suddenly crept into their heads. When another box, brought from the dump in the backyard, flew into the bonfire, its wooden planks flashed and melted like the horrifying frames from the sensational American TV film about nuclear war, "The Day After." In those frames, transferring the action to the city of Lawrence, Kansas, human ribs also instantly lit up, shining through evaporating skin, to become part of the charred skeleton in an imperceptible fraction of a second and then disappear without a trace.

The sky above the joyous people was silent and solemn.

...Constel ations loomed excessively in the cold pit of January.

Then the Americanist careful y and unhurriedly read Thomas Powers' publication "Why?" and had to, overcoming his resentment, admit that it was a serious journalistic investigation, honest and daring.

The American dug like a mole into ancient history—back to Pericles and Aristotle—and into the most recent, trying to understand why a nuclear war might arise, whether there are reasons that can justify it. He found no rational reasons—in a world divided by the gap between two systems, neither wil win, and both wil lose due to a nuclear catastrophe.

But, he persuaded the reader, warriors were never subject to logic and common sense and did not start because there were rational grounds for them, but because there was fear and suspicion between the warring parties, and armies and weapons were ready for war. "The problem is not in the evil intentions of one side or another," he wrote, "but in our satisfaction with the state of hostility, in our readiness to go the wrong way, in our reliance on the threat of annihilation to save ourselves from annihilation."

Thomas Powers wrote in his article that his previous publications had aroused public interest and that he often refuses to speak in different audiences when invited. After each such appearance, questions usual y fol ow, primarily about types of nuclear weapons—how they look, how they work, is it true that they are so precise that they can hit a footbal field on the other side of the globe? Yes, it's true. And in such speeches, he wrote, he answers the other questions as best as he can.

And gradual y, the audience disperses.

But one person remains.

He waits until everyone leaves, this last person with the last question.

They approach fortune-tel ers, like gypsies, seemingly just for the sake of laughter, seemingly without any superstition, but with a tremor of the soul, to ask the most coveted question: how much time do I have left to live? Fortune-tel ers distinguish such people from a mile away, Thomas Powers wrote, and he, too, learned to immediately recognize his last listener with his last question. The person waited for everyone to leave to be one-on-one, without concealment, to receive a confidential and reliable answer.

"And wil there be war?" this person asks. But there is no definite answer, and the person hears from the journalist: "I don't know..."

After some time, the Americanist received a letter in the editorial mail from Thomas Powers himself, along with a photocopy of his article, requesting feedback. No, the American did not forget about their summer meeting, the anxious undertone of their conversation, and their attempt to break through to each other by the shortest route—from heart to heart.

The Americanist briefly replied to his acquaintance that his article was powerful and, unfortunately, bleak. He also sent him two of his newspaper articles. The first, in sentimental notes that never reached the American, contained familiar reflections. The second article was about impressions from Thomas Powers' new publication. People like him, the Americanist wrote, understand that we cannot reform or transform each other through nuclear weapons. We must strive to increase the number of understanding individuals, and turn that understanding into a tool for preserving and strengthening peace.

A kind of personal and extremely irregular correspondence was established between them. Two or three months later, a reply came from the smal , mountainous, and wooded state of Vermont, where the American lived with his wife and three daughters. He wrote that he took a long time to respond because he was looking for a translator who would translate the two articles of the Americanist not with an approximate, but an accurate language. He reported that he had now read both articles in a complete translation and found it interesting to see himself through the eyes of a Russian, observing a traveler of the

nuclear age with a hessian bag. He also mentioned that he was now engaged in the topic of nuclear winter. He further wrote that he demands his book publishers to produce them on paper that does not yel ow or age over time—then his grandchildren and great-grandchildren can learn about the issues that concerned them in their days without hindrance.

Regarding the use of particularly durable, long-lasting paper, the Americanist thought: a bit of snobbery, flaunting one's wealth. But at least it was comforting that his acquaintance, despite his gloomy premonitions, hoped to live long enough to see grandchildren and great-grandchildren and, moreover, believed that our books might be of interest to them.

About a year and a half after their first meeting in Moscow, they met again in person when the Americanist came for the presidential elections in New York. It was on the friendly grounds of the Schwab House, at Victor and Rai's. Powers specifical y flew in from Vermont, as the distance was not considerable.

In the mind of the Americanist, this meeting was one of the key moments of his new journey, as it expanded both the journalistic and human meaning of the trip. However, it turned out to be too brief, squeezed in between two other meetings that day—with the chief editor of an influential magazine and the chief editor of an equal y influential newspaper.

The Americanist recognized and yet did not recognize the American, with whom he felt a strange, necessary, and yet precarious connection. He seemed simpler and somewhat more accidental than his intel igent, deep compositions. He appeared to have lost weight, and his beard seemed less bushy than described by the Americanist, while his blue, probing eyes casual y glanced at the three Russians and their non-American life in America.

As it turned out, Powers himself was original y from New York, where his father and brother stil lived. He moved to Vermont because it was cheaper to live there, work was better in the quiet, and there was an opportunity to acquire his own house.

Victor told him about Schwab House, where Soviet correspondents had been taking turns in an apartment on the eighth floor for more than twenty years. They planned to turn the red-brick Schwab House into a cooperative home. The owners initiated this operation to escape the law

that prevented them from arbitrarily raising rent for tenants and earning as much money as possible. Residents were offered to buy apartments or leave the house by a certain deadline. For a three-room apartment where the Americanist spent his New York years with his family, Victor had to pay two hundred and fifty thousand dol ars. Fantastic! But, of course, it would pay off in about ten years; otherwise, Victor's successors would stil have to rent a new apartment somewhere else in Manhattan—for two or three thousand dol ars a month! Try to calculate.

However, the editorial accounting did not look so far ahead and did not plan for such long-term savings.

Thomas Powers spoke about how, on the open market, such an apartment with a luxurious view of the Hudson would cost four hundred and fifty thousand dol ars. Madness! He explained this madness by the fact that over the past two decades, six to seven hundred thousand

"blue-col ar workers" have left Manhattan, and in their place,

"white-col ar workers," people of free professions, settled—they want to live at the "upper-middle-class" level and precisely in prestigious Manhattan, paying crazy money for prestige.

But the American did not write about insane prices and crazy money in the latest issue of his magazine. As a new business card, he handed the Americanist a new article about nuclear winter.

Are you familiar with this theory, reader? Scientists, both Russian and American, have identified another potential consequence of nuclear war, which, in short, wil be that due to multiple nuclear explosions, sunlight wil be blocked from reaching the Earth's surface, causing a sharp drop in temperature everywhere on the globe. Nuclear winter wil set in. Surviving creatures and plants from the catastrophe wil freeze to death in eternal winter, even in the tropics, and be doomed to a cold and hungry death. And with this new scientifical y predicted total horror in our paradoxical age, some new hopes for reducing the nuclear threat are associated because the suicidal nature of a nuclear conflict becomes even more credibly insane.

Over conversation and lunch, they spent two friendly hours at Schwab House. The American impressed Victor, who had experienced the war as a young signalman, seen various aspects of life, and understood people. He left with a souvenir—a jar of grainy caviar. Later, he sent a letter from Vermont, thanking Rai and Victor for their hospitality

and jokingly mentioning that his children, who had never seen Russian caviar, thankful y mistake it for cockroach eggs, al owing him to enjoy the famous delicacy alone.

Upon his return to Moscow in mid-November, the Americanist also received a letter from Thomas Powers. From the letter, he learned that winter had already arrived in Vermont. Fortunately, the Vermonter had prudently stocked up on firewood for this ordinary winter, buying seven large bundles and neatly arranging them in the cel ar of his house, forming a woodpile four feet high, four feet wide, and fifty-six feet long.

"By spring, every log wil fly out through the chimney," he wrote.

"By spring, I'l be almost halfway through my new book."

The Americanist tried to imagine what this Vermont house looked like and how, on a sunny, frosty day, the smoke rose beautiful y into the sky from the red-brick chimney. He envisioned his American acquaintance, whom he would like to consider a friend, writing his book about the insane nuclear winter, dreaming of the arrival of an ordinary spring—and a time of reason.

March-April 1985

They walked through Lafayette Square, where modern homeless wanderers with vacant stares, sitting on benches or lounging on the grass, coexisted with the greenish bronze hero of the late 18th century on a moldy bronze horse, holding a triangular hat in a welcoming gesture. They crossed Pennsylvania Avenue at the zebra crossing, where, dividing it lengthwise, two lines of monolithic, knee-high concrete pil ars stretched— a new precaution by the Secret Service, a barrier to suicide terrorists who might think of rushing in a heavy truck, smashing the iron fence, and, ignoring the integrity of perfectly manicured lawns, rushing with a load of explosives towards the white-columned portico of the White House.

Even from the square, before stepping onto the zebra crossing, they saw on the other side half a dozen cameramen and guessed that they were waiting for them. They increased their pace, determination, and momentum and approached the checkpoint booth, reaching it with swift and even more determined steps. The cameramen, extending almost silent lines of their domestical y produced weapons, recoiled in front of them. The latch on the iron grid gate clicked, letting four of them through. Two guards careful y checked them against some list, using both Soviet passports and made one of them turn back. After handing over the massive key to room number in the Madison Hotel, they went through the sensitive gate that detected metal on clothing and under clothing. When this barrier was behind them, and the four moved forward with even more rapid and determined steps, chest to chest, keeping pace and even seemingly trying to outpace each other, the right of the two lanes leading to the west wing of the White House was blocked by another noisy, bustling, shoving, living barricade of about fifty television journalists. Several voices almost chorused from it: "What questions wil you ask?" And the correspondent known for his persistence from ABC

shouted alone, with a mocking tone in his voice: "Wil you ask him about the 'evil empire'?" The excitement grew with the awareness that they had become celebrities for an hour. But they walked without slowing down, without answering American col eagues, just smiling silently. The living barricade, clattering, shuffling, pushing, let them come close and stepped back, retreated, scattered at a distance from the entrance to the west wing, where it was supposed to disappear, and the door easily let in a lone ceremonial Marine—a Marine in a formal dark blue uniform, short

haircut under a white hat, chest wheel above a white belt, long legs in dark blue neatly ironed trousers slightly curved from the elastic force and from special parade precision, and black, lacquered, heavy boots with thick noiseless soles.

Inside, there was no daylight. Not far from the entrance sat a forgettable secretary behind the table, but of grenadier height, and a massive African-American Swiss guard in a light brown surcoat, who took their coats, hanging them in a tiny dressing room, the size of which indicated that visitors are rarely here in large groups, and that important people arriving here in warm limousines even in winter go without outerwear in the southern city of Washington.

They waited near a large oval conference table in the twilight Roosevelt Room, where on the wal s hung portraits of two Roosevelt presidents—Franklin Delano, known to us from the wartime al iance, and Theodore, who presided at the beginning of the century, was one of the heralds and first practitioners of American imperialism, and became famous, among other things, for the often mentioned even now saying:

"Speak softly, and carry a big stick." In the Roosevelt Room, the early Roosevelt dominated the late Roosevelt in the number of painted canvases and in the life-size bronze embodiments; besides, they learned that he was, it turns out, a laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize—not for a big stick, probably, but for the ability to speak softly.

When the signal, not immediately heard by them, sounded, indicating that visitors could be admitted, the Americans, assigned to the four Soviet journalists, rushed to the right, but the door opened from the opposite side. After the dimly lit Roosevelt Room, they were hit in the eyes by the dazzling light of television lamps directed at the wal of the Oval Room, where the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, stood, and they moved into this light, one after another, approaching the president, who extended his hand with a kind expression on his face.

They also, each to the best of their ability, smiled in response to the television cameras, although they could not immediately figure out how to turn around to look their best on the television screens in the evening news broadcasts. In the Oval Room, it was crowded not only with television and press photographers, al owed for a few minutes, but also with officials. Important and even very important by themselves, officials became there less important and, it seemed, almost unimportant in the

presence of the president, and the four of them could hardly consider them in these first dazzling moments.

Later, at the president's invitation, they sat in pairs on two facing home-style soft sofas, separated by a light polished foldable table. The president settled into a semi-reclining chair with a high back, crossing his legs and raising his hands, fingers intertwined, to chest level. Behind him was an unlit fireplace with copper fittings polished to a shine. The wal s of the office were light, with paintings on the wal s—more of a manor-like landscape type than battle scenes. It somehow seemed impolite to divert one's gaze from the man in the semi-reclining chair to examine the other main part of the office, where a smal , also home-style desk stood, and behind it, an armchair and on the sides of the desk, in special stands, the national flag and the presidential standard.

Once seated, they remained silent for a minute because the filming continued, and the president squinted habitual y, even closing his eyes, without changing his posture. Wrinkles on the neck and pigment spots on

the

back

of

the

crossed

hands

revealed

the

age

of

seventy-four-year-old Ronald Reagan, but he sat without slouching, very upright, holding his smal head high, on which thick, black, and young-looking hair glinted. The expression on his face was either friendly-restrained or friendly-firm. He was dressed smartly and stylishly, from loafers with a buckle to a red tie in a diagonal dark blue stripe.

Watching him, always ready for shooting and appearing in public on the main stages of political life, so organical y theatrical, Americ-anist suddenly remembered his sister, who in such cases, seeing people no less significant but just as freshly dressed, used to say: "Like from a gift box..."

Yes, and he was in the Oval Room of the White House, a character in our documentary narrative, to whom—didn't we warn you about it?—there was no way to keep up with the movement of life with its fantastic realism. And he was there, the Americ-anist, making another voyage across the ocean at the border of October and November (again, this ever-present late autumn season on our pages!) in the company of old col eagues and acquaintances—Gennady, Vsevolod, and Henry, and this time they received a visa from the American Embassy in Moscow in just three weeks, and on the next day, under the visa, there was a

handwritten note explaining the purpose of the trip: "To interview Mr.

Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America."

The eldest in their smal temporary group was Gennady, an old friend with whom Americ-anist had taken the last joint interview, remember, with Herman Kap.

They were flying to Washington on a connecting flight—via Montreal and New York, but everywhere they were met by col eagues who quickly transferred them from one airport to another. The eldest, in his light yel ow coat and without any carry-on luggage, always accompanying our compatriots, walked ahead quickly, confidently, and very confidently, as if he had to fly to another continent to interview the leader of another nuclear power at least once a month and knew exactly how it was done, having no doubt about success.

According to the official schedule of the White House, they spent only forty-two minutes in the Oval Room, not having time to ask even a third of the prepared questions during this time, only the second in history, an interview of Soviet journalists with the American president.

Forty-two minutes, and Americ-anist felt behind him the held breath of the assembled male American guild in the room, the entire presidential cohort, which seemed to be watching the stage from the audience, and heard how the man in the semi-reclining chair, endowed with supreme power, sitting in front of them, crossing his fingers under which a tiny microphone was attached to the right lapel of his jacket, talked about the need for peace and good relations between the two countries. He said what one would like to hear from him, and then he said not quite the same—or not at al what the Americ-anist, on the international pages of his newspaper, was used to printing...

This interview, which the White House sought, was a stroke in a large picture, one of the episodes in extensive preparations for the meeting of the top leaders of the two states, the first in over six years of dangerously deteriorating relations. Not two weeks had passed since the interview when Americ-anist, returning from Washington to Moscow, went to Geneva as a special correspondent and became one of the witnesses to the meeting, observed by the whole world.

He found himself in Geneva amidst a multilingual crowd of over three thousand representatives of the world press, who had noisily settled into the somewhat gloomy exterior but comfortable interior of the

International Press Center building for several days. However, as a Soviet journalist, he was more fortunate than many of his Western and Eastern col eagues. Unlike them, he witnessed the first moment of the initial meeting between Soviet and American leaders in the three-story gray stone vil a "Fleur d'Eau," built over a hundred years ago by French Protestant bankers in the Geneva suburb of Versoix and temporarily leased by the American government.

It was a cold, gray November morning, with low clouds covering the sky. About a hundred and fifty meters from the vil a, Lake Geneva, hiding al its celebrated beauty, rippled with leaden waves. A cold wind blew from the lake, piercing reporters to the bone, seemingly avoiding the bodyguards from both countries who had taken control of the meeting place in advance.

Thirty of the most privileged journalists waited on the right wing of the staircase leading to the tal glass door of the vil a, behind a metal railing where their bodyguards had pushed them. On the other side of the gravel-paved driveway, on a special y constructed wooden platform, another contingent of a hundred or so press warriors shivered and waved in the freezing wind. Al of them wore blue passes on their coats and jackets, and al the transient guests at this vil a, who came and went, were identified by these passes. The mighty plane tree—with its bare, thick trunk, lacking a blue pass—was a local resident. Branches stretched in al directions in front of the house, serving as a natural witness. The remnants of shriveled yel ow leaves trembled on its bare branches. A gentle slope led to the lakeshore, sparsely dotted with furry coniferous trees whose branches hung like those of our wil ows. On the shore, in front of the cold rippling water, the wind snapped two pieces of red Swiss flags with white crosses on flagpoles, and from time to time, as if on maneuvers, amusing figures of Swiss soldiers ran along the edge of the shore, reminding of the active participation of the smal neutral country in the meeting of the leaders of two nuclear giants.

Such was the prepared scene, and representatives of the media were supposed to, with lightning-fast written messages and, most importantly, instant television footage, inform the world about the start of the meeting. Exactly at ten in the morning—a soft crunch of gravel under the heavy machine's tires, and it slowly rol ed out from behind the corner of the vil a, large, black, shiny, with the Soviet flag, and stopped in front

of the stairs. Reagan, waiting for his guest behind the main door of the vil a, came out and began to descend the stairs. The door of the Soviet limousine opened, a person in a gray coat and hat appeared—M. S.

Gorbachev—and, smiling restrainedly, taking off his hat, took a few steps towards the American, and they met— the meeting took place! They were not introduced to each other, they recognized each other, and exchanged handshakes, two of the most wel -known contemporaries, and together went up the stairs, and everything was very simple, unexpectedly simple, as any two people could greet each other, a special, saturated silence, the chirping and clicking of technology, the tense breath of witnesses—chroniclers of the modern era betrayed the importance of those seconds and hours that fol owed seconds...

Providing this verbal sketch of the Geneva meeting, the author, in the manner of old artists, would like to briefly depict, behind the metal forbidden railing on the left at the base of the stairs, amidst the excited journalist col eagues, stretching their eyes and lenses toward the two leaders, a man with a notepad in hand, middle-aged, with a frozen face and a fur hat pul ed down over his head, indicating the presence of the Americ-anist at this remarkable event. But our age does not settle for the techniques of old masters. Our age demands not only new thinking but also new imagination, and now, having sketched his verbal outline, the author would like to step away from the vil a "Fleur d'Eau" and seemingly rise above it, and now not only the two most wel -known contemporaries standing side by side are visible, and not only clusters of witness-reporters under the vigilant eyes of bodyguards recording this meeting, but also the November barren lawns and bare trees are visible, and the famous lake, lying like a lead hol ow between snow-capped mountains, and higher and higher, al less lake and mountains, the outlines of seas and continents have already appeared, and higher stil , higher stil — and...

...the abyss of stars has opened, ful ; there is no number to the stars, and there is no bottom to the abyss...

And we see the white-blue, fairy-tale beautiful, crystal-fragile globe. We observe this new land from the height of a new sky, from the abyss that has no bottom, from the cosmos that has now opened a new chasm of dangers and disagreements, because there, on the other side,

even space wishes to populate itself with weapons in case of impending wars...

But this is already the subject of new journeys and books that wil be written by one or another Americ-anist, although our own does not want to completely set aside the pen, especial y since a new dialogue between the two countries has begun, and after the agreement reached on the resumption of direct Aeroflot flights, flying to America becomes easier again.

December 1985