Vasily Grossman - Life And Fate

Once again Viktor heard his work praised. Malenkov called him for an interview, looked straight at him with his quick black eyes and talked to him for the best part of an hour. Viktor was surprised at how familiar Malenkov was with his work and how easily he handled technical terms.

If this was surprising, Malenkov's last words were astonishing: 'We would be deeply regretful if anything at all were to hinder you in your work. We understand very well that there can be no practice without theory.'

Viktor really hadn't expected that.

He found it very strange, on the following day, to see the anxious, questioning look with which Shishakov greeted him and at the same time remember the anger and humiliation he had felt when Shishakov had failed to invite him to the meeting held in his house.

Markov was warm and friendly, Savostyanov as witty as ever. Gurevich came into the laboratory and embraced him, saying: 'I am glad to see you! I really am! You must be Benjamin the Fortunate!'

Yes, Viktor was still on the train.

He was asked whether he considered it necessary to expand his laboratory into an independent research institute. He was flown to the Urals by special plane, together with a Deputy People's Commissar. He was allocated a special car which Lyudmila used to go to the store, giving lifts to women who had previously pretended not to recognize her.

Everything that had once seemed impossibly complicated and confusing now happened all by itself.

Young Landesman was deeply moved. Kovchenko phoned him at home and within an hour Dubyonkov had arranged for him to be taken onto the staff of Viktor's laboratory.

On her return from Kazan, Anna Naumovna Weisspapier told Viktor that all her documentation had been arranged within two days and that Kovchenko had even arranged for a car to meet her at the station in Moscow. Anna Stepanovna had been informed by Dubyonkov in writing that she had been reinstated in her former post and that the deputy director had decided she should be paid in full for the weeks she was absent.

The new employees were constantly being fed. They said jokingly that their work was simply a matter of letting themselves be ferried, all day long, from one special canteen to another. Needless to say, this was far from the truth.

The new apparatus in Viktor's laboratory no longer seemed quite so perfect. He had the feeling that in a year's time it might seem slightly comic, like Stephenson's 'Rocket'.

What had happened in Viktor's life seemed at once both natural and unnatural. His work really was interesting and important – why shouldn't it be praised? Landesman had a talent for research – why shouldn't he work in the Institute? Anna Naumovna was indeed irreplaceable – why should she have to hang around in Kazan?

Still, Viktor knew very well that, but for Stalin's telephone call, his research – for all its excellence – would have been forgotten; and Landesman – for all his talent – would still be unemployed. But then Stalin's telephone call was no accident; it was no mere whim or caprice. Stalin was the embodiment of the State – and the State has no whims or caprices.

Viktor had been afraid that all his time would be taken up with administrative matters – plans, conferences, taking on new staff, placing orders for new equipment… But the cars he travelled in were fast, the meetings he attended began punctually and moved swiftly to a conclusion, and all his wishes were immediately granted. As a result, Viktor was able to spend the entire morning – the time when he did his best work – in perfect freedom in his laboratory. No one disturbed him; he was able to concentrate exclusively on his own interests. His work still belonged to him. It was all a far cry from what happened to the artist in Gogol's 'The Portrait'.

He had been even more afraid that other people might encroach on his own field. This fear also proved groundless. 'I really am absolutely free,' he said to himself in surprise.

He thought once of what Artelev had said in Kazan about military factories: how well-provided they were with raw materials, energy and machine-tools, and how free from bureaucratic interference.

'Yes,' thought Viktor. 'It is in its own absence that bureaucracy reveals itself most clearly. Whatever serves the principal aims of the State is rushed along at great speed. Bureaucracy can have two opposite effects: it can halt any movement or it can speed it up to an incredible degree – as though freeing it from the constraints of gravity.'

Not that Viktor thought often about those long conversations in that small room in Kazan. He no longer thought of Madyarov as someone remarkably intelligent and altogether exceptional. He no longer felt a constant anxiety over his fate. He was no longer obsessed by the terrible mutual suspicions harboured by him and Karimov.

Without his realizing it, everything that had happened to him began to seem quite normal, quite natural. His new life was the rule; he had begun to get used to it. It was his past life that had been the exception, and slowly he began to forget what it had been like. Was there really any truth in those reflections of Artelev's?

In the past Viktor had felt nervous and irritated as soon as he crossed the threshold of the personnel department, as soon as he felt Dubyonkov even look at him. In fact, Dubyonkov was very decent and obliging. When he phoned Viktor, he said: 'Dubyonkov speaking. I hope I'm not disturbing you, Viktor Pavlovich?'

Viktor had always regarded Kovchenko as a sinister and treacherous intriguer who would happily annihilate anyone who stood in his way; he had seemed to come from another world – a world of mysterious unwritten instructions – and to be profoundly indifferent to science itself. In fact he was not like this at all. He came round to Viktor's laboratory every day; he was a true democrat and he didn't stand on his dignity at all. He joked with Anna Naumovna, shook everyone by the hand and chatted with the technicians and metalworkers; it turned out that he had operated a lathe himself in his youth.

Shishakov was someone Viktor had disliked for years. Then one day he had lunch at his house and discovered that Shishakov was witty, hospitable, a gourmet and a fine raconteur; he enjoyed good cognac and he collected engravings. And – most important of all – he appreciated the importance of Viktor's theory.

'I've triumphed!' thought Viktor. But he knew very well that it was not an absolute victory: if the people around him now treated him differently, if they now helped rather than hindered him, it certainly wasn't because he had won their hearts with his great charm, intelligence and talent.

Nevertheless, Viktor rejoiced. He had triumphed!

There were special news bulletins on the radio nearly every evening. The Soviet offensive was still continuing. To Viktor, it seemed quite natural to link the course of his own life with that of the war, with the victory of the people and the army, the victory of the State. At the same time he knew that it wasn't really quite so simple. He was quite capable of laughing at his childish habit of always wanting to see everything in black and white: 'Stalin's done this, Stalin's done that, glory to Stalin!'

He had thought that important administrators and Party officials never talked about anything, even with their families, except the ideological purity of their cadres. He had thought they did nothing except sign papers in red pencil, read A Short Course in the History of the Party out loud to their wives, and dream of temporary rulings and obligatory instructions. Now he had unexpectedly discovered that they had a human side too.

Ramskov, the Secretary of the Institute Party Committee, turned out to be a keen fisherman. Before the war he had gone on a boating holiday in the Urals, together with his wife and his sons.