Sean Michaels - Us Conductors

Ioffe gazed at me. It was a steady, heavy stare, as if he were rolling a steel bearing toward me, seeing if I would catch it.

I said, “My research saw many advances, in America.”

“Tell me about America,” Ioffe murmured.

So I told him about America. Teletouch, Alcatraz, the altimeter, the aeroplane. My adjustments to the theremin, the rhythmicon. My purer research into electric fields, capacitance, signals through the air. He did not interrupt. He listened, leaning back in his chair. I felt the need to be poetic: “With radio,” I said, “I feel like an explorer who has only just glimpsed the outline of a continent.”

I described to him the time I played before twenty thousand people at Coney Island. “I have many ideas about loudspeakers. Amplification. There are many applications. Not just performances — official announcements, public address systems …” Ioffe shifted in his seat. “Or perhaps … er … military functions …” I said.

“What happened with Konstantinov’s sister?” he said.

“What—”

“With Sasha’s sister.”

“Katia?”

“Yes,” Ioffe said. He set his elbows on the desk.

“We …” I exhaled. “We fell out of love, Abram.”

Ioffe looked so sad.

“Is Sasha here?”

“No,” he murmured.

“Where is he? It would be good to see him.”

“He was arrested.”

I was horrified. “Why?”

“Article 58.”

“What is Article 58?”

“ ‘Counter-revolutionary activities.’ ”

“How could Sasha be accused of counter-revolutionary activities?”

Ioffe rose. He stood in silence for a moment. “I do not have work for you here,” he said finally. He lifted Principles of the New Radio , turned it over in his hands. “I am sorry, Lev.”

I swallowed. I got to my feet as well.

“Lev,” he said, meeting my eyes. “You must speak less well of your time abroad.”

IN MID-FEBRUARY I SOLD a set of tools and bought a train ticket to Moscow. It was a night train. I slept under a thin sheet. When I awoke, someone had stolen my shoes.

I went to Moscow to find employment. To find employers who would petition the planning committee on my behalf. I bought new shoes from a stall at the station. Shiny new shoes. Already my money was almost gone. I checked into a shabby hotel. On a wall in the foyer there was a notice from a travel agency seeking English translators. I made a note on the back of my train ticket. I went up into my minuscule room, like my cabin on the Stary Bolshevik . I lay down on the bed, still made, and closed my eyes.

Over the next weeks I took a few small translation jobs. They gave me Russian copy about the Black Sea, the Winter Palace, Kiev’s former cathedral. I translated this into the language of Shakespeare and Twain. I remember one sentence, like a treasure I was able to keep: The columns of Manpupuner will never change, not even in winter .

I HAD COME TO Moscow with the names of four generals.

These were men I had met more than a decade before. Three years after I showed Lenin the theremin, one year after he died, the Kremlin had once again contacted me, requesting that I demonstrate my work on “distance vision” technology. Television. With Ioffe I had developed a working prototype: a small display, one hundred lines of resolution. It worked relatively well in low light. In a room with very high ceilings, four men crowded around the machine. Their assistants stood in a huddle near the door. I tried to introduce the principles behind the device; the four men just stared at the screen. Eventually they sent me away.

I had taken down their names: Ordzhonikidze, Tukhachevsky, Budennyj, and Voroshilov. Under Tukhachevsky’s name, I wrote a sentence, something he had said: One day, the Red Army will see into tomorrow .

A few months later I received a message saying Iosif Vissarionovich had been very happy with the device. It would now be developed internally, by army scientists. Send us your notes, the message said. Send us everything.

I was angry. Ioffe advised me to say nothing.

I turned my focus to the theremin.

In Moscow now, I hoped to find these generals. Wherever they were, I would find them. I would tell them: Let me return to work .

From Ioffe I had learned that a chemist from the Physico-Technical Institute, a man named Totov, was working as a clerk at the Politburo. “He turned in his vials,” Ioffe said. I vaguely remembered Totov: a man shaped like a triangle, wide at the hips but with very compact shoulders. He had sandy hair and glasses. This was all I had, coming to Moscow: four generals’ names and Totov, at the Politburo, like a triangle with glasses.

I was persistent, and I located him. On my third visit to the Kremlin’s gates, Totov came tottering out. His hair was longer now, like a woman’s. There were more lines around his eyes.

“Comrade Totov,” I said.

He stopped where he stood. “Who are you?” he said. In the moment’s pause I saw the rise of panic.

“Termen,” I said, “from Leningrad. Do you remember?”

There was a short beat, then relief splashed over him. “Termen!” he said. “The man with the warbling boxes!”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes. Yes, just so.”

When he was done work, we met at a café near the library. For a long time we exchanged pleasantries. He did not ask about my past ten years; it was not clear whether he knew I had been to America. I asked him about work and he spoke with a rambunctious, unconvincing enthusiasm. Finally there was a lull in the conversation and I told him why I had come to Moscow. I told him that I was looking for some men who knew my work, who might be able to help me.

“I cannot give you a job,” he blurted.

“No, no,” I said, “of course not. I wish to continue my research. But I am looking to speak to some men I once met. Generals.” I swallowed. “I thought perhaps you could teach me the best way to — to reach …”

“Generals?” Totov whispered.

I took the paper from my jacket. “Budennyj, Ordzhonikidze, Tukhachevsky, Voroshilov.”

“Is this a joke?”

“No.”

“You know these men?” he said.

“I did know them.”

Totov quavered in his chair. “I do not know them. I do not know that I can help you.”

“What is it?”

His eyes flicked up and down.

“Totov?”

“Ordzhonikidze was in the Politburo. He died a few years ago.”

“Yes?”

“Tukhachevsky was executed,” he said. “Treason.”

“I see. And the others?”

“Budennyj is a marshal.”

“A marshal?”

He stared at me, incredulous.

“What?”

“A marshal . A marshal of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He is the second-most important soldier in the world.”

“I see,” I said. “And Voroshilov?”

“Voroshilov?” he said. “Voroshilov is the most important soldier. He is the first marshal. The hero of the southern front. The commissar for defence. You didn’t know this?”

“No.”

“Do you remember Luhansk?”

“The city?”

“Now we call it Voroshilovgrad.”

I swallowed.

“How did you not know this?” he muttered.

I folded up the paper. “I was not here.”

“How did you not know this!” he repeated.

“If I wanted to meet with Voroshilov, how would I do this?”

Totov threw up his hands and squeaked. “How would you meet with Comrade Stalin? How would you meet with the man in the moon?”