The Goatibex Constellation

II

“Yes, yes, we’ve already read it,” exclaimed Avtandil Avtandilovich, the editor-in-chief of Red Subtropics, as he caught sight of me in the corridor of the editorial office. “By the way, don’t you ever plan to come back here for good?”

Apparently he thought that I had merely come home on vacation.

“Yes, I’m considering it,” I replied, and right then and there we came to an agreement. He agreed to hire me as soon as a certain elderly staff member retired.

I spent the next month wandering along the city’s deserted beaches, trying to put my not very happy reflections into verse. She had not answered either of my two letters, and pride prevented me from writing a third. I did, however, write to one of my friends at the youth newspaper, making casual reference to the fact that I had gotten a job with a genuine, adult newspaper. I asked him to drop me a line in care of the paper whenever he had a chance. And by the way, I added, if you happen to run into a certain someone, and if the subject should happen to come up, you can tell her about my new job. In closing, I asked him to convey my best regards to everyone in the office, the editor included. The tone of the letter was, I think, calm and dignified, with perhaps a slight overlay of worldly condescension.

The air of my native land, saturated with the sharp aroma of the sea and with the soft, feminine fragrance of blooming wisteria, gradually soothed and comforted me. Perhaps the iodine dissolved in the sea air has a healing effect on emotional as well as physical wounds. At any rate, for days at a time I lay sunbathing on the beach, which was still deserted except for a few young men who would occasionally stroll past in small groups. These local Don Juans would cast a proprietary eye over the entire beach, studying its terrain like a general scrutinizing the site where momentous battles are soon to take place.

The man who was supposed to retire finally agreed to do so, not because he wanted to, but because a campaign had recently been launched to encourage people of retirement age actually to retire. In the past he had always tried to make light of his age, but now he was more or less forced to give in. His colleagues gave him a festive farewell and even presented him with an inflatable rubber boat. Although he had also hinted at some fancy fishing tackle, no one had caught the hint; the inflatable boat alone was enough to bankrupt our union treasury. Later on he began telling everyone that he had been made to retire against his will and had even been deprived of his promised fishing tackle. Of course this was all utter nonsense. He had been promised an inflatable boat and had gotten it; but as for the fishing tackle, it had not even been mentioned.

I go into all this in such detail because to a certain extent it looked as if I were the one who was taking his place. Actually, however, the terms of my employment were different from his, since I was being hired as a local employee for whom no apartment would have to be provided.

I had been acquainted with the paper’s editorial staff since my student days when during summer vacations at home I had tried to interest them in some of my poems. While my efforts in this direction had met with little success, I had learned something about the staff members themselves. Among other things, I knew for a fact that the paper’s editor-in-chief, Avtandil Avtandilovich, had never written a poem in his life and had no intention of doing so. In fact, during the whole period of his employment with the paper he had to the best of my knowledge never written anything at all.

Avtandil Avtandilovich was a born leader and man of many talents. Like most Abkhazians he had a natural gift for making speeches and toasts. Not only was he an expert at the banquet table, but his height, curly hair and masculine appearance made his presence equally desirable and even indispensable at important meetings and conferences. He spoke all of the Caucasian languages fluently, and his toasts never had to be translated.

Before his editorial post he had headed a local industry— naturally, one on a scale appropriate to our small, but charming, autonomous Republic. Apparently he had managed the industry quite well — perhaps even too well, since the need had arisen to promote him, and when the opportunity presented itself, he was made editor-in-chief of the city newspaper.

As a man of great ability and resourcefulness he quickly mastered this new enterprise. His operational talents were truly phenomenal. Editorials would frequently appear in our paper on the very same day as in the Moscow papers, and sometimes even a day earlier.

As I had hoped, I was assigned to the paper’s agricultural section. This was a period of radical reform for Soviet agriculture. Experiments were taking place right and left, and I wanted to see for myself what was going on, find out what it was all about, and eventually become an expert in my own right.

The paper’s agricultural section was headed by Platon Samsonovich. If one wonders at the name, I should point out that in our region such names are as plentiful as fish in the sea. Apparently they are a holdover from the Greek and Roman colonization of the Black Sea coast.

I was already acquainted with Platon Samsonovich and had often gone fishing with him in the past. He was a quiet, peaceful individual and one of the most capable and experienced fishermen I had ever run across.

By the time I came to work for him, however, Platonov Samsonovich had completely changed. Not only had he lost all interest in fishing, but he had even sold his small boat. Gone too was his former peaceful exterior. With pursed lips and a certain purposeful glitter in his gloomy eyes, he would pace feverishly from one end of the office to the other. He had always been on the short side, but now he seemed to have shriveled up completely. He had grown even wirier than before and was absolutely charged with energy.

The cause of this sudden transformation was the goatibex-breeding campaign which had recently been launched in our region. Platon Samsonovich had initiated this campaign and was its main promoter.

Some two years before, Platon Samsonovich had paid a visit to one of our mountain game preserves and come back with a short news item on a certain breeding specialist who had succeeded in crossing a mountain ibex with a common goat. As a result of his experiment there appeared the world’s first goatibex. Grazing peacefully among a herd of goats, the new animal could hardly suspect the glorious future that awaited it.

No one paid any attention to Platon Samsonovich’s article — no one, that is, except for a certain very important individual who always spent his vacations at Cape Orange on the shores of our Republic. This individual, who was not exactly a minister but no less important than a minister, read the article and, upon reading it, exclaimed, “An interesting undertaking, to say the least.”

At this point it would be difficult to ascertain whether he addressed these words to anyone in particular or merely uttered aloud the first thought that came into his head. In any case, the very next day Avtandil Avtandilovich received a phone call and was told by the voice at the other end of the receiver, “Our congratulations, Avtandil Avtandilovich. He said it’s an interesting undertaking, to say the least.”

Avtandil Avtandilovich promptly called a staff meeting and in an atmosphere of general rejoicing expressed his gratitude to Platon Samsonovich. At the same time he instructed the latter along with our staff photographer to set off immediately for the game preserve and this time to bring back a full-length article on the life and habits of the goatibex.

“It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that the goatibex will some day play a significant role in our national economy,” declared Avtandil Avtandilovich.

A week later our paper published a feature article entitled “An Interesting Undertaking, to Say the Least.” The article took up a whole half page and was supplemented by two large photographs of the goatibex. Seen in profile, the animal’s lower lip seemed to curl skeptically to the side, like that of some decadent aristocrat. In the second photograph the goatibex was shown fullface with his powerful and splendidly curved horns. Here his expression seemed to be one of bewilderment, as if he himself could not decide who he really was and which was better: to become a goat or remain an ibex.

The article gave a detailed account of the animal’s daily food requirements and of his touching devotion to humans. His superiority to the common domestic goat was particularly stressed. First of all, it was pointed out that the average weight of the goatibex was twice that of the common goat — a circumstance of no little importance in light of the country’s chronic meat shortages. Secondly, the goatibex was blessed with strong legs and a hardy constitution, and hence should be able to graze on the steepest mountain slopes almost without risk. Thanks, moreover, to his calm and gentle disposition, the animal would be easy to care for and a single goatherd should be able to tend as many as two thousand goatibexes.

The author adopted a somewhat lighter tone in his description of the goatibex’s wool yield. The animals’ thick wool of white and ashen hues was in his words a real bonus for the consumer industry. It seemed that the breeding specialist’s wife had already knitted herself a sweater of goatibex wool — a garment which according to Platon Samsonovich was in no way inferior to any import. “Our fashion-conscious ladies will be satisfied,” he declared.

It was further pointed out that the goatibex had inherited the jumping ability of his illustrious forebear, the ibex, as well as the latter’s beautiful horns. If suitably processed, these horns could be used as decorations for the home or as attractive souvenirs for tourists and well-wishing foreign guests.

Platon Samsonovich had put heart and soul into this article, and to this day it stands out in my mind as the most colorful of the many articles devoted to the goatibex. And I have read all of them!

The article must have provoked considerable public response, for soon afterward our paper began to feature two new columns under the headings: “On the Trail of the Goatibex” and “Laughing at the Skeptics.” All favorable letters were published with suitable commentary in the first column; any skeptical or critical letters appeared in the second column and were promptly attacked and repudiated.

Under the heading “On the Trail of the Goatibex” there was published a letter from a certain Moscow scientist[1] who declared that he personally was not at all surprised by the appearance of the goatibex, since all of this had long ago been foreseen by the followers of the Michurin school of biology. Certain other scientists, however, who had been captivated by theories of dubious validity, had not and naturally could not have foreseen anything of the sort. The great scientist concluded his letter with the statement that the appearance of the goatibex had helped to confirm the validity of his own experiments.

This individual was our country’s most renowned scientist. In his day he had advanced the hypothesis that the ram is nothing other than a direct descendant of the prehistoric reptile which, in keeping with Darwin’s teachings, had undergone a gradual transformation in its struggle for survival. The proof of his hypothesis had been based, it seems, on a comparative analysis of the frontal sinuses of the ram and the skull of an Assyrian reptile fossil.

On the basis of this analysis the great scientist logically concluded that the stubby tail of the ram — being in fact a vestigial reptile tail — ought still to have the capacity to revert to its original form. It remained only to develop this capacity while at the same time training the organism to cast off its present tail in some relatively painless fashion. This is precisely what the great scientist had been working on in recent years and, as far as one could tell, his experiments were meeting with some success.

There were, it is true, certain envious individuals who complained that no one had been able to repeat the great man’s ingenious experiments. Such complaints were countered, however, with the quite sensible reply that what made these experiments ingenious was precisely the fact that they could not be repeated.

All this notwithstanding, the great scientist’s support of our goatibex was both timely and beneficial.

In the same column a letter was published from one of our lady readers. Apparently she had not understood a word of Platon Samsonovich’s article or else was going merely on hearsay, since she wished to find out where she could purchase a sweater made of goatibex wool. The editors politely informed her that although it was a bit premature to be discussing the commercial manufacture of sweaters, her letter did nonetheless provide food for thought. In fact, some of our manufacturing organizations should begin to make immediate preparations for the eventual stocking and processing of goatibex wool.

Under the same heading there also appeared a letter from the workers’ collective of the city slaughterhouse. The workers wished to congratulate the agricultural toilers on their interesting new undertaking and to offer their services to whichever kolkhoz became the first to specialize in goatibex breeding.

In the second column, “Laughing at the Skeptics,” excerpts were published from the letters of a certain livestock expert and an agronomist.

The livestock expert politely expressed his doubts as to the hybrid’s ability to reproduce itself, thus calling into question the whole future of the goatibex venture. In this connection, however, the editorial board was happy to report that the goatibex had already impregnated eight female goats and according to all indications had no intention of stopping here. The impregnated goats were all in good health and the mating continued.

The agronomist proved to be more acrimonious. He made fun of each and every one of the goatibex’s qualities, from the first to the last and all of them as a whole. The animal’s jumping ability was an object of particular derision. I should like to know, he wrote, how our collective farmers can possibly benefit from the goatibex’s jumping ability. As if we didn’t have trouble enough with the jumping ability of our own goats and the damage they do to our corn fields — now you want to saddle us with the goatibex! After this he went on to make some wisecrack about the possibility of our paper’s entering the goatibex as a contestant for the high jump at the next Olympic games.

The agronomist’s letter was given a worthy rebuff by Platon Samsonovich. He began by calmly explaining that the goatibex’s jumping ability was in fact a great asset, since future herds of goatibexes would be able to graze on high alpine meadows inaccessible to the common domestic goat. And there, thanks to his great jumping ability, the animal would be able to escape with relative ease from the predators which continued to prey on our communal livestock.

As for the jumping ability of our collective farm goats, here the editorial board could take no responsibility. All responsibility for the goats lay with the collective farm shepherds, most of whom probably spent their days sleeping or playing cards. Such shepherds should be fined, and not only the shepherds but the kolkhoz leadership as well — from the chairman on down through those agronomists who were unable to distinguish between alpine meadows and Olympic fields.

Platon Samsonovich’s reply apparently silenced the acrimonious agronomist for good. The polite livestock expert, however, continued to make himself heard, and once again his name appeared in the column “Laughing at the Skeptics.”

He declared that the paper’s reply had not convinced him, since even if the hybrid did have the capacity to mate with female goats, this did not necessarily mean that any offspring would be forthcoming. Moreover, he felt that the livestock industry should be placing its main emphasis on the larger breeds of cattle (on the buffalo in particular), rather than on the goatibex which, while larger than the goat, was nonetheless a small breed.

In reply to this letter Platon Samsonovich stated that, quite to the contrary, the goatibex’s mating capacity did indeed prove that he would be able to reproduce himself. In a very few months we shall see for ourselves; time is on our side, wrote Platon Samsonovich.

As for the proper course to be adopted by the livestock industry, here he had two points to make. First of all, even though the goatibex was smaller than the large breeds of cattle, it could by no means be called a small breed. And secondly, the livestock expert’s excessive preoccupation with the larger breeds of cattle clearly demonstrated that he was still suffering from the gigantomania characteristic of the period of the personality cult — a period which had come and gone, never to return.

Several months later the paper devoted a whole page to the observance of a joyful event. All of the thirteen she-goats impregnated by the goatibex had given birth; of these, four had brought forth twins, while one of them had actually produced triplets.

An enormous photograph depicting the goatibex along with his harem and young offspring ran the full width of the page. The goatibex stood in the center, and this time his face did not express the slightest bewilderment. He seemed to have found himself, and his appearance was calm and dignified.

By the time I came to work for Red Subtropics, Platon Samsonovich had become the paper’s leading reporter. No longer confining himself to agricultural issues, he now dealt with cultural and educational matters as well, and even wrote editorials for the propaganda section. In fact, his article “The Goatibex as a Weapon for Antireligious Propaganda” had been singled out as one of the paper’s best articles of the year.

And now, for days on end, Platon Samsonovich would sit at his desk, surrounded by biology texts, letters from breeding specialist and all sorts of diagrams. Sometimes he would grow thoughtful and suddenly wince.

“What’s the matter, Platon Samsonovich?” I would ask.

“You know,” he would reply, now reverting to his former cheerful and lively self, “I often think back to my first article. Why, at the time I actually wondered whether the item was worth turning in. To think that I almost let this great undertaking slip through my fingers!”

“Well, and what if you had?” I would ask.

“Don’t even suggest such a thing,” he would answer, wincing once again.

Platon Samsonovich devoted all his time and energy to the newspaper. He was always the first to arrive in the morning and the last to leave at night. In fact, such was his zeal and dedication that I, his assistant, felt almost embarrassed to leave the office at the end of a normal work-day. He never seemed to mind, however, and was probably just as happy to be left alone. He was unable to work at home, since his apartment consisted of only one room, which he shared with his wife and several grown children. Years before, he had applied to the city soviet for a new apartment, but only now, some weeks after my arrival, was his request finally granted. No doubt his rise to fame in connection with the goatibex had more than a little to do with the Soviet’s decision.

We all congratulated him on the acquisition of his new apartment and even hinted at the possibility of a housewarming. For some unknown reason, however, he obstinately ignored our hints.

It was not until several days later that we discovered the reason for his obstinacy. It turned out that he had left his family and was staying on in the old apartment. Apparently he had tried to leave home several times before, but without success — first of all because he had no place to go, and secondly because his wife had immediately gone to complain to the editor, who on each occasion had managed to persuade him to return to the fold.

On this occasion too Platon Samsonovich’s wife went straight to the editor and demanded, “Give me back my inventor.”

Avtandil Avtandilovich summoned Platon Samsonovich to his office and began trying to persuade him as usual. This time, however, Platon Samsonovich stood his ground and flatly refused to return to his family, although he was willing to help in their financial support.

“Times have changed,” said Avtandil Avtandilovich to the wife, “you’ll have to handle your family affairs by yourself…”

“They’re always making fun of me,” Platon Samsonovich is supposed to have interjected at this point.

“What do you mean, making fun of you?” asked the editor in surprise. Then turning to the wife, he added: “Platon Samsonovich is working on an important national problem…”

“They’re always interfering with my thought processes,” Platon Samsonovich is supposed to have prompted.

“Give me back my inventor,” repeated the wife.

“She’s making fun of me even now,” complained Platon Samsonovich.

“It isn’t as if he were asking for a divorce,” said the editor.

“That’s all I need!” exclaimed the wife.

“Just think of him as living in his own private office,” concluded Avtandil Avtandilovich.

“But what are people going to think?” asked the wife after a moment’s reflection.

With that it was settled. Platon Samsonovich was not, of course, leaving his family in order to acquire a new one, much less a mistress. Rather it was as if he were removing himself from all worldly cares in order to devote himself wholeheartedly to his favorite cause.

Despite his partial desertion Platon Samsonovich’s wife regularly returned to the old apartment to tidy things up and to supply her husband with fresh linen. For his part Platon Samsonovich continued to work on his brainchild — now with twice as much energy as before — and from time to time would discover a new vantage point from which to view the problems of goatibex breeding.

When a new soft drink pavilion was opened next to one of our seaside cafés, he managed to have it named “The Watering Place of the Goatibex.” He was a frequent visitor to the new establishment, and sometimes in the evening when emerging from the cafe, I would see him sitting there, sipping our Caucasian mineral water Narzan with his arms resting on the counter, and on his face the look of a weary but contented patron.

Although Platon Samsonovich was in favor of promoting the goatibex in the most surprising and varied ways, he would not tolerate any levity in this connection. Thus, for example, when our paper’s humorist compared a certain polygamist and incorrigible defaulter in his alimony payments to the goatibex, Platon Samsonovich stood up at a staff meeting and declared that such a comparison only served to discredit an important national undertaking in the eyes of our collective farm workers.

“Though no one should be accused of any political error, still Platon Samsonovich’s point is well taken,” concluded Avtandil Avtandilovich in a conciliatory tone.

Platon Samsonovich had worked out an appropriate diet for the goatibex and was now urging our collective farmers to follow it. Wishing at the same time to leave some room for individual initiative, he suggested that they try supplementing his diet with various foods of their own choice and report their findings to the newspaper.

“Well, this is a real breakthrough!” he exclaimed to me one day as he approached my desk with a popular Moscow magazine in his hand, and pointed lovingly at its cover. Glancing up, I saw a photograph of the goatibex with his entire family — the same photograph which had appeared in our paper, only here it was in color and looked even more festive.

Shortly afterwards one of the Moscow newspapers ran an article entitled “An Interesting Undertaking, to Say the Least” which told of our Republic’s innovative experiments in goatibex breeding. The paper advised the collective farmers of the central and black earth regions of the country to study and follow our innovative example — without excessive panic and without overdoing it, but at the same time without any costly delays.

Wisely anticipating any objections which might be raised with regard to climatic differences between the Caucasus and other regions farther to the north, the author of the article reminded his readers that the goatibex would hardly suffer from the cold, since on his father’s side he had been raised in the high alpine meadows of the Caucasian mountains.

Platon Samsonovich was quietly exultant. At our last staff meeting only a few days before, he had announced rather precipitously that it was time to challenge the State of Iowa, our competitor in the production of corn, to compete with us in goatibex breeding.

“But they don’t even raise goatibexes,” objected Avtandil Avtandilovich, though not without a shade of uncertainty in his voice.

“Well, just let them try and see how they do under their private enterprise system,” replied Platon Samsonovich.

“I’ll have to consult some colleagues on this,” said Avtandil Avtandilovich. Then by way of indicating that the meeting was adjourned, he switched on his office fan.

This fan stood on a table directly across from his desk and he would always turn it off at the beginning of each meeting. At such moments, with his head rising directly above the greasy blades of the fan, he looked like a pilot who had just flown in from distant parts. Later on, upon closing the meeting, he would once again switch on the fan and his face would tense, as if he were about to lift off.

The day after the meeting Platon Samsonovich was informed by the editor that he would have to wait as far as the State of Iowa was concerned.

“Just between us, he’s one of these play-it-safe types,” Platon Samsonovich later confided to me, nodding in the direction of the editor’s office.

Under the heading “On the Trail of the Goatibex” there once appeared a letter from the staff members of an agricultural research institute in Ciscaucasia. They reported that they had been following our undertaking with interest and had themselves already crossed a Ciscaucasian ibex with a common goat. The first ibexigoat was reported to be in excellent health and growing by leaps and bounds.

Writing on behalf of all the goatibex fans in Transcaucasia, Platon Samsonovich congratulated our northern colleagues on their great success and predicted that they would be even more successful in the future if they continued to stick to the diet which he had worked out for the new animal. He concluded by declaring that he had always known it would be they, the Ciscaucasians — our brothers and closest neighbors to the north, who would be the first to follow our lead in this new undertaking.

The letter from Ciscaucasia was printed verbatim except that in place of the word “ibexigoat” Platon Samsonovich substituted the term “goatibex” adopted by us.

For some reason or other the authors of the letter were offended by this harmless correction and shortly thereafter sent a letter of protest to the editor in which they stated that they had never even considered feeding their ibexigoat according to our diet, but were feeding and would continue to feed it strictly according to the diet worked out by their own professional staff. In addition, they felt obliged to point out that the term “goatibex” was completely unscientific. The very fact (and facts cannot be denied!) that it was a male ibex which was crossed with a female goat, and not vice versa, clearly indicated the predominance of the ibex over the goat — a circumstance which should, of course, be reflected in the animal’s name if one were to approach the matter with scientific precision.

The term “goatibex,” they went on, would be justified only if one succeeded in crossing a male goat with a female ibex, and even this would be stretching things a bit. In such a case, however, there would be no further grounds for argument since we would be dealing with two different animals produced by two different means, a situation which would naturally justify the use of different names. In any case, you can go on experimenting with your goatibexes if you wish, but we for our part will continue in the future, as we have in the past, to stick to our ibexigoats.

Such was the general tone and content of the letter from our colleagues in Ciscaucasia.

“We’ll have to print it; they are specialists, after all,” said Avtandil Avtandilovich as he handed the letter to Platon Samsonovich. Apparently he had considered it of sufficient importance to deliver in person.

Platon Samsonovich quickly scanned the letter and then threw it down on the desk.

“Well, only if it goes in the ‘Laughing at the Skeptics’ column,” he said.

“We can’t do that,” objected Avtandil Avtandilovich. “These are specialists expressing their opinion. And besides, you did take liberties with their first letter.”

“The whole country knows about the goatibex,” protested Platon Samsonovich, “but no one’s even heard of the ibexigoat.”

“That’s true,” agreed Avtandil Avtandilovich, “and the Moscow press did use our name.… But where did you get the idea that they were using our diet?”

“What other diet could they be using?” retorted Platon Samsonovich, shrugging his shoulders. “Up to now, everyone’s been using our diet…”

“Well, all right,” agreed Avtandil Avtandilovich after a moment’s reflection, “write up an intelligent reply, and we’ll present both items in the form of a friendly debate.”

“I’ll have it ready today,” exclaimed Platon Samsonovich, perking up at the very thought. He reached for a red pencil and took the specialists’ letter in hand.

Avtandil Avtandilovich left the office.

“The schoolboy’s trying to out-teach the teacher,” muttered Platon Samsonovich, nodding his head so vaguely that I was not sure whether he was referring to the editor or to his unexpected opponents from the north.

Several days later the two items appeared in the newspaper. Platon Samsonovich’s reply was entitled “To Our Colleagues beyond the Mountains” and written in an aggressive spirit. He began with a distant analogy. Just as America was discovered by Columbus, but given the name America in honor of the adventurer Amerigo Vespucci who, as everyone knows, did not discover America, so, in similar fashion, wrote Platon Samsonovich, our Ciscaucasian colleagues are trying to give their name to someone else’s creation.

When we corrected the awkward and imprecise name “ibexigoat” in our colleagues’ first letter by inserting the euphonious and universally-accepted term “goatibex,” we assumed that they had merely made a slip of the pen — all the more so since the extremely naive and somewhat immature contents of the letter did not preclude the possibility of such a slip or even of a simple confusion of terms. We perceived all this at first glance, but printed the letter all the same, considering it our duty to support a still weak and hesitant but nonetheless purely motivated attempt to keep pace with the most advanced experiments of our time.

But what do we now find to be the case? It turns out that what we assumed to be a slip of the pen or a simple confusion of terms was actually the false and harmful manifestation of a whole system of beliefs. And since it is always the system itself one might fight, we hereby take up the gauntlet flung down from beyond the mountains.

Is it perhaps possible, continued Platon Samsonovich, that the name “ibexigoat,” for all its clumsiness, may from the scientific point of view more accurately reflect the essence of the new creature? No, even here our colleagues from beyond the mountains have fallen wide of the mark. The real essence of the new creature is expressed precisely in the name “goatibex,” since it is this name which accurately reflects the primacy of man over untamed nature. Thus it is the domestic goat, known even to the ancient Greeks, which, as the more advanced species, occupies first place in our variant, thereby reaffirming the principle that it is man who conquers nature and not vice versa — which would indeed be monstrous.

But perhaps the name “ibexigoat” is somehow in keeping with the best traditions of our own Michurin biology? Wrong again, colleagues from beyond the mountains! Taking as an example some of the new varieties of apples raised by Michurin, we find such names as Bellefleur-Kitaika and Kandil-Kitaika — names which our people have long accepted and approved of. Here, as in our case, the wild Chinese apple Kitaika occupies its altogether fitting and respectable second place.

As for the idea of crossing a female ibex with a male goat, continued Platon Samsonovich, this seems like a rather strange proposal to be coming from the mouths of specialists. In the first place, given the undesirably and even frighteningly large proportions of the female ibex, it is highly unlikely that a male goat would even attempt to mate with her. But even supposing such a union took place, what would we and the national economy have to gain from it? To answer this question we need only consult our own or foreign texts on the subject of mule breeding.

Centuries of experience in mule breeding have clearly demonstrated that the mating of a male horse with a female ass produces a hinny, whereas the more desirable mule results from the mating of a male ass with a female horse. As is well-known, the hinny is a weak, undeveloped and sickly animal which in addition has a tendency to bite. The mule, on the other hand, is an extremely useful animal and one which plays a worthy role in our national economy, especially in the economy of the southern republics. (The possibility of extending the area of mule breeding farther to the north and of raising even hardier species is not presently under consideration, though the impartial reader could learn a great deal from the ten-day mule run between Moscow and Leningrad which took place in the heart of winter with the animals harnessed to sleighs and hauling a full load [see the Large Soviet Encyclopedia, Volume XI, page 206]).

From the foregoing it should be perfectly clear that when produced by our time-tested method, the goatibex can and should be equated with the mule, whereas if produced in the manner suggested by our Ciscaucasian colleagues, he would turn out to be that very same hinny mentioned above. For this reason we can only reject the proposal of our Ciscaucasian colleagues as an attempt — perhaps an unintentional one, but an attempt nonetheless — to set our livestock-breeding industry onto the false paths of idealism.

Our colleagues from beyond the mountains seem to imply that our goatibexes are the deviants, and only their single ibexigoat is keeping in step. But in step with whom?

The mysterious laconism of this last phrase had an ominous ring to it.

Some two weeks had passed and still we had no reply from the Ciscaucasians. For some reason or other they had chosen to keep silent, and this disturbed our editor no end.

“Perhaps their goatibex has died and now they’re too embarrassed to continue the debate,” suggested Platon Samsonovich.

“Well, call their institute and find out what’s going on,” ordered Avtandil Avtandilovich.

“But won’t we be losing face if we call first?” objected Platon Samsonovich.

“On the contrary,” replied Avtandil Avtandilovich, “it will only show how confident we are that we’re in the right.”

Platon Samsonovich placed his call and, having gotten through to the institute, was informed that the ibexigoat was alive and well, but that the staff members had decided to cut short the debate since only time would tell whose ibexigoats would be the first to prosper and multiply.

“Whose goatibexes,” corrected Platon Samsonovich before hanging up the receiver. “Nothing to say for themselves,” he winked in my direction, and rubbing his hands in satisfaction, he returned to his desk.

I was very impatient to see a real, live goatibex with my own eyes. Much as he approved of my enthusiasm, however, Platon Samsonovich was in no hurry to send me off to the countryside. Up till then I’d had only one out-of-town assignment, and it had not been an unqualified success.

I had set out to sea at dawn with the leading brigade of a fishing collective located just beyond the city limits. Everything had been perfect: the lilac-colored sea, the old dory, and the fishermen themselves — strong, agile and indefatigable. But then, after they had made their haul and we were already on our way back, instead of taking the fish directly to the processing plant, they had veered toward a small promontory which lay off to our side. From along the shore some women with pails and baskets were making their way toward this same promontory, and I could see that we were fated to meet.

“Hey, fellows, do you really think we should stop here?” I asked, perhaps a bit belatedly, since the bow of the dory had just touched shore.

“Sure we should,” they cheerfully assured me, and right away the bargaining was off to a lively start. Within fifteen minutes all of the fish had been traded for rubles and a variety of home-grown produce.

When we set out to sea once again, I tried to lecture them on the impropriety of what they had done. They listened politely but went right on laying out the food and slicing the fresh bread. The meal was soon ready, and when they asked me to join them, I naturally accepted. Anything else would have been unspeakably rude.

We ate our fill, polished off a bottle or two, and immediately afterwards fell into a deep, untroubled sleep.

Later that same day the men explained to me that there had been too few fish to bother with. The processing plant would not even have accepted such a small quantity and, in any case, they were sure to exceed their quota for the season.

Realizing that none of this was proper material for an article, I resigned myself to writing a “Ballad of the Fishing Industry,” in which I celebrated the fisherman’s labor without being too specific as to how he profited from the fruits of his labor. The ballad was well received in the editorial office and soon appeared in print as a new and sophisticated newspaper genre.

But to return to the goatibex.

A regional conference was currently being organized for the purpose of discussing common problems and experiences in goatibex breeding. The animals had already been apportioned among the most prosperous kolkhozes in order that their mass reproduction might begin, but unfortunately, certain kolkhoz chairmen had tried to wangle their way out of the new venture with the excuse that for years they had not even raised goats, much less goatibexes. Such individuals were put to shame, however, and eventually forced to purchase appropriate numbers of female goats. But no sooner had the goats been purchased than our paper began receiving complaints to the effect that some of the goatibexes were acting very cooly toward the females. This prompted our editor to suggest the possibility of artificial insemination, but Platon Samsonovich was firmly opposed to the idea, insisting that such a compromise would only play into the hands of the lazier chairmen. The coolness of the goatibex, he declared, was but a reflection of the kolkhoz chairmen’s own coolness to everything new.

It was just at this time that we received a letter from an anonymous kolkhoz worker in the village of Walnut Springs who was writing in to complain about his chairman’s disgraceful treatment of the goatibex. In addition to depriving the animal of adequate food and shelter, this chairman had actually set dogs on it. The kolkhoz workers were moved to tears by the sufferings of the new animal, but were too afraid of the chairman to protest. The anonymous letter concluded with the words: “Yours sincerely, in a spirit of righteous indignation.”

“He may be exaggerating, of course,” said Platon Samsonovich as he showed me the letter, “but where there’s smoke, there’s fire. So I’d like you to go out to Walnut Springs and see for yourself what’s going on.”

He paused for a moment and then added, “I know this chairman; his name is Illarion Maximovich. He’s a pretty good manager, but a real conservative; he thinks of nothing but his tea crop.”

“As for the general line of your article,” continued Platon Samsonovich, now extending his hand into the air as if groping for the contours of my future article, “it should run pretty much as follows: ‘Tea is fine, but the meat and wool of the goatibex are even better.’ ”

“Okay,” I replied.

“Remember,” he said, stopping me as I was halfway through the door, “a lot will depend on this assignment.”

“I understand.”

Platon Samsonovich reflected for a moment.

“There was something else I wanted to tell you.… Oh yes, be sure you get up in time to make the morning bus.”

“Now really, Platon Samsonovich!” I exclaimed and with that was off to fill out my travel voucher.

On the way I stopped off at the mail and supply room and picked up a notebook, two pencils (just in case I should lose my pen), and a penknife with which to sharpen them. Nothing was to be left to chance!