Jacob's Ladder

Acknowledgments

With thanks to my family and friends

This book would never have been written without the help and support of my family. To my husband, Andrei Krasulin—thank you for your patience and indulgence; to my sons Alyosha and, especially, Petya Evgeniev—thank you for all kinds of support, including technological; to my cousin, Olga Bulgakova—thank you for preserving the ambience of our family, of which almost no one remains.

To my friends—Nikita Shklovsky, who devoted so much time to conversation and discussion of the biological questions the book touches on; and Vladimir Andreevich Uspensky, who enlightened me in the parts of the book concerning mathematics. You are in large part coauthors of this book.

Special thanks to Katya Gordeeva for her brilliant participation and contribution—while I was giving birth to this book, she gave birth to her son Jacob, which lent authenticity to the whole of this partially invented story.

Thank you to my dear friends Lika Nutkevich, Ira Shchipacheva, Lyuba Grivorieva, and Tanya Gorina, for their care, patience, and support when my spirits fell and I came close to despair; and to Dianochka, who helps me in that department of life which is particularly difficult for me.

Thank you to my first readers and editors: the publisher Elena Shubina; Elena Kostioukovitch; Yulia Dobrovolskaya; and Sasha Klimin (he, more than anyone, gave his all and sweated over every page of the book!). I thank all those friends who sheared off sizable chunks of the text; to Dima Bavilsky, who opened my eyes to the use of possessive pronouns and a few obtrusive verbs; to Ira Uvarova and Alyona Zaitseva for sharing their expertise on theater; to Misha Golubovsky for scientific consultation. Thank you to my dear Alexanders, who have accompanied me throughout my life: Alexander Khelemsky, who explained things to me that I had spent my whole life trying to understand, with varying results; and Alexander Gorin, who advised me on questions of computer programming. Because of both of them, I now know a bit more than I did before I began. To Bondarev and Smolyansky, for their meticulousness; Okun, for his support at a critical moment; Varshavsky, for his indulgence; and Borisov, who prayed I would survive.

And to all the equally dear friends who helped me by not hindering me …

I thank all those whom I’ve forgotten to mention in these notes. In truth, I should go through my alphabetical index file and thank all my beloved friends from all the stages and ages in my life, some of whom are already gone …

This would be fitting, but there would be no end to it.

And one more, very special, expression of thanks. When I had already finished this book, my dear friend Katya Genieva died. I was able to say goodbye to her, and the dignity, intelligence, and grace of her leavetaking reconciled me to the necessity of parting from this remarkable, wonderful, and at times terribly difficult world we still live in.

I thank you all.