The Big Green Tent

POOR RABBIT

When it came time to look back on his life, Dr. Dmitry Stepanovich Dulin was inclined to think that it had been a good one, maybe even undeservedly so. But he rarely thought about such abstract matters. Still, on Saturdays, when his daughter, Marinka, jumping up and down with excitement, pulled a little bunny wrapped in an old towel out of his briefcase, he felt a grateful satisfaction. His daughter looked like a little bunny herself—soft and gray, with an upper lip like a rabbit’s. Where the rabbit’s white ears stuck out, she had blue ribbons hanging down. Too bad he hadn’t taken a photograph of Marinka with the rabbit.

Dmitry Stepanovich gave the rabbit to his daughter, and handed the towel with the hard, dry little pellets to his wife, Nina, which she then shook off into the trash pail before taking the towel into the bathroom to wash. This was the special rabbit towel, in which the little creature traveled home each Saturday, and in which it was wrapped again each Monday to go back to the laboratory.

The little rabbit was a different one each time—whichever one he happened to grab out of the cage where the test animals lived. Dulin, of course, brought home not those that were undergoing testing, but those from the control group. The test rabbits were more or less healthy, but they had been born from alcoholic mother rabbits. The doctor had plied the mother rabbits with diluted spirits from a young age, then mated them with alcoholic father rabbits, after which he studied their offspring. This was the subject of his dissertation—the influence of alcohol on the offspring of rabbits. The effects of alcohol on the offspring of humans was already well known, of course. Masha Vershkova, the lab assistant, who was at his disposal on a part-time basis, was a representative of this sector of the population: her irises trembled—she suffered from nystagmus—and her fingers shook with a tremor as well. She had been born prematurely, at seven months old. Both her parents were alcoholics, but fortunately she was not mentally impaired. Proof that even alcoholics have a stroke of luck now and then.

Marinka had never been in any such danger. Her father could not tolerate alcohol. He didn’t even drink beer; nor did he smoke. He led a healthy life in all respects. Her mother drank about three small glasses a year, on holidays.

Marinka would take the Saturday bunny to her own little corner, put it into her doll’s bed, pretend to wash it, squeeze and cuddle it, and feed it carrots.

Dmitry Stepanovich had been born in the country, and was used to animals. He had remained a country boy until the urban sprawl of the city of Podolsk had swallowed up his unlovely little village and destroyed its rural ways and practices. Still, Dulin’s urban existence hadn’t begun immediately. The new five-story buildings were constructed according to some whimsical plan, by which they didn’t tear down all the peasant cottages at once, but only those that occupied the plots scheduled for construction. The Dulins’ home was one of the houses that remained standing for some time; but their farming and animal husbandry collapsed. The chickens, a cat, and a dog were the only animals left. The goat and the pig were given to his grandmother’s sister in a more remote village.

By that time, they didn’t keep a cow.

For some reason, the well next to the house was filled in, but plumbing was not installed. After that, they had to walk almost a mile to reach a water pump. Thus, the boy Dmitry lived between city and village. He wore raggedy country clothes to a city school, was a poor student, and was despised by the urban majority for being the “country” minority.

His mother punished him for his bad grades. When she wasn’t too tired and careworn, she would thrash him, letting her bony little fists land where they might, and she would shriek in a high, piercing voice until she fell down in exhaustion. Many years later, after Dmitry had become a doctor, he diagnosed her disorder ex post facto as “hysteria.” And her thyroid was involved. But by the time Dmitry made the diagnosis, she was already dead.

Uncle Kolya also gave him a hard time. True, he didn’t hit him; instead, he dragged him by the ear, squeezing the top of it painfully between his thumb and forefinger. Dmitry was hurt that his mother allowed this to happen, and didn’t intervene. Dmitry’s grandmother defended him, however. Uncle Kolya, a country fellow who was desiccated from drinking, paid visits to many of the single women around, Dmitry’s mother among them. Grandmother called him the “traveling ladies’ man.” She despised him, but at the same time feared him. They died at almost the same time—Uncle Kolya of drink, and his grandmother of old age.

In contrast to Dmitry, his mother was a complete failure. When it came time for their house to be demolished and for her to get an apartment in a new building—the one-room apartment with gas and hot water seemed like heaven to her—his mother took a spill and died instantly, as had her mother. She was awarded her heavenly dwelling, not as a result of all the tedious paperwork necessary for the transaction—as a soldier’s widow, an invalid of the paltry third class, and a high-achiever of Communist labor—but just like that, without lifting a finger. The upshot was that Dmitry’s dream of moving his mother to the capital, of shrewdly exchanging the apartment in Podolsk (which she never received) for a single room in Moscow, was all for nought. Through her bad luck, his mother had liberated her son from the fuss and bother of an apartment exchange and a move.

He had always pitied her, poor thing. Very early on, however, he had decided that he would not be like his mother—he would leave and make something of himself, he would cut the contemptible country hick out of his very being. After seven years of primary and secondary school, he enrolled in nursing school. There were few men there. His presence was valued, and he applied himself to his studies. Then came the army, where he was assigned to a medical unit, thus making using of his education. After the army, he didn’t stay in Podolsk, but entered medical school in Moscow, where he was accepted on the strength of his army service, without having to compete for a spot. Since that time he had been a true city man.

All that remained of Dulin’s rural childhood was the habit of working with animals. Sometimes he even missed having a cat in the house, and he brought home Marinka’s Saturday bunny because he liked feeling the creature’s animal warmth in his own, human, hands. But Nina didn’t want animals in the house, not even a cat. And what Nina did not want, Dulin did not do.

They got married in the third year of medical school. Dmitry was older than Nina by six years. She was rather stunted, and he enticed her with his height, his seriousness, and his modesty. She was not mistaken in the least—nor was he. Dmitry owed everything to his wife: his residence permit in Moscow, and his internship in neurology, and then his graduate studies. He had not aspired to that himself; but through her friends, Nina secured him a place in a research institute. She herself worked as a doctor at a local clinic, for which she was given an apartment, thus bypassing the waiting list.

Dulin initially resisted the idea of graduate school. He couldn’t understand why it was necessary. If it was so important to her, why shouldn’t she enroll in graduate school and defend her dissertation? But Nina had decided otherwise. Since the institute he entered for graduate studies specialized in psychiatry, and Dulin’s particular field was neurology, he had to dip into some psychiatry textbooks to pass the entrance exam. He was assigned the topic of alcoholism—and he learned everything there was to know at the time: about changes in the psyche, behavioral responses of alcoholics, delirium tremens, and other fascinating things.

For three years Marinka played with the rabbits, while Dulin forced his rabbits to drink diluted spirits, pouring it into them through a funnel since the test animals refused to drink it on their own. Then Dulin defended his dissertation and became a junior researcher. He no longer brought the baby rabbits home, but now Marinka sometimes accompanied her father to the institute’s vivarium. In addition to rabbits, there were also white rats, and cats and dogs. At one time there were even monkeys.

When Dulin finished his dissertation, he was suddenly filled with uncertainty: the results of his research were exactly what he had expected them to be, and his work had not yielded anything even remotely resembling a discovery. Karpov, his academic adviser and the head of the department, reassured him:

“Expecting a great deal of oneself is a fine quality in a scientist. I assure you, however, you can live a worthwhile life in science without making any discoveries. We are the workhorses of science. We are the ones who move it forward, not those who make discoveries, some of them quite dubious. And as for geniuses … we know what these geniuses are like!”

Dulin understood perfectly well that his adviser was referring to Vinberg. Dulin had become acquainted with him by chance, on account of a fire that broke out in Vinberg’s laboratory. Two years before, when Dulin happened to be the only one on that floor, he was busy with his calculations when a wire shorted out and caught on fire. His keen sense of smell sniffed out the fire in Vinberg’s lab, and he called the fire department; but even before they arrived, he managed to switch off the fuse box and put out the fire. And he prevented the firemen from even entering the lab, since he knew they would only cause chaos, and would steal things, besides. He spoke firmly to the fire chief, let him have a look around, and signed the protocol. Vinberg was grateful; and Dulin had been on friendly terms with him ever since.

Edwin Yakovlevich Vinberg was a real professor, with a brilliant education. And he was a rarity: he loved to talk about science. There was nothing he liked more than a question, in answer to which he would deliver a whole lecture. Because of his modest position and intellectual innocence, Dulin could never have expected to find any grounds for communication with this stellar individual. But the fire had afforded Dulin the right to visit the Vinbergs in the evenings for a chat over tea.

From him, Dr. Dulin learned things that never appeared in Soviet textbooks: about Dr. Freud, about archetypes, and about the psychology of the masses. Vinberg himself studied gerontology, forms of dementia in old age; but he seemed to know everything about everything, and had fascinating theories on every subject, including alcoholism.

Many people were suspicious of Vinberg. He had fled from the Fascists in Germany to the USSR even before the war. In Russia, he was arrested a month later. They protected him from the Fascists for nearly twenty years in the labor camps. After the death of Stalin, he was “rehabilitated”—it turned out he had been arrested by mistake. He was released, and very soon, in a matter of a few years, he assumed his rightful place—not in a career, of course, but in science. How many years he had spent in the camps! It would have been natural to suppose that there, as a doctor in the camp dispensary, he would have been unable to continue his work as a scientist. It turned out, however, that not only had he kept up with modern science, he was even in the forefront of it: he wrote two monographs right away, and he was awarded a doctorate without having defended a dissertation. Psychiatrists flocked to him for consultations from every corner of the land. His authority was undisputed, though he still had a fair number of detractors. Not everyone liked the fact that this quintessential stranger, moreover a Jew and a German to boot, was developing his legendary teachings and comporting himself with a European self-respect virtually unknown on our native soil.

“Dmitry Stepanovich!” he said to Dulin, in his heavy German accent, with irreproachable Russian grammar. “No one has yet studied the social nature of alcoholism, and the patterns of social behavior specific to alcoholics. There’s no better place than Russia for studying this subject. Here, the entire country could serve as a platform for laboratory experiments. But where are the statistics about the relationship between alcohol use and aggression? They don’t exist. If I were younger, I would certainly take on this topic. You ought to work on it, it’s very promising! As for the somatic view, it’s not terribly interesting. It would be fruitful, however, to work at the genetic level. But those rabbits of yours—they’re not viable objects of study. They aren’t drosophila! And alcohol dehydrogenase is the same in everyone, it’s a simple fermentation process. No, no, if I were you I’d study alcohol and aggression.”

But Dulin didn’t observe any alcohol-related aggression in his objects of study. The tipsy rabbits began to exhibit signs of tremors, then just fell asleep. Their appetite diminished, as well as their weight, but they remained peaceful creatures. They didn’t bite, and they didn’t attack humans. In short, there was no protest activity on their part. Moreover, the professor’s arguments notwithstanding, the primary male, head of this alcoholic harem, not only did not become more aggressive, but actually lost his renowned rabbit potency. Every three months, one of his own sons took over where he had left off.

When Dulin worked up the courage to challenge Vinberg, saying that his research in no way confirmed the aggression of alcoholics, the professor only laughed.

“Dmitry Stepanovich, what about the workings of the higher nervous system? A human being is not a rabbit, of course, but a highly organized, complex being! Moreover, I would draw your attention to the fact that rabbits are vegetarians, and people, for the most part, are predators. In their eating habits people are closer to bears, which are omnivorous! Keep in mind that not a single species is comparable to Homo sapiens in the variety of its diet. Northern peoples are carnivorous, while in India, for example, there are huge swathes of the population that are exclusively vegetarian. As far as can be observed without scientific study, neither group outdoes the other in displays of aggression.”

The professor enjoyed his musings, rubbing his dry, cleanly scoured palms together in a gesture that suggested he was about to examine a patient.

“Very curious. Very curious. One must begin with biochemistry, I believe. Der Mensch ist was er isst. And what he drinks!” And just like that he laughed, showing his mouthful of pure metal teeth, which a local dentist, originally from Vienna, had fitted him with in Vorkuta. Dulin either recalled from the German he had managed to pick up at school, or simply guessed, that what Vinberg had said was: You are what you eat.

Vinberg knew everything there was to know in the world, or so it seemed: anthropology, Latin, and even genetics. But he hadn’t been able to take care of his teeth. He was in a hurry to live, to read, to think; he had been in a hurry to write down all the idiosyncratic and untimely ideas that had descended on him in the northern latitudes.

He talked a great deal to whoever would listen, including Dulin. But there were some things he kept to himself, telling only those closest to him.

“A land of children!” he would say to his wife, whom he’d acquired through the camp dispensary. “A land of children! Culture blocks the natural impulses of adults; but not of children. And where there is no culture, blocking is absent. There is a cult of the father, of obedience, and at the same time an unmanageable childish aggression.”

Vera Samuilovna brushed this off disdainfully. She was the only one who would permit herself such a gesture.

“Edwin, what nonsense! What about the Germans? The most cultured country in Europe? Why didn’t culture block their primitive, natural impulses?”

Vera Samuilovna attacked her husband with youthful passion, and Edwin Yakovlevich, as usual, fiddled with his nose, as though it were precisely in that organ that his intellect was concentrated.

“Another mechanism was set in motion, Vera, another mechanism. Das ist klar. Selbstverständlich. This can be proven. Levels of awareness—this is what we must consider.”

And he would fall silent for a long time before offering this theoretical proof.

They had no children. One boy had been born to them in the camps, but they had been unable to save him. All their energy, their entire store of talent that had remarkably survived and flourished, was invested in their profession. Vera Samuilovna was obsessed with her endocrinology. She synthesized artificial hormones, which she nearly believed could guarantee human immortality. Edwin Yakovlevich did not endorse his wife’s views. He was not attracted by immortality. Their scientific interests converged in this fundamental conflict: gerontology by definition flew in the face of the idea of immortality. Vinberg was certain of this. But Vera believed in hormones.

The couple had plenty to discuss in their late-evening soirées. After the loss of their whole prewar way of life—conservatories, libraries, science and literature; after the camp barracks, the dispensaries, the necessity of curing every possible illness with no medicine at all; after all that, sitting in the nighttime stillness of their own tiny apartment, stuffed with books and records, in the warmth, with plenty of food, just the two of them, was their source of joy.

* * *

Dulin continued to study alcoholism, now not only from a scientific perspective, as theory, but in an applied, practical context as well. His department started a treatment program, which, unfortunately, didn’t meet with any particular success. The salary was good, though—he received 170 rubles a month, plus a bonus.

Three years went by. Again, he got lucky, this time without Nina’s influence. A position for a senior research fellow opened up when an elderly colleague retired. At the same time, quite unexpectedly, Dr. Ruzaev, the most promising doctor in their institute and one who had already defended his dissertation, was lured away by the Kazan Medical Institute.

A search was begun to fill these two positions. Dulin would never have considered applying on his own initiative, but the head of the department urged him on, telling him to get all the necessary papers in order. And in the autumn of 1972, Dulin was promoted to the position of senior research fellow! This was a stunning coup in the unfolding of his career. It took all winter for Dulin to get used to it. In the mornings, while he was shaving in the bathroom, as he scraped the foamy hillock covering his dark brown whiskers from his cheeks with a safety razor, he would look at himself in the mirror and say: “Dmitry Stepanovich Dulin, Senior Research Fellow.” He had expected it to take ten or fifteen years to reach this position, but suddenly—there it was!

And he felt pride, and uncertainty, all at once …

Things were going very well in the department. Now he had a new subject—alcohol-related paranoia—and two wards of patients whom he studied and treated. Gripped by fits of jealousy, inflamed with hallucinations, tormented by persecution manias, overwrought and excitable, or, on the contrary, listless and depressed, devoid of any sense of self-worth, pumped up or deflated by neuroleptic drugs, they bore very little resemblance to his soft, warm-eared rabbits. Aggression was always hovering just below the surface.

Some of them were tied to the bed, others were sedated with drugs. On occasion, a particularly ungovernable patient would break the windowpane and fling himself out, trying to escape his illness straight into the arms of the Lord God. All told, there were only two windows without bars in the entire department: one in the department head’s office, as well as a tiny one in the examining room. At the beginning of spring one such patient took the leap from that very window. Luckily, the ward was only on the second floor; still, he broke his arm. It was very unfortunate for all concerned. The patient was a celebrated actor, beloved by the whole nation. And his form of delirium was also deeply rooted in the people: he believed that tiny men were after him, and he had to keep picking them off, shaking himself free in squeamish terror.

Dulin chased off the tiny men with the help of Amytal and haloperidol.

Then the artist recovered, and his beautiful wife, also an actor, came to fetch him. She gave the nurses six boxes of chocolate, and the department head a portrait of the patient. Now it hung in his office, adorned with the artist’s autograph. For the teetotaler Dulin, they brought a bottle of cognac. Dulin was very happy—not about the cognac, of course, but that no scandal had ensued. The actor had arrived all in one piece, and he had left with a broken arm in a cast. They should have been more careful.

Dulin didn’t like his paranoiacs. In fact, he felt a deep contempt for them. He considered them all to be lost causes, and deep inside he viewed alcoholism itself not as a true illness, but as an ordinary human failing. His wife, Nina, from morning till night, made her rounds of the district, listening with her stethoscope, palpating stomachs, writing out prescriptions and sick-leave certificates, and carrying out what he considered to be true medical work. What went on here, Dulin suspected, was just academic rigamarole. But, on the whole, he was satisfied with the job. It was a good one.

One day, in the middle of summer, when vacation season was in full swing, Dulin was summoned to the administrative office. Eleonora Viktorovna, the secretary, a mature black-haired beauty with luxuriant, immobile eyebrows and unbridled power at the institute, nodded to him and smiled sourly:

“Dmitry Stepanovich, you are being asked to give a consultation in the Special Division, in your area of expertise.”

Dulin was alarmed. This request was, in fact, an order. It was common knowledge that the Special Division was where “politicals” were kept, and the people who worked there had “clearance”—they were special people, secretive people who kept quiet. No one else wanted to have access to it. Ordinarily, if they needed to consult someone, they invited Karpov, the department head; but he happened to be away on vacation. Kulchenko, another distinguished senior research fellow, had gone to a conference in Leningrad. Dulin tried to wriggle out of it.

“Eleonora Viktorovna, I would be honored, of course, but I’m afraid it’s impossible; I don’t have clearance.”

Eleonora Viktorovna adjusted her hair—a fashionable bun that added volume to her head on top and in back—and smiled:

“We have already arranged for clearance. Just sign here.”

And she held out to him a malachite pen sticking out of a malachite stand. Dulin took the pen, still protesting:

“But I’ve never taken part in this kind of consultation. Karpov will be back in two weeks, and Kulchenko will already be back at work on Monday.”

Eleonora Viktorovna’s mouth expressed dissatisfaction.

“Are you not aware that any specialist with a diploma can be called in to offer expertise? It’s your duty! Those are our laws. And this is just such a consultation.” Eleonora paused; the pause lasted just long enough to give Dulin to understand that resistance was futile. He signed the document.

“Please report to the Special Division at eleven o’clock on Thursday. They’ll provide you with a pass. Professor Dymshitz, head of the Special Division, would like to have a little talk with you now. Wait for him here. He’s in the director’s office.”

“Yes, of course,” Dulin said, with a sense of foreboding.

He sat on a chair, taking note of its alarming crimson upholstery. He had already heard unpleasant rumors about this Dymshitz, but he couldn’t recall precisely what they were.

He waited for quite a while. Finally, the door opened, and a fat, stumpy fellow with a few thin gray hairs combed over his bald pate, from the right side to the left, emerged from the director’s office.

“Efim Semenovich, Doctor Dulin is waiting for you. You wished to see him,” Eleonora said, rising to greet him.

A head taller than he, the older beauty had to bend down to communicate with this gnomish creature; still, she exuded fear, and he menace. Dulin’s agitation grew more and more pronounced. He couldn’t quite grasp what was happening, as though he were witnessing a play performed in a foreign language.

No one explained to Dulin that Eleonora had been married to Dymshitz before the war, and that she had left him for a younger man who went missing in action during the war. In 1946 she returned to Dymshitz again, and after living with him for a short while, abandoned him again. Thus, Dulin was a chance witness of their strange and convoluted relationship.

Dymshitz turned his gaze toward Dulin.

“Yes, yes. Very good. Have you ever taken part in a psychiatric expert review?”

Dulin had done this hundreds of times for cases of alcoholism, naturally. But he suddenly grew confused, and something so frightened him that his underarms, as well as his back and chest, broke into a sweat.

“Yes, of course,” he said.

The gnome was sizing him up. And not very highly.

“I would like to talk with you beforehand, but I’m in a hurry at the moment. Come to the Special Division at eleven, and before you see the patient, look in on me.”

And Dymshitz went up the stairs to the third floor, his little ankle boots clattering noisily on the steps.

He probably buys his shoes in Children’s World, Dulin thought irritably. And he wasn’t wrong. The professor wore a size 4.

* * *

Leaving the institute at eight o’clock in the evening, a vapor of dried, malodorous sweat trailing behind him, Dulin ran into Vinberg. Erect, lanky, and thin, in a worn-out gray suit with a striped silk tie, and smelling of eau de cologne, he was elegant, as always.

It’s not just the tie, of course, Dulin thought to himself. It’s his nature, his character. He’s dry as a biscuit.

Dulin himself had put on weight in the last two or three years. He ate a lot: for his mother, for his grandmother, for all the years he had gone hungry in childhood, which had settled into depths known only to psychiatrists.

They walked to the metro together.

“They called me to give a consultation at the Special Division,” Dulin reported without any hesitation.

Vinberg raised a neatly trimmed eyebrow.

“Really? They must trust you. Are you a member of the Party, Dmitry Stepanovich?”

“Of course I am. I served in the army after college. They took everyone back then.”

“Ah, yes. Party discipline. You have a duty to take part, then,” Vinberg said drily, clearing his throat.

“Usually, Karpov … he’s on vacation,” Dulin said, trying to justify himself, and was taken aback by his own behavior. “They obviously have an alcoholic there, or there’s at least an episode involving alcohol in the case. But in our country, Edwin Yakovlevich, everyone drinks: actors, academics, and cosmonauts. Recently we had…” And Dulin told him about the celebrated actor.

“Back in the camps, there was a certain talented writer, an exceptionally erudite man. He translated Rilke in prison so as not to be degraded by the circumstances. Well, it’s unlikely that you’ve ever heard of Rilke. Right here, in the Serbsky Institute, that very writer underwent a psychiatric expert review at the beginning of the 1930s; he hoped to be diagnosed as an alcoholic (which he was not). And for the time being he wasn’t sent to prison, but for treatment. He spent three years in treatment. He praised God and read books. But they sent him to prison in the end anyway. Yes, Rilke, Rilke … That’s the paradox of our time: before the war, people evaded persecution in psychiatric wards, and now it’s precisely psychiatric wards where—”

“Dymshitz asked me to drop by for a talk with him,” Dulin said plaintively, his voice lowered. But Vinberg seemed not to hear. He suddenly turned away.

“Excuse me, I completely forgot. I have to run into the bookstore. Good-bye!”

And he strode off in the direction of Metrostroevskaya Street. Vinberg had been taken off guard. This decisive young man who had single-handedly managed to quell a fire, unsophisticated and somewhat limited, but conscientious and decent, in his own way, seemed to be asking for his advice.

What could he say to a simple-hearted and conscientious fool? Even a wise man wouldn’t be able to extricate himself from this one. Vinberg walked right past the bookstore. He hadn’t really needed to go there.

When Hitler came to power, Jacob Vinberg, his father, a well-known Berlin lawyer, had said: “As a lawyer, I always find a way out. I know that in every situation there is at least one exit. Usually several. Under Hitler’s regime, there are none.” Jacob Vinberg died without realizing how right he was. This regime doesn’t allow a man any way out, either. Not one. They always get the better of those who have a conscience, Vinberg thought.

The Special Division was located in a separate building, three trolleybus stops away. At half past ten on Thursday, Dulin rang the stern bell, which seemed to be calling him to account. A female porter in a white robe opened the door.

“Whom do you wish to see?”

Dulin showed her his pass. “I’m here for a consultation. I need to see Professor Dymshitz.”

“One moment,” the woman said, and, with a brisk nod, shut the door in his face. A few minutes later another woman, taller, with a fancy hairdo, opened the door. Instead of a robe she was wearing a pink dress.

Jersey knit, Dulin noted. Nina is dying for one. I feel awkward asking her where she got it.

“Good morning, good morning! We’ve been expecting you.” She extended her hand. “Margarita Glebovna. I’m the doctor in charge of the case. Efim Semenovich is waiting for you. Then I’ll show you to the patient.”

A corridor, doors—it looked just like an ordinary hospital ward. Only the corridors were absolutely empty.

Then they came to some heavy double doors adorned with a brass plaque. He was surprised by the spaciousness and the complete sterility of the office. There was not a single piece of paper or a single mote of dust on the sleek tabletop. The gnome, who was sitting behind the desk, was almost affable this time.

“Please, come in, Dmitry Stepanovich.”

Dulin sat on an uncomfortable chair in the middle of the room. A sea of gleaming parquet separated him from the professor. About ten feet of it.

Like an investigator, Dulin thought. He had once found himself sitting in just such a lone chair in the district KGB office. One of his classmates had gotten up to no good, and Dulin was called in for questioning. But the fairly canny functionaries realized very quickly how remote Dulin was from all that business, and let him go.

At various points in his life, Dymshitz had also had to occupy a faraway chair like that one. He didn’t like it; but it had made a deep impression on him.

“So,” Dymshitz said, barely parting his lips. “We have a very interesting patient on our hands.”

Seemingly out of nowhere, a cardboard file appeared. From afar, Dymshitz waved it around invitingly.

See that? He’s taunting me, Dulin thought, annoyed.

“A distinguished man. Was once a brigadier general,” Dymshitz said ponderously, emphasizing every word. “Fought at the front. Wounded twice; a concussion, mind you. He received honors and awards galore. Lost it all. His behavior is aberrant. He’s a drinker … his mind is shot. He suffers from delusions of grandeur. This contains the findings of the outpatient commission. I don’t think they were able to get to the bottom of it. You, however, will—I hope.”

He spoke these last words emphatically, articulating every syllable.

Anxiety gripped Dulin, so deep-seated that a wave of nausea rose up in him.

Why in the world am I so on edge? Dulin asked himself. But there was no time to come up with an answer.

“Here is the case history; and here is the epicrisis. Here are the findings of the commission. In making your diagnosis, you must take into account the role that alcohol plays in the illness, and make an annotation to that effect in the patient’s medical history.” Dymshitz opened the file and began to sort through the pages. “Here is a summary of a previous expert review, which was carried out under outpatient circumstances. There it is. Nineteen sixty-eight. We have our doubts about it. We would like you to examine the patient and then substantiate your opinion. We have reached the provisional conclusion that … Well, have a look at it.”

He approached Dulin, who stood up to take the file from him.

“The opinion of the commission is unfavorable … a number of paranoiac traits. Could these be alcohol-related? You have the last word, you’re the expert. We ourselves have come to a provisional conclusion. In short, examine the patient. Margarita Glebovna!”

Margarita Glebovna seemed to take shape out of thin air.

“Have there been alcoholic episodes?” Dulin asked timidly.

“Hmm. Well, yes,” Dymshitz said vaguely. “At least one unquestionable episode is present: he was under the influence when they arrested him.”

Dymshitz stood up again, a sign that the audience was over.

Margarita Glebovna ushered Dulin out into the corridor.

She wiped the corners of her lips with her fingertips, as though removing extra lipstick.

“You can look over the records here in the doctor’s lounge. Then I’ll show you the patient.”

Dulin opened the file and began studying the papers. Patient: Nichiporuk, Peter Petrovich, sixty-two years old. Wounded twice, one concussion, physical disorders. Who doesn’t have those? Record of a conversation with the psychiatrist … protocol. Dmitry Stepanovich couldn’t believe his eyes: even reading what the general had said was terrifying! Some sort of craziness! “What was your goal in creating an underground organization?” An anti-Soviet—he was a true anti-Soviet! And further: “The organization is called UTL—the Union of True Leninists.” Oh, so it turns out he’s not anti-Soviet, but the opposite … The opposite? What could that be? “What was your salary, Peter Petrovich?” A strange question for a psychiatrist. Oh, I see … I see. Seven hundred a month. Dulin didn’t even know that it was possible for someone to earn that much … And further: “So what was it you were lacking, Peter Petrovich, with a salary like that? The authorities provided you with everything you needed.” Yes, he’s absolutely right. It doesn’t make sense. Really, with money like that, why would you bite the hand that feeds you? Ah, that’s what it was … Czechoslovakia. He didn’t like the Soviet troops marching into Czechoslovakia … He denounced it publicly … slander against the state … now it all makes sense. But why would he tell a psychiatrist things like that? Of what interest would they be to a doctor?

The terms “spiritual brotherhood,” “moral perfection,” “anti-populist power of the Party-ocracy,” and, finally, “the sacred task of socialism,” underlined in red pencil, flickered in front of him. He’s a strange old geezer; not crazy, just eccentric. This was Dulin’s preliminary conclusion. He spent forty minutes poring over the records.

Then they brought in the patient—a tall, thin man in hospital pajamas and felt slippers. He stood close to the door, holding one hand behind his back and hanging his head slightly. Another man, shorter than the patient, came in with him; he sat down on a chair by the door.

“Good day, Peter Petrovich. I’m a psychiatrist, Candidate of Medical Sciences Dmitry Stepanovich Dulin. I would like to examine you and have a chat. Come over here and sit down, please.” Dulin indicated the chair next to him. “How do you feel? What symptoms do you have?”

The former general smiled and looked at Dulin. His gaze was too long, and too attentive.

“Only those corresponding to my age. Nothing in particular to complain about.” He gripped his knees with his large hands, which were covered with red spots.

Dulin asked, “How long have you had psoriasis?”

“From a young age. It began after the war. During the war, people didn’t suffer from ordinary human illnesses. It wasn’t the time or place for that. After the war it all started: heart, stomach, liver.”

He pronounced “liver” with a mocking drawl. Dulin examined Nichiporuk as they had learned to do at the institute: the sclera, the condition of his skin, mucous membranes … poor nutrition, most likely anemia … blood samples … it was anemia, of course …

“What day is it today, Peter Petrovich?” Dulin said quietly.

“A lousy one,” he replied briefly.

“Can you remember the date?” Dulin said.

“Ah,” the patient said, laughing. “You mean like Marchember? Today is July 22, 1972. Exactly thirty-two years and one month after the invasion of the German Fascist troops into the territory of the USSR.”

He seemed to be making fun of him, this former general. No, he was no doubt just trying to be funny—alcoholic wit! Actually, Dulin quite liked him. Dulin placed him on the examining table, palpated his stomach. His liver was enlarged. Let’s assume it’s alcohol-induced fatty degeneration. With significant malnutrition.

“What is your height? Your weight?”

“I am exactly six feet tall. I don’t know my weight.”

Margarita Glebovna and the one by the door didn’t budge. They were planted there like stone statues.

“Good! Now, close your eyes and place the forefinger of your right hand on the tip of your nose. Now your left … What is the year of your birth? Your birthday?”

The patient smiled.

“September tenth, one thousand, nine hundred, and ten years after the birth of Christ. According to the Julian calendar, naturally.”

“Very good,” Dulin said with alacrity. “And do you always live by this calendar?”

“No, of course not. The USSR shifted to the Gregorian calendar in February 1918, and all dates after February fourteenth were most reasonably calculated according to the Gregorian calendar; before that, according to the Julian. Quite logical, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Perhaps,” Dulin said. He would have to look up in the encyclopedia what they said about calendars. The old geezer was, of course, highly educated, and there were always additional complications with well-educated people. He had, naturally, a dilation of the reflexogenic zones; this could be interpreted variously as alcoholization, right up to the possible onset of alcoholic paranoia. It depended on how one looked at it.

“Your place of birth, Peter Petrovich?”

“The village of Velikie Topoli, in the Gadyachsky Uyezd, Poltava Gubernia. My father belonged to the local intelligentsia. He was a teacher in a public school.”

“I see, I see. What about heredity, Peter Petrovich? Did your father drink?” Dulin said, introducing the subject at hand.

“I see what you mean, Doctor. That is, it is impossible not to see. Yes, he drank. My father drank. And my grandfather drank. And my great-grandfather. And I drank, when they let me.” He smiled, and his smile was simply radiant. He had a good smile—absolutely devoid of mockery or hidden malice.

“And when did you begin to indulge, Peter Petrovich?” Dulin said politely.

“Now that’s something I don’t quite remember. Everyone drank on holidays, children, too. My father always drank with dinner, that was a sacred ritual—a glass of vodka with the meal. I still honor this custom, I admit.”

“And do you drink alcohol now?”

Peter Petrovich suddenly let all his defenses down.

“Dear Doctor! They don’t offer you any here! I have to admit that since the beginning of the war, there hasn’t been a single day that I didn’t imbibe spirits of some sort—vodka, or whatever else God provided. I miss it badly!”

Dulin suddenly felt quite awkward: Peter Petrovich was so very trusting and confiding.

“Do you have a need for it? A dependency, I mean.” Dulin probed deeper.

“A dependency—not in the least. But a need—certainly. A reasonable need.”

“‘In the words of the patient, he has abused alcohol regularly for many years, without excess,’” Dulin noted down in good conscience.

Margarita Glebovna, who continued to stand by the door in silence, was clearly dissatisfied. She whispered something to the person sitting in the chair.

“A Russian man, Doctor, can’t do without it. Vodka quiets the soul. It softens the edges of life. Don’t tell me you don’t know that?”

And then Dulin understood: Peter Petrovich himself wanted to be sent into treatment. Dulin looked through his file again. The doctor’s notes indicated that Peter Petrovich had spent four years, from 1968 to 1972, in prison, and his physical condition at the time had been poor. Dulin also came across an old outpatient record from Riga, in which it was written, in black and white: “Mind clear, correct orientation, comports himself well in conversation, speech coherent and to the point.” He was declared fit and mentally sound. And the most recent record, as yet inconclusive, which he himself was expected to sign, ascertaining alcohol-induced paranoia. Followed by a fat question mark.

This was something Dulin was unable to do in good conscience. He exerted himself like a schoolboy at an exam. Finally, groping beyond the limitations of his own mind, he came up with the right answer. He inserted a single word in front of “alcohol-induced paranoia”: atypical. And this set everything to rights! It was an atypical case. This Peter Petrovich was not insane, he was merely eccentric. But it wouldn’t be a bad idea to send him in for treatment.

In any case, the hospital would feed him. Now Dulin understood why the patient had confided to him so candidly and happily about his use of alcohol. This was his way of hinting that he wouldn’t mind undergoing treatment. And Vinberg had just told him about some Rilke or other who wanted more than anything to be declared mentally unsound and to be hospitalized.

They chatted a little longer, and Dulin, with a light heart, wrote down his diagnosis: “Alcohol-induced deterioration of the internal organs. Changes in the central nervous system: the presence of alcohol-related encephalopathy and retrograde amnesia. Diagnosis: atypical alcohol-induced paranoia.”

Dulin graced it with his beautiful signature.

And he looked at the clock—half past two.

* * *

Half past two, Peter Petrovich thought. I missed lunch because of that quack. Maybe the nurse left it there for me? thought the hungry general, with perfunctory agitation.

* * *

Dulin went back to his department, took the sandwiches Nina had made him out of his briefcase, and drank a glass of milk. The cook at the institute always left him a pint. He ate and glanced through two journals that had been lying on his desk for a long time and needed to be returned to the library. Then he went to see Vinberg, in the former linen storeroom, which was now a cross between an office and a pantry, piled high with books, most of them foreign publications.

This is how Vinberg acquires his erudition. He has an advantage, since he knows other languages, the ingenuous Dulin thought.

It was already getting on toward evening. The working day for the doctors was over. On Vinberg’s desk, on top of a sheaf of journals and letters in gray envelopes covered with handwriting that had a Gothic cast, lay a vinyl record in a white paper sleeve.

“Someone brought me a Daniil Shafran. A unique piece—Shostakovich’s 1946 cello sonata. The first performance of it. Shostakovich himself plays on it.” The professor stroked the record gently with his dark hand. His fingernails were long and well tended. “And Daniil Shafran was only twenty-two years old at the time. Brilliant. An absolutely brilliant cellist…”

They’re always like that. Jews always prefer their own, Dulin thought disapprovingly, then caught himself: What’s wrong with that? That’s what all people are like. Everyone prefers their own kind.

“I held my consultation,” Dulin reported to Vinberg.

But Vinberg didn’t seem to remember about their earlier conversation. The expression on his face was vacant.

“I diagnosed him with alcoholism. They’ll most likely send him in for treatment now.”

“What?” Vinberg said. “What did you say? You sent him to a treatment facility?”

“Well, what does it matter, Edwin Yakovlevich? He’s emaciated, I thought that if he were admitted for treatment they’d at least feed him. Anything’s better than the camps.” Dulin’s spirits, boosted by doing a good deed, suddenly started to sag.

“Are you just playing the fool, Dulin? Or are you a bona fide idiot?” the well-mannered professor said.

At this Dulin became distraught. He had always considered it an honor that Vinberg wanted to spend time with him, to discuss things with him—and here he was, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, calling him an idiot. Dulin felt deeply injured.

“What do you mean, Edwin Yakovlevich? You yourself told me about Rilke, that he dreamed only of being declared insane so he wouldn’t be sent to the camps … you said it yourself…” Dulin pleaded in his own defense.

“Me, myself, and I what? In the thirties they didn’t have any haloperidol! Aminazin! Stelazine! It didn’t exist yet! You’ve consigned him to the torture chamber, Dmitry Stepanovich! You can go and denounce me, now, if you like.”

He lowered his head and stared at the record. Daniil Shafran Performs …

He said nothing, his mouth twisted into a grimace. What baseness … what baseness everywhere one looks …

“What should I have done, then? Tell me,” Dulin asked in a quiet voice. “He really was … well, not completely, but … what was I supposed to do?”

Vinberg, spinning the record absently, then put both his hands on the desk.

Leave this place, leave this place. As soon as possible, leave this place, he thought. And also: What a people! How can they hate themselves so?

Then he smiled a bitter smile, and said something incomprehensible:

“I don’t know. A Chinese sage once said that for every question there are seven answers. Everyone has to answer this question for himself. Please forgive my rudeness, Dmitry Stepanovich.”

* * *

Vera Samuilovna understood immediately that her husband was agitated and dejected: by the brusque way he took off his coat, by the gloomy expression on his face, and the nod and a wooden “Danke,” when she put his soup in front of him. A tactful, clever woman, she kept silent and didn’t ask him any questions. He was always grateful to her afterward for her aristocratic silence and self-possession.

Edwin Yakovlevich felt his own failure keenly, and experienced a belated remorse: How could he have let himself humiliate this sweet, dim-witted, and diligent person? Had not he, Vinberg, taken part in a psychiatric expert consultation several years back, in the same Special Division? Had he not offered his conclusion about the mental unsoundness of a prisoner whose political beliefs about the nature of this regime he completely shared? But from a clinical point of view, his illness was undeniable. It was a clear and detailed picture of manic-depressive psychosis. Vinberg, the former prisoner, could do nothing about it. Almost all the freethinkers, the petition signers, the homegrown rebels were mad in both the everyday and, partly, the medical sense of the word. This is the nature of Russian radicalism, of course. It is never grounded in common sense, Vinberg mused, feeling gradually more calm.

Vinberg wasn’t even aware of it himself when he began voicing his inner musings out loud:

“When Hitler came to power, all of the intelligentsia who had their wits about them emigrated, but the loyal ones … There’s no way out, no way out. But a doctor is in a unique position—he’s only supposed to heal, to treat illness. The way out, or through, is through his profession. The prison camp hospital. Physical injuries, ulcers, tuberculosis, heart attacks. The honor of the profession is the highest value. Higher than politics, undoubtedly. Undoubtedly. However … Vera, Vera! Every single person I’ve seen who is struggling against the regime in our time is on the border, on a very thin boundary, between health and sickness. Do you remember the woman who went out onto Red Square with her baby in a baby buggy? There is such an instinct as self-preservation. There is such a thing as maternal instinct, which forces the mother to protect her child. But there is no instinct for social justice in nature! Conscience militates against survival, Vera!”

His wife sat opposite him on a stool, in their fifty-square-foot kitchen, where a second chair wouldn’t even fit. Still, there was a table, a cooker with two burners, warm radiators in winter, and the luxuriant growth of some nondescript weed under the window in summer.

Vera peered into the black glass of the window, behind which nothing was visible except her own blurry reflection. She, too, knew that conscience worked against survival. Yes, biological evolution wipes out the species of those with a conscience that lives and breathes. The mighty survive. But she didn’t want to revisit that subject: the camps, starvation, humiliation, hell.

“Edwin, tell me, did Grachevsky bring you the record?”

Edwin Yakovlevich broke off, burst out laughing, and left the kitchen. Yes, they had talked it over; enough of that.

He took the cello sonata out of his briefcase and put it on the turntable. Vera was already sitting in an armchair in the room they referred to as the “living room” for propriety’s sake.

It was the earliest performance of the piece. Later, in 1950, Shostakovich recorded it with Rostropovich, and even modified the original version.

Vinberg’s large ears, with their tufts of hair, inherited from distant ancestors, seemed to quiver from tension. Vera Samuilovna, a qualified listener herself, had always considered Daniil Shafran to be a more versatile and gifted performer than Rostropovich. But here was Shostakovich, who seemed to her to be dry and severe. Her husband heard the music differently: there was a refusal to compromise, a drama of inner struggle and confrontation. The piano cadenza in the third movement recalled Beethoven’s late sonatas.

“Hopelessness. Cosmic hopelessness. Don’t you think, Vera?”

* * *

Dulin went straight to the vivarium after talking to Vinberg. He had a cabinet there in which he kept a secret stash of medical spirits under lock and key. He removed a half-liter vessel and poured some of it into a measuring beaker, to which he added tap water, half and half, as he did for the rabbits. Then he drank it down, all 200 ml of it straight from the measuring beaker. He put the vessel in his briefcase. It didn’t quite fit, but the cork was sturdy and snug, so he lay it on its side. And he went to get the trolleybus. He began feeling drunk only once he was inside the bus. When he got home, no one was there. Nina had gone to pick up Marinka from the biology club at the municipal House of Pioneers, which she took part in even though she was too young to join the Young Pioneers organization. She had an avid interest in biology.

At home, Dulin diluted more of the spirits, and drank another 200 ml. Disgusting stuff. How do they drink it? Now he was already feeling woozy. The room was spinning around his poor head. He couldn’t fall asleep, though. One thought, like a splinter in his brain, kept jabbing and jabbing away at him: What were the seven answers? What answers could there be, besides yes and no?

Then Nina came home. It took a while for her to realize that he was stone drunk. At first, she started to laugh:

“Poor little drunken rabbit!”

She tried to sober him up with strong tea, to put him to bed; but he refused to go. He kept babbling on and on about seven answers, or seven questions, and only late at night did she understand the cause of his torment.

By that time, Dulin had diluted the rest of the spirits, but he couldn’t drink it. He vomited, and began having severe stomach spasms. Then he lay down, shaking with chills.

Nina was already tired of looking after him. She sat down in a chair, muttering something angrily under her breath. She didn’t get into bed herself. Then Marinka came in in her nightgown, complaining that her head was hurting. At that moment, Dulin recalled all the bad things that had ever happened to him in his life: how the local kids had teased him at school, how Kamzolkina, the teacher, had yelled at him, how his mother had beaten him, how Mama’s drunken “suitor,” Uncle Kolya, had pulled him by the ears … And he began to weep.

Dulin wept—because he was a rabbit, and not a man.

That’s what Nina told him, anyway.