Part One – There
(Eastern Hemisphere)
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN – PHYSFAC. SECOND YEAR. EVENTS
The second University year began with an event unprecedented for our city – the European book exhibition, which was held at the Society for Cultural Relations just opposite the Alexander Park. The park was well known to all students, and probably even to all city residents. During the time of grandpa Neiman, workers gathered here for protest rallies. One such rally was fired upon by the police and described in my report on my grandfather’s memoirs.
During the time of my dad, rose plantations were fragrant here, and the military commissar caught on the benches of the park students who did not pass the session on time, as was the case with my dad. Something important in my time will also happen here. I will not get ahead of myself, but later I’ll try to tell objectively about what I have not seen with my own eyes.
In the meantime, the cultural event made a big impression on me. I loved books (and books with pictures) since childhood, and the art editions of the Soviet printing house were of poor quality and unrepresentative. We, Soviet people, still lived partly behind a curtain. However, this curtain was already made not of the iron.
For three days, Eli and I, skipping classes, stood in a huge line in the morning. From the second day Anton joined us. If we were lucky, we got inside in the first batch of lucky ones and pounced on albums with reproductions until our heads began to crack from the abundance of images, names, places and dates. It was dangerous to go out so as not to get into the line again. We stared out the windows, tormented by hunger, or whispered softly in the corridor while our eyes rested, and rushed into a new round of viewing.
Some of the books were so large that six people held them open on their laps. I was especially struck by surrealism with its fantastic vision of the world. And some names, such as Schiele and Klimt, we have never heard in our lives.
Why did I remember this book exhibition? I don’t know, but I’m sure that it somehow shaped me, not to mention that it taught me a lot. I think that the collection of art books on the shelves of my home library dates back to those warm September days.
In my second year, I was already strong in higher mathematics in order to achieve only excellent grades. We became friends with Mithridat Abramovich Pandekov. He winked at me and asked in a low voice,
“Well, how are the Israeli aggressors doing?”
“They are saying hello to the Greek junta,” I retorted, and the examination duel began.
“I can give you 4 (B) without an answer,” Mithridates announced his initial bet.
“I agree to 5 (A) without an answer, but without joy!” I put forward my proposal.
“Insolent!” the associate professor whispered to me with aspiration, smiling in a paternally affectionate way, “You’ll get your joy!”
I spent hours solving difficult problems. Pandekov even let me go for a lunch, but the pleasure from the game was mutual. I think that the former talented boy from the seedy Greek village of Tsalka in southern Georgia, famous for its potatoes, was not enough to reach the honorary position of an associate professor at the Department of Physics in the capital of the Republic. He yearned for romance; Weierstrass, Dirichlet, Fourier, Gauss, Cauchy – what names, what people! To cross integrals and functions with a like-minded student, to get away for a while from the routine of Soviet everyday life, what else was still left for the dreamer? And he wrote down the word “Excellent” in my student’s record book like an old knight’s monogram with curlicues.
Once Pandekov recited to us newcomers a romance about a student.
Imagine a field with the module eight,
Reflecting your vigor and knowledge.
The student who could not differentiate
Was told by the Dean of the College,
“Your Calculus level is terribly bad,
Pandekov has torn his new garment!
Retake your exam, or you’ll feel rather sad,
Discharged from the Physics Department.”
He’s glad to retake it, but feeling too ill
His consciousness waving and dying,
He sense how his scholarship turning to nil
As well as his heart nullifying.
The weakest of us, he believed he was smart,
Forever departing in time-brook.
Pandekov has dolefully read it by heart
A chapter from the Calculus textbook.
In vain his mother was waiting for him
No victims – no science, that’s praxis.
And graph of a sinus is pretty and slim
It runs everlasting through axis.
At the beginning of autumn, student-physics again celebrated their holiday “Physicist Day” invented last year. The celebration was gaining momentum. We already knew how to “extort” money from the dean’s office. About twenty reliable people wrote a request for financial assistance. The benefits received went into the common cauldron. Tickets for the concert were distributed free, but for the café-party (with refreshments and dances) were sold. The people flushed to these events like at Raikin’s concerts. Volunteer guards had a hard time. Their captain both years walked with black eyes. Last year – right eye, now – the left one.
For the symposium of physicist-humorists, I dashed off a “movie-script” about Galileo’s experiments. I only remember the beginning of it:
“We can see before us the crooked dirty streets of medieval Pisa, in which we immediately recognize the modern beautiful town of Tsalka. The city is festively decorated. On the walls of the houses are giant portraits of Leonardo Da Vinci. Today is 200 years of the Renaissance.
Galileo’s wife is asking him in the morning,
“Do we have bones to make a soup for the lunch?”
“I have stones for my afternoon test.”
“Do we have eggs for the supper?”
“I have large balls for my evening test.”
“Well, no food – no sex!”
(Do not forget, testicles in Russian are named eggs).
The joke was very topical, because, in addition to the obvious genital context, it contained a hint to a large shortage – chicken eggs. On certain days, we stood in a line for them for several hours, to the point of brutality. No wonder that we had a very popular riddle on this topic.
“What is this – the tail is long, the eyes are shining and the eggs are small and dirty?” The answer: it is a line for the cheapest chicken eggs.
But despite difficult everyday life, we had fun.
The military classes began from the second year. Our military specialty was long-distance communication or, as we joked, “the contacts with no fuckups”. Classes in the study of regulations, drill and radiation training were dull, but clear, but the military specialty for me was a book with seven seals. The very complex schemes… go and guess how they work? I should have at least figured out how to read them on educational posters. I have been working on this…
The teachers were of little help in this. I wondered how they understand the schemes. All the officers were neat, executive people, but far from radio engineering. They often found themselves at a loss in much simpler matters. For example…
Once, in a radiation training class, an officer explains: “When a thermonuclear bomb falls into the epicenter, three zones are formed around it. Zone A – a zone of total destruction, zone B – a zone of severe destructions and zone C – a zone of moderate and weak destructions.”
Then he has drawn zones on the board and asked, “Is everything clear?”
I raised my hand, “What happens if the bomb hits zone B?”
A pause and hysterical laughter from the audience.
But the officers treated me well: my drill exercises and shooting were good enough. It was no coincidence that since childhood I liked people in uniform…
An amazing thing happened in the fall. Ethel, our friend and groupmate, a graduate of a mathematical school, announced that she was leaving for Israel. This was the first person I knew personally, who was emigrating across the border. Then it seemed to everyone that emigration was not a simple move to another country, but a transition into “non-existence”. They said goodbye to those leaving, as if they were burying them. Or yourself. However, in Ethel’s case, it looked quite ordinary.
She discussed what textbooks to take with her in order to get in shape faster after a break for studying Hebrew. She wanted to transfer to the Technion, one of the best Israeli universities, and was collecting all possibly necessary documents for this. The situation in Georgia was very different from Russia’s. In Russia people who applied for departure were fired from their jobs, expelled from the Communist Organizations and terrorized in every possible way. In Georgia it almost never happened. Ethel was even given a recommendation for joining the Communist Party of Israel, of course, not without the help of Gogi, the Leader of the Young Communist Organization of Physics Department.
We arranged a farewell party – a banquet in the half-empty apartment of Greenberg family.
“What nice guys! Be sure to move to us!” – said Ethel’s father.
His words turned out to be prophetic – all those present sooner or later emigrated. But then, I think, no one but me wanted to leave yet, and I didn’t want to leave without my family (and the family, due to my father’s situation, could not go). Back in high school, I asked my grandmother to write to the Red Cross, to look for her brother and sister, who managed to leave Europe before the war, and then move in with them, but she frightened denied:
“What are you, Nick?! We’ll all be arrested immediately.”
And now, just a couple of years later, a healthy and cheerful family moved to another country away from the false Soviet reality and closer to their relatives. These actions seemed honest and correct. But Ethel and I did not agree on one thing. I believed that having embarked on the path of sincere expression of thoughts and feelings, it was stupid to adhere to the old fashioned traditions and cherish your own virginity. To demonstrate my willpower, I even quit smoking. But Ethel, not finding any reason to refuse me directly, came up with a superstitious trick.
“Good,” she said, “If I meet a car with a number of all eights, this is fate, and I am yours.”
“Why eights?” I wondered.
“It was the number consisted of eights, the tattoo on the arm of my father’s younger brother, Solomon. Their family perished in Auschwitz while dad was fighting at the front. Sol was transferred to another camp, and traces of him were lost forever.”
Apparently, this was the correct girlish trick. In any case, I was not offended, although I understood that such a number might not exist in nature. But it existed, and I’ll have a surprise meeting with it twenty plus years later in USA. Whoever finish this book will find out how I would met Solomon Greenberg, who survived in Buchenwald and what unbelievable story I discovered from the tattoo on his arm…
So, a merry golden autumn passed with its dashing “Physicist Day”, a sad rainy autumn passed with Ethel seeing off, and another winter session came. Its difficult to overcome peak was called Theoretical Mechanics. And it’s not that the subject was not easy. The examiner was difficult. It was Academician Vartan Isaevich, the uncle of our course mate. From him we learned enough details about his uncle and the reasons for student failures.
Firstly, Vartan Isaevich was a very principled person, and secondly, he was very sick. He was tormented by stones in the gallbladder, and if colic happened during the exam, the academician cut out half the group. His principality was that Vartan Isaevich did not allow the idea that a student could make a mistake in something simple – by accident or from fear, therefore he did not listen to any explanations or apologies, and immediately kicked such a student out of the exam.
The following story happened to a student Viktor Zamorsky, a high jumper, a very good athlete, who was a member of the national team of the Republic. He was warned not to take it into his head to brag about his sport success in front of Vartan Isaevich and, in general, to forget a word “height”. But Viktor wasn’t about to brag. He was a modest guy, a graduate of a mathematical boarding school and studied quite well.
So, Victor was deriving the equation of hydrodynamics and he needed to depict the volume of the stream with a cross section S that moved a distance h equal to the speed v times the time t. Without any hesitation, Zamorsky said:
“The volume of the liquid cylinder will be the product of the area of the base by the…”
And then a disaster happened. Apparently, from fear of the formidable academician and under the influence of suggestion, he forgot the word “height”. In order not to slow down the pace of presentation, he decided to replace the word with a “synonym” and blurted out:
“By the element of the cylinder.”
With someone else, it could well pass, but not with Vartan Isaevich. He immediately, as if the student offended him, soared,
“Why did you choose a right cylinder? And in case of oblique one?”
Poor Victor, dying of horror, drew an inclined cylinder, drew a dotted line about its height and whined,
“The product of the area of the base by… this… well, like it… this…”
The academician decided to help, but because of his adherence to principles, he could not just suggest the right word, but tried to lead the student on the right path. He said:
“OK then. Forget the cylinder. What is the area of the triangle?”
“Half-product of the legs,” Viktor blurted out as if under hypnosis.
The audience was already crying with laughter.
“Why rectangular?” Academician squealed hysterically, “Here it is!”
He grabbed a sheet of paper and drew an acute triangle, “In general case, please!”
Victor, in a trance, lowered the dotted height to the base and mumbled,
“The area of a triangle equals half the product of the base by… this… well, like it… this…”
Vartan Isaevich had no doubts that he was being bullied.
“Go away!” he yelled, holding on to his right side, “What are you doing here anyway?!”
“I am studying physics,” Victor answered honestly, “And I also jump into… this… well, like it… into it…”
It happened that I came for the exam to the academician just in a day of exacerbation of his gallstone disease. This was the last day of the session. Actually – not very reasonable, because there were no more days left when it was possible to come back to retake it in case… But I didn’t think of that outcome. Basically, I got fives (As), sometimes fours (Bs). My the only one three (C) in the history of the CPSU was an unfortunate exception.
Experienced losers were delighted when they saw me,
“Neiman is with us, we’ll share his luck with him!”
I boldly entered the auditorium, took the ticket and sat down to prepare for answer. The student Lucie Yakubovich, known for her promiscuity in relationships, was answering.
Apparently, she was talking terrible nonsense, and the academician decided that a deuces (2 o or D) is too much for her.
“I’ll give you a stake!” he yelled furiously (“stake” is an old-fashioned name for 1 or F. This mark was already inexistent).
“First a 3 (C), and then – a stake,” Lucy suggested playfully.
Without taking his right hand off his liver, the Academician clutched his chest with his left hand, where his heart was beating intermittently, and whispered:
“What did she mean, this s-s…?”
“A student?” asked losers.
“A slut!” said the poor scientist.
And then the devil beguiled me to contribute,
“She’s just jerking around,” I explained with low voice.
“Jerking?!” burst the old intellectual. “Do you think this is how you can answer to the professor who is old enough to be your father?”
“Around! He said jerking around!” the losers stood up for me.
But it was too late. Ten minutes later, the academician took my student’s record book and filled it in with an “unsatisfactory” mark (deuce).
“Maybe you shouldn’t be in such a hurry?” I said, “I was sick and having exam for the first time. I am entitled to at least one more attempt.”
“It’s just a paper,” the academician retorted calmly and indifferently, “If you are entitled, then a second attempt will be allowed. But I don’t believe in these “ifs”. Everyone is justifying this way.”
The losers turned out to be right – they had shared my luck with me…
However, the story took an unexpected turn. The rector of the university, academician Vekua, decided to ban the retakes after the end of the session, and leave students for the second year. They posted huge lists of those, who had to repeat the year. First-year students vied with each other to invite me to their groups, I was a popular person because of the “Physicist Day”.
But the losers didn’t lose their hope. Only two of them, with only one exam attempt – one girl and me – were allowed to try again a week later.
This week I studied theoretical mechanics without raising my head out of the textbook.
Vartan Isaevich took the exam in the dean’s office and in his presence. I don’t know if it was customary, or if the rector wanted it for objectivity – the clouds of those, who was left to repeat a year, complained about the academician’s biliary colic and demanded compulsory treatment. But the exam proceeded remarkably calmly. The academician gave me a B, shook my hand and said:
“In science, young man, there are always surprises. That’s what science is for. I don’t remember anyone who, after a deuce, would have received a four from me. If not for the sediment from your first attempt, the answer could qualify for five. But it doesn’t matter anyway. Have my congratulations!”
I returned home happy, had rested, played the guitar.
Grandmother, who, as always, preferred silence and study, frightened me,
“Better sit down to study, otherwise you’ll see – they kick you out!”
I didn’t argue as I usually did, “Well, what are you talking about? I’m almost an excellent student!” I already realized that she is better versed in life than I am in theoretical mechanics.
Now, during a spring break, I could afford a surprise vacation. I was going to go to another city – Baku. But I didn’t just visiting it, headed to Bert, more precisely, to Bertie’s wedding.
Baku, a night by the train, was close and filled with relatives – no need to look for housing. I stopped at my father’s cousin, red-haired and cheerful, and his wife, the sculptor of Lenin’s shoes, the parents of Belka-Strelka. Alas, I missed her infectious laughter; she studied in Moscow school of music named after Gnesins, along with Osya, the grandson of the late accountant Tillman. The young Tillman even courted after her, but the unforeseen happened.
The phone rang in the Baku apartment. Belka was calling from Moscow. Mom-sculptor, was just at home during the day and she picked up the receiver.
“Got married?” she asked in surprise, “So you just decided… and did it? Well… I wish you happiness!”
I was amazed by the simplicity of solving the issue, but apparently I was not the only one surprised. Belka’s mother dialed to her husband’s work.
“He’ll be back from the lunch soon,” an employee said.
“When he arrives, tell him that Belka called from Moscow and said that she had married.”
Ten minutes later, I witnessed screams from the handset:
“One idiot gets married, as if picking park walk, the other idiot informs the first interlocutor she runs across, and in the end I am a laughing stock for the whole institute, and what’s really there, for the whole city!”
Maybe I did not fully share the views of the uncle, but I understood him well.
With another cousin, a little boy, also a musician, a violinist, we went to a classical music concert at the Philharmonic, a new concrete building that the whole city was proud of. I remember two things – tears in two streams from his eyes and a whisper:
“Nick, do you hear, this is Vivaldi!”
But I was fascinated by another picture – a beautiful girl of my age with golden-red hair wearing a green knitted dress. I immediately fell in love and never took my eyes off her. And only the presence of a young man next to her clouded my fantasies. She noticed my persistent attention, looked back a couple of times and jerked her shoulder. And the next day, I went to visit one of my mother’s cousins, bringing her flowers and a bottle of vine. Yesterday’s beauty opened the door for me, immediately slammed it in my face and squealed:
“Mommy, he has found me!”
What was her surprise when a frowning mother opened the door and… embraced “dear Nick”. My yesterday’s beauty turned out to be my second cousin, and her “boyfriend” turned out to be my second cousin, which I still remember with pleasure, but also with a slight sadness.
And finally, the wedding, the main purpose of my trip. Everything was beautiful and joyful. Newlyweds – happy and jubilant – a whole life full of happiness ahead. I rejoiced, spoke, made toasts, drank quite a lot and even tried to smoke, violating my decision.
And the next morning I woke up smoking, with a cigarette in my mouth. How? I have no idea! Since then, I smoked for eighteen years, without any attempts to quit, until life itself found an interesting way to stop me. But more about that in due time.
The second semester went smoothly. The spring was warm, we often went out of town on weekends, I attended the wrestling section – combat sambo to become stronger and more agile, taught differential equations, competing with my friend Denis, taught physics in order to create the best compendium in the world for my private pupils. I wrote humorous stories in the House of Tea, opposite the Department of Physics, and in the cafe “France”, opposite the Military Department of University. I often escaped from the military classes under the guise of stomach pains. I have a memorable story associated with each of the establishments.
Very tasty tea was served in the House of Tea. No one doubted that it was all about the ancient secrets of brewing the drink, especially since long instructions for the process hung on the black marble walls of the establishment. Tea on silver trays in tall teapots was carried out from behind the wings, where the sacrament of brewing took place. Once, tea was not served to us for a long time, apparently, it was brewed in a special way. And I decided to hurry up the employees. Just to enter inside where we usually didn’t poke our noses in. From behind the door came,
“Will you finally give boiling water? How long can you wait?”
A picture opened up to my eyes – a fat woman in a white coat was turning the handle of the tap, from which only hissing was heard and suddenly a jet of steam poured into the tall teapot. One by one, the woman threw half a pack of tea into the teapots, poured boiling water over it and gave it to the young waitresses, who carried them into the hall to the customers.
“Outsiders are not allowed! It is all sterile here!”
“What sterility?” I thought, but the ancient secret of the quality of tea was revealed: more tea leaves into the kettle, and more stories to people!
Since then, I have been doing this, and my tea is always delicious.
And in café “France” the following had happened. Often, I ran away from boring military activities and sat in a cafe until they noticed my absence, and one of my friends brought me back. But one day a senior teacher, Major Kunin, showed up there. He took a cup of coffee and a muffin and sat down at my table. Fortunately for me, the lecture has just begun.
“What are you doing here Neiman? Do you know that the lecture has begun?”
“I’m sorry, comrade Major, I didn’t notice,” I jumped up, about to retire.
“Wait, sit down and let me see what distracted you so much.”
He extended his hand and took a sheet of paper with rhymes from the table,
“Take a gas mask son – This is one.
Pull in on! I do! – That’s two.
Cover self, lay on floor – Three, four.
Under bed – pretend you’re dead!
“What is this?” Kunin asked in bewilderment.
“Radiation rhymes.”
“What the fuck?” he asked.
“Do you know General Grozdyev? Head of the Civil Defense of Moscow? This is his assignment.”
For three years in the pioneer camp in Manglisi of the Transcaucasian Military headquarters, I met many boys and their dads – colonels and heads of departments. Igor’s dad, the head of the city’s civil defense, was a cheerful man with a wheat color mustache and a sense of humor. Igor graduated from a mathematical school and was going to enter the physics department, but his father became a General and was transferred to Moscow with a promotion, and Igor settled at Moscow State University. But that didn’t stop us from chatting and exchanging jokes for student holidays. So the general liked my playful counting rhyme, and he wanted to refine, continue, and then create posters with easy-to-remember instructions for how to behave during a nuclear strike.
“I not only know General Grozdyev, but he is my former neighbor,” said Kunin. So you’re out of luck. If you lied, then…”
“I was lucky. I told the truth. And then what?”
“Well, then I’ll help you finalize the rhyme!”
Now it was my turn to be surprised.
“Look, Neiman, you have “crawled under the bed to die”. It’s not good, it’s bad. The moral level is defeatism! What you need is hope and faith! It needs to be changed somehow.”
“Do it quick and survive! – It’s five!” suggested I.
“Oh! This is a completely different matter! It’s five! And now listen to my command! Run to class! March!”
And I ran, pleased with this outcome.
The teacher in the class looked at me ironically, grinned and asked,
“What’s your reason for being late?”
I looked at my groupmates cheerfully, grinned and replied,
“I carried the assignment of General Grozdyev together with Major Kunin.”
The students rolled with laughter.
“Neiman, you understand that if you lied, then…”
“Why threats, comrade Captain. I told the truth. May I sit down?”
“Sit down. So far. Let’s continue. The current in the circuit of the receiving station RS during the retransmission of the encoded signal ES of the source station SS…”
“How I want to go to “France” again,” longingly, I imagined the walls of a cozy cafe lined with slates and ivy-covered…
Nick Neim's Stories 