Part One – There
(Eastern Hemisphere)
CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE – I’M UP TO SOMETHING
Inspired by Sasha’s departure and the successful (or unsuccessful, depending on how you look at it) acquaintance with Beba, I decided that it was time for me to make a decision. To find your way. However the only area, in which I succeeded in six years after graduation the university, was teaching private pupils (penguins, as we called them). Rightly it was or wrongly, I have not seen it as a source of life abroad. I couldn’t expect to work in a research laboratory there – I didn’t have any suitable scientific achievements or articles that I could rattle as with medals.
As a result of reflection, I came to the conclusion: I need to retrain! Once in school, I would have liked to go to medical school, but there was no way to overcome corruption. Now the situation was different. The rector’s office has changed (the previous rector was removed and even imprisoned for bribes), but the applicant, Nick, has also changed to a significant extent. There was no way to make him fail an examination (have an unsatisfactory score D or 2) during the admission exams. I had no doubt about getting an A (5) in the written physics exam! Is it a joke, my best students, having memorized my perfect physics notes, earned excellent grades, but I can’t? It was only necessary to avoid low satisfactory scores C (3) in the remaining exams.
Some part of my brain told me,
“You just don’t dare emigrating and are looking for a reason to stay.”
Another part (of the same brain) objected,
“It’s not true, even since in middle school, I wanted to find my grandmother’s family in North America and emigrate there through the Red Cross. But you need to do it prepared. A doctor is a good specialty needed in any country.” I also had a personal reason for becoming a doctor. My grandfather was prevented from doing so by the revolution, and my father – by the war. I had to complete this mission for them!
The idea captivated me more and more with its unusualness and mystery – I did not know of similar examples. But still, “one head is good, but two are better”, and I went to consult with a man whom I respected very much – Eli’s brother-in-law, a chemist, a polyglot (multilingual person) and my colleague in penguins tutoring (You remember him from Chapter 36).
It was Izya and he was delighted with my plans.
“Wah! Wow! Brilliant! You have to show them all!” my talented supporter shouted, danced and shook his fists. “Do you know chemistry? Not well enough? It’s okay, you’ll master it in a month or two, and I’ll help you with some chapters. How about biology? This is simply a fiction – read a little!”
I had Willie’s – American translated biology textbook, which we used at the university, and I also took biochemistry, molecular biology, in a word, I knew a thing or two. But there was still a lot that needed to be refreshed in my memory.
As soon as the idea was formed, I began to prepare, that is, read chemistry and biology textbooks. As usual, my mother and sister left in the summer, and it seemed to me that everything would be as simple as a multiplication table. But it turned out that the difficulties were hidden absolutely not there, where I could have imagined.
Starting from a certain date, applications and documents for institutes were accepted, and I took my papers to the medical institute. In addition to a passport with a registered address, the main documents for applying to the institute were a high school certificate and a work record book, in which it was necessary to have at least six months of work experience for each year after high school graduation. I graduated school eleven years ago, which means I should have had at least five and a half years of work experience. I had six years of experience after graduating from university. That is, last year I could have already submitted documents (ten years after high school graduating, and five years of work experience), but two years ago and earlier I would not have succeeded, since the work experience was less than required by law. “Wow,” I thought, “how I matured with my idea quite in time!”
But there were many more pitfalls, because my work record was not fake, but real, and it included four years of work as a junior researcher at a research institute and two years of work as an assistant at the physics department.
The girl accepting the documents looked dumbfounded at the copy of the work report and muttered,
“I have to show your papers to the Secretary of the Admissions Committee, we never had such a case…”
“Please, show him.”
“But he’s not here right now, he’s at a meeting with the rector, then he’ll go to the ministry… You’d better leave your documents and come by tomorrow morning.”
The next day new surprises were awaiting for me.
“Unfortunately, young man, I cannot accept your documents,” the Secretary of the Admissions Committee, a respectable man, a doctor and teacher, told me, “You can’t go to college a second time, read the laws.”
“Could you show me the law that prohibits this?”
“I could,” said the Secretary, “But I won’t. This is not my responsibility. I wish you success.”
So far I had nothing to object to. I had to find a collection of laws on higher education and read what it says about re-entry into Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs). Fortunately, I knew this book and once I held it in my hands, fighting an attempt to suddenly dismiss me from the Institute of Traumatology at the whim of the then director (See Chapter 39). And now I needed to determine whether my documents were not accepted at the whim of the officials? I went to the next building, where my classmate Katya worked in the library of the Medical School.
“Hello, Katyusha, I need to look at the collection of laws on Higher School. Can you help me with the book?”
“Of course, sit down for a while.”
She returned slightly surprised.
“Both copies were taken yesterday. One was taken by the Secretary of the Admissions Committee, and the second – by the Vice-Rector, the chairman of the committee. I don’t remember them ever being interested in a collection of laws before, but maybe someone is inspecting them.”
“Yes,” I grinned, “This ‘inspector’ is me. I decided to enter the Medical School, but they don’t accept my documents, they say it’s illegal.”
“Well-well!” Katya was amazed, “What are you going to do? They can’t be defeated. Don’t you know who manages our laws?”
“The ones who knows them best!” I summed it up and went to the Ministry of Education, where my aunt Ella worked as an assistant to the minister.
There were no problems with the Collection of Laws there; it was Ella’s reference book. The book explained that a citizen of the USSR could receive a correspondence or evening education an unlimited number of times, while working. However, there were no correspondence or evening Medical School. Receiving repeated higher full-time day-time education was allowed if:
1. In this region the need for a previously acquired specialty has disappeared;
2. The person has lost the ability to earn money with a previously acquired specialty due to a medical reason;
3. The organization, requests that for this specialist it is necessary or useful for his work to acquire a second specialty.
I left soon with two Xerox copies of the page I needed. As I have just seen, the barriers for the lovers of repeated education were high, but on the other hand, there was, naturally, no obvious ban on a second higher education.
It is absolutely clear that the first two paragraphs had nothing to do with me, but the third one could be successfully completed. I worked for several years at the Institute of Traumatology and worked on bone regeneration. And in some ways, it would actually be nice for me to have a medical degree. There was only a small detail left – to receive such a letter signed by the director of the institute. This position recently shifted to an old friend of mine, Academician A, whom I refused in spying in Kyiv. I could not turn to an academician for help, but… the deputy director for science at the institute was my defender Chichiko, the father of my favorite students, a classmate of both my aunt Leah and my school director, who moved to the district Communist Party Committee as the Second Secretary. She knew me as a good student in my senior year, a participant in the All-Union Mathematics Olympiad, and she was friends with my aunt and Chichiko. I had to try…
I went to the district Communist Party Committee and made an appointment with the Second Secretary.
“What’s the matter, Nick?’ the former headmistress of my school was surprised.
And I spoke completely honestly and openly to her about my idea to get a medical education, handed over a copy of the “Regulations on Repeated Education” and asked if she could contact Chichiko.
“I’ll try,” the slightly tired but still interesting woman said, “Call me back in a couple of days.”
So I did.
“You can visit Chichiko at work, he has something for you,” said my patron.
And I rushed to SRITO, where I got my first work experience. Albert Titianovich was sitting in his office just that time.
“Have you already screwed the Second Secretary of the Party District Committee?” he asked slyly, squinting one eye, “How is she? Is she still able for something?”
“As I saw it, yes,” I answered evasively, “How did you manage to persuade the academician?”
“Does one of us look like a fool? Take your recommendation and run before he returns from vacation and discovers the forgery.”
With these words, Chichiko handed me a text on SRITO letterhead, signed with some kind of squiggle, in which I could guess the academician’s facsimile. The whole trick was that before the signature there was a slash, which could be taken either as the initial of the academician’s name before his surname, or as a clerical sign “signed for that person.”
The text read, “This recommendation has been issued to Nikolai Neiman, former junior researcher of Research Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics in Tbilisi for admission to the Tbilisi State Medical School. Medical education will be extremely useful in the research of reparative regeneration, which N. Neiman is engaged in.”
I sincerely thanked Chichiko.
“Okay, that’s all trifles. We are all from the same company. Just answer me two questions: why the hell do you need this? To emigrate as a doctor?”
“Of course,” I nodded, “This diploma is very expensive there. These were my answers to your two questions.”
“Oh, I miscalculated! So I won’t know if her dentures fall out during a blowjob!”
I again went to the Medical Institute to meet with the Secretary of the Admissions Committee.
“How do you do?” I told him, “I carefully read the Regulations on the acceptance of documents for repeated education in the Higher School collection. There is no ban there. And all my papers correspond to its paragraphs. Please verify and accept my documents.”
The secretary frowned. He was an elderly man and did not take well to the disobedience of some applicant to him, a respected man in a responsible position. His face took on an arrogant expression, and he looked at my papers with disgust. Even a superficial glance was enough for him to notice a new document – a recommendation from SRITO. The matter got complicated: not only did this lousy troublemaker Neiman quickly get his bearings, he also had a “hairy paw” (connections with powerful people).
“I must consult with my superiors,” the secretary answered me, “After lunch, you will be received by the Chairman of the Admissions Committee, Academician Avaliani, the Vice-Rector of the Medical School for academic affairs.”
I was waiting until the end of the working day. Then, I was indeed received by corresponding member (and not the academician) Avaliani, pompous as a Lord Tomato from Gianni Rodary “Cipollino” children’s book.
“I’m not going to allow you, Neiman, to enter my institute. You already have a higher education, so don’t try to take away a place from our golden youth!”
“I’m not going to take away seats from worthy candidates. I am applying for admission to the institute on a general basis, that is, by competition. ”
“Anyway, in order to avoid making a mistake, for which superiors may later reproach me,” and he poked his thick finger in the air above his head a few times, as if massaging the prostate of an invisible ass, “I won’t accept your documents until I have an order from the Ministry of Health of Georgia to admit you to the competition for on general grounds.”
“Can I receive a written refusal to accept documents?”
“In no case! Maybe you’ve never brought them here!” and he laughed, reveling in his own wit or in his power.
I retreated temporarily again. It was necessary to think everything over and consult with Izya about who in the ministry would be more appropriate to contact.
Izya was a wonderful person in my eyes. I have always been in awe of the depth of human memory. I have already mentioned Izya’s linguistic talents. He moved to Tbilisi from Baku, speaking fluent Russian, Azerbaijani (Turkic) and Farsi, and entered Tbilisi University at the Faculty of Chemistry. It didn’t bother him at all that there was no Russian sector. “Great!” said young Izya, “I’ll learn Georgian faster.”
And he not only mastered a new language, but became an expert in it, so that his Georgian classmates addressed him as a linguist. For this ability, Izya was very much loved at the faculty, and he, in turn, fell in love with kind, noisy and talkative people. He began to travel around Georgia and its regions, memorizing dialects, meeting relatives of his classmates throughout the country. And that same wonderful memory for languages turned out to be just as receptive to faces and names. Izya remembered hundreds, maybe thousands of people and their family connections.
And so, I came to Izya’s house and told him about my adventures in recent days.
“Dogs!” said the polyglot, “But their song has being sung!” (They are done).
Most likely he meant totalitarian communist regimes, but at the moment this referred to a very narrow group of bureaucrats.
“It doesn’t matter if they didn’t take your documents; you’ll send them by registered mail and you’ll have a receipt that they were received by the Admissions Committee of the medical institute. But this is not the main thing. The most important thing is to figure out who to contact correctly in the ministry in order to receive the necessary instructions for the medical institute.
And he began to analyze. It sounded something like this,
“The Minister. So and so. Born then and there. Who do I know from these places?” (Then, a list of names with an explanation of their work and possible relationship to the minister followed).
“Here! Tsisana Burjanadze is the same age as the minister, she studied in the same district, and her father, Terentiy Burjanadze, was the coach of the district’s football team. As a child, the minister was a normal Georgian boy, which means he loved football and was trained by her father…
(Over the phone) Hello, Tsisana! We haven’t spoken for many years… How are you? (Then an exchange of family news followed). How’s your father? What are you saying? Last year? I missed it somehow. (Then memories of her late father followed). Did Terentiy coach our current minister during his school years? Oh, he kicked him out of the team for unsportsmanlike behavior?! Then it’s clear how he turned out to be a minister…”
After three hours of such Izya’s conversations on the phone my head started to spin, but Izya felt like a fish in the water. Finally he turned to me,
“Okay, Nick, I’m already waiting for my students. If you want you may stay, but don’t worry, I’ll continue without you and, of course, everything will become clear.”
After several such evenings, a picture began to emerge – the majority of deputy ministers and members of the board should not have interested us. They had a lot of compromising evidence on them, and it was impossible to expect attention or sympathy from them without a bribe. However, among this whole gang there was a new deputy – a relatively young doctor from Abkhazia, Teymuraz Achba, a protégé of a high party boss. With each call, Izya collected more and more positive reviews for Teymuraz. We learned that he is against bribery and for the restoration of morality. All of Izya’s telephone activity looked like intelligence gathering, and in fact it was so. And, as you can see, the main thing in this was memory and knowledge of languages.
One evening, Izya said,
“It seems that Teymuraz is the person who suits you. Try to convince him to put pressure on Vice-Rector Avaliani. I am sure that Teymuraz does not like or respect him. The Vice-Rector is nothing more than a loudmouth and mediocrity, the son of a wonderful scientist, academician, whom he has been trying to catch up with all his life, but is completely incapable of doing so.”
The next morning I went to the ministry to make an appointment with Deputy Minister Teymuraz Achba. Do you think it was easy? You were not allowed into the ministry. If someone was waiting for a visitor, the security guard would call that employee and ask him to issue a pass for the visitor. You presented your passport at the window, which was temporarily exchanged for a pass.
I honestly said that I wanted to make an appointment.
“The scheduling the appointments holds on Thursdays, after lunch.”
It was Friday. You can’t imagine any day worse…
But at that moment the mother of my school classmate Misha entered the building. Misha’s dad was once a famous professor of gynecology, many years older than his wife. But by that time she had already become a popular gynecologist herself and had a permanent pass to the ministry.
“How are you, Nick? What are you doing here?”
“I’m trying to make an appointment with the deputy minister, but they’re only allowed into the office on Thursdays.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll help you with this. Stand near the window, they will call you now.”
Indeed, after a while the window opened,
“Neiman!” said a voice from inside, “Give me your passport!”
And they issued me a pass to the office. A woman was already waiting for me there.
“Now let’s see what I can do for you. I respect your aunt so much and I perform all abortions only in her office.”
“Thank you,” I said, “She has wonderful hands… and heart.”
In an atmosphere of complete goodwill, the woman made an appointment for me with Deputy Minister Teymuraz Achba on Monday.
“There are a lot of people on this day, I’ll sign you up for 4:00 PM. You should arrive half an hour earlier.”
On Monday, with a statement – a request for permission to submit documents to the Tbilisi State Medical School for admission through a competition on a general basis, a recommendation from the Scientific Research Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics and a stack of documents for all occasions, I showed up for an appointment with the Deputy Minister of Health.
Without any digression, I said that the chairman of the Admission Committee did not dare to take over the acceptance of my documents, because the case was unusual. He wants support from the ministry.
“You probably don’t understand that Achba, who supports Neiman, looks like a renegade. Why did you come to me for this support?”
“Because you seem to be a real communist (a hint at his party connections) and not a nationalist (that is, not an Abkhaz nationalist and not an anti-Semite). I perfectly understand your concerns…”
Moreover, I understood that Teymuraz was worried whether I was a decoy,
“But all concerns are based on a superficial view – ‘Achba supports Neiman.’ In fact, the Deputy Minister is supporting the Academician A, a laureate of the USSR State Prize, respected in Georgia, Russia, and abroad, and not a corresponding member, respected… only in his office.
The deputy minister leaned back in his chair and thought, automatically winding some thread around a pencil in his left hand.
Did he really recalled the joke: what happens if you tie a pencil to a member? – A corresponding member!
“I’ll try to put the question to the board on Wednesday,” Teymuraz woke up, “Visit my secretary on Thursday, they will issue you a pass.”
In the evening I came to Izya’s “headquarters”. His family, his wife and two sons, left for the summer dacha. The eldest Borya was an erudite, like his father, and the two-three-year-old Dima was silent, like a mute, only humming, poking his finger at objects, and I always felt sorry for the child, looking at this. But now the quiet apartment looked like a crypt.
“The cheese sprouted in the empty refrigerator,” said Izya.
Greenish shoots from the cheese on the plate rose to the top shelf.
“Will you eat it? Not big deal, it’s just a fungus! Penicillin!”
We ate cheese with “penicillin” (like Roquefort), washed it down with strong sweet tea (like chifir) and discussed today’s visit to Ministry.
“I think that Teymuraz will screw them all,” Izya chuckled, “Along with this pompous Vice-Rector. Life is an interesting thing!”
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