Part One – There
(Eastern Hemisphere)
CHAPTER FIFTY SIX – THE ADMISSION
July was drawing to an end. I was already studying hard in chemistry and biology.
Teymuraz Achba, Deputy Minister of Health wisely decided not to make his own order, but brought to the referendum of the Health Ministry Board an Academician A.’s petition – “Obtaining a second education by a former junior researcher of the Institute of Traumatology GSSR.”
The secretary of the deputy minister gave me a copy of the resolution, which sounds like a parody to the Higher School rules statement – “Based on the petition of academician A, please allow Neiman N.V. to participate in the competition for admission to TSMS on a general basis.”
I came to The Medical School. No chairmen or secretaries were needed anymore. The girl accepting the documents looked at her journal and asked,
“What’s your last name? Neiman? So you have already submitted your documents!” and she named the date of receipt of my papers by registered mail, “You must take from me your applicant book for exam marks and sign in the register.”
I accomplished this with ease. There was less than a week left before the beginning of exams.
I continued “to gnaw” the science. This had to be done diligently. Among other things, I could have encountered Vice-Rector Avaliani, who was also the Chairman of the Biology Admissions Committee, during the biology exam. I didn’t need a fight, so I decided to answer well and refuse to go to the Chairman for an excellent assessment (A or 5). Good mark (B or 4) suited me just fine. I was going to do the same thing in the chemistry exam so as not to accidentally get into trouble. I didn’t need to repeat the physics. I could start dictating my notes in the middle of the night from any point to any direction. The Russian language exam didn’t bother me too. I wrote any free topic with virtually no errors (in simple phrases), so either A (5) or B (4) was good for me.
And suddenly, just before the start of the battle, I receive a telegram from Odessa,
“Surprise! Meet us on such and such a flight from Odessa. Nataly and Dasha.”
Ha-ha, that was great! Not only will I take exams, I will have two guests – two fans! This was a real thrill!
And so it turned out. During the day I was preparing, and the girls were walking around the city with Izya. And later, when the heat subsided a little, I joined them. The night was becoming my kingdom. Natalie and I were in one room, and Dasha stayed sad in another. The idea to visit Dasha came to my mind on the very first night, but Natalie begged me not to do it. Although I really wanted to conduct such an “action-packed” experiment, I agreed with her requests; at the end, Natalie won me over last summer, inviting me and keeping me, despite the presence of a strict mother and little daughter, and that was worth something.
Exams brought their share of tension. I passed physics and literature with no tiny problem. In physics, I ran into my former university teacher, who taught me a workshop on quantum physics. Although we haven’t met since then, she was stressed by our meeting. She has initially thought that I was taking the exam instead of someone, but she couldn’t bring herself to raise the alarm. I easily got an excellent grade, and was surprised that everyone around me congratulated me on this. How could it be otherwise?
During the written exam in literature, I noticed a stocky woman of about sixty observing the applicants. Obviously, she was a freedom-loving person – she openly smoked wherever she wanted. Walking between the rows of tables where applicants were bending over their essays, she doused me with the scent of a smoking cigarette.
“Could you, please, stand next to me for a while? I really want to smoke,” I whispered.
She raised her eyebrows in surprise, but lingered near the table for a moment, taking a drag and exhaling smoke. I regarded this as friendly support and… I was not mistaken – I received an excellent mark.
I described this episode to Izya.
“What did the woman look like?” he asked, “Dense, strongly built, with a topknot of black hair and a noticeable mustache?”
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“This is the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Professor Nina Petrovna Kvintadze. Very independent and, I would say, courageous. She, the only one of the graduate fellows of the pathologist, Professor Kogan, accused in the case saboteur doctors who were allegedly preparing to poison Stalin, refused to defend her dissertation rather than change her supervisor. The pathologist, who was acquitted immediately after Stalin’s death, told her: “The smoke clears, but the truth remains!” and bequeathed his library to the brave and honest graduate fellow.
Many people say that she is very partial to her current male graduate students. What’s wrong with that? Strong personalities always have hormones, regardless of gender,” Izya laughed.
The third exam was chemistry.
Some difficulties could arise here. And of course they arose. There was one question I didn’t know. Well, it’s not that I didn’t know it at all, but I felt insecure and therefore didn’t want to answer, so as not to incur thunder and lightning. Everything else was in order: I balanced the chemical reaction and easily calculated the problem. I had to answer, and I took control of it.
I answered the first question and asked them to evaluate it: did I make at least one mistake or missed something. The two examiners got into a state of excitement: the fucking over-aged applicant was telling them what to do. On the other hand, it was required by law, but what if they were being checked? Out of harm’s way, like two greyhounds, they sniffed the paper with my answer to the first question and agreed – 5 points for this question. Of course, I understood that now they would be strict with me, but the reaction and the problem were undeniable, five points each, and for another question I would get at least 3 points, which gave me a total of 18 points – the minimum for a “good” grade (B). And so it happened, for the second question I was given 4 points. But when I got to the third question and said that I wanted to skip it for now, maybe I’ll score enough points, the examiners protested, saying that I had to answer questions strictly in order. But it was a setup on my part.
“Okay, give me 0 points for this question,” I summed up, which plunged both of them into a new attack of excitement.
Nevertheless, they pulled themselves together, recorded 0 points for the third question and moved on to the problems. Here I confidently scored 5 points for each, and a total of 19. This meant the long-awaited calm 4 (B) without a meeting with the chairman of the chemistry commission. Who, besides Izya, could know what kind of relationship he had with Avaliani, and whether my end would await me in his hands? One of my examiners wrote a good grade in chemistry in my applicant’s book and asked:
“And would you be able to answer the missed third question?”
“Of course, I could” I nodded, “But I’m in a hurry, and one, two, or three points for this question wouldn’t change my grade – why waste time? And having received four or five points (that is, having scored overall 24 or 25 points), you would have to go to the chairman, wait in line, and then answer questions and solve problems. And for what? Because of one score point? This is of no use to me.
Such calmness and prudence were extremely surprising, and the elder of the two examiners asked:
“If it’s not a secret, where are you rushing?”
“If you only knew what beautiful girlfriends from Odessa are waiting for me at home,” I admitted, and from their eyes wide open I realized that they believed me and knew it.
At home, of course, we celebrated the successfully passed exam with Izya, Dasha and Nataly.
“For a month of classes, that’s a good mark, but why the hell didn’t you want to answer about starch?” Izya asked, “I don’t believe you didn’t know this easy question.”
“Well, consider that, according to Freud, it was distracting me from chemistry, causing obscene associations.”
“I trust you on this matter,” said Izya, and everyone laughed.
The last exam was the main test. It was biology, that is, a possible meeting with Professor Avaliani that should not have happened. I was not afraid of the exam itself, since I knew a lot and was able, as chemistry showed, to manage the course of the exam. More than other sections, I was worried about botany, which I, of course, knew superficially. However, I was incredibly lucky: the day before we celebrated Nataly’s birthday, and I bought her an armful of lilies at the market.
“This is my favorite flower,” Nataly smiled.
“Then I must learn its formula,” I decided and… Like in a fairy tale, a day later, at the biology exam, I got the lily family on the ticket.
I knew by heart how many stamens, pistils, sepals, petals, etc. a flower has. The examiner, a plump, middle-aged woman, was amazed at my knowledge and asked,
“Do you know everything this well, or just botany?”
“The botany is the weakest parts of my biology knowledge,” I said honestly, but I didn’t explain my luck.
Then I talked about the heart of mammals, about structure of muscles and about worms, which especially touched the examiner. I didn’t know then that my examiner was the Head the Department of Parasitology. Then I solved a problem on genetics and scored 25 points.
“I can’t give you an excellent grade; for an A, you must answer to the Chairman of the Commission,” the examiner explained.
“Please, write it down. I agree to 4 (B)!”
“What are you talking about, you have to fight for every score,” the woman encouraged me.
“It’s not worth it,” I objected, “I have enough points.”
“How can you know?” she was indignant at the applicant’s stupidity, “Listen to what the professor and… the lady tells you.”
“Madame,” I said as if in the theater and in Georgian it sounded like Mistress, “If you wish me well, issue a 4 (B) and let me go with God.”
She looked at me with confusion.
“What a stubborn donkey!” said her look, “So let it be worse for you! She took my applicant’s book, wrote “Good (4)” and signed it.
At that moment, the roar of a wounded lion was heard, and the figure of Vice-Rector Avaliani appeared near the table.
“That’s where he is!” the lion roared, “How does he answer?”
“Good and even excellent, but…”
“So I’ll examine him! How does a muscle respond to irritation?” he growled again, and his eye started twitching.
“It’s twitching,” I said. – And if the irritation is strong, tetanus can occur.
The Vice-Rector’s eyelid clenched in spasm, his face twisted, and he howled,
“No, no and no! The correct answer is “The muscle responds to irritation by contracting!” He doesn’t know anything! His mark is 3 (C)! No – wait! What causes the contraction?”
“Irritation!” I grinned, glad that I managed to avoid the inquisitor’s pincers.
“I told you he doesn’t know anything!” he screamed, “A change of membrane potential. That’s it! His mark is 2 (D)! He has failed the exam!”
“Calm down, Dzhumber Petrovich, the applicant answered perfectly, but agreed to a four, which I had already entered and signed in his documents. It seems that I now understand the reason why he agreed for a 4 (B).
“What do you understand? He doesn’t know anything!”
“Do you doubt my competence?” My examiner suddenly raised her voice, “I had the right to rate his answer 4 points, and I did it!”
Avaliani just waved his hand in anger and went to undermine others, facilitating my enrollment.
And the next day we had seen off Dasha home, and we ourselves began to wait for the result, although everything was already clear. I persuaded Nataly to go to the seaside with me for a week before the start of the semester.
“How will I go?” she marveled, “I have neither a swimsuit nor money.”
“Wonderful!” I laughed, “These are particular girls’ things, which interfere with my relationships with them.”
“But seriously?”
“We’ll buy a swimsuit – 10 rubles, a train ticket to the sea – 10 rubles, and live there – a couple of kopecks. Well, don’t I have a little money for a good rest, which I, a famous penguinator, physicist and future doctor, had deserved?”
“Oh, you show-off,” Nataly laughed, and we went to Sukhumi.
Nick Neim's Stories 