IGOR POMERANZEV
55
rested for several minutes and again struck out into the sea, working
my arms, legs, and entire body. I did not just fall into the sand on
the beach; I simply collapsed from sheer pleasure and exhaustion. It
was just at that moment that they arrested me.
We drove in a private car from the 11 th station to the center of
town. On the right and left of me sat two stout, young KGB agents.
In the front sat their friend, aged about fifty. My wet swimming
trunks cut into my body. My pants turned wet from my trunks,
leaving dark patches on the front and back. About one meter in front
of me I saw the needle on the speedometer quivering. I kept thinking
if only I would not tremble like that needle. There were people
walking on the sidewalk. Some of them, not noticing that the car was
full, tried waving us down to get a lift. How I would have loved to
change places with anyone of them. With what joy I would have
walked along the burning pavement under the hot Black Sea sun,
rather than be speeding away in this comfortable "Volga" to meet
such a disquieting, such a morose unknown.
Dear reader, forgive me this shocking beginning. Even though I
like Ian Fleming, I would always prefer Marcel Proust. But what
can an admirer of Proust do when, on the last day of August, 1976,
he was in fact carried away from the golden sands of the Black Sea
by three bonebreakers, who, ignoring the quizzical looks of the other
sunbathers, shoved him into a car and drove him down Karl
Libknekht Street at 100 km/hr to the Committee of State Security in
the city and county of Odessa that falls under the Council of
Ministers of the Ukrainian S.S.R.?
There is such an Article 62 of the Criminal Code of the
Ukrainian S.S.R. Among other crimes listed in this article, you will
find the "possession and dissemination of anti-Soviet literature." I
have a feeling that most people who live in the West would make
sense of "possession and dissemination" in their own way . They
might imagine some sort of subversives, stained with printer's ink,
who by the sweat of their brow print leaflets with the heading,
"Down with the Soviet Government." Or else they might imagine
some covert stranger standing by a photocopier, surrounded by
hundreds of copies of pamphlets with some dynamically similar text.
Let me explain . By "possession" is meant that in your own home on
your night table or shelf, you may have books or magazines that
were not published by the official publishers in the Soviet Union and
which the investigating organs could consider anti-Soviet at their
