FICTION
Sergei Dovlatov
THREE COMPROMISES
("Soviet Estonia, "
November, 1973)
SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE.
Scholars of eight countries are in Tallinn for the
Seventh Annual Conference on the Study of Scandinavia and Finland. There are
specialists representing the USSR, Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Finland,
Sweden, Denmark, and ffist Germany. At the conference panel discussions on
six different topics will be held. More than one hundred thirty scholars are
expected to attend. Historians, archaeologists, and linguists will deliver papers
and read reports. The conference will last until November 16.
The conference took place at the Polytechnic Institute . I
dropped by, talked to a few people. Within five minutes I had all the
information I needed for a news item. I left the piece at the
secretariat . Chief Editor Turonok appeared in my office, an unc–
tuous, marzipanish person . A certain type: the timid manipulator.
On this occasion highly excited . "You have committed a gross ideo–
logical blunder."
"?"
"You listed the countries .
"
"That's not permitted? "
"It's permitted and necessary. The problem is the way you
listed them. The order you put them in. 'You have here Hungary,
East Germany, Denmark, then Poland, the USSR, West
Germany . . ."
"Naturally, in alphabetical order."
"But that's a nonclass approach," Turonok groaned . "An
ironbound order must be followed . The people's democratic
countries-first! Then the neutral states . And at the rear the
members of the bloc."
Excerpted from
The Compromise
by Sergei Dovlatov, to be published by Alfred A.
Knopf.
Translated from the Russian by Anne Frydman.
