30
PARTISAN REVIEW
authors of books about Trotsky . He argued , he accused, he de–
fended himself. . . . Sometimes he would pace back and forth in the
corridor or jump up clenching his fists . Did he feel he was squeezing
the icepick's handle , about to strike? Could those tales about a vic–
tim's ghost pursuing the murderer be true?
Knowing and not being able to tell is torture. I could no longer
work at the same table as Mercader, but I was reluctant, even afraid
to change my seat in Room 88 . Thus, I trudged through the com–
mon reading rooms , greeted friends , talked about everything except
what was on my mind, generally wasted time . I was so disturbed by
the persistent internal dialogue that I lost all sense of caution. And I
was swiftly punished.
If
to gain access to the spets was like winning a lottery, to lose it
through carelessness was like losing the winning ticket. It happened
so rarely that the story is worth telling. Once, lost in indecision, I
was walking through the library and ran into an old pal who had the
strangest job in the world. He was a translator of nonexistent poetry
from Central Asian languages. His clients were poets from Central
Asia or sometimes , Caucasian republics, who absolutely had to
publish in Russian.
If
a translation then appeared in a central jour–
nal the poet was showered with goodies : membership in the Union
of Writers, well-paid book contracts in local publishing houses, of–
ficial positions, power. The creative process went like this . The poet
explained in less than lapidary Russian prose what poem he would
write if only he could. My friend nodded approvingly and took
notes. Only a few days later he would read to the poet a flowing
stream of verse in which Soviet rule triumphed over the desert and
the happy Kirghiz (Kazakh , or any other Central Asian person)
wrote a song about his newfound happiness. The central journals
had a quota for ethnic minorities: sooner or later they published my
friend's poems, for he was, after all, a talented versifier. My friend
sincerely admired his clients. "What vitality!" he would exclaim.
"Under a different regime these people would play the stock market
or join the mafia. Here they become poets and join the Union of
Writers. Such characters won't lose out in any place ."
The translations commanded a princely reward . Grapes and
aromatic melons, Armenian cognac thirty years old, and Turkoman
carpets-all on top of the honorarium. However, there were also a
few real poets , who published real books - occasionally good books–
and then the work took a serious turn. My friend maintained a
