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PARTISAN REVIEW
him I sent you. Busch will be glad to put you up."
"Who's Busch?'
"Busch is a really fantastic character. You'll see for yourself I think
you'll like him. His telephone number is four-oh-oh-one-one."
We said good-bye. Grishanya sat in the car. He lowered the car
window and stuck out his head.
"Do you need some money?" he asked.
I did need money. Needed it bad. All the same I said, "Thanks.
I'm
okay." I added, "Good luck."
"Ciao," said Grishanya.
I had been fired from my job at the beginning of October. No real
reason. I was kicked out, as they say, for the sum total of my faults. I
had taken too many liberties. In journalism, everybody has permission to
do one particular thing - one thing that violates the principles of social–
ist morality. For instance, one person's allowed to drink. Another, to
behave like a hooligan. A third, to tell political jokes. A fourth, to be a
Jew. A fifth, to be non-Party. A sixth, to lead a promiscuous life. And so
on. But each person, I repeat, is allowed just one thing. You can't be
both a Jew and a drunk, or both a hooligan and a non-Party member.
I was fatally all-inclusive. That is, I'd gradually reached the point
where I allowed myself everything. I drank, behaved badly, and openly
displayed my ideological myopia. Besides that, I wasn't a Party member
and was even part Jewish. And finally, my home-life was becoming more
and more complicated. So they fired me. They called me to a Party
committee meeting and said, "Enough! Don't forget - journalism is the
leading edge of the ideological front. And at the front, the most impor–
tant thing is discipline. And that's what you completely lack. Is that
clear?"
"More or less."
"We're going to give you a chance to reform. Go to a factory. Ask
for heavy physical work. Become a worker-correspondent. Write about
real life. . . ."
I could stand this no longer. "Yes," I said, "and for writing about
real life you'd shoot me down without a trial!"
Since then I hadn't had a regular job. I edited the memoirs of some
general. Wrote garbage for the radio. Put together a brochure, "How
Communists Subdued the Tundra." Then I wrote house book reviews
for magazines. Worked anonymously for television. In other words, I
became a freelance writer. And finally here I was in Tallinn. I spotted a
telephone booth next to the souvenir shop. I remembered the digits:
four-oh-oh-one-one. I dialed the number.
A woman's voice answered, "I'm listening!" (Only it came out,
"I'm
wistening.") "I'm wistening, dahwing!"
