128
PARTISAN REVIEW
you now as a souvenir. ..."
"Let's burn it," 1 said. "Send it to the devil and out of harm's way."
"Okay," agreed Busch.
We tore the paper to pieces and burned it in the wash basin. I was
running late. 1 called a taxi. Busch went with me to the train station.
On the platform he took my hand.
"What can 1 do for you?" he asked. "How can 1 help you?"
"I don't need a thing," I said. I embraced him and got on the train.
Busch stood alone on the platform. 1 forgot to mention how short he
was. 1 waved to him. In response, he raised his fist
(Die rote Front.0
and
then opened two fingers
(Victory.0.
The train began to move.
I've been living in America for over five years now. My wife and
daughter are with me. When she bought her last pair of jeans, Katya
walked on them for forty minutes, then cut holes in the knees.
Not long ago in Brooklyn, a fellow hollered at me on the street. I
peered at him and recognized Grishanya - the guy who had driven me
from Leningrad to Tallinn. We went to the nearest restaurant. Grishanya
told me he'd served only six months of his sentence and then succeeded
in bribing someone. They let him go.
"If you take, you must also know how to give," said Grishanya
philosophically.
I asked him how Busch was.
"I don't know," he said. "But Shablinsky was appointed director of
the Secretariat."
We agreed to call each other. But I never got around to it. Nor
did he. A month ago, 1 read something about Captain Rudi in the pa–
per. Mter he'd served four years in Mordovia, some organization inter–
vened for him. He got an early release. He's living in Hamburg now.
1 asked everyone 1 could think of about Busch. According to some
reports, he was in prison. According to others, he married the widow of
the Minister of Fisheries. Both stories seem plausible. And both make me
feel wretched. Where is he now - handsome lover and dissident,
schizophrenic, hero and poet, disturber of the peace - Ernst
Leopoldovich Busch?!
TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY DONALD M. FIENE
