Untrodden paths

Bachkov: What’s wrong with barbed wire? As far as I know, you’ve been living in your Star City behind barbed wire all your life, without any objections.

Andrei: How do you know? Did you read it in my case files?

Bachkov: I was taken on a guided tour to your Cosmonaut’s Training Center. I used to be on the all-Russia boxing team, and as a champion was given a chance to see how you live there. I must say lots of people would envy the life behind barbed wire you have!

Andrei: Oh, really? So what did you find so tempting there? Sausage or foreign-made garb in our shops?

Bachkov: Well, if so, what’s wrong with it?

Andrei: Good question. I hope you, as a sportsman, should know that no one gets such things free: some pay for them with their health, some with their lives, and there are some who would readily sell their souls for those comforts. When our commanding fathers decided to lock me up, and ordered criminal charges brought against me, the investigator from our special prosecutor’s office, a rare species of a bastard, told me frankly: «You know I don’t have anything personal against you, but you see, I, too, have health problems. I have gastritis and I need a special dietary country cheese, which I can buy only in Star City, you understand?» I told him sympathetically that oatmeal boiled in water is quite good for the stomach, and he said «Ok, wise guy, I’ll see that you have plenty of it, and for a long time».

Bachkov: I’d rather move under the shed and play dominoes with the boys, it’s getting too hot here.

Exits.

Andrei, grinning: I guess it’s the topic which got too hot for him.

Victor: He’s the most decent male-nurse we have here. He studies at a medical college, incidentally. There are also two drunkards from the nearby alcoholic ward; as for the third one, I have no idea who he is, but he has the manners of a criminal, and he associates with Sasha’s sort.

Andrei: To tell you the truth, of the three types you’ve mentioned it’s the «decent» type I trust least. When I got in a psychiatric hospital for the first time and they certified me as non compos mentis, I went on a hunger-strike, demanding a court trial. On its seventh day, the hospital administration ordered me force-fed. And there were two male-nurses on duty that day: a «decent» one, as you say, incidentally, a college student too, and the other, an ex-convict, with two prison terms for burglary. And it was this guy who refused to take part in my force-feeding. So they asked for volunteers among the patients – about two thirds of our ward were criminals, brought either for forensic examination or transferred from psychiatric prisons. Well, none of them volunteered. The two who did came from a «decent» background. So your thesis that morals and ethics begin when scheming ends, I can confirm by my own past experience.

Victor: Well, what I said was that the human mind cannot foresee all the consequences of human acts, which is why it resorts to such safety rules as morals and ethics. But taking into account that the human mind, as it becomes increasingly ego-centered, quickly turns to scheming, rather than reasoning, I think your way of putting it is quite correct. Moreover, it may be painful for you to hear, but your interpretation is close to

Lenin’s. He, too, was rather skeptical of the intellectuals’ worth, remarking that they are not the nation’s brain, but rather its bran, or excrement.

Andrei: I don’t know what he said on that score. Anyway I’m not going to replace Christ’s commandments with class morals, the way he and his gang did.

Victor: Never say «never», because to some extent he was right on that score too. Of course, the morals of a social class are a poor substitute for Christ’s commandments, or rather the moral-ethical norms of the

Cosmos…

Andrei: So, why was Lenin right, then?

Victor: He was right to a point because the degree of human receptiveness to Christ’s commandments, incidentally, based on love – that is, the capability of compassion and sacrifice – this receptiveness, indeed, depends on class consciousness: the more oppressed it is, the greater its capacity for compassion and sacrifice. It’s not so much our being, as our beatings, which determine our consciousness. Christ himself stressed that idea, remarking that it’s easier for a camel to pass through the needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Andrei: It’s no use arguing with you.

Victor: Why not? It’s in dispute that truth is discovered. Though our cellmates with criminal records, like

Sasha, would say that «He who argues isn’t worth shit».

Andrei: I’m afraid they are more correct under the present conditions.

Victor smiling: I see you are already learning the principle of relativity and condition. Incidentally, if I got you right, you live in Star City?

Andrei: Yes.

Victor: And what did they try to prosecute you for?

Andrei: Easy question which is hard to answer. You see when the KGB tries to frame you, the formal charges they bring against you quite often have nothing to do with the actual cause for which you are being prosecuted. In my case the actual reason was so foul that they even were not unanimous on their formal charges and tried everything that might stick, from low parasitism to high treason, but finally decided on evasion of military service.

Victor: I see. A Russian continuation of Yaroslav Gashek’s story of the brave soldier Sweik: a spy, a lunatic and a deserter all rolled into one.

Andrei: Yes, sir.

Victor: So what did you do to them that they have such a grudge against you?

Andrei: Nothing. And that’s the grudge. As I said it’s a long story which started 15—17 years back when they began pressing me to snitch on my schoolmates, and my mother to inform on the cosmonauts, because, as they put, «some of them allowed themselves too much».

We refused – and were subjected to rabid harassment, which is easy in a closed garrison. In short, I was vaccinated against TB, although this vaccination was strictly proscribed to me on health grounds, and against which mother repeatedly warned the doctors. After their vaccination I developed problems with my lungs.

Victor: And they did their best to conceal its cause, leaving you without a diagnosis, but offering treatment in exchange for cooperation, right?