allowed to work if they are not fit. It is true, Cousin Dean, that in America, sometimes the reactor workers use drugs on the job?'
'I've heard that, yes,' Garfield conceded. 'I think it was just security guards and maybe laborers, though, not technicians. You don't have grass here?'
The teacher had to have that explained, and translated it finally as 'marijuana.' Smin shook his head. 'But,' grinned the American, 'I suppose now and then somebody does drink a little?'
'Never!' Smin declared. 'No Soviet citizen drinks a little! We drink only very much — pass me your glass!'
Though Smin himself did not drink at all, not even the wine, there was plenty for everyone else, and even the two teachers were flushed and smiling. Smin's mother told over and over how the letter from America had reached her only that morning and she had at once telephoned the hotel and sent a car for the visitors. Vassili Smin explained in detail the great importance of his father's work, and how he himself might someday be a nuclear engineer — or perhaps a helicopter pilot, like his elder brother Nikolai, now already a senior lieutenant (though no one mentioned exactly what country Lieutenant Nikolai Smin was flying his helicopter in).
The Americans told how greatly they had been impressed by Moscow (immense city, like one huge monument) and Leningrad (yes, really, certainly properly called the Venice of the North), and how this evening was, all the same, definitely the high spot of their trip, and they all agreed that it was a great pity that contact had been established so late, since the Garfields were scheduled to leave for Tbilisi in the morning. In the relaxed and friendly atmosphere, Didchuk daringly told a couple of Soviet jokes, his eye on Smin to make sure he was not being indiscreet, including the Radio Armenia one about the definition of a string trio (a Soviet quartet that has just returned from a tour of the West), and Dean Garfield responded with one about Aeroflot stewardesses. (In America the hostesses said, 'Coffee, tea or me?' and on Aeroflot they said, 'White wine, cherry juice, or go off in a corner, Comrade, and do it to yourself.') But that one, apart from requiring much agitated consultation about the translation, made the woman teacher blush.
Smin stole a glance at his watch. After ten, and they were still sitting around the dinner table. At least, he thought comfortably, it had been, what? three or more hours now when he had not had to think about the problems of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station. He thought, with amused sympathy — a little sympathy and a lot more amusement — of the Chief Engineer and the Personnel man, stuck with trying to get rid of the observers who had no experiment to observe. Not for the first time, he thought that his mother's old-fashioned ways were sometimes a convenience. If there had been a telephone in the house, he would have been tempted to call the plant. Since it was out of the question, he could simply relax.
It was not even difficult to keep up a conversation. Having explained America to his Soviet family, Dean Garfield was now explaining the Soviet Union to them. The)' had already done Leningrad and Moscow — had even, Smin was slightly startled to hear, managed to get tickets to the famous emigre
Vladimir Horowitz's once-in-a-lifetime piano recital in Moscow just a few days earlier. (And how many Soviet citizens would have given a month's pay for such tickets? But, of course, Intourist gave first priority to tourists — who could, after all, have heard him any number of times in America.) And in Kiev they had seen any number of tenth-century cathedrals, and the bones of the old monks in the Lavra catacombs, and the Great Golden Gate Moussorgsky had made famous with his
Garfield had funny stories about their pilgrimages: 'So the guide showed us the footbridge to those beaches, you know? The ones across the river in Kiev? And I told her that in New York we had not only footbridges to islands in the river but cable cars. Then she showed us that Rainbow Arch that's supposed to commemorate, what is it, the joining of Russia and the Ukraine, and I told her that we had one that looked exactly like it in St. Louis — the Gateway Arch — only it's two hundred meters tall and it has little cars inside it that take you right up to the top.'
'Yes, everything is bigger in America,' Aftasia said dryly. 'What, you're not eating the compote? Don't you like it?'
Then Smin's son, getting braver about practicing English, began telling his cousins about the four great football players on the team of the Chernobyl plant, the Four Seasons, and Dean Garfield responded with stories about his own team, something called the Los Angeles 'goats,' said Didchuk, although Smin could not quite believe that was the right name.
Smin yawned as his son went on explaining other things to the guests, until he saw the way the Americans were studying the glassy scars on his face and neck. From the expressions on their faces, distress and sympathy, he knew just what his son was saying.
Smin placed a gentle hand on his son's shoulder and addressed Didchuk. 'Say for me, please,' he said, 'that Vassili, like all boys, is fascinated by stories about war. Especially he likes to boast about his father's heroic adventures, but in fact I was merely trapped in a tank when it burned. It was more than forty years ago.'
'But you received four medals!' his son cried, distressed.
'And I hope for you nothing more than that you should never be in a position to earn such medals,' Smin said firmly. 'Now, whose glass is empty?'
It was turning into a long evening, and a wearing one after all, with this business of trying to carry on a friendly conversation with new-met relatives through translators. Smin was glad when the talk passed from him. The women were talking among themselves, the young teacher, Mrs. Didchuk, chatting in English with the glamorous American blonde woman, Mrs. Garfield. Aftasia Smin, on the fringes, asked. 'So what are you telling her?'
'Why,' said Mrs. Didchuk, flushing with remembered pleasure, 'just that yesterday, when I went to the store, I saw that they had hundreds of rolls of bathroom paper. Imagine! All you could want! So I bought twelve, and the clerk scolded me, can you imagine, saying, 'There is no need to hoard, from now on there will always be plenty!' Do you think that is true?'
'I think,' said old Aftasia Smin, 'that that is not a proper subject to discuss with our guests at the table.' Then, her eyes suddenly gleaming, 'I have something else that is interesting. Will you ask my cousin's wife if she will come with us into my bedroom? There is something I would like to show her.'
'She is at it again,' said Smin's wife, frowning after her mother-in-law as she led the female guests away.
'I suppose she is,' said Smin, and when the women came back, he was confirmed in his opinion by the new way the American blonde looked at Aftasia Smin. Aftasia had been showing off her war wounds again. Well, she had a right; not every old woman in Kiev had fought bravely in the Civil War, as well as owning a Party membership twenty years senior to Smin's own.
Surreptitiously Smin glanced again at his watch. Past midnight! And he had been up since six. Of course, the next day, he thought idly, would not be very strenuous. The experiment with trying to get power from a turned-off reactor would probably not take place on a Saturday. Perhaps they could even defer it until the Director came back? It was his baby, after all. But it was just like the Director to conceive the idea and then find 'important business' somewhere else, so that
Smin was stuck with the responsibility of carrying it out. Important business! Shooting ducks outside of Moscow! When, really, if Director Zaglodin desired to kill a few ducks, there were millions of them in the Pripyat Marshes, just north of the plant…. But, of course, it was not the ducks Zaglodin wanted, it was the company; he was hunting powerful connections more than waterfowl.
Smin yawned and eyed the vodka botde. But it was not yet time for the one drink he allowed himself each day. 'Can I at least have some tea?' he asked his mother just as the male teacher, Didchuk, said eagerly:
'Can you imagine? Mr. and Mrs. Garfield say that their home is only a few kilometers from Disneyland!'
So it was a happy enough evening, and an interesting one for all concerned. It took Smin's mind off, or nearly off, the problems of Chernobyl and he forgave his mother for her surprises, even for her stubborn decision, at her time in life, to decide to observe Jewish holidays again. By the time Vassili was yawning and the old grandmother had dozed off in her seat, it was too late to try to get a taxi. Smin drove his new relatives back to their hotel, with Didchuk along to interpret.
Until they had crossed the bridge over the Dnieper River, they were almost alone in the streets of suburban Kiev. The officers in roving militia cars glanced at them as they passed, but few policemen would bother the driver of a black Chaika with yellow fog lights at any hour. Then, as they approached the center of the city, there was
