afraid of her own hedonism, but at the same time, she didn’t know how to curb its growth. She’d already taken on too much. With a sigh, she slumped against the back of her chair. She’d lost the thread.
SIX
The following day, she urged her father not to forget to call Doctor Shchedrin that Wednesday, when the results of Petya’s tests would be in. She admonished the boy not to make things difficult for his grandfather and implored Viktor Ipalyevich to keep television watching within reasonable limits.
The bus stopped on the Kutuzovsky Prospekt, about a ten-minute walk from Anna’s apartment. The checkered travel bag bounded off her thighs as she walked. She hadn’t had enough sleep and felt generally confused, troubled by her vague sense of what lay ahead. When she reached the square, it didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for. The banner was legible from far away: WELCOME PIONEERS! OFF TO DUBNA, THE SCIENCE CITY! The words covered the whole side of the bus. Anna chose a window seat and wedged her bag into the space beside her feet. The orphanage director sat across the aisle and wanted to chat; Anna’s answers were so meager that he gave up. Most people climbed into the bus during the last ten minutes before its departure; the Aeroflot pilot was even a little late. With the help of her bulky bag, Anna kept the seat next to her empty. She wanted to sleep, she wanted to reflect, and she had to get busy with the book Kamarovsky had sent her.
It was still pretty dark outside—full daylight was a long way off, but some dawn grayness filtered through the window. The bus had hardly started moving when Anna laid her head back and closed her eyes. In a last flash of awareness, she recognized that they were swinging onto Dmitrovsky Chaussée; from there they would access the expressway and head north. The roar of the traffic was transformed into the shrieks of birds, ugly creatures that fluttered and flapped around her; their cries sounded like accusations. Although dozing, not fully conscious, Anna was nonetheless aware that an argument had flared up around her. The forewoman was of the opinion that Soviet science was ten years in advance of the Americans. When the orphanage director pointed out that the researchers who’d won the Nobel Prize in recent years had come overwhelmingly from the West, the slight fellow stepped into a crossfire aimed at him by the others. Wasn’t he aware that Stockholm was situated in the West? Had he ever taken a close look at the members of the Nobel committee? A person would have to be blind not to notice the tendency toward provocation in the selection of winners. And besides, as early as 1945, the Americans had started recruiting Nazi scientists, regardless of whether they were war criminals or not. “U.S. technology is nothing more than Nazi technology in its mature form,” the forewoman said, summarizing her position. “Soviet achievements, on the other hand, are a real result of cooperation among socialist states.”
The orphanage director was so bold as to observe aloud that in Dubna, despite the many socialist nations with scientific programs, the percentage of researchers from the DDR was disproportionately high. “I would assume that these people also worked for Hitler in the old days.”
There was something decidedly physical about the storm of objections to this remark. The members of the delegation crowded around the orphanage director, giving him pieces of their minds. When the bus unexpectedly turned off the main highway and came to a stop, the squabblers thought Popov had ordered the halt by way of calming things down. But this was, in fact, the first item on the day’s program: “Breakfast in Dmitrov, City of the Revolution.”
On the double, the former Pioneers were led into an unprepossessing wooden house, which accommodated a nursery school. Two rows of little children, wearing heavy clothes and holding hands, formed a guard of honor for the guests from Moscow. Inside, the headmistress of the school greeted them and invited them to sit at tables already prepared for their visit. The coffee was fresh, and the bread was still warm. Everyone tucked in hungrily; Anna refilled her coffee cup twice. As the guests ate, the headmistress explained that they were on historical ground: Prince Peter Kropotkin, an eminent forerunner of anarchist communism, had chosen this simple house for his residence when he returned to Russia from his long