Perestroika Page #2

The whole gang is so excited!

Greenberg is coming!

He was the first we knew who

emigrated, and now he is the

first who came back.

Hard to believe it is really

happening.

It seems as if all of Moscow has

nothing else to talk about.

Natasha was the prettiest girl

in the entire physics department

so, obviously, everybody

gravitated towards her.

Every holiday we would gather at

her parents' house.

Each of us fell in love with

her, more or less.

Oh, It's rare for a woman to be

studying physics.

Especially one like you...

It was the same at Harvard.

My parents are still alive, they

remember you.

They want to have a party

Wednesday for the whole gang in

honor of your visit.

Like old times.

When I left Moscow 17 years

before this moment

I had no inkling or even hope that

I would come back here for a visit.

Back then for the first time in

decades,

a door had been cracked open in

the Soviet Union's Iron Curtain.

Of all the soviet citizens some Jews

were allowed to leave the country

to supposedly to unite with

their families in Israel.

And everybody knew if you were

lucky and could leave,

you'd become "an emigrant" to

those left behind.

Officially this word sounded

like "An enemy of Russia".

You would never be able to see your

birthplace and your friends again.

But recently, under

"Perestroika" (Restructuring)

my friends were permitted again

to consider me their friend.

Hello.

It's for you. You've been

traced, already.

The following day consisted of

three dinners and four suppers.

Everybody wanted to see the man

returned from beyond.

From where no one they knew had

ever returned before.

They wanted to see but strangely

enough not to hear.

They were no longer interested

in the outside world.

Too many things were happening

in their own.

They just elected the first

president of Russia Boris Yeltsin

and said good-bye to the father

of "Perestroika"

the president of disintegrated

USSR Mikhail Gorbachev.

Did you vote for Yeltsin?

Yes...

How could you?! Just wait till

you've made him a dictator,

he'll show you.

You have a better alternative?

You fear there may be a civil

war. Well, it's already here.

Gorbachev was the greatest

leader of our time!

Look at what he's done in

Eastern Europe!

Gorbachev is the same as the

rest, only weaker!

He couldn't revive the economy, he

couldn't give freedom to the republics!

Gorbachev is a man of compromise,

a politician without principle.

He cannot be trusted. I don't know

why Americans are so fond of him!

Americans consider compromise a

virtue.

Anyway imagine if Gorbachev went

ahead with his reforms without

compromise, and we'd have chaos.

It seems to me we are on the

verge of a collapse.

Perestroika is dead!

Perestroika has just begun.

Perestroika never had a chance.

No one knows how to work

anymore.

Lazy, spoiled slaves, all of

them!

Master.

All day I waited for your call -

it never came.

Tried calling - No answer.

If the mountain won't come to Mohammed,

Mohammed will come to the mountain.

Give me a hug. Ahh.

What's this?

Couldn't we just unplug it?

No, you're not in America.

Telephones do not unplug here.

That would create too much

difficulty for those listening in.

So, disciple?

Do you think you've won our

argument?

Do you think the time has come

for the rats to return from

"unexplored space"?

They certainly think so and they

get so exited.

A human person has broken an

"iron curtain" twice.

Fourth and back! This is an

event.

And, it is morning, and it is

officially your birthday.

Congratulations.

Gross was not your average

Soviet physicist.

He had come from America.

He had participated in the

creation of the nuclear bomb.

America dropped this bomb on the

Japanese.

It was the age of McCarthyism

Gross did not wish to serve the

imperialist war mongers.

In 1948 he escaped to a "free

country" - the Soviet Union.

The "free country" at that time

had twenty million of its

citizens imprisoned in labor camps.

Gross managed to avoid the labor

camp only because the "free country"

desperately needed those who

knew how to build bombs.

Of course, physicists did not

defect from the Soviet Union.

The borders of the "free

country" were well guarded.

After six months in the Soviet

Union, Gross married his housekeeper -

a virtually illiterate country

woman.

His colleagues were shocked by

the marriage.

But Gross lived with her for

many years

and always seemed perfectly

satisfied with the union.

Good coffee demands precise

preparation.

If, for example, you grind it

electrically instead of manually,

you will never achieve the

proper aroma.

Diogenes lived in a barrel.

Why should one care where one

lives!

I am convinced, however, that in

his life there were certain

elements of perfection.

Perhaps he prepared an ideal

coffee, or drank the best wine.

To attain knowledge, one does

not need to live in a palace.

One should, however,

periodically measure the quality

of one's thought process

against other paradigms of

quality.

Master, I've come to share a

secret.

I have applied for emigration.

Psychologists at Harvard once

conducted an experiment.

They took some rats and placed

them in a labyrinth with tunnels

leading to various rooms.

These rooms contained everything

essential to rat happiness.

There were rooms with food,

rooms for sex.

One of the tunnels led to a

so-called "unexplored space".

The rats had no way of knowing

what lay beyond this opening,

since no rat ever returned from

there.

Still, fifteen percent of the

rats would inevitably go into

the "unexplored space".

They were terrified of it.

They shook with fear.

Their fur would stand on end,

they would experience

uncontrollable urine releases,

they would howl - but, still,

they would go.

As it turns out both you and I

belong to this fifteen percent.

Except that in our case the

Great Experimenter has exercised

his sophisticated sense of humor

and placed two labyrinths side

by side,

calling the door connecting them

"unexplored space"..

It so happens that the presence

of rats from "unexplored space"

does not change the magical

number of fifteen percent

and what we end up with is a

perpetual exchange of

urine-releasing bravadoes...

So,if they let you go, we will

never see each other again?

Who can tell. Maybe you could

visit me there.

Or I could come here.

I think not. Rats do not return

from "unexplored space".

That's one of the givens of the

experiment.

Otherwise, how "unexplored"

would it be?

Had it turned out that Gross was

wrong?

Was I really now back in Moscow?

Was I really going in the car

with my girl friend Jill to the

State Film Studio

to help her to negotiate with

the Head of the Production,

desperately desiring to get

somewhere a sip of vodka,

something that in Moscow I left

was in such abundance as water

in the ocean?

What's the matter?

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