I'm sitting in my Khrushchyovka on Vasilievsky Island, at an old table. Grandma is wailing: "Dmitry, how thin you've become, skin and bones, what did they do to you in that America?" And I'm sitting there, drinking tea from her favorite mug with chamomile and writing these lines. I'm thinking about sending this diary to Mark in his faraway New York. He's probably there, drinking his cardboard coffee and carrying magazines, and I'm here, in my own room, where the wallpaper is peeling off and the Rubin TV flickers like in the nineties. But in my head there's not St. Petersburg, but Brooklyn, the institute, Earl Knight's files and that idea that was born then, in a motel, under the howl of sirens and the smell of mold. I figured out how to set a trap for that reptile - the D.E.L.I.A. project - and, damn it, I almost did it.
It all started the day after I sat on the bench with a bottle of Budweiser and told Mark that money wasn't everything. On July 7th, I showed up at the institute feeling like a soldier about to go to battle. My coat was on my shoulders like armor, although Mark was smirking again as he looked at it. I headed straight to Tony's office, where he was already sitting, chewing gum, with his long hair and an MIT T-shirt. On the desk was the same folder, tattered and stained with coffee, as if it had been dragged all over Brooklyn. Tony looked at me like I was crazy when I said, "Go ahead, open it up so we can finish reading this graveyard of papers." He just nodded, spat his gum into the trash, and reached for the folder. We sat down like two miners digging in a mine shaft where the coal is other people's lives.
We flipped through the reports, each one a punch to the gut. I already knew about Isaac Brown in Miami and Laura Smith in Houston, their deaths, their caregivers crushed by cars, like a bad dream. There were others, too, Eliza Johnson, Alexander Martin, names that sounded like tombstones. But then came Delia York. Hers was the oldest story in the file, and, boy, was it the straw that broke the camel's back. Delia, born May 20, 1981, in the Bronx, New York, to a family that was doomed from the start. Her father, Gene York, 35, a pharmacist, smuggled expired pills into his home, and her mother, Karen, 32, unemployed, sought "spiritual cleansing" in cheap sanitariums. Delia grew up in a cramped, damp-smelling apartment, drawing flowers and dogs in her notebooks, dreaming of running away to California with her neighbor's dog, Ryder. Her life fell apart in 1989, when her friend Josephine Thueson was accused of "corruption" because of Delia's early menstruation - an absurdity for which Josephine got 18 years. In 1991, Delia's father lost his leg in a car accident, her mother shot herself in front of her, and Delia herself died in March of that year from "atypical uterine sarcoma" after surgery at Bellevue Hospital. Her story, like the stories of Eliza, Alexander, Laura, Isaac, was steeped in pain and the absurd deaths all around - trucks, cranes, suicides, snakes. Earl Knight, the cop who dug into her case, wrote about her as if she were his daughter. He made the acronym D.E.L.I.A. out of their names, but the "D" still rankled in his mind - Delia? The Devil? A Dummy?
I put the folder down, feeling my insides boil. Tony looked at me, his gum frozen in his mouth.
"Dmitry, what's wrong? It's like you saw a ghost on your face," he said, stumbling in his Russian.
"It's not a ghost, Tony," I said, gritting my teeth. "It's a grave. And we're burrowing in it like worms."
He frowned but said nothing. I stood up, straightened my coat and said:
"Enough. Time to set a trap for this bastard. Call everyone into the room, Tony. Elizabeth, Linda, Richard, Caroline - everyone. I want to talk."
Tony blinked as if I had asked him to launch a rocket to Mars.
"Dmitry, that's not how it's done. You need to officially submit a request, Elizabeth will issue a summons. This is America, everything is on paper here."
I almost screamed. Papers? When children die and we mix their cages with rats'? But I held back and just nodded.
"Okay, fill out your paperwork. I'll be waiting."
I sat back down, feeling the blood pounding in my temples. A plan was already spinning in my head. My idea about low-frequency electromagnetic fields was ready, like a bullet in a clip. I knew it was a dead end - at LETI, Zaitsev and I tested EMFs until we were blue in the face, and found nothing but burnt-out coils. But the Americans don't know that. In the eighties, their magazines wrote about microwaves and "Russian scientists" as if they were shamans, but serious research never reached them. I'll serve them this hypothesis like candy: "Atypical tumors, paralysis, all this - from old transformers, radars, power lines." Elizabeth, with her hawk eyes, might snort, but Mark will swallow it - he loves "breakthroughs." Linda will run to her spectrophotometers, Richard will call me a charlatan, and Caroline will recalculate the budget. They will rush to check, spend months, and in the end - emptiness. And maybe then they will close this damned D.E.L.I.A. project, because digging in graves for grants is not science, but desecration.
I sat in Tony's office, staring out the window. Brooklyn was humming outside-cars, sirens, someone cursing in Spanish. My blood pounded like a metronome in my temples, and my mind was spinning a plan: slip them an EMF, lead them into a dead end, buy time. I waited to be called into the room like a soldier about to attack, when the door creaked and a graduate student, Linda, walked in, her hair always wild, her laptop tucked under her arm. She looked at me like I was an exhibit in a museum and said,
"Mr. Sukhov, the call has been issued, but the room is occupied. Elizabeth said that the discussion will be tomorrow, at ten in the morning."
"Tomorrow?!" I almost started screaming. "Linda, are you serious? We're digging in graves here, and you're telling me "tomorrow"?"
She shrugged as if I had asked where her pen was.
"This is America, Dmitry. Everything is on schedule. Nothing can be done."
I clenched my teeth, feeling my insides boil. I wanted to grab the folder of reports and throw it at the wall, but I just nodded, muttering something like, "Okay, see you tomorrow." Linda left, and I sat there, staring at the coffee stains on the table. America. Papers. Schedules. And somewhere out there, in the past, Delia York was drawing her dogs, Eliza Johnson was singing in the church choir, Alexander Martin wanted to be a pilot, Isaac and Laura just wanted to live. And all of them were just lines in reports, cells in test tubes. I couldn't wait.
I stood up, adjusted my coat, and went to look for Mark. I found him in the next room, staring at his computer. He was typing something, his fingers flying across the keyboard, and the screen was lit up with graphs - some curves, data, bars. Typical Mark: always digging into numbers, as if they could explain why the world is so lousy.
"Mark," I said, slapping the table. "Stop pointing at your calculator. Come on, I need a drink."
He looked up and grinned his American smile.
"Dmitry, you're in your coat again, like Sherlock. What, are you saving the world?"
"The world can wait," I snapped. "Let's go to the bar. I need to talk."
He sighed, saved the file, and stood up. We walked out of the institute and ten minutes later were sitting at O'Malley's, a noisy corner bar that smelled of beer and French fries. I ordered a whiskey, Mark his stupid Budweiser. The bartender, a bald man with an anchor tattoo, set the glasses down and went off to wipe down the bar. I took a sip, feeling the whiskey burn my throat, and began:
"Mark, this project is crap. Do you understand? We're digging through the bones of children. Delia, Laura, Isaac, Eliza, Alexander - they weren't just names. They were people. And us? We're cutting up their cages, mixing them with rats', for what? Grants? Fame? This isn't science, this is the graveyard business."
Mark looked at me, twirling the bottle in his hands. His face was calm, as if I was talking about the weather.
"Dmitry, you're being dramatic," he said finally. "Yes, it's hard. But we're looking for answers. These deaths, these illnesses, they're not accidental. We can find the cause, understand how it works. This is the key to the future."
I snorted, almost choking on my whiskey.
"To the future? Are you serious? To a cure for all diseases? To a pill for death? Don't make me laugh, Mark."
He shook his head, his eyes shining like a preacher's.
"Not to a cure, Dmitry. To evolution. Imagine: we will understand how these mutations work, how they affect cells. We will be able to make people better. Stronger. Smarter. Superhumans. This is not about grants, this is about the next step."
I looked at him, feeling my insides boil, and then I just laughed. Loudly, so loudly that the bartender turned around and a couple of guys at the next table glanced at us. Superhumans? That was his future? I took another sip of whiskey, feeling it warm but not soothe.
"Superhumans, Mark?" I said, wiping my lips. "Have you read too many comics? Captain America, huh? And I was telling you about the kids who died. About the parents who were crushed by trucks. About Earl Knight, who dug up this case and died with bruises on his neck. And you were telling me about superhumans."
Mark shrugged, his smile not fading.
"I believe in it, Dmitry. Maybe you're right, and it's dirty work. But if we don't take this step, who will? Do you want to stop? Fine. But then all this - Delia, Laura, Isaac - was in vain."
I looked at Mark, at his stupid bottle of Budweiser, at his confident face, and I realized there was no point in arguing. He doesn't see graves, he sees charts. He doesn't see pain, he sees "the future." I finished my whiskey, threw a couple of dollars on the bar, and said,
"Look for your superhumans, Mark. And I want Laura, Isaac, Delia, Eliza, Alexander to sleep peacefully, and not spin around in your test tubes."
He nodded as if we had an agreement, and I walked out. Brooklyn was damp, a siren blaring in the distance. I adjusted my coat, feeling a sense of determination ignite within me. They sensed that I had figured out their game-Elizabeth with her grants, Caroline with her laugh, Mark with his dreams. My EMF plan was a trap that would lead them into a dead end. They would run to check, spend months, and find nothing. Maybe then D.E.L.I.A. would be shut down.
I walked to the Flatbush Avenue station and went down into the subway. The Q car was packed: a guy with headphones, a girl with a magazine, a guy in overalls asleep. The smell of sweat and iron hit my nose. I looked out the black window, thinking about tomorrow. I had to speak confidently, like Major Ivanov, so that Elizabeth and Caroline would swallow my bait. My English, learned with a duckling, was not so bad anymore, but for a fight I needed pressure.
The motel, room 12, smelled damp, the bed creaked. I threw my coat on a chair, turned on the TV - the Sony Trinitron was showing a Nokia commercial, but I turned off the sound. Instead of the cassette with the duck, I took a notebook that I found in the nightstand and began to write phrases for tomorrow: "Doctor Crowe, I have a hypothesis. Low-frequency fields cause these tumors. Check transformers, radars." I said them out loud, in a whisper, standing by the window, where the blinking neon of the motel was blinding. "This project is wrong. We're digging in graves." I repeated until the words became like a shot - clear, firm. Then I wrote down new ones: "evidence", "research", "physics". I crammed, pacing the room until my voice grew stronger, as if I were not Sukhov, but a lawyer in court.
By midnight I was exhausted, but ready. They would see a Russian in a trench coat, but they would hear an engineer who knew what he was talking about. My EMP trap was not just a lie, it was a way to stop blasphemy. They would run for the fields, and I would buy time to save the memories of Laura, Isaac, Delia, Eliza, Alexander. I lay down on the bed, it creaked like my conscience in the first days. Brooklyn hummed outside, but I closed my eyes, feeling peace. Tomorrow I would go out into the hall and throw them my bait. But for now, sleep. I did what I could, and I am not ashamed.
I slept soundly, as if after three bottles of Baltika in St. Petersburg, without dreams, without nightmares about Laura, Isaac or Earl Knight's folder. The morning began with silence - no knock on the door, no Mark with his eternal grin and "Morning, Dmitry!" It's strange, he always dragged me to the institute like a puppy on a leash, and today - silence. I glanced at the clock: seven in the morning. Outside the window, Brooklyn was already humming - cars, horns, someone cursing in Spanish. The neon sign of the motel was still blinking, losing its "M". I got up, feeling the bed creaking, as if complaining about my weight, and went to wash up. In the bathroom, a cracked mirror reflected my face - stubble, circles under my eyes, but my eyes were clear, like before a fight. The cold water invigorated me like a slap in the face, and I thought: "Well, Sukhov, you'll do them today. Without Mark, on your own, like a big guy."
I pulled on my Halloween cape-they could laugh, it was my armor, to hell with it-and went down to the lobby. The maid, as always, was wiping down the counter without looking at me. I smelled coffee from the machine, but I decided not to waste time. I went outside, where the sun was already baking, like in Sochi, and the asphalt was smoking. Across from the motel was a burger joint that sold burgers for a dollar. I slipped a few coins to a guy in a cap who was yelling, "Fresh burgers, get 'em hot!" and got something with a "Cheeseburger" sign on it. The bun was soft, the cheese stretchy as rubber, but I chewed as I walked toward the Kings Highway subway. It tasted like the same old American crap, but better than yesterday's pepper noodles. I swallowed, wiping the ketchup off my chin, and thought: "Fuck it, Sukhov, eat and go. Today is your day."
The metro was as crowded as a St. Petersburg minibus. I bought a token, squeezed into a Q-line car, and grabbed the handrail. The car was humming, the wheels were clattering, and it smelled of sweat and cheap perfume. A girl was sitting opposite me with a magazine, a guy in headphones was shaking his head, and a man in overalls was sleeping, just like yesterday. I looked out the murky window, where the black walls of the tunnel flashed by, and I was turning over my speech in my head. Yesterday I had crammed English with a duckling, but now I had to make sure that the Americans swallowed my bait about EMF, even if they were as good at physics as I am at ballet. I repeated to myself, choosing simpler words so that it sounded respectable, but not like Zaitsev's lecture at LETI:
"Doctor Crowe, team, I have a hypothesis. The tumors in these kids - Lora, Isaac, Delia, others - they're not random. I think low-frequency electromagnetic fields are involved..."
I said this, moving my lips, while the train clanked. I was thinking about how to make it clearer for Americans, who only know about EMF from tales about microwaves. I added a couple of phrases: "It's like radiation, but invisible. Old equipment leaks it, and cells react." Simple words, so that even Caroline, who only counts the budget, would nod. Elizabeth, with her hawkish gaze, will dig, but I remembered our experiments with Igor at LETI: EMF affected cell membranes, but not so much as to produce atypical tumors. This is a swamp into which they will fall, but it sounds like a breakthrough. Mark, with his faith in "supermen", will definitely swallow it. Linda will run to the spectrophotometer, Richard will call me a charlatan, but who cares. The main thing is to lead them away from these graves.
I finished the speech, adding specifics: "We can start with Houston. Lora lived near a shipyard, old transformers there. I saw reports - high electromagnetic noise in the area. Let's measure it." It's a lie, I have not seen such reports, but the Americans will believe it - they love numbers. The train jerked, stopping on Flatbush Avenue. I got out, feeling my heart pounding, but not from fear, but from excitement. The speech was in my head like a cartridge in a clip. I walked to the institute, adjusting my coat, inhaling the smell of asphalt and coffee from the kiosks. The red brick building with plate-glass windows stood like a fortress, but I was ready. Today I am not just Sukhov, I am an engineer from LETI who will set a trap for them. They think I am an outsider, but I will make them listen.
I stepped off the subway at Flatbush Avenue, and Brooklyn was as hot as a griddle, smelling of coffee from carts and asphalt. The Institute stood two blocks away, red brick, plate-glass windows, like a fortress ready to crush me. I adjusted my coat, sweat pouring down, and walked, repeating the speech in my head: Dr. Crowe, team, I have a hypothesis. Tumors in children are not an accident. Low-frequency electromagnetic fields... The words sat as firmly as a soldered circuit board, but I knew there would be a fight in the room. Elizabeth with her hawkish gaze, Richard ready to call me a charlatan, Caroline counting every cent. I had to be like a tank, without fear, without hesitation, like Major Ivanov in Afghanistan.
Students were milling about at the entrance to the institute - some were smoking, some were leafing through notes. I noticed a girl in glasses with an armful of papers and approached her.
"Hey, where's the conference room?" I asked, trying not to sound like a lost tourist.
She looked at my coat, smirked, but answered:
"Second floor, turn right, room 204. There's a sign there."
"Thank you," I muttered and moved toward the stairs, feeling her gaze boring into my Halloween outfit. I don't care, Sukhov, you're not going to the podium.
I went up to the second floor and found the room - a heavy wooden door with a sign saying "Conference Room 204". Shadows were visible through the glass, voices hummed like a swarm. I took a deep breath, adjusted my hat and pushed the door. The room was cramped: a long table covered with papers, charts and coffee cups. On the wall, a projector showed a slide with cells that looked like alien landscapes. Elizabeth sat at the head, in a strict suit, her hair in a bun, her eyes like knives. Caroline leafed through a folder, gloomy as a St. Petersburg autumn. Linda was digging around in her laptop, Richard was doodling something, and Mark, seeing me, nodded with a slight smile. A couple of other students and a man in a tie who looked like an FBI agent were silent as furniture.
"Well, Dmitry," Elizabeth began as soon as I entered, "I hope our Russian guest from some St. Petersburg has something to offer? Or is it just fairy tales about Baba Yaga again?"
Richard chuckled, not looking up from his notebook, and Caroline added with a venomous smile:
"Yes, Sukhov, what do you have there in Russia? Vodka and fairy tales? Surprise us if you can."
I gritted my teeth, but I didn't let them get me down. I took off my hat, threw it on a chair and said:
"Fairy tales? Maybe. But I want to hear what you have. Delia, Laura, Isaac, Eliza, Alexander - what do they have in common, other than an acronym? Come on, colleagues, lay it out."
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes but nodded, as if she expected me to give in. Linda spoke first, fiddling with her pen.
"We checked the tissue. They all had atypical tumors. Sarcomas, gliomas, carcinomas, but the markers were strange, not like regular cancer. I looked at the genetic data, but without sequencing it's impossible to tell if it's a mutation or something else."
"And what do you think, Linda?" I asked, keeping my voice even.
"Maybe toxins?" she said uncertainly. "Or radiation? But we don't have data on their areas. It's expensive to test.
Richard snorted, putting his pen down.
"Toxins, radiation - it's all empty. I looked at the EEG and MRI. Nothing, except the tumors themselves. Dmitry, you're not going to tell us about wood goblins here, are you?"
I smiled, although inside I was seething:
"Not wood goblins, Richard. But tell me, what do you have, besides ridicule?"
He rolled his eyes and said nothing. Mark raised his hand.
"I read Earl's reports. All the kids - from poor areas, immigrants, caregivers, died strangely. Maybe it's not biology, but... something social? Like they were chosen."
"Have you chosen?" Caroline interrupted, slamming the folder. "Mark, you've been reading too many thrillers. All we have are medical records and zero evidence. Plus a budget that's melting away while you're here dreaming."
Elizabeth tapped her pen on the table, demanding silence.
"Dmitry, it's your turn. Come on, what do you have, besides Russian tales?"
I stood up, feeling the gazes piercing me like needles. My heart was pounding, but I knew it was my turn. I spoke slowly, clearly, as I had rehearsed in the subway:
"Dr. Crowe, team, I have a hypothesis. The tumors in these kids are not a coincidence. I think it's low-frequency electromagnetic fields. Old transformers, power lines, radars - they're everywhere these kids lived. Houston, Miami, the Bronx - ports, warehouses, old grids. In Russia, we studied EMFs in the 1980s. They can affect cells, change their growth. It's like invisible radiation. Laura lived near a shipyard in Houston, there are old transformers there. I've seen reports - high electromagnetic noise. We need to measure the fields, check the cells. If I'm right, we'll find the cause. If not, we'll rule it out. But we can't ignore it."
I fell silent, waiting. The room was as quiet as before a storm. Richard stared at me as if I were an idiot and burst out laughing:
"Electromagnetic fields? Seriously? Is this some Soviet nonsense? Do you even understand how that sounds?"
Linda frowned as she flipped through her notes and muttered,
"EMF? I... I don't know, we haven't tested that. Could it really be?"
Caroline shook her head.
"It's expensive, Dmitry. Measure the fields all over the country? We don't have that kind of money."
I stepped forward, feeling the blood pounding in my temples:
"Expensive? And digging in children's graves is cheap? This is not science, this is blasphemy. We must check everything, or you are just wasting time for grants."
"You, Russian, don't lecture us!" Richard flared up. "Do you have any evidence? At least one article? Or is this all your St. Petersburg fantasies?"
"Evidence?" I barked. "LETI research, 1988. EMFs affected cell membranes. Do you want me to send it to you? Or is it easier for you to laugh than to think?"
"Enough!" Elizabeth snapped, standing up. "Dmitry, your idea sounds... wild, but..." She looked at me as if she was seeing me for the first time. "Why not? If it's a dead end, we'll prove it. If not, we'll find something."
She turned to Linda:
"Make a plan. We'll take the tissues, model the fields on the EEG. We'll start with Houston - Laura Smith, shipyard. Dmitry, help with the equipment."
Linda nodded, tapping away at the keyboard. Richard muttered something about a "Russian farce," but I wasn't listening. Inside, I was screaming with joy, like a kid who'd scored into an empty net.
What a joke! They ended up taking up my "brilliant" plan about EMF, like little cuties. Elizabeth, with her hawk-like gaze, Linda, lugging a laptop around as if it were her baby, even Richard, who snorted like a cat at the rain, all ran to measure the fields, just as I had planned. Houston, the shipyard, the old transformers - they dragged their EEGs there, fiddled with the wires, poked the sensors into the air as if they were catching ghosts. I helped set up the equipment, although I knew it was all a dud. At LETI, we had already run such experiments in 1988, and EMFs, of course, stirred cell membranes, but they were as far from atypical sarcomas as I am from Broadway. My trap worked: they got stuck in a swamp, wasting weeks, and I sat and rubbed my hands like a cat that stole sour cream.
By mid-July, as expected, everything went down the drain. Zero reaction, as I expected. Linda returned with a bunch of graphs, where the lines were as smooth as St. Petersburg asphalt, and muttered something about "noise within normal limits." Richard, of course, did not fail to rub my nose in it: "So, Russian genius, where are your fields? Maybe the devil stole them?" I just smirked - who cares, Sukhov, you made them. Elizabeth gathered everyone in the room, tapped her pen on the table and said: "The hypothesis has not been confirmed. Move on or close down." Caroline, of course, immediately began her own: "Close down, the budget is limited." Mark was silent, but looked at me as if he knew that I had fooled them all. The D.E.L.I.A. project began to fall apart at the seams - they spent time, money, and found only emptiness. My mission was a success: I led them away from the graves of Laura, Isaac, Delia, Eliza, Alexander. Let them sleep peacefully.
Then it was time to pay. Elizabeth called me into her office - the same desk, covered in papers, and the smell of coffee from the machine. She handed me an envelope with a check for a thousand bucks - payment for a month of work, as agreed. I looked at these papers, at her cold eyes, and thought: "I don't want your money. This is all for grants, not for the truth." I remembered my grandmother's saying: "Don't have a hundred rubles, but have a hundred friends." I didn't have any friends here, but Mark, with his stupid grin and Budweiser, was the closest to that. I shoved the envelope into my coat pocket and went to look for him.
I found Mark in the smoking room near the institute - he was puffing on a cigarette and leafing through some magazine with Britney Spears on the cover. I patted him on the shoulder and said:
"It's all for you, Mark."
And I thrust an envelope at him. His eyes widened as if I had given him the keys to a Zhiguli:
"What's wrong, Dmitry? It's your money! Why?"
"Take it," I say. "You helped me, found a motel, gave me the tape with the duckling. Consider it my debt repaid."
He shook his head, but took the envelope. I turned and walked toward the subway, feeling Brooklyn buzzing around me-cabs honking, a hot dog vendor yelling, "Two for a dollar!" Inside, I felt light, like after a good drink, when the soul is in the right place. I knew I had done everything right.
A couple of days later, Mark caught me at the motel. It turned out that he had used the money to buy me a plane ticket to St. Petersburg, with a transfer in Moscow. He handed me the ticket, grinning:
"Don't drink it away, Sukhov. And come again if you decide that we're not such idiots."
I took the ticket, nodded and thought: "Maybe you're not an idiot, Mark, but your D.E.L.I.A. is not science, it's an outrage." In the evening, I packed my Halloween cape, a cassette with a duck, and a couple of clothes in a suitcase. Brooklyn was buzzing outside the window, the neon sign of the motel was still losing its "M". I lay down on the creaky bed, looking at the spot on the ceiling that looked like a map of Russia, and thought: "Home, Sukhov. You did what you could." Tomorrow the plane, St. Petersburg, the Neva, grandma's borscht. And let D.E.L.I.A. stay here, in this noisy Brooklyn, where I left my little trap.
What can I say? I returned to Russia as a hero who didn't exactly defeat the dragon, but rather led it aside so it wouldn't devour the village. The plane from New York landed in Moscow on the 21st, and I, with my suitcase and Halloween cape, felt like a hero who didn't exactly win, but simply left without saying goodbye. Sheremetyevo stank of gasoline and coffee from vending machines, the crowd was buzzing like the market on Sennaya. The transfer to St. Petersburg was a chore - three hours in the waiting room, where the seats were hard, and the loudspeaker was shouting about delays. I drank tea from a plastic cup that smelled like plastic, and thought: "Well, Sukhov, you're home. What next?" We landed at Pulkovo in the evening, the city greeted us with dampness and the smell of wet asphalt. Taxi drivers at the exit were yelling: "Where are we going, brother?" I waved my hand - to LETI, I need to report to Kovalev and Igor, otherwise how can I do without them?
I stumbled into LETI on the morning of the 22nd, sweaty, with a suitcase, like a soldier just getting demobilized. The building hadn't changed: peeling walls, the smell of paint, a notice board with leaflets from the Gorbachev era. The cleaning lady, Aunt Lyuba, was grumbling as always: "Sukhov, don't drag in the dirt, I washed the floors!" I just chuckled: "Peter, you're still the same." I wanted to go straight to Kovalyov in 405, but he wasn't there. The secretary, a woman with a hairdo like Pugacheva's, sent me to the dean's office: "Go, Sukhov, Kovalyov is with the rector there, in 512." I ran there, but the dean's office was empty, only the smell of coffee and old folders. Some student in a sweater said: "Kovalyov is in the library, chatting with Igor." I dragged myself to the library - my legs were buzzing, my coat was catching on the corners, the suitcase in my hand was pulling my shoulder down. In the library, among the shelves with dusty "Technicians for Youth", I found Igor. He, in his denim jacket, was grinning like a cat who saw sour cream.
"Dmitry!" he yelled, almost dropping the magazine. "You're back, you foreign spy! So, how are the Yankees?"
"It's okay," I say, putting down my suitcase. "Where's Kovalev? I need to report."
"In room 312, hanging out with the rector," Igor winked. "Let's go, hero, I'm with you."
We trudged into room 312, where I once pasted up cheat sheets. The door creaked, and there they were: Kovalev, with a beard like Tolstoy, in his sweater, and Pyotr Sergeyevich, the rector, bald, in a suit like from the Central Committee. I stumbled in, sweaty, in a raincoat, like Dracula at a union meeting.
"Sukhov, you're something!" Kovalev stood up and clapped me on the shoulder. "Tell me, how are things in the States? Didn't you get drunk off their beer?"
I grinned and threw the suitcase at the board:
"I didn't drink myself to death, Viktor Pavlovich. I visited their institute and gave them the idea about electromagnetic fields. They ran after it like puppies, spent a month measuring transformers in Houston. And in the end - nothing, just as I thought. Their D.E.L.I.A. is a dud, they were digging around for the sake of grants. I bought them time so they would leave the children alone."
Pyotr Sergeyevich narrowed his eyes, but smiled:
"Well, Sukhov, you're a sly one. LETI didn't send you for nothing. What, did you just fool everyone?"
"Yeah," I say, "Richard, their skeptic, shouted that I was a charlatan, but Elizabeth, the boss, approved my plan. Now they're at a dead end, and here I am, with a clear conscience."
Igor burst out laughing and almost knocked over his chair:
"Dmitry, you probably scared everyone there in your cape, like Batman! Tell me, how did the Yankees stare at you?"
"They laughed," I admitted honestly. "They called me a Russian drunk, but I beat them. Now they're sitting in the swamp, and I'm at home, with grandma's borscht."
Kovalev nodded as if he was proud:
"Well done, Dmitry. You didn't let our soldering irons gather dust. What's next? To your workshop to fix TVs?"
I shrugged. The workshop? Maybe I'll come back, but after New York, after this circus, I felt like I was a student again, soldering circuits until the morning. I said out loud:
"We'll see, Viktor Pavlovich. Maybe they'll call me somewhere else. But for now, let's go home and get some sleep."
Igor jumped up:
"Sleep? No way, Dmitry, let's go to a cafe, let's celebrate your triumph! At LETI's expense, don't talk nonsense!"
The four of us - Igor, Kovalev, Pyotr Sergeyevich, and I - headed to the Nevskaya eatery by the embankment. Inside, it smelled of fried potatoes, beer, and wet rags used to scrub the floors. The Rubin TV was showing the Ruki Vverkh music video, "My Baby," and I was overcome with nostalgia. The waitress, a woman with curlers, threw us a menu where half the dishes were missing. We ordered Baltika, cutlets with mashed potatoes, and pickles. Igor raised his mug:
"For Sukhov! For sabotage behind enemy lines!"
Kovalev and Pyotr Sergeyevich picked it up, clinked glasses, and the foam splashed onto the table. I took a sip, the bitter beer hit my throat, and I thought: "Well, Sukhov, you're not a lost cause after all." We sat for about an hour and a half, telling stories. Igor remembered how we distilled moonshine in the dorm at LETI, and Kovalev told me how I nearly burned out an oscilloscope in the radio engineering lab. Pyotr Sergeyevich, usually stern, relaxed and told me how in the 70s in the GDR he drank vodka with the Germans at a symposium while they argued about Marx. I laughed, looking at the Neva outside the window, where barges lazily crawled under the gray sky. St. Petersburg, my dear, embraced me with its dampness, and I thought: "I did it. For those children, for my conscience. And the money? I don't care, I gave it to Mark, let him drink Budweiser in his Brooklyn."
After the cafe with Kovalev, Igor and Pyotr Sergeyevich, I walked along Vasilievsky when the city had already fallen silent. At the stall on the corner, a woman with purple hair was still selling Java and pies, although it was after midnight. It smelled of wet asphalt and smoke from a cigarette that some guy was smoking by the trash can. St. Petersburg, my dear, embraced me with its dampness, and I felt as if I had thrown off that noisy Brooklyn with its skyscrapers and yellow taxis.
It was dark in the Khrushchevka, only the light from the kitchen came through a crack under the door. It smelled of borscht, which Anna Ivanovna probably cooked all day, and dampness - the eternal companion of St. Petersburg walls. I quietly opened the door so as not to wake my grandmother, but she, as always, was not sleeping - she was sitting in the kitchen, in her polka-dot robe, with a cup of tea and an old radio that was wheezing "Mayak". Seeing me, she threw up her hands:
"Dmitry, is it really you?"
I just smiled, dropped my suitcase at the threshold and hugged her. She grumbled as usual, but there was warmth in her eyes, like in those days when I was a kid running in from the street and she was baking cabbage pies.
"Yes, Granny, I'm home. Everything's fine," I said, feeling my throat tighten. "Did you leave some borscht?"
"I left it, I left it," she muttered, pushing the plate towards me. "Eat it, you're too thin!"
I sat down at the table, poured myself some borscht that smelled of dill and childhood, and ate, listening to her whine about the price of potatoes and my neighbor Aunt Zina, who spilled compote on the stairs again. And I thought: this is my place. New York, Brooklyn, D.E.L.I.A. - it was all like a dream, where I, Sukhov, in my Halloween cloak, deceived an entire institute to protect the memory of Laura, Isaac, Delia, Eliza, Alexander. I led them all into the swamp with my EMPs, and they, like good little creatures, spent a month on a dummy. And me? I returned home with a clear conscience and empty pockets, because I gave the money to Mark. As they say, don't have a hundred rubles, have a hundred friends. Mark, with his grin and Budweiser, is probably now drinking to my health in some Brooklyn bar.
After the borscht, I lay down on my sagging sofa, which creaked like an old ship. The ceiling looked at me with a crack, similar to a map of Russia - from St. Petersburg to Kamchatka, as if reminding me that I was still here, in my country, in my world. The night was humming outside the window - somewhere cats were screaming, somewhere a minibus was rumbling, and the Neva was flowing like time, carrying away everything that was. I lay and thought: "Sukhov, you did what you could. You didn't let them disturb those children. And what next? Maybe to the workshop, to solder TVs. Maybe they'll call you somewhere else. But now - sleep, hero." I closed my eyes, feeling St. Petersburg breathing outside the window, and for the first time in a long time I fell asleep without dreams about Afghanistan, without nightmares, just with the thought: I'm home.