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Chapter Fourteen
 "Books," said Drugo.
"Books?" asked Anya,
"Papers," said Drugo.
"Papers?" asked Anya.
"Papers! Documents! Books! That's the word. That's what I heard. NEP boss, Natalya Doverovich told me. Why, what have you heard, Anya?"
"Nothing. Nobody around here knows anything or won't say."
Anya was setting up microphones on the stage of the Red Rooster for singing performances that night.
"Well, let's say several people had recognition in their eyes that I detected when I mentioned it. But that recognition turned to fear. And then there was silence. I don't understand. Tell me everything Doverovich told you."
"What you saw through your binoculars were four large trucks, maybe five, filled with books, papers, and documents. They were loaded somewhere within the Kremlin, and headed out somewhere beyond Moscow, authorized by someone."
Drugo looked satisfied with this information. Anya had to laugh at his seriousness. Then she frowned at how little he actually told her.
"What books, what documents? Where in the Kremlin? To where outside the city? Authorized by whom, and why? Answers to the questions, Drugo! This is what I want!"
He was standing on the floor of the club. She was on the stage. She waved a finger at him in a scolding, but playful manner. Looking down at him, he resembled a child, a bad little boy who had done something naughty. Right there, at that moment, Anya wanted to have a baby! She came down from the stage and embraced and kissed her husband. She cried.
"Anya, why. . . what's the matter? I'm sorry. . . I'll find out more. Look, you'll know. I promise!"
She took him by the hand and led him to a table where they both sat down.
"Now you're smiling and have the sweetest look on your face!" said Drugo.
"Yes, darling, yes. I know. I'm so inscrutable."
"So what?"
"You don't understand me sometimes, huh? Don't worry, don't worry."
It was quiet at the Rooster, and warm. A few maintenance people were mopping the floor near the bar. Others were replacing some of the photographs and paintings on the walls with new ones. One piece of art was a medium-sized watercolor by Zina Dumatskoy of the Kremlin's Savior Tower, done in the expressionistic style of some of her studies of the St. Basil the Blessed's Cathedral. The Red Rooster Partnership had recently purchased the work for its permanent collection. Anya saw it being hung, recognized it, and looked at Drugo with a more serious expression. She said to him:
"Books, manuscripts - things the Ministry of Education would know about, would want to know about, huh?"
Drugo shrugged his shoulders in such a way to suggest, "I guess."
"I must speak to Dmitri Dumatskoy about this. Who is his boss?" asked Anya.
"I don't know offhand."
"Darling, I want you to investigate further. See Natalya Doverovich tomorrow. Find out who her sources of information are. I don't know. . . I just feel all this is very strange, and somehow very important. I'm going to see Dmitri tomorrow, or the following day at the latest, perhaps after you've talked again with Doverovich. Okay?"
Drugo smiled at her with his, "Oh, Anya," smile.
"Now. . . " she continued, "Come, let's take a little walk outside in the frosty December air. There's something else I want to talk to you about. Something a little different. Come on."
 hen the daily mail for Friday, December 21st was sorted for the various sections of the Ministry of Education, Moscow Bureau, those pertaining to the concern under the direction of Olga Shpion were brought directly to her, as per her request. She wanted to know what correspondence was coming from where and to whom. She also examined the mail before it went out at the end of each day. She had been doing that for about a week. When she examined the bundle for Dmitri Dumatskoy, Shpion found a large envelope sent from Germany, Marburg, Germany. Without hesitation, she tore it open and read the contents.
There was a letter from Andrey Sigfridovich Holtz, professor of Philology at Marburg University, well-know to Shpion as the leading living authority on the reign of Tsar Ivan IV, and from his involvement with Dumatskoy on the Tsar Ivan library project. From his letter, it was evident to Shpion that Dmitri Dumatskoy had blatantly ignored her direct order to cease the library project as per Anatoly Lunacharsky, Commissar of Education. According to the letter, the project was in full swing, and ongoing. For that bit of information, Shpion was exceedingly happy, for it was grounds for the immediate dismissal of Dmitri Dumastkoy from his position of Research Assistant in the Ministry of Education. That would also aid and abet V. V. Podly's plan, thus putting Shpion is the good favor with the Housing Director that she needed to be in, in order to get what she wanted from him for her secretary, Marya Timofeevna.
However, and this was a major "however" - the remainder of the correspondence to Dumatskoy from Holtz completely shocked Shpion. It now became clear to her that there was, or at least had been a library amassed by Tsar Ivan IV!! As soon as she realized what she held in her hands, she rushed out to reception and ordered Marya to see that she was not disturbed under any circumstances. Then she went into her office and locked the door from the inside. She sat down and beheld with a mixture of wonder and terror the reproduction of Johann Fichte's copy of Merchant X's list of manuscripts. Merchant X, the eyewitness to Ivan's Library!! She looked at each page of that astounding 56-page document. She counted 409 titles listed by Merchant X. She didn't know Greek or Latin, so she was unaware of exactly what was listed.
Shpion nervously bit down on a hangnail. She was at loss as to what to do at that moment. Two antithetical concepts posed themselves before her. At the initial stage of her thinking, they were equal in value. One was the absolutely priceless, national, literary/historical significance from what was contained in the papers that lay on her desk, if authentic. And if any remnant of the library could be found! The other factor was V. V. Podly. She was weighing a pro against a con, waiting for the judgement which was swinging to and fro within her mind. Suddenly, with the thoughts vying for her attention within her, she felt shame. Shame that she had equated these two concepts: National honor and glory; and the vile power of a petty bureaucratic tyrant. Honor and fear! Shpion gathered up Holtz's letter, the Fichte list, and the large envelope the materials came in, and put everything into the safe in her office. She locked the safe.
 n his workroom in the Ministry of Education, Dmitri Dumatskoy had just finished the work he had been assigned to do for that day. In the time remaining before he could go home, he was thinking about which of Aleksandr Blok's books he would read to finish off the business day on a positive note. Suddenly, the clerk, Fyodor Govnosky, entered the room. He stood there a moment, foolishly smiling. Then, with his left hand, he groomed his spare tufts of blonde hair with his own spittle. Dmitri looked at the unfortunate fellow with disgust. How Fyodor was able to carry out his duties with what was apparently a very small arsenal of intellectual abilities was a complete mystery to Dmitri.
"You need a haircut, Govnosky!" said Dmitri abruptly.
That startled the clerk. He forgot why he came into Dmitri's room. He stammered a few unrecognizable syllables, he shifted his weight from foot to foot like a child being interrogated for breaking his father's best something or other.
"Well, have you come in here to show off your new suit of clothes?"
Dmitri was trying hard to keep a straight face while he said that. Govnosky had been wearing the same worn blue gabardine suit for months. He looked at himself as if to see if he had a new suit, then blushed with embarrassment and confusion. He managed to say,
"Well, no, er. . . yes, I. . ."
"Let's not mince words, my good man. Why are you here?"
"Yes, thank you, uh, Dmitri Pavlovich, why, of course. There's a lady to see you. She's here."
"Here, in my room?" Dmitri looked around the room in an exaggerated manner, peering into every corner, standing up to search behind and under the books and papers piled around.
Finally, exasperated, giving Dmitri a malignant look, the clerk cried,
"Stop it, Dmitri Pavlovich! Of course not here in the room! Here in the Ministry! Stop it! I won't play the fool for you!"
The clerk stamped his foot and looked contemptuously at Dmitri.
"Of course you will, Govnosky, and you do it so well." Dmitri laughed out loud. "Now show this woman in and bring a chair for her to sit on."
Anya Drugo had come to see Dmitri. She sat down on the chair brought in by the clerk, and told Dmitri about what she saw that early morning from her apartment window with her binoculars. She told Dmitri what Natalya Doverovich had told Drugo about the matter.
"I don't know, Dumatskoy, what's it all mean? It must be important, mustn't it?"
"The trucks could have been coming from the Savior Tower, couldn't they?" asked Dmitri.
"Why yes, I suppose so. Why? My God! You look like you're glowing! You're pleased about something, aren't you?" Anya laughed. "Tell me, please, what is it?"
"I'm going to have to investigate, somehow, this matter. I'm going to have to somehow make some telephone calls - to Germany! This may be very big news, indeed, Anya. And I thank you, Russia thanks you, for this information."
"Oh Dumatskoy, please be careful with anything to do with Germany, my God! Please tell me what this is all about."
"Not anymore here, not now. Come home with me and have supper with us - we'll talk. I will tell you."
Outside the door to Dmitri's workroom stood Fyodor Govnosky with a notepad and a pencil. He had eavesdropped quite a bit, and had written what he heard for Olga Shpion, and he was happy to do so.
* * * * *
"Odyssey, at the crucial moment of Odysseus' magical return to Ithaca. You will learn to read it, and then we shall discuss its interpretation as expounded by Porphyry in the 3rd Century."
Zina was excited by this prospect. She wanted to see where the Island of Ithaca was on Uchitelnitsky's beautiful map of the Aegean.
Uchitelnitsky had come that afternoon to 120 Novokirovskaya to give Zina a lesson in Greek.
"The Cave of the Nymphs has actually been identified by the geographer, Artemidorus of Ephesus around 100 B. C. He attested to the cave's historical reality, located in the Bay of Polis on Ithaca."
Zina began to tingle with strange warmth that spread quickly throughout her body as she contemplated such a place existing in Homer's archaic poem, and out in the pristine, wine-dark waters beyond the hideous cold and turmoil of Russia.
"Read along in your Russian text while I recite the passage in Homer's Greek."
Zina's eyes gushed with the full weight of a massive excitement. She silently read the Russian as she listened to Uchitelnitsky:
"At the head of the harbor is a slender-leaf olive
And nearby it a lovely and murky cave sacred
To the nymphs called Naiads. Within are kraters and amphoras
Of stone, where bees lay up stores of honey. Inside, too
Are massive stone looms and there the nymphs weave
Sea-purple cloth, a wonder to see. The water flows unceasingly.
The cave has two gates, the one from the north, a path for men
To descend, while the other, toward the south, is divine.
Men do not enter by this one, this path for immortals."
During one of the later sessions when Zina had learned to read the passage well enough, Uchitelnitsky began to speak about how the cave and its description alludes to a higher reality, a further truth. Uchitelnitsky summarized the Neoplatonic allegorical interpretation techniques in the simplest possible way for Zina.
"If a particular passage's surface meaning was unacceptable - incomprehensible, implausible - it might be ripe for digging out a deeper meaning which would resolve the paradoxes and restore harmony. For example, the two mouths of the cave correspond to the fundamental duality of the universe. And what of the olive tree, do you think?" Uchitelnitsky asked Zina.
She thought for a moment. Her expression, the muscles in her lovely face seemed to follow the processes of her brain as they took on a myriad of positions along the mouth and above the cheeks. Finally, her face transformed by the brilliant light of recognition, she said,
"The 'head' of the harbor was chosen by Homer for the location of the olive tree. The olive tree is the symbol of Athena, born from the head of Zeus. I suppose, then, that it points to knowledge, wisdom."
She smiled beautifully. Her perfect teeth sparkled.
Uchitelnitsky was touched by her charm and her answer.
"I think that is true, Zina! Yes! The olive tree by the cave is divine wisdom that informs the universe, but that is somehow apart, separated from it. Yes. Very well!"
Zina said, "This all seems somehow hidden away within a forgotten fold in the earth's crust."
"The spell of which, once cast, is never fully overcome."
They stared into each other's eyes for some seconds without speaking, not really conscious of what they were doing. Then suddenly, they both realized it together. A primal relationship was brewing in the reciprocal interaction, in the spectacle of the ceaseless exchange of sparks. The sound of her voice lit him all over like electricity. She felt in him the mystic promise of some intense and heightened, more authentic existence. Zina spoke first,
"Well, thank you. . . Let's see your map again and tell me everything about Ithaca."
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