style="font-size:15px;"> “Whatever the authorities say, you will do.” Kotov raised his finger instructively. “And to the point. From now on, you don’t belong to yourself. By the way, how will the venerable Pyotr Alekseevich, your old man, react to your choice? Will he approve?”
Ivan shuddered: in this mess, he forgot about the attitude of the venerable academician to the gloomy service, which was supervised by Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria himself. Sarmatov senior was extremely disloyal to the authorities. Well, he’ll have to face it, and he will have nowhere to go. Ivan is already an adult, and he has almost graduated from the institute, so it will all be figured out somehow.
Ivan expressed himself in a similar vein. Kotov just shrugged his shoulders, as if saying, do as you know. Picking up his briefcase from the floor, he remarked to Sarmatov:
“Sarmatov is from the word…”
“The Sarmatians were a Scythian tribe in antiquity,” Ivan hastened to explain.
He was already rather tired of explaining the origin of his surname to everyone, as many strove to find some Tatar or Uzbek trace in him, even though Ivan had no external resemblance to these peoples. Even though he had somewhat darker skin and dark hair, he looked more like an Italian or a Greek. The blood of his ancestors, of course, had an effect. Some of them lived in the foothills of the Caucasus, like his maternal great-grandfather, the wise Vakha, about whom legends circulated in the Sarmatian family.
“Scythians, you say,” the major muttered to himself, then smiled. “And what a glorious tribe. How did Blok put it? 'Millions of you, we are darkness, and darkness, and darkness! Try it, fight with us!’ It’s decided: you will be Skiff from now on, forever and ever. Amen, as they say, kid. See you in another life.”
“What is it like?” Ivan did not understand. The major shrugged his shoulders.
“You will see in due time. Greetings to Yakov Naumovich.”
The young man watched in amazement as the high door inched shut behind this mysterious man. Then the dean entered it, and Ivan lost all his sentimentality.
As predicted, a storm broke out at home. Sarmatov the elder, perching like a granite block behind his desk and raising an academic beard to the portraits of leaders hung on the walls of his study, shook the air with tirades that would have done honor even to the great orators of antiquity, like Lysias and Demosthenes.
He recalled his ancestors, who laid their heads on the altar of science, refusing, however, the modest offer of his wife, dearest Olga Arsenovna, to list them. And to her remark that the great-grandfather of the great academician and the beacon of anthropological thought was, in fact, a Yaitsk Cossack, he only blushed more and walked the Bolshoi Petrovsky Bend throughout his dynasty from the twelfth generation, who did not realize at one time the greatness of the victory of the Great October Revolution and that's why it was nearly the end of his, Pyotr Alekseevich's, career, almost ruined by their non-proletarian origin.
Ivan sat on a sofa upholstered in striped fabric and took in his father's dressing down in silence. Things were going the way he thought they would, so he was not too upset. Dad was predictable, like the seasons changing, but he did not need to make any more waves. That could have caused unwanted complications. And so far…
In the meantime, dear Olga Arsenovna moved to intercede for her son. At forty-five, she kept almost all the charm of youth thanks to her complaisant character and natural intelligence. She had a grace worthy of a royal maid of honor. She pulled out from the corner cabinet the cherished tray with the silver chalice, a green glass decanter, and lemon slices. After pouring some 'Shustov', as she called the Armenian brandy, she put all this beauty in front of the bright-eyed Pyotr Alekseevich. The academician's beard changed vector toward the chalice. He stared furiously at his wife for a second. Then, suddenly limp, plopped down on his carved back chair and burst out laughing.
“Well, Olenka, respect! As usual! You will always find a 'valid argument' in a dispute…”
The wife humbly lowered her eyes and, sitting down on the sofa next to her son, whispered:
“How do you think the wife of an academician should react to such escapades? Just look for another ‘valid argument'.”
The professor shook his head, then swept the chalice away with his hand, which was worthy of a port bumpkin, and, with a grunt, knocked it away in one gulp.
“This is cognac, Petya. Armenian, as you like it,” Olga Arsenovna said reproachfully. The academician looked in bewilderment at the bottom of the empty chalice:
“Yes? That's bad luck, and I haven't tasted it in my heart. Well, let’s fix that.”
He filled the second cup himself, and it soon followed the first. Pyotr Alekseevich froze, savoring the bouquet of the fine drink, and then, softening, he cast a now interested glance at his son.
“Now tell us, poor son, why… Why did you have to play this game with the state? For example, do you yearn to be a translator at an embassy? That’s worse than being a desk jockey! Or am I missing something?”
Finally, after waiting for the opportunity to get a word in, Ivan explained:
“Father, you have always taught me dignity and patriotism concerning our motherland. As I understand it, they are giving me the opportunity here and now to show my patriotism in full measure.”
The father took a hard look at his son.
“I guess you don’t understand the structure that took you for a zugunder suddenly. Although, how could you? You didn’t live in the thirties. A car in the courtyard at midnight, the rumble of boots on the stairs, the dampness of the Lubyanka cells. You do not know what it’s like to live in constant fear, awaiting arrest, camera, a summary execution!”
Ivan had his father's blood in his veins: he also could not stand it when someone opposed him.
“And Uncle Misha, your own brother, did he also shoot and torture innocents?”
“What’s Mishka got to do with it?” This took professor aback. “He… He was doing a whole other thing.”
“Yeah, he caught spies on the front line and liquidated the bandit underground in Western Ukraine after the war. I remember very well. That’s where he laid down his head, by the way. And you spent the entire war at the university, sitting in the subway, hiding from the bombing. Do you think I forgot those years?”
“I had a reservation!” the professor jumped up, insulted. “Someone had to prepare for the future, too!”
“Aha.” Now Ivan suffered somewhat, as even his anxious mother put her hand on his. “Anthropologists, of course, are the backbone of modern troops! And a low bow to you for that!”
“What do you know, brat!” The venerable scientist’s voice flew into a soaring falsetto, glaring into the eyes of his son. He then turned and went limp. In Ivan’s eyes was something beyond all reason.
Ivan took his mother's hand from his and, grabbing his jacket from the back of a chair, rushed out of the room, slamming the door.
The professor exhaled and sat down. His wife went up to him, put her hands on his shoulders from behind, and kissed the incipient bald spot on the powerful back of his head.
“Oh, Petyunya, Petyunya. But our boy has grown, and you didn't notice during your lectures and seminars.”
“Yes,”
