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seat beside him had been occupied by his official protector, warder, translator and new best friend as of twenty-four hours previously. Who naturally smoked Belomory. When they were handed menus in English and French, he had asked his companion for a translation. On the right were cocktails and alcoholic drinks and cigarettes. On the left, he had assumed, was food. No, came the reply, these were other things you could order. A bureaucratic forefinger ran down the list. Dominoes, checkers, dice, backgammon. Newspapers, stationery, magazines, postcards. Electric razor, ice bag, sewing kit, medical kit, chewing gum, tooth-brushes, Kleenex.
    ‘And that?’ he had asked, pointing at the only untranslated item.
    A stewardess was called, and a long explanation followed. Eventually, he was told,
    ‘Benzedrine inhaler.’
    ‘Benzedrine inhaler?’
    ‘For drug-addict capitalists who shit themselves on take-off and landing,’ said his new best friend, with a certain ideological smugness.
    He himself suffered from non-capitalist fear on take-off and landing. Had he not known it would go immediately into his official file, he might have tried this decadent Western invention.
    Fear: what did those who inflicted it know? They knew that it worked, even how it worked, but not what it felt like. ‘The wolf cannot speak of the fear of the sheep,’ as they say. While he had been awaiting orders from the Big House in St Leninsburg, Oistrakh had been expecting arrest in Moscow. The violinist had described to him how, night after night, they came for someone in his apartment block. Never a mass arrest; just one victim, and then the next night another – a system which ramped up the fear for those who remained, who had temporarily survived. Eventually, all the tenants had been taken except for those in his apartment and the one opposite. The next night the police van arrived again, they heard the downstairs door slam, footsteps coming along the corridor … and going to the other apartment. From this exact point, Oistrakh said, he was always afraid; and would be, he knew, for the rest of his life.
    Now, on the flight back, his minder left him alone. It would be thirty hours before they reached Moscow, with stops at Newfoundland, Reykjavik, Frankfurt and Berlin. It would be comfortable at least: the seats were good, the noise level bearable, the stewardesses well groomed. They brought food served on china and linen with heavy cutlery. Enormous shrimps, fat and sleek like politicians, swimming in shrimp-cocktail sauce. A steak, almost as tall as it was wide, with mushrooms and potatoes and green beans. Fruit salad. He ate, but mainly he drank. He no longer had the light head of his younger days. One Scotch and soda followed another, but they failed to put him out. No one stopped him, neither the airline nor his companions, who were audibly merry, and probably drinking just as much. Then, after coffee had been served, the cabin seemed to grow warmer, and everyone dropped off to sleep, himself included.
    What had he hoped of America? He had hoped to meet Stravinsky. Even though he knew it was a dream, indeed a fantasy. He had always revered Stravinsky’s music. He’d barely missed a performance of Petrushka at the Mariinsky. He’d played second piano in the Russian premiere of Les Noces , performed the Serenade in A in public, transcribed the Symphony of Psalms for four hands. If there was a single composer of the twentieth century who might be called great, it was Stravinsky. The Symphony of Psalms was one of the most brilliant works in musical history. All this, without doubt or hesitation, he declared to be the case.
    But Stravinsky would not be there. He had sent a snubbing and well-publicised telegram: ‘Regret not being able to join welcomers of Soviet artists coming this country. But all my ethic and esthetic convictions oppose such gesture.’
    And what had he expected of America? Certainly not cartoon capitalists in stovepipe hats