The Miracle (5 page)

"A month," said Tikhanov, trying to think.

"His successor has to be alerted and placed on standby. That's why General Kossoff called. He wanted you to be informed that an informal secret vote of the Politburo overwhelmingly favors you as the next premier of the Soviet Union. Congratulations, Sergei!"

He stuck out his hand, and awkwardly Tikhanov took it, nodding.

Tikhanov felt dizzy. "I-I'd better sit down," he said. "Let me sit down."

As if suffering an imbalance, Tikhanov made his way to the sofa, groped for an arm of it, and lowered himself onto a cushion.

"Let me get you a drink," Izakov said in a celebrating mood. "One for each of us." He started for the bar. "Let's drink to it." From the bar he called back, "Vodka? I have Stolichnaya."

"Yes, vodka, a stiff one."

As he poured the drinks, Izakov went on talking. "What are your

plans now, Sergei Kossoff wanted to know. But I had no idea what your reaction would be."

"No changes. Still two days in Paris. Two days in Lisbon. Then I've told my wife to meet me at the dacha in Yalta. I thought I'd take my four-week summer vacation now. The Black Sea is at its best in these months."

Izakov approached with the drink. "Maybe you should go straight back to Moscow."

Tikhanov considered this. "No, I don't think it would be wise to appear to be hovering. Also, I don't wish to get mixed up in any of the Politburo's internal pohtics, certainly not this time. I'll stick to my plans. I'll just go to Yalta and wait. Kossoff can find me there if he wants me."

"He'll want you," said Izakov. "Soon as the old man dies, they'll be installing you as premier."

"Gratifying," said Tikhanov modestly. He was beginning to feel a thrill of excitement. He had worked so hard, hoped so long for this achievement. He didn't give a damn about the old man dying. He'd never respected nor cared for Skryabin anyway. It was only Skryabin's high seat and authority that he had respected, and hoped for. Now, overnight, it was all his.

Sipping his vodka, he realized that Izakov was speaking to him again, something about having to settle some matter in another office, but that he'd be right back.

Tikhanov was pleased to be alone for a brief interval. He had a compulsive need to retrace the road that had brought him to this high moment. He had been born on an isolated farm, today only an hour outside Minsk by car. His stolid father, owner of the farm, had been a decent man, uninterested in politics, a tiller of the soil and a primitive. His mother had been a bookish person who taught primary school in a nearby village. From the earliest age that Tikhanov had been able to read, and comprehend, he had read newspapers and biographies of Soviet heroes. His first and most enduring hero had been Russia's legendary Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko.

Tikhanov had vowed that he would follow in Gromyko's footsteps, and this he had done from the very start, and all along the way, as best he could. Like Gromyko, he had joined the Communist Party, attended the Minsk Institute of Agriculture, sought and won a post-graduate degree from Moscow's Lenin Institute of Economics. Like Gromyko, he had wanted to specialize in American affairs, and eventually had been appointed to the American division of the National Council of Foreign Affairs. Next, he had been transferred to the Soviet Embassy in

Washington, and had displayed such shrewd understanding of the Americans that he had finally been appointed Soviet ambassador to the United States. As a statesman, he had been quiet but articulate, and effective. Like his idol he had come to be known, as one American newspaper put it, for "the granite solemnity of his face." After a few years he had been recalled to Moscow and made the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at 32-34 Smolenskaya-Sennaya Ploshchad. In the decade since, he had become the Soviet Union's greatest foreign minister, and the one most admired by the majority of the members of the Politburo. If he had wanted to go upward any further, there had been only one place to go, and he had dreamed of just such power.

Now it was within his grasp. Drinking his vodka, he realized that now he would have the power to put into effect his own ideas on how to treat Russia's greatest rival and foe, the United States. He would bring a new toughness to the Kremlin. He would bring the United States to its knees, neutralize it, without war, because he had observed the Americans closely and knew better than any other Soviet official that at heart the Americans were selfish and weak, lacking guts or patriotism, no longer willing to die for their country, as decadent as ancient Romans had been. This ascendency of the Soviet Union over America would bring lasting peace to the world, and Premier Tikhanov would be not only the most lionized hero in the USSR, but the world's master as well.

He came out of his reverie as he finished his drink aware that Ambassador Izakov was standing over him once more.

"Well, Sergei," Izakov was saying, "have you reconsidered your plans? Is it still Yalta?"

"Definitely Yalta. And I think I'll keep to my schedule of visits to Paris and Lisbon first. Can your people get me on a plane to Paris tonight?"

"No problem. I presume you'll want to speak with General Kossoff in Moscow before you leave, just so that he knows you've been informed and where you can be reached."

"Absolutely."

"Oh yes," said Izakov, "I almost forgot. My secretary took one other call for you. A Dr. Ivan Karp wants you to stop by and see him today."

"I'll give him a call," said Tikhanov.

Izakov had gone to his desk to find the memorandum slip, and he reread the message on it as he returned to Tikhanov. "He seems to have been most emphatic about wanting to see you in person." He handed the slip over to the frowning Tikhanov. "Of course, you'll know whether it's important enough to bother about."

"It's not important," said Tikhanov quickly. "Just a report on the results of a routine checkup. All right, I'll arrange to look in on him." But he knew that this explanation might not be enough. He was certain that Izakov filed regular reports on everyone's activities to the KGB. Plainly, Izakov had never heard of Dr. Karp and might be curious. In this case it was nonsense, but Tikhanov liked to be orderly. "My physician in Moscow was out of the city when I left, and I knew my annual physical was long overdue. Someone mentioned that, since I was going to New York, this Dr. Karp, a Russian by birth, was reliable. So I saw him briefly the day I came in. He's a bit fussy and pedantic. I guess that's why he wants to see me. But it'll be the usual. More exercise. Diet. Less drinking."

"They always say less drinking," Izakov agreed.

"I'll arrange to see him after five—still a lot to do today—and I want to leave time for our dinner." He set down his empty glass. "Let me get hold of Dr. Karp, and then I'll call Moscow."

Tikhanov sat at the small dining table in the alcove off Dr. Ivan Karp's office, on the fourth floor of an old building around the comer from Park Avenue, impatiently waiting for the physician to finish his ritual of pouring a strong brew of tea from the china pot sitting on top of his antique brass samovar.

Tikhanov had decided upon a routine physical checkup, because one was long overdue and because he had been troubled by mild anxiety over the unevenness of his gait. He had not wanted to bother with a strange physician abroad, had intended to see his regular doctor in Moscow, but the doctor had been away on a vacation and the trip to New York had been ordered almost overnight. Tikhanov had planned to look in on the staff doctor for the Soviet UN Mission, but on second thought had decided against it because the Mission physician would certainly be a KGB agent. Tikhanov had determined to find an American who was dependable and who would not report any of his bad habits to the KGB. A chess companion in Moscow, a merchant who often visited New York and was a longtime friend of Tikhanov, had recommended that he see Dr. Ivan Karp. This Karp, a Jewish emigre of many years, now an American citizen, was intellectually sympathetic to the Marxist philosophy.

Upon his arrival in Manhattan, Tikhanov had contacted Dr. Karp, who had agreed to give him his general checkup at a modern midtown medical facihty. Leaving his security guards in the doctor's reception room, Tikhanov had submitted to a thorough examination. At its completion, Karp had said that he wanted to take his patient upstairs for

some further tests by a colleague who was a neurologist. "We don't have to drag along all your KGB guards, do we?" Karp had inquired. "We can slip out the private door to my suite." Tikhanov had been more than agreeable.

Now, brought to Dr. Karp's private office for the test results, Tikhanov was becoming irritated by the deliberate movements of the doctor. Tikhanov wanted to get down to business, be done with it in time for dinner, and then be off to Paris and Lisbon and Yalta to await his summons to power.

He watched Dr. Karp, a gnomish man with a tiny pointed beard, setting out the teacup and a plate of kvhorost biscuits.

"Thank you," said Tikhanov. "I don't have much time, doctor. We might as well get right down to it. Since there is always something, what is it this time? High blood pressure? Heart murmur? An indication of diabetes?"

Sitting across from him, Dr. Karp finished sipping his tea, and said gently, "I wish it were that simple."

"Meaning what, doctor? There's something else wrong?"

Dr. Karp was thoughtful a moment. He looked up. "Yes. I must be forthright with you. There is something of serious concern. The sooner you know, the better. Let me add, it is not of immediate concern, but in the long run—"

Tikhanov's impatience had turned into a grip of anxiety. He tried to disguise his fear with levity. "Well, as someone once said—in the long run, we'll all be dead."

Dr. Karp offered him an uneasy smile. "True. I'm glad you make it easier for me."

"So—what is it?"

"The examination, tests, indicate without question you are suffering from muscular dystrophy."

Tikanov felt a shortness of breath, his anxiety at its peak. "Muscular—what?" he asked, almost inaudibly. He had heard of the disorder, of course, but was only dimly aware of what it was all about. Now it sounded ominous, terrible.

Dr. Karp was speaking more rapidly, more professionally. "The majority of cases of muscular dystrophy fall into one of four categories, and your category is known as the mixed type. This is a disease involving the progressive symmetric wasting of skeletal muscles, in your legs, in your arms."

Tikhanov refused to accept the diagnosis. "You must be mistaken, Dr. Karp. Have you felt my muscles, arms, legs? They are strong, stronger than ever."

"A typical symptom, and deceptive," said the physician. "Connective tissue and fat deposits make the muscles seem larger and stronger, but in fact this is not so and they are wasting away."

Tikhanov would not surrender. "How can you be sure?"

"I know this must be a blow to you, Mr. Tikhanov, but the results of the tests cannot be disputed. We cannot deny the findings of the electromyography, which substantiate the positive muscle biopsy. You can expect progressive muscular deterioration, and in this kind of dystrophy, the voluntary muscles would be the most affected."

Tikhanov came jerkily to his feet, in despair, and ransacked his jacket pockets for his pack of cigarettes. With trembling hand, he put his lighter to a cigarette. Remaining on his feet, he said, "All right. What can I do about it?"

"Not too much, I'm afraid. There is no known means to stop the impairment. However, there are things that might be done to, well, ease the symptoms. A regime of physical therapy, exercise, possibly some surgery. Of course, one more thing on the positive side. If you do what should be done, you might enjoy ten or twelve more years of good living before you are fully incapacitated."

"That's all the time I want. Dr. Karp."

"You can have it, if you retire."

"Retire? You know very well who I am—"

"I know who you are. You've had many years of success. But this can no longer be. You must resign from your present post, retire and enjoy a leisurely life, and undergo all the therapy possible."

"If I refuse to resign? Or if I take an even more active job?"

Dr. Karp absently fiddled with his pointed beard, his eyes cast downward. "The deterioration will intensify, Mr. Tikhanov. You will not survive more than two or three years."

Tikhanov felt almost suffocated with rage at the unfairness of what was happening to him. He sat down next to Dr. Karp, grasped his arm and shook it. "I won't accept this, I can't. There must be some way to arrest this disease."

"I know of no physician on earth who can tell you anything other than what I've told you. However, if you want to seek a second opinion—"

'That would seem to be pointless, from what you say."

"Of course, there are a few doctors in the world who claim they can sometimes do something about this. I've twice sent patients of mine, at their insistence, to a well-known rejuvenation specialist in Geneva, Switzerland, who believes that he has upon occasion eradicated the

disease. It didn't work for my two patients, so such therapy remains in question, a long shot—"

"I suggest this is the time to try a long shot. You know this rejuvenation specialist?"

"I've spoken to him on the phone several times, some years ago. Yes, you might say I know Dr. Motta."

"Then do me a favor," said Tikhanov. "Call him in Geneva and make an appointment for me."

"Well, I could . . ." Dr. Karp looked at his watch. "Of course, at this hour he would be asleep."

"Wake him."

Dr. Karp appeared doubtful. "You insist? Really, tomorrow would be—"

"I insist," said Tikhanov forcefully. "Wake him tonight and make an appointment for me. Nothing can be more important."

Dr. Karp had resigned himself to the uncomfortable assignment. "Very well. It may take a little while. If you don't mind waiting."

"I assure you, I have nothing more vital to do."

Tikhanov watched Dr. Karp leave the dining alcove, go through his office, and disappear into another room.

Tikhanov gulped his tepid tea, filled the cup again with hot tea, drank it, brooding over his imminent mortality and the possible loss of his great opportunity. He had not yet recovered from the initial shock of the diagnosis. He pondered the choice that lay immediately ahead. To accept an active role of power, and its excitement, which could promise him no more than two or three years, or to resign himself to an inactive life that would give him ten or twelve years. Unlike many Russians, Tikhanov was not a fatalist. True, life was sweet, and there would be pleasure in added years, but he wondered how much pleasure could be derived in days without work and decision and authority.