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By Root 3812 0

being a priest of some functioning religion”—and to be an American writer (pisatel’ amerikanskii) was to be a sort of demigod. But then, the presence of any American was “like the arrival of a mail order catalogue in an especially provincial neck of the woods”: “We represented Marlborough [sic] cigarets, freedom of speech, opinion and movement, an uncensored literature, soap, toilet paper, serviceable and inexpensive automobiles and decent clothing.” Cheever rose to the occasion with vigorous conviviality. Where English failed, he marshaled a few Russian phrases he'd learned before the trip, along with an eccentric brew of Italian, French, and vodka-fueled expostulation. “It seemed as if he were in sort of a cloud,” said Bill Luers, a young officer at the U.S. Embassy who saw a lot of Cheever. It was not, however, a lonely cloud. “Soubletsky put an arm around my shoulders and I put my arm around his,” Cheever wrote of a typically spontaneous, ineffable friendship. “He ordered a bottle of vodka and we clanked our glasses and began to drink. Our conversation consisted mostly of repeating the word Printemps. I suppose he meant by this that he would see me in the spring … or perhaps he simply meant that in spite of the gloom of the early winter in Moscow we should remember that spring would come again.”

Cheever had a tendency to slip away without telling anyone, and this was clearly disconcerting to the authorities. The exchange program was still something of a novelty, and neither side wanted any “bad incidents.” In theory, Cheever was supposed to be accompanied by his “interpreter” from the Writers’ Union, Giorgio Breitburd, a nice-enough fellow who (according to Litvinov) was a KGB agent. At gatherings Cheever would pump his new friends with eager questions about every aspect of their lives, while Breitburd hovered and sighed and looked at his watch and reminded him of other engagements. And when Cheever managed to escape his minder, it was seldom for very long: “Wherever we went,” said Litvinov, “we'd suddenly come across [Breitburd].” When at last she explained the man's function to Cheever, he shrugged and said he wasn't afraid. “Well,” she said, “you'd better be afraid.”

When sober—that is, not often—Cheever did know the odd moment of fear. Waking at 3:00 a.m. in Azerbaijan, he was racked with homesickness and worried that he'd be kidnapped (“Will I have anything better than a single bed in a country where I do not speak the language”). But the next day his anxiety was eased by a bracing swim in the Caspian Sea, after which he flew to Tbilisi in Georgia (“the country of argonauts, Prometheus and Medea”) and was driven “through oceans of sheep” to a monastery in the mountains. Next was Kiev and another picturesque drive to Yalta, where he visited Chekhov's final villa. “Welcome to the house of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov,” the guide exclaimed in every room. “In house of Chekhov were being entertained Stanislavsky, Rachmaninoff … and the great Maxim Gorki.” Afterward he lunched with the poet Margaret Aligher, and the two went swimming in the Black Sea. Near the beach was a dilapidated statue, its wire rigging exposed: “Chekhov?” asked Cheever. “Da, da,” his companion sadly admitted. After further investigation, however, she rushed back to Cheever with some good news: “Was not Chekhov. Was Pavlov.” Finally, on October 14, Cheever returned to Moscow and noticed that the ubiquitous portraits of Khrushchev had all vanished; people were marching around waving flags and Brezhnev posters. Breitburd said he was “sorry for the old chap”—Khrushchev, that is, who'd been deposed that day—a “brave” remark, said Litvinov.

Cheever also struck up friendships with Andrei Voznesensky and Yevgeny (“Zhenya”) Yevtushenko, both famous in a way that was almost unimaginable in the West, not only as poets but as daring spokesmen for greater artistic freedom. Khrushchev had denounced Voznesensky as a “bourgeois formalist,” and Yevtushenko's most famous poem, “Babi Yar”—an indictment of Nazi and Russian anti-Semitism—would not be published in his