Free Blind Date by Jerzy Kosinski Page B

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    The next morning Levanter was notified that Captain Barbatov was no longer in command of the correctional unit. Levanter was to assume the regular duties of a private. When he moved his gearto a tent, the other soldiers greeted him with contempt and ridicule, snickering at him because his protector had been caught reentering camp drunk, carrying a false pass, and was to be court-martialed.
    Later that same day, a sergeant entered the tent, called Levanter’s name, and ordered him to collect his gear. Levanter was sure his falsification of the rosters had been discovered and he was about to be arrested. Instead, he was driven to Barbatov’s barracks and ordered to report inside.
    A slender man stood looking out the window. Levanter announced his presence, and the officer turned to face him. He was a middle-aged major wearing a rumpled uniform. He acknowledged Levanter’s salute with a curt nod; no expression showed on his lined face.
    â€œI can’t find any correctional-unit training-program files or codes — only this cabalistic chart,” he said, gesturing toward the wall. “I am told that you worked closely with my predecessor, Captain Barbatov.”
    â€œI did, Major,” replied Levanter. The officer waited. Levanter said no more.
    â€œThe program must go on,” the major said. “You will provide me with the same assistance that you gave Captain Barbatov. Understand?”
    â€œYes, sir!” Levanter responded. “I will need a specific authorization assigning me to your service.”
    The major handed him a typewritten document. “I happen to have a blank transfer authorization, Private Levanter. It has already been signed by the regimental commander. You need only type your name in the empty space.”
    Levanter knew he had to leave the East, but he knew also that he would need a profession that could support him in the West, a profession with a universal language. While he was finishing at theuniversity after his army service, Levanter enrolled in night courses at a school of photography. Before long, he had built his own darkroom and chemical laboratory.
    In addition to his classes and darkroom work, he spent hours every week in the school’s library examining the catalogues and magazines that described advancements in photographic art and reproduced the work of well-known photographers. Levanter soon learned that photography by its very nature depended on imitating reality in an imaginative, subjective way, but that usually a photographer’s technical style could easily be reproduced.
    To counteract imitations of his artistic methods, Levanter began to evolve his own techniques and a style that could not be readily copied. He used a camera adapted to his experiments, and films and papers coated with either existing emulsions that he modified or emulsions he made himself.
    Less than two years after he began the course, he was invited to exhibit his work at national and international salons of photography. His photographs were reproduced in art publications, won prizes and awards, and a one-man exhibit of his photographs was organized in the capital. He received offers to work for domestic and foreign manufacturers of photographic products and was invited to exhibit his photographs and to lecture abroad by several Western art societies. Convinced that his work would be the finest form of advertising for the export of domestic photographic products, the authorities granted Levanter a short-term passport for his trip to the West.
    During his last week in the Soviet Union, he walked through fields in the farthest suburb of Moscow and noticed remnants of the frail fence that had surrounded the tents of the traveling state circus. Now, in winter, the circus was gone, and the fence and field were abandoned.
    It was snowing. The whirling powder had whitewashed the outlines of the railing. Between flurries, the fence looked like a good subject for a