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Said a short woman next to him, as if they had a choice about it, as if they could decide to move or not, when everyone inside a Leningrad tram was locked in the struggle to get from the entry door at the back to the exit at the front by the time their stop came around. Yet the social miracle took place: somewhere at the far end a small mob of passengers burped out onto the roadway, and a squeezing ripple travelled down the car, a tram-peristalsis propelled by shoulders and elbows, creating just enough space to press into before the door closed.

Story Russia had magic tablecloths serving feasts without end. Real Russia’s roads were mud and ruts. Story Russia abounded in tools of joyful velocity: flying carpets, genies of the rushing air, horses that scarcely bent the grass they galloped on. Real Russia fixed its people in sluggish social immobility. Story Russia sent its lively boys to seek the Firebird or to woo the Swan Maiden. The stories dreamed away reality’s defects. They made promises good enough to last for one evening of firelight; promises which the teller and the hearers knew could only be delivered in some Russian otherwhere.

That very same instant the United States Congress declared a ‘Captive Nations Week’, and started calling the Soviet Union a tyranny and its allies slaves. Well, that kind of insult would have to stop, if the Americans wanted peace. He was coming to America to offer peace, but it was up to the Americans whether they accepted it. It was up to them if they lifted their trade embargo. They were making a mistake if they expected him to bend the knee. He was not going to beg; no, never to beg. Of course, the Boss would have hated the whole idea of this trip.