BANISHED FROM PARADISE
In the spring, radio voices25 began broadcasting Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago.” Father listened to chapter after chapter, pressed up to the horribly howling receiver. I was busy with my own things and did not pay any attention to this event of course, but the foreigners who became more frequent in our school with the approach of spring mercilessly drew us into conversations about Solzhenitsyn, wanting perhaps to enlighten us. At a loss in the face of their persistence, we turned to F. Without proffering her own opinion, she suggested an evasive answer: we haven’t read that work by Solzhenitsyn. I cannot say for sure whether F. discussed Solzhenitsyn with B. G., but despite his generally responsible and cautious attitude towards politics, he did not brief us on
