HOW TO NEGOTIATE WITH A RUSSIAN

...That night I telephoned to Dobiac-co, where the Russian Shport-Klub-bers were staying, and asked to speak to a Russian...

...Go talk to the Russians...

...Mama and I did not want to brag...

...As you know, the telephone has a language of its own, and the telephone between San Candido and Dobiacco speaks Romansch, a Swiss dialect...

...But for what...

...They asked me if a three-room apartment would be big enough for the six of us, and when I said that that was one more room than we had now, they were satisfied...

...I told him that mine had sold 2700 in one, and he asked me if I would send him a copy, and I said I would...

...Indigenous value was never considered, and if you didn't have one at the moment which the Russian wanted, he gave you one of his anyway...

...Somebody bumped me, in passing, and I caromed off another man, to whom I turned to say, " 'Scusi," which is Italian for " 'Scusme...

...Then I gave him a picture of my lovely wife and our lovely children and some more stuff (this time I had the briefcase), and he said his Godfather was a great sculptor who had spent twenty-five years in New York and would translate everything I had given him...

...The Russians told us that they had found the prices too high in Cortina, so they had moved out to Dobiacco, the town next to San Candido...

...But theirs was blue, meaning free train ride from wherever they were staying to Cortina, and ours were red, meaning free bus ride from the town where we were staying, San Candido...

...I did not ask him about slave labor in Siberia and he did not ask me about segregation in the South...

...He used the German for "Godfather," "Ehrevater," which means Honorary Father, so I didn't find out if he believed in God, but later on, when I was trying to say "Spasibo," which is Russian for "Thankya," he said that "Spaji-bo" means "thankya" and that "Spa-si-boch" means, "Only God is Holy," and I said, "Ach, so," which is German for "Ach, so...

...Are you afraid of them...

...leader like sheep or American tourists...

...Mama found him genuinely quizzical...

...I knew for sure that "baseball" is "beezbol" and "ping-pong" "pnyak-nyak" (although I found out later that the Russians call it "tabultennus"), but I did not see how I could break right into sports talk, especially as my vocabulary was out of season...

...Russian children, he said, all went to the movies...

...He has traveled in Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, and Is presently in Austria...

...he asked...

...Wherever the trading started, a crowd formed...

...He turned out to be Sergei Mikhalkov, president of the Commission for Children's Literature of the U.S.S.R...

...The next three or four inches on out consist of a hollow paper tube, and then there's a half-inch of tobacco at the end...

...They promised to call back, but they never did, and when Mama introduced me to the ski instructor on the train the next day, he said he did not know when we could make a date because he did not know when they would be free...

...I spoke to five different Russians in Romansch and said I would like to arrange a social evening with them...

...I could not imagine who (or even whom) he was thinking of, and I said I did think, and he said, "If you have to do without one or the other, it is better to do without so much civilization, don't you think...

...Everybody would trade anybody anything—it was like the wheat pit on LaSalle Street—and when an Italian policeman, who refused to trade me his badge, offered to tear a brass button off his overcoat, I broke down and wept...

...Not for Capitalism, for sure, or it would have been Horatio Alger...

...I didn't say that He who clothes the lilies and feeds the ravens would take care of me because the Russians, unlike the Americans, are not devout...

...I am," I said...

...They all did...

...Ah-ha," I said in Italian, "you speak Engliskoye...

...But the Russians were never seen on the street in Helsinki except as a group, huddled behind their tourMiLTON MAYER, a regular contributor to The Progressive, is spending the year in Europe with his family...

...III So we didn't wait for one...

...I told him, in German, that he was a traitor, and when he asked how so, I said because a Russian never eats lunch before 4 p.m...

...It was a French translation, published by Editions en Langues Etrangers, Moscou...

...Certainly not Americans or they would have been wolves...

...I make a distinction," he said, "between culture and civilization...

...Propaganda...

...Mama said he must meet her husband, the professor, and he said he would like to...

...Primitive...

...which is Shrdlu for, "Just exactly what does this metallic memento symbolize...

...I don't know for sure, because I was sitting across from him and I do not read Russian upside-down as readily as I should...

...Then I pointed to the American flag on my lapel and to the "D" stickpin on the Russians' and indicated that I wanted to do business...

...Our people all read and think, and they have ballet and symphony music everywhere...

...In the second place, we had the linguistic bulge on the rest of the crowd...

...How to Negotiate With A Russian By Milton Mayer Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy WHAT," I said to the Italian lady in the Articoli Sportivi, which, very liberally translated, means Sports Articles, "would you want for one of those little stick-pin flags in the window...

...But I can't get into Russia," I said...

...I say I assume...

...We rode with them on the train, and were introduced to architects, electrophysi-cists, philosophers, and journalists, all Shport-Klubbers...

...Then he pulled a typewritten article out of his pocket, and he added a few lines in pencil, which, I assume, said that the Quakers were bitter enemies of capitalist imperialist American colonialism...

...Mama and I repaired to the Arti-coli Sportivi and went all out—up to five pins each—for purposes of trading with the enemy...

...The reason we knew they were Russians was their cigarettes...

...Nyet," said the Russian, trying to say "No," and he took off his pin and handed it to me, and I gave him mine, and Mama exchanged hers with the other Russian, and we all shook all eight hands again, pumping harder this time, and as Mama and I turned to go I pointed to the "D" pin, which was now on my lapel, and said, "Da...

...didn't American children, too, and wouldn't they be badly affected by all the violence...

...they had read them all, and they said that taxi-drivers in Russia read them, too...

...Mama traded her Chinese Picasso dove for a Russian Picasso dove and three more pins of different Shport-Klubbs...

...Mama and I speak German, and a lot of the Shport-Klubbers spoke German...

...If they had murdered 100,000 kulaks, I had murdered 100,000 Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so we were pretty evenly matched...

...I said I did, and he said, "How many books do Americans read...

...Refugee Commission in Geneva, spikka da French...

...I'm busy...

...They were both Russians...

...The street's full of Russians and they keep coming in here to get American flag pins...

...Mayer's articles have appeared in many American publications, including Harper's, Life, The Reader's Digest, Commonweal, and Fellowship...

...It occurred to Mama and me, when we hit the street, that we would not know a Russian if we saw one, and we didn't think we'd see one anyway...

...But there were no bad wolves in the story, only good sledge-dogs who knew no better than to tree a bear-cub...

...The two Russians—it's just like Truman says—could not even speak good English...

...You ought to be ashamed...

...His children's books, he said, have sold 27,000,000 copies in fifty-one languages...

...I handed him a few copies of last October's Progressive with the great debate on the Quaker pamphlet, "Speak Truth to Power...

...and three times winner of the Stalin Prize...

...he would have to talk to the tour leader...

...At the summer Olympics in Helsinki, in 1952, they spoke to no one, except on the field...

...And the fat little Italian nodded, and then we all shook hands, and all we needed was a beezbol bat, to get all our hands on, the way you choose up sides in pnyak-nyak...

...I said, "It says Communism is guilty of terrible wrongs and so is Capitalism"—those were my words...

...He was very tall and blonde and in-ter-est-ing looking...

...The last day of the Olympics, Mama and Kimi and I went to Dobiacco at three in the afternoon—-the U.S.S.R.-U.S.A...

...This was the first time the Russians had come to the winter Olympics...

...They were on an official tour with the Russian team...

...Sergei Mikhalkov, when I braced him for an appointment, wanted to know why we couldn't just meet on the train every day, going to and from Cortina, and talk...

...One Russian took his primitive cigarette out of his mouth and said, "Change...

...So I told them about the Great Books Foundation and that some—not all— Americans read good books and they all said, "Ach, so...

...We were loaded for Russian bear, with flags of different countries (but none, as it happened, from any Communist country...

...Are they against colonialism...

...The next Russian we saw saw us first...

...So are you," I said, and we shook hands again...

...But who were his sledge-dogs...

...Yes," I said...

...I have never heard such bragging, except by Tex-ans, Californians, and Americans generally...

...Cortina was so badly organized, a la Italienne, that you couldn't get up to the events anyway, and those who got up there found that the event had been moved still higher up in search of snow...

...The Russian cigarette begins, at the face, with a paper tip...

...He told me that Russia is the greatest country on earth, abounding in culture...

...He liked that, and he made me have tea with him...

...An American flag pin, yes," said the lady, "but a Russian flag pin, no...

...There is no use trying to talk to a Russian about Communism and Democracy...

...He asked me about the Quakers, and I told him how they worked for peace and understanding and friendship...

...Then there was a pause...

...In format it was like The Progressive, paper-bound, but on heavy fine paper...

...Sergei Mikhalkov, who spoke German, but not French, asked me to translate it to two South African girls in the next seat, and I did, and then he autographed it and gave it to me...

...It would be nice to have civilization, too, but civilization without culture is dangerous to the whole world, don't you think...

...And the Russian said, "Dynamo Mosko Shport-Klubb...

...They were Chinese Communists from China, and we each got a red-and-white Picasso dove pin from them, which Kimi traded for a celluloid button from Canada, for which she got three Czech pins...

...I was out of Russian...

...They don't even smoke Camels...

...the manufacturer didn't send us any...

...Before the week was over we dealt with a round dozen of Russians with little cardboard boxes full of trinkets to trade with the American savages...

...Mutti (as they call her in Germany), or Mama (as they call her in Italy), and I went out into the Via Roma with our American flag pins to find a Russian...

...The first day they wore no free-ride badge, but the second day they did...

...The polar scientist was the Russian...

...They wanted to know how I could finance the trip, and I told them that many people were interested in my making such a trip (some on a oneway basis...

...Just as Harry Truman, the Fair Dealer, says in his memoirs, "They don't understand anything but force...

...Kimi found a Swede wearing an official Japanese team pin...

...But Mama and I had the inside track...

...And then we had little Kimi Nagatani with us...

...I am an American," I said, "and after all we did for you with the Marshall Plan, you still want one hundred lira...

...After the Olympics we will still 'want' one hundred lira," said the lady...

...Then we got to Cortina, and the Russians beat the Americans at hockey, and after the game the two teams all pumped hands, "Russki," "Amerikanski," and Mama and I thought that they, and we, had done some business, and so had all the other people trading flags and pumping flippers and fanning the breeze at Cortina, and maybe what Eisenhower and Bulganin needed was to wear their Shport-Klubb pins and get a blue badge entitling them to ride the rattler from Dobiacco...

...Now one hundred lira is sixteen cents, so I said, "And after the Olympics, how much...

...I'm busy...

...It was clear that they were hesitant to make an appointment...

...The Russians looked at me fearlessly and I looked at them fearlessly...

...Propaganda...

...In the first place, we had sense enough to wear our Dynamo Mosko Shport-Klubb pins, and then our Red Flag, along with the American flags, and this grand gesture tickled the Russian satellites from East Europe and the American satellites from South America...

...It was called, "The Bear-Cub of the Far North," and it was a picture-book story about a bear-cub who met a strange puppy and made friends with him, and while they were playing a pack of sledge-dogs, belonging to a party of polar scientists nearby, came after them and treed the bear-cub, but one of the scientists, who was out skiing, heard the yammer and arrived just in time to drive the dogs away and photograph the little bear...

...And I did not want to make any bad mistakes right at the start...

...Kimi, who is Jim Read's secretary in the U.N...

...We do not have so much civilization, especially in the villages, bathtubs and refrigerators and so on...

...he turned out to be a Japanese skier...

...So before the opening day was over we had everybody in Cortina out in the Via Roma trading pins, especially with the Russians, the Czechs, the Poles, the Rumanians, and the Hungarians...

...He wore a fur hat, and he signaled to us like the postcard man...

...Meanwhile, working the other end of the train, I came upon a very handsome Argentinian, one of those big, chesty polo characters with a typical big black Iberian mustache and the inevitable white cap of the Buenos Aires haut monde...

...On their coat lapels the two Russians each wore a pretty little blue-and-white enameled pin with a script "D" in the middle...

...He wanted to know why American movies were full of violence...

...he wants to talk about Communism and Capitalism—and then he said, "You know, you're an interesting fellow...

...I told him he really ought to read "Speak Truth to Power" and get other people to read it, and he said, "What does it say...

...Kimi went up to two tall, handsome strangers, obviously Englishmen, and asked them what they had...

...You didn't do anything for me," said the lady, "you did something for the millionaires in Rome...

...Or didn't Horatio Mikhalkov any more know that he was a propagandist than Sergei Alger did...

...Go talk to them...

...II The Russians were wandering in twos and threes, and even in ones, all over Cortina and everywhere else...

...He called this out to another Russian, a journalist, and the journalist wrote it down...

...He might have been a Dane, and he was standing with a fat little man with a black mustache, obviously an Italian...

...Why don't you trade with them...

...The Russians all knew about Poe and Whitman and London and Stevenson and Hemingway and Lewis and Mark Twain and Sinclair and all about Dickens and Shakespeare...

...Then he got one of his books out of his briefcase and handed it to me...

...The manufacturer didn't send us any...

...He bragged something fierce...

...There aren't any...

...Mama talked to one of them, who, as it turned out later, was only a ski instructor, but, still, a guaranteed Russian...

...The cub and the puppy were the Czechs and the Poles or Hungarians or Rumanians, eh...

...You don't have to," said the lady...

...Further reports on his observations and adventures abroad will appear in subsequent issues of The Progressive...

...Then he told me about medical care in Russia, and I thought it was wonderful and said so...

...I told them all that we wanted to go to Russia, and they thought that that was a good idea...

...Then we all took the train to Cor- tina together, and Sergei Mikhalkove took off his polo cap and talked about Russia...

...On the field they behaved themselves handsomely and when the American pole-vault winner tried to beat his own Olympic mark, the Russian he had beaten came running out to pick him up off the tanbark and embrace him, and the crowd, which did not include Secretary Dulles, broke into the greatest roar of the Games...

...In addition to which, Kimi, although she was born an American citizen in the United States, had learned a little Japanese in an American concentration camp, or Relocation Center, and looks like a scrutable Oriental...

...One hundred lira," said the lady...

...The man was not short, like a Russian, or stocky, like a Russian, or flat-faced, like a Russian...

...It was full of all kinds of little Russian stickpins, including the Red Flag in several sizes...

...Now I think I know how to say, '"Lo,Bye," "Plee-uhz," "Thank-ya," and, "Be seenya" in Russian, but I'm not sure...

...I swallowed and said, "Approximately one book per year per person...

...You sound like an Italian," said the Italian lady...

...I dodged around to the Free Transport Office and told the man that we had got red badges by mistake—it was a lie— and signed a sworn statement to that effect and got blue badges, and that night we were on the train to Dobiacco, and there were the Russians...

...He protested that the Japanese had only their official pins and could not give them up, but Kimi talked Turkey to him in Japanese and got it...

...What we have is culture...

...All right, all right," I said, "I'll take an American flag pin and a Russian flag pin...

...We sidled up to him and he pulled a little cardboard box out of his pocket...

...That is what I mean by culture...

...hockey game was scheduled for 9:30 that night in Cortina—and we found Sergei Mikhalkov eating lunch...

...So I stuck my hand out with vigor and said, "Russkii" The Russian put his hand halfway out and nodded, and I said, 'To" (which is Spanish for "I") "Amerikanski," and I grabbed his hand with both of mine, so that he couldn't hit me, and he grabbed my hands with both of his so that I couldn't let go and hit him, and he turned to the fat little Italian, who was a Russian, and said, "Amerikanski...