History is not what we were wearing, It is how we had been utterly ruined. B.Pasternak.âSpektorskyâ In the spring of 1999 the police found me lying unconscious with a broken forehead next to my bike in the outskirts of Paris, and delivered me to a hospital. It took a few weeks for French doctors to bring me to consciousness. But I did not recognize my son and said about my wife: âthis woman says that she is my wifeâ. A doctor asked me how many years we had been married. I answered correctly, âtwenty fourâ, and the doctor wrote down: âarithmetical abilities are preservedâ. Later, French doctors told me that with such a trauma any Frenchman would succumb immediately. But then they added: âRussians are very tough so you should live several months moreâ. In a Western textbook I had read regarding effects of poisons: âas for alcohol the lethal dose for Russians is several times higherâ. Perhaps the same applies to traumas.
