Back in the U.S.S.R.: Jewish Luck
The Vodka Cure for Methanol Poisoning
By: Yuri Tuvim - 12/16/2006
Dr. Yuri Tuvim is a retired engineer and inventor living in Gloucester, Mass.
In October 1973, I boarded a train to
The Red Star express arrived in
In the lab Volodya Galkin sat at the desk while Olga worked at the hood. I took off my wet shoes, put them on the radiator and said: "Hey, give me something to drink; otherwise I'll be sick as a dog."
"Do you want tea? I'll make it quickly!" said Olga.
"No, tea won't help me now. Give me 100 grams from the safe."
Olga took a canister of pure alcohol and diluted a part of its content in a measuring cylinder.
"To your and mine health!" I said and gulped. It went down very well and warmed me quickly.
Volodya broke off part of his sandwich and handed it to me: "Have a bite," he said. We briefly discussed work progress. There were no disagreements about who was going to do what part of the project, and in one hour the business phase of my trip was finished.
"Olechka," I said, "mark my trip papers with the date after tomorrow. I'll use your telephone in the meantime."
I called my friend Efim, a senior scientist at the Institute of the High Molecular Compounds.
"Fima, I finished my work and I am free for two days. While you slave away I'm going to The Artillery Museum. Will I see you in the evening at Joseph's place, as usual? But don't forget to bring some spirits, because I was chilled to the bone and I need some serious restoration!"
"No problem," Efim answered. "We shall meet at six, Sarah is making dinner."
"By the way," I said, "don't forget my books."
For a couple of hours I wandered through the museum, admiring examples of ancient and modern engineering. At six o'clock I entered Joseph's warm flat. As soon as I put my shoes on the radiator, Efim appeared with a bottle in hand. "Did you forget to bring my books?" I asked him.
"No, I did not forget, they disappeared. And let's hope without a trace."
"What do you mean  'disappeared'?"
"I'll tell you in a moment, but let us drink first."
We sat at the table, Efim poured shots. "L'chaim! Let it not be the last one!"
"What did you bring, Efim?" I asked. "This is methanol!"
"Come on, 'methanol, methanol '. We drink this spirit all the time, everything is OK! That's the cork smell."
"If you say so," I said. "Now tell me what happened to my books."
In order to understand Efim's narrative, I need to provide some previous history. Every time I went to
"Let's drink some more and I'll tell you what happened." Efim said. "Ilya came to the platform too early and was walking back and forth, waiting for you. A policeman approached him:
"What are you doing here, comrade?"
"I am seeing my friend off."
"And where is your friend?"
"He hasn't come yet, I believe."
"Follow me to the precinct, please."
So Ilyusha went with the policeman sweating cold and hot alternately, with the evidence of a horrible crime in his briefcase! "What will happen next," he asked himself, "will I be thrown in jail or just fired!?"
In the precinct Ilya was politely asked to produce his passport. The officer studied it and made some entries into a big ledger. Then he returned the passport and apologized explaining that the detention was a mistake. They were looking for someone else. The briefcase did not attract any attention.
Ilya left the precinct on weak legs and went directly to the metro, because he understood that he was not released but let go for a reason: they wanted to find out whom he would meet. In the subway Ilya took the first train, went several stops, then some stops in the opposite direction, went out, took a bus, changed it for a tram He was covering his tracks until public transportation stopped serving the population, and Ilya continued on foot through the empty snow-clad majestic avenues of the city.
Approaching the Neva River Ilusha decided that this was the right time to get rid of the damned cargo. He threw the books into the river, but they landed on the ice's edge and remained there, insolently displaying dark covers under the lights of powerful bridge lanterns. Ilya went over the parapet down to the river, collected the books, scrambled up and trudged home through the cold windy city.
When he reached his multistory apartment building it dawned on him that there might be an ambush in his room! He imagined KGB men waiting for him and if he brought the books home . It was hard to imagine how it might end! Ilya emptied the briefcase into a garbage dumpster which was under the arch, and went up, to a communal apartment where he had a room. The apartment was warm and dark. Ilya listened, turned on the light in the kitchen, checked the bathroom, stood quietly at his room's door and unlocked it. There was darkness, he turned the light on  nobody there! And frozen Ilusha went to bed because it was already three o'clock in the morning." That was the story which Efim told us.
"What a jerk!" I screamed. "If he was so afraid that Tamizdat would be found on him, why didn't he go down and take the books from the dumpster? It is well known that all garbage collectors are ordered to collect and report suspicious objects! If they did  he would be the first suspect, he is on the hook now!!"
"Okay, don't yell," said Joseph, "so far nobody's ass was fried. Let us drink to the successful outcome of the case! To heck with Avtorkhanov, you'll get another one in
We clinked glasses and I again told Efim that his contribution to the party smelled suspicious.
"Misha," he answered, "get rid of snots, you will smell better!" So we drank, ate and talked, basking in the atmosphere of our long lasting friendship. It was a good dinner and I left around midnight to stay with another friend.
In the morning the telephone rang. "How do you feel?" Efim asked.
"A little cold, some snots, I was chilled yesterday."
"Come to my institute immediately!" Efim said and hung up. I was instantly afraid: somebody was caught with forbidden books and Efim wanted to warn me but not by telephone. It took me the whole hour to get to his Institute and all the time I was rehearsing my possible answers to the questions of interrogators.
On the steps of the Institute guys from Efim's lab were standing. "Where is Efim?" I asked.
"Don't worry!" they said, "you drank methanol yesterday!"
Believe me  I felt relieved. Certainly, I knew the outcome of methanol poisoning: at best  blindness, at worst  that white robed skeleton with the scythe, but at least no one had been caught with the anti-soviet literature. At the sidewalk an ambulance was parked. Efim was waving from the back door: "Get in fast, we must go!"
I climbed into the car and we drove to
"We drank methanol!" Efim answered.
"When did it happen?"
"Yesterday, during dinner."
"And how much did you drink?"
"A little more than half a pint. Misha and I just over 100 grams, but he," pointing to Joe, "he drank less, he has a weak heart, he can't drink a lot."
"You know, pal, if you had drunk so much yesterday, you would already be blind or dead."
"No! That's the truth, I know how much we drank, I brought the bottle!"
"So, it was not methanol."
"What do you mean  'not methanol?!' I know from where I took it."
"Okay, pal, get out of here, don't fool me. I have some work to do."
"You will answer for that!", Efim yelled. "I insist on immediate hospitalization! We drank mortal poison, I know for sure!"
"Don't make a fuss here, citizen! I am calling police; they'll lock you up for fifteen days!"
Hearing that tumult a doctor appeared and ordered to take our blood for analysis. We were sitting, waiting. I asked Efim: "How did you slip up?"
"You see, I came home after dinner, in doubt after you voiced your suspicions. I did not sleep the whole night. Maybe I poured off from a wrong canister? In the morning I came to work and checked. Kaput! So I called you, called Joe, could not find him either at home or at work Thank God, we found him!" In ten minutes our blood tests were ready and nurses started to run around. Stomach pumping was ordered. Joe tried to protest: "What pumping? It is noon time now, we drank yesterday, everything was already absorbed "
"Don't talk too much! Just open your muzzle wider!" They rammed a rubber hose down Joseph's throat, as thick as a child's arm, and started to pour water into it. Poor Joe writhed and held his chest. It was scary just to watch. After they finished with him, they poured water into us, but nothing came out except the same water. "Now change," they said, giving us tattered robes and soiled smelly slippers. Then we were marshaled into a big ward with many beds. Our beds were lined up against windows; the wall was on the right.
After a while the doctor came in, middle aged, calm. He introduced himself: "my name is Evgenii Sergeevich, tell me everything in sequence." Efim reported, the doctor looked into our eyes, listened with his stethoscope and said: "I don't know what to do with you. We have only one dialysis machine and there are three of you. Shall we cast lots?" Turning to Efim, "do you have money?"
"Ya, some "
"Give me all of it." A nurse brought a bundle with Efim's belongings. He took money from it and gave it to the doctor, who handed it to the nurse and asked her to buy vodka with all of it. "You will get one hundred grams every four hours. Take care of snacks yourselves."
So, they started to fix us up. They erected drips next to every bed, brought some pills and ordered a nurse's aid to keep records of the amount of urine we produced. I solemnly took upon myself a socialistic obligation to produce three liters per day. The mood was desperately reckless. Tongues got loose.
"Is it possible that there is no other medicine except diuretics?" I asked doctor.
"There is, in Fourth Main Directorate, but we don't have it."
"Doctor," I said, "you just say what is needed. We will get it! How can you compare the Kremlin Clinic with Zionism? We are backed by the International Jewry!"
"Okay," the doctor said, "stop babbling. We are treating you correctly. Methanol by itself is not dangerous. Perilous is the product it creates in the metabolism  aldehyd. The liver handles it poorly. In order to help the liver work, we need to slow down your metabolisation of methanol. So, we are giving you vodka; it will consume part of the blood's oxygen, thus slowing down the whole process. Drink for your health! Na zdorovie!" he said and left.
The nurse came with a bottle and three glasses on a tray. She poured vodka into glasses. "Drink!" she commanded. But we could not. Even to look at this clear liquid was revolting. And we had nothing to eat. However, there was no escape. We drank. It didn't go down. We choked.
Joe said: "I can't drink. My heart is bad."
"If you want to live," the nurse said, "you must drink!" We drank, disgusted, close to convulsions. We were lying on our backs. I looked at the ceiling, where I found a crack. I looked at the crack with one eye, then with another, checking my vision. We didn't talk. There was nothing to say.
After four hours the nurse came again with three glasses of vodka on a tray. "Joseph Abramovich, Efim Gedalevich, Michael Shaevich, wake up, it's time to take your medicine!" We didn't want to drink it. This time there was something to eat, because it was supper time. Gruel and some berries-and-starch slop was offered. I couldn't drink but I had to. I swallowed the clear liquid with disgust, trying not to vomit.
Joe said: "I can't. I have a weak heart, doctors don't allow me to drink!"
"If doctor Kolosov prescribed it, you must drink!" said the nurse.
"I'll throw up!" Joe whined, banging the glass against his teeth and holding his chest.
A dirty, unshaven bum from a nearby bed rasped: "Let me drink it, my heart is good!"
"Don't interfere, comrade," the nurse said, "the patient needs to take the medicine."
The bum, bloodshot eyes, croaked: "For them the medicine, for us  nothing!? I need restoration too. Give me a glass, douche bag, or I'll mix you with shit!" He started to get out of bed, but his arm with the intravenous line was strapped to the bed. So he could not rise, only jerks and screams. The nurse screamed too. The doctor on duty, Volodya, ran in, followed by another nurse. They held the bum down and tied his legs to the bed. All beds in our room had belts because this was reanimation ward. It was filled with alcoholics and junkies, some of them unconscious. They drank dichlorethane, or antifreeze, or brake fluid; others filtered off BF glue, or inhaled gasoline, or enjoyed bedbug poison .
When they began to recover and started to become conscious they need to be watched because they were ready to do anything just to get high again. Thus, there were several nurses on duty and the lights were always on. Now just picture this: three intelligent looking Jews are lying in a row and receiving a glass of vodka every four hours, while surrounded by alcoholics and addicts belted to beds. And these miserable creatures are hearing: "Joseph Abramovich, it's time to drink your medicine!" Moreover, our friends and relatives brought us tons of snacks; smoked fish smells, pickled cucumbers crunch. Can you imagine what was going on in the inflamed brains of the best part of the occupants of this ward?
To tell the truth, at first this medicine was intolerable, but slowly we started to look forward to it. Joe, who had the bad heart, began to look at the clock on the wall: "It's time, but they are not coming. Surely some hitch occurred?"
The doctor did not come in the morning. Only the oculist Rosa Samuilovna, a very nice old lady, came as usual and looked into our eyes for a long time: "So far everything is normal, boys, every hour counts!" she said.
After she left, doctor Volodya appeared: "How are you doing, drunkards?" he asked. He was disheveled and smelled of alcohol.
"Nothing special," I answered, "Rosa Samuilovna said that everything is okay so far. Why didn't we get our medicine?"
"Ya,ya," he says, "I'll take care of that." He left, then nobody came. We were on our backs. A nurse's aid came, measured the amount of our urine and told us that we did very well producing over three liters per capita.
"Sure, we are great pissers! We are socialist shockworkers!" said Efim.
"Why didn't we get our medicine?" asked Joe.
"I know nothing!" the nurse's aide answered and retreated hurriedly.
"Look! They are pushing hard!" yelled the bum. "I wish I could get up, I would teach them a lesson! Fucking kikes settled on our necks, parasites!!!" He tried to get up but the belts held him down. He foamed at the mouth, eyes rolled up. His knees were jerking, he wheezed. The nurse ran in with a syringe in hand, injected something into his hip and he calmed down. We continued to look at the ceiling.
Efim said: "I think I know why we didn't get vodka this morning. It is gone; Volodya finished it during his night shift." Efim got up, took his drip with the stand and started to leave.
"Where are you headed?" Joe asked.
"I have to call the Institute," responded Efim and left.
In the reception office the following scene occurred: "May I make a call?" Efim asked.
"Who permitted you to come here? Go back to the ward and lay down."
"I need to call about the medicine."
"That's not your business."
"But we need the medicine."
"If every patient would call about medicine, we wouldn't be able to work."
"We should have gotten the medicine at eight o-clocks in the morning and now it is already ten .Doctor Volodya said he would give orders but nothing happened. May I talk to him?"
"He is not here. Don't interfere with my work!"
"But we need the medicine "
"You are so nasty, all of you! Get away or I'll call nurses, they shall calm you down!"
At that moment doctor Kolosov entered the office. "What are you doing here, Efim?"
"I, Evgenii Sergeevich, I want to call the guys at the Institute and ask them to bring alcohol because we did not get anything this morning."
"Please, go to bed. I'll take care of that." After several minutes doctor Kolosov came to sit on Efim's bed and said: "You wanted to make a call? Come with me, please." Efim called from the doctor's office: "Guys, bring alcohol as soon as possible. Take it from the safe, but don't mix up! I'll explain later, hurry, please!" In half an hour we received our vodka and stopped worrying.
Nurses came with a stretcher and moved one of patients who died that night from the bed onto the stretcher. He had been a chauffeur. They treated him with oxygen and shots, but nothing helped. He had drunk antifreeze ten days ago. He didn't go to the hospital, hoping that he would sail through it. He had been very handsome, a strong man, a real giant He never regain consciousness and died of cirrhosis of the liver.
The unshaved bum was untied. He came to us and sat on my bed. "Hey, pals, don't keep grudges. I love Jews. Smart people, they know how to do good for themselves. They help each other, nothing like we do. You know, when you get another drink, leave me a little, I need it."
"But the nurse takes the glasses back swiftly!"
"This is not your problem. I'll talk to her."
Rosa Samuilovna came and peered into our eyes for a long time. "I don't understand, boys. There is no damage to your retina. You are extremely lucky!"
"Methanol does not affect Jews!" I said.
"Misha, please, halt your propaganda!" she said and left hastily.
"If it does not affect you, why is vodka given to you?" yells the bum. "Oh! You know your way around, taking everything for yourselves!! I'll show you " He tried to get up but fell into a seizure, rolled his eyes up and jerked. We screamed, nurses ran in, put him on the bed, tied him, injected Quietness returned.
After a while doctor Kolosov came back: "You disrupt the medical process. I have to quarantine you." So we were moved to a surgery ward. It was warm, light and quiet. We were getting vodka without any delays, we ate, played chess, read, talked. Efim got involved with a nurse, they kissed and hugged, we pretended that we were sleeping.
"Valechka," he said, "I am a bachelor, and Misha's wife is far away in
"With great pleasure!" she answered, "But you must shave, I don't like prickly faces."
In a couple of days doctor Kolosov said: "Joseph, your analysis is fine, I am going to discharge you. Congratulations!"
"I can't leave my friends in peril!" proclaimed Joe. He had become very fond of alcohol and did not talk about his weak heart anymore. However, eventually everything comes to an end and we were discharged shortly thereafter. We had spent one week in this hospital.
The next day we got together and decided to thank doctor Kolosov. We bought three bottles of Armenian cognac, a bronze antique sculpture called The Dying Gladiator and set off to the doctor's home. Valechka gave us his address.
When we arrived we realized immediately that we came at the wrong time. A big holiday was approaching. Guests were expected and the doctor's wife was preparing a meal. Nevertheless, she treated us very warmly: "Come in, take your coats off, Zhenya will be back soon, he went shopping. He told me a lot about you, you are real heroes! Please, help yourselves!" She put a big platter with warm, wonderfully smelling pirozhki on the table and left for the kitchen.
So, I smelled the spirits and released it for consumption. We drank it and ate all the pirozhki.
Evgenii Sergeevich solemnly shook our hands and thanked us, because we helped him to win a bet against a colleague who confidently claimed that we would never again drink stolen alcohol.