Definitely Maybe Chapter 1 - Heat Waves and Wrong Numbers

This is Part 2 of my chapter-by-chapter retelling of Definitely Maybe by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (ISBN 978-1-61219-282-6). If you’re just joining, check out the introduction post first.

The Setup

Leningrad. The hottest July in 200 years. If you ever lived through a Soviet summer with no air conditioning, you know. It’s that kind of heat where you can’t think straight and everything smells like warm dust.

Dmitri Malianov is an astrophysicist. He’s alone in his apartment. His wife Irina and their son Bobchik are on vacation in Odessa. It’s just him and his cat Kaliam, who is hungry. Because cats are always hungry.

And here’s the thing. Malianov is on the edge of something big. Like, career-defining big. He’s working on interstellar matter and stellar dynamics, and he’s found something he calls “M cavities.” These are axially symmetric structures where matter flows around bubbles in space. I’m an ex-science professor, and I can tell you that the way the Strugatsky brothers write about physics feels real. Probably because Boris Strugatsky was an astronomer himself. These aren’t fake movie-science ideas. This is the kind of thing that could actually get published in a real journal.

So Malianov has a clear apartment, two weeks of quiet, and a breakthrough within reach. Perfect conditions for work.

Of course, that’s exactly when everything goes wrong.

The Interruptions Begin

First come the phone calls. Wrong numbers. Someone looking for Intourist, the Soviet travel agency. Then someone else calling for some depot. One wrong call, sure. Two, okay. But they keep coming, and each one breaks his concentration just enough.

If you’ve ever been in deep focus on a hard problem and gotten pulled out by a notification, you know how painful this is. Now imagine it happening over and over in 1970s Leningrad where you can’t just put your phone on silent.

Then the doorbell rings. A delivery man shows up with a massive box of food and alcohol. Cognac, vodka, fancy stuff. We’re talking a fortune’s worth by Soviet standards. The delivery guy says Irina pre-ordered and paid for everything.

Malianov is confused but also hungry. The fridge is empty. The cat is staring at him. So he accepts the delivery.

Here’s what bothers me about this scene. Malianov is a scientist. He should be suspicious. His wife, who is on vacation in Odessa, somehow arranged a delivery of expensive booze to their apartment? But he just goes along with it. And that’s very human, actually. When good things show up, we don’t question them enough.

Weingarten’s Strange Call

Then his friend Val Weingarten calls. Weingarten is a biologist and stamp collector. Good guy. But here’s the weird part. He starts asking about Malianov’s work. Specific questions about the astrophysics.

Weingarten has never cared about Malianov’s work before. Not once. They’re friends who talk about normal stuff, not interstellar matter. So why now?

He also asks about someone named Snegovoi. That’s Malianov’s neighbor across the hall. A mysterious guy. Big, scarred, comes and goes without explanation. Leaves his keys with Malianov when he travels. Nobody really knows what Snegovoi does. He could be military, could be intelligence. In the Soviet Union, you learned not to ask too many questions about neighbors like that.

The whole call feels off. Weingarten is fishing for something, and Malianov doesn’t get why.

The Beautiful Stranger

And then, because this day isn’t strange enough, a young woman shows up at the door. Her name is Lida Ponomareva. She has a letter from Irina saying she’s her best friend from school and please let her stay.

But Malianov has never heard of her. Not once. In all his years with Irina, the name Lida Ponomareva has never come up. Not at their wedding, not at any party, never.

She’s beautiful. She’s friendly. And she has nowhere else to go. So he lets her in.

Meanwhile, Weingarten is still on the phone. When Malianov goes to open the door for Lidochka and comes back, Weingarten completely loses it. Curses at him and hangs up.

What was that about?

My Take

The Strugatsky brothers are doing something really smart here. Every interruption seems random on its own. Wrong phone calls happen. Wives do send food deliveries. Old friends do call out of the blue. Beautiful women do show up with letters of introduction.

But all of these things happening on the same day to the same person right when he’s about to make a scientific breakthrough? That’s a pattern. And Malianov doesn’t see it yet. He’s too close to it.

This is the Strugatsky style. They don’t hit you over the head with aliens or monsters. They pile up small, almost-normal events until you get that creepy feeling that something is coordinating all of this. And you can’t prove it. You just feel it.

If you grew up in the Soviet Union, this feeling is familiar. The sense that some invisible system is working against you, but in ways you can never quite point to. That’s what makes this book hit different.

Chapter 1 ends with Malianov standing in his hot apartment with free cognac, a beautiful stranger, and a friend who just cursed him out for no reason. Nothing makes sense yet. But you can feel that it will get worse.

Previous: Introduction Next: Chapter 2 - Wine, Neighbors, and Warnings

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