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\markboth{\quad \small \em Asya Lapidus \hfill}{\hfill\small 
\em I remember -- \quad}

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%I remember-
\title{I REMEMBER --}

\author{ASYA LAPIDUS}

\address{New York, NY, U.S.A.}

\maketitle

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It is difficult to write about Misha. He was very reserved, showing restrain, 
I think, not only to me, as his polite  detachment was coming the first and perfectly kept a distance. 

Many not only respected, but honored him, and this was as much a part of his 
personality as  tolerance was a part of his behavior. Young physicists adored him 
and would willingly give up a lot to get his friendship, which actually was not so 
available. Not because he refused it, he was just a loner, an outsider by nature. 
Additionally he volonteerly cut himself  off from the Russian community of physicists, by his 
own choice to be a Jewish outsider. 

He always proclaimed  that his being  Jewish as the prime of his life, while for others it was pretty 
much secondary. I did not know anybody, besides his family, who shared this attitude  with him. 
He succeeded in that people respected his beliefs, which I think did not only involve 
religion; it probably did not even imply religion. I am not sure, his world of  
ideas was pretty much locked, yet he was always open to those who were seriously 
interested, and generously shared his views, both scientific and philosophic.
A natural mentor, he was never pushy. His confidence was powerful, but quiet.


His appearance (nothing superfluous --  slim, even fragile, with beautiful shiny 
eyes, overall very  Semitic) was somehow very different. Nothing was extra, being 
extremely talented and brilliant, he always softened his glamour with a very quiet voice, and with a
very concerned manner. Some sort of intellectual aura always surrounded him. He was 
always so interesting to speak with, although I cannot say comforting. Soft manners did 
not help, as he was not an easy going person. He was very uncompromising yet surprisingly tolerant simultaneously. Never showing off and absolutely no 
pontification, just simple, with the special, I would say, refined simplicity that is granted to 
those who are gifted with talents and pretty much aware of the fact. 

Actually I do not know whether or not we were friends, but we definitely were 
on very friendly terms. He was too distant, I would say too perfect and that usually prevents 
a certain closeness of friendship. This profound respect creates some kind of a threshold, which I 
suspect nobody crossed, with the exception of his family. At home he was different. 
His beautiful and  bright wife Lilia, a charmer, quite open and incredibly
pleasant, was  able to create a real home, cozy for everybody, and at home he
was a very warm family  man. I just loved to visit them. It looked, at least for
me, that the actual head of the family  was Lilia, but Misha was a real provider,
a real husband and father, as it should be. He  always was as he should be, in
everything. Always at the highest level.

You can have different feelings for Misha and for the world of his ideas, 
but the fact that he 
seriously influenced quite a generation of young theoreticians scientifically and 
personally, is evident. For his sharpness and critical mind deliciously flavored 
with a trace of 
irony, deep encyclopedic knowledge and spotless decency,  nobility and devotion 
was an obligation.  A man of duty, you could rely on him absolutely. His 
individuality did not accept compromises and did not correspond to trivial 
explanations. But who said that everything should be explained. It was not 
a simple life of a simple person. Let us have respect without explanation, 
does he not deserve it? 

At the end of this note I would like to wish all the best of the best to his 
family: to Lilia 
and their so beloved girls, to his mother, and to his sister Ina and her family.
Probably it is  not proper, but I am sure, he would appreciate that.      

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\qquad\qquad            ***

\noindent
In spring the noise of rooks is there,\\
And watercolor in the skies\\
With snow washed up in the air,\\
And poplar branches straight and bare\\
Are shooting fog with shades and lights.
\begin{quote}   
        This park remembers You by heart --\\
        Your name and etching of Your steps.\\
        The oozy pond -- the aging guard\\
        Keeps Your reflection and Your dart\\
        With tender holding them in depth.
\end{quote}
The January came with frosts,\\
Ice crusted clouds set on fire -- \\
Stained glass is steaming seized by force\\
That even stainless steel dissolves\\
With salty tears wept by wire.
\begin{quote}
        The winter Moscow is mute,\\
        The icon tin is hugged by copper,\\
        While bells of Byzantine en route\\
        Play bloody victory and cruelly intrude\\
        Upon the gods who died in icy chapel.
\end{quote}
As always, fights -- remorse and sin,\\
In coexistence -- pride for the ejected\\
The east is east, and west is west,\\
What to expect from shiny tin --\\
When coin is tossed, just nothing is selected.
\begin{quote}
        To kneel and kick -- and vacuum is filled\\
        Meanwhile the golden coin is changed for nothing.\\
        Meanwhile the emptiness is blowing in the wind\\
        Meanwhile the silence locked in draughting field,  \\
        Is screaming painfully, in Hebrew and in Russian. 
\end{quote}

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\qquad\qquad\qquad                      ***

\noindent
The end of Moscow, the sleepy outskirts,\\
The basket with leftovers of stale imagination,\\
The grassy gravel whispering no words,\\
The strand of no regrets, no trace of agitation.\\

\noindent
The bells of leaving trains, the path of turning rails,\\
The past with no returns along the linden trees on pavement -- \\
Rebelling memory that always fails and painfully inhales\\
The poison remedy with half-forgotten flavor.\\

\noindent
And blow of the winds on sterling steel of skates,\\
In light of candle fuming through a glass in frosty smoke\\
Turns single glance into the sparkling blade \\
And mingles nights and days and mates insomnia with glow. 

 
 \noindent 
As snow, snow-white blinds vision off the eyes\\
We burn the dreams with tears of nightmare\\
And lick the bitterness of scrambling lives \\
In silent fare well in breathless dreadful air.

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