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“How’s my sister?”
    “She’s marvellous,” I said.
    He perused the page, then looked back at me. He seemed about to say something; but he did not open his lips. He shookhis head, then finally said, “Do you wonder, Lev, whether the thing you’re after is worth it?”
    I scratched the back of my hand. “Doesn’t everybody wonder that?”
    Sasha smirked. It was as if I had said precisely what he expected me to say. He shifted in his chair and raised his chin. “No,” he said.

    IN DECEMBER 1927, Pash and I came to America on a ship called
Majestic
. The crossing was 13 days long. In a way, I had never been so free, not even at home. Here I was on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, trapped in a small floating city, and treated like a movie star. “Go where you please, Dr Termen”; “Visit when you like, Dr Termen”; “To what do we owe this pleasure, Dr Termen?” When I stepped onto the bridge, every officer rose to his feet. The
Majestic
was like a maze with a thousand friendly exits: Lo, the kitchens! Aha, the map room! Look, here’s where they keep the pets!
    I did not know what to expect in the United States. I thought I would have to be on the lookout for Apaches. But I was also worried that eight weeks was not long enough to accomplish my mission. Pash did not wish to squander any time. Squared in stained red wing chairs, we sat beside the
Majestic
‘s steamed fish buffet. Ostensibly my secretary, actually my supervisor, poring over lists of officials, academics, scientists, captains of industry, he quizzed me in whispered rapid fire:
    “Arthur Feuerstack?”
    “Director at G.E.”
    “Bert Grimes?”
    “Regional director for Westinghouse.”
    “Jack Morgan?”
    “J.P. Morgan & Co.”
    “Jimmy Walker?”
    “Mayor of New York.”
    “Sergei V. Rachmaninoff?”
    At this I laughed. “Genius.”
    Pash and his employers wanted me to slip like a hand into America’s industrial pocket. The international press was already celebrating my discoveries: I simply had to appear, the exotic Russian. I would woo the Yankees not only with the theremin but also with my radio watchman, new television prototypes, any invention that caught their magpie eyes. While I collected invitations, Pash would secure patents, ink contracts, launch corporations, and generally sign so many deals that his colleagues would have a permanent channel in and out of the USA, a passage for smuggling sheaves of industrial secrets. As a proud patriot I’d accepted this mission without hesitation. But I had other concerns, too. That is: scientific discovery, exchanges of knowledge, meetings of minds. Also, a small but persistent thought had wormed its way into my head at a Paris press conference, when a little man in an olive jacket raised his hand and asked: “Do you imagine a theremin in every home?”
    It was a beguiling idea. Consider the public good that could result. Around the world millions of workers who are fascinated by music are demoralized by the challenges of traditional instruments. Little is intuitive about the keys on a clarinet, the fretless neck of a cello. But the theremin! There is an innate simplicity to it. The closer your hand to the tall antenna, the higher the pitch; the farther away, the lower the pitch. Because it trusts the worker’s own senses, not the knowledge locked away in the lessons and textbooks of the elites, the theremin becomes a revolutionary device—a levelling of the means of musical production.
    Yes, I imagined a theremin in every home; not just the billions of new songs that would sing out, but the realization of millions of Americans, Englishmen, Spaniards, Siamese:
If we can do this, what else can we free people accomplish?
    Businessmen often point out that a theremin in every home would make me very rich. I am not a businessman. Money has never been a motivation.

    I SPENT MUCH OF MY FREE TIME on the
Majestic
in the bowels of the ship. The engines of the vessel were not just marvels of