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«Father!» he exclaimed, removing his hands from the chair in astonishment.
Father Vostrikov turned purple and finally loosed his grip. The chair, no longer supported by either of them, fell on to the brick-strewn ground.
«Where's your moustache, my dear Ippolit Matveyevich?» asked the cleric as caustically as possible.
«And what about your curls? You used to have curls, I believe!»
Ippolit Matveyevich's words conveyed utter contempt. He threw Father Theodore a look of singular disgust and, tucking the chair under his arm, turned to go. But the priest had now recovered from his embarrassment and was not going to yield Vorobyaninov such an easy victory. With a cry of «No, I'm sorry», he grasped hold of the chair again. Their initial position was restored. The two opponents stood clutching the chair and, moving from side to side, sized one another up like cats or boxers. The tense pause lasted a whole minute.
«So you're after my property, Holy Father?» said Ippolit Matveyevich through clenched teeth and kicked the holy father in the hip.
Father Theodore feinted and viciously kicked the marshal in the groin, making him double up.
«It's not your property».
«Whose then?»
«Not yours!»
«Whose then?»
«Not yours!»
«Whose then? Whose?»
Spitting at each other in this way, they kept kicking furiously.
«Whose property is it then?» screeched the marshal, sinking his foot in the holy father's stomach.
«It's nationalized property», said the holy father firmly, overcoming his pain.
«Nationalized?»
«Yes, nationalized».
They were jerking out the words so quickly that they ran together.
«Who-nationalized-it?»
«The-Soviet-Government. The-Soviet-Government».
«Which-government?»
«The-working-people's-government».
«Aha!» said Ippolit Matveyevich icily. «The government of workers and peasants?»
«Yes!»
«Hmm … then maybe you're a member of the Communist Party, Holy Father?»
«Maybe I am!»
Ippolit Matveyevich could no longer restrain himself and with a shriek of «Maybe you are» spat juicily in Father Theodore's kindly face. Father Theodore immediately spat in Ippolit Matveyevich's face and also found his mark. They had nothing with which to wipe away the spittle since they were still holding the chair. Ippolit Matveyevich made a noise like a door opening and thrust the chair at his enemy with all his might. The enemy fell over, dragging the panting Vorobyaninov with him. The struggle continued in the stalls.
Suddenly there was a crack and both front legs broke on simultaneous'y. The opponents completely forgot one another and began tearing the walnut treasure-chest to pieces. The flowered English chintz split with the heart-rending scream of a seagull. The back was torn off by a mighty tug. The treasure hunters ripped off the sacking together with the brass tacks and, grazing their hands on the springs, buried their fingers in the woollen stuffing. The disturbed springs hummed. Five minutes later the chair had been picked clean. Bits and pieces were all that was left. Springs rolled in all directions, and the wind blew the rotten padding all over the clearing. The curved legs lay in a hole. There were no jewels.
«Well, have you found anything?» asked Ippolit Matveyevich, panting.
Father Theodore, covered in tufts of wool, puffed and said nothing.
«You crook!» shouted Ippolit Matveyevich. «I'll break your neck, Father Theodore!»
«I'd like to see you!» retorted the priest. «Where are you going all covered in fluff?» «Mind your own business!»
«Shame on you, Father! You're nothing but a thief!» «I've stolen nothing from you».
«How did you find out about this? You exploited the sacrament of confession for your own ends. Very nice! Very fine!»
With an indignant «Fooh!» Ippolit Matveyevich left the clearing and, brushing his sleeve as he went, made for home. At the corner of Lena Massacre and Yerogeyev streets he caught sight of his partner. The technical adviser and director-general of the concession was having the suede uppers of his boots cleaned with canary polish; he was standing half-turned with one foot slightly raised. Ippolit Matveyevich hurried up to him. The director was gaily crooning the shimmy:
«The camels used to do it,
The barracudas used to dance it,
Now the whole world's doing the shimmy».
«Well, how was the housing division?» he asked in a businesslike way, and immediately added:
«Wait a moment. Don't tell me now; you're too excited. Cool down a little».
Giving the shoeshiner seven kopeks, Ostap took Vorobyaninov by the arm and led him down the street. He listened very carefully to everything the agitated Ippolit Matveyevich told him.
«Aha! A small black beard? Right! A coat with a sheepskin collar? I see. That's the chair from the pensioner's home. It was bought today for three roubles».
«But wait a moment…».
And Ippolit Matveyevich told the chief concessionaire all about Father Theodore's low tricks.
Ostap's face clouded.
«Too bad», he said. «Just like a detective story. We have a mysterious rival. We must steal a march on him. We can always break his head later».
As the friends were having a snack in the Stenka Razin beer-hall and Ostap was asking questions about the past and present state of the housing division, the day came to an end.
The golden carthorses became brown again. The diamond drops grew cold in mid-air and plopped on to the ground. In the beer-halls and Phoenix restaurant the price of beer went up. Evening had come; the street lights on Greater Pushkin Street lit up and a detachment of Pioneers went by, stamping their feet, on the way home from their first spring outing.
The tigers, figures of victory, and cobras on top of the province-planning administration shone mysteriously in the light of the advancing moon.
As he made his way home with Ostap, who was now suddenly silent, Ippolit Matveyevich gazed at the tigers and cobras. In his time, the building had housed the Provincial Government and the citizens had been proud of their cobras, considering them one of the sights of Stargorod.
«I'll find them», thought Ippolit Matveyevich, looking at one of the plaster figures of victory.
The tigers swished their tails lovingly, the cobras contracted with delight, and Ippolit Matveyevich's heart filled with determination.
Chapter Ten. The Mechanic, the Parrot, and the Fortune-teller
No. 7 Pereleshinsky Street was not one of Stargorod's best buildings. Its two storeys were constructed in the style of the Second Empire and were embellished with timeworn lion heads, singularly reminiscent of the once well-known writer Artsybashec. There were exactly seven of these Artsybashevian physiognomies, one for each of the windows facing on to the street. The faces had been placed at the keystone of each window.
There were two other embellishments on the building, though these were of a purely commercial nature. On one side hung the radiant sign:
ODESSA ROLL BAKERY
MOSCOW BUN ARTEL
The sign depicted a young man wearing a tie and ankle-length French trousers. Ift one dislocated hand he held the fabulous cornucopia, from which poured an avalanche of ochre-coloured buns; whenever necessary, these were passed off as Moscow rolls. The young man had a sexy smile on his face. On the other side, the Fastpack packing office announced itself to prospective clients by a black board with round gold lettering.
Despite the appreciable difference in the signs and also in the capital possessed by the two dissimilar enterprises, they both engaged in the same business, namely, speculation in all types of fabrics: coarse wool, fine wool, cotton, and, whenever silk of good colour and design came their way, silk as well.
Passing through the tunnel-like gateway and turning right into the yard with its cement well, you could see two doorways without porches, giving straight on to the angular flagstones of the yard. A dulled brass plate with a name engraved in script was fixed to the right-hand door:
V.M. POLESOV
The left-hand door was fitted with a piece of whitish tin:
FASHIONS AND MILLINERY
This was also only for show.
Inside the fashions-and-millinery workroom there was no esparterie, no trimmings, no headless dummies with soldierly bearing, nor any large heads for elegant ladies' hats. Instead, the three-room apartment was occupied by an immaculately white parrot in red underpants. The parrot was riddled with fleas, but could not complain since it was unable to talk. For days on end it used to crack sunflower seeds and spit the husks through the bars of its tall, circular cage on to the carpet. It only needed a concertina and new squeaky Wellingtons to resemble a peasant on a spree. Dark-brown patterned curtains flapped at the window. Dark-brown hues predominated in the apartment. Above the piano was a reproduction of Boecklin's «Isle of the Dead» in a fancy frame of dark-green oak, covered with glass. One corner of the glass had been broken off some time before, and the flies had added so many finishing touches to the picture at this bared section that it merged completely with the frame. What was going on in that section of the «Isle of the Dead» was quite impossible to say.
The owner herself was sitting in the bedroom and laying out cards, resting her arms on an octagonal table covered by a dirty Richelieu tablecloth. In front of her sat Widow Gritsatsuyev, in a fluffy shawl.
«I should warn you, young lady, that I don't take less than fifty kopeks per session», said the fortune-teller.
The widow, whose anxiousness to find a new husband knew no bounds, agreed to pay the price.
«But predict the future as well, please», she said plaintively. «You will be represented by the Queen of Clubs». «I was always the Queen of Hearts», objected the widow. The fortune-teller consented apathetically and began manipulating the cards. A rough estimation of the widow's lot was ready in a few minutes. Both major and minor difficulties awaited her, but near to her heart was the King of Clubs, who had befriended the Queen of Diamonds.
A fair copy of the prediction was made from the widow's hand. The lines of her hand were clean, powerful, and faultless. Her life line stretched so far that it ended up at her pulse and, if it told the truth, the widow should have lived till doomsday. The head line and line of brilliancy gave reason to believe that she would give up her grocery business and present mankind with masterpieces in the realm of art, science, and social studies. Her Mounts of Venus resembled Manchurian volcanoes and revealed incredible reserves of love and affection. The fortune-teller explained all this to the widow, using the words and phrases current among graphologists, palmists, and horse-traders.
«Thank you, madame», said the widow. «Now I know who the King of Clubs is. And I know who the Queen of Diamonds is, too. But what about the King? Does that mean marriage?» «It does, young lady». The widow went home in a dream, while the fortune-teller threw the cards into a drawer, yawned, displaying the mouth of a fifty-year-old woman, and went into the kitchen. There she busied herself with the meal that was warming on a Graetz stove; wiping her hands on her apron like a cook, she took a chipped-enamel pail and went into the yard to fetch water.
She walked across the yard, dragging her flat feet. Her drooping breasts wobbled lazily inside her dyed blouse. Her head was crowned with greying hair. She was an old woman, she was dirty, she regarded everyone with suspicion, and she had a sweet tooth. If Ippolit Matveyevich had seen her now, he would never have recognized Elena Bour, his former mistress, about whom the clerk of the court had once said in verse that «her lips were inviting and she was so spritely!» At the well, Mrs. Bour was greeted by her neighbour, Victor Mikhailovich Polesov, the mechanic-intellectual, who was collecting water in an empty petrol tin. Polesov had the face of an operatic Mephistopheles who is carefully rubbed with burnt cork just before he goes on stage.
As soon as they had exchanged greetings, the neighbours got down to a discussion of the affair concerning the whole of Stargorod.
«What times we live in!» said Polesov ironically. «Yesterday I went all over the town but couldn't find any three-eighths-inch dies anywhere. There were none available. And to think-they're going to open a tramline!»
Elena Stanislavovna, who had as much idea about three-eighths-inch dies as a student of the Leonardo da Vinci ballet school, who thinks that cream comes from cream tarts, expressed her sympathy.
«The shops we have now! Nothing but long queues. And the names of the shops are so dreadful. Stargiko!»
«But I'll tell you something else, Elena Stanislavovna. They have four General Electric engines left. And they just about work, although the bodies are junk. The windows haven't any shock absorbers. I've seen them myself. The whole lot rattles. Horrible! And the other engines are from Kharkov. Made entirely by the State Non-Ferrous Metallurgy Industry».
The mechanic stopped talking in irritation. His black face glistened in the sun. The whites of his eyes were yellowish. Among the artisans owning cars in Stargorod, of whom there were many, Victor Polesov was the most gauche, and most frequently made an ass of himself. The reason for this was his over-ebullient nature. He was an ebullient idler. He was forever effervescing. In his own workshop in the second yard of no. 7 Pereleshinsky Street, he was never to be found. Extinguished portable furnaces stood deserted in the middle of his stone shed, the corners of which were cluttered up with punctured tyres, torn Triangle tyre covers, rusty padlocks (so enormous you could have locked town gates with them), fuel cans with the names «Indian» and «Wanderer», a sprung pram, a useless dynamo, rotted rawhide belts, oil-stained rope, worn emery paper, an Austrian bayonet, and a great deal of other broken, bent and dented junk. Clients could never find Victor Mikhailovich. He was always out somewhere giving orders. He had no time for work. It was impossible for him to stand by and watch a horse and cart drive into his or anyone else's yard. He immediately went out and, clasping his hands behind his back, watched the carter's actions with contempt. Finally he could bear it no longer.
«Where do you think you're going?» he used to shout in a horrified voice. «Move over!»
The startled carter would move the cart over.
«Where do you think you're moving to, wretch?» Victor Polesov cried, rushing up to the horse. «In the old days you would have got a slap for that, then you would have moved over».
Having given orders in this way for half an hour or so, Polesov would be just about to return to his workshop, where a broken bicycle pump awaited repair, when the peaceful life of the town would be disturbed by some other contretemps. Either two carts entangled their axles in the street and Victor Mikhailovich would show the best and quickest way to separate them, or workmen would be replacing a telegraph pole and Polesov would check that it was perpendicular with his own plumb-line brought specially from the workshop; or, finally, the fire-engine would go past and Polesov, excited by the noise of the siren and burned up with curiosity, would chase after it.
But from time to time Polesov was seized by a mood of practical activity. For several days he used to shut himself up in his workshop and toil in silence. Children ran freely about the yard and shouted what they liked, carters described circles in the yard, carts completely stopped entangling their axles and fire-engines and hearses sped to the fire unaccompanied-Victor Mikhailovich was working. One day, after a bout of this kind, he emerged from the workshop with a motor-cycle, pulling it like a ram by the horns; the motor-cycle was made up of parts of cars, fire-extinguishers, bicycles and typewriters. It had a one-and-a-half horsepower Wanderer engine and Davidson wheels, while the other essential parts had lost the name of the original maker. A piece of cardboard with the words «Trial Run» hung on a cord from the saddle. A crowd gathered. Without looking at anyone, Victor Mikhailovich gave the pedal a twist with his hand. There was no spark for at least ten minutes, but then came a metallic splutter and the contraption shuddered and enveloped itself in a cloud of filthy smoke. Polesov jumped into the saddle, and the motor-cycle, accelerating madly, carried him through the tunnel into the middle of the roadway and stopped dead. Polesov was about to get off and investigate the mysterious vehicle when it suddenly reversed and, whisking its creator through the same tunnel, stopped at its original point of departure in the yard, grunted peevishly, and blew up. Victor Mikhailovich escaped by a miracle and during the next bout of activity used the bits of the motor-cycle to make a stationary engine, very similar to a real one-except that it did not work.
The crowning glory of the mechanic-intellectual's academic activity was the epic of the gates of building no. 5, next door. The housing cooperative that owned the building signed a contract with Victor Polesov under which he undertook to repair the iron gates and paint them any colour he liked. For its part, the housing cooperative agreed to pay Victor Mikhailovich Polesov the sum of twenty-one roubles, seventy-five kopeks, subject to approval by a special committee. The official stamps were charged to the contractor.
Victor Mikhailovich carried off the gates like Samson. He set to work in his shop with enthusiasm. It took several days to un-rivet the gates. They were taken to pieces. Iron curlicues lay in the pram; iron bars and spikes were piled under the work-bench. It took another few days to inspect the damage. Then a great disaster occurred in the town. A water main burst on Drovyanaya Street, and Polesov spent the rest of the week at the scene of the misfortune, smiling ironically, shouting at the workmen, and every few minutes looking into the hole in the ground.
As soon as his organizational ardour had somewhat abated, Polesov returned to his gates, but it was too late. The children from the yard were already playing with the iron curlicues and spikes of the gates of no. 5. Seeing the wrathful mechanic, the children dropped their playthings and fled. Half the curlicues were missing and were never found. After that Polesov lost interest in the gates.
But then terrible things began to happen in no. 5, which was now wide open to all. The wet linen was stolen from the attics, and one evening someone even carried off a samovar that was singing in the yard. Polesov himself took part in the pursuit, but the thief ran at quite a pace, even though he was holding the steaming samovar in front of him, and looking over his shoulder, covered Victor Mikhailovich, who was in the lead, with foul abuse. The one who suffered most, however, was the yard-keeper from no. 5. He lost his nightly wage since there were now no gates, there was nothing to open, and residents returning from a spree had no one to give a tip to. At first the yard-keeper kept coming to ask if the gates would soon be finished; then he tried praying, and finally resorted to vague threats. The housing cooperative sent Polesov written reminders, and there was talk of taking the matter to court. The situation had grown more and more tense.
Standing by the well, the fortune-teller and the mechanic-enthusiast continued their conversation.
«Given the absence of seasoned sleepers», cried Victor Mikhailovich for the whole yard to hear, «it won't be a tramway, but sheer misery!»
«When will all this end!» said Elena Stanislavovna. «We live like savages!»
«There's no end to it…. Yes. Do you know who I saw today? Vorobyaninov».
In her amazement Elena Stanislavovna leaned against the wall, continuing to hold the full pail of water in mid-air.
«I had gone to the communal-services building to extend my contract for the hire of the workshop and was going down the corridor when suddenly two people came towards me. One of them seemed familiar; he looked like Vorobyaninov. Then they asked me what the building had been in the old days. I told them it used to be a girls' secondary school, and later became the housing division. I asked them why they wanted to know, but they just said, Thanks' and went off. Then I saw clearly that it really was Vorobyaninov, only without his moustache. The other one with him was a fine-looking fellow. Obviously a former officer. And then I thought…»
At that moment Victor Mikhailovich noticed something unpleasant. Breaking off what he was saying, he grabbed his can and promptly hid behind the dustbin. Into the yard sauntered the yard-keeper from no. 5. He stopped by the well and began looking round at the buildings. Not seeing Polesov anywhere, he asked sadly:
«Isn't Vick the mechanic here yet?»
«I really don't know», said the fortune-teller. «I don't know at all». And with unusual nervousness she hurried off to her apartment, spilling water from the pail.
The yard-keeper stroked the cement block at the top of the well and went over to the workshop. Two paces beyond the sign:
ENTRANCE TO METAL WORKSHOP
was another sign:
METAL WORKSHOP
