In my morbid imagination I immediately saw a tiny room, divided in two by a calico curtain. A cupboard. On top of the cupboard—Gooskin’s clodhoppers and a collar that had seen better days. And behind the curtain—Mama, cooking “domplings.”
“He’s up to something,” Averchenko whispered to me. “Once we’re in Kiev, you must try and find out a bit more.”
Encouraged by my silence, Gooskin began to elaborate his plans: “We can put on a show in Gomel too. Honest to God, and we’ll be going through Gomel anyway. Gomel, Shavli. And every show will be a sell-out—I swear to it.”[40]
Gooskin was quite something. A true impresario. A man one could go a long way with.
“Gooskin,” Averchenko began, “am I right in thinking you’ve taken a great many artistes on tour?”
“Well, yes, I have. I’ve taken a choir. I’ve taken a whole theater company. I’ve taken a… But what hasn’t Gooskin taken on tour?”
“So, with so many shows—and all of them sell-outs—you must have earned millions?”
“Millions? Huh! Just give me the remainder. Give me the remainder from twenty thousand and I’ll be more than happy.”
“What remainder?” I whispered to Averchenko. “What on earth is he talking about?”
“He’s saying he’s earned so little that if everything he’d ever earned were subtracted from twenty thousand, then he’d be happy to take the remainder.”
Goodness! My Gooskin was no simpleton.
“Gooskin, how come you’ve earned so little?”
“Because I am Gooskin, not Ruslansky. I see to it that an artiste is looked after properly, that he has the best suite in the best hotel and that the staff don’t knock him about. Whereas Ruslansky, he thinks that the best suite is for the impresario. Once I said to him, ‘Listen, Goldgrubber, you’re no more of a lord than I am, so why is it I don’t mind sleeping in the corridor while you always have to have the very best suite—and as for your artiste, he just gets left out on the street, lying beneath an umbrella?’ Ruslansky, who does Ruslansky think he is? Once I gave it to him straight. I said, ‘When one of Gooskin’s tours comes to an end, the artiste says, “What a shame I wasn’t born a day earlier, so I could have spent one more day with Gooskin!” But when one of Ruslansky’s tours comes to an end, the artiste says to him, “Goldgrubber, may you rot like a rat in hell.”’ Yes, like a rat in hell. And then the artiste calls Goldgrubber a louse, but that really isn’t something I should repeat to you. Ri-ight?”
But at this point our conversation was interrupted. The train stopped and the door to our freight car slid open with a grinding screech. A loud voice commanded, “Heraus!”[41]
And a second voice bleated, in Ukrainian, “Everybody out!”
“Wonderful!” said Gooskin—and out he went into the murky darkness.
We too leaped out into the thin, slippery mud—into the unknown.
Some soldiers pushed us aside and climbed into the car. They briskly threw out our luggage, then bolted the door.
Night, drizzle, soldiers, dim lights from hand-held lanterns.
And so there we were, once more on a station platform, in the rain.
We stood huddled together, like sheep in a blizzard—heads together, tails facing out. We waited obediently. Gooskin was our shepherd and we trusted him to look after us.
I can’t say we felt particularly upset by all this. Of course, supper and a warm room for the night would have been more pleasant than standing on an open platform in the drizzle, but by this time our wants had grown modest. We were confident that nobody—nobody whatsoever—was intending to have us shot, and this confidence filled our souls with a happy, surprised contentment. The drizzle was quite cosy and not really even so very wet. Life on this earth truly wasn’t so bad.
Our luggage was piled up beside us on a little station cart. A German soldier was guarding it.
The station was poorly lit. But somewhere in the distance we could see bright light shining through a glass door. Dark figures were going in and out. Behind that door must be where fates were determined.
A tall, dark shadow strides toward us. Gooskin.
“Once more it’s the torments of Tantalus,” he says helplessly. “Here I am, dancing around in the rain with no idea whom to bribe.”
“What do they want from us, Gooskin?”
“They want to put us in quarantine. Why, I ask you, can’t they just let their quarantine stay empty for a while? I told them we’ve already done time in quarantine. And they say, ‘Show us your papers—we want to see when you left Moscow.’ They see it was only a week ago. ‘So where are your two weeks of quarantine?’ they ask. Well, what could I say to that? What do you think I said? I said I’d go and change some money. What other answer can Gooskin give to a question like that?”
“What can we do?”
“We’ll find a way. The bitten child fears the fierce flame. We have to find out whom to bribe. Why else have they dreamed up this quarantine? I just have to find another Jew, someone who can point out the way to me.”
Gooskin walks off.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I say, “we have to try and speak to the soldier. “Olyonushka, let’s start talking to each other in German. Then the soldier will feel more sympathetic toward us. All right?”
“I’ve forgotten all my German!” says Olyonushka. “I can only remember a few grammatical rules.”
“That’ll do! Let’s hear your rules—and put some feeling into them!”
“Ausgenommen sind: binden, finden, klingen,” Olyonushka began. “Gelingen, ringen…”[42]
“A bit jollier, Olyonushka. Livelier!”
“Nach, auf, hinter, neben, in, stehen mit dem accusativ,” Olyonushka chirps on.
“Mit, nach, nächst, nebst,” I answer, nodding my head in confirmation. “Look, the soldier’s beginning to stir. Quick, give him some more!”
“Ausgenommen sind: binden, band, gebunden. Dringen, drang…”
“Zu, aus…”
The soldier is now looking at us with wan curiosity.
“Yes, you’ve got through to him, you’ve kindled his sense of patriotism. So, what next?”
“Maybe we should sing a duet? Das war in Schöneberg?”[43]
“No, I don’t think singing would be quite right.”
But what is our soldier staring at? Ah, he’s looking at my suitcase.
I walk over to him. Aha! My old suitcase has a Berlin label on it. That’s what he’s looking at. Well, now he’ll be easy prey.
“Berlin! What a wonderful city,” I say to him in German. “Have you ever been to Berlin?”
No, he hasn’t.
“Oh, when all this is over, you really must go. Oh! Oh, what a wonderful city! The Kempinski restaurant, the Wertheim department store! The beer and the sausages! Oh, oh, oh, what beauty!”
The German smiles, his patriotic feelings now blazing merrily.
“Have you been to Berlin?” he asks.
“Of course I have! And here’s the proof—my own suitcase. Berlin! Oh, Berlin!”
And now—to business.
“Yes, that was a good time—before the war. Now, though, things are so much more difficult. Here we are in the rain and we don’t know what to do. We have, of course, spent time in quarantine, though not long, because we’re all terribly healthy. That’s why we were allowed out. But we didn’t think to ask for any documents. What do you think we should do?”
The soldier adopts a severe expression, looks away from me and says, “Lieutenant Schwenn.”
40
Teffi’s train did indeed pass through Gomel, which lies about 300 kilometers to the north of Kiev, in what is now Belarus. Shavli (or Siauliai), however, lies in present-day Lithuania, not far from the Baltic; it could not possibly have been on their route. Gooskin’s geography is confused.
42
Olyonushka’s first two words mean, “The exceptions are…” She then comes up with a number of verbs that are exceptions to some grammatical rule.