“No,” Averchenko replies modestly.
The man with the lopsided sail is swept further on down the platform.
Gooskin doesn’t show the least surprise.
“He’s obviously waiting here for a troupe of Lilliputians, and they’re late. What are you laughing at? It happens often enough—companies arriving late. Ri-ight?”
To Gooskin the question had seemed entirely normal.
With each change of trains the class of passenger changes too. Respectably and even elegantly dressed people start to appear—“ladies and gentlemen.” By the last stretch of the journey, everyone but ladies and gentlemen has disappeared.
“Where have they all gone?”
A shifty character with a suitcase disappears into a station cloakroom—and then out comes a pillar of society: a lawyer, a landowner, a hydra of counterrevolution, with neatly combed hair, wearing a clean collar, and carrying in his gloved hand the same little suitcase. I recognize faces. The man with the pudgy fingers has now combed his beard and put a frown on his face; picking some lint off the sleeve of his wool overcoat, he voices his indignation over some recent outrage: “It’s a disgrace! The liberties they take!”
Well, if we’ve got to the point of disgraceful liberties, then we must, at last, be on solid ground.
Kiev is very close.
Gooskin puzzles us with an unexpected question, “Where are you all planning on staying?”
“In a hotel.”
“In a hotel?” he repeats—and smiles enigmatically.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’ve heard the hotels have all been requisitioned. And the private apartments are all so crowded I wish I could say the same of my purse! Ri-ight?”
I don’t know anyone in Kiev and have no idea what to do if I can’t get into a hotel.
“Gooskin, this is, in point of fact, your responsibility,” says Averchenko. “Since you are the impresario, you should have arranged rooms. You should have written to someone.”
“And who would I write to? The Ukrainian Hetman?[47] Yes, I suppose I could have written to him—if I’d wanted to get myself well and truly written off. It would be better, I think, if Madame Teffi went to speak to the Hetman. Something might come of that. Yes, something would be sure to come of it—though it might not be anything good. Still, I can see already that Madame Teffi has no intention of going anywhere herself. She’s just going to sit and wait at the station while Gooskin runs around looking for an apartment. Once again Gooskin has so much work on his hands that he can’t get a breath in edgewise.”
“What are you getting so upset about? This is clearly one of your responsibilities!”
“Responsibilities?” Gooskin repeats thoughtfully. “Yes, responsibilities. Well, find me the fool who enjoys his responsibilities! Ri-ight?”
“If worst comes to worst, I think I can help,” Olyonushka joins in timidly. “I have friends in Kiev, maybe we can all stay with them…”
Olyonushka looks unhappy and anxious. I realize she’s trying “to live without trampling the grass.”
On a bench across the aisle, the actress with the little dog is hissing at Averchenko’s impresario, “Why is it that others can and you can’t? Why can’t you ever get anything done?” Then, in answer to her own question: “Because you are a complete idiot.”
I say quietly to Averchenko, “Your actor friends don’t seem to be getting on very well. That Fanichka and your impresario have been at each other’s throats throughout the journey. Putting on shows with those two will be hard work.”
“Yes, they have their differences,” Averchenko says calmly. “But what do you expect? Their affair’s been going on a long time now.”
“Their affair?”
I prick up my ears.
“I’m ashamed of you,” the actress is hissing. “You never shave, your tie’s all torn, your collar’s grubby. All in all, you look like a gigolo fallen on hard times.”
“Yes, you’re right,” I say to Averchenko. “There are clearly deep and powerful feelings at play.”
The impresario mutters back, “If I were a man who enjoyed scenes, madame, I would tell you that you’re a vulgar cow, and vicious too. Bear that in mind.”
“Yes,” I repeat. “Deep and powerful feelings, on both sides.”
It’s my duty, I feel, to cheer everyone up.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I say, “why are you all looking so downcast? Remember how in the freight car you were dreaming of a bath and a good dinner? Just think—this time tomorrow we’ll probably be all clean and dressed up, sitting in a good restaurant and eating wonderful delicacies to the sound of music. There’ll be a gleaming white tablecloth, crystal glasses, flowers in vases…”
“I really don’t like restaurants,” Gooskin interrupts. “What’s so special about them? When my mama serves up plain broth at home, it goes down much better than the most expensive liver in the grandest of restaurants. Ri-ight? Of course, in a very expensive restaurant everything is in order, they do you a real parade. After you’re done gnawing your chicken bones, they bring you some warm water, and even soap, so you can wash your hands and face. But to go to a restaurant like that, you have to be stinking rich. Whereas in an ordinary restaurant you simply wipe your hands on the tablecloth. And where’s the fun in that? No, I don’t like restaurants. What’s so special about eating soup and having some idiot sitting next to you eating, pardon me, fruit compote.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Averchenko asks in bewilderment.
“What’s wrong with that? You must be joking! Do you really not understand? Where do you think he spits out the stones? He spits them out onto your plate. He’s not a juggler—they’re not all going to land on his own plate. No thank you! I’ve seen more than enough restaurants to last me this lifetime.”
Our train arrives at a station.
Kiev!
The station is crammed with people and the whole place smells of borsch. The new arrivals are in the buffet, partaking of the culture of a free country. They slurp away with deep concentration. With their elbows jutting out to either side as if to ward off any encroachment, they seem like eagles hovering over their prey. But how can anyone behave otherwise? Your reason may affirm that you are completely safe, that your borsch is your own property and that your rights to it are protected by the iron might of the German state. You may think you understand this, but your subconscious doesn’t. Your subconscious sticks out your elbows and sends your eyes out on stalks. “What if an unfamiliar, vile spoon reaches over my shoulder,” it says to itself, “and takes a scoop for the needs of the proletariat?”
We sit in the buffet with our luggage and wait for news about where we’ll be staying.
The pudgy man with the beard and the wedding ring is eating his fill at the next table.
On a plate in front of him is a steak. Hovering above him is a waiter’s frightened face.
The man with the beard is laying into this waiter: “I said to you, you scoundrel, in plain Russian—steak with fried potatoes. Where are the potatoes? Where, I’m asking in plain Russian, are the potatoes?”
“Excuse me, sir, they are being fried now, sir. At this moment we only have boiled. Please be so good as to wait, sir. They’ll only take a minute, sir!”
The bearded man chokes with indignation: “Please be so good as to wait, sir! You expect me to wait while my steak gets cold! I don’t believe it—it’s a disgrace!”
A young porter, his lips pursed, is leaning against the wall and watching the “gentleman” and the waiter. The porter’s face says a great deal. This whole little scene is a gift to the Bolsheviks. What do they want with propaganda posters about capitalist hydras and counterrevolution when people are putting on shows like this on their behalf?[48]
48
Bolshevik propaganda during these years often pictured capitalism and counterrevolution as a hydra—a monster with many heads.