After I had been there about three days, someone quite large got caught in the trap and began letting out goat-like cries.
Lily went to the rescue and came back with Gooskin. In only three days he had grown so much stouter that it took me a moment to recognize him.
“I thought you were still at the train station. I’ve been trying to find you somewhere to stay.”
“You really thought I’d just wait in the station buffet for days on end?”
“I thought… something of the kind,” said Gooskin, evidently feeling too lazy to lie with any conviction. “If you’re going to find anywhere to stay here, you have to arrange it through a special bureau. Otherwise you don’t have a chance. But, of course, if you were to make a request in person and, at the same time, provide evidence of ill health…”
“But I’m not in the least ill.”
“So you’re not ill? So what! You’ve probably had measles at some time in your life. They’ll write ‘has suffered from measles, must have accommodation under a roof.’ Yes, something scientific like that. Well, what do you think of Kiev? Have you been to Kreshchatik? And why are there so many blondes here—can someone explain that to me?”
“It sounds as if you don’t like blondes!” giggled one of the girls.
“Why do you say that? Brunettes are good too. I don’t want to offend anyone, but blondes have something heavenly about them whereas brunettes are more down to earth. Ri-ight?” Turning to me, Gooskin added, “Well, we need to organize an evening for you.”
“But everything about Odessa’s already agreed.”
“Oh… Odessa…”
He smiled mysteriously and left—plump, sleek, and sleepy-looking.
That evening I saw Averchenko and told him my concerns about Gooskin.
“I don’t think you should go to Odessa with him,” Averchenko replied. “Pay him his cancellation fee and get rid of him as soon as you can. He’s just not the right person to put on a literary evening. Either he’ll send you out on stage with a circus dog or he’ll start singing himself.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. But what should I do?”
“Have a word with my own impresario. He’s as honest as they come, and I think he has a lot of experience.”
Averchenko, a thoroughly honorable man himself, imagined everyone else to be honorable and spent his whole life surrounded by crooks. Still, where was the harm in asking for a little advice?
“All right, ask this fine fellow of yours to come round.”
The fine fellow came round the next day and outlined a surprising plan: “First of all, don’t do any evenings in Kiev yourself because that might be detrimental to my plans for Averchenko. One literary evening is interesting enough, but when there’s literature raining down on all sides, the audience will fragment and takings will plummet.”
“Very good,” I said. “You need to look after your own interests. But I was hoping for some advice about my affairs.”
“With regard to your own affairs, I have some very subtle advice. Yes, in these matters you have to be very subtle indeed. First, travel on to Odessa and let Gooskin arrange an evening for you there. There’s a concert hall, I’ll tell you which one—there’s a concert hall in Odessa where no one can hear a word you say. So, go along there for your evening and read in a terribly weak voice. The audience will, of course, be dissatisfied and they will, of course, get angry. Then you must send a note to the papers—I’m sure you have contacts in the press—yes, you must send a note saying that the evening’s a waste of time. Tell people they could have more fun at home. Then arrange a second evening in the same hall. And again read in a barely audible voice—let the audience get really furious. Then I’ll show up in Odessa with Averchenko, hire a small hall and get wonderful reviews everywhere. And then you just say to Gooskin, ‘See what a mess you’ve made of everything. Everyone is up in arms. I think we have to terminate our agreement.’ How can he object under circumstances like that?”
I looked at him for a while without a word, and then said, “Tell me. Did you come up with this scheme all by yourself?”
He looked down at the floor with modest pride.
“So, you’re advising me to turn my own evenings into catastrophes and then publish damning reviews about them? This certainly shows originality on your part, but why does all this originality have to be at the expense of poor Gooskin? He is your colleague, your fellow impresario—why do you want to ruin him? Do you really not understand what effect this would have?”
The impresario took offence.
“Well, it seems my scheme doesn’t appeal to you. In that case, you must find some other way to get rid of Gooskin. Once you’ve found a way to do that, you and I can come to an agreement. And then everything, I guarantee you, will be perfect.”
“I don’t doubt it! Never in my life have I met anyone so ingenious as you are.”
He smiled, flattered.
“No, really, that’s too much!”
9
NOT WANTING to impose on Olyonushka’s young friends for too long, I set about finding somewhere else to stay. This was a long, tedious, and confusing business. It meant many hours in lines waiting to get myself registered, returning day after day to check up on things, unraveling one tangle after another.
Eventually, I obtained a room. It was in a huge hotel with a leaking roof and broken windows. The ground floor was occupied by the Bat. The first floor was empty and undergoing refurbishment. My own room was on the second floor, which was also empty.
It was a corner room; there were two windows on one side to catch the north wind, and two on the other side for the west wind. They were all double-paned, and the glass had been knocked out so skillfully that at first you didn’t even notice: on the inner window it was the bottom left and top right panes that were missing, while on the outer window it was the bottom right and top left panes. At first glance, everything looked fine and you had no idea why letters were flying about the room and the dressing gown on the hanger kept flapping its sleeves.
The room was furnished with a bed, a table, a washstand, and two rattan armchairs. The armchairs were exhausted, worn out by life, and during the night they liked to stretch out their arms, legs, and backs, creaking and groaning.
I moved in on a cold, dry autumn day. I looked around and said to myself, for no apparent reason, “I wonder which of the doctors round here specializes in Spanish influenza. Because I’m going to have Spanish influenza with pulmonary complications.”
With Gooskin, everything was resolved—or rather dissolved—quite happily. After receiving an advance from Kiev Thought, I paid him his cancellation fee and he left for Odessa entirely content.
“You’re not going to be working with Averchenko’s impresario, are you?” he asked jealously.
“You have my word that I won’t be working either with him or with any other impresario. I hate making any kind of public appearance. I’ve only ever given readings at charity events, and always with great reluctance. You can rest assured. All the more so because I really don’t like Averchenko’s impresario.”
“Well, you surprise me to death! A man like that! Just ask people in his home town of Konotop! In Konotop literally everyone adores him. Peskin the dentist once hit him with a ham bone. Because of his wife. Of course, there may be something a bit poultry about his behaviour, and he may even seem rather unattractive… Such swarthy features… And maybe it wasn’t because of his wife that Peskin hit him—maybe it was to do with some business disagreement. Or maybe he didn’t hit him at all, the man may just be lying—well, I’m sure his dog will believe him!”