“Are you here on business, or did you just decide to stop by, to be a good neighbor?”
“Business, I have to admit, just business... I just can’t seem to make it here otherwise – work, you know, is keeping me busy...”
“Oh, don’t I understand? You must be running off your feet getting ready for the hunting season. I’ll tell you, in the old days, I used to love tracking around with a gun myself... But if it’s business, I won’t bore you with my chit-chat. Please, come in, here, to the laboratory – we won’t be disturbed in there. Nadenka,” professor says to the student, “please make sure the log house foundations are reflected on the drawings accurately, I’ll check it myself. And yes, I am not available for anyone – Andrei Yevgeniyevich and I have some extremely important affairs to discuss, I see. Affairs of the state – you know what I mean, Nadenka?”
He’s sharp, Shishmaryov observes, but with a sense of humor too. It might just work, it just might.
The Professor leads Shishmaryov into a walled-off laboratory. Nadenka follows them with her gaze, then goes back to being absorbed by her book.
In the laboratory – an old threadbare couch, a table on trestles, a plank-board bench, shelves along the walls. The professor carefully deposits his soft plump body on the couch; Andrei Yevgeniyevich perches on the bench, his portfolio on the table before him.
“So, I am at your disposal.”
He doesn’t take his glasses off, the bastard. Shishmaryov – grab the bull by the horns! – goes straight to the heart:
“I had a call from Shestokrylov today...”
“Yes, well, Savvatei Ivanovich and I go back a long time.”
“Basically, we have one toilet between the two of us, right?”
“Yes, of course, Andrei Yevgeniyevich, but don’t get so worked up about it, please. I’m here to help.”
“So, like I was saying, we have one toilet, and you have many people. So, the toilet’s overflowing, and foreigners see it. It doesn’t look nice, Pyotr Grigoriyevich, it should be cleaned up.”
“I understand you completely and agree wholeheartedly. I want you to know, I’m all for it. I myself don’t actually use that restroom – it doesn’t seem proper, in my position, but it’s highly unhygienic, it’s only a matter of time before the health inspection gets a whiff of it, pardon my pun. I agree with you wholeheartedly. So what is the problem?”
“What do you mean?” Shishmaryov thought he explained everything plainly. “You, then, have all these people, an army, and what do I have? And a truck, you know, is liable to cost eighty rubles, no less, we’d have to hire it privately, our fleet’s all tied up.”
“You see, Andrei Yevgeniyevich, I am a man of science, and I’ve gotten used to putting my faith in numbers. You must forgive me, your sentiments have little effect on me, although I can see you are very upset. I can also see you are a man of action. Splendid, then. Say, what if someone told you there’s little grouse to be had this year, but I heard with my own ears three females trill just this last Sunday. What then? Which do you believe? Neither, of course! You show me a figure, or at least some calculations, and compare the numbers with the last year’s count, and then, yes – then you can make a logical conclusion. Am I right?”
Damn it, he’s a hunter, too... But Shishmaryov nods obediently.
“So, let us do some math here.”
The professor sits up on the couch so he can reach the table, grabs a sheet of paper from a shelf, produces a pencil and inquires, apparently with no intention whatsoever to mock him:
“Could you by chance recall when the toilet was last cleaned out?”
“Geez, before you guys came, it was doing fine – it’s been here for five years, and never bothered anyone.”
“Splendid! We’ll say five years. In what units would you like to measure its contents?”
“What do the contents have to do with anything?”
“How do you mean, Andrei Yevgeniyevich? It’s our facility, isn’t it, shared that is – so we’re the ones responsible for measuring its capacity, aren’t we? Ancient Greeks in our position would have suggested the amphora as a unit of volume, and you and I, if we put our minds to it, could probably manage with barrels, remember, like the ones horses used to pull around when we were children? But buckets would do just as nicely, or mugs, even, it doesn’t matter.”
“But I don’t understand... what are you trying to do?” The joke, it seemed, was no longer funny.
“Bear with me, dear Andrei Yevgeniyevich, I beg you. I assure you, I’m not trying to avoid the problem, I just want us to agree on the method of our approach, as a first step. It’s all perfectly natural, a common outcome of a human function – so there’s nothing to be ashamed of, is there? Let’s count in liters, to stick to the metric system. By the way, you have five accountants on your staff, plus the huntsmen, the senior forester, a typist, drivers, and, finally, yourself – about 25 people in all?”
“Twenty-two,” Shishmaryov confirms, curtly and with the grim determination of a man who’ll fight to his last drop of blood.
“Splendid, plus two, three, four, sometimes six visitors every day, and sometimes more. You have fifteen districts under your jurisdiction, with huntsmen, foresters, and a manager in each, so for the sake of simplicity, we’ll just round it up to 25 people a day.”
“All right, but you – your expedition..,” without really wanting to, Shishmaryov is drawn into the process. To be completely honest, he’s rather appalled, really disgusted, but it appears this is the only way to get anything out of the Professor.
“Just another minute of your patience, Andrei Yevgeniyevich. So, on this side we have 25 healthy adult individuals consuming a high-calorie, high-protein diet. Because I will not be convinced that elk or boar, not even to mention bear, are any less nutritious than the pollock and catfish one buys at the grocery store. Your 25 against my 75 schoolchildren and four students. Let’s take the volume at..,” the Professor trails off, writing a column of numbers.
“There you go with your volumes again, Pyotr Grigoriyevich! Can’t you see – it’s plain: there’s a toilet, and it must be cleaned!”
“Here... I think it should be about four cubic meters, multiplied by six days a week – 24 total. I have 75 six- and seven-graders on paper, but I don’t ever get more than 55-56 of them to show up. Then, if we compare a six-grader against a grown-up hunter, based on average weight, we’ll get a ratio of about one to four, right? You’re a hunter, Andrei Yevgeniyevich, you know what I mean: a piglet is not a boar, right?”
“Yes, of course, but...”
Goddamn it!
“No ‘buts’. Logic is a merciless thing. You can’t argue with it, my dear. So, 60 divided by four (meaning, four kids equal one hunter) comes out to fifteen. I am getting one point six cubic meters of, pardon me, the substance in question per six-grader. Doesn’t add up to much over the two months we’ve been here, does it, Andrei Yevgeniyevich? And by the way, the kids only work until lunch, while you and I are compelled by law to carry out a full eight-hour work day.”
The Professor dabs his forehead with a hanky – it’s hot even here, inside the little building.
“So, my dear, do you see the logic? It’s rather compelling, isn’t it? Twenty-five versus 15 – it’s like two times two. And, beyond that, do you know how much our beloved government allocates for archaeological research per year? A million! For the entire country! That’s the price of a single mid-range bomber, and it’s supposed to cover all, mind you, all expeditions across our boundless country, plus the salaries of laborers, guards, cleaning crews and myself. I dare say you make more from harvesting birch bark. And the kids who work for me? I can’t pay them more than two rubles a day. How much pollock or catfish can you buy for two rubles?” The Professor rises and maneuvers Shishmaryov towards the door, out. “That’s where the matters stand, Andrei Yevgeniyevich, and now I must excuse myself – I am late for a meeting.”