Skinny Amalia immediately jumped up, squeaking, “Just a moment, just a moment!” and disappeared into the front office.
“By the way,” Andrei asked out of the blue. “Where’s the censor?”
“He really wanted to stay,” said Denny. “But Mr. Ubukata threw him out. He was screaming bloody murder, that censor. ‘Where will I go?’ he shouted. ‘You’re killing me!’ We even had to bolt the door so he couldn’t get back in. He kept throwing himself against it at first, then he gave up hope and left. Listen, I’m going to open the window after all. It’s too hot, I can’t bear it.”
The secretary came back in, smiled shyly with her pale, unpainted lips, and handed Izya a greasy paper bag of pies.
“Mmm!” Izya exclaimed, and immediately started champing on them.
“Are your ribs hurting?” Selma asked in a quiet little voice, leaning down to Andrei’s ear.
“No,” Andrei said curtly. He got up, moved her away, and walked over to the desk. And at that moment the telephone rang. Everyone turned their heads to stare at the white phone. It carried on ringing.
“Well, Andrei!” Kensi said impatiently.
Andrei picked up the receiver. “Yes?”
“The City Gazette offices?” a brisk voice inquired.
“Yes,” said Andrei.
“I’d like Mr. Voronin, please.”
“Speaking.”
There was the sound of someone breathing into the phone, followed by a loud dial tone as they hung up. Andrei carefully put down the receiver, with his heart pounding. “It’s them,” he said.
Izya champed out something unintelligible, frenziedly nodding his head. Andrei sat down. Everyone looked at him—Denny with a forced smile on his face, Kensi stooped over and tousle-headed, Amalia pitiful and frightened, Selma pale but collected. Izya looked at him too, chewing and grinning at the same time, wiping his greasy fingers on the flaps of his coat.
“Well, what are you all staring at?” Andrei asked irritably. “Come on now, all of you, clear out of here.”
No one stirred.
“What are you so worried about?” said Izya, examining the last pie. “It will be a breeze, a walk in the park, all calm and quiet, as Uncle Yura says. Calm and quiet, honest and respectable… Only don’t make any sudden movements. Just like with cobras.”
From outside they heard an engine rumbling and brakes squealing, and a strident voice commanded, “Kaiser, Velichenko, follow me! Mirovich, stay here!” A fist was immediately hammered against the door downstairs.
“I’ll go and open up,” said Denny, and Kensi sprang over to the fireplace and started stirring the heap of smoking ash with all his might. Ash flew everywhere in the room.
“Don’t make any sudden movements!” Izya shouted after Denny.
The door downstairs shuddered and its panes of glass jangled plaintively. Andrei stood up, clasped his hands behind his back, squeezing them together as hard as he could, and stood in the middle of the room. The recent sensation of dark lethargy and weakness in his legs swept over him again. The hammering and rattling downstairs ended; he heard grumbling voices and then the sound of large numbers of feet stamping in the empty offices. As if there’s an entire battalion of them, Andrei thought fleetingly. He backed away, bracing his rump against the wall. His knees were trembling repulsively. I won’t allow them to beat me, he thought in despair. Let them kill me. I didn’t bring the pistol… I should have brought it… Or maybe I was right not to bring it?
A short, stout man strode resolutely in through the door opposite Andrei. He was dressed in a good-quality coat with white armbands over it and a huge beret with a badge of some kind. His feet were encased in magnificently polished boots and his coat was pulled in slightly at the waist, in a very ugly way, by a broad belt, with a shiny, brand-new holster tugging it down heavily on the left. Some other men piled in behind him, but Andrei didn’t see them. He stared, spellbound, into the pale, puffy face with the blurred features and sour-looking little eyes. Has he got conjunctivitis, then? Andrei thought somewhere on the very edge of his consciousness. And he’s shaved so close he actually gleams, like he’s been varnished…
The man in the beret quickly glanced around the room before staring straight at Andrei. “Citizen Voronin?” he declaimed in a high, piercing voice, but with an interrogative intonation.
“Yes,” said Andrei, forcing out the word and clutching at the edge of the desk with both hands.
“Senior editor of the City Gazette?”
“Yes.”
The man in the beret saluted deftly but casually with two fingers. “I have the honor, Citizen Voronin, to present you with a personal communication from President Friedrich Heiger!”
He had obviously intended to pluck the personal communication out from under his coat in a single, smart gesture, but something in there got hooked on something else, and he had to scrabble around in the depths of his coat for a long time, skewed over slightly to the right and looking as if he were being assaulted by insects. Andrei watched him fatalistically, not understanding a thing. This was all wrong somehow. This wasn’t what he had been expecting. Maybe it will all blow over, he thought fleetingly, but dismissed the idea in superstitious haste.
Eventually the communication was extracted, and the man in the beret handed it to Andrei with a dissatisfied and rather offended air. Andrei took the crisp, sealed envelope. It was an ordinary postal envelope, a pale blue oblong bearing a stylized representation of a heart embellished with little bird’s wings. The address written on the envelope in familiar handwriting with large letters was “To Andrei Voronin, Senior Editor of the City Gazette, in person, confidential. F. Heiger, President.” Andrei tore open the envelope and pulled out an ordinary sheet of letter paper edged in blue.
My dear Andrei,
First of all allow me to thank you with all my heart for the help and support that I have constantly felt from your newspaper in the course of the recent decisive months. Now, as you can see, the situation has fundamentally changed. I am sure that you will not be confused by the new terminology and certain unavoidable excesses: the words and the means have changed, but the goals remain the same. Take control of the newspaper yourself—you have been appointed its permanent senior editor and publisher with full authority. Employ staff according to your own preferences, increase the number of employees, demand new printing capacity—I give you complete carte blanche. The deliverer of this letter is Junior Adjutor Raymond Cvirik, who has been appointed to your newspaper as the political representative of my Department of Information. As you will soon realize for yourself, he is not a man of great intellect, but he knows his job well and will be helpful to you, especially during the early stages, in getting the hang of the general policy line. Naturally, if any conflicts should arise, come directly to me. I wish you success. We’ll show these drooling liberals how to work.
Andrei read this personal and confidential missive twice, then lowered the hand holding the letter and looked around. They were all looking at him again—pale-faced, resolute, and tense. Only Izya was beaming like a newly polished samovar, and secretly releasing finger flicks into space where the others couldn’t see. The junior adjutor (dammit, what the hell could that mean, it was a familiar word… adjutor, coadjutor… something out of history… or out of The Three Musketeers)… Junior Adjutor Raymond Cvirik was looking at him too—looking sternly but protectively. And over by the door some odd-looking characters with carbines and white armbands on their sleeves were shifting from foot to foot and watching him too.