“There, you see,” said Avtandil Avtandilovich in a conciliatory tone, “healthy criticism actually contributes to the well-being of the family.”
“Well, the criticism may be healthy, but I’ve got a very sick man on my hands,” she replied.
“Well, there we can be of some help,” Avtandil Avtandilovich assured her, at the same time instructing the chairman of the trade union committee to obtain a sick pass for the ailing Platon Samsonovich.
Whether due to a quirk of fate or to some quirk of the committee chairman, Platon Samsonovich was sent off to a mountain health resort which until very recently had been named in honor of the goatibex. This particular resort, I might add, is one of the best in our Republic and is usually booked solid for months in advance.
About two weeks later, when the last volleys of goatibex counterpropaganda had finally died down, when the animals themselves had been utterly repulsed and their scattered and isolated numbers finally reconciled to joining the ranks of the collective farm herd — just at this time there took place in our city a one-day agricultural conference attended by our region’s most successful collective farmers. The conference had been convened to celebrate our Republic’s overfulfillment of its tea production quotas for the year — an event of no small importance since tea is our major crop.
Not surprisingly, Illarion Maksimovich’s kolkhoz at Walnut Springs numbered among our region’s most successful tea-raising collectives, and during the recess following the morning business session I happened to catch sight of Illarion Maksimovich himself. He was seated with the agronomist and Gogola at a small table in the conference hall restaurant. The two men were drinking beer, while Gogola was munching a pastry as she gazed wide-eyed at the other women in the room.
Just the day before, our paper had done a feature story on the tea growers of Walnut Springs, so I felt no qualms about approaching them. We exchanged greetings and they asked me to join them.
The agronomist looked the same as ever, but on the chairman’s face I noticed an expression of restrained irony — the same sort of expression one sees on a peasant’s face when he is forced out of politeness to listen to a city person hold forth on the subject of agriculture. It was only when the chairman turned to Gogola that his eyes showed any signs of life.
“Would you like another pastry, Gogola?”
“No thanks,” she replied absentmindedly as she continued to gaze at the women, all of whom had donned their party best for the occasion.
“Oh, come on, just one more,” said the chairman, trying to coax her.
“I don’t want another pastry, but a lemonade would be real nice,” she finally consented.
“A bottle of lemonade,” said Illarion Maksimovich, addressing the waitress.
“Well, are you happy that they’ve called off the goatibex?” I asked the chairman when he had finished filling each of our glasses with beer.
“It’s a fine undertaking,” he replied, “but there’s only one thing I’m afraid of…”
“What’s that?” I asked, eyeing him with curiosity.
He drained the contents of his glass and set it back on the table.
“If they’ve called off the goatibex,” he said pensively, as if gazing into the future, “that means they’ll be thinking up something new, and for our climatic conditions…”
“I know,” I interrupted, “for your climatic conditions it wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“That’s it exactly,” confirmed the chairman, now completely serious.
“I really don’t think you have to worry,” I said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible.
“Well, let’s hope not,” he said slowly and then added: “But if they’ve called off the goatibex, there’s bound to be something new — though just what, I don’t know.”
“And what’s happened to your goatibex?” I asked.
“He’s joined the collective herd and is being treated like any other animal,” replied the chairman as if talking about something very remote, which no longer posed a threat.
The bell rang, and we returned to the conference hall. I said good-bye to them and stationed myself at the door so that I could make a quick exit later on. I was supposed to return to the office and write up my report as soon as the concert was over.
Pata Pataraya’s Caucasian dancers were the first to appear and, as always, these agile, light-footed performers were greeted with thunderous applause.
They were called back for several encores, and now appearing on stage along with them was Pata Pataraya himself — a slim elderly man with a resilient step. Heartened by the audience’s enthusiastic response, he finally treated us to his famed “knee flight,” dating back to the nineteen-thirties.
In performing this tour de force he would come flying onto the stage at lightning speed, suddenly drop down on his knees and then, with arms outstretched and head held proudly erect, he would slide on his knees diagonally across the stage as if making a beeline toward the loge reserved for top government officials. But at the very last second, as the audience sat paralyzed, half expecting him to topple into the orchestra, Pata Pataraya would jump up as if released by a spring and begin whirling in the air like a black tornado.
The spectators went wild.
When Pata Pataraya and his dancers had finally left the stage, the mistress of ceremonies announced:
“A chonguri[15] trio will perform a song without words.”
Three girls in long white dresses and white kerchiefs walked onto the brightly lit stage. They sat down and began tuning their chonguris, listening attentively and casting shy glances at one another. Then one of them gave a signal and they began to play. Their voices immediately took up the melody on the strings and they began singing in imitation of the mountaineer’s old-fashioned song without words.
The melody seemed strangely familiar and suddenly I realized that it was the former goatibex song, though now at a much slower tempo. A gasp of recognition passed through the hall, and glancing over in Illarion Maksimovich’s direction, I noticed that an expression of restrained irony still lingered on his broad face. Perhaps this was the expression he always assumed when visiting the city, and most likely it would not change until the moment of his departure. Gogola was sitting next to the chairman, her slim, pretty neck craned forward as she gazed up at the stage like one bewitched. And next to her, the sleepy agronomist sat dozing in his chair like General Kutuzov[16] at a military staff meeting.
The three chonguri players received even more applause than Pata Pataraya and were forced to sing two encores of their song without words — a song which for this particular audience had all the sweetness of forbidden fruit.
And although the fruit itself had proved extremely bitter — as no one knew better than the individuals in this hall — and although they were all very glad that it had been forbidden, nonetheless it was pleasant to savor its sweetness, if only the sweetness of its interdiction. Such, apparently, is the nature of man and such it is likely to remain.
16
Russia’s commanding general during the Napoleonic invasion of 1812 and a figure well-known to readers of