Klim tried to tell himself that it was no big deal to be accompanied everywhere by the snoops. After all, they never attacked him and generally left him alone. But despite this, he felt a keen sense of loss—the loss of a little thing called freedom. He could no longer go anywhere he chose or meet anyone he liked.
On the bright side, he had passed his driving exam and was now qualified as a driver, which meant he could get away from the snoops who were shadowing him. Even when the OGPU came with cars, they could not keep up with Mashka.
Several times, taking great precautions not to be followed, Klim had gone out to Saltykovka. What bliss it had been to visit Nina and walk with her in the golden birch woods, making crazy plans for the future!
Father Thomas had agreed to register Nina as one of his fellow villagers by the name of Hilda Schultz.
Klim began to count up all the surnames Nina had had in her life: “You were born Kupina. Odintzova was your first married name; then you took the false name Bremer. Reich was your false married name, and Schultz is your official name according to your documents.”
Nina laughed. “But my real name is Mrs. Rogov.”
When they came home, they would go up to Belov’s study and leaf through the atlas.
“All we need to be completely happy is good food, suitable clothes, and a roof over our heads,” said Klim. “All that might be very expensive in London, but it would be very cheap in some places with very beautiful sunsets. What do you think of going to live in British Honduras?”
Nina studied the article in the atlas for a moment and then frowned. “No, that won’t do. They have hurricanes and flooding there.”
“What about Japan then? We’ll find a pretty village up in the mountains. There will be maple trees, pagodas, and waterfalls. What’s not to like? We’ll teach in the local schools, and when we get bored, we can go to the Italian Alps or to Hawaii.”
They both knew that rural idylls were one thing on picture postcards and another in life. The farther they went from the vices of civilization, the more likely they would be to encounter extreme poverty, epidemics, and religious fanaticism. But Klim and Nina loved playing this game in which they dreamed about another world where there was no politics, no passports, and no constant worry about how to make money.
“The main thing now is to meet with Babloyan,” said Klim, “get him to arrange a foreign passport for you, and send you to Germany.”
“But how will I take the dollars out of the country?” asked Nina. “They always search anyone crossing the border, and if they find such a large sum of money on me, I won’t be able to explain how I got it.”
Klim asked Friedrich to take the money to Germany for them, but he refused. It was too big a risk. Not long before, one of the pilots had been caught smuggling foreign currency, and the poor wretch had been accused of financing the counter-revolution and was shot.
A special performance by the Blue Blouse theater company was to take place in the Elektrozavod Club to commemorate the opening of a new factory facility.
When Klim arrived, a folk orchestra was playing in the foyer. While some people danced, others crowded around the counter where bread and ham sandwiches were being sold as a special treat in honor of the celebration.
Klim spotted Babloyan from a distance. He was having his photograph taken with the factory directors against the backdrop of the slogan “Long Live the Bolshevik Party!”
“Comrade journalist!” Babloyan cried, waving to Klim. “So, you’ve come to report on our theatrical performance? That’s grand!”
He suggested that Klim sit next to him in the front row so that he could get a good view.
“I’m very interested in theater,” said Babloyan as he lowered himself into a chair. “Have you heard of the Blue Blouse company? It’s something like a live newspaper. About half of our workers can’t read and write, and we’re short on radios. But we need to explain to people what’s going on in the world. So, the Blue Blouse company goes around factories and other workplaces putting on performances.”
The show did indeed turn out to be a curious one. The host asked the crowd to welcome the “Pillars of Soviet Economic Might,” and six young men and women ran onto the stage, armed with shields on which were emblazoned the words “Industrialization,” “Electrification,” “Rationalization,” “Fordism,” “Standardization,” and “Militarization.”
The orchestra struck up a tune, and the “pillars” began to demonstrate the work of the machines in the new facility.
Babloyan nudged Klim. “What about that Fordism, eh? Quite a looker, isn’t she? I already found out her name. She’s called Dunya Odesskaya.”
Klim made a note in his reporter’s book:
Fordism, Henry Ford’s concept of mechanized mass production, had already become an object of mockery overseas by everybody from Charlie Chaplin to street beggars, who would put on a show of repeating the same movement again and again as if unable to stop.
But in the USSR, the philosophy is welcomed. The ideal Soviet man is not an individual but a new and efficient piece of a general mechanism.
Dunya Odesskaya began to declaim a poem by a famous Soviet poet, Vladimir Mayakovsky:
This was the new proletariat art, an art without poetry, without intimacy. It did not concern itself with the trivial experiences of worthless individuals but with the aesthetics of organized crowds.
Nevertheless, the Blue Blouse company did touch on the subject of love. Dunya Odesskaya donned a leather jacket, mounted a podium, and began to pretend to give a political speech.
One of the male actors addressed the audience with feeling. “That comrade is one red-hot mama! She’s got me properly agitated with her agitprop.”
The audience clapped delightedly.
“Take a look at that!” exclaimed Babloyan, his eyes fixed on Dunya. “That skirt barely covers her backside, but if you tell her it’s indecent, I bet she’d say she can’t afford any more material.”
“And now,” the host announced, “we’d like to welcome Comrade Babloyan on stage to say a few words.”
There was wild applause, and Babloyan was almost too touched to speak.
“At this time,” he began, “when our country is threatened by the blockade imposed by the bourgeois countries of the West, we can hold our heads up high and boldly show everyone… this… hmm…. What I mean is, the power of art to change society will win through!”
All anyone understood from his speech that followed was that Soviet girls, such as Dunya Odesskaya, were the most beautiful girls in the world. Nobody was interested in the ideological content, anyway. The most important thing was that Babloyan came across to them as “one of us,” a regular guy, representing the Party that cared about working people.