6.15 Model T exercises
6.35 Breakfast
7.00 Clear away breakfast
7.15 Clean teeth
7.25 Put on outdoor clothes
7.30 Leave for place of work
6 p.m. Dinner
6.30 Clear away dinner
6.40 Household chores as allotted by rota
8.30 Analysis of time cards
9.30 Other business
10.30 Retire to dormitories
11.00 Lights out
Time cards were issued to each of us to record the events of our day, which we were meant to study each evening for possible savings. Every week, one member was given the responsibility of striking the gong to announce each new activity of the day.
There were some good points to the new regime. The mornings were dark and getting out of bed in the damp air of our dormitory was certainly made more bearable by the morning Model T exercises, which Nina had now expanded to include a series of Hungarian dances, very rhythmic and cheerful. Meanwhile Anna Vladimirovna was delighted by the timetable, which seemed to remind her of her childhood. ‘That boy is just like my father,’ she would hiss as Fyodor bustled about with a notebook. ‘Terrible bossyboots!’ Even the constant ringing of the gong, which infuriated all the other inhabitants of the house, pleased the old lady; apparently her father had ordered the church bells to be rung in the village each time he won at backgammon. It was hard, on the other hand, on poor Mamzelle, whose chest infection was worse and who longed only to be allowed to sleep.
We all became more punctual, particularly when poor Vera’s ration was reduced after she took too long scouring the pots. It did seem harsh to leave her bowl empty while we munched away at our bean porridge on either side of her. Her eyes filled with water and she bit her lip. A little colour rose in Fyodor’s cheeks and he chewed slowly and deliberately, looking everywhere but at her face.
Now the evening meetings began with our daily efficiency reports. Dr Marina, for example, might report an increase in the productivity of her ironing – she had ironed ten shirts in only twenty-five minutes, rather than the thirty-five it had taken her last time. Fyodor would sit on the edge of his seat, fidgeting with excitement. ‘Good! Now tell us, how did you achieve this? Did you have a different method? Perhaps you can demonstrate this method to us? Imagine if all over the world ironing speeds are increased by over 20 per cent!’
I imagined instead Pasha’s likely response to this breakthrough and had to stare very hard at my lap not to laugh.
It was impossible to imagine how our minute increases in efficiency would ever make any difference in a world as utterly un-Taylorised as Moscow under War Communism. Most of my time cards reported two or three hours spent queuing for rations, reporting to empty classrooms on the off-chance of a bread delivery or walking to and fro across the city to give private English classes – a waste of time that would have been impossible to imagine before the Revolution.
This was the first problem with Fyodor’s system; the second was that our meetings, under his guidance, had all the excitement of a railway timetable. Ivan and Nina lasted one week and then excused themselves on theatrical business. Not long afterwards, they moved out, into a hostel belonging to the Kamerny Theatre. We were left to practise the Model T without Nina’s deep voice commanding us to ‘Release the pancreas. Release… the spleen. Release… the duodenum.’ Where were Pasha and Volodya? Without them, our evenings became almost funereal. We were all worried, and didn’t want to talk about them. Slavkin would sit a little off to one side, tense, red-eyed, with a nervous twitch of the head that I hadn’t noticed before. When it came to his turn, he said only, ‘I have no increases in efficiency to report.’
‘Come on, Nikita, stop sulking!’ Dr Marina snapped after a week or so of this. ‘Surely you’ve got some ideas. You’ve always been fascinated by time, in theory, at least?’
Slavkin glared at her. ‘Yes, in fact I do have a suggestion,’ he said at last. ‘If I could spend these evening hours in my workshop I believe I could bring forward the completion of my Socialisation Capsule by as much as six months. This is certainly the greatest service I can do for the Revolution.’
‘Fuck you!’ Fyodor suddenly bellowed.
‘Fyodor!’ said Dr Marina, shocked.
‘Yes, I mean it!’ he rushed over to Nikita and shouted in his face. ‘Fuck you! How dare you sabotage my attempts at progress, you bastard? How dare you treat me with this disrespect when we have gone through with all your half-baked idiotic whimsical “experiments”, your narcotic counter-revolutionary fancies! You’ll suffer for this, you cretin, I’ll make sure you do!’
A pause while we all stared aghast at Fyodor, scarlet in the face and shiny with sweat. ‘And fuck all of you too!’ he screamed, his voice breaking, as he stormed out of the room.
The Red Guards upstairs broke into applause. Fyodor stamped downstairs and out of the front door, slamming it behind him.
Sonya was the first to speak up. ‘I do understand what Fyodor means,’ she murmured.
Nikita looked at her, and we all waited.
‘I should probably apologise to him then, should I?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Nikita, well done,’ said Dr Marina bossily. ‘And by the way I think we can all agree that you’d be better off spending the time on the Capsule.’
‘Perhaps these evening meetings have run their course, just for the moment?’ I suggested. ‘Could we have a holiday, so to speak, until Pasha and Volodya return?’
I immediately regretted having mentioned their names. Vera burst into tears and Sonya jumped up to comfort her.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Sonya rounded on me. ‘Gerty, you are as bad as Fyodor. There’s no need to say everything that pops into your head!’
As usual, Pelyagin had a few tasks to finish off when I arrived at his office. I sat down to wait for him and looked around. The room was warm and stuffy, and there was the usual faint smell of food from the canteen. His assistant was not there; I watched Pelyagin working methodically through his papers, scanning, signing, placing them on one pile or another. A delicious sensation of peace crept through me; I removed my coat and leant back in the chair, feeling the muscles in my back and legs relax, the tension in my forehead seep away. My eyes drifted shut…
‘My apologies, Comrade Freely.’ Pelyagin was standing over me and there was an expression on his face… I gazed at him, trying to read it. ‘I’ve kept you waiting,’ he said. ‘Why don’t I fetch some coffee from the canteen, and something to eat?’
He left the room. Flustered, I struggled upright and tried to make myself tidy. I took the Illustrated London News out of my bag and bent over it as he entered, carrying a cup and a bag of rusks.
‘Goodness, coffee!’ I exclaimed. ‘I haven’t tasted it for months.’
‘They call this coffee. I think it is made out of wood chippings.’
We both laughed, and for a moment I caught a glimpse of a younger Pelyagin, a boy with a loose, aimless grin.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said diffidently, sitting opposite me. ‘I couldn’t help with the housing compression. It is not my department, you know. I talked to my colleagues but they were not sympathetic. Are you managing to continue your communal work?’
‘Oh, yes, we are managing – although things are not easy at the moment, we have some personality clashes – it is inevitable, it may even be a necessary part of the evolution of the commune.’ Suddenly my loneliness came out in a wail. ‘But it is hard…’