But Cornelius could not think of what to say next. Finally he managed to blurt out, “Glory to—” but before he could finish, to his great dismay, the people began to boo and hiss and stamp their feet. One young man called out, “Hey, Corny, you talk too much. You should stick to things you do best, like laying down manure. Leave the politics to us!”
The catcalls came one after the other, like blows to his head. Humiliated and enraged, he felt as though his body was on fire. He returned to his seat, and sat cursing and muttering under his breath.
The meeting was over and everyone started to leave the school. When Cornelius was in the yard, Leyzarov caught up to him. Patting him on the back, he said, “Well, Cornelius, you’re a driveling idiot, no doubt about it. But not to worry, I still have faith in you. You’ll get the hang of things yet.”
CHAPTER 2
The classroom was now empty. Only Kulik and Sergei remained. The rain had long since stopped; the faint sound of thunder could be heard rumbling in the distance. There was mud on the floor everywhere and a thick cloud of tobacco smoke clung to the ceiling. Kulik disappeared into the supply room and soon returned with a bucket of hot, soapy water and a mop.
“What a mess.” He shook his head and looked around. “Only more work for me. By day the school headmaster, by night, the janitor.” Then to Sergei, who was standing near the door, “Would you mind giving me a hand with this?”
“No, not at all … Why don’t we move all the desks to one side, then it’ll be easier to sweep.” When the desks were all piled together, he turned to Kulik. “I see Cornelius hasn’t assigned a cleaning woman for the school yet.”
“No, he hasn’t.”
“Well, he will, eventually.” He dropped his voice and leaned forward. “About Cornelius. Just watch your backside. I have a feeling he’ll be going out of his way to make things difficult for you here.”
“Yes, I think you’re right about that. There’s something about him I didn’t like from the very start. He seems on the shifty side. I suppose I’ll just have to find a way to get around him.”
Sergei’s blue eyes darkened. “A word of advice: be firm, use physical force if you have to. It’s true he holds the local power in his hands, but as you’ve seen tonight, he’s an idiot. He’s failed at almost everything he’s tried. And his dealings have always been shady at best. He’s been badly beaten more than once and has even had bones broken. One day a few years ago he was spotted by villagers crawling back to his house on all fours with his face battered and his legs all twisted up. He was barely alive.”
“Was it because he was a nationalist?”
“A nationalist?” Sergei laughed. “No, nothing like that. No politics here. He was nothing more than a common horse thief. Late into the night he would sneak into some stable, and lead out the finest horses, then vanish into thin air. He did business with the gypsies. One night he got caught and the police took him to the station and interrogated him till all hours of the night. They gave him a brutal beating and threw him into a cell, and he couldn’t move for three weeks. Then came a trial in Pinsk, then two years in the Bereza Prison. Now, as you’ve seen for yourself tonight, the Kremlin sun has made him see the light. From the gutter he’s managed to crawl up to the ladder’s first rung. What have you got to say about all of this?”
Kulik narrowed his eyes and looked troubled. He knew very well that times were far from certain, and with danger looming around every corner, it was best to keep one’s mouth shut. After a moment he said, “I think you’re being too candid for your own good, Sergei.”
The two men resumed cleaning. The mud had already settled on the floor and had become hard as rock. Sergei filled up another bucket and wet the floor with a large rag to soften the small mounds. Kulik then got down on his hands and knees and scrubbed. They kept changing the water every so often, and in a short time the room was orderly once more.
This joint effort strengthened their friendship. When the floor had been dried and everything returned to the supply room, Kulik invited Sergei to his office for a cup of coffee. Kulik had a small canister of Colombian beans he had purchased in a shop in Vilno, where he had lived and worked before taking the position of headmaster. He had been saving the coffee for a special occasion.
Sergei wasted no time making himself comfortable in one of the armchairs. He noticed that plaster on the far wall was starting to crack and crumble, exposing bare lathes. “Before us,” he said, “we have a contradiction: a run-down school and at the same time all this lavish furniture. Do you know where most of it came from? Yes, from the Olivinski manor house. The Russians had just barely ousted the Poles, when Cornelius turned up at the Olivinski estate and laid claim to all the furniture. The first thing he saw was a beautiful hand-carved cherry-wood table. He dragged that table to his miserable little shanty by the river and tried every way to fit it through the door. The entire village could hear him huffing and puffing, working up a sweat. But the table wouldn’t go through. He got so mad, he even kicked the legs several times. The villagers watched, laughing. He lost face from that and couldn’t bring himself to take anything else, not even these wonderful armchairs. The villagers suggested they be donated to the school. And now, as you can see, the benefit is ours.”
“Yes, I was told in Pinsk by the People’s Commissariat of Education that all the office furniture had come from the Olivinski manor house. It’s very impressive.”
“Yes, these two armchairs, the desk, those end tables, and this bookcase have all seen better days. Pani Olivinski, who escaped somewhere across the border, undoubtedly agonizes over her lost wealth. And of course, she must mourn her husband terribly.”
“I heard he was shot.”
“Actually, he was beaten to death. The peasants finally caught up with him somewhere on the edge of a cornfield near Morozovich, along one of the farm roads. He had been trying to get to the Polish border. He was dragged from his britzka and struck over the head with a club. They said his skull split open like a ripe watermelon.” Sergei pointed to a large, crudely made cabinet in the corner. “That cabinet, of course, is not from the Olivinski estate. It belonged to the former headmaster and his wife — a pleasant enough couple. They planned to spend the rest of their lives here; they believed their Polish domain would flourish until the end of time. But of course we all know what happened. When the Bolsheviks invaded he was killed somewhere on the village outskirts; she fled to Poznan to be with relatives.”
There was a brief silence. Kulik propped his chin on his fist and gave himself up to thoughts that had been causing him great uneasiness. For many years, during his stay in Vilno, he had yearned to return to the Pinsk Marshes where he was born. But now that he was back, things were not as he had expected. Everything had changed, and he was surrounded by strangers. Take for example Cornelius — not only was he very unpleasant but he seemed always to have some kind of scheme in mind — surely there were others just like him. What had happened to the people he had once known? They had all become servile, more than willing to submit to a ruling power from beyond their border. They were even being charged up with a new kind of nationalism that was foreign to them.