The Twelve Chairs (24 page)

Read The Twelve Chairs Online

Authors: Ilya Ilf

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Dramas & Plays, #Regional & Cultural, #Russian, #Drama & Plays

BOOK: The Twelve Chairs
2.31Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE HEN AND THE PACIFIC ROOSTER
Persidsky  the  reporter  was  busily  preparing for  the two-hundredth
anniversary of the great mathematician Isaac Newton.
While the work was in full swing, Steve came in from Science and Life.
A plump citizeness trailed after him.
"Listen, Persidsky," said Steve, "this citizeness has come to see you
about something. This way, please, lady. The comrade will explain to you."
Chuckling to himself, Steve left.
"Well?" asked Persidsky. "What can I do for you?"
Madame Gritsatsuyev (it was she) fixed her yearning eyes on the
reporter and silently handed him a piece of paper.
"So," said Persidsky, "knocked down by a horse . . . What about it?"
"The address," beseeched the widow, "wouldn't it be possible to have
the address?"
"Whose address?"
"O. Bender's."
"How should I know it? "
"But the comrade said you would."
"I have no idea of it. Ask the receptionist."
"Couldn't you remember, Comrade? He was wearing yellow boots."
"I'm wearing yellow boots myself. In Moscow there are two hundred
thousand people wearing yellow boots. Perhaps you'd like all their
addresses? By all means. I'll leave what I'm doing and do it for you. In six
months' time you'll know them all. I'm busy, citizeness."
But the widow felt great respect for Persidsky and followed him down
the corridor, rustling her starched petticoat and repeating her requests.
That son of a bitch, Steve, thought Persidsky. All right, then, I'll
set the inventor of perpetual motion on him. That will make him jump.
"What can I do about it?" said Persidsky irritably, halting in front of
the widow. "How do I know the address of Citizen O. Bender? Who am I, the
horse that knocked him down? Or the cab-driver he punched in the back-in my
presence?"
The widow answered with a vague rumbling from which it was only
possible to decipher the words "Comrade" and "Please".
Activities in the House of the Peoples had already finished. The
offices and corridors had emptied. Somewhere a typewriter was polishing off
a final page.
"Sorry, madam, can't you see I'm busy?"
With these words Persidsky hid in the lavatory. Ten minutes later he
gaily emerged. Widow Gritsatsuyev was patiently rustling her petticoat at
the corner of two corridors. As Persidsky approached, she began talking
again.
The reporter grew furious.
"All right, auntie," he said, "I'll tell you where your Bender is. Go
straight down the corridor, turn right, and then continue straight. You'll
see a door. Ask Cherepennikov. He ought to know."
And, satisfied with his fabrication, Persidsky disappeared so quickly
that the starched widow had no time to ask for further information.
Straightening her petticoat, Madame Gritsatsuyev went down the corridor.
The corridors of the House of the Peoples were so long and | narrow
that people walking down them inevitably quickened their pace. You could
tell from anyone who passed how far they had come. If they walked slightly
faster than normal, it meant the marathon had only just begun. Those who had
already completed two or three corridors developed a fairly fast trot. And
from time to time it was possible to see someone running along at full
speed; he had reached the five-corridor stage. A citizen who had gone eight
corridors could easily compete with a bird, racehorse or Nurmi, the world
champion runner.
Turning to the right, the widow Gritsatsuyev began running. The floor
creaked.
Coming towards her at a rapid pace was a brown-haired man in a
light-blue waistcoat and crimson boots. From Ostap's face it was clear his
visit to the House of the Peoples at so late an hour I was necessitated by
the urgent affairs of the concession. The | technical adviser's plans had
evidently not envisaged an encounter with his loved one.
At the sight of the widow, Ostap about-faced and, without looking
around, went back, keeping close to the wall.
"Comrade Bender," cried the widow in delight. "Where are you going? "
The smooth operator increased his speed. So did the widow.
"Listen to me," she called.
But her words did not reach Ostap's ears. He heard the sighing and
whistling of the wind. He tore down the fourth corridor and hurtled down
flights of iron stairs. All he left for his loved one was an echo which
repeated the starcase noises for some time.
"Thanks," muttered Ostap, sitting down on the ground on the fifth
floor. "A fine time for a rendezvous. Who invited the passionate lady here?
It's time to liquidate the Moscow branch of the concession, or else I might
find that self-employed mechanic here as well."
At that moment, Widow Gritsatsuyev, separated from Ostap by three
storeys, thousands of doors and dozens of corridors, wiped her hot face with
the edge of her petticoat and set off again. She intended to find her
husband as quickly as possible and have it out with him. The corridors were
lit with dim lights. All the lights, corridors and doors were the same. But
soon she began to feel terrified and only wanted to get away.
Conforming to the corridor progression, she hurried along at an
ever-increasing rate. Half an hour later it was impossible to stop her. The
doors of presidiums, secretariats, union committee rooms, administration
sections and editorial offices flew open with a crash on either side of her
bulky body. She upset ash-trays as she went with her iron skirts. The trays
rolled after her with the clatter of saucepans. Whirlwinds and whirlpools
formed at the ends of the corridors. Ventilation windows flapped. Pointing
fingers stencilled on the walls dug into the poor widow.
She finally found herself on a stairway landing. It was dark, but the
widow overcame her fear, ran down, and pulled at a glass door. The door was
locked. The widow hurried back, but the door through which she had just come
had just been locked by someone's thoughtful hand.
In Moscow they like to lock doors.
Thousands of front entrances are boarded up from the inside, and
thousands of citizens find their way into their apartments through the back
door. The year 1918 has long since passed; the concept of a "raid on the
apartment" has long since become something vague; the apartment-house guard,
organized for purposes of security, has long since vanished; traffic
problems are being solved; enormous power stations are being built and very
great scientific discoveries are being made, but there is no one to devote
his life to studying the problem of the closed door.
Where is the man who will solve the enigma of the cinemas, theatres,
and circuses?
Three thousand members of the public have ten minutes in which to enter
the circus through one single doorway, half of which is closed. The
remaining ten doors designed to accommodate large crowds of people are shut.
Who knows why they are shut? It may be that twenty years ago a performing
donkey was stolen from the circus stable and ever since the management has
been walling up convenient entrances and exits in fear. Or perhaps at some
time a famous queen of the air felt a draught and the closed doors are
merely a repercussion of the scene she caused.
The public is allowed into theatres and cinemas in small batches,
supposedly to avoid bottlenecks. It is quite easy to avoid bottlenecks; all
you have to do is open the numerous exits. But instead of that the
management uses force; the attendants link arms and form a living barrier,
and in this way keep the public at bay for at least half an hour. While the
doors, the cherished doors, closed as far back as Peter the Great, are still
shut.
Fifteen thousand football fans elated by the superb play of a crack
Moscow team are forced to squeeze their way to the tram through a crack so
narrow that one lightly armed warrior could hold off forty thousand
barbarians supported by two battering rams.
A sports stadium does not have a roof, but it does have several exits.
All that is open is a wicket gate. You can get out only by breaking through
the main gates. They are always broken after every great sporting event. But
so great is the desire to keep up the sacred tradition, they are carefully
repaired each time and firmly shut again.
If there is no chance of hanging a door (which happens when there is
nothing on which to hang it), hidden doors of all kinds come into play:
1. Rails
2. Barriers
3. Upturned benches
4. Warning signs
5. Rope
Rails are very common in government offices.
They prevent access to the official you want to see.
The visitor walks up and down the rail like a tiger, trying to attract
attention by making signs. This does not always work. The visitor may have
brought a useful invention! He might only want to pay his income tax. But
the rail is in the way. The unknown invention is left outside; and the tax
is left unpaid.
Barriers are used on the street.
They are set up in spring on a noisy main street, supposedly to fence
off the part of the pavement being repaired. And the noisy street instantly
becomes deserted. Pedestrians filter through to their destinations along
other streets. Each day they have to go an extra half-mile, but hope springs
eternal. The summer passes. The leaves wither. And the barrier is still
there. The repairs have not been done. And the street is deserted.
Upturned benches are used to block the entrances to gardens in the
centre of the Moscow squares, which on account of the disgraceful negligence
of the builders have not been fitted with strong gateways.
A whole book could be written about warning signs, but that is not the
intention of the authors at present.
The signs are of two types-direct and indirect:
NO ADMITTANCE
NO ADMITTANCE TO OUTSIDERS
NO ENTRY
These notices are sometimes hung on the  doors  of  government  offices
visited by the public in particularly great numbers.
The indirect signs are more insidious. They do not prohibit entry; but
rare is the adventurer who will risk exercising his rights. Here they are,
those shameful signs:
NO ENTRY EXCEPT ON BUSINESS
NO CONSULTATIONS
BY YOUR VISIT YOU ARE DISTURBING A BUSY MAN
Wherever it  is  impossible  to  place rails or  barriers, to  overturn
benches or hang up warning signs, ropes are used. They are stretched across
your path according to mood, and in the most unexpected places. If they are
stretched at chest level they cause no more than slight shock and nervous
laughter. But when stretched at ankle level they can cripple you for life.
To hell with doors! To hell with queues outside theatres. Allow us to
go in without business. We implore you to remove the barrier set up by the
thoughtless apartment superintendent on the pavement by his door. There are
the upturned benches! Put them the right side up! It is precisely at
night-time that it is so nice to sit in the gardens in the squares. The air
is clear and clever thoughts come to mind.
Sitting on the landing by the locked glass door in the very centre of
the House of the Peoples, Mrs. Gritsatsuyev contemplated her widow's lot,
dozed off from time to time, and waited for morning.
The yellow light of the ceiling lamps poured on to the widow through
the glass door from the illuminated corridor. The ashen morn made its way in
through the window of the stairway.
It was that quiet hour when the morning is fresh and young. It was at
this hour that the widow heard footsteps in the corridor. The widow jumped
up and pressed against the glass. She caught a glimpse of a blue waistcoat
at the end of the corridor. The crimson boots were dusty with plaster. The
flighty son of a Turkish citizen approached the glass door, brushing a speck
of dust from the sleeve of his jacket.
"Bunny!" called the widow. "Bun-ny!"
She breathed on the glass with unspeakable tenderness. The glass misted
over and made rainbow circles. Beyond the mistiness and rainbows glimmered
blue and raspberry-coloured spectres.
Ostap did not hear the widow's cooing. He scratched his back and turned
his head anxiously. Another second and he would have been around the corner.
With a groan of "Comrade Bender", the poor wife began drumming on the
window. The smooth operator turned around.
"Oh," he said, seeing he was separated from the widow by a glass door,
"are you here, too?"
"Yes, here, here," uttered the widow joyfully.
"Kiss me, honey," the technical adviser invited. "We haven't seen each
other for such a long time!"
The widow was in a frenzy. She hopped up and down behind the door like
a finch in a cage. The petticoat which had been silent for the night began
to rustle loudly. Ostap spread his arms.
"Why don't you come to me, my little hen? Your Pacific rooster is so
tired after the meeting of the Junior Council of Ministers."
The widow had no imagination.
"Bunny," she called for the fifth time, "open the door, Comrade
Bender."
"Hush, girl! Modesty becomes a woman. What's all the jumping about
for?"
The widow was in agony.
"Why are you torturing yourself?" asked Ostap. "Who's preventing you
from living? "
The widow burst into tears.
"Wipe your eyes, Citizeness. Every one of your tears is a molecule in
the cosmos."
"But I've been waiting and waiting. I closed down the shop. I've come
for you, Comrade Bender."
"And how does it feel on the stairs? Not draughty, I hope?"
The widow slowly began to seethe like a huge monastery samovar. ,
"Traitor!" she spat out with a shudder.
Ostap had a little time left. He clicked his fingers and, swaying
rhythmically, crooned:
"We all go through times
When the devil's beside us,
When a young woman's charms
Arouse passion inside us."
"Drop dead!" advised the widow at the end of the dance. "You stole my
bracelet, a present from my husband. And why did you take the chair? "
"Now you're getting personal," Ostap observed coldly.
"You stole, you stole!" repeated the widow.
"Listen, girl. Just remember for future reference that Ostap Bender
never stole anything in his life."
"Then who took the tea-strainer?"
"Ah, the tea-strainer! From your non-liquid fund. And you consider that
theft? In that case our views on life are diametrically opposed."
"You took it," clucked the widow.
"So if a young and healthy man borrows from a provincial grandmother a
kitchen utensil for which she has no need on account of poor health, he's a
thief, is he? Is that what you mean?"
"Thief! Thief!"
The widow threw herself against the door. The glass rattled. Ostap
realized it was time to go.
"I've no time to kiss you," he said. "Good-bye, beloved. We've parted
like ships at sea."
"Help!" screeched the widow.
But Ostap was already at the end of the corridor. He climbed on to the
windowsill and dropped heavily to the ground, moist after the night rain,
and hid in the glistening playgrounds.
The widow's cries brought the night watchman. He let her out,
threatening to have her fined.

Other books

Knots And Crosses by Ian Rankin
Covert Pursuit by Terri Reed
The Perfect Husband by Chris Taylor
ARC: Peacemaker by Marianne De Pierres
A Lady's Point of View by Diamond, Jacqueline
Tempest in Eden by Sandra Brown
Final Days by C. L. Quinn
A Trap King's Wife 1 by Jahquel J.