by Oleg Pavlov
‘Police!’ A ghastly scream rang out in the dark. The little man in the hat blindly backed away, banged into the wall of the storage shed and slid down it in shock almost to the ground.
‘Poli-i-ice!’ the head of the infirmary suddenly sang out too. ‘So where are they, your guardian police? They aren’t here, my friend.’ The small figure flattened himself against the wall and sagged, hanging there like a pretzel on a hook. ‘Mukhin’s father, pull yourself up straight, enough of your squatting!’ Institutov said in disgust. ‘As they say, the show is over. You can fly into a tantrum like this when you’re with your drinking pals. Drunkenness doesn’t do a man any favours. You should drink less. Keep off the bottle if you can’t hold your drink. And your wife, Mukhin’s mother, does she know about her son’s death? I don’t get it. She didn’t come with you and, by the looks of it, you’re a heavy drinker. Ah, could it be that she’s a bit of a boozer too? Ha, so we should look for the pair of you in the gutter… But the thing is no one will bother. If it comes to it, we’ll just bury him without you.’
Institutov had not allowed himself such blissful indulgence in a long time. He was saying all these words simply to inflict on the little man the most exquisite suffering possible. It was not even to make him hurt more and more, but rather to destroy him with this pain extracted from the man’s very own mind and soul, as though zapping him with electric shocks. ‘From now on I’ll give them no pain relief whatsoever,’ flashed through the toothpuller’s mind.
The goods wagons were standing still, the warehouse was holding its peace, and the subordinates had gone astray. In this muddle, the medical officer knocked several times firmly on the warehouse gates, bawled at the luggage van and finally announced into the amorphous depths of the gloom, ‘How long do I have to wait? This isn’t the way to work. You need to show some conscience, Comrades; at the end of the day, you are our working class.’
In reply an unwashed head poked out from the vestibule of the luggage van: ‘Oh, they’ve even turned up here, them bastard democrats… Go on, shout a bit louder, hold one of your protests! The moment the wagon appears, you’re unhappy. Where’s your patience, grumbling at everything. Got your own special conscience, have you? And it was all so fine, living and working was a joy. Why d’you have to come and muck everything up, you bugger? I feel sick with your type about. Go and slog your guts out yourself. Go on, you can kiss my arse…’
‘Aargh!’ shouted Institutov. ‘Silence! Atten-shun! No, you’ll work, you will. I’ll teach you what work is… You’ll be mining stone in the camps, you rotters, stacking up a mountain of your own crap!’
The luggage-van worker jumped as if scalded. He leaned his trunk out of the vestibule and began wailing like a woman: ‘Now, why d’you have to be like that, boss, who’s done anything to cross you? Anyone lifted a finger against you? Oh, you brute… Oh, good Lord… It’s all going to the dogs. Call this a life, do you? I’m going, I’m on my way!’
A heart-rending iron shriek rang out from the wagon doors opening, as though some living creature were being ripped limb from limb. The guard started shouting bossily. Voices could be heard floating closer. A throng of freight handlers swept forward. In their midst a fat warehouse attendant was flapping about. There was a jangling of locks, and the warehouse released a sigh of greed. ‘Ooh!’ ‘Hey,’ ‘Aah!’ The workers’ conversations were bubbling angrily, seething over in petty passions. As the luggage van was being loaded, the mail coach continued to stare emptily at the platform with its blind white-of-the-eye barred windows. Some people dressed in homely tracksuits came out to get a breath of air – they were government couriers – and with a soldierly uniformity they began proudly and dully strolling in pairs outside their coach, guarding their secrets.
Suddenly all the missing persons tumbled out of the dark onto the platform – and the workers stared sympathetically at the handful of wearied men in army uniform who were running past them again. ‘Oooh,’ Institutov gasped as if it were he who had been running. Then, stood there in his supervisor’s pose, no longer bothering to goad anybody on, he sank into bliss once more. All bow-legged, the four men lugged the coffin, weighed it and filled out some forms, then packed it up, thus transforming the zinc sarcophagus into an ordinary freight package.
‘Hello, Albert Gennadievich!’ the warrant officer said in a guileless tone. He was happy that he’d drawn attention to himself, but then he went quiet, unsure what to add.
The small man, until this moment seemingly invisible, revived and came waltzing from the side towards the warrant officer. ‘Mukhin’s father, go back to your place!’ boomed a sudden order. And the man in the hat stepped back listlessly. He complied.
The warrant officer was embarrassed and clearly had not realised that he was making a gaffe. Institutov drew close to him and hissed, looking him in the eye: ‘What is the meaning of this, my friend?’
‘Comrade Head of the Infirmary, honest, I don’t even know myself what it means,’ the warrant officer hastened to confess. ‘Well, I think probably I got acquainted with Albert Gennadievich this morning, so it’s not all that hard to understand. I guess that’s what it means.’
‘But what gave you the right to make his acquaintance? How did he get here in the first place? Wait – it was you, my friend, who set this up?’ Institutov began to get worked up.
‘Comrade Head of the Infirmary, I don’t even understand it myself, I swear! We met only this morning when Albert Gennadievich – if I’m guilty then I apologise! – was standing there and I happened to be walking past with my private. Nobody could tell him when or where the cargo 200 would be shipped out, and he walked right up and asked me. I guess that’s how he turned up here. But the fact that he’s the father, I only found that out later. If I’d only known, you think I would have said a word? What, you think I don’t know them regulations? It isn’t my first time at this…’
‘Oh shut up! Stop talking, you understand? Got it? Now, remember one thing, just one: from this moment you hold your tongue, button it. You keep away from him all the way to Moscow. If he latches on to you in the train, do not answer his questions. Keep your mouth shut: that is your number one mission.’
Upon hearing from the head of the infirmary what he must do to avoid getting into trouble, the warrant officer breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Right. I’ll keep silent, Comrade Head of the Infirmary. I’ll button my mouth up tight, don’t you worry,’ he said zealously, shaking his head a few times with conviction, as though taking a vow of silence, and he almost fell quiet, but then he remembered something and, flapping and fussing as though laying up stores, began jabbering away, looking over Institutov’s shoulder at somebody else: ‘Albert Gennadievich, you know, as soon as my old woman heard about it, the old nag cornered me, she did! Buy a colour tv, she said, while you’re in Moscow, and she wouldn’t let up. Do you think I’ll be able to get one in your shops? I think I’d prefer a tv to a carpet. Well we can do without the carpet, we’d be better off with a tv. So we’ve agreed? A tv set? A colour one? Aw, thank you so much… It’s not me – it’s the wife. I would have liked a carpet, myself, or maybe something else. But the wife has set her heart on this tv of hers, and to hell with the cost! She says we can walk around the flat in slippers, it’s not really a hardship, but you can only get a colour tv set in Moscow. Oh, look, excuse me, you’ve got this terrible grief, aw, you’ve lost your poor son, I’m so sorry… Uh, Comrade Head of the Infirmary. Uh, that’s all, not another word.’
The warrant officer calmed down and suddenly went all limp, like a herring whose little skeleton had been whipped out. ‘Mukhin’s father, I see you’re doing rather nicely,’ Institutov turned his head, with a deathly boredom in his eyes. ‘Fancy yourself a Chichikov, eh… Why not promise him a nice shiny car – a Volga, or a Lada at least. Do things Moscow style!’
They hauled the coffin-shaped crate – not the largest of boxes alongside the other packages, which held languishing cabinets, couches and other bulky human be
longings – into a container and filled in the last gap in the luggage van. The entire farewell party and Institutov himself stood like heathen idols by the locked wagon. The couriers had long since vanished. The warehouse was already closed up.
A few freight handlers were still standing about to the side, shirking their duties. From somewhere in the dark their names were being hollered, but they did not go back. They were smoking. It looked as though they were taking aim with their papirosa cigarettes, killing time, and, like rifles after firing, the cigarettes were gently giving off smoke that smelt rancid, almost like the stench of gunpowder. Amid all this, one of them was calling attention to himself by mocking another of the men.
‘Could you please keep it down; you’re disturbing the peace!’ Institutov said in their direction.
‘This bloke loves his wife!’ the laughing man responded, pointing out the other man, who meekly endured his mockery. ‘Go on then, tell me why you love her. What’s the meaning of it, this love for your wife?’
‘Look, I didn’t buy my love at the market, honestly! What do you mean, “Why”? I love her because she’s a good person, because we’ve spent our whole lives together,’ the man under interrogation forced out.
‘And when she drops dead tomorrow, it’s all gone. That’s reality for you! And what will have been the point of your love for her?’
‘But what about children? We’ve got a family, we’re bringing up two kids. Ok, so we might die, but we’ll be leaving them behind.’
‘You do read what they write in the papers? Haven’t you seen all those headlines? “Son stabs father to death”. “Children dismember parents in bathroom”. So what do you make of that then?’
‘Just leave him alone! Why don’t you give it a break, eh? Maybe you need a punch in the nose, clever clogs? If he believes he loves her, then why do you have to go poking about in his soul, not content until you’ve wrecked everything in it,’ somebody said indignantly. ‘Why is it you have to vandalise everything with your words? What do you gain from taking away someone’s faith in love?’
‘I’ll share my answer with you all. You carry on building things with your faith in love, or in the pockmarked Devil or whatever, but build things properly, decently, so they can stand without crutches. But no, everything everywhere is coming to grief, because it’s all held together with snot and spit. Of course, I could be kind and hold my tongue. You can always shut me up by brute force too. But if somebody’s love for his wife doesn’t stand up to my free speech, then that marriage is doomed. It’s a self-evident truth. Brawls, alcoholism and poverty – that’s love for you.’
These questions asked without the least desire to find anything out certainly flummoxed all the hapless listeners. Having sown dejection and shame among his workmates, the sharp-witted worker now sounded off with a pompous smirk amid all these fools: ‘Marry, reproduce… First you slog away for your wives and children, then for your medicines – and then for your coffin. You can go grovelling to your wives for your own hard-earned cash whenever you fancy a beer. Spend twenty years busting a gut for your children, only for them to run off to the register office – and bam, they’re gone, and they were ashamed to invite the likes of you to the wedding. Every day of your life is the same: you munch your macaroni, haul your hernia around and have a good moan about life not giving you enough. As for me, I’m going to make my life a party. I’m not going to devote my life to doing my duties. It will all be just for me. All the women I want, I’ll buy myself a suit, hang out in restaurants – and I’ll toil away here with you guys putting aside the same again for my old age. And if some little cherub should come into the world then he can jolly well thank me and give me a bow for creating him for free.’
Everyone stamped out their cigarettes and went off, heavy-hearted, back to their work. The worker strode in the same direction, rather pleased with himself. The platform had emptied. A quiver of expectation rippled through the air as at the moment before a train departs. The two coupled wagons, though, just stood there like lone tree stumps.
‘As I see it, the time has come to say farewell,’ said Institutov, but something about his own words was involuntarily weighing upon him. ‘In a few days’ time, this wagon will arrive in Gennady’s home town, unless, of course, the train is derailed. Reality isn’t pampering us with good news any more. Everything is getting blasted to pieces, burning in flames and sinking like a rock. Gennady’s life, too, was woefully brief. It was broken off tragically, in mid-flight, but let’s not talk about such depressing stuff. Better to remember Gennady once more. We’ll think of him and send him on his final journey with a minute’s silence. Gennady, I’m sorry we couldn’t protect you. Goodbye, my friend.’
That should have been the end of it. But the expectation of that end drew on and on. Institutov stood there uncomfortably for well over a minute, then, suddenly ashamed of this moment of tenderness, he rather clownishly could not resist enlivening the lament with a joke of his own. ‘The railway is the most reliable means of transport there is. Perhaps that can’t be said for the rest of us, but the rails and sleepers are here to stay! Right, let’s get down to the station. Our warrant officer can check that the precious cargo is still in order – and then it’s off to the capital. Colour television, eh? I wouldn’t mind making such a rare purchase for our times myself. By the way, Mukhin’s father, you’ll be coming with us. See, there’ll be less worry that way. We don’t want the train leaving without you. Warrant Officer, you don’t happen to have tickets for the same coach as Mukhin’s father? Well in any case, we’ll find out soon enough… To the station, my friends!’
But Mukhin’s father started muttering tearfully, ‘Today is the ninth day since Gennady was taken from us. Comrades, may I ask you to join me in my hotel to mark the occasion?’
‘Shame on you, cashing in on the memory of your own son!’ Institutov burst out in rage. ‘His death happened six days ago. You can have your booze-up when you get to Moscow. Or maybe you want to rustle up some birthday or other? How can you have a remembrance drink if he’s not yet in the ground? No, it’s simply a case of the DTs. Grab this mental case and haul him into the ambulance, no need to mollycoddle the wino.’ But no one dared drag the little man anywhere. ‘What’s this? Have all of you taken leave of your senses? Oh some father he is! He treats his own son’s death as an excuse to pour himself another drink, and there you have it. No, my friend, be patient, you can pickle yourself stupid on the train, but right now we’re short of time.’
‘Comrades, may I ask you to mark the occasion with me,’ Mukhin’s father reiterated plaintively. ‘I’d like to invite you all back to my hotel; it isn’t far. We have plenty of time before the train departs. No need to fret, you’ll make it in time.’
‘And you, my friend, aren’t you in a hurry yourself? No, I’m sorry, it’s out of the question! Wait a minute, hotel? What hotel? Your train leaves in an hour… Now, listen, show me your ticket. You do have a ticket, don’t you? Answer me, Mukhin’s father, you didn’t drink your ticket money away did you? You nasty little man, don’t you think you ought to show up at your own son’s funeral?’
The inebriated man cast down his eyes and intoned under his breath: ‘Comrades… Gennady and I invite you. There isn’t a nation in the world that wouldn’t mark the occasion…’
‘Look, why do you keep fibbing to everyone?’ shouted Institutov.
But the dejected little man fell silent. The warrant officer, until now diligently keeping quiet as ordered, now bolted nervously over to the head of the infirmary and whined, ‘Albert Gennadievich has no ticket, you say? How will he get on the train without a ticket?’
‘Look, can you please keep out of this! What’s it got to do with you? Fancy yourself an Uncle Vanya, eh…’
The simple-hearted warrant officer drew himself up, as though thrusting his chest against a wall, and, all of a sudden tearing up, he rebelled: ‘What it has to do with me, Comrade Head of the Infirmary, is that he promised we could sta
y at his apartment. All you can say is “silence, silence”, well you’re the one, pardon me, who’s playing the fool! I wasn’t expecting to have to sleep in the station. So it’s Moscow, and what of it! The instant your train pulls in, they fleece you for all you got. Me and my private will be getting just thirty kopecks each per day, and you tell me to shut up. You can’t even eat decently on that, not even a dog’s dinner. He promised me, he said: “Ivan Petrovich, you can stay at my place, no charge.” What’ll I tell the wife: that I’ve blown all the money on a hotel? And what about the telly, the carpet? All our lives we’ve been frugal, scrimping and saving…’
Mukhin’s father spoke up in a mournful voice: ‘Ivan, I invite you –’
‘Don’t even think of asking – what a nasty let-down, Albert. I trusted you like you was family. I believed you, but now you’ve tricked me you’re a complete stranger to me, I’ll have you know. Comrade Head of the Infirmary, I’ll only trust you from now on. Maybe you can shove the bugger on the train, eh? And he’s lying, even about the hotel; I saw it, and it wasn’t a hotel room, it was a rail coach on wheels. Come on, let’s force him into the train. Let’s make him go, let’s make him bury his son, the damn alimony dodger.’
‘Absolutely not – end of story. Let him stay here. Now if there’s one person I’m not sorry for…’ Institutov said.
‘But wait, boss. I’m going to accept the invitation. I’m crazy about old traditions.’ Institutov span around, as though to grab at something in the air, and it was only this that saved him from falling. He feebly scanned their faces, still believing he had imagined this voice. ‘Let’s go, Dad. Where did you plan on heading? Don’t you fear: we’ll mark his memory in proper style.’ Pavel Pavlovich went over to the small man and stood by his side, placing his hand on the man’s shoulder. Mukhin’s father raised his head, then smiled vacantly through his tears and said, ‘Nuclear workers, forward march!’ At that very moment his hat fell from his head. The little man looked down indifferently at the headwear that had fallen at his feet, and Pavel Pavlovich got upset: ‘Well, pick up your hat.’ But Institutov ran and grabbed the hat in a trice, and, clearly not intending to return it, he wailed: ‘Where are we off to? Who’s going? Why are they going?’