“I just can’t see how this work can be done without your participation or at least consent.”
“What kind of pussyfooting is this?” Yevlakhov frowned, giving more hiss to the word than was needed.
Petya made no reply. In spite of the obviousness of the situation he felt that he should be groping his way through. He considered mentioning Croizé’s sarcastic remark about the Lomonossov to Yevlakhov stretch, but he changed his mind. A corollary thought had suddenly broken through. “Igor Lavrentyevitch’s of the opinion that without your consent …” Petya started.
“Igor Lavrentyevitch is wrong,” Yevlakhov snapped, smoothing the top of his head. “Consent by him alone is plenty. The blueprint is published, what else is there to it?” It seemed now there were two Yevlakhovs: one who a moment ago had been condescendingly uttering a few indifferent remarks, the other who was now making a deliberate effort to participate. Hell, it occurred to Petya, these two are at each other’s throats! Somehow he ought to find his way out of here but how? Psychology was never an Uglov forte …
“Igor Lavrentyevitch presumes that the glass can’t be manufactured without my say-so,” Yevlakhov shrugged his shoulders. “Very nifty but it simply ain’t so. So … will you excuse me please …”
The discussion was apparently over, yet Petya didn’t rise. As always in such situations he sulked, slowly trying to think. He was reluctant to leave Yevlakhov without having some measure of success. Ivan Pavlovitch, however, seemed to be getting impatient, sensing perhaps an oncoming struggle with this young man who kept staring at him. “You’ll have to excuse me, please,” he said, “it’s been my pleasure …”
4
The Spartak Ballet was out of the question. When Petya returned to the hotel he was told that there had been a call for him from Perm. My boss is an impatient man, Petya thought, he likes things done without delay. But that soon?
Since Perm could not be reached before midnight, he decided to drop in on Tamara. It was a better-than-an-hour boring bus ride in the Viborg section and as he passed street after street of drab brick houses, Petya speculated that this must be the most untypical part of Leningrad.
Tamara was home. Valya had gone to Moscow, she said. For how long? Who knows. Why? She didn’t know that either, though she guessed it must have been on account of that new rocket. Didn’t he know Valya was now connected with it?
“Since when?” Petya asked.
“Oh,” she paused, as if she had to make sure that what she was going to say was absolutely necessary, “for some time.”
Petya was all ears. Everything Valya had ever said or done was right, wise and most interesting. So he must have had his reasons for marrying this lanky, pale-faced creature with her strawlike short-cut hair that made her look like a little girl. At about ten he returned to the hotel and just in time. The boss called again. Petya reported how things stood; first, the boss screamed at him, then asked him to buy three oscillographs. “Yes, Professor Nikitin,” Petya said, “I’ll try to get them.” He knew, however, that none were to be had—he had investigated already. No sooner had he hung up than Croizé’s office called. It was his secretary. “Igor Lavrentyevitch would like to know,” she said, “how you made out with Yevlakhov.” She was sorry Ivan Pavlovitch was uncooperative. She wanted to have details. “He said there was no emergency,” Petya lied.
She paused, then said something to somebody over the cupped mouthpiece. “Are you there, Comrade Uglov?” she asked. “Igor Lavrentyevitch would like you to drop in tomorrow at half past eleven. So long.”
A strange call, Petya mused. Once again there was that vagueness—only one conclusion could be drawn: Croizé needed him as much as he needed Croizé!
5
This time the conversation was a tug and pull from the start. Petya wanted Croizé to issue the manufacturing order and the director was finding excuses why he should refer him to Yevlakhov or at least have his consent.
“Why don’t you give him a ring?” Petya asked bluntly, tired of alibis.
“Indeed, why don’t I?” Croizé said, picking up the receiver. The director’s hand seemed to tremble a little.
“No answer, probably not in yet,” Croizé said gaily a moment later, hanging up. “Just as I thought. I’ll tell you. I’m going to send you now to Oganezov—I’ll tell you why. In the first place you ought to get acquainted with him anyway—glass is made by hand and he’s our hands. In the second place, how shall I say it, he’s Ivan Pavlovitch’s alter ego.” The director picked up the phone again. “Aram Ilyitch,” he said a while later, “Uglov from Perm is sitting in my office now … a physiologist. … He came here on a business matter which could and should be settled right away. I’ve a request to you. … Show him around the institute, please …” There was a pause. “Why today? Please, the man came all the way from Perm … I’d appreciate it greatly, Aram Ilyitch … Very good …” Croizé smiled as he hung up. “Aram Ilyitch will only be too glad,” he told Petya.
“Then may I tell him that he has your consent, Igor Lavrentyevitch?” Petya asked.
“Please do,” Croizé said, pulling out a sheet of paper from his drawer.
Not another plan, Petya lamented in his mind. There was nothing wrong in seeing the institute, but this director was too fast today, too eloquent. Something about him was too elusive … He seemed cooler than yesterday, as if yesterday had been his opportunity and today was just another day, in the literal and metaphorical sense of the word.
Croizé had in fact made another sketch, but not of a discussion—it was the plan of the ninth floor where, as he said, it was not only difficult but almost impossible to find Oganezov without it.
“So you’ll issue the manufacturing order today?” Petya asked.
Croizé’s laughter had a ring of irritation in its gaiety. “It will be done,” he said. His parting handshake was as firm as the day before; his “So long” was accompanied by that same warm smile. Petya knew better, however: this was the Croizé trademark. Without words the director had let him know that there was no sense in further meetings. As if he had said, “Look here, I’ve done everything I could for you. I’m sorry but I’ve no more time nor attention for you.”
Petya took the elevator to the ninth floor. Like most young people, without knowing it he had yet to discover himself. Having found the obstacles more formidable than they had appeared on the surface, he didn’t know how to overcome them. Yet he was convinced that he would not leave Leningrad without the glass. As he began looking for Oganezov he had already searched in his mind for a way out. His thoughts in physiology always ran deep, but his love for instruments as wise tools of science was as great. Institute glasses were tools too, he reasoned, so he was in his own element. …
Apparently Oganezov sensed Petya’s interest because no sooner had he met him than his erstwhile frown returned into eager congeniality. Small, thin, eagle-nosed, Oganezov talked fast, not realizing that Uglov could not absorb the rain of details yet was too bashful to ask questions, as if afraid that those pointed elbows of his, jutting out from his tucked-up cowboy shirt might goad him. A little pepper mill, Petya mentally nicknamed Oganezov, thinking of his hunched walk and grizzly, pepper-colored hair. But he’s more salt than pepper, a mind like quicksilver, grasping instinctively a thread of thought before a sentence was finished. This man, Petya decided, was obviously the soul of the institute and he might appreciate frankness. “The Tshassov glass,” Petya said, “this is the only reason I came here.”
“No problem, we’ll make it,” Oganezov assured. “Have you been to Croizé?”
“Uhm … I was,” Petya replied. “I’m not sure but it seems he said ’yes.’ You see … Igor Lavrentyevitch asked me to see Yevlakhov, I saw him and Ivan Pavlovitch declined. True, Igor Lavrentyevitch said that Ivan Pavlovitch’s consent was not important …”
“I don’t get it,” Organezov interrupted, blushing slightly. “Why isn’t it important?”
“I mean practically …”
“What do you mean practically?” Oganezov asked in such a loud voice that a secretary that had passed them looked back startled. “Listen, young man, anything Ivan Pavlovitch Yevlakhov does is important.”
“I beg your pardon,” Petya said, unable to contain his annoyance. “I’m an outsider here, and to be frank with you, I can’t make out what’s going on between all of you. But it seems to me that whatever it is it shouldn’t affect the point in question. If you’re of the opinion that Yevlakhov’s consent is indispensable and Comrade Croizé is … or isn’t … why don’t you have a talk with him about it?”
Perhaps, had Petya used a humbler tone of voice he might have won over Oganezov. But somehow the impression he conveyed to that little “pepper mill” was lack of respect for a scientist. Oganezov flared up, his voice trembled and every phrase opened with a “What do you mean?”
“I’m sorry that you misunderstood me,” Petya said with restrained anger. “Maybe the best thing for me here is to go over to Igor Lavrentyevitch and find out what he intends to do about the manufacturing order. Thank you for showing me the institute. So long.”
Croizé, however, would not receive him. He was about to confer with a Czech delegation, Petya was told by his usually polite secretary who had now a fancy hairdo and spoke curtly. Then as the buzzer on her desk sounded, she jumped up and dashed to the inner office. Through the wide open door Petya could see handsome Igor Lavrentyevitch, all in smiles, his white whisk of hair agleam, ready to go into orbit, so to speak …
6
Petya took off to look for oscillographs, and although he knew beforehand that he wouldn’t find any, he still felt disappointed. While eating dinner—which was his supper too—he planned his conversation with the boss, Professor Nikitin. He didn’t think it would be wise to try explaining all the mess over the phone. “I’ll just tell him that everything is in tip-top shape,” Petya thought. Eventually things would turn out all right.
Tickets for neither the Spartak Ballet nor the Comedy Theatre were to be had, so he took the third best: a dramatic play in the Bolshoi which somebody said was supposed to be good. However, when he called Tamara she told him that what was supposed to be good was another play, and this one wasn’t good at all.
“Any news from Valka?” Petya asked.
“No.”
“At least he might’ve called, the ox.”
“Yes,” Tamara said without enthusiasm.
He decided to rest a while and then take a little walk to see the Nevski Boulevard in the dark. He woke up around two in the morning. Annoyed at himself, Petya sat at the window and gazed at the patched barn roofs. As it often happened, he had thought while sleeping. He got out his drawing book and made a sketch. A moment later he crumpled it and threw it in the waste basket. When he fell asleep he didn’t wake up until late in the morning.
Still in his night shirt, Petya pulled out the sketch from the waste basket, smoothed it on his knobby knees and added a few lines which had occurred to him while he was asleep. He felt as reluctant to go to the institute as an angler who has to wade into cold water to disentangle a fishing hook. But there was nothing else to do. Half an hour later he was again in the elevator to the ninth floor.
“Hello,” Petya said, finding Oganezov. “I’ll take only a minute. I just wanted to tell you …”
Oganezov seemed not to remember right away what they were talking about the day before. Then, after he did, he apologized for having been rude. “Funny!” he said, opening his mouth wide, like a baby. “You’re a funny fellow. What is your name?”
“Uglov. But the point you didn’t understand yesterday …”
“Phenomenal,” Oganezov said, bending his long, wrinkled ear. He stared at Petya in silence for a while. “No, it won’t work,” he uttered abruptly.
“What won’t work?” Petya asked. They talked more. “Have you seen Croizé?” Oganezov shot a sudden question.
“No, not today.”
“Don’t go then,” Oganezov advised. “I’ll tell you what, we’ll get hold of Skatchkov.”
“Who’s he?”
“Didn’t I introduce you to him yesterday?”
“No.”
“I didn’t?” Oganezov said incredulously. “Well, Skatchkov’s a fellow who has a feel of glass—it’s music to him. Follow me.”
Skatchkov, however, the man with the musical feel of glass, showed no such finesse toward Petya. “They’ll ask me, I’ll do it,” he sighed. “Besides, Igor Lavrentyevitch already spoke to me.”
“He did?” Both Petya and Oganezov shouted at the same time.
“Yes … How much do you need?” Skatchkov asked without the slightest emotion.
“How much?” Petya repeated. “One kilo’ll be enough.”
“You must be joking,” Skatchkov laughed. “How would you go about buying one kilo?”
“What does that mean?”
“Accounting won’t issue an order for that quantity,” Skatchkov shook his head.
“Not enough?” Petya asked.
“That’s right,” Skatchkov replied. “Aram Ilyitch,” he turned to Oganezov, “didn’t you explain this to Comrade …”
“What do you mean won’t issue an order?” Oganezov interrupted. “The formula’s here—one kilo today, twenty tomorrow. An order’s an order, what’s there to it?”
“There’s no order yet … to be exact,” Skatchkov said, scratching his head. “What can I do?” Then, as if struck by sympathy toward Uglov, he eagerly suggested, “Listen, Comrade, why don’t you have a talk with Yevlakhov? Maybe Ivan Pavlovitch won’t mind making a kilo for you in his laboratory; it’s worth a try.”
7
When things didn’t go his way Petya usually sulked. He was glum when he knocked at Yevlakhov’s office door that afternoon. There was no answer. He entered: the office was empty, a white coat was carelessly thrown over a chair. All right, Petya decided, I’ll wait. After a moment he walked up to the stand. The matte little circle lay untouched under a glass lid. One of the threads which tied it to the velvet background was torn. Petya lifted the lid, gingerly picked up the glass and took it to the window. A glass like any other—dull-colored, with a slightly nacreous shade. How strange, Petya mused, this plain-looking surface has such extraordinary properties!
The door creaked. Startled, Petya slipped the glass into his pocket and turned around. It had been one of those quick, mechanical motions which he had acquired in his adolescence when trying to hide a burning cigarette butt from his strict father.
“Oh, it’s you,” Yevlakhov said, lifting his face from a letter he had been reading on his way in. “What can I do for you? Would you care to sit down?” Ivan Pavlovitch had made no effort to hide his frown.
He doesn’t know I took the glass, flashed through Petya’s mind. He stood in a stupor, gaping at Yevlakhov. If there was a second of decision to return the glass it had passed. Now it seemed to burn him in his pocket, and when he walked up to the table, instead of sitting down, Petya kept standing, clutching the chair with both hands.
Yevlakhov remained standing too, hoping perhaps that his visitor would leave soon if he wasn’t invited again to sit down. Every now and then Ivan Pavlovitch stole a glance at the letter which he had tossed onto the desk but said nothing. Finally the silence got the better part of him. “If I’m not mistaken,” he said, “I’ve already explained to you that I’ve got nothing to do with your problem. Unless, of course … something new?”
Petya shook his head. Such moments of bewilderment had been part of him only in his childhood …
“In the name of sweet heaven,” Yevlakhov lamented, “why are you here then? If you have something to tell me, come out with it; if not, please leave. What the hell!” Ivan Pavlovitch stormed, as Petya continued staring at him. “Oganezov told me a thing or two about you and I didn’t like what he had to say. Then Skatchkov. All those round-about, side-about ways … In the name of Allah, I pray, why should I busy myself with your problem
s, huh?”
Yevlakhov had wiped his forehead several times. Strings of hair looked awfully funny the way they bristled on the top of his head. He suddenly seemed remorseful for scolding his young visitor, then annoyed at himself for feeling remorseful. “Do you know what I’d do if I were in your place?” he said, getting crimson on his face and glowering at Petya. “Instead of begging every Ivan in this place for that glass I’d simply steal it and that would be the end of it. … And nobody would be the wiser …”
Perhaps, had Petya not happened to have followed Yevlakhov’s advice, he’d have known what to say. But as it was, the only thing he could think of was to take out the glass from his pocket and stare at it forlornly.
“What have you got there?” Yevlakhov asked angrily, obviously unable to see well. He stepped forward to have a closer look at the matte circle lying in Uglov’s palm. Petya, for some strange reason, had made a step forward also. The two of them almost bumped foreheads.
“It’s here, the glass,” Petya uttered simplemindedly.
Yevlakhov took one glimpse at the glass and screamed. Uglov’s first impulse was to pull his head into his shoulders. However, Ivan Pavlovitch hadn’t screamed from anger but from delight. He dashed toward the stand, made sure that the glass wasn’t there, then slapped himself on his knee. “Swiped it, huh?” he burst out laughing. “What a boy!”
“I didn’t mean to, honest I didn’t,” Petya began to laugh too.
“What a liar!”
“No, honest,” Petya said. “You came in so suddenly as I was looking at it, and then … I don’t know why I slipped it into my pocket …”
“Yeah, yeah—we know,” Yevlakhov gasped in between spasms of laughter. He acted now like the little mischievous boy Petya thought he had detected blades of before. Ivan Pavlovitch’s eyes glistened with excitement, he raised his eyebrows and his tousled hair gave his face an endearing look. Petya felt himself drawn to this man. …
“All right,” Ivan Pavlovitch said after his last spasm of laughter had died. “Now we can talk it over seriously,” as if there could have been no serious talk until the Tshassov glass had been swiped. “All right, young man, once again—why do you need this glass?”
Treasury of Russian Short Stories 1900-1966 Page 20