SHCHOEV (to the whole office, which is seething with clerical production): Let me think a minute. You there, cut out those stomach odors that are drifting over to me. (The toilet doors stop opening and closing. A general silence. SHCHOEV falls into thought. His stomach begins to growl; the growling gets louder. Then, quietly) The requirements of the distribution system make me ache all over. (Strokes his stomach) The moment I fall into thought, my stomach starts rumbling. That means all the elements are grieving within me…(Into the mass of employees) Yevsei!
YEVSEI (from somewhere out of sight): Right away, Ignat Nikanorovich. I’ll just total up the cabbages and pickled cucumber—and then I’ll appear before you.
SHCHOEV: Add them up on the double, without leaving your post. I’ll iron out your figures myself, later. Now answer in detail: what do we have today for the non-dues-paying members of our cooperative?17
YEVSEI (still out of sight): Glue!
SHCHOEV: Fine. And tomorrow?
YEVSEI: A first-grade reader, Ignat Nikanorovich.
SHCHOEV: And yesterday?
YEVSEI: Fly-killing powder, Zverev’s system, a half package per person.
SHCHOEV: Is it wise, Yevsei, to be killing flies with powder?
YEVSEI: Whyever not, Ignat Nikanorovich? After all, we have yet to receive any Party line for the procurement of flies.18 And the salvage yard is still refusing to accept insects.
SHCHOEV: That’s not what I mean—don’t interrupt me when I’m thinking…I’m asking, what about the pigeon birds or other flying ephemera? What are they going to eat once you knock down all the flies? After all, things that fly are also food products.
YEVSEI: No flying ephemera are expected this year, Ignat Nikanorovich. The cooperatives of the southern district intercepted and procured them ahead of us. This spring, Ignat Nikanorovich, we are expecting an empty sky. And with no birds, the flies will run wild.
SHCHOEV: Ah well, leave it be, then. Let them stuff themselves with flying ephemera. Telegraph the regional office for me and check whether Party lines are being stolen in our district…Ten days without even one circular—it’s terrifying! I see no guiding line beneath my feet.
In the yard outside the office the hurdy-gurdy plays an old waltz. The office turns its ears to the sound. So does SHCHOEV.
YEVSEI (still unseen): How about a coin for the musician, Ignat Nikanorovich? A cultural worker is, after all, a human being!
SHCHOEV: I’ll coin you a coin or two! You’re a fine one—squandering the money of others! Our financial plan is unfulfilled—and here you go tossing our resources out the window! You go and get a contribution for our zeppelin out of him—that’s what you should be doing now!19
YEVSEI appears briefly, standing up from within the mass of employees, then goes away. The hurdy-gurdy plays on without interruption. The TALKING TUBE on SHCHOEV’s desk begins to whistle and hum. The hurdy-gurdy falls silent.
SHCHOEV (into the TUBE): Alla!20 Who? Speak up, it’s me—who else!
These words, spoken into the TUBE, are then repeated, three times as loud, somewhere beyond the office walls. The echo resounds in the surrounding spaces, the emptiness of which is felt in the length and boredom of the repeatedly reverberating sounds. All conversation via the TUBE is to be carried out in this manner; this stage direction will not be repeated on every subsequent occasion.
A DISTANT VOICE (from outside the office): The little mushrooms, Ignat Nikanorovich, are beginning to go wormy. If you please, let the shop employees eat them—or else distribute them to the working mass!
The TUBE on the desk repeats these same words a few seconds later in an entirely different voice—one that is more muffled, with a different expression and even a different meaning.
SHCHOEV (into the TUBE): What mushrooms?
DISTANT VOICE (offstage): Year-old mushrooms, salted, soaked, and dried…
SHCHOEV (not into the TUBE): Yevsei!
OFFICE WORKERS: Ignat Nikanorovich, Yevsei has gone out to conduct a fund-raising campaign.
SHCHOEV: Labor on in silence. I’ve remembered.
The hurdy-gurdy plays a new tune. YEVSEI enters with someone else’s straw hat in his hands. It is full of copper coins. He pours them onto SHCHOEV’s desk. The hurdy-gurdy falls silent.
YEVSEI: He gave twenty rubles. Later, he says, he’ll bring more. The zeppelin, he says, fills me with joy. Too bad, he says, I didn’t hear about it earlier, or, he says, I’d have invented a Soviet airship myself.
SHCHOEV: What is he—some kind of enthusiast for every kind of construction?
YEVSEI: Seems like it, Ignat Nikanorovich.
SHCHOEV: Member of something, or not?
YEVSEI: He says he’s not a member of anything.
SHCHOEV: How come? That’s strange…(Pause. The hurdy-gurdy is playing far away, barely audible.) Never in my life have I seen a true enthusiast. Ten thousand members I unite, and they’re all like animals—day and night, all they want to do is eat. Go and bring him here—for my observation. (The TUBE on the desk growls something. He looks at the TUBE, then continues, to Yevsei) Is this your doing? You’ve been tormenting these mushrooms for over a year now!
YEVSEI: They’re not mushrooms, Ignat Nikanorovich. It’s soy in the guise of mushrooms—I ordered it to be marinated. What’s the hurry, Ignat Nikanorovich? People can eat anything—but where does it get us? We’ll be better off with a bit more materialism—there are enough people around as it is.
SHCHOEV (pensively): You’re right—one hundred percent and then some! (Into the TUBE) Don’t touch the mushrooms, you locusts from hell. Let them lie there as reserve supplies!
The hurdy-gurdy plays still further away.
(To YEVSEI) Call the music in here. I want a mood!
Exit Yevsei.
(To the office workers) Give me some papers to sign. Somehow the world has turned boring.
FIRST MALE OFFICE WORKER (standing up from among the rows of desks): We’ve got some confirmations and reminders lying around over here, Ignat Nikanorovich.
SHCHOEV: Hand over whatever you’ve got.
The worker brings a sheaf of papers over to SHCHOEV’s desk.
(Takes a seal from his pocket and hands it to the worker) Go on then!
The worker blows on the seal and stamps the papers.
(Sitting idle) We need to direct some kind of directive at the shops on our periphery.
FIRST MALE OFFICE WORKER: I’ll do just that, Ignat Nikanorovich.
SHCHOEV: Please do.
Enter YEVSEI. Behind him—ALYOSHA with the hurdy-gurdy. MIUD attempts to lead KUZMA in by the hand, but his torso is unable to get through the narrow space of the entrance.
MIUD: Alyosha, Kuzya’s misfitting. There’s a bottleneck.21
ALYOSHA: Let him stick around outside then.
KUZMA (in the doorway): Don’t touch old-timer capitalism…R-r-reptiles…(remains outside the office).
SHCHOEV: And who are you?
ALYOSHA: We’re strolling Bolsheviks.
SHCHOEV: And where are you strolling now?
ALYOSHA (with profound sincerity): We’re going by way of collective farms and construction sites—to socialism!
SHCHOEV: To where?
MIUD (childishly sincere): To socialism!
SHCHOEV (pensively): A fine, faraway district.
MIUD: Yes, that’s right, far away. But we’ll get there all the same.
SHCHOEV: Yevsei, give this girl a candy.
ALYOSHA (embracing MIUD): No, don’t. She’s not used to sweets.
MIUD: Suck the candy yourself, you sweet-toothed egotist.
SHCHOEV (comes out from behind his desk, toward people): Dear comrades, laborers, consumers, members, pedestrian foot walkers, and Bolsheviks—I love you all most remarkably!
YEVSEI (to MIUD): And you, young lady, how do you like your candy—filled with jam, or with cherry juice?
MIUD: Let the proletariat bring me treats—not you. You don’t have a class face.
&
nbsp; SHCHOEV: I do love this generation, Yevsei. And you?
YEVSEI: Well, Ignat Nikanorovich, one simply has to love them!
ALYOSHA (not understanding the situation): So are you building socialism here?
SHCHOEV: And how!
YEVSEI: All the way!
ALYOSHA: Can we help build too? Playing music all the time—it makes your heart ache.
MIUD (touching ALYOSHA): And I’ve got bored of living in the world on foot.
SHCHOEV: But why do you want to build? You are the springtime of our class, and spring must blossom. Keep playing your music. What do you think, Yevsei?
YEVSEI: Yes, I reckon, Ignat Nikanorovich, that we will manage just fine without minors. Once everything’s ready, they can come and feast themselves!
MIUD: But we want to help build.
SHCHOEV: But can you organize the masses?
ALYOSHA and MIUD are silent for a while.
ALYOSHA: All I can do is invent a zeppelin.
Pause.
SHCHOEV: Well, there we are. And you say you want to help. You’d do better to stay in our multistore system as musical reinforcement. You will give comfort to the leadership. Yevsei, do our staff regulations provide for the employment of comforters?
YEVSEI: I reckon, Ignat Nikanorovich, that no objections will arise. Let them comfort away.
SHCHOEV (thinking this over deeply): Excellent. In that case, Yevsei, let’s enroll these wanderers. Let them stop here. (To ALYOSHA) Play me something tender.
ALYOSHA takes his hurdy-gurdy and plays a sorrowful folk melody. SHCHOEV, YEVSEI, and the entire office are in a deep pause. The institution stands idle. Everyone is lost in thought. ALYOSHA changes registers and plays a different piece.
MIUD (gradually and imperceptibly joins in the melody and begins to sing softly):
They set off on foot
For a faraway land,
Leaving their motherland
For a freedom unknown.
Strangers to everyone,
No comrade but the wind—
In their breast their heart
Beats without reply.
ALYOSHA goes on playing a little while after MIUD has fallen silent. In the course of the music and MIUD’s song, SHCHOEV has been gradually slumping over his desk, weeping in quiet anguish. YEVSEI has been looking at SHCHOEV and contorting his features with suffering in a similar way—but tears cannot flow from his eyes. The office weeps in silence. Pause.
SHCHOEV: Somehow it’s all so pitiful, damn it. Come on, Yevsei, let’s organize the masses.
YEVSEI: Then there won’t be enough vegetables for them, Ignat Nikanorovich.
SHCHOEV: Oh, Yevsei, let’s believe in something! (Wipes away his tears. Then, to ALYOSHA) Know what you should be inventing instead of zeppelins? How best to dry up the tears of crybabies!
ALYOSHA: I can do that.
SHCHOEV: Enroll him then, Yevsei, in our permanent staff: as comforter of the masses. Get the approval of the proper authorities. It’s time we procured some masses to work in our apparatus.
YEVSEI: Do we have to, Ignat Nikanorovich? We’ve already had one promoted proletarian dumped on us—Yevdokia!
ALYOSHA quietly plays a dance tune on the hurdy-gurdy. MIUD moves lightly through the steps.
SHCHOEV: And what is Yevdokia doing now?
YEVSEI: Nothing, Ignat Nikanorovich. She’s a woman.
SHCHOEV: So what if she’s a woman? There’s something unknown in her too.
YEVSEI: There’s milk in her, Ignat Nikanorovich.
SHCHOEV: Ah! Then she can play a leading role in the milk and butter sector of our apparatus.
YEVSEI: So she can, Ignat Nikanorovich.
ALYOSHA plays the same dance a little more loudly. Still sitting, not rising from their places, the office staff move their torsos in time to the dance. The TUBE on SHCHOEV’s desk begins to growl.
SHCHOEV (into the TUBE): Alla! It’s me!
TUBE: Birds, Ignat Nikanorovich, are flying over our district.
SHCHOEV (into the TUBE): Where from?
TUBE: From parts unknown. From foreign states.
SHCHOEV: How many?
TUBE: Three.
SHCHOEV: Catch them!
TUBE: Right away.
Noise of wind over the office. Bird cries.
SHCHOEV: What is all this?
YEVSEI: This, Ignat Nikanorovich, is the beginning of a new quarter or, by the old calendar, the beginning of spring.
SHCHOEV (pensively): Spring. A good Bolshevik epoch!
YEVSEI: A tolerable one, Ignat Nikanorovich.
MIUD: It’s not spring now. Spring ended long ago. It’s summer now—the season for construction.
SHCHOEV: What do you mean, summer?
YEVSEI: It makes no difference, Ignat Nikanorovich. It’s only the weather that changes, the time remains the same.
SHCHOEV: You’re right, Yevsei.
Enter PYOTR OPORNYKH. In his hands are a chicken and two pigeons.
OPORNYKH: Here’s a whatchamacallit! I, Ignat Nikanorovich, have now procured you some fowl: one propertyless hen and two pigeons to boot.
MIUD: In spring only strange birds fly in—not chickens. All chickens are kolkhoz members.
ALYOSHA (examines the birds in OPORNYKH’s hands. On one of the chicken’s legs is a tag, and on the leg of one of the pigeons—a little roll of paper. He reads): “The chicken declares a curse on reckless wastefulness. She is being given an unnecessary mass of grain, in consequence of which grain goes to waste or is eaten by predators. But not one drop does she receive to drink. The chicken declares her indignation at this undervaluation. Signed—the Pioneer Brigade of the Little Giant state farm.”
SHCHOEV: We cannot procure such birds. There is no Party line to that effect. Toss her out, Petya!”
OPORNYKH takes the chicken by the head and tosses it out the door. The chicken’s head remains in his hands, but its torso disappears.
YEVSEI (looking at the chicken’s head and its blinking eyes): Now the chicken is worn out and will fly no further.
SHCHOEV (to ALYOSHA): And what does the Egyptian pigeon have to tell us?
ALYOSHA (reads): It’s written in a capitalist language. It’s not very clear to us.
SHCHOEV: Then pound the kulak propaganda into the ground!
MIUD: Let me eat the bird instead, with its paper.
SHCHOEV: Eat, child, every last bite.
YEVSEI (to MIUD): Oh no, you don’t! This might be the Egyptian proletariat sending us a bulletin about their achievements.22
SHCHOEV (pensively): A faraway and worn-out class…Opornykh, look after that pigeon as if it were your union membership card!
A distant noise. Everyone listens. The noise grows louder, turning into a boom.
OPORNYKH: What the hell’s going on now? (Exits.)
Small pause of fear.
YEVSEI (shouting with all his zeal): Ignat Nikanorovich, it’s a foreign intervention!
The work of the office comes to an immediate halt. MIUD takes the revolver out of her blouse. ALYOSHA takes the growling TUBE from SHCHOEV’s desk. It continues to growl in the hands of a human being. ALYOSHA and MIUD run out with these objects and disappear. The strange boom intensifies but grows, as it were, wider and softer, like a stream of water.
(Horrified) I told you, Ignat Nikanorovich, that mother bourgeoisie is one tough lady.
SHCHOEV: Don’t worry, Yevsei. Maybe this time it’s only the petty bourgeoisie…But where are my masses?
SHCHOEV looks around the office—which is empty. Shortly before this, the workers have all disappeared somewhere. KUZMA smashes through the doorway and squeezes his way into the office.23 He sits down amid the emptiness of the desks and takes up a pen. SHCHOEV and YEVSEI observe him in terror. MIUD enters, revolver in hand.
MIUD: It’s swan geese, flying swan geese…Idiots!
The boom turns into the voices of thousands of birds. The sound of birds’ feet touching the iron roof of the office;
the birds are settling on it, calling to one another.
SHCHOEV: Yevsei! Call the office workers here. Where have they hidden themselves? Something or other needs to be put in order here!
KUZMA stands up and walks into the toilet, slamming the door brusquely behind him.
Scene 3
The same office as in scene 2. No TUBE on SHCHOEV’s desk. The place is empty. Only SHCHOEV. Birds cry pitifully outside; they are being attacked and exterminated with whatever comes to hand.
SHCHOEV (chewing some food): The people today do have one huge appetite. They build some kind of brick buildings, fences, or towers—and for that they want three meals a day, and I’m supposed to sit here and provide treats for every one of them. Yes, it’s tough being a cooperative system. Better if I’d been an object of some sort, or simply a consumer. Somehow we don’t have much of an ideological superstructure. Either we’ve invented everything already or there’s some other reason. I’m always craving some kind of pleasure! (Picks up some crumbs of the food he’s consumed and tips them into his mouth.) Yevsei!
YEVSEI (behind the office): Right away, Ignat Nikanorovich!
SHCHOEV: Where on earth can these bastard birds have sprung from? Everything was so quiet and consistent with the Plan, the entire apparatus had adopted the Party line for the organization of fleshy crayfish deeps—and now in come these birds! Try and procure them! O local populace, local populace, you’ll be the death of the whole cooperative system!…Klokotov!
KLOKOTOV (behind the office walls): Coming, Ignat Nikanorovich.
Enter KLOKOTOV, entirely covered in bird feathers.
SHCHOEV: Well, how is it out there?
KLOKOTOV: Not good at all, Ignat Nikanorovich—as you can see!
SHCHOEV: What’s going on out there?
KLOKOTOV: The whole Plan is falling apart, Ignat Nikanorovich…We adopted the Party line for the organization of fleshy crayfish deeps—and we should be guided by it. The midsection of a crayfish, Ignat Nikanorovich, is better than any beef. I mean, yesterday it was crayfish, today it’s flying birds, tomorrow wild beasts will come scampering out of the forest, and we, it seems, have to bring the whole system crashing to a halt because of these brute elements! (SHCHOEV is pensively silent.) It’s just no good, Ignat Nikanorovich—and the whole populace will be spoiled. Once we’ve got them used to one kind of food, that’s more than enough. As for what’s going on now! Looks like all the poultry life from every bourgeois tsardom may come tearing into our republic. They’re having a crisis over there—an overproduction crisis—but how are we meant to consume all this ourselves? There simply aren’t enough mouths!
Fourteen Little Red Huts and Other Plays Page 4