Fourteen Little Red Huts and Other Plays

by Andrei Platonov

  BOS: It’s the same with me, Filipp. It all depends. You and I are both laboring people.

  VERSHKOV: Think I can’t see your game? I can see it, all right! (Without having read the letter, he writes a few words on it—a resolution.) Yes, a Bolshevik can observe straight through fools like you! (Hands the letter and envelope back to BOS.)

  BOS (reading the resolution): Filipp! Is that really true? Is the world’s entire economic riddle truly solved in your four words?

  VERSHKOV: We write nothing without reason. Believe me.

  Pause.

  BOS (thoughtfully): Yes. That’s true. And what has Europe written to me?

  VERSHKOV: They say that things are so-so: unsatisfactory. Read it aloud yourself.

  BOS (reads, omitting some passages, in an angry mutter):…A communication from Moscow…At the railway terminus you wished to marry a famous beauty—Futilla the shepherdess…As a result of a certain limitation of your mental capacities…The ever narrowing circle of European tragedy…Send…a new principle…solution to the world politico-economic riddle.

  VERSHKOV: I’ve already written it down. The world riddle no longer exists.

  BOS: What you wrote was clear—there’s no longer a riddle. We must send this off. It’s morning.

  VERSHKOV: You sign. I’ll countersign.

  They sign the letter and seal the envelope. An OLD MAN from the district center appears—with a briefcase and a supply of rolled-up banners—some made from red calico, some from bast matting.

  OLD MAN: Greetings! Put the lamp out. What are you doing sitting in here? I’ve come on foot from the district center. I’m keeping an eye on socialist emulation!

  The OLD MAN removes the red banner from the corner of the room and replaces it with an inferior banner, made from bast.26

  VERSHKOV: Why are you slighting us?

  OLD MAN: Happens all the time—must be what you deserve! (Leaves.)

  BOS: I fear Futilla Ivanovna will be irritated.

  VERSHKOV: Doesn’t matter. But we need to give the people something, Ivan Fyodorovich. They haven’t eaten anything, they’re lying on the ground and weeping.

  BOS: I can’t hear them.

  VERSHKOV: Now is a time to think, not to listen. Oh, all right—listen!

  Opens the office window. The sound of men and women cursing one another—and the intermittent, distant crying of children, which sounds more peaceful.

  BOS: They’re not weeping, they’re quarreling.

  VERSHKOV: They’re gnawing away at one another—it’s worse than tears. Hunger never makes the people weep; they sink their teeth into one another and die of rage.

  BOS: Close the window. How many days has Futilla Ivanovna been gone?

  VERSHKOV (closes the window): Nine days now.

  BOS: What about you? Don’t you want to eat?

  VERSHKOV: No, what keeps me alive is consciousness. You can’t stay alive here from food, can you?

  BOS: Go and call Ksyusha!

  VERSHKOV: It won’t be any use. But I’ll go if you want. (Leaves.)

  BOS (alone): My God, life, where is your consolation? I must finish the bookkeeping for the district land section.

  Enter KSYUSHA.

  KSYUSHA: I was already awake. I was on my way. (Blows out the lamp. A sunny day is beginning outside the window.) I’ll finish the bookkeeping for you.

  BOS: Ksyusha! Give your heart a rest—it’s aching.

  KSYUSHA: Think I didn’t know! And what if the OGPU brings my child back—and then makes out I’ve been idling? That would be fun!

  BOS: Bring me something chemical. I feel weak.

  KSYUSHA (calming down): In a moment. What about some milk? My breasts are swollen—I’m going to have to squeeze my milk out onto the earth. A woman’s milk is good for you.

  BOS: All right, go and milk yourself. You can bring me some in a bottle. But don’t forget to bring some chemistry too!

  KSYUSHA: All right, all right. I know you can’t live without your powders!

  BOS: I’d die.

  KSYUSHA leaves.

  In this country I feel the warmth of humanity…I’ve completed the report for the district land section, thank God! I’ve written whole books before now, but never have I felt such relief. (Signs with a flourish.) Good!

  The crying of children and the shouting and cursing of women can be heard through the closed window. VERSHKOV hurries in, followed by CARBINOV with a rifle.

  VERSHKOV: Hear how they’re muttering? Ivan Fyodorovich, I advise you to rely on Carbinov. He has a rifle and he was ratified by the district center!

  CARBINOV: No, you won’t need to! The people will just rage at one another. That’s what they always do—they don’t touch outsiders.

  BOS: You, Filipp, are a class enemy! The people must be fed.

  CARBINOV: That’s true! You and I have been around a long time, we know everything.

  VERSHKOV: And how are you going to feed the people? With politics! With slogans from off the top of your head!

  BOS: Carbinov, put him under arrest! See—the kulak’s unmasked himself!

  CARBINOV: He has indeed. Your leadership is working well.

  BOS: Take him off to our prison basket—the one made by Antoshka.

  CARBINOV: At once. But you will still feed the people, won’t you? You haven’t changed your mind?

  BOS: I will. Carry out your duty!

  CARBINOV: Immediately! Don’t take offense! (Pushes VERSHKOV with the butt of his rifle) Out—you double-dealer!

  They both leave. Enter KSYUSHA with a bottle of milk.

  KSYUSHA: Grandpa Ivan! What on earth’s going on out there? Everyone’s yelling and moaning and getting on one another’s nerves!

  BOS (taking the bottle from KSYUSHA): Is that your milk?

  KSYUSHA: Yes. I squeezed it out of my breast for you, but I couldn’t fill the bottle—the men were trying to tear it out of my hands, they want food. Swallow down your wafers first. (Gives BOS some wafers.)27

  BOS: How many children do we have in the kolkhoz—not counting yours and Futilla’s?

  KSYUSHA: Wait. (Counts in a whisper.) Seven! Two now buried—so that makes five.

  BOS: And is there much milk left in your breasts?

  KSYUSHA: I shall feed both old and young—and there’ll still be enough for a reserve supply!

  BOS (gives her back the bottle of milk): Go and feed all the children with your milk. As many as you can before you dry up completely.

  KSYUSHA (delighted and surprised): You’re right, Grandpa Bos! How could I be so stupid—saving myself up till it hurt!

  BOS: And give each man and woman one chemical wafer from the pharmacy. Let them eat wafers. Say I’ve ordered them to, that I eat them myself, and that I’m over a hundred years old now. The kolkhoz workers are wise, they’ll eat their fill.

  KSYUSHA: Oh they’re so wise, Grandpa Bos, they’re so patient! Their hearts will stop aching at once—all they need is a smidgen!

  BOS: Go and feed them, Ksyusha—from your breasts and from the pharmacy.

  KSYUSHA: All right, Grandpa. (Leaves.)

  BOS (takes the powders and sucks them): Good. Nutritious! (Pause.) I shall live a life like Carbinov’s—preserving and protecting our supplies and mishaps!

  Unheard, unnoticed, enter FUTILLA. She is laughing. Lost in thought, BOS fails to see her.

  FUTILLA: Greetings, Grandpa Bos!

  BOS: Futilla! You’ve returned to us, my most convincing one! But where’s your petty child?

  FUTILLA: I’ve left him in the kolkhoz. I’ve given him to Serafima Koshchunkina to look after—no one else has seen me yet. And Ksyusha’s boy’s in one piece too—I’ve brought them both back with me, they’re alive! Report to me on the situation of the kolkhoz economy!

  BOS: Let up for a moment! Don’t be in such a hurry with all your inhuman reports and situations and economies! (Opens the window onto the kolkhoz. Not a sound to be heard. A bright late morning.) It’s quiet, the people are eating their f
ill. Let an old man give you a kiss!

  FUTILLA: All right, give me a kiss then—I won’t dry up.

  BOS kisses FUTILLA on the forehead.

  BOS: My eternal one. I’ve been searching so long for you—a hundred years.

  FUTILLA: I wasn’t alive then—you were searching in vain.

  BOS: I knew you were going to be born.

  FUTILLA: You’ve been slow to appear—I’m already bearing children myself.

  BOS: I’m feeding the people here. My leadership is working well.

  FUTILLA: We shall see.

  BOS: And where’s our kolkhoz grain and our sheep? Have you taken them back from the class enemy?

  FUTILLA: Our airplane overtook the sailing boat. Then the OGPU launch took it in tow and brought it to Astrakhan.

  BOS: Where, I ask you, is Ashurkov?

  FUTILLA: When the OGPU launch gave chase, they threw half our grain into the sea. They drowned forty of our sheep, but the rest are in one piece. And they threw our hut overboard too—it floated away. As for our babies—mine and Ksyusha’s—they were lying in the hold. Ashurkov was taking care of them when he was arrested. He was weeping over them.

  BOS: So he’s a decent man!

  FUTILLA: Yes, he loved me when I was still a girl, before the liquidation of the classes.

  BOS: Where, I ask you, are our grain and our sheep?

  FUTILLA: Ashurkov is bringing them to us from Astrakhan, in our boat.

  BOS: Ashurkov?

  FUTILLA: The former bantik. He’s got a following wind. Soon we’ll see his sail out to sea. He’s being accompanied by an OGPU officer.

  Pause.

  BOS: Nothing is clear to me. Where have you just come from?

  FUTILLA: From Astrakhan, old man! Antoshka and me and the babies flew in the airplane to the state farm, and then we came the rest of the way on foot. Understand? And I told the OGPU to pardon Fedya Ashurkov and give him to me to be educated—I’ll make him into an exemplary shock worker. He’ll be better than any of our lot, believe me! And he’ll do as he’s told!

  BOS: So that’s what class struggle means. Well, well, well—and so the piffle revolves!

  FUTILLA: And you thought class struggle was just a matter of murder!

  BOS: So…The class enemy is someone we can’t do without: we must make foe into friend, and friend into foe—so the game can continue. But what are we going to eat before your Ashurkov sails back with your goods?

  FUTILLA: Chemistry, my old man. You still haven’t grasped the game!

  KSYUSHA runs in and embraces FUTILLA.

  Ksyusha, you and I are mothers again!

  KSYUSHA: Yes we are! Oh my Futilla!

  FUTILLA: Grandpa Bos, send me Filipp Vershkov. I’m arresting him.

  BOS: I’ve already arrested him!

  FUTILLA: Well done! Go and fetch him then!

  BOS: All right. Only none of this is serious! (Leaves.)

  FUTILLA: What is it, Ksyusha? Where are our little ones?

  KSYUSHA: It’s all right, Futilla! (They stroke and caress each other.) They’re with Serafima, they’re asleep. I’ve seen them.

  Enter CARBINOV.

  CARBINOV: Our chief citizen has arrived. Greetings, my girl!

  FUTILLA: Old man, do you know that you’re a class enemy—or haven’t you realized yet?

  CARBINOV: I know. I told you long ago that I’m not what you take me for.

  FUTILLA: Ashurkov has told me how you pretended to be asleep in the middle of the kolkhoz while they dragged the hut away. Instead of you, a faceless scarecrow was on guard!

  CARBINOV: Things happen.

  KSYUSHA: And what does that mean, you ratbag?!

  CARBINOV: An act.

  FUTILLA: What do you mean? Repeat, you pathetic being!

  CARBINOV: An act, a free act.

  FUTILLA: At the next general meeting you’ll be expelled from the kolkhoz forever! Lay your rifle down in the corner.

  Pause.

  CARBINOV (laying down his rifle): I’ll go and sew myself a beggar’s satchel. Ksyusha, give me a needle! I had one of my own, but it was broken by a courier from the district center. He asked for a needle to darn his trousers, and then he broke it. Where can you find needles now? We overfulfill plan after plan—but there’s not a needle in sight!

  KSYUSHA (removing a needle from the hem of her skirt): Here you are! Be off with you—while my heart can still endure you!

  CARBINOV: Your heart! A heart can always ache and endure! (Exits with needle.)

  VOICE OF ANTON: I shall vet all of you according to each one of the Party lines! Comrade Anton Endov knows the way things are going, he can make out your antiscientific and contemptible face of a class enemy! Comrade Antoshka understands why the kolkhoz cart is rattling! His stare is fearless and point-blank! There is not yet a man in the world who could deceive or frighten comrade Anton Endov! I shall reclassify all of local humanity in accord with all our principles! Science! Worldwide academicians! You have come here to smirk: now go and struggle against the class enemy in the name of the quality and quantity of production!

  KSYUSHA (respectfully): Antoshka is here!

  FUTILLA (through the window): Antoshka!

  VOICE OF ANTON (more calmly): In view of the necessity of a control check of the grain expected to arrive along with the bantiks, the need has arisen in me to test our Fairbanks-system weighing scales, since it is possible that they have been damaged by the noiseless hand of the kulak.

  FUTILLA: Ksyusha, I don’t like Antoshka.

  KSYUSHA: He’s gone crazy with all his model exemplariness. They’re all one and the same, these kolkhoz hypocrites—I’d like to give them all a good thrashing! Give me a bantik any day. Arrest a bantik and you can make him work! And how!

  Enter BOS.

  BOS: Filipp will be here in a moment. He’s gone to seal a letter to Europe. I’ve received a communication from Europe—a tragedy is unfolding there!

  FUTILLA: You have Europe on your mind, but we have the fate of the whole world on our hands. Can’t you see?

  BOS: Yes, I can. You’re in a muddle. None of you will have anything to eat.

  VERSHKOV appears.

  VERSHKOV: Greetings, Comrade Chairman! And congratulations on your victory over the bantik class enemy!

  FUTILLA: Drop it. You’re a bantik yourself.

  VERSHKOV (smiling): You’re very merry today!

  FUTILLA: I don’t feel bored. But you soon will. Why did you order Anton to put up a scarecrow? So there’d be only a scarecrow on guard when the bantiks appeared? (Takes out a revolver from under her clothes) Take your revolver—Ashurkov ordered it to be returned to you. He wanted to shoot you with it, but he knew I’d dekulakize you anyway.

  VERSHKOV (without the revolver): So you snakes have got to the bottom of everything?

  FUTILLA: Yes, we have, Uncle Filipp, we’ve got as far as your downfall.

  KSYUSHA: Please peg out soon. I don’t have the patience to think about you any longer.

  VERSHKOV: I’m an exemplary shock worker who has been awarded a prize. Don’t let this joke of yours go too far, citizens!

  KSYUSHA: He’s right—he’s been awarded a prize! What’s going on in the world? Futilla, we’d do better to get bantiks to join the kolkhoz—they won’t be so brazen and they’ll be less two-faced.

  FUTILLA (to VERSHKOV): And who met Ashurkov by the well in the steppe? Who told him to storm the kolkhoz and carry off the sheep—so you could live it up in the Caucasus like trade union members?

  VERSHKOV: Who cares what I said? You get bored sitting on your own in silence—you say words as an experiment. Words don’t count—they’re only sounds.

  BOS: Mister Vershkov, allow me to ask: Are you for the kolkhoz? Are you for socialism? Or are you opposed to them?

  VERSHKOV: I’m for them, Ivan Fyodorovich, and I’m opposed to them. What do I care whether or not we have socialism? None of this is serious, Ivan Fyodorovich, it’s just a way of driving us all psychologic
al.

  BOS (thoughtfully): Not serious, Uncle Filipp, a way of driving us all psychological?!

  FUTILLA: Any fool can out-lie us, but no one’s smart enough to outdo us…Ksyusha, give Antoshka a shout!

  KSYUSHA (through the window): Antoshka! Come here at once, you vermin!

  VOICE OF ANTON: In a moment! I’m preparing some packaging.

  BOS: Mister Vershkov, where is the letter for Europe?

  VERSHKOV (handing over the letter): Hand it to the postman yourself. Look at me. I was an exemplary shock worker, I solved the worldwide economic riddle—and now I’m about to perish.

  FUTILLA: What riddle did he solve?

  BOS: The riddle of the whole wide world! In his own hand he wrote, LONG LIVE COMRADE STALIN. End of world riddle.

  VERSHKOV: End of world riddle. I solved it at once.

  KSYUSHA: Truly demonic!

  Pause.

  FUTILLA: We are poor here, we have no one except Stalin. We pronounce his name in a whisper, but you desecrate it. You’re rich, you have many learned leaders, but we have only one. What kind of thing are you, Vershkov?

  VERSHKOV: What are you?

  FUTILLA: I work here on the kolkhoz, I shall be socialism.

  VERSHKOV: And me? I’m socialism too!

  FUTILLA: We can only have one socialism and one Stalin. Two are too many. (Suddenly plunges a dagger into VERSHKOV’s chest.)

  VERSHKOV sits down on a bench in the exhaustion of death.

  BOS (to VERSHKOV): Uncle Filipp, what’s going on in the beyond? Can you sense anything there?

  VERSHKOV (collapsing): Nothing much—plans and piffles…It’s not serious here either, Ivan Fyodorovich—dying gets you nowhere.

  BOS: This man sees death clearly.

  VERSHKOV: I haven’t died, I’ve switched over.

  Pause.

  FUTILLA: Is that the end of him?

  KSYUSHA (checking VERSHKOV’s body): Yes, he’s starting to go cold.

  FUTILLA (feeling the dagger): But somehow the dagger’s still warm!

  ANTON appears.

  ANTON (not taking the scene in): Today every man must live not only consciously but also responsibly!

  Curtain.

  ACT 4

  Shore of the Caspian Sea. A southern horizon. Sky. Brilliant light over deserted distant water. A small basketlike structure made entirely from wattle—a round wall and roof. This cylinder stands on three stones, and all of it, including the roof, is entwined with barbed wire. This is the kolkhoz prison basket. Beside this wattle basket sits ANTON with the homemade rifle that belonged to CARBINOV. He is guarding FUTILLA, who has been imprisoned.