The Golden Calf
Page 39
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Chapter 35
Adam Says We Have To
The high-pitched ringing of the chairman’s bell that announced the approach of the Antelope distracted Ostap from his thoughts. Spotting the captain, Adam Kazimirovich stopped the car and beckoned Ostap with his finger. The granddaughter of the old puzzle-maker sat behind the driver, looking the other way.
“The taxi is free, please get in,” invited Kozlevich, “I’ve been looking for you all over town, I even went to the Cairo Hotel. Please.”
The driver of the Antelope reached back and opened the door.
“Ah, Kozlevich!” said Ostap cheerfully, without looking at Zosya. “How’s the oil hose? Is it working?”
“Get in, get in!” repeated Kozlevich sternly.
“I’d rather walk,” said the captain, climbing into the car.
The chairman’s bell rang loudly, and the Antelope, limping on its front wheel, slowly started moving. Zosya was carefully reading the store signs on the right side of the street. Ostap stared at Adam’s back.
“Am I bothering you, by any chance?” he asked after a long silence.
“You’re sitting on my dress. Please move over,” said Zosya without turning her head.
“Fine,” said the disinherited knight sarcastically.
The ensuing silence was interrupted by a crack and a barely audible curse uttered by Kozlevich. The Antelope stopped. The driver climbed under the car, while Zosya bent over the door and started giving him useless advice. Two men with briefcases were having a heated conversation on the curb. Both wore fall overcoats, their white summer pants showing underneath. Their conversation soon caught Ostap’s attention.
“You didn’t leave the Hercules a moment too soon, Comrade Counterproducteff,” said one, “it’s hell on earth right now. Brutal!”
“The whole city is talking about it,” sighed the other.
“Yesterday, it was Sardinevich,” said the first man lustily, “standing room only. At first, everything was hunky-dory. When Sardinevich told his life story, everybody applauded. But then somebody from the audience asked: ‘Excuse me, do you happen to remember a trading company called Sardinevich & Son? You’re not that Sardinevich, by any chance?’ And this idiot blurts out: ‘No, I’m not that Sardinevich, I’m the son.’ Can you imagine what they’ll do to him now? Category One is all but assured.”
“Yes, Comrade Brinetrust, it’s horrible. And who are they purging today?”
“Oh, today’s a big day! Berlaga, you know, the one who tried to sit it out in the nuthouse. Then it’s the maestro Polykhaev himself. Also Impala Mikhailovna, that snake, his wife. She wouldn’t let anyone at the Hercules breathe easily. I’m going there two hours early, or else I’ll never get in. Also, Bomze’s coming up . . .”
Kozlevich climbed back into the driver’s seat, the car moved forward, and Ostap never found out what happened to Adolf Nikolaevich Bomze. At the moment, he couldn’t care less.
“You know, Zosya,” said Ostap, “every single person, even a party member, is under the pressure of an atmospheric column that weighs 472 pounds. Haven’t you noticed?”
Zosya didn’t say anything.
The Antelope was creaking past the Capital Hill movie theater. Ostap quickly glanced across the street, at the building that a few months earlier had housed the bureau he had founded, and gasped quietly. A large sign stretched across the entire length of the building:
In every window, one could see typewriters and portraits of political leaders. A sprightly messenger, who looked nothing like Panikovsky, stood at the door with a satisfied smile. Three-ton trucks, loaded down with horns and hoofs that met industrial standards, were driving in through an open gate that bore the sign MAIN WAREHOUSE. Ostap’s baby had clearly taken the right path.
“The ruling class is smothering me,” repeated Ostap, “it even took my off-hand idea and used it to it’s own advantage. And I got pushed aside, Zosya. You hear? I got pushed aside. I’m miserable. Tell me something comforting.”
“After everything that happened,” said Zosya, turning to Ostap for the first time, “you’re the one who needs comforting?”
“Yes, me.”
“You have no shame.”
“Zosya, don’t be mad! Think of the atmospheric column. I even have a feeling that it puts a lot more pressure on me than on other people. On account of my love for you. Besides, I’m not a union member. That’s another reason.”
“Why are you always telling lies?”
“This is not a lie. It’s a law of physics. But maybe there really isn’t any column. I don’t understand anything anymore.”
Chatting like this, the passengers of the Antelope looked at each other with affection. They didn’t notice that the car had already been stopped for several minutes, and that Kozlevich was looking at them, twisting his conductor’s mustache up with both hands. After finishing with his mustache, Adam Kazimirovich climbed out with a groan, opened the door, and loudly announced:
“Please get out. We’re here. It’s not even four o’clock yet, you’ve got just enough time. They do it fast here, it’s not like the church, with its Chinese ceremonies. You’ll be done in no time. I’ll wait for you.”
The stunned Ostap looked forward and saw a small, ordinary-looking gray house with the most ordinary-looking gray sign that read THE OFFICE OF THE CIVIL REGISTRAR.
“What’s that?” he asked Kozlevich. “Do we have to?”
“Absolutely,” replied the driver of the Antelope.
“You hear, Zosya? Adam says we absolutely have to do it.”
“Well, if Adam says so . . .” said the young woman, her voice faltering.
The captain and the old puzzle-maker’s daughter went into the small gray house, while Kozlevich climbed under the car again. His plan was for the Antelope to reach its top speed on the way to the bride’s home—eight miles per hour. To achieve that, he had to check a few things first.
He was still lying under the car when the newlyweds came out of the office.
“I’m thirty-three years old,” said Ostap sadly, “the age of Jesus Christ. And what have I accomplished thus far? I haven’t created a teaching, I wasted my disciples, I haven’t resurrected anybody.”
“I’m sure you will still be able to resurrect somebody!” said Zosya, laughing.
“No,” said Ostap, “it won’t work. I’ve been trying to do it all my life but never could. I’ll have to go into apartment management instead.”
With that, he looked at Zosya. She wore a rough lightweight coat that was shorter than her dress and a dark-blue beret with a childish pompom. She held down the flap of her coat, which was being blown by the wind, with her right hand, and on her middle finger Ostap noticed a small ink stain that she had gotten when she signed her name in the wedding register. In front of him stood his wife.
About the Authors
Ilya Ilf (1897–1937) and Evgeny Petrov (1903–1942) met in Moscow in the 1920s while working on the staff of a newspaper for railway workers. The foremost comic novelists of the early Soviet Union, the pair wrote two of the most revered and loved Russian novels, The Twelve Chairs and The Golden Calf, as well as various humorous pieces for Pravda and other publications. Their collaboration came to an end with the death of Ilya Ilf after his tuberculosis turned for the worse while the pair traveled the United States researching the book that would become Little Golden America.
About the Translators
Konstantin Gurevich is a graduate of Moscow State University and the University of Texas at Austin. Helen Anderson studied Russian language and literature at McGill University in Montréal. Married to each other, they are both librarians at the University of Rochester, and this is their first major translation together.
About Open Letter
Open Letter—the University of Rochester’s nonprofit, literary translation press—is one of only a handful of publishing houses dedicated to increasing access to world literature for English readers. Publi
shing ten titles in translation each year, Open Letter searches for works that are extraordinary and influential, works that we hope will become the classics of tomorrow.
Making world literature available in English is crucial to opening our cultural borders, and its availability plays a vital role in maintaining a healthy and vibrant book culture. Open Letter strives to cultivate an audience for these works by helping readers discover imaginative, stunning works of fiction and by creating a constellation of international writing that is engaging, stimulating, and enduring.
Current and forthcoming titles from Open Letter include works from Argentina, Catalonia, France, Germany, Iceland, and numerous other countries.
www.openletterbooks.org
Table of Contents
Praise for Ilf & Petrov
Other Books by Ilf & Petrov
Copyright
From the Translators
From the Authors
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Part 2
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Part 3
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Translators’ Notes
APPENDIX
About the Authors
About the Translators
About Open Letter