There wasn’t much. There was the lead article, “The Coming Holiday.” There was the item from Cerberus Curovich, “Results of the Investigation of the Status of Conformance to Management Directives Regarding Work Discipline for the Period from the End of the First to the Start of the Second Quarter.” There was a Professor Vibegallo article, “Our Duty—Is the Duty to Subsidiary Rural and City Economics.” There was an article by Volodia Pochkin, “All-Union Conference on Electronic. Thaumaturgy.” There was the note from some house ghost, “When Will the Steam Pipes in the Fourth Floor Be Blown Clear?” There was the article of the Chairman of the Mess Committee, “Neither Fish Nor Fowl”—six typewritten pages with a single break. It began with the words, “Phosphorus is as necessary to man as air.” There was a short piece by Roman on the work of the Unapproachable Problems Department. For the section titled “Our Veterans,” there was an article by Cristobal Junta, “From Seville to Granada in 1547.” There were several other small contributions in which were criticized: the absence of an adequate orderliness in the account of the credit union; the presence of some slovenliness in the organization of the volunteer fire department; the permissive attitude toward gambling in the vivarium. There were several caricatures. One showed a draggle-tailed Homa Brutus with a purple nose. Another was ridiculing the steam-baths—it showed a blue, naked man congealing under an icicle shower.
“What a bore!” I said. “What do you say we don’t need verses?”
“We do need them,” said Stellotchka with a sigh. “I’ve been making layouts this way and that, and there’s always some empty space.”
“Let Sanya draw something. Some sort of wheat sheaf, or blooming pansies. How about it, Sanya?”
“Go on and get to work,” said Drozd. “I have to draw the banner.”
“Big deal,” I said. “Three whole words!”
“Against a background of a starry night,” Drozd said weightily. “Also a rocket. And headlines for the articles, too. And I haven’t had my dinner yet. Or breakfast.”
“Then go eat,” I said, irritated.
“I bought a tape recorder. At the commission shop. Here you are fooling around when you’d do better to make me a sandwich or two. With butter and jam. A dozen would be good!”
I took out a ruble and showed it to him from a distance.
“When you finish the banner I’ll give it to you.”
“For keeps?” said Sanya, animated.
“No, for a loan.”
“Well, that’s the same thing,” he said. “Consider the possibility that I’m going to die right now. I’ve already started to have spasms. Also my extremities are growing cold.”
“That’s a pack of lies,” said Stella. “Let’s sit down over at that table, Sasha, and finish those verses right now.”
We sat down at the separate table and spread out the caricatures before us. For some time we sat and looked at each other in the hope that an inspiration would come forth.
“That Brutus is a brute—beware, he’ll swipe your shoes to boot.”
“Swipe?” I said. “Did he steal something?”
“No,” said Stella. “He had a fight and was a hooligan. I just said that for the rhyme.”
We waited. Nothing more came into our heads.
“Let’s approach this logically. There is this Homa Brutus. He drank himself stupid. He fought. What else did he do?”
“He pestered the girls,” said Stella. “Broke some glass.”
“All right,” I said. “What else?”
“He expressed himself…”
“That’s strange,” Sanya Drozd piped up. “I worked in the projection booth with this Brutus. He was a regular guy. Normal…”
“And?” I said.
“And, that’s all.”
“Can you come up with a rhyme for Brutus or maybe Brute?”
“Knout.”
“Sounds like we had that with the boot.”
“A knout is different. They whip you with one of those.”
Stella said, with expression,
“Comrade, before you is a Brute.
Pick up your trusty knout
And whack him head to foot.”
“No good,” said Drozd. “That would be propaganda for physical punishment.”
“Kaput,” I said.
“Behold, my friend, there is that Brute,” said Stella,
“His words so rough and tough
That it’s enough
To make the flies kaput.”
“It’s your poetry that’ll do the flies in,” said Drozd.
“Have you lettered the banner?” I asked.
“No,” Drozd said coquettishly.
“Then work on it.”
“They shame our proud Institute,” said Stella, “such drunkards as our Brutus Brute.”
“That’s good,” I said. “We’ll use that for the finale. Write it down. It will be a moral of freshness and originality.”
“What’s original about that?” said the simple Drozd.
I didn’t bother responding to him.
“Now we have to describe,” I said, “how he engaged in hooliganism. Let’s say…‘The disgraceful buffoon/… Drunk like a baboon/… With language vile did ears defile/… Was born a man, became a hooligan.’”
“Awful,” Stella said in disgust.
I propped up my head on my hands and continued to stare at the caricature. Drozd, his tail stuck up in the air, was stroking the paper with his paintbrush. His legs, encased in maximally tight jeans, were bowed out in a reverse curve. I was struck with an idea.
“Knees to the rear!” I said. “The popular song.”
“‘The little grasshopper sat, knees to the rear,’” said Stella.
“Precisely,” said Drozd, without turning around. “I know it, too. ‘All the guests were scattering, knees to the rear,’” he sang.
“Wait, wail,” I said. I felt inspired. “‘He fights and curses and here is the result:/… To the prison cell, knees to the rear.’”
“That’s not bad,” said Stella.
“You follow?” I said. “Another pair of verses and all with the refrain ‘knees to the rear.’ ‘Drunk beyond all reason…the girls he’s a-teasing…’ Something along these lines.”
“‘He drank in desperation/… Without any ration,’” said Stella. “‘A stranger’s door he crashes/… And nothing him abashes/… Ignoring law and fear/…knees to the rear.’”
“Brilliant,” I said. “Write it down! He did break in?”
“Indeed, indeed.”
“Excellent!” I said. “Now another verse.”
“‘He chased a girl/… Knees to the rear.’ We need the first line.”
“Ambition, ammunition,” I said. “Police, just-ice.”
“‘And he has this charming way/…’” said Stella, “‘Not to wash or shave each day.’”
“That’s him,” added Drozd. “It’s a fact. You have achieved an artistic truth. He hasn’t shaved or bathed since the day he was born.”
“Maybe we can think up another line or two,” offered Stella. “Reprobate…regenerate…automate…”
“Ingrate,” I said. “Berate.”
“Mate,” said Drozd. “Checkmate, of course.”
Again we were silent for a good long time, looking at each other numbly and moving our lips soundlessly. Drozd kept tapping on the rim of the jar with his brush.
“‘A pirate’s fun he has, inspiring naught but fear/…’” I said. “‘Chasing a poor lass, knees to the rear.’”
“I don’t know about the pirate bit,” said Stella.
“Then—something like…defying law and fear…”
“We already had that,” said Stella.
“Where…? Ah, yes, true enough.”
“‘His tiger’s stripes appear,’” said Drozd.
Here there was a soft scratching and we turned to see what it was. The door to Janus Poluektovich’s laboratory was opening slowly.
“Look at
that!” exclaimed Drozd in amazement, freezing into a pose, brush in hand.
A small green parrot with a bright red crest crawled into the crack.
“What a dear little parrot,” exclaimed Drozd. “Here, parrot.” He made chicken-calling noises, and worked his fingers as though he were crumbling bread.
The parrot regarded him out of a single eye. Then it opened its black beak, which was as hooked as Roman’s, and cried out hoarsely, “Reactor! Reactor! Courage!”
“Isn’t he nice!” exclaimed Stella. “Sanya, catch him…”
Drozd started toward the parrot, and then stopped. “He probably bites,” he said, looking reluctant. “Look at that beak.”
The parrot pushed off the floor and flapped its wings and flew, somehow ineptly, about the room. I watched it in astonishment. It looked very much like that other one of yesterday. An identical twin. Wall-to-wall parrots, I thought.
Drozd was parrying with his brush. “He’ll peck me yet, for all I know,” he said.
The parrot lighted on the laboratory balance beam, twitched a bit to attain equilibrium, and cried distinctly, “Proxima Centauri! R-Rubidium! R-Rubidium!”
Having delivered itself, it puffed out its feathers, drew in its head, and covered its eyes with a membrane. It seemed to be shivering. Stella quickly created a piece of bread with jam, pinched off the crust, and brought it under its beak. The parrot did not react. It was shaking as in a fever and the scale pans were vibrating rapidly, clinking against the base.
“I think he’s sick,” said Drozd. He took the bread absentmindedly from Stella’s hand and started to eat it.
“Friends,” I said. “has anybody ever seen a parrot at the Institute before?”
Stella shook her head; Drozd shrugged his shoulders.
“There’ve been just too many of them lately,” I said. “And yesterday, too…”
“Janus is probably experimenting with them,” said Stella. “Antigravitation or something along those lines…”
The door to the hall opened and Roman Oira-Oira, Victor Korneev, Eddie Amperian, and Volodia Pochkin came crowding in. The room became noisy. Korneev, well rested and very active, started to leaf through the articles, loudly ridiculing their style. The powerful Volodia Pochkin, acting as deputy editor in his main police function, seized Drozd by his plump nape, bent him over, and stuck his nose into the paper.
“Where is the banner? The banner! Where is it, Mr. Drozdillo?”
Roman demanded finished verses from us. Eddie, not having any direct connection with the paper, went to the cabinet and began to move its apparatus contents with a maximum of crashings.
Suddenly the parrot yelled out, “Oversan! Oversan!”—and thereupon ensued a stunned silence.
Roman stared at the parrot. His face depicted his traditional expression as though he were just struck with an astounding idea.
Volodia Pochkin let go of Drozd and said, “How about that—a parrot.” The rude Korneev instantly reached for the bird to grasp it around the body, but it broke free, and Korneev grabbed it by the tail.
“Let go, Victor!” Stella cried angrily. “What kind of behavior is that—torturing animals?”
The parrot screeched louder. Everyone crowded around. Korneev was holding it as though it were a pigeon, Stella was stroking its crest, while Drozd was tenderly fingering the feathers in its tail. Roman looked at me.
“Curious,” he said. “Isn’t it?”
“How did it get here, Sasha?” Eddie asked politely.
I jerked my head in the direction of Janus’s laboratory.
“What would Janus want with a parrot?” inquired Eddie.
“Are you asking me?” I said.
“No, it’s a rhetorical question,” Eddie said seriously.
“Why does he need two parrots?” I said.
“Or three,” Roman added softly.
Korneev turned toward us.
“Where is the other?” he asked, looking around.
The parrot flopped weakly in his hand, trying to pinch his finger.
“Why don’t you let it go?” I said. “You can see it’s not well.”
Korneev pushed Drozd away, and put the bird back on the scales. The parrot ruffled its feathers and spread its wings.
“Let him be,” said Roman. “We’ll figure it out later. Where’s the verse?”
Stella quickly rattled off everything we had had time to compose. Roman scratched his chin, Volodia Pochkin neighed unnaturally, and Korneev delivered a command.
“To the firing squad. With heavy-caliber machine guns. Are you going to learn to write poetry sometime?”
“You can write it yourself,” I said angrily.
“Poetry, I cannot write,” said Korneev. “I am not a Pushkin by nature. I am a Belinsky.”
“By nature you are a simulacrum,” said Stella.
“I beg your pardon!” insisted Victor. “I demand that the paper have a department of literary criticism. I desire to write critical articles. I shall shatter you all! I shall remind you again of your creation about the dachas.”
“Which?” asked Eddie.
Korneev quoted instantly:
“I would like to build my dacha
But it’s a case of bureaucratic gotcha.
The question of its proper place
The land committee will not face.”
“Did you have that? Admit it!”
“So what!” I said. “Pushkin had his unfortunate verse, too. They don’t even publish them in full in school books.”
“I know that,” said Drozd.
Roman turned toward him. “Are we going to have a banner today or not?”
“We shall!” said Drozd. “I have drawn the letter ‘F’ already.”
“What ‘F’? Where’s there an ‘F’?”
“Why—didn’t we need it?”
“I will expire on the spot,” said Roman. “The paper is called, ‘To Progressive Thaumaturgy.’ Show me just one ‘F’ in that!”
Drozd goggled at the wall, moving his lips now and then. “How can that be?” he said finally. “Where did I get the letter ‘F’? But there was a letter ‘F’!”
Roman exploded and ordered Pochkin to chase us all back to our places. Stella and I were placed under Korneev’s command. Drozd was feverishly changing his letter “F” into a stylized letter “T.” Eddie Amperian attempted to fade out with the psychoelectrometer, but was seized, bound, and assigned to repair the airbrush needed for the creation of the starry sky. Then came Pochkin’s turn. Roman ordered him to type all the articles with concurrent editorial and style correction. Roman himself undertook to stroll about the laboratory, looking over everyone’s shoulder in turn.
The work boiled along for a while. We had time to compose and reject a series of variants on the steambath theme: “Instead of steamy bowers, we have ice cold showers”; “If you truly hunger to ablute, cold for hot is not a substitute”; “Our two hundred sages, each and all, desire hot water in their shower stall”; and so forth and so on.
Korneev continued his vile and scurrilous attacks like a true literary critic. “Learn from Pushkin!” he pounded into us. “Or at least from Pochkin. A genius is sitting next to you, and you can’t even imitate him…‘On the road a Zil is rolling/,…o’er me it will be bowling…’ What physical force is bound up in these lines! What sincerity of feeling!”
We fought back with anemic repartee. Sanya Drozd reached the letter “I” in the word “progressive.” Eddie fixed the airbrush and tried it out on Roman’s proofs. Volodia Pochkin was searching for the letter “T” on his typewriter, belching curses. Everything was proceeding normally. Then Roman said suddenly, “Sasha, will you glance over here?”
I looked. The parrot was lying under the scales, its legs drawn up, its eyes covered with a white film, and its crest drooping.
“Expired,” Drozd said pityingly.
Again we crowded around the parrot. I didn’t have any particular notions, and if I did, they were all in
the subconscious, but I stretched out my hand, picked up the parrot, and examined its legs.
Roman asked at once, “Is it there?”
“It’s there,” I said.
On the black scrunched-up leg was the ring of white metal engraved “Photon” and bearing the numbers “19-05-73.” I looked distraughtedly at Roman.
We both must have looked peculiar, as Korneev said, “All right, let’s hear whatever interesting tale you have to tell.”
“Shall we tell?” asked Roman.
“it’s some kind of bad dream,” I said, “probably some sort of trick. They’re probably doubles.”
“But no,” he said. “That’s the whole point. It’s not a double. It’s a very genuine original.”
Roman again examined the little corpse attentively.
“Let me see,” said Korneev.
The four of them, including Volodia Pochkin and Eddie, investigated the parrot in the most thorough manner and declared unanimously that it was not a double and that they did not understand why this gave us such trouble.
“Let’s take myself, for instance,” said Korneev. “I, too, am not a double. Why doesn’t that amaze you?”
Roman surveyed, in turn, Stella, who was consumed with curiosity, Volodia Pochkin, with his mouth open, and Victor, who was smiling tauntingly, and told all how the day before yesterday he had found the charred feather, which he threw into the wastepaper basket; and about how there had been no feather in the basket yesterday, but instead a dead parrot had manifested itself on this (same) table, which parrot was not a double, but an exact copy of this one; and also about how Janus had recognized the parrot and mourned over it, incinerated it in the above-mentioned furnace, and scattered its ashes to the wind, for some reason.
No one spoke for a while. Drozd was only dimly interested in Roman’s story and shrugged his shoulders. His face clearly expressed that he didn’t understand what all this excitement was about, and that in his opinion much thicker broths were brewed in this institution. Stella also seemed disappointed. But the magister trio understood everything only too well, and their physiognomies registered protest.
Korneev said decisively, “You are making it up. And not too well at that.”