“Does he bite?” asked Farfurkis.
“Of course not!” the commandant said, “he’s a docile animal, he runs away if anyone says boo. Of course, if he gets angry—but he never gets angry.”
Lavr Fedotovich examined the pterodactyl through his opera glasses, throwing the poor thing into a complete panic. Kuzma quacked nervously and tucked his head completely under his wing.
“Harrumph!” Lavr Fedotovich said with satisfaction and put away the opera glasses.
The situation was shaping up well.
“I thought it was some kind of horse,” Khlebovvodov muttered, crawling around under the table.
“Allow me, Lavr Fedotovich,” said Farfurkis. “I can see definite difficulties with this case. If we were involved in examining an unusual phenomenon, I would be the first to call for immediate rationalization. Indeed, a crocodile with wings is a rather unusual phenomenon in our climate. However, our goal is to examine unexplained phenomena, and here I have my doubts. Is there an element of the unexplained in Case 2? If there isn’t, then why are we examining the case? If, on the other hand, there is, what precisely is it? Perhaps, our comrade the scientific consultant could say a few words in this regard?”
Comrade scientific consultant could indeed say a few words. In his mixed French and Russian he informed the Troika that Marie Briboa’s hairdo definitely pleased all the hunting guests gathered at the Baron de Baudreille’s, and that the scientific consultant must admit that the inexplicability of the pterodactyl Kuzma lies, that is to say, in one plane, which, he, the scientific consultant, feels it is his bitter, but honorable, duty to remind his, the scientific consultant’s, friends in science; and that the winged state of the crocodile, or rather, the fact that some crocodiles have two or more wings has not yet been explained by science, and therefore, he, the scientific consultant, would ask your gardener to show him those marvelous tuberoses that you spoke about last Friday; and finally, he, the scientific consultant, sees no particular reason to put off the rationalization of the case in question but on the other hand would like to have the right to disagree with the above at a later time.
While Vybegallo was killing time, working up a sweat to earn his ridiculous salary, I quickly devised a plan for the coming battle. I liked Kuzma a lot and one thing was clear to me: if we did not intervene right now, things would be bad for him.
“Harrumph,” Lavr Fedotovich said. “Questions for the speaker?”
“I have no questions,” said Khlebovvodov, who, once assured that Kuzma did not bite, had become obnoxious. “But I feel that this is a simple crocodile with wings and nothing more. And the scientific consultant is throwing dust in our eyes for nothing. And then, I notice that the commandant has developed favorites within the colony and is feeding them on government funds. I do not want to imply that there is nepotism involved or that the commandant is taking bribes from the crocodile, but the facts are obvious. A crocodile with wings is a simple enough thing, but he is being treated like something special. He should be chased out of the colony. He should be working.”
“Working at what?” asked the commandant, worried about Kuzma.
“Working! Everyone works here! Look at the creature. He should be hauling logs, or loading stones at a quarry. Are you going to say that his arteries are weak? I know these crocodiles, I’ve seen all kinds, with wings, and all.”
“How can that be?” the commandant worried. “He’s not human, you know, he’s an animal. He has a special diet.”
“So what! Animals work here too. Horses for instance. Let him go to work as a horse! He has a diet—well so do I, and I’m missing lunch because of him.” But Khlebovvodov realized that he had gone a bit too far. Farfurkis was giving him a mocking look, and Lavr Fedotovich’s pose led one to think. Taking all the above circumstances into account, Khlebovvodov made a sharp U-turn. “Hold on, hold on!” he yelled. “What Kuzma is this here? Isn’t this the Kuzma who ate up the light bulbs at the club? Why yes, it’s the very same! Well, what do you have to say about this? Does this mean that the law doesn’t apply to him either? Don’t try to weasel out of this, Zubo. Just tell me, was action taken on the matter?”
“It was,” the commandant answered hotly.
“What precisely?”
“He was given a laxative.” It was clear that he would defend Kuzma to the death.
Khlebovvodov slammed his fist down on the table, and a small puddle appeared under the frightened Kuzma. I lost my temper and shouted, directly at Lavr Fedotovich, that this was a mockery of a valuable scientific specimen. Farfurkis objected that Khlebovvodov was trying to hang other duties on the Troika. As for Lavr Fedotovich, he sucked his index finger and then brusquely flipped several pages of his minutes, a sure sign of extreme irritation. There were storm warnings.
“Eddie,” I begged.
Eddie, carefully following developments, aimed the humanizer at Lavr Fedotovich. Lavr Fedotovich rose and took the floor.
He spoke of the aims of the Troika entrusted to him, expressed in its authority and its responsibilities. He called on his listeners to increase their mortal struggle for increased labor discipline, against red tape, for high moral levels for one and all, for healthy criticism and healthy self-criticism, against dehumanization, for increased fire protection, for personal responsibility for everyone, for exemplary contents in bookkeeping, and against underevaluation of personal strength. The people will thank us if we fulfill these goals even more actively than before. The people will not forgive us if we do not fulfill these goals even more actively than before. What concrete motions will be made to organize the Troika’s work in view of the changes in conditions?
I took malicious pleasure in the lack of concrete motions. Khlebovvodov kept blowing hot air from habit and offered to take on more responsibilities—for example, making sure that with the increased authority of the Troika, Comrade Commandant Zubo lengthen his work day to fourteen hours and that Comrade Scientific Consultant Vybegallo skip lunch. However, this partisan decision was not met with enthusiasm. On the contrary, it drew a heated rejection from the named parties. A brief flurry ensued, in the course of which it was revealed that the lunch hour had long been upon them.
“There is an opinion,” Lavr Fedotovich wound up, “that it is time to rest and have lunch. The Troika meeting is closed until eighteen hundred hours.” Then he turned to the commandant in the best of spirits. “And as for your crocodile, Comrade Zubo, we will put him in the zoological park. What do you think?”
“Oh!” said the heroic commandant. “Lavr Fedotovich! Comrade Vuniukov! As Christ is my witness, our Savior, the city does not have a zoological park.”
“It will!” Lavr Fedotovich promised. And then made a folksy joke: “We have a regular park, we have a kiddie park, and now we’ll have a zoological one, too. The Troika likes threes.”
The roar of sycophantic laughter caused Kuzma to perform another impoliteness.
Lavr Fedotovich gathered his accoutrements of chairmanship into his briefcase, stood, and moved sedately toward the exit. Khlebovvodov and Vybegallo, knocking the unalert Farfurkis to the floor, rushed to open the door for him, pushing each other out of the way.
“Now a steak, that’s meat,” Lavr Fedotovich explained to them condescendingly.
“Rare!” shouted Khlebovvodov loyally.
“Why rare?” Lavr Fedotovich’s voice floated in from the reception area.
Eddie and I opened all the windows. From the stairs came: “Now, please, Lavr Fedotovich. Allow me to say that a steak that is not rare, Lavr Fedotovich, is worse than drinking on an empty stomach.” “Science assumes, c’est, c’est, with onions, of course.” “The people love good meat—for instance, steak.”
“They’re driving me to an early grave,” the commandant said. “They are the death of me, my seven plagues of Egypt.”
CASE 15
AND FIELD SESSIONS
There was no evening session. Officially we were informed that Lavr Fedotovich, as
well as Comrades Khlebovvodov and Vybegallo, were poisoned at lunch by mushrooms, and that the doctor recommended bed rest all night. However the ever-meticulous commandant was not satisfied by the official version. He called his friend, the hotel maître d’. It turned out that at lunch Lavr Fedotovich and Professor Vybegallo had ganged up on Comrade Khlebovvodov on the issue of the relative merits of well-done versus rare steak. Striving to determine which of these two states of steak was more beloved by the people, and with the aid and sustenance of cognac and velvety Pilsner, each consumed four experimental portions from the chef’s stores. Now they were quite ill, flat on their backs, and could not appear in public before morning.
The commandant rejoiced like a kid whose favorite teacher had unexpectedly fallen ill.
We said good-bye to him, bought two ice-cream cones, and went back to our hotel. We spent the evening in our room, discussing our situation. Eddie admitted that Christobal Joséevich had been right: the Troika was a tougher nut to crack than he had expected. The rational part of their psyche turned out to be supernaturally conservative and superrigid. True, it did yield to the humanizer’s powerful field, but immediately returned to square one as soon as it was removed. I suggested that Eddie leave the field on, but he rejected my suggestion. The Troika’s reserves of the rational, good, and eternal were very limited, and Eddie was afraid that lengthy exposure to the humanizer would deplete them. Our business is to teach them to think, said Eddie, not to think for them. But they are not learning. These ex-plumbers have forgotten how. But all is not lost. There is still the emotional side of their psyche. Since we can not awaken their reason, we must try to awaken their consciences. And that was precisely what Eddie planned to do at the very next session.
We discussed that problem until the excited Gabby burst in on us without knocking. It turned out that he had applied to be seen out of turn by the Troika to weigh a suggestion of his. He had just heard from the commandant that they would, and he wanted to know whether we would be present at the morning meeting, which would be historic. Tomorrow we would understand everything. Tomorrow we would learn just what he was. When grateful humanity carried him on their shoulders, he would not forget us. He shouted and waved his little legs, ran around the walls, and distracted Eddie from his planning. I had to take him by the scruff of his neck and toss him out into the hall. He did not take offense, he was above all that. Tomorrow everything would be clear, he promised, then asked for Khlebovvodov’s suite number and disappeared. I went to bed, and Eddie shuffled papers and sat over his dismantled humanizer for several hours.
When the bedbug was called in, he did not enter the meeting room immediately. We could hear him in the reception area squabbling with the commandant, demanding an honor guard. Eddie was getting worried, and I had to go out into the reception area and tell Gabby to stop fooling around or things would go badly for him.
“But all I’m demanding is that he take three steps toward me!” the bedbug said angrily. “Even if there is no honor guard, there has to be some pomp! After all, I’m not asking him to meet me at the door, hat in hand! Let him take three steps in my direction and nod!”
“Who are you talking about?”
“What do you mean, who? What’s his name, your chief—Vuniukov, is it?”
“You jerk!” I shouted. “Do you want them to listen to you? Get in there! You have thirty seconds!”
Gabby gave in. Muttering something about breaking all the rules, he went into the meeting room and obnoxiously lolled on the demonstration table without greeting anyone. Lavr Fedotovich, his eyes puffy and yellow from yesterday’s debauch, peered through his opera glasses. Khlebovvodov, suffering from bilious gas, started the session.
“What do we have to listen to him for? Everything is decided already. He’s just going to drive us crazy.”
“Just a minute,” Farfurkis said, bright and cheery as usual. “Citizen Gabby,” he addressed the bedbug, “the Troika deemed it possible to receive you out of turn and hear what you described as your very important announcement. The Troika suggests that you be as brief as possible and not take up too much of its valuable work time. What do you wish to announce? We are listening.”
Gabby maintained an orator’s silence for a few seconds. Then he gathered himself up noisily, struck a haughty pose, and puffing up his cheeks, began.
“The history of the human race,” he said, “contains many shameful incidents of barbarism and stupidity. A rough ignorant soldier bumped off Archimedes. Lousy priests burned Giordano Bruno. Rabid fanatics attacked Charles Darwin and Galileo Galilei. The history of bedbugs also contains references to victims of ignorance and obscurantism. Everyone remembers the unbearable sufferings of the great encyclopedist bedbug Sapukol, who showed our ancestors, the grass and tree bugs, the path of true progress and prosperity. Imperutor, the creator of the theory of blood types, died a forgotten and impoverished bedbug, as did Rexophobe, who solved the problem of fertility, and Nudin, who discovered anabiosis.
“The barbarism and ignorance of both our races could not avoid leaving its mark on their interrelationship. In vain have the ideas of the great Utopian bedbug Platun been preserved. He preached the idea of a symbiotic relationship between man and bedbug, no longer based on the age-old parasitism of the bedbug—a bright and shining future of friendship and mutual assistance. We know of instances when man proffered peace, protection, and patronage to the bedbug, under the slogan: ‘We are of one blood, you and I,’ but the greedy, always hungry bedbug masses ignored this call, repeating over and over: ‘We drank, we drink, and we will drink.’”
Gabby gulped down a glass of water, wiped his lips, and continued, increasing in tempo and volume. “Now for the first time in the history of our two races we face a situation where the bedbug offers humanity peace, protection, and patronage, demanding only one thing in return: acknowledgment. For the first time, the bedbug has found a common tongue with man. For the first time, the bedbug communicates with man not in bed but across a conference table. For the first time, the bedbug seeks not material wealth but spiritual communication. Now at the crossroads of history, standing at the turn that may lead both races to undreamed-of heights, dare we waste time through indecision, follow once more the road of ignorance and hostility, rejecting the obvious and refusing to acknowledge the miracle that has taken place? I, Gabby Bedbug, the only talking bedbug in the universe, the only link between our races, say to you in the name of millions upon millions: come to your senses! Throw away your prejudices. Throw off the shackles of stagnation, muster all that is good and reasonable in you and look with open and clear eyes into the eyes of a great truth: Gabby Bedbug is an exceptional individual, an unexplained phenomenon, and perhaps an inexplicable one!”
Yes, the vanity of that insect was enough to stun the most jaded imagination. I felt that this would come to no good and nudged Eddie with my elbow. There was a chance that the digestive prostration that afflicted the larger, and better, part of the Troika would preclude any show of passion. Another hopeful factor was the absence of the dissipated Vybegallo, who was still bedridden. Lavr Fedotovich was not well, he was pale and sweating profusely. Farfurkis did not know what course of action to take and kept looking over at him uncertainly. I thought that perhaps it would pass, when suddenly Khlebovvodov spoke up.
“‘We drank, we drink, and we will drink!’ Who do you think they’re talking about? Us! He’s talking about us, the bugger! Our blood! Hah!” He looked around wildly. “I’ll squash him right now, I will! Get no sleep at night from them, and now they torture us in the daytime too! Torturers!” And he set about scratching furiously.
Gabby was frightened but continued to carry himself with dignity. However, he was eyeing a convenient corner in case it came to that. The odor of very strong cognac spread through the room.
“Bloodsuckers!” Khlebovvodov rasped, as he jumped up and lunged forward. My heart stopped.
Eddie grabbed my hand—he was frightened too. Gabby just squatted in ho
rror. But Khlebovvodov, clutching his stomach, raced past the demonstration table, opened the door, and ran out. We could hear his footsteps on the stairs. Gabby wiped the cold sweat from his brow and dispiritedly lowered his antennae.
“Harrumph,” Lavr Fedotovich said pathetically. “Who else would like the floor?”
“Allow me,” said Farfurkis. I realized the machine was starting up. “Citizen Gabby’s announcement has created a unique impression on me. I am sincerely and categorically incensed. And not only because Citizen Gabby is giving a perverted history of the human race as the history of the suffering of exceptional individuals. I am also willing to leave the orator’s totally un-self-critical pronouncements as to his own person to his conscience. But his idea, his offer of union—even the idea of such a union sounds, to me, both insulting and blasphemous. Just what do you take us for, Citizen Gabby? Or perhaps the insult was intentional? Personally, I am inclined to classify it as intentional. And on top of that, I looked through the minutes of the earlier meeting on the case of Citizen Gabby and noted with chagrin that, as far as I am concerned, there is a total lack of the necessary interlocutory decree for the case. This, comrades, is our mistake, our oversight, which we must correct with all due speed. What do I mean? I mean that in the person of Citizen Gabby we are confronted by nothing more than a typical talking parasite, in other words a sponging loafer with means of support that can only be classified as illegal.”
At that moment the exhausted Khlebovvodov appeared in the doorway. As he walked past Gabby he brandished his fist at him and muttered, “You tailless, six-legged cur!” Gabby ducked his head. He finally understood that things were bad. “Alex,” Eddie whispered to me in a panic. “Alex, think of something.” I feverishly looked for a way out, while Farfurkis droned on.
“Insulting humanity, insulting an authoritative body. This is typical parasitism, which belongs behind bars. Is this not a little much, comrades? Are we not displaying spinelessness, toothlessness, bourgeois liberalism, and abstract humanism? I don’t know the feelings of my respected colleagues in this matter, and I don’t know what decision will be reached in this case; however, as a man who is not malicious by nature but who is principled, I permit myself to address you, Citizen Gabby, with a word of warning. The fact that you, Citizen Gabby, have learned to speak, or rather to gab, in Russian, may be a temporizing factor in our attitude toward you. But beware! Don’t pull the string too tight!”