“All right, then,” the bass voice boomed from the back rows. “But where’s the machine gun from?”
“A machine gun—so what? It’s the coupling of town and country, isn’t it? A carboy of moonshine for you, a machine gun for me, all honest and aboveboard.”
“Oh no,” the bass voice boomed. “A machine gun, that’s not just some sort of toy, not a threshing machine or something of the kind.”
“It seems to me,” the judicious individual commented, “that farmers are actually allowed to have guns!”
“No one’s allowed to have guns!” Friese squeaked, and blushed violently.
“Well, that’s stupid!” the judicious individual responded.
“Damn right it’s stupid,” said the bearded man. “I’d like to see you out in our swamps, at night, in the rutting season . . .”
“Whose rutting season?” the intellectual type asked with keen interest, pushing through into the front row in his glasses.
“The rutting season for them as needs to rut,” the farmer answered him disdainfully.
“No, no, if you please . . .” the intellectual type said hastily. “I’m a biologist, you know, and I still can’t—”
“Shut up,” Fritz told him. “And as for you,” he went on, turning to the man with the beard, “I suggest that you follow me. I suggest it in order to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.”
Their glances clashed. And would you believe it, somehow, from some minute feature or other that only he could spot, the man with the luxurious beard sensed who he was dealing with here. His beard split apart in a malicious grin, and he pronounced in a repulsive, obnoxiously thin little voice, “Milch und eggsen? Hitler-kaput!” He wasn’t in the least bit afraid of bloodshed, unnecessary or any other kind.
It was as if Fritz had been punched on the chin. He flung his head back, his pale face turned crimson, the knotted muscles stood out on his cheeks. For a moment Andrei thought he was about to fling himself at the bearded man, and Andrei even leaned forward, ready to stand between them, but Fritz controlled himself. The blood drained back out of his face and he announced drily, “That has nothing to do with the matter. Be so good as to follow me.”
“Oh, leave him alone, Heiger!” the bass voice said. “It’s obvious he’s a farmer, isn’t it? When have you ever heard of anyone hassling farmers?”
And everyone around started nodding and muttering that yes, he was clearly a farmer, who would drive off and take the machine gun with him—he really wasn’t any kind of gangster at all.
“We need to repel the baboons, and here we are playing policemen,” the judicious individual added.
That relieved the tension immediately. Everyone remembered about the baboons, and the baboons turned out to be sauntering around wherever they fancied again, behaving as if they were at home in the jungle. It also turned out that the local population had apparently gotten sick of waiting for decisive action from the self-defense brigade. They had evidently decided that the self-defense brigade wasn’t going to do anything useful, and they’d have to somehow make shift for themselves. And women carrying pocketbooks, with their lips firmly clamped shut in no-nonsense determination, were scurrying about on their morning errands, many of them clutching sticks from brooms and mops to fend off the most persistent of the monkeys. The shutters were taken down off a shop window, and the stall-keeper walked around his looted stall and groaned, scratching his back and clearly trying to figure something out. A line sprang up at the bus stop, and the first bus—yes, there it was—appeared in the distance. In contravention of a municipal council bylaw, it sounded its horn loudly, scattering the baboons, who were not familiar with the traffic regulations.
“Yes indeed, gentlemen,” someone said. “Evidently we shall have to come to terms with this as well. So we can all go home, commander?”
Fritz glowered morosely at the street. “Well now,” he said in an ordinary human voice. “Home it is then.”
He swung around, sticking his hands into his pockets, and was the first to head toward the truck. The brigade straggled after him. Men struck matches and lit up, and someone asked what they could do about being late for work; it would be good if they could get some kind of official note . . . The judicious individual had an answer for that too: everyone would be late for work today, so what point was there in notes? The jawing session around the cart dispersed. The only ones left were Andrei and the biologist in glasses, who had set himself the firm goal of discovering exactly who it was that had a rutting season in the swamps.
As he dismantled the machine gun and stashed it away again, the bearded man condescendingly explained that the creatures who had a rutting season in the swamps were redbacks, and the redbacks, brother, were something like crocodiles. Had the biologist ever seen crocodiles? Right, then. Only covered in fur. This red kind of fur, coarse and stiff. And when they were rutting, brother, you’d best keep your distance. In the first place, they were big brutes, the size of bulls, and in the second place, during that business they didn’t notice a thing—a house wasn’t a house to them, a shed wasn’t a shed; they smashed everything to splinters . . .
The intellectual type’s eyes blazed and he listened avidly, constantly adjusting his glasses with outstretched fingers. Fritz called from the truck, “Hey, are you coming or not? Andrei?” The intellectual type glanced around at the truck, looked at his watch, groaned pitifully, and started mumbling apologies and thanks. Then he grabbed the bearded man’s hand, shook it with all his might, and ran off. But Andrei stayed.
He himself didn’t know why he had stayed. It was a rush of something like a fit of nostalgia. It wasn’t even as if he were missing the sound of spoken Russian—after all, everyone around here spoke in Russian—and it wasn’t as if this man with a beard seemed to him like the incarnation of his motherland, no way. But something about him definitely made Andrei feel thoroughly homesick, something or other that he couldn’t get from the stern, sardonic Donald, or from the jolly and passionate but still somehow alien Kensi, or from Wang, always good natured, always affable, but really badly downtrodden. And even less from Fritz, a remarkable man after his own fashion but nonetheless yesterday’s enemy . . . Andrei hadn’t even suspected how badly he’d been pining for this mysterious “something.”
The man with a beard gave him a sideways glance and asked, “From the home country, are you?”
“From Leningrad,” said Andrei, feeling embarrassed, and in order to gloss over this embarrassment somehow, he took out his cigarettes and offered them to the bearded man.
“So that’s the way of it,” said the man, tugging a cigarette out of the pack. “We’re fellow countrymen, then. But I’m from Vologda, brother. Cherepovets—ever heard of it? The wild and woolly Cherepovtsians . . .”
“Sure I have!” Andrei exclaimed, absolutely delighted. “They’ve built an iron and steel works there, a ginormous industrial plant.”
“You don’t say?” the bearded man responded rather indifferently. “So they’ve roped in Cherepovets too . . . Well, OK. And what do you do here? What’s your name?”
Andrei told him.
“I’m working the land here,” the bearded man continued. “A farmer, as they say here. Yurii Konstantinovich, and the surname’s Davydov. Fancy a drink?”
Andrei hesitated. “It seems a bit early,” he said.
“Well, maybe it is,” Yurii Konstantinovich agreed. “I’ve still got to get to the market, haven’t I? I arrived yesterday evening, you see, went straight to the workshops; they promised me a machine gun there a long time ago. Well, it was one thing and another: I tried out the gadget, offloaded some ham, you know, and a couple hundred liters of moonshine for them, then I look around—and they’ve turned the sun off already . . .” While he was telling Andrei all this, Davydov finished securing his load, untangled the reins, sat in the cart sideways, and started the horses moving. Andrei set off beside him.
“Yep, yep,” Yurii Konstantinovich continued. “So here they’ve
already switched off the sun, and this guy says to me: ‘Come on, let’s go,’ he says. ‘I know a place near here.’ So we went and we had a drink and a bite to eat. You know how it is with vodka in the City, and I had moonshine. They provide the music, like, and I put up the drink. Well, women, of course . . .” Davydov waggled his beard as he reminisced, then went on, lowering his voice: “Out in our swamps, brother, women are kind of thin on the ground. You know, there’s this widow, well, we go to her . . . her husband drowned the year before last . . . Well, you know the way that works out—you go visit her, no way around it, but afterward, it’s fix her threshing machine, or lend her a hand with the harvest, or else it’s the tiller . . . Ah, what a paain!” He lashed a baboon that had tagged along behind the cart with his whip. “Anyway, brother, where we are, it’s like living in combat conditions—near as, dammit. Without a gun, there’s just no way. And who’s that bright-blond boy of yours? German, is he?”
“Yes,” said Andrei. “A former sublieutenant, he was taken prisoner near Königsberg, and he came here from captivity . . .”
“I spotted something repulsive about that ugly mug,” said Davydov. “Those wormy assholes drove me all the way to Moscow, drove me into hospital, blew off half my backside, clean as a whistle. I gave them what for afterward too. I’m a tank soldier, right? Last time I burned out was outside Prague . . .” He twisted his beard about. “Now, what do you reckon to this then? Of all the damned places to meet!”
“No, he’s a decent enough, no-nonsense kind of guy,” said Andrei. “And gutsy too. He likes to cut a strut, OK, but he’s a good worker, lots of energy. For the Experiment, I reckon he’s a very useful individual. An organizer.”
Davydov said nothing for a while, clicking his tongue at the horses. “This guy comes out to us in the swamps last week,” he said eventually. “Well, we got together at Kowalski’s place—he’s a farmer too, a Pole, about ten kilometers from me, got a good house, big. Yep, yep. So we got together. And then this type starts feeding us this hogwash: do we, like, have a correct understanding of the objectives of the Experiment? And he’s from City Hall, the Agricultural Department. Well, we can see where he’s heading: let’s say we do have a correct understanding—then a tax increase would be a good idea . . . Are you married?” he suddenly asked.
“No,” said Andrei.
“The reason I ask is, I could do with a place to stay tonight. I’ve got another piece of business set up for tomorrow morning.”
“But of course!” said Andrei. “No need even to ask! Come and stay the night, I’ve got loads of space, I’d be delighted.”
“Well, and so would I,” Davydov said with a smile. “Fellow countrymen and all that.”
“Make a note of the address,” said Andrei. “Have you got something to write it on?”
“Just tell me,” said Davydov. “I’ll remember it.”
“It’s a simple address: 105 Main Street, apartment 16. Entrance from the courtyard. If I’m not there, call round to the caretaker’s place—he’s a Chinese guy, Wang, I’ll leave a key with him.” Andrei really liked Davydov, although they clearly didn’t see eye to eye on everything.
“What year were you born?” Davydov asked.
“Twenty-eight.”
And when did you leave Russia?”
“In ’51. Only four months ago.”
“Aha. And I left Russia for here in ’47 . . . So tell me then, Andriukha, how are things in the countryside—have they gotten better?”
“Well, of course!” said Andrei. “They’ve rebuilt everything, they’re reducing prices every year . . . I didn’t get out into the country after the war myself, it’s true, but to judge from the movies and the books, life in the country’s really good now.”
“Hmm . . . movies,” Davydov said doubtfully. “You know, when it comes to movies . . .”
“No, why say that? In town, the shops have got everything. They abolished ration cards ages ago. So where’s it all from? From the country, right . . .”
“That’s right,” said Davydov. “From the country . . . But you know, I got back from the front and my wife was gone, she’d died. My son disappeared without a trace. The village was deserted. OK, I think, we’ll put this right. Who won the war? We did! So now we’re calling the shots. They wanted to make me farm chairman. I agreed. There was no one in the village but women, so there was no need even to get married. We just about scraped through ’46; right, I think, now things will get a bit easier . . .” He suddenly stopped talking and said nothing for a long time, as if he’d forgotten about Andrei. “Happiness for all mankind!” he declared unexpectedly. “How about you—do you believe it?”
“Of course.”
“And I believed that too. No, I thought, the countryside’s a dead duck. Some kind of stupid blunder, I thought. Grabbed by the tits before the war, grabbed by the throat after it. No, I thought, this way they’ll crush us. And the life, you know, as grim as a general’s shoulder straps. I’d started drinking already, and then—the Experiment.” He sighed heavily. “So, you reckon this Experiment of theirs will work out?”
“Why is it theirs? It’s ours!”
“OK, so let say it’s ours. Will it work out or not?”
“It’s got to,” Andrei said firmly. “It all depends on us, and only us.”
“Whatever depends on us, we’re doing it. We did it there, we’re doing it here . . . Basically, of course, I can’t really grumble. Life’s tough, all right, but way better than it was. The main thing is, you do it for yourself, get what I mean? And if some stooge shows up, you can maybe drop him in the privy, and there you go, home free! Party member, are you?” he asked suddenly.
“Komsomol. Yurii Konstantinovich, you take altogether too gloomy a view of things. The Experiment is the Experiment. It’s hard, there are plenty of mistakes, but probably it couldn’t possibly be any other way. Everyone on duty at his own post—everyone doing what he can.”
“And what’s your post?”
“Garbage collector,” Andrei said proudly.
“A really serious post, that,” said Davydov. “And have you got a profession?”
“My profession’s very specialized,” said Andrei. “Stellar astronomer.” He pronounced the title shyly, glancing sideways at Davydov, anticipating mockery, but on the contrary, Davydov was terribly interested.
“Really, you’re an astronomer? Listen, brother, then you ought to know where this is we’ve all been fetched up. Is it a planet of some kind, or a star, maybe? Back out there, in the swamps I mean, folks fall out over that every evening—they come to blows, so help me! They get a skinful of moonshine and then they go at it hammer and tongs . . . There are some as think, you know, we’re stuck in some kind of fish tank—still right here on Earth. This great, huge kind of fish tank, only instead of fish, it has people in it. So help me! But what do you think—from the scientific point of view?”
Andrei scratched the back of his head and laughed. In his apartment people almost came to blows for the same reason—even without any moonshine. And as for the fish tank, Izya Katzman had expatiated on that in exactly the same way, word for word, giggling and spraying. “How can I put it, you see . . .” he began. “It’s all very complicated. Baffling. And from the scientific point of view, there’s only one thing I can tell you: it’s not likely that this is a different planet, even less a star. In my opinion, everything here is artificial, and it has nothing to do with astronomy.”
Davydov nodded a few times. “A fish tank,” he said decisively. “And the sun here’s a sort of lightbulb, and that Yellow Wall running right up to the sky . . . Listen, if I follow this side street, will I get to the market or not?”
“Yes, you will,” said Andrei. “You haven’t forgotten my address?”
“I haven’t forgotten it—expect me this evening.”
Davydov lashed at the horses and let out a whistle, and the cart rumbled onto the side street and disappeared. Andrei set off for home. What a great guy,
he thought, feeling moved. A soldier! Of course, he didn’t join the Experiment, he ran away from his problems, but I’ve no right to judge him for that. He was wounded, his house and land were trashed—he was entitled to falter, wasn’t he? His life here is clearly no bowl of cherries either. And he’s not the only one here who’s faltered; we have plenty of those here . . .
On Main Street the baboons were sauntering about, totally free and easy. Either Andrei had gotten used to them, or they themselves had changed in some way, but they no longer seemed anything like as brazen, let alone as frightening, as a few hours earlier. They placidly arranged themselves in groups in the hot sun, jabbering and searching themselves for lice, and when people walked by, they held out their shaggy, black-palmed paws and blinked pleadingly with their watery eyes. It was as if an immense number of beggars had suddenly shown up in the City.
Andrei saw Wang at the gates of his building. He was sitting on a stanchion, hunched over sadly with his work-worn hands lowered between his knees.
“Lost the cans, did you?” he asked, without raising his head. “Look at what’s happening.”
Glancing into the passageway, Andrei was horrified. The heaps seemed to reach right up to the lightbulb. There was only a narrow little track leading to the door of the caretaker’s lodge.
“God almighty!” Andrei said, suddenly getting jittery. “I’ll go right now . . . hang on . . . I’ll be right back . . .” He tried feverishly to recall which streets he and Donald had raced along last night and the spot where the fugitives had dumped the cans off the truck.
“Don’t bother,” Wang said in a hopeless voice. “A commission’s already been here. They took down the numbers of the cans and promised to bring them this evening. They won’t bring them this evening, of course, but maybe they might by morning, eh?”
“You know, Wang,” said Andrei, “it was sheer hell and hullabaloo, I feel ashamed to remember it.”
“I know. Donald told me what it was like.”
“Donald’s home already?” Andrei asked, brightening up.