“Selma Nagel,” Selma responded indolently. “Tramp.”
Izya actually grunted in delight and solicitously kissed the hand held out to him. “By the way,” he said, turning to Andrei and then back to Selma, “have you heard? The council of district commissioners is considering a draft resolution”—he lifted one finger in the air and raised his voice—“‘concerning the regularization of the situation that has arisen in connection with the presence within the city limits of large aggregations of dog-headed monkeys’ . . . Oof! It is proposed to register all the monkeys, fit them with metal collars and disks bearing their names, and then assign them to institutions and private individuals, who will be responsible for them henceforth!” He started giggling, then grunting, and then began hammering his right fist into the open palm of his left hand with shrill, lingering little groans. “Superb! All other work has been abandoned—all the factories are producing collars and name disks. Our Mr. Mayor is personally taking into his care three mature baboons and is calling on the public to follow his example. Will you take in a female baboon, Andrei? Selma will be against it, but such is the requirement of the Experiment! And as everyone knows, the Experiment is the Experiment. I hope you are in no doubt, Selma, that the Experiment is definitely an experiment—neither excrement, nor exponent, nor even a permanent—wave, that is—but precisely the Experiment?”
Struggling to make himself heard above the gurgling and groaning, Andrei said, “There you go again, waffle, waffle, waffle!” This was what he had dreaded most of all. This kind of nihilistic, couldn’t-care-less attitude was bound to have a highly subversive impact on someone new. Of course, it was so incredibly alluring to wander from building to building like this, giggling and spraying disdainful spittle right and left, instead of gritting your teeth and—
Izya stopped giggling and started striding agitatedly around the room. “Perhaps it is waffle,” he said. “Possibly. But as usual, Andrei, you understand damn-all about the psychology of the management. Exactly what, in your opinion, is the function of the management?”
“To manage!” said Andrei, rising to the challenge. “To manage and not to waffle, by the way, not to prattle. To coordinate the activities of the citizens and organizations—”
“Stop! Coordinate activities—to what end? What is the ultimate goal of this coordination?”
Andrei shrugged. “That’s elementary. The universal good, order, the creation of optimal conditions for advancing—”
“Oh!” Izya thrust his finger into the air again. His mouth fell slightly open and his eyes rolled up. “Oh!” he repeated, and fell silent again. Selma watched him delightedly. “Order!” Izya proclaimed. “Order!” His eyes rolled back even farther. “And now imagine that in the city entrusted to you, countless herds of baboons appear. You can’t drive them out—you haven’t got the guts for it. You can’t feed them on a centralized basis either—there isn’t enough grub, not enough reserves. The baboons are begging in the street—outrageous disorder: we do not have and cannot have any beggars. The baboons crap without cleaning up after themselves, and no one intends to clean up after them. What is the conclusion begging to be drawn from all this?”
“Well, in any case, it’s not to put collars on them,” said Andrei.
“Correct!” Izya said approvingly. “Of course it’s not to put collars on them. The very first no-nonsense conclusion begging to be drawn is: conceal the existence of the baboons. Pretend that they are not even here. But that, unfortunately, is also impossible. There are too many of them, and so far our management remains nauseatingly democratic. And then a brilliantly simple idea appears: regularize the presence of the baboons! Legitimize the chaos and outrage, thereby rendering them an element of the harmonious order intrinsic to the administration of our good mayor! Instead of herds and gangs of beggars and hooligans—we have sweet household pets. We all love animals! Queen Victoria loved animals. Darwin loved animals. Even Beria, so they say, loved some animals, not to mention Hitler . . .”
“Our king Gustaf loves animals too,” Selma put in. “He has cats.”
“Excellent!” Izya exclaimed, slamming his fist into his palm. “King Gustaf has cats, and Andrei Voronin has his own personal baboon. And if he really loves animals a lot, even two baboons . . .”
Andrei gave up and went off to the kitchen to check his food reserves. While he was rummaging in the little cupboards, unfolding and carefully sniffing at dusty little packets with stale, darkened contents, in the dining room Izya’s voice carried on booming without a break and Selma’s laughter rang out, mingling with Izya’s own grunting and gurgling.
There was nothing to eat: a bag of potatoes that had already begun to sprout, a dubious can of sprats, and an absolutely stony loaf of bread. Then Andrei delved into the drawer of the kitchen table and counted his cash again. He had some cash—just enough to last until payday, as long as he was economical with it and didn’t invite any guests but went visiting other people instead. They’ll drive me into the grave, Andrei thought gloomily. Damn it, I’ve had enough. I’ll bleed them all dry. What do they think I’ve got here, some kind of cookshop? The baboons!
At this point there was another knock at the door and Andrei went to open it, chuckling malevolently. He noticed in passing that Selma was sitting on the table with her hands stuck under herself and her painted mouth stretched out to her ears, like a real little bitch, and Izya was pontificating in front of her, waving his baboon-like arms around, and all his gloss had deserted him: the knot of his tie was under his right ear, his hair was standing up on end, and his shirt cuffs were gray.
It turned out that former noncommissioned officer of the Wehrmacht Fritz Heiger had arrived, along with his personal sidekick and private of the same Wehrmacht, Otto Friese. “So you’ve come!” Andrei greeted them with a malevolent smile.
Fritz immediately took this greeting as an attack on the dignity of a German noncommissioned officer and put on a stony face, but Otto, a gentle man of somewhat nebulous moral profile, merely clicked his boot heels and smiled ingratiatingly.
“What kind of tone is that?” Fritz inquired coldly. “Perhaps we should leave?”
“Have you brought anything to eat?” Andrei asked.
Fritz executed a thoughtful movement of his lower jaw. “Eat?” he repeated. “Mmm, how can I put it . . .” And he glanced inquiringly at Otto. Smiling shyly, Otto immediately pulled a flat bottle out of the pocket of his breeches and held it out to Andrei. Like an entry pass, with the label upward.
“Well, OK then . . .” said Andrei, mellowing and taking hold of the bottle. “But bear in mind, guys, there’s absolutely nothing to eat. Maybe you have some money at least?”
“Maybe you’ll let us in after all?” Fritz inquired, his head turned slightly to advance one ear: he was listening to the bursts of female laughter in the dining room.
Andrei let them into the hallway and said, “Money. Cash up front!”
“Even here we are unable to avoid reparations, Otto,” said Fritz, opening his wallet. “Here!” He thrust a few bills at Andrei. “Give Otto some kind of bag and tell him what to buy—he’ll run down to the shop.”
“Wait, not so fast,” Andrei said, and led them into the dining room. While heels clicked, slicked-down hairstyles stooped over, and soldierly compliments resounded, Andrei dragged Izya off to one side and, before he could gather his wits, frisked all his pockets, which Izya didn’t even seem to notice—he just struggled feebly to break free, dying to finish the joke he had started telling. After Andrei had confiscated everything he could find, he moved away and counted the reparations. It wasn’t really all that much, but it was about enough. He glanced around. Selma was still sitting on the table and dangling her legs. Her melancholy had evaporated; she was jolly. Fritz was lighting her cigarette, while Izya, choking and wheezing, was preparing to tell another joke, and Otto, red-faced from the tension and uncertainty about his manners, was a solitary pillar at the center of the room, standing to atte
ntion and visibly wiggling his large ears.
Andrei caught hold of Otto’s sleeve and dragged him into the kitchen, intoning: “They’ll manage without you, they’ll manage . . .” Otto didn’t object; he even seemed pleased. Once he found himself in the kitchen, he immediately went into action. He took the vegetable basket from Andrei, shook the rubbish out of it into the trash pail (which Andrei would never have thought of doing), rapidly and neatly covered the bottom of it with old newspapers, and instantly found the bag, which Andrei had lost the month before. Declaring “Maybe we’ll find some tomato sauce . . .” he put an empty compote jar into the bag, after first rinsing it out, then stuck in a few folded newspapers in case of need (“What if they don’t have any packaging . . . ”), so that Andrei’s contribution was limited to moving the money from one pocket to the other, stepping impatiently from one foot to the other, and intoning mournfully: “That’ll do now . . . That’s enough . . . let’s go, shall we . . .”
“Are you going as well?” Otto asked in awed surprise when he finished getting everything together.
“Yes, why?”
“I can do it on my own,” said Otto.
“On my own, on my own. It’s quicker with two. You get in line for the counter, I get in line for the till.”
“That’s true,” said Otto. “Yes. Of course.”
They went out through the back entrance and walked down the back staircase. On the way they startled a baboon—the poor creature hurled itself straight out the window like a rocket, and they even felt afraid for its life, but everything was fine after all—the baboon was dangling from the fire escape ladder, baring its fangs in a grin.
“I could give him the scraps,” Andrei said thoughtfully. “I’ve got enough leftover scraps for an entire herd.”
“Shall I go and get them?” Otto suggested willingly.
Andrei merely looked at him, said “At ease!” and walked on. The stairway already stank a bit. In fact it had always stunk a bit here anyway, but now a distinctly new whiff had appeared, and after walking down another flight, they discovered its source—and more than just one.
“Yes, Wang will have a bit more work to do,” said Andrei. “God forbid that I should end up as a caretaker right now. Who are you working as at the moment?”
“A minister’s deputy,” Otto replied despondently. “This is the third day already.”
“Which minister?” Andrei inquired.
“What’s it called . . . professional training.”
“Is it hard?”
“I don’t understand a thing,” Otto said dismally. “Lots and lots of documents, instructions, reports . . . estimates, budgets . . . And no one else there understands anything either. They all run around, asking each other—Wait, where are you going?”
“To the shop.”
“No. Let’s go to Hofstadter’s. He’s cheaper, and he’s German, after all.”
They went to Hofstadter’s. Hofstadter had a kind of combined greengrocer’s and general grocery store on the corner of Main Street and Old Persian Street. Andrei had been there a couple of times, and every time he had left empty handed: Hofstadter didn’t have very many foodstuffs, and he chose his own customers.
There was no one in the shop and the shelves were filled with neat ranks of identical jars of pink horseradish. Andrei went in first and Hofstadter, raising his pale, puffy face from the cash register, immediately said, “I’m closing.” But then Otto turned up, after catching the basket on the door handle, and the pale, puffy face broke into a smile. The closing of the shop was, of course, postponed. Otto and Hofstadter withdrew into the depths of the establishment, where boxes immediately started rustling and creaking as they were moved, potatoes drummed as they were poured, a glass vessel filled with something jangled, and muted voices started talking in muted tones . . .
With nothing else to do, Andrei gazed around. Yes indeed. Mr. Hofstadter’s little private trading business was a pitiful spectacle. The scales, of course, had not undergone the appropriate checks, and the sanitary conditions weren’t all that great. But then, that’s no concern of mine, thought Andrei. When everything got organized properly, all these Hofstadters would simply go bust. You could say they already had. In any case, Hofstadter wasn’t capable of serving anyone and everyone. Just look at the way he camouflaged himself, standing all that horseradish everywhere. Kensi should be set on him—this was a black market he was running here, the lousy nationalist. Only for Germans . . .
Otto glanced out of the depths and spoke in a whisper: “The money, quick!” Andrei hastily handed him a bundle of crumpled bills. With equal haste Otto peeled off a few of them, gave the rest back to Andrei, and disappeared back into the depths. A minute later he appeared behind the counter with his arms completely stretched by a full bag and a full basket. Hofstadter’s moonlike physiognomy loomed up behind him. Otto was streaming with sweat and kept smiling all the time, and Hofstadter kept repeating amiably, “Come again, come again, young men, I’m always glad to see you, always glad to see genuine Germans . . . And give Herr Heiger my special greetings . . . Next week they’ve promised to bring me a little bit of pork. Tell Herr Heiger I’ll keep three kilograms or so for him.”
“Yes indeed, Herr Hofstadter,” Otto replied. “Everything will be conveyed precisely, don’t you worry, Herr Hofstadter . . . And please don’t forget to give Fräulein Elsa our best regards—from both of us, and especially from Herr Heiger . . .”
They carried on droning this duet all the way to the door of the shop, where Andrei took the massively heavy bag from Otto—it was stuffed full with robust, clean carrots, firm beets, and sugar-white onions, from beneath which protruded the neck of a bottle sealed with wax, while a jumble of leeks, celery, dill, parsley, and other green stuff bristled on the top.
When they turned the corner, Otto put the basket down on the sidewalk, pulled out a large checkered handkerchief, and started wiping off his face, panting for breath and intoning, “Wait . . . I need to take a rest . . . Pheeew . . .”
Andrei lit a cigarette and offered the pack to Otto.
“Where did you get those carrots?” asked a woman walking by in a man’s leather coat.
“They’re finished, all gone,” Otto told her hastily. “We took the last ones. The shop’s closed already . . . Damn, that bald old devil’s exhausted me,” he told Andrei. “All that nonsense I spun him in there! Fritz will tear my head off when he finds out. And I don’t even remember now exactly what nonsense it was . . .”
Andrei didn’t understand a thing, and Otto explained the situation to him in brief.
Herr Hofstadter, a greengrocer from Erfurt, had been filled with hope all his life, and all his life he had been unlucky. When in 1932 some Jew made a beggar of him by opening a large, modern greengrocer’s shop across the street from his, Hofstadter realized that he was a true German and joined a brigade of storm troopers. In the storm troopers he was on the point of making a career, and in 1934 he personally pummeled the face of the aforementioned Jew and was about to close in on his business enterprise, but then came the disaster of Röhm’s denunciation and Hofstadter was purged. And by that time he was already married, and his charming little blonde-haired Elsa was already growing up. He managed to get by more or less for a few more years, then he was called up into the army and was about to embark on the conquest of Europe, but at Dunkirk he was bombed by his own side’s planes and received a massive piece of shrapnel in the lungs, so that instead of ending up in Paris, he found himself in a military hospital in Dresden, where he lay until 1945 and was on the point of being discharged when the Allied air forces made their famous raid that destroyed Dresden in a single night. The horror he experienced made all his hair fall out, and he went a bit crazy, according to the way that he himself told the story. So after finding himself back in his native Erfurt, he sat out the most hectic period, when it was still possible to decamp to the West, in the cellar of his little house. When he finally plucked up the courage to emerge into
the light of day, everything was all over. Admittedly, they did allow him to run a greengrocer’s shop, but any kind of expansion of the business was out of the question. In ’46 his wife died, and in his clouded state of mind he yielded to the blandishments of a Mentor and, without really understanding the choice that he was making, moved here, where he had improved a bit, but to this day he still seemed to suspect that he had ended up in a large, specialized concentration camp somewhere in Central Asia, to which all the Germans from East Germany had been exiled. His brainbox still hadn’t been restored to completely normal functioning: he adored genuine Germans and was convinced that he had a special nose for detecting them, and he was mortally afraid of Chinese, Arabs, and blacks, whose presence here he didn’t understand and couldn’t explain, but above all he worshipped and adored Herr Heiger. The point was that during one of Heiger’s first visits to Hofstadter’s, while the greengrocer was filling the bag, the brilliant Fritz had briefly flirted, soldier fashion, with blonde-haired Elsa, who had been driven to a frenzy by the lack of any prospect of a decent marriage. And from that moment a blinding hope had been conceived in the heart of the insane, bald Hofstadter—the hope that this magnificent Aryan, a staunch supporter of the führer and scourge of the Jews, would at long last escort the unfortunate Hofstadter family out of turbulently heaving seas into some quiet backwater.
“What’s it to Fritz!” Otto complained, constantly changing the arm that was stretched out of shape by the basket. “He only goes to Hofstadter’s place once, maybe twice a month, when we’ve got nothing to eat—he paws that little fool a bit and that’s the end of it . . . But I come here every week, even two or three times a week . . . Hofstadter’s a fool all right, a fool, but he’s a businessman, you know—the contacts he’s built up with the farmers, his food’s first class and it’s not expensive . . . I’ve turned into a hopeless liar. I have to assure him of Fritz’s eternal affection for Elsa. I have to assure him of the inexorable demise of international Jewry. I have to assure him of the implacable advance of the forces of the great Reich to his greengrocer’s shop . . . I’ve got totally tangled up in it all myself, and I think I’ve driven him completely insane. I feel guilty, after all: I’m driving an insane old man into total insanity. Just now he asked me, What are these baboons supposed to mean? And without even thinking, I blurted out, ‘It’s an Aryan assault force, a cunning trick.’ You wouldn’t believe it—he hugged me and smooched me like he was sucking on a bottle.”