Notes on the Cuff and Other Stories Page 4

  N. B. My future biographer: all this was done by me.

  THE FIRST SWALLOWS

  At 11 a. m. a young poet, obviously frozen to death, came in and said quietly: "Storn."

  "What can I do for you?"

  "I'd like a job in ASS Lit."

  I unrolled a sheet of paper headed "Staff". ASS Lit. was allowed eighteen members of staff. I was vaguely hoping to allocate these posts as follows:

  Poetry instructors: Bryusov, Bely, etc.

  Prose writers: Gorky, Veresayev, Shmelyov, Zaitsev, Serafimovich, etc.

  But none of the afore-mentioned showed up.

  So with a bold hand I scribbled on Storn's application: "Pise, appt." instr. pp. head." Letter. Squiggle.

  "Go upstairs while he's still here."

  Then the curly-headed, rosy-cheeked poet Skartsev arrived, full of joie de vivre.

  "Go upstairs while he's still here."

  A gloomy fellow in glasses, about twenty-five, so thick-set he seemed to be made of bronze, arrived from Siberia.

  "Go upstairs..."

  But he replied:

  "I'm not going anywhere."

  He sat down in a corner on a rickety, broken chair, pulled out a scrap of paper and started writing some short lines. Obviously a very experienced fellow.

  The door opened and in came a man wearing a nice warm coat and a sealskin hat. It was a poet. Sasha.

  The old man wrote the magic words. Sasha looked round the room carefully, fingered the dangling piece of broken wire thoughtfully, and for some reason looked into the cupboard. He sighed.

  Sitting down beside me, he asked confidentially:

  "Will they pay cash?"

  WE WORK UP STEAM

  There was no room at the desks. We were all writing slogans, with a new fellow, very active and noisy, in gold glasses, who called himself the king of reporters. The king appeared the morning after we got an advance, at 8.45 a. m. with the words:

  "Is it true they paid out cash here?"

  And joined the staff on the spot.

  The episode of the slogans was like this.

  A memo arrived from upstairs.

  "ASS Lit. urgently requested to produce a set of slogans by 12 noon."

  Theoretically this is what was supposed to happen: the old man with my assistance would issue an order or summons to all places where there were supposed to be writers. We would then receive thousands of slogans from all over the country, by telegraph, letter and word of mouth. Then a commission would select the best and present them by 12 noon on a certain date. After that my secretarial staff (i. e., the bandit's sad wife) and I would draw up a claim for payment, receive the monies concerned and pay the most deserving for the best slogans.

  But that was in theory.

  In practice, however:

  1) It was impossible to issue a summons, because there was no one to summon. All the writers within the field of vision were: the above-mentioned, plus the king.

  2) Excluded by one: we could not possibly be flooded with slogans.

  3) The slogans could not be submitted by 12 noon on such-and-such a date, because the memo arrived at 1.26 p. m. on the date in question.

  4) We needn't have written a claim for payment, because there was no "slogan" allocation. But — the old man did have a small, precious amount for travel allowances.

  Therefore: a) The slogans shall be written as a matter of urgency by all those present;

  b) a commission to consider the slogans shall be set up consisting of all those present to ensure complete impartiality; and

  c) the best slogans shall be selected and the sum of fifteen thousand roubles paid for each of them.

  We sat down at 1.50 p. m. and the slogans were ready by 3 o'clock. Each of us managed to squeeze out five or six, with the exception of the king who wrote nineteen in verse and prose.

  The commission was fair and strict.

  I, the writer of slogans, had nothing in common with the other me who accepted and criticised them.

  As a result the following were accepted:

  three slogans from the old man,

  three slogans from the young man,

  three slogans from me,

  and so on and so forth.

  In short, forty-five thousand each.

  Brrr. What a wind! And it's starting to drizzle. The meat pie in the Truba (18) is wet from the rain, but delicious enough to drive you crazy. A tube of saccharine and two pounds of white bread.

  Caught up Storn. He was chewing something too.

  AN UNEXPECTED NIGHTMARE

  "It's all a dream, I swear. Can it be black magic?"

  I was two hours late for work today.

  I turned the knob, opened the door, walked in and saw the room was empty. Well and truly empty! Not only had the desks, the sad woman and the typewriter gone, but even the electric wires. Everything.

  "So it was all a dream... I see ... I see..."

  For some time everything round me has seemed like a mirage. A vaporous mirage. There, where yesterday... But why yesterday, for goodnees sake? A hundred years ago ... an eternity ... perhaps it never existed at all... perhaps it doesn't now. Kanatchikov dacha! (19)

  So the kind old man ... the young man ... the sad Storn ... the typewriter ... and the slogans ... didn't exist at all?

  But they did. I'm not mad. They did, dammit!

  Then where on earth had they got to?

  Walking unsteadily, trying to hide my expression under my eyelids (so they didn't grab me and take me away) I set off down the dark corridor. And realised that something funny really was happening to me. In the darkness over the door leading into a room which was lit, glowed letters of fire, as if on a cinema screen:

  1836

  ON THE 25TH OF MARCH AN UNUSUALLY STRANGE EVENT TOOK PLACE IN ST.PETERSBURG

  THE BARBER IVAN YAKOVLEVICH...

  I read no further, recoiling in horror. Stopping by the barrier, I hooded my eyes even more and asked in a hollow voice:

  "Excuse me, did you happen to see where ASS Lit. has gone?"

  An irritable, gloomy woman with a crimson ribbon in her black hair snapped:

  "What ASS Lit... I don't know."

  I closed my eyes. Another female voice said sympathetically:

  "Actually it's not here at all. You've come to the wrong place. It's in Volkhonka."

  I went cold all over, walked onto the landing and wiped the sweat off my forehead. Then I decided to go back on foot across the whole of Moscow to Razumikhin's and forget all about it. If I was quiet and said nothing, no one would ever know. I could live on the floor at Razumikhin's place. He wouldn't drive me, a poor madman, away.

  *

  But a last faint hope still lingered in my breast. And I set off. I started walking. This six-storey building was positively terrifying. It was riddled with passages, like an ant-hill, so you could walk right through it from one end to the other without going outside. I hurried along the dark twists and turns, occasionally wandering into niches behind wooden partitions. The light bulbs were reddish and uneconomical. Worried people scurried past me. There were lots of women sitting at desks. Typewriters clattered. Notices flashed past. Fin. Dept. Nat. Mins. I reached well-lit landings, only to plunge back into darkness again. At last I came to a landing and looked round dully. The further I went, the less chance there was of finding that bewitched ASS Lit. It was hopeless. I went down the stairs and into the street. When I looked round, it was entrance!...

  A bitter gust of wind. Heavy cold rain began to pour. I pulled down my summer cap even further and put up my greatcoat collar. A few minutes later my boots were full of water, thanks to the cracks in the soles. This was a relief. Now I needn't kid myself that I would manage to get home dry. Instead of slowing down my journey by hopping from stone to stone, I just waded straight through the puddles.

  ENTRANCE 2, GROUND FLOOR, FLAT 23, ROOM 40

  In letters of fire:

  QUITE RIDICULOUS THINGS ARE HAPPENING IN THE WORLD. SOM
ETIMES THEY ARE TOTALLY IMPROBABLE: SUDDENLY THAT SELFSAME NOSE WHICH HAD BEEN PARADING AROUND IN THE RANK OF STATE COUNCILLOR AND CAUSED SUCH A COMMOTION IN THE TOWN, FOUND ITSELF BACK IN ITS PLACE AS IF NOTHING HAD HAPPENED... (20)

  *

  Morning is wiser than eventide. That's true alright. When I woke up the next morning from the cold and sat on the divan, ruffling my hair, my head seemed a bit clearer!

  Logically, had it existed or not? Of course it had. I could remember my name and the date. It 'had just moved somewhere... So I would have to find it. But what had those women next door said? In Volkhonka... That was nonsense! You could pinch anything from under their very noses. I don't know why they keep them on at all, those women. Egyptian plague!

  I got dressed, drank the water I had saved in a glass from yesterday, ate a piece of bread and one potato, and drew up a plan.

  6 entrances times 6 floors = 36, 36 times 2 apartments — 72, 72 times 6 rooms = 432 rooms. Was it feasible? Yes, it was. Yesterday 1 had walked at random along two or three horizontals. Today I would search the whole building systematically vertically and horizontally. And find ASS Lit. Provided it hadn't vanished into a fourth dimension. If it had, that really was the end.

  By the second entrance I came nose to nose with Storn!

  Thank the Lord! A kindred spirit at last-It transpired that yesterday an hour before I arrived the head of admin, turned up with two workmen and moved ASS Lit. to entrance 2, ground floor, flat 23, room 40.

  Our place was to be taken by the music section, ASS Mus.

  "Why?"

  "I don't know. But why didn't you come yesterday? The old man got very worried."

  "For goodness' sake! How was I to know where you'd gone? You should have left a note on the door."

  "We thought they'd tell you..."

  I gnashed my teeth.

  "Have you seen those women? Next door..."

  "That's true," said Storn.

  FULL SPEED AHEAD

  Getting a room of my own gave me a new lease of life. They screwed a light bulb in ASS Lit. I found a ribbon for the typewriter. Then a second young lady appeared. "Pise. appt. clerk."

  Manuscripts began to arrive from the provinces. Then came another splendid young lady. A journalist. Very amusing, a good sport. "Pise. appt. as sec. of lit. feuilletons."

  Finally, a young man turned up from the south. A journalist. And we wrote him our last "Pise." There were no more vacancies. ASS Lit. was full up. And a real hive of industry.

  CASH! CASH!

  Twelve tablets of saccharine and that's all...

  "The sheet or the jacket?"

  Not a word about cash.

  Went upstairs today. The young ladies were very snappy with me. For some reason they can't stand ASS Lit.

  "Can I check our pay-roll?"

  "What for?"

  "I want to make sure everyone's on it."

  "Ask Madame Kritskaya."

  Madame Kritskaya got up, shook her bun of grey hair and announced turning pale:

  "It's got lost."

  Pause.

  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  Madame Kritskaya, tearfully:

  "My head's going round. You can't imagine what's been going on here. Seven times I wrote out that pay-roll and they sent it back. Said there was something wrong with it. And you won't get your pay anyway. There's someone on your list who hasn't been officially authorised."

  *

  To hell with the lot of them! Nekrasov and the resurrected alcoholics. I hurried off. More corridors. Dark. Light. Light. Dark. Meyerhold. Personnel. Light bulbs on in the daytime. A grey army-coat. A woman in wet felt boots. Desks.

  "Which of us hasn't been officially authorised?"

  Answer:

  "None of you have."

  But the best of it was that the founder of ASS Lit., the old man himself, had not been authorised. What? And I haven't either? What's going on here?

  "You probably didn't write an application?"

  "I didn't what? I wrote four applications in your office. And handed them over to you personally. Together with the one I wrote before that makes 113 applications in all."

  "Well, they must have got lost. Write another one."

  This went on for three days. After that we were all reinstated. And new authorisations were written.

  I am against the death penalty. But if Madame Kritskaya is ever taken to face the firing squad, I'll go and watch. The same applies to the young lady in the sealskin hat. And Lidochka, the clerical assistant.

  Get rid of the lot of them!

  Madame Kritskaya stood there with the authorisations in her hands, and I solemnly declare that she will not pass them on. I could not understand what this diabolical woman with the bun was doing here. Who would entrust her with work? This was Fate and no mistake!

  A week passed. I went to the fifth floor, in entrance 4. They put a stamp on them there. I need another stamp, but for two days I've been trying vainly to catch the Chairman of the Tariff-Valuation Committee.

  Sold the sheet.

  *

  We won't get any cash for at least a fortnight.

  *

  There's a rumour that everyone in the building will get an advance of 500.

  *

  The rumour's true. They've spent four days writing out authorisations.

  *

  I took the authorisations to receive the advance. Had everything. All the stamps were in order. But I got so worked up rushing from the second floor to the fifth that I bent an iron bolt sticking out of the corridor wall.

  Handed over the authorisations. They'll be sent for endorsement to another building at the other end of Moscow. Then returned. And then the cash...

  Got paid today. Cash!

  Ten minutes before it was time to go to the pay desk, the woman on the ground floor, who was supposed to put on the last stamp, said:

  "It's not set out according to form. You'll have to write another one."

  I don't remember exactly what happened then. Everything went hazy.

  I seem to remember yelping something painfully. Like:

  "What the hell's going on?"

  The woman opened her mouth:

  "How dare you..."

  Then I calmed down. I calmed down. Explained that I'd been het up. Apologised. Took back what I'd said. She agreed to correct it in red ink. Scribbled: "Pay cash." Squiggle.

  I rushed to the cash desk. Magic words: cash desk! Didn't believe it, even when the cashier took out the notes.

  Then it suddenly hit me. Money!

  From the drafting of the authorisation up to the moment of receipt from the cash desk passed twenty-two days and three hours.

  There was nothing left at home. No jacket. No sheet. No books.

  ON HOW TO EAT

  Got ill. Through being careless. Had beetroot soup with meat today. Tiny golden discs (fat) floating on top. Three platefuls. Three pounds of white bread in one day. And some pickled cucumbers. When I was full up, made some tea. Drank four glassfuls with sugar. Felt sleepy. Lay down on the divan and dropped off.

  Dreamed I was Lev Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana. Married to Sofia Andreyevna. Sitting upstairs in the study. Had to write. But didn't know what. People kept coming up and saying:

  "Dinner is served."

  But I was afraid to go down. I felt stupid, realised there was a big misunderstanding. It wasn't me who wrote War and Peace. Yet I was sitting there. Sofia Andreyevna herself came up the wooden staircase and said:

  "Come along. It's a vegetarian dinner."

  Suddenly I lost my temper.

  "What? Vegetarianism? Get some meat at once! I want a steak. And a glass of vodka."

  She burst into tears. Then a dukhobor with a bushy ginger beard rushed up and said to me reproachfully:

  "Vodka? Tut-tut-tut! What are you thinking of, Lev Ivanovich?"

  "Not Ivanovich! Nikolayevich! Get out of my house! Scram! Away with all those dukhobors !"

  There was a great commot
ion.

  I woke up a sick and broken man. It was dusk. An accordion was playing in the next room.

  I went to the mirror. What a face. Ginger beard, white cheekbones, red eyelids. But that was nothing compared to the eyes. Glittering again. That was bad.

  *

  Advice: beware of that glitter. as soon as it appears, borrow some money (not returnable), from a bourgeois, buy some food and have a meal. Only don't eat too much to begin with. Just clear soup and a little white bread on the first day. Take it easy.

  I didn't like my dream either. It was a horrid dream.

  Drank tea again. Remembered last week. On Monday I ate some potatoes with vegetable oil and quarter of a pound of bread. Drank two glasses of tea with saccharine. On Tuesday I had nothing to eat and drank five glasses of tea. On Wednesday I borrowed two pounds of bread from a plumber. Drank tea, but ran out of saccharine. Had a splendid lunch on Thursday. Went round to see some friends at

  2 p. m. The door was opened by a maid in a white apron. Strange sensation. As if it were ten years ago. At

  3 p. m. heard the maid begin to set the table. We sat and talked (I had shaved that morning). They cursed the Bolsheviks and told me they were exhausted. I could see they were waiting for me to go. But I sat tight.

  Eventually the lady of the house said: