The Twelve Chairs (10 page)

was another sign:

AND PRIMUS STOVE REPAIRS
under  which  there hung  a heavy  padlock. The  yard-keeper kicked the
padlock and said with loathing:
"Ugh, that stinker!"
He stood by the  workshop for another two  or  three minutes working up
the most venomous feelings, then wrenched off the sign with a crash, took it
to the well in the middle  of the yard, and standing on it  with both  feet,
began creating an unholy row.
"You  have thieves in no. 7!" howled  the yard-keeper. "Riffraff of all
kinds! That  seven-sired  viper! Secondary education indeed! I  don't give a
damn for his secondary education! Damn stinkard!"
During this, the seven-sired viper with secondary education was sitting
behind the  dustbin  and feeling  depressed. Window-frames flew open  with a
bang, and amused tenants poked out their heads.
People strolled into the yard from outside in  curiosity. At the  sight
of an audience, the yard-keeper became even more heated.
"Fitter-mechanic!" he cried. "Damn aristocrat!"
The  yard-keeper's  parliamentary expressions were  richly interspersed
with swear words, to  which he gave  preference. The members of the fair sex
crowding around the windows were very annoyed at the yard-keeper, but stayed
where they were.
"I'll push his face in!" he raged. "Education indeed!"
While  the  scene was at its  height, a militiaman appeared and quietly
began hauling the fellow  off to the police station. He was assisted by Some
young  toughs  from  Fastpack.  The  yard-keeper  put  his  arms around  the
militiaman's neck and burst into tears. The danger was over.
A weary Victor  Mikhailovich  jumped out from behind the dustbin. There
was a stir among the audience.
"Bum!" cried Polesov in the wake of the procession. "I'll show you! You
louse!"
But the  yard-keeper  was weeping bitterly and could  not hear. He  was
carried to the police station, and the sign "Metal Workshop and Primus Stove
Repairs"  was  also  taken  along as factual  evidence. Victor  Mikhailovich
bristled with fury for some time.
"Sons of  bitches!"  he  said, turning to  the  spectators.  "Conceited
bums!"
"That's enough, Victor Mikhailovich," called Elena  Stanislavovna  from
the window. "Come in here a moment."
She  placed a dish of  stewed fruit in front of  Polesov and, pacing up
and down the room, began asking him questions.
"But I tell you it was him-without his  moustache, but definitely him,"
said Polesov, shouting as usual. "I know him well. It was the spitting image
of Vorobyaninov."
"Not so loud, for heaven's sake! Why do you think he's here?"
An ironic smile appeared on Polesov's face.
"Well, what do you think? "
He chuckled with even greater irony.
"At any rate, not to sign a treaty with the Bolsheviks."
"Do you think he's in danger? "
The reserves of  irony amassed by Polesov over  the ten years since the
revolution  were  inexhaustible.  A  series  of smiles of  varying force and
scepticism lit up his face.
"Who  isn't   in  danger   in  Soviet  Russia,  especially  a  man   in
Vorobyaninov's position. Moustaches, Elena Stanislavovna, are not shaved off
for nothing."
"Has  he  been sent from  abroad?" asked  Elena  Stanislavovna,  almost
choking.
"Definitely," replied the brilliant mechanic.
"What is his purpose here?"
"Don't be childish!"
"I must see him all the same."
"Do you know what you're risking? "
"I don't care. After ten years of separation I cannot do otherwise than
see Ippolit Matveyevich."
And it actually seemed to her that fate had parted them while they were
still in love with one another.
"I beg you to find him.  Find out where he  is. You go  everywhere;  it
won't be difficult for you. Tell him I want to see him. Do you hear?"
The  parrot in the red underpants, which had been dozing on  its perch,
was  startled by the noisy  conversation; it turned upside down and froze in
that position.
"Elena Stanislavovna," said  the mechanic, half-rising and pressing his
hands to his chest, "I will contact him."
"Would  you like  some  more  stewed fruit?"  asked the fortune-teller,
deeply touched.
Victor  Mikhailovich  consumed  the stewed fruit  irritably, gave Elena
Stanislavovna a lecture on the faulty construction of the parrot's cage, and
then left with instructions to keep everything strictly secret.

The next day the partners saw that it  was no longer convenient to live
in  the  caretaker's room. Tikhon  kept muttering away  to  himself and  had
become  completely  stupid,  having seen  his  master  first  with  a  black
moustache,  then  with a green  one, and finally  with no moustache  at all.
There was nothing to sleep  on. The room stank of rotting manure, brought in
on Tikhon's new felt  boots. His old  ones stood  in the corner  and did not
help to purify the air, either.
"I declare the old boys' reunion over," said Ostap. "We  must move to a
hotel."
Ippolit Matveyevich trembled. "I can't."
"Why not?"
"I shall have to register."
"Aren't your papers in order?"
"My papers are in order, but my name is well known in the town. Rumours
will spread."
The concessionaires reflected for, a while in silence.
"How do  you  like  the  name Michelson?"  suddenly asked the  splendid
Ostap.
"Which Michelson? The Senator?"
"No. The member of the shop assistants' trade union."
"I don't get you."
"That's because you lack technical experience. Don't be naive!"
Bender took  a  union card out of  his  green jacket  and  handed it to
Ippolit Matveyevich.
"Konrad  Karlovich  Michelson,  aged  forty-eight,  non-party   member,
bachelor;  union member  since 1921 and a person of  excellent character;  a
good friend  of mine and  seems to  be  a friend of children. . .  . But you
needn't be friendly to children. The militia doesn't require that of you."
Ippolit Matveyevich turned red. "But is it right? "
"Compared with our" concession, this misdeed, though it does come under
the penal code, is as innocent as a children's game."
Vorobyaninov nevertheless balked at the idea.
"You're  an  idealist,  Konrad Karlovich. You're  lucky,  otherwise you
might have to become a Papa Christosopulo or Zlovunov."
There followed immediate consent, and without saying goodbye to Tikhon,
the concessionaires went out into the street.
They stopped at the Sorbonne Furnished Rooms.  Ostap threw the whole of
the small hotel  staff into confusion.  First he  looked at the seven-rouble
rooms,  but disliked  the furnishings.  The  cleanliness  of the five-rouble
rooms  pleased  him more,  but  the carpets  were  shabby  and there was  an
objectionable  smell. In the three-rouble rooms everything  was satisfactory
except for the pictures.
"I can't live in a room with landscapes," said Ostap.
They had to take a  room for one rouble,  eighty. It had no landscapes,
no  carpets, and the  furniture was very conservative -two  beds and a night
table.
"Stone-age style," observed Ostap with  approval. "I hope  there aren't
any prehistoric monsters in the mattresses."
"Depends on  the season," replied the cunning room-cleaner. "If there's
a  provincial convention  of some kind, then  of  course  there aren't  any,
because we have many  visitors and we clean the place thoroughly before they
arrive.  But at other  times you may  find some.  They come  across from the
Livadia Rooms next door."
That day the concessionaires  visited the  Stargorod communal services,
where they  obtained  the information they required. It turned  out that the
housing division had  been disbanded in 1921 and that its voluminous records
had been merged with those of the communal services.
The smooth  operator got down to business. By  evening the partners had
found out the  address  of  the  head of the records department, Bartholomew
Korobeinikov, a former  clerk in the Tsarist town administration  and now an
office-employment official.
Ostap  attired himself  in  his  worsted waistcoat,  dusted his  jacket
against the  back of a chair, demanded a rouble, twenty  kopeks from Ippolit
Matveyevich, and  set off  to visit the  record-keeper.  Ippolit Matveyevich
remained at the Sorbonne Hotel and paced up and down  the narrow gap between
the two beds in  agitation.  The  fate of the whole  enterprise was  in  the
balance  that cold, green evening. If they could get hold of copies  of  the
orders   for  the   distribution  of   the   furniture  requisitioned   from
Vorobyaninov's house, half  the  battle  had been won.  There would still be
tremendous difficulties facing them, but at least they would be on the right
track.
"If  only we can  get  the orders,"  whispered Ippolit  Matveyevich  to
himself, lying on the bed, "if only we can get them."
The springs of the battered mattress nipped him like fleas, but  he did
not  feel them. He still only had a vague idea of what would follow once the
orders had been obtained, but felt sure everything would then go swimmingly.
Engrossed in  his  rosy dream, Ippolit Matveyevich tossed about  on the
bed. The springs bleated underneath him.
Ostap  had to go right across  town. Korobeinikov lived  in Gusishe, on
the outskirts.
It was an area populated largely by railway workers.  From time to time
a  snuffling locomotive would  back its way along the walled-off embankment,
above the houses. For a  second the roof-tops were lit by the blaze from the
firebox.  Now and then empty goods  trains went  by,  and  from time to time
detonators  could  be heard  exploding.  Amid the  huts and temporary wooden
barracks stretched the long brick walls of still damp blocks of flats.
Ostap passed an island of lights-the railway workers' club- checked the
address from a piece of paper, and halted  in front of  the  record-keeper's
house. He rang a bell marked "Please Ring" in embossed letters.
After  prolonged questioning as to "Who do you want?" and "What  is  it
about?"   the  door  was   opened,  and  he   found   himself  in   a  dark,
cupboard-cluttered hallway. Someone breathed on him in the darkness, but did
not speak.
"Is Citizen Korobeinikov here?" asked Ostap.
The person who had been  breathing took Ostap  by  the arm and  led him
into a dining-room lit by a hanging kerosene lamp. Ostap saw in front of him
a prissy little old man with an unusually flexible spine. There was no doubt
that  this  was  Citizen  Korobeinikov  himself.  Without  waiting   for  an
invitation, Ostap moved up a chair and sat down.
The old man looked fearlessly at  the high-handed stranger and remained
silent. Ostap amiably began the conversation.
"I've  come on  business. You  work  at  the communal-services  records
office, don't you? "
The old man's back started moving and arched affirmatively.
"And you worked before that in the housing division?"
"I have worked everywhere," he answered gaily.
"Even in the Tsarist town administration?"
Here  Ostap  smiled graciously.  The old man's back  contorted for some
time and finally ended up in a  position implying that his employment in the
Tsarist town administration  was something  long  passed and that it was not
possible to remember everything for sure.'
"And may  I ask what I can  do  for you?"  said the host, regarding his
visitor with interest.
"You may," answered the visitor. "I am Vorobyaninov's son."
"Whose? The marshal's?"
"Yes." . "Is he still alive?"
"He's dead, Citizen Korobeinikov. He's gone to his rest."
"Yes," said the old man without any particular grief, "a sad event. But
I didn't think he had any children."
"He didn't," said Ostap amiably in confirmation.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm from a morganatic marriage."
"Not by any chance Elena Stanislavovna's son? "
"Right!"
"How is she?"
"Mum's been in her grave some time."
"I see. I see. How sad."
And  the  old  man gazed at  Ostap  with tears of sympathy in his eyes,
although that very day he had seen Elena Stanislavovna at the meat stalls in
the market.
"We  all  pass away," he said, "but  please tell  me  on what  business
you're here, my dear . . . I don't know your name."
"Voldemar," promptly replied Ostap.
"Vladimir Ippolitovich, very good."
The  old man sat down at the table covered  with patterned oilcloth and
peered into Ostap's eyes.
In carefully chosen words, Ostap expressed his grief at the loss of his
parents. He much regretted that  he had invaded the privacy of the respected
record-keeper so  late  at night  and disturbed  him by the visit, but hoped
that the respected record-keeper would  forgive  him  when he knew what  had
brought him.
"I would like to have some of my dad's furniture," concluded Ostap with
inexpressible filial love, "as a keepsake. Can you tell me who was given the
furniture from dad's house?"
"That's difficult," said the old  man after a moment's thought. "Only a
well-to-do person could manage that. What's your profession, may I ask? "
"I have my own refrigeration plant in Samara, run on artel lines."
The old man looked dubiously  at young  Vorobyaninov's  green suit, but
made no comment.
"A smart young man," he thought.
"A typical  old bastard," decided Ostap, who had  by then completed his
observation of Korobeinikov.
"So there you are," said Ostap.
"So there  you  are,"  said the  record-keeper.  "It's  difficult,  but
possible."
"And  it  involves expense,"  suggested  the refrigeration-plant  owner
helpfully.
"A small sum . . ."
" 'Is nearer one's heart', as  Maupassant used  to say. The information
will be paid for."
"All right then, seventy roubles."
"Why so much? Are oats expensive nowadays?"
The old man quivered slightly, wriggling his spine.
"Joke if you will. . ."
"I accept, dad. Cash on delivery. When shall I come?"
"Have you the money on you? "
Ostap eagerly slapped his pocket.
"Then now, if you like," said Korobeinikov triumphantly.
He  lit a  candle  and  led Ostap into the  next  room. Besides  a bed,
obviously slept in by the owner of the house himself,  the room  contained a
desk  piled with account books and a wide office cupboard with open shelves.
The printed letters A, B, C down to the rearguard letter Z were glued to the
edges  of the shelves. Bundles of orders  bound with new string  lay  on the
shelves.
"Oho!" exclaimed the delighted Ostap. "A full set of records at home."
"A complete set," said  the record-keeper modestly.  "Just in case, you
know.  The communal services  don't need them and they might be useful to me
in  my  old age. We're living on top of a  volcano,  you  know. Anything can
happen. Then people will rush off to find their furniture, and where will it
be? It will be here. This is where it will be. In the cupboard. And who will
have  preserved  it? Who will  have looked after  it?  Korobeinikov! So  the
gentlemen will say thank you to the old man and help him in his old age. And
I don't need  very much; ten roubles  an order will do me.  Otherwise,  they
might as  well look for the wind in the field. They won't find the furniture
without me."
Ostap looked at the old man in rapture.
"A marvellous office,"  he  said.  "Complete  mechanization.  You're an
absolute hero of labour!"
The  flattered  record-keeper  began  explaining  the  details  of  his
pastime. He opened the thick registers.
"It's all  here," he said, "the whole of Stargorod. All  the furniture.
Who it was taken from and  who it was given to. And  here's the alphabetical
index-the  mirror  of  life!  Whose furniture  do  you want  to  know about?
Angelov,  first-guild merchant? Certainly.  Look  under  A.  A, Ak, Am,  Am,
Angelov. The number? Here it is-82742. Now give me the stock book. Page 142.
Where's Angelov?  Here  he is.  Taken  from Angelov  on  December  18, 1918:
Baecker grand piano, one,  no. 97012; piano stools, one, soft; bureaux, two;
wardrobes,  four (two mahogany); bookcases, one . . . and so on. And who was
it all given to?  Let's look at the  distribution register. The same number.
Issued to. The bookcase  to the town military  committee, three wardrobes to
the  Skylark boarding school, another wardrobe  for the personal use  of the
Stargorod province food  office. And where did  the piano go? The piano went
to the old-age pensioners' home, and it's there to this day."
"I  don't  think I  saw  a  piano  there," thought  Ostap,  remembering
Alchen's shy little face.
"Or  for instance, Murin, head of the town council. So we look under M.
It's  all here.  The  whole town.  Pianos, settees,  pier  glasses,  chairs,
divans, pouffes, chandeliers . . . even dinner services."
"Well,"  said Ostap, "they ought to erect a monument to you.  But let's
get to the point. The letter V, for example."
"The letter V it is," responded Korobeinikov willingly. "In one moment.
Vm, Vn. Vorotsky, no. 48238, Vorobyaninov. Ippolit Matveyevich, your father,
God  rest  his soul, was a man with  a big  heart. . . A  Baecker piano, no.
54809. Chinese vases, marked, four, from Sevres in France; Aubusson carpets,
eight, different  sizes;  a tapestry, "The  Shepherd  Boy'; a tapestry, 'The
Shepherd Girl'; Tekke  carpets, two;  Khorassan carpets,  one; stuffed bears
with dish, one; a bedroom suite  to seat twelve; a dining-room suite to seat
sixteen; a drawing-room suite to seat twelve, walnut, made by Hambs."
"And who was given it?" asked Ostap impatiently. "We're just coming  to
that.  The  stuffed bear with  dish went  to the  police  station No. 2. The
Shepherd Boy tapestry went to the art treasure collection; the Shepherd Girl
tapestry  to  the  water-transport  club; the  Aubusson, Tekke and Khorassan
carpets  to the Ministry of  Foreign  Trade. The  bedroom suite went  to the
hunters' trade-union; the  dining-room suite to the Stargorod branch of  the
chief tea  administration.  The walnut suite was divided up. The round table
and one chair  went  to the pensioners' home, a curved-back settee was given
to the housing division (it's still  in the  hall, and  the bastards spilled
grease all over the covering); one chair went to Comrade Gritsatsuyev as  an
imperialist war invalid, at his own request, granted by Comrade Burkin, head
of the housing division. Ten chairs went  to Moscow to the furniture museum,
in accordance with  a circular sent round by the Ministry of Education . . .
Chinese vases, marked .. ."
"Well done!" said Ostap jubilantly. "That's more  like it! Now it would
be nice to see the actual orders."
"In  a  moment.  We'll  come to the orders in a moment.  Letter  V, No.
48238."
The old man went up to the cupboard  and, standing on tiptoe, took down
the appropriate bundle.
"Here you  are.  All  your  father's  furniture. Do you  want  all  the
orders?"
"What would I do with  all of  them? Just something to  remind me of my
childhood. The drawing-room suite . . . I remember how I used to play on the
Khorassan carpet in the drawing-room, looking at the Shepherd Boy tapestry .
.  .  I  had  a fine time,  a  wonderful childhood. So  let's stick  to  the
drawing-room suite, dad."
Lovingly the old man began to open up the bundle of green  counterfoils
and searched for the orders in question. He took  out five  of them. One was
for ten chairs, two for one chair each, one for the round table, and one for
tapestry.
"lust  see. They're all  in order. You know where each item is. All the
counterfoils  have  the  addresses  on  them  and  also  the  receiver's own
signature.  So no one can back out  if anything happens. Perhaps you'd  like
Madame Popov's furniture? It's very good and also made by Hambs."
But Ostap was motivated solely  by love for his parents; he grabbed the
orders, stuffed them in the depths of his pocket  and declined the furniture
belonging to General Popov's wife.