The Twelve Chairs (12 page)

BREATHE DEEPER: YOU'RE EXCITED!
On the morning of May Day, Victor Polesov, consumed by his usual thirst
for activity, hurried out into  the  street and  headed  for the  centre. At
first he was unable to find any suitable outlet for his talents, since there
were still few people about  and  the reviewing  stands, guarded  by mounted
militiamen,  were empty. By  nine o'clock, however, bands had begun purring,
wheezing,  and  whistling in  various  parts of  the town.  Housewives  came
running out of their gates.
A column of musicians'-union  officials in soft collars somehow strayed
into the middle of the railway workers' contingent, getting in their way and
upsetting everyone.
A  lorry disguised as a green plywood locomotive with the serial letter
"S"  kept running into the musicians  from behind, eliciting shouts from the
bowels  of the locomotive in  the direction of the  toilers of  the oboe and
flute:
"Where's your supervisor? You're not supposed to be on Red Army Street!
Can't you see you're causing a traffic jam?"
At  this  point, to  the  misfortune of the  musicians,  Victor Polesov
intervened.
"That's right! You're supposed to turn into the blind alley here.  They
can't even organize a parade! Scandalous!"
The children were riding in lorries belonging to the Stargorod communal
services   and  the  grain-mill-and-lift-construction  administration.   The
youngest  ones stood at  the sides  of the lorry and the bigger  ones in the
middle. The junior army waved paper flags and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
It was crowded, noisy, and  hot. Every  minute there  were bottlenecks,  and
every  other  minute  they  were  cleared.  To  pass  the  time  during  the
bottlenecks the  crowd tossed old men and activists in  the air. The old men
wailed  in  squeaky voices,  while the  activists sailed  up and  down  with
serious faces in silence. One merry column of  people  mistook Polesov for a
supervisor as he was trying to squeeze  through them and began tossing  him.
Polesov thrashed about like Punchinello.
Then came an effigy of Neville Chamberlain, being beaten on his top-hat
with  a cardboard hammer by a worker possessing a model anatomical physique.
This was followed by a truck carrying  three members  of the Communist Youth
in  tails  and   white  gloves.  They   kept  looking   at  the  crowd  with
embarrassment.
"Basil!" shouted someone from the pavement,  "you bourgeois ! Give back
those braces!"
Girls  were   singing.  Alchen  was  marching   along  in  a  group  of
social-security  workers with a  large red  bow on his chest. As he  went he
crooned in a nasal voice:
From the forests of Siberia
To the British Sea,
There's no one superior
To the Red Army. . . .
At  a  given  command,  gymnasts  disjointedly  shouted  out  something
unintelligible. Everything walked, rode and marched to  the  new tram  depot
from where  at exactly one  o'clock the first electric tram in Stargorod was
due to move off.
No one  knew  exactly  when  the construction  of the tramline had been
begun. Some time back in 1920, when  voluntary Saturday work was introduced,
railway workers  and  ropemakers had marched to Gusishe to the accompaniment
of music  and spent the whole day digging  holes. They dug a great number of
large, deep holes.  A comrade in  an engineer's cap  had run about among the
diggers, followed by a foreman carrying coloured  poles. Work had  continued
at the  same spot the next Saturday. Two holes dug in the wrong place had to
be  filled in again.  The comrade  descended on the  foreman and demanded an
explanation. Then fresh holes had been dug that were even bigger and deeper.
Next,  the bricks  were delivered and  the real  builders arrived. They  set
about laying the foundations, but then everything  quieted down. The comrade
in the engineer's cap still  appeared now and then at the deserted  building
site and wandered round and round the brick-lined pit, muttering:
"Cost accounting!"
He tapped the foundations  with a stick and then hurried home, covering
his frozen ears with his hands. The engineer's name was Treukhov.
The idea of the tram depot, the  construction of  which ceased abruptly
at the  foundation stage, was conceived by Treukhov in 1912, but the Tsarist
town council had rejected the project. Two years later Treukhov  stormed the
town council  again, but the  war prevented any headway. Then the Revolution
interfered, and  now the  New  Economic Plan,  cost accounting,  and capital
recovery were the obstacles. The foundations were overgrown with flowers  in
the summer, and in the winter children turned them into a snow-slide.
Treukhov dreamed  of great  things. He was sick and tired of working in
the town-improvement department of the Stargorod communal services, tired of
mending  the kerbs,  and tired of estimating the  cost of hoardings. But the
great  things  did  not  pan  out. The  tramline  project,  re-submitted for
consideration, became  bogged down at the higher instances of the provincial
administration; it was approved by one and rejected by another, passed on to
the  capital, regardless of  approval or rejection,  became covered in dust,
and no money was forthcoming.
"It's barbarous!" Treukhov shouted  at his wife. "No money, indeed! But
they have enough money to pay for cab drivers and for carting merchandise to
the station!  The  Stargorod's cab-drivers would rob their own grandmothers!
It's a pillagers' monopoly, of course. Just try  carrying your own stuff  to
the station! A tramline would pay for itself in six years."
His withered moustache drooped  angrily, and his snub-nosed face worked
convulsively. He took some blueprints out of the desk and showed them to his
wife for  the thousandth time. They  were plans  for a  terminus,  depot and
twelve tramcar routes.
"To hell with twelve routes! They can wait. But three! Three! Stargorod
will choke without them!"
Treukhov snorted and went into the kitchen to chop wood. He did all the
household  chores  himself. He  designed and built a cradle for the baby and
also constructed a washing-machine. For a  while he washed the clothes in it
himself, explaining to his wife how to work the machine. At least a fifth of
Treukhov's salary went on subscriptions to foreign  technical literature. To
make ends meet he gave up smoking.
He  took  his  project to  Gavrilin,  the  new chief of  the  Stargorod
communal  services who had  been  transferred from Samarkand. The new chief,
deeply tanned  by  the  Tunisian sun, listened  to Treukhov  for some  time,
though without particular attention, and finally said:
"In Samarkand, you know, we don't need trams. Everyone rides donkeys. A
donkey  costs three roubles-dirt cheap-and it  can carry about three hundred
pounds. Just a little donkey; it's amazing!"
"But  that's  Asia,"  said  Treukhov angrily.  "A  donkey  costs  three
roubles, but you need thirty roubles a year to feed it."
"And  how many times  do you think you can  travel  on  your  trams for
thirty roubles? Three hundred. And that's not even every day for a year."
"Then you'd better send for some of your donkeys," shouted Treukhov and
rushed out of the office, slamming  the door. Whenever he  met Treukhov from
that time on, the new chief would ask derisively: "Well, then, shall we send
for donkeys or build a tramway?"
Gavrilin's face was like a smoothly-peeled turnip. His eyes were filled
with cunning.  About two months later  he sent for the engineer and said  to
him earnestly:
"I have a  little plan. One thing is  clear,  though; there's no money,
and  a tramline is not like a donkey-it can't  be bought for three  roubles.
We'll  have  to  get  some  funds.  What  practical  solution  is  there?  A
shareholding  company?  What else? A loan  repayable with interest! How long
will it take for a tramline to pay for itself? "
"Six years from the opening of the first three routes."
"Well, let's say  ten years  then. Now,  the shareholding company.  Who
will  buy the shares? The food co-operatives and the-central  union of dairy
co-operatives.  Do  the  ropemakers  need  trams? Yes, they do.  We will  be
dispatching  freight cars to the railway station.  So that's the ropemakers.
The Ministry of Transport  may  contribute something,  and also the province
executive committee. That's  definite.  And once we've got things going, the
State Bank and the Commercial Bank will  give  us loans. So that's my little
plan. It is going  to  be discussed at  the executive  committee  meeting on
Friday, and if they agree, the rest is up to you."
Treukhov stayed up till the early hours, excitedly  washing clothes and
explaining   to  his   wife  the   advantages  of  trams  over   horse-drawn
transportation.
The decision taken  on the Friday was favourable. But that was when the
trouble  started. It proved very difficult to form  a shareholding  company.
The  Ministry  of  Transport  kept  changing  its  mind   about  becoming  a
shareholder. The food co-operatives tried their best to avoid taking fifteen
per cent of the shares and only wanted to take ten per cent. The shares were
finally distributed, though not without a few skirmishes. Gavrilin was sent,
for  by  the  province control  commission  and  reprimanded  for using  his
position to exert pressure. But everything  came out all  right, and then it
was only a question of beginning.
"Well, Comrade Treukhov," said  Gavrilin, "get  cracking! Do you  think
you'll manage? Well and good. It's not like buying a donkey."
Treukhov immersed himself  in  his work.  The great things which he had
dreamed   of  for  years  had   finally  arrived.  Estimates  were  made,  a
construction programme drawn up, and the materials ordered. But difficulties
arose where they were least expected. It was found that there were no cement
experts in Stargorod, so they had to  be brought in from Leningrad. Gavrilin
tried to force the pace, but the plants could not deliver  the machinery for
eighteen months,  even though it was actually  needed within  a year, at the
latest. A threat to order the  machinery from abroad, however, brought about
the  required  effect.  Then  there were minor  difficulties.  First it  was
impossible to  find shaped iron  of the right size, then unseasoned sleepers
were  received  instead  of  seasoned  ones. The  right  ones  were  finally
delivered,  but  Treukhov, who had gone personally to  the  seasoning plant,
rejected sixty per cent of the sleepers. There were defects in the cast-iron
parts,  and  the timber  was  damp.  Gavrilin made  frequent  visits  to the
building sites in his ancient, wheezing Fiat and had rows with Treukhov.
While  the terminus  and  depot  were  being  erected, the citizens  of
Stargorod merely made jokes.
In  the  Stargorod Truth the tram story was reported by the "Prince  of
Denmark",  writer of humorous pieces, known to the whole  town under the pen
name of  "Flywheel".  Not  less than three times  a week, in a long account,
Flywheel  expressed his  irritation at the slowness of the construction. The
newspaper's third column -which used to bound with such sceptical  headlines
as "No sign of  a club", "Around the weak points", "Inspections  are needed,
but what is the point of shine and long tails?" "Good and . . . bad",  "What
we  like and  what  we don't",  "Deal with  the saboteurs of education", and
"It's  time to  put an  end to red tape"-began to present readers  with such
sunny and encouraging headings  at the top  of Flywheel's reports as "How we
are living and how we  are building", "Giant  will soon start work", "Modest
builder", and so on, in that vein.
Treukhov used to open the newspaper with a shudder and, feeling disgust
for the brotherhood of writers, read such cheerful lines about himself as:
. . . I'm climbing over the rafters with the wind whistling in my ears.
Above me is the invisible builder  of our powerful tramway, that  thin,
pug-nosed man in a shabby cap with crossed hammers.
It  brings  to mind Pushkin's poem: "There  he  stood,  full  of  great
thoughts, on the bank. . . ."
I approach him. Not a breath of air. The rafters do not stir.
I ask him:  How  is the work progressing? Engineer Treukhov's ugly face
brightens up. . . .
He  shakes my hand and says: "Seventy per  cent of the target  has been
reached." [The article ended like this]:
He shakes my hand  in farewell.  The rafters  creak behind me. Builders
scurry to and fro. Who could  forget the  feverish activity of the  building
site or the homely face of our builder?
FLYWHEEL
The only thing  that saved Treukhov was that he had no time to read the
papers and usually managed to miss Comrade Flywheel's jottings.
On one occasion  Treukhov  could not restrain himself,  and  he wrote a
carefully worded and malicious reply.
"Of course [he wrote], you can  call  a bolt a transmission, but people
who do so know nothing  about building. And  I would like  to  point out  to
Comrade  Flywheel that the only  time rafters creak is when the  building is
about  to fall down. To speak  of  rafters in this way  is much the same  as
claiming that a 'cello can give birth to children.
"Yours, [etc.]"
After that the indefatigable prince stopped visiting the building site,
but his reports continued to grace  the  third column, standing  out sharply
against  a background of such  prosaic  headlines as "15,000 Roubles Growing
Rusty", "Housing Hitches",  "Materials Are  Weeping",  and  "Curiosities and
Tears".
The construction was nearing its end. Rails were welded by the thermite
method,  and  they  stretched,  without   gaps,  from  the  station  to  the
slaughterhouse, and from the market to the cemetery.
In the beginning it was intended to time the opening of the tramway for
the Ninth Anniversary of  the October Revolution, but the car-building plant
was  unable  to supply the cars by  the promised  date and made  some excuse
about  "fittings".  The opening had  to be postponed until May Day. By  this
date everything was definitely ready.
Wandering about,  the concessionaires reached Gusishe at the  same time
as the  processions. The  whole of  Stargorod was there.  The new depot  was
decorated  with  garlands  of  evergreen;  the flags flapped, and  the  wind
rippled the banners. A mounted militiaman galloped after an ice-cream seller
who had somehow got into the circular space cordoned off by railway workers.
A  rickety  platform, as  yet empty, with a  public-address system,  towered
between the two gates of the depot. Delegates began mounting the platform. A
combined band  of communal-service workers and ropemakers was trying out its
lungs. The drum lay on the ground.
A  Moscow  correspondent  in  a shaggy  cap wandered around inside  the
depot, which  contained ten light-green trams  numbered 701  to  710. He was
looking for  the  chief engineer in order to ask him a  few questions on the
subject of tramlines. Although the correspondent had already prepared in his
mind  the  report  on  the opening,  with  a  summary  of  the speeches,  he
conscientiously continued  his search, his only  complaint being the absence
of a bar. The crowds sang, yelled, and  chewed sunflower seeds while waiting
for the railway to be opened.