Золотой теленок / The Golden Calf

After two years of working in a Moscow garage, he bought a used car; it was so ancient that its appearance on the market could only be explained by the closing of an automotive museum. Kozlevich paid 190 rubles for this curiosity. For some reason, the car came with a fake palm tree in a green pot. He had to buy the palm tree as well. The tree was passable, but the car needed plenty of work. He searched flea markets for missing parts, patched up the seats, replaced the entire electric system, and, as a final touch, painted the car bright lizard green. The car’s breed was impossible to determine, but Adam claimed it was a Lorraine-Dietrich. As proof of that, he attached a brass plate with the Lorraine-Dietrich logo to the radiator. He was ready to start a private taxi business, which had been Adam’s dream for quite some time.

The day when Adam introduced his creation to the public at a taxi stand was a sad day for private taxi drivers. One hundred and twenty small, black Renault taxicabs, that looked like Browning pistols, were introduced to the streets of Moscow by the authorities. Kozlevich didn’t even attempt to compete with them. He put the palm tree in the Versailles cabdrivers’ tearoom, for safekeeping, and went to work in the provinces.

Arbatov, which totally lacked automotive transport, was much to his liking, so he decided to stay there for good.

Kozlevich imagined how hard, cheerfully, and, above all, honestly he would toil in the field of cabs for hire. He pictured himself on early arctic-cold mornings, waiting at the station for the train from Moscow. Wrapped in a thick ruddy-colored fur coat, his aviator goggles raised to his forehead, he jovially offers cigarettes to the porters. Somewhere behind him, the freezing coachmen are huddling. They cry from the cold and shiver in their thick dark-blue capes. And then the station bell begins to ring. It’s a sign that the train has arrived. Passengers walk out onto the station square and stop in front of the car, pleasantly surprised. They didn’t think that the idea of the taxi had reached the boondocks of Arbatov. Sounding the horn, Kozlevich whisks his passengers to the Peasants’ Hostel. There’s enough work for the whole day, and everyone is happy to take advantage of his services. Kozlevich and his faithful Lorraine-Dietrich invariably participate in all of the town’s weddings, sightseeing trips, and other special occasions. Summers are particularly busy. On Sundays, whole families go to the country in Adam’s car. Children laugh foolishly, scarves and ribbons flutter in the wind, women chatter merrily, fathers look at the driver’s leather-clad back with respect and ask him about automotive developments in the United States of North America. For example, is it true that Ford buys himself a new car every day?

That’s how Kozlevich pictured his blissful new life in Arbatov. The reality, however, quickly destroyed Adam’s castle in the air, with all its turrets, drawbridges, weathervanes, and standards.

The first blow was inflicted by the train schedule. Fast trains passed through Arbatov without making a stop, picking up single line tokens and dropping express mail on the move. Slow trains arrived only twice a week. For the most part, they only brought insignificant people: peasants and shoemakers with knapsacks, boot trees, and petitions to the local authorities. As a rule, these people did not use taxis. There were no sightseeing trips or special occasions, and nobody hired Kozlevich for weddings. People in Arbatov were accustomed to using horse-drawn carriages for weddings. On such occasions, the coachmen would braid paper roses and chrysanthemums into the horses’ manes. The older men, who were in charge of the festivities, loved it.

On the other hand, there were plenty of outings, but those were very different from the ones Adam had pictured. No children, no fluttering scarves, no merry chatter.

On the very first evening, when the dim kerosene street lamps were already lit, Adam was approached by four men. He had spent the whole day pointlessly waiting on Holy Cooperative Square. The men stared at the car for a long time without saying a word. Then one of them, a hunchback, asked uncertainly:

“Can anybody take a ride?”

“Yes, anybody,” replied Kozlevich, surprised by the timidity of the citizens of Arbatov.

“Five rubles an hour.”

The men whispered among themselves. The chauffeur heard some strange sighs and a few words: “Why don’t we do it after the meeting, Comrades…? Would that be appropriate…? One twenty-five per person is not too much… Why would it be inappropriate…?”

And so for the first time, the spacious car took a few locals into its upholstered lap. For a few minutes, the passengers were silent, overwhelmed by the speed, the smell of gasoline, and the whistling wind. Then, as if having a vague premonition, they started quietly singing: “The time of our lives, it’s fast as waves…” Kozlevich shifted into third gear. The sombre silhouette of a boarded-up roadside stand flew by, and the car tore out into the fields on the moonlit highway.

“Every day brings the grave ever closer to us,” crooned the passengers plaintively. They felt sorry for themselves, sorry that they had never gone to university and had never sung student songs. They belted out the chorus rather loudly:

“Let’s have a glass, a little one, tra-la-la-la, tra-la-la-la.”

“Stop!” shouted the hunchback suddenly. “Turn around! I can’t take it any more!”

Back in town, the riders picked up a large number of bottles that were filled with clear liquid, as well as a broad-shouldered woman from somewhere. Out in the fields, they set up a picnic, ate dinner with vodka, and danced the polka without music.

Exhausted from the night’s adventures, Kozlevich spent the next day dozing off behind the wheel at his stand. Towards evening, the same gang showed up, already tipsy. They climbed into the car and drove like mad through the fields surrounding the city all night long. The third night saw a repeat of the whole thing. The nighttime feasts of the fun-loving gang, headed by the hunchback, went on for two weeks in a row. The joys of automotive recreation affected Adam’s clients in a most peculiar way: in the dark, their pale and swollen faces resembled pillows. The hunchback, with a piece of sausage hanging from his mouth, looked like a vampire.

They grew anxious and, at the height of the fun, occasionally wept. One night, the adventurous hunchback arrived at the taxi stand in a horse-drawn carriage with a big sack of rice. At sunrise, they took the rice to a village, swapped it for moonshine, and didn’t bother going back to the city. They sat on haystacks and drank with the peasants, hugging them and swearing eternal friendship. At night, they set up bonfires and wept more pitifully than ever.

The following morning was gray and dull, and the railroad-affiliated Lineman Co-op closed for inventory. The hunchback was its director, his fun-loving friends members of the board and the control commission. The auditors were bitterly disappointed to discover that the store had no flour, no pepper, no coarse soap, no water troughs, no textiles, and no rice. The shelves, the counters, the boxes, and the barrels had all been completely emptied. A pair of enormous hip boots, size fifteen with yellow glued-leather soles, towered in the middle of the store. A National cash register, its lady-like nickel-plated bosom covered with numerous keys, sat in a glass booth. That was all that was left. Kozlevich, for his part, received a subpoena from a police detective; the driver was wanted as a witness in the case of the Lineman Co-op.

The hunchback and his friends never showed up again, and the green car stood idle for three days.

All subsequent passengers, like the first bunch, would appear under the cover of darkness. They would also start with an innocent drive to the country, but their thoughts would turn to vodka after the first half-mile. Apparently, the people of Arbatov could not imagine staying sober in an automobile. They clearly regarded Adam’s vehicle as a refuge for sinful pleasures, where one ought to behave recklessly, make loud obscene noises, and generally live one’s life to the fullest.

Kozlevich finally understood why the men who walked past his stand during the day winked at one another and smiled wryly.

Things were very different from what Adam had envisioned. At night, he was whizzing past the woods with his headlights on, listening to the passengers’ drunken fussing and hollering behind him. During the day, in a stupor from lack of sleep, he sat in detectives’ offices giving statements. For some reason, the citizens of Arbatov paid for their high living with money that belonged to the state, society, or the co-ops. Against his will, Kozlevich was once again deeply entangled with the Criminal code, this time its Part III, the part that informatively discusses white-collar crimes.

The trials soon commenced. In all of them, the main witness for the prosecution was Adam Kozlevich. His truthful accounts knocked the defendants off their feet, and they confessed everything, choking on tears and snot. He ruined countless organizations. His last victim was a branch of the regional film studio, which was shooting a historical movie, Stenka Razin and the Princess, in Arbatov. The entire staff of the branch was locked up for six years, while the film, which was of legal interest only, joined the pirate boots from the Lineman Co-op at the material evidence exhibit.

After that, Adam’s business crashed. People avoided the green vehicle like the plague. They made wide circles around Holy Cooperative Square, where Kozlevich had erected a tall sign: AUTOMOBILE FOR HIRE. He earned nothing at all for several months and lived off the savings from earlier nocturnal rides.

Then he had to make a few sacrifices. He painted a white sign on the car’s door that said LET’S RIDE! and lowered the fare from five to three rubles an hour. The sign looked rather enticing to him, but people resisted anyway. He would drive slowly around town, approaching office buildings and yelling into open windows:

“The air is so fresh! Why not go for a ride?”

Officials would stick their heads out and yell back over the clatter of the Underwood typewriters:

“Go take a ride yourself, you hangman!”

“Hangman?” Kozlevich asked, on the verge of tears.

“Of course you are,” answered the officials, “you’d put us all in the slammer.”

“Then why don’t you pay with your own money?” asked the driver. “For the rides?”

At this point the officials would exchange funny looks and shut the windows. They thought it was ridiculous to use their own money to pay for car rides.

The owner of LET’S RIDE! was at loggerheads with the entire city. He no longer exchanged greetings with anybody. He became edgy and mean-spirited. Seeing an office worker in a long Caucasus-style shirt with puffy sleeves, he would drive up and yell, laughing bitterly:

“Thieves! Just wait, I’m going to set all of you up! Article 109!”

The office worker shuddered, pulled up his silver-studded belt (that looked like it belonged on a draft horse), pretended that the shouting had nothing to do with him, and started walking faster. But vindictive Kozlevich would continue to follow him and goad the enemy by monotonously reading from a pocket edition of the Criminal code, as if from a prayer book:

“Misappropriation of funds, valuables, or other property by a person in a position of authority who oversees such property as part of his daily duties shall be punished…”

The worker would flee in panic, his derriere, flattened by long hours in an office chair, bouncing as he ran.

“…by imprisonment for up to three years!” yelled Kozlevich after him.

But this brought him only moral satisfaction. Financially, he was in deep trouble; the savings were all but gone. He had to do something fast. He could not continue like this.

One day, Adam was sitting in his car in his usual state of anxiety, staring at the silly AUTOMOBILE FOR HIRE sign with disgust. He had an inkling that living honestly hadn’t worked out for him, that the automotive messiah had come too early, when citizens were not yet ready to accept him. Kozlevich was so deeply immersed in these depressing thoughts that at first he didn’t even notice the two young men who had been admiring his car for some time.

“A unique design,” one of them finally said, “the dawn of the automotive industry. Do you see, Balaganov, what can be made out of a simple Singer sewing machine? A few small adjustments – and you get a lovely harvester for the collective farm.”

“Get lost,” said Kozlevich grimly.

“What do you mean, ‘get lost’? Then why did you decorate your thresher with this inviting LET’S RIDE! sign? What if my friend and I wish to take a business trip? What if a ride is exactly what we’re looking for?”

The automotive martyr’s face was lit by a smile – the first of the entire Arbatov period of his life. He jumped out of the car and promptly started the engine, which knocked heavily.

“Get in, please” he said.

“Where to?” “This time, nowhere,” answered Balaganov, “we’ve got no money. What can you do, Comrade driver, poverty…”

“Get in anyway!” cried Kozlevich excitedly. “I’ll drive you for free! You’re not going to drink? You’re not going to dance naked in the moonlight? Let’s ride!”

“All right, we’ll accept your kind invitation,” said Ostap, settling himself in next to the driver. “I see you’re a nice man. But what makes you think that we have any interest in dancing naked?”

“They all do it here,” replied the driver, turning onto the main street, “those dangerous felons.”

He was dying to share his sorrows with somebody. It would have been best, of course, to tell his misfortunes to his kindly, wrinkle-faced mother. She would have felt for him. But Madame Kozlevich had passed away a long time ago – from grief, when she found out that her son Adam was gaining notoriety as a thief. And so the driver told his new passengers the whole story of the downfall of the city of Arbatov, in whose ruins his helpless green automobile was buried.

“Where can I go now?” concluded Kozlevich forlornly. “What am I supposed to do?”

Ostap paused, gave his red-headed companion a significant look, and said:

“All your troubles are due to the fact that you are a truth-seeker. You’re just a lamb, a failed Baptist. I am saddened to encounter such pessimism among drivers. You have a car, but you don’t know where to go. We’re in a worse bind: we don’t have a car, but we know where we want to go. Want to come with us?”

“Where?” asked the driver.

“To Chernomorsk,” answered Ostap. “We have a small private matter to settle down there. There’d be work for you, too. People in Chernomorsk appreciate antiques and enjoy riding in them. Come.”

At first Adam was just smiling, like a widow with nothing to look forward to in this life. But Bender gave it his eloquent best. He drew striking perspectives for the perplexed driver and quickly colored them in blue and pink.

“And here in Arbatov, you’ve got nothing to lose but your spare chains. You won’t be starving on the road, I will take care of that. Gas is yours, ideas ours.”

Kozlevich stopped the car and, still resisting, said glumly:

“I don’t have much gas.”

“Enough for thirty miles?”

“Enough for fifty.”

“In that case, there’s nothing to worry about. I have already informed you that I have no shortage of ideas and plans. Exactly forty miles from here, a large barrel of aviation fuel will be waiting for you right on the road. Do you fancy aviation fuel?”

“I do,” answered Kozlevich, blushing.

Life suddenly seemed easy and fun. He was prepared to go to Chernomorsk immediately.

“And this fuel,” continued Ostap, “will cost you absolutely nothing. Moreover, they’ll be begging you to take it.”

“What fuel?” whispered Balaganov. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Ostap disdainfully studied the orange freckles spread across his half-brother’s face and answered in an equally low voice:

“People who don’t read newspapers have no right to live. I’m sparing you only because I still hope to re-educate you.”

He did not explain the connection between reading newspapers and the large barrel of fuel allegedly sitting on the road.

“I now declare the grand Arbatov-Chernomorsk high-speed rally open,” said Ostap solemnly. “I appoint myself the captain of the rally. The driver of the vehicle will be… what’s your last name? Adam Kozlevich. Citizen Balaganov is confirmed as the rally mechanic, with additional duties as Girl Friday. One more thing, Kozlevich: you have to paint over this LET’S RIDE! sign right away. We don’t need to attract any attention.”

Two hours later the car, with a freshly painted dark green spot on the side, slowly climbed out of the garage and drove through the streets of Arbatov for the last time. Adam’s eyes sparkled hopefully. Next to him sat Balaganov, who was diligently carrying out his role as the rally’s mechanic by thoroughly polishing the car’s brass with a piece of cloth. The captain of the rally sat behind them, leaning into the ruddy-colored seat and eyeing his staff with satisfaction.

“Adam!” he shouted over the engine’s rumble, “what’s your buggy’s name?”

“Lorraine-Dietrich,” answered Kozlevich.

“What kind of a name is that? A car, like a naval ship, ought to have a proper name. Your Lorraine-Dietrich is remarkably fast and incredibly graceful. I therefore propose to name it the Gnu Antelope. Any objections? Unanimous.”

The green Antelope, all of its parts creaking, sped down the outer lane of the Boulevard of Prodigies and flew out onto the market square.

An odd scene greeted the crew of the Antelope on the square. A man with a white goose under his arm was running from the square, in the direction of the highway. He held a hard straw hat on his head with his left hand, and he was being chased by a large howling crowd. The man glanced back frequently, and there was an expression of terror on his decent-looking actor’s face.

“That’s Panikovsky!” cried Balaganov.

“The second phase of stealing a goose,” remarked Ostap coldly. “The third phase comes after the culprit is apprehended. It is accompanied by painful blows.”

Panikovsky apparently knew that the third phase was coming. He was running as fast as he could. He was so frightened that he kept holding on to the goose, which irritated his pursuers to no end.

“Article 116,” recited Kozlevich from memory. “Covert or overt theft of large domestic animals from persons engaged in agriculture or animal husbandry.”

Balaganov burst out laughing. He loved the thought that the violator of the pact would finally receive his due punishment.

The car cut through the noisy crowd and drove onto the highway.

“Help me!” yelled out Panikovsky as the car caught up with him.

“Not today,” said Balaganov, hanging over the side.

The car shrouded Panikovsky with clouds of crimson dust.

“Take me with you!” screamed Panikovsky, desperately trying to keep up with the car.

“I am good!”

The voices of the individual pursuers blended into a roar of disapproval.

“Shall we take the bastard?” enquired Ostap.

“No, don’t,” said Balaganov harshly, “that’ll teach him to break pacts.”

But Ostap had already made the decision.

“Drop the bird!” he yelled to Panikovsky; then he turned to the driver and added quietly, “Dead slow.”

Panikovsky immediately obeyed. The goose got up from the ground looking displeased, scratched itself, and started walking back to town as if nothing had happened.

“Get in,” invited Ostap. “What the hell. But don’t sin any more, or I’ll rip your arms out of their sockets.”

Panikovsky grabbed the edge of the car, then leaned into it and, beating the air with his legs, rolled himself inside, like a swimmer into a boat. He fell to the floor, his stiff cuffs knocking loudly.

“Full speed ahead,” ordered Ostap. “Our deliberations continue.”

Balaganov squeezed the rubber bulb, and the brass horn produced the cheerful strains of an old-fashioned Brazilian tango that cut off abruptly:

The Maxixe is fun to dance.

Ta-ra-ta…

The Maxixe is fun to dance.

Ta-ra-ta…

And the Antelope tore out into the wilderness, towards the barrel of aviation fuel.

Chapter 4. A plain-looking suitcase

A man without a hat walked out of the small gate of building number sixteen, his head bowed. He wore gray canvas pants, leather sandals without socks, like a monk, and a white collarless shirt. Stepping onto the flat, bluish stones of the sidewalk, he stopped and said quietly to himself:

“Today is Friday. That means I have to go to the train station again.”

Having uttered these words, the man in sandals quickly looked over his shoulder. He had a hunch that a man, wearing the impenetrable expression of a spy, was standing behind him. But Lesser Tangential Street was completely empty.

The June morning was just beginning to take shape. Acacia trees were gently trembling and dropping cold metallic dew on the flat stones. Little birds were chirping some cheerful nonsense. The heavy molten sea blazed at the end of the street below, beyond the roofs. Young dogs, looking around sadly and making tapping sounds with their nails, were climbing onto trash cans. The hour of the street sweepers had ended, and the hour of the milk delivery women hadn’t started yet.

It was that time, between five and six in the morning, when the street sweepers, having swung their bristly brooms enough, returned to their shacks, and the city is light, clean, and quiet, like a state bank. At moments like this, one feels like crying and wants to believe that yogurt is indeed tastier and healthier than vodka. But one can already hear the distant rumble of the milk delivery women, who are getting off commuter trains with their cans. They will rush into the city and bicker with housewives at back doors. Factory workers with lunch bags will appear for a brief moment and then immediately disappear behind factory gates. Smoke will start billowing from the stacks. And then, jumping angrily on their night stands, myriad alarm clocks will start ringing their hearts out (those of the Paul Buhre brand a bit quieter, those from the Precision Mechanics State Trust a bit louder), and half-awake office workers will start bleating and falling off their high single beds. The hour of the milk delivery women will be over, and the hour of the office dwellers will begin.

But it was still early, and the clerks were still asleep under their ficus. The man in sandals walked through the entire city, seeing almost no one on the way. He walked under the acacias, which performed certain useful functions in Chernomorsk: some had dark blue mailboxes that were emblazoned with the postal logo (an envelope with a lightning bolt) hanging on them, others had metal water bowls, for dogs, attached to them with chains.

The man in sandals arrived at the Seaside Station just when the milk delivery women were leaving the building. After a few painful encounters with their iron shoulders, the man approached the luggage room and handed over a receipt. The attendant glanced at the receipt – with the unnatural seriousness that is unique to railroad personnel – and promptly tossed a suitcase to him. For his part, the man opened a small leather wallet, sighed, took out a ten-kopeck coin, and put it on the counter, which was made of six old rails that had been polished by innumerable elbows.

Back on the square in front of the station, the man in sandals put the suitcase down on the pavement, looked it over carefully, and even touched the small metal lock. It was a plain-looking suitcase that had been slapped together from a few wooden planks and covered with man-made fabric. If this kind of suitcase belongs to a younger passenger, it usually contains cotton Sketch socks, two spare shirts, a hairnet, some underwear, a brochure entitled The Goals of the Young Communist League in the Countryside, and three squished boiled eggs. Plus, there’s always a roll of dirty laundry wrapped in the newspaper Economic Life and tucked in the corner. Older passengers use this kind of suitcase to carry a full suit and a separate pair of pants (made of “Odessa Centennial” checkered fabric), a pair of suspenders, a pair of closed-back slippers, a bottle of eau-de-cologne, and a white Marseilles blanket. It should be noted that in these cases there’s also something wrapped in Economic Life and tucked in the corner, except that instead of dirty laundry it’s a pale boiled chicken.