Monumental Propaganda (11 page)

26

Of all the leisure-time amusements available to a Party man of substantial resources, the regional Party committee secretary Nikolai Ivanovich Gryzlov had three favorites: hunting, fishing and the bathhouse. On Saturday he set out for the Aspens hunting enterprise and spent the night there. In the evening he steamed himself for a while. Two Komsomol girls gave him a good lashing with bundles of twigs, lathered him with soap, rinsed him off, wrapped him in a sheet, brought him beer and gave him other kinds of satisfaction, and then afterward sang a few songs with him. In the morning there was hunting. And it went well. Gryzlov bagged two ducks and a wild boar. The same Komsomol girls prepared a splendid lunch. “Capital” salad made with fresh vegetables, solyanka soup with mushrooms and olives, Peking-style duck with cranberry jelly, and there was vodka in a carafe straight from the fridge. Ooh! Aah! Eeh! said Gryzlov, staring at all this abundance, but he said it in his head, because a leading Party comrade could not have human emotions, and if he still had them, he would take good care not to display them in front of subordinates. Even in the bathhouse, when the girls were giving Gryzlov various kinds of satisfaction, he had accepted their exertions with a face of stone and the same expression he wore when he was sitting fully dressed in the presidium. While they were attending to him, the girls could never tell whether he had recourse to their services for the sake of pleasure or because he thought it was expected of him. He was a secretive comrade, nailed as tight shut as a coffin.

But after he downed his first glass of vodka, he gave way and grunted out loud, and he'd just sunk his fork into the Capital salad when there was a sudden rumbling and clattering outside—a special courier had turned up on a motorbike with the minutes and resolutions from the district Party conferences in the region. Nikolai Ivanovich signed for receipt of the papers and began leafing through them as he sipped his solyanka. He leafed through them lazily, peeping at the end of each one, knowing in advance what he would find. The communists of the district had been uplifted and inspired by the news of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU; they had condemned the pitiful anti-Party group consisting of the coms. and their collaborator. Everywhere at the end were the words “Passed unanimously.” The text after the resolution that had arrived from Dolgov also said it had been passed unanimously. But the wording was slightly different: “Passed unanimously with a single abstention on the part of Com. Revkina.” When he read this phrase, Gryzlov's jaw dropped so far that his solyanka ran back into his plate. He lost his appetite. Without even touching his Peking-style duck, Gryzlov went straight to the director of the enterprise and called Nechaev at home from the phone in the director's office. Nechaev was also just sitting down to his lunch and had already tucked his napkin into his collar when his wife called him to the telephone with a fearful whisper: “Gryzlov.”

Nechaev took the receiver, and realizing that Gryzlov would not call on Sunday without good reason, he said in a formal voice: “Nechaev speaking.”

Expecting the response to be a greeting or an inquiry into how things were going, but without asking any questions, Gryzlov said immediately: “It seems you have your own opposition in the district.”

Meaning, of course, Aglaya Revkina. And when Nechaev began talking about Aglaya's merits and the need to work things out with her, Gryzlov remarked sharply: “In our Party, my dear friend, we don't work things out with the opposition, we exterminate them.”

And without waiting for a response, he put down the phone.

That was when it all started. Nechaev sent his wife to fetch Porosyaninov, who was soon located at the hairdresser's. Believing that he had been invited to lunch, Porosyaninov promptly turned up with a bottle of Ambassador vodka and a stock of fresh jokes to amuse his boss.

As he wiped his feet thoroughly in the doorway, he said: “Yesterday I heard this joke about a goat and a magpie. This magpie was flying . . .”

“Don't bother wiping your feet, just turn around and go,” Nechaev interrupted him grimly. “Tomorrow we're excluding Revkina. I'm instructing you to convene the Party bureau, and make sure there's a full quorum.

“Why, what's happened?” Porosyaninov asked in amazement.

“A full quorum,” Nechaev repeated.

“How can there be a quorum? How can I get them together for tomorrow?” asked Pyotr Klimovich.

“Use the phone, use your legs. Use whatever you like, just make sure there's a quorum,” Nechaev said, and turned away.

27

After leaving the courtyard of Aglaya's house, Stepan Kharitonovich set off back to his room in the Collective Farm Workers' House, which was on the other side of the railroad track. Walking along with his bouncy stride in the direction of the railroad station, Shaleiko had the feeling that someone was creeping along behind him, hiding behind the trees, or watching him from behind the dark windows.

Shaleiko walked fast, but the evening advanced even faster, as though the very darkness were stealing along after Shaleiko on soft paws. And gradually, lightbulbs began to light up in the windows and on the lampposts along the road, or rather, not on all the lampposts, just one of them on the approach to the station. The lightbulbs on the other lampposts had either burned out or been broken by last year's heavy hail, and some had been shot out by the local urchins with their slingshots. And since then there had either been no bulbs or there had been no one to screw them in, and at night the street had dwelt in total darkness. In contrast, the station, through which Stepan Kharitonovich's path lay, was lit up like an electric paradise on every side.

In Dolgov, as in many similar towns, the railroad station fulfilled a distinctive cultural function. Lacking a more suitable venue for their evening promenades, the local populace converged here on Saturday and Sunday to greet the arrival of the long-distance trains.

There were four trains of this kind, all of them on the Moscow line. Two of them—one from Moscow and the other to Moscow—passed through during the day. And the other two that followed the same routes halted here in the evening, with a gap of about half an hour between them. Each halted for four minutes. And the minutes which preceded the arrival of the first train, followed the departure of the second and filled the gap between them, and especially the minutes while each train stood at the platform, were regarded by Dolgovites as a thrilling experience. The sight was indeed both beautiful and impressive, for the smooth platform of well-rolled crushed brick contrasted sharply with the dark, crooked streets of the town, paved at best with cobblestones.

The two-story station building, erected at the beginning of the century, was built of undressed gray stone. It had everything a station should have: a waiting room, ticket offices, two buffets and a restaurant. On the pediment of the façade, on either side of the round clock and the illuminated sign with the name of the station, there were portraits of the founders of communism: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin.

And as it happened, in that very same year of 1957 the International Festival of Youth was due to take place in Moscow. Dolgov was also preparing for this great event, and in anticipation of the foreign visitors passing through on their way to the festival, the Dolgov station had been cleaned and tidied and an important announcement had been hung over the main entrance, with the Russian rendered in foreign letters so that foreigners would understand it:

TUALET NAKHODITSYA ZA UGLOM
 [i.e., The toilet is around the corner.]

 

And by the flowerbed in front of the station, the following message had been painted on special plywood for the same class of passengers:

ZVETY NE RVAT! PO TRAVE NE HODIT'!
 [i.e., Do not pick the flowers! Do not walk on the grass!]

 

As yet, foreigners had been a rare sight in Dolgov, but even without them there was frequently a lively, jovial crowd on the local railroad platform in the evenings.

The first to appear, long before the arrival of the next train, were the girls. They walked about in twos and threes, exuding the odor of a strong perfume of local manufacture. Immediately after them the local lads appeared in their velvet shirt jackets and wide bell-bottoms. Married couples, dressed up in their Sunday best, proceeded unhurriedly along the platform, greeting each other with a respectful inclination of the head and an elevation of the cap or hat. Bagels with poppy seeds, fizzy water with Fruit Punch syrup and ice cream in wafer cups were sold at the entrance to the station, and sometimes even balloons for the children. And so everyone strolled back and forth in patient anticipation of the fleeting festival that was approaching right on schedule. The girls rustled along in their crepe de Chine, and the boys trailed after them, sweeping the platform with their bell-bottoms and attempting to strike up a conversation: “Hey darling, something's dropped out of you and it's steaming.”

The girl would either maintain a haughty silence or else reply: “Idiot!” And in this way she would offer the pretext for further socializing.

About fifteen minutes before the arrival of the train, the public on the platform was swollen by the members of the Harvest soccer team. Today they had managed to tie the home team 1 to 1, and after the match they had switched from drinking compote to vodka. Now they were augmenting their consumption from stocks bought for the journey, all of them taking turns to use a single glass. Their mood was one of boisterous merriment and hope that this time they would manage to leave Dolgov without a beating. But their hopes were vain: a section of the local fans had already infiltrated the platform and was waiting for the rest, in the meanwhile strolling around in ones and twos and observing the soccer players with a gaze that was far from indifferent.

The train made its appearance in the distance, emerging from the darkness. First they heard the distant but powerful call of the locomotive, then springing out from around a distant bend and advancing rapidly toward them came three glowing eyes, the three headlamps, with their light running along the tracks in narrow threads and becoming ever brighter and more blinding until, panting and whistling, enveloped in clouds of steam, working its gleaming levers and crankshafts as it erupted into the station, there was the Iosif Stalin, the pride of Soviet locomotive-building, with a five-pointed star on its mighty breast. It drew in a long string of carriages smelling of soot, all the doors of which swung open simultaneously, so that there was even more light as the passengers in pajamas and slippers jumped down from the steps and some carrying teapots hurried off to get hot water, others went for bagels and ice cream and others mingled with the locals. The platform was filled temporarily with the bustling atmosphere of a populous city, almost a capital. There was the sound of pure Muscovite speech—“Just look at this charming little town!” “How much are your cucumbers?”—and suddenly it felt as though this wasn't the wretched platform of a godforsaken little railroad stop, but somewhere like Gorky Park or Gorky Street, or even Broadway.

This time there was even more merriment than usual on the platform, because as soon as the lights of the locomotive appeared in the distance the local soccer fans, taking the light approaching from afar as a signal for action, immediately threw themselves on the soccer players and a brawl commenced, which nonetheless failed to disrupt the general flow of events.

At this very moment Stepan Shaleiko arrived on the platform. Here he encountered many and various acquaintances, spoke to them about his broken clutch, the weather and the prospects for the harvest and, having furnished himself with a perfect alibi, was about to leave the platform when he suddenly came nose-to-nose with Pyotr Klimovich Porosyaninov, who was running somewhere with an anxious look on his face but, on catching sight of Shaleiko, prodded him in the belly with a finger and said: “Oho! You're the very man I need.” And at the same time inquired: “And by the way, why aren't you at home on a Sunday?”

Suspecting that the question was not posed idly, Shaleiko hastily began explaining for the thousandth time that yesterday on the way out of town his clutch had broken and they'd promised to fix it at the district Party garage, but the more he explained, the more he himself felt as though his explanation was a pack of lies, although he was telling the simple truth.

Porosyaninov certainly didn't believe him and thought he'd simply gone on the sauce. But he didn't carp. He had no time for that.

“You know what, my bosom buddy,” he said amicably. “You'll have to stay on a bit longer, don't you even think of leaving tomorrow morning.”

“What's the problem?” Shaleiko enquired.

“You'll know soon enough,” Porosyaninov promised. “How do you feel about Aglaya Revkina?”

Unaware of the background to this question, Shaleiko became even more frightened. How could they have reported me already? he thought. Then he quickly tried to imagine what exactly could have been reported. If it was that they'd sat together in the tearoom, that didn't mean anything. She was still a communist, after all, she hadn't been excluded yet. She was behaving incorrectly, of course, but she wasn't a goner yet. Nechaev said we were going to work things out with her. And you could say he had been working with her, attempting as a communist and senior comrade to persuade her to refute her errors. He had appealed to her to judge for herself, not to go against the Party, not to look to the past, but to look only forward. He even began to feel that he really had been associating with Aglaya for educational purposes. And as for what happened afterward, who knew about it? Would Shubkin tell? He wouldn't. He was in deep too—he listened to the BBC. And those old women . . . Well, what did they know? He'd no sooner got in than he was out again . . .”

“What's wrong?” he heard Porosyaninov's voice asking from somewhere very far away. “Do you understand me? I asked you how you feel about Revkina.”

“Why do you ask?” Shaleiko inquired, hoping the answer would allow him to determine how much Porosyaninov knew.

“Because tomorrow you've got to turn up without fail at a district Party committee bureau extraordinary meeting. We're going to hear a personal case.”

“A personal case!” Shaleiko gasped. “But what for?”

“For making a hostile sortie,” Porosyaninov explained. “You didn't think we'd forgive that sort of thing, did you?”

Naturally, Stepan Kharitonovich thought that the hostile sortie intended was his own hostile sortie. Or more precisely, perhaps, his sortie into the bed of a certain enemy of the people.

“What sortie do you mean? What are you talking about?” Shaleiko said nervously. “What sortie? What is it I'm supposed to have done? I just dropped into the tearoom and had a drink or two, treated a woman to lunch and saw her home, what kind of sortie's that? I never told her I agreed with her about a thing.”

“Listen,” said Porosyaninov, “I can't be bothered who you treated to what. Although you're a communist and you shouldn't go with other women, especially in public, but I'm not talking about women, I'm talking about the communist Aglaya Revkina. Tomorrow we're going to exclude her from the Party.”

“Aglaya?” Shaleiko queried. “Revkina?”

“Aglaya,” Porosyaninov confirmed. “Revkina.”

“Aha. Well yes, yes,” said Shaleiko, nodding readily with a feeling of relief, trying to pretend that was what he'd thought all along. And in order to clear himself of the slightest suspicion, he promptly informed Porosyaninov of his own profound indignation at the anti-Party behavior of the aforementioned female individual. But at the same time, he felt he wanted to say something positive about her.

“I simply don't understand,” he lamented almost sincerely. “After all, she was our comrade. Honest and principled. She took part in collectivization; during the war she commanded a partisan detachment . . . They say she fought very bravely.”

“But now,” Porosyaninov interrupted brusquely, “she's fighting against her own people. And against the Party. So anyway, tomorrow you're going to give a speech of resolute condemnation. Understand?”

“I understand,” Shaleiko agreed sourly.

“I don't hear any conviction in your voice,” remarked Porosyaninov. “Tell me straight, will you speak or not?”

Just then the platform attendant's whistle shrilled. The locomotive responded with a joyous, impatient hoot. It had been standing here too long; the seething steam was bursting open its breast, summoning it to journey onward into the darkness. The locomotive shrieked loudly enough to shatter eardrums and set off, discharging a dense cloud which temporarily engulfed Porosyaninov. A crazy idea flashed through Shaleiko's mind: what if he was to disappear right now? But before he was even fully conscious of the idea, Porosyaninov was reincarnated before his eyes and repeated his question: “So will you speak or won't you?”

Shaleiko didn't answer, watching the railroad carriages as they rolled past in front of him. The Harvest sportsmen hanging on to the handrails twitched convulsively, shaking off the most tenacious local sports-lovers on the move, the same way Stepan Kharitonovich would have liked to shake off Porosyaninov, but Porosyaninov had taken a tighter grip on him than the Dolgov fans had on their quarry: “Stop avoiding the issue and give me a straight answer—will you speak or not?”

“We-ell,” said Shaleiko, prevaricating, “if necessary, then of course I will. After all, I'm . . . you know . . . a communist. So it's understood.” He paused. “As long as I don't fall ill. I've got a bit of a sore throat, you know. There's a draught in that hotel like you wouldn't believe . . . I'm afraid it's my tonsils or something of the sort.” He touched his Adam's apple and gave a little cough, like a singer before his stage entrance. “Heh-heh! What I need is some hot milk with honey, put on some cupping glasses, rest up a bit . . .”

“I get you,” Porosyaninov interrupted him. “You want to run out on us.”

“Me? Run out on you? What d'you mean?” Shaleiko asked with a start. “At the front I went into the attack without a helmet. I had bullets whistling between my temple and my ear . . . The number of times company commanders said to me, ‘Shaleiko, are you tired of having a head,' or . . .”

“So you'll speak then?” Porosyaninov asked again.

“Well of course,” Shaleiko sighed. “If it's necessary, I'll do it. I'm Shaleiko, I am. I'm a Cossack. I can be weak in some things, like any man. But when it comes to ideology, then the communist Shaleiko is as unshakable as . . . as the fortress of Brest.”