The Twelve Chairs (20 page)

There  followed a  busy  time for the  concessionaires. Ostap contended
that the chairs should be struck while the iron was hot. Ippolit Matveyevich
was  granted  an amnesty,  although Ostap, from time to  time, would ask him
such questions as:
"Why the  hell did I ever take  up with  you?  What do I need  you for,
anyway?  You ought to go home  to your registry office where the corpses and
newborn babes are  waiting for  you. Don't make  the infants suffer. Go back
there!"
But  in  his heart the smooth operator had become very much attached to
the wild marshal. "Life wouldn't be such  fun without  him," he thought. And
he would glance now and then at  Ippolit  Matveyevich, whose  head was  just
beginning to sprout a new crop of silvery hair.
Ippolit Matveyevich's initiative was allotted a fair share of the  work
schedule. As soon as the placid Ivanopulo had gone out, Bender  would try to
drum into his partner's head the surest way to get the treasure.
"Act boldly. Don't ask too many questions. Be more cynical- people like
it. Don't  do  anything  through a  third party. People are  smart. No one's
going to hand you the jewels  on  a  plate.  But don't do anything criminal.
We've got to keep on the right side of the law."
Their  search progressed, however, without  much success.  The criminal
code plus a large number of bourgeois prejudices retained by the citizens of
the capital made things difficult. People just would  not tolerate nocturnal
visits through  their windows,  for  instance. The work could only  be  done
legally.
The  same  day  that  Ostap  visited  Ellochka  Shukin a new  piece  of
furniture appeared in Ivanopulo's  room.  It was the  chair bartered for the
tea-strainer-their  third  trophy of the  expedition. The partners had  long
since passed the stage where the hunt for the jewels aroused strong feelings
in them, where they clawed open the chairs and gnawed the springs.
"Even  if there's nothing inside,"  Ostap said, "you must realize we've
gained  at  least  ten thousand roubles.  Every  chair opened increases  our
chances. What does it matter if there's nothing  in the little lady's chair?
We don't have to break it to pieces. Let Ivanopulo furnish his room with it.
It will be pleasanter for us too."
That day  the concessionaires trooped out of the  little pink house and
went off in different directions. Ippolit Matveyevich was entrusted with the
stranger  with  the  bleat  from Sadovaya  Spasskaya  Street;  he  was given
twenty-five roubles to cover expenses, ordered to keep out of beer-halls and
not to come back  without the chair. For  himself the smooth operator  chose
Ellochka's husband.
Ippolit Matveyevich crossed  the  city in a no. 6 bus. As he bounced up
and down on the leather seat,  almost hitting his head against the  roof, he
wondered how he  would find out the bleating stranger's name, what excuse to
make for visiting him, what his first words should be, and how to get to the
point.
Alighting at Red Gates, he found the right house from the address Ostap
had written down, and began  walking up and down outside. He could not bring
himself  to go  in. It  was  an  old,  dirty Moscow  hotel, which  had  been
converted into a housing co-operative, and was resided in, to judge from the
shabby frontage, by tenants who persistently avoided their payments.
For  a  long  time  Ippolit   Matveyevich  remained  by  the  entrance,
continually approaching  and  reading  the  handwritten  notice  threatening
neglectful tenants until he knew it by heart; then, finally, still unable to
think of anything, he went up the stairs to  the  second  floor.  There were
several  doors  along  the  corridor.  Slowly,  as though going  up  to  the
blackboard at school to prove a theorem he had not properly learned, Ippolit
Matveyevich  approached Room 41.  A visiting card  was pinned upside-down to
the door by one drawing-pin.
Absalom Vladimirovich
IZNURENKOV
In a complete daze,  Ippolit Matveyevich forgot to knock. He opened the
door, took  three zombie-like steps forward and found himself in  the middle
of the room.
"Excuse  me,"  he said  in  a  strangled  voice,  "can  I  see  Comrade
Iznurenkov?"
Absalom Vladimirovich did  not  reply. Vorobyaninov raised his head and
saw there was no one in the room.
It  was not possible to guess the proclivities of the occupant from the
outward appearance of the  room. The only  thing that was clear was  that he
was a bachelor and had no domestic help. On  the window-sill lay a  piece of
paper containing bits of sausage skin. The low  divan by the wall was  piled
with  newspapers.  There  were  a few dusty books on  the  small  bookshelf.
Photographs  of tomcats,  little cats, and female cats looked down  from the
walls. In the middle of the room,  next to a pair  of dirty shoes which  had
toppled  over sideways, was  a walnut chair.  Crimson wax seals dangled from
all the pieces of furniture, including the chair from the Stargorod mansion.
Ippolit Matveyevich  paid no attention to this. He  immediately forgot about
the criminal code and Ostap's admonition, and ran towards the chair.
At  this  moment  the  papers  on  the  divan  began  to stir.  Ippolit
Matveyevich  started back in fright. The papers  moved a little way and fell
on to the floor; from beneath them emerged a small, placid tomcat. It looked
uninterestedly at  Ippolit Matveyevich and began to wash itself, catching at
its ear, face and whiskers with its paw.
"Bah!" said Ippolit Matveyevich and dragged the chair towards the door.
The door opened for him and there on the threshold stood the occupant of the
room, the  stranger with the bleat. He  was wearing a coat under which could
be seen a pair of lilac underpants. He was carrying his trousers in Ms hand.
It could be said  that  there  was  no  one  like Absalom Vladimirovich
Iznurenkov  in the whole Republic.  The Republic valued his services. He was
of great use to it. But, for  all  that, he remained unknown,  though he was
just  as skilled in  his art as Chaliapin was  in singing, Gorky in writing,
Capablanca in chess, Melnikov in ice-skating, and that  very large-nosed and
brown  Assyrian occupying  the best place  on  the  corner of Tverskaya  and
Kamerger streets was in cleaning black boots with brown polish.
Chaliapin sang. Gorky wrote great  novels. Capablanca prepared for  his
match against Alekhine. Melnikov broke  records. The Assyrian made citizens'
shoes shine like mirrors. Absalom Iznurenkov made jokes.
He never made them without reason, just for the effect. He made them to
order for humorous journals. On his shoulders he bore the responsibility for
highly  important  campaigns,  and  supplied most  of the  Moscow  satirical
journals with subjects for cartoons and humorous anecdotes.
Great men make  jokes twice in  their lifetime.  The jokes  boost their
fame  and  go  down  in  history.  Iznurenkov  produced  no less  than sixty
first-rate jokes  a  month,  which everyone  retold with  a  smile,  but  he
nonetheless  remained  in obscurity. Whenever one of Iznurenkov's witticisms
was  used as a caption for  a  cartoon, the  glory went  to  the artist. The
artist's name was  placed  above  the  cartoon. Iznurenkov's  name  did  not
appear.
"It's terrible," he used  to cry.  "It's impossible for  me to sign  my
name. What am I supposed to sign? Two lines?"
And he  continued with  his virulent campaign  against the  enemies  of
society-dishonest  members of  co-operatives,  embezzlers,  Chamberlain  and
bureaucrats.   He   aimed   his   sting  at   bootlickers,   apartment-block
superintendents,  owners of  private property, hooligans, citizens reluctant
to lower their prices, and industrial  executives who tried to avoid economy
drives.
As soon as the journals came out, the jokes were repeated in the circus
arena,  reprinted  in the evening press without reference to the source, and
offered to audiences  from the variety stage by  "entertainers writing their
own words and music".
Iznurenkov  managed  to be funny about fields of activity  in which you
would not have thought it was possible to say anything humorous at all. From
the arid desert of  excessive increases in the cost of production Iznurenkov
managed to  extract a  hundred or  so masterpieces of wit. Heine  would have
given up in despair had he been asked to say something funny and at the same
time  socially useful about the unfair tariff rates on  slow-delivery  goods
consignments; Mark  Twain would have  fled  from the subject, but Iznurenkov
remained at his  post.  He  chased  from one editorial  office  to  another,
bumping into ash-tray  stands and  bleating. In ten minutes the  subject had
been worked out, the cartoon devised, and the caption added.
When he saw a man in his room just about to remove  the  chair with the
seal,  Absalom Iznurenkov waved his trousers, which had just been pressed at
the tailor's, gave a jump, and screeched: "That's ridiculous! I protest! You
have no  right.  There's a law, after all. It's not  intended for fools, but
you  may  have  heard  the furniture  can stay  another  two weeks!  I shall
complain to the Public Prosecutor. After all, I'm going to pay!"
Ippolit  Matveyevich stood motionless, while  Iznurenkov  threw off his
coat and, without moving away from the door, pulled on the trousers over his
fat, Chichickovian legs. Iznurenkov was portly, but his face was thin.
Vorobyaninov  had no  doubt in his mind that he was about  to be seized
and  hauled off  to  the  police. He was  therefore very  surprised when the
occupant of the room, having adjusted his dress, suddenly became calmer.
"You must  understand,"  he  said in a tone of conciliation, "I  cannot
agree to it."
Had  he been in Iznurenkov's shoes, Ippolit Matveyevich would certainly
not have agreed to his chairs being stolen in broad daylight either.  But he
did not know what to say, so he kept silent.
"It's not my fault. It's the fault of the musicians' organization. Yes,
I admit I didn't  pay for the  hired piano for eight months. But at least  I
didn't sell it, although  there was plenty of opportunity. I was honest, but
they behaved like crooks. They  took away the piano,  and then went to court
about it and had an  inventory  of my furniture made. There's nothing to put
on  the inventory. All this furniture constitutes work tools. The chair is a
work tool as well."
Ippolit Matveyevich was beginning to see the light.
"Put that chair down!" screeched Iznurenkov suddenly. "Do you hear, you
bureaucrat?"
Ippolit Matveyevich  obediently put down  the chair  and mumbled:  "I'm
sorry, there's been a misunderstanding.  It often happens  in  this kind  of
work!"
At this Iznurenkov  brightened up tremendously.  He began running about
the room singing: "And in the  morning she smiled  again before her window."
He did not know what to  do with his hands. They flew all over the place. He
started  tying his tie,  then  left  off without  finishing.  He took  up  a
newspaper, then threw it on the floor without reading anything.
"So you aren't going to take away the furniture  today? . . .' Good.  .
.Ah! Ah!"
Taking advantage of this favourable turn of events, Ippolit Matveyevich
moved towards the door.
"Wait!"  called Iznurenkov  suddenly.  "Have you ever seen  such a cat?
Tell me, isn't it really extraordinarily fluffy?"
Ippolit Matveyevich found the cat in his trembling hands.
"First-rate," babbled  Absalom  Vladimirovich, not knowing what  to  do
with this excess of energy. "Ah! Ah!"
He rushed to the window, clapped his hands, and began making slight but
frequent bows to two girls who were watching him from a window  of the house
opposite. He stamped his feet and gave sighs of longing.
"Girls from the suburbs! The finest fruit! .  . . First-rate! . . . Ah!
. . . 'And in the morning she smiled again before her window'."
"I'm leaving now, Citizen," said Ippolit Matveyevich stupidly.
"Wait, wait!" Iznurenkov suddenly became excited. "Just one moment! Ah!
Ah! The cat . . . Isn't  it extraordinarily fluffy? Wait. .  .  I'll be with
you in a moment."
He dug into  all his pockets with embarrassment, ran to the  side, came
back, looked out of the window, ran aside, and again returned.
"Forgive me,  my dear fellow," he said  to Vorobyaninov, who stood with
folded  arms like a soldier during all these operations. With these words he
handed the marshal a half-rouble piece.
"No, no, please don't refuse. All labour must be rewarded."
"Much  obliged,"  said  Ippolit  Matveyevich,  surprised   at  his  own
resourcefulness,
"Thank you, dear fellow. Thank you, dear friend."
As he went down the corridor, Ippolit Matveyevich could  hear bleating,
screeching, and shouts of delight coming from Iznurenkov's room.
Outside in the street, Vorobyaninov remembered Ostap, and trembled with
fear.
Ernest  Pavlovich  Shukin  was  wandering  about  the  empty  apartment
obligingly loaned  to  him  by a  friend for the  summer,  trying  to decide
whether or not to have a bath.
The three-room apartment was at the very top of a nine-storey building.
The  only thing  in it  besides  a desk and Vorobyaninov's chair  was a pier
glass.  It reflected the sun and hurt his eyes. The engineer lay down on the
desk and immediately jumped up again. It was red-hot.
"I'll go and have a wash," he decided.
He undressed,  felt cooler, inspected himself in the  mirror, and  went
into  the bathroom.  A coolness enveloped  him.  He  climbed into the  bath,
doused himself  with  water from  a  blue enamel  mug,  and  soaped  himself
generously. Covered in lather, he looked like a Christmas-tree decoration.
"Feels good," said Ernest Pavlovich.
Everything  was  fine.  It was  cool. His  wife  was not there. He  had
complete freedom ahead of him. The engineer knelt down and turned on the tap
in order to wash  off the  soap. The tap gave a gasp and began  making slow,
undecipherable  noises.  No  water  came  out. Ernest  Pavlovich inserted  a
slippery  little finger into the hole. Out poured a thin stream of water and
then  nothing  more.  Ernest Pavlovich  frowned,  stepped out of  the  bath,
lifting each leg in turn, and went into the kitchen. Nothing was forthcoming
from the tap in there, either.
Ernest Pavlovich shuffled through the rooms and stopped in front of the
mirror. The  soap  was stinging his eyes,  his back  itched,  and  suds were
dripping on to the floor. Listening to make certain there was still no water
running in the bath, he decided to call the caretaker.
He can at least bring up some water, thought the  engineer, wiping  his
eyes and slowly getting furious, or else I'm in a mess.
He looked out of the window. Down below, at  the  bottom of the well of
the building, there were some children playing.
"Caretaker!" shouted Ernest Pavlovich. "Caretaker!"
No one answered.
Then Ernest Pavlovich remembered  that the caretaker lived at the front
of the building  under the  stairway. He  stepped  out  on to the cold tiled
floor  and, keeping  the door  open with one arm, leaned over the  banister.
There  was only one apartment  on that landing, so  Ernest Pavlovich was not
afraid of being seen in his strange suit of soapsuds.
"Caretaker!" he shouted downstairs.