space of the grocery cooperative.
The hiders had nothing on their conscience. It was a mistake for them to conceal themselves. Most of them had done it in haste, drunkenly, foolishly. Some had acquaintances who seemed blameworthy to them and might, as they thought, be the ruin of them. Now everything had been given a political coloring. Mischief and hooliganism were counted as signs of the Black Hundred13 in Soviet areas; in White Guard areas ruffians were taken for Bolsheviks.
As it turned out, the lads who slipped under the cottage had predecessors. The space between the ground and the storehouse floor was full of people. Several men from Kuteiny and Ermolai were hiding there. The former were dead drunk. Some were snoring with moaning undertones, grinding their teeth and whining; others were sick and throwing up. It was pitch-dark under the storehouse, stuffy and stinking. Those who crawled in last filled the opening they had come through from inside with earth and stones, so that the hole would not give them away. Soon the snoring and moaning of the drunk ceased entirely. There was total silence. They all slept quietly. Only in one corner was there quiet whispering between the particularly restless ones, the scared-to-death Terenty Galuzin and the Ermolai fistfighter Koska Nekhvalenykh.
“Pipe down, you son of a bitch, you’ll be the end of us all, you snotty devil. You hear, Strese’s men are on the prowl—sneaking around. They turned at the village gate, they’re coming down the row, they’ll be here soon. That’s them. Freeze, don’t breathe, I’ll strangle you! Well, you’re in luck—they’re gone. Passed us by. What devil brought you here? And hiding, too, you blockhead! Who’d lay a finger on you?”
“I heard Goshka shouting, ‘Take cover, you slob!’ So I slipped in.”
“Goshka’s another matter. The whole Ryabykh family is being eyed as untrustworthy. They’ve got relations in Khodatskoe. Artisans, worker stock. Don’t twitch like that, you lunkhead, lie quiet. They’ve crapped and puked all around here. If you move, you’ll smear yourself with shit, and me, too. Can’t you smell the stench? Why do you think Strese’s rushing around the village? He’s looking for men from Pazhinsk. Outsiders.”
“How did all this come about, Koska? Where did it begin?”
“Sanka sparked the whole thing off, Sanka Pafnutkin. We’re standing naked in line for the examination. Sanka’s time came, it’s Sanka’s turn. He won’t undress. Sanka was a bit drunk, he came to the office tipsy. The clerk looks him over. ‘Get undressed, please,’ he says. Politely. Addresses Sanka formally. A military clerk. And Sanka answers him rudely: ‘I won’t. I ain’t gonna show everybody my private parts.’ As if he’s embarrassed. And he sidles up to the clerk, like he’s going to haul off and punch him in the jaw. Yes. And what do you think? Before you could bat an eye, Sanka bends over, grabs the little office desk by the leg, and dumps it and everything on it, the inkstand, the army lists, on the floor! From the boardroom door, Strese shouts: ‘I won’t tolerate excesses. I’ll show you your bloodless revolution and disrespect for the law in a government office. Who’s the instigator?’
“But Sanka’s at the window. ‘Help!’ he shouts. ‘Grab your clothes! It’s all up for us, comrades!’ I grabbed my clothes, got dressed on the run, and went over to Sanka. Sanka smashed the window with his fist and, whoop, he’s outside, try catching the wind. And me after him. And some others as well. Running our legs off. And there’s already hallooing after us, the chase is on. But if you ask me what it was all about? Nobody understands anything.”
“And the bomb?”
“What about the bomb?”
“Who threw the bomb? Well, bomb, grenade, whatever?”
“Lord, you don’t think it was us?”
“But who, then?”
“How should I know? Somebody else. He saw the turmoil, thought, I could blow up the council on the sly. They’ll think it was other people. Somebody political. There’s a lot of politicals from Pazhinsk here. Quiet. Shut up. Voices. You hear, Strese’s men are coming back. Well, we’re lost. Freeze, I said.”
The voices came closer. Boots creaked, spurs jangled.
“Don’t argue. You can’t fool me. I’m not that kind. There was definitely talking somewhere,” boomed the domineering, all-distinct Petersburg voice of the colonel.
“You may have imagined it, Your Excellency,” reasoned the village headman of Maly Ermolai, the old fishmonger Otviazhistin. “And no wonder if there’s talking, since it’s a village. Not a cemetery. Maybe they were talking somewhere. They’re not dumb beasts in the houses. Or maybe a hobgoblin’s choking somebody in his sleep …”
“Enough! I’ll teach you to play the holy fool, pretending you’re a poor orphan! Hobgoblin! You’ve grown too free and easy here! You’ll get the international on you with your cleverness, then it’ll be too late. Hobgoblin!”
“Good gracious, Your Excellency, mister colonel, sir! What international! They’re thick-headed oafs, impenetrable darkness. Stumble over the old prayer books. What do they want with revolution?”
“You all talk that way till the first evidence. Search the premises of the cooperative from top to bottom. Shake all the coffers, look under the counters. Search the adjoining buildings.”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
“Get Pafnutkin, Ryabykh, Nekhvalenykh, dead or alive. From the ends of the earth. And that Galuzin pup. Never mind that his papa delivers patriotic speeches, he won’t fine-talk us. On the contrary. We’re not lulled by it. Once a shopkeeper starts orating, it means something’s wrong. It’s suspicious. It’s contrary to nature. There’s secret information that there are political exiles hidden in their courtyard in Krestovozdvizhensk, that secret meetings are held. Catch the boy. I haven’t decided yet what to do with him, but if something’s uncovered, I’ll hang him without pity as a lesson to the rest.”
The searchers moved on. When they had gone far enough away, Koska Nekhvalenykh asked Tereshka Galuzin, who was dead with fright:
“Did you hear?”
“Yes,” the boy whispered in a voice not his own.
“For you and me, and Sanka, and Goshka, the only road now is to the forest. I don’t say forever. Till they get reasonable. And when they come to their senses, then we’ll see. Maybe we’ll come back.”
