eyelids. In time immemorial some rival had thrown a vial of acid at her, but had missed, and only two or three drops had etched light traces on her left cheek and the left corner of her mouth, almost seductive in their inconspicuousness.
“Don’t yell, Khrapugina. It’s simply impossible to work,” said the woman at the desk, the representative of the district soviet, elected to chair the meeting.
She was well-known from long ago to the old-timers of the house, and she knew them well herself. Before the start of the meeting, she had an unofficial, half-whispered conversation with Fatima, the old caretaker of the house, who had once been cooped up with her husband and children in the dirty basement, but now had moved with her daughter to two bright rooms on the second floor.
“Well, how are things, Fatima?” asked the chairwoman.
Fatima complained that managing such a big and densely populated house was too much for her alone, and there was no help from anywhere, because nobody observed the obligations of tidying the courtyard and the street, which were distributed by apartment.
“Don’t worry, Fatima, we’ll blunt their horns, I assure you. What kind of committee is that? Is it conceivable? Hidden criminal elements, dubious morals living without registration. We’ll give them the boot and elect another one. I’ll get you made house manager, only don’t start kicking.”
The caretaker begged the chairwoman not to do that, but the latter was not even listening. She looked around the room, found that enough people had gathered, called for silence, and opened the meeting with a short introductory speech. After condemning the inactivity of the former house committee, she proposed the nominating of candidates for the election of a new one and went on to other questions. On finishing that, she said incidentally:
“Well, so that’s that, comrades. Let’s speak frankly. Your building’s roomy, suitable for a hostel. It happens, when delegates come for a conference, there’s nowhere to put people up. It has been decided to place the building at the disposal of the district soviet as a house for visitors and give it the name of Comrade Tiverzin, who lived in this house before his exile, which is a well-known fact. Do you have any objections? Now to the schedule for vacating the house. It’s not an urgent measure, you still have a year’s time. Working people will be relocated to lodgings provided for them, nonworkers are put on notice that they must find their own, and are given a term of twelve months.”
“But who here is a nonworker? We have no nonworkers! We’re all workers,” came cries from all sides, and one strained voice especially: “That’s great-power chauvinism! All nationalities are equal now! I know what you’re hinting at!”
“Not all at once! I simply don’t know who to answer. What nationalities? What have nationalities got to do with it, Citizen Valdyrkin? For instance, Khrapugina’s no nationality, but she’ll also be evicted.”
“Evicted! We’ll see how you evict me. Flattened old couch! Ten-jobs!” Khrapugina shouted out the senseless nicknames she gave to the woman delegate in the heat of the quarrel.
“What a viper! What a hellcat! You have no shame!” The caretaker became indignant.
“Don’t mix into it, Fatima, I can stand up for myself. Stop, Khrapugina. Reach you a hand, and you bite it off. Shut up, I said, or I’ll turn you over to the organs immediately and not wait till they pick you up for making moonshine and running a dive.”
The noise reached the limit. No one was given a chance to speak. Just then the doctor came into the storeroom. He asked the first man he ran into by the door to point out someone from the house committee. The man put his hands to his mouth like a megaphone and, above the noise and racket, shouted syllable by syllable:
“Ga-li-ul-li-na! Come here. Somebody’s asking for you.”
The doctor could not believe his ears. A thin, slightly stooping woman, the caretaker, came over. The doctor was struck by the resemblance of mother and son. But he did not yet give himself away. He said:
“One of your tenants here has come down with typhus” (he gave the woman’s name). “Precautions must be taken to keep the infection from spreading. Besides, the sick woman will have to be taken to the hospital. I’ll write out a document, which the house committee will have to certify. How and where can I do it?”
The caretaker understood the question as referring to transporting the sick woman, not to writing out the accompanying document.
“A droshky will come from the district soviet to pick up Comrade Demina,” said Galiullina. “Comrade Demina’s a kind person, I’ll tell her, she’ll give it up to you. Don’t worry, comrade doctor, we’ll transport your sick woman.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that! I just need a corner where I can write out an order. But if there’ll be a droshky … Excuse me, but are you the mother of Lieutenant Galiullin, Osip Gimazetdinovich? I served with him at the front.”
The caretaker shuddered all over and turned pale. Seizing the doctor’s hand, she said:
“Let’s step outside. We can talk in the courtyard.”
As soon as they crossed the threshold, she began hurriedly:
“Shh. God forbid anyone hears. Don’t ruin me. Yusupka’s gone bad. Judge for yourself, who is Yusupka? Yusupka was an apprentice, a workman. Yusup should understand, simple people are much better off now, a blind man can see that, there’s nothing to talk about. I don’t know what you think, maybe you can do it, but for Yusupka it’s wrong, God won’t forgive it. Yusup’s father died a soldier, killed, and how—no face left, no arms, no legs.”
She was unable to go on speaking and, waving her hand, waited for her agitation to subside. Then she continued:
“Let’s go. I’ll arrange the droshky for you now. I know who you are. He was here for two days, he told me. He said you know Lara Guisharova. She was a nice girl. She came here to see us, I remember. But who knows what she’s like now. Can it be that the masters go against the masters? But for Yusupka it’s wrong. Let’s go and ask for the droshky. Comrade Demina will let us have it. And do you know who Comrade Demina is? Olya Demina, who used to work as a seamstress for Lara Guisharova’s mother. That’s who she is. Also from here. From this house. Let’s go.”
13
It was already growing quite dark. Night lay all around. Only the white circle of light from Demina’s pocket
