The Golden Calf Read online

  The chairman was about to ask what brought the Lieutenant’s son to Arbatov, but instead, to his own surprise, he smiled meekly and said:

  “The churches here are remarkable. We already had some people from Cultural Heritage here, there’s talk about restoration. Tell me, do you remember the uprising on the battleship Ochakov yourself?”

  “Barely,” replied the visitor. “In those heroic times, I was very young. I was just a baby.”

  “Excuse me, what is your name?”

  “Nikolay . . . Nikolay Schmidt.”

  “And your patronymic?”

  “Oops, that’s not good!” thought the visitor, who did not know his own father’s name either.

  “Yeah,” he said slowly, evading a direct answer, “these days, people don’t know the names of our heroes. The frenzy of the New Economic Policy. The enthusiasm of old is gone. As a matter of fact, I’m here entirely by accident. Trouble on the road. Not a penny left.”

  The chairman was also happy to change the subject. He was genuinely embarrassed that he had forgotten the name of the hero of the Ochakov. “That’s right,” he thought, looking at the hero’s exalted features with love, “work deadens your soul. Makes you forget the important things.”

  “What’s that? Not a penny? That’s interesting.”

  “Of course, I could have asked some private citizen. Anybody would be happy to help me out, but, as you understand, that would not be entirely proper from the political standpoint,” said the Lieutenant’s son, turning mournful. “The son of a revolutionary asking for money from an individual, a businessman . . .”

  The chairman noticed the change in the visitor’s tone with alarm. “What if he’s an epileptic?” he thought. “He could be a lot of trouble.”

  “And it’s a very good thing that you didn’t ask a businessman,” said the chairman, who was totally confused.

  Then, gently, the son of the Black Sea hero got down to business. He asked for fifty rubles. The chairman, constrained by the tight local budget, came up with only eight rubles and three meal vouchers to the Former Friend of the Stomach cooperative diner.

  The hero’s son put the money and the vouchers in a deep pocket of his worn dappled gray jacket. He was about to get up from the pink ottoman when they heard the sound of stomping and the receptionist’s cries of protest coming from behind the door.

  The door flew open, and a new visitor appeared.

  “Who’s in charge here?” he asked, breathing heavily and searching the room with his eyes.

  “I am, so?” said the chairman.

  “Hiya, Chairman,” thundered the newcomer, extending his spade-sized hand. “Nice to meet you! I’m the son of Lieutenant Schmidt.”

  “Who?” asked the city father, his eyes bulging.

  “The son of that great, immortal hero, Lieutenant Schmidt,” repeated the intruder.

  “But this comrade sitting here, he is the son of Comrade Schmidt. Nikolay Schmidt.” In total confusion, the chairman pointed at the first visitor, who suddenly looked sleepy.

  This was a very delicate situation for the two con artists. At any moment, the long and nasty sword of retribution could glisten in the hands of the unassuming and gullible chairman of the city council. Fate allowed them just one short second to devise a strategy to save themselves. Terror flashed in the eyes of Lieutenant’s Schmidt’s second son.

  His imposing figure—clad in a Paraguayan summer shirt, sailor’s bell bottoms, and light-blue canvas shoes—which was sharp and angular just a moment earlier, started to come apart, lost its formidable edges, and no longer commanded any respect at all. An unpleasant smile appeared on the chairman’s face.

  But when the Lieutenant’s second son had already decided that everything was lost, and that the chairman’s terrible wrath was about to fall on his red head, salvation came from the pink ottoman.

  “Vasya!” yelled the Lieutenant’s firstborn, jumping to his feet. “Buddy boy! Don’t you recognize your brother Nick?”

  And the first son gave the second son a big hug.

  “I do!” exclaimed Vasya, his eyesight miraculously regained. “I do recognize my brother Nick!”

  The happy encounter was marked by chaotic expressions of endearment and incredibly powerful hugs—hugs so powerful that the face of the second son of the Black Sea revolutionary was pale with pain. Out of sheer joy, his brother Nick had thrashed him rather badly.

  While hugging, both brothers were cautiously glancing at the chairman, whose facial expression remained vinegary throughout the scene. As a result, their strategy had to be elaborated on the spot and enriched with stories of their family life and details of the 1905 sailors’ revolt that had somehow eluded official Soviet historians. Holding each other’s hands, the brothers sat down on the love seat and began reminiscing, all the while keeping their fawning eyes on the chairman.

  “What an incredible coincidence!” exclaimed the first son insincerely, his eyes inviting the chairman to partake in the happy family occasion.

  “Yes,” said the chairman frostily. “It happens.”

  Seeing that the chairman was still in the throes of doubt, the first son stroked his brother’s red, Irish-setter locks and asked softly:

  “So when did you come from Mariupol, where you were staying with our grandmother?”

  “Yes, I was staying,” mumbled the Lieutenant’s second son, “with her.”

  “So why didn’t you write more often? I was very worried.”

  “I was busy,” answered the redhead gloomily.

  Afraid that his inquisitive brother might ask him what exactly kept him so busy, which was largely doing time at correctional facilities in various jurisdictions, the second son of Lieutenant Schmidt seized the initiative and asked a question himself:

  “And why didn’t you write?”

  “I did write,” replied his sibling unexpectedly. Feeling a great rush of playfulness he added, “I’ve been sending you registered letters. Here, I’ve got the receipts.”

  He produced a pile of frayed slips of paper from his side pocket, which, for some reason, he showed to the chairman of the city council instead of his brother—from a safe distance.

  Oddly, the sight of the paper reassured the chairman somewhat, and the brothers’ reminiscences grew even more vivid. The redhead became quite comfortable and gave a fairly coherent, albeit monotonous, rendition of the popular brochure “The Revolt on the Ochakov.” His brother embellished the dry presentation with such picturesque vignettes that the chairman, who had started to calm down, pricked up his ears again.

  Nevertheless, he let the brothers go in peace, and they rushed outside with great relief.

  They stopped behind the corner of the city hall.

  “Talk about childhood,” said the first son, “when I was a child, I used to kill clowns like you on the spot. With a slingshot.”

  “And why is that?” inquired the famous father’s second son light-heartedly.

  “Such are the tough rules of life. Or, to put it briefly, life imposes its tough rules on us. Why did you barge into the office? Didn’t you see the chairman wasn’t alone?”

  “I thought . . .”

  “Ah, you thought? So you do think on occasion? You are a thinker, aren’t you? What is your name, Mr. Thinker? Spinoza? Jean-Jacques Rousseau? Marcus Aurelius?”

  The redhead kept quiet, feeling guilty as charged.

  “All right, I forgive you. You may live. And now let’s introduce ourselves. We are brothers, after all, and family ties carry certain obligations. My name is Ostap Bender. May I ask your original name?”

  “Balaganov,” said the redhead. “Shura Balaganov.”

  “I’m not asking what you do for a living,” said Bender politely, “but I do have some inkling. Probably something intellectual? How many convictions this year?”

  “Two,” replied Balaganov freely.

  “Now that’s no good. Why are you selling your immortal soul? A man should not let himself get conv
icted. It’s amateurish. Theft, that is. Beside the fact that stealing is a sin—and I’m sure your mother introduced you to that notion—it is also a pointless waste of time and energy.”

  Ostap could have gone on and on about his philosophy of life, but Balaganov interrupted him.

  “Look,” he said, pointing into the green depths of the Boulevard of Prodigies. “See that man in the straw hat?”

  “I see him,” said Ostap dismissively. “So what? Is that the governor of the island of Borneo?”

  “That’s Panikovsky,” said Shura. “The son of Lieutenant Schmidt.”

  An aging man, leaning slightly to one side, was making his way through the alley in the shade of regal lindens. A hard straw hat with a ribbed brim sat askew on his head. His pants were so short that the white straps of his long underwear were showing. A golden tooth was glowing beneath his mustache, like the tip of a burning cigarette.

  “What, yet another son?” said Ostap. “This is getting funny.”

  Panikovsky approached the city hall, pensively traced a figure eight in front of the building, grabbed his hat with both hands and set it straight on his head, tidied up his jacket, sighed deeply, and went inside.

  “The Lieutenant had three sons,” remarked Bender, “two smart ones, one a fool. We have to warn him.”

  “No, don’t,” said Balaganov, “next time he’ll know better than to break the pact.”

  “What pact? What are you talking about?”

  “Wait, I’ll tell you later. Look, he’s in, he’s in!”

  “I am a jealous man,” confessed Bender, “but there’s nothing to be jealous of here. Have you ever seen a bullfight? Let’s go watch.”

  The children of Lieutenant Schmidt, now fast friends, stepped out from behind the corner and approached the window of the chairman’s office.

  The chairman was sitting behind the grimy, unwashed glass. He was writing quickly. Like all those engaged in writing, he looked grieved. Suddenly he raised his head. The door swung open, and in came Panikovsky. Holding his hat against his greasy jacket, he stopped in front of the desk and moved his thick lips for a long time. Then the chairman jumped in his chair and opened his mouth wide. The brothers heard a long howl.

  Whispering “Fall back, now!” Ostap dragged Balaganov away. They ran to the boulevard and hid behind a tree.

  “Take your hats off,” said Ostap, “bare your heads. The body is about to be escorted outside.”

  He was right. The thunderous cadences of the chairman’s voice could still be heard when two large men appeared in the doorway of the city hall. They were carrying Panikovsky. One held his arms, the other his legs.

  “The remains,” narrated Ostap, “were carried out by the friends and family of the deceased.”

  The men dragged the third, foolish offspring of Lieutenant Schmidt out to the porch and started slowly swinging him back and forth. Panikovsky silently gazed into the blue sky with resignation.

  “After a brief funeral service . . .” continued Ostap.

  At this very moment the men, having given Panikovsky’s body sufficient momentum, threw him out onto the street.

  “. . . the ashes were interred,” concluded Bender.

  Panikovsky plopped on the ground like a toad. He quickly got up and, leaning to one side even more than before, ran down the Boulevard of Prodigies with amazing speed.

  “All right,” said Ostap, “now tell me how the bastard broke the pact and what that pact was all about.”

  CHAPTER 2

  THE THIRTY SONS OF

  LIEUTENANT SCHMIDT

  The eventful morning came to an end. Without discussion, Bender and Balaganov walked briskly away from the city hall. A long, dark-blue steel rail was being carried down the main street in an open peasant cart. The street was ringing and singing, as if the peasant in rough fisherman’s clothes was carrying a giant tuning fork rather than a rail. The sun beat down on the display in the window of the visual aids store, where two skeletons stood in a friendly embrace amidst globes, skulls, and the cheerfully painted cardboard liver of an alcoholic. The modest window of the sign shop was largely filled with glazed metal signs that read CLOSED FOR LUNCH, LUNCH BREAK 2-3 P.M., CLOSED FOR LUNCH BREAK, CLOSED, STORE CLOSED, and, finally, a massive black board with CLOSED FOR INVENTORY in gold lettering. Apparently these blunt statements were particularly popular in the town of Arbatov. All other eventualities were covered with a single blue sign, ATTENDANT ON DUTY.

  Farther down, three stores—selling wind instruments, mandolins, and bass balalaikas—stood together. Brass trumpets shone immodestly from display stands covered with red fabric. The tuba was particularly impressive. It looked so powerful, and lay coiled in the sun so lazily, that one couldn’t help thinking its proper place was not in a window but in a big city zoo, somewhere between the elephant and the boa constrictor. On their days off, parents would bring their kids to see it and would say: “Look, honey, this is the tuba section. The tuba is now asleep. But when it wakes up, it will definitely start trumpeting.” And the kids would stare at the remarkable instrument with their large wondrous eyes.

  Under different circumstances, Ostap Bender would have noticed the freshly hewn, log cabin-sized balalaikas, the phonograph records warping in the heat, and the children’s marching band drums, whose dashing color schemes suggested that providence is always on the side of the big battalions. This time, however, he was preoccupied with something else. He was hungry.

  “I gather you’re on the verge of a financial abyss?” he asked Balaganov.

  “You mean money?” replied Shura. “I haven’t had any for a week now.”

  “In that case, I’d worry about your future, young man,” said Ostap didactically. “The financial abyss is the deepest of them all, and you can be falling into it all your life. Oh well, cheer up. After all, I captured three meal vouchers in my beak. The chairman fell in love with me at first sight.”

  Alas, the freshly minted brothers did not get to benefit from the kindness of the city father. The doors of the Former Friend of the Stomach diner sported a large hanging lock that was covered with what looked like either rust or cooked buckwheat.

  “Of course,” said Ostap bitterly, “the diner is closed forever—they’re inventorying the schnitzel. We are forced to submit our bodies to the ravages of the private sector.”

  “The private sector prefers cash,” reminded Balaganov gloomily.

  “Well, I won’t torture you any more. The chairman showered me with gold—eight rubles. But keep in mind, dearest Shura, that I have no intention of nourishing you for free. For every vitamin I feed you, I will demand numerous small favors in return.”

  But since there was no private sector in town, the brothers ended up eating at a cooperative summer garden, where special posters informed the customers of Arbatov’s newest contribution to public dining:

  “We’ll settle for kvass,” said Balaganov.

  “Especially considering that the local kvass is produced by a group of private artisans who are friendly with the Soviet regime,” added Ostap. “Now tell me what exactly this devil Panikovsky did wrong. I love stories of petty thievery.”

  Satiated, Balaganov looked at his rescuer with gratitude and began the story. It took a good two hours to tell and was full of exceptionally interesting details.

  In all fields of human endeavor, the supply and demand of labor is regulated by specialized bodies. A theater actor will move to the city of Omsk only if he knows for sure that he need not worry about competition—namely, that there are no other candidates for his recurring role as the indifferent lover or the servant who announces that dinner is ready. Railroad employees are taken care of by their own unions, who helpfully put notices in the papers to the effect that unemployed baggage handlers cannot count on getting work on the Syzran-Vyazma Line or that the Central Asian Line is seeking four crossing guards. A commodities expert places an ad in the paper, and then the entire country learns that there is a commodities expert
with ten years’ experience who wishes to move from Moscow to the provinces for family reasons.

  Everything is regulated, everything flows along clear channels and comes full circle in compliance with the law and under its protection.

  And only one particular market was in a state of chaos—that of con artists claiming to be the children of Lieutenant Schmidt. Anarchy ravaged the ranks of the Lieutenant’s offspring. Their trade was not producing all the potential gains that should have been virtually assured by brief encounters with government officials, municipal administrators, and community activists—for the most part an extremely gullible bunch.

  Fake grandchildren of Karl Marx, non-existent nephews of Friedrich Engels, brothers of the Education Commissar Lunacharsky, cousins of the revolutionary Klara Zetkin, or, in the worst case, the descendants of that famous anarchist, Prince Kropotkin, had been extorting and begging all across the country.

  From Minsk to the Bering Strait and from the Turkish border to the Arctic shores, relatives of famous persons enter local councils, get off trains, and anxiously ride in cabs. They are in a hurry. They have a lot to do.

  At some point, however, the supply of relatives exceeded the demand, and this peculiar market was hit by a recession. Reform was needed. Little by little, order was established among the grandchildren of Karl Marx, the Kropotkins, the Engelses, and others. The only exception was the unruly guild of Lieutenant Schmidt’s children, which, like the Polish parliament, was always torn by anarchy. For some reason, the children were all difficult, rude, greedy, and kept spoiling the fruits of each other’s labors.

  Shura Balaganov, who considered himself the Lieutenant’s firstborn, grew very concerned about market conditions. More and more often he was bumping into fellow guild members who had completely ruined the bountiful fields of Ukraine and the vacation peaks of the Caucasus, places that used to be quite lucrative for him.