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  «Now then,» came from behind.

  Korotkov looked round and saw the glossy old man. «Ah!» cried the brunette, covering her face with her hands, and ran off through the door.

  «Нее,» said the old man. «Hello there. You keep turning up everywhere, Comrade Kolobkov. Real ladies' man, you are. You can kiss as much as you like, but it won't get you an expenses-paid business trip. This old man has been given one though, and I'm off. So there.» So saying he cocked a snook at Korotkov. «But I'll tell on you alright,» he went on spitefully. «That I will. You've had three of 'em down in the main section, and now you've started on the sub-sections. You don't give a damn if those little angels are crying their eyes out, do you? They're sorry now, poor lasses, but it's too late. You can't bring back a maiden's honour. That you can't. You can't.»

  The old man pulled out a large handkerchief with orange flowers, started to cry and blew his nose.

  «So you want to deprive an old man of his tiny travelling allowance, eh, Mr. Kolobkov? Alright then.» The old man started shaking and sobbing and dropped his briefcase.

  «Take it. Let a non-Party, fellow-travelling old man starve to death. Go on. That's all he's good for, the old cur. Only remember this, Mr. Kolobkov.» The old man's voice grew prophetically ominous and rang out like a bell. «They will do you no good, those satanic shekels. They'll stick in your throat.» And the old man burst into heavy sobs.

  Korotkov was gripped by hysteria. Suddenly and quite unexpectedly for himself, he began stamping his feet.

  «To hell with you!» he shouted shrilly and his sick voice echoed round the vaults. «I'm not Kolobkov. Leave me alone! I'm not Kolobkov. And I'm not going anywhere!»

  He tore at his collar.

  The old man dried up at once and began quaking with fear.

  «Next one!» someone barked behind the door. Korotkov paused and rushed inside. He turned left, past some typewriters, and found himself in front of a well-built elegant blond-haired man in a blue suit. Blondy nodded to Korotkov and said:

  «Make it snappy, Comrade. No beating about the bush. What's it to be? Poltava or Irkutsk?

  «My documents have been stolen,» the confused Korotkov replied, looking round wildly. «Then a cat turned up. It's not fair. I've never been in a fight in my life. It was the matches. I shouldn't be victimised. I don't care if he's Longjohn. My documents have…»

  «That's rubbish,» replied Blondy. «We'll provide the uniform, shirts and sheets. Even a second-hand sheepskin jacket, if it's Irkutsk. Make it snappy.»

  He turned a key musically in a lock, pulled out a drawer, looked inside it and said:

  «Alright, Sergei Nikolayevich.»

  Out of the ash-wood drawer peeped a well-combed flaxen-haired head with darting blue eyes. After it curved a snake-like neck in a crackling starched collar, then a jacket, arms and trousers, and a second later a whole secretary crawled onto the red baize squeaking «Good morning.» Shaking himself like a dog after a swim, he jumped down, turned back his cuffs, pulled a fountain pen out of his pocket and began scribbling.

  Korotkov recoiled, stretched out a hand and said plaintively to Blondy:

  «Look, look, he climbed out of the desk. What's going on?»

  «Of course, he did,» Blondy replied. «He can't stay in there all day, can he? It's time. Tempus. Time-keeping.»

  «But how? How?» rang Korotkov.

  «For heaven's sake,» Blondy snapped. «Don't waste my time, Comrade.»

  The brunette's head looked round the door and shouted excitedly and joyfully:

  «I've already sent his documents to Poltava. And I'm going with him. I've got an aunt in Poltava at 43 degrees latitude and five longitude.»

  «That's splendid,» Blondy replied. «I'm sick of all this shilly-shallying.»

  «I refuse!» shouted Korotkov, with a wandering expression. «I'll have to take her, body and soul, and I couldn't stand that. I refuse! Give me back my documents. My precious surname. Reinstate me!»

  «That's a matter for the matrimonial department, Comrade,» squeaked the secretary. «We can't do anything about that.»

  «Silly boy!» exclaimed the brunette, peeping in again. «Say yes! Say yes!» she hissed in a prompter's whisper. Her head kept darting in and out.

  «Comrade!» Korotkov sobbed, rubbing his tear-stained face. «Comrade! Give me my documents, I beseech you. Be a friend. Please, I beg you with all the fibres of my soul, and I'll go into a monastery.»

  «Cut out the hysterics, Comrade! Kindly inform me concretely and abstractly, in writing and by word of mouth, urgently and confidentially — Poltava or Irkutsk? Don't waste a busy person's time! No walking along the corridors! No spitting! No smoking! No asking for small change!» Blondy thundered, losing his temper.

  «All handshaking abolished!» the secretary cuckooed.

  «Long live clinches!» the brunette whispered passionately and rushed round the room like a gust of wind, wafting lilies-of-the-valley over Korotkov's neck.

  «The thirteenth commandment says: thou shalt not go in to thy neighbour without notification,» muttered the glossy old man and fluttered around in the air, flapping the edges of his cloak. «I'm not going in. No, sir. But I'll palm a memo off on you all the same. Here you are, plop! You'd sign anything. And land up in the dock too.» He tossed sheets of paper out of his wide black sleeve, and they floated about, settling on the desks like gulls on seashore cliffs.

  The room turned dark and the windows rocked.

  «Comrade Blondy,» the exhausted Korotkov wept. «You can shoot me on the spot, but please issue me some kind of document. And I'll kiss your hand.»

  In the darkness Blondy began to swell and grow, frantically signing the old man's sheets of paper and tossing them to the secretary, who caught them with a happy gurgle.

  «To hell with him!» Blondy thundered. «To hell with him! Typists, hey!»

  He waved an enormous hand, the wall disintegrated before Korotkov's eyes, and the thirty typewriters on the desks rang their bells and began to play a foxtrot. Swaying their hips, shaking their shoulders sensuously and kicking up a white foam with their cream legs, thirty women did a conga round the desks.

  White snakes of paper slithered into the typewriters' jaws and were joined, cut out and sewn into a pair of white trousers with violet side-stripes which said «The bearer of this really is the bearer, and not just a worthless scallywag.»

  «Put them on!» Blondy roared in the mist.

  «Aaah,» whimpered Korotkov and began banging his head against the corner of Blondy's desk. His head felt better for a moment, and Korotkov caught a glimpse of a tear-stained face.

  «Valerian drops!» cried someone on the ceiling.

  The cloak obscured the light, like a black bird, and the old man whispered in alarm:

  «Our only hope now is Dyrkin in section five. Hurry up! Hurry up!»

  There was a smell of ether, and Korotkov was carried gently into the semi-dark corridor. The cloak enveloped him and swept him along, whispering and giggling: «I've done them a good turn alright. That stuff I threw on their desks will get each of them at least five years with loss of civil rights on the field of battle. Hurry up! Hurry up!»

  The cloak fluttered to one side, and a damp gust of air wafted from the lift shaft plunging into the abyss.

  X

  DYRKIN THE DREAD

  The mirrored cabin began to sink down, and two Korotkovs sank with it. The second Korotkov was forgotten in the mirror of the lift by the first and main one, who walked out alone into the cool vestibule. A very fat and pink gent in a top hat greeted Korotkov with the words:

  «That's wonderful. I'm going to arrest you.»

  «You can't do that,» Korotkov replied with a satanic laugh, «because nobody knows who I am. Of course not. You can't arrest me or marry me. And I'm not going to Poltava either.»

  The fat man quaked with terror, looked into Korotkov's eyes and began to sink backwards.

  «Arrest me,» Korotkov squealed and stuc
k out a pale quivering tongue smelling of Valerian drops at the fat man. «How can you arrest me if instead of documents I've got sweet fanny adams? Perhaps I'm a Hohenzollern.»

  «Jesus Christ,» said the fat man, crossing himself with a trembling hand and turning from pink to yellow.

  «Longjohn turned up?» Korotkov asked abruptly, looking round. «Answer me, Fatty.»

  «Oh, no,» the fat man replied, his pink complexion changing to grey.

  «Well, what shall I do now then? Eh?»

  «Go and see Dyrkin himself,» the fat man babbled. «That's the best thing. Only he's a real terror! Don't get too close. He sent two people flying. And today he broke a phone.»

  «Alright then,» Korotkov replied with a devil-may-care spit. «We've nothing to lose now. Lift me up!»

  «Don't hurt your leg, Comrade Delegate,» said the fat man tenderly, helping Korotkov into the lift.

  On the top landing was a little fellow of about sixteen who shouted menacingly:

  «Where d'ya think you're going? Stop!»

  «Don't hit us, old chap,» said the fat man, hunching up and covering his head with his hands. «To Dyrkin himself.»

  «Go on then,» the little fellow shouted.

  «You go, Your Excellency,» the fat man whispered. «I'll wait for you here on the bench. It's awfully scary…»

  Korotkov went into a dark vestibule and from there into an empty hall with a threadbare blue carpet.

  In front of a door with a notice saying «Dyrkin» Korotkov hesitated for a moment, then went in and found himself in a comfortably furnished room with a huge crimson table and a wall clock. A chubby little Dyrkin bounced out on a spring from behind the desk, bristled his moustache and barked:

  «Be quiet!» although Korotkov had not said a word.

  At that very moment a pallid youth with a briefcase appeared in the room. Dyrkin's face was instantly wreathed in smiling wrinkles.

  «Ah!» he exclaimed ingratiatingly. «Artur Arturovich. Greetings, dear friend.»

  «Now listen, Dyrkin,» the youth said in a metallic voice. «You wrote to Puzyryov that I'd set up my personal dictatorship in an old-age insurance office and pocketed the May benefits, didn't you? Eh? Answer me, you rotten bastard.»

  «Me?» muttered Dyrkin, magically changing from Dyrkin the Dread into Dyrkin the Good Chap. «Me, Arthur Dictaturich… Of course, I… It's a lie…»

  «You blackguard,» the youth said clearly. Shaking his head and brandishing his briefcase, he slapped the latter onto Dyrkin's pate, like a pancake on a plate.

  Korotkov instinctively gasped and froze.

  «It'll be the same for you, and any other smart alec who sticks his nose into my business,» the youth said menacingly and went out, shaking a red fist at Korotkov in parting.

  For a moment or two there was silence in the room, broken only by the tinkling of the chandelier as a lorry rumbled by.

  «There, young man,» said a nice and humiliated Dyrkin, with a bitter smile. «That's what you get for your pains. You deprive yourself of sleep, food and drink, and the result's always the same — a slap round the chops. Perhaps you've brought one too. Go on then. Give old Dyrkin a bashing. He's got a public property face. Perhaps your hand hurts, eh? Then use the chandelier, old chap.»

  And Dyrkin proffered his chubby cheeks temptingly. In a daze, Korotkov gave a shy crooked smile, took the chandelier by the base and crunched the candles down on Dyrkin's head. Blood spurted onto the baize from the latter's nose and he rushed through an inner door shouting for help.

  «Cuck-oo!» piped a forest cuckoo happily, hopping out of a little painted Nuremberg house on the wall.

  «Ku-klux-klan!» it cried, turning into a bald head. «We'll tell them how you beat up public servants!»

  Korotkov was seized by fury. He swung the chandelier and brought it down on the clock. It replied with thunder and showers of golden arrows. Longjohn hopped out of the clock, turned into a white cockerel with a notice saying «outgoing» and darted through the door. From behind the inner door Dyrkin howled: «Catch him, the rascal,» and heavy footsteps sounded on all sides. Korotkov turned and took to his heels.

  XI

  PAR FORCE MOVIE AND THE ABYSS

  The fat man hopped off the landing into the lift, slid behind the bars and plunged down. Down the huge gnawed-out staircase ran first the fat man's black top hat, followed by the white outgoing cockerel, behind which the chandelier whizzed past about two inches above the cockerel's pointed white head, then came Korotkov, the sixteen-year-old with a revolver in his hand, and some other people, clattering with their studded boots. The staircase resounded with ringing bronze, and doors slammed agitatedly on the landings.

  Someone leaned over on the top floor and shouted through a megaphone:

  «Which section is moving? You've forgotten the safe!»

  A woman's voice below replied:

  «Bandits!»

  Overtaking the top hat and chandelier, Korotkov was the first to dash through the large front door and, gulping down a huge portion of red-hot air, raced into the street. The white cockerel vanished into thin air, leaving a whiff of sulphur behind it, the black cloak materialised out of nowhere and trailed along beside Korotkov, drawling in a high voice:

  «Co-op lads get beaten up, Comrades!»

  In Korotkov's path pedestrians were scattering and crawling under gates. Short whistles flared up and went out. Someone careered off, wildly hallooing, and anxious hoarse cries of «Catch him!» lit up. Iron shutters were closed with a clatter, and a lame man sitting on the tram-line squealed:

  «It's begun!»

  Shots were now flying after Korotkov, frequent and jolly like Christmas crackers, the bullets whining at either side and overhead. Growling like a blacksmith's bellows, Korotkov sped towards a gigantic eleven-storey building at right angles to the street, its main facade in a narrow side alley. Right on the corner a glass sign with the words Restaurant und Bier cracked starlike, and an elderly cabby with a languid expression on his face moved from the coach-box to sit on the pavement, saying:

  «Hey there. Taking pot-shots just for kicks, eh, lads?»

  A man ran out of a side-street, tried to catch Korotkov by his jacket and was left holding the lapel. Korotkov turned the corner, raced a few yards and ran into the mirrored expanse of the vestibule. A boy with braid and gold buttons jumped out of the lift and started crying.

  «Get in, mister. Get in!» he bawled. «Only don't hit an orphan.»

  Korotkov darted into the lift cabin, sat down on a green sofa opposite another Korotkov and started gulping like a fish on the sand. The boy got in after him, sobbing, closed the door, pulled a cord and the lift went up. At that moment shots rang out in the vestibule below, and the revolving glass doors spun wildly.

  Up went the lift, gently and nauseatingly. The boy grew calmer and wiped his nose with one hand, while the other twiddled the cord.

  «Stolen some money, mister?» he asked avidly, staring at the lacerated Korotkov.

  «We're … attacking … Longjohn,» panted Korotkov in reply. «But he's taken the offensive…»

  «You'd better go right to the top, mister, where the billiard tables are,» the boy advised him. «You can sit it out on the roof, if you've got a Mauser.»

  «Let's go up there,» Korotkov agreed.

  A moment later the lift stopped, the boy flung open the doors, sniffed hard and said:

  «Get out, mister, and nip on the roof.»

  Korotkov jumped out, looked round and did as he was told. From below came a growing, mounting noise, from the side the knocking of ivory balls through a glass partition with agitated faces flashing behind it. The boy darted back into the lift, closed the door and plunged down.

  Surveying his position with an eagle eye, Korotkov hesitated for a moment, then ran into the billiard room with the battle-cry «Charge!» Green rectangles flashed past with shiny white balls and pale faces. From below, much nearer now, a shot echoed deafeningly and there was a sound of br
eaking glass. As if in response to a signal, the players flung down their cues and scrambled hurriedly through the side door with a clatter. Korotkov rushed over and shut the door behind them on the latch, slammed the main glass door from the staircase to the billiard room, and armed himself with some billiard balls. A few seconds later behind the glass the first head loomed up beside the lift. A ball flew out of Korotkov's hands, whistled through the glass and the head disappeared. In its place a pale light flashed, and a second head loomed up, then a third. The balls flew one after the other, breaking the panes of glass in the partitions. The smashes echoed down the staircase and in reply a machine-gun howled like a deafening Singer sewing machine, and shook the whole building. Glass and frames were sliced out of the upper part, as if with a knife, and a powdery cloud of plaster swept round the room.

  Korotkov realised he could not hold his position. Covering his head with his hands, he took a run and kicked the third glass partition, behind which lay the flat asphalt of the roof. The glass splintered and scattered. Under heavy fire he managed to toss five pyramids onto the roof, and they rolled about on the asphalt like severed heads. Korotkov leapt out after them, and just in time too, because the machine-gun lowered its fire and blew out the whole bottom section of the frame.

  «Surrender!» he heard faintly.

  Suddenly Korotkov saw a pale sun overhead, a bleached sky, a breeze and frozen asphalt. From below and outside a muffled anxious roar spoke of the town. After hopping up and down on the asphalt and looking round, Korotkov picked up three balls, ran over to the parapet, climbed onto it and looked down. His heart missed a beat. Below lay the roofs of buildings that looked flattened and small, a square with trams crawling over it, beetle-people, and at once Korotkov saw tiny grey figures dancing up to the entrance along the crack of the side-street, followed by a heavy toy dotted with shining gold heads.

  «Firemen!» Korotkov gasped. «I'm surrounded.»

  Leaning over the parapet, he took aim and threw the three balls, one after the other. They rose up, described an arc, then plunged down. Korotkov picked up another three, crawled over again, swung his arm and let them fly too. The balls flashed like silver, turning black as they fell, then flashed again and disappeared. Korotkov thought he saw the beetles begin to scurry about in alarm in the sun-lit square. He bent down to get another batch of missiles, but did not have time. With a crunching and smashing of glass people appeared in the billiard room. They spilled out like peas, jumping onto the roof. Grey caps and greatcoats poured out, and the glossy old man came flying through an upper pane, without touching the ground. Then the wall collapsed completely, and a terrible clean-shaven Longjohn swept out menacingly on roller-skates with an old blunderbuss in his hands.