Little Apples

EASTER GREETINGS

An anteroom. A card table in the corner. On it are a government-issued sheet of gray paper, a pen, an inkpot, and some blotting paper. The usher is pacing up and down the hall, his mind on food and drink. On his well-fed countenance covetousness is written, and in his pockets the fruits of extortion jingle. At ten o’clock a little man—or an individual, as His Excellency likes to say—comes in from the street. The individual slips into the hall, tiptoes over to the table, picks up the pen timidly and with trembling hand, and begins writing his forgettable name on the gray sheet of paper. He writes slowly, with gravity and feeling, as if it were a calligraphic exercise. Lightly, very lightly, he dips the pen into the inkpot, four times, five—he is afraid the ink will spatter. A smudge and all will be lost! (There had been a smudge once, but that is a long story.) The individual does not end his signature with a flourish—he wouldn’t dare. He draws the r’s in painstaking detail. He finishes his calligraphic daub and peers at it, checking for errors, and not finding any, wipes the sweat from his brow.

“A happy Easter to you!” he says to the usher, and the individual’s dyed mustache brushes three times against the porter’s prickly one as they exchange the ceremonial triple kiss. The sound of smacking lips is accompanied by the pleasant tinkle of the “small donation” dropped into the pocket of this modern-day Cerberus. This first individual is followed by a second, a third, a fourth, until one o’clock. The sheet of paper is covered with signatures from top to bottom. At four o’clock Cerberus disappears with the sheet into the inner chambers. He hands it to a little old man who begins reading it through.

“These are all the Easter greetings? Hmm . . . Ha! Hmm . . . Well, I don’t recognize any of the handwriting! I tell you, one man is responsible for all these signatures! A calligrapher—they hired a calligrapher to write their Easter greetings! The audacity! I can see they didn’t want to trouble themselves to come wish me a happy Easter in person! What have I done to deserve this? Why this lack of respect? (Pause.) Well . . . I say, Maksim, will you go and get . . .”

Eleven o’clock. A panting, sweating, flushed young man with a cockade on his military cap is clambering up the endless flights of stairs to the fifth floor. Having reached it, he frantically rings the bell. A young woman opens the door.

“Is Ivan Kapitonich at home?” the young man asks, still out of breath. “Tell him . . . tell him to hurry back to His Excellency’s! He must put his name down again on the list of Easter greetings! Someone stole the piece of paper! We need to put together a new list! Hurry!”

“Who in heaven’s name would steal something like that?”

“That damned woman . . . that . . . that housekeeper of his! She gathers up all the paper she can find and sells it by the bale! The miserly old biddy, damn her! But I have eight more people to go tell—goodbye!”

Another waiting room. A table and a sheet of paper. An usher, ancient and thin as a rake, is sitting on a stool in the corner. At eleven o’clock the door from the inner chambers opens. A bald head peeks in.

“What? No one has come yet to wish me happy Easter, Efim?” a voice asks.

“No, Your Excellency.”

At noon the same head peers in again.

“What? No one has come yet to wish me happy Easter, Efim?”

“Not a soul, Your Excellency!”

“Hmm . . . Ha! Hmm . . .”

The head peers in at one, at two—still nobody. At three o’clock a whole torso, complete with hands and legs, protrudes into the room. The little old man walks over to the table and stares intently at the empty sheet of paper. There is an expression of deep sadness on his face.

“Things aren’t what they used to be, Efim!” he says with a sigh. “Hmm . . . hmm . . . well, the fatal word ‘retired’ is stamped on my forehead. The poet Nekrasov wrote something about that, didn’t he? Efim, dear fellow, so my old woman doesn’t laugh me out of house and home, let’s fill up the sheet ourselves with an assortment of Easter greetings! Here’s the pen . . .”