Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Iron Logic

A tiny sun-bunny – hop! – flips from the window, from the crack in the lace curtains – hop! – onto the mirror, and crackles, and pops, and skitters all over the room: onto the ceiling, the floor, the Yatran typewriter, the desk and into Shishmaryov’s eyes. The chairman squints, pushes budget sheets away, leans back in his chair. On a day like this one should be out in the field, waiting for dusk. When things go still, the sun sets, and only pink streaks, then scarlet, then purple – then dusk. That’s when they come: wizz! – jet-quick teals, whoosh! – golden-eyes, swoop! – fat mallards. And after – wild onion, fish stew over the fire, and Pal-Petrovich, serene, happy, Pal-Petrovich finally at peace, and Andrei Yevgeniyevich – with all his troubles sent to hell, and a story, a joke! And in the morning – out in the mist, whistle to the grouse: a hard full trill like a cock, one cut-off quick, half-garbled – like a hen’s.

“Yes, siree...”

But there is the Plan. Norms to fulfill. The harvesting of things. Of bark, for instance. And there are huntsmen. The Forester. The hunting season’s around the corner... And where are the huntsmen? The huntsmen are ready – but he’s got no money for staff. And where can he get it? From Pal-Petrovich, of course. Pal-Petrovich: we take him hunting, he gives us a staff position. Although, truth be told, Pal-Petrovich doesn’t need anyone’s permission to hunt; if he wants something, he gets it. But no, he won’t just go over the chairman’s head like that – they’re friends, aren’t they? So, what then – to beg? Calling, cow-towing, pleading? And Pal-Petrovich is stern at work, oh, very stern. It wouldn’t look good. Not good at all, quite disgusting in fact. And if he refuses – then what? Flattery, ingratiation, so on? Right? Quite logical indeed. And wasn’t there a Lefaucheux rifle procured for Pal-Petrovich? Such a piece of work that rifle – pretty as a picture! A perfect toy. I’d love to shoot one myself: for bird there’s nothing better. But it wouldn’t be right. You wouldn’t look right with it, Mister Chairman of the Stargorod Sporting Society, you would not indeed. You have to wait. Be patient. When Colonel Yegorov croaks, someone’ll have to find a new home for his Sauer – the old soldier promised to bequeath it to you, didn’t he? A three-ring Sauer, the real deal! A trophy. That’s even better than a Lefaucheux. Certainly not worse. And Yegorov’s got cancer. The hospital won’t admit him again – Vdovin refused to operate, said it’s pointless. So there you have it. Ready, set, march – the grouse will still be there. Trilling.

And that’s when the phone on the desk, a Hungarian model, with buttons, trills just like a grouse: “Bee-bee-bee-beep!”

Perk up, like a spaniel, grab the thing – gently, like a shot bird – carry it to your ear:

“Shishmaryov speaking.”

Sound stern, sharp. Take pride in the sharpness – you can’t keep things in order without being sharp and stern.

On the other end of the line – the regional administration chairman, clearly irked.

“Shishmaryov? Shestokrylov here. Is there a reason you’re not cleaning out your toilet?”

“Which toilet, Savvatei Ivanovich?”

“What do you mean, which toilet, damn it? You know perfectly well! I have to apologize to my Italian tourists for your toilet, and you want to fool around? Who’s in charge of the portable toilets on Solikha dig, me or you?”

“I am, Savvatei Ivanovich, I am indeed, but you know, those archaeologists...”

“Shishmaryov, do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth? You have three days, and I don’t care if you have to scoop it out by hand, do you hear me? I don’t give a flying hoot about your damn archaeologists, and you better think long and hard about why the chairman of the regional administration should have to clean up your shit! All right, that’s it, Shishmaryov. If you don’t get it done – I’ll see you in my office.”

Shishmaryov placed the receiver carefully back on the phone and only then cursed. Without any special anger, however – a snap, as if at a passing fly. That’s life right there, isn’t it? Like he’s got nothing better to do. And, of course, it has to be the scientists! He’s just about had it with their kind – you give them an inch, they take a mile, never fails. But not this time, no sir – they’ll clean it up themselves!

He rubbed his hands together, let himself chuckle even, put on his suit jacket, looked himself over in the mirror, straightened his tie, sighed and grabbed a leather portfolio for added solemnity. Then he went out onto the porch.

All this is happening why? He knew it – he didn’t want to move into Syrtsov’s lush offices, he did everything to get out of it. But no, they just had to move him there – twisted his arm, basically. Said it was temporary. It’s been ten years. And it’s a his-to-ri-cal landmark (like they’d ever let him forget about it)! It’s good historical wood heating – that’s one thing. Then he had to give up one of his precious huntsman lines for a stoker – that’s another. Then he had to build them an outhouse – with six holes, a beauty of a thing, that was the third. Except now, every batch of snot-nosed kids that comes through on a school trip just has to stop by his, Shishmaryov’s, place. And use the toilet.

“Who’s in charge of that toilet?” he repeated, mocking the chairman’s tone. Rather than yelling at him, why couldn’t he build a regular public one? But what are you gonna do, eh? You live in Russia.

But – it’s your own damn fault. You let them in. And how could you refuse? Who hasn’t heard Professor Koldin speak on Stargorod radio, who hasn’t seen him, damn his cotton socks, on national TV – he is a public figure, that’s for sure. And he came to Shishmaryov himself, asked for an appointment, said, “We’re beginning an archaeological project right outside your door...”

An archaeological project, right. The hole’ll be here when we are all gone, that’s for sure. They have a conveyor belt for the dirt in there. A whole swarm of school-kids – there was a special order to send them all to the dig, for “practice.” Barns, laboratories, a lean-to for when it rains. And a chicken-wire fence around the whole thing – can’t have just anyone walking in and out, it’s a site!

But – you do what you have to do. How could you not? It’s history! Shishmaryov has great respect for history.

He pushed the gate, walked into their territory, sniffed the air. Yep, it stinks alright. You bet. Could’ve at least closed the door in this heat. Oh, they’ll clean it up – he’ll see to that! Look how many kids they have tooling around in that hole, and every last one of them’s getting paid. Of all things, money here is not a problem. Anyone can see that.

He introduced himself to a student – the nice girl who sat at the desk, reading a nice red book. He asked to see the professor. She gave him a displeased kind of look – for interrupting her nice work, how else – but stood up and went to get the professor.

“Please, wait here a minute,” she said when she came back. “Pyotr Grigoriyevich is climbing up.”

And indeed, Pyotr Grigoriyevich is climbing already. Tiny steps, short, exact, one foot in front of the other on the plank – planted firmly, solid on the good pine boards (they made the footpaths from one-by-fours). Professor’s rubbing his hands, professor can’t wait to see him. Professor is smiling, but Shishmaryov can’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses. It’s hot out here, of course.

Looks like it might just work. It will! Professor’s in the right mood.

“Andrei Yevgeniyevich, my dear, to what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”

A bit old-fashioned, but Shishmaryov actually likes being addressed like this.

“Are you here on business, or did you just decide to stop by, to be a good neighbor?”

“Business, I have to admit, just business... I just can’t seem to make it here otherwise – work, you know, is keeping me busy...”

“Oh, don’t I understand? You must be running off your feet getting ready for the hunting season. I’ll tell you, in the old days, I used to love tracking around with a gun myself... But if it’s business, I won’t bore you with my chit-chat. Please, come in, here, to the laboratory – we won’t be disturbed in there. Nadenka,” professor says to the student, “please make sure the log house foundations are reflected on the drawings accurately, I’ll check it myself. And yes, I am not available for anyone – Andrei Yevgeniyevich and I have some extremely important affairs to discuss, I see. Affairs of the state – you know what I mean, Nadenka?”

He’s sharp, Shishmaryov observes, but with a sense of humor too. It might just work, it just might.

The Professor leads Shishmaryov into a walled-off laboratory. Nadenka follows them with her gaze, then goes back to being absorbed by her book.

In the laboratory – an old threadbare couch, a table on trestles, a plank-board bench, shelves along the walls. The professor carefully deposits his soft plump body on the couch; Andrei Yevgeniyevich perches on the bench, his portfolio on the table before him.

“So, I am at your disposal.”

He doesn’t take his glasses off, the bastard. Shishmaryov – grab the bull by the horns! – goes straight to the heart:

“I had a call from Shestokrylov today...”

“Yes, well, Savvatei Ivanovich and I go back a long time.”

“Basically, we have one toilet between the two of us, right?”

“Yes, of course, Andrei Yevgeniyevich, but don’t get so worked up about it, please. I’m here to help.”

“So, like I was saying, we have one toilet, and you have many people. So, the toilet’s overflowing, and foreigners see it. It doesn’t look nice, Pyotr Grigoriyevich, it should be cleaned up.”

“I understand you completely and agree wholeheartedly. I want you to know, I’m all for it. I myself don’t actually use that restroom – it doesn’t seem proper, in my position, but it’s highly unhygienic, it’s only a matter of time before the health inspection gets a whiff of it, pardon my pun. I agree with you wholeheartedly. So what is the problem?”

“What do you mean?” Shishmaryov thought he explained everything plainly. “You, then, have all these people, an army, and what do I have? And a truck, you know, is liable to cost eighty rubles, no less, we’d have to hire it privately, our fleet’s all tied up.”

“You see, Andrei Yevgeniyevich, I am a man of science, and I’ve gotten used to putting my faith in numbers. You must forgive me, your sentiments have little effect on me, although I can see you are very upset. I can also see you are a man of action. Splendid, then. Say, what if someone told you there’s little grouse to be had this year, but I heard with my own ears three females trill just this last Sunday. What then? Which do you believe? Neither, of course! You show me a figure, or at least some calculations, and compare the numbers with the last year’s count, and then, yes – then you can make a logical conclusion. Am I right?”

Damn it, he’s a hunter, too... But Shishmaryov nods obediently.

“So, let us do some math here.”

The professor sits up on the couch so he can reach the table, grabs a sheet of paper from a shelf, produces a pencil and inquires, apparently with no intention whatsoever to mock him:

“Could you by chance recall when the toilet was last cleaned out?”

“Geez, before you guys came, it was doing fine – it’s been here for five years, and never bothered anyone.”

“Splendid! We’ll say five years. In what units would you like to measure its contents?”

“What do the contents have to do with anything?”

“How do you mean, Andrei Yevgeniyevich? It’s our facility, isn’t it, shared that is – so we’re the ones responsible for measuring its capacity, aren’t we? Ancient Greeks in our position would have suggested the amphora as a unit of volume, and you and I, if we put our minds to it, could probably manage with barrels, remember, like the ones horses used to pull around when we were children? But buckets would do just as nicely, or mugs, even, it doesn’t matter.”

“But I don’t understand... what are you trying to do?” The joke, it seemed, was no longer funny.

“Bear with me, dear Andrei Yevgeniyevich, I beg you. I assure you, I’m not trying to avoid the problem, I just want us to agree on the method of our approach, as a first step. It’s all perfectly natural, a common outcome of a human function – so there’s nothing to be ashamed of, is there? Let’s count in liters, to stick to the metric system. By the way, you have five accountants on your staff, plus the huntsmen, the senior forester, a typist, drivers, and, finally, yourself – about 25 people in all?”

“Twenty-two,” Shishmaryov confirms, curtly and with the grim determination of a man who’ll fight to his last drop of blood.

“Splendid, plus two, three, four, sometimes six visitors every day, and sometimes more. You have fifteen districts under your jurisdiction, with huntsmen, foresters, and a manager in each, so for the sake of simplicity, we’ll just round it up to 25 people a day.”

“All right, but you – your expedition..,” without really wanting to, Shishmaryov is drawn into the process. To be completely honest, he’s rather appalled, really disgusted, but it appears this is the only way to get anything out of the Professor.

“Just another minute of your patience, Andrei Yevgeniyevich. So, on this side we have 25 healthy adult individuals consuming a high-calorie, high-protein diet. Because I will not be convinced that elk or boar, not even to mention bear, are any less nutritious than the pollock and catfish one buys at the grocery store. Your 25 against my 75 schoolchildren and four students. Let’s take the volume at..,” the Professor trails off, writing a column of numbers.

“There you go with your volumes again, Pyotr Grigoriyevich! Can’t you see – it’s plain: there’s a toilet, and it must be cleaned!”

“Here... I think it should be about four cubic meters, multiplied by six days a week – 24 total. I have 75 six- and seven-graders on paper, but I don’t ever get more than 55-56 of them to show up. Then, if we compare a six-grader against a grown-up hunter, based on average weight, we’ll get a ratio of about one to four, right? You’re a hunter, Andrei Yevgeniyevich, you know what I mean: a piglet is not a boar, right?”

“Yes, of course, but...”

Goddamn it!

“No ‘buts’. Logic is a merciless thing. You can’t argue with it, my dear. So, 60 divided by four (meaning, four kids equal one hunter) comes out to fifteen. I am getting one point six cubic meters of, pardon me, the substance in question per six-grader. Doesn’t add up to much over the two months we’ve been here, does it, Andrei Yevgeniyevich? And by the way, the kids only work until lunch, while you and I are compelled by law to carry out a full eight-hour work day.”

The Professor dabs his forehead with a hanky – it’s hot even here, inside the little building.

“So, my dear, do you see the logic? It’s rather compelling, isn’t it? Twenty-five versus 15 – it’s like two times two. And, beyond that, do you know how much our beloved government allocates for archaeological research per year? A million! For the entire country! That’s the price of a single mid-range bomber, and it’s supposed to cover all, mind you, all expeditions across our boundless country, plus the salaries of laborers, guards, cleaning crews and myself. I dare say you make more from harvesting birch bark. And the kids who work for me? I can’t pay them more than two rubles a day. How much pollock or catfish can you buy for two rubles?” The Professor rises and maneuvers Shishmaryov towards the door, out. “That’s where the matters stand, Andrei Yevgeniyevich, and now I must excuse myself – I am late for a meeting.”

“Yes, of course. I see now. I am sorry for having disturbed you...”

Shishmaryov is defeated. He is smitten, in fact – what a penny-pincher, and a Professor! He runs, cursing the science of archaeology and all its professors in general, and Professor Koldin in particular, and then cursing himself. In the office, an idea occurs to him: he will call the plant, and he will ask not for three, but for five new huntsmen positions! Pal-Petrovich, as he’s wont to do, will not give him all five – he’ll back off two and get his three. Of those, two will employ actual people and the budget for the third will pay for a sanitation crew to vacuum out the damn toilet, and whatever’s left he’ll use to pay the night-guard who’s been watching his bark warehouse for free (in exchange for a boar license), but still... Damn it all to hell! Shishmaryov picks up the yellow, Hungarian-made receiver he hates so much.

Pyotr Grigoriyevich watches the Chairman disappear inside his office, shakes his head, and rubs his hands together – it’s a habit. He takes off his glasses, stuffs them into his breast-pocket. He looks at his watch.

“Smoke break!” he calls out.

The students raise their heads from the trench like war-horses at the sound of the trumpet, and echo: “Smoke break!”

The mechanic transporter line stops; kids run to the shade, splash at the sinks.

“Nadenka,” the Professor turns to the girl still sitting behind her desk reading her book. “Nadenka, I am going to the museum for a meeting of the renovation committee. I won’t be back for dinner. If I don’t get a hundred and fifty rubles to fix that transporter line, we’ll have to carry the dirt out by hand next year.”

He touches the pocket containing his glasses, but does not pull them out; instead, he walks away towards the kremlin. The committee is waiting for him. The museum’s director has spent the morning staring at her budget, trying to find 1,264 rubles in cash somewhere between its lines. Last night, the roof above the Likhonin Chambers leaked, there’s been water damage to the icons kept there. She needs to find cash – no one will fix her roof in exchange for a piddly IOU.

High in the shade above the dig, Nadenka sits behind her desk, reading. The transporter line starts up again, rattles. The sun beats down on the dirt. Nadenka is reading a samizdat translation, a thick book in a red cloth cover. She reads: “The real difference between a mortal man and an angel does not lie in the fact that a man possesses a body and an angel is fleshless; the true distinction can only be revealed in the comparison between a mortal and an angelic soul. A mortal man’s soul is endlessly complex. It is an entire world constituted by different essences, while an angel is a singular essence and, in this sense, one-dimensional. Moreover, because of its multiplicity, its ability to contain mutually exclusive instincts, and because of its central gift – a share of the Divine which constitutes a mortal soul’s true strength and resilience, and makes a man human – because of these capacities of his mortal soul, a man has the ability to differentiate things, to tell the good from the evil. A man can ascend to great heights, but he can also fall from what seems like a secure, well-established path. None of this is possible for an angel. In his internal essence, an angel is forever unchanged.”

“Nadezhda! Are you ever coming out to work, or what?”

Nadenka stops reading, but does not look down, into the dig, to see who’s calling her; instead, she gazes upward, at the clear, distant August sky and mutters lines from a poem:

“Fear the open road in the middle of the day

Noontime is the hour when angels go to pray...”³

The noontime Stargorodian sun is hot, very hot. The barely noticeable breeze brings a distinct waft of the toilet. One of the kids forgot to close the door again.

Nadenka reads.

3. Lines from a poem by Mirra Lokhvitskaya, 1869-1905.