THE CABMAN TELLS HIS STORY


In the centre of the town, near the market, several buildings stood jammed together in a small square. This was the place where every evening the youth of the town took their walks. And although all four pavements belonged to different streets, the aimless wandering round and round the square was known as "strolling down the avenue." The strollers dawdled along past the lighted shop-windows, just as they did back home, down Post Street! And as soon as we mingled with the idle stream, II realized that every town has its Post Street. True, the evenings in this seaside town were much warmer than back home, in Podolia. Bronzed young men sauntered along the pavements in white, loose-fitting "apache" shirts, light trousers, and with sandals on their bare feet.

Ht was very stuffy, and Bobir, who had decided to cut a dash in his Cheviot tweed, soon discarded his jacket and carried it on his arm.

Several times we stopped by the brightly-lighted entrance to the watermen's club, where a comic film The Cigarette Girl, starring Yulia Solntseva and Igor Ilyinsky, was being shown. But every time we talked each other out of it and turned back. We considered that we could not afford to spend money on the cinema yet.

Today Petka had earned three rubles forty kopeks, I, two ninety, and Sasha, though his boasts reached the five-ruble figure, seemed uncertain just how much was due to him. But in any case we should not get the money until pay-day. .

We had finally decided to take the cheapest seats, when I overheard someone near the box-office

say that the film would be shown next week in the open-air cinema in the town park. And that put our minds at rest. Fine! We would go out on the roof and see it free.

"Hi, lads, come over here!" a familiar voice shouted from the boulevard that ran along the other side of the street, in front of the watermen's club.

We crossed the street and caught sight of Volodya the cabman. He was sitting on a bench with two other people, smoking. Volodya was wearing a worn pea-jacket and a broad-brimmed straw hat. When we drew nearer, I saw that his companions were the men who worked on the machine next to me—Luka Turunda and Gladyshev.

"Move up!" Volodya ordered his companions and they made room for us on the bench. "Sit down and tell us all about it. Well, did they take you on at the works?"

"You're behind the times, old man," Luka remarked, as he moved down the bench. "Vasil is our next-door neighbour on the machines, so to speak."

"Which of you is called Vasil?" Volodya asked. I pointed at my chest.

"Were the others taken on as well?" the driver inquired. "Of course!" Petka said, for all the world as if the question had never been in doubt.

"So I'm in luck, eh!" Volodya exclaimed cheerfully. "Come on, lads, get ready to wet that bargain of ours!"

"Wetting the bargain can wait," Sasha cut in firmly. "Where did you get to yesterday? Why didn't you turn up at the station as you said you would?"

"I went to Mariupol," said Volodya, "an engineer asked me to take him there. I went off with him straightaway after I introduced you to Auntie."

"Can't you go there by train?" I said in surprise. "You can, but there's an awkward change at Volnovakh. You have to wait all day for the train. This engineer had to get to Mariupol quick, so off we went for a long ride."

"And empty all the way back?" Petka asked.

"Very nearly," Volodya replied, warming to his tale. "I'd just fed Sultan and had a bite to eat myself in the inn there. 'Well,' I thought to myself, 'we'll take it easy on the way back.' Suddenly up pops a cove with a suit-case and says: 'Won't you take me with you?' 'Why not?' I says. 'I'll take you anywhere for a couple of tens.' I thought he'd start bargaining, but no, he didn't—fishes out the money without a murmur! 'That's all right,' he says, 'but make it quick.' Well, for a sum like that I didn't mind raising the dust."

"Did you really get twenty rubles?" Gladyshev inquired.

"Think I'm having you on? Two crisp and crackly tens, here they are, the darlings." And Volodya tapped his breast pocket tenderly. "Lovely journey! Sang songs all the way."

"Profitable job you've got, Volodya," Luka said. "Money and songs at the same time!"

"Oh yes, to be sure!" Volodya retorted. "I've got more money than a frog's got feathers. Comes in one pocket and goes out the other... I shouldn't feel envious if I were you though. That was just a bit of luck today. Sometimes you stand about outside that station and feel as if you'd do anything to get a passenger."

"But you are out in the fresh air," Gladyshev said. "You don't swallow dust all the time, like us in the foundry."

"Never mind, Artem, when they make our roof higher, we won't have so much trouble from dust," Luka remarked, and I realized that everyone in the foundry was looking forward to the day when the roof would be raised.

"You talk about fresh air, Artem," Volodya murmured, half to himself, "but I'd give up all my fresh air for a job at the works any day, if it wasn't for my hand."

"Did you work at the plant too?" I said in such a frank tone of surprise that Luka and Artem burst out laughing.

"What do you think!" Volodya said hotly, and I saw that my incredulity had touched him on the raw.

"I haven't always been a cabman, my lad. II did twelve years at the works, starting as a boy. The foreign owners squeezed what they could out of me. If it wasn't for my hand, who knows, I might be a foreman by now."

"What's wrong with your hand?" Sasha asked quickly, staring at Volodya's sunburnt hands resting on his knees. They looked sound enough at first glance.

"Well, it was a silly business really," Volodya said. "My friends here know it (he nodded at Luka and Gladyshev). Perhaps it might do you, new lads, a bit of good to know it too. Just as a bit of instruction for you.

"In 1922, when that bandit Makhno pushed off to Rumania, quite a few of his cronies were left behind here, in this town, I don't know whether it was because they were afraid to run away to strange parts with that shaggy blighter they had for a leader, or whether he left them here, in Tavria, to stir up trouble—but the fact remains, the place was swarming with them, specially in the colony behind the station. There was hardly a house in that' colony that wasn't owned by kulaks. Well off they were too—good, brick houses, big vineyards, private boats in the harbour, and nets drying on the shore all the way from the lighthouse to Matrosskaya Settlement. If it was a bad year for the grapes, they made their money out of fishing. Well, when the famine started, we, armed workers, were off right-away to have a look in those kulaks' cellars and see if they were hiding any grain. And quite right we were too. There was real famine in the town. The children were all swollen, every nettle from the streets, every bit of grass from the cemetery had been plucked for food. But when you crossed the railway line—it was another world. Plenty of everything in the colony, even smoked ham and vodka on holidays. You'd walk along the street, ready to drop from hunger, and when you got a whiff from their kitchens in your nostrils, it'd make you feel like tearing those bloodsuckers to pieces! The whole people stricken with hunger while they made merry with their gramophones blaring out 'two-steps' for them to dance to!

"Of course, those kulaks didn't like us coming round searching their cellars and taking over their stores. They started shooting at us. And on top of that there were still some foreigners left at the works. John Caiworth and his family had hopped it straightaway, but he'd left his overseers behind. They were still in his pay and they used to get arms from somewhere and smuggle them into the colony secretly at night.

"Well, one evening we went to the house of a local merchant. Buchilo, his name was. No sooner had we shut the door behind us than we heard footsteps and two of his neighbours came in after us. The Varfolomeyev brothers— kulaks 'from the colony too. Both of 'em were wearing leather jerkins, Kuban hats, purple velvet trousers. And they were both keeping their hands in their pockets. 'Well,' I thinks to myself, 'we're going to have a hot time of it!' I knew almost for certain that both brothers had served under Makhno. Then another came in, one of their servants, by the look of him. Kashket they used to call him, he. . ."

"Just a sec', Volodya," I interrupted the cabman, "doesn't he work in the foundry now? Wears a red kerchief on his head?"

"That's the fellow!" Volodya affirmed readily. "Well... I looked round and there's the merchant himself standing by his bed, grinning. He wasn't afraid of a search now that he'd got a body-guard. Well, those Varfolomeyev brothers, his neighbours, stationed Kashket at the door and came up to me. And II was alone, or very nearly. My mate, Kolya Smorgunov, was a smart lad and he knew how to use a carbine,

but the famine had drained all the strength out of his body. He couldn't even have handled the younger brother. It looked as if I'd have to face the music on my own.

"Big Varfolomeyev comes up to me and says: 'Well, Volodya, you dirty rat, if you've come to see us, you might as well sit down.'

" 'Thanks,' I says, 'I think I will.' And I sat down on the edge of a chair.

" 'Well, give the honoured guests something to eat,' says the older Varfolomeyev to the merchant.

"And Buchilo comes forward carrying glasses and vodka and boiled bacon. And there are his daughters sitting in the corner, as if they're going to be betrothed. Both of 'em were engaged to the Varfolomeyevs. They were looking very pale—they must have known something was brewing.

"I looked Varfolomeyev straight in the eye. I felt scared, but I didn't show it, I knew I'd got Soviet power to back me up. Young Varfolomeyev whispered something to Buchilo and I tried to hear what he was saying.

"And meanwhile, Luska Varfolomeyev pours me out a glass of vodka and says: 'Have a drink, old man!'

" 'Why should I drink first?' I says. 'Perhaps it's poisoned. Drink it yourself.'

" 'What do you mean!' Luska hisses. 'Are you scared? And you dare to insult the master of the house! We make you welcome, you dirty tramp, and you...' And he whipped out a knife.

"I saw what was coming, so I gave Kolya Smorgunov a wink. But instead of taking a pot at him, he smashes the lamp with the butt of his gun! Well, when that happened, I knocked big Varfolomeyev backwards over the table and heard him crash to the floor. The glasses rolled off the table, the girls screamed, and it was black as pitch all round. 'If only the others come soon!' I thought. And II pulled out my Browning to fire at the window. But just then a stool whizzed past my ear. 'Aha,' I think, 'the heavy artillery's gone into action!' And I started crawling towards the door. I could hear someone breathing close by and then I got a whiff of leather. So it was someone in a leather jerkin beside me. 'Here, take that!' I thought to myself. And I lashed out with the butt of my Browning. It landed right on the back of his head. There was a groan from one of the brothers. 'Hold the door, Kashket,' someone shouts. 'We'll show him!' And he lets fly at the ceiling. Then he stopped being shy too and let 'em have it with the Browning, into the corner where the shot had come from... Then there was screaming and firing and a smell of kerosene from somewhere. And Smorgunov shouts out from the door: 'Go it, Volodya, get their guns off 'em! I won't let 'em out!' It was all right for him to say 'get their guns!' There were four of them, not counting the daughters, and I was alone! II went on crawling towards the door. Suddenly I heard someone coming at me and caught the smell of vodka. I crouched down and covered my head with my hand. And just as I did so—zip! Something smacked into my hand!

"At first I didn't feel any pain, you know. Even though the knife had cut right through the sinews and touched my skull! 'I pulled my hand away and tried to find a handkerchief! But I knew I was in a bad way—my fingers wouldn't 'work. I covered the wound with my other hand and felt the sweat breaking out on my forehead. I began to feel very weak.

"With the last strength I could muster I yelled out to Kolya Smorgunov: 'Let 'em have it, the kulak blood-suckers, I'm wounded!' And just then Kashket swept the vases off the window-sill, smashed the window with his head and jumped out into the snow. Kolya saw him off with a blast from his carbine. Then our mates arrived. They'd heard the shots and they arrested both the Varfolomeyevs and the merchant. But as for me, I was crippled. I can hardly lift a glass of water. The food was bad in those days and the sinews didn't heal up properly. Even now my hand's sort of paralysed..."

"Look here, Volodya," Gladyshev asked. "Why does Kashket swank that he got wounded at the front when he was defending Yekaterinoslav from the Whites?"

"At the front?" Volodya laughed. "Haven't you ever been swimming with him? No? Well, try it when you get the chance. You'll see where the bullet hit him. People don't get wounds like that at the front, except the deserters who try to run away when no one's looking..."

The dandy we had met in the personnel department strolled past our bench in his long sharp-pointed shoes.

"Why, there's Zuzya!" Volodya said loudly.

"Hullo there!" The dandy turned and waved to the driver as he passed.

"That Zuzya didn't want to take us on at the works!" Petka remarked grimly.

"Is that so!" Volodya exclaimed.

"Yes, it is," I said, supporting Petka.

"Queer!" Gladyshev said. "Surely Zuzya isn't getting uppish? I've been told he's pretty decent towards the working class."

"Decent!" Sasha cried indignantly. "Why, if it hadn't been for the director of the works... Just listen to this..." And he recounted how Zuzya had spoken to us in his office.

"A real bureaucrat, lives on red tape!" I put in.

"And was thinking of asking him for a job in the transport department!" Volodya said.

"If he'd only explained things, advised us a bit! 'Allez!' he says. 'Go to Kharkov,' " Sasha went on indignantly. "Not like the director! He asked about everything like a human being, tested us on how much we knew... "

"No flies on our director," Luka said. "You won't find a director like him all the way along the coast, from Sevastopol to Rostov! He's been asked to take over the Ilyich Works and the Ukrainian Trust, but he wouldn't go. 'Let me get this works into shape,' he says. 'I want to introduce proper working methods here and get rid of the legacy the foreigners left us.' It was his idea to raise the foundry roof. 'Let the most harmful shop have the most fresh air,' he says. Haven't you seen the fettling shop we've built since he's been director? It's a lovely sight! In the old days, under Caiworth, people working in that fettling shop used to die of consumption by the hundred. They used to clean the castings in little huts, all the dust used to get in their lungs. But now it's a pleasure to look at. It's light, it's clean, and all the dust is sucked out by pipes... And the pasting he gave those Trotskyites last year! He made their feathers fly all right! Don't try to compare Ivan Fyodorovich with Zuzya, lad."

"What is he, does he come from the working class?"

"Ivan Fyodorovich?"

"No, Zuzya!"

"He's a footballer," Luka said calmly.

"What's football got to do with it?" Petka put in.

"Just this," said Luka. "Zuzya was the best centre forward in the whole of Zaporozhye, but at the Communard Works they didn't think much of him—used to work as la stoker, or something. But our chief engineer, he's crackers on football. He went to Zaporozhye once and watched Zuzya playing.

When he saw Zuzya was a nippy fellow, he got him to come here. Of course, as soon as Zuzya arrives, he gets promoted—assistant manager of the personnel department. Now he draws a decent salary, enough to feed himself up for kicking that ball about..."

"The chief engineer—he's a grey-haired man, isn't he?" I asked cautiously, remembering what Angelika had said about her father.

"That's him," Volodya affirmed, "your neighbour. Rather a queer chap, but he likes football."

"His daughter's a good-looker," Petka put in with some satisfaction. "Vasil knows her already. They've been holding hands on the beach."

"Well, I'm blowed!" Volodya looked at me with surprise and respect. "You're a fast-worker, I see, don't let the grass grow under your feet! But watch your step—if Zuzya gets to know about, he'll break your shins for you. His kick's like a cannon-ball, lad. He can break a cross-bar with one of his shots..."

Not far away, in the harbour, a ship gave a sharp blast on its siren. Then another, and a third.

"The Dzerzhinsky's off to Yalta," Luka said.

We had never seen a real steamer in our lives, only in pictures. I very much wanted to run down to the harbour and watch the ship leave, but Petka would go on trying to take the rise out of me. Nudging Bobir, he asked Volodya: "Is Zuzya a friend of the engineer's daughter?"

"Sure he is! He's always going round there taking her out on his bicycle. One of the family."

"I think they must like him because he's a footballer," Luka remarked.

"You don't mean to say the engineer's daughter plays football?" Petka gasped.

"She's a football fan! If you ever go to a match, don't sit in front of her," Luka advised, "she'll punch your back till it's black and blue. Football's the only thing she cares about, like her old man."

"Now, now you're going a bit too far. . ." Gladyshev, who had been silent until now, came to the defence of my acquaintance. "If you ask me, she knows her own mind all right, that girl does. She's read a lot of books. As for being keen on football, what's wrong with that? Who of us isn't! Some go in for pigeons, others prefer football. The chief doctor down at the sanatorium, is he a fan? Of course, he is! The harbour master, Captain Sabadash? Of course! Madame Kozulya? Not half! That one from the dancing-school... what's her name.. . Madame Rogale-Piontkovskaya? Nuts on the game! Even Lisovsky the priest, as soon as there's a match, he shuts up his church and goes off to the ground with his old woman.. . Our town's such a crazy place!"

Gladyshev had mentioned a name that took me back at once to the old days, in far-off Podolia.

"That Rogale-Piontkovskaya you mentioned, she isn't a countess by any chance, is she?" I asked.

"Goodness knows whether she's a countess or not, but she's certainly the queerest fish in this part of the world," Gladyshev replied.

"Rules the roost up at the dancing-school," Luka added.

"Well, why are we sitting here, friends, talking ourselves dry?" Volodya exclaimed suddenly. "What about going to Chelidze and having a glass of beer, eh?"

"We'd better go, hadn't we, Vasil?" Sasha whispered to me. "They'll be offended if we don't."

"Komsomol members going to a pub?" I thought. "Is that right? On the other hand, our new friends may really think we're too soft for their company, or too tight-fisted! And after all, what's a glass of beer!"

But my tired limbs had the last say, and remembering that I had to be at work again in the morning, I replied: "We're not sure... Tomorrow..."

"Don't bother the lads, Volodya," Luka intervened unexpectedly. "They're young, they haven't got used to the work yet. If they aren't careful, they really will oversleep. Let 'em go home! And you, lad," Luka turned to me, "don't be too scared of your mate. He grumbles and barks, but on the whole he's a fair old chap, he's not chasing you for nothing. You'll be all the better for it, tougher!... Well, so long till tomorrow!"

We parted, and Volodya, who was the first to go out of the garden into the street, struck up a song.

A few paces from the crowded "Avenue," the town was as deserted and quiet as a village in the middle of the night. The flowers were smelling sweetly, and in one of the garden hedges, just by the road, a quail began to twitter. *

"Does your sweetheart know you used to play football for the factory-school team, Vasil?" Petka asked slyly.

"Who are you talking about?"

"None of that!" Petka chortled. "As if you didn't know!"

"What's her name, Vasil?" Sasha asked.

"I've forgotten."

"He's forgotten already, hear that, Petka?" Sasha mocked. "I think I'd better remind you, as you're so forgetful. An-ge-li-ka! Make a note of it, please."

"What kind of name is it—An-ge-li-ka?" Petka drawled, revelling in my confusion. "Never heard of it before. Very queer name! Must be foreign."

"Of course, it's foreign," Sasha said, taking his cue I from Petka. "Why do you think she said 'merci' to us?"

"Yes, all bourgeois types say 'merci' and 'pardon,'"

Petka agreed.

I walked on in silence, listening patiently while my friends ripped my reputation to bits.

Far out at sea, the red and green running lights of the Felix Dzerzhinsky rose and fell as the ship steamed away round the breakwater. If only I had known then whom that ship was taking across the dark Azov Sea to Yalta!... Had I but known, I should have dashed off to the harbour long ago...

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