The Town By The Sea

PAY-DAY

Pay-day was a day every worker in the foundry looked forward to. Our pay-books, which Kolya Zakabluk, the foundry time-keeper, brought round in the morning, told us how much we had earned in the past fortnight, and all day the foundry men were thinking what new things they would buy for their families, or how much money to pay into the mutual assistance fund if they were in debt to it.

I, who had only recently been a factory-school pupil, was very surprised at the figures my book contained. Just think! I had only been working a short time in the foundry and I was already earning not less than seventy rubles a month. I felt as if I was rolling in wealth.

On pay-days Kashket got particularly excited. As soon as he came to work, he was rubbing his hands at the thought of splashing money about in the pub that evening. He never thought of the next morning when he would again wake up on the seaweed-strewn beach with a splitting headache and empty pockets.

Today, even before sunrise, Kashket was capering round his machine with his red kerchief wound round his bristly head, singing hoarsely:

I am bound for a city fair,

And a black velvet hat shall I wear,

And I'll sit on the shore and repine At a grief that I cannot define...

We were moulding gear-wheels. It was a tricky job. If you used the tamper too hard, you might break one of the teeth, and then you had to turn the whole mould out. Uncle Vasya and I worked on jobs like this in silence, scarcely exchanging a word with each other. But today my partner, who hated wasters and drones like Kashket from the bottom of his soul, could not restrain himself.

"He'll put on a black hat, will he! I'd like to see him! Wastes all his money on drink, can't even scrape up enough to buy himself an ordinary cap, and now he's singing about a black hat!"

Gladyshev and Turunda were still working on the next machine. And now with a nod in Kashket's direction Turunda winked at me and said: "He'll change his tune in a minute."

Turunda glanced towards the entrance, where Kolya Zakabluk, helped by one of the messenger-girls, was hanging up a board. Turunda, who was attached to the foundry Komsomol organization as a Party member, knew what the Komsomol members had planned.

The other workers in the foundry, apparently thinking that it was only another notice-board being put up, paid no attention to what Zakabluk was doing. Kashket must have thought the same and went on singing in his hoarse, throaty voice:

0 waves of the deep enfold A man of beauty untold,

Who would sit on the shore and repine At a grief he could never define.

The black velvet hat will be there,

And so will the city fair,

And the shore of the sea will repine At the grief it could never define.

"Those bright sparks will give us some spoilage today!" Gladyshev remarked dusting his machine with compressed air.

The stream of air fanned my face and I felt refreshed by it.

"How come that you, chaps, brought up a partner to suit our Kashket back in Podolia?" Turunda said as he ran past. "He's not a bad fellow to look at—good pair of shoulders on him. We thought at first he would keep Kashket in order, but it's turned out the other way round. He plays up to Kashket all along the line."

1 realized that Turunda was talking about Tiktor. "Look here, Comrade Turunda," I said vexedly, "if you put together all the words we addressed to Tiktor on that subject, you could reform a whole school ofjuvenile delinquents."

"But what made him into such a crab?" Gladyshev asked.

"A crab?" I said, surprised at the comparison. "Yes, a crab," Gladyshev repeated, "but not the kind of

crab you think I mean. What we call crabs are those little lumps of iron that don't melt properly with the rest of the iron. Suppose you get one of those crabs in the tooth of a gear-wheel. No one notices it and that wheel becomes part of a machine. What happens? Just at the moment of greatest strain that tooth is going to break, and all because of a little drop of unmelted iron!"

"Yes, and suppose the machine happens to be an aeroplane engine, in war-time," Turunda put in. "The plane's done for and so is the pilot! ... You know what I think, Vasil? Maybe that Tiktor of yours comes from a family of 'has-beens.' Maybe he's the son of an aristocrat or a police officer? Or maybe a priest's son?"

"But he isn't, that's the queer thing about it," I grunted. "His record's fine in that way. He's the son of a railwayman, an engine-driver. Tiktor's Dad did a good job on the railway," I added, wishing to be as fair to my enemy as I could.

Glowing iron was cooling in the moulds. The cleaners were going round the foundry picking up scraps of metal that might otherwise get in the moulding sand. Uncle Vasya and I, and many of our neighbours, were smearing our machines with graphite grease to stop them from rusting. Kolya Zakabluk came out of the office.

I must admit that at first I did not like Kolya much, just as I did not like other young chaps who only wanted to be office-workers. And I had been very surprised when I learnt that this "pen-pusher" was an old Komsomol member.

When the Komsomol members in the foundry elected me their secretary, I started getting to know everyone better. It made it a lot easier for me to know what job I could give them. Big, broad-shouldered Grisha Kanuk took on the job of editing our wall newspaper. Shura Danilenko, a core-maker, who brought cores round the foundry every day on big iron trays, undertook to read newspapers and magazines aloud during the dinner-hour. Jobs were found for other Komsomol members, too.

But what job could I give Kolya Zakabluk, the only office-worker in our organization? I felt so prejudiced against him. His tie and the neat parting in his straight fair hair irritated me. Later I was to discover how misleading appearances can be. I got talking to Zakabluk and it turned out that this stocky little fellow with so many freckles on his face that they spread even over his thin, tight-pressed lips was certainly not a pen-pusher by nature. He had had no choice about it.

Kolya Zakabluk had started working on the moulding machines as soon as the Soviets put the works into operation after the defeat of General Wrangel. Conditions of work in the foundry in those years had been far worse than now. There was no air-conditioning at all. Naturally enough, working in such an awful dust and fug, Kolya developed consumption. And of course, the food was very bad in those days—tulka and maize bread. The famine in the Volga country made itself felt even in Tavria.

Kolya and the other sick lads at the works received help only after the old foundry man Ivan Rudenko, a Communist, became director of the works, and Andrykhevich, who had been in charge of the works since Caiworth's time, was pushed into the background. A clinic was set up at the works, air-conditioning was installed, the workers were given regular medical inspections. But according to Kolya the thing that helped him most was the night sanatorium that Rudenko had opened in the mansion of the former owner. When they had fed Kolya up at the sanatorium and patched up his lungs, the doctors allowed him to go to work, but not in the foundry. And that was how Kolya had become an office-worker.

On the pay-day of which I am speaking, Kolya Zakabluk, seeing that casting was nearly finished, came out of the office carrying a long box with our pay-packets in it. Jumping over heaps of sand and

stepping carefully round the smoking moulds, Kolya went from one machine to another. He knew every foundry worker by sight and quickly handed each one the right packet.

Wiping the sand off his hands, the moulder would take the envelope and sign for it in Kolya's book. Few of them counted the money, for everyone in the foundry knew that Zakabluk was a reliable chap and never tried to swindle anyone.

Zakabluk stopped at our machines for a moment and showing two rows of small white teeth in a broad smile, whispered: "If they make a fuss, will you back me up, Vasil?"

"Count on me," I promised. "But you stand up to them as well."

Zakabluk went on quickly to the next set of machines. Soon he appeared near the machines where Kashket and Tiktor were working. Without stopping, Zakabluk went on to the furnace.

"Hi there, Kolya, don't forget your friends!" Kashket called out in his lisping voice. "Bring the cash round here!"

Zakabluk turned round. His face was strained.

"Spoilers and shirkers get their pay last!" he said loudly, his white teeth flashing.

Kashket gave a whistle of surprise. "What's this new idea!"

"What I've just told you!" Kolya snapped and went on to the furnace, where the furnace men in their broad-brimmed hats were waiting for him.

Kashket threw himself into his work more wildly than ever, urging on his partner and exchanging short, angry phrases with him. They soon knocked off and Kashket dashed away to the office to complain.

Meanwhile we dusted our machines and put our tools and materials in order, so that we could start work in the morning without any delay.

I always enjoyed washing my gleaming shovel under the tap, then warming it on a glowing slab and sprinkling the blade with powdered rosin. The amber rosin formed a gleaming sticky coating over the blade. It gave off a smell that made me think of tall pine woods oozing rosin on a hot August day, and for a moment I forgot the acrid vapours of the foundry. As I rosined my shovel, I did not notice Grisha Kanuk slip over to the board that Zakabluk had put up in the foundry. Unrolling a large sheet of paper, he pinned up the first issue of our wall newspaper.

Across the top of the page ran a large head-line, "RECORD-BREAKING SPOILERS IN THE FOUNDRY."

Below it there was a short article and a row of caricatures. Stripped to the waist like wrestlers, with vodka bottles dangling on their chests, the "record-breakers" were marching triumphantly towards a huge bottle of bluish liquid with a skull and cross-bones on the label. As was to be expected, the bottle-bound procession of spoilers and shirkers included Tiktor with his dangling forelock, and the capering, sunburnt Kashket, who in his ridiculous red kerchief looked like a Spanish picador.

Under the caricature was written: "At the request of all the honest workers in the foundry, from now on spoilers, shirkers, and disorganizes will receive their pay separately."

The next moment Zakabluk appeared with a chair and a small folding table. Quickly arranging his books on the table, he sat down just as if he were in his office, ready to pay the bad workers.

Quite unexpectedly the tall bony figure of the chief engineer appeared at the entrance to the foundry. His greying hair showed under his green cap band. At the sight of the chief engineer, the workers stood back to let him pass. Andrykhevich stopped in front of the wall newspaper, then glanced at the table.

"What's all this nonsense? Call the foreman!" he snapped.

"I'm here, Stefan Medardovich!" answered Fedorko, who had apparently been called out by one of the indignant shirkers.

"Why do you allow this sort of thing?" the chief engineer shouted at the foreman.

"I thought... It seemed a useful... er, social line..."

"No more of your 'social lines' here!" Andrykhevich ground out, narrowing his eyes maliciously. "Our business is casting metal. Take that trash down at once!"

It was a tense moment. This might mean the end of our offensive against those who turned out bad work and disorganized production. Screwing up my courage, I strode over to the engineer.

"We will not allow you to take the newspaper down," I said in a choking voice.

For nothing short of a minute Andrykhevich surveyed me in silence, apparently recalling our first meeting.

"Aha! The builder of a new world! Good day to you, my dear fellow!" he said with false joviality and offered me his wrinkled hand with the heavy gold ring on the forefinger. "May I ask you, young man, on whose behalf you are making this protest?" the engineer went on sarcastically. "Have you any reason or is it merely to satisfy that youthful thirst for controversy I know so well?"

"I'm protesting on behalf of the foundry Komsomol organization. It was us who put out the wall newspaper and you can't ban it."

"Just a moment, my dear fellow! Has the Komsomol organization the right to take matters into their own hands and break the discipline of the workers?" the engineer asked.

"Who's breaking the workers' discipline? Us?!" I burst out indignantly. "It's them who're destroying discipline— it's those shirkers and spoilers who are holding us up!"

"A little quieter, young man! I'm not deaf yet. You needn't shout. Especially as the time of revolutionary meetings has passed. This is what I want to say to you. At present I am the chief engineer at this works, and I have given orders that this paper be taken down. You, a person who has neither experience, nor administrative authority, oppose the carrying-out of my order, raise your voice, make insulting remarks to me. What else is that but an infringement of labour discipline?"

The gloating, victorious face of Kashket hovered near by. Andrykhevich's greenish eyes glittered cunningly in front of me. But 'I was not going to give in yet.

"The new system of paying out wages, Stefan Medardovich, has been agreed upon with the works director, Comrade Rudenko, and with the trade-union committee. The man who works best receives his wages first. It seems to me that the chief engineer should also carry out the wishes of the director and not contradict them."

"I know nothing about any such agreement," Andrykhevich grunted. "The director hasn't said anything to me about it."

"He may not have spoken to you, but he spoke to everyone in the works Komsomol committee. Comrade Rudenko approved all our plans, particularly the idea of having a wall newspaper."

"I shall investigate this matter! You won't get away with your tricks as easily as that!" Andrykhevich muttered in confusion.

Turunda appeared at my side.

"Stefan Medardovich," he said peacefully to the engineer, "I can vouch for the fact that Mandzhura is speaking the truth. I state that as a member of the Party. We thought you would thank us for our efforts, but there seems to be some disagreement..."

"We shall see about that!" the engineer interrupted in a threatening growl.

He straightened his cap and strode hurriedly out of the foundry.

"Six-nil in our favour, Vasya!" Zakabluk shouted as soon as the door banged behind the engineer.

"Look here; you Komsomolite!" Kashket babbled, going up to Kolya and breathing vodka all over him. "What have you got against me? You're a terrific talker but your talking won't do any good this time. I'd rather choke myself than take my money here. Bring it to me at my machine!"

"Well, you needn't take it then! We're not going to run after you with it!" Turunda put in. "The works cashier will make it over to your savings book."

"I haven't got one. I'm not a miser like you!" Kashket bawled furiously.

"All the better for you, you'll get a. savings book at the same time. You've got nothing to fly off the handle about. Aren't you and your partner the champion spoilers in this shop?" Turunda flashed out at Kashket. "The chaps who wrote this newspaper are talking sense. If you like turning out rotten work, you can receive your wages after the others... Or else you can get out altogether and go fishing on your own account. Maybe you'll do better at that!"

"What is this, boys?" Kashket howled, seeking for support among the laughing foundry men.

But no one gave him any.

Gradually the crowd broke up.

Unexpectedly a burly figure went up to Zakabluk's table. It was the old furnace man Chuchvara. Not long ago he had spent a whole working day at the wedding of a relative of his, in Matrosskaya Settlement. The music at that wedding had been audible on the other side of the bay and Chuchvara came to the foundry next day a very sleepy man. Now he had decided to take his pay as it was offered, without making a fuss and drawing a lot of unnecessary attention to himself.

"That's started the ball rolling!" Zakabluk said loudly. "Who's next? Step up, please."

For the first time since we had knocked off I heard Tiktor's voice. Silent till now, and somehow dispirited, he nudged Kashket's arm and said: "Dry up, can't you! You know we did a bad job on those rollers. Take your money and push off!.. ."

The foundry became deserted as soon as Kashket and the unusually reasonable Tiktor had received their pay.

Turunda, Zakabluk, and I walked out of the works together and I remember Turunda saying:

"Did you notice that, Vasil? Your mate from Podolia's coming to his senses. Seeing himself in company like that had an effect! He's not such a goner after all."

Turunda was right. I had thought that Tiktor would make more fuss than anyone when he saw himself in the newspaper. But the result had been quite the opposite and much more desirable.

Still throbbing with excitement after my skirmish with Andrykhevich, I strode along with ray mates and thought: "Now Angelika will hear all about me from 'Daddykins' at dinner tonight! 'Confound that grubby young admirer of yours!' he'll say to his darling daughter. 'Stood in my path! And we treated the young ruffian to beer and sturgeon!' Now Angelika will turn her nose up when she sees me. Well, let her! Why should I change my principles to please her! I'll stay as I am. My path lies in a different direction— with Turunda, Golovatsky. Naumenko, and all my new friends in this town."

Warmed by these thoughts, I gripped Turunda's arm and said:

"Well, we've made a start, Luka! This'll give the chaps something to talk about! . . . But we've got plenty of fighting to do yet!"

"We're on to a big thing, Vasil," Turunda answered seriously. "Politics are a battle of millions, as they told me at our workers' university. And those who fight it on their own always lose. But there are millions like us!"