The Town By The Sea

WE ATTACK!

Although we made every effort to keep our plan of attack on Madame Rogale-Piontkovskaya's saloon a secret and held all our rehearsals behind locked doors, the rumour of it spread round the town. Even the old men began to ask how much longer it would be before we put on our Komsomol show.

Two Leningrad musical-hall artistes, an Arkady Ignatievich and his wife, had come to our town for a seaside holiday.

Arkady Ignatievich often brought his guitar down to the beach with him. When he grew tired of the silent occupation of sun-bathing, he would sit on the edge of the pier with his legs dangling above the water and start parodying the variety singers who made money out of their public with all sorts of rubbish.

He composed his own parodies on the widely-known ditties of those early days. What a trouncing "Klavochka," beloved of all kinds of profiteers and sugar-daddies, got from him, with her "fancy ways and bursting stays!" Arkady Ignatievich did not even spare a new romance that many undiscerning people were fond of: "He was a miner, a working man..." Arkady Ignatievich spotted something in this highly romantic ballad that many people had failed to notice—the banality of it. And banal it was —a miner, who for twenty years "in gloomy mine had toiled," falling in love and pining away like an idle, good-for-nothing of high society!

The visitor from Leningrad also brought with him a gleaming nickel-plated saxophone. In the mornings, when he practised the high notes on this strange and unheard-of instrument, our landlady's pensive-looking goat would start bleating plaintively and the chickens would scatter in all directions squawking as if a hawk were lurking overhead.

The Leningrad artistes took lodgings two doors away from us, near the brine baths in Primorskaya Street. We decided to ask them for help in our enterprise.

Arkady Ignatievich listened to my stumbling request and said weightily: "In other words, local manners are to be parodied? Very well, let us stir up this bog of petty-bourgeois sentiment!"

.. .Sometimes after that I peeped into the rehearsal room where the people from Leningrad and Tolya Golovatsky were selecting performers for the show. Arkady Ignatievich was usually leaning back in his chair with a guitar in his hands. He had a long, gaunt face with a jutting chin and clean-cut profile. His wife, the frail, graceful Ludmilla, in a blue sports frock with red pockets and an anchor on the front, would sit beside him, tapping her foot in time with the music. Golovatsky paced about behind them, stern and important-looking.

At one of the rehearsals I saw Osaulenko, the lad who had changed his name. He had dropped in at the club on Golovatsky's invitation and was rather worried, thinking that Tolya might want to have another chat with him [about his tattooing. When he learnt what was afoot, however, Misha, still

nicknamed "Edouarde," readily agreed to take part in our scheme. There was some hidden power in this tousle-headed lad, who was decorated from top to toe with mermaids, monkeys, and old-time frigates. He wanted to do everything at the show—dance, and juggle with ten-pound dumb-bells, and even sing, although "Edouarde's" voice was not exactly tuneful and often cracked on the high notes. When I glanced into the rehearsal room, Misha was dancing. He was hopping about wriggling every part of his body and kicking his legs wide. From time to time he would crouch down nearly touching the floor, then straighten up wagging his finger and shuffling his feet in a kind of scissors movement.

"What do you call that dance?" Golovatsky asked dubiously.

"Black Bottom!" Misha replied, panting for breath.

"Where did you learn that?" Tolya went on.

"A sailor was dancing it at the 'Little Nook.' The chaps who've been overseas say it's all the rage abroad nowadays."

"Do you know what 'black bottom' means?" Golovatsky asked.

"Well, it's the name of the thing . . . like 'waltz,' for instance."

"But what does the name actually mean? Do you know that?" And Tolya winked across at Arkady Ignatievich.

"Can't say I do..." Misha replied hesitantly.

"Well, you are a coon, aren't you! Just repeating other people's words like a parrot and not even troubling to find out what they mean! Are you really going to live your whole life in such a dull, lazy fashion? 'Black bottom,' in Russian, means 'chornoyedno,' the lower depths. Do you want to sink to the lower depths?"

Misha grinned flashing his silver teeth: "N-n-no, I don't!"

"I should think not either! Let those who think that dance fashionable do that, we'll find something a bit more cheerful. We've got to stride on towards the light, not sink to the lower depths!"

... When tickets for our youth show were distributed at the works, I took two extra tickets and sent them by post to Angelika Andrykhevich. Instead of writing my own address on the bottom of the envelope, I wrote: "From Lieutenant Glan." What gave me the idea, I don't know. I suppose I just did it out of devilment.

As I had expected, Angelika turned up at the show with Zuzya Trituzny. He sat in the third row, oozing with self-importance. Now and then he offered Angelika fruit drops out of a blue tin and whispered in her ear, grinning at his own jokes.

As I watched him paying his attentions to Angelika, I thought to myself: "Wait a bit, Zuzya, old chap! You can't imagine what a treat's in store for you!"

In spite of Zuzya's attempts to amuse her, Angelika was glum and gazed at the stage with a far-away look in her eyes. From time to time she pushed her hair back carelessly in a way that suggested she would be only too glad to be rid of her tiresome companion. She did not even smile, as many did, when Golovatsky began his introductory speech.

"People who don't realize that youth can get fun and pleasure out of doing something useful are downright stupid!" were Golovatsky's opening words. What the audience was to see he called "only our first attempt to show in its true light the depravity of the old life that still surrounds us, and to brand for ever the aping of things foreign."

"The decadent music of the dancing-saloon and night club," said Golovatsky, "gives rise to feelings of impotence and apathy, it lowers a man's working ability. And it is no accident that our enemies use it as a

weapon against us. But while branding what is rotten and alien to us," he went on, "we must learn from what is good, seek it out and cherish it, show everything that is genuinely of the people."

Golovatsky's words, which seemed to promise a very unusual spectacle, were listened to attentively by the large audience in the club hall. Besides the young people of the works, there were old workers and their wives among the audience. In the front row I saw Rudenko, the director, Flegontov, and Kazurkin, the secretary of the Town Party Committee.

I had heard Kazurkin speak once at a production meeting in the foundry, when he had called on us to combat spoilage and not to hold up the other shops. Turunda had told me that during the Civil War Kazurkin had been with Budyonny's cavalry in its campaign from the Azov steppes right across the Ukraine to Lvov. It was not for nothing that he wore on his white tunic the gleaming Order of the Red Banner, a very rare award in those days.

Kazurkin had helped us to prepare the show. After Golovatsky went to see him, everything was available— materials for the costumes, make-up men, balalaikas from the local watermen's club, Caucasian daggers that the militia had taken from captured Makhno bandits...

As soon as Golovatsky had finished speaking, I slipped over to the signal bell. From there I could watch not only what was happening on the stage, but also what took place in the hall. True, it was rather difficult for me to read the large notice bearing the title of the show which was revealed as the curtain went up:

CHARLESTONIADA or DOPE FOR DANDIES

The club decorators had reproduced the Rogale-Piontkovskaya dancing-saloon in detail. The tall papier mache columns placed along the sides of the stage were as greasy and finger-marked as they were in reality.

The title notice was raised out of sight and a pianist in a long dress-coat appeared on the stage—an exact replica of the pianist at Madame Rogale-Piontkovskaya's. In a squeaky affected voice he started praising the dances that the "mademoiselles" and "messieurs" could learn at the saloon for fifty kopeks an evening. Then he skipped over to the piano and the rattle of the Charleston filled the hall.

To the sound of the music, dancing couples began to appear from the wings.

First a titter of amusement skimmed across the hall like a puff of wind heralding a storm, then the titters swelled into loud laughter, and soon the audience was laughing fit to break every window in the club. The club artists had done a fine job! Working with the make-up men they had made the dancing couples into almost photographic images of the regulars at Madame's saloon.

Madeleine the plater jerked wildly on to the stage. She was wearing a sailor's suit with a broad collar and her fringe was so low that she seemed to have no forehead at all. Her friends were kicking their feet in such high heels that the audience could scarcely understand how they managed to move on them at all.

The girls' lips were vividly painted, not in "bows," however, as fashion demanded, but in huge ribbons! Nearly every dancer had a lurid blob under her nose, about the size of a hen's egg. And the coiffures the make-up men had given them! Fringes reaching to their plucked eyebrows, turbans of hair rising in spirals on top of their heads, birds' nests protruding from the back of their necks, spaniel curls in huge abundance.

One of the dancers, with bare legs, had pinned a green doll in her hair and cross-belted herself with two red fox furs tied at the back by their tails.

All the male dancers were Charlestoning in narrow, pipe-like trousers that seemed in danger of splitting at any moment.

The audience quickly guessed who was represented by a man with greying hair parted in the middle and plastered flat with hair-cream. He was dressed in cream flannels and a grey jacket, and his face had been darkened with a thick layer of powder mixed with black grease. The grey-haired dancer's face positively glistened. On his arm dangled a carved walking-stick.

Without a doubt this was Mavrodiadi the lawyer. Half-Greek, half-Turk—no one knew how he had come to be in Tavria—Mavrodiadi patrolled the noisy Avenue at a certain hour every day. Many were the pairs of shoes he must have worn out on its pavements. In winter he would sit in an office somewhere coining money by giving legal advice to private traders on how to avoid paying their heavy taxes, or wangling inheritances for maiden aunts, and when spring came round, as soon as the first holiday-makers appeared, he would creep out on to the Avenue again. There he would get acquainted with young girls new to the town, read their palms and tell their fortunes with cards, go down to the beach with them, and lie about by the water's edge until dusk in his red fez with a black tassel. In the evening, after taking a turn along the Avenue, he would march off to the saloon swinging his walking-stick, kiss Madame's hand and dance until midnight.

But the most dangerous thing of all was that this old rake enjoyed the company of young people.

We hoped that Mavrodiadi's clientele would be considerably reduced after this evening, for the best way of exposing rakes and swindlers is to ridicule them in public.

At that moment, yet another belated pair of dancers popped out of the wings. The audience roared—a girl with her hair done in a bird's nest on the back of her head had walked in accompanied by Zuzya Trituzny!

He had been fitted out with checked trousers, but they reached only to his knees, like football shorts. He was wearing orange football boots, so that nobody could have any doubts as to who he was meant to be. Everything had been copied—Zuzya's favourite hair style with rubicund neck bare almost to his pate; the bow-tie adorning a stiff collar. And all his mannerisms were there too—the affectedly polite inclination of his head, the sentimental, doe-eyed staring into the eyes of his partner. Abandoning the' Charleston from time to time, Pasha the carpenter, who was acting Trituzny, would pretend to be dribbling a football and bellow out all Zuzya's favourite foreign' words and football terms—"shoot!", "s'il vous ptaitl", "ach, charmant!", "aujour d'huil", "off-sidei".. .

Never in his life could Zuzya have felt so foolish as he did that evening. On the football field he would have been far more at ease. Even if he had missed a shot at an open goal, the blunder would have been quickly forgotten, for the spectators' attention would have turned to the other players. But here Zuzya twisted and squirmed in full view of the audience for rather a long time.

At first the real Trituzny, recognizing himself in his double, snorted and, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously, started talking to Angelika. But when Pasha the carpenter approached the footlights and called out Zuzya's favourite phrases, the footballer with the cannon-ball shot realized that he was being made fun of in a rather unpleasant way. He began to blush. His neck turned purple, his lips hardened in a straight line. He tried to sit still as if nothing had happened, but more and more of the audience fixed their eyes on him. At last the, works director turned round in his direction and burst out laughing. Zuzya could stand it no longer. Twisting in his seat, he whispered something to his neighbour. Angelika smiled and shook her head. Zuzya grabbed her hand, obviously trying to lead her out of the hall. But with surprising calm Angelika took her hand away and again shook her head, continuing to watch the stage attentively.

Zuzya shrugged his shoulders offendedly, and letting his seat bang, walked towards the exit. He strode down the long passage between the rows. His long pointed shoes squeaked and people's heads turned as he passed. Some winked, others whispered the hateful phrases after him, but the final blow came from Pasha himself. Seeing that the dandy whom he was imitating was retreating, Pasha stepped up to the footlights with his girl friend in the tunic and shouted after Zuzya: "Au revoir!"

Then, sweeping Pasha aside, Madame Rogale-Piontkovskaya herself burst on to the stage. She ran up to the footlights, stirring up the dust with the hem of her old-fashioned dress sewn together out of overalls. Surveying the audience through an ivory lorgnette, Madame began a slow dance.

Who would have thought that this amazing likeness to the mistress of the dancing-class was not an actress but my friend Petka Maremukha!

Petka's hair had been transformed into grey ringlets and his plump cheeks had received a liberal coating of rouge. With paper clips Petka had fixed bits of cut-glass from a lamp shade to the lobes of his ears. The result was the living image of Madame! Only when Petka's husky bass began a monologue did we guess who it was.

Speaking to her dancing pupils and patting their shoulders,. Petka chattered away at about the speed of the Charleston.

"How are you getting on, my dears? Missing your Mummikins? Don't miss anyone, don't be sad. I'll teach you not to think. . . Why should you study and think of the future and read books? There's no need! It's terribly bad for you! Dance! Think with your feet! Like I'm doing, look at me. That's the way! That's the way! One-two! One-two-three! Hot it up, maestro!..."

Holding up his voluminous skirts, Petka began to perform amazing antics. It might have been a chechotka, it might have been a Ukrainian' gopak. But that did not matter.

He went over to the piano, and brushing the pianist aside, sat down at the instrument himself. And just as. his fingers touched the keys, an invisible band picked up the melody.

Although Petka swayed from side to side and worked the pedals, everyone realized that he was not playing, and gradually forgot about him.

The dancers quickened their pace in time with the music. Each pair danced in their own fashion. One of Madeleine's heels broke. She came down with a crash, pulling her partner, a lanky fellow with a pointed moustache, down on top of her. In the scramble that followed the girl with the fox furs had the green doll torn out of her hair and an elegant dandy attempted surreptitiously to hide it in his pocket. Trituzny (alias Pasha) left his tunic girl and started dancing with another. His insulted partner rushed at her rival with clenched fists. Madame Rogale-Piontkovskaya dashed up to separate them. In the confusion the dancers gave way to all their petty feelings. From stiff, stuck-up dummies they turned into yelping, whining creatures, jostling and abusing one another. Someone trod on Mavrodiadi's foot. But still he went on dancing, brandishing his walking-stick at his offender.

One after another the girls in high heels began to look down at their feet. Painful grimaces appeared on their faces. While they danced they tried to stick their fingers in their heels to gain a little relief.

At this point an obliging pair of hands appeared from the wings and placed a sign-post and a little bush on the edge of the stage. The sign-post had many arms, on which were written: "To the Liski," "To Sobachaya Gully," "To Matrosskaya Settlement," "To Kobazovaya Hill". . . The dancers made a dash for the cherished "grove." And then the audience saw more or less what Golovatsky and I had seen, when we were sitting on the park bench under the acacias. The girls pulled off their tight shoes, hopped about barefoot round the sign-post, uttering cries ofjoy and relief, then ran off home.

A few of the most determined couples went on dancing.

At that moment the lighting-effects man twirled the spot light. Bluish moonlight flooded the stage, and when the lights returned to normal, the men all had grey beards. They had danced their lives away. The girls, too, had turned into old women. Their movements were tired and feeble. And Zuzya Trituzny was not only bearded, but to cap everything—bald.