THE SMOOTH OPERATOR

At half past eleven a young man aged about twenty-eight entered

Stargorod from the direction of the village of Chmarovka, to the north-east.

A waif ran along behind him.

"Mister!" cried the boy gaily, "gimme ten kopeks!"

The young man took a warm apple out of his pocket "and handed it to the

waif, but the child still kept running behind. Then the young man stopped

and, looking ironically at the boy, said quietly:

"Perhaps you'd also like the key of the apartment where the money is?"

The presumptuous waif then realized the complete futility of his

pretensions and dropped behind.

The young man had not told the truth. He had no money, no apartment

where it might have been found, and no key with which to open it. He did not

even have a coat. The young man entered the town in a green suit tailored to

fit at the waist and an old woollen scarf wound several times around his

powerful neck. On his feet were patent-leather boots with orange-coloured

suede uppers. He had no socks on. The young man carried an astrolabe.

Approaching the market, he broke into a song: "O, Bayadere, tum-ti-ti,

tum-ti-ti."

In the market he found plenty going on. He squeezed into the line of

vendors selling wares spread out on the ground before them, stood the

astrolabe in front of him and began shouting:

"Who wants an astrolabe? Here's an astrolabe going cheap. Special

reduction for delegations and women's work divisions !"

At first the unexpected supply met with little demand; the delegations

of housewives were more interested in obtaining commodities in short supply

and were milling around the cloth and drapery stalls. A detective from the

Stargorod criminal investigation department passed the astrolabe-vendor

twice, but since the instrument in no way resembled the typewriter stolen

the day before from the Central Union of Dairy Co-operatives, the detective

stopped glaring at the young man and passed on.

By lunchtime the astrolabe had been sold to a repairman for three

roubles.

"It measures by itself," he said, handing over the astrolabe to its

purchaser, "provided you have something to measure."

Having rid himself of the calculating instrument, the happy young man

had lunch in the Tasty Corner snack bar, and then went to have a look at the

town. He passed along Soviet Street, came out into Red Army Street

(previously Greater Pushkin Street), crossed Co-operative Street and found

himself again on Soviet Street. But it was not the same Soviet Street from

which he had come. There were two Soviet Streets in the town. Greatly

surprised by this fact, the young man carried on and found himself in Lena

Massacre Street (formerly Denisov Street). He stopped outside no. 28, a

pleasant two-storeyed private house, which bore a sign saying:

USSR RSFSR

SECOND SOCIAL SECURITY HOME

OF THE

STAR-PROV-INS-AD

and requested a light from the caretaker, who was sitting by the

entrance on a stone bench.

"Tell me, dad," said the young man, taking a puff, "are there any

marriageable young girls in this town? "

The old caretaker did not show the least surprise.

"For some a mare'd be a bride," he answered, readily striking up a

conversation.

"I have no more questions," said the young man quickly. And he

immediately asked one more: "A house like this and no girls in it?"

"It's a long while since there've been any young girls here," replied

the old man. "This is a state institution-a home for old-age women

pensioners."

"I see. For ones born before historical materialism?"

"That's it. They were born when they were born."

"And what was here in the house before the days of historical

materialism?"

"When was that?"

"In the old days. Under the former regime."

"Oh, in the old days my master used to live here."

"A member of the bourgeoisie")"

"Bourgeoisie yourself! I told you. He was a marshal of the nobility."

"You mean he was from the working class?"

"Working class yourself! He was a marshal of the nobility."

The conversation with the intelligent caretaker so poorly versed in the

class structure of society might have gone on for heaven knows how long had

not the young man got down to business.

"Listen, granddad," he said, "what about a drink?"

"All right, buy me one!"

They were gone an hour. When they returned, the caretaker was the young

man's best friend.

"Right, then, I'll stay the night with you," said the newly acquired

friend.

"You're a good man. You can stay here for the rest of your life if you

like."

Having achieved his aim, the young man promptly went down into the

caretaker's room, took off his orange-coloured boots, and, stretching out on

a bench, began thinking out a plan of action for the following day.

The young man's name was Ostap Bender. Of his background he would

usually give only one detail. "My dad," he used to say, "was a Turkish

citizen." During his life this son of a Turkish citizen had had many

occupations. His lively nature had prevented him from devoting himself to

any one thing for long and kept him roving through the country, finally

bringing him to Stargorod without any socks and without a key, apartment, or

money.

Lying in the caretaker's room, which was so warm that it stank, Ostap

Bender weighed up in his mind two possibilities for a career.

He could become a polygamist and calmly move on from town to town,

taking with him a suitcase containing his latest wife's valuables, or he

could go the next day to the Stargorod Commission for the Improvement of

Children's Living Conditions and suggest they undertake the popularization

of a brilliantly devised, though yet unpainted, picture entitled "The

Bolsheviks Answer Chamberlain" based on Repin's famous canvas "The Zaporozhe

Cossacks Answer the Sultan". If it worked, this possibility could bring in

four hundred or so roubles.

The two possibilities had been thought up by Ostap during his last stay

in Moscow. The polygamy idea was conceived after reading a law-court report

in the evening paper, which clearly stated that the convicted man was given

only a two-year sentence, while the second idea came to Bender as he was

looking round the Association of Revolutionary Artists' exhibition, having

got in with a free pass.

Both possibilities had their drawbacks, however. To begin a career as a

polygamist without a heavenly grey polka-dot suit was unthinkable. Moreover,

at least ten roubles would be needed for purposes of representation and

seduction. He could get married, of course, in his green field-suits, since

his virility and good looks were absolutely irresistible to the provincial

belles looking for husbands, but that would have been, as Ostap used to say,

"poor workmanship". The question of the painting was not all plain sailing

either. There might be difficulties of a purely technical nature. It might

be awkward, for instance, to show Comrade Kalinin in a fur cap and white

cape, while Comrade Chicherin was stripped to the waist. They could be

depicted in ordinary dress, of course, but that would not be quite the same

thing.

"It wouldn't have the right effect!" said Ostap aloud.

At this point he noticed that the caretaker had been prattling away for

some time, apparently reminiscing about the previous owner of the house.

"The police chief used to salute him. . . . I'd go and wish him a happy

new year, let's say, and he'd give me three roubles. At Easter, let's say,

he'd give me another three roubles. . . . Then on his birthday, let's say.

In a year I'd get as much as fifteen roubles from wishing him. He even

promised to give me a medal. 'I want my caretaker to have a medal,' he used

to say. That's what he would say: 'Tikhon, consider that you already have

the medal.'"

"And did he give you one? "

"Wait a moment. . . . T don't want a caretaker without a medal,' he

used to say. He went to St. Petersburg to get me a medal. Well, the first

time it didn't work out. The officials didn't want to give me one. 'The

Tsar,' he used to say, 'has gone abroad. It isn't possible just now.' So the

master told me to wait. 'Just wait a bit, Tikhon,' he used to say, 'you'll

get your medal.' "

"And what happened to this master of yours? Did they bump him off?"

"No one bumped him off. He went away. What was the good of him staying

here with the soldiers? . . . Do they give medals to caretakers nowadays?"

"Certainly. I can arrange one for you."

The caretaker looked at Bender with veneration.

"I can't be without one. It's that kind of work."

"Where did your master go?"

"Heaven knows. People say he went to Paris."

"Ah, white acacia-the emigre's flower! So he's an emigre!"

"Emigre yourself. . . . He went to Paris, so people say. And the house

was taken over for old women. You greet them every day, but they don't even

give you a ten-kopek bit! Yes, he was some master!"

At that moment the rusty bell above the door began to ring.

The caretaker ambled over to the door, opened it, and stepped back in

complete amazement.

On the top step stood Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov with a black

moustache and black hair. His eyes behind his pince-nez had a

pre-revolutionary twinkle.

"Master!" bellowed Tikhon with delight. "Back from Paris!"

Ippolit Matveyevich became embarrassed by the presence of the stranger,

whose bare purple feet he had just spotted protruding from behind the table,

and was about to leave again when Ostap Bender briskly jumped up and made a

low bow.

"This isn't Paris, but you're welcome to our abode."

Ippolit Matveyevich felt himself forced to say something.

"Hello, Tikhon. I certainly haven't come from Paris. Where did you get

that strange idea from?"

But Ostap Bender, whose long and noble nose had caught the scent of

roast meat, did not give the caretaker time to utter a word.

"Splendid," he said, narrowing his eyes. "You haven't come from Paris.

You've no doubt come from Kologriv to visit your deceased grandmother."

As he spoke, he tenderly embraced the caretaker and pushed him outside

the door before the old man had time to realize what was happening. When he

finally gathered his wits, all he knew was that his master had come back

from Paris, that he himself had been pushed out of his own room, and that he

was clutching a rouble note in his left hand.

Carefully locking the door, Bender turned to Vorobyaninov, who was

still standing in the middle of the room, and said:

"Take it easy, everything's all right! My name's Bender. You may have

heard of me!"

"No, I haven't," said Ippolit Matveyevich nervously.

"No, how could the name of Ostap Bender be known in Paris? Is it warm

there just now? It's a nice city. I have a married cousin there. She

recently sent me a silk handkerchief by registered post."

"What rubbish is this?" exclaimed Ippolit Matveyevich. "What

handkerchief? I haven't come from Paris at all. I've come from . . ."

"Marvellous! You've come from Morshansk!"

Ippolit Matveyevich had never had dealings with so spirited a young man

as Ostap Bender and began to feel peculiar.

"Well, I'm going now," he said.

"Where are you going? You don't need to hurry anywhere. The secret

police will come for you, anyway." Ippolit Matveyevich was speechless. He

undid his coat with its threadbare velvet collar and sat down on the bench,

glaring at Bender.

"I don't know what you mean," he said in a low voice.

"That's no harm. You soon will. Just one moment."

Ostap put on his orange-coloured boots and walked up and down the room.

"Which frontier did you cross? Was it the Polish, Finnish, or Rumanian

frontier? An expensive pleasure, I imagine. A friend of mine recently

crossed the frontier. He lives in Slavuta, on our side, and his wife's

parents live on the other. He had a row with his wife over a family matter;

she comes from a temperamental family. She spat in his face and ran across

the frontier to her parents. The fellow sat around for a few days but found

things weren't going well. There was no dinner and the room was dirty, so he

decided to make it up with her. He waited till night and then crossed over

to his mother-in-law. But the frontier guards nabbed him, trumped up a

charge, and gave him six months. Later on he was expelled from the trade

union. The wife, they say, has now gone back, the fool, and her husband is

in prison. She is able to take him things. . . . Did you come that way,

too?"

"Honestly," protested Ippolit Matveyevich, suddenly feeling himself in

the power of the talkative young man who had come between him and the

jewels. "Honestly, I'm a citizen of the RSFSR. I can show you my

identification papers, if you want."

"With printing being as well developed as it is in the West, the

forgery of Soviet identification papers is nothing. A friend of mine even

went as far as forging American dollars. And you know how difficult that is.

The paper has those different-coloured little lines on it. It requires great

technique. He managed to get rid of them on the Moscow black market, but it

turned out later that his grandfather, a notorious currency-dealer, had

bought them all in Kiev and gone absolutely broke. The dollars were

counterfeit, after all. So your papers may not help you very much either."

Despite his annoyance at having to sit in a smelly caretaker's room and

listen to an insolent young man burbling about the shady dealings of his

friends, instead of actively searching for the jewels, Ippolit Matveyevich

could not bring himself to leave. He felt great trepidation at the thought

that the young stranger might spread it round the town that the ex-marshal

had come back. That would be the end of everything, and he might be put in

jail as well.

'Don't tell anyone you saw me," said Ippolit Matveyevich. "They might

really think I'm an emigre." "That's more like it! First we have an Emigre

who has returned to his home town, and then we find he is afraid the secret

police will catch him."

"But I've told you a hundred times, I'm not an emigre."

"Then who are you? Why are you here?"

"I've come from N. on certain business."

"What business?"

"Personal business."

"And then you say you're not an emigre! A friend of mine . . ."

At this point, Ippolit Matveyevich, driven to despair by the stories of

Bender's friends, and seeing that he was not getting anywhere, gave in.

"All right," he said. "I'll tell you everything."

Anyway, it might be difficult without an accomplice, he thought to

himself, and this fellow seems to be a really shady character. He might be

useful.

CHAPTER SIX

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 825