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with the procession again.
He ran as far as the city gate, slipping through the crowd of pilgrims'
caravans pouring into town, and saw on his left the open door of a baker's
shop. Breathless from running on the hot road, the Levite pulled himself
together, entered the shop very sedately, greeted the baker's wife standing
behind the counter, asked her for a loaf from the top shelf which he
affected to prefer to all the rest and as she turned round, he silently and
quickly snatched off the counter the very thing he had been looking for--a
long, ra2or-sharp breadknife--and fled from the shop.
A few minutes later he was back on the Jaffa road, but the procession
was out of sight. He ran. Once or twice he had to drop and lie motionless to
regain his breath, to the astonishment of all the passers-by making for
Jerusalem on mule-back or on foot. As he lay he could hear the beat of his
heart in his chest, in his head and his ears. Rested, he stood up and began
running again, although his pace grew slower and slower. When he finally
caught sight again of the long, dusty procession, it had already reached the
foot of the hill.
'Oh, God! ' groaned the Levite. He knew he was too late.
With the passing of the fourth hour of the execution Matthew's torments
reached their climax and drove him to a frenzy. Rising from his stone, he
hurled the stolen knife to the ground, crushed his flask with his foot, thus
depriving himself of water, snatched the kefiyeh from his head, tore his
flowing hair and cursed himself. As he cursed in streams of gibberish,
bellowed and spat, Matthew slandered his father and mother for begetting
such a fool.
Since cursing and swearing had no apparent effect at all and changed
nothing in that sun-scorched inferno, he clenched his dry fists and raised
them heavenwards to the sun as it slowly descended, lengthening the shadows
before setting into the Mediterranean. The Levite begged God to perform a
miracle and allow Yeshua to die.
When he opened his eyes again nothing on the hill had changed, except
that the light no longer flashed from the badges on the centurion's chest.
The sun was shining on the victims' backs, as their faces were turned east
towards Jerusalem. Then the Levite cried out:
'I curse you. God! '
In a hoarse voice he shouted that God was unjust and that he would
believe in him no more.
'You are deaf! ' roared Matthew. ' If you were not deaf you would have
heard me and killed him in the instant!'
His eyes tight shut, the Levite waited for the fire to strike him from
heaven. Nothing happened. Without opening his eyes, he vented his spite in a
torrent of insults to heaven. He shouted that his faith was ruined, that
there were other gods and better. No other god would have allowed a man like
Yeshua to be scorched to death on a pole.
'No--I was wrong! ' screamed the Levite, now quite hoarse. ' You are a
God of evil! Or have your eyes been blinded by the smoke of sacrifices from
the temple and have your ears grown deaf to everything but the trumpet-calls
of the priests? You are not an almighty God--you are an evil God! I curse
you. God of robbers, their patron and protector! '
At that moment there was a puff of air in his face and something
rustled under his feet. Then came another puff and as he opened his eyes the
Levite saw that everything, either as a result of his imprecations or from
some other cause, had changed. The sun had been swallowed by a thundercloud
looming up, threatening and inexorable, from the west. Its edges were white
and ragged, its rumbling black paunch tinged with sulphur. White pillars of
dust, raised by the sudden wind, flew along the Jaffa road. The Levite was
silent, wondering if the storm which was about to break over Jerusalem might
alter the fate of the wretched Yeshua. Watching the tongues of lightning
that flickered round the edges of the cloud, he began to pray for one to
strike Yeshua's gibbet. Glancing penitently up at the remaining patches of
blue sky in which the vultures were winging away to avoid the storm, Matthew
knew that he had cursed too soon: God would not listen to him now.
Turning round to look at the foot of the hill, the Levite stared at the
cavalry lines and saw that they were on the move. From his height he had a
good view of the soldiers' hasty preparations as they pulled their lances
out of the ground and threw their cloaks over their shoulders. The grooms
were running towards the path, leading strings of troop horses. The regiment
was moving out. Shielding his face with his hand and spitting out the sand
that blew into his mouth, the Levite tried to think why the cavalry should
be preparing to go. He shifted his glance higher up the hill and made out a
figure in a purple military chlamys climbing up towards the place of
execution. Matthew's heart leaped : he sensed a quick end. The man climbing
Mount Golgotha in the victims' fifth hour of suffering was the Tribune of
the Cohort, who had galloped from Jerusalem accompanied by an orderly. At a
signal from Muribellum the cordon of soldiers opened and the centurion
saluted the Tribune, who took Muribellum aside and whispered something to
him. The centurion saluted again and walked over to the executioners, seated
on stones under the gibbets. The Tribune meanwhile turned towards the man on
the three-legged stool. The seated man rose politely as the Tribune
approached him. The officer said something to him in a low voice and both
walked over to the gallows, where they were joined by the captain of the
temple guard.
Muribellum, with a fastidious grimace at the filthy rags lying on the
ground near the crosses--the prisoners' clothes which even the executioners
had spurned--called to two of them and gave an order:
'Follow me!'
A hoarse, incoherent song could just be heard coming from the nearest
gibbet. Hestas had been driven out of his mind two hours ago by the flies
and the heat and was now softly croaking something about a vineyard. His
turbaned head still nodded occasionally, sending up a lazy cloud of flies
from his face.
Dismas on the second cross was suffering more than the other two
because he was still conscious and shaking his head regularly from side to
side.
Yeshua was luckier. He had begun to faint during the first hour, and
had then lapsed into unconsciousness, his head drooping in its ragged
turban. As a result the mosquitoes and horse-flies had settled on him so
thickly that his face was entirely hidden by a black, heaving mask. All over
his groin, his stomach and under his armpits sat bloated horseflies, sucking
at the yellowing naked body.
At a gesture from the man in the hood one of the executioners picked up
a lance and the other carried a bucket and sponge to the gibbet. The first
executioner raised the lance and used it to hit Yeshua first on one extended
arm and then on the other.
The emaciated body gave a twitch. The executioner then poked Yeshua in
the stomach with the handle of the lance. At this Yeshua raised his head,
the flies rose with a buzz and the victim's face was revealed, swollen with
bites, puff-eyed, unrecognisable.
Forcing open his eyelids, Ha-Notsri looked down. His usually clear eyes
were now dim and glazed.
'Ha-Notsri!' said the executioner.
Ha-Notsri moved his swollen lips and answered in a hoarse croak:
'What do you want? Why have you come? '
'Drink! ' said the executioner and a water-soaked sponge was raised to
Yeshua's lips on the point of a lance. Joy lit up his eyes, he put his mouth
to the sponge and greedily sucked its moisture. From the next gibbet came
the voice of Dismas :
'It's unjust! He's as much a crook as me! '
Dismas strained ineffectually, his arms being lashed to the cross-bar
in three places. He arched his stomach, clawed the end of the crossbeam with
his nails and tried to turn his eyes, full of envy and hatred, towards
Yeshua's cross.
'Silence on the second gibbet! '
Dismas was silent. Yeshua turned aside from the sponge. He tried to
make his voice sound kind and persuasive, but failed and could only croak
huskily :
'Give him a drink too.'
It was growing darker. The cloud now filled half the sky as it surged
towards Jerusalem; smaller white clouds fled before the black monster
charged with fire and water. There was a flash and a thunderclap directly
over the hill. The executioner took the sponge from the lance.
'Hail to the merciful hegemon! ' he whispered solemnly and gently
pierced Yeshua through the heart. Yeshua shuddered and whispered:
'Hegemon . . .'
Blood ran down his stomach, his lower jaw twitched convulsively and his
head dropped. At the second thunderclap the executioner gave the sponge to
Dismas with the same words :
'Hail, hegemon . . .' and killed him.
Hestas, his reason gone, cried out in fear as the executioner
approached him, but when the sponge touched his lips he gave a roar and sank
his teeth into it. A few seconds later his body was hanging as limply as the
ropes would allow.
The man in the hood followed the executioner and the centurion; behind
him in turn came the captain of the temple guard. Stopping at the first
gibbet the hooded man carefully inspected Yeshua's bloodstained body,
touched the pole with his white hand and said to his companions :
'Dead.'
The same was repeated at the other two gallows.
After this the Tribune gestured to the centurion and turned to walk
down the hill with the captain of the temple guard and the hooded man.
It was now twilight and lightning was furrowing the black sky. Suddenly
there was a brilliant flash and the centurion's shout of' Fall out, the
cordon! ' was drowned in thunder. The delighted soldiers started running
down hill, buckling on their helmets as they went.
A mist had covered Jerusalem.
The downpour struck suddenly and caught the centurion halfway down the
hill. The rain fell with such force that turbulent streams began catching
them up as they ran. The troops slithered and fell on the muddy soil as they
hurried to reach the main road. Moving fast, now scarcely visible in a veil
of water, the rain-soaked cavalry was already on its way back to Jerusalem.
After a few minutes only one man was left on the hill in the smoking
cauldron of wind, water and fire.
Brandishing his stolen knife, for which he now had a use after all,
leaping over the slippery rocks, grasping whatever came to hand, at times
crawling on his knees, he stumbled towards the gallows in alternate spells
of complete darkness and flashes of light. When he reached the gallows he
was already ankle-deep in water and threw off his soaking tallith. Wearing
only his shirt Matthew fell at Yeshua's feet. He cut the ropes round his
knees, climbed on to the lower crossbar, embraced Yeshua and freed his arms
from their bonds. Yeshua's wet, naked body collapsed on to Matthew and
dragged him to the ground. The Levite was just about to hoist him on to his
shoulders when another thought stopped him. He left the body on the watery
ground, its head thrown back and arms outstretched, and ran, slithering, to
the other gibbet-posts. He cut their ropes and the two bodies fell to the
ground.
A few minutes later only those two water-lashed bodies and three empty
gibbets remained on Mount Golgotha. Matthew the Levite and Yeshua were gone.
On Friday morning, the day after the disastrous show, the permanent
staff of the Variety Theatre--Vassily Stepanovich Lastochkin the accountant,
two bookkeepers, three typists, the two cashiers, the ushers, the
commissionaires and the cleaners-- were not at work but were instead sitting
on the window-ledges looking out on to Sadovaya Street and watching what was
happening outside the theatre. There beneath the theatre walls wound a
double queue of several thousand people whose tail-end had already reached
Kudrinskaya Square. At the head of the queue stood a couple of dozen of the
leading lights of the Moscow theatrical world.
The queue was in a state of high excitement, attracting the attention
of the passers-by and busily swapping hair-raising stories about the
previous evening's incredible performance of black magic. Vassily
Stepanovich the accountant, who had not been at yesterday's show, was
growing more and more uneasy. The commissionaires were saying unbelievable
things, such as how after the show a number of ladies had been seen on the
street in a highly improper state. The shy and unassuming Vassily
Stepanovich could only blink as he listened to the description of all these
sensations and felt utterly unable to decide what to do ; meanwhile
something had to be done and it was he who had to do it, as he was now the
senior remaining member of the Variety's management.
By ten o'clock the ticket queue had swollen to such a size that the
police came to hear of it and rapidly sent some detachments of horse and
foot to reduce the queue to order. Unfortunately the mere existence of a
mile-long queue was enough to cause a minor riot in spite of all the police
could do.
Inside the Variety things were as confused as they were outside. The
telephone had been ringing since early morning-- ringing in Likhodeyev's
office, in Rimsky's office, in the accounts department, in the box-office
and in Varenukha's office. At first Vassily Stepanovich had attempted to
answer, the cashier had tried to cope, the commissionaires had mumbled
something into the telephone when it rang, but soon they stopped answering
altogether because there was simply no answer to give the people asking
where Likhodeyev, Rimsky and Varenukha were. They had been able to put them
off the scent for a while by saying that Likhodeyev was in his flat, but
this only produced more angry calls later, declaring that they had rung
Likhodeyev's flat and been told that he was at the Variety.
One agitated lady rang up and demanded to speak to Rimsky and was
advised to ring his wife at home, at which the earpiece, sobbing, replied
that she was Rimsky's wife and he was nowhere to be found. Odd stories began
to circulate. One of the charwomen was telling everyone that when she had
gone to clean the treasurer's office she had found the door ajar, the lights
burning, the window on to the garden smashed, a chair overturned on the
floor and no one in the room.
At eleven o'clock Madame Rimsky descended on the Variety, weeping and
wringing her hands. Vassily Stepanovich was by now utterly bewildered and
unable to offer her any advice. Then at half past eleven the police
appeared. Their first and very reasonable question was :
'What's happening here? What is all this? '
The staff" retreated, pushing forward the pale and agitated Vassily
Stepanovich. Describing the situation as it really was, he had to admit that
the entire management of the Variety, including the general manager, the
treasurer and the house manager, had vanished without trace, that last
night's compere had been removed to a lunatic asylum and that, in short,
yesterday's show had been a catastrophe.
Having done their best to calm her, the police sent the sobbing
Madame Rimsky home, then turned with interest to the charwoman's story
about the state of the treasurer's office. The staff were told to go and get
on with their jobs and after a short while the detective squad turned up,
leading a sharp-eared muscular dog, the colour of cigarette ash and with
extremely intelligent eyes. At once a rumour spread among the Variety
Theatre staff that the dog was none other than the famous Ace of Diamonds.
It was. Its behaviour amazed everybody. No sooner had the animal walked into
the treasurer's office than it growled, bared its monstrous yellowish teeth,
then crouched on its stomach and crept towards the broken window with a look
of mingled terror and hostility. Mastering its fear the dog suddenly leaped
on to the window ledge, raised its great muzzle and gave an eerie, savage
howl. It refused to leave the window, growled, trembled and crouched as
though wanting to jump out of the window.
The dog was led out of the office to the entrance hall, from whence it
went out of the main doors into the street and across the road to the
taxi-rank. There it lost the scent. After that Ace of Diamonds was taken
away.
The detectives settled into Varenukha's office, where one after the
other, they called in all the members of the Variety staff who had witnessed
the events of the previous evening. At every step the detectives were beset
with unforeseen difficulties. The thread kept breaking in their hands.
Had there been any posters advertising the performance? Yes, there had.
But since last night new ones had been pasted over them and now there was
not a single one to be found anywhere. Where did this magician come from?
Nobody knew. Had a contract been signed?
'I suppose so,' replied Vassily Stepanovich miserably.
'And if so it will have gone through the books, won't it? '
'Certainly,' replied Vassily Stepanovich in growing agitation.
'Then where is it? '
'It's not here,' replied the accountant, turning paler and spreading
his hands. It was true : there was no trace of a contract in the accounts
department files, the treasurer's office, Likhodeyev's office or Varenukha's
office.
What was the magician's surname? Vassily Stepanovich did not know, he
had not been at yesterday's show. The commissionaires did not know, the
box-office cashier frowned and frowned, thought and thought, and finally
said :
'Wo ... I think it was Woland. . . .'
Perhaps it wasn't Woland? Perhaps it wasn't. Perhaps it was Poland.
The Aliens' Bureau, it appeared, had never heard of anyone called
Woland or Poland or any other black magician. Karpov, an usher, said that as
far as he knew the magician was staying at Likhodeyev's flat. Naturally they
immediately went to the flat, but there was no sign of a magician living
there. Likhodeyev himself was also missing. The maid Grunya was not there
and nobody knew where she was. Both the house committee chairman, Nikanor
Ivanovich, and the secretary, Prolezhnev, had also vanished.
The investigation so far appeared to amount to a total absurdity : the
entire management had vanished, there had been a scandalous show the
previous evening--but who had arranged it? Nobody knew.
Meanwhile it was nearly noon, time for the box office to open. This, of
course, was out of the question. A large piece of cardboard was hung on the
Variety's doors with the announcement:
today's
PERFORMANCE
CANCELLED
This caused a stir in the queue, beginning at its head, but the
excitement subsided and the queue began to disperse. After an hour there was
scarcely a trace of it on Sadovaya Street. The detectives left to pursue
their inquiries elsewhere, the staff, except for the watchmen, were
dismissed and the doors of the Variety were closed.
Vassily Stepanovich the accountant had two urgent tasks to perform.
Firstly to go to the Commission for Theatrical Spectacles and Light
Entertainment with a report on the previous day's events and then to deposit
yesterday's takings of 21,711 roubles at the Commission's finance
department.
The meticulous and efficient Vassily Stepanovich wrapped the money in
newspaper, tied it up with string, put it into his briefcase and following
his standing instructions avoided taking a bus or tram but went instead to
the nearby taxi-rank.
As soon as the three cab-drivers on the rank saw a fare approaching
with a chock-full briefcase under his arm, all three of them instantly drove
off empty, scowling back as they went. Amazed, the accountant stood for a
while wondering what this odd behaviour could mean. After about three
minutes an empty cab drove up the the rank, the driver grimacing with
hostility when he saw his fare.
'Are you free? ' asked Vassily Stepanovich with an anxious cough.
'Show me your money,' snarled the driver.
Even more amazed, the accountant clutched his precious briefcase under
one arm, pulled a ten-rouble note out of his wallet and showed it to the
driver.
'I'm not taking you,' he said curtly.
'Excuse me, but . . .' The accountant began, but the driver
interrupted him:
'Got a three-rouble note? '
The bewildered accountant took out two three-rouble notes from his
wallet and showed them to the driver.
'O.K., get in,' he shouted, slamming down the flag of his meter so
hard that he almost broke it. ' Let's go.'
'Are you short of change? ' enquired the accountant timidly.
'Plenty of change! ' roared the driver and his eyes, reddened with
fury, glared at Vassily Stepanovich from the mirror. ' Third time it's
happened to me today. Just the same with the others. Some son of a bitch
gives me a tenner and I give him four-fifty change. Out he gets, the
bastard! Five minutes later I look--instead of a tenner there's a label off
a soda-water bottle! ' Here the driver said several unprintable words. '
Picked up another fare on Zaborskaya. Gives me a tenner--I give him three
roubles change. Gets out. I look in my bag and out flies a bee! Stings me on
the finger! I'll . . .' The driver spat out more unprintable words. ' And
there was no tenner. There was a show on at that (unprintable) Variety
yesterday evening and some (unprintable) conjurer did a turn with a lot of
(unprintable) ten-rouble notes . . .'
The accountant was dumbstruck. He hunched himself up and tried to look
as if he was hearing the very word ' Variety ' for the first time in his
life as he thought to himself: ' Well I'm damned! '
Arrived at his destination and paying in proper money, the accountant
went into one building and hurried along the corridor to the chief cashier's
office, but even before he reached it he realised that he had come at a bad
moment. A rumpus was going on in the offices of the Theatrical Commission. A
cleaner ran past him with her headscarf awry and bulging eyes.
'He's not there! He's not there, dear,' she screamed, turning to
another man hurrying along the passage. ' His jacket and trousers are there
but there's nobody in 'em! '
She disappeared through a door, from which there at once came the sound
of smashing crockery. Vassily Stepanovich then saw the familiar figure of
the chief cashier come running out of the secretaries' office and vanish,
but the man was in such a state that he failed to recognise Vasilly
Stepanovich.
Slightly shaken, the accountant reached the door of the secretaries'
office, which was the ante-room to the chairman's office, where he had the
greatest shock of all.
Through the far door came a terrible voice, unmistakably belonging to
Prokhor Petrovich, the chairman of the Commission. ' I suppose he's telling
somebody off,' thought the puzzled accountant. Looking round, he saw
something else--there, in a leather armchair, her head resting on the back,
sobbing uncontrollably and clutching a wet handkerchief, her legs stretched
out to the middle of the floor, lay Prokhor Petrovich's secretary, the
beautiful Anna Richardovna. Her chin was smeared with lipstick and streaks
of dissolved mascara were running down her peach-skin cheeks.
Seeing him come in, Anna Richardovna jumped up, ran to Vassily
Stepanovich, clutched his lapels and began to shake him, howling:
'Thank God! At least there's one of you brave enough! They've all run
away, they've all let us down! Come and see him, I don't know what to do! '
Still sobbing she dragged him into the chairman's office.
Once inside Vassily Stepanovich dropped his briefcase in horror.
Behind the huge desk with its massive inkwell sat an empty suit. A dry
pen was hurrying, unheld, across a sheet of paper. The suit had a shirt and
tie, a fountain pen was clipped in its breast-pocket, but above the collar
there was no neck and no head and there were no wrists protruding from the
cuffs. The suit was hard at work and oblivious of the uproar round about.
Hearing someone come in, the suit leaned back in its chair and from
somewhere just above the collar came the familiar voice of Prokhor
Petrovich:
'What is it? There's a notice on the door saying that I'm not seeing
visitors.'
The beautiful secretary moaned and cried, wringing her hands :
'Don't you see? He's not there! Bring him back, oh bring him back!'
Someone peeped round the door, groaned and flew out again. Vassily
Stepanovich felt his legs shaking and he sat down on the edge of a
chair--not forgetting, though, to hold on to his briefcase. Anna Richardovna
pranced round Vassily Stepanovich, pulling at his coat and shrieking :
'I've always, always stopped him whenever he began swearing! Now he's
sworn once too often!' The girl ran to the desk and exclaimed in a tender,
musical voice, slightly nasal from so much weeping: ' Prosha dear, where are
you? '
'Who are you addressing as " Prosha "? ' enquired the suit haughtily,
drawing further back into the chair.
'He doesn't recognise me! He doesn't recognise me! Don't you see? '
sobbed the girl.
'Kindly stop crying in my office!' said the striped suit irritably,
stretching out its sleeve for a fresh pile of paper.
'No, I can't look, I can't look! ' cried Anna Richardovna and ran back
into her office, followed, like a bullet, by the accountant.
'Just imagine--I was sitting here,' began Anna Richardovna trembling
with horror and clutching Vassily Stepanovich's sleeve, ' when in came a
cat. A great black animal as big as Behemoth. Naturally I shooed it out and
it went, but then a fat man came in who also had a face like a cat, said "
Do you always say ' shoo ' to visitors?" and went straight in to Prokhor
Petrovich. So I shouted " What d'you mean by going in there --have you gone
crazy? " But the cheeky brute marched straight in to Prokhor Petrovich and
sat down in the chair facing him. Well, Prokhor is the nicest man alive, but
he's nervous. He lost his temper. He works like a trojan, but he's apt to be
nervy and he just flared up. " Why have you come in here without being
announced? " he said. And then, if you please, that impudent creature
stretched out in his chair and said with a smile : " I've come to have a
chat with you on a little matter of business." Prokhor Petrovich snapped at
him again :
" I'm busy," to which the beast said: " You're not busy at all ..." How
d'you like that? Well, of course, Prokhor Petrovich lost all patience then
and shouted: " What is all this? Damn me if I don't have you thrown out of
here! " The beast just smiled and said: " Damn you, I think you said? Very
well! " And--bang! Before I could even scream, I looked and cat-face had
gone and there was this . . . suit . . . sitting . . . Oooooh! ' Stretching
her mouth into a shapeless cavity Anna Richardovna gave a howl. Choking back
her sobs she took a deep breath but could only gulp nonsensically:
'And it goes on writing and writing and writing! I must be going off
my head! It talks on the telephone! The suit! They've all run away like
rabbits! '
Vassily Stepanovich could only stand there, trembling. Fate rescued
him. Into the secretaries' office with a firm, regular tread marched two
policemen. Catching sight of them the lovely girl began sobbing even harder
and pointed towards the office door.
'Now, now, miss, let's not cry,' said the first man calmly. Vassily
Stepanovich, deciding that he was superfluous, skipped away and a minute
later was out in the fresh air. His head felt hollow, something inside it
was booming like a trumpet and the noise reminded him of the story told by
one of the commissionaires about a cat which had taken part in yesterday's
show. ' Aha! Perhaps it's our little pussy up to his tricks again? '
Having failed to hand in the money at the Commission's head office, the
conscientious Vassily Stepanovich decided to go to the branch office, which
was in Vagankovsky Street and to calm himself a little he made his way there
on foot.
The branch office of the Theatrical Commission was quartered in a
peeling old house at the far end of a courtyard, which was famous for the
porphyry columns in its hallway. That day, however, the visitors to the
house were not paying much attention to the porphyry columns.
Several visitors were standing numbly in the hall and staring at a
weeping girl seated behind a desk full of theatrical brochures which it was
her job to sell. The girl seemed to have lost interest in her literature and
only waved sympathetic enquirers away, whilst from above, below and all
sides of the building came the pealing of at least twenty desperate
telephones.
Weeping, the girl suddenly gave a start and screamed hysterically :
'There it is again! ' and began singing in a wobbly soprano :
'Yo-o, heave-ho! Yo-o heave-ho! '
A messenger, who had appeared on the staircase, shook his fist at
somebody and joined the girl, singing in a rough, tuneless baritone:
'One more heave, lads, one more heave . . .'
Distant voices chimed in, the choir began to swell until finally the
song was booming out all over the building. In nearby room No. 6, the
auditor's department, a powerful hoarse bass voice boomed out an octave
below the rest. The chorus was accompanied crescendo by a peal of telephone
bells.
'All day lo-ong we must trudge the sbore,' roared the messenger on the
staircase.
Tears poured down the girl's face as she tried to clench her teeth, but
her mouth opened of its own accord and she sang an octave above the
messenger :
'Work all da-ay and then work more . . .'
What surprised the dumbfounded visitors was the fact that the singers,
spread all through the building, were keeping excellent time, as though the
whole choir were standing together and watching an invisible conductor.
Passers-by in Vagankovsky Street stopped outside the courtyard gates,
amazed to hear such sounds of harmony coming from the Commission.
As soon as the first verse was over, the singing stopped at once, as
though in obedience to a conductor's baton. The messenger swore under his
breath and ran off.
The front door opened and in walked a man wearing a light coat on top
of a white overall, followed by a policeman.
'Do something, doctor, please! ' screamed the hysterical girl.
The secretary of the branch office ran out on to the staircase and
obviously burning with embarrassment and shame said between hiccups:
'Look doctor, we have a case of some kind of mass hypnosis, so you
must. . .' He could not finish his sentence, stuttered and began singing
'Shilka and Nerchinsk . . .'
'Fool! ' the girl managed to shout, but never managed to say who she
meant and instead found herself forced into a trill and joined in the song
about Shilka and Nerchinsk.
'Pull yourselves together! Stop singing!' said the doctor to the
secretary.
It was obvious that the secretary would have given anything to stop
singing but could not.
When the verse was finished the girl at the desk received a dose of
valerian from the doctor, who hurried off to give the secretary and the rest
the same treatment.
'Excuse me, miss,' Vassily Stepanovich suddenly asked the girl, ' has
a black cat been in here? '
'What cat? ' cried the girl angrily. ' There's a donkey in this
office--a donkey! ' And she went on : 'If you want to hear about it I'll
tell you exactly what's happened.'
Apparently the director of the branch office had a mania for organising
clubs.
'He does it all without permission from head office! ' said the girl
indignantly.
In the course of a year the branch director had succeeded in organising
a Lermontov Club, a Chess and Draughts Club, a Ping-Pong Club and a Riding
Club. In summer he threatened to organise a rowing club and a mountaineering
club. And then this morning in came the director at lunch time . . .
'. . . arm in arm with some villain,' said the girl, ' that he'd picked
up God knows where, wearing check trousers, with a wobbling pince-nez . . .
and an absolutely impossible face! '
There and then, according to the girl, he had introduced him to all the
lunchers in the dining-room as a famous specialist in organising choral
societies.
The faces of the budding mountaineers darkened, but the director told
them to cheer up and the specialist made jokes and assured them on his oath
that singing would take up very little time and was a wonderfully useful
accomplishment.
Well, of course, the girl went on, the first two to jump up were Fanov
and Kosarchuk, both well-known toadies, and announced that they wanted to
join. The rest of the staff realised that there was no way out of it, so
they all joined the choral society too. It was decided to practise during
the lunch break, because all the rest of their spare time was already taken
up with Lermontov and draughts. To set an example the director announced
that he sang tenor. What happened then was like a bad dream. The check-clad
chorus master bellowed: ' Do, mi, sol, do!' He dragged some of the shy
members out from behind a cupboard where they had been trying to avoid
having to sing, told Kosarchuk that he had perfect pitch, whined, whimpered,
begged them to show him some respect as an old choirmaster, struck a tuning
fork on his finger and announced that they would begin with ' The Song of
the Volga Boatmen '.
They struck up. And they sang very well--the man in the check suit
really did know his job. They sang to the end of the first verse. Then the
choirmaster excused himself, saying : ' I'll be back in a moment . . .'--and
vanished. Everybody expected him back in a minute or two, but ten minutes
went by and there was still no sign of him. The staff were delighted--he had
run away!
Then suddenly, as if to order, they all began singing the second verse,
led by Kosarchuk, who may not have had perfect pitch but who had quite a
pleasant high tenor. They finished the verse. Still no conductor. Everybody
started to go back to their tables, but they had no time to eat before quite
against their will they all started singing again. And they could not stop.
There would be three minutes' silence and they would burst out into song
again. Silence--then more singing! Soon people began to realise that
something terrible was happening. The director locked himself in his office
out of shame.
With this the girl's story broke off--even valerian was no use,
A quarter of an hour later three lorries drove up to the gateway on
Vagankovsky Street and the entire branch staff, headed by the director, was
put into them. Just as the first lorry drove through the gate and out into
the street, the staff, standing in the back of the lorry and holding each
other round the shoulders, all opened their mouths and deafened the whole
street with a song. The second lorry-load joined in and then the third. On
they drove, singing. The passers-by hurrying past on their own business gave
the lorries no more than a glance and took no notice, thinking that it was
some works party going on an excursion out of town. They were certainly
heading out of town, but not for an outing: they were bound for Professor
Stravinsky's clinic.
Half an hour later the distracted Vassily Stepanovich reached the
accounts department hoping at last to be able to get rid of his large sum of
money. Having learned from experience, he first gave a cautious glance into
the long hall, where the cashiers sat behind frosted-glass windows with gilt
markings. He found no sign of disturbance or upheaval. All was as quiet as
it should be in such a respectable establishment.
Vassily Stepanovich stuck his head through the window marked ' Paying
In ', said good-day to the clerk and politely asked for a paying-in slip.
'What do you want? ' asked the clerk behind the window.
The accountant looked amazed.
'I want to pay in, of course. I'm from the Variety.'
'One minute,' replied the clerk and instantly shut his little window.
'Funny! ' thought Vassily Stepanovich. This was the first time in his
life that he had been treated like this. We all know how hard it is to
acquire money--the process is strewn with obstacles ; but in his thirty
years' experience Vassily Stepanovich had never yet found anyone who had
made the least objection to taking money when offered it.
At last the window was pushed open again and the accountant leaned
forward again.
'How much have you got? ' asked the clerk.
'Twenty-one thousand, seven hundred and eleven roubles.'
'Oho! ' replied the clerk ironically and handed Vassily Stepanovich a
green form. Thoroughly familiar with it, he filled it out in a moment and
began untying the string on his package. As he unpacked it a red film came
over his eyes and he groaned in agony. In front of him lay heaps of foreign
money--Canadian dollars, English pounds, Dutch guilders, Latvian latts,
Esthonian crowns . . .
'Here's another of these jokers from the Variety! ' said a grim voice
behind the accountant. And Vassily Stepanovich was immediately put under
arrest.
Just as Vassily Stepanovich was taking a taxi-ride to meet the suit
that wrote by itself, among the passengers from the Kiev express a
respectably dressed man carrying a little fibre suitcase emerged from a
first-class sleeper on to the Moscow platform. This passenger was none other
than the uncle of the late Misha Berlioz, Maximilian Andreyevich Poplavsky,
an economist who worked in the Planning Commission and lived in Kiev. The
cause of his arrival in Moscow was a telegram that he had received late in
the evening two days earlier:
have been run over BY TRAM AT PATRIARCHS FUNERAL THREE O'CLOCK FRIDAY
PLEASE COME BERLIOZ
Maximilian Andreyevich was regarded, and rightly so, as one of the most
intelligent men in Kiev, but a telegram like this would be liable to put
even the brightest of us in a dilemma. If a man telegraphs that he has been
run over, obviously he has not been killed. But then why the funeral? Or is
he so desperately ill that he can foresee his own death? It is possible, but
extremely odd to be quite so precise--even if he can predict his death, how
does he know that he's going to be buried at three o'clock on Friday? What
an astonishing telegram!
Intelligent people, however, become intelligent by solving complicated
problems. It was very simple. There had been a mistake and the wire had
arrived in garbled form. Obviously the word ' have ' belonged to some other
telegram and had been transmitted in error instead of the word ' Berlioz ',
which had been put by mistake at the end of the telegram. Thus corrected,
the meaning was quite clear, though, of course, tragic.
When his wife had recovered from her first grief, Maximilian
Andreyevich at once prepared to go to Moscow.
Here I should reveal a secret about Maximilian Andreyevich. He
genuinely mourned the death of his wife's cousin, cut off in the prime of
life, but at the same time, being a practical man, he fully realised that
there was no special need for his presence at the funeral. Yet Maximilian
Andreyevich was in a great hurry to go to Moscow. What for? For one
thing--the flat. A flat in Moscow was a serious matter. He did not know why,
but Maximilian Andreyevich did not like Kiev and the thought of moving to
Moscow had lately begun to nag at him with such insistence that it was
affecting his sleep.
He took no delight in the spring floods of the Dnieper when, as it
drowned the islands on the lower shore, the water spread until it merged
with the horizon. He found no pleasure in the staggeringly beautiful view
from the foot of the monument to Prince Vladimir. The patches of sunlight
that play in spring over the brick pathways leading to the top of St
Vladimir's hill meant nothing to him. He wanted none of it. He only wanted
to go to Moscow.
Advertisements in the newspapers offering to exchange a flat on
University Street in Kiev for a smaller flat in Moscow produced no results.
Nobody could be found who wanted to move, except a few whose offers turned
out to be fraudulent.
The telegram came as a shock to Maximilian Andreyevich. It was a chance
that would be sinful to miss. Practical people know that opportunities of
that sort never come twice.
In short he had to make sure, at no matter what cost, that he inherited
his nephew's flat in Sadovaya Street. It was going to be complicated, very
complicated, but come what might these complications had to be overcome. An
experienced man, Maximilian Andreyevich knew that the first and essential
step was to arrange a temporary residence permit to stay, for however short
a time, in his late nephew's flat.
So on Friday morning Maximilian Andreyevich walked into the office of
the Tenants' Association of No. 502A, Sadovaya Street, Moscow. In a mean
little room, its wall enlivened by a poster showing in several graphic
diagrams how to revive a drowned man, behind a wooden desk there sat a
lonely, unshaven middle-aged man with a worried look.
'May I see the chairman, please? ' enquired the economist politely,
taking off his hat and placing his attache case on a chair by the door. This
apparently simple question upset the man behind the desk so much that a
complete change came over his expression. Squinting with anxiety he muttered
something incoherent about the chairman not being there.
'Is he in his flat?' asked Poplavsky. ' I have some very urgent
business with him.'
The man gave another indistinct mumble, which meant that he wasn't in
his flat either. ' When will he be back? '
To this the seated man gave no reply except to stare glumly out of the
window.
'Aha! ' said the intelligent Poplavsky to himself and enquired after
the secretary. At this the strange man behind the desk actually went purple
in the face with strain and again muttered vaguely that the secretary wasn't
there either . . . nobody knew when he'd be back again . . . the secretary
was ill ...
'Oho! ' said Poplavsky to himself. ' Is there anybody here from the
Association's management committee? '
'Me,' said the man in a weak voice.
'Look,' said Poplavsky ingratiatingly, ' I am the sole heir of my
nephew Berlioz who as you know died the other day at Patriarch's Ponds and
according to law I have to claim my inheritance. All his things are in our
flat--No. 50 . . .'
'I don't know anything about it, comrade,' the man interrupted
gloomily.' Excuse me,' said Poplavsky in his most charming voice, ' you are
a member of the management committee and you must . . .'
Just then a stranger came into the room. The man behind the desk went
pale.
'Are you Pyatnazhko of the management committee? ' said the stranger.
'Yes, I am,' said the seated man in a tiny voice.
The stranger whispered something to him and the man behind the desk,
now completely bewildered, got up and left Poplavsky entirely alone in the
empty committee room.
'What a nuisance! I should have seen the whole committee at once . .
.' thought Poplavsky with annoyance as he crossed the courtyard and hurried
towards flat No. 50.
He rang the bell, the door was opened and Maximilian Andrey-evich
walked into the semi-darkness of the hall. He was slightly surprised not to
be able to see who had opened the door to him ;
there was no one in the hall except an enormous black cat sitting on a
chair. Maximilian Andreyevich coughed and tapped his foot, at which the
study door opened and Koroviev came into the hall. Maximilian Andreyevich
gave him a polite but dignified bow and said:
'My name is Poplavsky. I am the uncle . . .'
But before he could finish Koroviev pulled a dirty handkerchief out of
his pocket, blew his nose and burst into tears.
'Of course, of course! ' said Koroviev, removing the handkerchief from
his face. ' I only had to see you to know who you were! ' He shook with
tears and began sobbing : ' Oh, what a tragedy! How could such a thing
happen? '
'Was he run over by a tram? ' asked Poplavsky in a whisper.
'Completely!' cried Koroviev, tears streaming past his pince-nez, '
Completely! I saw it happen. Can you believe it? Bang--his head was off,
He ran as far as the city gate, slipping through the crowd of pilgrims'
caravans pouring into town, and saw on his left the open door of a baker's
shop. Breathless from running on the hot road, the Levite pulled himself
together, entered the shop very sedately, greeted the baker's wife standing
behind the counter, asked her for a loaf from the top shelf which he
affected to prefer to all the rest and as she turned round, he silently and
quickly snatched off the counter the very thing he had been looking for--a
long, ra2or-sharp breadknife--and fled from the shop.
A few minutes later he was back on the Jaffa road, but the procession
was out of sight. He ran. Once or twice he had to drop and lie motionless to
regain his breath, to the astonishment of all the passers-by making for
Jerusalem on mule-back or on foot. As he lay he could hear the beat of his
heart in his chest, in his head and his ears. Rested, he stood up and began
running again, although his pace grew slower and slower. When he finally
caught sight again of the long, dusty procession, it had already reached the
foot of the hill.
'Oh, God! ' groaned the Levite. He knew he was too late.
With the passing of the fourth hour of the execution Matthew's torments
reached their climax and drove him to a frenzy. Rising from his stone, he
hurled the stolen knife to the ground, crushed his flask with his foot, thus
depriving himself of water, snatched the kefiyeh from his head, tore his
flowing hair and cursed himself. As he cursed in streams of gibberish,
bellowed and spat, Matthew slandered his father and mother for begetting
such a fool.
Since cursing and swearing had no apparent effect at all and changed
nothing in that sun-scorched inferno, he clenched his dry fists and raised
them heavenwards to the sun as it slowly descended, lengthening the shadows
before setting into the Mediterranean. The Levite begged God to perform a
miracle and allow Yeshua to die.
When he opened his eyes again nothing on the hill had changed, except
that the light no longer flashed from the badges on the centurion's chest.
The sun was shining on the victims' backs, as their faces were turned east
towards Jerusalem. Then the Levite cried out:
'I curse you. God! '
In a hoarse voice he shouted that God was unjust and that he would
believe in him no more.
'You are deaf! ' roared Matthew. ' If you were not deaf you would have
heard me and killed him in the instant!'
His eyes tight shut, the Levite waited for the fire to strike him from
heaven. Nothing happened. Without opening his eyes, he vented his spite in a
torrent of insults to heaven. He shouted that his faith was ruined, that
there were other gods and better. No other god would have allowed a man like
Yeshua to be scorched to death on a pole.
'No--I was wrong! ' screamed the Levite, now quite hoarse. ' You are a
God of evil! Or have your eyes been blinded by the smoke of sacrifices from
the temple and have your ears grown deaf to everything but the trumpet-calls
of the priests? You are not an almighty God--you are an evil God! I curse
you. God of robbers, their patron and protector! '
At that moment there was a puff of air in his face and something
rustled under his feet. Then came another puff and as he opened his eyes the
Levite saw that everything, either as a result of his imprecations or from
some other cause, had changed. The sun had been swallowed by a thundercloud
looming up, threatening and inexorable, from the west. Its edges were white
and ragged, its rumbling black paunch tinged with sulphur. White pillars of
dust, raised by the sudden wind, flew along the Jaffa road. The Levite was
silent, wondering if the storm which was about to break over Jerusalem might
alter the fate of the wretched Yeshua. Watching the tongues of lightning
that flickered round the edges of the cloud, he began to pray for one to
strike Yeshua's gibbet. Glancing penitently up at the remaining patches of
blue sky in which the vultures were winging away to avoid the storm, Matthew
knew that he had cursed too soon: God would not listen to him now.
Turning round to look at the foot of the hill, the Levite stared at the
cavalry lines and saw that they were on the move. From his height he had a
good view of the soldiers' hasty preparations as they pulled their lances
out of the ground and threw their cloaks over their shoulders. The grooms
were running towards the path, leading strings of troop horses. The regiment
was moving out. Shielding his face with his hand and spitting out the sand
that blew into his mouth, the Levite tried to think why the cavalry should
be preparing to go. He shifted his glance higher up the hill and made out a
figure in a purple military chlamys climbing up towards the place of
execution. Matthew's heart leaped : he sensed a quick end. The man climbing
Mount Golgotha in the victims' fifth hour of suffering was the Tribune of
the Cohort, who had galloped from Jerusalem accompanied by an orderly. At a
signal from Muribellum the cordon of soldiers opened and the centurion
saluted the Tribune, who took Muribellum aside and whispered something to
him. The centurion saluted again and walked over to the executioners, seated
on stones under the gibbets. The Tribune meanwhile turned towards the man on
the three-legged stool. The seated man rose politely as the Tribune
approached him. The officer said something to him in a low voice and both
walked over to the gallows, where they were joined by the captain of the
temple guard.
Muribellum, with a fastidious grimace at the filthy rags lying on the
ground near the crosses--the prisoners' clothes which even the executioners
had spurned--called to two of them and gave an order:
'Follow me!'
A hoarse, incoherent song could just be heard coming from the nearest
gibbet. Hestas had been driven out of his mind two hours ago by the flies
and the heat and was now softly croaking something about a vineyard. His
turbaned head still nodded occasionally, sending up a lazy cloud of flies
from his face.
Dismas on the second cross was suffering more than the other two
because he was still conscious and shaking his head regularly from side to
side.
Yeshua was luckier. He had begun to faint during the first hour, and
had then lapsed into unconsciousness, his head drooping in its ragged
turban. As a result the mosquitoes and horse-flies had settled on him so
thickly that his face was entirely hidden by a black, heaving mask. All over
his groin, his stomach and under his armpits sat bloated horseflies, sucking
at the yellowing naked body.
At a gesture from the man in the hood one of the executioners picked up
a lance and the other carried a bucket and sponge to the gibbet. The first
executioner raised the lance and used it to hit Yeshua first on one extended
arm and then on the other.
The emaciated body gave a twitch. The executioner then poked Yeshua in
the stomach with the handle of the lance. At this Yeshua raised his head,
the flies rose with a buzz and the victim's face was revealed, swollen with
bites, puff-eyed, unrecognisable.
Forcing open his eyelids, Ha-Notsri looked down. His usually clear eyes
were now dim and glazed.
'Ha-Notsri!' said the executioner.
Ha-Notsri moved his swollen lips and answered in a hoarse croak:
'What do you want? Why have you come? '
'Drink! ' said the executioner and a water-soaked sponge was raised to
Yeshua's lips on the point of a lance. Joy lit up his eyes, he put his mouth
to the sponge and greedily sucked its moisture. From the next gibbet came
the voice of Dismas :
'It's unjust! He's as much a crook as me! '
Dismas strained ineffectually, his arms being lashed to the cross-bar
in three places. He arched his stomach, clawed the end of the crossbeam with
his nails and tried to turn his eyes, full of envy and hatred, towards
Yeshua's cross.
'Silence on the second gibbet! '
Dismas was silent. Yeshua turned aside from the sponge. He tried to
make his voice sound kind and persuasive, but failed and could only croak
huskily :
'Give him a drink too.'
It was growing darker. The cloud now filled half the sky as it surged
towards Jerusalem; smaller white clouds fled before the black monster
charged with fire and water. There was a flash and a thunderclap directly
over the hill. The executioner took the sponge from the lance.
'Hail to the merciful hegemon! ' he whispered solemnly and gently
pierced Yeshua through the heart. Yeshua shuddered and whispered:
'Hegemon . . .'
Blood ran down his stomach, his lower jaw twitched convulsively and his
head dropped. At the second thunderclap the executioner gave the sponge to
Dismas with the same words :
'Hail, hegemon . . .' and killed him.
Hestas, his reason gone, cried out in fear as the executioner
approached him, but when the sponge touched his lips he gave a roar and sank
his teeth into it. A few seconds later his body was hanging as limply as the
ropes would allow.
The man in the hood followed the executioner and the centurion; behind
him in turn came the captain of the temple guard. Stopping at the first
gibbet the hooded man carefully inspected Yeshua's bloodstained body,
touched the pole with his white hand and said to his companions :
'Dead.'
The same was repeated at the other two gallows.
After this the Tribune gestured to the centurion and turned to walk
down the hill with the captain of the temple guard and the hooded man.
It was now twilight and lightning was furrowing the black sky. Suddenly
there was a brilliant flash and the centurion's shout of' Fall out, the
cordon! ' was drowned in thunder. The delighted soldiers started running
down hill, buckling on their helmets as they went.
A mist had covered Jerusalem.
The downpour struck suddenly and caught the centurion halfway down the
hill. The rain fell with such force that turbulent streams began catching
them up as they ran. The troops slithered and fell on the muddy soil as they
hurried to reach the main road. Moving fast, now scarcely visible in a veil
of water, the rain-soaked cavalry was already on its way back to Jerusalem.
After a few minutes only one man was left on the hill in the smoking
cauldron of wind, water and fire.
Brandishing his stolen knife, for which he now had a use after all,
leaping over the slippery rocks, grasping whatever came to hand, at times
crawling on his knees, he stumbled towards the gallows in alternate spells
of complete darkness and flashes of light. When he reached the gallows he
was already ankle-deep in water and threw off his soaking tallith. Wearing
only his shirt Matthew fell at Yeshua's feet. He cut the ropes round his
knees, climbed on to the lower crossbar, embraced Yeshua and freed his arms
from their bonds. Yeshua's wet, naked body collapsed on to Matthew and
dragged him to the ground. The Levite was just about to hoist him on to his
shoulders when another thought stopped him. He left the body on the watery
ground, its head thrown back and arms outstretched, and ran, slithering, to
the other gibbet-posts. He cut their ropes and the two bodies fell to the
ground.
A few minutes later only those two water-lashed bodies and three empty
gibbets remained on Mount Golgotha. Matthew the Levite and Yeshua were gone.
On Friday morning, the day after the disastrous show, the permanent
staff of the Variety Theatre--Vassily Stepanovich Lastochkin the accountant,
two bookkeepers, three typists, the two cashiers, the ushers, the
commissionaires and the cleaners-- were not at work but were instead sitting
on the window-ledges looking out on to Sadovaya Street and watching what was
happening outside the theatre. There beneath the theatre walls wound a
double queue of several thousand people whose tail-end had already reached
Kudrinskaya Square. At the head of the queue stood a couple of dozen of the
leading lights of the Moscow theatrical world.
The queue was in a state of high excitement, attracting the attention
of the passers-by and busily swapping hair-raising stories about the
previous evening's incredible performance of black magic. Vassily
Stepanovich the accountant, who had not been at yesterday's show, was
growing more and more uneasy. The commissionaires were saying unbelievable
things, such as how after the show a number of ladies had been seen on the
street in a highly improper state. The shy and unassuming Vassily
Stepanovich could only blink as he listened to the description of all these
sensations and felt utterly unable to decide what to do ; meanwhile
something had to be done and it was he who had to do it, as he was now the
senior remaining member of the Variety's management.
By ten o'clock the ticket queue had swollen to such a size that the
police came to hear of it and rapidly sent some detachments of horse and
foot to reduce the queue to order. Unfortunately the mere existence of a
mile-long queue was enough to cause a minor riot in spite of all the police
could do.
Inside the Variety things were as confused as they were outside. The
telephone had been ringing since early morning-- ringing in Likhodeyev's
office, in Rimsky's office, in the accounts department, in the box-office
and in Varenukha's office. At first Vassily Stepanovich had attempted to
answer, the cashier had tried to cope, the commissionaires had mumbled
something into the telephone when it rang, but soon they stopped answering
altogether because there was simply no answer to give the people asking
where Likhodeyev, Rimsky and Varenukha were. They had been able to put them
off the scent for a while by saying that Likhodeyev was in his flat, but
this only produced more angry calls later, declaring that they had rung
Likhodeyev's flat and been told that he was at the Variety.
One agitated lady rang up and demanded to speak to Rimsky and was
advised to ring his wife at home, at which the earpiece, sobbing, replied
that she was Rimsky's wife and he was nowhere to be found. Odd stories began
to circulate. One of the charwomen was telling everyone that when she had
gone to clean the treasurer's office she had found the door ajar, the lights
burning, the window on to the garden smashed, a chair overturned on the
floor and no one in the room.
At eleven o'clock Madame Rimsky descended on the Variety, weeping and
wringing her hands. Vassily Stepanovich was by now utterly bewildered and
unable to offer her any advice. Then at half past eleven the police
appeared. Their first and very reasonable question was :
'What's happening here? What is all this? '
The staff" retreated, pushing forward the pale and agitated Vassily
Stepanovich. Describing the situation as it really was, he had to admit that
the entire management of the Variety, including the general manager, the
treasurer and the house manager, had vanished without trace, that last
night's compere had been removed to a lunatic asylum and that, in short,
yesterday's show had been a catastrophe.
Having done their best to calm her, the police sent the sobbing
Madame Rimsky home, then turned with interest to the charwoman's story
about the state of the treasurer's office. The staff were told to go and get
on with their jobs and after a short while the detective squad turned up,
leading a sharp-eared muscular dog, the colour of cigarette ash and with
extremely intelligent eyes. At once a rumour spread among the Variety
Theatre staff that the dog was none other than the famous Ace of Diamonds.
It was. Its behaviour amazed everybody. No sooner had the animal walked into
the treasurer's office than it growled, bared its monstrous yellowish teeth,
then crouched on its stomach and crept towards the broken window with a look
of mingled terror and hostility. Mastering its fear the dog suddenly leaped
on to the window ledge, raised its great muzzle and gave an eerie, savage
howl. It refused to leave the window, growled, trembled and crouched as
though wanting to jump out of the window.
The dog was led out of the office to the entrance hall, from whence it
went out of the main doors into the street and across the road to the
taxi-rank. There it lost the scent. After that Ace of Diamonds was taken
away.
The detectives settled into Varenukha's office, where one after the
other, they called in all the members of the Variety staff who had witnessed
the events of the previous evening. At every step the detectives were beset
with unforeseen difficulties. The thread kept breaking in their hands.
Had there been any posters advertising the performance? Yes, there had.
But since last night new ones had been pasted over them and now there was
not a single one to be found anywhere. Where did this magician come from?
Nobody knew. Had a contract been signed?
'I suppose so,' replied Vassily Stepanovich miserably.
'And if so it will have gone through the books, won't it? '
'Certainly,' replied Vassily Stepanovich in growing agitation.
'Then where is it? '
'It's not here,' replied the accountant, turning paler and spreading
his hands. It was true : there was no trace of a contract in the accounts
department files, the treasurer's office, Likhodeyev's office or Varenukha's
office.
What was the magician's surname? Vassily Stepanovich did not know, he
had not been at yesterday's show. The commissionaires did not know, the
box-office cashier frowned and frowned, thought and thought, and finally
said :
'Wo ... I think it was Woland. . . .'
Perhaps it wasn't Woland? Perhaps it wasn't. Perhaps it was Poland.
The Aliens' Bureau, it appeared, had never heard of anyone called
Woland or Poland or any other black magician. Karpov, an usher, said that as
far as he knew the magician was staying at Likhodeyev's flat. Naturally they
immediately went to the flat, but there was no sign of a magician living
there. Likhodeyev himself was also missing. The maid Grunya was not there
and nobody knew where she was. Both the house committee chairman, Nikanor
Ivanovich, and the secretary, Prolezhnev, had also vanished.
The investigation so far appeared to amount to a total absurdity : the
entire management had vanished, there had been a scandalous show the
previous evening--but who had arranged it? Nobody knew.
Meanwhile it was nearly noon, time for the box office to open. This, of
course, was out of the question. A large piece of cardboard was hung on the
Variety's doors with the announcement:
today's
PERFORMANCE
CANCELLED
This caused a stir in the queue, beginning at its head, but the
excitement subsided and the queue began to disperse. After an hour there was
scarcely a trace of it on Sadovaya Street. The detectives left to pursue
their inquiries elsewhere, the staff, except for the watchmen, were
dismissed and the doors of the Variety were closed.
Vassily Stepanovich the accountant had two urgent tasks to perform.
Firstly to go to the Commission for Theatrical Spectacles and Light
Entertainment with a report on the previous day's events and then to deposit
yesterday's takings of 21,711 roubles at the Commission's finance
department.
The meticulous and efficient Vassily Stepanovich wrapped the money in
newspaper, tied it up with string, put it into his briefcase and following
his standing instructions avoided taking a bus or tram but went instead to
the nearby taxi-rank.
As soon as the three cab-drivers on the rank saw a fare approaching
with a chock-full briefcase under his arm, all three of them instantly drove
off empty, scowling back as they went. Amazed, the accountant stood for a
while wondering what this odd behaviour could mean. After about three
minutes an empty cab drove up the the rank, the driver grimacing with
hostility when he saw his fare.
'Are you free? ' asked Vassily Stepanovich with an anxious cough.
'Show me your money,' snarled the driver.
Even more amazed, the accountant clutched his precious briefcase under
one arm, pulled a ten-rouble note out of his wallet and showed it to the
driver.
'I'm not taking you,' he said curtly.
'Excuse me, but . . .' The accountant began, but the driver
interrupted him:
'Got a three-rouble note? '
The bewildered accountant took out two three-rouble notes from his
wallet and showed them to the driver.
'O.K., get in,' he shouted, slamming down the flag of his meter so
hard that he almost broke it. ' Let's go.'
'Are you short of change? ' enquired the accountant timidly.
'Plenty of change! ' roared the driver and his eyes, reddened with
fury, glared at Vassily Stepanovich from the mirror. ' Third time it's
happened to me today. Just the same with the others. Some son of a bitch
gives me a tenner and I give him four-fifty change. Out he gets, the
bastard! Five minutes later I look--instead of a tenner there's a label off
a soda-water bottle! ' Here the driver said several unprintable words. '
Picked up another fare on Zaborskaya. Gives me a tenner--I give him three
roubles change. Gets out. I look in my bag and out flies a bee! Stings me on
the finger! I'll . . .' The driver spat out more unprintable words. ' And
there was no tenner. There was a show on at that (unprintable) Variety
yesterday evening and some (unprintable) conjurer did a turn with a lot of
(unprintable) ten-rouble notes . . .'
The accountant was dumbstruck. He hunched himself up and tried to look
as if he was hearing the very word ' Variety ' for the first time in his
life as he thought to himself: ' Well I'm damned! '
Arrived at his destination and paying in proper money, the accountant
went into one building and hurried along the corridor to the chief cashier's
office, but even before he reached it he realised that he had come at a bad
moment. A rumpus was going on in the offices of the Theatrical Commission. A
cleaner ran past him with her headscarf awry and bulging eyes.
'He's not there! He's not there, dear,' she screamed, turning to
another man hurrying along the passage. ' His jacket and trousers are there
but there's nobody in 'em! '
She disappeared through a door, from which there at once came the sound
of smashing crockery. Vassily Stepanovich then saw the familiar figure of
the chief cashier come running out of the secretaries' office and vanish,
but the man was in such a state that he failed to recognise Vasilly
Stepanovich.
Slightly shaken, the accountant reached the door of the secretaries'
office, which was the ante-room to the chairman's office, where he had the
greatest shock of all.
Through the far door came a terrible voice, unmistakably belonging to
Prokhor Petrovich, the chairman of the Commission. ' I suppose he's telling
somebody off,' thought the puzzled accountant. Looking round, he saw
something else--there, in a leather armchair, her head resting on the back,
sobbing uncontrollably and clutching a wet handkerchief, her legs stretched
out to the middle of the floor, lay Prokhor Petrovich's secretary, the
beautiful Anna Richardovna. Her chin was smeared with lipstick and streaks
of dissolved mascara were running down her peach-skin cheeks.
Seeing him come in, Anna Richardovna jumped up, ran to Vassily
Stepanovich, clutched his lapels and began to shake him, howling:
'Thank God! At least there's one of you brave enough! They've all run
away, they've all let us down! Come and see him, I don't know what to do! '
Still sobbing she dragged him into the chairman's office.
Once inside Vassily Stepanovich dropped his briefcase in horror.
Behind the huge desk with its massive inkwell sat an empty suit. A dry
pen was hurrying, unheld, across a sheet of paper. The suit had a shirt and
tie, a fountain pen was clipped in its breast-pocket, but above the collar
there was no neck and no head and there were no wrists protruding from the
cuffs. The suit was hard at work and oblivious of the uproar round about.
Hearing someone come in, the suit leaned back in its chair and from
somewhere just above the collar came the familiar voice of Prokhor
Petrovich:
'What is it? There's a notice on the door saying that I'm not seeing
visitors.'
The beautiful secretary moaned and cried, wringing her hands :
'Don't you see? He's not there! Bring him back, oh bring him back!'
Someone peeped round the door, groaned and flew out again. Vassily
Stepanovich felt his legs shaking and he sat down on the edge of a
chair--not forgetting, though, to hold on to his briefcase. Anna Richardovna
pranced round Vassily Stepanovich, pulling at his coat and shrieking :
'I've always, always stopped him whenever he began swearing! Now he's
sworn once too often!' The girl ran to the desk and exclaimed in a tender,
musical voice, slightly nasal from so much weeping: ' Prosha dear, where are
you? '
'Who are you addressing as " Prosha "? ' enquired the suit haughtily,
drawing further back into the chair.
'He doesn't recognise me! He doesn't recognise me! Don't you see? '
sobbed the girl.
'Kindly stop crying in my office!' said the striped suit irritably,
stretching out its sleeve for a fresh pile of paper.
'No, I can't look, I can't look! ' cried Anna Richardovna and ran back
into her office, followed, like a bullet, by the accountant.
'Just imagine--I was sitting here,' began Anna Richardovna trembling
with horror and clutching Vassily Stepanovich's sleeve, ' when in came a
cat. A great black animal as big as Behemoth. Naturally I shooed it out and
it went, but then a fat man came in who also had a face like a cat, said "
Do you always say ' shoo ' to visitors?" and went straight in to Prokhor
Petrovich. So I shouted " What d'you mean by going in there --have you gone
crazy? " But the cheeky brute marched straight in to Prokhor Petrovich and
sat down in the chair facing him. Well, Prokhor is the nicest man alive, but
he's nervous. He lost his temper. He works like a trojan, but he's apt to be
nervy and he just flared up. " Why have you come in here without being
announced? " he said. And then, if you please, that impudent creature
stretched out in his chair and said with a smile : " I've come to have a
chat with you on a little matter of business." Prokhor Petrovich snapped at
him again :
" I'm busy," to which the beast said: " You're not busy at all ..." How
d'you like that? Well, of course, Prokhor Petrovich lost all patience then
and shouted: " What is all this? Damn me if I don't have you thrown out of
here! " The beast just smiled and said: " Damn you, I think you said? Very
well! " And--bang! Before I could even scream, I looked and cat-face had
gone and there was this . . . suit . . . sitting . . . Oooooh! ' Stretching
her mouth into a shapeless cavity Anna Richardovna gave a howl. Choking back
her sobs she took a deep breath but could only gulp nonsensically:
'And it goes on writing and writing and writing! I must be going off
my head! It talks on the telephone! The suit! They've all run away like
rabbits! '
Vassily Stepanovich could only stand there, trembling. Fate rescued
him. Into the secretaries' office with a firm, regular tread marched two
policemen. Catching sight of them the lovely girl began sobbing even harder
and pointed towards the office door.
'Now, now, miss, let's not cry,' said the first man calmly. Vassily
Stepanovich, deciding that he was superfluous, skipped away and a minute
later was out in the fresh air. His head felt hollow, something inside it
was booming like a trumpet and the noise reminded him of the story told by
one of the commissionaires about a cat which had taken part in yesterday's
show. ' Aha! Perhaps it's our little pussy up to his tricks again? '
Having failed to hand in the money at the Commission's head office, the
conscientious Vassily Stepanovich decided to go to the branch office, which
was in Vagankovsky Street and to calm himself a little he made his way there
on foot.
The branch office of the Theatrical Commission was quartered in a
peeling old house at the far end of a courtyard, which was famous for the
porphyry columns in its hallway. That day, however, the visitors to the
house were not paying much attention to the porphyry columns.
Several visitors were standing numbly in the hall and staring at a
weeping girl seated behind a desk full of theatrical brochures which it was
her job to sell. The girl seemed to have lost interest in her literature and
only waved sympathetic enquirers away, whilst from above, below and all
sides of the building came the pealing of at least twenty desperate
telephones.
Weeping, the girl suddenly gave a start and screamed hysterically :
'There it is again! ' and began singing in a wobbly soprano :
'Yo-o, heave-ho! Yo-o heave-ho! '
A messenger, who had appeared on the staircase, shook his fist at
somebody and joined the girl, singing in a rough, tuneless baritone:
'One more heave, lads, one more heave . . .'
Distant voices chimed in, the choir began to swell until finally the
song was booming out all over the building. In nearby room No. 6, the
auditor's department, a powerful hoarse bass voice boomed out an octave
below the rest. The chorus was accompanied crescendo by a peal of telephone
bells.
'All day lo-ong we must trudge the sbore,' roared the messenger on the
staircase.
Tears poured down the girl's face as she tried to clench her teeth, but
her mouth opened of its own accord and she sang an octave above the
messenger :
'Work all da-ay and then work more . . .'
What surprised the dumbfounded visitors was the fact that the singers,
spread all through the building, were keeping excellent time, as though the
whole choir were standing together and watching an invisible conductor.
Passers-by in Vagankovsky Street stopped outside the courtyard gates,
amazed to hear such sounds of harmony coming from the Commission.
As soon as the first verse was over, the singing stopped at once, as
though in obedience to a conductor's baton. The messenger swore under his
breath and ran off.
The front door opened and in walked a man wearing a light coat on top
of a white overall, followed by a policeman.
'Do something, doctor, please! ' screamed the hysterical girl.
The secretary of the branch office ran out on to the staircase and
obviously burning with embarrassment and shame said between hiccups:
'Look doctor, we have a case of some kind of mass hypnosis, so you
must. . .' He could not finish his sentence, stuttered and began singing
'Shilka and Nerchinsk . . .'
'Fool! ' the girl managed to shout, but never managed to say who she
meant and instead found herself forced into a trill and joined in the song
about Shilka and Nerchinsk.
'Pull yourselves together! Stop singing!' said the doctor to the
secretary.
It was obvious that the secretary would have given anything to stop
singing but could not.
When the verse was finished the girl at the desk received a dose of
valerian from the doctor, who hurried off to give the secretary and the rest
the same treatment.
'Excuse me, miss,' Vassily Stepanovich suddenly asked the girl, ' has
a black cat been in here? '
'What cat? ' cried the girl angrily. ' There's a donkey in this
office--a donkey! ' And she went on : 'If you want to hear about it I'll
tell you exactly what's happened.'
Apparently the director of the branch office had a mania for organising
clubs.
'He does it all without permission from head office! ' said the girl
indignantly.
In the course of a year the branch director had succeeded in organising
a Lermontov Club, a Chess and Draughts Club, a Ping-Pong Club and a Riding
Club. In summer he threatened to organise a rowing club and a mountaineering
club. And then this morning in came the director at lunch time . . .
'. . . arm in arm with some villain,' said the girl, ' that he'd picked
up God knows where, wearing check trousers, with a wobbling pince-nez . . .
and an absolutely impossible face! '
There and then, according to the girl, he had introduced him to all the
lunchers in the dining-room as a famous specialist in organising choral
societies.
The faces of the budding mountaineers darkened, but the director told
them to cheer up and the specialist made jokes and assured them on his oath
that singing would take up very little time and was a wonderfully useful
accomplishment.
Well, of course, the girl went on, the first two to jump up were Fanov
and Kosarchuk, both well-known toadies, and announced that they wanted to
join. The rest of the staff realised that there was no way out of it, so
they all joined the choral society too. It was decided to practise during
the lunch break, because all the rest of their spare time was already taken
up with Lermontov and draughts. To set an example the director announced
that he sang tenor. What happened then was like a bad dream. The check-clad
chorus master bellowed: ' Do, mi, sol, do!' He dragged some of the shy
members out from behind a cupboard where they had been trying to avoid
having to sing, told Kosarchuk that he had perfect pitch, whined, whimpered,
begged them to show him some respect as an old choirmaster, struck a tuning
fork on his finger and announced that they would begin with ' The Song of
the Volga Boatmen '.
They struck up. And they sang very well--the man in the check suit
really did know his job. They sang to the end of the first verse. Then the
choirmaster excused himself, saying : ' I'll be back in a moment . . .'--and
vanished. Everybody expected him back in a minute or two, but ten minutes
went by and there was still no sign of him. The staff were delighted--he had
run away!
Then suddenly, as if to order, they all began singing the second verse,
led by Kosarchuk, who may not have had perfect pitch but who had quite a
pleasant high tenor. They finished the verse. Still no conductor. Everybody
started to go back to their tables, but they had no time to eat before quite
against their will they all started singing again. And they could not stop.
There would be three minutes' silence and they would burst out into song
again. Silence--then more singing! Soon people began to realise that
something terrible was happening. The director locked himself in his office
out of shame.
With this the girl's story broke off--even valerian was no use,
A quarter of an hour later three lorries drove up to the gateway on
Vagankovsky Street and the entire branch staff, headed by the director, was
put into them. Just as the first lorry drove through the gate and out into
the street, the staff, standing in the back of the lorry and holding each
other round the shoulders, all opened their mouths and deafened the whole
street with a song. The second lorry-load joined in and then the third. On
they drove, singing. The passers-by hurrying past on their own business gave
the lorries no more than a glance and took no notice, thinking that it was
some works party going on an excursion out of town. They were certainly
heading out of town, but not for an outing: they were bound for Professor
Stravinsky's clinic.
Half an hour later the distracted Vassily Stepanovich reached the
accounts department hoping at last to be able to get rid of his large sum of
money. Having learned from experience, he first gave a cautious glance into
the long hall, where the cashiers sat behind frosted-glass windows with gilt
markings. He found no sign of disturbance or upheaval. All was as quiet as
it should be in such a respectable establishment.
Vassily Stepanovich stuck his head through the window marked ' Paying
In ', said good-day to the clerk and politely asked for a paying-in slip.
'What do you want? ' asked the clerk behind the window.
The accountant looked amazed.
'I want to pay in, of course. I'm from the Variety.'
'One minute,' replied the clerk and instantly shut his little window.
'Funny! ' thought Vassily Stepanovich. This was the first time in his
life that he had been treated like this. We all know how hard it is to
acquire money--the process is strewn with obstacles ; but in his thirty
years' experience Vassily Stepanovich had never yet found anyone who had
made the least objection to taking money when offered it.
At last the window was pushed open again and the accountant leaned
forward again.
'How much have you got? ' asked the clerk.
'Twenty-one thousand, seven hundred and eleven roubles.'
'Oho! ' replied the clerk ironically and handed Vassily Stepanovich a
green form. Thoroughly familiar with it, he filled it out in a moment and
began untying the string on his package. As he unpacked it a red film came
over his eyes and he groaned in agony. In front of him lay heaps of foreign
money--Canadian dollars, English pounds, Dutch guilders, Latvian latts,
Esthonian crowns . . .
'Here's another of these jokers from the Variety! ' said a grim voice
behind the accountant. And Vassily Stepanovich was immediately put under
arrest.
Just as Vassily Stepanovich was taking a taxi-ride to meet the suit
that wrote by itself, among the passengers from the Kiev express a
respectably dressed man carrying a little fibre suitcase emerged from a
first-class sleeper on to the Moscow platform. This passenger was none other
than the uncle of the late Misha Berlioz, Maximilian Andreyevich Poplavsky,
an economist who worked in the Planning Commission and lived in Kiev. The
cause of his arrival in Moscow was a telegram that he had received late in
the evening two days earlier:
have been run over BY TRAM AT PATRIARCHS FUNERAL THREE O'CLOCK FRIDAY
PLEASE COME BERLIOZ
Maximilian Andreyevich was regarded, and rightly so, as one of the most
intelligent men in Kiev, but a telegram like this would be liable to put
even the brightest of us in a dilemma. If a man telegraphs that he has been
run over, obviously he has not been killed. But then why the funeral? Or is
he so desperately ill that he can foresee his own death? It is possible, but
extremely odd to be quite so precise--even if he can predict his death, how
does he know that he's going to be buried at three o'clock on Friday? What
an astonishing telegram!
Intelligent people, however, become intelligent by solving complicated
problems. It was very simple. There had been a mistake and the wire had
arrived in garbled form. Obviously the word ' have ' belonged to some other
telegram and had been transmitted in error instead of the word ' Berlioz ',
which had been put by mistake at the end of the telegram. Thus corrected,
the meaning was quite clear, though, of course, tragic.
When his wife had recovered from her first grief, Maximilian
Andreyevich at once prepared to go to Moscow.
Here I should reveal a secret about Maximilian Andreyevich. He
genuinely mourned the death of his wife's cousin, cut off in the prime of
life, but at the same time, being a practical man, he fully realised that
there was no special need for his presence at the funeral. Yet Maximilian
Andreyevich was in a great hurry to go to Moscow. What for? For one
thing--the flat. A flat in Moscow was a serious matter. He did not know why,
but Maximilian Andreyevich did not like Kiev and the thought of moving to
Moscow had lately begun to nag at him with such insistence that it was
affecting his sleep.
He took no delight in the spring floods of the Dnieper when, as it
drowned the islands on the lower shore, the water spread until it merged
with the horizon. He found no pleasure in the staggeringly beautiful view
from the foot of the monument to Prince Vladimir. The patches of sunlight
that play in spring over the brick pathways leading to the top of St
Vladimir's hill meant nothing to him. He wanted none of it. He only wanted
to go to Moscow.
Advertisements in the newspapers offering to exchange a flat on
University Street in Kiev for a smaller flat in Moscow produced no results.
Nobody could be found who wanted to move, except a few whose offers turned
out to be fraudulent.
The telegram came as a shock to Maximilian Andreyevich. It was a chance
that would be sinful to miss. Practical people know that opportunities of
that sort never come twice.
In short he had to make sure, at no matter what cost, that he inherited
his nephew's flat in Sadovaya Street. It was going to be complicated, very
complicated, but come what might these complications had to be overcome. An
experienced man, Maximilian Andreyevich knew that the first and essential
step was to arrange a temporary residence permit to stay, for however short
a time, in his late nephew's flat.
So on Friday morning Maximilian Andreyevich walked into the office of
the Tenants' Association of No. 502A, Sadovaya Street, Moscow. In a mean
little room, its wall enlivened by a poster showing in several graphic
diagrams how to revive a drowned man, behind a wooden desk there sat a
lonely, unshaven middle-aged man with a worried look.
'May I see the chairman, please? ' enquired the economist politely,
taking off his hat and placing his attache case on a chair by the door. This
apparently simple question upset the man behind the desk so much that a
complete change came over his expression. Squinting with anxiety he muttered
something incoherent about the chairman not being there.
'Is he in his flat?' asked Poplavsky. ' I have some very urgent
business with him.'
The man gave another indistinct mumble, which meant that he wasn't in
his flat either. ' When will he be back? '
To this the seated man gave no reply except to stare glumly out of the
window.
'Aha! ' said the intelligent Poplavsky to himself and enquired after
the secretary. At this the strange man behind the desk actually went purple
in the face with strain and again muttered vaguely that the secretary wasn't
there either . . . nobody knew when he'd be back again . . . the secretary
was ill ...
'Oho! ' said Poplavsky to himself. ' Is there anybody here from the
Association's management committee? '
'Me,' said the man in a weak voice.
'Look,' said Poplavsky ingratiatingly, ' I am the sole heir of my
nephew Berlioz who as you know died the other day at Patriarch's Ponds and
according to law I have to claim my inheritance. All his things are in our
flat--No. 50 . . .'
'I don't know anything about it, comrade,' the man interrupted
gloomily.' Excuse me,' said Poplavsky in his most charming voice, ' you are
a member of the management committee and you must . . .'
Just then a stranger came into the room. The man behind the desk went
pale.
'Are you Pyatnazhko of the management committee? ' said the stranger.
'Yes, I am,' said the seated man in a tiny voice.
The stranger whispered something to him and the man behind the desk,
now completely bewildered, got up and left Poplavsky entirely alone in the
empty committee room.
'What a nuisance! I should have seen the whole committee at once . .
.' thought Poplavsky with annoyance as he crossed the courtyard and hurried
towards flat No. 50.
He rang the bell, the door was opened and Maximilian Andrey-evich
walked into the semi-darkness of the hall. He was slightly surprised not to
be able to see who had opened the door to him ;
there was no one in the hall except an enormous black cat sitting on a
chair. Maximilian Andreyevich coughed and tapped his foot, at which the
study door opened and Koroviev came into the hall. Maximilian Andreyevich
gave him a polite but dignified bow and said:
'My name is Poplavsky. I am the uncle . . .'
But before he could finish Koroviev pulled a dirty handkerchief out of
his pocket, blew his nose and burst into tears.
'Of course, of course! ' said Koroviev, removing the handkerchief from
his face. ' I only had to see you to know who you were! ' He shook with
tears and began sobbing : ' Oh, what a tragedy! How could such a thing
happen? '
'Was he run over by a tram? ' asked Poplavsky in a whisper.
'Completely!' cried Koroviev, tears streaming past his pince-nez, '
Completely! I saw it happen. Can you believe it? Bang--his head was off,