 |
 |
|
|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] daylight, I could have gone to the Komsomol club and they would have found me a bed in a hostel. But now where could I go? The light under the archway had already been extinguished and the people were feeling their way out in darkness, treading on one another's heels. "Stop pushing for God's sake!" said a voice behind me and at that moment someone gave me a tremendous shove in the back. "What are you pushing for?" I said, turning to a lanky fellow in a cap pulled down over his eyes. "Beg your pardon, it wasn't me, it was him," and the lout, grinning impudently, nodded to his neighbour. Then someone shoved me again. And what a shove! I nearly dropped my brief case. And suddenly someone crushed my foot with his heel. I jumped with pain. But deciding that I had better not make trouble, I gripped my brief case firmly and struggled out of the dark archway into the- lighted street. What a bunch of louts! Must have learnt their tricks from those American gangsters! That's what they came to the film for. . . Spoiling other people's galoshes! The station buffet was still open and I decided to have a snack and then doze on a bench until dawn. The air of Kharkov had made me ravenous, and as I went up to the glass counter I was already groping in my jacket pocket. Suddenly I remembered that after buying my cinema ticket I had not pinned my pocket up again. Oh! I felt my legs sag under me. The glass chandelier hanging from the stuccoed ceiling swam before my eyes. . . My pocket was empty! "Steady," I told myself. "The main thing is not to panic. Pull yourself together!" With sad, hungry eyes :I gazed at the grinning mouth of a pike on a salad dish, then crept miserably away from the counter. "Steady on, don't get excited!" I tried to reassure myself. "You've just got your pockets mixed." Going over to the window-sill, I tossed my brief case on to it and rummaged through my pockets with trembling fingers. But all in vain the money had gone, gone with the Sharks of New York. In the pocket of my chumarka I found the crumpled ruble and coins that the ticket-seller had given me for change. But what were these in comparison with the wealth that had been stolen from me! It must have been those scoundrels in the check caps who had taken it! But how should I get home? "Keep it up along the sleepers!" I remembered the words of a long-forgotten song. Yes, along the sleepers. . . There was nothing for it. I would do a day's work here and there for the kulaks on the road. I would work as a farm-labourer and get back! Perhaps I could sell my chumarka?. . . But who would buy a ragged old thing like that? When we were in a tough spot Nikita had advised us to remember the old sea saying: "Rub your nose and you'll get over it." I scratched my nose so hard that I nearly took the skin off. But it didn't help a bit!... Should I send Nikita a telegram asking for help? Just one word "robbed!" and the address "Kharkov Station To be called for"?... But what a row it would cause at school! "Look at that!" they would say. "We've sent a fool! Instead of sticking up for us, he's been wasting our money! Just a wool-gatherer!" And wouldn't Tiktor gloat! No, I mustn't send a telegram. I must find my own way out of the mess. It had been my fault and I must take what was coming to me! Now I realized the truth of Nikita's advice, when he used to tell us: "Mind you never have anything to do with those Harry Peels and Rudolph Valentinoes. They're poison. Those films are a school for bandits. They can't lead a man to any good!" How right he had been! What on earth had made me go and see those "Sharks"!. . . It wouldn't have mattered if I had never even heard of them!... What could I do? How could I get out of this mess? And the money they had stolen! A small fortune! I started to count the change that the thieves had left me. A ruble forty kopeks. Not very rich! But it was enough for bread and soda water. I would stick it out for a couple of days somehow, get everything done, then bilk my way home. I would creep under the carriage seat and lie there quietly so that the conductor wouldn't notice me. Or perhaps I could jump a goods train. SPRING MORNING Day came. The porters started cleaning the station and I went out into the street. Sleepy and hungry, I felt I should scarcely be able to last a day on bread and soda water. The long journey, the lack of food, the worry and excitement of it all had drained my strength. I swayed as I walked down the street. The trams had not started yet, but there were plenty of people about. Janitors were opening gates. Housewives with shopping-bags in their hands were hurrying off to market. They were all heading in one direction, so to kill time I wandered after them. "Blagbaz," the famous Kharkov market, was the first place to wake up. Stalls were opening one after the other. Miserable and unwashed, I walked round "Blagbaz" until a pungent appetizing smell struck my nostrils. It even ousted the smells of salted cabbage and celery. Nostrils quivering, like a hound on the scent, I made in the direction of the smell. A lean-faced market woman, in a wadded jacket, was bustling about by two smoking braziers on which stood two huge pots. "Hot flachkies! Hot flachkies! Buy up, buy up, good people! Very tasty, very cheap! You'll never find such tasty flachkies anywhere else, not even in fairyland! Oh, they're lovely! The best cheapest food you can get in the world! Buy my flachkies! .." ... If any of you have ever stood in a market, beside a blazing brazier, with a clay bowl in your hands, and a rough wooden spoon it must be a wooden spoon and standing thus, eaten fresh, hot, peppery tripe cutlets, or flachkies as they are called in the Ukraine, with cream and spice, and onions, and garlic, and red pepper, and grated cheese, all scented with laurel leaves and parsley, you will understand just how hard it was for me not to break into my last ruble. Even three hours later, when the offices opened and I walked up to the tall building on the corner of Karl Liebknecht Street, my mouth was still burning with the red pepper. Those flachkies hadn't been so cheap, after all. Half a ruble gone already! Now what? Suppose the head of the Central Committee's education department was away and I had to wait for him? Enough! No more luxury today! Until tomorrow 'I must not spend a single kopek. No soda water for me. I could drink from the tap it was free and just as good. I must save my money, so that I could at least buy a scrap of bread to keep me going on the road back, when I should be dodging the inspectors. I had no trouble getting into the building. My Komsomol membership card and other papers were inspected and returned to me with a pass. I walked into the spacious entrance-hall and handed the pass to the sentry. The sentry checked it and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |