Uncle Meksut did his best to comfort the women and even proposed a toast to victory, to our sons and to the safe return of all of them. Uncle Meksut was the soul of hospitality; his house was always filled with guests, and now that the grapes had already been harvested here in the valley, the season of lengthy toasts was just beginning.
Mama sat quietly, not touching a thing. I felt sorry for her and would have liked to comfort her, but the role I had chosen for myself did not permit any such display of weakness.
A bowl of steaming grits, some roast chicken and even a glass of wine were set before me now. Mama shook her head disapprovingly at the wine, but Uncle Meksut said that macharka was as harmless as grape juice and that I was no longer a child.
I had finished relating my adventures and was still sucking the meat from the last of the chicken bones when suddenly I felt sleep coming over me—a sleep as sweet and golden as macharka, the first wine of the season. I dozed off at the table.
Mama returned from Baku some ten days later. It turned out that my brother had not been wounded at all, but was merely homesick. He had decided that he had to see at least one member of the family before being sent off to the front and, as usual, he got his way. He was the prankster in our family and such a stunt was completely in character.
IV
It was about ten in the morning and already beginning to get hot when I arrived in the village of Walnut Springs. The bus let me off and continued on its way, leaving a trail of dust behind it.
I began walking in the direction of the kolkhoz office, only too happy to be able to stretch my legs after the long bus ride. I was in a good mood and fairly brimming with reportorial zeal.
Next to the kolkhoz office I noticed two elderly Abkhazians seated in a patriarchal pose under the mighty canopy of a walnut tree. One of them held a staff in his hand, the other a walking stick. I was surprised and delighted to observe that the hooklike curve at the top of the staff exactly matched the hooklike contour of its owner’s nose, while the straight and simple line of the walking stick held by the second old man was equally in keeping with his straight, Roman nose. I nodded to the old men in passing and they politely bent forward, as if half rising to greet me.
“That’s the new doctor, I expect,” said one of them after I had passed by.
“He looks more like an Armenian to me,” said the other.
The kolkhoz administration was housed in a two-story wooden building. The offices were on the second floor, while the first floor was given over to the kolkhoz store and to various storerooms whose doors were bolted with heavy padlocks. The door to the store was open, and from inside came the sound of female laughter.
An old battered car was parked out front, and I gathered that the kolkhoz chairman was in his office.
Tacked to the front wall of the building was an announcement written in ink-stained letters which read as follows:
THE GOATIBEX IS OUR PRIDE AND JOY
A lecture to be given by Vakhtang Bochua, doctoral candidate in archeology, active member of the Society for the Advancement of Scientific and Political Knowledge, and chairman of the Society for the Preservation of the Treasures of Antiquity.
The lecture will be followed by a showing of the film The Iron Mask.
So Vakhtang was already here or about to arrive! I was delighted at the thought of a reunion with our renowned joker and changalist. I hadn’t seen Vakhtang in more than a year, and although I had heard he was doing well, I had no idea that he had already become a doctoral candidate in archeology, much less an authority on goatibexes.
Here I should explain that the word changalist, which seems to be used only in Abkhazia, signifies a person who likes to drink at others’ expense. The verb zachangalit’, derived from this word, means to latch onto someone and take control, not necessarily for the purpose of a free drink, but sometimes in a broader sense.
Actually, most of us didn’t mind treating Vakhtang, since wherever he went he always created a mood of noisy, unrestrained gaiety. Even his appearance was full of comic contradictions: he was a native of the Caucasus, but as fair as the fairest Swede; he had the gloomy and massive head of a Nero, but was good-natured and gentle; he could be as pushy and resourceful as any State procurement agent, but was a historian and curator by profession.
Following his graduation from the Institute of Historical and Archival studies, Vakhtang had worked for several years as a tour guide. Then he had published a short book entitled Among the Flowering Ruins which had become a favorite with our tourists. “And with foreign tourists,” Vakhtang would inevitably add whenever the subject came up in his presence, which it almost always did since he himself was sure to bring it up.
We Abkhazians had often gotten together during our student days in Moscow, and there was never a party that took place without Vakhtang. In this respect, as in many others, he showed an extraordinary sense of timing. If, for example, one of us happened to receive a package from home, Vakhtang never had to be informed of the fact but would automatically appear in the dormitory of the student in question before the latter even had a chance to open his package.
“Stop the proceedings,” he would shout from the hall. Then as he came bursting into the room, he would overwhelm the unfortunate recipient with a torrent of eloquent but meaningless words.
One sensed the operator in him even then, but he was a gay, impudent and artistic sort of operator—and really quite harmless and good-natured except on those rare occasions when he personally had to foot the bill.
With my mind on Vakhtang I made my way up the wooden stairs and entered the kolkhoz office, which consisted of a single long, cool room partitioned in half by two wooden railings. To my left, a stout, unshaven individual sat dozing at his desk. Sensing that someone had entered, he half opened one eye and briefly took cognizance of my arrival. Then, his curiosity satisfied, he dozed off again. He was like a sleepy tomcat which half opens one eye at the sound of dishes clattering in the distance, only to close it once he realizes that this clatter has nothing to do with the beginning of a meal.
To my right, several accountants were industriously clicking away on their abacuses. Occasionally, when one of them would click too loudly, the dozing individual would half open the same eye and then amiably close it again. One of the accountants got up from his desk, walked over to the metal cabinet and took a folder from it. Only as he turned away from the cabinet did I suddenly realize that this accountant was a girl dressed in a man’s suit. I was struck by the expression on her face; it was as sad as a dried-up well.
At the far end of the room the imposing figure of the chairman loomed from behind a large desk. He was talking on the telephone. He looked me over with cool curiosity and then averted his eyes, apparently intent upon what was being said at the other end of the receiver.
“Hello,” I said in Russian, not addressing anyone in particular.
“Hello,” the girl answered softly, slightly raising her sad face.
I didn’t know what to say or do next. It would have been embarrassing to interrupt the chairman while he was still on the phone, but it was equally embarrassing just to stand there doing nothing.
“Has the lecturer arrived yet?” I asked the girl on the spur of the moment, as if it were the lecture I was interested in.
“Yes, Comrade Bochua has already arrived,” she softly replied, looking up at me with her large round eyes, “but he’s gone off to have a look at the old fortress.”
“My dear fellow, there’s no need to worry about the corn, the stalks are as sturdy as saplings!” the chairman began thundering in Abkhazian. “As sturdy as saplings, I tell you. But what I wanted to remind you about was the fertilizer.… Yes, they’ve sent us some, but not enough.… If that idiotic commission should come around, just bring them over. We’ve got plenty to show for ourselves.… May I dig up my father’s bones if we don’t manage to fulfill the plan, but my dear Andrey Sharlovich, as for extra land, we simply don’t have any.… What fallow
lands?! We haven’t enough fallow lands to spread a handkerchief on. Our agronomist is sitting right here, he’ll tell you—if he ever wakes up, that is,” the chairman added playfully, now glancing over at the individual who was dozing.
But no sooner had he finished his sentence than the latter began gurgling something angrily in reply—before even opening his eyes, as it seemed to me. From what he said, I gathered that he had no intention of rooting up his tea plantations for any crazy commissioners. And having made his point, he broke off as precipitously as he had begun, closing his eyes in midsentence.
The chairman kept his hand cupped firmly over the receiver while the agronomist was talking. But now as he noticed that I was watching him, he frowned and barked out in Abkhazian to the girl:
“Find out where that blockhead is from and what he wants!”
Returning once again to the receiver, he suddenly adopted the tone of a mildly reproachful host:
“You’ve been neglecting us, Andrey Sharlovich. It doesn’t seem right. And it’s not just me who’s asking for you, but the people—our kolkhoz workers.”
I was somewhat taken aback by the word blockhead. Since the chairman had obviously concluded that I wasn’t a native Abkhazian, I had no choice but to play along.
The chairman was still talking on the telephone. By now he had come full circle and was back on the subject of fertilizer:
“About a hundred tons of superphosphate. Please, Andrey Sharlovich, I beseech you as a brother.”
I watched the girl as she worked. She was adding up something and every once in a while she would move the counters of her abacus as if pensively toying with a strand of large wooden beads.
Finally the chairman hung up the receiver and I walked up to him.
“Hello, comrade. You’re from the State lumber yards, right?” he asked confidently as he extended his hand.
“I’m from the newspaper,” I answered.
“Welcome,” he said, growing more alert and apparently shaking my hand somewhat harder than he had intended.
“Here are my credentials,” I said, reaching into my pocket.
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” he replied with a peremptory wave of the hand. “One can always tell an honest man by his face,” he had the impudence to add, looking me straight in the eye.
“I’m here in connection with the goatibex,” I said, immediately sensing that anything I had to say on the subject would only sound ludicrous in this company. And I was right. One of the accountants began to chuckle.
“Cut the laughter, you hear!” muttered the chairman in Abkhazian and then added in Russian: “We’ve made great strides with the goatibex.”
“And what specifically?” I asked.
“Well, in the first place we’ve launched a full-scale campaign to educate the people,” said the chairman, bending back the little finger of his left hand and tapping it against his right palm for emphasis. “Today, for example, our respected colleague Vakhtang Bochua is giving a lecture on the goatibex. And we’ve sent our livestock man off to consult with the breeding specialist,” he added, now bending back his fourth finger and again tapping it lightly against his palm. “Why—are there any complaints?” he asked, suddenly stopping short and gazing at me with dark, wary eyes.
“No,” I answered, meeting his gaze head-on.
“Well, there’s this one individual, the former chairman of a kolkhoz that was merged with ours, and he.…”
“No, no,” I broke in, “this has nothing to do with any complaints.”
“But he never signs his name,” he added, as if to reveal the full extent of the man’s cunning. “But we know who he is and how he signs his letters.”
“Can I have a look at the goatibex?” I interrupted, letting him know that this individual didn’t interest me in the least.
“Of course,” he answered, “let’s go.”
The chairman got up from his desk, his large, powerful body moving freely and easily under his loose clothing.
Without saying a word, the sleepy agronomist rose from his desk and accompanied us down to the porch.
“How many times have I told that idiot to clean up the sheep pen,” said the chairman in Abkhazian as we descended the stairs.
“Valiko! Come here a minute!” shouted the chairman, still in Abkhazian, as he turned toward the door which led into the store. “Or have they already married you off in there?”
From inside the store came the sound of a girl’s laughter and a young man’s impudent voice:
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s not what is the matter, but what’s going to be the matter if I lock you two up in there and invite your mother-in-law to come see for herself what’s going on!”
The sound of female laughter was heard once again, and now there appeared on the threshold a young man of medium height with enormous blue eyes which gazed with childlike innocence from his swarthy face.
“Drive over to Auntie Nutsa’s and get some cucumbers for the goatibex,” said the chairman. “A comrade has come from the city and we don’t want to be disgraced.”
“No thanks, not me,” said the young man, “they’d laugh in my face.”
“The hell with them—this is State business,” the chairman declared sternly. “Then take the cucumbers straight to the pen—we’ll be waiting for you there.”
Apparently this young man Valiko was the chairman’s driver. He got into the car, started it up, and with an angry turn of the wheel drove out into the street.
It had grown hot. The two old men were still sitting in the shade of the walnut tree. The one with the staff was relating something to his companion, and as he talked, he would tap the ground every so often with his staff. He had gouged a decent-sized hole already, and one could easily imagine that here in this shady spot he was planning to erect a picket fence to protect himself and his companion from the hot summer sun and the bustle of kolkhoz life.
The chairman greeted the two old men as we approached, and they went through the motions of half rising to greet us.
“Sonny,” asked the one with the staff, “is that young fellow with you the new doctor?”
“He’s the goatibex doctor,” replied the chairman.
“And here I thought he was an Armenian,” interjected the one with the stick.
“Will wonders never cease!” exclaimed the one with the staff. “Why up in the mountains I used to kill those goatibexes by the hundreds, and now they send a doctor for just one of them.
“That old man’s quite a cunning fellow,” remarked the chairman when we had reached the street.
“How so?” I asked.
“Well, one time when the district Party secretary was driving by, he happened to stop in this spot. That old man was sitting there in the shade, just as he is now, and the two of them start talking about how things used to be in the old days and how they are today. The old man says to him, ‘They used to plough the earth with wooden ploughs, but now they use metal ones.’ ‘So?’ asks the secretary. ‘With the wooden plough the earth falls equally to both sides, but the metal plough throws it all to one side,’ says the old man. ‘Well, what does that prove?’ asks the secretary. ‘If the earth falls equally to both sides, then the peasant gets to keep only half of the harvest for himself, and the other half goes to the master. But the metal plough throws the earth all to one side, and that means that the peasant gets all the harvest for himself.’ ‘Right you are,’ says the secretary and with that he drives off.”
I decided to jot down this anecdote so as not to forget it later on. But no sooner had I reached for my notebook than the chairman broke in decisively:
“That’s not necessary.”
“Why not?” I asked in surprise.
“It’s not worth it,” he said, “that’s just an old man’s idle rambling. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you when there’s something worth writing down.”
“Well, never mind, I’ll remember it anyway,” I thought to myself as I put aw
ay my notebook.
We made our way along the scorched, dusty road. By now the dust had grown so hot that I could feel it baking through the soles of my shoes.
On either side of the road small farmhouses with their fruit trees, private plots of corn, and green patchwork of lawns would occasionally come into view. The trunks and branches of the fruit trees were overgrown with grapevines, and thick clusters of unripened grapes could be seen peeping through the curly foliage of the vines.
“There’ll be a lot of wine this year,” I remarked to the chairman.
“Yes, the grapes are good,” he replied somewhat absentmindedly, “but have you noticed the corn?”
I looked at the corn, but didn’t notice anything in particular.
“Why, what’s there to notice?” I asked.
“Take a good look,” said the chairman, smiling enigmatically.
“Upon closer inspection I noticed that the corn on one side of each private plot was higher and had thicker and greener leaves than on the other side.
“Was it planted at different times?” I asked the chairman, who continued to smile enigmatically.
“The very same day, the very same hour,” he replied, his smile growing even broader.
“What’s the explanation?” I asked.
“This year there was a reduction in the size of private plots—a necessary measure, of course, but not for our kolkhoz. Tea is our main crop, so what use are these scraps of land to me? I can’t use them for raising tea.”
I took another good look at the corn. And indeed, the difference in the size and strength of the stalks was so pronounced that I was reminded of those textbook drawings used to project future crop yields.
“These peasants are very clever,” said the chairman, still smiling enigmatically. And now his smile seemed to indicate that no city person had ever understood, nor was ever likely to understand, just how clever these peasants could be.
“In what way?” I asked.
“In what way? Go ahead, you tell him,” said the chairman, suddenly turning to the agronomist.
The Goatibex Constellation Page 7
