by Lazar Lagin
“May my young master not fear these beings, for these are peaceful Ifrits whom I have placed at the entrance to glorify your name.”
The giants again fell to their knees and, spitting flames, they thundered obediently, “Order us as you wish, O mighty master!”
“Please get up! I do wish you’d get up,” Volka said in great embarrassment. “Why do you keep falling on your knees all the time? It’s just like feudalism. Get up this minute, and don’t you ever let me catch you crawling like this. Shame on you! Shame on both of you!”
Looking at each other in dismay, the Ifrits rose and silently resumed their previous stand of “attention.”
“Well now!” Volka mumbled. “Come on, Hottabych, let’s have a look at your palaces.” He skipped up the steps lightly and entered the first palace.
“These are not my palaces, they are your palaces,” the old man objected respectfully as he followed Volka in.
However, the boy paid no attention to his words.
The first palace was made entirely of rare pink marble. Its heavy carved sandalwood doors were studded with silver nails and adorned with silver stars and bright red rubies.
The second palace was made of light blue marble and had ten doors of rare ebony studded with gold nails and adorned with diamonds, sapphires and emeralds.
In the middle of the second palace was the mirror-like surface of a large pool, the home of goldfish the size of sturgeon.
“That’s instead of your little aquarium,” Hottabych explained shyly. “I think this is the only kind of aquarium in keeping with your great dignity.”
“Hm, imagine picking up one of those fishes. It’ll bite your hand off,” Volka thought.
“And now, do me the honour of casting a kindly glance at the third palace,” Hottabych said.
They entered the portals of the third palace. It glittered so magnificently that Volka gasped:
“Why, it’s just like the Metro! It’s just like the Komsomolskaya Station!”
“You haven’t seen it all yet, O blessed one!” Hottabych said quickly.
He led Volka out into the yard. Once again the giants “presented arms,” but Hottabych ignored them and pointed to the shining golden plaques adorning the entrances to the palaces. On each the same words were engraved, words which made Volka both hot and cold at the same time:
“These palaces belong to the most noble and glorious of youths of this city, to the most beautiful of the beautiful, the most wise of the wise, to him who is replete with endless qualities and perfections, the unmatched and unsurpassed scholar in geography and other sciences, the first among divers, the best of all swimmers and volley-ball players, the unchallenged champion of billiards and ping-pong — to the Royal Young Pioneer Volka ibn Alyosha, may his name be glorified for ages to come as well as the names of his fortunate parents.”
“With your permission,” Hottabych said, bursting with pride and happiness, “I wish, when you come to live here with your parents, that you appoint me a corner, too, so that your new residence will not separate us and I may thus have the opportunity at all times to express my deep respect and devotion to you.”
“In the first place, these inscriptions aren’t very objective,” Volka said after a short pause, “but that’s not the most important thing in the long run. It’s not important, because we’ll have to hang up new signs.”
“I understand you and cannot but blame myself for being so short-sighted,” the old man said in an embarrassed tone. “Naturally, the inscriptions should have been made in precious stones. You are most worthy of it.”
“You misunderstood me, Hottabych. I wanted the inscriptions to read that these palaces belong to the RONO. (District Department of Education.) You see, in our country all the palaces belong to the RONO, or to the sanatoriums.”
“Which RONO?”
Volka misunderstood Hottabych’s question.
“It doesn’t matter which, but I’d rather it belonged to the Krasnopresnensky RONO. That’s the district I was born in, that’s where I grew up and learned how to read and write.”
“I don’t know who that RONO is,” Hottabych said bitterly, “and I’m quite ready to believe that he is a worthy person. But did RONO free me from my thousands of years of imprisonment in the vessel? No, it was not RONO, it was you, O wonderful youth, and that is why these palaces will belong to you alone and no one else.”
“But don’t you see…”
“I don’t want to! They are yours or no one’s!”
Never before had Volka seen Hottabych so angry. His face was purple and his eyes were flashing. The old man was obviously trying hard to keep his temper.
“Does that mean you don’t agree, O crystal of my soul?”
“Of course not. What do I need these palaces for? What do you think I am, a clubhouse, or an office, or a kindergarten?”
“Ah-h-h!” Hottabych sighed unhappily and shrugged. “We’ll have to try something else then!”
The palaces became hazy, swayed, and dissolved into thin air, like a fog blown by the wind. The giants howled and shot upwards, where they, too, disappeared.
A CAMEL IN THE STREET
Instead, the yard suddenly filled with heavily laden elephants, camels and mules. New caravans kept arriving constantly. The shouts of the dark-skinned drivers, dressed in snow-white robes, blended with the elephants’ trumpeting, the camels’ snorting, the mules’ braying, the stamping of hundreds of hooves and the melodious tinkling of bells.
A short sunburnt man in rich silk robes climbed down from his elephant, approached the middle of the yard, and tapped the pavement thrice with his ivory cane. Suddenly, a huge fountain appeared. Immediately drivers carrying leather pails formed a long queue; soon the yard was filled with the snorting, chomping and wheezing of the thirsty animals.
“All this is yours, O Volka,” Hottabych cried, trying to make himself heard above the din. “Won’t you please accept my humble gift?”
“What do you mean by ‘all this’?”
“Everything. The elephants, and the camels, and the mules, and all the gold and precious stones they carry, and the people who are accompanying them — everything is yours!”
Things were going from bad to worse. Volka had nearly become the owner of three magnificent but quite useless palaces, and now he was to be the owner of a vast fortune, an owner of elephants and, to top it all — a slave-owner!
His first thought was to beg Hottabych to make all these useless gifts disappear before anyone had noticed them. But he immediately recalled how things had gone with the palaces. If he had been smarter, he probably would have been able to talk the old man into letting the city keep them.
He had to stall for time to think and map out a plan of action.
“You know what, Hottabych?” he said, trying to sound nonchalant. “What do you say if we go for a ride on a camel, while the men take care of the caravan?”
“It would really be a pleasure,” answered the unsuspecting old man.
A moment later, a double-humped camel appeared on the street, swaying majestically and looking round with an arrogant air. On its back were an excited Volka and Hottabych, who felt quite at home and was fanning himself lazily with his hat.
“A camel! A camel!” the children shouted excitedly. They had poured out into the street in great numbers, just as if they had all been waiting for the camel to appear.
They surrounded the unruffled animal in a close circle, and it towered over them like a double-decker bus towers over an ice-cream cart. One of the little boys was skipping and shouting:
They’re coming
on a camel!
They’re coming
on a camel!
The camel approached the crossing just as the light turned red. Since it was not used to traffic rules, it coolly stepped across the white line with the word “STOP!” written in large letters in front of it. In vain did Volka try to hold it back. The camel continued on its way, straight towards the militia man
who was quickly pulling out his receipt book for fines.
Suddenly a horn blared, brakes screeched and a light blue car came to a stop right under the steely-nerved camel’s nose. The driver jumped out and began yelling at the animal and its two passengers. And true enough, in another second there would have been a terrible accident.
“Kindly pull over to the curb,” the militia man said politely as he walked up to them.
Volka had great difficulty in making the camel obey this fatal order. A crowd gathered immediately, and everyone had an opinion to offer:
“This is the first time I’ve seen people riding a camel in Moscow .”
“Just think, there could have been a terrible accident!”
“What’s wrong with a child going for a ride on a camel?”
“No one’s allowed to break traffic rules.”
“You try and stop a proud animal like that. That’s no car, you know!”
“I can’t imagine where people get camels in Moscow !”
“It’s obviously from the zoo. There are several camels there.”
“It makes me shiver to think what could have happened. He’s an excellent driver!”
“The militia man is absolutely right.”
Volka felt he was in a jam. He hung down over the camel’s side and began to apologize:
“It’ll never happen again! Please let us go! It’s time to feed the camel. This is a first offence.”
“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it,” the militia man replied dryly. “They always say it’s the first time in cases like this.”
Volka was still attempting to soften the stern man’s heart when he felt Hottabych tugging at his sleeve.
“O my young master, it makes me sad to see you lower yourself in order to shield me from any unpleasantness. All these people are unworthy of even kissing your heels. You should let them know of the chasm that separates them from you.”
Volka waved the old man away impatiently, but all at once he felt as he had during the geography examination: once again he was not the master of his own words.
He wanted to say:
“Please, won’t you let us go? I promise never to break any traffic rules as long as I live.”
Instead of this humble plea, he suddenly bellowed at the top of his voice:
“How dare you, O despicable guard, detain me during the precious hour of my promenade! On your knees! On your knees immediately, or I’ll do something terrible to you! I swear by my beard — I mean, by his beard!” And he nodded towards Hottabych.
At these .words, Hottabych grinned smugly and stroked his beard fondly.
As concerns the militia man and the crowd, the child’s insolence was so unexpected that they were more dumbfounded than indignant.
“I am the most outstanding boy in this whole city!” Volka kept on shouting, inwardly wishing he were dead. “You’re unworthy of even kissing my heels! I am handsome! I am wise!”
“All right,” the militia man answered darkly. “They’ll see just how wise you are down at the station.”
“Goodness! What nonsense I’m saying! It’s really hooliganism!” Volka thought and shuddered. Nevertheless, he continued:
“Repent, you, who have dared to spoil my good spirits! Cease your insolence before it’s too late!”
Just then, something distracted Hottabych’s attention. He stopped whispering to Volka and for a few moments the boy was once again on his own. As he hung down over the side of the camel and looked at the crowd pathetically he began to plead:
“Citizens! Dear people! Don’t listen to me. Do you think it’s me talking? It’s him, this old man, who’s making me talk like this.”
But here Hottabych once again picked up the reins and in the same breath Volka screamed:
“Tremble before me and do not anger me, for I am terrible in my wrath! Oh, how fearsome I am!”
He understood only too well that his words did not frighten anyone; instead, they made some indignant, while others found them simply funny. But there was nothing he could do. Meanwhile, the crowd’s feeling of surprise and indignation began to change to one of concern. It was clear that no schoolboy could ever speak so foolishly and rudely if he were normal.
Then a woman shouted, “Look! The child has a fever! Look, he’s steaming!”
“What disrespect!” Volka shouted back, but, to his utter horror, he saw large puffs of black smoke escaping his mouth at every word.
People gasped, someone ran to call an ambulance, and Volka whispered to Hottabych, taking advantage of the confusion:
“Hassan Abdurrakhman ibn Hottab! I order you to take this camel and us as far away as possible. Immediately. Somewhere outside the city limits. Otherwise, we can get in very bad trouble. Do you hear me? Im-me-di-ate-ly!”
“I hear and I obey,” the old man replied in a whisper.
That very instant, the camel and its riders soared into the air and disappeared, leaving everyone behind in the greatest confusion.
A moment later it landed gracefully on the outskirts of the city. There its passengers parted with it forever.
The camel is probably still grazing there. You’ll recognize it at once if you see it, for its bridle is studded with diamonds and emeralds.
A MYSTERIOUS HAPPENING IN THE BANK
Despite the day’s unpleasant experiences, Volka was in high spirits when he and Hottabych returned home. He had finally hit upon an idea of how to dispose of the endless treasures he had so suddenly acquired.
First, he asked Hottabych whether he could make the drivers, elephants, camels, mules and all their loads invisible.
“You need only command me to do so, and it will be done.”
“Fine. Then please make them invisible for the time being, and let’s go to bed. We’ll have to get up at sunrise tomorrow.”
“I hear and I obey!”
And so, the people who had gathered in the yard to stare at the strange and noisy caravan suddenly found the place to be completely empty. They went back to their homes in amazement.
Volka gulped down his supper, undressed and climbed into bed with a happy sigh. He only had a sheet for a cover, since it was so hot.
Hottabych, however, had decided to comply with an ancient custom Genies had. He became invisible and lay down across the threshold, to guard his young master’s sleep. Hottabych was just about to begin a solemn conversation when the door opened and Volka’s grandmother entered, to say good night as always. She tripped over the invisible old man and nearly fell.
“Why, something was definitely lying on the threshold!” she gasped when Volka’s father came running.
“Where was that something lying?” he asked. “And what did that something look like?”
“It didn’t look like anything, Alyosha.”
“Mother, do you mean to tell me you tripped over an empty space?” he asked and laughed with relief, happy that she had not hurt herself.
“Yes, I guess I did,” Grandma answered in bewilderment and laughed, too.
Volka’s father and grandmother left.
As for Hottabych, he had wisely decided to crawl under Volka’s bed — at least no one would step on him there, and he would be closer to Volka.
For several minutes no one said a word. Volka could not decide how to begin such a ticklish conversation.
“Good night!” Hottabych said amiably from under the bed.
Volka realized he had better begin.
“Hottabych,” he called, hanging his head over the side of the bed, “I want to talk to you about something.”
“Not about my gifts to you today?” Hottabych asked warily, and when he received an affirmative answer he sighed.
“You see, dear Hottabych, I’d like to know whether I can do as I please with your presents?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“And you won’t be angry at me, no matter what I do with them?”
“No, I won’t, O Volka. How can I dare be angry with someone who has do
ne so much for me?”
“If it’s not too much trouble, Hottabych, could you please swear to that?”
“I swear!” Hottabych said in a hollow voice from under the bed. He understood that there must be a catch to this.
“That’s fine,” Volka said happily. “That means you won’t feel too bad if I tell you that I have no earthly use for these presents, though I’m awfully grateful to you for them.”
“O woe is me!” Hottabych moaned. “You’re refusing my gifts again. But these aren’t palaces! Can’t you see, O Volka, I’m not giving you palaces any more. You might as well tell me the truth — that the gifts of your most devoted servant disgust you.”
“Figure it out yourself, Hottabych, you’re a very wise old man: now, what in the world could I do with so many treasures?”
“You could be the richest of the rich, that’s what,” Hottabych grumbled. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t want to be the richest person in your country? Yet, it would be just like you, O most capricious and puzzling of all boys I have ever met! Money means power, money means glory, money means friends galore! That’s what money means!”
“Who needs bought friends and bought glory? You make me laugh, Hottabych! What’s the use of glory that’s been bought, instead of earned through honest labour in your country’s service?”
“You forget that money gives you the most reliable and durable power over people, O my young and stubborn arguer.”
“But not in our country.”
“Next thing, you’ll be saying that people in your country don’t want to get richer. Ha, ha, ha!” Hottabych thought this was really a cutting remark.
“Sure they do,” Volka answered patiently. “A person who does more useful work makes more money. Sure, everyone wants to earn more, but only through honest work.”
