Unwitting Street

by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky

  “Hmm? What? I admit I did doze off for a minute . . .”

  “No, no—I am. But as one man of letters to another . . . My honest advice: keep quiet and wait your turn. Allow me to introduce myself: ‘Empty Journey,’ a lyrical miniature.”

  “What is that?”

  “The beginning was written by Pushkin: ‘The Cart of Life.’ The cart wheels along life’s thoroughfare through morning, noon, and dusk. Then comes Pushkin’s famous ‘stopping-place.’ Life breaks off extremely quickly, in the fourth stanza. Here I enter into the rhythm of the images: the journey is done, the man being driven over ruts and hollows has fallen asleep forever, while the empty cart of life continues on, through the darkness. I repeat: it is empty.”

  “Well go on then, in your empty cart, away from the line, to the cranks and crybabies. I’ll take your place.”

  “And where are you from?”

  “From all over. A haunter of cabarets, a joker, laughter in one act, a sketch, in short.”

  “How about at length?”

  “Written by seven authors. How’s that for length? And I don’t intend to try to reach for any moral heights. Curtain up. Two characters. Both chess players. The first, while waiting for his friend, has set out the wooden chessmen on the board. Now the second character appears. He’s carrying various parcels; sticking out of his coat pockets are two or three bottles of vodka. He sweeps the chessmen back into their box and sets out on the second and seventh ranks, eight against eight, red and white liqueur glasses. His host looks puzzled. But his old partner has already set out on the first and eighth ranks—red against white—four sturdy wineglasses for bishops, four stout shot glasses for rooks, and so on. The uncorked bottles gurgle, the pieces and pawns are brimful—now the game begins. Opening: double king’s pawn. Exchange: the players drink up an enemy pawn each and ponder the proceedings. Next comes a rarely used variation: a queen for a queen. The friends clink glass queens and toss them back—the game becomes more animated. White sacrifices a bishop, but Black, having drained the bishop to the last drop of vodka, misses his opponent’s subtle combination and loses two glass pawns in a row, now conscientiously downed to his good health by his partner. Some food is needed. But who will go and get it: both risk time trouble. The chessboard gradually empties. White wants to drink the black king, but . . .”

  “Stop this vulgar sketchamabob. And kindly step aside. I’m in a rush to get into the next issue—devoted to a literary discussion.”

  “Citizen plots, allow me to finish. This match between liquid chessmen takes place on a day off—italics, please—when every citizen has the right to amuse himself as he likes.”

  “I’ll bet you were conceived when our master’s talent had the day off. Now step aside.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it! Especially since thinking is not my long suit. But I assure you, comrade deep-thinkers and weighty-brains, that our master—that man there, with pen in hand, unsure with which of us to begin—he’ll begin with me, and not with you, tedious problem-filled rabble. You know the old adage: ‘Laughter stood at the gates for many a day, but it held sway.’”

  “Then you can go on standing. Discussion articles first.”

  “And just what are you about?”

  “About nothing, naturally. Like any respectable discussion article. If you argue about something, then you arrive at something. This leaves the discussion no room to develop. Say we’re arguing about genius. Say, Leo Tolstoy. Clearly, a genius. A genius at the forefront of an entire culture, a distinctly progressive phenomenon. But, as the bare facts show, Tolstoy’s beliefs were rather conservative. Black on white. No, on pink. Hmm. Therefore: Tolstoy was not a genius . . . And yet, he really was a genius! So, what to do?”

  “Excuse me, my dear article. It’s me again, sketch. I would advise you to begin not with genius, but with mediocrity. With genius wrong-side-out, so to speak. It’s easier to understand. Of course, I don’t have a degree in philosophy, all those college courses and lectures are anathema to me. I’m a slapdash sketcher, for copper kopecks, but believe me, my dear colleague, I . . .”

  “Please don’t interrupt me. So then, literature is something composed of letters, iter (Latin for ‘journey’), and so on.”

  “Well, that’s not without interest. Allow me to introduce myself: drama.”

  “Your title, name on the playbill?”

  “Rosencrantz Learns to Play the Recorder. I’m in three acts.”

  “Well then, go ahead and three-act. But what are you really about? I detect a whiff of Shakespeare.”

  “Exactly right. I’m from a crack in Hamlet. I’m trying to squeeze into existence between two scenes in the fourth act. Do you remember Hamlet’s dialogue with those two halves of men: Guildenstern and Rosencrantz? Addressing Rosencrantz, the prince wonders how a man who cannot play the recorder, a silly wooden pipe, thinks he can play on Hamlet’s soul,* his psyche. So then, the first scene of my first act begins with Rosencrantz who, having pondered Hamlet’s remark, is conscientiously learning to play the recorder. First things first. First the pipe, then the soul. Contemporary foreign policy in the West—I think I’m not mistaken—is all Rosencrantz learning to play on man’s soul.”

  “Sounds discussion-worthy.”

  “Perhaps. But picture the cold North Sea, a ship becalmed, sails furled, oars slapping against the waves, and Prince Hamlet, sitting aft, wrapped in a black cloak, listening to Rosencrantz play scales. This is when he devises his plan for getting rid of scoundrels who learn first to play on the recorder, then on a soul, an immortal human soul! That’s in the third scene of my second act.”

  “Hold it! (Won’t even let me listen.) Where do you think you’re going? You’ve been told a thousand times . . .”

  “Ah, but I’m speaking for the thousand-and-second. My name is: ‘The Thousand-and-Second Night of Scheherazade’.*

  “What is that, Poe or no . . .?”

  “No. Now listen and you’ll understand. You remember, citizen conceptions, how the great Scheherazade cycle begins. A merchant is sitting in the doorway of his shop eating dates and spitting out the stones, one of which happens to hit and kill a genie flying past. The dead genie’s father, the king of all genies, demands a life for a life, a heart for a date stone. The merchant asks for a postponement in order to tie up his affairs, pay his debts—and out of this comes the series of tales. By the second tale (told to the shah), the date stone has been forgotten. And yet that stone, after it fell on the ground, must have sprouted and grown up into a long-lived date tree. That’s just the opening flourish, I’m the tale—listen to me, and you shall be given a thousand-and-third night with its thousand-and-third tale.

  “As we all know, present in the great shah’s bedchamber—night after night, besides Scheherazade—was her younger sister Dunyazad, who always withdrew when the tale gave way to love. A thousand tales—that’s a thousand nights, years and years. By the seven hundredth tale, little Dunyazad had turned from a girl into a lass, and by the nine hundredth, from a lass into a maiden.

  “Scheherazade, her wise older sister, knew many tales, but every ewer has a bottom and every bottom its dregs. Her supply of marvelous tales was running out—and in her dreams she often saw the black shadow of a white ax grazing her neck. One evening, as the two sisters were walking to the shah’s bedchamber, Scheherazade embraced Dunyazad and began to cry. She said that she would tell her last tale that night, and the next day the shah would hand her over to the executioner.

  “But when, on that short summer night, Scheherazade finished her tale and Dunyazad, leaving the bedchamber, walked past the sleepy guards toward the rosy dawn, she saw a hundred paces from the palace, under the drooping branches of an Oriental plane tree, a youth leaning with his back against the trunk. Although the night was still resisting with its stars the light of the sun, Dunyazad recognized the youth. He was the famous poet Ali-Djammedin, whose name was celebrated wherever the tinkle of camel bells could be heard. Bowing respectfull
y, Djammedin told the fair Dunyazad that he had come to give her all his verses, all the beats of his heart and his very life, should the fair Dunyazad so require.

  “She replied that she needed neither his soul, nor his heartbeats, but that she would ask him for a handful of tales, which she needed to protect her sister from the blow of a poleax. Ali-Djammedin, touching his fingers to his brow and to his left nipple, said that every day, before the sun set, his tale would rise, he swore by his qalam.4

  “So their meetings began. Every evening Ali-Djammedin met the sisters by the palace entrance and handed Dunyazad a small scroll with a short—short as a Baghdad summer night—tale.

  “And when the great shah granted Scheherazade the right to be silent and not to tell him any more tales, Scheherazade fell on her knees before the man to whom she had given five children and a thousand and one tales, and asked him to join the hearts and souls of her sister Dunyazad and the poet Ali-Djammedin. The shah, who was in good spirits that day, burst out laughing, named a handsome kalym5 and said: ‘So be it.’”

  There was a brief pause. Then, from behind the tale, came a soft, slightly stuttering voice:

  “I too hail from the East’s land of phantasms. My subject is as follows. Turkey. A rich merchant and a poor shoemaker. The rich man has a beautiful daughter. The shoemaker loves her, but dares not even dream of that proud beauty. His hammer pounds, his sad heart pounds, as the days rush by like mountain streams. Then into the shop of the shoemaker—we’ll call him Hassan—walks the father of the fair Djamilé. He orders a pair of slippers from Hassan. But Hassan, who is always thinking about Djamilé’s dark eyes and slender ankles, makes the slippers too small and narrow. The old man is furious: he accuses Hassan of stealing his leather. According to an ancient Turkish law, any artisan who gives a buyer short measure or short weight must pay the penalty. That is: in the presence of a qadi6 and members of the city council, the guilty man’s left ear is nailed to the door of his shop. From morning to evening prayers. Djamilé’s father takes Hassan to court, and the judge sentences him to just such a nailing. Now the plaintiff, judge, and witnesses come to the heartsick Hassan to carry out the sentence. But it turns out that the shoemaker’s wretched little shop hasn’t even a door. So the rich man, with the judge’s consent, marches the luckless Hassan to the door of his own house. The defendant’s left ear is duly nailed to one of its panels with a cobbler’s nail. An hour goes by, another hour and yet another hour. Then suddenly Hassan hears through the door a soft female voice, sweet as a purling brook. His ear nailed to the panel clearly distinguishes even the soft words. It is the voice of . . .”

  “Shh! Be quiet. He just dipped his pen. Get back in line. He’s about to start writing.”

  “Line up, citizen themes.”

  “Oh, I’m absolutely parched. If I could get even a drop of ink.”

  “I’m dying of thirst!”

  “Shh!”

  •

  Just then the wall telephone rang. The writer went to the instrument, said four or five times, “Um-hmm, yes, fine, I’ll be right there,” replaced the receiver, returned to his desk, clicked the lid of the inkwell shut, went to the coatrack, put on his coat and galoshes, and snapped out the light. The door slammed. The themes dispersed in silence.

  1940

  1. Thus passes away. (Latin)

  2. The glory of the world. (Latin)

  3. Distilled water. (Latin)

  4. Reed pen. (Arabic)

  5. Bride price. (Russian)

  6. Court magistrate or judge. (Arabic)

  THE WINDOW

  1

  ILYA ILYICH Vityunin had, in fact, not even noticed how he turned from Mr. Vityunin into Comrade Vityunin.

  Slowly but stubbornly, he had risen up the spindled ladder of a bank’s abacus: at first they had trusted him to flick kopecks and rubles along the spindles—later he was admitted to the hundreds and thousands—and finally he entered the millions. Thereafter, looming over the counting frame was its upper bar, and over the career of Mister-Comrade Vityunin the low—no higher than the hatch of a doghouse—camber of a little cashier’s window, and over that little window seven black block letters: CASHIER.

  Vityunin had observed the world through his little cashier’s window for twenty-nine years and four months. Only a handful of weeks remained until his retirement. But Vityunin’s eyes, which had seen millions of winking fives, tens, and yellow three-ruble notes, had acquired a yellow tinge. Two or three counting errors had led to a commission, which had led to an early discharge with pension and bonuses.

  Some two years before Vityunin gave up thumbing through banknotes, he had registered with Co-op Co. Co-op Co., in return for prompt payments, now allotted him a room on the seventh floor of a new, freshly whitewashed cooperative building.

  Pensioner Vityunin moved into his last living quarters.

  2

  At first Vityunin’s thoughts were busy filling up the walls and cubature of his abode. The walls he managed to placate with some geographical maps acquired on Kuznetsky and two or three revolutionist polychrome prints. The cubature was greedier: he had to throw half a month’s pension away on a bed, which creaked, like a conscience.

  But all of this scarcely bothered ex-cashier Vityunin. The only thing that grated on his nerves was the window. A wide Italian window with six casements. He had been accustomed—for thirty years in succession—to living under the low and narrow bulge of a cashier’s windowlet. And here suddenly was this wide-angled glass lake of a window, letting in a riot of sunbeams.

  Vityunin spent his days trying to keep his back to the window. His eyes searched for shadows and rounded corners. At night he was disturbed by strange moon dreams. He dreamed that streaming through him, as through one’s fingers, were blue moon threads. Awakened by a numbness in his body, he saw through the transparent membrane of his wide window either moon floods, or the moon-blue beams of streetlamps. The window tossed him from side to side, it woke him before the day did, while by day it gave him no rest and discombobulated his thoughts.

  3

  Vityunin consulted his thirty years of cashier-windowlet life, and the years slipped him some advice. Vityunin called in a glazier and a carpenter. The workmen, on hearing the job, scratched their heads with their right hands, then asked for some money for vodka. Vityunin obliged. After that the job seemed less strange to the workmen, and they left with a good-natured: “Well, why not.”

  Three days later the Italian window frame had been removed and replaced—to the tap-tap of hammers and axes—with a new, somewhat unusual windowish something. The entire upper part of the window plane had been covered with de-casemented plywood; so too the lower part, except for, flush with the window ledge, a small arched windowlet; over the windowlet, on the outside, block letters loomed black: CASHIER; on the inside, ready to drop down at the touch of a finger, a deal panel showed yellow.

  The workmen adjusted the frame, received their tip, and left. That was the first night the cashier slept soundly. Next morning he got up—an hour before he was due at the office—drank a cup of tea, put on clothes fit to be seen in, and at exactly nine fifteen raised the windowlet’s yellow shutter. Morning raindrops pattered merrily on the pane. Sparrows chirped and racketed on the tin of the window ledge. The cashier, squinting benignly, waited—habitually muffling with his palm the habitual morning yawn—for the day’s first deposit or withdrawal.

  From that morning on his days fit one into the next, like dislocated thighbones set back in their sockets.

  4

  It was nearly evening. The sun had hidden behind a curtain of dark clouds, lest anyone see it sink. A light drizzle stippled the streets.

  Two men walked along, hugging a wet wall. They were united by the alcoholic wetness now raining in their capillaries.

  “Say,” said one, raising his eyes to the seventh floor and squinting, “what’s that up there? Like the entrance to a hive, with symbols on top. Can’t find my pince-nez, besides the ra
in’ll fog the lenses.”

  The other man lifted his head and peered for a long time at the illuminated window on the top floor of the still-dark building:

  “Cashier. What the hell! Cashier. What’s that about? What for? Who for?”

  “Hmm, and mind you, the whole building’s dark. That window’s like Cassh . . . iopeia, dropped by its constellation.”

  “Um-hmm, down to the seventh. And no fire escape. No way to get up there and get your pay.”

  “No way. And there’s only the light, in the window . . . of the cashier, Casshiopeia. Let’s go get a drink.”

  “Damned drizzle. Let’s tipple. Wet our whistles . . .”

  Like a narrow yellow crack high above the dusky streets, the windowlet went on floating toward the black night slowly seeping into the air.

  1933

  JOURNEY OF A CAGE

  1

  THIS HAPPENED one September day in 1913 at the Verzhbolovo Station.* A procession of passengers, deposited at the border by the Austrian Express, was making its way, after the backs of porters, through customs inspection. Trunks; leather bags; clicked-open suitcase lids; a brisk “cigars-tobacco-wine,” “additional fee,” “next”; bundles upon bundles—and suddenly someone began singing the “Marseillaise.”* Worried spurs clanked on the asphalt as all heads turned in fright toward the sound: who? All mouths were shut, not counting two or three half-open in surprise. And still the “Marseillaise,” inexplicably hidden under a heap of bundles and suitcases, guttural, strident, and rolling the r’s, rang out as if nothing were wrong. The bundles were pulled apart: on the bared asphalt stood a round wire cage, and in the cage a parrot. From out of its beak with short merry squeaks, climbing from measure to measure, came the song of the Marseillais.

  Several smiles ducked inside coat collars. A stout clean-shaven gentleman, gold fillings glinting, said through his cigar smoke: “That bird has a good accent.” Gendarmes’ eyes searched for the owner of the cage. But he preferred not to be found. A Russian train, buffers banging like timbrels,* pulled into the station. The asphalt emptied. The cage was sealed and sent to storage for goods not granted passage.