Doctor Zhivago (36 page)

"
I am sorry—I
'
ve told you: what she needs is constant supervision. Do as I say—I really am advising you for her good. Now, get a cab at any cost and I
'
ll write out the order. I
'
d better do it in your house committee room. The order has to have the house stamp on it, and there are a few other formalities.
"

One by one the tenants, in shawls and fur coats, had returned to the unheated basement, which had once been a wholesale egg store and was now used by the house committee.

An office desk and several chairs stood at one end of it. As there were not enough chairs, old empty egg crates turned upside down had been placed in a row to form a bench. A pile of them as high as the ceiling towered at the far end of the room; in a corner was a heap of shavings stuck into lumps with frozen yolk that had dripped from broken eggs. Rats scurried noisily inside the heap, making an occasional sortie into the middle of the stone floor and darting back.

Each time this happened a fat woman climbed squealing onto a crate and, holding up her skirt daintily and tapping her fashionable high shoes, shouted in a deliberately hoarse, drunken voice:

"
Olia, Olia, you
'
ve got rats all over the place. Get away, you filthy brute. Ai-ai-ai! look at it, it understands, it
'
s mad at me. Ai-ai-ai! it
'
s trying to climb up, it
'
ll get under my skirt, I
'
m so frightened! Look the other way, gentlemen. Sorry, I forgot, you
'
re comrade citizens now, not gentlemen.
"

Her astrakhan cape hung open over the three quaking layers of her double chin and rich, silk-swathed bosom and stomach. She had once been the belle of her circle of small tradesmen and salesmen, but now her little pig eyes with their swollen lids could scarcely open. A rival had once tried to splash her with vitriol but had missed and only a drop or two had plowed traces on her cheek and at the corner of her mouth, so slight as to be almost becoming.

"
Stop yelling, Khrapugina. How can we get on with our work?
"
said the delegate of the borough council, who had been elected chairman and was sitting behind the desk.

The delegate had known the house and many of the tenants all her life. Before the meeting she had had an unofficial talk with Aunt Fatima, the old janitress who had once lived with her husband and children in a corner of the filthy basement but had now only her daughter with her and had been moved into two light rooms on the first floor.

"
Well, Fatima, how are things going?
"
the delegate asked.

Fatima complained that she could not cope with such a big house and so many tenants all by herself and that she got no help because, although each family was supposed to take turns cleaning the yard and the sidewalks, not one of them did it.

"
Don
'
t worry, Fatima, we
'
ll show them. What kind of committee is this, anyway? They
'
re hopeless. Criminal elements are given shelter, people of doubtful morals stay on without registration. We
'
ll get rid of them and elect another. I
'
ll make you house-manageress, only don
'
t make a fuss.
"

The janitress begged to be let off, but the delegate refused to listen.

Looking around the room and deciding that enough people were present, she called for quiet and opened the meeting with a short introductory speech. She condemned the committee for slackness, proposed that candidates should be put up for the election of a new one, and went on to other business.

In conclusion she said:

"
So that
'
s how it is, comrades. Frankly speaking, this is a big house, it
'
s suitable for a hostel. Look at all the delegates who come to town to attend conferences, and we don
'
t know where to put them. It
'
s been decided to take over the building for a district soviet hostel for visitors from the country and to call it the Tiverzin Hostel, in honor of Comrade Tiverzin, who lived here before he was deported, as everyone knows. No objections? Now, as to dates. There
'
s no hurry, you
'
ve got a whole year. Working people will be rehoused; others must find accommodations for themselves and are given a year
'
s notice.
"

"
We
'
re all working people! Every one of us! We
'
re all workers,
"
people shouted from every side, and one voice sobbed out:
"
It
'
s Great-Russian chauvinism! Ah! the nations are equal now! I know what you
'
re hinting at.
"

"
Not all at once, please. Whom am I to answer first? What have nations got to do with it, Citizen Valdyrkin? Look at Khrapugina, you can
'
t think there
'
s a question of nationality involved in her case, and we are certainly evicting her.
"

"
You are, are you! Just you try and evict me, we
'
ll see about that! You crushed sofa! You crumpled bedsheet!
"
Khrapugina screamed, calling the delegate every meaningless name she could think of in the heat of the quarrel.

"
What a she-devil!
"
the janitress was indignant.
"
Haven
'
t you any shame?
"

"
Don
'
t you meddle in this, Fatima, I can look after myself,
"
said the delegate.
"
Stop it, Khrapugina, I know all about you. Shut up, I tell you, or I
'
ll hand you over at once to the authorities before they catch you brewing vodka and running an illegal bar.
"

The uproar was at its height when the doctor came into the room. He asked the first man he ran into at the door to point out to him a member of the house committee. The other held up his hands like a trumpet in front of his mouth and shouted above the noise:

"
Ga-li-iul-li-na!
Come here. You
'
re wanted.
"

The doctor could not believe his ears. A thin elderly woman with a slight stoop, the janitress, came up to him. He was struck by her likeness to her son. He did not, however, identify himself at once, but said:
"
One of your tenants has got typhus
"
(he told her the name).
"
There are various precautions that have to be taken to prevent its spreading. Moreover, the patient must go to the hospital. I
'
ll make out an admission order, which the house committee has to certify. How and where can we get that done?
"

She thought he meant
"
How is the patient to get to the hospital?
"
and replied:
"
There
'
s a cab coming from the soviet for Comrade Demina, that
'
s the delegate. She
'
s very kind, Comrade Demina, I
'
ll tell her, she
'
s sure to let your patient have the cab. Don
'
t worry, Comrade Doctor, we
'
ll get her there all right.
"

"
That
'
s wonderful. Actually, I only meant where could I write out the order. But if there
'
s a cab as well…May I ask you, are you the mother of Lieutenant Galiullin? We were in the same unit at the front.
"

Galiullina started violently and grew pale. She grasped the doctor
'
s hand.
"
Come outside,
"
she said.
"
We
'
ll talk in the yard.
"

As soon as they were outside the door she said quickly:
"
Talk softly, for God
'
s sake. Don
'
t ruin me. Yusupka
'
s gone wrong. Judge for yourself—what is he? He was an apprentice, a worker. He ought to understand—simple people are much better off now, a blind man can see that, nobody can deny it. I don
'
t know what you feel yourself, maybe it would be all right for you, but it
'
s a sin for Yusupka, God won
'
t forgive him. Yusupka
'
s father was a private, he was killed, they say his face was shot off, and his arms and legs.
"

Her voice broke, she waited till she was more calm, then she went on:
"
Come. I
'
ll get you the cab. I know who you are. He was here for a couple of days. He told me. He said you knew Lara Guishar. She was a good girl, I remember her, she used to come and see us. What she
'
s like now, I don
'
t know—who can tell with you people? After all, it
'
s natural for the masters to stick together. But for Yusupka it
'
s a sin. Come, let
'
s ask for the cab. I
'
m sure Comrade Demina will let you have it. You know who Comrade Demina is? She
'
s Olia Demina, a seamstress she was, worked for Lara
'
s mother, that
'
s who she is, and she
'
s from this house. Come along.
"

Night had fallen. All around them was darkness, Only the small round patch of light from Demina
'
s pocket flashlight jumped from snowdrift to snowdrift four or five paces ahead, confusing more than lighting the way. The darkness was all around them, and they had left behind them the house where so many people had known Lara, where she had often come as a girl, and where, they said, Antipov, her husband, had grown up.

"
Will you really find your way without a flashlight, Comrade Doctor?
"
Demina was facetiously patronizing.
"
If not, I
'
ll lend you mine. It
'
s a fact, you know, I had a real crush on her when we were little girls. They had a dressmaking establishment, I was an apprentice in the workshop. I
'
ve seen her this year. She stopped on her way through Moscow. I said,
'
Where are you off to, silly? Stay here. Come and live with us. We
'
ll find you a job.
'
But it wasn
'
t any good, she wouldn
'
t. Well, it
'
s her business. She married Pasha with her head, not with her heart, she
'
s been crazy ever since. Off she went.
"

"
What do you think of her?
"

"
Careful—it
'
s slippery. I don
'
t know how many times I
'
ve told them not to throw the slops out of the door—might as well talk to a wall. What do I think of her? How do you mean, think? What should I think? I haven
'
t any time to think. Here
'
s where I live. One thing I didn
'
t tell her—her brother, who was in the army, I think they
'
ve shot him. As for her mother, my mistress she used to be—I
'
ll save her, I
'
m seeing to it. Well, I
'
ve got to go in, goodbye.
"

They parted. The light of Demina
'
s little flashlight shot into the narrow stone entrance and ran on, lighting up the stained walls and the dirty stairs while the doctor was left surrounded by the darkness. On his right lay Sadovaia Triumphalnaia Street, on his left Sadovaia Karetnaia Street. Running into the black snowy distance, they were no longer streets but cuttings in the jungle of stone buildings, like cuttings through the impassable forests of Siberia or the Urals.

At home it was light and warm.

"
Why are you so late?
"
asked Antonina Alexandrovna.
"
An extraordinary thing happened while you were out,
"
she went on before he could reply.
"
Really quite unaccountable. Yesterday Father broke the alarm clock—I forgot to tell you—he was terribly upset, it was our only clock. He tried to repair it, he tinkered and tinkered with it, but he got nowhere. The clockmaker around the corner wanted a ridiculous price—three pounds of bread. I didn
'
t know what to do and Father was completely dejected. Well, about an hour ago—can you believe it—there was a sudden ringing—such a piercing, deafening noise, we were all frightened out of our wits. It was the alarm clock! Can you imagine such a thing? It had started up again, all by itself.
"