The Fatal Eggs (6 page)

"Hm, it's not my subject. You should ask
Portugalov.
But anyway...

Well, there are tape-worms, leeches,
the itchmite, bird-mite, chicken louse, Eomenacanthus stramineus, fleas,
chicken cholera, inflammation of the mucous membrane, Pneumonomicosis,
tuberculosis, chicken mange... all sorts of things (Persikov's eyes flashed.)
... poisoning, tumours, rickets, jaundice, rheumatism, Ahorion Schonlein's
fungus - that's a most interesting disease.

Small spots like mould appear on the
crown..."

Bronsky wiped the sweat off his brow with a
coloured handkerchief.

"And what in your opinion, Professor, is
the cause of the present catastrophe?"

"What catastrophe?"

"Haven't you read about it,
Professor?" exclaimed Bronsky in surprise, pulling a crumpled page of
Izvestia out of his briefcase.

"I don't read newspapers," Persikov
pouted.

"But why not,
Professor?"
Alfred asked gently.

"Because they write such rubbish,"
Persikov replied, without thinking.

"But surely not,
Professor?"
Bronsky whispered softly, unfolding the page.

"What's the matter?" asked Persikov,
even rising to his feet. Bronsky's eyes were flashing now. He pointed a sharp
painted finger at an incredibly large headline which ran right across the whole
page: "Chicken plague in the Republic".

"What?" asked Persikov, pushing his
spectacles onto his forehead
...

The city shone, the lights danced, going out
and blazing on. In Theatre Square the white lamps of buses mingled with the
green lights of trams; above the former Muir and Merilees, its tenth floor
added later, skipped a multi-coloured electrical woman, tossing out letter by
letter the multicoloured words:

"Workers' Credit".
A crowd thronged and murmured in the small garden opposite the Bolshoi Theatre,
where a multicoloured fountain played at night. And over the Bolshoi itself a
huge loudspeaker kept making announcements.

"Anti-fowl vaccinations at Lefortovo
Veterinary Institute have produced brilliant results. The number of...
fowl deaths for today has
dropped by half..."

Then the loudspeaker changed its tone,
something growled inside it, a spray of green blazed up over the theatre, then
went out and the loudspeaker complained in a deep bass:

"An extraordinary commission has been set
up to fight the fowl plague consisting of the People's Commissar of Health, the
People's Commissar of Agriculture, the head of animal husbandry, Comrade
Ptakha-Porosyuk, Professors Persikov and Portugalov... and Comrade Rabinovich!
New attempts at intervention," the loudspeaker giggled and cried, like a
jackal, "in connection with the fowl plague!"

Theatre Passage, Neglinnaya and Lubyanka
blazed with white and violet neon strips and flickering lights amid wailing
sirens and clouds of dust.

People crowded round the large
notices on the walls, lit by glaring red reflectors.

"All consumption of chickens and chicken
eggs is strictly forbidden on pain of severe punishment. Any attempt by private
traders to sell them in markets is punishable by law with confiscation of all
property. All citizens in possession of eggs are urgently requested to take
them to local police stations."

A screen on the roof of the Workers' Paper
showed chickens piled up to the sky as greenish firemen, fragmenting and sparkling,
hosed them with kerosene. Red waves washed over the screen, deathly smoke
belched forth, swirling in clouds, and drifted up in a column, then out hopped
the fiery letters:

"Dead chickens being
burnt in Khodynka."

Amid the madly blazing windows of shops open
until three in the morning, with breaks for lunch and supper, boarded-up
windows with signs saying "Eggs for sale. Quality guaranteed" stared
out blindly. Hissing ambulances with "Moscow Health Dept." on them
raced past policemen and overtook heavy buses, their sirens wailing.

"Someone else poisoned himself with
rotten eggs," the crowd murmured.

The world-famous Empire Restaurant in
Petrovsky Lines glowed with green and orange
lamps,
and inside it by the portable telephones on the tables lay liqueur-stained
cardboard notices saying "No omelettes until further notice.

Try our fresh oysters."

In the Hermitage Gardens, where Chinese
lanterns shone like sad beads in dead choked foliage, on a blindingly lit stage
the singers Shrams and Karmanchikov sang satirical songs composed by the poets
Ardo and Arguyev,

Oh, Mama, what shall I
do

Without my little eggies
two?

accompanied
by a
tap-dance.

The theatre named after the deceased Vsevolod
Meyer-hold who, it will be remembered, met his end in 1927 during a production
of Pushkin's Boris Godunov, when the trapezes with naked boyars collapsed,
sported a running coloured neon strip announcing a new play by the writer
Erendors, entitled "Fowl Farewell" directed by Kuchterman, a pupil of
Meyerhold. Next door, at the Aquarium Gardens, ablaze with neon advertisements
and shining half-naked women, the revue "Son-of-a-Hen" by the writer
Lenivtsev was playing to loud applause among the foliage of the open-air
variety stage.
And along Tverskaya trotted a line of circus
donkeys, with lanterns under each ear and gaudy posters.
The Korsh
Theatre was reviving Rostand's Chantecler.

Newspaper boys bellowed and yelled among the
motor wheels: "Horrific find in underground cave! Poland preparing for horrific
war!

Horrific experiments by Professor
Persikov!"

In the circus of the former Nikitin, in a rich
brown arena smelling sweetly of dung, the deathly white clown Born was talking
to Bim, all swollen up with dropsy.

"I know why you're so fed up!"

"Why ith it?" squealed Bim.

"You buried your eggs under a gooseberry
bush, and the 15th District police squad has found them."

"Ha-ha-ha-ha," laughed the circus,
so hard that the blood curdled happily and longingly in their veins and the
trapezes and cobwebs stirred under the old dome.

"Allez-oop!" the clowns shouted
loudly, and a well-fed white horse trotted out bearing a stunningly beautiful
woman with shapely legs in a crimson costume.

Not looking at or taking heed of anyone and
ignoring the prostitutes'

nudges
and
soft, enticing invitations, the inspired and solitary Professor Persikov
crowned with unexpected fame made his way along Mokhovaya to the neon clock by
the Manege. Here, engrossed in his thoughts and not looking where he was going,
he collided with a strange, old-fashioned man and banged his fingers painfully
against the wooden holster hanging from the man's belt.

"What the devil!" squealed
Persikov.
"My apologies!"
"Pardon me!"

replied
an
unpleasant voice in return, and they managed to disentangle themselves in the
mass of people. The Professor continued on his way to Prechistenka, putting the
incident out of his head straightaway.

Whether or not the Lefortovo veterinary vaccinations
were effective, the Samara quarantine teams efficient, the strict measures
taken with regard to buyers-up of eggs in Kaluga and Voronezh adequate and the
work of the Special Moscow Commission successful, is not known, but what is
known is that a fortnight after Persikov's last meeting with Alfred there was
not a single chicken left in the Republic. Here and there in provincial
back-yards lay plaintive tufts of feathers, bringing tears to the eyes of the
owners, and in hospital the last gluttons recovered from diarrhea and vomiting
blood. The loss in human life for the whole country was not more than a
thousand, fortunately. There were also no large-scale disturbances. True, in
Volokolamsk someone calling himself a prophet announced that the commissars, no
less, were to blame for the chicken plague, but no one took much notice of him.
A few policemen who were confiscating chickens from peasant women at
Volokolamsk market got beaten up, and some windows in the local post and
telegraph office were smashed. Fortunately, the efficient Volokolamsk
authorities took measures as a result of which, firstly, the prophet ceased his
activities and, secondly, the telegraph windows were replaced.

After travelling north as far as Archangel and
Syumkin Vyselok, the plague stopped of its own accord for the simple reason
that it could go no further-there are no chickens in the White Sea, as we all
know. It also stopped in Vladivostok, because after that came the ocean. In the
far south it died down and disappeared somewhere in the scorched expanses of
Ordubat, Djilfa and Karabulak, and in the west it stopped miraculously right at
the Polish and Rumanian frontiers. Perhaps the climate there was different or
the quarantine cordon measures taken by these neighbouring states helped.

But the fact remains that the plague
went no further. The foreign press discussed the unprecedented plague loudly
and avidly, and the Soviet government, without kicking up a racket, worked
tirelessly round the clock.

The Extraordinary Commission to
combat the chicken plague was renamed the Extraordinary Commission to encourage
and revive poultry-keeping in the Republic and supplemented by a new
extraordinary troika consisting of sixteen comrades. "Volunteer-Fowl"
was founded, of which Persikov and Portugalov became honorary deputy chairmen.
The newspapers carried pictures of them with the captions "Mass purchase
of eggs from abroad" and "Mr Hughes tries to sabotage egg
campaign". A venomous article by the journalist Kolechkin, ending with the
words: "Keep your hands off our eggs, Mr Hughes-you've got eggs of your
own!
",
resounded all over
Moscow
.

Professor Persikov had worked himself to a
state of complete exhaustion over the last three weeks. The fowl events had
disturbed his usual routine and placed an extra burden on him. He had to spend
whole evenings attending fowl committee meetings and from time to time endure
long talks either with Alfred Bronsky or the fat man with the artificial leg.
And together with Professor Portugalov and docents Ivanov and Borngart he
anatomised and microscopised fowls in search of the plague bacillus and even
wrote a brochure in the space of only three evenings, entitled "On Changes
in the Liver of Fowls Attacked by Plague".

Persikov worked without great enthusiasm in
the fowl field, and understandably so since his head was full of something
quite different, the main and most important thing, from which the fowl
catastrophe had diverted him, i.e., the red ray. Undermining his already
overtaxed health by stealing time from sleeping and eating, sometimes not
returning to Prechistenka but dozing on the oilskin divan in his room at the
Institute, Persikov spent night after night working with the chamber and the
microscope.

By the end of July the commotion had abated
somewhat
The
renamed commission began to work along
normal lines, .and Persikov resumed his interrupted studies. The microscopes
were loaded with new specimens, and fish- and frog-spawn matured in the chamber
at incredible speed. Specially ordered lenses were delivered from Konigsberg by
aeroplane, and in the last few days of July, under Ivanov's supervision,
mechanics installed two big new chambers, in which the beam was as broad as a
cigarette packet at its base and a whole metre wide at the other end. Persikov
rubbed his hands happily and began to prepare some mysterious and complex
experiments. First of all, he came to some agreement with the People's
Commissar of Education by phone, and the receiver promised him the most willing
assistance of all kinds, then Persikov had a word with Comrade Ptakha-Porosyuk,
head of the Supreme Commission's Animal Husbandry Department. Persikov met with
the most cordial attention form Ptakha-Porosyuk with respect to a large order
from abroad for Professor Persikov. Ptakha-Porosyuk said on the phone that he
would cable Berlin and New York rightaway. After that there was a call from the
Kremlin to enquire how Persikov was getting on, and an important-sounding voice
asked affectionately if he would like a motor-car.

"No, thank you. I prefer to travel by
tram," Persikov replied.

"But why?" the mysterious voice
asked, with an indulgent laugh.

Actually everyone spoke to Persikov either
with respect and awe, or with an affectionate laugh, as if addressing a silly,
although very important child.

"It goes faster," Persikov said,
after which the resonant bass on the telephone said:

"Well, as you like."

Another week passed, during which Persikov
withdrew increasingly from the subsiding fowl problems to immerse himself
entirely in the study of the ray. His head became light, somehow transparent
and weightless, from the sleepless nights and exhaustion. The red rims never
left his eyes now, and almost every night was spent at the Institute. Once he
abandoned his zoological refuge to read a paper on his ray and its action on
the ovule in the huge hall of the Central Commission for Improving the Living
Conditions of Scientists in Prechistenka. This was a great triumph for the
eccentric zoologist. The applause in the hall made the plaster flake off the
ceiling, while the hissing arc lamps lit up the black dinner jackets of
club-members and the white dresses of their ladies. On the stage, next to the
rostrum, a clammy grey frog the size of a cat sat breathing heavily in a dish
on a glass table. Notes were thrown onto the stage. They included seven love
letters, which Persikov tore up. The club president had great difficulty
persuading him onto the platform. Persikov bowed angrily. His hands were wet
with sweat and his black tie was somewhere behind his left ear, instead of
under his chin. Before him in a breathing haze were hundreds of yellow faces
and white male chests, when suddenly the yellow holster of a pistol flashed
past and vanished behind a white column. Persikov noticed it vaguely and then
forgot about it. But after the lecture, as he was walking down the red carpet
of the staircase, he suddenly felt unwell. For a second the bright chandelier
in the vestibule clouded and Persikov came over dizzy and slightly queasy. He
seemed to smell burning and feel hot, sticky blood running down his neck...
With a trembling hand the Professor clutched the banisters.