Золотой теленок / The Golden Calf

“Your project is short of money,” he said. “I’ll get it for you.”

He proposed to create a profitable subsidiary within the construction enterprise.

“What could be easier! We will sell postcards with views of the construction site, and that will bring the funds that the project needs so badly. Remember, you won’t be giving anything, you will only be collecting.”

Alexander Ivanovich cut the air with his hand for emphasis. He sounded convincing, and the project seemed sure-fire and lucrative. Koreiko secured the agreement – giving him a quarter of all profits from the postcard enterprise – and got down to work.

First, he needed working capital. It had to come from the money allocated for construction. That was the only money the republic had.

“Don’t worry,” he reassured the builders, “and remember that starting right now, you will only be collecting.”

Alexander Ivanovich inspected the gorge on horseback. The concrete blocks of the future power plant were already in place, and Koreiko sized up the beauty of the granite cliffs with a glance. Photographers followed him in a coach. They surrounded the site with tripods on long jointed legs, hid under black shawls, and clicked their shutters for a while. When all of the shots were taken, one of the photographers lowered his shawl and said thoughtfully:

“Of course, it would’ve been better if the plant was farther to the left, in front of the monastery ruins. It’s a lot more scenic over there.”

It was decided that they would build their own print shop to produce the postcards as soon as possible. The money, as before, came from the construction funds. As a result, certain operations at the power plant had to be curtailed. But everybody took solace in the thought that the profits from the new enterprise would allow them to make up for lost time.

The print shop was built in the same gorge, across from the power plant. Soon the concrete blocks of the print shop appeared right beside those of the plant. Little by little, the drums with concrete mix, the iron bars, the bricks, and the gravel all migrated from one side of the gorge to the other. The workers soon followed – the pay at the new site was better.

Six months later, train stations across the country were inundated with salesmen in striped pants. They were selling postcards that showed the cliffs of the grape-growing republic, where construction proceeded on a grand scale. Curly-haired girls spun the glass drums of the charitable lottery in amusement parks, theaters, cinemas, on ships, and at resorts, and everyone won a prize – a postcard of the electric gorge.

Koreiko’s promise came true: revenues were pouring in from all sides. But Alexander Ivanovich was not letting the money slip through his hands. One quarter was already his under the agreement. He apprehended another quarter by claiming that some of the sales squads hadn’t submitted their reports yet. He used the rest to expand the charitable enterprise.

“One has to be a good manager,” he would say quietly, “first we’ll set up the business properly, then the real profits will start pouring in.”

By then the Marion excavator taken from the power plant site was already digging a large pit for a new printing press building. The work at the power plant had come to a complete halt. The site was abandoned. The only ones still working there were the photographers with their black shawls.

Business was booming, and Alexander Ivanovich, always with an honest Soviet smile on his face, began printing postcards with portraits of movie stars.

As was to be expected, a high-level commission arrived one evening in a jolting car. Alexander Ivanovich didn’t linger. He threw a farewell glance at the cracked foundation of the power plant, at the imposing, brightly lit building of the subsidiary, and skipped town in a jiffy.

“Hmm,” said the chairman, picking at the cracks in the foundation with a cane. “Where’s the power plant?” He looked at the commission members, who in turn said “Hmm.” The power plant was nowhere to be found.

In the print shop, however, the commission saw the work going full-speed ahead. Purple lights shone; flat printing presses busily flapped their wings. Three of them produced the gorge in black-and-white, while the fourth, a multi-color machine, spewed out postcards: portraits of Douglas Fairbanks with a black half-mask on his fat teapot face, the charming Lya de Putti, and a nice bulgy-eyed guy named Monty Banks.

Portraits flew out of the machine like cards from a sharper’s sleeve. That memorable evening was followed by a long series of public trials that were held in the open air of the gorge, while Alexander Ivanovich added a half-million rubles to his assets.

His shallow, angry pulse was as impatient as ever. He felt that at that moment, when the old economic system had vanished and the new system was just beginning to take hold, one could amass great wealth. But he already knew that striving openly to get rich was unthinkable in the land of the Soviets. And so he looked with a condescending smile at the lonely entrepreneurs rotting away under signs like: GOODS FROM THE WORSTED TRUST B. A. LEYBEDEV, BROCADE AND SUPPLIES FOR CHURCHES AND CLUBS, or GROCERIES, X. ROBINSON AND M. FRYDAY.

The pressure from the state is crushing the financial base under Leybedev, under Fryday, and under the owners of the musical pseudo co-op “The Bell’s A-Jingling.”

Koreiko realized that in these times, the only option was to conduct underground commerce in total secrecy. Every crisis that shook the young economy worked in his favor; every loss of the state was his gain. He would break into every gap in the supply chain and extract his one hundred thousand from it. He traded in baked goods, fabrics, sugar, textiles – everything. And he was alone, completely alone, with his millions. Both big- and small-time crooks toiled for him all across the country, but they had no idea who they were working for. Koreiko operated strictly through frontmen. He alone knew the entire length of the channels that ultimately brought money to him.

* * *

At twelve o’clock sharp, Alexander Ivanovich set the ledger aside and prepared for lunch. He took an already peeled raw turnip out of the drawer and ate it, looking straight ahead with dignity. Then he swallowed a cold soft-boiled egg. Cold soft-boiled eggs are quite revolting; a nice, good-natured man would never eat them. But Alexander Ivanovich wasn’t really eating, he was nourishing himself. He wasn’t having lunch; he was performing the physiological process of delivering the right amounts of protein, carbohydrates, and vitamins to his body.

Herculeans usually capped their lunch with tea, but Alexander Ivanovich drank a cup of boiled water with sugar cubes on the side. Tea makes the heart beat harder, and Koreiko took good care of his health.

The owner of ten million was like a boxer who is painstakingly preparing for his triumph. The fighter follows a strict regimen: he doesn’t drink or smoke, he tries to avoid any worries, he practices and goes to bed early – all with the aim of one day jumping into the glittering ring and leaving a jubilant winner. Alexander Ivanovich wanted to be young and fresh on the day when everything came back to normal, when he could emerge from the underground and open his plain-looking suitcase without fear. Koreiko never doubted that the old days would return. He was saving himself for capitalism.

And in order to keep his second, true life hidden from the world, he lived like a pauper, trying not to exceed the forty-six rubles a month he was paid for the miserable and tedious work he did beside the nymph- and dryad-covered walls of the Finance and Accounting Department.

Chapter 6. The Gnu Antelope

The green box with the four con artists went flying in leaps and bounds along the dusty road. The car was subjected to the same natural forces that a swimmer experiences during a storm. It would be suddenly thrown off track by an unexpected bump, sucked into a deep pothole, rocked from side to side, and showered with sunset-red dust.

“Listen, young man,” said Ostap to the new passenger, who had already recovered from his recent misadventure and was sitting next to the captain as if nothing had happened. “How dare you violate the Sukharev Pact? It’s a respectable treaty which was approved by the League of Nations Tribunal.”

Panikovsky pretended he didn’t hear and even looked the other way.

“And in general, you play dirty,” continued Ostap. “We have just witnessed a most unpleasant scene. The people of Arbatov were chasing you because you took off with their goose.”

“Miserable, wretched people!” mumbled Panikovsky angrily.

“Really?” said Ostap. “And you are, apparently, a public health physician? A gentleman? Keep in mind, though, that if you decide to make notes on your cuffs like a true gentleman, you’re going to have to use chalk.”

“Why is that?” asked the new passenger grumpily.

“Because your cuffs are pitch black. That wouldn’t be dirt, by any chance?”

“You’re a miserable, wretched man!” retorted Panikovsky quickly.

“You’re saying this to me, your savior?” asked Ostap gently. “Adam Kazimirovich, could you stop the car for a moment? Thank you kindly. Shura, my friend, would you please restore the status quo?”

Balaganov had no idea what “status quo” meant, but he took his cue from the tone with which these words were uttered. With a nasty smile on his face, he put his hands under Panikovsky’s arms, pulled him out of the car, and lowered him onto the road.

“Go back to Arbatov, young man,” said Ostap dryly. “The owners of the goose can’t wait to see you there. We don’t need boors here. We are boors ourselves. Let’s go.”

“It won’t happen again!” pleaded Panikovsky. “My nerves are bad!”

“Get on your knees,” said Ostap.

Panikovsky instantly dropped on his knees, as if his legs had been cut out from under him.

“Good!” said Ostap. “I find your posture satisfactory. You are accepted conditionally, until the first violation, as the new Girl Friday.”

The Antelope re-admitted the chastened boor and went rolling on again, swaying like a hearse.

Half an hour later, the car turned onto the big Novozaitsev highway and, without slowing down, entered a village. People were gathered near a log house with a crooked and knotty radio mast growing from its roof. A clean-shaven man stepped out of the crowd resolutely, a sheet of paper in his hand.

“Comrades!” he shouted sternly, “I now declare our meeting of celebration open! Allow me, comrades, to consider your applause…”

He had evidently prepared a speech and was already looking at his paper, but then he realized that the car wasn’t stopping and cut it short.

“Join the Road Club!” he said hastily, looking at Ostap, who was just then riding past him. “Let’s mass-produce Soviet motorcars! The iron steed is coming to replace the peasant horse.”

And then, as the car was already speeding away, he blurted out the last slogan over the congratulatory rumble of the crowd: