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News from Yalta

AT the same time as disaster struck Nikanor Ivanovich, not far from 302B, on that same Sadovaya Street, two men sat in the office of the financial director of the Variety Theater: Rimsky himself and Varenukha, the theater manager.

Two windows of the large second-floor office looked out on Sadovaya Street, and another, behind the financial director, who was sitting at his desk, looked out on the Variety’s summer garden, where there were soft-drink stands, a shooting gallery, and an open-air stage. Apart from the desk, the office furnishings included a bunch of old theater bills hanging on the wall, a small table with a carafe of water, four armchairs, and a dusty, time-worn scale model of some stage revue set up on a stand in the corner. Well, it goes without saying that the office also contained a small fireproof safe, battered and chipped, which stood on Rimsky’s left, next to the desk.

Rimsky, who was sitting at the desk, had been in a foul mood since morning. Varenukha, on the other hand, was very animated and somehow especially restless and energetic. For the time being he had no outlet for his nervous energy.

Varenukha had taken refuge in the financial director’s office in order to escape from the free-ticket hounds who poisoned his existence, especially on days when there was a change of program. And today was just such a day.

As soon as the phone began to ring, Varenukha picked up the receiver and lied into it, “Who? Varenukha? He’s not here. He’s left the theater.” “Call Likhodeyev again, please,” said Rimsky in irritation.

“He’s not home. I already sent Karpov over. There’s no one in his apartment.”

“The devil knows what’s going on,” hissed Rimsky, clicking his adding machine.

The door opened, and an usher came in dragging a thick stack of additional theater bills hot off the press. Printed in large red letters on green sheets of paper was: TODAY AND EVERYDAY AT THE VARIETY THEATER

AN ADDED ATTRACTION:

PROFESSOR WOLAND

PERFORMS BLACK MAGIC WITH

AN EXPOSÉ IN FULL

Varenukha stepped back from the playbill, which he had draped over the scale model, admired it, and ordered the usher to paste them up everywhere.

“It looks good, eye-catching,” noted Varenukha as the usher was leaving.

“Well, I don’t like this venture at all,” grumbled Rimsky, gazing angrily at the playbill through his horn-rimmed glasses. “And, I’m amazed they’ve allowed him to perform at all!” “No, Grigory Danilovich, don’t say that, it was a very shrewd move. The whole point of it is the exposé.” “I don’t know, I don’t know, it has no point at all, as far as I’m concerned, and besides, Styopa’s always dreaming up things like this! If only he’d let us have a look at the magician. Have you seen him? Where the hell did they dig him up?” It was obvious that neither Varenukha nor Rimsky had seen the magician. Yesterday Styopa (“like a madman,” to quote Rimsky) had run in to see the financial director with the draft of a contract, ordered him to draw it up and to authorize payment. And, the magician had disappeared, and no one had seen him except Styopa.

Rimsky took out his watch, saw it was five after two, and became positively enraged. This was the limit! Likhodeyev had called around eleven and said that he would be there in half an hour. Not only had he not come, he had disappeared from his apartment!

“I’ve got work to do!” snarled Rimsky, poking his finger at a pile of unsigned papers.

“Maybe he’s fallen under a streetcar, like Berlioz?” said Varenukha, holding the receiver to his ear and listening to the deep, prolonged, and utterly hopeless ringing.

“Wouldn’t be so bad,” said Rimsky through his teeth, in barely audible tones.

At that very moment a woman walked into the office, wearing a uniform jacket, a cap, a black skirt, and sneakers. She removed a small white square and a notebook from her waist-pouch and asked, “Is this the Variety? Express telegram for you. Sign please.” Varenukha left a scrawl in the woman’s notebook, and as soon as the door closed behind her, he opened the square.

After reading the telegram, he blinked, and handed it to Rimsky.

The telegram read as follows, “Yalta-Moscow. Variety. Today eleven-thirty Criminal Investigation Department appeared nightshirt-trouser-clad brown-haired psycho allegedly Likhodeyev Director Variety Wire Yalta CID whereabouts Director Likhodeyev.” “Yeah, sure, and I’m your Aunt Mary!” exclaimed Rimsky, and added, “One more surprise!” “A False Dmitri,” said Varenukha and he began speaking into the phone, “Telegraph office? Charge to Variety. Take a telegram … Are you listening? ‘Yalta Criminal Investigation Department … Director Likhodeyev Moscow Financial Director Rimsky.’” Taking no heed of the communiqué about the Yalta impostor, Varenukha again picked up the phone to try to find out where Styopa was and, naturally, he could not locate him anywhere.

Just as he was holding the receiver in his hand, trying to figure out where to call next, the same woman who had brought the first telegram reappeared and handed him a new envelope. Varenukha opened it in haste, read what was written, and whistled.

“What now?” asked Rimsky, twitching nervously.

Varenukha handed him the telegram in silence, and the financial director read the following words: “Please believe transported Yalta Woland’s hypnosis wire CID confirmation identity Likhodeyev.” Rimsky and Varenukha, their heads touching, reread the telegram, and when they finished, they stared at each other in silence.

“Citizens!” said the woman angrily. “Sign for it and then you can be quiet for as long as you want! I’ve got telegrams to deliver.” Varenukha, still staring at the telegram, scribbled something in the notebook, and the woman disappeared.

“Weren’t you talking to him on the phone just after eleven?” asked the director in complete bewilderment.

“Oddly enough, yes!” cried Rimsky in piercing tones. “But whether I talked to him or not is irrelevant, he can’t possibly be in Yalta now! That’s absurd!” “He’s drunk,” said Varenukha.

“Who’s drunk?” asked Rimsky, and again they both stared at each other.

That an impostor or lunatic had sent a telegram from Yalta was beyond doubt. What was odd, though, was how the Yalta jokester could have known about Woland, who had arrived in Moscow only yesterday. How could he know about the connection between Likhodeyev and Woland?

“Hypnosis …” said Varenukha, repeating the word in the telegram. “How did he hear about Woland?” He crinkled up his eyes and suddenly announced decisively, “No, this is nonsense, nonsense, nonsense!” “Where the devil is this Woland staying?” asked Rimsky.

Varenukha got in touch with the Intourist Office immediately and reported, to Rimsky’s complete surprise, that Woland was staying in Likhodeyev’s apartment. He then dialed Likhodeyev’s apartment and listened to the phone ring repeatedly and insistently. In between rings he could hear from somewhere far away a deep, somber voice singing, “the cliffs, my refuge …” and Varenukha decided that a voice from some radio station had somehow cut into the telephone circuit.

“There’s no answer at the apartment,” said Varenukha, hanging up the phone. “Perhaps I should try again …” He didn’t finish his sentence. The same woman appeared in the door again, and both Rimsky and Varenukha got up to meet her, but this time it was a dark sheet of paper that she removed from her bag, rather than a small white square.

“This is beginning to get interesting,” said Varenukha through his teeth, staring after the woman as she made a quick exit. Rimsky was the first to get hold of the sheet.

Against the dark background of the photographic paper, one could clearly make out black, handwritten lines: “Proof my handwriting my signature Wire confirmation put Woland under secret surveillance. Likhodeyev.” During his twenty years in the theater Varenukha had seen a lot of things, but now he felt as if a shroud were covering his brain, and he was unable to say anything except the trite and, moreover, utterly absurd phrase, “This can’t be!” Rimsky, on the other hand, reacted differently. He got up, opened the door, and roared at the messenger girl sitting on the stool outside, “Don’t let anyone in unless they have mail to deliver!”—and locked the door.

Then he took a pile of papers out of his desk and began a careful comparison of the bold, backward-slanting letters in the photogram and the letters in Styopa’s memoranda and in his signatures, which were embellished with a spiral flourish. Varenukha leaned over the desk and breathed hotly on Rimsky’s cheek.

“It’s his handwriting, all right,” the financial director finally pronounced, and Varenukha echoed him, “His, indeed.” When Varenukha looked into Rimsky’s face, he was amazed by the change that had taken place. The already thin financial director seemed to have gotten even thinner and to have aged, and the eyes behind his horn-rimmed glasses had lost their customary sharpness, and expressed not only alarm, but sorrow as well.

Varenukha did everything you expect someone to do who is in a state of shock: he ran around the office and raised his arms up twice, like someone crucified, drank a whole glass of yellowish water from the carafe, and exclaimed, “I don’t understand! I don’t understand! I do not understand!” Rimsky stared out the window, thinking intensely about something. The financial director was in a very difficult position: he had to devise, right on the spot, an ordinary explanation for out-of-the-ordinary happenings.

The financial director narrowed his eyes and tried to imagine Styopa, shoeless and in a nightshirt, getting on some unheard-of, super-fast plane at around 11:30 in the morning and then, also at 11:30, the same Styopa standing in his socks at the airport in Yalta … The devil knew how!

Maybe it wasn’t Styopa who called him from his apartment? No, it was Styopa! As if he didn’t know Styopa’s voice! And even if it hadn’t been Styopa on the phone that morning, it was certainly Styopa who appeared in his office as recently as yesterday evening, bringing that foolish contract and annoying the financial director with his thoughtlessness. How could he have left town or taken a plane without telling the theater? And even if he had taken a plane last night, he couldn’t have gotten there by noon today. Or could he?

“How many kilometers is it to Yalta?” asked Rimsky.

Varenukha stopped his running about and shouted, “I thought of that! I already thought of that! By train to Sevastopol it’s about 1500 kilometers. And it’s another eighty kilometers from there to Yalta. But, by air, of course, it’s less.” Hmm … Yes … Trains were out of the question. But what then? A fighter plane? Who would let Styopa on a fighter plane without shoes? Why? Maybe he took off his shoes when he arrived in Yalta. Again: why? Besides, they wouldn’t have let him on a fighter plane even with shoes! And what did a fighter plane have to do with it? Still, they had it in writing that he appeared at the Criminal Investigation Department at 11:30 in the morning, but he was talking on the phone in Moscow … wait a minute … at that point the face of Rimsky’s watch suddenly appeared before his eyes … He remembered where the hands had been. God! It had been 11:20. So where does that leave us? If we assume that Styopa left for the airport right after our conversation and got there in, say, five minutes, which, by the way, is also inconceivable, then we are left to conclude that the plane took off right on the spot and covered more than 1000 kilometers in just five minutes?! Meaning that it traveled at more than 1200 kilometers per hour!! That’s impossible, so he can’t be in Yalta.

What other explanation was there? Hypnosis? There was no hypnosis in the world that could propel someone more than 1000 kilometers! So is he only imagining that he’s in Yalta? He’s imagining it, perhaps, and the Yalta CID is imagining it too?! No, you’ll have to excuse me, but things like that don’t happen. But hadn’t they sent a wire from there?

The financial director’s face looked literally horror-struck. Meanwhile, the doorknob was being pulled and twisted from the outside, and the messenger girl was heard shouting desperately, “You can’t go in! I won’t let you! Even if you kill me! There’s a meeting!” Rimsky did his utmost to control himself, picked up the phone, and said, “Connect me with Yalta, it’s urgent.” “Smart!” Varenukha exclaimed to himself.

But the call to Yalta did not go through. Rimsky hung up the phone and said, “The line’s out of order, as if out of spite.” It was obvious that the faulty line had a particularly devastating effect on Rimsky and even made him reflective. After musing for a while, he again picked up the receiver with one hand and with the other began writing down what he was saying into the phone.

“Take an express telegram. Variety. Yes. Yalta. Criminal Investigation Department. Yes. ‘Today around 11:30 Likhodeyev phoned me in Moscow. Stop. After that missed work and cannot be located by phone. Stop. Handwriting confirmed. Stop. Steps taken to put said artiste under surveillance. Financial Director Rimsky.’” “Very smart!” thought Varenukha, but before he could think it properly these words echoed in his head, “It’s stupid! He can’t be in Yalta!” Meanwhile, Rimsky did the following: he neatly folded all the telegrams that had been received, put them in a packet along with a copy of the telegram he had sent, put the packet into an envelope, sealed it, wrote something on it, and then handed it to Varenukha saying, “Ivan Savelyevich, take this over in person right away. Let them figure it out.” “Now that’s really smart!” thought Varenukha, and he stuffed the envelope into his briefcase. Then, just in case, he dialed Styopa’s apartment again, listened, winked joyously and mysteriously, and smirked. Rimsky stretched his neck to listen.

“May I speak to the artiste Woland?” Varenukha asked sweetly.

“They’re busy,” a crackling voice replied, “Who may I say is calling?”

“The manager of the Variety Theater, Varenukha.”

“Ivan Savelyevich?” the receiver exclaimed joyously. “I’m terribly happy to hear your voice! How’s your health?” “Merci,” the astonished Varenukha replied. “And who am I speaking to?”

“The assistant, his assistant and interpreter, Korovyov,” crackled the receiver. “I’m at your service, my dear Ivan Savelyevich! Tell me how I can be of help to you. Well?” “Excuse me, but is Stepan Bogdanovich Likhodeyev not at home?”

“Alas, no! He’s not!” shouted the receiver. “He’s gone.”

“Where to?”

“He went for a drive outside of town.”

“Wha … what’s that? A dr … drive? And when will he be back?”

“He said, I’m just going out for some fresh air and I’ll be right back!”

“I see …” said Varenukha, completely at a loss. “Merci. Be so kind as to tell Monsieur Woland that he will be appearing today in the third part of the program.” “I will indeed. But of course. Without fail. Right away. To be sure. I’ll tell him,” tapped out the receiver abruptly.

“All the best,” said the astonished Varenukha.

“Please accept,” said the receiver, “my best, my warmest wishes and regards! I wish you success! Good luck! Complete happiness. Everything!” “Well, of course! It’s just what I said!” cried the manager excitedly. “He didn’t go to any Yalta, he just went for a ride in the country!” “If that’s the case,” said the financial director, turning pale with rage, “words can’t describe what a swine he is!” Here the manager jumped up and let out such a shout that Rimsky shuddered.

“I just remembered! I just remembered! There’s a Crimean restaurant just opened up in Pushkino called the ‘Yalta.’ That solves everything! He must have gone there, had too much to drink, and started sending us telegrams!” “This is really too much,” replied Rimsky, his cheek twitching and his eyes blazing with real fury. “Well, he’ll pay a heavy price for this little jaunt! …” He suddenly broke off and added hesitantly, “But what about the Criminal Investigation Department …” “That’s absurd! More of his little games,” interjected the affable Varenukha, who then asked, “So should I take this packet over anyway?” “Absolutely,” answered Rimsky.

Again the door opened, and in walked the same woman … “She’s back!” thought Rimsky with inexplicable anguish. And both of them stood up to meet her.

This time the telegram read as follows, “Thanks confirmation send me ASAP 500 rubles CID flying Moscow tomorrow Likhodeyev.” “He’s lost his mind,” said Varenukha weakly.

But Rimsky jingled his key, took some money out of the safe, counted out 500 rubles, rang for the messenger, gave him the money and sent him off to the telegraph office.

“Good heavens, Grigory Danilovich,” said Varenukha, not believing his eyes. “If you ask my opinion, you’re throwing the money away.” “It’ll come back,” Rimsky replied softly, “and that little outing will cost him plenty.” Then he added, pointing to Varenukha’s briefcase, “Get going, Ivan Savelyevich, don’t delay.” And Varenukha ran out of the office with the briefcase.

When he went downstairs, he saw an extremely long line at the box office and learned from the cashier that she expected to be sold out within the hour because the public had come in droves after seeing the additional playbills. Varenukha told the cashier to set aside thirty of the best seats in the orchestra and loges and then rushed out of the box office. After fighting off the obnoxious free-pass seekers, he ducked into his office to grab his cap. At that moment the phone rang.

“Yes!” shouted Varenukha.

“Ivan Savelyevich?” inquired the receiver in a loathsome nasal twang.

“He’s not in the theater!” Varenukha was about to shout back, but the receiver immediately cut him off, “Don’t play the fool, Ivan Savelyevich, just listen. Don’t take those telegrams anywhere, and don’t show them to anyone.” “Who is this speaking?” roared Varenukha. “Stop playing games, citizen! You’ll be exposed! What’s your number?” “Varenukha,” sounded the same loathsome voice. “Do you understand Russian? Do not take those telegrams anywhere.” “So, you’re not going to stop?” shouted the manager in a frenzy. “Well, you better watch out! You’ll pay for this!” He shouted yet another threat, but then stopped because he sensed that there was no longer anyone listening to him on the line.

At this point, the office somehow suddenly began to get dark. Varenukha ran out, slammed the door behind him, and hurried out to the summer garden through the side door.

The manager was agitated and full of energy. After the impudent phone call he was convinced that a band of hooligans was playing nasty tricks, and that the tricks had something to do with Likhodeyev’s disappearance. A desire to unmask the villains overcame the manager and, strange as it may seem, he began to experience a sense of pleasant anticipation. This happens when someone is seeking to be the center of attention, the bearer of sensational news.

In the garden the wind blew in the manager’s face and got sand in his eyes, as if it were trying to bar his way or give him a warning. A window on the second floor banged so hard that the glass almost flew out, the tops of the maples and lindens rustled uneasily. It got dark and turned cooler. The manager rubbed his eyes and saw a yellowbellied thundercloud crawling low over Moscow. A muffled growl was heard in the distance.

Although Varenukha was in a hurry, an irresistible urge compelled him to run into the outside toilet for a second to check if the electrician had put netting over the light.

He ran past the shooting gallery and into the thick clump of lilac bushes which sheltered the pale-blue lavatory facility. The electrician turned out to have been efficient, for the lamp under the eaves of the men’s room was already encased in wire mesh, but the manager was upset to see that even in the pre-storm darkness, pencil and charcoal graffiti were visible on the walls.

“What is this …” began the manager, when suddenly a voice behind him purred, “Is that you, Ivan Savelyevich?” Varenukha shuddered, turned around and saw a short, fat fellow with what seemed to be a cat’s face.

“It is,” came Varenukha’s hostile reply.

“How very, very nice,” said the catlike fat man in a squeaky voice, and then he suddenly whirled around and gave the manager such a smack on the ear that his cap flew off his head and disappeared into the toilet without a trace.

The blow flooded the whole lavatory with tremulous light for an instant, and a clap of thunder sounded overhead. Then the light flashed again, and another figure appeared before the manager—he was short and had fiery-red hair, the shoulders of an athlete, a walleye, and a fang. This second fellow, apparently a lefty, landed a blow to the manager’s other ear. The sky thundered again in reply, and a downpour hit the wooden roof of the lavatory.

“What are you doing, com …” whispered the half-crazed manager, only then realizing that the word “comrades” was hardly appropriate for thugs attacking a man in a public restroom. After croaking out “citiz …,” he realized they didn’t deserve that name either and received a third horrible blow, he didn’t know who from, which made his nose bleed and spattered the fat man.

“What have you got in the briefcase, you parasite?” screamed the catlike figure in a piercing voice. “Telegrams? Weren’t you warned over the phone not to take them anywhere? I’m asking you, weren’t you?

“I was war … war … warned,” spluttered the manager, gasping for breath.

“But you ran off anyway? Hand over the briefcase, scum!” shrieked the other one in the same nasal twang that had been heard over the phone, whereupon he pulled the briefcase out of Varenukha’s trembling hands.

And the two of them grabbed the manager under the arms, dragged him out of the garden and hauled him down Sadovaya Street. The thunderstorm was raging with full fury, water groaned and droned and gushed into the sewers, bubbled and swelled in waves, lashed down from the roofs past the drainpipes, poured through the gateways in foaming streams. Every living being had been washed away from Sadovaya Street, and there was no one to save Ivan Savelyevich. It took the thugs only a second to leap through the turbid waters in the glare of the lightning and drag the manager to No. 302B. As they flew in the gateway with him, two barefoot women were huddled against the wall, clutching their shoes and stockings in their hands. The thugs then headed for entrance No. 6, and Varenukha, close to madness, was hauled up to the fifth floor and tossed into the familiar semidark hallway of Styopa Likhodeyev’s apartment.

Here the two hoodlums vanished, and in their place appeared a girl who was stark naked. She had red hair and burning phosphorescent eyes.

Realizing that this was the worst thing to have happened to him, Varenukha let out a groan and backed into the wall. But the girl walked right up to the manager and laid the palms of her hands on his shoulders. The manager’s hair stood on end because he could sense, even through the cold, soaking fabric of his peasant shirt, that those palms were colder still, cold as ice.

“Come let me give you a kiss,” said the girl tenderly, her shining eyes coming right up to his. Varenukha lost consciousness and did not feel the kiss.