فصل 17

XVII

An Upsetting Day

ON Friday morning, that is, the day after the accursed performance, the entire staff of the Variety Theater—the bookkeeper Vasily Stepanovich Lastochkin, two clerks, three typists, both cashiers, the messenger boys, ushers, and cleaning women—in short, everyone at the theater, were not at their posts. Instead, they were all sitting on the sills of the windows above Sadovaya Street, looking down at what was happening outside the theater. Stretched along the wall in a double line that reached as far as Kudrinsky Square were thousands of people. At the front of the line stood twenty or more of the most prominent scalpers in the Moscow theatrical world.

The people in line were very agitated and kept attracting the attention of passersby with their inflammatory stories of the previous day’s extraordinary performance of black magic. These stories had particularly distressed the bookkeeper, Vasily Stepanovich, who had not attended the performance. The ushers were saying all sorts of preposterous things, for example, that after the performance some ladies ran down the street indecently clad and other things of that sort. The modest and quiet Vasily Stepanovich merely blinked his eyes as he listened to all their wondrous tales. He had no idea what he should do, even though something did have to be done, and by him in particular, since he was now first in command at the Variety Theater.

By ten in the morning the line of ticket seekers had swelled to such proportions that the police had gotten wind of it. Mounted and on foot they descended on the scene with astonishing speed and managed to restore some order. However, even an orderly line a mile long was a source of distraction and amazement for the people on Sadovaya Street.

That was the situation outside the theater, and inside things weren’t going very well either. The phones in the offices of Likhodeyev, Rimsky, and Varenukha, as well as those in the ticket office and the bookkeeping department, had been ringing nonstop since early morning. At first Vasily Stepanovich had made some sort of response to callers, as had the cashier and the ushers, who mumbled something into the phone, but after a while they stopped answering altogether because they had absolutely no answer to give to questions about the whereabouts of Likhodeyev, Varenukha, or Rimsky. At first they had tried to get off with lines like, “Likhodeyev is in his apartment,” but this only made the callers say that they had called there and been told that he was at the Variety.

An agitated lady had called, demanding to speak with Rimsky. After she had been advised to call his wife, the receiver burst into tears, saying that she was his wife and that Rimsky was nowhere to be found. It was the beginning of a kind of nonsensical farce. The cleaning woman had already told everyone that when she came to clean the financial director’s office, she found the door wide open, the lights on, the window overlooking the garden smashed, the chair overturned on the floor, and no one there.

Just after ten Madame Rimsky charged into the Variety, wringing her hands and sobbing. Vasily Stepanovich was totally at a loss and had no idea what to advise her. Then at ten-thirty the police showed up. Their first, completely reasonable, question was, “What’s going on here, citizens? What’s this all about?” The theater staff pushed a pale and flustered Vasily Stepanovich forward and then stepped back. He had no choice but to call a spade a spade and admit that the administration of the Variety Theater, to wit, the director, financial director, and manager, had vanished and their whereabouts were unknown, that after last night’s performance the emcee had been removed to a psychiatric hospital, and that, briefly put, last night’s show had been nothing short of scandalous.

After consoling the sobbing Madame Rimsky as much as they could and sending her home, they seemed most interested in the cleaning woman’s account of the state of the financial director’s office. The staff was asked to get back to work, and a short time later an investigative unit arrived, accompanied by a muscular dog the color of cigarette ash, with highly intelligent eyes and pointed ears. The theater staff was immediately abuzz with the rumor that the dog was none other than the famous Ace of Diamonds. And, it was, in fact, he. His behavior astounded everyone. As soon as Ace of Diamonds ran into the financial director’s office, he started to growl and bared his monstrous yellow fangs, then he lay down on his belly, his expression a blend of anguish and fury, and started to crawl over to the broken window. Having overcome his fear, he suddenly jumped up on the windowsill, stuck his pointed muzzle up in the air, and let out a wild and vicious howl. Not wanting to come down from the window, he growled and trembled and tried to jump out.

The dog was led out of the office and let go in the lobby, and from there he went out the front entrance into the street, leading those who were following him over to the taxi stand. There he lost the scent. After that, Ace of Diamonds was taken away.

The investigative unit settled into Varenukha’s office and began summoning, one by one, all members of the Variety staff who had witnessed everything that had gone on at yesterday’s performance. It must be said that the investigators encountered unforeseen difficulties every step of the way. The thread kept breaking in their hands.

Had there been any posters? Yes, there had. But during the night they had been pasted over with new ones, and now for the life of them, they could not find a single one! And where had the magician come from? Who knows? Wouldn’t there have been a contract?

“One would assume so,” replied a distraught Vasily Stepanovich.

“And if there had been a contract, would it have gone through bookkeeping?”

“Absolutely,” answered Vasily Stepanovich in distress.

“So where is it?”

“It’s not here,” replied the bookkeeper, growing paler by the minute and spreading his hands helplessly. And indeed, there was no trace of any contract, not in bookkeeping’s files, nor in those of the financial director, Likhodeyev, or Varenukha.

And what was this magician’s name? Vasily Stepanovich didn’t know, he hadn’t been at the show. The ushers didn’t know, the ticket-office cashier crinkled her brow and thought and thought, and finally said, “Wo … Woland, I think.” And are you sure it was Woland? Well, maybe not. Maybe it was Faland.

The Bureau of Foreigners had never heard of any magician named Woland or Faland.

Karpov, the messenger boy, reported that he thought that the magician had been staying at Likhodeyev’s apartment. Naturally they went there right away. And no magician was to be found. Nor was Likhodeyev. Grunya the maid wasn’t there either, and no one knew where she had gone. Missing too was the chairman of the house committee, Nikanor Ivanovich, and Prolezhnyov!

Something utterly unimaginable had occurred: the entire administrative staff of the theater had disappeared. A strange and scandalous performance had taken place yesterday, but who had staged it and at whose instigation was not known.

And meanwhile, it was getting on toward noon, the time when the box office was supposed to open. Under the circumstances, however, that was out of the question! A huge piece of cardboard was hung on the doors of the theater, saying, “Today’s performance cancelled.” There was a commotion, starting at the head of the line, but once it was over, the line nevertheless began to break up, and in an hour there was no trace of it left on Sadovaya Street. The team of investigators left to continue their work elsewhere, the theater staff was dismissed, except for the watchmen, and the doors of the Variety were locked.

The bookkeeper Vasily Stepanovich still had two things to do right away: first, go to the Entertainment Commission to report on yesterday’s events, and second, visit the commission’s finance office to turn over the proceeds from yesterday’s performance—21,711 rubles.

The meticulous and efficient Vasily Stepanovich wrapped the money in a newspaper, tied it with twine, put it in his briefcase, and, knowing the procedure well, set off for the taxi stand, rather than the bus or trolley stop.

As soon as the drivers of three separate cabs spotted the prospective passenger heading toward them with a bulging briefcase, they all took off from under his nose, looking back at him, for some reason, with loathing.

Dumbfounded, the bookkeeper stood stock-still for some time, trying to figure out what it all meant.

A few minutes passed and an empty cab pulled up, but as soon as the driver took a look at the passenger, he made a face.

“Are you free?” asked Vasily Stepanovich, coughing with surprise.

“Show me your money,” the cabbie replied angrily, without looking at him.

Becoming more and more dumbfounded, the bookkeeper pressed the precious briefcase under his arm, removed a ten-ruble bill from his wallet, and showed it to the driver.

“I won’t take you,” was his curt reply.

“I beg your pardon …” began the bookkeeper, but the cabbie interrupted him, “Do you have any threes?”

The completely baffled bookkeeper took two threes out of his wallet and showed them to the driver.

“Get in,” he shouted, banging the meter so hard that he almost broke it. And off they went.

“Are you short on change?” the bookkeeper asked timidly.

“I’ve got loads of change!” roared the driver, his eyes, bloodshot with rage, blazing in the rearview mirror. “This is the third time today. And others are having the same problem. Some son of a bitch gives me a ten-ruble bill, I give him change—four-fifty … He’s gone, the bastard! Five minutes later I look and what have I got: a label from a bottle of mineral water instead of a ten-ruble bill!” Here the cabbie let loose some unprintable words. “The next guy I pick up beyond Zubovskaya Street. Another ten. I give him three rubles change. He walks off! I rummage in the change purse, and out flies a bee and stings me on the finger! The bastard!” the cabbie again let go a stream of unprintable words. “But the ten is gone. Yesterday at the Variety (unprintable words) some sort of slimy magician did an act with ten-ruble bills (unprintable words) …” The bookkeeper was stunned. He shrunk back in his seat and acted as if he were hearing the word “Variety” for the first time, but meanwhile he thought, “Boy, oh boy!” Having reached his destination, the bookkeeper paid the driver without any problem. He entered the building, and as he headed down the corridor to the director’s office, he saw that he had come too late. The office of the Entertainment Commission was in chaos. A messenger girl ran past the bookkeeper with her eyes bulging and her kerchief askew.

“He’s not there, not there, not there, my dears!” she was screaming, to no one knows whom. “His jacket and trousers are there, but there’s nothing in the jacket!” She disappeared behind a door and immediately afterward, sounds of breaking dishes were heard. The head of the first section, whom the bookkeeper knew, ran out of the secretaries’ room, but he was in such a state that he didn’t recognize the bookkeeper and disappeared somewhere without a trace.

Shaken by all this, the bookkeeper reached the secretaries’ room, which served as an anteroom to the chairman’s office, and here he was utterly thunderstruck.

A menacing voice could be heard coming through the closed door of the office, a voice that unmistakably belonged to Prokhor Petrovich, the chairman of the commission. “Who is he raking over the coals now, I wonder?” thought the flustered bookkeeper, and as he looked around, he saw something else that was unnerving: there in a leather armchair, sobbing uncontrollably and clutching a wet handkerchief, her head thrown back and her legs stretched out into the middle of the room was Prokhor Petrovich’s personal secretary, the beautiful Anna Richardovna.

She had lipstick all over her chin, and black streams of mascara ran down her eyelashes, and over her peachlike cheeks.

When she saw who had come in, Anna Richardovna jumped up and threw herself at the bookkeeper. Grabbing his lapels, she shook him and screamed, “Thank God! At least there’s one brave soul! They all ran off, they all betrayed him! Come with me and see him, I don’t know what to do!” And still sobbing, she dragged the bookkeeper into the office.

Once there, the first thing the bookkeeper did was drop his briefcase. Everything in his head went topsy-turvy. And, it must be said, with good reason.

Behind the huge desk with its massive inkwell sat an empty suit, moving a pen with no ink in it over a sheet of paper. The suit was wearing a tie, and had a fountain pen sticking out of its breastpocket, but there was no neck and no head above the collar, nor were there any wrists poking out of the sleeves. The suit was hard at work and completely oblivious to the confusion raging all around. Hearing someone come in, the suit leaned back in its chair, and from above its collar came the voice of Prokhor Petrovich, so familiar to the bookkeeper, “What is it? The sign on the door says that I’m not seeing anyone!” The beautiful secretary let out a shriek, wrung her hands, and screamed, “See? Do you see?! He isn’t there! He’s not! Bring him back, bring him back!” Just then someone poked his head in the door, groaned, and then left. The bookkeeper felt his legs start to tremble and sat down on the edge of a chair, but he didn’t forget to pick up his briefcase. Anna Richardovna kept jumping around him, grabbing at his suit, and yelling, “I always tried to stop him when he used devil oaths! And now he’s bedeviled himself!” At this point she ran over to the desk and in a soft musical voice that was slightly nasal-sounding from so much crying she exclaimed, “Prosha! Where are you?” “Who are you calling ‘Prosha?’” the suit asked haughtily, sinking deeper in the chair.

“He doesn’t recognize me! He doesn’t! Don’t you see?” sobbed the secretary.

“Please don’t sob in the office!” said the irascible striped suit, already angry, extending its sleeve for a fresh stack of papers, obviously intending to attach memos to them.

“No, I can’t look at this, no, I can’t!” cried Anna Richardovna and ran out into the anteroom, followed like a shot by the bookkeeper.

“Just imagine, I was sitting here,” began Anna Richardovna, trembling with agitation, and once again grabbing the bookkeeper by his sleeve, “and in walks a cat. Black, big as a hippopotamus. I, naturally, screamed ‘Scat!’ He takes off, and a fat man with a kind of catlike mug comes in instead. He says to me, ‘Are you the one who screams “Scat” to visitors?’ And he goes right in to Prokhor Petrovich. Naturally, I follow him and yell, ‘Have you gone crazy?’ But the brazen fellow goes right up to Prokhor Petrovich and sits down in the chair opposite! Well, Prokhor Petrovich, he’s the nicest man you’ll ever meet, but he’s high-strung. He just blew up. I don’t deny it. He’s irritable, works like a horse—and he blew up. ‘How dare you,’ he says, ‘burst in unannounced?’ And, just imagine, that smart aleck sank back in his chair and said, smiling, ‘But I’ve come,’ he says, ‘on a little matter of business.’ Prokhor Petrovich blew up again, ‘I’m busy!’ And the other one, can you believe it, says back, ‘You’re not busy with anything at all …’ How do you like that? Well, naturally, at that point Prokhor Petrovich’s patience ran out, and he shouted, ‘What the hell is this? Get him out of here, the devil take me!’ And then, just imagine, the other one flashes a grin and says, ‘You want the devil to take you? Than can be arranged!’ And, bang, before I can let out a scream, I see that the guy with the catlike mug is gone, and sit … sitting there is the suit … Oooh!” howled Anna Richardovna, her mouth stretched so wide that it lost its shape.

She choked back her sobs and took a deep breath, but then she said something completely nonsensical, “And it writes, writes, writes! Drives you crazy! Talks on the phone! A suit! Everyone’s run off like scared rabbits!” The bookkeeper merely stood there, shaking. But at that point fate came to his rescue. Striding into the anteroom in a calm and businesslike way came the militia, that is, two policemen. When she saw them, the beautiful secretary began sobbing even harder and pointed to the office door.

“Come now, citizeness, let’s not have any crying,” said the first policeman calmly. The bookkeeper, feeling his presence to be completely superfluous, left the anteroom, and a minute later, was out in the fresh air. There seemed to be a draft blowing inside his head, like wind ringing in a pipe, and in this ringing he could hear bits and pieces of the ushers’ tales about the cat that took part in yesterday’s performance.

“Aha! Could our cat-friend be making a return appearance?”

Having made no progress at all at the Commission, the conscientious Vasily Stepanovich decided to visit the branch office located on Vagankovsky Lane. To calm himself down a bit, he made the trip on foot.

The Moscow branch office of the Entertainment Commission was located in an old house, peeling from age, set far back in a courtyard, and was famous for the porphyry columns in its vestibule.

On that particular day, however, visitors were less struck by the columns than they were by what was going on beneath them.

Several visitors stood frozen to the spot, staring at the young lady who was sitting and weeping at the table where all the entertainment literature was displayed and sold. At the moment in question she was not engaged in salesmanship of any kind and was instead waving off all sympathetic questions with a flick of her wrist. Meanwhile, from upstairs and downstairs, from every side and every department of the building came the clanging of at least twenty phones.

After crying for a bit, the young lady suddenly shuddered and shouted out hysterically, “Here we go again!” and then broke out in a quavering soprano: A glorious sea, our sacred Baikal …

A messenger who appeared on the staircase threatened someone with his fist and then joined the young woman, singing in a dull, toneless baritone: Glorious the ship, the barrel of salmon! …

The messenger’s voice was joined by others coming from farther away, the chorus swelled, and soon the song echoed from every corner of the branch office. In Room No. 6, the closest by, where the accounting department was, a powerful, slightly hoarse, deep bass rang out above the other voices. Accompanying the choir, was the intensified clanging of the telephones.

Hey, northeast wind … roll out the breakers! …

roared the messenger on the staircase.

Tears streamed down the young woman’s face, she tried to clench her teeth, but her mouth opened of its own accord, and at an octave higher than the messenger, she sang: The fine fellow hasn’t far to go!

The speechless visitors were struck by the fact that although the choristers were scattered throughout different rooms, they sang very harmoniously, as if the whole chorus were standing in one place with its eyes glued to an invisible conductor.

Pedestrians on Vagankovsky Lane stopped by the courtyard gates and marveled at the gaiety that reigned in the branch office.

As soon as the first verse came to an end, the singing stopped abruptly, as if it were again obeying a conductor’s baton. The messenger swore under his breath and ran off somewhere.

Here the front doors opened, and a man appeared in a summer overcoat, a white robe showing below the hem. He was in the company of a policeman.

“Do something, Doctor, I beg you!” The young woman cried hysterically.

The secretary of the branch office ran out onto the staircase, obviously ashamed and embarrassed. He started stammering, “Don’t you see, Doctor, we have a case here of mass hypnosis of some kind … So, it’s essential that …” He didn’t finish his sentence, began to choke on his words, and suddenly sang out in a tenor: Shilka and Nerchinsk …

“Fool,” the young woman managed to yell, but rather than explain whom she was calling a fool, she broke into a forced roulade and started singing about Shilka and Nerchinsk herself.

“Get a hold of yourself! Stop singing!” said the doctor to the secretary.

It was obvious that the secretary would have given anything in the world to be able to stop singing, but he could not. And together with the chorus, his voice rang out with the news, heard by pedestrians out on the street, that in the wilds he was untouched by voracious beasts and unscathed by marksmen’s bullets!

At the end of the verse the young woman was the first to receive a dose of valerian from the doctor, who then ran after the secretary and the others so that he could do the same for them.

“Excuse me, my young citizeness,” said Vasily Stepanovich suddenly, addressing the young woman, “but has a black cat been here by any chance?” “What cat?” she screamed angrily. “It’s an ass we’ve got in this office, a real ass!” and then she added, “Let him hear! I’ll tell the whole story,” and she did, in fact, go on to relate what had happened.

It turned out that the director of the Moscow branch office, “who had made a complete mess of the leisure activities program” (the young woman’s words exactly), had a mania for organizing all kinds of clubs and circles.

“He was trying to butter up his superiors!” yelled the young woman.

In just a year’s time the director had managed to organize a Lermontov study group, a chess-and-checkers club, a ping-pong club, and a horseback-riding club. And he threatened to have two additional clubs in place by summer: one for fresh-water rowing and the other for mountain climbing.

And then today, during the lunch break, the director walks in and …

“And he’s leading some son-of-a-bitch by the hand,” related the young woman, “who comes from nobody knows where, and who’s wearing tight checked trousers and a cracked pince-nez … with an unbelievable mug on him!” And then, according to the young woman, he introduced him to everyone in the cafeteria as a noted specialist in the organization of choral groups.

The faces of the would-be mountain climbers clouded over, but the director encouraged everyone to be enthusiastic, and the specialist cracked jokes and showed off his wit, and gave his solemn word that the singing would take up hardly any time and would, incidentally, be extremely advantageous for everyone.

Well, naturally, as the young woman reported, the first to jump up were Fanov and Kosarchuk, notorious office toadies, who announced that they were going to join the chorus. The rest of the staff then realized that there was no way to escape it; so they said they would join too. It was decided that the singing would take place during the lunch break since the rest of the time was taken up with Lermontov and checkers. The director, in order to set a good example, announced that he was a tenor, and that was the beginning of the nightmare. The choirmaster-specialist in checks intoned, “Do-mi-sol-do!” He dragged the shy ones out of the closets where they were hiding to avoid singing, and told Kosarchuk that he had absolute pitch. Then he started to whine and bare his teeth, asked everyone to humor an old choirmaster, struck a tuning fork, and begged them to strike up a chorus of “Glorious Sea.” They did. And gloriously. The fellow in checks really did know his business. When they had finished the first verse, the choirmaster excused himself and said, “I’ll be back in a minute!”—and … disappeared. They thought he really would return in a minute. But then ten minutes passed, and he still wasn’t back. They were overcome with joy—he’d run away.

And suddenly they started singing the second verse as if of their own accord, following the lead of Kosarchuk, whose pitch may not have been perfect, but who did have quite a pleasant high tenor. They finished the second verse. Still no choirmaster! They went back to their places, but before they could manage to sit down, they started singing against their will. It was beyond their power to stop. They would be quiet for three minutes or so, and then start up again. At this point they realized that something bad had happened. Mortified, the director locked himself in his office.

It was here that the young woman’s story broke off. The valerian had been no help at all.

Fifteen minutes later three trucks drove up to the gates on Vagankovsky Lane and the director of the branch office and the rest of his staff got in.

Just as the first truck came to a pitching halt at the gates, and then pulled out into the lane, the office staff, who were standing in the back, their arms around one another, opened their mouths and filled the street with song. The second truck followed suit, and then the third. And they all drove off. Pedestrians going about their business cast only a fleeting glance at the trucks, manifesting no curiosity whatsoever and assuming that they were going on an excursion outside the city. And they were, in fact, going outside the city, only not on an excursion. They were going to Professor Stravinsky’s clinic.

Half an hour later the bookkeeper arrived at the finance office in a completely befuddled state, with hopes of finally divesting himself of yesterday’s receipts. Having learned from experience, he peered cautiously into the oblong office where the clerks sat behind frosted glass windows with gold lettering. The bookkeeper could see no signs of upset or disarray. Everything was quiet, just as one would expect in a proper establishment.

Vasily Stepanovich stuck his head in the window which had a sign above it saying, “Deposits,” said hello to the clerk, whom he did not know, and politely asked for a deposit slip.

“Why do you need one?” asked the clerk behind the window.

The bookkeeper was perplexed.

“I want to hand over my cash receipts. I’m from the Variety.”

“Just a minute,” replied the clerk and then proceeded to put a screen over the hole in his window.

“That’s odd,” thought the bookkeeper. His perplexity was natural under the circumstances. It was the first time he had ever encountered such a thing. Everyone knows how hard it is to acquire money; obstacles to that can always be found. But not once in his thirty years of experience had the bookkeeper ever found anyone, whether an official or a private citizen, who had difficulty accepting money.

But at last the screen was moved aside, and the bookkeeper again leaned up to the window.

“Do you have a lot?” asked the clerk.

“21,711 rubles.”

“Wow!” replied the clerk with inexplicable irony and handed him a green slip of paper.

Having seen the form a hundred times, the bookkeeper filled it out instantly and began untying his package. When he removed the wrapping, his eyes glazed over, and he let out an agonizing groan.

Foreign currency flashed before his eyes. Packets of Canadian dollars, English pounds, Dutch guilders, Latvian lats, and Estonian crowns … “Here he is, one of those tricksters from the Variety,” boomed an intimidating voice at the stunned bookkeeper’s back. And Vasily Stepanovich was then taken into custody.