Текст книги "Little Golden America"

Автор книги: Евгений Петров

Соавторы: Илья Ильф
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

And so, we were in the centre of the United States, in the centre of the prairies, in Kansas City, on the Missouri River. What could be more American than such a place? Nevertheless, the owner of the lunch-room into which we ran for a minute to warm up on a cup of coffee was a Bessarabian Jew from the city of Bendery. A microscopic Masonic star gleamed on the lapel of his coat. Bendery, Missouri, Bessarabia, Masonry – here was enough to make anyone's head whirl!

From his pocket he drew small brown photographs and showed them to us. These were his relatives who had remained in Bendery—two pro-vincial young men whose delicate curly heads were supported by upstanding collars. At the same time the owner of the restaurant showed us his Masonic card, and told us that he had come to America thirty years ago.

"Yes," he said, "I came to America to better myself, to get rich."

"Where is your fifty thousand dollars, then?" asked Mr. Adams gaily.

"What fifty thousand dollars?" asked the proprietor.

"No, no, sir, don't say 'what'! Yours! Your fifty thousand dollars! You came to America to make money. Where is that money? "

"In the bank!" replied the lunch-room proprietor with dark humour. "There all of it lies, to the last kopeck. But not in my name."

In his figure, buffeted by years and by struggle, in his desperate humour, we seemed to recognize something familiar. Afterward, while racing down the road to Amarillo, Texas, we remembered whom our Bendery Mason resembled.

In 1933 we were in Athens. There is no need to tell how we hastened to look at the Acropolis and other ancient things. It's a long story. But one incident we must tell.

Tantalized by reminiscences of schooldays, we decided to go from Athens to Marathon. We were told how to do it. We had to go to the square from which autobuses depart for Marathon, there buy tickets and ride—that was all. We boldly started on our journey, but somewhere quite close to the square we lost our way. The barber from whom we asked the way stopped shaving his client and came out into the street to explain to us how best to go. The client also came out of the establishment and, not at all embarrassed because he was covered with lather, took an active part in working out the itinerary for us. Little by little, J quite a crowd gathered, in the centre of which we stood, rather embarrassed, shy, and sorry that we had caused this commotion. Finally, to make absolutely sure, we were given a five-year-old boy as a guide.

The Greek for boy is mikro. The mikro led us, beckoning with his finger from time to time and parting his thick Algerian lips good-humouredly.

In the square we saw old autobuses, to the backs of which worn suitcases were tied with ropes. These were the Marathon autobuses. The silliness and dullness of our enterprise was at once clear to us. Without saying a word to each other, we decided not to take the trip. The mikro received five drachmas for his trouble, while we went to a coffee-house across the way from the bus stop, to rest and drink some of the fine Greek coffee.

Four handsome and poorly dressed young idlers played cards on a woollen carpet which covered a marble table. Behind the counter was the proprietor, a man obviously down at the heel. He wore a vest but no collar. He was shaved, but his hair was not combed. In a word, here was a man who no longer cared for anything at all and merely continued to drag out his existence. If customers come in, very well. If not, it is also of no consequence. Anyway, he did not expect anything unusual to happen in his life. He accepted our order with indifference, and went behind the stand to make the coffee.

And then we saw on the wall a photographic portrait of the proprietor in his youth: a round, energetic head, a conquering look, moustaches pointing to the very sky, a marble collar, an eternal necktie, the strength and brilliance of youth. Oh, how many years were needed, how many failures in life, to drag down this moustached Athenian to the pathetic creature we had found! It was simply frightful to compare the portrait with its original! There was no need for any explanation. The entire life of this Greek who had failed stood before us.

This is what our lunch-room host had reminded us of—this Bessarabian Jew and Mason of Kansas City.

20 A Marine

IN AN Oklahoma newspaper we saw the photograph of a girl lying in a white hospital bed, and the inscription: "She smiles even on her couch of suffering. "There was no time to try to divine the reason for the girl's smiling on her couch of suffering, and the newspaper was put Bide. Mr. Adams, however, happened to read the notice under the photograph while he was taking his coffee. He wrinkled his face, and stared with displeasure into the gas fireplace in the lunch-room. We were hastily filling up on eggs and bacon before departing from Oklahoma.

In many places of the Middle West there are natural gas openings. This gas is brought in through special piping into the city and costs comparatively little. Mr. Adams looked at the pink and blue streams of flame which played in the nickel-plated fireplace and wheezed angrily.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I am myself a great optimist, yet at times I am in the throes of despair because of American optimism."

And he repeated with disgust:

"She smiles even on her couch of suffering!"

We had to hurry; hence, conversation on this theme, which so dis-turbed Mr. Adams, did not catch on. Along the way he seemed to have forgotten about it, carried away by the amazing view before us. We were driving through a bright aluminium oil forest.

Yesterday, racing toward Oklahoma through a steppe overgrown only with unattractive dusty bouquets, we had seen our first oil derricks. The extensive fields were tightly packed with iron masts and cages. Thick woden shafts rocked up and down, emitting a slight creaking noise. No people were in sight. Here, in the quiet of the steppe, in profound silence, oil was being pumped. We drove a long time. The forest of derricks became thicker. The rocking shafts creaked and only occasionally one saw the figure of a workman in overalls (working clothes made out of bright blue denim). He plodded from one derrick to another.

The forest of derricks was bright, because they were all covered with aluminium paint. It was the colour of Christmas-tree tinsel. It lends to technical America an extraordinarily attractive appearance. Oil tanks, automobile tanks for milk or petrol, railroad bridges, lamp-posts in cities, and even wooden posts along the roads are covered with this aluminium paint.

In Oklahoma, too, we were greeted by derricks and by the measured rocking of their shafts. Oil was discovered in the capital itself. The derricks came closer and closer to Oklahoma City and finally, breaking down weak resistance, invaded its streets. The city was pillaged and plundered. In private yards, on sidewalks, on streets, opposite school buildings, opposite banks and hotels—everywhere oil was being pumped. Everybody who believed in God pumped. Oil tanks stood beside large ten-story buildings. The bacon and eggs reeked of oil. On a vacant lot that somehow managed to survive children were playing with pieces of iron and with rusty wrenches. Houses were demolished, their places taken by derricks and rockshafts. And where yesterday somebody's grandmother sat at a round table knitting a woollen scarf, today a rock-shaft creaked and a new master in a businesslike suede vest was joyfully counting the gallons he had extracted.

Everywhere we saw the screed-in masts and heard the optimistic creaking.

Besides oil derricks Oklahoma City astonished us with its multitude of funeral parlours. While looking for night's lodging, we usually drove in the direction of the residential part on our quest for rooms. Without looking around we drove up to a little house on which was a lighted sign, and to our horror we discovered that it was a funeral parlour. On

three other occasions we blindly drove to attractively lighted buildings and each time jumped back: they were all funeral parlours. We did not find a single tourist sign; no one was renting lodgings to travellers. Here was offered only eternal rest, eternal quietude. Evidently the inhabitants of Oklahoma City had so successfully filled up on oil that they had no

need of such trivial income as may be derived from the rental of rooms.

We were finally obliged to fill our hearts with pride and take rooms in a hotel. The second-rate hotel we selected after much captious choosing bore the resplendent name "Cadillac." But surely it must have been erected before the oil boom, for from the hot-water tap cold water poured, while from the cold-water tap nothing poured. Mr. Adams was genuinely worried. Instead of the talkative landlady of a little house who knew all the city news, he was confronted by a porter about fifty

years old who countered all eager queries with the composed indifference of "Yes, sir" or "No, sir." Moreover, he smoked such a vile cigar that after he left us Mr. Adams coughed and blew his nose intermittently, like a drowning man recently pulled up on shore but still on the verge of collapsing. An hour later Mr. Adams came to the door of our room and

knocked hopefully. Since it was quite impossible to open our eyelids, we did not reply. Mr. Adams again rapped gently on the door. There was no answer.

"Gentlemen," he said in a voice that could have broken any heart,

"are you asleep?"

But we were frantic for sleep. We did not answer. Mr. Adams waited another minute at our door. He wanted so very much to talk, yet he had to go back to his room with an unburdened soul. The damned Oklahomans has spoiled his evening for him.

In the morning Mr. Adams was full of strength and gay, as usual The concrete road went up in sweeping undulations and could be seen for several miles ahead. At the edge of the road, the thumb of his right hand up, stood a young marine, his coat unbuttoned. Beside him stood exactly the same type of soldier. The thumb of his right hand was also up. The machine travelling ahead of us passed these young men without stopping. It was apparently full. We stopped.

Thumb up means in America a request for a ride. A man who goes out on the road is certain that someone will give him a lift. If not the first machine, the fifth, the seventh, the tenth, but someone is sure to take him. Thus one may effect quite a journey—travel a hundred miles with one, another hundred with another, or maybe five hundred with the third.

We could not take two men, because there were four of us in the machine. The young men made an appointment to meet at the post office of the city of Amarillo, and one of them, stooping down, entered our automobile. He neatly placed his little suitcase at his feet, took out a cigarette and asked permission to smoke. Mr. Adams immediately turned his body around as far as possible and began to overwhelm our fellow-traveller with questions. Oh, Mr. Adams took a terrible revenge for the Oklahoma devastation! He laid the young marine out before our eyes like a laboratory specimen.

He was a mere boy, with a handsome, somewhat over-confident, even soomewhat impudent face. Nevertheless, he was a rather likeable youngster. He answered all questions willingly.

There was no use worrying about his comrade. He would catch up With him in some other machine. They had done that before. They were making a long "trip," a journey. They had been given transfers in their services from New York to San Francisco. They had asked for this transfer. But they were told that they would have to make their own way. They took a month's leave and had already been on the road three weeks, moving from one automobile to another. They had expected to upend three hours in Chicago but they spent nine days there.

"We met some nice girls."

At Des Moines they had also got stuck. They were given a lift by a lady who appeared to be quite proud. Then they took out a bottle of whisky and had a drink. The lady took a drink with them, and all her fade disappeared. Then she treated them to beer; then they drove to her sister's house, whose husband was away. There they had a good time for four days until the husband returned. Then they had to run away.

The uniform cap sat jauntily on the marine's handsome head. The large buttons of his uniform shone as per regulations. On the collar gleamed the brass globe with crossed anchors. The marine was not at all given to boasting. Americans are very rarely braggarts. We asked him in to tell about himself and he simply told us.

We heard a friendly roar behind us and we were overtaken by a black Buick that flashed by. Beside the driver of that car sat our fellow-traveller's comrade. They exchanged gay, incoherent yells. Our conversation continued.

The marine told us about his sojourn in France. There also he had an interesting experience. Once when their ship came to Havre, seven of them were given leave for a trip to Paris. Well, they looked over the city, then found themselves on Grand Boulevard and decided to dine. They went into a restaurant and began modestly by ordering ham and eggs. Then they got started, drank champagne, and so forth. They had, of course, no money to pay for it. How could a marine buy champagne? The garcon called the maitre d'hotel, so they told the latter:

"You know what? Deduct the price of our dinner from the war debt, the debt France still owes to America."

So there was an enormous scandal. The newspapers even took it up. But their commanding officer didn't punish them for it, and only reprimanded them.

What did he think of war?

"War? You know yourself. Not long ago we fought in Nicaragua. Don't I know that we fought not in the interests of the United States but in the interests of United Fruit, the banana company? That's just what we call this war in the fleet, the banana war. But when I'll be told to go to war, I'll go. I am a soldier, so I must submit to discipline."

His wages were twenty-five dollars a month. He expected to get better advancement in San Francisco than in New York, and that is why he had asked for a transfer. In New York he had a wife and child. He gives his wife ten dollars a month. In addition, the wife has a job. Of course, he should not have got married. He was only twenty-one years old. But since it had already happened, what could you do about it?

In Amarillo the marine left us. He gratefully saluted us for the last time, sent us his winning smile and went to the post office. He was so refreshingly young that even his misbehaviour did not seem offensive to us.

We spent the night in the plywood cabins of Amarillo Camp. We put out the stove and the gas ovens and fell asleep. The camp stood at the very edge of the road. Automobiles passed like the noise of the wind. The demonized travelling salesmen whizzed by and huge motor truck;; rattled by heavily. The light of their headlights was constantly passing over the walls of our cabin.

Amarillo is a new and clean city. It grew up on wheat. And although it is not yet fifty years old, it is already a real American city. Here is a complete set of city accessories—lamp-posts covered with aluminium, dwelling-houses of polished lilac brick, a huge ten-story hotel, and several drug-stores. As the saying goes, everything the heart desires; or, rather, everything for the body. For the soul, there is exactly nothing here.

In the drug-store we saw many girls. They were having their breakfast before going to work. If at eight o'clock in the morning, or at half-past eight, a neatly dressed girl with plucked eyebrows, rouged as girls rouge only in the United States (that is, heavily and coarsely), with manicured finger-nails—briefly, ready for parade—is having her breakfast, then you know that she is about to go off to work. A girl like that dresses in accordance with her taste and means, but always neatly. Otherwise, she may not hold her job, may not work. And these girls are excellent workers. Every last one of them knows stenography, knows how to operate a comptometer, knows how to conduct correspondence and how to type. Without this knowledge she cannot secure employment. However, these days it is hard to get a job even with all this knowledge.

The majority of such girls live with their parents. Their earnings go to help their parents pay for the little house or for the refrigerator bought on the instalment plan. The future of the girl is that she, loo, will some day marry. Then she herself will buy a house on instalment, and her husband will work for ten years without interruption in order to pay the three, five, or seven thousand dollars, whichever happens to be the price of the little house. And throughout the ten years the happy husband and wife will quake with fear lest they lose their jobs and have not the wherewithal for paying on the house. For then the house will be taken away. Oh, what a fearful life these millions of American people lead in the struggle for their tiny electrical happiness!

The girls wore short deerskin or muskrat jackets. They smiled as they poke off the toasted bread with their heavenly little fingers. Kind, hard-working girls, fooled by insane American happiness!

On one of the drug-store counters we saw a case of German drawing instruments.

"Mr. Adams, is it possible that America does not make its own drawing instruments?"

"Of course not!" Mr. Adams replied with ardour. " We cannot make drawing instruments. Gentlemen, don't laugh! Not that we do not want to; no, we cannot. America with all of its grandiose technique does not know how to manufacture drawing instruments. The same America which makes millions of automobiles a year! And do you know wherein the trouble lies? If the drawing instruments were needed by the entire population, we would organize mass production and would produce tens of millions of drawing instruments at an amazingly low price. But the population of the United States does not need tens of millions of drawing instruments. It needs only tens of thousands. That means that it is impossible to establish mass production, and drawing instruments would have to be made by hand. And everything which in America is made not by machinery, but by the hand of man, costs incredibly much. So our drawing instruments would cost ten times more than the German ones. Mr. Ilf and Mr. Petrov, write this down in your little books, that this great America finds itself at times helpless before pathetic old Europe. That is very, very important to know!"

21 Rogers and His Wife

A MIDDLING wide promontory of the northern part of Texas separates the states of Oklahoma and New Mexico. On the way from Amarillo, which is in Texas, to Santa Fe we occasionally met some of the colourful local people.

Two cowboys were driving a herd of small steppe cows, shaggy, like dogs. Large felt hats protected the cowboys from the hot sun of the desert. Large spurs adorned their boots, which had elegant ladies' heels ornamented with figures. The cowboys hooted, their horses cavorted at full gallop. It all seemed a little more elaborate and ostentatious than it should have been for the modest purposes of directing a herd of cows. But there it was! You may be sure that here they know how to graze cows! It was not for us city folk to give them advice!

In an old glass-enclosed Ford rode other cowboys. These healthy fellows were crowded in the little machine, and they sat quite immobile, occasionally touching each other with the rigid edges of their incredible hats. Catching up with them, we saw through the window their rustic profiles and their manly sideburns. Five cowboys, five hats, and five pairs of sideburns—that was quite a load for the thin-legged Ford of the year 1917. But Old Henry, creaking with might and main, moved ahead little by little.

Trucks with high sides were transporting horses and mules. It is, after all, an amazing country—this America! Here even horses ride in automobiles. Surely, it is not possible to think up a greater degradation for that animal! Over the high enclosures there mournfully emerged the long ears of mules and occasionally the noble muzzle of a horse, the inexpressible boredom of travel reflected in its eyes.

We had scarcely left Amarillo when we saw a new hitchhiker with thumb up. In America hitchhikers are people who ask for a ride. Our marine of yesterday belonged to that category. We stopped. The hitchhiker dropped his hand. He was in overalls that revealed the open collars of two shirts. Over his overalls he wore a light-coloured and clean corduroy coat. He told us that he was bound for the city of Phoenix in the state of Arizona. We were not driving in that direction, but we were driving as far as Santa Fe, which was on the hitchhiker's way, so we asked him to get into the machine.

Mr. Adams lost no time in beginning his interrogation.

Our fellow traveller was called Rogers. He placed his black hat on his knees, and gladly began to tell us about himself. Another good trait of the Americans—they are sociable.

One of Rogers's friends had written to him that he had found work for him in Phoenix, packing fruit at eighteen dollars a week. So he had to travel seven hundred miles and, of course, he did not have the money for such a long journey. He had not slept all night, having travelled in a freight car, where it was very cold. He met several tramps in the car. Rogers's conscience hurt him to travel without paying his fare, and so at each station he got off to help the conductors load the baggage. But the tramps slept, regardless of the cold, and their consciences did not bother them at all. Rogers was travelling from Oklahoma City. There his wife was in a hospital.

He pulled out of his pocket a newspaper clipping, and we recognized the photograph of the young woman lying in a white hospital bed and the inscription:

"She smiles even on her couch of suffering."

Mr. Adams waved his hands excitedly.

"Why, sir!" he cried. "I read about your wife in a newspaper!"

For several hours on end Rogers talked, telling us the story of his life. He spoke unhurriedly, without getting excited, without appealing to pity or to compassion. He was asked to tell about himself, so he talked.

He was originally from Texas. His father and stepfather were carpenters. He graduated from high school but did not have the means to pursue his education further. He worked in a small village cannery, where he became foreman. Work in such a factory lasts only about three months of the year. Those seasonal workers are hired who usually move with their families over the country. At first they work in the South, then gradually they go up North, where harvesting begins later. These are very real nomads. It makes no difference that they are white and that they live in America. They are settled people whom contemporary technique forced to assume a nomad form of life. Men were paid twenty cents an hour and women seventeen cents. They received their indispensable merchandise from the factory store, and the cost of it was later deducted from their salary. They also had special relations with the farmers. To farmers, the boss of such a factory gives seeds ahead of time on credit and buys their crops of vegetables on the root before harvest. And not even on the root, but rather before that. The crop is bought before anything has been planted. It does not pay the farmers to deal that way, but the boss selects springtime for the consummation of deals, when the farmers are especially badly off. In a word, the boss of such a factory knows how to make money.

Concerning the making of money, Rogers expressed himself not with indignation but with approval.

As it happens, his boss has no easy life. He is tormented by the local banks. His future is uncertain. Undoubtedly the banks will swallow him up. That is how everything ends in America.

So, he was a foreman for a small manufacturer, and married the latter's daughter. It was a very happy marriage. The young married folks did everything together–went to the motion-picture theatre, to see their friends, even danced only with each other. She was a teacher, a good and a bright girl. She did not want any children, because she feared that they might take her away from her husband. Their affairs were shipshape. During four years of living together they saved two thousand dollars. They had eighteen pedigreed cows and their own automobile. Everythiing went so well they could not wish for anything better. And then in February of 1934 a mishap occurred. His wife fell off a ladder and her spine was broken in a very complicated way. Operations began, treatments, and in the course of a year and a half everything that they owned went to the doctors. When you come right down to it, it looked more like a bandit raid than humane medical help. The doctors took everything, including their savings as well as the money obtained from the sale of the eighteen pedigreed cows and the automobile. The couple was left penniless. The first hospital charged at the rate of twenty-five dollars a week and the Oklahoma City hospital had to be paid now at the rate of fifty dollars. His wife must have a metal corset; that will cost another hundred and twenty dollars.

Speaking of the doctors, Rogers did not in the least complain about them. No, he spoke of them very calmly.

"It can't be helped. Tough luck!"

When some misfortune strikes an American he seldom tries to fathom the roots of the trouble that overwhelmed him. That is not in the American character. When things go well with him he will not say that anyone had been his benefactor. He himself earned the money with his own hands. When things go badly, however, he will not blame anyone either. He will say just as Rogers told us: " Tough luck!" or " Didn't turn out right with me. That means I didn't know how to do it." The doctors robbed Rogers. Yet, instead of contemplating whether that was just or unjust, he comforted himself with the thought that it was bad luck and with the hope that a year from now he would have good luck. At times, even a note left by a man who has committed suicide contains only the one primitive thought: "I had bad luck in life."

Rogers did not complain. Yet, within one year he had lost everything. His wife had become a cripple for life, his possessions and savings had been raided by medical robbers. He himself was standing at the side of the road begging strangers for a ride. The only thing he still had left was the uplifted thumb of his right hand.

In Phoenix he expected to receive eighteen dollars a week. He planned to live on six or seven dollars. The balance he proposed to spend on his wife's treatments. The poor woman still wants to work. She was thinking of teaching Latin at home. But who in Oklahoma City will] want to take Latin lessons at home? It was unlikely.

Smiling gloomily, Rogers again showed us the newspaper clipping. Under the photograph was the optimistic inscription:

"She knows that she is paralysed for life, yet she looks at the future with a smile. ' But my husband is with me,' said the poor woman when interviewed by our correspondent."

Mr. Adams suddenly seized Rogers's hand and shook it. "Good boy!" he muttered, and turned away. "Good boy!" Rogers put away the clipping and became silent. He seemed to be about twenty-eight years old, a self-possessed young man with a handsome, manly face and black eyes. His slight aquiline nose made him look a little Indian. Rogers soon explained to us that he was actually one-quarter Indian.

The devil take those Texans! They know how to herd cows and how to endure the blows of fate. Was it perchance the admixture of Indian blood that made our fellow traveller so stoically calm! A Frenchman or an Italian in his place would probably have fallen into religious madness, would have probably cursed God, while the American was calm. He was asked to tell about himself, so he told us.

And so we talked with him for several hours. We asked him a hundred questions, and we found out from him everything that one could possibly

find out. We naturally expected that he might want to find out something from us, too. That was the more to be expected since we talked among ourselves in Russian, a language which he had hardly heard in Texas. Would not the sound of this speech which he had never heard before arouse his interest in his interlocutors ? But he did not ask us anything, was not interested to know who we were, where we were going, what language we were speaking.

Surprised by such lack of curiosity, we asked him whether he knew anything about the Soviet Union, whether he had ever heard of it."Yes," said Rogers, "I heard about the Russians, but I don't know any-thing about them. Now, my wife reads newspapers, so she must know."

We understood then that he failed to question us not because he was unusually considerate. On the contrary, he was simply not interested, just as he was undoubtedly not interested in Mexico, which lay near by, or even in New York.

We stopped for lunch not far from Santa Rosa in a hamlet near a railway station baked by the sun. The proprietor of the establishment where we ate cheese sandwiches and canned ham sandwiches was a Mexican with a large bony nose. The sandwiches were made by him, by his wife, who did not know a word of English, and by his son, a thin boy with crooked cavalry legs and in a cowboy belt decorated with brass. The Mexican family was preparing sandwiches with much shouting and noise, as if they were dividing an estate. The sensible calm American service disappeared as if it had never existed. Besides, the charges for the sandwiches were twice their usual price. On the main street of the hamlet was a store of Indian goods. In its show window were handmade blankets, ornamented pots, and Indian gods with tremendous cylindrical noses. All this railroad wealth was illuminated by a hot November sun. This was not, however, the real heat of summer but a weakened, quite like a canned, kind of heat.