Текст книги "Little Golden America"

Автор книги: Евгений Петров

Соавторы: Илья Ильф
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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

The inscription on a wooden sign announced that it is necessary to secure the permission of the governor of the tribe before investigating the village. The governor's small hut was near by. The air resounding with our cheerful good-evenings and our hats rising in greeting, we went in to see the governor, and stopped in astonishment. Before the hearth, where two logs burned brightly, squatted an old Indian. The reflection of the flame glided over the smooth red skin of his face. Sitting thus, with his eyes shut, he looked like a hawk dropping off to sleep in a zoological garden, occasionally raising his eyelids in order to regard the people around his cage with detestation and boredom or in order to lunge with his beak at the little sign with the Latin inscription which testified that he was actually a hawk, the ruler of mountain-tops and of mountain ranges.

Before us sat one of those who at one time smoked the pipe of peace or "went out on the warpath," a bloodthirsty and honourable Indian. As a matter of fact, neither Captain Mayne Reid nor Gustav Emarre had deceived us. In our childhood we had imagined Indians to be just like that. He did not respond to our greeting, his face remaining to the fire. When we said that we wanted to look over the village, he scarcely nodded his head in indifference, without uttering a word. A young Indian approached us and said that the governor was very old and weak and that he was dying.

When we came out of the house of the chief, boys had already surrounded our automobile. These were Indian children, dark-eyed, with straight black hair, small aquiline noses, and skin the colour of a copper coin. They regarded us from a safe distance, but there was no fear in their scrutiny. They behaved like young lions. One cub, by the way, ended up by coming closer to us and demanding proudly that we give him five cents. When we refused, he did not deign to beg, but turned away contemptuously.

Around us stood remarkable houses. Nearly a thousand people live in the village, and all of them have managed to lodge in two or three houses. These are huge clay buildings of several stories, made up of individual rooms adjoining each other. The houses rise in terraces, and each floor has a flat roof. The stories communicate with each other by means of attached wooden ladders, ordinary, easily slapped together ladders of the kind used by janitors and house painters. Previously, when the Pueblos were independent, the entire tribe lived in one colossal clay house. When the stepladders were taken into the house, the house became a fortress, with only its bare walls on the outside. Thus they live even today, although conditions are radically different now.

There was an odour of smoke, and manure in the square. Lively rust-coloured shoats ran underfoot. Several Indians stood on the roofs of a house. They were wrapped from head to foot in their blankets and looked at us silently. Kindly Indian dogs ran up and down the step-ladders with the dexterity of boatswains. It was quickly turning dark.

A grey Indian with an imperious face approached us. He was the village policeman. He was wrapped up to his head in a baize blanket which was white with blue. In spite of his high calling, his duties were quite peaceable and not at all onerous. He told us that his business was to chase the children to school every morning. He invited us to come in and see him tomorrow morning at this school, and he would show us the village. It was too late now and people were already going to bed. This conversation was carried on while we were standing beside a stream that meandered between the houses. A wide log thrown across the stream served as a bridge. Nothing here was reminiscent of the year 1935, and our automobile, outlined dimly in the darkness, seemed a Wellsian time machine that had just arrived. We returned to Taos.

In five minutes we passed through the several centuries that separate the village from Taos. In the town were well-lighted stores, automobiles standing at kerbs, genuine American popcorn was being roasted in a little store, orange juice was being served in the drug-store, everything went on its way as if there never had been any Indians in the world.

We drove into the quadrangular square. Its principal ornament was a combination of antiquary and restaurant establishment entitled "Don Fernando." For a town which was far from the railroad and had only two thousand inhabitants, the little restaurant was very good. We were served by small, silent Indian women, who were supervised by a man nth the sad face of a Vilna Jew. He came and took our order. He was Don Fernando himself. Our guess proved only half right. Don Fernando was actually a Jew. But he was not a Vilna Jew. He was a Swiss Jew. He told us that himself. As to the circumstances under which he acquired the title of don, he kept quiet; but it may be supposed that if commercial interests demanded it, he would not have hesitated to call himself even a grandee.

He told us that out of the two thousand population of Taos nearly two hundred are people devoted to art. They paint pictures, compose verses, create symphonies and sculptures, chisel or carve one thing or another. They have been drawn here by the environment. The wildness of nature, the juncture point of three cultures—Indian, Mexican, and pioneer American–as well as by the low cost of living.

Not far from us sat a little lady in a black suit who kept constantly looking at us. The more she stared at us, the more excited she became. When we were in the curio section of the restaurant and were examining there the Indian dolls made of suede and the brightly coloured gods with green and red noses, Don Fernando again approached us. He said that a Mrs. Feshina, a Russian lady who had been living in Taos for a long time, would like to speak with us. It was very interesting, indeed, to meet a Russian living in Indian territory. A minute later the lady who had been sitting in the restaurant came over, smiling nervously.

"You will excuse me," she said in Russian, "but when I heard your conversation I could not restrain myself. You are Russians, aren't you? "

We confirmed it.

"Have you been long in America?" continued Mrs. Feshina. "Two months."

"Where did you come from, then?" "From Moscow." "Directly from Moscow?"

She was astounded.

"You know, this is simply a miracle! I have been living here so many years among these Americans, and suddenly—Russians!"

We saw that she wanted very much to talk, that this was really a great event for her, and so we asked her to call on us at our camp. A few minutes later she drove up alone in her little old automobile. She sat with us a long time, talking without end.

She had left Kazan in 1923. Her husband was the painter Feshin who was quite well known in Russia in his day. He was friendly with Americans from the American Relief Administration, who had been on the Volga, and they arranged for him to be invited to America. He decided to remain here for ever, not to return to the Soviet Union. This was determined in the main by his business success. His pictures sold and he accumulated a lot of money. Being a genuine Russian, Feshin could not live in a large American city, and therefore moved here to Taos. They built themselves a house, a remarkable house. It took them three summers to build, and it cost them about twenty thousand dollars. They built and built, and when the house was finished they parted. They decided that it had been wrong for them to have lived together at all, that they were not at all suited to each other. Feshin left Taos and went to Mexico City. Their daughter is now studying in a Hollywood ballet school. Mrs. Feshina remained alone in Taos. She has no money, she has not even enough to heat her splendid house in the winter. That is why for the winter she rented a little house for three dollars a month in the village of Rio Chiquito, where there are only Mexicans who do not even know English but who are very good people. There is no electricity in Rio Chiquito. She is obliged to earn her own living. She decided to write for the cinema, but so far she has not earned anything. It is a pity to sell the house. It cost twenty thousand, but now during the depression it could not bring more than five thousand.

Our guest spoke eagerly, wanted to have her fill in talking, constantly applied her hands to her nervous face and kept repeating:

"It is strange to speak Russian in Taos, with new people. Tell me, do I make mistakes in Russian?"

She spoke very well, but occasionally she hesitated, trying to remember the necessary word. We said to her:

"Listen, why do you stay here? Why don't you ask for permission to return to the Soviet Union?"

"I would go with pleasure, but where shall I go? They are all new people there. I don'know anybody. It's too late for me to begin a new life."

She made us promise to come and see how she lived at Rio Chiquito, explained to us how to drive there, and disappeared in her lumbering old car.

A strange fate! Where was this Russian woman living? In Rio Chiquito, in the state of New Mexico, in the United States of America, among Indians, Mexicans and Americans.

In the morning we at once departed for the school in the Pueblo village to look for our policeman. There was a fog in Pueblo. In it were dimly outlined grey trees, distant and near-by hills, melancholy Indians in blankets standing as ever on the roofs and looking like the shut-in. inmates of a harem. Dogs ran over their houses, without touching us, ran quickly up the ladders and disappeared in doorways.

The school was large and excellently managed, like all schools in the States. We saw large splendid class-rooms, hardwood floors, shining porcelain washbasins, nickel-plated taps.

The policeman could, not go with us. His duties detained him at the school. Right now he was preoccupied with settling a conflict. One Indian boy had struck another Indian boy on the head. The policeman was calmly reprimanding the guilty one. Around him stood the boys, silent and important, like chieftains at a large conclave. The usual childish hubbub was not there. Everyone listened solemnly to the policeman, lifting now and then their handsome eagle-beak noses or scratching their straight, gleaming black hair. But as soon as the policeman, shuffling away in his slippers, went off, the boys began to jump and run like all the little mischiefs in the world.

The director of the school, a historian by specialty, abandoned the cultured East and came here because he wanted to learn to know the Indians better.

"Very talented children, a very talented people, and of course especially inclined toward art," said the director. "A talented and an enigmatic people. I have lived many years among them, but this people is still incomprehensible to me. Indians are obliged to send their children to school because education is compulsory. Otherwise they would not send a single child. All the instructors are white people, and instruction is in English. For the most part, the children study very well. But suddenly some of the boys in a certain year who pass their tenth or eleventh birthday stop going to school. They do not go for the entire year. That year they get their own native training somewhere, but we have never been able to find out where. And when such a boy again appears in school, he is already a real Indian and he will never again be white in culture. When the children finish school the old men tell them: 'Choose! If you want to be a white man, then go to them and never come back to us. But if you want to remain an Indian, then forget everything that you have been taught.' And almost always the children remain at home. Two or three years after graduation from school, they return occasionally and ask to be allowed to look through old American newspapers, but soon after that they stop coming altogether. These are Indians, the real Indians, without electricity, automobiles, and other nonsense. They live among the whites, full of silent contempt for them. To this day they do not recognize them as masters of their country. And this is not at all surprising when one recalls that in the history of the Indian people there was not even one occasion when one tribe enslaved another. An Indian tribe cannot be enslaved. It can only be exterminated (there were such cases), and only then may one consider that an Indian tribe has been conquered."

We were guided through the village by a fifteen-year-old Indian girl. Suddenly she said:

"Do you know an Indian woman that lives in Chicago? She's my sister."

That was a rare case. Her sister had married a white man, an artist. He was undoubtedly one of the visionaries of Taos, who had come here to inhale the atmosphere of an ancient civilization.

In the middle of the village stood an old Spanish church. The Pueblos are Catholics, but very strange Catholics. For Christmas and Easter they bring down the statue of the Madonna and perform a war dance around her. Then they go away to some praying hole and there pray—but hardly in accordance with Catholic rites.

Looking at the silent and stately redskins, as proud as ancient Romans, we repeated to ourselves, recalling the words of the school director:

"Yes, yes, they are Catholics, and they speak English and they have seen automobiles and the like; but they are nevertheless Indians, real Indians, and above all Indians—and nothing else."

Frightened by the accident on the frozen highway, of which we have already told, the first thing we did in Santa Fe was to buy wonderful gold-coloured chains and drove out in the direction of Albuquerque.

24 A Day of Mishaps

WE LEFT Santa Fe for Albuquerque on tiptoe, if one may apply such an expression to an automobile.

Prior to our departure, Mr. and Mrs. Adams were occupied with their favourite activity; hand in hand, they went off "to get information." They visited the "A.A.A." (the automobile club), several petrol stations, tourist bureaux, and returned loaded with maps. Mr. Adams's face expressed despair. Mrs. Adams's, on the contrary, was full of determination. Waiting in the machine, we could hear their excited voices even from afar.

"Gentlemen!" Mr. Adams said to us solemnly. "We have got the information. It is a hundred miles to Albuquerque. Ahead of us is rain. In one part of the journey the road drops a thousand feet within a mile. No, gentlemen, do not speak. It's terrible!"

"But what of it?" asked Mrs. Adams calmly.

"Becky! Becky! Don't say'what of it'! You don't know what you're talking about!"

"Well, now, you're always right! Still, I'd like to know what you're driving at."

"Becky, you must not talk like that. You must be reasonable! I warn you, gentlemen, that danger threatens us!"

"But still, what is it that you want?" asked Mrs. Adams, without raising her voice. "Do you want us to turn back?"

"Oh, Becky, don't say ' turn back'! How can you say such things!"

"Then, let's go!"

"Seriously! There is a drop of one thousand feet in one mile! You must not say 'let's go'! Becky, you are no longer a little girl!"

"Very well, in that case we shall stop at Santa Fe!"

"You're always like that," moaned Mr. Adams. "It hurts me to hear your words. How can you say ' let's stop at Santa Fe' ? Don't talk like that! Gentlemen, it is terrible!"

Mrs. Adams silently started the motor and we drove off.

But before we left the city Mrs. Adams several times again "got information." This was the only weakness of our stalwart driver and guide. She would drive up to a pump and blow her signal. From the booth a brisk young man in a striped cap would run out. Mrs. Adams would ask the way to the nearest town.

"The third street to the right, ma'am," replied the youth, wiping his hands in waste, "and then to the right, ma'am."

"Keep to the right?" asked Mrs. Adams.

"Yes, ma'am."

"And first we must go through that street for three blocks?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And then to the right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Mrs. Adams was silent for a while, looking intently out of her little window.

"So it's the second street to the right?"

"No, ma'am, the third street."

The youth attempted to run away.

"And is the road good?" asked Mrs. Adams, reaching for the gears.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Thank you very, very much!" Mr. Adams cried helpfully.

"Very, very," his wife would add.

"Very much," we supported them.

Our machine left its place, but only to stop again at the nextpump.

"We must check up," Mrs. Adams would say anxiously.

"It never hurts to check up," Mr. Adams would confirm, rubbing his hands.

Then would begin "Yes, ma'am" and "No, ma'am" all over again.

Information was being gathered that day until about five o'clock in the afternoon, so that we did not leave Santa Fe until dusk, which increased Mr. Adams's apprehensions. He was silent until we reached Albuquerque itself. Evidently his restless soul was oppressed by heavy foreboding.

It was utterly dark. Our pale headlights, manufactured with exemplary efficiency at one of Ford's midget plants, scarcely managed to pierce the fog-laden darkness.

Only once did Mr. Adams break his tragic silence.

"Becky!" he exclaimed. "We forgot to go to the post office in Santa Fe for my hat, which they surely must have had time to send from Kansas City. Gentlemen, that hat will drive me mad!"

"It's all right. We'll send a postcard from Albuquerque and ask them to forward the hat to San Francisco," Mrs. Adams replied.

The journey to Albuquerque ended auspiciously. We could not even tell where exactly we had passed the thousand-foot descent, despite our apprehensive peering into the darkness for several hours on end.

It was in the city itself, while seeking a camp for the night, that we drove off the road and landed in a deep mudhole. For the first time In the course of our journey we, who had been spoiled by macadam roads and service, had to wade right into the mud and, cursing our luck, push our beloved car, which had sunk right down to its rear end.

The machine did not budge.

"Gentlemen!" exclaimed Mr. Adams, wringing his short fat little hands, "you simply do not understand. You do not want to understand the significance of an automobile journey! No, seriously, you don't understand!"

Then appeared the gentleman in a vest, his hat pulled down to his nose. He approached Mrs. Adams, called her "ma'am," took her place at the wheel, and plied the throttle so vigorously that our car was enveloped in stinking fumes. Then a hysterical buzzing resounded, Mr. Adams beat a frightened retreat, and the machine, scattering tons of soupy mud, drove back on to the road.

That was the first link in the chain of mishaps that befell us the following day.

We drove out of Albuquerque on a frightful morning. The beautiful adobe houses with the ends of their ceiling beams emerging, the Coca-Cola signs, the monasteries, the drug-stores, the ancient Spanish missions, the same kind of petrol stations as in the East—all of it was covered with grey rain. At the entrances to the houses hung wooden yokes of bullock harness (in memory of the pioneer gold-miners); on the roofs of the Mexican huts soaked bunches of red pepper. Likewise soaking were advertisements of excursions to neighbouring Indian villages and Spanish missions (to the very nearest it was one hundred and eighty miles).

That morning we were supposed to cross the Rocky Mountains.

Suddenly, out of the muggy darkness emerged a beautiful clearing of green sky. The road went up. We saw no mountains. The only things visible were low hills and fissures of earth. The rain stopped. The sun looked out. We began to admire the landscape, and were as happy as the three famous little pigs, suspecting no danger.

Rising higher and higher, the automobile drove out finally on a vast plateau. Melting snow and ice were piled high on the road. The day was bright and crisp, like a day in early spring. We were at twelve thousand feet elevation, a little higher than the top of Mont Blanc.

"Look, look!" cried Mrs. Adams. "What cliffs on the horizon! What beauty! A shadow, a shadow! The green shadow of a cliff!"

"This is magnificent!" Mr. Adams shouted at the top of his voice, turning excitedly in his seat. "This vision ennobles the soul, uplifts ..."

He was suddenly silent. Craning his neck, he stared at the road.

The machine began to swerve from side to side and to slip on the frosty slush. It foundered, and then the rear wheels skidded to one side. Mrs. Adams pulled the emergency brake. The machine landed across the road and stopped dead in its tracks.

Oh, how we hated to step out of our cosy machine and sink our feet in thin city shoes into this icy water. We decided to put on the chains. Although Mr. Adams took no direct part in that, he nevertheless deemed it his duty to follow us out of the machine and get his feet wet with the rest of us.

"I ask you only one thing," Mrs. Adams said to him, directing the work. " Don't bother us!"

"But, Becky," muttered her grief-stricken husband, "I'm obliged to work along with everybody."

And thus the Rocky Mountains remained in our memory: a bright and cold springlike day of late November, small, compact clouds racing across a greenish and translucent sky, and over the edges of the plateau | grey and blue cliffs as even as a fence. Back of us, below, were Texas, Chicago, New York, the Atlantic Ocean, Europe. Ahead of us, below, were California, the Pacific Ocean, Japan, Siberia, Moscow. There we were ankle-deep in icy slush, clumsily tugging the chains over the hard tyres washed clean by the water.

An hour later the chains were on and Mrs. Adams was starting the motor. On the very highest peak of the mountain pass we found a dilapidated wooden hut with the sign " Cafe-Bar." In charge of it was a girl in breeches, boots, and a thin blouse with short sleeves. Although there was no dwelling for many miles around, the girl did not seem at all bucolic. She was a typical New York, Chicago, or Amarillo girl from a cafe, with neat marcel, rouged cheeks, plucked eyebrows, polished finger-nails, and a faultless professional knack of working.

We each drank a small glass of gin, warmed up, and went on our way, all our sorrows forgotten.

But the moment we began to admire the landscape, we heard a horrible racket, and Mrs. Adams, stopping the machine, looked first at us and then at Mr. Adams.

"Oh, Becky! You see, you see, I told you ..." "What did you tell me?"

"Becky! Don't ask me about anything. This is terrible!" However, nothing especially terrible had actually occurred. All that happened was that one of the chains which was not firmly attached had broken and damaged the support of the left fender.

We took off the chains and carefully drove ahead. The sun warmed us more and more. The ice disappeared entirely, and like the little pigs we came to life again. We exclaimed over the stern beauty of the plateau and the cool brightness of the day.

"We're well off, gentlemen!" said Mr. Adams. "Just think of how the pioneers fared when they crossed this road for weeks, for months, without food and without water. Yes, gentlemen, without water. Willi wives and little children ..."

But Mr. Adams suddenly dropped into silence, so we never found out how the pioneers had fared. Craning his neck, he stared ahead, blank horror in his eyes.

The road was blocked by a board. On it was this sign: "Road under repair. Detour eleven miles."

"Detour" meant that we had to drive around and about. Here really . was the rare occasion when one actually needs chains in America. But we were already short of one set of chains. In the middle of the detour, which was mostly swashy red clay, a blue, double-deck autobus of the Greyhound Company stood to one side. It was bound for Los Angeles. If this mighty machine got stuck, what would happen to us? The autobus leaned like a ship grounded on a reef. A bright yellow caterpillar tractor and a road plough were coming to its aid.

Ahead of us for several hours travelled a strange creature which only out of sheer pity could be called an automobile. It was not really an automobile ; rather was it an auto wigwam with a rusty iron stovepipe and torn cotton comforters that flapped in the wind, albeit they were intended for the walls of this imaginary cabin. Inside could be seen a metal vat and large dirty children.

To our amazement the auto wigwam boldly plunged into the deep thin mud. We followed suit. From the windows of the Greyhound bored passengers looked out. Those eleven miles were evidently the very worst in America, and one simply had to be blessed with extraordinary automobile luck to strike those particular eleven miles. At any rate, throughout our entire journey in America we never again struck such a bad piece of road.

Several times we landed in immense puddles of thin mud and put our shoulders to the automobile. Our shoes, our trousers, the skirts of our overcoats, our shoulders, and even our faces—all were covered with

pink clay.

Having come out on a hard road, the auto wigwam stopped. Out of it emerged a numerous family, which began to gather kindling for a fire. The family had evidently decided to dine. We drove past, regarding the family with a certain amount of envy. After all the suffering we had endured we wanted to eat.

The sun baking quite vigorously now, we quickly became dry and our spirits rose.

"Look! Look!"Mrs.Adamsshouted,wavingherarms. "What cliffs!"

"Becky! Don't let go the steering wheel! Keep your eyes on the road!" said Mr. Adams. " We will describe all the views to you later on!"

"No, but just look! That cliff looks like a castle!"

"And that one looks like a tower!"

"Gentlemen! Look quick. This is simply remarkable. The cliff looks like a huge piece of cheese."

"No, rather like a pie."

"A meat pie."

"Like a very long, long sausage. You know the kind. There is a certain Milan sausage that is very tasty."

We waxed hungrier and hungrier. While driving by some beautiful cliffs which, according to Mr. Adams, looked like a plate of hot soup, we realized that we were famished.

However, a new event distracted our troubled reveries. Mr. Adams. accidentally opened the door on the traffic side, and a gust of wind almost threw him out of the machine.

While we were driving along the main street of Gallup, looking for a restaurant, we heard a crack which, by comparison with the already familiar sound of a snapping chain, seemed to us the melodic chirping of a cricket. Our car shuddered and stopped. The first second we realized that we were alive, and were overjoyed at the thought. The next second we realized that we were the victims of an accident. An old green, clean little semi-truck had bumped into the side of our new grey dirty car.

At once a crowd gathered around our automobiles. We looked sadly at the dented side and the slightly bent step. The man responsible for this mishap climbed off his semi-truck and muttered apologies.

"Sir," said Mr. Adams defiantly, "you cut into our car."

He was spoiling for a fight.

But there was no fight. Our opponent did not even think of denying his guilt and laid the blame mostly on his own "damned brakes." He was so embarrassed by the occurrence, and the damage he had done to us was so small, that we decided not to drag the matter into the courts, and parted.

Gallup gave us a good insight into America. As a matter of fact, this town did not at all differ from other small towns, thus considerably facilitating the writer's task by making a physical description of the town entirely superfluous. Any old Gallupian who had stayed away for two or three years would have scarcely recognized his native town– because there is not a single distinctive attribute by which he could distinguish it from any other American town.

"What city is that?" he might ask, poking his head out of his automobile, and only after learning that this actually was Gallup, and not Springfield or Geneva, could he begin to kiss his native soil (pavement). And it is precisely because of this absence of originality that the town of Gallup is remarkable. If Americans should ever fly to the moon, they would not fail to build there towns identically like Gallup. After all, it lies right in the heart of New Mexico's moonlit deserts—this petrol oasis with its "Main Street"; its "Manhattan Cafe," where you may drink tomato juice, eat apple pie, and upon depositing five cents in a slot machine may hear a phonograph record or a mechanical violin; with its department store, where you may buy corduroy trousers the colour of rust, socks, neckties, and a cowboy shirt; with its Ford automobiles; with its motion-picture theatres, where you may see unroll before your eyes the life of the rich or of bandits; with its drug-stores, where neat girls, as dandified as Polish lieutenants, eat ham and eggs before going to work. Good old Gallup! It is not interested in what is happening in Europe, Asia and Africa. Gallup is not even any too interested in general American affairs. It is proud, because, although it numbers only six thousand inhabitants, it has hot and cold water, bathrooms, showers,refrigerators, toilet paper in lavatories—in short, it has the same comforts and conveniences as Kansas City and Chicago.

Although it was not yet three o'clock, Mr. Adams persuaded us not to go any farther.

"This is a fateful day, gentlemen," he said. "It is a day of bad luck. It would be foolish not to understand that. Gentlemen, we shall outwit (ate. Tomorrow it will be powerless to interfere with our journey."

And he went off to a Ford dealer to find out how much we would have to pay to repair the damages. He asked us to wait in the automobile, around the corner. For about twenty minutes we sat there, discussing with Mrs. Adams the unfortunate occurrences of that fateful day.

"Well, we have nothing more to fear today," said Mrs. Adams. "All our bad luck is behind us."

Ten more minutes passed, but Mr. Adams still did not appear. "I knew it!" exclaimed Mrs. Adams. "You must never let him go anywhere alone. I am certain that right now he is sitting with the dealer and discussing with him the League of Nations, having utterly forgotten that we are waiting for him."