Текст книги "Little Golden America"

Автор книги: Евгений Петров

Соавторы: Илья Ильф
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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

Another ten minutes passed, and a boy messenger came running with the message that Mr. Adams asked us immediately to go to him at the store. Mrs. Adams turned pale.

"Has anything happened to him?" she asked quickly.

"No, ma'am," replied the boy, looking askance.

We ran full speed into the store.

A strange spectacle met our eye. It seemed to us that not only we but not a single inhabitant of Gallup throughout the entire existence of this little town had ever seen the like. It looked as if a heavy Caproni bombing plane had suddenly dropped here its entire reserve of bombs assigned exclusively for Haile Selassie. The large plate-glass window of the store lay shattered on the sidewalk. In the empty frame of the window, against a background of two new Fords, stood Mr. Adams, holding in his hands the frame of his glasses, A finger on his right hand was cut, but he did not pay any attention to that and was explaining something about the League of Nations to the bewildered owner of the store.

"No, no, sir!" he was saying. "You don't understand the League of Nations!"

"What have you done?" exclaimed Mrs. Adams, gasping. "But, Becky, I didn't do anything. I walked through the show window. I was talking to this gentleman, and did not notice that instead of going through the door I went through the window. What can I do, if this window is so large that it looks like the door? And besides, it goes right down to the ground!"

Mrs. Adams began to inspect her beloved husband. It was simply incredible. Mr. Adams was quite uninjured; only his glasses were broken. "And it didn't hurt you?" asked Mrs. Adams. "This is, after all, very thick plate-glass."

"But, Becky, I was so surprised that I didn't feel anything!"

Mr. Adams compensated the bewildered dealer for the damage and said joyously :

"You must not think, gentlemen, that I wasted my time here. I found out everything about the repair of our car. It does not pay to repair it now. This is not the last accident. Others will run into us. When we return to New York we shall repair everything and paint it all up at once. Let us not hurry, gentlemen! You will always have the opportunity and the time to spend your dollars."

We were so afraid that the misfortunes of that day had not yet come to an end that we walked down the street, moving our feet carefully and looking around like hunted deer. Only when we were already in bed did we quiet down somewhat, realizing that at last the day of mishaps was over.

25 The Desert

AMERICA WAS preparing for Christmas. Before the stores of the small towns electric lamps of various colours were already lighted on the cardboard Christmas trees that decorated all the street lamps. The traditional Santa Claus, the kindly Christmas grandfather with a long white beard, was driving through the streets in his gilded chariot. Electric fans scattered artificial snow from the chariot. Choruses of radio angels chanted old English carols. Santa Claus held in both his hands a department store sign which proclaimed: "Christmas Presents on Credit." Newspapers wrote that the holiday trade was better this year than the year before.

The closer we moved in the direction of California, the warmer the sun became, while the sky turned purer and bluer, the more there was of artificial snow, of cardboard fir trees and grey beards, and the more liberal became the credit for Christmas presents.

We crossed the border into Arizona. The keen, strong light of the desert lay on the excellent highway that led to Flagstaff. The obtrusive bill-boards almost disappeared, and only occasionally from behind a cactus or a yellowed tumbleweed emerged an impudent little Coca-Cola placard on a stick. The petrol stations became less and less frequent. But to make up for that, the hats of the rare residents here became broader and broader. Never before had we seen, and probably never again shall we see, such large hats as in Arizona, the land of deserts and canyons.

One can scarcely find anything more grandiose and more beautiful in the world than an American desert. We drove over it for an entire week and never tired of admiring it. We were fortunate. Winter in the desert is like a bright and clean summer, only without the oppressive heat and the dust.

The region into which we drove was utterly wild and desolate. Yet we did not feel that we were cut off from the world. The road and the automobile have brought the desert nearer, have torn off its shroud of mystery, without making it any less attractive. On the contrary, the beauty created by nature was supplemented by the beauty created by the

deft hands of men. Admiring the pure colours of the desert, its complex and mighty architecture, we never ceased to admire the broad even highway with its silvery bridges, its neatly placed water-mains, its mounds and dips. Even the petrol stations which had become boresome in the East and in the Middle West, here in the desert looked like proud monuments to man's might. And the automobile in the desert seemed twice as beautiful as in the city. Its fluent, polished surface reflected the sun; and its shadow, deep and sharply lined, fell proudly on the virgin sands.

Desert roads are indubitably one of the most remarkable achievements of American technique. They are as good as in populated places. The feme neat and clear black and yellow signs reminding you of curves, of narrow places, and of zigzags. The same white signs in a black border showing the number of the road, while the wooden arrows with the names of cities show the distance to them. In the desert there are, in addition,

those wooden constructions which are met quite frequently and are called "cattle guards." Vast parcels of land belonging to cattlemen were separated from each other by barbed wire, so that the cattle should not cross from one parcel of land to the other, thereby avoiding quarrels and keeping the picturesque cowboys from bringing their Colts into action. But what to do to keep the cattle from passing from parcel to parcel across the highway ? Surely, the highway cannot be crossed with barbed wire! So, an anonymous inventor thought of the solution. The wire stretched on either side of the highway. A ditch was dug across the road and over the ditch a metal grate was placed. There is no interference whatever with automobiles, while cows, afraid that their hooves may go through the grating, refrain from undesirable excursions into other people's land. It's all very simple in America.

In America travellers are never oppressed by the usual doubts of the journey: "Where are we now? Shall we find a night's lodging? Is the speedometer lying ? Didn't we go too far to the west and is it not necessary, therefore, to reset our watches?" No! The traveller is not disturbed by the problem of a night's lodging. He is accustomed to find waiting for him camps consisting of several small houses (in each little house is a room, a shower, and a gas range, and beside the little house is a garage). Daily on the road you will find a bill-board reading: "Haifa mile ahead—check speedometers." And actually a half-mile farther along stands a new petrol pump, and from that to the next one will be five miles, and you can check the correctness of your speedometer by it, as it marks off the distance covered. Later on, you may find the touchingly solicitous announcement: "Time to reset your watch." While to the question: "Where are we now?" there is the precise and somewhat solemn answer:

"You are leaving New Mexico. You are entering Arizona."

It sounds as if you were leaving the earth and entering heaven.

We rolled cheerily across the desert, having completely forgotten yesterday's horrors. It seemed incredible that there were such things as slush, snow, and frost in the world. Mr. Adams, who had a good night's sleep in Gallup and who had eaten well on the road, was in excellent spirits. He was full of ideas—and dying to talk. We discussed ten different subjects. We listened to Mr. Adams's ideas on the situation in Germany after the fascist coup, on the state of schools in America, on Roosevelt's chances in the next elections, and about the latest session of the Pacific Institute.

But all this seemed not enough for Mr. Adams. He kept looking impatiently at the road in the hope of finding a man with an uplifted thumb. But only red sand greeted the machine. There were no people in the desert. Fortunately, Mr. Adams was rescued at that point by nature itself, to whom indeed he yielded the reserve of emotions that was tearing him apart.

We were passing through the painted desert.

Smooth sandhills stretched to the very horizon like a stormy ocean whose waves have suddenly turned to stone. They crept upon each other, formed crests and thick round folds. They were magnificent, beautifully painted by nature in blue, pink, reddish-brown, and pastel colours. The tones were blindingly pure.

The word " desert" is frequently used as a symbol of monotony. The American desert is unprecedently varied. The face of the desert changed every two or three hours. Hills and cliffs in the form of pyramids, towers, recumbent elephants and antediluvian reptiles passed by.

But ahead of us was something even more remarkable.

We entered a reservation of petrified forest, fenced off by barbed wire. At first we did not notice anything special, but upon looking closely we saw emerging from the sand and the gravel, stumps and trunks of trees lying everywhere. Coming closer, we discerned that the gravel itself was composed of small particles of a petrified forest.

In this spot several scores of million years ago a forest grew. Not long ago this forest was discovered in the shape of broken petrified trunks. It is an astounding spectacle to find in the midst of the great silence of the desert prone trunks of petrified trees which have preserved the outward appearance of the most ordinary reddish-brown wooden trunks. The process of altering the wood of the trees into salt, lime, and iron had gone on for millions of years. These trees have acquired the hardness of marble.

On the reservation is a small museum where the bits of petrified wood are prepared. They are sawed and polished. The surface of the segment, while preserving all the lines of the wood, begins to gleam with its red, blue, and yellow veins. There is no marble or malachite that can rival the beauty of a polished bit of petrified wood.

At the museum we were told that these trees are a hundred and fifty million years old. The museum itself was probably no more than a year old. It was a small but quite modern building, with metal frames for doors and windows, with a water main, with hot and cold water. Emerging from such a little building, you would expect to find a subway, an airport, and a department store; instead, you find at once, without the slightest transition, a desert extending for hundreds of miles.

The reservation of the petrified forest is carefully guarded, so that one cannot take along a single grain of sand. But as soon as we emerged beyond the borders of the reservation, we saw a petrol station surrounded by a fence made up helter-skelter out of the petrified trees. Here was carried on a lively trade in pieces of wood at fifteen cents and up. A handicraft man with a motor that roared throughout the desert feverishly manufactured souvenirs in the form of brooches and bracelets. He sawed, sharpened, polished. Was it worth while to lie for so many millions of years in order to be transformed into an unprepossessing brooch with the inscription "Souvenir of..."?

We put several pieces of wood away into our automobile and, imagining how in due time they would travel inside of our valises across the ocean, set out again on our journey.

Not far from the little factory, on the edge of the road, thumb uplifted, stood a man with a suitcase.

We have already said that Americans are very gregarious, good-natured, and ever obliging. When you are being helped, let us say, by having your automobile pulled out of a rut or a ditch, it is done simply, modestly, quickly, without any calculation as to thanks, even verbal gratitude. The American helps you, cracks a joke, and goes on.

The uplifted thumb, as everyone knows, indicates a request for transportation. This signal has become as inseparable a part of American automobile travel as road signs which indicate curves, speed limit, and railroad crossing.

For a writer, a fisher of souls and subjects, such a custom presents great conveniences. The heroes come into your automobile of their own free will and at once willingly tell you the story of their lives.

We stopped. The man with the suitcase had to go to San Diego, California. We were going in the same direction as far as Flagstaff. Our new fellow traveller got into the machine, placed his baggage on his lap and, having waited for the question as to who he was and where he Wane from, began to tell us his story.

He hailed from the state of Massachusetts. There he had worked all his life as a locksmith. Five years ago he had moved to another city, lost his job right away, and with that his old life came to an end. A new life began for him, one to which he could not accustom himself. He was con-stantly travelling in search of employment. He had many times crossed the country from ocean to ocean, yet he had found no job. Occasionally he would get a lift in an automobile; most of the time, however, he travelled with tramps in railway freight cars. That was faster. But he himself was not a tramp. That he reiterated several times stubbornly and emphatically. Evidently he had been taken for a tramp more than once.

He received no relief because he had no permanent residence.

"I often meet people like myself," he said, "and among them there are even men with college education—doctors, lawyers. I became friendly with one such doctor, and we travelled together. Then we decided to write a book. We wanted the whole world to know how we live. We began to record every day everything that we had seen. We wrote down quite a lot. I had heard that if you publish a book you get well paid for it. Once we came to the state of Nebraska. Here we were caught in the freight car. Our manuscript was found. It was torn in pieces. And we were beaten up and thrown out. That is how I live."

He did not complain. He merely told his tale, with the same simplicity with which the young marine had told us how he and his friend had met some girls in Chicago and unexpectedly stayed there a whole week. The marine did not brag. The unemployed did not seek sympathy.

A man had fallen out of society. Naturally, he felt that the social order should be changed. But what should be done about it?

"You must take the wealth from the rich."

We began to listen even more attentively. He angrily struck the back of his seat with his large dirty fist and repeated :

"Take away their money! Take away their money and leave them only five million apiece! Give the unemployed a piece of land, so they can raise their own food and eat it. And leave the others only five million apiece !"

We asked him whether five million was not perhaps too much.

But he was adamant.

"No, they must have at least five million apiece. You can't make it any less."

"But who will take the wealth away from them? "

"It'll be taken away! Roosevelt will take it away! If we only re-elect him president for the second time, he will do it!"

"But suppose Congress won't let him?"

"Never mind. Congress will agree to it! It's a fair thing to do. How can they fail to agree to it? It's perfectly obvious."

He was so carried away by this primitive idea, he was so desirous that injustice should disappear of its own accord and that everybody should be well off, that he did not even care to think how all of this should come about. He was a child who wanted everything to be made of chocolate. It seemed to him that all he had to do was to ask kindly, good-natured Santa Claus, and everything would be magically transformed. Santa Claus would come racing in on his cardboard, silvered deer, would arrange a warm snowstorm and everything would come about. Congress will agree. Roosevelt will politely take away the billions, and the rich men with meek smiles will give up those billions.

Millions of Americans are in the throes of such childish ideas.

How to be rid of the depression for ever and aye?

Oh, that's not hard at all! The government must give each old man, upon reaching the age of sixty, two hundred dollars a month on the condition that he obligate himself to spend this money. Then the buying power of the population will grow to unheard-of proportions and the depression will immediately end. At the same time the old folks will live remarkably well. It is all clear and simple. How all of this is to be arranged is not so important. The old people are so desirous of receiving two hundred dollars a month, and the young folks are so desirous to have the depression end and to secure a job at last, that it is sheer joy to all. Townsend, the inventor of this magic means, won millions of ardent disciples in a very short time.

Townsend clubs and committees sprang up throughout the country and, with the approach of presidential elections, the Townsendite idea was enriched by a new amendment. It proposed to give two hundred dollars to each person who attained the age of fifty.

The hypnosis of simple figures acts with a remarkable power. As a matter of fact, what child has not dreamed of how nice it would be if every adult should give him one penny? It doesn't cost the adult much, while the child can thus accumulate a pile of money.

We are not speaking here of advanced American workers nor about the radical intelligentsia. We are speaking about the so-called average American, the principal buyer and the principal voter. He is a simple and exceedingly democratic human being. He knows how to work, and he works hard. He loves his wife and his children, listens to the radio, frequently goes to the motion-picture theatre, and reads very little. Besides, he has a great respect for money. He does not feel for it the passion of a miser, but he respects it just as in one's family an uncle who is a famous professor is respected, and he wants everything in the world to be just as simple and understandable as it is in his home.

When someone sells him a refrigerator or an electric stove or a vacuum cleaner, the salesman never goes into abstract discussions. With precision and in a businesslike way he explains how many cents an hour the electric energy will cost, what cash payment he will have to make, and how much will be economized by this arrangement. The purchaser wants to know figures, advantages, expressed in dollars.

A political idea is sold to him in the same manner. Nothing abstract, no philosophy. He votes, and he is promised two hundred dollars a month or the equalization of wealth. These are figures. That is understandable. He will agree to that. Of course, he will be very much surprised to dis-cover that these ideas do not work out as conscientiously as a refrigerator and a vacuum cleaner. But for the present he still believes in them.

In Flagstaff we parted with our fellow traveller.

When he left our automobile, we noticed the low level of poverty to which the man had sunk. His worn coat was in tatters. His greenish cheeks had not been shaved for a long time, and in his ears was gathered the dust of Pennsylvania, Kansas, and Oklahoma. When he said goodbye an optimistic smile lit up his sorrowing face.

"Soon everything will go well," he said. "But they get only five millions, and not another cent!"

When we were driving out of Flagstaff, holding the course on the Grand Canyon, Mr. Adams said:

"Well, what do you think ? Why does this unfortunate man insist on leaving five million apiece to the millionaires? Don't you know? Well, then, I will tell you. In his heart of hearts he is still hoping that some day he himself will become a millionaire. American upbringing is a frightful thing, gentlemen!"

26 Grand Canyon

TOWARD EVENING of every day our old man, whom we learned to like very much, would grow tired.

The three hundred miles we had driven, the impressions, the endless conversations, finally his respectable age, took their toll: Mr. Adams would grow tired, and some link or another would fall out of his actions.

If toward evening Mrs. Adams would ask her husband to ascertain from somebody on the road whether we were travelling in the right direction, the old man would begin to turn around restlessly in his seat. From his movements, we could divine that he did not know how to proceed. He simply forgot. He was supposed to open the window, put his head out and, having said: "Pardon me, sir," which means "Excuse me," find out about the road. All this he used to do very neatly, would cry out: "Pardon me," and attempt to put his head out. But he would forget the main thing – to drop the window. That link would fall out. And each time, unable to understand why his head did not shove itself out, he would attempt to break the glass with his elbow. Only the unheard-of durability of American manufacturing processes saved the head and arm of Mr. Adams from cuts. Toward evening we would take care not to entrust him with commissions of that sort.

We moved very fast down the deserted road in order to reach Grand Canyon the same day—Grand Canyon, one of the great geographical wonders of the world!

We were tired and, therefore, forgot about the control over Mrs. Adams. She noticed it at once, and advanced her speed from fifty miles to sixty. Then she stealthily looked around and added another five miles. Now we were going at a speed in excess of a hundred kilometres an hour. That was a typical feminine trait. A woman always tries to drive faster than circumstances warrant. The air roared, torn to shreds by our car.

Again we drove through the painted desert. Pure blue hills lay along the whole horizon. The sundown was likewise pure, naive, as if it had been painted by some provincial young ladies long before the first horrifying thought of men entered their heads. The colours of the desert were so fresh and transparent that it is possible to transmit them only by means of an album of aquarelles. The few strands of wind that blew into our automobile through the lowered window pounced on each other like attic cats. In their fight they would strike us, tear off our hats and blow over Mr. Adams's head. Mr. Adams did not yet have his hat as a result of the complicated postal operations which we transacted throughout the journey. The evening, however, was quite cool and the skin of Mr. Adams's head turned blue and was now in no way distinguishable in colour from the hills.

In utter darkness, quiet, somewhat squelched by the beauties of nature we had seen, we arrived at the Grand Canyon and stopped in one of the camp houses. It was made of huge logs. It was supposed to give us some idea of primitive American pioneer life. But on the inside, to make up for its rusticity, it was furnished in a completely modern manner, and the beds, as always, were excellent (in America, a customer is sold not a bed, but good repose). So here they were, these rooms equipped with excellent repose, steam heat, hot and cold water, and New Yorkese portable lamps with large cardboard lampshades. These lamps are very-tall, the height of a human being, and they do not stand on the table but on the floor.

After supper the tourists gathered in a small theatre hall of the hotel (also built of gigantic logs) and were shown a short advertising motion picture about the descent to the bottom of the canyon under the leadership of experienced guides. After the picture there was a concert.

Out on the stage came a fat boy with a banjo. He sat down on the platform and began to pluck the strings of his instrument, pounding away rhythmic taps with his feet in cowboy boots. He looked disdainfully at the public: anyone could see at once that to him only cowboys were human beings and all the others were just trash. After him appeared a tall thin long-nosed cowboy with a guitar. He looked at the public and said :

"Listen, three of us were supposed to sing, but the others aren't coming, I guess, so that I'm going to sing alone. But maybe I shouldn't sing at all. As a matter of fact, I'm no singer anyhow."

He had a handsome, ironic face. In his small black eyes was written:

"Well, now, why play the fool? Hadn't we better go out and have a drink? That would be much more fun. Don't you want to? Well, in that case, I'll sing for you. That's your hard luck!"

The fat boy continued to twang on the banjo. The guitar sounded rather low. The cowboy sang, or rather, talked his little songs, passing occasionally into a Tyrolean falsetto (yodelling). The songs were simple and funny. This is what one of them said:

"When as a boy I swam in the river. Somebody stole the clothes I left folded on the shore. I could not very well go home in the nude, so, while waiting for darkness to fall, I passed the time away cutting my initials on an old apple tree. Many years have passed since then. I found a beautiful girl and married her. Imagine my embarrassment when we went into the bedroom for the first time. My beautiful wife calmly took her artificial teeth out of her mouth and placed them in a glass of water. Then she took off her wig and disclosed her bald head. From her brassiere she took huge wads of cotton. Right before my eyes my beauty was transformed into a scarecrow. But that wasn't all. She then took off her skirt and calmly unscrewed her wooden leg, and on that leg I suddenly saw initials. And the devil take me if they weren't the very same initials which I once cut on the old apple tree when in my childhood somebody stole my clothes."

Everybody laughed, and we joined in. It was very old-fashioned, naive, and funny. The cowboy smiled satirically, as before. And as before, in his eyes gleamed an invitation to go with him somewhere around the corner and down a couple of large glasses of whisky. As to his saying that he couldn't sing, the cowboy lied. He sang well, and he amused us for a long while.

After him a Negro came out. There was no master of ceremonies here, and no one announced the names of the artistes. And they weren't even artistes. All of those who were appearing here were employees of the Grand Canyon. They were giving this concert as an accommodation.

The Negro was extremely young and lanky. His legs seemed to begin at his armpits. He tap-danced with genuine pleasure. His arms swung remarkably in time with his body. He wore trousers on suspenders and a work shirt. After finishing the dance, he gaily picked up a broom that stood in the corner and went away, baring his teeth.

In the morning we saw him near the log cabin in which we slept. He was sweeping up, and he swept with the same pleasure with which he had danced. It even seemed that he was continuing his dance and that the broom was only part of it. He opened his large grey lips and wished us good morning.

We went at once to see the canyon.

Imagine this: You take an immense mountain chain, cut it at the root, turn it upside down and push it into an even land covered with forests. Then you take it out. What remains is the mould of a mountain chain. Its mountains are upside down. That is the Grand Canyon.

Mountains must be looked at from below. The canyon—from the top down. The spectacle of the Grand Canyon does not have its equal anywhere on earth. It did not even resemble anything else on earth. The landscape upset all European concepts about the globe, if one may say so. It looked like some imaginary vision, which might occur to a boy while reading fantastic romances about the moon or Mars. We stood for a long time on the edge of this splendid abyss. We four gossipers did not speak a single word. Far below a bird floated by, slowly, like a fish. Even deeper, almost swallowed by shadows, flowed the Colorado River.

Grand Canyon is a grandiose national park which occupies hundreds of square miles. Like all American national parks (reservations), it is faultlessly organized. Hotels and roads, the distribution of printed and photographic publications, maps, prospectuses, guidebooks, and finally, oral explanations–all of it is here at a high standard of excellence. Here Americans come with their families to rest, and this rest is not expensive. A cabin in this camp costs no more than in any other, while food costs about the same as anywhere else. For visiting the park, the fee is only one dollar, after which a coloured label is pasted on the automobile windshield and one is free to live and wander throughout this park for a month, even for a year.

Of course, we should have gone down to the bottom of the canyon and lived there for half a year in a log cabin with steam heating, in the midst of the chaos of nature and ideal service, but we did not have the time for that. We did only what we could—drove around the canyon in an automobile.

Suddenly we saw a strange funeral. Down the excellent road of the park slowly moved an automobile bearing a casket. It moved with the speed of a pedestrian. Behind the casket walked people in white leather aprons pinned to ordinary dress-coats. One of them wore a silk top-hat and a morning coat. Some of those who walked behind the casket carried sticks on their shoulders. Behind the procession soundlessly moved more than a score of empty automobiles.

They were burying an old cowboy who had served in the park. The old cowboy had been a Mason, and all these people in white aprons were Masons. The sticks were the sticks of their banner. The funeral was going our way, so we attached ourselves to the end of the column. Out of the forest came a doe and looked in fright at the automobile flock. Hunting is, of course, forbidden in the park, so the doe was not afraid of being shot. But she wanted very much to cross the road. She attempted it several times and jumped back, puzzled by the petrol odour the Masons emitted. Finally, the doe made up her mind, gracefully jumped across the road in front of our car, all her four legs simultaneously leaving the earth, flashed once or twice among the trees, and was lost in the forest.