Текст книги "Little Golden America"

Автор книги: Евгений Петров

Соавторы: Илья Ильф
сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

Two or three more turns, and the desert disappeared. Suddenly we found ourselves at a beautiful health resort in the Tyrol, in Switzerland, in the Caucasus. It was like the return of interplanetary travellers from Mars to earth, to one of its most beautiful corners, the virgin forest of Kanab. Pure flaky snow lay on the road. Large smooth pines rose on either side. And over all the sparkle of the December sun.

Such metamorphoses occur in America.

The beautiful vision soon came to an end. The road descended, and we entered the state of Utah, announced by a small bill-board. Here again was the desert, but this one was warmer. We passed a small settlement. Around the houses grew trees, and there were several petrol stations. Two white women passed. One of them wheeled a baby in a carriage, a civilized baby, whose parents knew about radio, pinball, and vitamins. This was no Indian baby strapped to a board!

"Did you know, gentlemen, that in the state of Utah live—Mormons?" asked Mr. Adams.

We were again sorry that we had not driven into Salt Lake City and that we would depart from America without having seen Mormons.

"Seriously, you must not talk like that," said Mr. Adams. "From Salt Lake City we could not have made our way to California, because at this time of the year the mountain– passes are undoubtedly full of ice. Oh, no! I ask you to remember the Rocky Mountains!"

"Hitchhiker!" Mrs. Adams suddenly cried.

We saw a man standing at the side of the road, a suitcase between his legs.

"Shall we take him?" asked Mr. Adams.

For a little while we looked at the hitchhiker, appraising him. He wore a bright yellow gabardine duster. He appeared to be about twenty years old.

"Is it worth while? That duster he is wearing is altogether too optimistic and as dull as ditchwater."

"But suppose he is a Mormon!" said Mr. Adams.

That decided the matter.

"Let's take him!"

The hitchhiker, to our regret, proved to be not a Mormon, but a quite ordinary and devoutly professing Baptist.

He was a good boy. He took off his duster, disclosing a grey coat and rusty corduroy trousers. He had a swarthy, pimply face and small black sideburns. His story was the ordinary story of an American young man. The son of a poor farmer from Nebraska. Of course, he had graduated from high school. Of course, he had travelled to Arizona to find work and to save money for matriculation at some college. Of course, he did not find any work. Now he was ready to do anything at all. He had capable hands. And he was willing to work. He wanted to try his luck in California. If nothing happened there, he would have to return to his father and spend a dull country winter. Well, what of it? He would take to hunting wild cats and coyotes. And in the spring he would see. More truly he would see nothing. Business was bad. College was unattainable. And there was no hope that matters would improve. Like all young men of his age, our hitchhiker was completely devoid of any feeling of curiosity, and throughout the entire journey did not ask us about anything whatever. But to make up for that, he talked willingly about himself and answered all questions.

When he was asked what he knew about Moscow, he answered:

"Oh, they were putting through a five-year plan there."

"And what was that five-year plan?"

"Oh, that's when everybody works for the government, and they get three meals a day for it."

"Well! All right," said Mr. Adams, "let us suppose that that is so. What else have you heard?"

"I heard that the five-year plan was successful and that now they're putting through a second five-year plan."

"Well! And what is the second five-year plan like?"

"I don't know," answered the young man. "I heard that over there everybody works and people help each other. But what's the difference? Soon there will be war, and right after war the second coming of Christ. And the Russians will perish, because they're atheists. Without faith in God no one can save himself from the tortures of hell. That's what the Bible says."

"But who told you that there will soon be the second coming?"

"Why, our pastor said it."

"Will it come soon?"

"Very soon," the young Baptist replied quite seriously. "In about two or three years."

"Very well!" exclaimed Mr. Adams. " Let us suppose that that is so. You just told -us that the Russians help each other and that over there everybody has a job. Would you say they were good people?"

"Yes," replied the Baptist after a moment's thought.

"Excellent! They do not exploit each other and they love one another! From your point of view, they have organized God's Kingdom on Earth. But they do not believe in God. What shall we do about it? Answer me that question!"

"Since they do not believe in God, they will not go to heaven," the Baptist replied in a firm voice. "They will perish."

"But they are good people. You said so yourself!"

"That makes no difference. Yes, they do good things. Our pastor told us that himself, because, you understand, our pastor is a just man. But in the Bible it says that it is not enough to do good deeds. You must have faith. Therefore, they are doomed to perish."

"No, seriously," Mr. Adams insisted. "You are a smart young man—you graduated from high school... Is it possible that Christ, coming to earth for the second time, will punish a hundred and seventy million excellent Russian fellows who have achieved the elimination of the hungry and the unemployed, so that everybody is well fed and happy? Just think of it! A hundred and seventy million people, people who toil, good, honest people. Is it possible that God will be so cruel that He would not admit them to heaven?"

Our hitchhiker sank into deep thought. It was evident that he was sorry for those good Russian fellows. He wavered for a long time before replying.

But even this remarkable, horrifying, and touching picture of the encounter between a hundred and seventy million Soviet atheists with the little Baptist God could not convince our fellow traveller.

"You see," he said, stammering, "it says so. in the Bible, and you must either accept it as a whole, or..."

"Well, well, or ...!" exclaimed Mr. Adams in complete exultation.

"Without faith in God no one can save himself," the boy muttered.

"Look! Look!" Mrs. Adams cried.

We were entering Zion Canyon, and the conversation with the young Baptist terminated.

No one was at the entrance booth. We stopped our machine and honked our horn several times, but no one came.

"I call your attention, gentlemen," said Mr. Adams, "to the fact that they don't want to take our dollars. We shall see Zion Canyon free of charge."

For some time we drove between crowded red cliffs from which pines and some strange roots stuck out in various directions.

The canyon widened. Some of the cliffs were cut through with long straight fissures. Others were scratched all over, like an arithmetic paper.

"If you like," said Mr. Adams, "I'll sell you an excellent literary simile. How much will you give me for it ? You won't give me anything for it? You want it for nothing? Well, all right: The wind has written its history on these cliffs. Is it good? Write it down in your little books! I am sure I have enriched Russian literature with that."

We made several turns. The canyon broadened more and more. Yesterday it seemed to us that there could not be anything in the world more grandiose than Grand Canyon. But only one day had passed and we saw something which, while not so immense, was immeasurably more complex and fantastic. At Grand Canyon we looked from the bottom up. Through Zion Canyon we drove at the bottom or along those protuberances of its walls on which a road was laid. Grand Canyon appeared to us in the form of mountains, mountains turned inside out. Here we saw the walls of a canyon which looked to us like mountains in the ordinary sense of the word. The other landscape seemed to us the cold landscape of another planet. Here there were no comparisons and could not be any. We were in the magic kingdom of childish dreams and visions. On the road over which we drove lay a shadow, while the massive overhanging cliffs basked in the light of the sun. We passed through a brassy red hollow and found ourselves in a new vast canyon. Very high, against the background of the sky, could be seen red towers, carrousels, pyramids, the snouts of animals. Over the road and under it grew pines and firs, aslant. Dried-out beds of streams crept down. Far away, on a cliff lighted by the sun, gleamed a frozen stream like a neatly pasted-in bit of tin.

We drove into the tunnel. For some time we moved ahead in utter darkness. Then, ahead of us light appeared. In the wall of the tunnel had been hewed a broad arch which led to small terraces with stone ledges. We left the machine. The closing of the door sounded like a cannon shot. There were cliffs everywhere. We saw only a little of the sky. Below us lay a quiet pool of water. In such solemn surroundings man is either silent or he begins to do foolish things. For no reason whatever we suddenly began to emit piercing cries, in order to find out whether there was an echo here. We discovered that there was an echo.

Into the tunnel, which stretched for more than half a mile and was cut especially for viewing the canyon at a cost of over a million dollars, the builders built several windows. From each of these windows a new vista opened. Very far below shone the asphalt knot of the road on which tiny automobiles moved without a sound. Almost all the cliffs and their sharp shadows unfailingly reminded us of someone or of something – a cat's head, claws, the shadow of a railway locomotive. Crowning all was the colossal figure of an Indian, hewed out of the cliff by nature itself, an Indian with a calm, stern face and with a curious little box on top of his head which at the same time looked also like feathers.

We drove out of the tunnel. Five minutes later we were descending the very same knot of roads which we had looked upon through the window. On the highway were several fallen yellow leaves. We also came across several puddles covered with thin ice. The shadow of the opposite wall touched the feet of the Indian. The silence was without end. We drove at the very slowest speed, having turned off our motor. We moved down quietly and solemnly, like a floating bird.

A little tree with yellow chicklike leaves appeared. And after it another, with green leaves. We found ourselves in summer.

That day—in one day, or rather, in the course of a few hours—we had passed through all the four seasons of the year.

Before abandoning Zion Canyon we drove into the famous rift between the cliffs which the Indians worship and which was called the "Temple of the Sinonuava." In the middle of this rift on a tremendous socle sat a horrible bellied god. We stared at him for a long time before it dawned upon us that he had been shaped by man, not by nature. Around the monument a little river ran noisily, churning the pebbles.

We were no longer wondering at the fact that nature had excelled Indian architecture, Indian drawings and even the Indian himself. Such conclusions, inevitable after the Navajo desert, seemed at Zion Canyon ] too poor and inconclusive. It was clear here that all art—Egyptian and Greek and Chinese and Gothic and the Empire style and even formalism —had already existed before and had been invented by the genius of nature millions of years ago.

"Let's rejoice," said Mr. Adams, when we, having learned the road to Las Vegas, again picked up speed. "I ask you to bear in mind that we did not pay a single cent for all this beauty."

But he had scarcely said it, when we came to a booth from which a man in a uniformed cap looked out invitingly. He stopped us, took two dollars, and after licking his tongue over the round green paper, pasted it on the windshield of our car.

"Good-bye," said Mr. Adams sadly, and added immediately, "Seriously, gentlemen! Only two dollars for all this beauty! I figure that we get off very cheaply."

Our Baptist fellow traveller asked us to let him off at the nearest town. He shook our hands for a long time and kept repeating that we were good people. He placed his little paper suitcase on his shoulder, tucked his yellow duster under his arm, and went off. But after walking several steps away, he turned back and asked:

"If I came to Russia, could I have work too?" "Of course," we replied, "just as all the other people in Russia." "So..." said the young Baptist. "So I would have work? So ..." He wanted to say something else, but evidently he changed his mind and quickly, without looking back, went down the street.

29 On the Crest of the Dam

ALTHOUGH ON numerous occasions we had pledged our word of honour to Mr. Adams not to drive with the approach of twilight, our experienced car was entering the city of Las Vegas in complete darkness. The moon had not yet risen. Somewhere ahead, slowly, a white beacon gleamed. After some time it turned to the left and then appeared behind us. Its place was taken by another beam. At this point our path coincided with the route of the air line bound for Los Angeles. Occasionally out of the darkness broke a wavering light. It grew quickly. And there, high ahead of us, appeared two automobile eyes. For a minute they ran to meet us, then they disappeared again, and then quite close to us jumped out once "more. The road went in waves from hill to hill. The great silence of the desert was broken only by the heavy sighs and mutterings of Mr. Adams.

"Becky! Becky! Not so fast. Forty miles an hour is too much!"

"Let me alone," Mrs. Adams replied, scarcely able to contain herself, "or I'll get out and let you all drive yourselves."

"Why, Becky, that's impossible!" groaned her husband.

"I don't want to talk to you!" exclaimed his wife.

And the couple had a verbal battle in English. The aerial beacons lighted their angry profiles and the glass of their spectacles.

Finally, ahead of us appeared the lights of Las Vegas.

What wouldn't a Muscovite imagine of a frosty December evening, hearing over the teacups talk about the bright shimmering lights of the city of Las Vegas? Las Vegas! He will quickly imagine passionate Mexican glances, lovelocks, curled like Carmen's, on saffron cheeks, the velvet breeches of toreadors, Navajos, guitars, banderillas, and tiger passions.

Although we had been certain for some time now that American cities never startle the traveller with the unexpected; nevertheless, we vaguely hoped for something even slightly out of the ordinary. Altogether too intriguing was the play of lights of the strange city in the warm black desert. Who could tell? Suppose, suddenly, upon awakening in our camp, we should go forth into the street and behold southern sidewalk cafes under tents, picturesque markets, where over mountains of vegetables would tower the arrogant snout of a camel, and would hear the chatter of bazaar crowds and the braying of donkeys! But—the United States with their united effort delivered a new blow to our imagination. Upon awakening in our camp and driving out into the street, we beheld the city of Gallup in all its glory of petrol pumps, drug-stores, empty sideewalks, and streets chockfull of automobiles. It even seemed to us that any moment now, just as in Gallup, a green little demi-truck would bob out from around the corner and swipe us sidewise, and Mr. Adams, that composed smile on his face, would walk through the show window of an automobile store. It was dull to look upon this standardized wealth. Passing through the desert we had stopped in a score of cities and, not counting Santa Fe, and perhaps also Albuquerque, they were all Gallups. It is scarcely possible to find anything more paradoxical in the world: standardized cities in a varied desert.

Las Vegas cured us completely. From then on we did not hope to run across anything unexpected in any new town. That helped a lot, because in the course of our journey remarkable surprises awaited us. The less we expected them, the more pleasing they were to us.

In Las Vegas we stopped just long enough at a drug-store to eat Breakfast No. 3 and, gathering momentum at a square overgrown with electric-light poles, we dashed out of town. We did it so hastily that we violated the traffic rules of the city of Las Vegas and faced a flood of automobiles: near the square each direction had its separate traffic lane. A police car immediately drove up to us. The policeman sitting in it ordered us to stop.

"I am very, very sorry," said Mrs. Adams meekly.

"Very, very, Mr. Officer." That old panicmonger, Mr. Adams, supported her.

But this time we did not get the dreaded ticket. The policeman was happy that the naive New Yorker provincials promoted him to an officer, and limited himself to a short speech about the traffic rules of the city of Las Vegas, to which Mr. Adams listened in profound silence.

Finally the policeman told us what road to follow to Boulder City.

After going three blocks, we noticed that the police automobile was again chasing us. Was it possible that "Mr. Officer" had changed his mind and would, after all, give us a ticket? Mrs. Adams raced ahead, but the police Packard quickly caught up with us, and Mr. Officer, sticking his head out of the window, said:

"Lady! I drove after you because I was 'fraid you might miss the road. And that's just what happened. You went two extra blocks!"

"Thank you very, very much!" exclaimed Mr. Adams, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Very, very!" Mrs. Adams supported him.

"Very much!" we chimed in, like the echo in Zion Canyon.

It was only thirty miles to Boulder City. About fifty minutes later we were already driving up to the government booth, the same kind you find upon entering every American national park. Here the booth stood at the entrance to Boulder City, a town which sprang up during the construction of the biggest dam in the world, Boulder Dam, on the Colorado River. In the booth we were given tickets, on which were printed the rules for visiting the construction, and we drove into the little town.

Strange as it may seem, we heard little about Boulder Dam in America. The newspapers almost never mentioned its construction. Only when it was being completed, when Roosevelt participated in its solemn opening, did the newsreels devote a few flashes to it. We had seen that newsreel and we remembered the President's speech. He spoke about the significance of this government enterprise, praised some governors and senators who had something or other to do with the construction, but did not say one word about the men who designed the project and who built the dam—that great monument to man's triumph over nature.

Besides the possibility of seeing with our own eyes the technical wonder of it, visiting Boulder Dam was of special interest to us for another reason as well. We expected to meet there engineer Thompson, one of the few American engineers to have received from the Soviet Government the Order of the Red Banner.

The little white houses in Boulder City reflected the eternal sun of the desert so blindingly that it was impossible to look upon them. Although the city was built for temporary abode, was already half deserted, and after the end of the installation work at the powerhouse would be entirely deserted and most likely taken down, it made a much more pleasing impression upon us than the asphalto-petrol fraternity (of the Gallup type) which expects to exist for ever. It had many lawns, flower-beds, basketball and tennis courts.

We met Mr. Thompson at the hotel, and at once departed for the construction.

Thompson, the chief installation engineer of General Electric, a thin, black, forty-year-old man, with long coal-black eyelashes and very lively eyes, in spite of the fact that this was his day of rest (we arrived on a Sunday), was in his working trousers and a short leather jacket with a zip fastening. We were told that he is one of the best and perhaps the very best installation chief in the world, a kind of world champion at installing colossal electrical machines. The champion had sunburned calloused hands covered with fresh scratches. Thompson grew up in Scotland. In his faultless English one could easily detect the burring Scottish "r." During the war he was a British aviator. In his face lurked that shadow of sadness which is the attribute of all those who had given several years of their life to war. He smoked a pipe, and occasionally rolled his own cigarettes in yellow paper.

His profession had almost deprived him of a homeland, or so at least it seemed to us. Here is a British man who works for an American firm and travels all over the world. There is probably not a single part of the world in which Mr. Thompson had not installed several machines. He lived in the U.S.S.R, for several years, worked at Stalingrad and Dnieprostroi, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, and now he was here in the desert, under this appalling sun, installing machinery for the Boulder Dam hydro-electric station. He would work here another year. What would he do then? He did not know. He might go to South Africa. Or, maybe, General Electric would send him to some other place—India, Australia, China.

"I should like very much to go to the U.S.S.R.," said Thompson, "and see how things are there now. After all, I left a part of my heart in your country. You see, my wife and I have no children, so I call the machines that I install my children. I have several children in Russia, my most beloved children. I should like to see them again."

He began to recall some of the people with whom he had worked.

"I'll never forget the moment when the installation of the Dnieper electric station was finished and I transmitted the switch to Winter, so that he would turn on the electricity with his own hands. I said to him: 'Mr. Winter, the soup is ready.' There were tears in Winter's eyes. We kissed each other, Russian fashion. You have many good engineers, but Winter is an altogether exceptional figure. There are few people of his kind in the world. You can count them on the fingers of one hand. What is he doing now? Where is he?"

We told him that Winter was working in the State Planning Commission (Gosplan) and was in charge of the Central Energy Trust.

"That's a great pity," said Thompson. "A man like that should not work in an office."

We explained that the Gosplan is not an office, but something much more significant.

"I realize that," answered Thompson. "But anyway, that's no business for Mr. Winter. He is a captain of men. He must be on the battlefield. He must be the chief of some construction. I know, you are still building a lot. Now it's all in the past, so we can talk about it frankly. Most of our engineers did not believe that anything would come of the first five-year plan. It seemed incredible to them that your untrained workers and young engineers could ever master the complex and complicated production processes, and especially electrical technique. Well, look at it! You did it! Now it's a fact which no one can deny!"

Thompson asked Mrs. Adams to let him take the wheel of the automobile, since we had quite a dangerous part of our journey ahead of us, and he skilfully guided us down the dizzying descent to the bottom of the canyon.

Several times along the. way we caught a view of the dam.

Imagine the rapidly flowing mountain river coursing on the bottom of a huge stone corridor, the walls of which represent the highest, almost overhanging, dark-red cliffs. The height of the cliffs is six hundred and fifty feet. And so, between two walls of the canyon fashioned by nature, the hands of man have reared a third wall of reinforced concrete, which bars the flow of the river. That wall runs in a semicircle, and it looks like a petrified waterfall.

Having admired Boulder Dam from below, we went up to walk across its top. Mr. Thompson asked us to keep to the right. From a tremendous height we saw the dried-out bottom of the canyon littered with remainders of the great construction—mill ends and pieces of building waste. A railway car hanging on a steel trestle was slowly being lowered to the bottom of the abyss.

We walked to the end of the dam, and turned back.

"Now you may pass to the left side," said Mr. Thompson.

This was a well-prepared effect.

On the other side of the dam lies a large, crystal-clear cool lake.

Going up to the centre of the dam Mr. Thompson suddenly stopped, spread his feet wide apart on either side of the white mark.

"Now," he said, "I am standing with one foot in Arizona and with the other foot in Nevada."

Boulder Dam, located between those two states—and close to two more, Utah and California—gives the desert not only electricity, but also water. Besides the electric station, this will be the centre of the irrigation system of the Ail-American Canal.

"Tell me," we asked Mr. Thompson, "who is the author of the Boulder Dam project?"

To our surprise he did not answer that question. He could only tell us the name of the joint stock company which was doing the work under contract with the government.

"No doubt," he said, smiling, "if you were to ask some builder here who was installing the turbines, he would not be able to give you my name. He would simply tell you that the installation was being done by the General Electric Company. With us here in America, engineers don't enjoy fame. Only the firms are known."

"Excuse me, Mr. Thompson, but that is a great injustice. We know who built the Cathedral of St. Peter in Rome, although it was built several centuries ago. The authors of Boulder Dam, where such remarkable technique and such amazing construction art are united, are entitled to fame."

"No," said Mr. Thompson, "I don't see any injustice in that. As for me, personally, for example, I am not looking for fame. I am perfectly satisfied if my name is known by two hundred specialists in the world. Apart from that, contemporary technique is such that actually it is not always possible to determine who is the author of this or that technical production, The epoch of Edison has come to an end. The time of separate great inventions has passed. Now we have general technical progress. Who is building Boulder Dam? Six companies—and that's that."

"But in the U.S.S.R, engineers and workers enjoy great popularity. Newspapers write about them, magazines print their portraits."

"That's because you are carried away by construction. It is playing too big a role with you now. Later you will forget about it and will stop proclaiming the fame of engineers and workers."

We talked for quite a while about fame; or rather, about the right to fame. It seems to us that we did not convince each other of anything. Mr. Thompson's position was clear to us. Capitalism had denied him fame—or rather, had stolen his fame—so this proud man did not even want to hear of it. He gave his bosses knowledge and in exchange received a salary. He felt that they were quits.

Standing on the summit of one of the most beautiful constructions of our age, about which it is only known that it is not known who built it, we spoke about fame in the United States.

Fame in that country begins with publicity. And publicity is given a person only when it is to somebody's advantage. Who in America really enjoys the greatest, all-national fame? People who make money or people with the aid of whom somebody else makes money. There are no exceptions to this rule. Money! All-national fame is enjoyed by a boxing champion or a football champion, because a match with their participation garners millions of dollars. A motion-picture star enjoys fame, because her fame is of use to her producer. He can deprive her of this national fame at any time he so desires. Bandits enjoy fame, because it pays newspapers and because with their names are associated figures with many zeros.

But who could utilize and need to create fame for Thompson or Jackson, Wilson or Adams, if those people merely build machines, electric stations, bridges, and irrigation systems? Their bosses find that it is even unprofitable that they should be famous. They would have to pay a large salary to a famous man.

"Seriously," Mr. Adams told us, "do you really think that Ford is famous in America because he created a cheap automobile ? Oh, no! It would be foolish to think that! It is simply because throughout the country automobiles run around with his surname on the radiator. With you, Ford the mechanic is famous; with us, Ford the merchant."

No, perhaps Thompson is right when he waives American fame. Fame in America is merchandise. And like all other merchandise in America it brings profit not to him who has created it, but to him who trades in it.

PART IV

30 Mrs. Adams Sets a Record

ON THE BORDER of California we were stopped at the inspector's station, around which small cactuses were planted, and our automobile was searched.

It is forbidden to transport fruit or flowers into California. Cali-fornians are afraid that bacteria which cause plant diseases may be carried into their state.

The inspector pasted on our windshield a label portraying unnaturally blue vistas and green palms, and we found ourselves in California, in the Golden State.

However, after we passed the inspector's bungalow we did not find any palms at all. The desert continued as grandiose and beautiful as in Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico. Only the sun became warmer and more and more cactuses appeared. A whole forest of cactuses jutted out of the sand on either side of the road. The cactuses were large, the size <>( an apple tree. Their branches, as thick as the trunk itself, looked as if they had been injured in torment, looked like outspread arms cut off at the elbow.

Thus half a day passed. We lunched on bananas, like monkeys. The road passed from one plateau to another, rising continually. Cactuses disappeared just as suddenly as they had appeared. A grated tower appeared on the horizon, then another, then a third. They looked like the fighting machines of Martian warriors. We were crossing the high-pressure line built for transmitting current from the Boulder Dam station to California. The electricity marched in measured step across the sands and hills of the desert.