“But there are Jews in Russia, aren’t there?” he asked cautiously.
“Correct,” replied Palamidov.
“Then there’s the Jewish question, right?”
“Wrong.
Jews—yes, question—no.”
The appearance of Ukhudshansky eased the tension in the corridor somewhat.
He was headed for the washroom with a towel around his neck.
“Talking?” he said, swaying on his feet—the train was moving fast. “Well, well . . .”
As he was coming back, clean and refreshed, with drops of water on his temples, the entire corridor was already engaged in an argument.
The Soviet journalists came out of their compartments, a few factory workers showed up from the next car, and two more foreigners arrived—an Italian journalist with a Fascist Party badge that depicted a lictor bundle with an axe, and a German professor of Oriental studies, who was invited to the festivities by the Soviet Society for Cultural Ties With Foreign Countries.
The subject of the argument ranged very broadly—from building socialism in the Soviet Union to men’s berets, which were then coming into style in the West.
And no matter what the issue was, opinions clashed.
“Arguing?
Well, well . . .” said Ukhudshansky, retreating into his compartment.
One could only make out individual cries above the general commotion.
“In that case,” Mr. Heinrich was saying, grabbing Suvorov, a worker from the Putilov Plant, by his tunic, “what have you been yammering about for the last thirteen years?
Why aren’t you making the world revolution you talk about so much?
Because you can’t?
So stop yammering!”
“We’re not going to make revolution in your countries!
You’ll do it yourselves.”
“Me?
I’m not going to make any revolution.”
“So they’ll make it without you, and they won’t even ask for your opinion.”
Mr. Hiram Berman was leaning against a stamped-leather partition and watched the argument without much interest.
The Jewish question had fallen through some crack in the discussion shortly after it began, and any other subject left him cold.
A satirist, whose byline was Gargantua, left a group where the German professor was praising the advantages of civil marriage.
He approached the pensive Hiram and started explaining something to him with gusto.
Hiram tried to listen, but he soon realized that he couldn’t make out anything at all.
Meanwhile Gargantua, who kept on adjusting Hiram’s clothing—straightening his necktie, removing a speck of something, doing up a button and then undoing it again—talked quite loudly and, on the face of it, even clearly.
But he had some undefinable speech impediment that turned all his words into gibberish.
The problem was aggravated by the fact that Gargantua was quite a talker, and that he demanded confirmation after every sentence.
“Isn’t that right?” he would say, moving his head as if he was about to peck some bird feed with his large, well-shaped nose. “Isn’t it true?”
These were the only words one could make out from Gargantua’s speech.
The rest fused into a wonderfully persuasive rumble.
At first, Mr. Berman agreed out of courtesy, but he soon fled.
People always agreed with Gargantua, so he considered himself capable of proving anything to anybody.
“See,” he told Palamidov, “you just don’t know how to talk to people.
And I convinced him.
I just proved to him that we no longer have the Jewish question at all, and he agreed with me.
Isn’t that right?”
Palamidov hadn’t understood a word, so he nodded in agreement and turned his attention to the exchange between the German Orientalist and the car’s attendant.
The attendant had long been trying to insert himself into the conversation, but only now did he finally find somebody who was in his league and available.
First he inquired about his counterpart’s position and full name, then he put his broom aside and slowly began:
“You may not know it, Citizen Professor, but there is this animal in Central Asia, it’s called a camel.
It has two humps on its back.
And I knew this railroad man, Comrade Bossyuk, a baggage handler, you’ve probably heard about him.
So he climbs onto this camel, gets between its humps, and hits the camel with a whip.
But the camel was mean, so it started squeezing him with its humps—almost squeezed him to death.
Bossyuk managed to jump off, though.