He immediately burned it in an iron stove whose chimney vented through the car’s roof.
Meanwhile, Ostap picked up one of the stacks to check it, tore off the wrapping, and, seeing that Koreiko wasn’t cheating, stuck it in his pocket.
“But where’s the foreign currency?” asked the grand strategist fussily. “Where are the Mexican dollars, Turkish liras, where are the pounds, rupees, pesetas, centavos, Rumanian leis, where are the Latvian lats and the Polish zlotys?
Give me at least some hard currency!”
“That’s all I’ve got,” replied Koreiko, sitting in front of the stove and watching the papers writhe in the fire, “take this, or else it’ll soon be gone, too.
I don’t carry foreign currency.”
“So now I’m a millionaire!” exclaimed Ostap with cheerful disbelief.
“A fool’s dream comes true!”
Ostap suddenly felt sad.
He was struck by how ordinary it all felt. He thought it odd that the earth didn’t move at that very moment, and that nothing, absolutely nothing, changed around him.
And even though he realized that one can’t expect mysterious caves, barrels of gold, or Aladdin’s light fixtures in our austere times, he still felt like something was missing.
He felt a bit bored, like Roald Amundsen did, when, whizzing over the North Pole in the airship Norge after a life-long quest, he said flatly to his companions:
“Well, we made it.”
Below them lay broken ice, crevasses, coldness, and emptiness.
The mystery is solved, the goal reached, there’s nothing left to do, time to look for a different occupation.
But sadness is fleeting, because ahead, fame and glory await: choirs sing, high-school girls in white pinafores stand in formation, the elderly mothers of the polar explorers who had been eaten by their teammates weep, national anthems play, fireworks boom, and the old king presses his prickly stars and medals against the explorer’s chest.
The moment of weakness had passed. Ostap tossed the stacks of money into a small bag, kindly provided by Alexander Ivanovich, stuck it under his arm, and rolled open the heavy door of the freight car.
The festivities were coming to an end.
The rockets were cast into the sky like golden fishing rods, pulling red and green fish back out; sparklers burst in people’s eyes, pyrotechnical comet suns swirled.
A show for the nomads was taking place on a wooden stage behind the telegraph shack.
Some of them sat on benches, while others watched the performance from the vantage point of their saddles.
The horses neighed frequently.
The special train was lit up from head to tail.
“Oh yes!” exclaimed Ostap. “A banquet in the dining car!
I completely forgot!
Oh, what fun!
Let’s go, Koreiko, my treat, I’m treating everyone!
In compliance with the laws of hospitality!
Brandy with a touch of lemon, game dumplings, fricandeau with mushrooms, old Tokay, new Tokay, sparkling champagne!”
“Fricandeau my foot,” said Koreiko angrily, “that’s how we get busted.
I don’t want to advertise myself!”
“I promise you a heavenly dinner on a white tablecloth,” Ostap persisted. “Come on, let’s go!
Stop being such a hermit, make sure you consume your share of alcoholic beverages, eat your twenty thousand steaks.
Or else total strangers will swarm up and polish off what should be yours.
I’ll help you get on the special train, they know me very well—and no later than tomorrow we’ll be in a reasonably civilized place.
And then, with our millions . . .
Alexander Ivanovich!”
The grand strategist wanted to make everyone happy immediately, wanted everyone to be cheerful.
Koreiko’s gloomy face bothered him.
So Ostap began working on him.
He agreed that there wasn’t any reason to advertise themselves, but why should they starve?
Ostap himself wasn’t quite sure why he needed the cheerless timekeeper, but once he got started, he couldn’t stop.
In the end, he even tried to browbeat him:
“You keep sitting on your suitcase, and one day the Grim Reaper will show up and slit your throat with his scythe.
Then what?
Won’t that be something?
Hurry up, Alexander Ivanovich, your meat is still on the table.
Don’t be such a bonehead.”
After losing a million, Koreiko had become more easy-going and amenable.
“Well, maybe it’s not such a bad idea to take a break?” he said uncertainly. “Go to a big city?