Have the Antelope encrusted with mother of pearl?
And maybe . . .”
The grand strategist jumped off the parapet, fired up by a new thought.
Without even a moment’s pause, he left the boulevard and, firmly resisting the onslaughts of both head and side winds, set out for the main post office.
There, at his request, the suitcase was sewn into a piece of burlap and tied with a string.
It looked like an ordinary parcel, one of the thousands that the post office accepts every day, the kind people use to send salt pork, fruit preserves, or fresh apples to their relatives.
Ostap picked up an indelible pencil, waved it excitedly in the air, and wrote:
Valuable
To: THE PEOPLE’S COMMISSAR OF FINANCE
Moscow
Thrown by the hand of a mighty postal worker, the parcel tumbled onto a pile of oval-shaped sacks, bags, and boxes.
Stuffing the receipt into his pocket, Ostap noticed that a slow-moving geezer with white lightning bolts on his collar was already taking the cart with his million into the next room.
“Our deliberations continue,” said the grand strategist, “this time without O. Bender representing the Deranged Agrarians.”
He lingered under the post office archway for a long time, alternately congratulating himself and having second thoughts.
The wind snuck under Ostap’s raincoat.
He shivered, and began to regret that he never bothered to buy another fur coat.
A young woman stopped for a moment right in front of him.
She threw back her head, looked at the shiny face of the post office clock, and moved on.
She wore a rough lightweight coat that was shorter than her dress and a dark-blue beret with a childish pompom.
She held down the flap of her coat, which was being blown by the wind, with her right hand.
The captain’s heart fluttered even before he recognized Zosya, and then he started following her over the wet slabs of the sidewalk, subconsciously maintaining a distance.
Occasionally, other people stepped between them; then Ostap would walk out onto the street, peering at Zosya from the side and preparing his talking points for the upcoming face-to-face.
On the corner, Zosya stopped in front of a stand that was selling accessories and studied some brown men’s socks that were dangling from a string.
Ostap patrolled nearby.
Two men with briefcases were having a heated conversation on the curb.
Both wore fall overcoats, their white summer pants showing underneath.
“You didn’t leave the Hercules a moment too soon, Ivan Pavlovich,” said one, clutching his briefcase to his chest, “they’re having a vicious purge right now. It’s brutal.”
“The whole city is talking about it,” sighed the other.
“Yesterday, it was Sardinevich,” said the first man lustily, “standing room only.
At first, everything was hunky-dory.
When Sardinevich told his life story, everybody applauded.
‘I was born, he said, between the hammer and the anvil.’
By that he meant that his parents were blacksmiths.
But then somebody from the audience asked:
‘Excuse me, do you happen to remember a trading company called Sardinevich & Son Hardware?
You’re not that Sardinevich, by any chance?’
And this idiot blurts out:
‘No, I’m not that Sardinevich, I’m the son.’
Can you imagine what they’ll do to him now?
Category One is all but assured.”
“Yes, Comrade Brinetrust, it’s tough.
And who are they purging today?”
“Today’s a big day!
Today it’s Berlaga, the one who tried to sit it out in the nuthouse.
Then it’s Polykhaev himself, along with Impala Mikhailovna, that snake, his illegitimate wife.
She wouldn’t let anyone at the Hercules breathe easily.
I’m going there two hours early, or else I’ll never get in.
Also, Bomze’s coming up . . .”
Zosya started walking again, and Ostap never found out what happened to Adolf Nikolaevich Bomze.
He couldn’t care less, though.