His brother-in-law called me.
Berlaga has a very serious mental illness, the heel nerve disorder.”
“The only surprising thing is that the rest of us don’t have this nerve disorder yet,” remarked old Kukushkind darkly, looking at his co-workers through his round, wire-rimmed glasses.
“Bite your tongue,” said Chevazhevskaya. “He’s always so depressing.”
“It’s really too bad about Berlaga,” said Dreyfus, turning his swivel chair towards the others.
The others silently agreed with Dreyfus.
Only Lapidus Jr. smirked mysteriously.
The conversation moved on to the behavior of the mentally ill. They mentioned a few maniacs, and told a few stories about notorious madmen.
“I had a crazy uncle,” reported Sakharkov, “who thought he was simultaneously Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
You can imagine the ruckus he raised!”
“The only surprising thing,” said old Kukushkind in a scratchy voice, methodically wiping off his glasses with the flap of his jacket, “the only surprising thing is that the rest of us don’t yet think that we are Abraham . . .” The old man started puffing, “. . .
Isaac . . .”
“And Jacob?” asked Sakharkov teasingly.
“That’s right!
And Jacob!” shrieked Kukushkind suddenly.
“And Jacob!
Yes, Jacob.
We live in such unnerving times . . .
When I worked at the banking firm of Sycamorsky and Cesarewitch they didn’t have any purges.”
Hearing the word “purge,” Lapidus Jr. perked up, took Koreiko by the elbow, and pulled him toward the enormous stained-glass window, which depicted two gothic knights.
“You haven’t heard the most interesting bit about Berlaga yet,” he whispered.
“Berlaga is healthy as a horse.”
“What?
So he’s not in the nuthouse?”
“Oh yes, he is.”
Lapidus smiled knowingly.
“That’s the trick. He was simply afraid of the purge and decided to sit this dangerous period out.
Faked mental illness.
Right now, he’s probably growling and guffawing.
What an operator!
Frankly, I’m envious.”
“Is there a problem with his parents?
Were they merchants?
Undesirable elements?”
“Yes, his parents were problematic, and he himself, between you and me, used to own a pharmacy.
Who knew the revolution was coming?
People took care of themselves the best they could: some owned pharmacies, others even factories.
Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Who knew?”
“They should have known,” said Koreiko icily.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” agreed Lapidus quickly, “people like this do not belong in a Soviet organization.”
He gave Koreiko a wide-eyed look and returned to his desk.
The hall was filled with employees. Flexible metal rulers, shining and silvery like fish scales, abacuses with palm beads, heavy ledgers with pink and yellow stripes on their pages, and a multitude of other pieces of stationery great and small were pulled out of desk drawers.
Tezoimenitsky tore yesterday’s page off the wall calendar, and the new day began. Somebody had already sunk his young teeth into a large chopped mutton sandwich.
Koreiko settled down at his desk as well.
He firmly planted his suntanned elbows on the desk and started making entries in a current accounts ledger.
Alexander Ivanovich Koreiko, one of the lowest-ranking employees of the Hercules, was approaching the very end of his youth. He was thirty-eight.
His brick-red face sported white eyes and blonde eyebrows that looked like ears of wheat.
His thin English mustache was the color of ripe cereal, too.
His face would have looked quite young had it not been for the rough drill-sergeant’s jowls that cut across his cheeks and neck.