“So, how are you feeling?” he asked, a sad smile already on his face.
“You know,” said the other, “I just came back from a business trip.
Got to see a state farm.
Incredible.
A grain factory!
You can’t imagine, my friend, what the Five-Year Plan means, what the will of the collective really means!”
“But that’s exactly what I was just saying!” Bomze exclaimed enthusiastically.
“That’s right, the will of the collective!
The Five-Year Plan in four years, even in three—that’s the incentive that . . .
Take my own wife.
She stays at home—yet even she appreciates industrialisation.
The new life is emerging in front of our eyes, damn it!”
He stepped aside and shook his head cheerfully.
A minute later he was already holding the quiet Borisokhlebsky by the sleeve and saying:
“You’re right, I agree with you.
Why build all those Magnitogorsks, state farms, and combine harvesters when there’s no private life, when individuality is suppressed?”
The next minute, his somewhat weak voice was already murmuring in the stairwell:
“And that’s exactly what I was saying to Comrade Borisokhlebsky just now.
Why mourn individuality and private life when grain factories are rising in front of our eyes? Magnitogorsks, combine harvesters, concrete mixers; when the collective . . .”
During the break, Bomze, who greatly enjoyed these meaningful exchanges, managed to shoot the breeze with about a dozen of his co-workers.
The mood of each exchange could be determined from his facial expression, which quickly moved from sadness about the suppression of individuality to a bright enthusiastic smile.
But whatever emotions he experienced at any given moment, an expression of innate nobility never left his face.
And everybody, from the ideologically up-to-snuff members of the local union committee to the politically backward Kukushkind, considered Bomze an honest man and even a man of principle.
Then again, his own opinion of himself was no different.
The new bell announced an end to the emergency and returned the employees to their hotel rooms.
Work resumed.
As a matter of fact, the words “work resumed” did not exactly describe the activities at the Hercules, which, according to its charter, was supposed to be engaged in the lumber and timber trade.
During the last year, however, the Herculeans had abandoned all thoughts of such mundane things as logs, plywood, export-quality cedar, and the like. Instead, they immersed themselves in a more exhilarating pursuit: the fight for their building, their dearly beloved hotel.
It all started with a small sheet of paper that a slow-moving messenger from the city’s Municipal Affairs Department brought in his canvas delivery bag.
“Upon receiving this,” read the paper, “you are requested to vacate the premises of the former Hotel Cairo within a period of one week and to transfer the building, along with all the equipment of the former hotel, to the jurisdiction of the Hotel Department.
You are assigned the premises of the former Tin and Bacon Co.
See: City Council resolution of June 12, 1929.”
In the evening, the paper was placed in front of Comrade Polykhaev, who sat in the electric shade of the palms and the ficus.
“What!” exploded the director of the Hercules indignantly. “They tell me I’m ‘requested!’
Me, who reports directly to the Center!
What is wrong with them? Are they out of their minds?”
“They might as well have said ‘instructed,’” Impala Mikhailovna said, adding fuel to the fire. “Such arrogance!”
“They can’t be serious,” said Polykhaev, smiling ominously.
A most forthright response was composed immediately.
The director of the Hercules flatly refused to vacate the premises.
“Next time they’ll know I’m not their night watchman, and they’d better not write ‘requested’ to me,” mumbled Comrade Polykhaev, taking a rubber stamp with his signature out of his pocket and applying it upside down in agitation.
Once again a slow-moving messenger, this time the one from the Hercules, trudged down the sun-drenched streets, stopping at refreshment stands, getting involved in all the street squabbles on the way, and waving his delivery bag with abandon.
For the entire week after that, the Herculeans discussed the new situation.
The employees basically agreed that Polykhaev was not about to swallow such a challenge to his authority.
“You don’t know our Polykhaev,” said the eagles from Finance and Accounting. “He’s seen it all.
He won’t budge because of some lousy resolution.”
Shortly thereafter, Comrade Bomze emerged from the principal’s office with a list of select employees in his hand.
He went from department to department, leaning over each person named on the list and whispering secretively:
“A small get-together.
Three rubles each.