I had no idea.”
“A warm evening,” said Panikovsky deferentially.
In the ensuing pause, only the raging crickets could be heard.
The moon turned pale; its light accentuated the powerful shoulders of Alexander Ivanovich.
Panikovsky couldn’t bear the tension anymore; he stepped behind Koreiko and screeched:
“Hands up!”
“What?” asked Koreiko, surprised.
“Hands up,” repeated Panikovsky meekly.
The next moment he received a sharp and very painful blow to the shoulder and fell on the ground.
When he got up, Koreiko was already grappling with Balaganov.
They both breathed heavily, as if they were moving a grand piano.
Mermaid-like laughter and splashing came from below.
“Why are you hitting me?” bellowed Balaganov. “I just asked you for the time! . . .”
“I’ll show you the time!” hissed Koreiko, putting the age-old hatred of a rich man for a thief into his blows.
Panikovsky got closer on all fours and slipped his hands into the Herculean’s pockets.
Koreiko kicked him, but it was too late.
A metal Caucasus cigarette box had already relocated itself from Koreiko’s left pocket to Panikovsky’s hands.
Pieces of paper and various membership cards fell from the other pocket and were strewn about on the ground.
“Run!” cried Panikovsky from the dark.
The last blow landed on Balaganov’s back.
A few minutes later, the thrashed and agitated Alexander Ivanovich saw two blue, moonlit silhouettes high above his head.
They were running up the crest of the hill toward the city.
Zosya, fresh and smelling of sea-salt, found Alexander Ivanovich engaged in an odd pursuit.
He was crawling on his knees, lighting matches with trembling fingers, and picking up pieces of paper from the grass.
But before Zosya was able to ask what happened, he had already found the receipt for a suitcase that was quietly sitting in the luggage room between a woven basket full of cherries and a baize holdall.
“I dropped it accidentally,” he said, smiling anxiously and carefully putting the receipt away.
And only as they were entering the city did he remember the Caucasus cigarette box with the ten thousand that he hadn’t transfered to the suitcase.
While the titans struggled on the seashore, Ostap Bender decided that staying in the hotel brought unwanted visibility to the venture they had embarked upon.
Having read in the evening paper an ad saying: “FR: exl. rm. all am. s.v. r. bac.”—and quickly deciphering it as:
“For rent: an excellent room with all the amenities and a sea view, a respectable bachelor only”—Ostap thought to himself:
“Looks like I’m a bachelor now.
Just recently, the Stargorod city court informed me that my marriage to Citizen Gritsatsueva was dissolved at her request, and that I was to assume my premarital name, O.
Bender.
Well, I’m going to have to lead a premarital life.
I’m a bachelor and I’m respectable, so the room is definitely mine.”
And so the grand strategist pulled on his cool white pants and headed to the address listed in the paper.
CHAPTER 13 BASILIUS LOKHANKIN AND HIS ROLE IN THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
At precisely 4:40 P.M., Basilius Lokhankin went on a hunger strike.
He was lying on an oilcloth-covered couch, his back to the world, his face to the curved back of the couch.
He wore suspenders and green socks—known as karpetki in Chernomorsk.
Having spent about twenty minutes of his hunger strike in this position, Lokhankin moaned, rolled over, and looked at his wife.
The green karpetki traced a small arc in the air.
Meanwhile, his wife was throwing her stuff into a colorful travel bag: decorative perfume bottles, a rubber massage bolster, two dresses with tails and an old one without, a tall felt hat decorated with a glass crescent, copper cartridges of lipstick, and a pair of stretch pants.
“Barbara!” called out Lokhankin in a nasal voice.
She remained silent, breathing heavily.
“Barbara!” he repeated. “Are you really leaving me for Ptiburdukov?”
“Yes,” she answered. “I’m leaving.
That’s how it should be.”
“But why, why?” asked Lokhankin with bovine passion.
His nostrils, already large, flared in despair.