The Twelve Chairs (28 page)

CRAFTSMAN
HAMBS
begins a new batch of furniture
St. Petersburg 1865
Ostap read the inscription aloud.
"But where are the jewels?" asked Ippolit Matveyevich.
"You're remarkably  shrewd,  my  dear chair-hunter. As  you see,  there
aren't any."
Vorobyaninov  was pitiful to look at. His slightly sprouting  moustache
twitched and the lenses of his pince-nez were misty. He  looked as though he
was about to beat his face with his ears in desperation.
The  cold, sober  voice of  the smooth operator  had  its  usual  magic
effect.  Vorobyaninov  stretched his  hands  along  the  seams  of his  worn
trousers and kept quiet.
"Shut up, sadness. Shut up, Pussy. Some day we'll have the laugh on the
stupid  eighth chair  in which we  found  the silly box. Cheer up! There are
three more chairs aboard; ninety-nine chances out of a hundred."
During the  night a  volcanic pimple erupted on  the  aggrieved Ippolit
Matveyevich's cheek.  All his sufferings, all  his  setbacks, and the  whole
ordeal  of the jewel hunt seemed  to be  summed up in the  pimple, which was
tinged with mother-of-pearl, sunset cherry and blue.
"Did you do that on purpose? " asked Ostap.
Ippolit Matveyevich sighed convulsively and  went to  fetch the paints,
his tall  figure  slightly  bent,  like a fishing  rod. The  transparent was
begun. The concessionaires worked on the upper deck.
And the third day of the voyage commenced.
It  commenced with a brief clash  between the  brass band and the sound
effects over a place to rehearse.
After  breakfast,  the  toughs  with  the brass tubes and  the  slender
knights with the Esmarch douches both  made  their way to the stern  at  the
same  time. Galkin  managed to get to  the bench first. A clarinet  from the
brass band came second.
"The seat's taken," said Galkin sullenly.
"Who by?" asked the clarinet ominously.
"Me, Galkin."
"Who else?"
"Palkin, Malkin, Chalkin and Zalkind."
"Haven't you got a Yolkin as well? This is our seat."
Reinforcements were brought up on both sides. The most powerful machine
in the band was the helicon, encircled three times by a  brass  serpent. The
French horn swayed to and fro,  looking like a human  ear, and the trombones
were in a  state of readiness for  action. The sun  was reflected a thousand
times in their armour. Beside them the sound effects looked  dark and small.
Here and  there a  bottle glinted, the  enema douches glimmered faintly, and
the saxophone, that outrageous take-off of a musical instrument, was pitiful
to see.
"The enema  battalion," said the bullying clarinet, "lays claim to this
seat."
"You," said Zalkind,  trying  to find the  most cutting  expression  he
could, "you are the conservatives of music!"
"Don't prevent us rehearsing."
"It's  you  who're preventing  us.  The  less  you  rehearse  on  those
chamber-pots of yours, the nicer it sounds."
"Whether you rehearse on those samovars  of yours or not makes  no damn
difference."
Unable to reach any agreement, both sides remained where they were  and
obstinately began  playing  their own music. Down the  river  floated sounds
that could only have been made by a tram  passing  slowly over broken glass.
The  brass  played the Kexholm Lifeguards'  march, while  the sound  effects
rendered a  Negro dance,  "An Antelope at the  Source  of the  Zambesi". The
shindy was ended by the personal intervention of the chairman of the lottery
committee.
At  eleven o'clock the  magnum opus was  completed. Walking  backwards,
Ostap and  Vorobyaninov  dragged their transparent up to the bridge. The fat
little man in charge ran in front with his hands in the air. By joint effort
the transparent was tied  to  the rail. It towered  above the passenger deck
like a cinema screen. In half an hour the electrician had laid cables to the
back  of the  transparent  and fitted  up  three lights  inside it. All that
remained was to turn the switch.
Off the starboard bow the lights of  Vasyuki could  already be made out
through the darkness.
The chief  summoned everyone  to  the  ceremonial illumination  of  the
transparent.  Ippolit  Matveyevich  and  the  smooth  operator  watched  the
proceedings from above, standing beside the dark screen.
Every event  on board was  taken seriously  by the floating  government
department.  Typists,  messengers, executives,  the  Columbus  Theatre,  and
members  of the ship's company crowded  on  to the  passenger  deck, staring
upward.
"Switch it on!" ordered the fat man.
The transparent lit up.
Ostap looked down at the crowd. Their  faces were bathed in pink light.
The onlookers  began laughing; then there was silence and a stern voice from
below said:
"Where's the second-in-command?"
The voice  was  so peremptory that  the  second-in-command rushed  down
without counting the steps.
"Just have a look," said the voice, "and admire your work!"
"We're about to be booted off," whispered Ostap to Ippolit Matveyevich.
And,  indeed, the little fat man came flying up to  the top deck like a
hawk.
"Well,  how's  the transparent?"  asked  Ostap  cheekily.  "Is it  long
enough?"
"Collect your things!" shouted the fat man.
"What's the hurry?"
"Collect  your things! You're going to court! Our boss doesn't like  to
joke."
"Throw him out!" came the peremptory voice from below.
"But, seriously, don't you  like  our transparent? Isn't it really  any
good?"
There  was  no point in continuing  the game. The  Scriabin had already
heaved  to,  and the faces  of the bewildered Vasyuki citizens  crowding the
pier could be seen from the  ship. Payment  was categorically refused.  They
were given five minutes to collect their things.
"Incompetent fool," said Simbievich-Sindievich  as  the partners walked
down on to the pier. "They should have given the  transparent to me to do. I
would have done it so that no Meyer-hold would have had a look-in!"
On  the  quayside  the  concessionaires  stopped  and  looked  up.  The
transparent shone bright against the dark sky.
"Hm, yes,"  said Ostap, "the transparent is rather  outlandish. A lousy
job!"
Compared with  Ostap's  work, any picture  drawn with  the  tail  of an
unruly  donkey  would have  been a  masterpiece.  Instead of a  sower sowing
bonds,  Ostap's mischievous hand  had  drawn a stumpy body with a sugar-loaf
head and thin whiplike arms.
Behind the  concessionaires  the  ship blazed  with light and resounded
with music, while in front of them,  on the high bank,  was the darkness  of
provincial midnight, the barking of a dog, and a distant accordion.
"I will sum up the situation," said Ostap light-heartedly.  "Debit: not
a cent of money; three chairs sailing down the river;  nowhere to go; and no
SPCC badge. Credit: a 1926 edition of a guidebook to the Volga (I was forced
to borrow it from Monsieur  Simbievich's cabin).  To balance  that without a
deficit would be very difficult. We'll have to spend the night on the quay."
The  concessionaires arranged  themselves on the  riverside benches. By
the light of a battered kerosene lamp Ostap read the guide-book:
On  the  right-hand  bank  is  the  town  of  Vasyuki. The  commodities
despatched from  here are  timber, resin, bark  and bast; consumer goods are
delivered  here for  the region,  which is  fifty  miles  from  the  nearest
railway.
The  town has  a population  of 8,000; it has a  state-owned  cardboard
factory employing  520 workers, a  small foundry, a brewery  and  a tannery.
Besides normal academic establishments, there is also a forestry school.
"The  situation is more  serious than I thought,"  observed  Ostap. "It
seems out of the question that we'll be able to squeeze any money out of the
citizens of Vasyuki. We nevertheless need thirty  roubles. First, we have to
eat, and, second, we have to catch up the lottery ship and meet the Columbus
Theatre in Stalingrad."
Ippolit  Matveyevich curled up like  an  old  emaciated tomcat after  a
skirmish  with a younger  rival, an ebullient conqueror of roofs, penthouses
and dormer windows.
Ostap walked up and  down the benches,  thinking and scheming.  By  one
o'clock a  magnificent  plan was ready. Bender  lay down by the side of  his
partner and went to sleep.

A  tall,  thin,  elderly  man  in  a  gold  pince-nez  and  very  dirty
paint-splashed  boots had been walking about the town of Vasyuki since early
morning, attaching hand-written notices to walls. The notices read:
On June 22,1927,
a lecture entitled

will be given at the Cardboardworker Club
by Grossmeister (Grand Chess Master) O. Bender
after which he will play

on 160 boards
Admission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 kopeks
Participation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 kopeks
Commencement at 6 p.m. sharp
Bring your own chessboards
MANAGER : K. Michelson
The Grossmeister had  not been wasting his  time, either. Having rented
the club for three  roubles, he hurried across  to  the chess section, which
for some reason or  other was located in the corridor of the  horse-breeding
administration.
In the chess section sat a one-eyed man reading a Panteleyev edition of
one of Spielhagen's novels.
"Grossmeister O. Bender!"  announced Bender, sitting down on the table.
"I'm organizing a simultaneous chess match here."
The Vasyuki chess player's one eye opened as wide as its natural limits
would allow.
"One second, Comrade  Grossmeister," he cried. "Take a seat, won't you?
I'll be back in a moment."
And the one-eyed man disappeared. Ostap looked around the chess-section
room. The walls were hung with photographs of racehorses; on the table lay a
dusty register marked "Achievements of the Vasyuki Chess Section for 1925".
The one-eyed man returned  with a dozen citizens of varying ages.  They
all  introduced  themselves  in turn  and respectfully shook hands  with the
Grossmeister.
"I'm on my way to Kazan," said Ostap abruptly. "Yes, yes, the  match is
this evening.  Do come along.  I'm sorry, I'm not in form at the moment. The
Carlsbad tournament was tiring."
The Vasyuki  chess players listened  to him with  filial love  in their
eyes. Ostap was inspired, and felt a flood of new strength and chess ideas.
"You wouldn't believe how far chess thinking has  advanced,"  he  said.
"Lasker, you know,  has gone as far as trickery. It's impossible to play him
any more. He blows cigar smoke over his opponents and smokes cheap cigars so
that the smoke will be fouler. The chess world is greatly concerned."
The Grossmeister then turned to more local affairs.
"Why  aren't there any  new ideas  about  in  the  province? Take,  for
instance,  your chess  section. That's what  it's called-the  chess section.
That's boring, girls! Why don't you call  it something else,  in true  chess
style?  It  would  attract  the trade-union  masses  into  the  section. For
example,  you could  call  it  The  Four Knights Chess  Club',  or  The  Red
End-game', or 'A Decline in the Standard of Play  with a Gain in Pace'. That
would be good. It has the right kind of sound."
The idea was successful.
"Indeed," exclaimed  the citizens, "why shouldn't we rename our section
The Four Knights Chess Club'?"
Since the  chess committee was  there on the  spot,  Ostap  organized a
one-minute meeting under his  honorary  chairmanship, and the chess  section
was  unanimously renamed The Four Knights Chess  Club'. Benefiting  from his
lessons aboard the Scriabin, the Grossmeister artistically drew four knights
and the appropriate caption on a sheet of cardboard.
This important step promised the flowering of chess thought in Vasyuki.
"Chess!" said  Ostap. "Do you  realize  what chess  is? It promotes the
advance of  culture and  also  the economy.  Do  you realize  that  The Four
Knights   Chess  Club',  given  the  right  organization,  could  completely
transform the town of Vasyuki?"
Ostap  had not  eaten  since  the day  before, which  accounted for his
unusual eloquence.
"Yes," he cried, "chess  enriches a country! If  you agree to my  plan,
you'll soon be descending marble steps  to the quay! Vasyuki will become the
centre  of ten provinces! What  did you ever hear of  the town of  Semmering
before? Nothing! But now that miserable little town  is rich and famous just
because an international  tournament was  held  there. That's why I  say you
should organize an international chess tournament in Vasyuki."
"How?" they all cried.
"It's a  perfectly  practical  plan,"  replied  the  Grossmeister.  "My
connections and your activity are all that are required for an international
tournament in  Vasyuki.  Just  think  how  fine that  would  sound-The  1927
International Tournament to be held in  Vasyuki!' Such players as Jose-Raoul
Capablanca,  Lasker,  Alekhine,  Reti, Rubinstein, Tarrasch, Widmar  and Dr.
Grigoryev are bound to come. What's more, I'll take part myself!"
"But what about the money?" groaned  the citizens. "They would all have
to be paid. Many thousands of roubles! Where would we get it?"
"A powerful hurricane takes everything into account,"  said Ostap. "The
money will come from collections."
"And who do you think is going to pay that kind of money? The people of
Vasyuki?"
"What do you mean, the people of Vasyuki? The people of Vasyuki are not
going to  pay money, they're going to receive it. It's all extremely simple.
After all, chess enthusiasts will come from all over the world  to attend  a
tournament   with   such   great  champions.   Hundreds  of   thousands   of
people-well-to-do  people-will  head  for  Vasyuki.  Naturally,  the   river
transport will not be able  to cope with such  a large number of passengers.
So the Ministry of Railways will  have  to build a main  line from Moscow to
Vasyuki. That's one thing.  Another is hotels and skyscrapers to accommodate
the  visitors.  The  third  thing is  improvement of the  agriculture over a
radius of five  hundred miles; the visitors  have to be provided with fruit,
vegetables,  caviar and chocolate. The building for the actual tournament is
the  next  thing.  Then  there's  construction  of garages  to  house  motor
transport  for the visitors. An extra-high power radio station will  have to
be built to broadcast the sensational  results of the tournament to the rest
of the world. Now about the Vasyuki railway. It most likely won't be able to
carry all the passengers wanting to come to Vasyuki, so we will have to have
a 'Greater Vasyuki' airport  with regular nights by mail planes and airships
to all parts of the globe, including Los Angeles and Melbourne."
Dazzling  vistas  unfolded  before  the  Vasyuki chess enthusiasts. The
walls of the room melted away. The rotting walls of the stud-farm  collapsed
and in their  place  a thirty-storey building towered  into the  sky.  Every
hall,  every  room, and  even the lightning-fast  lifts  were full of people
thoughtfully playing chess on malachite encrusted boards.
Marble  steps  led down to  the  blue Volga. Ocean-going  steamers were
moored on the river. Cablecars communicating with the town centre carried up
heavy-faced  foreigners,  chess-playing ladies, Australian advocates of  the
Indian  defence, Hindus in turbans, devotees of the Spanish gambit, Germans,
Frenchmen,  New Zealanders, inhabitants  of the  Amazon  basin,  and finally
Muscovites, citizens of Leningrad and Kiev, Siberians and natives of Odessa,
all envious of the citizens of Vasyuki.
Lines  of  cars  moved  in  between the  marble hotels.  Then  suddenly
everything stopped. From out  of  the fashionable  Pass Pawn  Hotel came the
world champion Capablanca. He was surrounded by  women. A militiaman dressed
in  special chess uniform (check breeches and bishops in his lapels) saluted
smartly.  The  one-eyed president  of the  "Four  Knights  Club" of  Vasyuki
approached the champion in a dignified manner.
The conversation  between the two luminaries, conducted in English, was
interrupted by  the arrival  by  air  of  Dr. Grigoryev and the future world
champion, Alekhine.
Cries of  welcome shook the  town.  Capablanca glowered.  At a wave  of
one-eye's hand, a set of marble steps was run up to the plane. Dr. Grigoryev
came down,  waving his hat and commenting, as he went, on a possible mistake
by Capablanca in his forthcoming match with Alekhine.
Suddenly a black dot was noticed on the horizon. It approached rapidly,
growing larger and  larger until  it  finally turned  into a  large  emerald
parachute. A man with an attache case  was hanging from  the harness, like a
huge radish.
"Here he is!" shouted one-eye. "Hooray,  hooray, I recognize  the great
philosopher and chess player Dr. Lasker. He is the only person  in the world
who wears those green socks." Capablanca glowered again.
The marble steps  were quickly  brought up for Lasker to alight on, and
the cheerful  ex-champion, blowing from his sleeve a speck of dust which had
settled on him over Silesia f ell into  the arms of  one-eye. The latter put
his arm around Lasker's waist and walked him over to the champion, saying:
"Make up your quarrel!  On  behalf of the  popular masses of Vasyuki, I
urge you to make up your quarrel."
Capablanca sighed loudly and, shaking hands with the veteran,  said: "I
always admired your idea of moving QK5 to QB3 in the Spanish gambit."
"Hooray!"  exclaimed one-eye. "Simple and convincing in the style of  a
champion."
And the incredible crowd joined in with: "Hooray! Vivat! Banzai! Simple
and convincing in the style of a champion!"
Express trains sped into the twelve  Vasyuki stations,  depositing ever
greater crowds of chess enthusiasts.
Hardly had the sky begun to glow from the brightly lit  advertisements,
when a white horse was led  through the streets of the town. It was the only
horse  left after the mechanization of the town's transportation. By special
decree it had been renamed a  stallion, although it had actually been a mare
the whole of its life. The lovers of chess acclaimed it with palm leaves and
chessboards.
"Don't worry,"  continued Ostap,  "my scheme will guarantee the town an
unprecedented  boom in your production forces. Just  think what will  happen
when  the tournament  is over and the  visitors  have  left. The citizens of
Moscow,  crowded  together  on account of  the  housing shortage, will  come
flocking  to  your   beautiful  town.  The  capital  will  be  automatically
transferred  to  Vasyuki. The  government  will move here.  Vasyuki  will be
renamed  New  Moscow, and  Moscow  will become  Old  Vasyuki. The  people of
Leningrad and Kharkov will gnash their teeth in fury but won't be able to do
a  thing about  it.  New Moscow  will  soon become the  most elegant city in
Europe and, soon afterwards, in the whole world."
"The whole world!! I" gasped the citizens of Vasyuki in a daze.
"Yes, and, later on, in the universe. Chess thinking-which has turned a
regional centre into the capital of the world-will become an applied science
and will invent ways of  interplanetary communication. Signals  will be sent
from Vasyuki to Mars, Jupiter and Neptune. Communications with Venus will be
as easy as going  from Rybinsk  to Yaroslavl.  And then  who  knows what may
happen? In maybe eight or so years the first interplanetary chess tournament
in the history of the world will be held in Vasyuki."
Ostap wiped his noble brow.  He  was  so hungry he  could have eaten  a
roasted knight from the chessboard.
"Ye-es,"  said the one-eyed man with  a sigh, looking  around the dusty
room with an insane light in  his eye, "but how are we to  put the plan into
effect, to lay the basis, so to say?"
They all looked at the Grossmelster tensely.
"As I say, in practice the plan depends entirely  on  your activity.  I
will do all  the  organizing myself. There will be no actual expense, except
for the cost of the telegrams."
One-eyed nudged his companions. "Well?" he asked, "what do you say?"
"Let's do it, let's do it!" cried the citizens.
"How much money is needed for the . . . er . . . telegrams?"
"A mere bagatelle. A hundred roubles."
"We  only  have twenty-one roubles  in  the  cash box. We  realize,  of
course, that it is by no means enough . . ."
But the Grossmeister proved to  be accommodating. "All right," he said,
"give me the twenty roubles."
"Will it be enough?" asked one-eye.
"It'll  be enough  for the  initial telegrams. Later  on  we can  start
collecting contributions. Then there'll be so much money we shan't know what
to do with it."
Putting  the money away in  his  green field  jacket, the  Grossmeister
reminded the gathered citizens of his lecture  and simultaneous match on one
hundred  and sixty boards, and, taking leave of them until evening, made his
way to the Cardboard-worker Club to find Ippolit Matveyevich.
"I'm starving," said Vorobyaninov in a tremulous voice.
He was  already sitting  at the window of the box office, but  had  not
collected one kopek; he could not even buy a hunk of bread. In  front of him
lay a green wire basket intended for the money. It was the kind that is used
in middle-class houses to hold the cutlery.
"Listen, Vorobyaninov," said Ostap, "stop your cash transactions for an
hour and  come and  eat  at  the  caterers' union canteen. I'll describe the
situation as we go. By the way, you need a shave and brush-up. You look like
a tramp. A Grossmeister cannot have such suspicious-looking associates."
"I haven't sold a single ticket," Ippolit Matveyevich informed him.
"Don't worry. People will  come  flocking  in towards evening. The town
has  already  contributed  twenty  roubles  for   the   organization  of  an
international chess tournament."
"Then why bother about the simultaneous match?" whispered his  manager.
"You may lose the games anyway. With twenty roubles we can  now  buy tickets
for  the  ship-the  Karl  Liebknecht  has just  come  in-travel  quietly  to
Stalingrad and  wait for  the  theatre  to arrive. We can probably  open the
chairs there. Then we'll be rich and the world will belong to us."
"You shouldn't say such silly things on an empty stomach. It has a  bad
effect on the brain. We might  reach Stalingrad on twenty  roubles, but what
are we going  to eat with?  Vitamins, my dear comrade marshal, are not given
away  free. On the other hand, we can get  thirty roubles  out of the locals
for the lecture and match."
"They'll slaughter us!" said Vorobyaninov.
"It's a risk, certainly. We may be manhandled a bit. But anyway, I have
a nice little plan which will save you, at least. But we can talk about that
later on. Meanwhile, let's go and try the local dishes."
Towards six  o'clock  the  Grossmeister,  replete,  freshly shaven, and
smelling of  eau-de-Cologne, went into the box office of the Cardboardworker
Club.
Vorobyaninov, also freshly shaven, was busily selling tickets.
"How's it going? " asked the Grossmeister quietly.
"Thirty have gone  in and  twenty  have  paid  to  play," answered  his
manager.
"Sixteen roubles. That's bad, that's bad!" -
"What do you mean, Bender?  Just look  at the number of people standing
in line. They're bound to beat us up."
"Don't think about it. When they hit you, you can cry. In the meantime,
don't dally. Learn to do business."
An  hour  later  there  were thirty-five roubles  in  the cash box. The
people in the clubroom were getting restless.
"Close  the window and  give me the  money!" said Bender.  "Now listen!
Here's five roubles. Go down to the quay, hire a boat for a couple of hours,
and wait for me by the riverside just below  the warehouse. We're going  for
an evening boat trip. Don't worry about me. I'm in good form today."
The Grossmeister entered the clubroom. He felt in good spirits and knew
for certain that the first  move-pawn  to  king four-would not cause him any
complications. The remaining  moves were, admittedly,  rather  more obscure,