Fourteen Little Read Huts and Other Plays by Andrei Platonov (excerpt)

120 \

Fourteen Li le Red Huts

Enter ksyusha, now much thinner. ksyusha: Some news for you. (Takes a letter from under her jacket and hands it to bos.) The postman dropped it in this morning—tracking you down, he said, had proved almost beyond him. Read it. bos (ignoring the letter): I gave up reading long ago. ksyusha: But it might be interesting! bos: No, Ksyusha, it isn’t. And have you forgotten that your child is now sailing across the Caspian Sea? ksyusha: No, my friend, I have not forgotten. Certainly not.

I can see the little darling—all alive and well—right here in front of my eyes. I’ve got nothing to eat, but my breasts are swollen with milk. No, no, I don’t forget—only if I’m asleep. bos: That’s good—suffer! Suffering’s splendid. I’m reminding you, so you don’t forget. And what about the sacks you’re mending? Have you overfulfilled your quota? ksyusha: I’ve fulfilled my quota, but I haven’t had time to overfulfill it. My hands ache from grief, I can’t even weep anymore, I can only stare like a dead fish. bos: Ksyusha! Poor sad stuff that you are, come closer. Let me embrace you and stroke you! (Caresses ksyusha.)

ksyusha (nestling up to bos): Grandpa Ivan, you’re a scientist, you’re a kind man—tell me how I’m supposed to live now, help me to get through my suffering. bos: Don’t cry, Ksyusha! You cried when you were a child— over a broken glass vial, over a lost blue rag—and your grief was no less sad. Now you’re crying over a child. Once I used to cry too. I had four official wives, they all died. They bore me nineteen children—young men and women—and not one of them is left in the world, I can’t even find their graves.

Not one footprint, not one trace of the warm foot of a child of mine, have I ever seen on the earth. ksyusha: Don’t be bored, Grandpa. I feel bored too. My poor sad old man! bos: Do you have a pharmacy here? ksyusha: A small one. bos: Go and get me something chemical to swallow. ksyusha: In a minute. bos: Run along, my girl.

Exit ksyusha. bos (calling through the window): Filipp! voice of vershkov: What is it, Ivan Fyodorovich? bos: Come here. voice of vershkov: In a moment. Let me just have a stretch—I’m cracking my joints! bos (rummaging through his papers): The danger of falling behind is all too apparent. Haymaking has not been completed. The supplementary meat quota has not been sent off, there are insufficient sacks for the winter stores, two of the women went into labor yesterday—they conceived on the Fourteen Li le Red Huts

\ 121

122 \

Fourteen Li le Red Huts

same day. So where, oh God, am I going to find anyone to darn the sacks? Futilla, breath of my life, come back soon to our little huts—your heart beats with more intelligence than my head. I fail to recognize the class enemy. And these are his doings!

Enter filipp vershkov. vershkov: What do you want? bos: I want to know why you sleep so much. vershkov: Well, I’ll be damned! I thought you were one of those counter fellows, but it seems you’re no different from us. Is it true? Are we really all that interests you foreign counterfeits? bos: Listen, Filipp—you’re a class enemy! vershkov: Me? You could say that I am, and then again you could say that I’m not! You could say that’s a foul lie, a subterfuge, and a slander against our finest people. As you like, Ivan Fyodorovich: you can look at it this way and you can look at it that way, all in all it’s a riddle! bos: You’re a liar, you’re a saboteur! I can see right through humanity to the whole of fate! vershkov: Who cares what you see? It’s theory, up in the air— bos: It’s right down-to-earth, you reptile! I’ve been living over a century, I’ve measured everything against real events! You don’t love the policies of the Party, you pretend to be on our side, but really you’re on the side of Europe, of the well-off and bourgeois! vershkov: You . . . Don’t you psycho-craze me, I’ll start to st-stammer, I’ll st-stick something hard up your . . . Who

created a giant hayrick ti-titan, who was it completed ten workdays in twenty-four hours? bos: Yes, Filipp Vasilievich, that was you. I put you down for four workdays. vershkov: Four! You’re driving me psychological, you’re making me forget facts! You’re developing indignation in me, you devilish capitalist remnant.

Enter ksyusha. ksyusha: The sea’s loud tonight. It must be frightening to be sailing alone on the water— bos: Give me a powder. ksyusha: Take whichever you like, I’ve brought them all.

(Opens her pharmacy box.) bos swallows three powders, one after the other. bos: There isn’t even anything to wash them down with. It’s time you made kvass on the kolkhozes. vershkov: You’ll have to chew on them. bos: Don’t irritate me, you insignificance! vershkov: I’ll show you who’s insignificant! You know where we put people who’re insignificant? Here we have only the polysignificant! bos: You’re driving me psychological! Vacate the kolkhoz office! vershkov: Bureaucracy-crazed already! Wait till Futilla Ivanovna returns from her mission—I’ll tell her everything. ksyusha: Nor can I remain silent. This is a collective enterprise and the atmosphere should be comradely. You’re slandering a man on the basis of unsubstantiated evidence. Pah, it’s a disgrace!

Fourteen Li le Red Huts

\ 123

124 \

Fourteen Li le Red Huts

vershkov: Come on, Ksyusha, let’s leave the alien class on its own. We don’t want to soil our worldview.

They both leave. bos (happily): And so these almost-godly beings live out their lives. They play at different games—and we end up with world history . . . Soon it’ll be getting light—I must prepare the report for the district land section.