Vladimir Orlov - Danilov the Violist

"Danilov, you're here, too?"

Danilov turned. Kudasov stood before him.

"I'm not here by myself," Danilov said.

"What's your number?" Kudasov asked.

"I don't have one..."

"I mean the person for whom you're here -- if it's not a secret..."

"Let me look," Danilov said. "I have the paper somewhere here ... two hundred seventeen, I guess..."

"I'm a bit ahead of you," Kudasov said. "You're probably here for Klavdia Petrovna?"

"Yes."

"Write the number on your hand in ink."

"Why on my hand?"

"Why... to make sure... everyone here does it... Here, use my pen..."

Danilov wrote "217" on his hand unwillingly, returned the pen with thanks, and said: "I haven't written a number on my hand in a long time."

"You have to ... the kind of people you get here ..."

It was stuffy and Danilov loosened his coat.

"So, you have your own pen!" Kudasov said, espying the indicator previously described.

"It doesn't write," Danilov said hurriedly.

"Swedish?"

"Swedish," Danilov agreed.

"Could I take a look?"

"Yes, please ..." Danilov said plaintively.

He handed Kudasov the pen, while worrying that it might light up with the naked Rubensian woman in red boots. But the woman didn't light up: There was nothing demonic in Rostovtsov's apartment.

"They really know how to make things," Kudasov said, returning the indicator.

"They certainly do," said Danilov with a sigh.

"But I see it's a cheap pen..."

"It's not expensive..."

"Still, they sure know how ..."

Knowing Kudasov, Danilov sensed that very soon Kudasov would put him in the position of having to give him the inexpensive Swedish pen. At first Kudasov would pretend not to want it... "Oh, no you don't -- nothing for you!" thought Danilov.

But the indicator was saved when the door to one of the rooms opened, and people -- obviously the ones everyone was waiting for -- entered quickly. They were extremely preoccupied and important. They did not look at anyone, did not greet anyone. They were hurrying somewhere, to another room, as if in anticipation of great events, from a scheduled meeting to an unscheduled one. Everyone moved, gladly making room, pushing and flattening themselves out of the way, and yet they themselves were not ordinary folk.

The ladies stood on tiptoe to see who was coming. At the head of the procession Danilov saw a small man with a black beard. Agile and determined, he was the one setting the pace and the tone. It was the famous sociologist Dr. Oblakov, Ph.D. Danilov had met him somewhere once. Danilov also saw among them Galkin, a store director.

A lady in a wig was so excited she turned to Kudasov and Danilov. "Who's that one, there, in the gray suit?"

"The international affairs commentator, from TV," Kudasov said with a pout. "He's squirmed into here, too!"

The important people passed by and shut the door behind them. The entry room instantly grew noisy. The line was about to move.

"Number one!" The call was firm and clear.

And the line moved one by one into the room with the commission or whatever it was called. People came out quickly, obviously satisfied, and went to the door. Still, the line moved along slowly. Danilov had unbuttoned his coat completely by now, and on the curving, upturned corner of the tub he hung his fuzzy nutria hat, which Muravlyov had bought for him miraculously in some suburban fur salon for twenty rubles. Danilov calculated the speed of the line and saw that he would be here for an hour and a half. "Okay, Klavdia," he muttered to Professor Voinov's girlfriend. But then again, it was his own fault!

Kudasov came through, smiling and stuffing his wallet into a secret pocket of his jacket. Fifteen minutes later they called number 217. Danilov was about to go when he remembered his nutria hat, now hanging far away from him. He didn't want to lose it. Just then the ruddy Rostovtsov came through the entrance, frying pan in hand, probably on his way to the kitchen. Danilov noted that while he was charming, he was essentially a rogue.

"Number two hundred seventeen!" they said again.

"Oh, all right," Danilov thought. "It's a hat, not a viola, and there are no demonic forces here..." He went into a large room, apparently the dining room.

"Number two-seventeen?"

"Yes," Danilov said with a smile. "Two-seventeen."

And he showed his hand with the inked numbers.

The interrogator was not Oblakov, sociologist and Ph.D., even though it was clear that he was in charge, but a large, skewbald man who sat three seats to Oblakov's left. He had fluffy sideburns and moustache and held a pen. In front of him lay a green notebook, either a register or a logbook.

Actually the nine people sitting around the empty dining-room table, covered by an Indian oilcloth with shish kebab motifs, resembled an admissions committee, even though Danilov couldn't imagine a meeting of an admissions committee in a room with a television set, aged side tables with balusters, a walnut cheval glass, a marble washstand, and German tapestries -- on which geese flew and hares leaped near Gretchen (probably the miller's daughter), as she was bending over a brook. Despite all this, the people at the table seemed so important and grand to Danilov that he immediately sensed the distance between him and them.

"Family name?" asked the skewbald man.

"Danilov," he answered.

"We don't have anyone by that name," the skewbald man said.

"I'm here for Klavdia Petrovna Soboleva," Danilov said.

"Why did she entrust this to you?"

"I'm her former husband," Danilov said.

The skewbald man looked at Oblakov questioningly. The other nodded and said quickly: "Former husbands can be trusted."

"Still, please show us some identification," the skewbald man demanded.

He studied Danilov's theater ID and his passport, and he wrote down the data from the passport -- serial number, which police station issued it and when -- in the green notebook.

"All right."

"May I leave now?" Danilov asked.

"What about the dues?"

"What dues?"

"Fifteen rubles."

"She didn't say anything to me about it," Danilov said. "I don't have fifteen rubles on me... She just asked me to take her place in line and that was it..."

"She knew very well about the fifteen rubles," a man wearing beautiful glasses announced grimly. Kudasov had claimed the man was an international expert, and he clearly did not like Danilov.

"Just borrow fifteen rubles," Oblakov said benevolently. "Surely you have friends in line."

At that moment store director Galkin began a close examination of lovely Gretchen's hares.

"I don't know anyone here," said Danilov, glad that Galkin had turned away.

"Well then ..." Oblakov spread his hands in dismay.

"Then we will have to put Klavdia Petrovna Soboleva," the skewbald man said sternly, "at the end of the line. She will receive a new number upon paying her dues."

"Why be like that?" Danilov was stunned. "She'll drop by today and pay..."

"The rules of the line are serious and inviolate, we have made no exceptions and do not intend to make any."

"And in general," the international expert in beautiful glasses said, without looking at Danilov, "I feel that there is no need for us to enter into discussions with chance visitors."

"Serious people," thought Danilov.

His nutria hat still hung safely on the upturned corner of the nickel-plated tub, and Danilov took it. "The hat is safe," he thought, touched. "These are truly serious people. You can deal with people like this."

And ruddy Rostovtsov, graduate of two institutes, appeared in the entrance once again, smoke rising from his Fedorov pipe, and a green parrot on his shoulder. "Oh, definitely a villain," decided Danilov.