Arkady Strugatsky: Tale of the Troika

“Grass bugs are no joy either, let me tell you,” grumbled the conservative Khlebovvodov. He had already capitulated, but he did not want to admit it, so he was picking on minor points.

I shrugged expressively.

“Comrade Khlebovvodov is thinking along rigid, narrow lines,” countered Farfurkis, pulling ahead by half a length.

“They’re not narrow at all,” said Khlebovvodov weakly. “They’re quite broad, those … whatchamacallits. Boy, do they stink! But I realize that can be fixed up in the process, too. I mean, do you think we can trust this upstart. He just doesn’t seem serious—and he has no good record of anything.”

“I have a motion,” said Eddie. “Perhaps a subcommittee should be set up, headed by Comrade Farfurkis, to study this matter. I would suggest Comrade Privalov, a man who is impartial, as a scientific consultant pro tern.”

Lavr Fedotovich stood up. Anyone could see that he had been seriously impaired by yesterday’s lunch. Ordinary human weakness shone through his usually stony countenance. Yes, there was a crack in the granite, the bastion was breached, but despite all that he stood firm and powerful.

“The people,” began the bastion, rolling his eyes in pain. “The people do not like being locked within four walls. The people need room. The people need fields and rivers. The people need the wind and the sun.”

“And the moon,” added Khlebovvodov, loyally looking up at the bastion.

“And the moon,” Lavr Fedotovich confirmed. “The health of the people must be safeguarded, it belongs to the people. The people need work in the great outdoors. The people can not breathe without the open air.”

We didn’t understand. Even Khlebovvodov was still trying to figure it out, but the perceptive Farfurkis had already gathered his papers, packed up his notebook, and was whispering to the commandant. The commandant nodded and inquired respectfully:

“Do the people like to walk or drive?”

“The people,” announced Lavr Fedotovich, “prefer to ride in a convertible. Expressing the general consensus, I move that we postpone the present session and hold at once the field session scheduled for this evening. Comrade Zubo, take care of the details.” With those words Lavr Fedotovich fell back heavily into his chair.

Everyone started bustling. The commandant ordered the car, Khlebovvodov plied Lavr Fedotovich with mineral water, and Farfurkis dug around for the necessary documents. I took advantage of the bustle, grabbed Gabby by the leg, and threw him out. Gabby did not protest: this experience had shaken him profoundly and changed him for a long time to come.

The car arrived. Lavr Fedotovich was led out by both arms and seated in the front. Khlebovvodov, Farfurkis, and the commandant, fighting and scratching, shared the back seat with the safe containing the Great Round Seal. “The car seats five,” Eddie said worriedly. “They won’t take us.” I replied that that was fine with me, I had talked enough to last me a month. It was all a waste of time. We wouldn’t change them in a hundred years. We saved the stupid bedbug, fine, let’s go for a swim. However, Eddie said that he would not go swimming. He would follow in invisible form and try one more session—in the open air. Maybe that would be more effective.

They were shouting in the car. Farfurkis and Khlebovvodov were tangling. Khlebovvodov, who was getting sicker from the smell of the gas, demanded an immediate departure. And he was yelling that the people love fast driving. Farfurkis, feeling that he was the only businesslike person in the car, responsible for everything, maintained that the presence of a strange and untried driver had turned the closed session into an open one, and besides, according to the regulations, the absence of the scientific consultant made it impossible to have a session, so that even if it were held, it would be null and void.

“Difficulties?” inquired Lavr Fedotovich in a slightly firmer voice. “Comrade Farfurkis, get rid of them.” Farfurkis, emboldened, took to getting rid of them with zeal. And before I could blink an eye, I found myself co-opted as a temporary replacement for the scientific consultant, the driver was let go, and I was in his seat. “Go ahead, go ahead,” invisible Eddie whispered in my ear. “Maybe you’ll be of some help to me.” I was nervous and kept looking around. The car was surrounded by a crowd of kids. It was one thing to be in a room with the Troika and another thing to expose oneself in their company to the public eye.

“Can’t we go?” Khlebovvodov begged in a dying voice. “With a stiff breeze …”

“Harrumph,” said Lavr Fedotovich. “There is a motion to go. Any other motions? Driver, go.”

I started the engine and turned carefully, picking my way through the crowd of children.

At first Farfurkis drove me crazy with his backseat instructions. He wanted me to stop in no-stopping zones; or not to drive so fast, reminding me of the value of Lavr Fedotovich’s life; or to drive faster, because the breeze did not cool Lavr Fedotovich enough; or not to pay attention to the stoplights, since that undermined the authority of the Troika. But when we finally got out of the white suburbs of Tmuskorpion and into the country, when the green fields stretched before us and we could see the blue waters of a lake in the distance, and when the car bounced along on the gravel, peace descended on the car. Everyone stuck his face into the oncoming breeze, everyone squinted in the sun, and everyone felt good. Lavr Fedotovich lit up his first Herzegovina-Flor of the day, Khlebovvodov hummed an old folk song, and the commandant napped with the case files clutched to his breast.

Only Farfurkis, after a brief struggle, was able to overcome the relaxation that overtook the others. He unfurled a map of Tmuskorpion and environs and diligently marked out our itinerary, which, however, was of no use, since Farfurkis had forgotten that we were traveling by car and not by helicopter. I suggested my version: the lake, the swamp, the hill. At the lake we had to look into the case of the plesiosaur; at the swamp, to rationalize and utilize the mysterious sounds; and at the hill, to examine the so-called enchanted place.

Farfurkis, to my surprise, had no objections. It turned out that he had total confidence in my driver’s intuition, and moreover, he had always had a high regard for my abilities. He would be very happy working with me in the bedbug subcommittee, he had long had me in mind, and in general he always had our wonderful, talented youth in mind. His heart is always with youth, even though he does not close his eyes to its fundamental faults. Today’s youth does not struggle enough, does not pay enough attention to the struggle, has no desire to struggle more, to struggle to make struggling the true, primary goal of the struggle, and if our wonderful talented youth struggle so little, then they will have little chance of becoming a truly struggling youth, always involved in the struggle to become a true struggler who struggles to make the struggle …

We sighted the plesiosaur from a distance—something looking like an umbrella handle was sticking out of the water a mile from shore. I drove up to the beach and parked. Farfurkis was still struggling with grammatical permutations in the name of struggling youth, but Khlebovvodov had jumped out of the car and opened the door for Lavr Fedotovich. Lavr Fedotovich did not wish to get out. He looked benevolently at Khlebovvodov and announced that there was water in the lake, that the session was officially declared open, and that Comrade Zubo had the floor.

The commission settled in the grass around the car. The mood was somehow different. Farfurkis unbuttoned his shirt, and I took mine off, so as not to miss an opportunity to work on my tan. The commandant, breaking all the rules as he went along, rattled off the file on the plesiosaur called Liza, and nobody listened to him. Lavr Fedotovich dreamily looked at the lake, seemingly trying to decide whether the people needed it or not, and Khlebovvodov was telling Farfurkis sotto voce how he was once chairman of the Musical Comedy Theater Kolkhoz, where he used to get fifteen piglets a year from each sow. Oats rustled not twenty feet from us, cows grazed in distant pastures, and the inclination to agricultural subjects was understandable.