Maria Reva - Good Citizens Need Not Fear - Stories

“It seems they already have,” Daniil said. “But they’re better at turning things off than on.”

A pigtailed girl, Aunt Inaya and Uncle Timko’s, jumped out from under the kitchen table singing, “May there always be sunshine / May there always be blue skies.” She air-fired at the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Aunt Nika gently scratched the nape of the girl’s neck, and the child retreated back under the table.

“What did they tell you at the council?” Aunt Nika asked.

“The building doesn’t exist, and we don’t live here.”

Aunt Nika’s mittened hand brushed a strand of dyed red hair off her forehead. “Makes sense.”

“How so?”

“I had a talk with the benchers last week.” She meant the group of pensioners who sat at the main entrance of the building, ever vigilant, smoking unfiltered cigarettes and cracking sunflower seeds day and night. “They told me this block was supposed to have only two towers, but enough construction material had been discarded to cobble together a third—ours.”

A series of barks blasted through the thin walls of the bedroom. Daniil glanced in alarm at Aunt Nika. He hadn’t approved of the hens, but they were at least useful—now a dog?

Aunt Nika cast her eyes down. “Vovik. Bronchitis again, poor boy. What are you going to do about the gas?”

Aunt Nika’s granddaughter bellowed from under the table, “May there always be mother / May there always be me!”

“I don’t know,” said Daniil.

Uncle Timko appeared in the doorway to announce that he needed a glass of milk. Daniil and Aunt Nika evacuated the kitchen and waited in the hallway while he opened the refrigerator.

The human shuffle complete, Daniil resumed inspecting the stove. Aunt Nika followed, her fur hood falling over her eyes until she flung it off, releasing a cloud of dust.

“Grandfather Grishko’s telling everyone he hasn’t seen his own testicles in weeks,” she said. “We’re tired of the cold, Daniil.”

As if in agreement, Vovik’s coughing started up again, deeper in pitch, as though it came not from the bedroom but from beneath the floor. Daniil couldn’t imagine the dainty four-year-old producing such sounds. He stroked the smooth enamel of the stove, never having felt so useless.

“And we’re tired of hearing about the testicles.”

The memo on Daniil’s desk the next morning unsettled him. It was addressed from Moscow:

In accordance with General Assembly No. 3556 of the Ministry of Food Industry, Ministry of Meat and Dairy Industry, and Ministry of Fish Industry on January 21, 1985, the Kirovka Canning Combine has been ordered to economize 2.5 tons of tinplate per month, due to shortages. Effective immediately.

At the bottom of the memo, his superior’s blockish handwriting:

THIS MEANS YOU, BLINOV.

The telephone on his desk rang.

“You’ve read the memo?” It was Sergei Igorovich, his superior, calling. Daniil turned to look across many rows of desks. Sergei Igorovich stood in the doorway of his office, receiver pressed to his ear, watching Daniil.

“I have, Sergei Igorovich.”

Daniil went on to inquire about testing alternative tin-to-steel ratios for containers.

“None of that, Blinov. Just stuff more food into fewer cans. Use every cubic millimeter you have,” his superior said. “I see that you’re not writing this down.”

Daniil pulled up an old facsimile and set about doodling big-eared Cheburashka, a popular cartoon creature unknown to science.

“Good, very good,” Sergei Igorovich said. “But don’t think of pureeing anything.”

“No?”

“The puree machine’s on its way to Moscow. Commissar’s wife just had twins.”

Daniil examined the diameter of Cheburashka’s head, making sure the ears matched its size. “Sergei Igorovich? May I ask you something?”

“If it’s quick.”

“I was looking over the impressive list of goods our combine produces, and couldn’t help wondering—where does it all go?”

“Is that a philosophical question, Blinov?”

“All I see in stores is sea cabbage.”

Sergei Igorovich let out a long sigh. “It’s like that joke about the American, the Frenchman, and the Soviet guy.”

“I haven’t heard that one, Sergei Igorovich.”

“A shame,” Sergei Igorovich said. “When I have time to paint my nails and twiddle my thumbs, I’ll tell you the joke.”

Daniil resisted the temptation to roll himself into a defensive ball under his desk, like a hedgehog. He straightened his shoulders. “Sergei Igorovich? May I also ask about the pay.”

Daniil watched his superior retreat into his office, mumbling into his phone about the shortages. Surely the pay would come through next month, Sergei Igorovich said, and if not then, the month after, and in the meantime don’t ask too many questions. He hung up.

Daniil reached into his desk drawer, extracting a new sheet of graph paper and a T-square. He ran his fingers over the instrument, rich red, made of wild pearwood. When he was a child, his parents had awarded him the T-square for top marks in school. At the time, he’d thought the pearwood held some magical property, a secret promise.

He set to work drawing diagrams of food products in 400-milliliter cylinders. Chains of equations filled his graph paper. Some foods posed more of a packing problem than others: pickles held their shape, for instance, while tomatoes had near-infinite squeezability. Soups could be thickened and condensed milk condensed further, into a mortar-like substance. String beans proved the most difficult: Even when arranged like a honeycomb, they could reach only 91 percent packing efficiency. In the middle of every three string beans hid an unfillable space. By lunchtime, Daniil had submitted a report titled “The Problematics of the String-Bean Triangular Void” to Sergei Igorovich’s secretary.

For the rest of the day, Daniil pretended to work while the combine pretended to pay him. He drew Gena the Crocodile, Cheburashka’s sidekick. He pondered the properties of dandruff, specifically Grandfather Lenin’s dandruff. Could a bald man have dandruff? Unlikely. What, then, about the goatee?

Canning for civilian consumption: sausages in pork fat sausages in tomato sauce kidneys in tomato sauce hearts in tomato sauce roast brains roast pork and rice pressed meat liver paste tongue in jelly fried meat macaroni with beef pork or mutton beans peas with beef pork or mutton meat pies sweet and sour meat mixed offals udder liver heart kidneys head cheek tail ends and trimmings fat salt onions plus one bay leaf whitefish in vegetable oil sturgeon in vegetable oil with the occasional bone to be retracted from esophagus in one of many district clinics available to citizens mackerel in vegetable oil fried red mullet in vegetable oil sheatfish in vegetable oil sprats in vegetable oil pike perch in vegetable oil plaice in vegetable oil sardines in vegetable oil bream in vegetable oil goby in vegetable oil sturgeon in natural juice of the fish salmon in natural juice of the fish Caspian roach in natural juice of the fish whale meat in natural juice of the mammal anchovies in vinegar sprats in vinegar sardines in vinegar also in fish cakes ground or mixed in vegetables tuna cod crab carp caviar sliced eggplant vegetable marrow sliced vegetables tomato puree tomato paste tomato catsup pureed sorrel pureed beet plus one bay leaf green peas in natural juice of the legume asparagus in natural juice of the vegetable cauliflower in natural juice of the vegetable beets in natural juice of the vegetable carrots in natural juice of the vegetable sliced eggplant in tomato sauce with vegetable oil eggplant paste in tomato sauce with vegetable oil pepper and tomato in tomato sauce with vegetable oil eggplant and squash in tomato sauce with vegetable oil vegetable marrow in tomato sauce with vegetable oil sliced vegetables in tomato sauce with vegetable oil tomato puree tomato paste tomato catsup spinach puree sorrel puree red pepper puree green pea puree beet puree carrot puree vegetable soup puree vegetable marrow vegetable marrow stuffed with rice vegetable marrow in tomato to lower national risk of gastrointestinal disease sliced apricots in natural juice of the fruit sliced apples in natural juice of the fruit apricots in sugar syrup quince in sugar syrup grapes in sugar syrup cherries in sugar syrup pears in sugar syrup raisins in sugar syrup apricots pureed pears pureed peaches pureed plums pureed apples pureed for the toothless young and old condensed and dried milk constitute the most common canned milk products cylindrical oval rectangular pyramidal cans are packed in wooden boxes made of dry wood with a water content of not over 18 percent and if one or all of the above food products is unavailable: potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes potatoes