Chelkash

The blue southern sky was so obscured by dust that it had a murky look. The hot sun stared down at the greenish sea as through a thin grey veil, and its rays found poor reflection in the water, churned up as it was by the strokes of oars, the propellers of steamers and the sharp keels of Turkish feluccas and other craft which ploughed the crowded harbour in all directions. The waves of the sea, crushed within their granite encasements by the enormous weights gliding over their surfaces, hurled themselves at the shore and the sides of the ships – hurled themselves growling and foaming, their flanks littered with all sorts of rubbish.

The clang of anchor chains, the clash of the buffers of goods cars, the metallic wail of sheets of iron being unloaded on to paving-stones, the dull thump of wood against wood, the clatter of carts, the whistle of steamships rising from a wail to a shriek, the shouts of stevedores, seamen and customs guards – all this merged to form the deafening music of the working day which surged rebelliously in the sky above the harbour, while from the earth below new waves of sound kept rising to meet it – now a rumble that shook the earth, now a crash that rent the sultry air.

The granite, the steel, the wood, the paving-stones, the ships and the people – everything was impregnated with the mighty sounds of this impassioned hymn to Mercury. But human voices could hardly be detected in the general chorus, so weak and even ridiculous were they. And the people themselves, they whose efforts had given birth to all this sound, were ridiculous and pitiable; their ragged dirty wiry bodies were bent double under the loads on their backs as they rushed hither and thither in the dust and the heat and the noise, and they were as nothing compared with the steel leviathans, the mountains of merchandise, the clanging railway cars, and all the other things which they themselves had created. The things of their own creating had enslaved them and robbed them of personality.

The gigantic ships lying with steam up whistled and hissed and heaved great sighs, and every sound they uttered was filled with mocking contempt for the drab and dusty creatures crawling over their decks to load their deep holds with the products of the servile labour. It made one laugh till the tears ran to see these long files of stevedores carrying thousands of poods of grain on their backs to be deposited in the iron bellies of the ships so that they themselves might earn a few pounds of grain to fill their own bellies. A poem of bitter irony could be read in the contrast between these ragged sweating men, stupefied by the heat, the noise, and the exhausting labour, and the powerful machines these men had made and which stood radiating well-being in the sunlight – machines which, when all is said and done, had been set in motion not by steam, but by the blood and muscles of those who made them.

The noise was oppressive; the dust tickled the nose and got into the eyes; the heat scorched and enervated the body, and everything seemed tense, as if the end of endurance had been reached and catastrophe was imminent, a tremendous explosion that would clear the air so that men might breathe freely and easily. And then silence would descend on the world and there would be no more dust and turmoil to deafen and irritate people and drive them mad; and the air of the town, of the sea, and of the sky would be fresh and clear and beautiful…

Twelve measured strokes of a bell were heard. When the last brassy vibrations had died away the savage music of labour was found to have subsided, and a minute later it turned into a mere rumble of discontent. Now the voices of the people and the plash of the sea were more audible. It was the dinner hour.

I

When the stevedores stopped work and scattered over the docks in noisy groups to buy victuals from the vendors and find shady corners where they could squat on the pavement to take their meal, Grishka Chelkash put in an appearance. He was well known to all the dockers, a confirmed drunkard, a bold and clever thief. He was barefooted and bareheaded, had on a pair of threadbare corduroy trousers and a filthy cotton shirt with a torn collar that exposed a bony chest covered by brown skin. The matted state of his iron-grey hair and the crumpled look of his lean and hawk-like face indicated that he had just waked up. A straw had become caught in his moustache, another in the stubble of his left cheek, while behind his ear he had stuck a sprig of linden. Long and lanky and a bit stooped, he sauntered slowly down the cobbled street, sniffing the air with his hooked nose and casting a glittering grey eye about him as he searched for someone among the dockers. His long dark moustache kept twitching like a cat’s; he held his hands behind his back and kept rubbing them together and twisting his crooked grasping fingers. Even here, among hundreds of other roughs, he instantly attracted attention because of the resemblance to a steppe-hawk conveyed by his predatory leanness and aimful walk, which, like the flight of the bird of prey he resembled, concealed a tense alertness under an appearance of poised tranquillity.

As he came up to a group of stevedores sitting in the shadow cast by a pile of coal baskets, a stocky young chap, with a blotched and vapid face and with scratches on his neck suggesting a recent fight, got up to meet him. He fell into step beside Chelkash and said under his breath:

“The seamen have discovered two bales of cloth missing. They’re searching.”

“So what?” Chelkash asked, calmly running his eyes over him.

“What d’ye mean ‘so what’? They’re searching, I tell you.”

“And you thought I might join in the search? “

“Go to hell!”

The chap turned back.

“Wait! Who gave you those beauty-marks? A pity to mess up your shop front like that! Seen Mishka?”

“Not for a long time,” called back the chap as he joined his comrades.

Everybody who met Chelkash greeted him as an old acquaintance, but he, usually so cheery and biting, must have been out of sorts, for his replies were all very terse.

From behind a pile of merchandise suddenly appeared a customs guard – dark-green, dusty, aggressively erect. He planted himself in front of Chelkash in a challenging pose, his left hand on the hilt of his dirk, his right reaching out for Chelkash’s collar.

“Halt! Where you bound?”

Chelkash retreated a step, lifted his eyes to the guard’s red face and gave a cool smile.

The face, wily but good-natured, tried to assume a dread aspect: the cheeks puffed out and turned purple, the brows drew together, the eyes rolled, and the effect on the whole was extremely comical.

“I told you once to keep away from these docks if you didn’t want me to smash your ribs in, and here you are again!” he roared.

“Howdy, Semyonich! Haven’t seen you for a long time,” said the imperturbable Chelkash, holding out his hand.

“I wouldn’t cry if I didn’t see you for another fifty years. Move on, move on.”

But he shook the extended hand.

“Here’s what I wanted to ask,” went on Chelkash, holding the guard’s hand in steel fingers and shaking it in an intimate sort of way. “Seen Mishka anywhere?”

“What Mishka? I don’t know any Mishka. Move on, man, or the packhouse guard may see you and then —“

“The red-headed chap I worked with on the Kostroma last time,” persisted Chelkash.

“That you thieved with, you mean. They’ve put him in hospital, that Mishka of yours – got his leg crushed by some iron. Get out of here, I tell you, get out before I throw you out by the scruff of the neck.”

“Listen to that, now! And you said you didn’t know no Mishka. What makes you so nasty, Semyonich?”

“None of your talk! Get out!”

The guard was getting angry; he glanced about him and tried to free his hand, but Chelkash held on to it as he looked at him calmly from under bushy eyebrows and went on talking:

“What’s the rush? Don’t you want to have a nice little chat with me? How you getting on? How’s the wife and kiddies? Well?” His eyes twinkled and his teeth flashed in a mocking grin as he added: “Been wanting to drop in to see you for ever so long, but just can’t seem to manage it. It’s the drink —“

“Drop it, I tell you! None of your joking, you lanky lubber. I mean what I say. But maybe you’re turning to house-breaking, or robbing people in the street?”

“Why should I? There’s enough here to keep you and me busy a lifetime. Honest there is, Semyonich. But I hear you’ve snitched another two bales of cloth. Watch out, or you’ll find yourself in trouble yet!”

Semyonich trembled with indignation and the saliva flew as he tried to give voice to it. Chelkash let go of his hand and calmly strode off on his long legs to the dock gates. The guard followed at his heels, cursing him roundly.

Chelkash was in better spirits now; he whistled a tune through his teeth, thrust his hands into his pockets, and retarded his steps, tossing off well-aimed quips to right and left. He was paid in his own coin.

“Just see what good care of you the bosses are taking, Grishka!” called out a stevedore who was stretched out on the ground with his comrades, taking a rest after their meal.

“Semyonich’s seeing I don’t step on any nails in my bare feet,” replied Chelkash.

They got to the gates. Two soldiers ran their hands down Chelkash’s clothes and pushed him out into the street.

He crossed the road and sat down on the curbstone opposite a pub. A line of loaded carts came thundering out of the dock gates, while a line of empty ones moved in the other direction, their drivers bouncing in their seats. The docks belched forth a roar of sound and clouds of dust that stuck to the skin.

Chelkash was in his element amid this mad welter. He was anticipating a good haul that night, a haul that would cost him little effort but require a great deal of skill. He did not doubt but that his skill was sufficient, and he screwed up his eyes with pleasure as he reflected on how he would spend all his banknotes the next morning. He thought of his pal Mishka. He needed him badly, and here he had gone and broken his leg. Chelkash cursed under his breath, for he feared he could not handle the job alone. What would the weather be like? He glanced up at the sky, then down the street.

Sitting on the pavement, his back against a hitching post some half a dozen paces away, was a young lad in a blue homespun shirt and trousers, with bast sandals on his feet and a torn brown cap on his head. Beside him lay a small knapsack and a haftless scythe wrapped in straw and neatly tied with string. The lad was sturdy, broad-shouldered, fair-haired, his face was tanned by wind and sun, and he had large blue eyes that stared amiably at Chelkash.

Chelkash bared his teeth, stuck out his tongue, made a frightful face and stared back with popping eyes.

The boy blinked in astonishment at first, then he burst out laughing, calling out between spasms: “Crazy as a loon!” Without getting up, he hitched along the curbstone to where Chelkash was sitting, dragging his knapsack through the dust and allowing the tip of his scythe to clank over the cobbles.

“Been on the booze, eh?” he said to Chelkash, giving a tug at his trousers.