In the morning the Director and I were sitting in my booth when the store-house keeper Pukhtiyerkhan came running and, sat down on the chair by the oven and began to warm himself up.
- Oh my Lord, it"s been so cold these days! - he said in a high feminine voice.
I poured a cup of tea and stretched it to him. He grasped it with his four fingers with his little finger remaining unbent and stared sipping the tea softly.
Then he said addressing the Director:
- Abulkhasym Kakharovich, before signing the Agreement with the TV Studio I had worked out the enrichment plan for our establishment. They promised to shoot a film about our Retirement Home and show it several times to advertise it. When people see the film they will know that our living conditions are very good and will bring their parents to us. The more patients we have the better. We will receive more humanitarian aid from abroad.
- What are you talking about? - said Abulkhasym Kakharovich - you are so naïve, as far as I can see! It"s impossible to do without fraud in a capitalist society. As for the living conditions we needn"t bother about it. I will draw the whole picture. It"s no good to sit on one"s hands when the state arranges favorable conditions for entrepreneurs. It"s enough to show the film twice, and legions of patients will pour on us like a wave. We will set up a farm, lease a plot of land from the state and make all these elderly spongers work. They are as strong as donkeys. Let them earn their daily bread. Work is good for their health. For one thing, they will not be bored, for another, it will be a good bodily exercise for them. Time is like a river. Only fools swim against the stream. We will teach him to swim right.
The Director frowned interrupting Pukhtiyerkhan:
- Why don"t you consult us before taking a decision? Last year when Aunt Serafima died she was buried by Christian tradition. Everybody knows that after the funeral they have a commemoration repast for the departed person. And that"s the end of all costs. And you made up the estimate of expenditure on the funeral by Muslim tradition showing that you had allegedly spent additional sums of money on Muslim commemoration repast on the third, fourth, seventh twentieth, fortieth day and on the first anniversary. Under this pretext you had drawn out extra money from the account and illegally embezzled it.
Pukhtiyerkhan answered with resentment:
- Why do you treat me like an offender as if I were a downright criminal? I only care for our Retirement Home. The money I have saved is under lock and key at home. I will bring it. I have saved it for a rainy day.
- You needn"t bring it. I only want you to be honest. And don"t do that again - the Director said.
Pukhtiyerkhan got up saying:
- I understand. You want me to quit work, don"t you? You"d better tell me openly that you want me to submit resignation because you intend to take on someone else. I will submit my resignation.
He walked to the door and left.
(50) The Hungry Ghosts
When the Director left for Tashkent the TV men came to make an advertising film. After breakfast the cameramen started shooting it according to the script written by Pukhtiyerkhan.
Before the shooting began he had warned the elderly people to behave well and not to touch the fruits. If they asked them question about food they should say that they were fed four times a day and had bananas, pineapples, coconuts, tangerines, apples, lemons and grapes for dessert.
When the shooting began the bearded producer in a baseball cap, took the tin funnel of the loudspeaker and began ordering people about. The clapper, a red haired girl, who was already in front of the camera with the clapperboard in hand, looking like a checkerboard stripe of a taxicab, slapped it shut and called "marker!"
The cameraman began to walk around the elderly people who had their faces made up for the occasion.
Pukhtiyerkhan started giving an interview to reporters:
- As you can see, everything is well organized, and things are going on like clockwork. Our aged people live comfortably here. They have hot water and are fed five times a day. The medical service is free. They are examined by highly qualified doctors in consulting rooms equipped with modern medical facilities. Our dear grannies make themselves at home here. They are better off here than at home. We do cultural work for them arranging concerts, discos, excursions and meetings with outstanding poets who read poems about our wise General Secretary.
With this optimistic note in his voice Pukhtiyerkhan finished his speech. The producers, newspaper reporters and cameramen took a business lunch and had a drink or two. Then, picking their teeth, they started shooting the elderly people sitting at table and eating. Matvey Zakharich, wishing to look like a bourgeois, grasped a pineapple and bit into it. At this point something extraordinary happened. His teeth clutched at the ill-fated fruit, and he couldn"t pull them off. They had to call in an ambulance. The ambulance men arrived with a dentist. The latter had long messed about with it and finally saved Matvey Zakharich from the fruit. From then on he felt fear whenever someone offered him a pine-apple. He would stare at it as if it was a bomb or something. The point was that fruits were made of paraffin. It was Pukhtiyerkhan who had brought the plaster cast fruits from the Museum of Nature.