Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

Dr. Tortsov stood still and listened to the sound of fingers fumbling for matches, and a few seconds later a small blue flame flared in the carpenter’s hands. Pirogov lit a lamp and, quickly extinguishing the match, hung the lamp from a rusty nail that protruded from a beam in the ceiling.

“Believe me, Doctor,” he said with genuine regret, “at any other time, I would be happy to oblige. But you can see how it is. I am so busy at the moment, I just don’t have the time to make such things.”

Looking around him, Dr. Tortsov could see exactly how it was. Neatly stacked piles of fresh timber, reaching almost to the ceiling, took up one half of the workshop floor. The rest of the space was filled with an assortment of strangely shaped pieces of carved wood, some of which had already been varnished.

“What on earth are you making, exactly?” he asked the carpenter.

“Please don’t ask me!” Pirogov begged him. “I can’t tell you.”

“But surely you know?”

“Of course I know! But the Mayor told me not to tell anybody.”

“The Mayor?” queried Dr. Tortsov as he looked more closely at the finished pieces of wood. One or two of them looked familiar, but for the moment he could not see what they were meant to be.

“Yes,” the carpenter confided. “‘Pirogov,’ he said, ‘you must do this job for me but on no account are you to tell anyone about it. Not even your wife. It’s a state secret. A matter of the gravest concern.’ Those were his exact words.”

Bending down, Dr. Tortsov picked up one of the small pieces of fashioned timber and turned it over in his hands.

“What is it? An ark?” he joked.

But the carpenter refused to be drawn.

“But surely you can tell me, Gleb Yakovlevich?” Dr. Tortsov persisted. “After all, I am your doctor. It would be like telling a priest.”

Pirogov shook his head and shrugged helplessly.

“Come on Gleb,” the doctor coaxed him. “Surely it’s a matter of trust. After all, I trust you to pay Chevanin’s bill in a week’s time, don’t I? Why can’t you trust me? It’s only fair.”

Thrusting his hands into his pockets, Pirogov kicked miserably at a pile of wood shavings on the floor.

“They’re sleighs,” he admitted finally.

“Sleighs! Of course!” exclaimed the doctor as the curiously shaped pieces of wood fell into place in his mind. “I should have guessed. But why so many of them? There must be enough wood here to make a dozen sleighs.”

“Ten,” Pirogov corrected him.

“Now why would the Mayor want you to make ten sleighs, and in secret too?” the doctor wondered aloud. “Is he going into the carrier business? No, that would be impossible, unless he is going to build another livery stables as well. And where would he get the ponies from at this time of year?”

“He isn’t using ponies,” the carpenter informed him sullenly. “He’s using deer.”

“Reindeer? In town?” retorted the doctor. “Gleb Yakovlevich, you must be joking. The Mayor might be an idiot, but even he wouldn’t dream of using reindeer to pull town cabs.”

Pirogov hawked and spat onto the fine carpet of sawdust beneath his boots.

“It’s not cabs he’s after. What he’s asked for is ten reindeer sleighs, each capable of carrying four or five adults, or enough supplies to support them over a long distance.”

“And who is paying for all this, do you know?”

“Ah, well, that’s just it, isn’t it?” the carpenter complained. “That’s just the problem. The Mayor promised me that the town council would pay and I was to go ahead and start work right away. Only he wasn’t able to give me any advancement on them, so I have had to use all my own money just to buy the materials from Kavelin. But,” he added meaningfully, “Kavelin, who is on the council, didn’t know anything about this at all. So one way or another, I’ve been put right in the midden. What’s more, I’m not the only one either.”

“How do you mean?” asked the doctor.

“Well,” replied Pirogov confidentially, “they haven’t told me to my face but I know for a fact that Ovseenko and Averbuch have also taken orders for sleighs from the Mayor. So that’s put the price of timber right up.”

“Yes, I suppose it has,” said Dr. Tortsov

“Exactly,” continued Pirogov, relieved at last at having got the problem off his chest. “Everything I have is in that timber. All my savings and nothing to guarantee payment, except the Mayor’s word. That’s why I don’t have the money on hand to pay your bill.”

Doctor Tortsov had been standing in the middle of the workshop looking at the piece of sawn wood in his hand. Now, with a distracted air, he turned to face the carpenter.

“What? Oh, the bill. Well, we’ll let that ride for the moment. It’s not important. Pay Chevanin when you can.”

He appeared to have come to some decision for, placing the piece of timber back onto the pile, he walked quickly towards the door.

“Goodbye, Pirogov.”

“Wait, Doctor!” called out the carpenter, hurrying after him. “Aren’t you going to look at my wife and the baby?”