fall in, dismiss.’ Even our little Treasure has more sense.”
This was too much for Ruslan to bear. He walked out of the yard, bounded over the step of the gateway and lay down in the street. He had to admit that he had thought better of his prisoner. In blaming Ruslan for being dull-witted, the Shabby Man had shown that he did not understand the reason why a guard dog should decline to obey him. And why had Treasure rushed to pick it up, anyway? Since it was he who had been playing with the mitten yesterday and had dropped it under the porch, it was only right that he should run and pick it up.
When the Shabby Man came out onto the street, with an old army belt around his waist and carrying a toolbox, he said, “Come on, soldier, let’s go.” This was the only order spoken by the Shabby Man that Ruslan would ever obey.
Thus began their journeys to the strange job with which the prisoner occupied his mornings—if they could be called mornings. Man and dog would set off for the station, where they would turn aside to walk down the tracks to some distant sidings that were a cemetery for old, derelictpassenger-cars. This, then, was their work area, just as the block was their new camp and Stiura’s yard was their accommodation zone. They would climb up into the cars—Ruslan leaping up in one bound, the Shabby Man clambering breathlessly up the steps—and move slowly from one compartment to another. The windows had all been smashed or removed, so that there was always a draft blowing; the floors and lower bunks were covered in several layers of snow, and there was a smell of rot, dust, rust, human excrement and every track and station where these cars had been. The Shabby Man would raise and lower the creaking bunks, wipe them clean with his sleeve and measure them with a rule, and then sigh, saying to Ruslan:
“Well, now, what about this little plank—shall we book it in? It’s kind of narrow, but it has quite a decent grain. Might do in a pinch, don’t you think?”
Ruslan had no objection, so the Shabby Man set about “booking it in.” Because his hands were shaking, it was a long time before the screwdriver would go into the groove on the screw head, and he lacked the strength and determination to unscrew the rusty screw in one go. Midway through the operation he took a long smoke break, trying to figure out how to apply a nail claw and lever out the plank without splintering it. Even when he had extracted a plank whole, the Shabby Man was not always interested in keeping it: after smoothing it with the palm of his hand and squinting along it against the light, sometimes even sniffing it, he might throw it out of the window. Then he would sit down for a long time, sighing gloomily, before starting to look for another one. And all the time he kept talking and talking:
“Say, Ruslan, how come you can never find a good plank of wood in the whole of Russia? And yet we’re surrounded byforests. There’s lumber piled up all around us; that’s the reason why. If there was a bit less, we might take better care of it and not sell it to other people—then we’d have enough for ourselves. Guess I’d better stop saying these naughty things. It’s your job to see I don’t talk so much nonsense, Ruslan.”
Once a sly thought crept into his hazy mind, his watery eyes took on a lively glint and puckered with cunning as he stared into Ruslan’s sad yellow eyes.
“Hey, feller, why don’t we go over to the old prison-camp logging site? We know the way there, and we might pick up a plank or two of good quality lumber at the sawmill. We cut thousands of planks when we were working there.” Then he answered his own question: “No, we’d better not go. I’d start to feel afraid of you at the logging site. You and I are friends here, thick as thieves you might say, but out there you’d remember the old days and you might not even let me smoke. Anyway, why do I waste so much time talking to you like this?
This was too much for Ruslan to bear. He walked out of the yard, bounded over the step of the gateway and lay down in the street. He had to admit that he had thought better of his prisoner. In blaming Ruslan for being dull-witted, the Shabby Man had shown that he did not understand the reason why a guard dog should decline to obey him. And why had Treasure rushed to pick it up, anyway? Since it was he who had been playing with the mitten yesterday and had dropped it under the porch, it was only right that he should run and pick it up.
When the Shabby Man came out onto the street, with an old army belt around his waist and carrying a toolbox, he said, “Come on, soldier, let’s go.” This was the only order spoken by the Shabby Man that Ruslan would ever obey.
Thus began their journeys to the strange job with which the prisoner occupied his mornings—if they could be called mornings. Man and dog would set off for the station, where they would turn aside to walk down the tracks to some distant sidings that were a cemetery for old, derelictpassenger-cars. This, then, was their work area, just as the block was their new camp and Stiura’s yard was their accommodation zone. They would climb up into the cars—Ruslan leaping up in one bound, the Shabby Man clambering breathlessly up the steps—and move slowly from one compartment to another. The windows had all been smashed or removed, so that there was always a draft blowing; the floors and lower bunks were covered in several layers of snow, and there was a smell of rot, dust, rust, human excrement and every track and station where these cars had been. The Shabby Man would raise and lower the creaking bunks, wipe them clean with his sleeve and measure them with a rule, and then sigh, saying to Ruslan:
“Well, now, what about this little plank—shall we book it in? It’s kind of narrow, but it has quite a decent grain. Might do in a pinch, don’t you think?”
Ruslan had no objection, so the Shabby Man set about “booking it in.” Because his hands were shaking, it was a long time before the screwdriver would go into the groove on the screw head, and he lacked the strength and determination to unscrew the rusty screw in one go. Midway through the operation he took a long smoke break, trying to figure out how to apply a nail claw and lever out the plank without splintering it. Even when he had extracted a plank whole, the Shabby Man was not always interested in keeping it: after smoothing it with the palm of his hand and squinting along it against the light, sometimes even sniffing it, he might throw it out of the window. Then he would sit down for a long time, sighing gloomily, before starting to look for another one. And all the time he kept talking and talking:
“Say, Ruslan, how come you can never find a good plank of wood in the whole of Russia? And yet we’re surrounded byforests. There’s lumber piled up all around us; that’s the reason why. If there was a bit less, we might take better care of it and not sell it to other people—then we’d have enough for ourselves. Guess I’d better stop saying these naughty things. It’s your job to see I don’t talk so much nonsense, Ruslan.”
Once a sly thought crept into his hazy mind, his watery eyes took on a lively glint and puckered with cunning as he stared into Ruslan’s sad yellow eyes.
“Hey, feller, why don’t we go over to the old prison-camp logging site? We know the way there, and we might pick up a plank or two of good quality lumber at the sawmill. We cut thousands of planks when we were working there.” Then he answered his own question: “No, we’d better not go. I’d start to feel afraid of you at the logging site. You and I are friends here, thick as thieves you might say, but out there you’d remember the old days and you might not even let me smoke. Anyway, why do I waste so much time talking to you like this?
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