The Tough Guy
Brigade three at the Gigant collective farm had just been given a new storehouse. Out of the old storehouse, a church, they moved some empty, foul-smelling barrels, sacks of cement, salt and sugar, piles of bast matting and harness (the brigade had only five horses, but there was enough harness for fifteen; that wouldn't have mattered, too much is always better than too little, if it weren't for the darned mice... They'd tarred the harness and smothered it with pesticide, but the mice still kept nibbling away at it), a broom and some rakes' and spades... Now it was empty, the church, and no one needed it. Small though it was, the church livened up and showed off the village (once much larger), which nestled around it.
Brigade leader Nikolai Shurygin stood looking at it thoughtfully... He walked up to it, tapped the brickwork with a crow-bar he'd found lying there, lit a cigarette, then went home.
Meeting the collective farm chairman a few days later, Shurygin said:
"Church's empty now..."
"So what?"
"What we gonna do with it?"
"Lock it up, and let it be. Why?"
"It's got some good brick. I could use that for a pigsty, instead of lugging some over from the brickworks."
"You'd have to dismantle it first-that'd take five men a good fortnight. Those bricks are fair welded together. God knows what they used for mortar."
"I'll pull it down alright."
"How?"
"Easy. Chain three tractors to it, and it'll fall down like a pack of cards."
"Have a go then."
That Sunday Shurygin did have a go. He got hold of three powerful tractors, wound three thick cables round the church at different levels, then put nine logs under the cables, at the corners and in the middle of the walls...
At first Shurygin went about this job, as he went about all his jobs, with a lot of shouting and cursing. But as more and more folk ran up and started wailing in horror and amazement, he suddenly felt like some high-up official with unlimited authority. He stopped swearing and did not look at the crowd, as if he simply did not hear or see them.
"Did they tell ye to do that, Nikolai?" folk asked him.
"Surely it weren't yer own idea?"
"What harm did it do ye, eh?"
Mikhailo Belyakov, the storeman, already tipsy, crawled under the cables to where Shurygin was standing.
"What ye doin' that for, Nikolai?"
Shurygin turned pale and really let fly.
"Shove off, ye drunken fat-head!"
Mikhailo backed away from the brigade leader in surprise. And everyone around was so amazed that they stopped talking. Shurygin was partial to a bottle himself, but he'd never called anyone a "drunken fat-head" before.
What had got into him?
Meanwhile they tightened the logs and put all the cables at the same level. Any minute now the tractors would rev up and something unheard-of in the village would happen - the village church would fall down. The older folk had all been christened in it, their grandparents and great-grand- parents had been buried in it, and it was as familiar to them all as the sky itself...
The shouts broke out again.
"Who told ye to, Nikolai?"
"It's his own idea! See him lookin' away, the devil."
"Stop throwin' yer weight around, Shurygin!"
Shurygin took no notice of them at all. He still had the same concentrated expression on his face and the same look of incorruptible severity in his eyes. Shurygin's wife, Klava, was pushed forward by the crowd. She went up to her husband timidly. There was something funny about him.
"Why d'ye want to pull it down, Nikolai?"
"Shove off!" Shurygin ordered her too. "And mind yer own business!"
Some folk went up to the tractor-drivers to try and delay things, while others hurried off to phone the district authorities and fetch the school- master. But Shurygin had already promised the tractor-drivers a bottle of vodka each and extra pay for "performing their duties".
Up rushed the school-master, a young man much respected by the villagers.
"Stop that at once! Who told you to pull it down? It's seventeenth century!"
"Mind yer own business," said Shurygin.
"It is my business! It's everyone's business!" The school- master was so upset that instead of finding some strong, persuasive words, he could only flush and shout: "You've no right to! Vandal' I'll write to the authorities!"
Shurygin gave the tractor-drivers a wave... The engines rewed up, the cables tautened, and the crowd gave a quiet, horrified groan. Suddenly the teacher ran round the church to the side where it was going to collapse and stood by the wall.
"You'll be guilty of murder, idiot!"
The tractors stopped.
"Get out of the way!" roared Shurygin, the veins swelling thickly in his neck.
"Don't you dare touch the church! Don't you dare'"
Shurygin ran over to the school- master, grabbed hold of him and carried him away from the church. The puny man tried to struggle free, but Shurygin's grip was stronger.
"Carry on, lads!" he shouted to the tractor-drivers.
"Everyone go and stand by the wall!" cried the school- master. "Go on! They won't dare to then! I'll go to the regional committee. They'll stop him alright."
"Get a move on'" Shurygin yelled at the tractor-drivers.
The tractor-drivers drew back into their cabins and grabbed hold of the gear lever.
"Stand by the wall! Go on, everybody!"
But no one moved. They were all paralysed by Shurygin's frenzy. They kept quiet. And waited.
The cables tightened, creaked, cracked and rang. One of the logs crunched. A cable cut into a corner and sang like a balalaika string. Funny that you could hear it so well, with the three tractors grinding away. The top of the church quivered ... the wall facing the people suddenly split right across... A terrible black crack began to yawn open on the white wall. The dome tilted slowly to one side, then toppled down with a crash. The ground shuddered, as if from an exploding shell, and everything was enveloped in clouds of dust.
Shurygin let go of the teacher, who turned and walked away from the church without a word.
Two of the tractors were still gouging the earth with their caterpillar tracks. The cable in the middle had cut into the corner and was now pulverising the bricks in the two walls pointlessly, grinding ever deeper into them.
Shurygin stopped the tractors. They began to move the cables round.
Folk started drifting off. Only the most curious remained, and the young boys.
Three hours later it was over. All that remained of the church was a low hulk with jagged edges. The church itself lay in a deathly shapeless heap. The tractors drove away.
Covered in dust, lime and sweat, Shurygin went to phone the farm chairman from the village store.
"It's all over. She's kicked the bucket!" he shouted chirpily down the receiver.
The chairman obviously did not know who had kicked the bucket.
"The church! It's all over! That's right. Everything's fine. School- master made a bit of a fuss... You bet! Worse than an old woman, he is. No, everything's okay. Went down like a bomb. Yes, lots got broken up. Into clumps of three or four bricks. Don't know how to get them apart. Had a go with a crowbar, but that was no good. The bloody things are fair welded together! Never mind! Cheers then! Don't you worry."
Shurygin put the phone down. He went over to the shop-woman whom he'd often woken up at night, when someone from the district centre came over for a spot of fishing and the two of them sat up afterwards until the early hours at the brigade leader's place.
"See how we finished off the old girl?" Shurygin said with a satisfied smile.
"Stupid bastard," said the shop-woman, not even trying to conceal her anger.
"What's stupid about it?" Shurygin stopped smiling.
"Weren't doin' you no harm, were it, standin' there?"
"What good was it, just standin' there? At least we c'n use the bricks..."
"Since when've you been so hard up for bricks? Crackpot."
"Fiddle fingers!" Shurygin got angry too. "Hold yer tongue, if you don't know what you're talkin' about."
"You just try wakin' me up again in the middle of the night, and I'll wake you up for a change. Fiddle fingers, eh? That's worth a slap round the chops, that is. With this weight here."
Shurygin was about to call the stupid shop-woman something else, when the ever-present old women appeared on the scene.
"Gimme a bottle."
"Go and wet your whistle," someone said at the back.
"It's dried up!"
"From all that dust!"
"Satan finds work for idle hands!"
Shurygin looked round sternly at the women, but there were too many of them to shout down. And there was something unusual about their anger. They really hated him. He took the bottle and went out of the shop. On the threshold he turned round and said:
"I'll shut your traps up!"
Then strode away quickly.
He walked along, fuming to himself: "They never said their prayers, the parasites, but now they're raising Cain. Nobody gave a damn about it, but now they're raising hell."
Walking past what used to be the church, Shurygin stopped for a long time to watch the children scavaging among the bricks. He calmed down as he looked. "When they grow up they'll remember the day the church was pulled down. I remember Vaska Dukhanin takin' the cross off it. And now it's come tumblin'down. They'll remember that for sure. And tell their kids about it: 'Uncle Nikolai Shurygin put cables round it and..."'At this point Shurygin suddenly remembered the shop-woman and swore angrily to himself: "Why the blazes should it stand there, dammit."
At home Shurygin faced a regular revolt: his wife had gone off to the neighbours without making supper and his sick mother kept scolding him from the bench bed over the stove.
" 'Tis a great sin ye've taken on yerself, cursed idol that ye are! Did it all without sayin' a word, he did, the devil. If ye'd just uttered a word, good folk might've made ye see sense. Mercy upon us, we won't be able to show our faces now. Folk'11 curse ye, aye, curse ye, they will! And ye won't know when to expect disaster: maybe ye'11 kick the bucket at home all sudden like, or get bashed by a tree in the forest..."
"Why should they curse me? Ain't they got anything better to do?"
" 'Tis a terrible sin!"
"What about Vaska Dukhanin who pulled the cross down? They didn't curse him. He was a hero..."
"Aye, but they were different times. Who put the idea into yer head, eh, to pull it down? Who? 'Twas the devil himself... Ye'1! get punished good and proper by Soviet power itself, just wait. That there teacher's writin' to the proper places, they said. Ye'11 be for it. Church stood there through thick and thin, then he had to come along. God help us. Goggle-eyed heathen."
"Give over, you're supposed to be ill."
"We'll never be able to show our faces again..."
"Nobody ever went to pray in it. It just stood there, without no one noticin' it..."
"Who says no one noticed it! Folk could see it wherever they went. And however tired ye got, ye'd look at it and feel at home. Gave ye strength, it did..."
"Listen to her... I don't know what's the matter with them. It's the atomic age, right, and they're moanin' about a church. There's no club in the village, but they couldn't care less about that. It's the church that's upset them. Never mind, they'll get over it!"
"Aye, but how will ye get over it? Ye'11 shrivel up with shame, and no mistake!"
So as not to hear her mutterings, Shurygin went into the parlour, sat down at the table, poured himself a full glass of vodka and gulped it down. Then he lit a cigarette.
"The brick's no good for anything," he thought. "Never mind, dammit. I'll bulldoze the lot into a heap and let nettles grow over it."
His wife came back late. Shurygin had already finished the bottle and wanted another one, but he didn't like the idea of seeing the angry shop-woman again.
"Nip out and get us a bottle, " he asked his wife.
"Ask the devil. He's yer friend now."
"Come on, I'm asking ye to..."
"People asked ye and did you take any notice? Then don't ask other folk now. Idiot."
"Shut up. Goto..."
"And I will too. I'll go where all good folk go. And not where ye'11 end up, ignorant clot! They begged ye, the whole village, but ye took no notice! Just goggled..."
"Shut up! Or I'll give you a belting..."
"Just you try! Just dare touch me, ye shameless clot! Just dare touch me!"
"No, there'll be no peace tonight. Everyone's gone crackers."
Shurygin went into the yard and got on his motor- bike. It was eighteen kilometres to the district centre, where the farm chairman lived and there was a shop. He could have a drink there and a talk. He'd tell him about the fuss folk had made here, and the two of them would have a good laugh.
At the bend in the road, his headlight picked out an ugly pile of bricks in the darkness. A dank smell wafted from the ruined crypt.
"Seventeenth century," Shurygin remembered. "There it is, your seventeenth century! So he's writing to the proper places, is he? Well, let him. So what! "
Shurygin stepped on the gas... He started singing at the top of his voice to show everyone that he was in fine spirits-in spite of all their curses:
With a ho, ho, ho and a bee, bee, bee,
I'm the ho-ho-ho of the ninth company,
Battalion number thirty three.
With a hey-diddle-diddle
And a tirra-lirra lee!
The motorbike roared out of the village, sending a shining blade of light into the night, and sped along the smoothly rolled road towards the district centre. Shurygin liked going fast.
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