MAHOGANY
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whole town are we and the only place left to us is this under–
ground. I was the first communist in the town and a communist
I shall remain until my dying day. Our ideas shall not perish.
And what ideas they were! Now no one remembers them, com–
rades, except us. We are like the Wright brothers! ..."
Comrade Ognev poured out another round of vodka and,
interrupting Ozhogov, said:
"I'll tell you, chairman! The great things we did! the way
we fought! I was in command of a partisan unit. We marched
through a forest for a day and a night, and then another day
and another night. And at dawn what do we hear? Machine–
guns!"
Ognev was interrupted by Pozharov, who asked:
"And when you use your saber how do ytm hold your
thumb, straight or bent?"
"Against the blade. Straight," Ognev replied.
"That's what they all do. Here, show me on this knife, show
me how you do it!"
Ognev took the cobbler's knife which they used to cut bread
and demonstrated how he placed his thumb on the blade.
"That's the wrong way!" Pozharov cried out. That's not
how I hold it-it cuts like a razor when I use it. Here, I'll show
you, you've got it all wrong!"
"Comrades!" said Ozhogov softly, his face wincing with
pain and madness. "We must talk of ideas today, of great ideas,
and not about saber-slashing!"
A fourth man interrupted Ozhogov, shouting:
"Comrade Ognev! You were in the Third Division and
J
was in the Second. Do you remember how you missed the cross–
ing near the village of Shinky? ..."
"We missed it? No, it was you who missed it, not we! ..."
"Comrades!" Ozhogov again interjected in a voice at once
calm and insane, "We must speak about ideas! ..."
By midnight these ragged men who had asserted their right
to live underground in the kiln of the brickworks were ::uready
