Kensi walked over and slammed down a pile of proofs, savagely crisscrossed with red pencil, onto Andrei’s desk. “I’m not going to print this!” he declared. “It’s sabotage.”
“Now what’s your problem?” Andrei asked. “Been scrapping with the censor, have you?” He took the proofs and stared at them without understanding anything, without even seeing anything apart from the red lines and squiggles.
“The pick of the letters—with one letter!” Kensi said furiously. “The editorial won’t do—too provocative. The comments on the mayor’s speech won’t do—too trenchant. The interview with the farmers won’t do—a sensitive issue, now’s not the right time… I can’t work like this, Andrei, it’s up to you. You have to do something. Those bastards are killing the paper!”
“Hang on now,” said Andrei, wincing. “Hang on, let’s figure this out…”
A large, rusty bolt was suddenly screwed into the back of his head, right into the little depression at the base of his skull. He closed his eyes and gave a quiet moan.
“Moaning won’t do any good here!” said Kensi, slumping into the chair for visitors and nervously lighting up a cigarette. “You moan and I groan, but that bastard’s the one who should be moaning, not you and me.”
The door swung open again. The fat censor tumbled into the room, sweating and breathing heavily, with his face covered in red blotches. He yelled stridently on his way in, “I refuse to work in such conditions! I’m not some little kid, Mr. Senior Editor. I’m a government employee! I don’t sit here because I get any pleasure out of it, and I don’t intend to tolerate obscene language from your colleagues! Or let them call me abusive names!”
“Why, you ought to be strangled, not just called names!” Kensi hissed from his chair, with his eyes glinting like a snake’s. “You’re a saboteur, not a government employee!”
The censor’s face turned to stone, and he shifted his eyes from Kensi to Andrei and back again. Then he suddenly spoke in a very calm, solemn voice: “Mr. Senior Editor, I wish to register a formal protest!”
At that point Andrei finally pulled himself together with a horrendous effort, slapped his hand down on the desk, and said, “Will you please be quiet! Both of you! Please sit down, Mr. Paprikaki.”
Mr. Paprikaki sat down facing Kensi. No longer looking at anyone, he tugged a large checkered handkerchief out of his pocket and started mopping at his sweaty neck, his cheeks, the back of his head, and his Adam’s apple.
“Right, then…” said Andrei, leafing through the proofs. “We prepared a selection of ten letters—”
“It’s a biased selection!” Mr. Paprikaki immediately declared.
Kensi hit the roof. “Yesterday alone we received nine hundred letters about bread!” he bellowed. “And the tone was the same in all of them, if not harsher!”
“Just a moment!” said Andrei, raising his voice and slapping his hand down on the desk again. “Let me speak! And if you don’t want to, you can both go out in the corridor and carry on haggling there. Well now, Mr. Paprikaki, our selection is based on a thoroughgoing analysis of the letters received by our office. Mr. Ubukata is absolutely right. We are in possession of correspondence that is far harsher and far less restrained in tone. And furthermore, we have even included in the selection one letter that directly supports the government, although it was the only one of its kind in all the seven thousand letters that we—”
“I have no objection to that letter,” the censor interrupted.
“I should think not,” said Kensi. “You wrote it yourself.”
“That’s a lie!” the censor exclaimed in a squeal that screwed the rusty bolt back into that little depression under Andrei’s skull.
“Well, if not you then someone else from your mob,” said Kensi.
“You’re the blackmailer!” the censor shouted, breaking out in red blotches again. This was a strange outburst, and for a while there was silence.
Andrei picked through the proofs. “So far we have worked with you reasonably well, Mr. Paprikaki,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “I’m sure we just need to find a compromise of some kind now too.”
The censor flapped his cheeks. “Mr. Voronin!” he said soulfully. “What does all this have to do with me? Mr. Ubukata is an intemperate individual, always looking for a chance to vent his spleen, and he doesn’t care who he vents it on. But you must understand that I am acting strictly in accordance with my instructions. A rebellion is brewing in the City. The farmers are ready to launch a massacre at any moment. The police are unreliable. Do you really want blood? Conflagrations? I have children, I don’t want any of that. And you don’t want it either! At times like this the press should serve to alleviate the situation, not exacerbate it. That’s the official position, and I must say that I entirely agree with it. But even if I didn’t agree, I am obliged—it is my official responsibility… Only yesterday the censor of the Express was arrested for collusion, for aiding and abetting subversive elements.”
“I understand you perfectly, Mr. Paprikaki,” Andrei said with every last ounce of goodwill that he could muster. “But after all, you must see that the selection is perfectly moderate. And you must understand that precisely because these are such difficult times, we cannot act as the government’s yes-men. Precisely because there is a danger of insurgency by the déclassé elements and the farmers, we must do everything we can to bring the government to its senses. We are performing our duty, Mr. Paprikaki.”
“I won’t sign the selection,” Paprikaki said in a quiet voice.
Kensi swore in a whisper.
“We shall be forced to put the paper out without any sanction from you,” said Andrei.
“Oh, very good,” Paprikaki said wearily. “Very nice. Absolutely charming. The paper will be fined, I shall be arrested. The edition will be impounded. And you’ll be arrested too.”
Andrei picked up the broadsheet Under the Banner of Radical Rebirth and waved it under the censor’s nose. “And why don’t they arrest Fritz Heiger?” he asked. “How many censors of this little paper have been arrested?”
“I don’t know,” Paprikaki said in quiet despair. “What business is that of mine? They’ll get around to arresting Heiger too—he certainly has it coming.”
“Kensi,” said Andrei. “How much do we have in the kitty? Will it cover the fine?”
“We’ll take up a collection among the staff,” Kensi said briskly, getting to his feet. “I’ll tell the compositor to start typesetting the edition. We’ll scrape through somehow.” Kensi set off toward the door.
The censor sighed and blew his nose as he watched him go. “You’ve got no heart,” he muttered. “And no brains either. Greenhorns…”
Kensi stopped in the doorway. “Andrei,” he said. “If I were you, I’d go to City Hall and try pulling all the levers I can.”
“What levers?” Andrei inquired morosely.
Kensi immediately came back to the desk. “Go to the deputy political consultant. After all, he’s Russian too. You used to drink vodka with him.”
“And I used to smash his face too,” Andrei said cheerlessly.
“That’s OK, he doesn’t bear grudges,” said Kensi, “and then, I know for certain that he’s on the take.”
“Who isn’t on the take in City Hall?” said Andrei. “That’s not the problem, is it?” he sighed. “OK, I’ll go. Maybe I’ll find out something… But what are we going to do about Paprikaki? He’ll just go running off and call in—you will, won’t you?”