NEVER OF INTEREST

I. THE WINDOW

Win­dow Num­ber Three of the Up­roshchensk Rev­enue In­spect­or­ate had seen everything. For thirty years it had looked out on Rev­enue Square and asked a single ques­tion: “How much did you get?” It was answered in a whis­per, with feel­ing and with a cer­ti­fic­ate. Cit­izen Vit­rina, who sold geese at the mar­ket, answered with a sigh. The win­dow ac­cep­ted the sigh as well.

It asked about noth­ing else. In Up­roshchensk one paid on one’s in­come, and that was con­sidered enough. In­come was the state’s busi­ness; spend­ing was the fam­ily’s.

On Wed­nes­day, the el­ev­enth of Novem­ber, at twenty to seven in the morn­ing, a fog settled on the town. It had no in­ten­tion of get­ting up. The fog and the road to the re­gional centre are two quant­it­ies which in Up­roshchensk de­pend on no news whatever.

At ten past nine Senior In­spector Arkady Ilyich Vnikaev sat down be­hind the win­dow: a man with a wedge-shaped beard and a job title longer than him­self, Tem­por­ar­ily Per­man­ent Com­mis­sioner for Ques­tions Not Pre­vi­ously Asked. He un­fol­ded the news­pa­per. The tax ser­vice, con­sult­ants re­por­ted, had be­gun check­ing the ex­penses of busi­nesses on the sim­pli­fied “in­come” scheme, the very thing that had “never been of in­terest” to it be­fore.¹ The in­spector put the pa­per down not without a cer­tain in­terest.

“And what did you spend it on?” he asked through the win­dow.

There was nobody in the square. But the ques­tion had been asked, and the win­dow could no longer take it back.

II. THE INQUIRY

By ten o’clock Vnikaev had sent out a hun­dred and forty-five in­quir­ies: to every per­son and or­gan­isa­tion in town that had money. In writ­ing they read: “Kindly con­firm your ex­penses for the past period by six this even­ing.” Or­ally, hand­ing the pa­per to Ekranov the barber, the in­spector ad­ded:

“Eau de Co­logne es­pe­cially.”

Who­ever failed to con­firm was due a claim. In Up­roshchensk claims are writ­ten by hand, in trip­lic­ate. A hun­dred and forty-five claims make four hun­dred and thirty-five sheets and one hand. The hand was Vnikaev’s.

A no­tice ap­peared on the door, also hand­writ­ten. It was meant to read “Re­ceipt of Con­firmed Ex­penses”. The third word would not fit on the sheet.

RECEIPT OF EXPENSESFROM THE PUBLIC9 to 6, Window No. 3

The town read what was writ­ten. By el­even there was a queue of forty-two people at the win­dow, hand­ing in ex­penses. A res­id­ent of Ag­greg­ate Street handed in his out­lay on fire­wood and asked for it not to be re­turned. The widow Lenta handed in last year’s re­pairs and went away trav­el­ling light.

“We don’t take ex­penses,” Vnikaev replied. “We con­firm them.”

“With what?”

“With res­ults.”

The rule was car­ried out to the let­ter. Ekranov brought along a freshly shaved cli­ent; the cli­ent was ex­amined and ad­ded to the file. The canteen con­firmed yes­ter­day’s lunch with the testi­mony of those who had lunched. The testi­mony agreed in every par­tic­u­lar ex­cept the com­pote. In the queue people said: “Not con­firmed, not an ex­pense.”

By noon el­even in­quir­ies had been closed. A hun­dred and thirty-four in­quir­ies re­mained, and six hours.

III. FIVE THESES

Across the square from the in­spect­or­ate there had stood for thirty years a sav­ings bank. It too had a win­dow, and that win­dow asked the op­pos­ite ques­tion: “How much are you tak­ing out?” The one win­dow knew where the cit­izens’ money came from, the other where it went. Neither shared with the other.

At noon the man­ager of the sav­ings bank, Kseno­font Pet­ro­vich Tezisov,² came out on to the porch and pro­claimed five theses. He spoke in plac­ards.

“The win­dow is an in­ter­face. The in­ter­face is dead! The bank of the fu­ture is in­vis­ible! Pay only for res­ults! Not a ko­peck to the middle­man! An agent for every cit­izen!”

The bank’s win­dow was boarded up with ply­wood and the sign taken down. In the fog the bank had been hard to make out even be­fore; now this be­came a prin­ciple. Tezisov him­self ma­ter­i­al­ised only at the mo­ment of a trans­ac­tion: a cit­izen reached for his purse, and out of the fog came the man­ager, took the money and went back again.

The theses con­tained the words “A.I. agent”. Up­roshchensk found four cit­izens with the ini­tials A. I. and put them to work. Anton Ivan­ovich Sdelny, formerly an agent for the pro­cure­ment of down and feath­ers, knew the cli­ent’s pref­er­ences, budget, his­tory and goals. Avdotya Ig­natyevna from the wel­fare of­fice knew the an­niversar­ies as well. The agents walked past the shop win­dows without look­ing and bought things in seconds.

The one to suf­fer from this was the for­eign plat­form Euro­ag­greg­ate,³ through which the town had done its shop­ping un­til Wed­nes­day. It took twenty-five ko­pecks in the rouble and did not sell galoshes at all: it ren­ted them out, by the month. Anton Ivan­ovich went for his galoshes straight to the fact­ory.

The in­spect­or­ate fared worst of all.

“What did you spend it on?” Vnikaev kept ask­ing.

“I don’t know,” the cit­izen would hon­estly reply. “The agent spent it.”

The agent could not be caught, the bank could not be seen, and no re­ceipt ex­is­ted. On the door of the former sav­ings bank hung a re­view.

★★★★☆Couldn’t find the bank. Or my money.Satisfied with the service:nobody was rude to me.

At one o’clock Vnikaev put on his galoshes, took his briefcase and went out into the fog. The in­vis­ible bank shows it­self at the mo­ment of a trans­ac­tion. Con­sequently, a trans­ac­tion was re­quired.

IV. THE GOOSE

On the in­spector’s briefcase stood, in brass let­ters: “A. I.” At the mar­ket this proved suf­fi­cient.

“Are you A. I.?” Cit­izen Vit­rina asked out of the fog.

“A. I.,” said Vnikaev, a truth­ful man.

“Then it’s yours. Ordered this morn­ing.”

And into his arms was laid a goose: alive, warm and dis­pleased.

The senior in­spector had bought noth­ing for el­even years: his wife did the buy­ing. He stood hold­ing the goose for forty seconds, which for an agent is un­for­giv­ably long. Then the fog par­ted and out stepped Tezisov.

“Trans­ac­tion com­pleted! Two thou­sand four hun­dred, if you please! Pay­ment for res­ults! The res­ult is un­der your arm!”

Vnikaev paid and held out his hand.

“Re­ceipt.”

“The bank is in­vis­ible. So is the re­ceipt.”

“Then how am I to con­firm the ex­pense?”

Tezisov said noth­ing. He was not si­lent for long, but in such a way that it be­came clear the ques­tion had now been put to the in­spector. Then he went off into the fog.

Arkady Ilyich was left stand­ing in the middle of the mar­ket with a goose and an un­con­firmed ex­pense. He took out a form and made out in­quiry num­ber one hun­dred and forty-six, to Cit­izen Vnikaev, A. I., same dead­line. He served it, signed for re­ceipt and real­ised that he had noth­ing to an­swer with. There were no in­spect­ors left in Up­roshchensk. There were only the in­spec­ted.

The goose looked at him the way the win­dow had looked for thirty years.

V. THE PACKET

At twenty to six a packet was pushed through Win­dow Num­ber Three, ad­dressed “To the Body Re­ceiv­ing Ex­penses from the Pub­lic”. The packet was for­eign, new and duly agreed.

It had been sent by Euro­ag­greg­ate. The plat­form’s per­man­ent rep­res­ent­at­ives, ag­grieved at the agents, had agreed on a list: one hun­dred and forty-five per­sons and or­gan­isa­tions of Up­roshchensk whose right to rent any­thing from it would hence­forth be re­stric­ted. Vnikaev coun­ted them again. One hun­dred and forty-one per­sons and two in­sti­tu­tions were lis­ted for links to the fin­an­cial sys­tem: each of them had a sav­ings book. First came he him­self, second Tezisov. The boat­ing sta­tion was lis­ted as a shadow fleet: both its boats have lain in the shade un­der a wil­low since June. The bench out­side num­ber six was held re­spons­ible for spread­ing false in­form­a­tion: it was there that someone had said the goose would get cheaper.

Be­low, in small print, it said that the list would be dis­cussed on Monday. One could be struck off sooner by con­firm­ing one’s ex­penses to the plat­form for the past three years. A sub­scrip­tion ser­vice, nine hun­dred and ninety a month. From the cover a rep­res­ent­at­ive smiled. His smile was worth ex­actly nine hun­dred and ninety.

Vnikaev re­read the post­script and, for the first time that day, took of­fence.

“Nobody was ever in­ter­ested in what Up­roshchensk spends,” he told the goose. “Since this morn­ing I am. It does not fol­low that any­one with an en­vel­ope may take an in­terest.”

Then he thought for four and a quarter minutes and took up his stamp. Ex­penses can be re­stric­ted only for those who have them. The for­eign party cer­ti­fied in writ­ing, over its sig­na­ture and with a smile, that one hun­dred and forty-five per­sons and or­gan­isa­tions of Up­roshchensk spent money, and spent it vis­ibly. The in­spect­or­ate had not re­ceived bet­ter con­firm­a­tion in thirty years.

At two minutes to six all hun­dred and forty-five in­quir­ies bore the words: “Con­firmed. In­ter­ested party.” The packet was filed. The town later held that the list had done the most harm to who­ever drew it up: the pa­per alone had run to a hun­dred and forty-five names.

No claims had to be writ­ten. There re­mained in­quiry num­ber one hun­dred and forty-six. The goose did not ap­pear on the for­eign list.

VI. THE FOG

At six o’clock sharp Cit­izen Vit­rina came up to the win­dow.

“Your wife’s agent, Avdotya Ig­natyevna, ordered that goose for you this morn­ing. For your thirty years of ser­vice. It was paid for. And you paid a second time.”

She laid two thou­sand four hun­dred roubles on the win­dow sill.

“We don’t take twice for one goose. We’re not a plat­form.”

To the money she ad­ded a bag of Ant­onovka apples. Vnikaev asked how much he owed. Noth­ing. He asked whether she needed a re­ceipt. Cit­izen Vit­rina looked at him as at a vis­itor from out of town and went off into the fog.

The in­spector closed in­quiry num­ber one hun­dred and forty-six: “Ex­pense re­turned. Apples are not an ex­pense.” How his wife’s agent knew his an­niversar­ies, pref­er­ences, his­tory and goals he de­cided not to in­quire. Fam­ily ex­penses were of no in­terest to him. As be­fore.

By even­ing the no­tice on the door had grown damp and come un­stuck of its own ac­cord. Nobody stuck it back. The goose is sched­uled for Thursday, with apples and a sense of le­git­im­ate ex­pendit­ure.

The fog over Rev­enue Square stood as be­fore. As be­fore, there was no bank to be seen in it. Win­dow Num­ber Three looked out on the square and asked: “How much did you get?” It asked about noth­ing else. It saw everything without ask­ing.

From press reports

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