The Power Of The Press

This is how it used to be.

When the potatoes have been put down in the cellar, when the mushrooms have been dried for the long winter and the jam made, when all that’s left is to slaughter the pig for the November celebrations – that’s when the villagers start getting their newspaper and magazine subscriptions in, when Auntie Nina, the mail carrier, hobbles from door to door, signing folks up for the coming year. And there’s profound meaning behind all this. First, it shows faith in a bright future. Because what kind of a pessimist would pay money in advance without knowing for sure that he’ll be around to read that newspaper? Second, it proves that you’re someone who really cares about politics. Because it’s one thing for the television to jabber at you about milk production, the five-year plan, and American capitalism, but it’s something else altogether to open the paper and study the subject inside and out until you really get it. Third, the villager can make all sorts of practical use of the printed word and the paper it’s printed on. So most people are more than willing to lay out a kopek or two on newspaper subscriptions, which brings the mail carrier a bonus for her trouble. The more subscriptions, the bigger the bonus.

Of course everybody wants Crocodile, the magazine with the cartoons and funny stories, and The Spark, with its colorful illustrations and love stories, and The Soviet Screen, with its photos of movie stars and its coming attractions... Those who take a mindful view of life ask for the popular magazines Science and Life or Around the World, for their articles about countries that nobody in the village will ever visit. But copies of those magazines are few and far between, in short supply all over the country. There are lots of newspapers, though, to suit the villagers’ need for simple, pithy, and easy to swallow. Nothing that’s over their heads. Just the latest Communist Party congress, Party policy, the Baikal-Amur railroad, how Soviet industry is doing...

So Nina the mail carrier goes from house to house, trying to sell things that nobody needs and using her smarts to decide who gets which of the scarcer titles, because that always works out better for her.

“Masha!” she yells, leaning her chest against the fence. “Masha? Going to sign up for a newspaper, are you?”

“What do I want a newspaper for?” Masha’s coming from the vegetable patch, carrying a bucket full of carrots. “Waste of money, it’s all on the radio, and if I get it wrong, they’ll set me straight on the TV.”

“And what are you going to paper your walls with? What are you going to gut your herrings on? And burn the soot out of your chimney?” Nina has a quota, and her quota won’t wait.

Masha wants none of it. “Ugh, come on!” she says. “Herring? I’ll go buy some if you’ll tell me where. And I’ve got the papers from the year fifty-eight glued all over my walls, so many I could sell some.”

Nina’s not giving up. “And what’re you hanging on the nail in your outhouse?”

“Burdock leaves.” Actually, Masha uses the old collective farm meeting minutes that she brings home on the sly, but isn’t about to tell anyone that.

“You’re illiterate and uncivilized.” Nina has put her bag down on the grass. “There’s so much clever stuff in them, all sorts of stuff. How to plant carrots, how to kill bugs with poison powder, how to raise children.” Nina’s leaning hard; the fence squeaks.

“Like I don’t know all that.” Masha lobs a carrot at Sharik the dog, who’s barking his head off. “So without a newspaper I’m the dumbest of the dumb? Is that it?”

“Oh, now, Masha – subscribe, won’t you?” Nina lifts the ring that keeps the gate closed. “Let’s go inside, so I can show you what’s new.”

Once indoors, Nina sits at the table and pulls a handful of newspapers from her canvas bag, like a traveling salesman showing his wares, and goes into her pitch.

“Pravda, Izvestia, Labor.” She strokes the grey sheets with their murky photographs. “Every respectable citizen should subscribe to these, Masha.”

“All three at once?” Masha groans, putting the kettle on the stove. “What – do they write different things?”

Nina bristles. “Why would they? They all write the same.”

“Then why three? Alright, let me have the one with the biggest, darkest letters, and I’ll take it to my granny out on her farmstead. She doesn’t have a TV, so that’ll keep her entertained in winter.”

Nina wastes no time completing a receipt, in pen, and pulling out another sheaf of newspapers.

“Will we be taking the district paper?”

“Oh, why not?” Masha stirs the burned wood in the stove. “That’s where they write about the lights going out, and the roads getting fixed, and when the bus is coming, and who’s selling chickens.”

“You said it,” Nina nods. “And they might write about the old guy too. You remember, the other year? The hero he was?”

“That I do.”

“He mowed more hay than anybody else.”

“Are you nuts?” Masha snorts. “What hay? He saved them fishermen who were stranded on the ice. He even got a certificate praising him for it.”

A flustered Nina is rummaging in her bag.

“And take this one for your daughter, about teachers. It’s called The Teacher’s Newspaper. All about schools!”

“Where does she work, now, Nina? Why would she want to read about her job? She could have burned that school down long ago, the torments she puts up with there. And what do they pay her? Next to nothing. And on top of that, she’s supposed to waste her money? Come on! As it is, they’ve been subscribed to Abroad whether they want to or not, and what does ‘abroad’ have to do with anything, when you can’t even get to the district center, what with the roads being all washed out? To heck with them!”

“So here’s where to subscribe if you want to ask about the roads.” Nina’s in a fuss now, getting her samples all mixed up. “Look, it’s a clever newspaper for questions about life. Arguments and Facts, it’s called. You ask them a question, they give you an answer. And see how thick it is!”

“They’ll give me an answer? Right!” Masha takes the kettle off the stove. “Why don’t they tell me what’s up with my pension? Here I’ve been a farm worker all my life but end up getting less than the bookkeeper. Why? She sat in the chairman’s office, all warm and cozy, and there was I, with my arms frozen up to the elbows. All that pitchforking has wrecked my back. And what’re your Facts going to tell me about that? Are they going to drop a bunch of money on me? To heck with them too!”

Nina’s feeling sheepish. Lame as she is, she knows all about life on the collective farm. Her husband was nearly killed working the mill saw, his pension’s a pittance too, and they never approved him for disability payments... But these subscriptions boost her pay, so she has to keep trying.

“What about The Young Communist’s Truth? It has really interesting articles too. Sometimes about people in love. One time they wrote about a ninth-grader who got pregnant by a boy in her class, what a scandal it was, and they even wanted to lock him up, but then nothing happened, and they actually got married. She had a little girl – how about that?”

“Just keep pouring salt in the wound.” Masha turns away, to face the window, and starts to sob. Nina bites her tongue, remembering how Masha’s youngest boy almost ended up behind bars over Yuliya from next door. It wasn’t cheap to stop that scandal from going any further; they even had to sell a cow. Nina groans to herself and tries to make things right.

“Hey, Masha, take a look at this! Want me to subscribe you to Health? We’ve only so many to go around, Masha. The lady doctor and the clinic are supposed to get it, and nobody else. But can I subscribe you, Masha?”

Masha wipes her nose on her apron. “Yes, fine,” she says. “There’s no telling what you can get sick with. A stabbing pain here, a pulling there, a throbbing somewhere else. Sometimes I lie down thinking I’m done for, that I’m at the end of the road.”

“See, and it’s all written here, about every illness. You won’t even need to see the doctor. Folk remedies too. But, Masha, come to me to pick it up, so nobody knows, OK?”

“Go on, subscribe me.” Masha realizes that Nina’s weakening, so now she can lay the pressure on. “Put me down for Soviet Sport as well, for my son-in-law. He’s bad news, Nina, with them roving eyes of his. He keeps wanting to make a run for it, but if we give him a newspaper, he can sit and read instead, can’t he?”

Cursing her own weakness, Nina writes her down for Soviet Sport, another one that’s hard to get. The menfolk really enjoy it, though, gathering on a bench to pore over it and talk about how well Soviet athletes are doing. And it has all the game results too and post-event commentary.

“So, Masha, are you going to take some magazines? The Banner, New World, The Neva, October? They sell like hot cakes in town, and... Wait, how does it go? ‘The latest literature, poetry, and prose from contemporary Soviet writers.’” Nina’s reading from her cheat-sheet.

“But that’s just mumbo-jumbo, good for nothing but eyestrain.” Masha brushes that aside as she pours the weak tea into cups. “It’s movies I like, a whole lot. Anyway, give me The Peasant Woman with the recipes, eh?”

“Only so many.” Nina compresses her lips into a straight line. “Hard to get, Masha.”

“Let me have it, and I’ll set you up with some of the May honey.”

“I can’t. How about Working Woman?”

“Oh no, that’s for the city folk. So, can you get me The Spark, Nina?” Masha knows how they line up for The Spark at the library, and they all want to tear out the pages with pictures, to brighten up their homes.

“Don’t even ask, Masha my dear. Two copies for the library, and that’s it.”

“And Man and the Law?”

“Only local law enforcement can subscribe.”

“Fib away!” An irate Masha moves the candy bowl out of Nina’s reach. “Fib some more! You, who got the chairman’s wife a subscription to Crocodile! And the lady who runs the store, you got her Silhouette, sewing patterns and all. But you’re sticking me with all sorts of hogwash. I don’t give a hoot about your Pravda, or your Izvestia either. Then there’s the grandkids, made to buy The Pioneer’s Truth at school. But the Puppy Dog magazine that all the kids love, for that we can go whistle? Why’re you trying to fob all this junk off on me? How many eggs have I given you for free this month? And haven’t you had milk from me but did you ever bring the jars back? And... potatoes for the spring planting?”

Mail carrier Nina counts out Masha’s change, crams the newspapers and receipts into her bag, and beats a retreat, not waiting to be scolded and shamed any more. And Masha, rubbing her ample chest, pours herself a shot glass of sweet wine, digs at the wallpaper by the stove, and tears a strip away. Bringing her nose up close to the old newspaper, she struggles to make out the words: “... the winter sowing has begun ... on a hundred hectares of farmland ... our combine harvester operators ... and Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, meeting with collective farmers, said in no uncertain terms that...”

And Masha, with a satisfied hiccup, says to herself, “What the hell do I need those newspaper subscriptions for, anyway? Nothing ever changes, Lord be praised, so why throw money around?”