hich was an exact replica of those other two,
with its things scattered about, with Katya's open suitcase, from which she
had been taking something out when I knocked, and the doctor too, who, it
appears, had been there all the time, standing in a corner wiping his beard
with his handkerchief, and now started to tiptoe out of the room, but I
stopped him. But the main thing, the most important thing-Katya was in
Polarnoye! How had she come to be in Polarnoye?
"My God, I've been writing to you every day!" she said. "We just missed
each other in Moscow. When you called on Valya Zhukov I was queuing for
bread in Arbat."
"No?"
"You left him a letter, and I dashed off to look for you-but where? Who
could have imagined that you would be going to see Romashov!"
"How do you know I went to see Romashov?"
"I know everything, darling!"
She kissed me. "I'll tell you everything."
And she told me that Vyshimirsky, frightened to death, had sought out
Ivan Pavlovich and told him that I had had Romashov
arrested.
"But who's this Rear-Admiral R.?" she said. "I wrote to you, care of
him, and then to him personally, but he never answered. Didn't you know that
you were coming here? Why did I have to write to you through him?"
"Because I didn't have an address of my own. I left Moscow to look for
you."
"Where?"
"At Yaroslavl. I was in Yaroslavl."
"Why didn't you write to Korablev when you came here?"
"I don't know. My God, is it really you? Katya?"
We were walking up and down with our arms round each other, stumbling
over things, again and again asking "why?" "why?" and there were as many of
these "whys" as there were causes which had parted us at Leningrad,
prevented us from running into each other in Moscow, and now thrown us
together in Polarnoye, where I had now come for the first time and where
only half an hour ago it was impossible to imagine Katya being.
She had heard about my discovery of the expedition from the TASS
reports which appeared in the newspapers. She had got in touch with the
doctor and he had helped to get a permit to come to Polarnoye. But they did
not know where to write to me-even if they did know, it is hardly likely
that any mail would reach me at the camp site of Captain Tatarinov's
expedition!
The doctor disappeared, then reappeared with a hot kettle, and though
he couldn't stop the speed with which the world was whirling around us, he
did make us sit down side by side on the sofa, and treated us to some
tooth-breaking hardtack. Then he fetched a billy-can of condensed milk and
set it on the table, apologising for the tableware.
Then he went away. I did not detain him this time, and we were left
alone in that cold house, with its kitchen cluttered with empty tins and
dirty dishes, its hallway covered with snow that did not melt. Why were we
in this house, through the windows of which we could see the rolling hills
and the slack water moving importantly between the steep, snowy shores? But
this was yet another "why?" to which I did not bother to seek an answer.
On going out the doctor had handed me some electric gadget. I
immediately forgot about it and remembered it only when, laughing at
something, I saw dense steam billowing from my mouth and melting slowly in
the air, like from a horse standing out in the frost. The gadget was an
electric fire, obviously of local workmanship, but a very good one. The room
quickly got warm. Katya wanted to tidy up, but I did not let her. I gazed at
her. I held her hands in a tight grip, as though fearing that she might
disappear as suddenly as she had appeared.
On my way to the doctor's I had noticed that the weather was changing,
and now, when I left the house-because it was already a quarter to ten-the
cold, humming wind had dropped, the air was no longer limpid, and soft snow
fell heavily and quickly-all signs of coming snowstorm.
To my surprise, they already knew at HO that Katya had arrived. The
commander knew it, too-why else should he have greeted me with a smile? Very
briefly I told him how we had sunk the raider. He did not ask me any
questions, merely said that I was to give a report about it before the War
Council that evening. What he was interested in was the St. Maria
expedition.
I began in a restrained, rather embarrassed manner-though the fact that
the expedition had been found during the performance of a combat mission
would not have struck anyone who knew the story of my life as being odd. How
was I to convey this idea to the fleet commander in a few words? But he was
listening with such rapt attention, with such sincere, young interest, that
I finally dismissed the thought of "a few words" and began telling my story
simply- and quite unexpectedly, the effect was an authentic account of what
really happened.
We parted at last, and then only because the admiral bethought himself
of Katya.
I don't know how much time I spent with him-it must have been no more
than an hour-but when I came out I did not find Polarnoye. It was hidden in
a pall of whirling, blinding, whistling snow.
Luckily I was wearing burki(*Burki-high felt boots.-Tr.) -even so I had
to turn the tops back above my knees. Talk about terraces-there wasn't a
trace of them! Only a fantastic imagination could picture houses somewhere
behind those black clouds of whipped snow, and in one of those houses, in
Row 5, Katya laying the hardtack out on the electric fire to warm them, as I
had advised her. In the end I got to the house, of course. The hardest thing
was to recognise it. In little more than an hour it had turned into a
fairy-tale dwarfie hut, standing lopsided and snowed up to the windows. Like
a god of snowstorm I burst into the hall, and Katya had to brush me down
with a whisk broom, starting from the shoulders, which were caked with
frozen snow.
We had talked everything over, it seemed; twice we had approached the
subject of the Captain's letters of farewell-I had brought them with me to
Polarnoye to show to the doctor; the rest of the material relating to the
expedition I had left at my regiment. But we
avoided the subject of these letters and everything associated with
them, as though we felt that in the joy of our reunion the time had not yet
come for us to talk about them.
Katya had already told me all about little Pyotr-what a swarthy little
chap he was, the very image of my poor sister. We had already discussed what
to do about Grandma, who had quarrelled with Farm Manager Perishkin and
rented a "private apartment" in the village. I had already learnt that Pyotr
Senior had been wounded a second time, had received a decoration and
returned to the front-in Moscow Katya had chanced to meet the commander of
his battalion, a Hero of the Soviet Union, who had told her that Pyotr
"didn't give a damn for death", a phrase which had startled Katya. I had
learnt about Varya Trofimova, too, and that if things worked out the way
Katya thought they would "it would be the greatest ever happiness for both
of them". Changes had been made in the room, too-things were arranged more
comfortably, looking as if they were grateful to Katya for having brought
warmth to this cold, masculine abode. Some five or six hours had passed
since that wonderful, momentous change had taken place. The entire world of
our family life, lost to us for so long-for eighteen desolate months-had
come back at last, and I had not yet got used to the idea that Katya was
with me once more.
"D'you know what I've been thinking most of the time? That I didn't
love you enough and kept forgetting how hard you had it with me."
"And I was thinking how hard you had it with me," Katya said. "When you
used to go away and I worried about you I was still happy, despite all those
anxieties, cares and fears."
While we were talking she went on arranging things, as she always did
in hotels, even in trains, wherever we went together. It was the habit of a
woman accustomed to moving with her husband from place to place-and what a
pity, tenderness and remorse I felt towards her for that pathetic habit.
God, how I had missed her! I had forgotten everything! Forgotten, for
instance, how she did her hair for the night, plaiting it into pigtails. Her
hair was still short, and the pigtails were comical little things. Yet she
plaited them, uncovering her beautiful little ears-even these I had
forgotten.
We talked on after a long silence, now in whispers and about quite
another matter. This other matter was Romashov.
I remember having read somewhere about palimpsests, that is, ancient
parchments from which later scribes erased the text to write bills and
receipts on them, and years later scholars discovered the original writings,
which sometimes belonged to the pen of poets of genius.
It was like a palimpsest, when Katya gave me Romashov's version of what
had happened in the aspen wood, and I erased this lie as if with a rubber
and beneath it the truth came through. I saw and explained to her this dirty
trick of his, which he had used twice-first to prove to Katya that he had
saved my life, then to show me that he had saved hers.
I related to her word for word our last conversation at his flat, and
Katya was astonished at Romashov's confession, which explained the cause of
all my failures and resolved the riddles which had always weighed upon her
heart.
"Did you put it all down in writing?"
"Yes. I set it out like an examination record and made him sign it."
I repeated his account of how he had been watching my every step in
life, tormented by envy, which has racked his mean, restless soul ever since
his schooldays. I said nothing, however, about the magnificent portrait of
Katya hanging over his desk. I said nothing because this love of his was an
insult to her.
She listened to me with a sombre face, her eyes burning. She took my
hand and pressed it hard to her bosom. She was pale with emotion. She hated
Romashov twice or thrice as much perhaps for the very thing I did not want
to talk about. As for me, he was remote and insig-. nificant, and it was
cheering to think that I had got the better of him.
My wife was asleep, her cheek pillowed on her hand. My clever, lovely
wife, who, heavens knows why, had always loved me with this undying love.
She was sleeping, and I could gaze my till at her, thinking that we were
alone now and though this short, happy night would end all too soon, we had
wrested it from the raging blizzard that was sweeping through the world.
I had to be up at six and had prevailed upon Katya not to have me waken
her. We had even kissed goodbye to each other the night before. But when I
opened my eyes I found her already washing up, clad in her dressing gown and
propping the wet plates against the electric fire. She knew what military
service I was doing, but we never talked about it. Only when I bestirred
myself, leaving my glass of tea unfinished, did she ask, as she used to do,
whether I was taking my parachute. I said I was.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE FAREWELL LETTERS
On leaving the house I gave Katya the Captain's letters. Once before,
at Ensk, in Cathedral Gardens, I had left her alone to read one of the
letters which Aunt Dasha and I had found in the bag of the drowned postman.
I had stood beneath St. Martin's tower and turned cold as I mentally went
through that letter with her line by line.
Now I would not be seeing her for several days. Even so, we would be
reading together again, and I knew that Katya would feel me breathing at her
shoulder.
Here are the letters.
Captain 1st Class P.S. Sokolov, Hydrographical Board, St. Petersburg
My dear Pyotr Sergeyevich,
I hope this letter reaches ycm. I am writing it at the moment when our
voyage is nearing its end, and, I regret to say, I am finishing it in
solitude. I do not think anybody in the world could have coped with what we
have had to endure. All my companions have died one after the other, and the
reconnaissance party which I sent to Gal-chikha did not return.
I am leaving Maria and your god-daughter in difficult straits. If I
knew that they were provided for I would not be greatly distressed at
leaving this world, because I feel that our country has no reason to be
ashamed of us. We were very unlucky, but we made up for it by returning to
the land we had discovered and studying it to the best of our ability.
My last thoughts are of my wife and child. I dearly hope that my
daughter makes a success of her life. Help them, as you helped me. Dying, I
think with deep gratitude of you and of the best years of my youth when I
worked under your guidance.
I embrace you. Ivan Tatarinov.
To: His Excellency, the Head of the Hydrographical Board, From: I. L.
Tatarinov, Chief of the St. Maria Expedition
Report
I herewith beg to bring to the notice of the Hydrographical Board the
following:
On March 16th, 1915, in observed latitude 79°08' 30" and longitude
89°55' 00" East of Greenwich, from the drifting ship St. Maria, in good
visibility and a clear sky, there was sighted east of the ship an unknown
large stretch of land with high mountains and glaciers. Signs indicating the
presence of land in this area had been observed prior to this: as early as
August, 1912, we had seen large flocks of geese flying from the North in a
N.N.-E-S.S.-E direction. At the beginning of April 1913 we had seen a
sharp-cut silvery strip of the N.E. horizon, and above it clouds of a very
queer shape, resembling distant mountains shrouded in mist.
The discovery of land stretching in a meridional direction gave us the
hope of abandoning ship at the first favourable opportunity in
order, on coming ashore, to follow the coastline in the direction of
the Taimyr Peninsula and beyond, as far as the first Siberian settlements at
the mouths of the rivers Khatanga and Yenisei as the case may be. By now the
direction of our drift was clear beyond doubt. Our ship was drifting
together with the ice on a general course North 7° by West. Even in the
event of this course changing to a more westerly one, that is, parallel to
the drift of Nansen's Fram, we should not get free of the ice before the
autumn of 1916, and our provisions would last only until the summer of 1915.
After numerous difficulties irrelevant to this report we succeeded on
May 23, 1915, in stepping ashore on the newly discovered land in latitude
81°09' and longitude 58°36'. This was an ice-covered island, indicated by
the letter A on the attached chart. It was not until five days later that we
succeeded in reaching the second, very large, island, one of three or four
comprising the newly discovered land. The astronomical position finding made
on a jutting cape of this island and marked by the letter G, gave the
co-ordinates 80°26' 30" and92°08'00".
Moving southward along the shores of this unknown land I explored the
coast between parallels 81 and 79. In its northern part the coast is a
low-lying stretch under an extensive icecap. Farther south it rises and
becomes free of ice. Here we found driftwood. At latitude 80° we found a
broad strait or bay extending from the point indicated by the letter S in an
E.S.-E. direction.
From the point marked by the letter F. the coastline turns sharply
S.S.-W. I intended to explore the southern shore of the newly discovered
land, but by that time it was decided that we proceed along the coast of
Khariton Laptev in the direction of the Yenisei.
In informing the Board of my discoveries I consider it necessary to
point out that the observation for longitude may not be quite reliable, as
the ship's chronometers, though carefully looked after, have not been
corrected for more than two years.
Ivan Tatarinov
Enclosed: 1. A certified copy of the St. Maria's log.
2. Copy of chronometric record.
3. Canvas-bound notebook with calculations and survey data.
4. Map of the surveyed land. June 18th, 1915, Camp on Island 4 in
Russian Archipelago.
Dear Maria,
I'm afraid it's all up with us. I am not even sure that you will ever
read these lines. We cannot go any further, we freeze as we move or halt,
and cannot get warm even when we eat. My feet are very bad, especially the
right one, and I don't even know how and when it got frost-bitten. By force
of habit I write "we", though it is three days now since poor Kolpakov died.
I can't even bury him because of the blizzard. Four days of blizzard has
proved too much for us.
It will soon be my turn, but I am not the least afraid of death,
evidently because I have done all I could and more to stay alive.
I feel very guilty about you, and this thought is the most painful,
though there are others not much easier.
How much anxiety and sorrow you have suffered these years- and now
this, the greatest blow of all, on top of them. I don't want you to consider
yourself tied down for life. If you meet a man with whom you feel you will
be happy, remember that this is my wish. Tell Nina Kapitonovna this. I
embrace her and ask her to help you as much as she can, especially with
Katya.
We had a very hard voyage, but we stood up to it well and would
probably have coped with our task had we not been delayed by supply problems
and had not these supplies been so bad.
My darling Maria, how will you get along without me! And Katya, Katya!
I know who could help you, but in these last hours of my life I do not want
to name him. I didn't have a chance to tell him to his face everything that
had been rankling in my breast all these years. He personified for me that
force that kept me bound hand and foot, and it makes me feel bitter to think
of all I could have accomplished if I had been-I would not say helped-but at
least not hindered. What's done cannot be undone. My one consolation is that
through my labours Russia has discovered and acquired large new territories.
I cannot tear myself away from this letter, from my last conversation with
you, dear Maria. Look after our daughter, don't let her grow up lazy. That
is a trait of mine. I was always lazy and too trustful.
Katya, my little daughter! Will you ever learn how much I thought about
you and how I wanted to have at least one more look at you before I died?
But enough. My hands are cold, otherwise I would go on writing and
writing. I embrace you both.
Yours forever.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE LAST PAGE
Looking back on the winter of 1943-1944 at Polarnoye I see that it was
the happiest winter we had ever had together. This may seem strange
considering that nearly every other day I flew out to bomb German ships. But
it was one thing to fly on missions without knowing what had become of
Katya, and quite another, to know that she was at Polarnoye, alive and well
and that in a day or two I would see her pouring out tea at table. A green
silk lampshade to which Ivan Ivanovich had pinned the little paper devils
cut out of thick paper hung over his table, and everything that Katya and I
took delight in that memorable winter is floodlit by that bright circle cast
by the green shade, leaving all the fret and worry hidden away outside in
the dark corners.
I remember our evenings, when, after long, vain attempts to get in
touch with the doctor, I caught the first launch that came along and went to
Polarnoye, where friends gathered within that circle of light, no matter how
late the hour. Who thought of night when the day was night too!
Never before had I talked, drunk and laughed so much. The feeling that
had come over me when I first saw Katya here seemed lodged in my heart now
for all time-and the whole world went hurtling along. Whither? Who knows! I
believed that it was towards happiness.
The three of us-the doctor, Katya and I-spent all our free time
studying and sorting the records of the St. Maria expedition.
I don't know which was the more difficult-developing the films or
reading the documents of the expedition. A film, as we know, is liable to
fade with the years, and that is why the makers usually indicate the date
limit after which they cannot guarantee full quality. For the St. Maria
films this date was February 1914. Moreover, the metal containers were full
of water and the films were soaked through and had evidently been in that
condition for years. The Navy's best photographers declared it to be a
hopeless case, and even if they (the photographers) were wizards they would
never be able to develop the film. I persuaded them to try. As a result, out
of hundred and twelve photographs, dried with infinite precautions, about
fifty were adjudged "worth further handling". After repeated printings we
succeeded in obtaining twenty-two clear pictures.
I had once succeeded in deciphering Navigator Klimov's diary, written
in a crabbed, illegible, sprawling hand and smeared with seal-oil. Still
they had been separate pages in two bound notebooks. Not so Tatarinov's
papers. Apart from his farewell letters, which were better preserved, his
papers were found in the form of a compact pulpy mass, and transforming this
into a chronometric record, a logbook, maps, charts and survey data, was, of
course, beyond my powers. This was done in a special laboratory under expert
supervision. No room will be found in this book for a detailed account of
what was found in the canvas-bound notebook which Captain Tatarinov had
listed among his enclosures. I will only say that he managed to draw
deductions from his observations and that the formulas which he put forward
enabled us to calculate the speed and direction of the ice drift in any part
of the Arctic Ocean. This seems
almost incredible, considering the comparatively short drift of the St.
Maria which took place in areas which do not seem to offer any data for such
far-reaching deductions. But then the insight of genius does not always need
many facts to work upon.
"You have read the life of Captain Tatarinov," I had said to myself,
"but its last page has remained sealed."
"This is not the end yet," had been my answer. "Who knows, there may
come a time when I shall succeed in turning and reading that page too."
That time had come. I had read it, and found it immortal.
CHAPTER SIX
THE HOME'COMING
In the summer of 1944 I was granted leave, and Katya and I decided to
spend three weeks in Moscow and the fourth in Ensk, visiting the old folk.
We arrived on July 17-a memorable date. It was the day the huge column
of German prisoners-of-war passed through Moscow.
We had light suitcases and so decided to make our way to the centre of
the city by Metro, but when we came out of the Metro station on Leningradsky
Prospekt we were unable to cross the road for a good two hours. First we
stood, then, getting tired, we sat down on our suitcases, then stood up
again. And still they came on. The clean-shaven generals with sickly
arrogant faces, among whom were some notorious torturers and hangmen, must
have been at Krimsky Bridge, miles away, but the soldiers kept on coming and
coming, shambling along-some in rags and barefooted, others with their army
coats thrown open.
I looked at them with curiosity. Like many other bomber pilots I had
never set eyes on the enemy all through the war, unless it was when I dived
on to a target-hardly a position from which you can see much. But now I was
"in luck"-fifty seven thousand six hundred of the enemy, in ranks of twenty,
passed before me in one lot, some of them gazing wonderingly around them at
Moscow, which looked its best that radiant day, others staring down at their
feet sullen-faced and indifferent.
Men from all walks of life, their every look and gesture were
infinitely alien to us.
I glanced at Katya. She was standing with her handbag pressed to her
bosom, deeply moved. Suddenly she kissed me tenderly.
"Was that your 'thank you'?" I asked.
"Yes," she answered gravely.
We had lots of money and so took one of the best suites in the hotel
Moskva, a sumptuous affair with mirrors, paintings and a grand piano.
At first we were a bit awe-struck, but then found that it was not so
very difficult to get accustomed to mirrors, carpets and a ceiling decorated
with flowers and cupids. We felt very good in those rooms, which were
spacious and wonderfully cozy.
Korablev, of course, came to see us the day we arrived, looking dapper
in an embroidered white shirt which, with his smartly twirled moustache,
gave him a resemblance to some great Russian painter- exactly which one,
Katya and I couldn't for the moment remember.
He had been in Moscow in the summer of 1942 when I had knocked at that
felt-covered door of his. He had been in Moscow and nearly went mad when he
came home and found my letter telling him that I was going to Yaroslavl to
look for Katya.
"How do you like that? To look for Katya, with whom I had gone along to
the police station only the day before, because they didn't want to register
her at the Sivtsev-Vrazhek flat!"
"Never mind, Ivan Pavlovich," I said. "All's well that ends well. I
wasn't very lucky that summer. As a matter of fact I'm glad that we've met
now, when everything is really well. I was black, gaunt, and half-crazy, but
now you see before you a normal, cheerful man. But tell me about yourself.
What are you doing? How are you getting on?"
Korablev was never good at talking about himself. But we did learn from
him many interesting things about the school in Sadovo-Triumfalnaya, where
events of such great moment in my and Katya's lives had once taken place.
With every year that passed after leaving school, it receded from us farther
and farther, and we had begun to find it strange that we were once those
ardent children to whom life had seemed so bafflingly complicated. But for
Korablev school had gone on. Every day he had leisurely combed his moustache
before the mirror, picked up his stick, and gone off to give his lessons,
and new boys had passed under the searchlight beam of his grave, loving,
attentive gaze.
Oh, that gaze of his! I was reminded of Grisha Faber, who had declared
that "the gaze is all-important" and that with a gaze like Korablev's he
would have "made a career in the theatre in no time".
"Where is he, Ivan Pavlovich?"
"Grisha's in the provinces," Korablev said. "In Saratov. I haven't seen
him for some time. I believe he's made good as an actor."
"He was good. I always liked his acting. He shouted a bit, but that
doesn't matter. His voice carried, though."
We ran through the whole list of classmates. It was both sad and
cheering to recall old friends, whom life had scattered throughout the land.
Tania Velichko was an architect building houses in Smolensk, Shura Kochnev
was an artillery colonel and had recently been mentioned in dispatches. But
there were many of whom Korablev knew nothing either. Time seemed to have
passed them by, leaving them in our memories as boys and girls of seventeen.
So we sat, talking, and meanwhile Professor Valentin Zhukov had phoned
three times and had been given an earful for keeping us waiting, though he
pleaded in excuse some new experiment with his snakes or fox cross-breeds.
At last he turned up, and stopped in the doorway with a thoughtful air,
finger on his nose, wondering, if you please, if he had come to the wrong
room.
"Come in, Professor, come on in," I said to him.
He ran towards me, laughing and behind him in the doorway appeared a
tall-, portly, fair-haired lady, whom we had once known, if I am not
mistaken, under the name ofKiren.
First of all I was interrogated, of course. It was a cross-examination,
with Valya on the right and Kiren on the left of me. Why, in what manner and
on what grounds had I broken into another person's flat, gone through all
the rooms, and on discovering that Katya was living at Professor V.
Zhukov's, had hit on the brilliant idea of leaving a note that was utterly
senseless, since it contained no mention of where I was to be found and how
long I would be in Moscow.
"That was her bed, you ass," Valya said. "And the dress on it was hers.
Christ, couldn't you have guessed that only a woman's hand could keep my den
so tidy?"
"That much I guessed all right."
Kiren burst out laughing, good-naturedly, I think, but Valya made big
eyes at me. Obviously, the ghost of the mysterious Zhenka Kolpakchi with the
variegated eyes still haunted that family hearth.
The women retired into the next room. Kiren was nursing her fourth
child, so I daresay they had plenty to talk about.
We started talking about the war. There were already numerous signs
that it would soon be over. Valya and Korablev listened to me with such an
expression as if it was I who would be called upon in the very near future
to report the capture of Berlin to the High Command. Valya asked why they
were not forcing the Vistula and was deeply pained to hear me say I did not
know. As for the North, to judge by the questions he put to me, I was in
command, not of a squadron, but of the whole front.
Then Korablev began to speak about Captain Tatarinov, and lowering my
voice a little so that Katya should not hear, I told them some details which
had not been mentioned in the papers. Not far from the Captain's tent, in a
narrow cleft between the rocks, we found the graves of the sailors. The
bodies had been simply laid out on the ground and covered with large stones.
Bears and foxes had got at them and scattered the bones-one skull was found
three kilometres from the camp, in the next hollow. Evidently the Captain
had spent his last days in the same sleeping bag with the cook Kolpakov, who
had died before he did. The letter to Mrs Tatarinova was first adressed "To
my wife" and then corrected "To my widow". A wedding ring was found on the
Captain's right hand with the initials M.T. on the inside.
I got out of my suitcase and showed them a gold locket in the shape of
a heart. On one side of it there was a miniature portrait of Maria
Vasilievna, and on the other a lock of black hair. Korablev went over to the
window, put on his glasses and examined the locket. He was so long at it
that Valya and I ultimately went over to him and putting our arms round him
from both sides led him back to his chair.
"Katya is the image of her!" he said with a sigh. "This December it
will be seventeen years. I can hardly believe it."
He asked me to call Katya in and told her that he had gone to the
cemetery in the spring, planted some flowers there and employed one of the
caretakers to paint the railing.
CHAPTER SEVEN
TWO CONVERSATIONS
I had two things to attend to in Moscow. One was my paper to -be read
before the Geographical Society on how we had found the St. Maria
expedition, the other, my talk with the examining magistrate about Romashov.
Oddly enough, these tasks were not unconnected, for while I was still at N.
Base I had sent to the Procurator's Office a transcript of my talk with
Romashov at his flat. I will begin with the second.
The general waiting-room was a dimly lit hall divided in two by a
wooden barrier. Broad old-fashioned benches stood against the walls, and a
variety of people-old men, girls, servicemen without shoulder-straps-were
seated on them, waiting to be interrogated.
I found the office of my interrogating officer by the name on the door,
and as it was still early, I occupied myself with shifting the flags on the
map which hung in the waiting-room. It wasn't a bad map, but the flags were
far behind the present line of the front.
A familiar voice arrested my attention-a well-rounded, mellow,
pontifical voice, that instantly made me feel a poorly clad, grimy boy with
a big patch on his trousers. The voice said: "May I come in?"
Evidently, he was asked to wait, because, after opening the door,
Nikolai Antonich closed it again and set down on the bench with a slightly
hurt expression. I had last seen him in the Metro in the summer of 1942, and
he was the same as he was then-his manner lordly, dignified, patronising.
Whistling, I moved the flags about on the Second Baltic Front.
Seventeen years had passed since the day I had said: "I'll find the
expedition and then we'll see who's right." Did he know that I had found the
expedition? Undoubtedly he did. But what he did not know-the newspapers had
not said a word about it-was that among Captain Tatarinov's papers there had
been found incontestable, irrefragable evidence proving that I had been
right.
He sat with Us head lowered, hands resting on his walking stick. Then
he glanced at me and an involuntary quick movement passed across his large,
pale face. "He's recognised me," I thought, exultant. He had recognised me.
He looked away.
He was considering at that moment what attitude to adopt towards me. A
problem indeed. Evidently, he had disposed of it to his satisfaction,
because he suddenly stood up and strode over to me, touching his hat.
"Comrade Grigoriev, if I am not mistaken?"
"Yes."
I don't think I had ever had such difficulty in pronouncing that short
word. I, too, had my moment of hesitation in considering what my manner
towards him should be.
"You haven't been wasting your time, I see," he went on, glancing at my
medal ribbons. "Where do you come from now? On what front are you defending
us humble toilers of the rear?"
"The Far North."
"Are you in Moscow for long?"
"On leave, three weeks."
"And obliged to waste precious hours in this waiting-room? Ah, well,
it's our civic duty," he added. "I suppose you, too, have been summoned here
in connection with Romashov's case?"
"Yes."
He paused. Oh, how familiar were those deceptive, pregnant pauses of
his, and how, even as a boy, I had loathed them!
"That man is evil incarnate," he said at last. "I consider that society
should rid itself of him, the sooner the better."
Had I been an artist I could have admired this spectacle of smooth
hypocrisy. But being an ordinary layman, I felt like telling him that if
society had rid itself in time of Nikolai Antonich Tatarinov it would not
have had to mess about now with Romashov. But I said nothing.
So far not a word had been said about the St. Maria expedition, but I
knew my Nikolai Antonich-he had come up to me because he was afraid of me.
"I've heard," he began tentatively, "that you have succeeded in
bringing your undertaking to a happy issue. I want to thank you from the
bottom of my heart for all that you have done. But I hope to do that
publicly."
This meant that he was coming to hear me read my paper and would try to
make out that we were lifelong friends, he and I. He was holding out the
olive branch. Very good. I must pretend that I am accepting it.
"Yes, I think I have been more or less successful." I said nothing
more. But a faint touch of colour had come into his pale, plump cheeks-a
sign of animation. The past was all forgotten, he was now an influential
man, why should I not keep on good terms with him? Probably I had
changed-afterall, didn't life change people? I had become like him-I had
decorations, I had made a success, and he could judge of me from his own
experience, his own success.
"-An event, which at any other time, the whole world would have been
talking about," he continued, "and the remains of the national hero-for such
would have been the recognition my cousin merited-would have been brought in
state to the capital and interred amid a vast concourse of people."
I said that Captain Tatarinov's remains rested on the shore of the
Yenisei Bay, and that he himself would probably not have wished for a better
resting place.
"Without a doubt. But I did not mean that, I meant the exclu-siveness
of his destiny. The fact that oblivion had been dogging his steps all his
life, and but for us"-he said "us"-"there would hardly be a person in the
world who would have known who he was and what he had done for his country
and for science."
This was about the limit, and I was on the point of saying something
rude to him, when the door opened and a girl came out of the interrogating
officer's room and invited me in.
I had a feeling all the time that if the examiner had not been so young
and attractive, she (for it was a woman) would not have questioned me in
such a pointedly dry manner. But then, her interest stimulated as I gave my
story, she eventually dropped her official tone.
"Are you aware. Comrade Grigoriev," she began after I had told her my
age, occupation, whether I had ever stood trial before, and so on, "what
business I have summoned you on?" I answered that I was.
"You once made a deposition." Evidently she meant my interrogation at
N. Base. "Some things there are not quite clear, and I want to talk to you
first about this." "I'm at your service," I said. "Here, for example."
She read out several passages in which I had given my conversation with
Romashov at his flat word for word.
"Am I to understand that when Romashov wrote his statement against you
he was a tool in the hands of some other person?"
"That person has been named," I said. "It is Nikolai Antonich
Tatarinov, who is waiting outside to see you. As to who was the tool and who
the hands, I cannot say. That's your problem, not mine."
I lost my temper a bit, probably because she had politely referred to
Romashov's denunciation as a statement.
"Well then, it is not quite clear what purpose Professor Tatarinov
could have had in trying to stop the search party. He is an Arctic scientist
and you would expect any plan for the search of his lost cousin to have his
deepest sympathy."
I said that Professor Tatarinov could have pursued a number of ends.
First of all, he was afraid that a successful search for the remains of the
St. Maria expedition would confirm my accusations. Then, he was no Arctic
scientist, but simply a type of pseudo-scientist who had built his career on
the books dealing with the story of the St. Maria expedition. Therefore, any
competition in this field affected his vital interests.
"Did you have serious reasons for hoping that a search would confirm
your accusations?"
I answered that I did. But that no longer came into question, as I had
found the remains of the expedition, and among them direct proofs which I
intended to make public.
It was after this reply that my interrogator quickly climbed down from
her official perch.
"Found the proofs?" she queried with genuine astonishment. "After so
many years? Twenty, or even more, I believe?"
"Twenty-nine."
"What could have been preserved after twenty-nine years?"
"A good deal," I said.
"Did you find the Captain too?"
"Yes."
"Alive?"
"Of course not. We know exactly when he died-it was between the 18th
and 22nd of June, 1915."
"Tell me about it."
I couldn't tell her everything, of course. But Professor Tatarinov
waited long to be received, and no doubt had plenty of time to think things
over and talk things over with himself before taking my place at the desk of
this handsome, inquisitive woman.
I told her of things indictable and things non-indictable because of
the offence having been committed so long ago. An old story! But old stories
live long, much longer th