oakroom and ask the help of the
dour, red-faced mechanic who was grinding skates there. At last, all was in
order. It had started snowing again and we skated for a long time hand in
hand, in big half-circles, now to the right, now to the left. This figure is
called "curve eight".
Then we sat down right in front of the bandstand, and Katya suddenly
brought her flushed face with its dancing black eyes close to mine. I
thought she wanted to say something in my ear and said loudly: "Eh?"
She laughed.
"Nothing. It's hot."
"Katya," I said, "shall I tell you something? You won't tell anybody,
will you?"
"Not a soul."
"I'm going to flying school."
She blinked, then stared hard at me.
"You've made up your mind?"
"Uhu."
"Positively?"
I nodded.
The band suddenly struck up and I didn't catch what she said as she
shook the snow from her jacket and frock.
"I don't hear you!"
She grasped my hand and we skated down to the other side of the rink,
to the children's play area. It was dark and quiet there, and all snowed up.
The toboggan slide had fir trees planted along the sides and little fir
trees grew around the area. We might have been in a wood, somewhere out of
town.
"Will they take you?"
"The school?"
"Yes."
It was a dreadful question. Every morning I did my daily dozen on
Anokhin's system and took a cold sponge down on Muller's. I felt my muscles
and thought: "What if they don't take me?" I had my eyes, ears and heart
examined. The school doctor said I was healthy. But there were different
kinds of health; how was he to know I wanted to enter a flying school? What
if I had bad nerves? Or something else wrong with me? My height! My height,
damn it! During the last year I had grown only by three-quarters of an inch.
"They'll take me," I said confidently.
Katya regarded me with what looked like respect.
CHAPTER FOUR
CHANGES
I never talked with Katya about her domestic affairs. I only asked her
how Maria Vasilievna was getting on and she answered: "Thanks, she's all
right."
"And Nina Kapitonovna?"
"Thanks, she's all right."
Maybe it was all right, but I didn't think so. Katya's spirits dropped
when she had to go home. Obviously, things had gone wrong at home. Shortly
afterwards I met Maria Vasilievna and she confirmed me in this belief.
We met at the theatre at a performance of Princess Turandot. Katya had
managed to get three tickets, the third being for Nina Kapitonovna. But Nina
Kapitonovna, for some reason, could not go, and so I took the ticket
instead.
We arrived at the theatre from different places and Katya was very
nearly late. She came running in after the ticket-collector had closed the
doors.
"Where's Mum?"
Her mother was in her seat. She called to us as we made our way to our
seats, stepping on somebody's feet in the darkness.
There had been a lot of talk at school about Princess Turandot' and we
had even tried to stage it. So, during the first act, I had no time to look
at Maria Vasilievna. I only noticed that she was just as beautiful, if not
more so. She wore her hair differently, exposing the whole of her high white
forehead. She sat erect and had eyes for nothing but the stage.
In the interval, however, I had a good look at her and was upset.
She had gone thinner and looked older. Her eyes were enormous and
altogether sombre. It occurred to me that anyone seeing her for the first
time might well be startled by that gloomy look.
We talked about Princess Turandot and Katya declared that she did not
like it very much. I did not know whether I liked it or not, so I agreed
with Katya. Maria Vasilievna thought it was wonderful.
"You and Katya are too young, you don't understand."
She asked me about Korablev, how he was getting on, and I thought a
tinge of colour came into her face when I said: "He's quite all right."
As a matter of fact he was feeling none too good. He had not forgotten,
of course, that she had refused him.
She may have been a bit sorry for this now. Otherwise she wouldn't be
asking about him in such detail. She was even interested to know what forms
he was teaching and how he got on with the pupils.
I answered in monosyllables and in the end she got cross with me.
"Faugh, Sanya, I can't get a word out of you! 'Yes', 'no'. Have you
swallowed your tongue?" she said with annoyance.
Then, going off at a tangent, she began to talk about Nikolai Antonich.
Very odd. She said that she considered him a fine man. I said nothing.
The interval was over and we went in for the second act. During the
next interval she started talking about Nikolai Antonich again. I noticed
that Katya frowned. Her lips stirred as if she was about to say something,
but she checked herself.
We walked round the foyer, Maria Vasilievna talking all the time about
Nikolai Antonich. It was unbearable. It was also astonishing, because I had
not forgotten what her former attitude to him had been.
Nothing of the sort! The man was kindness and nobility itself. All his
life he had helped his cousin (it was the first time I had heard Maria
Vasilievna refer to her late husband as Ivan) even when he himself was
having a bad time. He had given his whole fortune to fit out his last
hapless expedition.
"Nikolai Antonich believed in him," she said earnestly.
All this I had heard from Nikolai Antonich himself, almost in the same
phrases. Maria Vasilievna never used to repeat his words before. There was
something behind this. For all the eagerness and earnest-ness with which she
spoke I sensed that she was trying to persuade herself that Nikolai Antonich
really was a remarkable person and that her late husband owed everything to
him.
This was on my mind all through the third act. I decided that I would
ask Katya about her father point blank. The portrait of the naval officer
with the broad brow, the set jaw and light dancing eyes suddenly rose before
me. What was this expedition from which he had never returned?
After the show we lingered in the auditorium until the cloakroom crowds
had thinned out.
"I say, Sanya, why don't you ever drop in?" Maria Vasilievna said.
I mumbled something.
"I'm sure Nikolai Antonich has long forgotten that silly affair," she
went on. "If you like, I'll talk to him about it."
The last thing I wanted was for her to get permission from Nikolai
Antonich for me to call on them. I was on the point of saying, "Thanks, I'd
rather you didn't," when Katya interposed, saying that it was nothing
whatever to do with Nikolai Antonich, as I would be coming to see her and
not him.
"Oh, no!" Maria Vasilievna said, startled. "Why only you? He'll be
coming to see me, too, and Mother."
CHAPTER FIVE KATYA'S FATHER
Now that expedition. What kind of man was Katya's father? All I knew
was that he had been a naval officer and was dead. But was he? Katya never
spoke of him as dead. Except for Nikolai Antonich, who costantly referred to
him as "my late cousin", the Tatarinovs did not talk about him very often.
His portraits hung in all the rooms, but they seldom spoke about him.
In the end I got tired of speculating, all the more as one could simply
ask Katya where her father was and whether he was alive or dead. That's what
I did.
And this is what she told me.
She was only three, but she clearly remembered the day her father went
away. He was a tall man in naval blues and had big hands. Early in the
morning, while she was still asleep, he had come into her room and bent over
her cot. He patted her head and said something. It sounded like: "Look,
Maria, how pale she is. Promise me she'll be out in the fresh air as much as
possible." And Katya had opened her eyes just a wee bit and seen her
mother's tear-stained face. But she gave no sign she was awake-it was such
fun pretending to be asleep. Afterwards they were sitting in a big brightly
lit hall at a long table on which stood white little hillocks. These were
table-napkins. Katya was so fascinated by these table-napkins that she did
not notice that her mother had left her and in her place now sat Grandma,
who kept sighing and saying: "My goodness!" And Mother, in a strange
unfamiliar dress with puffed sleeves, sat next to Father and winked to Katya
from afar.
It was very jolly at table, there were lots of people, all laughing and
talking together loudly. Then Father got up, a glass of wine in his hand,
and everyone fell silent. Katya did not understand what he was saying, but
she remembered everyone clapping and cheering when he had finished, and
again Grandma muttered "My goodness!" and sighed. Then everyone said goodbye
to Father and to some other sailors, and at parting he had tossed Katya high
up in the air with his kind, big hands.
"Well, Maria darling," he had said to Mother. And they had kissed each
other on both cheeks.
This had been a farewell dinner and send-off of Captain Tatarinov at
the Ensk railway station. He had come to Ensk in May 1912 to say goodbye to
his family, and in the middle of June he had set sail from St. Petersburg in
the schooner St. Maria bound for Vladivostok.
At first everything went on as before, except that something quite new
had appeared in life-letters from Daddy. "There will soon be a letter from
Daddy." And a letter there would be. Sometimes it took a week or two coming,
but it always came. And then came the last letter, sent from Yugorsky Shar
in the Arctic. It really was the last, but Mother was not particularly
worried; she even said that this was as it should be: the St. Maria was
sailing in places where there was no post, nothing but ice and snow.
It was as it should be. Daddy himself had written that there would be
no more letters. Still, it was very sad, and Mother became more and more
silent and sad every day.
"A letter from Daddy" was a splendid thing. Grandma, for instance,
always baked a pie when a letter came from Daddy. And now, instead of that
splendid thing which cheered everyone up, there appeared in life that long
and dreary phrase: "It is as it should be," or "There can't be anything
yet."
These words were repeated every day, especially in the evenings, when
Katya went to bed and Mother and Grandma kept talking and talking. And Kaya
listened. She had long been wanting to say:
"Maybe the wolves have eaten him up," but she knew that would make
Mother angry, so she didn't.
Father was "wintering". Here in town summer had come long since, while
he was still "wintering". This was very odd, but Katya asked no questions.
She had heard Grandma one day say to a neighbour: "We keep saying he's
wintering, but God knows whether he's alive or not."
Then Mother wrote a petition to "His Most Gracious Majesty". Katya
remembered that petition very well-she was a big girl by now. The wife of
Captain Tatarinov petitioned that an auxiliary expedition be fitted out to
rescue her unfortunate husband. She pointed out that the main reason for the
voyage "was undoubtedly national pride and our country's honour". She hoped
that "His Most Excellent Majesty" would not leave without support a brave
explorer, always ready to give his life for the sake of the "nation's
glory".
Katya thought of "His Most Gracious Majesty" as some sort of religious
procession led by a bishop in a crimson hat. It turned out to be simply the
Tsar. For a long time the Tsar did not answer and Grandma used to scold him
every evening. At last a letter came from his chancellery. Very politely,
the chancellery advised Mother to apply to the Minister of Marine. But it
wasn't worthwhile applying to him. The matter had already been reported to
him and he had said: "It's a pity Captain Tatarinov has not returned. I
should have had him prosecuted for negligence in the handling of government
property."
Then Nikolai Antonich had come to Ensk and new words had appeared in
the house: "No hope whatever." He had said this to Grandma in a whisper. But
everyone got to know about it somehow- Grandma's relations, the
Bubenchikovs, and Katya's friends. Everyone except Mother.
No hope whatever. He would never come back. Never say something funny,
never argue with Grandma about it being "good for you to drink a glass of
vodka before dinner and if it didn't do you good, it did not harm either,
and since it did no harm it was nice". Never again would he make fun of
Mother for taking so long to dress when they went to the theatre. No one
would hear him sing in the mornings as he dressed: "What is our life? A
game!"
No hope whatever! He had remained somewhere far away, in the Far North,
amid the snow and ice, and no one from his expedition had come back.
Nikolai Antonich said Father himself was to blame. The expedition had
been fitted out excellently. There had been five tons of flour alone, over a
ton and a half of Australian tinned meat, and twenty hams; more than a
hundredweight of Skorikov's beaf-tea cubes, and biscuits, macaroni and
coffee galore. Half the mess room had been partitioned off and biscuit
stowed away in it. They had even taken asparagus-eighty pounds of it. Jam
and nuts. And all this bought with Nikolai Antonich's money. Eighty splendid
huskies, so that in case of an emergency they could return home by
dog-teams.
In short, if Daddy had lost his life it was undoubtedly his own fault.
One could imagine him, for instance, being in a hurry where he should have
bided his time. According to Nikolai Antonich, he had always done things in
a hurry. However that may be, he had remained out there in the Far North and
nobody knew whether he was alive or dead, because none of the crew of thirty
had come back.
But in their own home he was still alive and had remained so for a long
time. Who knows but that the door might suddenly open and he would walk in!
Just as he had been that last day at the Ensk railway station. In his blue
uniform, and stiff collar open at the throat. Cheerful, with big hands.
A good many things in the house were still associated with him. Mother
smoked, and everyone knew she had started to smoke when he was lost. Grandma
chased Katya out of the house-and that was him again, for he had given
orders that Katya was to have plenty of fresh air. The learned books with
the queer titles in the narrow glass-fronted bookcase, which were lent to
nobody, were his books. Then they had moved to Moscow, to Nikolai Antonich's
flat, and everything was changed. No one now hoped that the door would
suddenly open and he would come in. For this was a strange house, in which
he had never been.
CHAPTER SIX
MORE CHANGES
Maybe I would not have gone to the Tatarinovs had not Katya promised to
show me the Captain's books and maps. I looked up the route and found it to
be that famous Northeast Passage for which men had been searching for three
hundred years. Finally, the Swedish explorer Nordenskiold navigated it in
1878. It was no easy job, no doubt, because it was a full quarter of a
century before another explorer, Vilkitsky, repeated the journey, only in
the opposite direction. In short, all this was so interesting that I decided
to go.
Nothing had changed in the Tatarinovs' flat, except that there were
noticeably fewer things about. Among others, the Levitan, which I had liked
so much, had gone-that picture of a straight wide garden path and pine trees
lit up by the sun. I asked Katya what had happened to it.
"Given away," was Katya's curt reply.
I said nothing.
"Presented to Nikolai Antonich," she added with sudden venom. "He
adores Levitan."
It looked as if other things besides the Levitan had gone to Nikolai
Antonich, because the dining-room had an empty sort of look. The ship's
compass, though, stood in its old place with the needle still pointing
North.
Nobody was at home, neither Maria Vasilievna nor the old lady.
Afterwards the old lady came in. I heard her taking her things off in
the hall and complaining to Katya that everything had got so dear
again-cabbage was sixteen kopecks, veal thirty kopecks, a prayer for the
dead forty kopecks, eggs one ruble twenty kopecks.
I laughed and went out into the hall.
"What about lemons, Nina Kapitonovna?"
She looked round puzzled.
"Didn't the boys pinch a lemon?"
"Sanya!" exclaimed Nina Kapitonovna, throwing up her hands.
She dragged me to the window and looked me over from all sides. The
inspection displeased her.
"Too short," she said with chagrin. "You don't grow."
She looked quite old, stooped and thin. The familiar green velvet coat
hung loosely on her shoulders. But she still had the same brisk, preoccupied
air, which now was quite cheerful. She was overjoyed to see me, much more so
than I had expected.
Katya and I spent a long time looking through the Captain's books and
charts. There was Nansen's Farthest North and Sailing Directions for the
Kara Sea and others. There were not many books as books go, but each one was
interesting. I was dying to ask for one to read, but of course I understood
very well that this was not the thing to do. I was therefore surprised when
Katya suddenly said:
"Would you like to borrow some?"
"May I?"
"You may," Katya said without looking at me.
I did not ponder much over the reason why this trust was shown me and
set about selecting the books I wanted to read. I would have taken the lot
if I could, but that was impossible, so I selected five of them. Among them,
by the way, was a booklet by the Captain himself entitled: Causes of the
Failure of the Greely Expedition.
I had timed my visit to the Tatarinovs so as not to run into Nikolai
Antonich there. At that hour he was always at a meeting of the Teachers'
Council. But the meeting must have been put off, because he came in. Katya
and I were so busy chatting that we did not hear the doorbell ring and only
became aware of him when footsteps sounded in the next room, followed by a
dignified cough. Katya frowned and slammed the door shut.
In almost the same instant it was opened again and Nikolai Antonich
appeared in the doorway.
"I've asked you a thousand times, Katya, not to slam the door," he
said. "It's time you got out of these habits..."
He saw me at once, of course, but he did not say anything, just
narrowed his eyes slightly and nodded. I nodded back.
"We live in human society," he went on blandly. "And one of the motive
forces of this society is consideration for others. You know perfectly well,
Katya, that I can't stand doors being banged. One can only presume that you
are doing this on purpose. But I don't want to think that, no, I don't..."
And so on and so forth.
I realised at once that all this waffle was just meant to tease Katya.
He had never dared to talk to her like that before, I remember.
He went away at last, but we no longer had felt like looking through
the Captain's books. Besides, all the time Nikolai Antonich had been
talking, Katya had stood screening the table on which the books lay. He had
not noticed anything. But I knew what it was all about-she did not want him
to know she was letting me take those books.
In short, a damp was thrown over our spirits and I began to take my
leave. I came home with a heavy feeling. I was sorry for them all- for Maria
Vasilievna, for the old lady, for Katya. I didn't like the changes in the
Tatarinovs' home at all.
CHAPTER SEVEN MARGINAL NOTES
It was my last year at school, and really I should have been applying
myself to my studies instead of going to skating-rinks and paying visits. I
was doing well in some subjects (mathematics and geography, for instance)
and not so well in others-literature, for example.
Literature in our school was taught by Likho, a very stupid man, whom
the whole school called "Old Moke". He always went about in a tall Kuban
cap, and we used to draw that cap on the blackboard with donkey's ears
sticking out of it. Likho did not like me for a number of reasons. In the
first place, one day, while dictating something, he said "carnaval" instead
of "carnival". I corrected him and we argued about it, and I suggested
sending an inquiry to the Academy of Sciences. He resented this.
Secondly, most of the pupils wrote their compositions from the books
and articles-they would read a piece of criticism and copy it out. This was
not my way. I wrote my essay first, then read the critics. And this was what
Likho did not like! He wrote over my essays:
"Trying to be original. Poor!" In short, I was very much afraid I would
get bad marks for literature at the end of the year.
For our final, school-leaving essay, Likho offered us a number of
subjects, the most interesting of which I thought to be "The Peasantry in
Post-Revolution Literature". I went to work on it in earnest, but soon
cooled off-possibly because of the books Katya had lent me. After these
books, my own essay seemed as dull as ditch-water to me.
To say that these books were interesting is to say nothing. They were
books which had belonged to Katya's father, an Arctic sea-captain lost amid
the snow and ice, like Franklin, Andree and others.
I never read anything so slowly in all my life. Nearly every page had
markings on it, some passages were underlined and there were question marks
and exclamation marks in the margins. The Captain either "quite agreed" or
"absolutely disagreed". He argued with Nansen-to my astonishment. He
reproached him for having turned back when within two hundred and fifty
miles of the Pole. On the chart affixed to Nansen's book, the extreme
northern point of his drift was ringed with a red pencil. Apparently, this
occupied the Captain's mind very much, because he returned to it again and
again in the margins of other books. "The ice itself will solve the
problem," was written down the side of one page. I turned the page and
suddenly a small sheet of yellowed paper fell out of the book. It had
writing on it in the same hand. This is what it said:
"The human mind was so absorbed by this problem, that the solving of
it, despite the desolate graves which most of the explorers had found there,
had become a sheer national contest. Nearly all civilised countries took
part in this contest with the exception of Russia, although the impulse
towards discovery of the North Pole was very strong among the Russians even
in Lomonosov's time and is still strong today. Amundsen is determined at all
costs to win for Norway the honour of reaching the Pole, but we will set out
this year and prove to the world that Russians too are capable of such a
feat."
This must have been a fragment from some memorandum, for written on the
back of it was: "To the Head of the Hydrographical Board" with the date
"April 17th 1911".
So that was what Katya's father was after! He wanted, like Nansen, to
go as far North as possible with the drifting ice and then make the Pole on
dog-teams. By force of habit I figured out how much quicker it would be by
aeroplane.
What puzzled me was this: in the summer of 1912 the schooner St. Maria
had set sail for Vladivostok from St. Petersburg. Where did the North Pole
come in?
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE BALL
"The Peasantry in Post-Revolutionary Literature" was finished. Fed up,
I dashed it off in a single night. I had other debts, too-German, for
instance, which I hated. In short, at the end of the half-year Katya and I
had been to the skating-rink only once, and then we had not skated. The ice
was very rough, as hockey teams had been training on it since the morning.
We just drank tea at the buffet. It was our last meeting before the
holidays. After that came lessons and more lessons, reading and more
reading. I got up at six in the morning and sat over Aircraft Construction.
And now the half-year was over. Eleven free days! The first thing I did
was to phone Katya and invite her to our school for the fancy-dress ball.
Katya arrived rather late, when I had all but run to the phone to ring
her up. She came half-frozen, red as a beetroot, and while still in the
cloakroom ran straight to the stove. I took care of her coat and galoshes.
"What a frost!" she said, laying her sheek to the warm stove. "Must be
two hundred degrees!"
She was wearing a blue velvet dress with a lace collar and had a big
blue bow in her hair.
It was amazing how that bow and the blue dress became her, and that
string of coral beads round her neck! She was robust, yet light and slender.
In short, hardly had we entered the hall, where the dancing had already
begun, than the school's best dancers dropped their partners and made a
beeline for her. For the first time in my life I regretted that I did not
dance. But there! I tried to look as though I did not care and went into the
performers' dressing-rooms. But they were getting ready to come on, and the
girls chased me out. I went back into the hall just as the waltz was
finishing. I hailed Katya. We sat down and began chatting.
"Who's that?" she suddenly asked me, horrified.
I looked.
"Where?"
"Over there, the one with the red hair."
It was only Romashka. He had smartened up and I thought he looked quite
presentable. But Katya was looking at him with distaste.
"Can't you see-he's just horrible," she said, "You're used to him, you
don't notice it. He's like Uriah Heep."
"Like who?"
"Uriah Heep."
I pretended I knew who Uriah Heep was, and said meaningfully: "Ah!"
But Katya was not one to be easily taken in.
"Ugh, you-fancy not having read Dickens. And he's supposed to be
intelligent."
"Who says that?"
"Everybody. I was talking to a girl from your school one day, and she
said: 'Grigoriev is a distinct individuality.'"
Just then the band struck up again and our P. T. instructor, whom
everyone called just Gosha, asked Katya to dance and I was left alone again.
This time the performers let me in and even found some work for me to do. I
had to make up one of the girls as a rabbi. Some job! I spent over half an
hour at it and when I got back into the hall Katya was still dancing-this
time with Valya.
Someone pinned a number on me-they were playing "Post". I sat there
like a convict with a number on my chest, feeling bored. Suddenly I got two
letters at once: "Stop pritending. Say frankly whom you like. Reply to No.
140." It was written just like that- "pritending". The other note was
enigmatic: "Grigoriev is a distinct individuality, but he hasn't read
Dickens." I wagged a finger at Katya. She laughed, dropped Valya and sat
down next to me.
"It's great fun here," she said, "but terribly hot. Well, will you leam
to dance now?"
I said I would not, and we went into my classroom. It had been turned
into a sort of crushroom, with armchairs in the corners and electric lamps
shaded with red and blue paper. We sat down on my desk-the farthest one in
the right-hand row. I don't remember what we talked about, I think it was
about the talking films. Katya had her doubts about them, but I cited proofs
showing the comparative speeds of sound and light.
She was all blue-we were sitting under a blue lamp-and perhaps that was
what made me so bold. I had long been wanting to kiss her, from the moment
she had come in frozen and flushed and laid her cheek against the stove. But
it had been impossible then. Now, when she was all blue, it was possible. I
stopped in the middle of a sentence, closed my eyes and kissed her on the
cheek.
Did she flare up!
"What does this mean?" she demanded.
I was silent. My heart was thumping and I was afraid that she was going
to say "I don't want to know you any more" or something like that.
"How disgusting!" she said with indignation.
"No, it isn't," I said, dismayed.
For a minute we said nothing, then Katya asked me to bring her some
water. When I returned with the water she read me a whole lecture. She
proved as plain as a pikestaff that I had no feelings for her, that "I only
imagined it", and that if it had been another girl in her place at the
moment I would have kissed her too.
"You're just trying to persuade yourself," she said with conviction,
"but actually it's nothing of the sort!"
She was ready to admit that I had not intended to insult her-I hadn't,
had I? Still I should not have acted that way precisely because I was only
deceiving myself, and there was no real feeling...
"No love," she added, and I felt, in that semi-darkness, that she
blushed.
By way of reply I took her hand and passed it over my face and eyes.
She did not withdraw it, and for several minutes we sat silent on my desk in
the dimly lit classroom. We sat in the classroom where I asked questions and
floundered, where I stood at the blackboard and proved theorems-on my desk,
in which lay Valya's crumpled cribs. It was so strange. But so good! I can't
tell you how good I felt at that moment!
Then I fancied there was somebody in the corner breathing hard. I
looked round and saw Romashka. I don't know what made him breathe so hard,
but he had a very ugly look on his face. Naturally, he saw at once that we
had spotted him. He muttered something and came up with a queasy smile.
"Why don't you introduce me, Grigoriev?"
I stood up. I must have looked anything but affable, because he blinked
in a scared sort of way and went out. It was rather funny, the way he took
sudden fright. We both started giggling, and Katya said that he not only
resembled Uriah Heep, but he was like an owl, a ginger owl with a hook-nose
and round eyes. She had guessed right- Romashka was sometimes teased at
school by being called Owl. We went back into the hall.
The dancing was over and the concert part of the programme had started
with scenes from The Government Inspector, which our theatre was rehearsing.
Katya and I sat together in the third row, but we heard nothing. At
least, I didn't. And I don't think she did either. I whispered to her:
"We'll have another talk. Yes?"
She looked at me gravely and nodded.
CHAPTER NINE MY FIRST DATE. INSOMNIA
It wasn't the first time it happened with me that life, after moving in
one direction-in a straight line, let's say-suddenly made a sharp turn,
executing "Immelmanns" and "Barrels".(* Figures in aerobatics).
This happened when, a boy of eight, I had lost my penknife near the
murdered watchman on the pontoon bridge. This happened at the Education
Department's reception centre, when, out of sheer boredom, I had begun to
model figure-work. This happened when I found myself a reluctant witness to
the conspiracy against Korablev and was ignominiously ejected from the
Tatarinov home. And this is what happened now, when I was expelled
again-this time for good!
The new turn in my life started this way. Katya and I had arranged to
meet in Oruzheiny Street, outside the tinsmith's shop, but she did not turn
up.
Everything seemed to have gone wrong that sad day. I ran away from the
sixth lesson-it was silly, because Likho had said he would give back our
homework after the lesson. I wanted to think over our conversation. But how
could I think when, after a few minutes, I was frozen stiff and all I could
do was stamp my feet and rub my nose and ears like mad.
Yet it was all devilishly interesting! What an extraordinary change had
come about since the previous day! Yesterday, for instance, I could say:
"Katya's a stupidhead!" But not today. Yesterday I could have ticked her off
for being late, but not today. But most interesting of all was to think that
this was the very same Katya who had once asked me whether I had read Helen
Robinson, who had busted the lactometer and got it in the neck from me.
Could this be her?
"Yes!" I thought joyfully.
But she was not she now, and I was not I.
A whole hour had passed, though. It was quiet in that street, and only
the small tinsmith with the big nose came out of his workshop several times
and eyed me suspiciously. I turned my back on him, but this only seemed to
deepen his suspicions. I crossed to the other side of the road, but he still
stood in the doorway amid clouds of vapour, like God on the ceiling of the
cathedral at Ensk. I was obliged to move away, down towards the Tverskaya.
They had had dinner by the time I got back to the school. I went into
the kitchen to warm myself and got told off by the cook, who gave me a plate
of lukewarm potatoes. I ate the potatoes and went off in search of Valya.
But Valya was at the Zoo. Likho had given my homework to Romashka.
Being upset, I did not notice the state of excitement Romashka was
thrown into when he saw me. He went all of a dither when I came into the
library where we were in the habit of doing our homework. He laughed several
times without apparent reason and hastily handed me my homework.
" 'Old Moke' at it again," he said ingratiatingly. "If I were you, I'd
complain."
I thumbed through my work. Down the side of every page was drawn a red
line and at the bottom it was written: "Idealism. Extremely poor."
"Fathead," I commented coolly and walked out. Romashka came running
after me. I was surprised at the way he fawned on me that day, running ahead
of me and peering into my face. I suppose he was glad that I had done so
badly with my homework. The real reason for this behaviour never occurred to
me.
I was in bed before the boys had returned from their excursion. I
really should not have gone to bed so early. Sleep fled my eyes the moment I
shut them and turned over on my side.
It was the first case of insomnia in my life. I lay very still,
thinking. About what? About everything under the sun, I believe. About
Korablev and how I would take my homework to him tomorrow and ask him to
read it. About the tinsmith who had taken me for a thief. About Katya's
father's booklet Causes of the Failure of the Greely Expedition.
But whatever my thoughts, they always came back to her. I began to
doze, and all of a sudden found myself thinking of her with such tenderness
that it took my breath away and my heart started beating slowly and loudly.
I saw her more distinctly than if she had been at my side. I could feel the
touch of her hand on my eyes.
"Ah, well, if you've fallen in love, you've fallen in love. Now let's
get some sleep, my dear chap," I said to myself.
But now that I was feeling so happy I thought it a pity to go to sleep,
though I did feel a bit sleepy. I fell asleep when day began to break and
Uncle Petya in the kitchen started grumbling at Makhmet, our kitten.
CHAPTER TEN TROUBLES
The first date and first insomnia, though something new, were still
part of the good old life. The troubles started the next day, however.
I phoned Katya after breakfast, but had no luck. Nikolai Antonich
answered the phone. "Who wants her?" "A friend." "What friend?" I was
silent. "Well?" I hung up.
At eleven I entrenched myself in a greengrocer's shop from which I
could see the whole length of Tverskaya-Yamskaya. Nobody took me for a thief
this time. I pretended to be using the phone, bought some pickled apples and
hung around the doorway with a casual air. I was waiting for Nina
Kapitonovna. I knew from previous years exactly when she returned from the
market. At last she appeared small, bent, in her green velvet coat, carrying
her umbrella-in such a frost'-and the invariable shopping bag. "Nina
Kapitonovna!"
She glanced at me coldly and walked on without saying a word. I was
dumbfounded. "Nina Kapitonovna!"
She set her bag down, straightened up and looked at me resentfully.
"Look here, young man," she said sternly, "I shouldn't like to quarrel with
you for old time's sake. But don't let me see or hear you any more." Her
head shook slightly.
"You go this way, we go that! And no writing or phoning, please! I
don't mind telling you this-I never would have believed it! I see I was
mistaken!"
She snatched up her bag, and-bang!-shut the gate right in my face. I
stared after her open-mouthed. Which one of us had gone mad? I or she?
This was the first disagreeable conversation. It was followed by a
second, and then by a third.
Going home, I met Likho at the front door. I couldn't have chosen a
worse time to talk to him about my essay.
We mounted the stairs together, he, as usual, with his head in the air,
twisting his nose this way and that in such a stupid fashion that I was
strongly tempted to kick him.
"Mr Likho," I suddenly said, "I received my homework. You write:
'Idealism'. This isn't a mark, it's an accusation, which has to be
proved first."
"We'll talk about that some other time."
"No, we'll talk about it now," I said. "I'm a Komsomol member and you
accuse me of idealism. You don't know a thing about it." "What, what's
that?" he demanded, glaring at me. "You have no idea about idealism," I went
on, noting with satisfaction that with every word of mine his ugly mug grew
longer. "You're just trying to be nasty to me, that's why you've written:
'Idealism.' No wonder they say of you-"
I paused for a moment, feeling that I was about to say something
shockingly mde. I said it nevertheless:
"That you have a head like a coconut, hard outside and watery inside."
This was so unexpected that we were both thunderstruck. Then, with
flaring nostrils, he said briefly and ominously: "I see!" And off he strode.
Exactly an hour after this conversation Korablev sent for me. This was
an ominous sign, for Korablev seldom summoned anyone to his house.
It was long since I had seen him looking so angry. With bent head, he
paced the room and when I came in, he drew aside with something like
distaste.
"Look here!" he started, his moustache bristling. "You're giving me a
fine account of yourself. It makes pleasant news!"
"Ivan Pavlovich, I'll explain everything to you in a minute," I said,
trying hard to speak calmly. "I don't like the critics, that's true. But
that doesn't make me an idealist. The other boys and girls copy everything
out from the critics. And that's what he likes. Let him first prove that I'm
an idealist. He ought to know that for me that's an insult."
I held my exercise book out to him but he did not even glance at it.
"You'll have to explain your conduct at the Teachers' Council."
"Certainly! Ivan Pavlovich," I said suddenly, "is it long since you
were at the Tatarinovs?"
"Why?"
"Nothing."
"Well, my lad," he said quietly, "I see you had some reason for being
rude to Likho. Sit down and tell me all about it. No fibs, mind."
I would not have told my own mother that I had fallen in love with
Katya and had been thinking about her all night. That was impossible. But I
had long been wanting to tell Korablev about the changes that had taken
place in the home of the Tatarinovs, changes which I did not like at all.
He heard me out, pacing from comer to corner of the room. From time to
time he stopped and looked around with a sad expression. My story seemed to
distress him. At one moment his hand even went to his head, but he caught
himself and made as if he were stroking his forehead.
"All right," he said when I asked him to telephone the Tatarinovs and
find out what it was all about. "I'll do that. You call back in an h