.
"He pushed me inside and slithered down the concrete steps after me.
Anti-aircraft guns barked overhead. A bomb burst some distance away and I
felt the earth give a frightening heave. Gradually the anti-aircraft fire
moved away to another part of the town and the sound of bursting bombs grew
fainter.
"It's bad enough to die in an air-raid, I thought, but how much worse
to be murdered by the Gestapo. Not so much because of the torture. There was
something mystical about it, like being strangled by a ghost.
"Perhaps this was because you were isolated from everyone else and
punished in the name of the whole country.
"But what had I done? I had merely written what every educated person
in the country knew already. Had I invented new rules for the German
language? And why is it that something which everyone of us sees separately
cannot be seen by all of us together? But what really worried me was this
sense of guilt. Why should I feel that? There must have been some point when
I had tacitly, unknowingly agreed to play this game? Otherwise why should I
feel guilty?
"We were still sitting on the cold concrete floor, which was strewn
with brick rubble. In the semidarkness the broken bricks looked like stains
of blood on the floor.
" 'Oh, hell!' he said, and began to brush himself down. 'This seems to
be something one never really gets used to.' He rummaged in his overcoat and
took out a packet of cigarettes.
" 'Have a smoke?'
" 'No,' I said. He flicked his lighter several times before he got a
flame, then his round head stood out plainly against the glow of the
cigarette. Just like target, I thought suddenly, as it melted into the
darkness. The decision formed spontaneously in my mind. His head will show
up like that another three times, I decided, and I'll do it. And yet after
the third time I felt I must ask him once again.
" 'Listen, Emil,' I said. 'Who was that you nodded to in the street?'
"He must have noticed something in my voice. I sensed it in the damp,
menacing stillness of the shelter. Soil trickled down between the beams of
the roof. I heard the tiny grains pattering on the floor.
" 'Well, he was a Gestapo man, if you must know. What of it?' he said.
Everything seemed to go limp inside me.
" 'How did you come to know him?' I asked.
" 'We were at college together. He was offered the job in his last year
and he thought fit to ask my advice about it.'
" 'Did you give him any?'
" 'Are you mad?' he shouted suddenly. 'If a man asks your advice on
whether to join the Gestapo, it means he has already decided to join. It
would be crazy to advise him against it. Still, what is all this about?'
" 'Give me a cigarette,' I said. He held out the packet in the
darkness. Only then did I notice that my right hand had been clutching a
heavy lump of brick. I released my grip on its cold, slimy surface. Emil
appeared not to notice. I told him everything.
" 'And you could think that of me?' he said offendedly.
" 'Why didn't you tell me the truth straightaway?' I countered.
"I felt him staring at me intently in the darkness.
" 'It was rather unpleasant to have to tell you I knew someone in the
Gestapo,' he said, after a pause. I felt a slight chill had come between us.
He must have felt the same.
"Soil was still sprinkling off the ceiling.
" 'It seems to have quietened down,' he said, standing up. 'Let's get
out of here before the whole place collapses on top of us.'
"And all at once I was overcome by laughter. Either it was hysterics or
simply a kind of relief. I had remembered the safe shelter the Gestapo man
had offered me. Somehow I had recalled everything they had promised Germany
and what they were still promising her, and the whole history of Germany
over the past decade struck me as monstrously absurd.
" 'I don't know what you find to laugh at,' Emil said, when we were
above ground again. 'Look what they have done to us.
" 'I can see,' I said, not realising at the time the full significance
of his words. And the significance of them was apart from anything else,
that our friendship was over. He had been ashamed to tell me that he was
acquainted with a Gestapo man, and because of that I had not been ashamed to
think that he might betray me. Perhaps that was too little to end a
friendship? Actually it was more than enough. Friendship does not like being
tested. Testing degrades it and destroys its value. If friendship demands
testing, some kind of substantial guarantee, it means that it is nothing
more than an exchange of certain intellectual commodities.
"Friendship is not merely trust that can be bought by testing, but a
trustfulness that exists before any testing takes place, and at the same
time it is a happiness, a delight in the very fullness of giving spiritually
to a person who is near to one.
"If I say I am a friend of this man it means that I trust him utterly
and completely because my feeling implies a realisation of the great
fraternal predestination of man. And as for tests--should fate send them,
they will be only a confirmation of that surmise, and not a signed and
sealed recommendation of a partner's good faith. But I think I have been
talking too much..."
"Let's drink to that never happening again," I said, taking advantage
of his unexpected pause. I felt that his reminiscences had overexcited him
and we were beginning to attract attention.
"Yes, let's drink to that," he agreed, apparently somewhat embarrassed
at having told such a long story. We drank. The champagne was tepid by now
and my toast did not strike me as very convincing. My acquaintance had
obviously tired himself with his recollections and seemed a little bemused.
To revive him I said that the previous autumn I had visited West Germany,
where the thing that had struck me most had been the friendliness of
ordinary Germans towards our delegation. He nodded, and seemed to be pleased
at this information. And then he was brilliant once more, if what he had
been relating up to then could be called brilliant.
"We, Germans," he said, barely restraining a smile that now seemed not
half so asymmetrical, if asymmetrical at all, "are very slow to lose our
respect for the big stick."
This set us both laughing. And perhaps we should have gone on laughing
for eternity had I not noticed that people were coming up towards us from
the pier. Apparently the launch had arrived.
"Ooo-hoo!" he exclaimed with a kind of plaintive dignity and hurried
off to the pier.
From this strange sound that had risen so suddenly from the depths of
his German soul I concluded that he had had quite enough of the Russian
language and decided to call it a day. Some of the holiday-makers were still
walking along the pier when he reached it. I heard them greeting each other
loudly from a distance and scraps of their noisy conversation. We, Russians,
had also greeted one another in this noisy fashion while travelling in
Germany. Once you get accustomed to the idea that no one around you
understands the language you are speaking, you even forget that they can
hear it.
The pensioner was still sitting at the table with his faded lady
friend. I felt his gaze upon me.
"So he's a German?" he asked in surprise.
"Yes," I said. "What of it?"
"Well, I thought he was Estonian," he observed with a touch of
annoyance, as though, if he had only been informed beforehand, he might have
been able to do something about it.
"Democratic or Federal?" he asked a moment later in a tone that
dismissed the possibility of taking any action but showed a desire to know
the extent of the error he had committed.
"Federal," I said.
"What does he say about Kiesinger?" he asked unexpectedly, leaning
towards me with a kind of communal curiosity.
"Nothing," I said.
"Aha! Humph," the pensioner pronounced with sly pomposity and shook his
pink head.
I laughed. The old man was really rather amusing. He also broke into
silent triumphant laughter.
"What could he tell us anyway?" he said, addressing his companion
between chuckles. "We know all about it from the newspapers as it is."
The German came smilingly to the table with his wife and daughter. He
introduced us and purely for the sake of rhetoric proposed another bottle.
His wife shook her head and, lifting a brown young arm, pointed to her
watch. Like all of them, she was wearing a very low-cut dress and looked
youthful and athletic. It was rather strange to see a woman who had lived
through a whole epoch in the history of her people and looked none the worse
for it. As for the girl, I had the impression that she would have been only
too glad of some champagne if her parents had agreed. Her father and I shook
hands firmly and they went off in the direction of a hotel.
"We won the war and they go about enjoying themselves," said the
pensioner, and laughed good-naturedly as he watched them go.
I made no reply.
"If you like," he said, addressing his companion much more sternly, "I
can bring you a book tomorrow by the French Academician André Maurois, The
Life and Adventures of Georges Sand.
"Yes, I should like that," she replied.
"That's a rare book too," the pensioner said. "It describes all her
lovers, to wit--Frederic Chopin, Prosper Merimé, Alfred de Musset..."
He paused, trying to remember the rest of Georges Sand's lovers.
"Maupassant," the woman suggested doubtfully.
"In the first place, you should say not Maupassant but Guy de
Maupassant," he corrected her sternly. "And secondly, he is not included,
although a number of other great European figures are there."
"I shall be extremely grateful," the woman responded, gently evading
any further discussion.
"You should indeed, it's a rare book," the pensioner observed and
dropped his beads into his tunic pocket. "Wait for me here at the same time
tomorrow."
"I'll make a point of it," the woman said respectfully.
"Expect me," the pensioner repeated and, inclining his pink pate,
stalked away across the boulevard. The woman watched him go, and then asked
me rather anxiously, "Do you think he'll come?"
"Of course, he will," I said. "What else can he do with himself?"
"There are all sorts, you know," the woman sighed. She sat stolidly at
her table and now seemed very big and lonely. I paid the bill and went off
to a coffee-house. The sun had sunk rather low over the sea. The launch that
had brought the wife and daughter of the German physicist left almost empty
for the beach. When I reached the coffee-house I found the pensioner there,
already surrounded by a gang of other old men. Among their withered
coffee-coloured faces his pink countenance displayed a rubicund
independence.
--------
Catching trout on the upper Kodor
I awoke early and remembered that the evening before I had made up my
mind to go fishing for trout. Probably it was this that had woken me. I
raised my head and looked round. The lads were all sleeping in the strangest
attitudes as though sleep had caught them by surprise, certain movements
half-completed. A lilac dawn showed through the window. It was still very
early. The bare log walls glowed faintly golden and smelled of fresh resin.
All the week we had been trekking in the mountains, visiting places
where there had been fighting in defence of the Caucasus. The expedition had
been planned long ago by students of our Geography Faculty and was led by my
friend Avtandil Tsikridze, a physical training instructor. It was he who had
suggested I should join them. I had gladly agreed.
On our last day, spurred on by lack of food--somebody had miscalculated
student appetites--we had done our longest hike and by evening reached this
village.
Fortunately, we did not have to pitch our tents because the local
militia chief had hospitably provided us with accommodation for the night in
what was either a former store-shed or a future club-house. He appeared,
fishing rod in hand, when we, having dumped our rucksacks, were lolling
blissfully on the grass over a bend in the river.
After climbing down the steep slope, he set about making his casts in a
businesslike fashion, evidently into pools with which he was thoroughly
familiar. He would make a cast, wiggle his rod a bit, and pull out a trout.
Then he would walk on a few paces, make another cast, jerk and wiggle his
rod again--and out came another trout. From a distance it looked as if he
was simply pricking out the fish with the long thin needle of his fishing
line. Having caught a dozen fine trout in the space of half an hour, he
quite suddenly, for no apparent reason, as though he had collected his day's
quota, reeled in his line and came up to us.
That evening, despite our weariness one of the students and I cut
ourselves rods from a hazel bush and fitted them out with lines. The
student's name was Lusik. In some Abkhazian villages they give their
children Russian names or simply call them by some Russian word, usually a
resounding one often repeated on the radio. For instance, I used to know a
lad whose name was Voina (war). Possibly a little worried by his own name,
he always behaved in a markedly peaceful manner.
Lusik was the same. As though bewitched by his feminine name, he was
shy and stood out among the other lads by a scrupulous respectfulness that
never degenerated into servility. He was sturdy as a little donkey, and his
amazing stamina had put to shame the toughest members of our expedition,
which included two trained athletes.
...I took a big clasp-knife out of my rucksack and two match-boxes, one
with some caviar in it, and the other with spare hooks, and pushed the
rucksack back against the wall.
The match-box of caviar had been given to me by a man who had come up
to our fire when we were camped at the foot of Marukh.
He had arrived in a helicopter belonging to a party of geologists who
had set up camp here before us and were working in this locality. He was a
fair-haired man of about thirty, already running to fat. He was wearing new
shorts and heavy, also new, climbing boots, and carried an ice-axe. For some
two hours he sat with us by the fire, taking an unobtrusive interest in us
and our expedition. He did mention his name, but I immediately forgot it.
One of the lads, choosing the right moment, asked him where he worked.
"In a certain high-level department," he said smiling amiably, as if
hinting at the relative nature of departmental heights compared with the
height we were now at. The pun received no further explanation, but then we
were not particularly interested in where he worked anyway.
The next morning, when we were packing up to go, he brought me this
match-box full of caviar. The evening before he had heard me complaining
that the local trout were not attracted by grasshoppers and for some reason
worms were hard to come by.
"I suppose the earth, like any other product, gets worm-eaten in the
warmer places," I had remarked to my own surprise.
He nodded understandingly, although I myself was not too clear about
the implications of my schizophrenic image. And the next morning he brought
me the caviar.
I was touched by his thoughtfulness and regretted that I had forgotten
his name, but it would have been awkward to ask again at this juncture.
Anyway I made an effort to show that I believed in his work in a certain
high-level department, although he may not have noticed it. That is, he may
not have noticed my effort.
When we went off in single file with our rucksacks on our backs, he
stood by the helicopter in his new shorts with his ice-axe in one hand and a
Svan hat, also new, in the other and waved good-bye with the hat and I
finally forgave him for his innocent Alpine masquerade. Especially as all
this put together, he and the helicopter on the green meadow surrounded by
the stern mountains, looked superb and could have been used as an
advertisement for air tourism.
...I buttoned up the pockets of my rucksack, ran my hands over my
clothing, trying to remember anything I might have forgotten, and stood up.
I decided not to wake Lusik. He'll come if he wakes up, I thought. Perhaps
he has changed his mind, and anyhow it's better to fish on one's own.
On the table lay several loaves of white bread with glowing russet
crusts. The militia chief had gone to the village shopkeeper in the evening
and he had opened his shop to provide us with bread, butter, sugar and
macaroni. Bread in such quantity was a pleasant sight.
I went up to the table, took out my knife and cut off a big crust. The
bread resisted resiliently and with a little squeak as I cut it. One of the
lads, without waking, smacked his lips and it seemed to me as if this was
his response to the sound of bread being cut. There was also a small cask of
butter. I spread butter thickly over the crust, took a bite out of it and
involuntarily glanced at the lad who had smacked his lips. This time he had
felt nothing.
I went out on to the veranda and knocked the knife on the rail to close
it. For some reason it would not close any other way.
Only then did I notice that Lusik was standing by the porch steps,
where the fishing rods were leaning against the wall.
"Been up long?" I asked, chewing.
"No," he answered hastily, looking up at me with his big phoenix-like
eyes. I could see he was afraid that I might feel embarrassed to find him
here waiting for me.
"Go and cut yourself a slice," I said, and offered him the knife.
"I don't want any," Lusik said, shaking his head.
"Go on," I repeated, biting into my crust again.
"I swear by my mother that I don't like eating so early," Lusik said,
wrinkling his nose and raising his eyebrows almost to his schoolboy fringe.
"Let's go and dig for worms then," I said, and walked down the steps.
Lusik picked up both rods and followed me.
We walked along the village street. On our left were the public
buildings, the collective farm management office, the restaurant, and the
barn with its amber, freshly planed log walls. They all stood on the edge of
a cliff. From below came the roar of the invisible river. On the right was a
maize field. The maize was ripening and the shucks were sticking out from
the well-formed cobs. The street was deserted except for three pigs of the
local breed, black and long like artillery shells, that were slowly crossing
it.
The sky was a pale-green, exquisitely tender. Ahead of us to the south
shone a huge bedraggled star. There were no other stars and this solitary
one looked as if it had somehow got left behind. As I walked down the road I
kept admiring this big wet star that seemed to be ashamed of its bigness.
The mountains, as yet untouched by the sun, were a sombre blue. Only a
small golden spot on the jagged peak of the highest was ablaze.
Beyond the maize field on the right there was a school yard in which
there stood a small, very homely village school. The door of one of the
classrooms was open. All the classrooms opened on to a long veranda with a
porch. At one end of the veranda there was a pile of desks standing one atop
the other.
A track ran past the school yard in the direction of the street. It was
scattered with pebbles and large stones carried down by heavy rains.
Here we decided to make our first search. While I was still finishing
my buttered crust, Lusik propped the rods against the fence and started
heaving the stones.
"Anything there?" I asked when he had lifted the first stone and was
peering under it. He was still holding it half raised as though, if there
turned out to be no worms under it he was going to put it back in exactly
the same position.
"Yes, there are," Lusik said, and heaved the stone away.
I swallowed my last mouthful and felt in need of a smoke but,
remembering that I had only three cigarettes in the breast pocket of my
shirt, I decided to try and last out. I took out the matchbox that was in
the same pocket, tipped the matches out of it and kept the empty box ready
for the worms. Lusik was already collecting his in a tin.
Turning up the boulders in this fashion we gradually made our way up
the track. There were not many worms to be had and under some of the stones
there were none at all. Little Lusik sometimes shifted really massive
boulders. You could see his arms were used to hard work. In fact, everything
about his sturdy stubborn little figure suggested that he was used to
overcoming the resistance of gravity.
As we moved gradually up the track we drew level with the school. When
I raised my head for a moment I noticed a woman on the veranda. She was
squeezing a wet rag out into a pail. I was surprised that I had not noticed
her before, and even more surprised to see that she was a fair-haired
Russian woman. That was unusual here.
"Good morning," I said, when she turned her head.
"Good morning," she replied amiably, but without any sign of curiosity.
A girl in her teens came out of the open classroom carrying a besom.
She dipped it in the pail, shook it and having whacked the steps with it a
few times, gave us a silent look and went back into the classroom. She was
beautiful and walked away with her back perfectly straight, conscious of
being looked at. The charm of her face lay, probably, in the rare
combination it achieved of Oriental brilliance and a Slav softness of
feature.
I looked at Lusik. He was staring open-mouthed with his innocent
phoenix-like eyes.
"Where did she spring from?" he asked me in Abkhazian.
"Come back in about three years' time," I said.
Lusik sighed and set about lifting the next stone. I bent down with
him.
I could hear the woman scrubbing the veranda floor with her rag and
sluicing it with water. It must have been the postwar shortages that drove
her up here into this remote mountain village, I thought. Then she had this
girl by some Svan and stayed on here, I decided, surprising myself by my own
insight.
"How do we get down to the river from here?" I asked.
She straightened up and eased her head back to relax her neck muscles.
"Over there." She held out a bare arm that was wet to the elbow.
"You'll find the way down as soon as you get to that house. "
"I know it," Lusik said.
The girl with the besom appeared again.
"Is that your daughter?" I asked.
"My eldest," the woman affirmed with a quiet pride.
"Why, have you any others?"
"Six altogether," she smiled.
That was a real surprise. She looked far too young for a woman who had
borne six children.
"Oh! Does your husband work at the school?"
"He's the chairman of the collective farm," she corrected me and added,
with another nod towards the house across the road, "That's our house."
It was barely visible through the fruit-trees but I could see that it
was the kind of roomy well-built place that might belong to the farm
chairman.
"My regular job's at the weather station," she explained. "This is just
something I do on the side."
The girl, who had been listening to the conversation, knocked out her
besom against the porch steps and with a severe glance at her mother
returned to the classroom, still keeping her back very stiff and straight.
"Pretty hard for you, isn't it?" I asked, trying to include in my
question household matters, the children and, above all, living among a
strange people.
"Not so bad," she said, "my daughter helps..."
We did not talk about anything else. Having collected enough worms,
Lusik and I picked up our rods and set off. I glanced round to say good-bye,
but now they were carrying the desks into the classroom and had no time for
us.
As I walked past the house opposite the school I saw four youngsters
with fair hair and dark eyes. They were clinging to the new fence and
staring out into the street.
"What is your father?" I asked the eldest, a boy of about six.
"Chairman," he gurgled, and I noticed his fingers tighten round the
stakes of the fence.
We turned off the track and made our way down a very steep path. Tiny
pebbles went bouncing away from under our feet and sometimes I had to use my
rod as a brake. Thickets of hazel, elder and blackberry overhung the path on
both sides. One spur of blackberry was so heavily loaded with dark dusty
fruit that I could not resist.
I planted my rod on the path and, holding it with my chin to stop it
slipping away, carefully bent the branch and gathered a handful of berries.
Having puffed the dust off them, I poured the cool sweet berries into my
mouth. There were plenty more on the branch but I decided not to let myself
be diverted and took to the path. The sound of the river was becoming more
audible and I was eager to reach the bank.
Lusik was waiting for me below. As soon as I came out on the bank I
felt a rush of cool air on my face. It was the air stream carried by the
whirling waters.
The nearness of the water spurred us on and we crunched over the
pebbles of the dried-up channels towards it. About ten meters from the water
I signed to Lusik not to talk, and trying not to make so much noise on the
pebbles, we crept to the water's edge. An experienced angler had taught me
this. I had been amused at the sight of him crawling down to the water as if
he were stalking game, but when he fished out a score of trout and I caught
no more than a couple of miserable troutlets in a whole day I had to believe
in the advantage of experience.
Lusik was making signs and pointing. I looked downstream and saw a lad
with a fishing rod about fifty meters away. I recognised him at once as one
of our party.
It was unpleasant that he had forestalled us. We had not even known
that he intended to go fishing. As if sensing our gaze, he looked round. I
made an inquiring gesture: how goes it? He replied with a limp wave of the
arm: nothing doing. I thought I glimpsed a frown of disappointment on his
face. He turned away and applied himself to his rod.
If that's how it is, I thought, we can consider that he arrived with us
and we began fishing at the same time. After all, the fish don't know he was
here first... I signed to Lusik to go on downstream and keep his distance
from me. He did so.
I took the matchbox out of my waterproof jacket, selected a fat worm
and fixed it on the hook, leaving its tail wiggling.
At this spot the river split in two, forming a long island overgrown
with grass and stunted alders. The main channel was on the other side. The
near channel began with a shallow rapid, below which I noticed a small deep
pool. I crept over to it and, holding the line by the sinker with one hand,
drew the rod back with the other to judge the length of my cast more
exactly. Then I swung the rod gently and let go of the line. The sinker
plummeted neatly into the pool.
Now the main thing is not to get snagged, I thought, trying to take in
the slack so that the hook was not carried round an underwater rock or
branch. Something plucked at the line and my hand gave an involuntary jerk.
The hook came up with nothing on it. After a few more false alarms I
realised that this was due not to a fish biting, but to the tugging of
underwater currents; but my wrist still jerked each time as if from an
electric shock. My mind was always a fraction of a second behind the reflex.
Tap! I felt the faint tug and forced my hand to keep still.
Still crouching on my heels and very excited, I waited for another
bite, impressing on myself that I should not jerk my hand when I felt it.
He'll try again in a minute, I told myself, but be patient. The fish
did nibble the bait again and my hand scarcely moved. This time the fish was
more careful. That's good, I thought, keep that up a few times until you
feel that it's taken the bait.
The fish attacked again, I made my strike and the next moment a wet,
gleaming trout was fluttering in the air. I swung the rod towards the bank
and the line with the heavy fish dancing on the end of it came before my
eyes. In my excitement I did not seize it at once. Eventually I reached out
and got a firm grip on that cold living body, laid my rod down carefully,
and holding the fish even more tightly, with my other hand freed the hook
from its soundlessly hiccupping mouth.
I had never caught such a big one before. It was the size of a
full-grown corn cob. Its back was speckled with red spots. I carefully
unbuttoned the flap of my jacket pocket, dropped it in and buttoned the
pocket again. In the pocket it writhed with fresh strength. I had a knife
there and decided that it might bruise itself on the haft. So I opened the
pocket again and with the coldness of the fish on the back of my hand took
the knife out, transferred it to another pocket and again buttoned the flap
over the fish.
I straightened up, feeling a need for distraction after such a large
and almost sickening dose of happiness. I took a deep breath and looked
round. The water was noticeably lighter and the airstream above it had
warmed a little. The mountains on the other side of the river lay in sombre
blue shadow but the peaks of those behind me were a blaze of gold.
Lusik was not far away downstream. I realised that he had not seen
anything, otherwise he would still be looking in my direction. Lusik had
never done any fishing before, except for a couple of attempts at trout up
here with me in the mountains. But there had been no catch, so he had not
yet experienced the real thrill.
You seldom find an angler among the Abkhazians. This is a strange thing
for a people who have lived by the sea for centuries. I think it was not
always so. The unfortunate migration to Turkey in the last century probably
took with it most of the inhabitants of the coast and the river valleys and
with their departure the Abkhazian fishing industry came to a sudden end.
If such blank spots, such oblivion can occur in a people's memory, of
such a visible thing as fishing, I thought, how carefully must we guard the
more fragile values against the danger of disappearance, evaporation...
The student who had arrived before us had changed his ground.
He had told me once that he and his father had a motor boat and often
went fishing at sea. I had asked him if he ever sold fish because with a
motor boat you can nearly always find a shoal and there are plenty of fish
to be caught when trolling in a good shoal.
He looked straight into my eyes and said that he and his father never
sold fish. I felt that he was offended. But there had been no offense meant.
I baited my hook again and made a cast. Now I fished standing up. I
felt that the expedition was going to be a good one. I don't know why, but I
was sure of it.
In a little while I again felt a nibbling, and tried to keep my hand
still. There were a few more stirrings, then stillness, but I went on
waiting, determined to outwit the fish. When I pulled in the line, however,
the bait was gone. The fish must have quietly nibbled it away and I had been
waiting for it to snap at a bare hook.
I baited the hook again and made a careful cast. The line circled
smoothly in the eddying waters of the pool and I kept it there with a light
flick of the rod whenever it floated away. When there was still no bite, I
decided to let the bait go downstream a little, then drew it back against
the current to tempt some of the bolder fish.
The trout that I had caught was slapping me on the belly and every slap
helped me to be patient. *** At last I caught a medium-sized trout and put
it in my pocket. The first one, which had been still for a while, began to
flap about with the second. It must be glad of the company, I thought,
perhaps it has given it fresh hope. But then I decided that the second trout
had brought the first to life with its wet oxygenated gills. I squatted
down, opened my pocket and poured in a few handfuls of water.
Now the two trout flapped about in the water and from time to time
nudged me almost gratefully in the stomach, giving me a strange sensation of
rather foolish joy.
There seemed to be nothing more going for me on this spot, so I decided
to move on. I drew in my line, wound it round the rod and planted the hook
in the soft fresh wood.
I might have tried upstream, but the cliffs on either side fell
straight into the water and there was no way round them. Further up the
river the bank was much more accessible, but it could not be reached from
here, I moved downstream.
By now the sun was shining brightly and gave a pleasant warmth. A mist
was creeping up from behind one of the mountains. In the shallows the water
was clear and every pebble shone joyfully, casting a quivering shadow on the
sandy bottom. Now and then for no apparent reason little underwater tornados
whipped up the sand.
I came up to Lusik. Waist deep in the water, he was leaning over and
groping in it with an alert expression in his big, phoenix-like eyes. His
clothes were lying neatly folded on the bank.
"Snagged up?" I asked as I approached.
"I can't reach it," he said in an unexpectedly old-mannish voice. The
poor fellow was hoarse from the cold. "Come out," I said and picked up his
rod.
"I'll lose the hook," Lusik croaked, just like a thrifty old man, and
climbed reluctantly out of the water.
He was almost black with cold.
I pulled the line till it broke, selected a new hook and tied it on.
Holding the hook in one hand, I put the other end of the tie between my
teeth, tugged it tight and actually bit off the end, which I was not usually
able to do.
"There we are," I said, spitting out the end.
"Have you caught anything?" Lusik asked with his teeth chattering.
"Two," I said, and opened my jacket pocket. Lusik put his hand in and
pulled out the big one. It was still alive.
"What a whopper, " he croaked, shivering. " I can feel them nibbling,
but they don't bite."
"Don't hurry over your strike," I said, and when he had replaced the
trout in my pocket went down to the edge and poured in a few more handfuls
of fresh water.
"Aren't we going yet?" Lusik asked.
"No fear," I said, and walked on down the bank.
"I'll stay a bit longer, then go back. The lads will be waiting," Lusik
shouted after me. His voice was coming through clearer now.
I nodded without looking round and walked on. Far ahead I caught a
glimpse of the other student. He had again shifted his position. He kept on
shifting it--a sure sign of failure.
I wanted to be left quite alone and decided not to try any more until I
had passed the student. I was sure he had disturbed all the fish around here
and it would be no use trying, although there were some very good pools.
At one of them I did stop make a cast. I got a bite straight away, but
after that came a lull. Grudging the time I was wasting and yet determined
to turn it to some use, I went on waiting stubbornly.
Snap! Snap! It was double bite. I made my strike and pulled out a
trout. Good for you, I told myself, you had the patience and here's your
reward.
But as soon as I tried to get my hand to it the fish wriggled off the
hook and fell on the bank. I dropped my rod and tried to grab it, but with a
desperate agility it slipped away into the water. In its terror it seemed to
have grown feet on its belly.
Cursing myself for the delay, I reeled in my line somehow and set off
downstream almost at a run.
The student was fishing knee-deep in the shallows. Here the river was
racing noisily over a series of small rapids, and he did not hear me
approach. His whole posture suggested that he had no faith in the enterprise
and was merely amusing himself for want of something better to do.
"How's it going?" I shouted.
He turned and shook his head.
"How about you?" he asked.
The river drowned the sound of his voice and I indicated with my
fingers that I had caught two fish, then pulled the big trout out of my
pocket to show him.
I went on further and decided not to stop until I found the finest spot
of all.
This was a huge pinkish-lilac boulder. It was separated from the bank
by a narrow strip of water. On one side I could see a deep pool and I
guessed that there must be another deep, quiet backwater on the other side.
My excitement returned and I crept over to the boulder, trying not to
make a noise on the pebbles. Having silently reached the water's edge I
propped the rod against the boulder and sprang on to it.
The boulder was cold and slippery. On this side the dew had not yet
dried. I pulled my rod up and climbed cautiously to the top. Here it was dry
and on both sides there were deep green pools of quiet water.
Let the bait be worthy of the place, I decided and, trying not to give
my presence away, took the matchbox of caviar out of my pocket. I had to
press hard to open it. The caviar was of an unusual kind. I had never seen
anything like it even on the Kommandorskiye Islands, where people go to
collect caviar with pails and baskets, as if they were picking berries. The
grains lay in a compact amber-coloured bunch, each as big as a currant.
That comrade really must be working in some high-level department, I
thought. I wonder what the fish is that spawns such caviar. I wish I could
ask him.
The sun shone pleasantly warm on my back. The rivet was murmuring
quietly. The green water offered its tempting depths. The grains of caviar
gleamed with a noble transparency in the sunlight. I fixed two on the hook,
squeezed them a little to make them stick together and still trying not to
show myself, made a cast.
For a few seconds the red blob of caviar glimmered in the green mass,
then vanished. I felt the sinker hit the bottom, flicked it up a little and
waited motionless. After a while I raised the rod a little and drew it back
and forth a few times then let the sinker touch the bottom again. I was
trying to give the impression of an alluring Queen Caviar dallying under
water.
Snap! I felt the tug on the moving bait and paused in expectation of a
second attack. There was a pause. It was as if the fish couldn't believe how
lucky it was to find such a tasty morsel. I gave the rod a flick and the
trout touched the bait again. I decided to get my line moving, but on a
wider track and without stopping at the first bite, so that the temptation
would not merely be moving but going away and thus call for more resolute
action.
Snap, snap, snap, snap! I made my strike. The fish tugged back hard in
the depths, but I hauled on my rod and a trout was soon flapping in the air.
In its own element, when first struggling in the depths and as it came out
of the water, it had seemed huge, but it was not actually so big as the
first. Still it was pretty big.
As soon as I put it in my pocket, all three fish livened up and flapped
about in what was left of the water. It was like a new prisoner bringing
life to the exhausted inmates of a goal.
I looked down at the other side of the boulder. This side was in the
sun and the water was lighter, but even so the bottom was not visible. The
pool was very deep. I decided to try this side and then fish steadily now on
one side, now on the other.
I put two more grains of caviar on the hook, sat down in a more
comfortable position, so as not to press on m