Two Captains (20 page)

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 hour."

"Make it half an hour, Ivan Pavlovich!" He smiled-a sad, good-natured smile.

I came back to find Korablev sitting on the sofa, smoking. The shaggy green service jacket, which he always wore when he felt out of sorts, was thrown over his shoulders and the soft collar of his shirt was undone.

"Well, old chap, you shouldn't have asked me to phone them," he said.

"Now I know all your secrets." "What secrets?"

He looked at me as though he were seeing me for the first time. "You've got to be able to keep them," he went on. "And you're no good at that.

Today, for instance, you're courting someone and tomorrow the whole school gets to know about it. It wouldn't be so bad if it were only the school."

I must have looked pretty sheepish, because Korablev smiled in spite of himself, just the ghost of a smile. At least twenty thoughts raced through my head all at once: "Who's done this? Romashka! I'll kill him! That's why Katya didn't come. That's why the old lady snubbed me."

"I love her, Ivan Pavlovich," I said firmly. He spread his hands.

"I don't care whether the whole school talks about it or not!" "The school maybe," Korablev said. "But don't you care what Maria Vasilievna and Nina Kapitonovna may say about it?" "No I don't!" I protested hotly. "But weren't you shown the door at their house?" "What house? It isn't her house.

She dreams of the day she'll finish school and leave that house."

"Just a minute... Do you mean to say you intend to marry her?" I collected myself somewhat. "That's nobody's business!"

"Of course not," Korablev hastily put in. "I'm afraid it's not so simple though. You'll have to ask Katya, after all. Perhaps she isn't planning to get married yet. In any case you'll have to wait till she gets back from Ensk."

"Ah," I said very calmly. "So they've sent her away? Fine." Korablev looked at me again, this time with unconcealed curiosity.

"Her aunt has fallen ill and she's gone to visit her," he said. "She'll be away several days and will be back for the beginning of the term. That shouldn't worry you."

"I'm not worrying, Ivan Pavlovich. As for Likho, I'll apologise to him, if you wish. But let him take back his statement about my being an idealist."

Then, for fifteen minutes, as though nothing had happened, as though Katya had not been sent away, as though I had not decided to kill Romaska, we sat calmly discussing my homework. Then I took my leave, after getting permission to call again the next day.

That Romashka! I did not doubt for a moment that it was his doing. Who else could it be? He had been in the classroom and seen me kiss Katya.

I stared with hatred at his cot and the bedside table and waited for him in the dormitory for half an hour. Then I wrote a note demanding an explanation and threatening that if I did not get it I would denounce him as a cad in front of the whole school. Then I tore the note up and went to see Valya at the Zoo.

He was with his rodents, of course. In a dirty lab coat, a pencil behind his ear and a big notebook under his arm, he was standing by a cage and feeding bats, who were eating out of his hand. He was feeding worms to them, looking mightily pleased.

I hailed him. He looked round and I asked: "Have you got any money?"

"Twenty-seven rubles," Valya said proudly.

"Let's have 'em."

This was cruel, as I knew that Valya was saving up to buy some snakes or other. But what could I do? I had only seventeen rubles, and the fare cost that much more.

Valya blinked, then looked at me gravely and got out the money.

"I'm going away."

"Where to?"

"To Ensk."

"What for?"

"Tell you when I get back. Meanwhile, let me tell you-Romashka's a cad.

You're chummy with him, because you don't know what a cad he is. And if you do know, then you're a cad yourself. That's all. So long."

I had one foot outside the door when Valya called me back, and in such a queer voice that I spun round.

"Sanya," he muttered, "I'm not chummy with him. Besides..."

He fell silent.

"It's my fault," he went on with an air of decision. "I should have warned you. You remember that business about Korablev, don't you?"

"I should say so!"

"Well, it was him!"

"What about him?"

"He went to Nikolai Antonich and told him everything."

"No!"

In a flash I recollected that evening when, on returning from the Tatarinovs, I had told Valya about the conspiracy they were hatching against Korablev.

"But I only told you about it."

"Yes, but Romashka was eavesdropping."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Valya hung his head.

"He made me give my word of honour," he muttered. "Besides, he threatened that he'd look at me at night. You know I hate being looked at at night. It's silly, I know. It started with me waking up once to find him looking at me."

"You're simply a fool, that's all."

"He writes everything down in a book and then snitches to Nikolai Antonich," Valya went on miserably. "He makes life hell for me. He narks on people and then tells me all about it. I stop my ears, but he goes on telling."

"You're a poor yap, you are!" I said. "I've no time to talk to you now, but I think you ought to write to the Komsomol group about that little book of his. I never thought he'd bully you like that. How many words of honour did you give him?"

"I don't remember," Valya mumbled.

"We'll count 'em up."

He looked at me mournfully.

From the Zoo I went to the railway station to book my ticket, and from there back to school. I had a good case of drawing instruments and decided to take it with me to sell if I was up against it.

And now to all the follies I had committed was added another one-one that I had to pay for with interest.

When I entered the dormitory there were about ten people there, among them Tania Velichko, a girl from my form. They were all engaged in some occupation, some reading and others talking. Nobody was paying any attention to Romashka, who was kneeling by my bed and rummaging in my box.

This new act of treachery was the last straw. The blood rushed to my head and I went over to him with an even tread and said to him in an even voice: "What are you looking for, Romashka?"

He looked up at me with startled eyes, and worked up as I was at that moment, I could not help noticing his striking resemblance to an owl-with that white face of his and those big red ears.

"Katya's letters?" I went on. "Want to hand them over to Nikolai Antonich? Here they are. Take 'em."

And I kicked him hard in the face.

I had spoken in a quiet voice, so nobody expected that I was going to hit him. I believe I gave him two or three more kicks. I would have killed him but for Tania Velichko. While the boys stood open-mouthed, she rushed between us, grabbed hold of me and pushed me away with such force that I sat down on the bed.

"You're crazy."

As if through a mist I saw her face and realised that she was looking at me with abhorrence. I recollected myself.

"I'll explain everything, boys," I said shakily.

They were all silent. Romashka lay on the floor with his head thrown back. There was a blue bruise on his cheek. I took my box and went out.

I wandered heavy-hearted about the railway station for nearly three hours. I felt beastly as I read the newspaper, studied the timetable, and drank tea in the third-class buffet. I was hungry, but the tea seemed tasteless and the sandwiches wouldn't go down my throat. I somehow felt sullied after that scene in the dormitory. Ah, well, I didn't have to go back to school anyway. But the instrument case? Who the hell needed it? As if I couldn't get the money for my return fare from Aunt Dasha!"

CHAPTER TWELVE HOME AGAIN

One impression has remained with me after that journey through the places where Pyotr Skovorodnikov and I used to ramble, stealing and begging

- an impression of incomparable freedom.

For the first time in my life I was travelling by rail with a ticket. I could sit at the window, chat with my fellow-passengers, or smoke, had I been a smoker. I did not have to crawl under the seat when the ticket-collector came round. I handed him my ticket with a casual air, without interrupting my conversation. It was an extraordinary sensation-a feeling of spaciousness, though the carriage was pretty crowded. I found it amusing, and I was thinking now about Ensk- about my sister, Aunt Dasha, and how I would spring a surprise on them and they would not recognise me.

With this thought I fell asleep and slept so long that my fellow-passengers began to wonder whether I was alive or not.

How good it is to return to one's home town after an absence of eight years! Everything is so familiar yet unfamiliar. Could that be the governor's house? I had thought it so huge once. Could that be Zastennaya Street? Was it so narrow and crooked? And is it Lopu-khinsky Boulevard? The boulevard gladdened me, though: all down the main avenue, behind the lime trees, stretched a line of splendid new buildings. The black lime trees looked like a pencil drawing on a white background and their black shadows lay aslant on the white snow- it made a beautiful picture.

I walked fast, and at every step I kept recognising old landmarks or viewing new ones with surprise. There was the orphanage in which Aunt Dasha had been going to put my sister and me; it was now a green colour and a big marble plaque had appeared on the wall with gold lettering on it. I could not believe my eyes-it said: "Alexander Pushkin stayed in this house in 1824". Well I never! In that house! What airs the orphanage kids would have given themselves had they known this!

And here were the "Chambers", where Mother and I had once handed in a petition. The place did not look half as imposing now. The old low grating had been removed from the windows and at the gate hung a signboard saying: Cultural Centre.

And there were the ramparts. My heart beat faster at the sight of them.

A granite embankment stretched before me, and I hardly recognised our poor old shelving river bank. But what astonished me more than anything was to find our houses gone and in their place a public garden had been laid out and on the seats sat nannies holding infants wrapped up like little mummies.

I had expected anything but this. I stood for a long time on the ramparts surveying with amazement the garden, the granite embankment and the boulevard, on which we used to play tipcat. On the site of the common back of the small grocery and oil shops there now stood a tall grey building, outside which a guard in a huge sheepskin coat strode up and down. I accosted him.

"The town power station," he answered importantly, when I pointed to the building and asked what it was.

"Do you happen to know where Skovorodnikov lives?"

"The judge?"

"No."

"Then I don't know. We have only one man here by that name-

the judge."

I walked away. Could it be that old Skovorodnikov had become a judge? I turned round to have another look at the fine tall building erected on the site of our wretched old houses, and decided that it could be.

"What does the judge look like? Is he tall?"

"Yes."

"With whiskers?"

"No, he has no whiskers," the guard said. He sounded sort of offended for old Skovorodnikov.

H'm, no whiskers. Not much hope.

"Where does that judge live?"

"In Gogolevsky Street, in what used to be Marcouse's house.

I knew the house, one of the best in the town, with lions' heads on either side of the entrance. Again I was nonplussed. There was nothing for it but to go down to Gogolevsky Street, and I went, little hoping that old Skovorodnikov had shaved off his moustache, become a judge and taken up residence in such a posh house.