Two Captains (42 page)

The sight of those dark windows brought back to me another conversation, when Korablev, suddenly jumping up, had paced the room restlessly with hands clasped on his chest. And Maria Vasilievna had sat there, erect, her face immobile, patting her hair from time to time with a slim hand. "Montigomo Hawk's Claw, I once used to call him." Now white rather than pale, she sat in front of us, smoking incessantly, the ash everywhere-even on her knees. She was calm and motionless, only now and again gently tugging at the string of coral beads round her neck as if it were choking her. She feared the truth, because she did not have the strength to stand up to it. But Katya was not afraid to face the truth, and all would be well when she learnt it.

The light had been on now for quite a time, and I saw Korablev's long black silhouette on the blind. Then Katya's appeared alongside, but soon moved away, as though she had uttered a single long sentence.

It was now quite dark outside, and that was good, because it was becoming awkward, my sitting so long in that garden and getting up from time to time to look at the windows.

Then all of a sudden Katya came out of the house alone and walked slowly down Sadovaya.

She was going home, no doubt. But she did not seem to be in any great hurry. She had something to think about before returning home. She walked along, thinking, and I followed her, and it was as if we were alone, all alone, in the vast city-Katya walking along and I following without her seeing me. The trams clanged as they dashed out into the square, and cars throbbed as they waited for the red traffic light to change, and I was thinking how hard it must be to keep your mind on anything amid that hideous noise-it was more likely to put you on the wrong track, make you think the wrong things. Not the things we all needed-I, and she, and the Captain, had he been alive, and Maria Vasilievna, had she been alive-all the living and the dead.

It was already quite light in the hotel room. I had left the light burning, and I suppose that was why I looked rather pale in the mirror. I felt chilly and little shivers ran up my spine. I lifted the receiver and dialled a number. For a long time there was no answer, then at last I heard Katya's voice.

"Katya, it's me. You don't mind my ringing you so early?"

She said she didn't mind, though it had only just gone eight.

"Did I wake you up?"

"No."

I hadn't slept that night and was sure that she had not slept a wink either.

"May I come and see you, Katya?"

After a pause she said: "Yes."

A plumpish girl with fair hair coiled round her head opened the door to me. She was a complete stranger to me, and when I asked her, "Is Katya at home?", she blushed and answered, "Yes."

I took a quick step forward, not knowing where I was going, only knowing that it was to see Katya, but the girl checked me with a mocking.

"Not so fast, Commander, not so fast!"

Then she started to laugh, so uproariously and explosively, that I could not but recognise her at once.

"Kiren!"

Katya came out of the dining-room just as Kiren and I stepped towards each other over some suitcases in the hall and all but fell into each other's arms, had not Kiren shyly backed away, so that I merely shook her hand.

"Kiren, is it really you? What are you doing here?"

"It's me all right," Kiren said, laughing. "But please don't call me Kiren. I'm not such a ninny now."

We began pumping each other's hand again vigorously. She must have spent the night with Katya, because she was wearing a dressing gown of hers, from which the buttons kept flying off while we did the packing. Two open suitcases stood in the hall and we packed away in them linen, books, various instruments-everything, in short, that was Katya's in that house. She was going away. I did not ask where. She was going away. It was all decided.

I did not ask because I knew every word that had passed between her and Korablev, every word she had spoken to Nikolai Antonich on her return.

Nikolai Antonich was out of town, somewhere at Volokolamsk, but all the same I knew every word she would have said to him had she found him at home on her return from Korablev's.

She walked about determined and pale, talking in a loud voice, giving orders. But hers was the calm of a person with a bruised mind, and I sensed that it was best not to say anything. I just squeezed her hands hard and kissed them, and she responded with a gentle pressure of her fingers.

If anybody was flustered, it was the old lady. She greeted me coldly with a mere nod and swept past me haughtily. Then she suddenly came back and with a vindictive air thrust a blouse into the suitcase.

"Ah, well. It's all for the best."

She sat in the dining-room for quite a time, doing nothing but criticising the way we packed, then suddenly ran out into the kitchen to tell the maid off for not having bought enough of something or other.

It did not take us long to pack Katya's things. She had few belongings, though she was leaving a house in which she had spent most of her life.

Everything there belonged to Nikolai Antonich. She did not leave a thing of hers behind, though. She did not want any overlooked trifle to remind her that she had once lived in that house.

She was taking the whole of herself away-her youth, her letters, her first drawings, which Maria Vasilievna had kept, her Helen Robinson and The Century of Discovery, which I had borrowed from her in my third form.

In my ninth form I had borrowed other books from her, and when their turn came she called me into her room and shut the door.

"Sanya, I want you to have these books," she said with a break in her voice. "They're Daddy's, and I've always cherished them. But now I want to give them to you. Here's Nansen, and various sailing directions and his own book."

Then she led me into Nikolai Antonich's room and took the portrait of the Captain down from the wall-that fine portrait of the naval officer with the broad forehead, square jaw and light, dancing eyes.

"I don't want to leave him this," she said firmly, and I carried the portrait into the dining-room and carefully packed it away in a bag containing pillows and a blanket.

It was the only thing belonging to Nikolai Antonich which Katya was taking away with her. If she could she would have carried away with her from this accursed house the very memory of the Captain.

I don't know whom the little ship's compass-the one that had once caught my eye-belonged to, but I slipped it into one of the suitcases when Katya was not looking. It had belonged to the Captain in any case.

That was all. It must have been the most deserted place in the world when, the packing done with and coats over our arms, we took leave of Nina Kapitonovna in the hall. She was staying behind, but not for long-only until Katya had moved into the room which her institute was giving her.

"It's not for long," the old lady said, then she broke down and kissed Katya.

Kiren stumbled on the stairs, sat down abruptly on the suitcase to prevent herself from tumbling down, and burst out laughing. "You ninny!"

Katya said crossly. I followed them down and pictured to myself Nikolai Antonich coming up the stairs, ringing the door bell and listening to what the old lady had to tell him. I saw him pass a trembling hand over his bald head and cross into his study with dragging footsteps. Alone in an empty house.

And he will realise that Katya would never come back.

CHAPTER TEN SIVTSEV-VRAZHEK

Until then it had been just one of Moscow's ordinary, crooked little streets, of which there are many around the Arbat. But with Katya now living in it, Sivtsev-Vrazhek had changed surprisingly. It had become the street in which now Katya lived and which was therefore totally unlike any other Moscow street. The name itself, which had always struck me as funny, now sounded significant. It stood for Katya, like everything else that was associated with her.

I came to Sivtsev-Vrazhek every day. Katya and Kiren would not be home yet when I arrived, and Kiren's mother, Alexandra Dmit-rievna, would keep me company. Apart from being an exemplary mother she was a professional reciter who gave readings from the classics at Moscow workers' clubs. A greying, romantic little lady, not at all like her daughter.

Then Katya would come in. Korablev had been right. I did not know her.

Not only in the sense that I didn't know many facts about her life, such as the fact that a year ago her party (she had been working as the head of a party) had discovered a rich deposit of gold in the Southern Urals, or that some photographs of hers had won first prize at an amateur photographers'

exhibition. I did not know the strong fibre of her stuff, her straightforward, honest, sensible attitudes-all that Korablev had summed up so well in the phrase "a serious-minded sincere soul". She seemed much older than me, especially when she talked about art-a subject I had sadly neglected in recent years. Then suddenly the old Katya would emerge-the girl who had a passion for staging explosions and was deeply stirred at the fact that "Hernan Cortes, accompanied by the good wishes of the Tiascalans, set out on his expedition and within a few days reached the populous capital city of the Incas".

I was reminded of Cortes by a photograph of Katya on horseback, wearing breeches and high boots and a broadbrimmed hat and with a carbine slung across her back. A prospector! The sight of that photograph would have pleased the Captain.

Several days passed in this wise without our having yet talked about what had happened since we last met, though enough had happened to last us a lifetime talking about it. We both seemed to feel that it was first necessary to get used to each other anew. Not a word about Nikolai Antonich, or Romashov, or my being guilty about her. This was not so easy, considering that almost every evening the old lady came visiting.

At first she used to make ceremonious calls, looking prim and proper in a dress with leg-of-mutton sleeves, and telling all kinds of stories-that is, until Nikolai Antonich's return. But one day she came running in looking upset and said in a loud whisper: "He's arrived." And forthwith closeted herself with Katya.

When leaving, she said gruffly: "You've got to have tact to live with people."

But Katya did not answer. She merely kissed her goodbye with a thoughtful air.

The next day the old lady came with a tear-stained face, looking tired and carrying an umbrella. She sat down in the hall.

"He's taken ill," she said. "I called a doctor. A homeopath. But he sent him away. 'I've given my whole life to her,' he says, 'and this is her gratitude.' "

She gave a little sob.

" 'It was the last thing that gave me a hold on life. Now it's all over.' Something like that."

Obviously, it wasn't all over, because Nikolai Antonich got well again, although he had had a severe heart attack which had kept him in bed for a few days. He asked for Katya. But Katya did not go to see him. I heard her tell the old lady: "Grandma, ill or well, alive or dead, I don't want to see him. D'you understand?"

"I understand," Nina Kapitonovna answered. "Just the way her father was too," she complained to Kiren's mother as she left. "Talk about obstinate!

Sheer cussedness, I call it!"

But Nikolai Antonich rallied and the old lady cheered up. Now she sometimes dropped in twice a day, so that we always had the latest news about Nikolai Antonich and Romashka. One day Katya herself spoke about Romashka.

"He called on me at the office," she said briefly. "But I sent him word that I had no time for him and never would have."

"They're writing a letter," the old lady said one day. "All about pilot G. Pilot G. shouldn't be surprised if they're informing on somebody. And that holy Joe-is he in a fume! But Nikolai Antonich-he says nothing. Just sits there, all swollen up, and doesn't say a word. Sits in my shawl."

Valya paid several visits to Sivtsev-Vrazhek, and on these occasions everybody dropped what he or she was doing and stopped talking to watch the way he was courting Kiren. He really was courting her according to all the rules of the game, fully convinced that no one suspected it.

He brought her potted flowers, always the same kind, so that her room was turned into a little nursery of tea-roses and primulas. He saw me and Katya as if in a dream and came awake only with Kiren and sometimes with her mother, to whom he also gave presents-on one occasion he gave her A Book for the Reciter, 1917 edition.

During his waking spells he told us amusing stories from the life of jumping squirrels and bats.

It was just as well that Kiren did not need much to make her laugh.

Thus did we spend the evenings at Sivtsev-Vrazhek-the last evenings before my return to the Arctic.

I was kept pretty busy. My plan to organise a search for Captain Tatarinov's expedition was received without enthusiasm-or had I not gone about it the right way?

I wrote several articles-one for the journal Civil Aviation about my method of anchoring a grounded plane during a blizzard, another for Pravda about the navigator's diaries, and my Memo for the Northern Sea Route Administration. Within a few days, on the very eve of my departure, I was to read my paper on the drift of the St. Maria at a special session of the Geographical Society.

And then, one late night, when I returned to my hotel in a cheerful frame of mind, I was handed, together with the key to my room, a letter and a newspaper.

The letter was a brief one. The Secretary of the Geographical Society notified me that my paper could not be read as I had not submitted it in writing within the proper time. The newspaper fell open as I picked it up and I saw an article headed: "In Defence of a Scientist". I started to read it and lines grew blurred before my eyes.