'Of course, I do!'
'But what about us?'
'Private tinkering, labour exchange, or get your Mum and Dad to keep you,' Nikita said, twisting his face into a grin.
I thought for a moment he was pulling my leg. 'But they can't do that! Surely, you're joking, Nikita?' 'Never been more serious in my life! Mind you come,' Nikita answered shortly.
BAD NEWS
Never since we started school had we held such a stormy committee meeting as we held that evening. The last light had gone out in the windows of the neighbouring houses, the iron shutters of the shops in the old part of the town had rumbled down long ago, but still we argued and shouted about what we should do...
On the table lay Pecheritsa's order to close the school.
No one could resign himself to the idea that in two week's time, when we still had another month and a half at school, we should just be kicked out.
While we argued and fumed and racked our brains for a way of softening Pecheritsa's heart and making him withdraw his order, Polevoi, our director, and the only Party member in the whole school, sat quietly in a corner and said nothing. Apparently, he wanted to hear what we had to say, and then, as a representative of the Party, tell us his opinion. At length, when everybody had had his say, Nikita looked inquiringly at the director.
'It's a foolish position that I'm in, a very foolish one, lads, and I don't know whether you'll understand me properly,' Polevoi said rising to his feet. His voice trembled as he spoke and the room grew so quiet that we could hear the snow on the pavement outside crunching under the feet of some belated passer-by. 'As I look at you, the young, hot-headed lads you are, I just can't imagine how we can part. In the time we've been together we've become real friends, and I believe that all of you will make good. As a member of the Party, here, at this Komsomol committee meeting, I can tell you frankly: the whole thing is wrong from beginning to end. 'It's unjust that you shouldn't be allowed to finish this last six weeks. It's unjust of them to close the school. That decision is against the Party line. . .'
Polevoi rummaged in his tunic pocket and, taking out a scrap of paper, went on: '. . . it contradicts the directives of the Fourteenth Party Congress. All right, suppose what he says is true—at the moment there aren't any suitable factories in our district that we can send you to when you finish school. But there are such factories in other towns of the Ukraine. Then why won't Pecheritsa get in touch with the government and arrange something for us? The long and the short of it is that he doesn't believe in the future of our industry. He doesn't want the blue sky of Podolia soiled with factory smoke!... But without that we shan't be able to maintain Soviet power! If we don't build factories all over the country, we shall be finished, and not only that—we shan't be able to help any of the peoples who are waiting for our aid. That's as clear as two and two makes four. Only this perishing conductor doesn't-want to understand the obvious truth. . . And I've got a very definite feeling that Pecheritsa's tactics are playing right into the hands of the Ukrainian nationalists, if Kartamyshev had been in town, I would have got this order cancelled today. But Kartamyshev caught a chill during the alarm and his lungs are bad -again, so he's gone to Yalta for treatment. His place has been taken by Sokorenko—a new man to our organization. Sokorenko's heard that Pecheritsa was sent here from 'Kharkov and he's afraid of pulling him up. I shall have to talk to Sokorenko, and explain things to him. But it seems to me that there's no need for you to stand aside. While I'm protesting here, on the spot, why shouldn't you go and stir them up in Kharkov? We've not only got to fight to keep our school going, we've got to make Kharkov find jobs at factories for our first lot of trainees, for all of you. You have every right to them.'
And we decided to fight.
A resolution was carried that immediately after the general Komsomol meeting a pupils' delegation should be sent to the District Party Committee. It was also decided that I should be sent to Kharkov to see the Central Committee of the Komsomol.
That was the last thing I had expected! When all the chaps shouted, 'Mandzhura! Mandzhura ought to go!' I could scarcely believe my ears.
I tried to make excuses, but Nikita said confidently: 'Never mind that, Vasil. It's all bunk about your never travelling on a train before and losing yourself and all the rest of it. Your tongue will get you anywhere and Kharkov's not far away. Are we the kind to get scared over such journeys! Who knows, we may have to take a trip to Berlin or Paris one of these days. And you're afraid of going to Kharkov, to one of our own Soviet towns! But you're quite a brave chap on the whole and we're sure you'll find your way about there all right. So get cracking on the long trail and stick up for our interests! Get justice, or die! That's all.'
The meeting was declared closed.
Tired and excited, we walked back to the hostel through the quiet snowy streets of our little town. Of was in a daze. The decision to send me to Kharkov had hit me like an avalanche. But it was good to feel that my friends trusted me, and I swore to myself that I would do my best.
AN UNEXPECTED TRAVELLING COMPANION
No one came to see me off at the station, not even Pet-ka. That evening there was to be a pupils' conference. Pecheritsa was expected to attend. After two invitations, he had condescended to 'drop in.' Everyone wanted to hear what this ginger-moustached bureaucrat had to say besides what was in his order. Well over half the school's pupils were preparing to speak. They intended to give Pecheritsa a real fight and demand that he cancel the order. But the train left at seven fifteen in the evening. I had told the
chaps myself not to see me off. They had better stick together and give that bureaucrat a hiding.
I arrived at the station half an hour before the train was due to leave and saw that no one was being allowed on the platform yet. With one hand in my pocket feeling the hard little ticket that we had clubbed together to buy, and the other gripping a brief case, I strolled about the station, glancing up at the clock.
Firmly pinned with two safety-pins in the inside pocket of my jacket were forty-three rubles sixty kopeks. At dinner-time we had been given our grants and most of the chaps at school had contributed a ruble each for my journey. That was how I had come to possess such a large sum, I had never had so much money before in my life. My papers for the journey were in the brief case that Nikita had forced on me. He had gone specially to the District Komsomol Committee and borrowed it from Dmitry Panchenko, the head of the instructors' department. Afraid of being laughed at, I tried to refuse it, but Nikita was adamant.
'Try to understand, old chap,' he said persuasively, 'when a brief case is necessary, it's nothing to be ashamed of. There's no reason why it should be a sign that you've turned into a bureaucrat. If you haven't got a brief case, what will you do with all your papers, the school estimate, the lists of pupils? Stuff them in your pockets? You'll get everything crumpled. And where will you put your towel, soap, tooth-brush? There's nowhere, is there? But it all goes fine into a brief case. Suppose you go in to see the chief of education himself. Do you want to fish a lot of crumpled papers out of your pocket?... You'll feel much better with a brief case.'
I tried every excuse I could think of to get out of taking the brief case, for I knew that the Komsomol members who carried brief cases were called bureaucrats. And if one of these brief case owners went so far as to put a tie round his neck, he was sure to be dubbed a petty bourgeois or an upstart. Before I left the hostel, I wrapped the brief case in old newspapers and carried it under my arm, like a parcel. Not until I reached the station did I glance round and throw the newspaper into the ditch.
There was no one I knew at the station. In the buffet a samovar was steaming and an elderly waiter with a white overall over his fur jacket was pouring the hot water into thick glasses. In the luggage department customs men were checking the passengers' luggage for contraband.
I strolled along the corridors, crossed the entrance-hall several times and surveyed the passengers, trying to
