Sadovaya.
I stood at the entrance looking down the street in the direction from
which Katya should be coming. I must have been waiting a long time,
for the windows darkened one after another from left to right. Then I
saw her, but not where I had been looking. She had come out of a side
street and was standing on the pavement, waiting for the cars to pass. A
sudden fear assailed me as I watched her crossing the road, wearing the
same dress she had worn when we met outside the Bolshoi Theatre and
looking very sad. She was quite near me now, but she walked with her
head down and did not see me. As a matter of fact I did not want her to
see me. I wished her mentally good cheer and all the best I could wish
her at that moment, and I followed her with my eyes all the way to the
door. She disappeared inside, but mentally I followed her. I could see
Korablev coming forward to meet her, trying hard to appear calm, and
taking a long time fitting a cigarette into his long holder before starting
to talk.
Now the windows were darkening quickly and the glow of sunset
lingered only in the two end windows of the block facing me.
It was only eight o'clock and I did not feel like going back to my hotel
yet. For a long time I sat in a little public garden facing the entrance to
our school. I went into the courtyard several times to see whether the
light had gone on in Korablev's flat. But they were talking in the
twilight, Korablev speaking while Katya listened in silence.
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.
210
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.
CHAPTER NINE
IT IS DECIDED - SHE GOES AWAY
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!'
211
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
