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.
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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 Dmitrievna,
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
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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.
