persistent as those blue, hard flies which settled on my bandages with
revoltingly loud buzzings.
Evening was drawing in, and evidently we were no longer standing
still, because my 'cradle' was swinging rhythmically in time with the
carriage's movement. The setting sun glanced through the window and
the dusty, heavy air laden with the smell of iodine could clearly be seen
in its slanting rays. Somebody was moaning in a low but harrowing
manner, or rather droning monotonously through clenched teeth like a
buzzer. Where had I heard that dreary voice before? And why was I
trying so hard to remember where I had heard it?
Then suddenly school desks ranged themselves in rows before me
and, as in a waking dream, I saw a lot of lively laughing children's faces.
The lesson was an interesting one-about the manners and customs of
the Chukchi people. But who cared about the lesson when a bet had
been made and a ginger boy with wide-set eyes was holding my finger
and coolly sawing it with a penknife?
'Romashka!' I said aloud.
The droning stopped.
'Is that you, Owl?'
He took a long time threading his way under the suspended cots and
between the wounded lying on the floor until he emerged at last amidst
protruding bandaged legs.
'What is it?' he said guardedly, looking straight at me without
recognising me.
I thought he looked a little more human, though he was still 'no oil
painting', as Aunt Dasha would have said. At any rate, the lordly
manner he had lately assumed was now gone. He was scrawny and pale,
his ears stuck out like Petrushka's and his left eye squinted warily.
'Don't you recognise me?'
'No.'
'Try again.'
He had never been able really to conceal his feelings, and I could now
read them in the order, or rather disorder, in which they appeared.
Bewilderment. Dismay. Horror, which made Ms lips quiver. Then again
bewilderment. Disappointment.
'But you were killed, weren't you?' he mumbled.
CHAPTER FOUR
OLD SCORES
The Destiny theme figures largely in old Russian songs, and though I
am no fatalist, the word came to my mind despite myself when I read a
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report of my own death in the newspaper Red Falcons. I remember it
word for word:
'While returning from a mission the aircraft piloted by Captain
Grigoriev was overtaken by four enemy fighter planes. In the unequal
combat Grigoriev shot down one lighter and put the other to flight.
Though his machine was damaged, Grigoriev flew on. Not far from the
front-line he was attacked again, this time by two Junkers. Grigoriev,
his machine in flames, rammed one of the Junkers. The men of the X air
unit will forever cherish the memory of their brave comrades, Captain
Grigoriev, Navigator Luri, Radio Operator-Gunner Karpenko and Aerial
Gunner Yershov, who fought for the country to their last breath.'
What happened was this: A war correspondent came to the village -1
learned of this only in the summer of 1943-soon after I had been
removed from there. The farmers had witnessed the air fight and he
questioned them about it. He photographed the wreckage of the burnt-
out aircraft. He was told that I was in a hopeless condition.
Whether it was because I had escaped death by nothing short of a
miracle, or because it was the first time in my life that I had occasion to
read my own obituary, but this report had the effect of an insult on me.
My thoughts ran off at a tangent. I pictured Katya-not the Katya, who,
as I knew, would suddenly wake up and wander about the room,
thinking of me, but a different Katya, a sad and aged one, who, upon
reading this report, would put the newspaper down on the table, and go
on doing things for a while as though nothing had happened, perhaps
plaiting or letting down her hair with a stony face, and then suddenly
topple over like a doll.
'Ah, well,' I said. 'These things happen.'
And I crushed the newspaper and flung it out of the window.
Romashov gasped. While we were talking the train had been standing.
Afterwards he picked up the paper-apparently it gave him pleasure at
least to read that I was dead, now that he had seen evidence to the
contrary.
'So you're alive! I can't believe it! My dear chap!'
That was what he said-'dear chap'.
'Christ, am I glad! Is it just a coincidence? Somebody with the same
name? But what does it matter! The thing is you're alive.'
He began to ask me where I had been hit, whether badly, whether any
bones were broken, and so on. I disappointed him again, saying that I
was wounded lightly and a doctor of my acquaintance had fixed me up
in this passenger coach.
'I can imagine how upset Katya will be,' he said. 'She may have read
this report.'
I said, 'Yes, she may,' and began to ask him about Moscow.
Romashov mentioned in passing that it was less than a month since he
had left Moscow.
I daresay I ought to have given him to understand straight away that
nothing had changed between us instead of talking to him in such a
peaceful way. But man is a strange animal-that's stale news. I looked at
his strained, unnaturally pale face, and nothing stirred in me beyond
habitual contempt mixed with a faint interest. Needless to say, he was to
me the same cad he had always been. But at that moment I thought of
him as a familiar cad of long standing, one who sort of 'belonged'.
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