ward, and only here and there could be heard an occasional moan or
quick, hoarse mutterings.
A major of my acquaintance, who had flown to M—v on some mission
from Leningrad front HQ, readily agreed to take me back with him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I LOOK FOR KATYA
293
I had been grounded now for over six months. How can I convey the
feeling with which I took the air again? It was galling to think that for
the first time in my life I was flying as a passenger. Over the years I had
become accustomed to feeling more at home in the air than on the
ground. I looked out of the window with pleasure, as if checking
whether any harm had come to this vast countryside with its black
spring fields, its bright, winding streams and the dark-green velvet of its
forests. It was with pleasure that I went into the cockpit, feeling its
familiar, ordered compactness with my whole body. With pleasure I
waited to see how the pilot would steer clear of the storm-we ran into
one over Cherepovets, a magnificent mass of thunderclouds resembling
palaces, with walls riven by lightning. I was reminded of my impressions
of first flights, before the sky had become for me simply an air route.
At the airport in Leningrad I got a lift in a car that had come down for
Pravda matrixes. It took me as far as Liteiny Prospekt. From there I
would have to walk or take a tram. The only tram running to the
Petrogradskaya was a No. 3, but the Leningraders who had settled
themselves round the tram stop in a home-like way, said that I should
have to wait perhaps an hour. The major, who had to get to the
Petrogradskaya too, tried to persuade me to wait, seeing that I had a
heavy knapsack—I had brought some food for Katya. But how could I
wait, when I had to catch my breath at least twenty times at the mere
thought that Katya and I were at last together in the same city, that at
this very moment, perhaps, she was-I don't know what-waiting for me,
sick, dying?
I flew headlong down the avenue running alongside the Summer
Garden. I saw everything, took it all in—the allotments on Mars Field,
with camouflaged anti-aircraft guns in the middle of them; the riotous
greenery, which had never looked so lush in Leningrad before;
the general clean and tidy appearance of the city—I had read in /the
papers that in the spring of 1942 three hundred thousand Leningraders
had turned out to clean up their city. But everything I saw turned to me
a single side-where was Katya, would I find her? I thought I never
would, seeing that nearly all the houses had no window-panes in them
and the houses stood silent, sad-eyed. I never would, seeing that every
wall was dented and smashed by artillery shells. Yes, I would find her,
seeing that even the square round the Suvorov monument was planted
with carrots and beetroot, and the young shoots stood erect as though
no better natural conditions for them could be thought of. I came out on
the Neva and involuntarily my eyes sought the admiralty spire—I don't
know how to explain it, but it was part of Katya-the fact that it was
slightly dulled, like an old engraving. We had not been able to say
goodbye to each other when the war started, but another leave-taking,
the one before I left for Spain, came back to me so vividly that I almost
saw her physically, standing in the dark hall of the Berensteins' flat
among the old coats and jackets. How could I bring all that back again?
To clasp her in my arms again? To hear her ask: 'Sanya, is that you? Can
it be you?'
From afar I saw the house in which the Berensteins lived. It still stood
there, and strange to say it looked more beautiful than before. The
window-panes were intact, and the facade threw back a resplendent
gleam like that of fresh paint in the sunshine. But the closer I got to it
the more was I disturbed by this strange immobility and spruceness.
294
Another ten, fifteen, twenty paces-and something gripped my heart,
then let go, and it began to race wildly. There was no house. The facade
had been painted on large sheets of plywood.
All that long summer day the distant roar of the artillery pounded in
my ears like surf beating on a pebbly beach.
All day long I searched for Katya.
A woman with a triangular green face whom I met outside the wrecked
house sent me to Doctor Ovanesyan, who was a member of the District
Soviet. This old Armenian, a grey-black genial man with a three day's
stubble, sat in the office of the former Elite Cinema, now the district HQ
of the Civil Defence. I asked him whether he knew Ekaterina
Tatarinova-Grigorieva. He said, 'Sure I did. I even offered her a job as a
nurse when the war started.'
'Well?'
'She refused and went out to do trench-digging,' the doctor said. 'I
never saw her again, I regret to say.'
'Maybe you know Rosalia Berenstein, too, Doctor?'
He looked at me with his kind old eyes, and pursed his lips.
'Are you a relative others?'
'No, just a friend.'
'I see.'
He was silent for a while.
'She was a fine woman,' he sighed. 'We sent her to the hospital, but it
was too late. She died.'
I went back to the courtyard of the wrecked house. The facade had
collapsed, but the side of the building facing the yard was intact. I found
myself aimlessly mounting the debris-cluttered staircase. I got as far as
the first landing. Higher up was a jumble of iron rods and beams
hanging over the gaping staircase well and only at the second floor level
did the stairs begin again.
In this house there had once lived my sister, whom I loved. Here we
had celebrated her wedding. I had come here every Sunday, an air cadet
in blue uniform, who dreamt of great discoveries. Here Katya and I had
