she had lost when he was beating her. The beads were found. She
laughed, finished her potato and started crying again.
I suppose autumn was drawing near, because Pyotr and I, strolling in
Cathedral Gardens, were kicking up dead leaves with our bare feet.
Pyotr was making up a story about the old excavation under the hillside
being a tunnel that ran under the river to the opposite bank. He even
claimed to have walked through it halfway.
'I walked all night,' Pyotr said in a casual way. 'Skeletons all over the
place. Rats too.'
From the hill we could see the Pokrovsky Monastery on the high bluff
of the river-a white building surrounded by low walls, beyond which
stretched meadows, now pale green, now yellow, changing colours in
the wind like a sea.
'There are no rats in Turkestan,' Pyotr added thoughtfully. 'They
have jumping rabbits there, and field rats out in the steppe. But they're
different-they eat grass, like rabbits.'
He often talked about Turkestan. According to him, it was a city
where pears, apples and oranges grew right in the streets, so that you
could pick as many as you liked and nobody would plug you with a
charge of salt in your backside the way the watchmen did in our
orchards. People there slept on carpets in the open air, as there was no
winter there, and went about in oriental robes—no boots or overcoats
for you.
33
'Turks live there. All armed to the teeth. Curved swords with silver
trimmings, knives in their girdles and cartridge belts across their chests.
Let's go there, eh?'
I decided that he was joking. But he wasn't. Paling slightly, he
suddenly turned away and gazed at the distant bank, where an old
fisherman of our acquaintance was dozing over his fishing rods, which
were mounted in the shingle at the water's edge. We said nothing for
awhile.
'What about your Dad? Will he let you go?'
'Catch me asking him! He's got other things on his mind.'
'What things?'
'He's going to marry,' Pyotr said with contempt.
I was astounded.
'Who?'
'Aunt Dasha.'
'Tell me another one.'
'He told her that if she didn't marry him he'd sell the house and go
round the villages tinning pots and pans. She refused at first, then she
consented. Must be in love, I suppose,' Pyotr added contemptuously
and spat.
I couldn't believe it. Aunt Dasha! Marrying old Skovorodnikov?
Pyotr scowled and changed the subject. Two years ago his mother had
died, and he, sobbing, beside himself, had wandered out of the yard and
off such a long way that they found him with difficulty. I remembered
how the boys used to tease him about it.
We talked a little more, then lay down on our backs with outspread
arms and stared up into the sky. Pyotr said that if you lay like that for
twenty minutes without blinking you could see the stars and the moon
in broad daylight. So there we were, lying and gazing. The sky was clear
and spacious: somewhere high up the clouds were chasing each other.
My eyes had filled with tears, but I was trying with all my might not to
blink. There was no sign of any moon, and as for the stars I guessed at
once that Pyotr was fibbing.
Somewhere a motor started throbbing. I thought at first that it was an
army truck revving at the wharf (the wharf was below us, under the
ramparts). But the sound drew nearer. 'It's an aeroplane,' Pyotr said.
It was lit up by the sun, a grey shape resembling a beautiful winged
fish. The clouds advanced towards it; it was flying against the wind. I
was amazed to see how easily it avoided the clouds. Now it was already
beyond the Pokrovsky Monastery, and a black cross-shaped shadow ran
after it over the meadows on the other side of the river. Long after it had
disappeared I fancied I could still see its tiny grey wings way out in the
distance.
34
CHAPTER TWELVE
SCARAMOUCH JOINS THE DEATH BATTALION
Pyotr had an uncle in Moscow and our entire plan was built upon this
uncle of his. The uncle worked on the railway-Pyotr would have me
believe as engine-driver, but I suspected as fireman. At any rate, Pyotr
had always called him a fireman. Five years before this engine-driver-
cum-fireman had worked on Moscow-Tashkent trains. I am so exact
about those five years because there had been no letters from this uncle
now for five years. But Pyotr said this did not signify, because his uncle
had always written very rarely; he was sure that he was still working on
the same trains, all the more so since his last letter had come from
Samara. We looked at the map together and found that Samara did
indeed lie between Moscow and Tashkent.
In short, all we had to do was to find this uncle. Pyotr knew his
address, but even if he didn't, one could always find a man by his name.
We did not have the slightest doubt about the name-it was
Skovorodnikov, the same as Pyotr's.
We envisaged the second stage of our journey as a simple matter of
Pyotr's uncle taking us from Moscow to Tashkent on his locomotive. But
how were we to get to Moscow?
Pyotr did not try to persuade me. He listened stony faced to my timid
objections. He did not answer me: all was clear to him. The only thing
clear to me was that but for Scaramouch I would not be going anywhere.
And suddenly it turned out that Scaramouch himself was going away.
He was going and I was staying.
It was a memorable day. He turned up in army uniform, in brand-
new, shiny, squeaky boots, his cap tilted to one side and a cowlick of
