enormous task. Our daily mail alone was over fifteen hundred letters.
The same here. But here I work as a favour. I get a worker's ration,
because Romashov has fixed me up at his institution. And the
institution knows I am working here.'
'Isn't Romashov in the army now? When we last met he was in army
uniform.'
'No, he's not in the army. Reserved for the duration. Indispensable or
something.'
'What sort of mail are you getting?'
'Oh, business letters, very important,' Vyshimirsky said. 'Extremely
important. We have an assignment. At the present moment we are
306
under instructions to find a certain woman, a lady. But I suspect it's not
an assignment, but a private affair. A love affair, so to speak.'
'What woman is it?'
'The daughter of an historic personage, a man I knew very well,'
Vyshimirsky said proudly. 'You may have heard of him perhaps—
Tatarinov? We are searching for his daughter. We'd have found her long
ago, but it's such a frightful muddle. She's married and has a double
name.'
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
'YOU WON'T KILL ME'
It was as though life had suddenly pulled up sharply, jolting my head
foremost into an imaginary wall. That was how I felt as I stared at the
old man, just an ordinary old man, standing before me in an ordinary
room and telling me that Romashov was looking for Katya, that is, doing
the same thing I was doing.
Our conversation, however, proceeded as though nothing had
happened. From Katya the old man switched over to some member of
T.U. committee who had had no right to call him 'a hangover from the
old regime', because he, Vyshimirsky, had a work record ~of fifty years,
then he wandered off into reminiscences, relating how in the old days,
back in 1908, when he came out of the theatre the commissionaire
would cry out: 'Vyshimirsky's carriage! '-and the carriage would roll up.
He wore a top hat and cloak in those days, but now people did not wear
such things, which was 'a great pity, because it was elegant'.
'When did he die?' he suddenly asked.
'Who?'
'Korablev.'
'Who said he died? He's alive and well,' I said in a jocular tone,
though I was quivering in all my being, thinking: 'You'll know
everything in a minute, but tread carefully.'
'So it's a private affair you say? Concerning a lady?'
'Yes, private. But very serious, very. Captain Tatarinov is an historical
personage. Mr Romashov was in Leningrad. He was there during the
siege and starved so bad that he ate paste off the wallpaper. He tore
down old wallpaper, and boiled and ate it. Afterwards he went on a meat
foraging assignment, and when he came back she was no longer there.
She'd been moved out.'
'Where to?'
'That's just the question,' Vyshimirsky said. 'You know what that
evacuation was like? Go and find anybody! It's not as if she'd been
moved out by special train. You could trace it then. Take the Gold
Storage Plant, for instance. Where did its train go? To Siberia? Then
she'd be in Siberia. But she was evacuated by aeroplane.'
307
'By aeroplane?'
'Yes, exactly. As a privileged person, I suppose. And now, who knows
where she is? All we know is that the plane flew via Khvoinaya that is,
the very place where Mr Romashov was getting meat.'
I must have sensed instinctively when it was necessary to hold my
tongue and when to put in two or three words. Everything was as it
should be. Here was an army man, seemingly just out of hospital, thin
and peaky, who had called on a friend with whom he had parted at the
front, asking how his friend was getting on, what he was doing. 'You'll
know everything in a minute, step warily.'
'Well? And did you find her?'
'Not yet. But we will,' said Vyshimirsky, 'following my plan. I wrote
to Buguruslan and to the Central Inquiry Bureau, but that was useless.
They sent us a dozen Tatarinovs and a hundred Grigorievs, and we don't
know what name we have to give as her first. So then I wrote personally
to the chairmen of the executive committees of all the regional cities. It
was a big job, a big assignment. But Captain Tatarinov was a friend of
mine and for his daughter's sake I spent three months writing and
sending out a stereotype inquiry—will you please give necessary
instructions—evacuation point—historical personality—awaiting your
reply. And we received it.'
There was a sharp ring at the door. 'That's him,' Vyshimirsky said.
A cowed look came into his face. The grey tuft of hair on top of his
head started shaking and his moustache drooped. He went out into the
hallway, while I took up a position against the wall beside the door, so
that Romashov should not catch sight of me at once on coming in. He
might jump out onto the landing, because Vyshimirsky said to him in
the hallway: 'Somebody to see you.'
'Who?' he asked quickly.
'A man by the name of Grigoriev,' the old man said.
He did not jump out, though he could have done-I bided my time. He
stood in the dark corner between the wardrobe and the wall and he gave
a scream when he saw me. Then he raised doubled fists and pressed
them to his face, childlike. There was a key in the door. I turned it, took
it out and slipped it into my pocket. Vyshimirsky was standing between
us. I picked him up and set him aside like a dummy. Then, for some
reason, I pushed him and he toppled mechanically into an armchair.
'Well, let's go and have a chat,' I said to Romashov.
