This was in answer to our letter telling her that we had found each
other.
'I didn't sleep all night for thinking of poor Maria,' she wrote on
receiving the news that the remains of the expedition had been found. 'I
thought it was for the best, her not knowing the terrible fate your father
suffered.'
357
Little Pyotr was quite well, and had grown a lot, to judge by his
photograph. He resembled his mother more than ever. We thought of
her and sat in silence for a long time, reliving as it were, the anguish of
that senseless death. As far back as the spring Katya had taken steps to
get a pass for Grandma and the boy to come to Moscow, and there was a
hope that we should see them on our way back.
Our old idea, Katya's and mine, of all of us settling down in Leningrad
as one family was repeated that evening more than once. A single
family—with Grandma and the two Pyotrs. Pyotr Senior looked rather
confused when, speaking of the flat which we had already received in
imagination-and not just anywhere but in Kirovsky Prospekt-we
assigned to him a studio in a quiet part of the flat where nobody would
be in his way. I knew of one woman he did not mind being in his way, a
woman of whom Katya spoke with enthusiasm. But that evening of
course, nobody said a word about her.
The house was still asleep when the judge returned. He gave such a
fierce growl when Aunt Dasha made to wake us that we had to pretend
being asleep for another half hour. Just like five years ago, we heard him
snorting and grunting in the kitchen as he washed and splashed about.
Katya fell asleep again, but I dressed quietly and went into the
kitchen, where he was drinking tea, sitting barefooted, in a clean shirt,
his head and moustache still wet from washing.
'I woke you up after all,' he said, stepping up to me and hugging me.
Whenever I turned to my hometown and my old home he always met
me with that stern: 'Well, let's hear all about it!' The old man wanted to
know what I had been doing and whether I had been living right during
the years since we last met. Regarding me sternly from' under his tufted
eyebrows, he interrogated me like the real judge he was, and I knew that
nowhere in the world would I receive a fairer sentence. But on this
occasion, for the first time in my life, the judge demanded no account
from me.
'Four, I see?' he said, eyeing my decorations with a pleased look.
'Yes.'
'And a fifth for Captain Tatarinov,' he went on gravely. 'It's hard to
word it, but you'll get it.'
It really was hard to word it, but apparently the old man had decided
to tackle that in earnest, because the same evening, when we again met
round the table, he delivered a speech in which he attempted to sum up
what I had done. 'Life goes on,' he said. 'You have come back to your
hometown as grown-up, mature people, and you say you have difficulty
in recognising it, it has changed so much. It has not merely changed, it
has matured, the way you have matured and discovered within
yourselves the strength to fight and win. But other thoughts, too, come
to my mind when I look at you, dear Sanya. You have found Captain
Tatarinov's expedition. Dreams come true, very often truth is stranger
than fiction. It is to you that his farewell letters are addressed-to the
man who would carry on his great work. And it is you that I see standing
by right at his side, because captains such as he and you advance
mankind and science.'
And he raised his glass and drained it to my health.
We sat round the table until late into the night. Then Aunt Dasha
announced that it was time to go to bed, but we did not agree and went
out instead for a walk by the river.
358
The fiery-black clouds were still chasing each other over the factory.
We went down to the river and walked to the Gap, beside which a thin,
dark boy in a baggy trousers had once caught blue crabs with meat bait.
Time seemed to have stood still, waiting patiently for me on this bank,
between the two ancient towers at the confluence of the Peshchinka and
the Tikhaya-and here I was back again, and we looked into each other's
face. What lay ahead for me? What new trials, new labours, new dreams,
happiness or unhappiness? Who knows. But I did not lower my eyes
under that incorruptible gaze.
It was time to go back. Katya felt cold. We walked along the quayside,
which was cluttered with timber, and made our way home.
The town was quiet and somehow mysterious. We walked along in
silence, our arms round each other. I recollected our flight from Ensk.
The town had been just as dark and quiet, and we so small, unhappy and
brave, facing the unknown, frightening life that lay ahead of us.
My eyes were wet, but I did not wipe away those tears of joy. I was not
ashamed of them.
EPILOGUE
A lovely scene unfolds from this high cliff, at the foot of which wild
Arctic poppies thrust up their slender stems between the rocks. By the
shore one can still see the mirror-like water, and farther out, open lanes
amid the lilac-tinted icefields running out into the mysterious distance.
Here the Arctic air seems extraordinarily limpid. Silence and vast open
spaces. Only a hawk sometimes comes flying over the solitary grave.
The ice-floes drift past it, jostling and circling, some slowly, others
faster, assuming fantastic shapes.
There, sailing along, appears the head of a giant in a silver gleaming
helmet. One can make out everything-the green shaggy beard trailing in
the sea, the flattened nose and the narrowed eyes under grey, bushy
brows.
And here comes a house of ice from which the water rolls off with a
tinkle of innumerable little bells. And following it, great festive boards
covered with clean tablecloths.
