chase. At that moment I understood everything. But it was too late—I
was hurtling down.
Such was my first flight—down in a straight line from a height of
fifteen feet, without a parachute; I shouldn't call it a successful flight. I
struck the fence with my chest, jumped up and fell again. The last thing
I saw was Pyotr dashing out into the street and slamming the gate in the
face of the man in the leather coat.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CLAY MODELLING
It was very silly, of course, to run away when you hadn't done
anything wrong. After all, we weren't blackmarketeers, we had been
only working for them. Our captors wouldn't do anything to us, they'd
simply question us and let us go. But it was too late now for regrets. The
46
man in the leather coat gripped my arm and marched me off—to jail
probably. I had been caught, while Pyotr had got away. I was alone now.
It was already evening, the sun was going down, and the daws were
circling slowly over the trees along the Strastnoi Boulevard. I wasn't
crying, but I must have looked pretty miserable, because the man in the
leather coat looked at me closely and let go of my arm. He realised that I
wouldn't run away.
He brought me into a large well-lighted room on the fifth floor of a
huge building at Nikitsky Gate. It was a children's reception centre of
the Education Department, where I was to spend three memorable days.
My heart sank when I saw all those ugly customers. Some were
playing cards, squatting around a clay-built stove, some were taking
down the wooden valance rods from the high windows and feeding them
straight into the stove, while others were sleeping or building a house
out of old frames and canvases stacked haphazardly in a corner. At
night, when it got colder inside the reception centre than outside, these
house owners lighted a primus-stove and exacted payment for
admission into their house at the rate of a couple of cigarettes or a piece
of bread. And gazing incuriously with the sightless white eyes upon all
this chaos there stood on tall pedestals plaster figures of Hercules, of
Apollo, Diana and other Greek gods.
The only human faces there were those of the gods. Waking up from
the cold towards morning with chattering teeth, I glanced at them
fearfully. They were probably thinking: 'You poor mutt, you! What
made you run away from home? That orphanage? You'd be back in the
spring and find some job helping the old folks. And now what? Now
you're all alone. If you die no one will remember you. Only Pyotr will be
running around Moscow, looking for you, and Aunt Dasha will heave a
sigh. Ask for some clothes, my lad, and hotfoot it home!' They changed
your clothes at the Education Department, they burned your old ones
and gave you trousers and a shirt instead. Many waifs deliberately let
themselves be rounded up in order to change their ragged clothes.
All those three days I kept silent. For a boy who had only recently
learned to speak that was not at all difficult. Who was there to talk to
anyway! Every time they brought in a new batch of waifs I caught myself
looking to see if Pyotr was among them. But he wasn't, and that was just
as well. I sat apart and kept silent.
What with hunger, cold and misery, I started modelling. There were
lots of white sculptor's clay in this former art studio. I picked up a lump,
soaked it in hot water and started to knead it between my fingers.
Almost without realising what I was doing, I had made a toad. I gave it
big nostrils and goggle-eyes, then tried my hand on a hare. It was all
pretty poor, of course. But at the sight of the familiar features of Frisky
emerging from the shapeless lump of clay something stirred within me.
I was to remember that moment. Nobody had seen me modelling: an
old thief, who had by some miracle landed in the reception centre for
homeless children, was describing how they worked at the railway
stations in 'two-men teams'. I stood apart by the window, holding my
breath as I gazed at the little lump of clay with long ears sticking out of
it, and I couldn't make out why it stirred me so.
After that I modelled a horse with a thick-combed mane. Then it
struck me—why, old Skovorodnikov's horses—that's what it was! The
figures he used to carve out of wood!
47
I don't know why, but the discovery bucked me up. I fell asleep in a
cheerful mood. I had a feeling as though these figurines were going to be
my salvation. They would enable me to get out of this place, help me to
find Pyotr, help me to return home and him to reach Turkestan. They
would help my sister at the orphanage, Pyotr's uncle at the front, and
everybody who roamed the streets at night in cold and hungry Moscow.
That's how I prayed-not to God, no! to the toad, the horse and the hare,
which were drying on the window-sill, covered with scraps of
newspaper.
I daresay some other boy in my place would have become an idol
worshipper and I have had everlasting faith in the toad, the horse and
the hare. Because they did help me!
The next day a commission from the Education Department came to
the reception centre and that place was done away with from now on
and for aye. The thieves were packed off to jail, the waifs to orphanages,
and the beggars to their homes. All that remained in the spacious art
studio were the Greek gods Apollo and Diana and Hercules.
'What's this?' said one of the commission members, a tousled
unshaven youth, whom everybody called simply Alee. 'Ivan
Andreyevich, look at this sculpture!'
Ivan Andreyevich, no less unkempt and unshaven, but older put on
his pince-nez and studied the figures.
'Typical Russian figure work from Sergiev Posad,' he said.
'Interesting. Who did this? You?'
'Yes.'
'What's your name?'
