'A rare case of dumbness,' said the doctor. 'You can read it yourself in
number seventeen of The Medical Journal. Patient G. That's you, old
chap. You've made a name for yourself. Only as a patient, though, so far.
The future is still yours.'
He started to sing: 'The future is still yours, still yours, still yours!'
then suddenly pounced on one of the largest suitcases, slammed the lid
down and sat down on it the better to shut it.
The doctor spoke quite a lot that day. I had never seen him so jolly.
Suddenly he decided that I had to be given something as a present and
gave me the leather gloves. Though they were old ones, they were still
very good and did up by means of a strap. I was on the point of refusing,
but he didn't give me a chance. He thrust them at me, saying: 'Take
them and shut up.'
I ought to have thanked him for the present, but instead I said: 'Are you
going away?'
'Yes,' the doctor said. 'I'm going to the Far North, inside the Arctic
Circle. Heard of it?'
I vaguely recalled the letter of the navigating officer.
'Yes.'
'I left my fiancйe there, old chap. Know what that is?'
'Yes.'
'No you don't. At least you know, but don't understand.'
I began to examine the various queer things he was taking with him:
fur trousers with triangular leather seats, metal boot soles with straps to
them, and so on. And the doctor kept talking all the time while he
packed. One suitcase refused to stay shut. He took it by the lid and
tipped it out onto the bed. A large photograph fell at my feet. It was a
yellowed photograph, pretty old, bent in a number of places. On the
back was written in a large round hand: 'Ship's company of the
schooner St. Maria'. I started to examine the photograph, and to my
surprise I found Katya's father on it. Yes, it was him all right. He was
sitting right in the middle of the crew, his arms folded across his chest,
exactly as in the portrait hanging in the Tatarinovs' dining-room. I
couldn't find the doctor on the photograph, though, and asked him why
this was.
'The reason is, old chap, that I didn't sail in the schooner St. Maria,'
the doctor said, puffing mightily as he strapped down the suitcase.
He took the photograph from me and looked round where to put it.
'Somebody left it as a keepsake.'
I wanted to ask who that person was, whether it was Katya's father,
but he had already slipped the photograph into a book and put the book
in one of the rucksacks.
80
'Well, Sanya,' he said, 'I've got to be going. Write and tell me what
you're doing and how you're getting on. Don't forget, old chap, you're a
rare specimen!'
I wrote down his address and we said goodbye.
It had gone ten by the time I reached the Home and I was a little
afraid the doors would be locked. But they weren't. They were open and
the lights were on in all the rooms. What could it be?
I tore pell-mell into the dormitory. Empty! The beds were made— the
boys must have been preparing to turn in.
'Uncle Petya!' I yelled and saw the cook coming out of the kitchen in
a new suit, with his hat in his hand. 'What's happened?'
'I'm invited to the meeting,' he informed me in a mysterious whisper.
I heard no more, as I was running upstairs into the school.
The assembly hall was packed to overflowing and boys and girls
crowded round the doorway and in the corridor. But I got in all right. 1
sat down in the front row, not on a seat, but on the floor right in front of
the platform.
It was an important meeting chaired by Varya. Very red, she sat
among the platform party with a pencil in her hand, tossing back a lock
of hair which kept tumbling over her nose. Other boys and girls from the
Komsomol Group sat on either side of her, busily writing something
down. And over the heads of the platform party, facing the hall, hung
my poster. I caught my breath. It was my poster-an aeroplane soaring
among the clouds, and over it the words: 'Young People, Join the
S.F.A.F.!' What my poster had to do with it I couldn't make out for quite
a time, because all the speakers to a man were talking about some
ultimatum or other. It wasn't until Korablev took the floor that the thing
became clear to me.
'Comrades!' he said quietly but distinctly. 'The Soviet Government
has had an ultimatum presented to it. On the whole, you have taken the
proper measure of this document. We must give our own answer to that
ultimatum. We must set up at our school a local group of the Society of
Friends of the Air Force!'
Everyone clapped, and thereafter clapped after each phrase Korablev
uttered. He ended up by pointing to my poster and it made me feel
proud.
Then Nikolai Antonich took the floor, and he, too, made a very good
speech, and after that Varya announced that the Komsomol Group were
joining the S.F.A.F. in a body. Those who wished to sign on could do so
at her office tomorrow from ten to ten, meanwhile she proposed taking
a collection for Soviet aviation and sending the money in to Pravda.
I must have been very excited, because Valya, who was also sitting on
the floor a little way off, looked at me in surprise. I got out the silver
fifty-kopeck piece and showed it to him. He twigged. He wanted to ask
me something, probably something about the spinning-tackle, but
checked himself and just nodded.
I jumped up on to the platform and gave the coin to Varya.
'Ivan Pavlovich,' I said to Korablev, who was standing in the corridor
smoking a cigarette in a long holder, 'at what age do they take on
airmen?'
He looked at me gravely.
'I don't know, Sanya. I don't think they'd take you yet.'
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