'Remember?' we kept saying, as we dug up old memories, walking
very quickly for some reason. It was snowing and there were lots of
children on the boulevards. One young nursemaid looked at us and
laughed.
'Hey, what are we running like this for?' said Pyotr, and we slowed
down.
'Pyotr, I've got a proposal,' I said, when, having walked our fill, we
were sitting in a cafe in Tverskaya.
'Go ahead!'
'I'm going to make a phone-call, and you sit here, drink your coffee
and say nothing.'
The telephone was some distance from our table, right near the
entrance, and I deliberately spoke loudly.
'Katya, I'd like you to meet a friend. Can you come along? What are
you doing? By the way, I want to speak with you.'
'So do I. I'd come, but everybody's ill here.' She sounded sad and I
felt a sudden urgent desire to see her.
'What do you mean, everybody? I've just seen Maria Vasilievna.'
'Where?'
'She was calling on Korablev.'
'Ah,' Katya said in a rather odd voice. 'No, Grandma's ill. Sanya, I
gave Mother those letters,' she added in a whisper, and I involuntarily
pressed the receiver closer to my ear. 'I told her that we had met in
Ensk and then I gave it to her.'
'And how did she take it?' I asked, also in a whisper.
'Very badly. I'll tell you later. Very badly.'
She fell silent and I could hear her breathing through the telephone.
We said goodbye and I returned to the table with a sense of guilt. I felt
dejected and uneasy, and Pyotr seemed to guess my state of mind.
'I say,' he began, deliberately going off on a new tack, 'did you
discuss this flying school plan of yours with Father?'
'Yes.'
'What does he say?'
'He approves.'
127
Pyotr sat with his long legs stretched out, thoughtfully fingering the
places where a beard and moustache would be growing in the course of
time.
'I must talk things over with him too,' he murmured. 'You see, last
year I wanted to enter the Academy of Arts.'
'Well?'
'But this year I've changed my mind.'
'Why?'
'I may not have the talent for it.'
I started laughing. But he looked serious and worried.
'Well, if you'd like to know, I think it strange, your wanting to go in
for art. I always thought of you as becoming an explorer, say, or a sea
captain.'
'That's more interesting, of course,' Pyotr said irresolutely. 'But I like
painting.'
'Have you shown your work to anybody?'
'Yes, to X-.'
He gave the name of a well-known painter.
'Well?'
'He says it's not bad.'
'That settles it, then! It would be cockeyed if you, with your talent,
were to go to some flying school or other! You may be ruining a future
Repin in you.'
'Oh, I don't know.'
'I'm not so sure.'
'You're kidding,' Pyotr said with annoyance. 'This is a serious
matter.'
We left the cafe, and wandered about Tverskaya for half an hour,
talking about everything under the sun, switching from our Ensk to
Shanghai, which had just been captured by the People's Army, from
Shanghai to Moscow, to my school, from my school to Pyotr's, trying to
impress upon each other that we were not living in this world just any
old how, but with a philosophical purpose...
CHAPTER NINETEEN
IT COULD ALL HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT
Gone were those remote times when, coming in after ten o'clock, we
had, with fast-beating heart, to sidle round the fearsome Japhet, who,
clad in his huge sheepskin coat, sat on a stool at the entrance and slept—
if you were lucky to find him asleep. But now I was in my last year and
could come in whenever I liked.
It wasn't very late, though—round about twelve. The boys were still
chatting. Valya was writing something, sitting on his bed with his legs
tucked under him.
128
'I say, Sanya, Korablev wants to see you,' he said. 'That's if you came
in before twelve. What's the time now?'
'Half past eleven.'
'Hurry up!'
I slipped into my overcoat and ran off to see Korablev.
Ours was a most extraordinary conversation, one that I shall never
forget as long as I live, and I must describe it with perfect calm. I must
keep calm, especially now, when so many years have passed. It could all
have been different, of course. It could all have been different if I had
but realised what every word of mine meant for her, if I had been able to
foresee what would happen after our conversation. But there is no end
of these 'ifs' and there is nothing I can blame myself for. Here, then, is
the conversation that took place.
When I came in I found Maria Vasilievna with Korablev. She had been
sitting there all the evening. But she had come to see, not him, but me,
