and again at her coral necklace. How far away from her was that
Severnaya Zemlya, lying between some meridians or other!
That was all. Taking leave of her, I began muttering something again,
but Korablev advanced upon me with a stern frown and I found myself
bundled out of the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY
MARIA VASILIEVNA
What surprised me more than anything was that Maria Vasilievna had
not said a word about Katya. Katya and I had spent nine days together
in Ensk, yet Maria Vasilievna never mentioned it.
This silence was suspicious, and it was on my mind that night until I
fell asleep, and then again in the morning during Physics, Social Science
and Literature. I thought about it after school, too, when I wandered
aimlessly about the streets. I remember stopping in front of a billboard
and mechanically reading the titles of the plays, when a girl suddenly
came round the corner and crossed the street at a run. She was without
a hat and wore nothing but a light dress with short sleeves—in such a
frost! Perhaps that was why I did not immediately recognise her.
'Katya!'
She looked round but did not stop, and merely waved her hand. I
overtook her.
'Why haven't you got your coat on, Katya? What's the matter?'
She wanted to say something, but her teeth were cluttering and she had
to clench them and fight for self-control before being able to say:
'I'm going for a doctor. Mother's very ill.'
'What is it?'
'I don't know. I think she's poisoned herself.'
There are moments when life suddenly changes gear, and everything
seems to gain momentum, speeding and changing faster than you can
realise.
From the moment I heard the words: 'I think she's poisoned herself,
everything changed into high gear, and the words kept ringing in my
head with frightful insistence.
We ran to one doctor in Pimenovsky Street, then to another doctor
who lived over the former Hanzhonkov's cimena and burst into a quiet,
tidy flat with dust-sheets over the furniture and were met by a surly old
woman wearing what looked like another dark-blue dust-sheet.
She heard us out with a deprecating shake of the head and left the
room. On her way out she took something off the table in case we might
pinch it.
A few minutes later the doctor came in. He was a tubby pink-faced
man with a close-cropped grey head and a cigar in his mouth.
'Well, young people?'
131
We told him what it was all about, gave him the address and ran out.
In the street, without further ado, I made Katya put on my coat. Her
hair had come undone and she pinned it up as we ran along. But one of
her plaits came loose again and she angrily pushed it under the coat.
An ambulance was standing at the door and we stopped dead in our
tracks at the sight. The ambulance men were coming down the stairs
with a stretcher on which lay Maria Vasilievna.
Her uncovered face was as white as it had been at Korablev's the night
before, only now it looked as if carved in ivory.
I drew back against the banisters to let the stretcher pass, and Katya,
with a piteous murmur 'Mummy!', walked alongside it. But Maria
Vasilievna did not open her eyes, and did not stir. I realised that she was
going to die.
Sick at heart I stood in the yard watching them push the stretcher into
the ambulance. I saw the old lady tuck the blanket round Maria
Vasilievna's feet with trembling hands, saw the steam coming from
everyone's mouth, the ambulance man's, too, as he produced a book
that had to be signed, and from Nikolai Antonich's as he peered
painfully from under his glasses and signed it.
'Not here,' the man said roughly with a gesture of annoyance, and put
the book away into the big pocket of his white overall.
Katya ran home and returned in her own coat, leaving mine in the
kitchen. She got into the ambulance. The doors closed on Maria
Vasilievna, who lay there white and ghastly, and the ambulance, starting
off with a jerk like an ordinary lorry, sped on its way to the casualty
ward.
Nikolai Antonich and the old lady were left alone in the courtyard. For
a time they stood there in silence. Then he turned and went inside,
moving his feet mechanically as though he were afraid of falling. I had
never seen him like that before.
The old lady asked me to meet the doctor and tell him he was not
needed. I ran off and met him in Triumfalnaya Square, at a tobacconist
kiosk. The doctor was buying a box of matches.
'Dead?' he asked.
I told him that she was not and that the ambulance had taken her to
hospital and I could pay him if he wanted.
'No need, no need,' the doctor said gruffly.
I went back to find the old lady sitting in the kitchen, weeping. Nikolai
Antonich was no longer there—he had gone off to the hospital.
'Nina Kapitonovna,' I said, 'is there anything I can do for you?' She
blew her nose and wept and blew her nose again. This went on for a long
time while I stood and waited. At last she asked me to help her on with
her coat and we took a tram to the hospital.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
ONE IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT
132
That night, with the sense of speed still whistling as it were in my ears
as I hurtled on, though I was lying in my bed in the dark, it dawned on
me that Maria Vasilievna's decision to do away with herself had been
