forget the way she turned her back on me at the funeral, but Nikolai
Antonich suddenly got up from the armchair and a hubbub arose again.
The Bubenchikov aunts fell upon me and something struck me painfully
on the back. I waved my hand with a hopeless gesture and went away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
OUR LAST MEETING
I was more lonely than ever, and buried myself in my books , with a
sort of cold fury. I seemed to have lost even the faculty of thinking. And
a good thing too. It was better that way.
Suddenly it struck me that they might not accept me in the flying
school on account of my health, so I took up gymnastics seriously-high
jumps, swallow dives, back-bends, bar exercises and whatnot. Every
morning I felt my muscles and examined my teeth. What worried me
most, though, was my short stature-all my recent troubles seemed to
have made me shorter still.
At the end of March, however, I got together all the necessary
documents and sent them to the Board of Osoaviakhim (*A voluntary
society for the promotion of aviation and chemical defence.- Tr.) with
an application asking to be sent to the School of Aeronautics in
Leningrad. There is no need to explain why I wanted to leave Moscow.
Pyotr was going to Leningrad too. He had finally made up his mind to
enter the Academy of Arts. Sanya, too, for the same reason.
During the spring holidays Pyotr and I went to Ensk, travelling again
without tickets by the way, because we were saving our money for when
we left school.
But this was quite a different trip and I myself had become quite a
different person these last six months. Aunt Dasha was aghast when she
saw me, and the judge declared that people looking as I did should
140
answer for it before the law and that he would 'take every step to
discover the reasons for the defendant's lowered morale'.
Pyotr was the only person to whom I had given an account - and a
brief one at that-of my talk with Korablev and my interview with Nikolai
Antonich. Pyotr came out with a surprising suggestion. After listening to
my story he said: 'I say, what if you do find it?'
'Find what?'
'The expedition.'
'What if I do?' I said to myself.
A shiver of excitement ran through me at the thought. And again, as in
distant childhood, dissolving views appeared before me: white tents in
the snow; panting dogs hauling sledges; a huge man, a giant in fur
boots, coming towards the sledges, and I, too, in fur boots and a huge
fur cap, standing in the opening of a tent, pipe between my teeth...
There was little hope of such a meeting, however. Deep down in my
heart I felt that I was right. But sometimes a chilling sense of doubt
would creep into it, especially when I thought of that accursed 'von'.
Shortly before my departure for Ensk, Korablev had told me that
Nikolai Antonich had shown him the original power of attorney issued
by Captain Tatarinov authorising Nikolai Ivanich von Vyshimirsky to
conduct all the business of the expedition. 'You were wrong,' he had
said with succinct cruelty.
I felt lonesome at Ensk, and thought that when I got back to Moscow
and took up my books I would have no time to feel lone some. But I did
find time. Bitter and silent, I wandered round the school.
Then one day, on coming home, I found a sealed note addressed to 'A.
Grigoriev, Form 9' lying on the table in the hall where the postman left
all our mail.
I opened it and read:
'Sanya, I'd like to have a talk with you. If you're free, come to the
public garden in Triumfalnaya Square today at half past seven.'
It makes me laugh to think what a change came over everything the
moment I read this note. Meeting Likho on the stairs, I said 'good
afternoon' to him, and at dinner I gave Valya my favourite dish of sweet
cream of wheat with raisins.
Then came six o'clock. Then half-past six. Seven. Seven o'clock found
me at Triumfalnaya Square. A quarter past. Half past. It was getting
dark, but the street lamps had not been lighted yet, and all kinds of
ridiculous thoughts came into my mind: 'The lamps won't go on and I
won't recognise her... The lamps will go on, but she won't come... The
lamps won't go on and she won't recognise me...'
The lamps did go on, and that familiar public garden, where Pyotr and
I once tried to sell cigarettes, where I had swotted a thousand times at
my lessons on spring days, that noisy garden, in which one can swot
only when one is seventeen, that old garden which was the meeting
place for our whole school, and two others besides— that garden became
transformed, like a theatre. In a moment we would meet. Ah, there she
was!
We shook hands in silence. It was quite warm, being April 2nd, but all
of a sudden it started snowing—as if on purpose to make me remember
this day all my life.
141
'I'm glad you've come, Katya. I've been wanting to speak to you too. I
couldn't explain that time, at your place, because Nikolai Antonich
didn't give me a chance, the way he started shouting. Of course, if you
believe him-'
I was afraid to finish the sentence, because if she did believe him I'd
have to leave this garden, where we were sitting pale and grave and
talking without looking at each other-leave this garden, which seemed
to contain nobody else but us two, though someone was sitting on each
garden seat and the dour-faced little keeper was limping up and down
the paths.
'Don't let's talk about that any more.'
'I can't help talking about it, Katya. If you believe him we have
nothing to talk about anyway.'
