'What's the matter with you? Are you ill?'
'No, I'm all right.'
'Altitude one thousand two hundred metres. Two sharp banks one
way, then two the other. Four upward spins.'
'Okay!'
I was so excited that I was almost on the point of asking permission to
put off the flight.
All that day I thought of Katya, of poor Maria Vasilievna, and of the
Captain, whose life had become so surprisingly interwoven with my
own. But this time I was thinking of them in a different way and my
grievances appeared to me now in a different, calmer light. Of course, I
had not forgotten anything. I had not forgotten my last talk with Maria
Vasilievna, in which every word of hers had had a secret meaning—her
farewell to her youth and to life. itself. I had not forgotten how I had sat
the next day in the waiting-room together with the old lady, and the
door had opened revealing something white with a dark head and a bare
arm dangling from a couch. I had not yet forgotten how Katya had
turned away form me at the funeral, nor had I forgotten my dreams of
meeting her in a few years' time and tossing to her the proofs showing
that I had been right. I had not forgotten how Nikolai Antonich had spat
in my face.
But all this suddenly presented itself to me like a play in which the
chief character is offstage and appears only in the last act, and until then
he is merely talked about. They all talked about a man whose portrait
hangs on the wall-the portrait of a naval officer with a broad forehead, a
square jaw and deep-set eyes. Yes, he was the chief character in this
play. He was a great explorer, killed by non-recognition and his history
had a significance far beyond the bounds of personal affairs and family
relationships. The Great Northern Sea Route had been opened—that
was his history. Through navigation of the Arctic Ocean in a single
season-that had been his idea. The men who had solved the problem
which had confronted mankind for four hundred years were his men.
He could talk with them as equals.
What, compared with this, were my own dreams, hopes and desires!
What did I want? Why did I become an airman? Why was I so keen on
going to the North?
And now, as in my imaginary play, everything clicked into place and
quite simple ideas came into my head concerning my future and my job.
I was keen on the North and on my profession as a polar airman
because it was a profession which demanded from me endurance,
courage and love for my country and my job.
Who knows but that I, too, one day may be named among those men
who could have talked as equals with Captain Tatarinov?
A month before I finished the Balashov school I put in an application
to be sent to the North. But the school would not let me go.
I was kept on as instructor and spent another whole year at Balashov. I
would hardly call myself a good instructor. Of course, I could teach a
man to fly without experiencing any desire to swear at him every
minute. I understood my pupils. It was quite clear to me, for instance,
152
why, on coming out of the plane, one man hastened to light up, while
another wore an air of studied jollity. I was not a teacher by vocation
and found it boring to have to explain a thousand times to others things
I had learnt long ago.
In August 1933 I got leave and went to Moscow. My travelling warrant
was made out for Ensk via Leningrad and people were expecting me in
both these places. Nevertheless I decided to stop over in Moscow, where
no one was expecting me.
Of course, I had no intention of phoning Katya, all the more as I had
received only one greeting from her in all these three years-through
Sanya—and everything was finished and long forgotten. So completely
finished and forgotten that I even decided I would ring her up and had
prepared for the occasion an opening phrase in a polite impersonal tone.
But somehow, when I lifted the receiver in my room at the hotel, my
hand began to shake and I found myself asking for another number
instead-that of Korablev.
He was out of town, on his holiday, and the woman who answered the
phone said that he would not be back until the beginning of the school
year.
Valya, too, was out of town. I was politely informed that lecturer
Zhukov was in the Far North and would be away for six months.
There was no one else I could phone in Moscow, unless it was some
secretary or other member of the staff of the Civil Aviation Board. But I
had no use for secretaries. I picked up the receiver and gave the number.
Nina Kapitonovna answered the phone—I recognised her kind firm
voice at once.
'May I speak to Katya?'
'Katya?' she queried in surprise. 'She's not here.'
'Not at home?'
'Not at home and not in town. Who's that speaking?'
'Grigoriev,' I said. 'Could you give me her address?'
Nina Kapitonovna was silent awhile. Obviously, she hadn't recognised
me. The world was full of Grigorievs.
'She's doing field work. Her address is: Geological Party of Moscow
University, Troitsk.'
I thanked her and rang off.
I did not stay long in Moscow. They received me very politely at the
offices of the Northern Sea Route Administration and the Civil Aviation
Board. My being sent to the North was out of the question, I was told,
until the Balashov School released me.
I did not succeed in getting an assignment to the North until eighteen
months later, and that quite by chance. In Leningrad I had made the
acquaintance of an old Arctic pilot who wanted to return to Central
Russia. He was getting too old to fly under the arduous conditions of the
North. We made an exchange, he taking my place at the school and I
getting an assignment as second pilot on one of the Far North air roots.
