her fur parka, embroidered along the hem with coloured cloths, with a
broad belt and a hood with a huge fur frill which surrounded her face
like a halo.
By force of habit I raised my hand, as though asking to be flagged off.
'So long, comrades!'
We were off!
I will not describe how we flew to Vanokan, how our navigator
astonished me by his ability to read the snowy wastes beneath us as if
they were a map. Over one nomad camp he asked me to stop for a while
and was very disappointed to learn that this could not be done.
We found Ledkov in a bad state. I had often met him at meetings and
had once even flown him from Krasnoyarsk to Igarka. I had been
impressed, among other things, by his knowledge of literature. I learnt
that he had graduated from the Teachers' Training College in Leningrad
and was generally an educated man. Until the age of twenty-three he
had been a herdsman in the tundra and the Nentsi always spoke of him
with pride and affection.
He was sitting on the bed, grinding his teeth with pain. The pain
would suddenly lift him up. He would hoist himself out of the bed,
gripping the back of it with one hand, and throw himself into a chair. It
was terrible to see that big, strong body writhing in pain. Sometimes it
abated for a few minutes, and then his face would assume a normal
expression. Then it would start again. He bit his upper lip and his eyes-
the stricken eyes of a strong man fighting for self-control-would begin to
squint, and the next moment he would get up on his good leg and fling
himself on the bed. But even there he kept tossing about, shifting from
place to place. Whether it was because the bullet had hit some nerve-
knot or the wound had festered I could not say. But never had I
witnessed such a harrowing scene. It made one wince to look at him as
he lay writhing on the bed in a vain attempt to still the excruciating
pain, then suddenly, without warning, fling himself into a chair at the
bedside.
The sight was enough to make any man lose his head, but not Ivan
Ivanovich. On the contrary, he seemed to have suddenly grown younger.
He bunched his lips and took on the appearance of a determined young
army doctor before whom everyone quails. He immediately chased
everyone out of the sick-room, including the Chairman of District
Executive Committee who had insisted on being present during the
examination of Ledkov.
He ordered paraffin lamps to be fetched from all over the
settlement—'mind they don't smoke'—and hung them round the walls,
making the room brighter than anyone had ever seen in Vanokan
181
before. Then the door was slammed to and the sight of that dazzlingly
bright room with the sick man lying on a dazzlingly white table and
people in dazzlingly white gowns was shut from the astonished gaze of
Vanokan.
Forty minutes later Ivan Ivanovich came out of the improvised
operating theatre. The operation had just been a success, because he
turned to me as he was taking off his gown and said something in Latin,
then quoted Kozma Prutkov: 'If you want to be happy, be .it!'
Early the next morning we left Vanokan and landed at Zapolarie three
and a half hours later without further adventure.
The incident—the brilliant operation performed by the doctor under
such difficult conditions, and our adventurous flight—was eventually
reported in Izvestia. The paragraph ended with the words:
'The patient is making a rapid recovery.' As a matter of fact he did
recover quickly.
Luri and I received a vote of thanks and the doctor a testimonial from
the Nenets National Area. The old boat-hook now hung in my room on
the wall beside a large map showing the drift of the schooner St. Maria.
At the beginning of June I went to Moscow. Unfortunately I had very
little time, having been allowed only ten days during which I had to see
both to my own private affairs and to the private and public affairs of
my Captain.
182
PART FIVE
FOR THE HEART
CHAPTER ONE
I MEET KATYA
Ten days to break one engagement and arrange another is not much,
considering that I had a lot of other business to attend to in Moscow.
For one thing I was to read a paper before the Geographical Society on
the subject of 'A Forgotten Polar Expedition', and it was not even
written yet. I also had to take up with the Northern Sea Route
Administration the question of organising a search for the St. Maria.
Valya had done some preliminary work for me. He had arranged with
the Geographical Society, for instance, for me to read the paper. But, of
course, he could not write it for me.
I telephoned Katya. She answered the phone herself.
'This is Sanya,' I said.
She was silent. Then, in the most ordinary voice, she said,
'Sanya?'
'That's right.'
There was another pause.
'Are you in Moscow for long?'
'No, only a few days,' I replied, also trying to speak in an ordinary
voice, as if I were not seeing her that very moment with the untied
earflaps of her fur cap and the overcoat, wet with snow, which she had
worn the last time we met, in Triumfalnaya Square.
'On leave?'
'Both on leave and on business.'
