“What, are you good at shooting?” For an instant, Konstantin’s glance sharpened.
“No. He must have confused me with somebody else.”
For a while, they wandered in the woody part of the park, conferring about the last events in Germany—Jewish pogroms and mass arrests of communists, and it seemed Konstantin avoided expressing his opinion but was mainly interested in what Ulya thought about the German affairs.
“Konstantin, all I know I get from the newspapers and cannot agree more with what they say. You better tell me about your airplanes.”
As though he didn’t hear her question, he pressed her against the trunk of an old oak and exhaled into her face. “Ulya.”
She stiffened but didn’t move away, curious at what would follow and not even flinching as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder. When his left hand sneaked between the buttons of her coat seeking her breast, she wormed her way from his embrace. “No. Please no, Konstantin.”
He broke away. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It does not hurt. It’s what belongs to a marital relationship.”
A momentary look of discomfort crossed his face, and he checked his watch. “Six. Want to go home?”
She did not want to, but she nodded.
On their way to the Volga, they didn’t speak. As the pier came in sight, he broke the silence. “Next Sunday? The same time? The same place?”
“Are you angry?” She did not want to part with him, sensing his brooding mood.
“No, on the contrary. I just wanted to find out if you were a girl with loose morals, because I would never—”
She couldn’t explain to herself why she didn’t let him finish, but she didn’t. “Konstantin, in this case, you must meet my father. I told him about us. He would like to get to know you.”
Again, that fleeting hesitation in his look was not lost on her, which was why his words, “My pleasure” came as a surprise. “We’re off! All passengers aboard!” sounded. As she quickened her steps to the gangway to board the cutter, she heard him shout, “Next Sunday. Here.” And a moment later, as the boat pushed off, “Can’t wait to meet your father.”
On Sunday, Ulya stood at the riverfront, peering at the people approaching. An hour later, Konstantin still had not appeared. She found it vaguely disturbing and, after weighing the situation, decided to take a bus to Volsk the next day.
In the early morning, she caught Rita on her way to the lectures and, rejecting her inquiries about why Ulya wanted her to report that she had a cold, turned to go. “Playing truant?” were the last words she heard while she quickened her steps to the bus station.
A small and fuel-smelling ZIS-8 brought her to Volsk three hours later. She asked for a way to the Technical Aviation Military School and, after hastening through the streets covered with the first snow, found a high fence encircling it. At the checkpoint, she inquired with the sentry about Konstantin Petrov.
“Why do you want him?” The soldier eyed her with suspicion.
“He is my fiancé,” she lied. It was unlikely that just “a friend” would get her any information in such a place.
“And?”
“We were to meet yesterday, but he did not show up.”
“Maybe he was denied his leave or just found another fiancée.” He cackled, showing his rotten teeth.
It must have been Ulya’s countenance that impressed him to approach the subject with more attention. He took a phone and, after waiting for some long moments, reported, “There is a girl. She’s inquiring about her fiancé.” His nose twitched as he listened, then turned his head to her. “What is his name?”
“Konstantin Petrov.”
“Konstantin Petrov,” the soldier repeated into the receiver then lowered it into its cradle.
“What did they say?”
“They’ll call back.”
“When?”
Most likely not inclined to chat, or it was prohibited while on guard duty, the soldier turned away and peered through the window. At the trilling of the phone, he startled, then grabbed the receiver and listened. “There is no cadet with this name here,” he said even before he replaced the receiver.
“It can’t be. I’m telling you he is a cadet in this school,” Ulya insisted.
The sentry gave her a disdainful look and stretched one arm to his rifle. “Citizen, leave the territory of the military base!”
She had no choice but to step back into the street. Where now? She had to find Konstantin and if not him, then the truth. “Where is the orphanage? The one near the school number one,” she asked the first passerby, an old man who pushed a cart filled with charcoal in front of him.
He stopped, slipped his ushanka—fur cap with earflaps—and swiped sweat from his face with its inside. “This is Vodopyanova Street. You go along. When you see a grand building on the left side, that’s the school number one. Right across from it, on the other side of the street, you’ll see a two-story building. It’s the orphanage.” And then, with only a slightest pause, he continued. “What, did you abandon your child? Now conscience got the better of you?” He looked her up and down without hiding his disgust and went on ranting. “You, young girls, have no shame nowadays.” To escape his condemnation, she quickened her steps and the last words she could hear were, “In our time . . .”
It took only about ten minutes till she found the shabby two-story wooden building and pushed the door open into a hall. A squat old woman with a bucket in one hand and a mop in the other regarded her with suspicion. “Are you looking for somebody?”
“I need to find out about one of your former fosterlings.”
“Who is that?”
“Konstantin Petrov. Do you know him?”
“Petrov you say?” Her face showed tension. “Konstantin you say?”
“Yes, Konstantin Petrov.”
“We had Pavlik Petrov, and Zhenya Petrova . . . Innokentiy Petrov . . . Ilyusha . . . but he was Petrovkin.
