My pocket was empty!
'Steady,' I told myself. 'The main thing is not to panic. Pull yourself together!'
With sad, hungry eyes :I gazed at the grinning mouth of a pike on a salad dish, then crept miserably away from the counter.
'Steady on, don't get excited!' I tried to reassure myself. 'You've just got your pockets mixed.'
Going over to the window-sill, I tossed my brief case on to it and rummaged through my pockets with trembling fingers. But all in vain—the money had gone, gone with the Sharks of New York.
In the pocket of my chumarka I found the crumpled ruble and coins that the ticket-seller had given me for change. But what were these in comparison with the wealth that had been stolen from me! It must have been those scoundrels in the check caps who had taken it!
But how should I get home?
'Keep it up along the sleepers!' I remembered the words of a long-forgotten song.
Yes, along the sleepers. . . There was nothing for it. I would do a day's work here and there for the kulaks on the road. I would work as a farm-labourer and get back!
Perhaps I could sell my chumarka?. . . But who would buy a ragged old thing like that?
When we were in a tough spot Nikita had advised us to remember the old sea saying: 'Rub your nose and you'll get over it.' I scratched my nose so hard that I nearly took the skin off. But it didn't help a bit!...
Should I send Nikita a telegram asking for help? Just one word—'robbed!' and the address—'Kharkov Station —To be called for'?... But what a row it would cause at school! 'Look at that!' they would say. 'We've sent a fool! Instead of sticking up for us, he's been wasting our money!
Just a wool-gatherer!' And wouldn't Tiktor gloat!
No, I mustn't send a telegram.
I must find my own way out of the mess. It had been my fault and I must take what was coming to me! Now I realized the truth of Nikita's advice, when he used to tell us: 'Mind you never have anything to do with those Harry Peels and Rudolph Valentinoes. They're poison. Those films are a school for bandits. They can't lead a man to any good!'
How right he had been! What on earth had made me go and see those 'Sharks'!. . . It wouldn't have mattered if I had never even heard of them!... What could I do? How could I get out of this mess? And the money they had stolen! A small fortune!
I started to count the change that the thieves had left me. A ruble forty kopeks. Not very rich! But it was enough for bread and soda water. I would stick it out for a couple of days somehow, get everything done, then bilk my way home. I would creep under the carriage seat and lie there quietly so that the conductor wouldn't notice me. Or perhaps I could jump a goods train.
SPRING MORNING
Day came. The porters started cleaning the station and I went out into the street. Sleepy and hungry, I felt I should scarcely be able to last a day on bread and soda water. The long journey, the lack of food, the worry and excitement of it all had drained my strength. I swayed as I walked down the street.
The trams had not started yet, but there were plenty of people about. Janitors were opening gates. Housewives with shopping-bags in their hands were hurrying off to market. They were all heading in one direction, so to kill time I wandered after them.
'Blagbaz,' the famous Kharkov market, was the first place to wake up.
Stalls were opening one after the other. Miserable and unwashed, I walked round 'Blagbaz' until a pungent appetizing smell struck my nostrils. It even ousted the smells of salted cabbage and celery. Nostrils quivering, like a hound on the scent, I made in the direction of the smell. A lean-faced market woman, in a wadded jacket, was bustling about by two smoking braziers on which stood two huge pots.
'Hot flachkies! Hot flachkies! Buy up, buy up, good people! Very tasty, very cheap! You'll never find such tasty flachkies anywhere else, not even in fairyland! Oh, they're lovely! The best cheapest food you can get in the world! Buy my flachkies! ..'
... If any of you have ever stood in a market, beside a blazing brazier, with a clay bowl in your hands, and a rough wooden spoon—it must be a wooden spoon—and standing thus, eaten fresh, hot, peppery tripe cutlets, or flachkies as they are called in the Ukraine, with cream and spice, and onions, and garlic, and red pepper, and grated cheese, all scented with laurel leaves and parsley, you will understand just how hard it was for me not to break into my last ruble.
Even three hours later, when the offices opened and I walked up to the tall building on the corner of Karl Liebknecht Street, my mouth was still burning with the red pepper.
Those flachkies hadn't been so cheap, after all. Half a ruble gone already! Now what? Suppose the head of the Central Committee's education department was away and I had to wait for him?
Enough! No more luxury today! Until tomorrow 'I must not spend a single kopek. No soda water for me. I could drink from the tap—it was free and just as good. I must save my money, so that I could at least buy a scrap of bread to keep me going on the road back, when I should be dodging the inspectors.
I had no trouble getting into the building. My Komsomol membership card and other papers were inspected and returned to me with a pass.
I walked into the spacious entrance-hall and handed the pass to the sentry. The sentry checked it and showed me where to go. As soon as I entered the hall, I began to feel timid. When I had to take my coat off, I felt worse. At the cloak-stand, together with my hat, galoshes and chumarka. I seemed to lose half my courage.
'What floor, comrade?' the liftwoman called out to me. I had heard before that in the capital there were machines that carried people right to the top of buildings, but it was the first time I had ever seen a lift.
'I want Room 246,' I said to the liftwoman, looking at my pass.
'Get in, I'll take you up.'
'No thanks,' said I and walked off hurriedly down the carpeted corridor to the stairs. Stairs were safer!
At a cautious pace I mounted the stairs. During my travels, my feet had got used to the warm galoshes and now, as 'I walked along in my thin-soled shoes, I felt as if I had nothing on my feet at all.
Wondering at the cleanliness and quiet everywhere, I turned into a corridor at the top of the stairs. All the doors had little numbers on them, but I could not find the education department.
A shortish, thick-set man in top-boots was walking down the corridor towards me with steady, deliberate tread. I could not see his face—the sun from the windows was shining in my eyes.
'Please, comrade, can you tell me...' I began, hurrying up to the man.
'I can indeed,' he said and stopped in front of me.
But I could ask no more. . , Before me stood the very man whose photograph 'I had seen the evening before in the newspaper.
In my surprise I forgot the number of the room I was looking for.
To help me out of my confusion, he asked cheerfully:
'Got lost? Where are you from, lad?' 'I'm from the border. . .' 'From the border? A visitor from afar, eh? What's your business?'
And at that moment a daring thought flashed into my head—what if I told the General Secretary himself all about our troubles?
'May I speak to you?' I asked.
As soon as we entered the big, light office with its large square windows looking out over a garden, he offered me a chair, and I suddenly felt my courage return. It was as if my old acquaintance Kartamyshev were sitting in front of me. Still a little nervous and glancing at the bunch of telephones assembled on the end of the big desk, but speaking quite calmly, I explained why my mates had sent me to Kharkov.
The Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Ukraine heard me out very attentively.
Twice he picked up a big green pencil and noted something on his pad. When he did this, I would stop, but
