'Vasily Mandzhura.'
I could not be sure that my postcards would reach my friends. When we parted, we had only noted down the names of the factories where we were going to work. And at those factories there were thousands of other workers!
To Nikita Kolomeyets I decided to write a long, detailed letter. His address was engraved in my memory for life:
'Factory-Training School, Hospital Square, nr. Motor Works.' I wrote the address carefully on the envelope and put a pebble on it to stop it blowing away. As soon as I opened the exercise-book, however, I realized that someone had been using it. Two pages had been torn out of the middle, and the first page was scrawled with Sasha's familiar handwriting. I read what was written there and could not help smiling.
'To the Chief of the Town Security Department.
'I have a very good memory. If I see a person once, I never forget him. The reason why I am telling you all this, Comrade Chief, is that you...'
At this point Sasha's letter broke off. The word 'you' followed the deleted phrase: 'won't laugh at me, like my friends.'.
Again I remembered the day of our arrival, and how the agitated Sasha had tried to prove that he had seen Pecheritsa by a refreshment kiosk. I hadn't forgotten Sasha's wrathful shout, when Petka suggested that he might have been seeing a ghost.
Folding the scribbled page, I put it in the pocket of my blouse and started composing my letter to Nikita. It turned out to be a very long one. This was not so much my fault as Nikita's.
The evening before we parted, Nikita had said: 'I'll only ask you for one thing, old chap—the more details the better. Everyone's life consists of thousands of little details, and only the man who finds out what they're all about and the right way to deal with them can be called a real man. So tell me all the instructive details you notice at your new place of work, Vasil, old chap. And I'll try to find out what they're all about and make use of them on the next course.'
Now I was giving Nikita his instructive details 'at full blast,' as the stokers say. I told him everything: how Tiktor had turned away from us, how we had been afraid at first that we should be lodging with a big house-owner, how Sasha had 'seen' Pecheritsa by a refreshment kiosk. Zuzya Trituzny, the footballer with the cannon-ball shot, who had nearly spoilt our chances of getting a job, I described in sizzling terms. I told Nikita that in my spare time I was thinking of a new way of heating the machines. I gave him a very detailed description of my visit to Madame Rogale-Piontkovskaya's dancing-class. And so that Nikita should not tell me off for going to dances (you never knew what ideas he might get into his head!) I explained my reason for visiting the establishment: '. . . to see for myself if this Rogale-Piontkovskaya was a relative of that old Countess in Zarechye who gave Petlura and Konovalets riflemen such a welcome.'
I asked Nikita to find out more about what had become of the Countess and her aristocratic brother.
Then followed a very favourable description of our director Ivan Fyodorovich Rudenko, who had been so decent to us. I told Nikita about Ivan Fyodorovich's concern for the workers, how he wanted to raise the foundry roof and how he was trying to puzzle out himself the technical secrets that the former owners had taken away with them.
It was getting dark and I had to finish, but my pen went on writing and writing.
I continued my letter with a piece of information that seemed to me most important:
'... Tell Kozakevich to make his new pupils in the foundry cut their sleeves short at the elbow. We had so much spoilage because of those long sleeves, and no one ever noticed it. I only got to know the dodge when I came here. And it's quite simple really. When a trainee is working on a mould he catches his cuffs in the sand. While he's patching up one place, he makes a mess in others. And the result is all sorts of cracks and bumps. It's much easier and quicker to mould with your sleeves short. Get Zhora to tell the foundry trainees all about metal moulds and what they're for. In fact, the best thing would be if he did a casting or two with an iron mould, just as an example. It would help them a lot. Then they won't feel like me, for instance, who'd never seen an iron mould till I came here. . .'
The sun was already dipping into the sea. A warm milky' twilight crept over the tired, sun-baked earth. But still I wrote. My arm ached, even more than from moulding.
A PLAN OF ATTACK
The moon rose full and serene. Its mellow light spangled the calm waters of the bay. The pale-pink chestnuts round the park were silently shedding their last blossoms. Scattered on the ground in the moonlight, they looked like pop-corn.
The three of us had spent the whole of Sunday by the sea, lounging about on the beach like regular holiday- makers. My back still red and tingling from the sun, I had been dragging my feet across the sticky asphalt of Park Street when I nearly bumped into Golovatsky. He was dressed in a light open-necked shirt, cream flannels, and sandals.
'Trying to escape from the heat!' Golovatsky said greeting me. 'The fan at home's gone wrong. I've been trying to read, but it's too sultry. Just wears you out. Let's go down there, a bit further from the road.' And Golovatsky pointed into the depths of the park.
As a matter of fact, it being Sunday, I had intended to visit Turunda. I had even invited my friends to go with me, but they had refused. Golovatsky's suggestion made up my mind for me.
We joined the strollers in the park and followed the path past the open-air cinema, which was surrounded by tall railings. The projector was humming and from near the screen came the sound of a piano. Today they were showing two films—The Bear's Wedding and Bricks—in one programme, and it had attracted a lot of people. For a Sunday, the park itself was comparatively empty.
The green nook into which Golovatsky and I wandered was completely deserted. Through the park railings we could see the moonlit side-road that led into Genoa Street. The air seemed fresher under the branching trees and we began to feel better as we leaned back on a park bench.
'Ssh! Look, Mandzhura!' Golovatsky nudged me and pointed towards the road.
In the light of the moon I caught sight of two girls in flimsy cotton dresses. As soon as they reached the shade of the trees, one of the girls sat down on the front door-step of a house. In frantic haste, as if someone were chasing her, she began to do something to her feet. The other girl did the same. Soon I
realized that both girls were taking off their shoes. Then, like snakes shedding their skins, they peeled off their long stockings, pushed them into their shoes and carefully wrapped them in pieces of paper they must have been keeping for the purpose. Apparently much relieved to be rid of their foot-wear, the girls skipped away in the direction of the Liski. The next moment a whole flock of girls ran up and took refuge in the shade of the trees. Sitting down on the same door-step, they did the same thing as their predecessors, and wrapping their tight shoes in newspapers and handkerchiefs, scampered happily away to their homes.
Smiling and glancing at me mysteriously, Golovatsky said: 'You can't help laughing, can you? That's a sight you can see any evening out here.'
'Look, there are some more!' I whispered.
Two girls appeared in the road, hobbling. One of them, with a fringe, was wearing a sailor's blouse. The other had rigged herself out in a kind of tunic with great, billowing sleeves.
The girl in the sailor's blouse could not even reach the cherished door-step. Clinging to an old lime-tree for support, she kicked off her shiny shoes.
'What a relief!' her voice reached us faintly. 'I thought I'd die they pinched me so!'
'Take your stockings off, Madeleine,' said her friend, who was already sitting on the door-step. 'You'll make a hole in them.'
'Wait a bit, let my toes have a rest.' And the girl in the blouse walked about slowly under the lime-trees, as if she were cooling her feet on the stone pavement.
'You were just asking for it to order such small ones,' said her friend, pulling off her stockings.
