'That's right! We used to study at the same factory school.'
'He's a good chap. He didn't get rattled.'
But I was wrestling with a problem: should I tell Flegontov, the secretary of the Party organization, that he had been wrong about one thing?
I said cautiously: 'But there are one or two things I don't agree with you about, Comrade Flegontov.'
'What exactly?' His big sunburnt, slightly pock-marked face turned towards me.
I noticed that the peak of his old army cap gleamed with graphite. He must have been wearing it ever since the Civil War.
'When you hinted that Kashket is inciting his partner to turn out bad work, you seemed to be protecting Tiktor. What you seemed to be saying was, Kashket's a spoiler and a slacker, but Tiktor's as pure as a lamb. That's not true, Comrade Flegontov! If only you knew...'
Flegontov interrupted me.
'How old is Tiktor?'
'About eighteen.'
'I see. Well, what ought I to know?'
In clumsy, stumbling phrases I told the secretary how Tiktor had acted at school, how he had stuck out against the collective, how he had failed to respond to the security alarm because he was drunk.
'And is that all?' Flegontov asked.
'But we expelled him from the Komsomol! He's a hopeless case.'
'You're making a mistake, Mandzhura,' Flegontov said calmly. 'We can't throw people away like that. As far as I can make out from my own observations, your mate Tiktor is an obstinate, stuck-up sort of fellow. But such people can be re-educated. Don't you see, Mandzhura, that we've got to fight for every man, especially the young man? I'm sure that expulsion from the Komsomol has turned your mate sour. You must try and make him understand that everything is not lost. I don't want you, a Komsomol organizer, to wash your hands of people like Tiktor. That won't do us any good. If he's stubborn, go at him with good, principled arguments. It's the easiest thing in the world to say a man's a hopeless case and leave it at that. But sometimes, you know, even a criminal can be reformed and put on the right path by the strength of our convictions. We've got the truth on our side!. . .'
That evening a north wind sprang up and the bay was flecked with white-capped waves. The strong steppe wind lashed them furiously and clouds of spray gleamed pink in the bleak light of the setting sun. For a few minutes our faces turned a deep ruddy bronze in the sunset. Petka and I were sitting on a bench near the harbour restaurant.
Night approached imperceptibly. As the blue shadows crept over the earth, a faint smell of baking
bread reached us on the little mound where we sat.
Knowing that Petka had no rehearsal at the club this evening, I had suggested a walk along the sea-shore. Petka had agreed willingly, and when we sat down on the bench, he said with a sigh of relief:
'Flegontov did me a good turn today, didn't he? He must have known I wasn't very well up in my knowledge of Britain. You see, I had picked on China as my subject. The number of notes I'd made about it—colossal! And then Golovatsky made me read about our relations with Britain.. .'
'I know as much about Chinese affairs as I do about the Chinese language,' I consoled Petka.
'Chinese affairs are very complicated,' Petka said firmly, in a rather superior tone.
He was silent for a moment, then as if deciding to abandon his shyness, he said enthusiastically:
'I say, Vasil, do you remember the statement that the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen made to the Soviet Government?'
'I've missed a few things lately... Wait a minute, though ... He's dead, isn't he?'
'He made the statement last spring, just before he died. He dictated it to his friends. It's a fine statement! Listen. This is what Sun Yat-sen said: 'You stand at the head of a Union of Free Republics—the legacy left to the world by the immortal Lenin. With the help of that legacy...' ' Petka wrinkled his broad forehead in an effort to recall the exact words, then went on enthusiastically: 'Yes, and then it goes on like this. '.. .With the help of that legacy the victims of imperialism will inevitably achieve liberation from that international system whose foundations have from ancient times been rooted in slave-owning, wars, and injustice...' Fine, isn't it? What conviction! And it ends up like this: 'In saying farewell to you, dear comrades, I wish to express the hope that soon the day will come when the U.S.S.R. will welcome a great and free China as its friend and ally, and that in the great struggle for the liberation of the oppressed peoples of the world both allies will march forward to victory shoulder to shoulder.' Perhaps you and I will live to see that day, Vasil. Think what China and the U.S.S.R. mean together! Hundreds of millions! Nearly half the world! We shan't be afraid of anyone then!'
Just then we heard voices behind us.
'There's someone sitting over there!' I heard Golovatsky say loudly. 'This will do, there's an empty bench here. You can go to the restaurant later.'
And suddenly I felt as if a bucket of cold water had been tipped over me—Tiktor's harsh, stubborn voice replied: 'What do you want to talk to me for? I'm not a Komsomol member...'
'So you think if I'm secretary of the Komsomol organization there's nothing for us to talk about?'
'Yes, I do. . . You caricatured me in your newspaper as if I was a saboteur...'
We were sitting on the lee side of them and could hear every word, but at that moment the lights of an engine showed up from behind the warehouses.
A shunting engine rolled past hauling a long line of empty trucks. For a minute the air was filled with the hiss of steam, the clank of wheels, the piercing whistles of the guards waving their lanterns from the trucks.
What Tolya and Tiktor said to each other amid the noise of the passing train, I don't know, but when the last truck winked its red light and vanished into the darkness, the wind again brought us Golovatsky's excited voice.
'You've got youth, strength, you've got a good pair of hands, Tiktor,' Golovatsky was saying feelingly. 'I won't believe that you can't work well. I just can't believe it! But you keep on turning out bad work, careless work, work that's done any old how. And don't talk to me about bad models. I know a bit about foundry work and I won't believe that under existing conditions you can't turn out a decent job.'
'If you give me a different partner, I'll show them...'
'Who do you mean by 'them,' Tiktor?'
'Don't you know yourself? The chaps from my town! I suppose they've been complaining to you about me, haven't they?'
'If you are thinking of Maremukha and Bobir, you're quite wrong, Tiktor. I've never heard them say a word about you. As for Mandzhura, he gave you up as a bad job long ago. He and I even had a bit of an argument about you.'
'An argument?' Tiktor asked in surprise.
'Yes, that surprises you, doesn't it? Mandzhura thinks you're a hopeless case, and I say you aren't. He'd be glad to have a decent chat with you and forget the past, but he's sure you'll give him the cold shoulder.'
'And what do you think?' A fresh note of interest had' crept into Tiktor's voice, and it was not so proud.
Golovatsky was silent.
And in that silence, broken only by the distant whistle of the engine, the twanging of an orchestra in the harbour restaurant, and the moaning of the wind, I realized that Flegontov had told Golovatsky what I had said against Tiktor that day.
'What do I think?' Golovatsky repeated, then deciding to bide his time a little before answering the question, he said: 'All right, I'll tell you, but before I do so, you must answer a question that interests me.'
'I will,' Tiktor replied firmly.
'You'll answer everything I ask you?'
'Yes.'
That 'yes' sounded very sincere.
'Why did you do private jobs when you were studying at the factory-training school?'
'So you know about that too? ... All right, I'll tell you... To earn money!'
'But weren't your parents helping you?'
'Like hell they were! After my mother died, my Dad got married to another woman. She got him right under her thumb and set him against me.'
