'Me stuck-up!' Yuzik laughed. 'I kept on writing and the letters came back to me all the time.'
'What address did you write to, I wonder?'
'To 37, Zarechye.'
'So that's what it was!' I said with relief. 'We had moved to a flat in the Party School.'
'Now I understand,' Weasel said, also with a kind of relief in his voice, and again his face brightened with joy.
The ship was pitching and rolling. Any moment, it seemed, the huge waves would smash one of the glass portholes and pour into the saloon.
'You've grown up,' Weasel said eyeing me closely. 'Not the same Vasya that ransacked the birds' nests, eh! Remember how we found that hawk's nest on the cliff near the cemetery?'
'You bet I do!' I said smiling. 'We found a yellow egg there with red spots on it.'
'Yes, a very rare egg. And Dad chucked it away with all the rest of my collection.' There was a genuine note of regret in Weasel's voice.
'That was when you took two icons out of their frames and put eggs in them instead, wasn't it?'
'That's right,' he exclaimed. 'What a memory you've got!'
'You made us so jealous with your gilded boxes. None of us had anything like them.'
'No, they didn't,' Weasel agreed and his face broke into a broad smile.
The waiter came over to us, wiping his tray and balancing with the agility of a tight-rope walker.
'What's this, friends meeting at an empty table!' he said with a smile. 'What can I do for you?'
Golovatsky winked at me, then cleared his throat pompously and asked: 'Any lobsters?'
'What do you mean, sir!' The waiter stared at Golovatsky as if he had dropped from the moon.
It cost us a great effort not to burst out laughing.
Weasel also looked at Tolya in surprise. How was he to know that it was a favourite joke of our secretary's to amuse us with the knowledge of aristocratic manners that he had gleaned from old novels?
'What else has this unsavoury establishment to offer then?' Golovatsky drawled in his best aristocratic manner.
The old waiter brightened up visibly.
'Olives, if you wish, sir! Caviare, fresh or salted! Very nice with fresh cucumbers! Butter. Smoked mullet. Mackerel. Sturgeon. Herrings and mustard sauce. Cold veal and horse-radish...'
'Listen, old chap,' Tolya said, suddenly changing his tone, 'give us a good plateful of olives and about ten pounds of bread. We've got terrific appetites. Is your bread fresh?'
'Baked in Kerch,' said the waiter.
'That's fine!' Golovatsky said. 'Nice and crusty?'
'Very crusty, sir!'
'Let's go on then. Butter. Cucumbers. Mackerel, or mullet, if it's good. And tea with lemon in it, of course... '
'Nothing to drink?'
'How do you mean, 'nothing'?' Tolya exclaimed. 'What about the tea?'
'Nothing stimulating?' The waiter eyed our secretary meaningfully.
'Don't go in for such things,' Tolya snapped. 'We'll have some mineral water though, if you've got it.'
'The passengers drank it all this afternoon!' And the waiter spread his arms despairingly.
'Just a sec', chaps!' Yuzik jumped to his feet and walked quickly to the companion way with as much ease as if the ship had not been rolling at all.
My old friend had been nimble enough as a boy. He had Ukrainian, Polish, and perhaps even gypsy blood in his veins. There wasn't a cranny in the Old Fortress that he hadn't climbed into, and that was why we had called him Weasel. But at sea Yuzik's movements had become amazingly sure and supple. He swayed effortlessly with the roll of the ship. Just the man to dance a hornpipe at one of our shows!
'Fine chap, isn't he?' I said to Tolya.
'Looks as if he's a smart sailor,' Tolya agreed. There was a clatter from the companion way as Weasel ran down it carrying two bottles of mineral water. A third was peeping out of his side pocket.
'From my own cellar!' he said heaving a deep breath. And to the waiter: 'Nikolai Ivanovich, bring us some glasses, please.'
''Coming right away, Yosif Vikentievich!' the waiter called.
It was the first time anyone had addressed my old friend by his patronymic in my presence. I didn't
even know that Weasel was a 'Vikentievich!'
Well, our childhood days were over now. Gone were those wonderful times when we used to run about the grassy banks of the Smotrich hoping to find Turkish coins in the mud.
'What's your job on this ship, Yuzik?' I asked.
'I'm fourth mate,' Yuzik replied. 'Before I came to the Azov Sea, I'd sailed on quite a few other craft—the Toiler of the Sea, the Feodosiya, and the Pestel. I went through my practical training on the Transbalt. Even went abroad on her.'
'How did you manage it all in the time!' I said, envying Weasel a little. 'We only finished at the factory- training school this year.'
'I'm older than you,' Yuzik replied with dignity. 'You and Maremukha were still at the people's school when I was manning sails off Batumi.'
A heavy wave struck the ship. Tea-spoons scattered over the buffet-counter. A few olives slipped off their plate and rolled over the floor.
'Oho!' said Yuzik, and listened for a moment. 'That took us head on. The wind's changing. It'll be blowing right from the East soon.'
'Will an east wind be better or worse than the one we've got now, Yuzik?' I asked as off-handedly as I could, but there must have been a note of alarm in my voice.
Yuzik eyed me keenly.
'Afraid of getting drowned, Vasil? Don't worry! This ship can weather any storm. A change of wind can't hurt her.'
With the head wind howling louder and louder outside it was pleasant to sit among a circle of new friends listening to your old friend yarn about his voyage, remembering other old friends and the battle with those boy- scout snobs...
Then Yuzik took me over the ship, showed me the stokehold, the chart house, the crew's quarters, and finally led me to his cabin. He made his bed on a little couch, and since I was his guest, offered me the narrow bunk with a high side to prevent one from falling out.
The cabin was cosy and well looked after. Above the table hung a bookshelf with a number of books on navigation and steering. I thumbed through one of the books whose margins were covered with notes in Yuzik's hand. It was hard to believe that my old friend had already learnt something so incomprehensible to me as this science of navigating a ship.
A kind of map moulded in lead hung over the couch. There was something familiar about it. On glancing at it more closely I recognized the outlines of our town, copied from a map of the sixteenth century.
Putting his arm round my shoulder, Yuzik said: 'I bought it in Odessa. I thought I'd seen it somewhere before, so I took a closer look. And blow me if it wasn't our town!'
'The Old Fortress is shown on it too! Look!' I exclaimed, examining the fortress with its walls and bastions that barred the entrance to the town.
'It's very fine work. Everything's shown, even the smallest tower,' Weasel assented. 'And the river Smotrich. See how it makes a loop round the town that's knotted by the fortress?'
'And here's the fortress bridge! Gosh the banks are steep here! Remember, Yuzik, how we carried flowers across that bridge to Sergushin's grave and Maremukha was frightened all the time that we'd be stopped by Petlura men?'
'As if I could ever forget it!' Weasel answered, and I realized that the evening we had spent tending the grave of the murdered Bolshevik had made a deep mark on him too. 'But where do you three live?'
'In Primorskaya Street. Almost next door to the harbour.'
'Gosh, what a pity!...' Yuzik murmured. 'If I'd known, I should always have dropped in to see you when we
