-VRAZHEK
Until then it had been just one of Moscow's ordinary, crooked little
streets, of which there are many around the Arbat. But with Katya now living
in it, Sivtsev-Vrazhek had changed surprisingly. It had become the street in
which now Katya lived and which was therefore totally unlike any other
Moscow street. The name itself, which had always struck me as funny, now
sounded significant. It stood for Katya, like everything else that was
associated with her.
I came to Sivtsev-Vrazhek every day. Katya and Kiren would not be home
yet when I arrived, and Kiren's mother, Alexandra Dmit-rievna, would keep me
company. Apart from being an exemplary mother she was a professional reciter
who gave readings from the classics at Moscow workers' clubs. A greying,
romantic little lady, not at all like her daughter.
Then Katya would come in. Korablev had been right. I did not know her.
Not only in the sense that I didn't know many facts about her life, such as
the fact that a year ago her party (she had been working as the head of a
party) had discovered a rich deposit of gold in the Southern Urals, or that
some photographs of hers had won first prize at an amateur photographers'
exhibition. I did not know the strong fibre of her stuff, her
straightforward, honest, sensible attitudes-all that Korablev had summed up
so well in the phrase "a serious-minded sincere soul". She seemed much older
than me, especially when she talked about art-a subject I had sadly
neglected in recent years. Then suddenly the old Katya would emerge-the girl
who had a passion for staging explosions and was deeply stirred at the fact
that "Hernan Cortes, accompanied by the good wishes of the Tiascalans, set
out on his expedition and within a few days reached the populous capital
city of the Incas".
I was reminded of Cortes by a photograph of Katya on horseback, wearing
breeches and high boots and a broadbrimmed hat and with a carbine slung
across her back. A prospector! The sight of that photograph would have
pleased the Captain.
Several days passed in this wise without our having yet talked about
what had happened since we last met, though enough had happened to last us a
lifetime talking about it. We both seemed to feel that it was first
necessary to get used to each other anew. Not a word about Nikolai Antonich,
or Romashov, or my being guilty about her. This was not so easy, considering
that almost every evening the old lady came visiting.
At first she used to make ceremonious calls, looking prim and proper in
a dress with leg-of-mutton sleeves, and telling all kinds of stories-that
is, until Nikolai Antonich's return. But one day she came running in looking
upset and said in a loud whisper: "He's arrived." And forthwith closeted
herself with Katya.
When leaving, she said gruffly: "You've got to have tact to live with
people."
But Katya did not answer. She merely kissed her goodbye with a
thoughtful air.
The next day the old lady came with a tear-stained face, looking tired
and carrying an umbrella. She sat down in the hall.
"He's taken ill," she said. "I called a doctor. A homeopath. But he
sent him away. 'I've given my whole life to her,' he says, 'and this is her
gratitude.' "
She gave a little sob.
" 'It was the last thing that gave me a hold on life. Now it's all
over.' Something like that."
Obviously, it wasn't all over, because Nikolai Antonich got well again,
although he had had a severe heart attack which had kept him in bed for a
few days. He asked for Katya. But Katya did not go to see him. I heard her
tell the old lady: "Grandma, ill or well, alive or dead, I don't want to see
him. D'you understand?"
"I understand," Nina Kapitonovna answered. "Just the way her father was
too," she complained to Kiren's mother as she left. "Talk about obstinate!
Sheer cussedness, I call it!"
But Nikolai Antonich rallied and the old lady cheered up. Now she
sometimes dropped in twice a day, so that we always had the latest news
about Nikolai Antonich and Romashka. One day Katya herself spoke about
Romashka.
"He called on me at the office," she said briefly. "But I sent him word
that I had no time for him and never would have."
"They're writing a letter," the old lady said one day. "All about pilot
G. Pilot G. shouldn't be surprised if they're informing on somebody. And
that holy Joe-is he in a fume! But Nikolai Antonich-he says nothing. Just
sits there, all swollen up, and doesn't say a word. Sits in my shawl."
Valya paid several visits to Sivtsev-Vrazhek, and on these occasions
everybody dropped what he or she was doing and stopped talking to watch the
way he was courting Kiren. He really was courting her according to all the
rules of the game, fully convinced that no one suspected it.
He brought her potted flowers, always the same kind, so that her room
was turned into a little nursery of tea-roses and primulas. He saw me and
Katya as if in a dream and came awake only with Kiren and sometimes with her
mother, to whom he also gave presents-on one occasion he gave her A Book for
the Reciter, 1917 edition.
During his waking spells he told us amusing stories from the life of
jumping squirrels and bats.
It was just as well that Kiren did not need much to make her laugh.
Thus did we spend the evenings at Sivtsev-Vrazhek-the last evenings
before my return to the Arctic.
I was kept pretty busy. My plan to organise a search for Captain
Tatarinov's expedition was received without enthusiasm-or had I not gone
about it the right way?
I wrote several articles-one for the journal Civil Aviation about my
method of anchoring a grounded plane during a blizzard, another for Pravda
about the navigator's diaries, and my Memo for the Northern Sea Route
Administration. Within a few days, on the very eve of my departure, I was to
read my paper on the drift of the St. Maria at a special session of the
Geographical Society.
And then, one late night, when I returned to my hotel in a cheerful
frame of mind, I was handed, together with the key to my room, a letter and
a newspaper.
The letter was a brief one. The Secretary of the Geographical Society
notified me that my paper could not be read as I had not submitted it in
writing within the proper time. The newspaper fell open as I picked it up
and I saw an article headed: "In Defence of a Scientist". I started to read
it and lines grew blurred before my eyes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A HECTIC DAY
This is what the article said:
1. That there lived in Moscow a well-known educationalist and public
figure. Professor N. A. Tatarinov, author of a number of articles on the
history of Arctic exploration and development.
2. That an airman by the name of G. was making the round of various
offices connected with Arctic affairs and casting slurs upon this worthy
scientist, whom he accused of swindling (!) the expedition led by his
cousin. Captain I. L. Tatarinov.
3. That this airman G. intended to read a paper on these lines,
evidently regarding his slander as a scientific achievement of major
importance.
4. That the conduct of this man, who was sullying the good name of
Soviet Arctic workers, could bear looking into on the part of the Northern
Sea Route Administration.
The article was signed "I. Krylov", and I was surprised at the editors
using the name of the great man for such an article. I had no doubt that
Nikolai Antonich had written it-this was the "letter" the old lady had been
talking about. The newspaper was addressed to me.
Hell, what if it isn't him? It was three o'clock and I was still pacing
the room, thinking. This letter from the Geographical Society now-that
surely was his doing. Korablev told me that Nikolai Antonich was a member of
the Geographical Society, and scolded me for having told Romashka about my
paper. But the article was his too! He'd lost his head, what with Katya
going away.
I pictured him sitting in that old woman's shawl, listening in silence
to Romashka's insults. It was quite possible!
The last thing they would wish was to have the N.S.R.A. call me out and
demand an explanation. It was just what I wanted! I thought of this as I lay
in my bed. "Conduct sullying the good name of Soviet Arctic workers..." What
conduct? I hadn't spoken to anyone about it yet. They thought they'd scare
me, make me back out.
Possibly, if it hadn't been for this article, I would have left Moscow
without having accomplished anything worth mention for the Captain's cause.
The article acted as a spur. I had to do something now, the sooner the
better.
It would be wrong to think that I was as calm then as I am now, when I
am looking back at it. Several times I caught myself playing with crazy
ideas of a kind that come within the jurisdiction of the C.I.D. But I had
only to remember Katya and her words: "ill or well, dead or alive, I do not
want to see him"-for everything to fall into its proper place, and I was
really surprised at the calm way I spoke and acted that busy day.
I had a plan worked out first thing in the moming-a very simple plan,
but one which showed how fed up I was with having to deal with secretaries
and clerks. It was this:
1. To go to Pravda. I had to be there in any case as I had to hand in
the promised article before my departure.
2. To call on C.
The idea of going to see C., that famous C. who had once been our hero
at the Leningrad Flying School and afterwards became Hero of the Soviet
Union, a man the whole country knew and loved-this idea occurred to me
during the night, but had then seemed to be too audacious. I wondered
whether I could presume to phone him. Would he remember me? I had only been
an air cadet when we last
met.
But now I had made up my mind. I did not think he would refuse to see
me, even if he did not remember me.
I don't know who it was that answered the phone-his wife, perhaps.
"This is air pilot Grigoriev."
"Yes?"
"I'd very much like to see Comrade C. I've come down from the Arctic,
and it's very important for me to see him."
"Then come along."
"When?"
"Today, if you can. He'll be home from the airfield at ten o'clock."
I went to Pravda, and this time I had to wait two hours to see my
journalist. At last he arrived.
"Ah, airman G.?" he said in a rather friendly tone. "The man who
sullies the name?"
"That's him."
"What's it all about?"
"Let me explain," I said calmly.
There followed a very serious talk in the private office of the
Editor-in-Chief, in the course of which I placed on his desk, one after
another:
(a) The Captain's last letter (a copy).
(b) The navigator's letter beginning with the words: "I hasten to
inform you that Ivan Lvovich is alive and well" (a copy).
(c) The navigator's diaries.
(d) The story of the hunter Ivan Vilka taken down by me and witnessed
by the doctor.
(e) Vyshimirsky's story certified by Korablev.
(0 A photograph of the boat-hook bearing the inscription "Schooner St.
Maria".
I think it was a useful talk, because one very serious man shook me
warmly by the hand, while another said that my article on the drift of the
St. Maria would be published in one of the next issues of the newspaper.
It was at least six kilometres from the Pravda offices to where C.
lived, but I did not remember until I had gone half way that I could have
taken a tram. I ran like mad, thinking of how I was going to tell him about
my talk at the Pravda offices.
At last I climb the stairs of a new apartment house, and stop in front
of the door and wipe my face-it is very hot-trying to think slowly about
something-a sure way of keeping calm.
The door is opened, I give my name and hear his deep voice from one of
the rooms: "Somebody to see me?"
And now this man, whom we loved in our youth and of whose wonderful
flights we had heard so much, this man comes towards me holding out his
strong hand.
"Comrade C.," I say, "you would hardly remember me. My name is
Grigoriev. We met in Leningrad when I was an air cadet."
After a slight pause he says with pleasure: "Why, of course! You were a
regular ace. Sure I remember you!"
And we go into his room, and I begin my story, feeling more excited
than ever at the thought that he has remembered me.
It was at this meeting with C. that he gave me his photograph, writing
across it the words: "If it's worth doing at all, do it well." He said I
belonged to the breed who have "a long-distance ticket". He heard me out and
said that he would telephone the N.S.R.A. the next day and speak to the
Chief about my plan.
CHAPTER TWELVE ROMASHKA
It was a little past eleven when I took my leave ofC. and returned to
my hotel. Rather a late hour for visitors. But a visitor there was for me,
though an uninvited one.
The man at the desk said: "Someone to see you."
And Romashka rose to meet me.
He must have prepared himself for this visit in body as well as in
soul, for I had never seen him look so smart. He was wearing a loose
overcoat of a steely colour and a soft hat which did not so much sit as
stand on his big misshaped head. He had an odour of eau-de-cologne about
him.
"Ah, Romashka," I said cheerfully. "How do you do, old Owl?"
He seemed shaken by this greeting.
"Ah, yes. Owl," he said smiling. "I quite forgot that you used to call
me that at school. Fancy remembering all those school nicknames!"
He, too, was trying to appear at ease.
"I remember everything, old chap. You want to see me?"
"If you're not too busy."
"Not at all," I said. "I'm absolutely free."
In the lift he studied me narrowly all the time, apparently trying to
make out whether I was drunk, and if I was, how he could profit by it. But I
was not drunk. I had quaffed only one glass of wine to the health of the
great airman who hacfheld out to me the hand of friendship.
"Nice room, this," he remarked as he accepted the armchair I politely
offered him.
"Not bad."
I was expecting him to ask how much I paid for the room, but he did
not.
"This is quite a decent hotel," he said. "As good as the Metropole."
"I daresay it is."
He was waiting for me to begin the conversation. But I sat there with
my legs crossed, smoking, deeply absorbed in a study of the "Rules for
Visitors" which lay under the sheet of glass covering the desk. Finally, he
sighed quite openly, and began.
"Look here, Sanya, there are quite a number of things we must talk
over," he said gravely. "I think we're sufficiently civilised to discuss and
settle matters in a peaceful manner. Don't you think so?"
Evidently, he had not forgotten the anything but peaceful manner in
which I had once settled matters with him. But his voice hardened with every
word he uttered.
"I don't know what induced Katya suddenly to leave home, but I have a
right to ask whether the reasons for it have anything to do with your
appearance on the scene?"
"Why don't you ask Katya that?" I said coolly.
He fell silent. His ears flushed, his eyes snapped viciously and his
brow smoothened. I looked at him with interest.
"But from what I know, she went away with you," he resumed in a
slightly suppressed voice.
"So she did. As a matter of fact I helped her pack."
"I see," he rasped. One eye was now almost closed and the other
squinted-not a pretty sight. I had never seen him like that before. "I see,"
he repeated.
"Yes, that's how it is."
"I see."
We fell silent.
"Look here," he resumed, "we didn't finish our talk that time at
Korablev's anniversary. I want to tell you that in a general way I know all
about the expedition of the St. Maria. I was interested in it, too, the same
as you are, only from a different angle, I daresay."
I did not answer. I knew what that angle was.
"Among other things, you were interested, I believe, is finding out
what Nikolai Antonich's role was in that expedition. At least, that's what I
gathered from our conversation."
He could have gathered that in other ways too, but I let his remark
pass. I wasn't sure yet what he was driving at. "I think I can be of great
service to you in this." "Really?" "Yes."
He suddenly lunged towards me, and I instinctively jumped up and stood
behind my chair.
"Listen," he muttered, "I know such things about him! Such things! I
have evidence that will settle his hash, if only you go about it the right
way. What d'you think he is?"
He repeated the last phrase three times, moving up to me so close that
I was obliged to take him by the shoulders and gently push him away. But he
didn't even notice this.
"Things that he's even forgotten himself," Romashka went on. "In
papers."
He was referring, of course, to the papers he had taken from
Vyshimirsky.
"I know why you quarrelled with him. You told him that he had swindled
the expedition and he threw you out. But it's true. You were right."
It was the second time I had heard this acknowledged, but now it gave
me little pleasure to hear it. I merely said in feigned surprise:
"You don't say?"
"It's him all right!" Romashka repeated with a sort of rapturous glee.
"I'll help you. I'll hand it all over to you, all my evidence. We'll send
him toppling."
I should have kept silent, but I could not help asking:
"How much?"
He collected himself.
"You can take it any way you please," he said. "But all I ask of you is
that you should go away."
"Alone?"
"Yes."
"Without Katya?"
"Yes."
"That's interesting. In other words, you are asking me to give her up."
"I love her," he said almost haughtily.
"You do. That's interesting. And we're not to correspond with each
other, I suppose?"
He was silent.
"Wait a minute, I won't be long," I said, and left the room.
The floor lady was sitting at her desk. I asked permission to use her
telephone, and while I was talking I kept an eye on the corridor to make
sure that Romashka did not leave. But he did not-it probably did not occur
to him that I had gone out to make a call.
"Nikolai Antonich? Grigoriev here." He asked me to repeat the name,
evidently thinking that he had misheard. "Nikolai Antonich," I said
politely, "excuse me for disturbing you so late. But I must see you."
For a moment he did not answer. Then he said: "In that case, come
along."
"Nikolai Antonich, if you don't mind I'd like you to call at my place.
Believe me it's very important, not so much for me as for you."
There was another pause and I could hear him breathing at the other
end.
"When? I can't come today."
"But it must be today. Right now. Nikolai Antonich," I raised my voice,
"believe me this once, at least. You will come. I'm ringing off now."
He did not ask where I was staying, and that was proof enough, if proof
were needed, that it was he who had sent me the newspaper containing the
article "In Defence uf a Scientist". But just then I had other things on my
mind and I dismissed the matter and went back to Romashka.
I don't remember ever having lied and shuffled the way I did during the
twenty minutes before Nikolai Antonich arrived. I pretended that I did not
care at all what Nikolai Antonich had ever been, I asked what the papers
were about, and assured him in a voice nasal with cunning that I could not
go away without Katya. Then came a knock at the door and I cried out: "Come
in!"
Nikolai Antonich came in and stopped in the doorway.
"Good evening, Nikolai Antonich," I said.
I wasn't looking at Romashka but when afterwards I did I saw him
sitting on the edge of the chair, his head drawn down into his shoulders
with an anxious listening air-a real owl, and a sinister one too.
"There, Nikolai Antonich," I went on very calmly, "you probably know
this gentleman. He goes by the name of Romashov, your favourite pupil and
assistant, and almost next door to a kinsman, if I am not mistaken. I've
invited you here to give you the gist of our talk."
Nikolai Antonich was still standing by the door, very erect,
surprisingly upright, coat and hat in his hand. Afterwards he dropped the
hat.
"This Romashov here," I proceeded, "came to me an hour and a half ago
with the following proposition. He offered me the use of certain evidence
which shows, first, that you swindled Captain Tatarinov's expedition and,
second, that you have a number of other shady dealings to your name of which
no mention is made by you in your personnel questionnaires."
This was when he dropped his hat.
"I have the impression," I continued, "that this is not the first time
he has been offering this merchandise for sale. I don't know, I may be
wrong."
"Nikolai Antonich!" Romashka suddenly squealed. "It's a lie. Don't you
believe him. He's lying."
I waited until he had finished shouting.
"It's all the same to me now, of course," I went on. "It's between you
two. But you deliberately..."
I felt my cheek beginning to twitch, and I did not like it, because I
had sworn to keep cool when talking to them.
"But you deliberately arranged for this man to marry Katya. You were
trying to talk her into it, because you were afraid of him. And now he comes
here, shouting: 'We'll send him toppling.' "
As though suddenly coming awake, Nikolai Antonich took a step forward
and stared at Romashka. He stared at him hard and long, and the tense
silence was beginning to tell even on me.
"Nikolai Antonich," Romashka began again in a stammering, piteous
voice.
Nikolai Antonich kept staring. Then he began to speak, and the sound of
his voice, the broken, quavery voice of an old man, astonished me.
"Why did you invite me here?" he said. "I am ill, it's hard for me to
speak. You wanted me to see that he's a scoundrel. That's no news to me. You
wanted to crush me again, but you can't do more than you have already
done-and done irreparably." He drew a deep breath. I realised that it really
was hard for him to speak.
"I leave to her conscience," he went on just as quietly, but in a voice
hardened and bitter, "the act she has committed in going away without saying
a word to me, believing the base slander of which I have been a victim all
my life."
I was silent. Romashka poured out a glass of water with a shaking hand
and offered it to him.
"Nikolai Antonich," he mumbled, "you mustn't get excited."
But Nikolai Antonich thrust his arm aside with a violent gesture and
the water spilled over the carpet.
"I accept no reproaches, no regrets," he said, suddenly snatching off
his glasses and twisting them about in his fingers. "It's her affair. Her
own fate. All I wanted for her was happiness. But my cousin's memory-that
will never yield to anybody," he said hoarsely, and his face became sullen,
puffy, thick-lipped. "I would gladly accept this suffering as a
punishment-even unto death-because life has long been a burden to me. But I
deny all these monstrous, shameful accusations. And not even a thousand
false witnesses would make anyone believe that I killed this man with his
great ideas and his great heart."
I wanted to remind Nikolai Antonich that he had not always held such a
high opinion of his cousin, but he would not let me get a word in.
"I recognise only one witness," he went on, "Ivan himself. He alone can
accuse me, and if I were to blame, he alone would have the right to do so."
He broke down and wept. He cut his fingers with his glasses and fumbled
about in his pocket for his handkerchief. Romashka ran up and offered him
one, but Nikolai Antonich pushed his hand aside again.
"Even the dead, I think, would have spoken," he said and reached for
his hat, breathing heavily.
"Nikolai Antonich," I said very calmly, "I don't want you to think that
I intend to devote my whole life trying to convince mankind of your guilt.
It has been clear to me for a long time and now it is clear to others too. I
did not invite you here to go over all this again. I simply considered it my
duty to show you the real face of this scoundrel. I have no use for the
things he has been telling me about you-I have known them long before. Don't
you want to say anything to him?"
Nikolai Antonich was silent.
"Then get out!" I said to Romashka.
He ran over to Nikolai Antonich and began whispering something to him.
But the latter stood stiffly, staring straight in front of him. Only now did
I notice how he had aged these last few days, how defected and pitiful he
looked. But I felt no pity for him, none whatever.
"Get out!" I repeated to Romashka.
He did not go but kept whispering. Then he took Nikolai Antonich by the
arm and led him to the door. This was unexpected, seeing that it was
Romashka I had ordered out, not Nikolai Antonich, whom I had asked to come.
I had wanted to ask him who had written an article "In Defence of a
Scientist", and whether I. Krylov was a descendant of the famous fabulist.
But I was too late-they had already left the room.
I hadn't set them at odds after all. They walked slowly down the
corridor arm in arm, and only once did Nikolai Antonich stop for a moment.
He started to tear his hair. He had no hair to speak of, but a sort of
childish down came away in his fingers and he stared at it with agonised
amazement. Romashka restrained him and brushed his overcoat, and they moved
along sedately until they disappeared round a bend in the corridor.
On the eve of my departure C. phoned to tell me that he had spoken to
the Chief of the N.S.R.A. and read out to him my Memo. His answer was a
favourable one. It was too late to send out an expedition this year, but it
was highly probable that they would do this next year. My plan was detailed
and convincing, but the part dealing with the route needed clarifying. The
historical section was most interesting. I would be summoned to the N.S.R.A.
and would receive further notice.
I spent all that day around the shops. I wanted to buy a present for
Katya, as we were parting again. It was no easy job. A tea-cosy? But she had
no teapot. A dress? But I could never tell crepe de Chine from faille de
Chine. A camera? She needed one badly, but I didn't have enough money for a
Leica. I would probably have ended by buying nothing at all, had I not met
Valya in the Arbat. He was standing before the window of a bookshop,
thinking-I would have once guessed unerringly-of animals. But now he had
other things on his mind.
"Valya," I said, "have you any money?"
"I have."
"How much?"
"Five hundred rubles."
"Let's have it."
He laughed.
"You're not going to Ensk again for Katya, are you?"
We went into a shop and bought a Leica.
As far as the rest of the world was concerned I was leaving at
midnight, but with Katya I started taking my leave in the morning and kept
it up all day, now dropping in on her at home, now at her office. We were
parting only for a short time. In August she was to come to Zapolarie, and I
was expecting to be called out before that-in July, perhaps. Nevertheless I
thought of our parting with a pang, fearing that it might be a long one
again.
Valya came to see me off at the station and brought a copy of Pravda
containing my article. It was printed just as I had written it, except that
in one passage the style had been improved and the article as a whole had
been condensed to half its size. The excerpts from the diaries, however,
were printed in full. "I shall never forget that leave-taking, that pale,
inspired face with its inward look! How different from that once
ruddy-faced, cheerful man with his fund of yarns and funny stories, the idol
of his crew, a man who always came to his task, however difficult, with a
joke on his lips! Nobody moved after his speech. He stood there with closed
eyes, as though nerving himself for the last word of farewell. But instead
of words a low moan broke from his lips and tears glistened in the corners
of his eyes..."
Katya and I read this in the corridor of my carriage, and I felt her
hair against my face, felt that she, too, could hardly keep back her tears.
The End of Book One
BOOK TWO
PART SIX
FROM THE DIARY OF KATYA TATARINOVA
YOUTH CONTINUES
July 6, 1935. We spent only one evening together all the time Sanya was
in Moscow. He came in looking very tired, and Alexandra Dmitrievna went out
of the room at once. I made Sanya some tea-he likes his tea strong-and
watched him eating and drinking until he made me sit down and have tea with
him.
Then he suddenly recalled how we used to go skating together, and made
up some story about his kissing me on the cheek at the rink, and finding it
"awfully firm, downy and cold." And I recalled how he had acted as judge at
the trial of Eugene Onegin and had kept staring gloomily at me all the time.
"And do you remember-'Grigoriev is a brilliant personality, but he
hasn't read Dickens'?"
"Don't I! Have you read him since?"
"No," Sanya said ruefully. "I never had the time. I read Voltaire,
though-'The Maid of Orleans'. For some reason we have a lot of Voltaire's
books in our library at Zapolarie."
Just then the phone rang. I went to answer it and spent a good half
hour talking with my old professor. She called me "dear child" and had to
know absolutely everything-where I now had my lunch and whether I had bought
that pretty lampshade at Muir's. When I got back Sanya was asleep. I called
him, then all at once I felt a pang of pity for him. I squatted down beside
him and began to study his face ever so close.
That evening Sanya gave me the navigator's diary and all the papers and
photographs. The diary was in a special paper case with a lock to it. After
Sanya left I spent a long time examining these pages with torn edges,
covered with close-written, crooked lines, which suddenly ran helplessly
wide as though the hand had gone on writing while the mind had wandered off
God knows where.
The boat-hook with the words "Schooner St. Maria" on it had been left
behind at Zapolarie, but Sanya had brought a photograph of it. I don't
suppose there is another boat-hook in the world which photographs so well!
I promised Sanya that I would write every day, but there is nothing new
to write about every day. I am still living at Kiren's, reading a lot,
working a lot, though it isn't very convenient, because the boxes of
collected specimens stand in the hallway, and I have to draw my maps on the
piano lid. For the first time this summer I did not go out on field-work. I
have to work up the old material, and the Bashkir Geological Survey Board,
where I am employed, have allowed me to remain in Moscow;
The map is a difficult one, quite a bit of a muddle, and I have to do
everything over again. But the harder it is the more I like doing it. Though
my nights are so dreary, I live with a feeling that all the painful
experiences, the dim miseries of the past have been left behind me, and I
can look forward to something interesting and new, something that makes me
feel at once light-hearted, and happy, and a little afraid.
July 7, 1935. At all the offices where Sanya had called on his last day
in town, he left my telephone number-both with the N.S.R.A. and Pravda. I
was a little alarmed when he told me about it.
"Who am I supposed to be.? Who are they to ask for?"
"Katerina Tatarinova-Grigorieva," Sanya answered gravely.
I thought he was joking. But three days after he had gone someone
phoned and asked for Katerina Tatarinova-Grigorieva.
It was a well-known journalist from Pravda. He said that Sanya's
article had had wide repercussions and that enquiries concerning its author
had even been made by the Arctic Institute.
"Give your husband my congratulations."
I was on the point of answering that he wasn't my husband yet, but
thought better of it.
"If I am not mistaken I have the pleasure of speaking to Captain
Tatarinov's daughter?"
"Yes."
"Have you any more material relating to your father's life and
activities?"
I said I had, but without the permission of Alexander Ivanovich- this
was the first time I called Sanya by his first name and patrony-mic-I could
not let him have it.
"Never mind, we'll write to him."
There was a phone call from Civil Aviation, too, asking where to send
the copy of the paper carrying his article about the anchoring of a grounded
aircraft during a blizzard-and I did not even know that he had written such
an article. I asked for two copies-one for myself. After that there was
another phone call from Literaturnaya Gazeta asking what Grigoriev this was,
whether it was the author who had written such and such a book.
But the most important was my talk with C. I don't know what Sanya told
him about me, but he spoke to me as though I were an old friend.
"Are you receiving a pension?" I was puzzled. "For your father." "No."
"You should put in for one."
Then he said with a laugh that the people at the N.S.R.A. had got the
wind up on hearing that my father had discovered Severnaya Zemlya. Their
records attributed it to somebody else.
"I don't know..." he went on, "somehow I don't like the way they are
dealing with this."
"I thought an expedition had been decided on." "So did I, but now it
suddenly seems that it hasn't. When I told them to send him out with the
Pakhtusov, they said there was a pilot on board already. What if there is!
Your man has definite ideas." He said it just like that-"your man".
"Never mind, I'll have another go at them. Drop in and see us some
day."
I said I should be very happy to, and we said goodbye. Every day I get
a letter, sometimes two letters, from Romashov. The envelopes are addressed
"Second Party, Bashkir Geological Survey Board", as though they were mailed
to an institution. I am something of an institution though, as there was no
other way of arranging for me to work in Moscow. But the address is a joke,
and a joke, which is repeated every day becomes a nuisance.
At first I used to read these letters, then I started to return them
unopened, and then stopped reading and returning them altogether. But
somehow I cannot get myself to burn these letters; they lie about all over
the place, and when I come across them I snatch my hand away.
I run into the writer of these letters the same way. He used to be a
very busy man, and I just can't make out how he finds the time to stand
about in the street whenever I come out of the house. I meet him in shops
and at the theatre, and it's very unpleasant, because he bows to me and I
ignore him. When he makes a movement to come up, I turn away.
He called on Valya, and cried, and yelled at him like mad when Valya
jokingly cited a similar example of unrequited love among the chimpanzees.
Altogether he has begun to loom so large in my life that I am beginning
to feel morbid about it. The moment I close my eyes I see him in front of me
in his new grey coat and soft hat, which he has taken to wearing on my
account-he told me as much himself one day.
July 12, 1935. Of course, it was a very strange idea of mine-to go to
Romashov and get from him those papers which Vyshimirsky had handed over to
him. It was a cruel thought-to go to him after all those letters and the
flowers which I sent back. But the more I thought of it the more the idea
appealed to me. I saw myself coming in and him staring at me, bewildered,
without saying a word, then turning pale, dashing down the corridor and
flinging open the door of his room, while I said coolly: "Misha, I've come
to see you on business."
The curious thing about it is that everything happened exactly as I had
pictured it. I have just come away from Mm.
He was wearing a warm suit of blue pyjamas and hadn't had time to comb
his hair yet. It was wet-apparently after a bath-and hung down his forehead
in yellow strands. He stood pale and silent, while I took my coat off. Then
he stepped swiftly towards me.
"Katya!"
"Misha, I've come to see you on business," I repeated coolly. "Get
dressed and comb your hair. Where can I wait?"
"Yes, of course..."
He ran down the corridor and flung open the door of his room.
"In here, please. Excuse me..."
"On the contrary. Excuse me."
We had visited him the previous year, the three of us-Nikolai Antonich,
Grandma and myself, and Grandma, by the way, had kept throwing out hints all
the evening that he had borrowed forty rubles from her and not given it
back.
I had liked his room at the time, but I thought it looked even better
now. It was done up in pleasing light-grey tones, the door and built-in
cupboard somewhat of a lighter shade than the walls. The upholstered
furniture was soft and comfortable, and everything was attractively
arranged. The window looked out on Dog Place-my favourite spot in Moscow. I
have loved Dog Place ever since a child-that little square with its monument
to dogs that had died, and all the quaint little turnings that ran off it.
"Misha," I said when he had come back, combed, scented, and wearing a
new blue suit which I had not seen before, "I have come to answer all your
letters. What's that nonsense you write about my repenting it later if I
didn't marry you! It's silly schoolboy behaviour to keep writing me every
day when you know that I do not even read your letters. You know perfectly
well that I never intended to marry you, and you have no reason to write
that I misled you."
It was rather frightening to watch the way his face changed. He had
come in with an eager, happy look, as if hoping, yet scarcely able to
believe it-and now hope was dying with every word I uttered and his face
drained slowly of life. He turned away and looked down on the floor.
"It's too long to explain why I allowed you to speak about it before.
There were many reasons. But you are an intelligent man. You could not have
made the mistake of believing that I loved you."
"But you won't be happy with him!"
His knees were shaking, and he covered his eyes several times in a
strange way. I was reminded of what Sanya had said about him sleeping with
his eyes open.
"I'll kill myself and you," he whispered.
"You can kill yourself for all I care," I said very calmly. "I don't
want to quarrel with you, but really, what right have you to talk that way?
You started an intrigue, as though girls in our day can be won by means of
idiotic intrigues! You haven't a shred of self-esteem, otherwise you
wouldn't be dogging my steps every day. The best thing you can do is listen
to me and say nothing, because I know everything you are going to say. And
now, to come to the point: what are those papers you took from Vyshimirsky?"
"What papers?"
"Don't pretend, Misha. You know perfectly well what I am talking about.
The papers you used to threaten Nikolai Antonich with, papers which showed
him up as having been a stock-jobber and which you afterwards offered to let
Sanya have if he gave me up and went away. Hand them over to me this minute.
Do you hear-this minute!"
He closed his eyes several times and sighed. Then he made a motion to
get down on his knees. But I said very loudl