The Town By The Sea tof-3 Read online

  There is one thing I will confess. This world of secret war into which Nikita Kolomeyets had plunged me on that long-to-be-remembered night when we sat until dawn; on the rails of the cliff stairway seemed

  to me very terrible and dangerous.

  Until then I had been very simple-minded. I had never thought that among us there could be scoundrels who, like Pecheritsa, lived the crooked double life of spies. I just could not imagine that among those who rubbed shoulders with us every day there were slinking creatures who while pretending to be sincerely in favour of Soviet power were only awaiting its downfall and looking out all the time for a chance to stab us in the back. How great, how noble, and how dangerous is the work of the frontiermen, who, like Vukovich, at the risk of their lives, penetrate that dark terrible world where these crimes are plotted, and manage to thwart the enemy just when he is least expecting it!

  And Nikita's story also made it clear to me how much the world capitalists and their agents hated us, Soviet people, and I realized that we must be on our guard against them.

  A LOW TRICK

  Three days later, not long before the dinner-break, Kozakevich, our instructor, walked into the foundry. The weather was so warm - that he had been across Hospital Square to the office without a cap. He had even left his heavy metal-scorched tarpaulin jacket behind in the foundry.

  The sleeves of his faded blue blouse were rolled up showing his big muscles.

  "Mandzhura! A message of vital importance for you!" he said with a wink, handing me a folded slip of paper.

  From the tone of his voice I concluded that Kozakevich was in a very good mood.

  I took the note and read it.

  It was from Petka Maremukha.

  "Vasil, mind you come and see me at dinner-time today. Something important has happened.

  "So long,

  "Petka."

  I worked harder with my slippery tamper. Now I simply must get this fly-wheel moulded before dinner. I packed the damp sand tightly into the wooden mould, forcing it in with a wedge. The job was nearly done. Somewhere under the tightly-packed layer of sand lay the cold, damp fly-wheel. Tossing my tamper aside, I swept the loose sand off the mould-box. Where was the vent wire? Ah, there it was. I snatched up the sharp-pointed length of wire and started punching holes in the mould. The wire crunched into the solid sand, bending when it struck the iron model of the flywheel.

  Finished! Now I could open the mould.

  There were no other chaps about. Only Kozakevich was in the foundry, carefully arranging his new freshly-painted models on the shelves.

  "Can you give me a hand?" I said to the instructor.

  Kozakevich strode across the sandy floor to the place where I was working.

  "Knocked the wedges in, made your vents?"

  "Don't worry, everything's all right."

  "I'm not worrying, but people forget sometimes. Specially you. Since you went to Kharkov, you've been going about in a dream. Come on, then!" And Kozakevich bent down and grasped the handles of the mould.

  We both heaved together. We turned the mould over and stood the top half on its side by the window. Pushing back his sleeve, Kozakevich looked down at the lower half of the mould. The fly-wheel model had left a round black hollow in the greyish sand. Soon we should fill that hollow with metal and a new fly-wheel would spin on some peasant's straw-cutter, giving speed to the flashing blades.

  In one place the mould had "caked" as the foundry men say. A little clot of sand from the upper half of the mould had stuck to the model.

  "Put that right," Kozakevich said, pointing to the break.

  The Motor Factory's hooter sounded in the distance. It. was dinner-time.

  "Can I do it afterwards, Comrade Kozakevich? I want to slip over to the school."

  "Well, I'm not making you to work during your dinner-hour, lad. Go where you like."

  The path, which had been wet and streaked with puddles the day before, had dried in the warm sunshine. It was good to run across the square without a coat after being muffled up all the winter. And it would be even better when the grass grew on the square and we started kicking a football about there!...

  Here was the school. Taking two steps at a time, I dashed up to the third floor. Furman was coming down the stairs, a packet of food in his hand. Must be going out into the yard. Every spring, as soon as it got a bit warm, the trainees, just like beetles, came out into the yard during the lunch-hour to eat their food in the spring sunshine, sitting on rusty boilers and broken-down field kitchens. "Maremukha still upstairs?" I asked Furman. "Yes, he's making some draughts for the club," Furman replied, clumping away downstairs in his heavy boots.

  Petka's lathe stood just by the door. As soon as I ran into the joiner's shop, I saw his broad back. Pedalling the lathe with his foot, Petka was paring down a length of birch. Fine yellow shavings were curling off the blade of the cutter and dropping on the floor. There was no one else about except the joinery instructor, Galya's father, sitting at the far end of the shop eating his lunch and staring thoughtfully out of the window. There was a nice smell of fresh wood shavings in the air.

  "Eat that," said Petka, pedalling away at his lathe. "That's your roll on the window-sill and there's sausage in the paper."

  "What about yourself?"

  "I've had mine already. It's all yours."

  "You old spendthrift, Petka! Your grant will be all gone in a couple of days, then you'll be in a fix like you were last month."

  "What's so terrible about it! We'll be finished with grants soon anyway and earning wages," Petka retorted confidently, slicing the length of birch in two.

  What a good chap Petka was, when you came to think of it! Saving lunch for me like this. Really generous. Not like Tiktor, chewing sausage in a corner and looking round all the time afraid that someone might ask him for a bite! Petka always shared what he had.

  The well-baked bread was crisp and fresh, one of the special rolls that Madame Podnebesnaya, widow of the former inspector of taxes, used to sell at the school gates for the first day or two after we had been given our monthly grants.

  The bits of sausage—"dog's joy"—we bought at the grocery stall. Those odd scraps of sausage—with the posh co-operative store name "Prime Assorted"—were the goods! They were very cheap and just about as tasty as anything you could buy. The point was that in a quarter of a pound, say, you got so many different sorts—nobs of liver, fat rings of Cracow sausage, ends of salame with the string round them. One day Sasha Bobir even got a great lump of the best ham.

  Munching roll and sausage, I watched Petka. How had he learnt to work so fast?... Suddenly Petka stopped his lathe and said solemnly:

  "You and I, Vasil, are old friends, aren't we? Remember the vow we made in the Old Fortress over the grave of Sergushin? There can never be any secrets between us, can there? Well, I must tell you this then: Tiktor is trying to get you into trouble."

  "As if I'd never heard that before! What trouble?"

  "You needn't laugh. It's no laughing matter. Yesterday he reported you to the Komsomol committee."

  "Don't try to scare me, Petka. What could he have reported me for?"

  "I'm not trying to scare you, Vasil. I'm telling you the truth. In his report Tiktor wrote that you should be expelled from the Komsomol."

  "Me? Expelled from the Komsomol?... Petka!... You can't pull my leg like that. I'm not Bunya Khokh..." (Bunya Khokh was the town half-wit.)

  "Vasil," said Petka in a thick voice, "people don't joke about things like that. I'm giving you a friendly warning, as an old comrade, and you think I'm playing the fool like a kid!"

  "Hold on, Petka, what does he say about me in his report?"

  "Do you think I know? I never read it myself, but I saw Tiktor give it to Kolomeyets."

  "To Kolomeyets? To Nikita?... But what makes you think it was about me?"

  "Listen. Yesterday I slipped in to get a magazine off Nikita, and Tiktor was with him. This is what I heard him say to Nikita.
'I didn't want to get mixed up in this dirty business, but when you're a worker like me your conscience won't let you stand aside. This is important. I've put it all down on paper. Read it. I don't know what you'll think, but I think Mandzhura ought to be chucked out of the Komsomol for it. People like him only stain our fine reputation!' "

  "And you actually heard Tiktor mention my name?"

  "I'm not deaf, Vasil... Then he gave Nikita a sheet of paper. What did I do? I tried to have a look, of course, but Tiktor noticed and covered it with his hand. 'What do you want, young fellow?' he says. 'When we need you we'll ask for you.' I didn't know what to do, so I took the magazine and went away."

  "And you didn't read the report?"

  "But how could I? I say, Vasil," Petka looked at me sharply, "you haven't done anything, well, suspicious-looking, lately, have you?"

  "What could I have done? You're an ass, Petka!"

  "But there are all kinds of things... Perhaps you recommended some rotter for the Komsomol..."

  "Since I seconded Sasha's application last year, I haven't recommended anybody."

  "What about Kharkov?"

  "Kharkov? But I've told you about that!"

  "Perhaps you did something, you know..."

  "But what? What could I have done? I can't make it out!"

  "Well, you know ... perhaps you started a row somewhere. . . Or got drunk, God forbid ... or

  clipped someone on the ear.., Perhaps you broke a shop-window?"

  "What are you talking about, Petka? I'm not Tiktor... I bought some flachkies off a profiteer at the market, I'll admit that, and I got robbed, and I saw that American, picture Sharks of New York, darn the rotten thing, but there wasn't anything else."

  "Nothing at all?"

  "Not a thing!"

  "I wonder what that twerp has got against you?"

  "I don't know."

  "Look here, Vasil," Petka said solemnly, "go and see Nikita and ask him straight out what you've been accused of."

  "Nikita?... Why go and ask Nikita? I won't go of my own accord. If I start asking questions myself, it'll look as if I know I've done something wrong and am afraid. What have I got to be afraid of? It's daft!"

  "Yes, perhaps you're right," Petka said slowly.

  "You could ask if you wanted to, Petka."

  "Do you think I haven't already?" Petka answered quickly. "As soon as Tiktor left, I went up to Nikita. 'What was that complaint Tiktor handed in?' I said. 'It's an accusation, an accusation on a pretty big scale,' says Nikita. So I asked him what it was about. 'It's a report of a political nature against Mandzhura,' says Nikita. 'But for the time being,' he says, 'let's keep quiet about it, Maremukha. Not a word about this until the next committee meeting!' Well, I wouldn't let it go at that, so I kept on at him, 'Must be something very important,' I said. 'Well, how should I put it?' says Nikita. 'A dirty trick of the first water. Human nature at its worst, I should call it.' "

  "Eh?"

  "Human nature at its worst!" Petka repeated.

  "Who does he mean by that?" I asked, my voice trembling.

  "Do you think I understood? You know our philosopher! He likes words no one else can understand... I advise you to speak to him personally all the same."

  "But I can't, you know! ..."

  At that very unsuitable moment Galya Kushnir ran into the shop. She was wearing a blue working overall and her hair was tied up under a white-spotted kerchief.

  Before the factory-training school started, I had been very much in love with Galya, and had even kissed her on the wall of the Old Fortress one cold autumn day. I had written letters to her from the farm on the Dniester. I was still in love with Galya when we started at the factory-training school. When some of the other chaps began taking an interest in her, I felt very bad about it. Someone noticed this and chalked a notice up in the forge: "Vasil Mandzhura is pining for Galya Kushnir something terrible!" Under the inscription there was a drawing of a heart—more like a cabbage than anything else. It was pierced with an arrow, and from it poured a stream of blood like molten metal pouring from the furnace. This notice certainly lowered my authority as a member of the committee in the eyes of the other chaps. It's very bad when your personal feelings become public property. "Love should be the greatest secret in the world!" I had learnt the phrase by heart from a novel I had read, and even written it down on the margin of my political lecture notes. When he was checking my notes, Nikita spotted it. "Where did you get that middle-class twaddle from, Vasil?" he asked. I could not bring myself to say that the words had been spoken by a tsarist general, so I avoided the point. "It's from Comrade Kollontai's book," I said. "Well,

  it's a middle-class prejudice all the same," Nikita retorted, and I had to tear the page out of the notes. But I could have forgotten even the notice in the forge and gone on loving Galya as before, had it not been for her own conduct.

  She took sides with Tiktor in the row about my casting of Francis Joseph! I told her Tiktor had dubbed me a "monarchist" and Galya answered coldly:

  "Do you think it's the right thing for a Komsomol member to portray tyrants and despots?"

  "But I did it for practice, Galya! ..." I said in a voice full of reproach, thinking that she would take her words back.

  But this time her reply was even colder, as though I were a complete stranger to her:

  "If it were practice you wanted, you could have cast a model of a bird or something. There's a brass hawk on Dad's inkstand. If you had asked me, I would have taken it off and brought it to you."

  "Thank you very much... You can take it to someone else," I answered rudely, and since then we had had nothing more to do with each other.

  True, something of the old feeling lingered in us both. We could not talk calmly to each other and felt awkward when we met.

  And now, too, when she saw me standing by Petka's lathe, Galya stopped short. But she overcame her embarrassment and walked up to us. A slight flush had appeared on her cheeks.

  "The boys are talking about you outside, Vasil," Galya said. "They're saying Tiktor has reported you and he's boasting that you're in for trouble. What have you done, Vasil?"

  "What have I done? ... Nothing!" "What is the report about then?" "Go and ask him."

  "He's not telling. He says it mustn't be announced until the committee meeting. But when the church bells ring, there must be..."

  "I don't care two pins about his report! And you can keep your church out of it!" I snapped. "He can report on me until he's blue in the face, I haven't done anything!"

  "Have you spoken to Kolomeyets?" Galya asked sympathetically.

  "What for?"

  "Well, I should have thought you would," Galya said in surprise. "After all, he's our secretary, and a member of the District Committee, and he's known you a long time..."

  By this time Galya's concern had made me thoroughly angry. What was the point of all this! ...

  The chaps came in from the yard one by one. Lunch-time was over. So that no one should think me a coward, I said as calmly as I could:

  "Well, I'm off to the foundry, I've got a mould that needs attending to there."

  NIKITA IS SILENT

  That day Tiktor seemed to be round me all the time. Now he would come to fetch a shovel from my corner, now he would snatch up a chisel under my nose. Then he would go and tinker about in the next room for a little while, but as soon as I glanced up again—there were Tiktor's stiff, rusty-looking boots clumping about round me in the wet sand. Now it was the wire brush he needed! There was a cunning gleam in his eyes and his mop of hair was swept back like a Don Cossack's. Gay and pleased with himself, Tiktor looked as if he had won the day. All the time he kept humming a popular little tune. In

  Batavia there's a little house that stands alone in the fields...

  When Yasha came near me, I pretended to be engrossed in my work. He needn't think I was afraid of him, the longhaired busybody!

  ... Knocking-off time at last! I washed my hands quickly and sli
pped out into the street.

  I walked past fences and gardens where the trees were still bare. The market square was alive with noise and bustle. I walked on to Proreznaya Street, not knowing myself what took me there. For a long time I wandered about the deserted avenues of the boulevard. The river, still yellow and muddy from the recent thaw, flowed past below, washing the foot of the cliffs and flooding the allotments of the old part of the town. On the boulevard, which was dry now, they were burning last year's leaves. Here and there, heaps of leaves and twigs were smoking like little volcanoes; the smoke hung low over the sloping avenues and the steep cliff, and its bitterish smell reached me even on the edge of the boulevard. In the distance, beyond a little gate, I caught sight of a lonely bench. I walked over to it and sat down. My fingers wandered over the familiar letters "V" and "G." Before the days of the factory-training school, when I was madly in love with Galya Kushnir and she was going with my rival Kotka Grigorenko, who had now fled the country,

  I had come here on a quiet summer's morning and, gritting my teeth with anger, carved those letters with a penknife on the hard oak plank.

  How trivial the disappointments of those years seemed in comparison with what confronted me now!

  Tiktor's mysterious report pursued me everywhere. The words of warning that I had heard from Petka and Galya made me even more worried. Already the whole school knew about this mysterious report. As I was coming out of the gate today I had run into Monka Guzarchik. Monka was a kind, rather ungainly lad with red, watery eyes.