The Town By The Sea tof-3 Read online

"Look here you," Tiktor shouted threateningly, "don't try and scare me with your talk of profiteers! I hate profiteers more than you do. Besides, you can't prove Bortanovsky is a profiteer. He's a private craftsman, true, but he's a craftsman and he works himself. And in Odessa he used to work at the October Revolution Factory. You don't find craftsmen like him all over the place. Who overhauled Pecheritsa's motor-bike? Bortanovsky! And you call him a profiteer!"

  "Hold on, Tiktor," I said very calmly, "only a minute ago you yourself called Bortanovsky a profiteer."

  "I did?... Nothing of the kind!" Tiktor exclaimed indignantly.

  "Yes, you did! You said yourself you gave 'a profiteer a slap on the jaw.' I've got a good memory. You've told one too many..."

  "Drop that, Mandzhura, don't try scaring me!" Tiktor bawled, growing furious in his confusion. "You're a bit too green to talk to me like that, kid! I'm a worker born and bred. I know why you're all against me—because I earn more than you! You'd take on jobs from Bortanovsky yourself, but he wouldn't give 'em to you, even if you did them free. Your handiwork wouldn't suit him! They make do on their mingy grants, and if I don't want to live like a beggar—they start persecuting me. Chuck me out of the Komsomol! You can go and stuff yourselves! I'm not a climber, I'm a working chap!"

  "Now I see that you must be expelled from the Komsomol!" I told Tiktor, looking him straight in the eye. "If you can say things like that..."

  "Now, you young people, what's all the jawing about in working hours?" Zhora asked sternly coming into the room. "Finished cleaning the cores, Mandzhura?. . . Are these them? That'll be about enough for today. Now listen, get dressed and fly over to the school. In the forge they'll give you some rams for us."

  Worked up after my quarrel with Tiktor, I flung out into the yard without even buttoning my chumarka.

  It was wonderfully quiet and snowy all round. My eyes pricked as I looked at the deep drifts on the allotment and in the foundry yard. The trees were fluffy with snow. A tomtit with a black comb fluttered past me knocking a twig with its wing and a great pile of snow showered silently off the tree.

  A narrow path had been trodden across Hospital Square. I walked slowly. It was like going down a crowded corridor and the hem of my chumarka brushed the snowdrifts. The roofs of the little houses round the square were piled high with snow; lilac and jasmine bushes in their gardens poked out of the snow like birch-brooms; even the tall, narrow chimney on the Motor Factory was caked with snow-flakes on one side.

  "We don't need a hooligan like you!" That had been a good reply to Tiktor. He had gone a bit too far with his rotten conduct and all the dirty things he had said about the Komsomol, and now he would complain that it was all our fault. If he had been a decent, honest chap, who would say anything against him! H hadn't told him off for personal reasons—I was thinking of our organization. Why couldn't he understand that! If he started swindling and robbing the state, working against the people when he was young, what would become of him later? We had advised him last year to stop going with 'Kotka

  Grigorenko. "Mind you don't slip up," Petka and I had told him. "We've known that Kotka ever since he was a kid. His father was all for Petlura, he betrayed our friends, and his son's got a bad streak in him too. Surely he's not the kind of fellow for you to go with, is he?" But did Tiktor listen to us? What a hope! "You can't teach me anything, I'm not green like you!" He and Kotka used to go staggering down Post Street arm in arm, and to parties and weddings with kulak lads in the neighbouring village, and then Kotka ran away to Poland. He must have done something pretty bad, if he had to resort to a thing like that. And then Tiktor was in a mess; twice he, a Komsomol member, was summoned by the security men and given a serious talking-to because he had been a close friend of Kotka's. After that he had moped about looking sorry for himself, and now it was starting all over again. . .

  Turning these thoughts over in my mind I crossed the snowy expanse of the yard and entered the forge.

  The rams were not ready, and while I was waiting for them to be forged, I went up into the locksmiths' shop, fit was dinner-time and everyone had gone out. The workshop was amazingly quiet.

  No one stood at the benches sprinkled with filings. I went to the club and found our chaps crowding round the glass-fronted case on the wall reading the latest newspaper. Our Red Cordon was attracting particular attention today, I squeezed closer.

  "An Absurd School," it read in big letters across the top of the page and knew in a flash what it was about. The article, signed "Dr. Zenon Pecheritsa," said that the director of the factory-training school, Polevoi, was sabotaging the spread of Ukrainian culture, that for a long time he had kept at his school a teacher who could not speak Ukrainian; when the teacher was eventually dismissed, Polevoi had organized a collection to buy him a costly present. Pecheritsa concluded his article by remarking that the very existence of a factory-training school in our little town where there was no industry was absurd...

  Footsteps echoed down the corridor. It was Polevoi coming from his office. He was wearing his khaki jacket. His cap was tilted on the back of his head, exposing his high sunburnt forehead. We made way for Polevoi to go up to the newspaper, but he smiled and said, "Read it yourselves. I know everything that's written there."

  Sasha Bobir darted up to Polevoi.

  "Nestor Varnayevich, what does 'Dr.' mean?" he asked unexpectedly.

  A laugh went up and even Polevoi hid a smile.

  " 'Dr.' Well, I suppose it means 'Doctor.' "

  "But how can Pecheritsa be a doctor?" Sasha insisted. "Doctors go round hospitals curing people, but he conducts a choir and orders teachers about. Are there doctors like that?"

  "There are all kinds of doctors," Polevoi replied. "They're not all doctors of medicine. Pecheritsa is a Galician. I ought to tell you that in Galicia they're very fond of showing off a bit by putting 'Doctor' in front of their names. Nearly every officer in that legion of Galician riflemen who fought with the Austrians against the Russian army called himself a doctor. There were all kinds: doctors of law, philosophy, philology, veterinary science... Perhaps Pecheritsa is a doctor of music."

  "If the Galicians fought against us with the Austrians, why do we let them come here? Haven't we got enough Petlura hangers-on, as it is!" Sasha insisted.

  "Never speak like that again, Bobir!" Polevoi exclaimed. "You must never judge a whole people by its renegades... The Galicians are a good, hard-working, honest people, they're our blood brothers. They speak the same language as we do, their country's been Ukrainian for centuries."

  And Polevoi reminded us how not long ago, at the Fourteenth Party Congress, Comrade Stalin had said it was only because the Treaty of Versailles had carved up many states that our Ukraine had lost Galicia and Western Volyn.

  "If anybody knows the Galicians, I should," Polevoi went on. "When Peremyshl was captured, I was badly wounded out there, in Galicia... The army retreated and I was left lying on the ground, unconscious. Well, do you think those people gave me away to the Austrians? Nothing of the kind! I lay for over a year in a peasant's cottage, in the village of Kopysno. They brought a doctor to me secretly from Peremyshl. He operated on me twice. I might have been a Galician myself the way those Galicians looked after me... Yes, it would be good to meet some of those people again. Just think, the little Zbruch is all that divides us! It's not the fault of the Galician working folk that they're under foreign domination and have been suffering under it for years."

  ... When we came out of school and went to the hostel to have dinner, Petka, who adored Polevoi, pounced on Sasha: "Couldn't you ask your questions another time? You could see he was upset by that rotten article, but you had to start worrying him: 'What's "Dr." mean?' Do you want to know what it means? 'Dr.' means daft like you!"

  "All right, don't shout," Sasha grunted. "Perhaps I did it on purpose to cheer him up, I wanted to take his mind off things. How about that?" And Sasha smiled complacently.

  I remembered how Polevoi had been liked an
d respected by the students at the Party School when he was group secretary there.

  One day, when he was still at the Party School, Polevoi had dropped in to see us. Father was out—he was printing the school newspaper Student's Voice in our little print-shop. Polevoi noticed a poetry album on my table. We still had the high-school boys' habit of keeping such albums. The girls in our class would stick pictures in their albums and draw flowers all round them—narcissuses and tulips usually—then write sentimental verses there about beautiful flowers, white-winged angels, harps, forget-me-nots, and so on.

  I am ashamed now to admit it, but I had such an album too. It was full of verses and good wishes from friends. To my amazement, Polevoi leafed through my album, chuckled to himself, then, sitting down at the table, picked up a pen and wrote on a clean page:

  Far beyond the stormy present

  Lies the Future's happy shore

  Where the sky is clear and pleasant

  And the tempest roars no more.

  It is only the courageous

  Whom the waves will carry there.

  Forward, friends! The tempest rages,

  But these sails it cannot tear!

  I had not asked him to do it. He just wrote, then got up and left the room without a word.

  I was very surprised, I remember. At first, I thought it was an acrostic. I read the first letters of each line from top to bottom, but couldn't make any sense of it.

  Polevoi's action pleased me. lit was nice to feel that he didn't mind having to do with a youngster like me...

  At the factory-training school everyone knew that Polevoi was rather rough and strict on the outside, but a very kind man at heart. He spent all day at the school trying to make us into skilled workers and

  good citizens.

  We all liked our director and Pecheritsa's article staggered us. Although Polevoi gave no sign of being hurt, we guessed it was only in front of us that he was so calm; underneath he must be feeling very bitter.

  After dinner I left the forge with two rams under my arm and headed for the school gate. Just as I was going through the gate I heard a shout from Nikita:

  "Special committee meeting after school!"

  "Oh, good! Tiktor's been asking..."

  "I don't suppose we'll have time for Tiktor today. There's something more important," said Nikita. "What's up?"

  "Don't you know?"

  "No. What is it?"

  "Pecheritsa wants to close down the school."

  "You don't mean it?"

  "Of course, I do!"

  "But what about us?"

  "Private tinkering, labour exchange, or get your Mum and Dad to keep you," Nikita said, twisting his face into a grin.

  I thought for a moment he was pulling my leg. "But they can't do that! Surely, you're joking, Nikita?" "Never been more serious in my life! Mind you come," Nikita answered shortly.

  BAD NEWS

  Never since we started school had we held such a stormy committee meeting as we held that evening. The last light had gone out in the windows of the neighbouring houses, the iron shutters of the shops in the old part of the town had rumbled down long ago, but still we argued and shouted about what we should do...

  On the table lay Pecheritsa's order to close the school.

  No one could resign himself to the idea that in two week's time, when we still had another month and a half at school, we should just be kicked out.

  While we argued and fumed and racked our brains for a way of softening Pecheritsa's heart and making him withdraw his order, Polevoi, our director, and the only Party member in the whole school, sat quietly in a corner and said nothing. Apparently, he wanted to hear what we had to say, and then, as a representative of the Party, tell us his opinion. At length, when everybody had had his say, Nikita looked inquiringly at the director.

  "It's a foolish position that I'm in, a very foolish one, lads, and I don't know whether you'll understand me properly," Polevoi said rising to his feet. His voice trembled as he spoke and the room grew so quiet that we could hear the snow on the pavement outside crunching under the feet of some belated passer-by. "As I look at you, the young, hot-headed lads you are, I just can't imagine how we can part. In the time we've been together we've become real friends, and I believe that all of you will make good. As a member of the Party, here, at this Komsomol committee meeting, I can tell you frankly: the whole thing is wrong from beginning to end. 'It's unjust that you shouldn't be allowed to finish this last six weeks. It's unjust of them to close the school. That decision is against the Party line. . ."

  Polevoi rummaged in his tunic pocket and, taking out a scrap of paper, went on: ". . . it contradicts the directives of the Fourteenth Party Congress. All right, suppose what he says is true—at the moment there aren't any suitable factories in our district that we can send you to when you finish school. But there are such factories in other towns of the Ukraine. Then why won't Pecheritsa get in touch with the government and arrange something for us? The long and the short of it is that he doesn't believe in the future of our industry. He doesn't want the blue sky of Podolia soiled with factory smoke!... But without that we shan't be able to maintain Soviet power! If we don't build factories all over the country, we shall be finished, and not only that—we shan't be able to help any of the peoples who are waiting for our aid. That's as clear as two and two makes four. Only this perishing conductor doesn't-want to understand the obvious truth. . . And I've got a very definite feeling that Pecheritsa's tactics are playing right into the hands of the Ukrainian nationalists, if Kartamyshev had been in town, I would have got this order cancelled today. But Kartamyshev caught a chill during the alarm and his lungs are bad -again, so he's gone to Yalta for treatment. His place has been taken by Sokorenko—a new man to our organization. Sokorenko's heard that Pecheritsa was sent here from 'Kharkov and he's afraid of pulling him up. I shall have to talk to Sokorenko, and explain things to him. But it seems to me that there's no need for you to stand aside. While I'm protesting here, on the spot, why shouldn't you go and stir them up in Kharkov? We've not only got to fight to keep our school going, we've got to make Kharkov find jobs at factories for our first lot of trainees, for all of you. You have every right to them."

  And we decided to fight.

  A resolution was carried that immediately after the general Komsomol meeting a pupils' delegation should be sent to the District Party Committee. It was also decided that I should be sent to Kharkov to see the Central Committee of the Komsomol.

  That was the last thing I had expected! When all the chaps shouted, "Mandzhura! Mandzhura ought to go!" I could scarcely believe my ears.

  I tried to make excuses, but Nikita said confidently: "Never mind that, Vasil. It's all bunk about your never travelling on a train before and losing yourself and all the rest of it. Your tongue will get you anywhere and Kharkov's not far away. Are we the kind to get scared over such journeys! Who knows, we may have to take a trip to Berlin or Paris one of these days. And you're afraid of going to Kharkov, to one of our own Soviet towns! But you're quite a brave chap on the whole and we're sure you'll find your way about there all right. So get cracking on the long trail and stick up for our interests! Get justice, or die! That's all."

  The meeting was declared closed.

  Tired and excited, we walked back to the hostel through the quiet snowy streets of our little town. Of was in a daze. The decision to send me to Kharkov had hit me like an avalanche. But it was good to feel that my friends trusted me, and I swore to myself that I would do my best.

  AN UNEXPECTED TRAVELLING COMPANION

  No one came to see me off at the station, not even Pet-ka. That evening there was to be a pupils' conference. Pecheritsa was expected to attend. After two invitations, he had condescended to "drop in." Everyone wanted to hear what this ginger-moustached bureaucrat had to say besides what was in his order. Well over half the school's pupils were preparing to speak. They intended to give Pecheritsa a real fight and demand that he can
cel the order. But the train left at seven fifteen in the evening. I had told the

  chaps myself not to see me off. They had better stick together and give that bureaucrat a hiding.

  I arrived at the station half an hour before the train was due to leave and saw that no one was being allowed on the platform yet. With one hand in my pocket feeling the hard little ticket that we had clubbed together to buy, and the other gripping a brief case, I strolled about the station, glancing up at the clock.

  Firmly pinned with two safety-pins in the inside pocket of my jacket were forty-three rubles sixty kopeks. At dinner-time we had been given our grants and most of the chaps at school had contributed a ruble each for my journey. That was how I had come to possess such a large sum, I had never had so much money before in my life. My papers for the journey were in the brief case that Nikita had forced on me. He had gone specially to the District Komsomol Committee and borrowed it from Dmitry Panchenko, the head of the instructors' department. Afraid of being laughed at, I tried to refuse it, but Nikita was adamant.

  "Try to understand, old chap," he said persuasively, "when a brief case is necessary, it's nothing to be ashamed of. There's no reason why it should be a sign that you've turned into a bureaucrat. If you haven't got a brief case, what will you do with all your papers, the school estimate, the lists of pupils? Stuff them in your pockets? You'll get everything crumpled. And where will you put your towel, soap, tooth-brush? There's nowhere, is there? But it all goes fine into a brief case. Suppose you go in to see the chief of education himself. Do you want to fish a lot of crumpled papers out of your pocket?... You'll feel much better with a brief case."

  I tried every excuse I could think of to get out of taking the brief case, for I knew that the Komsomol members who carried brief cases were called bureaucrats. And if one of these brief case owners went so far as to put a tie round his neck, he was sure to be dubbed a petty bourgeois or an upstart. Before I left the hostel, I wrapped the brief case in old newspapers and carried it under my arm, like a parcel. Not until I reached the station did I glance round and throw the newspaper into the ditch.