The Town By The Sea tof-3 Read online

  "Well, er. . . It wasn't bad at the station. . ."

  "What's come over you all of a sudden? You were rattling away just now. Come on, confess: you didn't have enough money?"

  "I did, but..."

  And little by little I told the secretary my troubles.

  Shaking his head sympathetically, the secretary smiled, then breaking into a laugh, said: "Those Sharks of New York let you down, lad! You're feeling hungry now, I bet?"

  "Oh, no ... no, thanks, I've had breakfast. . ." "Well, listen to me, lad," said the Secretary of the Central Committee, rising. "I am quite sure that decision will be rescinded. I'll make enquiries today and I think your hopes will come true. Not one of you will be left stranded —that's certain. Very soon we shall be needing young intelligent workers like you everywhere. Both in the Donbas and in Yekaterinoslav. At a meeting in Moscow last year, Comrade Stalin put it quite plainly: 'We need fifteen or twenty million industrial proletarians, we need the electrification of the principal regions of our country, the organization of agriculture on co-operative lines, and a highly developed metal industry. And then we need fear no danger. And then we shall triumph on an international scale.' And isn't it the duty of our young people to help the Party carry out that task? Of course it is. Don't you worry, the Party won't let you down.. . As

  for your personal troubles, they can soon be put right. Go to Comrade Kirillov in room thirty-two. He will find you accommodation and all the other things. Take this note."

  He scribbled a few words and handed me a sheet from his note-pad.

  "Have a rest today and go to the theatre in the evening. Go and see Saksagansky acting. There's a really great Ukrainian artist for you! One of these days, when you grow up, people will envy you that you saw him acting in person. You'll find it a lot better in all ways than those 'Sharks.' Spend the night here and leave tomorrow. . . Yes, and give Kartamyshev my regards. Tell him to keep a close eye on that frontier. Well, good-bye, lad!" And the secretary offered me his hand.

  I said good-bye and sped joyfully out of the room, nearly tripping over the carpet as I went.

  As I closed the door behind me, I heard the secretary speaking into one of his telephones: "A comrade who's come here on a visit will be dropping in to see you. He's been robbed. We shall have to help him. . . Yes, from the fund for Communists in need of assistance. . ."

  I don't know how long I spent at the Central Commit tee. Maybe an hour, maybe more. The time flew past with out my noticing it. When I came out from under the arch, the sun shone brightly in my eyes. The morning mist had drifted away, and on the bare trees in the university square opposite, the crows, sensing the approach of spring, were cawing loudly. The roofs were dripping, and the snow, dark and crumbly like sugar soaked in tea, melted before my eyes.

  Here was luck! I still couldn't get over my good fortune. I had thought I should have to stay here for about three days, arguing and going all over the place, but after one talk—everything was settled! And so quickly! It was really amazing. Perhaps I had dreamt it all? Of course not! I fingered the crisp new notes in my pocket. They were from Kirillov. Just in case they might be needed I had given him the list of pupils and our letter to the Central Committee of the Komsomol. I had never expected to get any money when I went to see Comrade Kirillov. 'I had just gone in and shown the secretary's note to an elderly man in a navy-blue tunic, and after asking me a few questions and having a good laugh, he had handed me a whole fifty rubles. He had also given me a pass to the hostel for visiting Party workers, in Artem Street, as if I were already a member of the Party.

  With a great load off my mind and rejoicing for my friends at school, I skipped gaily across the street and wandered into the deserted park covered with melted snow.

  The last snow of winter, grey and thin as jelly, slithered about under my feet. Here and there, black patches of sodden earth covered with dead leaves and frozen grass showed on the mounds. What a fine park it was on that glorious sunny morning! And no one else about except me, who scarcely knew whether I was on my head or my heels for joy!

  I turned round. Through the bare trees 'I could see the familiar outlines of a tall building. For a moment I fancied I could see someone smiling in the sunlight and waving to me from a big window—the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Ukraine, a true friend of Comrade Stalin. In my joy I stamped my foot so hard that I cracked the hard trampled coating of ice on the foot-path and sunk ankle-deep in snow. I stood like that and listened.

  Far away the trams were clanging, crows were flapping about in the birches, in the next street a motor-horn quacked like a duck, but all these sounds were drowned by the beating of my heart.

  Spring was coming and the sun was warm, and that spring morning I quite forgot I was in a big, strange city...

  BY TORCH-LIGHT

  Swaying torches blaze in the spring breeze. Tails of sooty smoke weave above the heads of the Komsomol column marching down the cobbled road leading from the station into town. Beyond the roadside ditches filled with the water of the thaw stretch black, desolate allotments. How quickly the snow has vanished while I have been away in Kharkov! Very likely the deep gullies that run down to the Dniester, right on the border, are the only places where the last, dirty snowdrifts remain.

  At the head of the column a taut canvas sheet strains in the wind. The marchers' feet strike firmly on the cobblestones. A single clear voice is singing in the front rank:

  In the storm ofOctober

  An army was born

  Ofthe Komsomol, daring and brave and young.. .

  Then the ranks pick up the familiar chorus:

  The oppressors to crush,

  The oppressors to crush...

  The fresh spring air helps on the song. I sing, too, hugging my brief case, which is now once again wrapped in newspaper.

  ... The young railwaymen's Komsomol group had already formed up with lighted torches on Station Square when the train steamed in to the platform and I, jumping off before the train stopped, ran out on to the station steps. Panchenko of the District Committee, in a sheepskin hat, was pacing about with the group secretary in front of the ranks.

  "Hullo, Mandzhura!" he said as he passed. "Got back? Fall in with us. We're holding a demonstration to get Kabakchiev, the Bulgarian Communist, out ofjail. Hurry up—we're late!"

  I fell in quickly and we stepped off at once, carrying a red calico banner on which was written:

  WE DEMAND THAT THE BULGARIAN FASCISTS LIBERATE THE HEROIC REVOLUTIONARY FIGHTER KHRISTO KABAKCHIEV

  "I'll march with them as far as Soviet Square and join up with my own chaps there," I thought, picking up the song.

  White cottages, the first buildings of the town, loomed out of the darkness.

  My home town! I felt its evening stillness shattered by the boisterous songs of the marchers. They were songs that frightened the musty representatives of the old world who still lived among us—former tsarist officials, priests, private traders and all those who hoped for the return of the tsarist regime one day.

  Lowering storm-clouds gather above us,

  Sinister forces threaten us still. . .

  the marchers struck up a fresh song.

  How I longed to tell the fellows beside me that I had just come back from Kharkov where I had talked with no less a person than the Secretary of the Central Committee himself. How I longed to tell everyone that the secretary had called Pecheritsa a "landscape-painter." If only I could have related how I had seen Saksagansky acting in a play called Vanity! But my neighbours went on singing and took no notice of me.

  Even Panchenko had not asked about my trip. From the way he had greeted me you would think I had been to the next village, not the capital... Panchenko was marching at the side of the column. I could make out his deep, soft voice among the other voices.

  Along the other side of Hospital Square, near the dark building of the factory-training school, another torch-light column was moving towards the centre of the town.
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  Was it the factory-school chaps? Of course it was! Only our group had such bright torches.

  "Cheerio, chaps! Thanks for your company! I'm off to my own group!" I shouted to the railwaymen and, breaking away from the column, I sped across the square.

  My feet dragged in the muddy clay. What a fuss Sasha would make if I lost his galoshes! Splashes of ice-cold water flew out on all sides. My trouser-legs were wet through already. Nearer and nearer came the light of the torches. I gasped for breath. Everything would be all right as long as I didn't get caught on the barbed wire! There was a gap in it somewhere round here. Yes, here it was. . . One last spurt and I was running along the firm road, overtaking the rear of the column.

  "Hey there, chaps! Hurrah!" I shouted, waving the heavy brief case so joyfully that the paper flew off. But who cared! No one would call me a bureaucrat now. "Pugu!" I shouted like a Cossack, spotting Sasha's ginger mop. "Take your galoshes, Sasha!"

  "Vasil's back. . . Mandzhura's here!" came excited voices.

  "Fall in here, with me," Nikita shouted from the head of the column.

  I pushed into the front rank and gripped our secretary's hand firmly.

  There were familiar faces all round me—Sasha Bobir, fatty Maremukha, Furman the know-all. I glanced back and saw the dejected face of Yasha Tiktor in the rear.

  "Well, what's the news?" Nikita said, glancing into my face.

  "Everything's all right, Nikita!" I answered simply. "We'll be going to the Donbas. Listen..." Choking with excitement and trying not to trip over, I told Nikita hurriedly about my visit to the Central Committee. A drop of tar from a torch dripped on my nose. I rubbed it off with my fist and gasped out my story in bits and pieces. The ranks were very close together and it was difficult to march. Trying to hear what I was saying, the chaps kept treading on my heels and pushing me from behind.

  "Is that what he said, 'your dreams will come true'?" Nikita interrupted me.

  "That's right. And then the secretary said: 'Very soon young intelligent workers like you will be needed everywhere—both in Yekaterinoslav and in the Donbas.' "

  "Splendid! So there's justice in the world after all Polevoi was right, wasn't he? See what a clever bloke h is?" Nikita said triumphantly, and turning to the rest o| the column, he shouted: "We'll soon be going to the Don-f bas, chaps! What did I say? Let's have a song to mark the occasion—our school song!" In one voice we struck up with the trainees song composed by a young worker-poet Teren Masenko. "We'd toss you, Vasil, but it's a bit too muddy," Nikita shouted. "We're so grateful, we might drop you—you'd get yourself dirty if you fell, you know." Proud and happy, I sang with the others. "Is Pecheritsa back yet?" I asked Nikita. "Try and find him!" Nikita flung back grimly. "What, have they

  sacked him already? By telegraph, I suppose?"

  "He's sacked himself." "When I was with him in the train..." "Where?" Nikita exclaimed, fixing his eyes on me. "Where? Why, we travelled together as far as Zhmerinka, then..."

  "What's that?" Nikita snapped, very alert suddenly. "You went as far as Zhmerinka with Pecheritsa?"

  Before I had time to tell how I had met Pecheritsa in the train, Nikita swung round and shouted right in my face: "You ass! Don't you realize this is very important! Why didn't you say anything about it before? Come with me... Furman, take charge of the column!"

  We slipped out of the ranks. The group marched on with their blazing torches towards the stands on Soviet Square carrying a big portrait of Kabakchiev. Nikita and I dashed off at top speed to the house in Seminary Street.

  A CALL FROM MOSCOW

  I had always known that Nikita liked making a mystery of things.

  You would ask him about something that interested you. All he had to do was to tell you the answer without keeping you on edge. But no! Nikita would keep you beating about the bush for goodness knows how long, and then, when you fairly were bursting with impatience, he would calmly start telling you about something quite different.

  And that was more or less what he did now.

  Not a thing would Nikita tell me all the way to the district OGPU office. His only answer to my questions was: "Wait a bit!"

  Clutching our blue passes in our hands, we climbed the stairs. Anyone could see that Nikita had been here before by the bold way he climbed the stairs. I followed him.

  We reached the top landing. Nikita walked confidently down a dark corridor and stopped at an oak door. He knocked loudly.

  "Come in!" said a voice from inside.

  Heavy curtains on the windows. Two glass-fronted bookcases. A big, fire-proof safe standing in the corner. In an alcove, a map dotted with flags, half covered by a cur-lain. Below the map, which must have been of the frontier, in the shadow cast by a table lamp sat Vukovich, the tall fair-haired frontier guard chief, who had spent so long scouring about round headquarters with Polevoi after that anxious night when Sasha let the bandit get away.

  "Here's a lad who's just got back from Kharkov. He says he saw Pecheritsa in Zhmerinka," Nikita flashed out straightaway.

  "Near Zhmerinka," I corrected him. "That's interesting!" said Vukovich and offered us a seat.

  ... When my story was nearly over, Vukovich asked: 'But just which station was it where you saw Pecheritsa last?"

  "I was asleep when he got out."

  "I understand that, but when did you see Pecheritsa last?"

  "After Dunayevets... No, half a mo'... That was where the tickets were checked first time."

  "Where was the second check-up? You know, when this chap in the wadded jacket read the warrant?"

  "I don't know... The train was moving and they woke me up."

  "Just a minute!" And Vukovich glanced at his notepad. "You said Pecheritsa asked whether the tickets had been checked."

  "That's right."

  "Where was that—when the train was moving or at a station?"

  "The train had stopped... At a station, I think." "Now, what station was it? Didn't you see any notices?"

  "I just can't remember.. . If I'd known.. . You see, it was the first time I'd been on a train... "

  "Perhaps it was Derazhnya?"

  "No... I don't think so..."

  "Chorny Ostrov?"

  "No.. ." "Kotuzhany?" "No."

  "Was it light on the platform?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "What kind of light?"

  "Same as usual. You know, not very bright."

  Vukovich frowned. "No, wait a moment. That's not what I mean. Was it electricity or kerosene lamps? Or gas, perhaps?"

  "A sort of greenish light from a lamp—a lamp with a round glass, and a burner inside. It was hanging from a post. You remember, we used to have lamps like that in Post Street, near Shipulinsky's cafe. . ."

  "Gas lamps?"

  "That's it—gas lamps!"

  "The station wasn't on a hill by any chance? Stone steps, and the platform all rutted? If it had been raining there'd be a lot of puddles about? Is that anything like it?"

  "Yes, I think so. The train comes in a long way from the station."

  "And you are sure that Pecheritsa didn't get out there?" Vukovich continued with great interest, dropping the last trace of formality in his manner.

  "Of course! It was later on that the conductor checked up again and read his warrant, after that station, and he was still asleep on the bunk."

  "Sure he was asleep?"

  "Yes, he must have been. Although ... he might have been faking, who knows. All I remember is that I saw him there."

  "So then you went to sleep yourself, and when you woke up you were in Zhmerinka?"

  "Uh-huh." .

  "And Pecheritsa wasn't there?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Are you sure of that?"

  "Dead sure."

  "You're a lucky fellow! You got off lightly. With a travelling companion like him, in an empty carriage, you might have gone to sleep and never woken up again," Vukovich said rather mysteriously, then with another glance at his pad where he had been making
notes, he asked: "What struck you about Pecheritsa's appearance?"

  "Well, his coat was sort of ragged... I'd never seen him in a coat like that before."

  "And what else?"

  "Oh, yes! He hadn't got a moustache."

  "None at all?"

  "Not a hair left. He'd shaved it right off."

  "Aha, Comrade 'Kolomeyets," Vukovich said triumphantly, "so it was his moustache we found in a bit of paper outside the District Education Department. I said it was Pecheritsa’s moustache, but Dzhendzhuristy wouldn't have it. 'No,' he says, 'that blighter wouldn't give up his moustache. That's one of the nationalists' traditions—a big bushy Cossack moustache. He'd rather shave off his beard!' Just shows you how people come to expect the usual thing! Why, any enemy in Pecheritsa's shoes would throw away every tradition he ever heard of. You can't bother about traditions when your life's at stake!" And turning to me, Vukovich went on: "You're telling the truth, aren't you, Mandzhura?"

  "Why should I tell lies?" I said indignantly. "Only people who're afraid and have guilty consciences tell lies. I want to help you catch that snake myself."

  "That's the idea, Mandzhura," Vukovich praised me smilingly. "It's the duty of all young workers to help us. We are dangerous only to the enemies of the Revolution, and the better we work, the sooner we shall get rid of them altogether."

  "You've got a big job on," Nikita put in.

  "Yes, to make the whole country free of parasites," Vukovich assented. "Just a minute." And he lifted the telephone receiver. "Shemetova? Vukovich speaking.., Is the chief there? We'll be round in a moment, tell him we're coming, please."

  The office of the chief of the frontier guard detachment and the district OGPU department glowed in the soft light of bowl lamps hung close to the ceiling. How strange to find people here, at this late hour, when all the other offices in town had closed long ago!

  The arm-chairs were soft and comfortable; a glass of strong tea steamed on the edge of the big walnut desk. The chief nodded to us to sit down and with a telephone pressed close to his ear went on listening attentively.