第 16 页

Yet it could only be Artem.

Pavel decided to open the window.

"Who's there?" he said into the darkness.

There was a movement outside the window and a muffled bass replied:

"It's me, Zhukhrai."

Two hands were laid on the windowsill and Fyodor's head came up until it was level with Pavel's face.

"I've come to spend the night with you. Any objections, mate?" Zhukhrai whispered.

"Of course not," Pavel replied warmly. "You know you're always welcome. Climb in."

Fyodor squeezed his great bulk through the opening.

He closed the window but did not move away from the window at once. He stood listening intently, and when the moon slipped out from behind a cloud and the road became visible he scanned it carefully. Then he turned to Pavel.

"We won't wake up your mother, will we?"

Pavel told him there was nobody home besides himself. The sailor felt more at ease and spoke in a louder voice.

"Those cutthroats are after my hide in earnest now, matey. They've got it in for me after what happened over at the station. If our fellows would stick together a bit more we could have given the greycoats a fine reception during the pogrom. But folks, as you see, aren't ready to plunge into the fire yet, and so nothing came of it. Now they're looking for me, twice they've had the dragnet out —today I got away by the skin of my teeth. I was going home, you see, by the back way of course, and had just stopped at the shed to look around, when I saw a bayonet sticking out from behind a tree trunk. I naturally cast off and headed for your place. If you've got nothing against it I'll drop anchor here for a few days. All right, mate? Good."

Zhukhrai, still breathing heavily, began pulling off his mud-splashed boots.

Pavel was glad he had come. The power plant had not been working latterly and Pavel felt lonely in the empty house.

They went to bed. Pavel fell asleep at once, but Fyodor lay awake for a long time smoking.

Presently he rose and, tiptoeing on bare feet to the window, stared out for a long time into the street. Finally, overcome by fatigue, he lay down and fell asleep, but his hand remained on the butt of the heavy Colt which he had tucked under the pillow.

Zhukhrai's unexpected arrival that night and the eight days spent in his company influenced the whole course of Pavel's life. From the sailor Pavel learned much that was new to him, and that stirred him to the depths of his being.

Driven into hiding, Zhukhrai made use of his enforced idleness to pass on to the eager Pavel all his passionate fury and burning hatred for the Ukrainian Nationalists who were throttling the area.

Zhukhrai spoke in language that was vivid, lucid and simple. He had no doubts, his path lay clearly before him, and Pavel came to see that all this tangle of political parties with high-sounding names—Socialist-Revolutionaries, Social-Democrats, Polish Socialists—was a collection of vicious enemies of the workers, and that the only revolutionary party which steadfastly fought against the rich was the Bolshevik Party.

Formerly Pavel had been hopelessly confused about all this.

And so this staunch, stout-hearted Baltic sailor weathered by sea squalls, a confirmed Bolshevik, who had been a member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) since 1915, taught Pavel the harsh truths of life, and the young stoker listened spellbound.

"I was something like you, matey, when I was young," he said. "Just didn't know what to do with my energy, a restless youngster always ready to kick over the traces. I was brought up in poverty.

And at times the very sight of those pampered, well-fed sons of the town gentry made me see red.

Often enough I beat them up badly, but all I got out of it was a proper trouncing-from my father.

You can't change things by carrying on a lone fight. You, Pavlusha, have all the makings of a good fighter in the workingman's cause, only you're still very young-and you don't know much about the class struggle. I'll put you on the right road, matey, because I know you'll make good. I can't stand the quiet, smug-sort. The whole world's afire now. The slaves have risen and the old life's got to be scuttled. But to do that we need stout fellows, not sissies, who'll go crawling into cracks like so many cockroaches when the fighting starts, but men with guts who'll hit out without mercy."

His fist crashed down on the table.

He got up, frowning1, and paced up and down the room with hands thrust deep in his pockets.

His inactivity depressed him. He bitterly regretted having-stayed behind in this town, and believing any further stay to be pointless, was firmly resolved to make his way through the front to meet the Red units.

A group of nine Party members would remain in town to carry on the work.

"They'll manage without me. I can't sit around any longer doing- nothing1. I've wasted ten months as it is," Zhukhrai thought irritably.

"What exactly are you, Fyodor?" Pavel had asked him once.

Zhukhrai got up and shoved his hands into his pockets. He did not grasp the meaning of the question at first.

"Don't you know?"

"I think you're a Bolshevik or a Communist," Pavel said in a low voice.

Zhukhrai burst out laughing, slapping his massive chest in its tight-fitting striped jersey.

"Right enough, matey! It's as much a fact as that Bolshevik and Communist are one and the same thing." Suddenly he grew serious. "But now that you've grasped that much, remember it's not to be mentioned to anyone or anywhere, if you don't want them to draw and quarter me. Understand?"

"I understand," Pavel replied firmly. Voices were heard from the yard and the door was pushed open without a preliminary knock. Zhukhrai's hand slipped into his pocket but emerged again when Sergei Bruzzhak, thin and pale, with a bandage on his head, entered the room, followed by Valya and Klimka.

"Hullo, old man," Sergei shook Pavel's hand and smiled. "Decided to pay you a visit, all three of us. Valya wouldn't let me go out alone, and Klimka is afraid to let her go by herself. He may be a redhead but he knows what he's about."

Valya playfully clapped her hand over his mouth. "Chatterbox," she laughed. "He won't give Klimka any peace today."

Klimka showed his white teeth in a good-natured grin. "What can you do with a sick fellow?

Brain pan's damaged, as you can see." They all laughed.

Sergei, who had not yet recovered from the effects of the sabre blow, settled on Pavel's bed and soon the young people were engaged in a lively conversation. As he told Zhukhrai the story of his encounter with the Petlyura bandit, Sergei, usually so gay and cheerful, was quiet and depressed.

Zhukhrai knew the three young people, for he had visited the Bruzzhaks on several occasions. He liked these youngsters; they had not yet found their place in the vortex of the struggle, but the aspirations of their class were clearly expressed in them. He listened with interest to the young people's account of how they had helped to shelter Jewish families in their homes to save them from the pogrom. That evening he told the young folk much about the Bolsheviks, about Lenin, helping them to understand what was happening.

It was quite late when Pavel's guests left. Zhukhrai went out every evening and returned late at night; before leaving town he had to discuss with the comrades who would remain in town the work they would have to do.

This particular night Zhukhrai did not come back, When Pavel woke up in the morning he saw at a glance that the sailor's bed had not been slept in.

Seized by some vague premonition, Pavel dressed hurriedly and left the house. Locking the door and putting the key in the usual place, he went to Klimka's house hoping that the latter would have some news of Fyodor. Klimka's mother, a stocky woman with a broad face pitted with pockmarks,

was doing the wash. To Pavel's question whether she knew where Fyodor was she replied curtly: "You'd think I'd nothing else to do but keep an eye on your Fyodor. It's all through him—the devil take him— that Zozulikha's house was turned upside down. What've you got to do with him? A queer lot, if you ask me. Klimka and you and the rest of them. . . ." She turned back in anger to her washtub.

Klimka's mother was an ill-tempered woman, with a biting tongue. . . .

From Klimka's house Pavel went to Sergei's where he voiced his fears.

"Why should you be so worried?" said Valya. "Perhaps he stayed over at some friend's place." But her words lacked confidence.

Pavel was too restless to stop at the Bruzzhaks for long, and although they tried to persuade him to stay for dinner he took his leave.

He headed back home in hopes of finding Zhukhrai there.

The door was locked. Pavel stood outside for a while with a heavy heart; he couldn't bear the thought of going into the deserted house.

For a few minutes he stood in the yard deep in thought, then, moved by an impulse, he went into the shed. He climbed up under the roof and brushing away the cobwebs reached into his secret hiding place and brought out the heavy Mannlicher wrapped in rags.

He left the shed and went down to the station, strangely elated by the feel of the revolver weighing down his pocket.

But there was no news of Zhukhrai at the station. On the way back his step slowed down as he drew alongside the now familiar garden of the forest warden. With a faint flicker of hope, he looked up at the windows of the house, but it was as lifeless as the garden. When he had passed the garden he turned back to glance at the paths now covered with a rusty crop of last year's leaves. The place seemed desolate and neglected—no industrious hand had laid a visible imprint here—and the dead stillness of the big old house made Pavel feel sadder still.

His last quarrel with Tonya had been the most serious they had had. It had all happened quite unexpectedly, nearly a month ago.

As he slowly walked back to town, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, Pavel recalled how it had come about.

They had met quite by chance on the road and Tonya had invited him over to her place.

"Dad and mother are going to a birthday party at the Bolshanskys, and I'll be all alone. Why don't you come over, Pavlusha? I have a very interesting book we could read—Leonid Andreyev's Sashka Zhigulyov. I've already finished it, but I'd like to reread it with you. I'm sure it would be a nice evening. Will you come?"

Her big, wide-open eyes looked at him expectantly from under the white bonnet she wore over her thick chestnut hair.

"I'll come."

At that they parted.

Pavel Hurried to his machines, and the very thought that he had a whole evening with Tonya to look forward to, made the flames in the firebox seem to burn more brightly and the burning logs to crackle more merrily than usual.

When he knocked at the wide front door that evening it was a slightly disconcerted Tonya who answered.

"I have visitors tonight. I didn't expect them, Pavlusha. But you must come in," she said.

Pavel wanted to go and turned to the door.

"Come in," she took him by the arm. "It'll do them good to know you." And putting her arm around his waist, she led him through the dining room into her own room.

As they entered she turned to the young people seated there and smiled.

"I want you to meet my friend Pavel Korchagin."

There were three people sitting around the small table in the middle of the room: Liza Sukharko, a pretty, dark-complexioned Gymnasium student with a pouting little mouth and a fetching coiffure,a lanky youth in a well-tailored black jacket, his sleek hair shining with hair-oil, and a vacant look in his grey eyes, and between them, in a foppish school jacket, Victor Leszczinski. It was him Pavel saw first when Tonya opened the door.

Leszczinski too recognised Korchagin at once and his fine arched eyebrows lifted in surprise.

For a few seconds Pavel stood silent at the door, eyeing Victor with frank hostility. Tonya hastened to break the awkward silence by asking Pavel to come in and turning to Liza to introduce her.

Liza Sukharko, who was inspecting the new arrival with interest, rose from her chair.

Pavel, however, turned sharply and strode out through the semidark dining room to the front door.

He was already on the porch when Tonya overtook him and seized him by the shoulders.

"Why are you running off? I especially wanted them to meet you."

Pavel removed her hands from his shoulders and replied sharply:

"I'm not going to be put on a show before that dummy. I don't belong to that crowd—you may like them, but I hate them. If I'd known they were your friends I'd never have come."

Tonya, suppressing her rising anger, interrupted him:

"What right have you to speak to me like that? I don't ask you who your friends are and who comes to see you."

"I don't care whom you see, only I'm not coming here any more," Pavel shot back at her as he went down the front steps. He ran to the garden gate.

He had not seen Tonya since then. During the pogrom, when he and the electrician had hidden several Jewish families at the power station, he had forgotten about the quarrel, and today he wanted to see her again.

Zhukhrai's disappearance and the knowledge that there was no one at home depressed Pavel. The grey stretch of road swung to the right ahead of him. The spring mud had not yet dried, and the road was pitted with holes filled with brown mire. Beyond a house whose shabby, peeling facade jutted out onto the edge of the pavement the road forked off.

Victor Leszczinski was saying good-bye to Liza at the street intersection opposite a wrecked stand with a splintered door and an inverted "Mineral Water" sign. He held her hand in his as he spoke, pleadingly gazing into her eyes.

"You will come? You won't deceive me?"

"Of course I shall come. You must wait for me," Liza replied coquettishly.

And as she left him she smiled at him with promise in her misty hazel eyes.

A few yards farther down the street Liza saw two men emerge from behind a corner onto the roadway. The first was a sturdy, broadchested man in worker's clothes, his unbuttoned jacket revealing a striped jersey underneath, a black cap pulled down over his forehead, and brown, low-topped boots on his feet. There was a blue-black bruise under his eye.