第 51 页

The woman entered the compartment first, Korchagin followed. The guard remained standing in the doorway, blocking the entrance. Pavel noted the two elegant leather travelling bags, a silken cloak flung carelessly on the seat, a bottle of perfume and a small malachite vanity case on the table under the window. The woman sat down in a corner of the couch, patted her fair hair and watched the electrician at work.

"Will madam permit me to leave for a moment?" the guard said obsequiously, inclining his bull neck with some difficulty. "The Major has asked for some cold beer."

"You may go," replied the woman in an affected voice.

The exchange had been in Polish.

A shaft of light from the corridor fell on the woman's shoulder. Her exquisite gown of fine silk made by the best Paris dress designers left her shoulders and arms bare. In the lobe of each delicate ear a diamond drop blazed and sparkled. Korchagin could only see one ivory shoulder and arm. The face was in shadow. Working swiftly with his screwdriver Pavel changed the outlet in the ceiling and a moment later the lights went on in the compartment. Now he had only to examine the other bulb over the sofa on which the woman sat.

"I need to test that bulb," Korchagin said, pausing in front of her.

"Oh yes, I am in your way," the lady replied in perfect Russian. She rose lightly and stood close beside him. Now he had a full view of her. The arched eyebrows and the pursed, disdainful lips were familiar. There could be no doubt of it: it was Nelly Leszczinskaya, the lawyer's daughter.

She could not help noticing his look of astonishment. But though Pavel had recognised her, he had altered too much in these four years for her to realise that this electrician was her troublesome neighbour.

With a frown of displeasure at his surprised stare, she went over to the door of the compartment and stood there tapping the heel of her patent-leather shoe impatiently. Pavel turned his attention to the second bulb. He unscrewed it, raised it to the light and almost as much to his own surprise as hers he asked in Polish:

"Is Victor here as well?"

Pavel had not turned when he spoke. He did not see Nelly's face, but the long silence that followed his query bore testimony to her confusion.

"Why, do you mean you know him?"

"Yes, and very well too. We were neighbours, you know." Pavel turned to look at her.

"You're . . . you're Pavel, the son. . . ." Nelly broke off in confusion.

". . .Of your cook," Korchagin came to her assistance.

"But how you have grown! You were a wild youngster when I knew you."

Nelly examined him coolly from head to foot.

"Why do you ask about Victor? As far as I remember you and he were not exactly friends," she said in her cooing voice. This unexpected encounter promised to be a pleasant relief to her boredom.

The screw swiftly sank into the wall.

"There is a certain debt Victor hasn't paid yet. Tell him when you see him that I haven't lost hope of seeing it settled."

"Tell me how much he owes you and I shall pay you on his account."

She knew very well what debt Korchagin had in mind. She knew that her brother had betrayed Pavel to the Petlyura men, but she could not resist the temptation to make fun of this "ragamuffin".Korchagin said nothing.

"Tell me, is it true that our house has been looted and is now falling into decay? I daresay the summer house and the bushes have all been torn up," Nelly inquired wistfully.

"The house is not yours any more, it is ours, and we are not likely to destroy our own property."

Nelly gave a mocking little laugh.

"Oh, I see you have been well schooled! Incidentally, this carriage belongs to the Polish mission and here I am the mistress and you are the servant just as you always were. You see, you are working now to give me light so that I may lie comfortably on the sofa and read. Your mother used to wash clothes for us and you used to carry water. We meet again under precisely the same circumstances."

Her voice rang with malicious triumph. Scraping the insulation off the end of the wire with his penknife, Pavel gave her a look of undisguised contempt.

"I wouldn't hammer a single rusty nail for you, but since the bourgeoisie have invented diplomats we can play the same game. We don't cut off their heads, in fact we're even polite to them, which is more than can be said of yourself."

Nelly's cheeks crimsoned.

"What would you do with me if you succeeded in taking Warsaw? I suppose you would make mincemeat out of me, or perhaps take me for your mistress?"

She stood in the doorway in a graceful pose; her sensitive nostrils that were no strangers to cocaine quivered. The light went on over the sofa. Pavel straightened up.

"You? Who would bother to kill the likes of you! You'll croak from too much cocaine anyway. I'd sooner take a whore than the likes of you!"

He picked up his tool case and strode to the door. Nelly moved aside to let him pass. He was half way down the corridor when he heard the curse she spat after him: "Damned Bolshevik!"

The following evening as he was on his way to the library Pavel met Katyusha Zelenova. She caught hold of his sleeve with her tiny hand and laughingly barred his path.

"Where are you dashing off to, old politics-and-enlightenment?"

"To the library, auntie, let me pass," Pavel replied in the same bantering tone. He took her gently by the shoulders and shifted her aside. Katyusha shook herself free and walked along beside him.

"Listen here, Pavel! You can't study all the time, you know. I'll tell you what — let's go to a party tonight. The crowd is meeting at Zina Gladysh's. The girls keep asking me to bring you. But you never think of anything but political study nowadays. Don't you ever want to have some fun? It will do you good to miss your reading for once," Katyusha coaxed.

"What sort of a party is it? What are we going to do there?"

"What are we going to do!" Katyusha smilingly mocked him. "We're not going to say prayers, we're going to have a good time, that's all. You play the accordion, don't you? I've never heard you play! Do come and play for us this evening, won't you? Just to please me? Zina's uncle has an accordion but he can't play for anything. The girls are very much interested about you, you old bookworm. Who said Komsomols mustn't enjoy themselves? Come along, before I get sick of persuading you or else we'll quarrel and then I shan't talk to you for a month."

Katyusha was a house painter, a good comrade and a first-rate Komsomol member. Pavel did not want to hurt her feelings and so he agreed, although he felt awkward and out of place at such parties.

A noisy crowd of young people had gathered at engine-driver Giadysh's home. The adults had retired to another room, leaving some fifteen lads and girls in possession of the large living room and porch which gave onto a small front garden. A game called "feeding the pigeons" was in progress when Katyusha led Pavel through the garden into the porch. In the middle of the porch stood two chairs back to back. At a call from the hostess who was leading the game, a boy and a girl seated themselves on the chairs with their backs to each other, and when she cried "Now feed the pigeons!" the couple leaned back until their lips met, much to the delight of the onlookers.

After that they played "the ring" and "postman's knock", both kissing games, although in "postman's knock" the players avoided publicity by doing their kissing not on the brightly lit porch but in the room with the lights out. For those who did not care for these two games, there was a pack of "flower flirt" cards on a small round table in the corner. Pavel's neighbour, a girl of about sixteen with pale blue eyes who introduced herself as Mura, handed him one of the cards with a coy glance and said softly:

"Violet."

A few years back Pavel had attended parties of this kind, and if he had not taken a direct part in the frivolities he had not thought them anything out of the ordinary. But now that he had broken for ever with petty-bourgeois small-town life, the party struck him as disgusting and silly.

Yet here he was with the "flower" card in his hands. Opposite the "violet" he read the words: "I like you very much."

Pavel looked up at the girl. She returned his look without a trace of embarrassment.

"Why?"

His question sounded rather flat. But Mura had her answer ready.

"Rose," she murmured and handed him another card.

The card with the "rose" bore the legend:

"You are my ideal." Korchagin turned to the girl and making a conscious effort to soften his tone, asked:

"Why do you go in for this nonsense?"

Mura was so taken aback that she did not know what to say.

"Don't you like my message?" she said with a capricious pout.

Pavel ignored the question. Yet he was curious to know more about her. He asked her a number of questions which she willingly answered. Within a few minutes he had learned that she attended secondary school, that her father worked at the repair shops and that she had known Pavel for a long time and had wanted to make his acquaintance.

"What is your surname?" Pavel asked.

"Volyntseva."

"Your brother is secretary of the Komsomol cell at the yards, isn't he?"

"Yes."

Now it was clear to him that Volyntsev, one of the most active Komsomols in the district, was allowing his own sister to grow up an ignorant little philistine. She and her friends had attended innumerable kissing parties like this in the past year. She told Pavel she had seen him several times at her brother's place.

Mura felt that Pavel did not approve of her. Noticing the scornful smile on his face, she flatly refused to obey the summons to come and "feed the pigeons". They sat talking for another few minutes while Mura told him more about herself. Presently Katyusha came over to them.

"Shall I bring you the accordion?" she asked, adding with a mischievous glance at Mura, "I see you've made friends?"

Pavel made Katyusha sit down beside them, and taking advantage of the noise and laughter around them, he said:

"I'm not going to play. Mura and I are leaving."

"Oho! So you've fallen for her, have you?" Katyusha teased.

"That's right. Tell me, Katyusha, are there any other Komsomols here besides ourselves? Or are we the only 'pigeon fanciers'?"

"They've stopped that nonsense," Katyusha said placatingly. "We're going to dance now."

Korchagin rose.

"All right, old girl, you can dance, but Mura and I are going."

One evening Anna Borhart dropped in to Okunev's place and found Korchagin there alone.

"Are you very busy, Pavel? Would you care to come with me to the plenary session of the Town Soviet? I would rather not go alone, especially since we'll be returning late."

Korchagin agreed at once. He was about to take the Mauser from the nail over his bed, but decided it was too heavy. Instead he pulled Okunev's pistol out of the drawer and slipped it into his pocket.

He left a note for Okunev and put the key where his room-mate would find it.

At the theatre where the plenum was being held they met Pankratov and Olga Yureneva. They all sat together in the hall and during the intermissions strolled in a group on the square. As Anna had expected, the meeting ended very late.

"Perhaps you'd better come to my place for the night?" Olga suggested. "It's late and you've a long way to go."

But Anna declined. "Pavel has agreed to see me home," she said.

Pankratov and Olga set off down the main street and the other two took the road up the hill to Solomenka.

It was a dark, stuffy night. The city was asleep as the young people made their way through the deserted streets. Gradually the sound of their steps and voices died away. Pavel and Anna walked at a brisk pace away from the centre of the town. At the market place they were stopped by a patrol who examined their papers and let them pass. They crossed the boulevard and came out onto a dark silent street which cut across a vacant lot. Turning left, they continued along the highway parallel to the main railway warehouses, a long row of gloomy and forbidding concrete buildings. Anna was seized by a vague feeling of apprehension. She peered anxiously into the

darkness, giving nervous jerky answers to her companion's questions. When a sinister shadow turned out to be nothing more terrible than a telephone pole, she laughed aloud and confided her nervousness to Pavel. She took him by the arm and the pressure of his shoulder against hers reassured her.

"I am only twenty-three but I'm as nervous as an old woman. If you think I'm a coward, you are mistaken. But somehow my nerves are all on edge tonight. With you here though I feel quite safe, and I'm really ashamed of my fears."

And indeed Pavel's calmness, the warm glow of his cigarette which for an instant lit up part of his face, revealing the courageous sweep of his brows — all this drove away the terrors evoked by the dark night, the loneliness of the spot and the story they had just heard at the meeting about a horrible murder committed the night before on the outskirts of town. The warehouses were left behind. They crossed the plank spanning a small creek and continued along the main road to the tunnel which ran under the railway line and connected this section of the town with the railway district.

The station building was now far behind them to the right. A train was pulling into a siding beyond the engine-shed. They were already on home ground. Up above on the railway track the coloured lights of switches and semaphores twinkled in the darkness, and over by the shed a shunting engine on its way home for the night sighed wearily.

Above the mouth of the tunnel a street lamp hung from a rusty hook. The wind swayed it gently, causing its murky yellow light to dance on the tunnel walls.

A small cottage stood solitary by the side of the highway some ten yards from the tunnel entrance.

Two years ago it had been hit by a heavy shell which had burnt out the interior and badly damaged the facade, so that it was now one huge gaping hole, and it stood there like a beggar on the roadside exhibiting its deformity. A train roared over the embankment above.