Two Captains (46 page)

This phrase about "donations from wellwishers" sounded so queer and grotesque to me. Maybe Mother and I, too, had been living like beggars on this almsgiving?

But what surprises me most in these old newspapers is the way they all declared with one voice, that the schooner St. Maria was doomed. Some figured out, pencil in hand, that she would scarcely make Novaya Zemlya.

Others believed she would be trapped in the first icefield and would perish somewhat later, after passing Franz Josef Land as a "captive of the Arctic Sea".

That she would fail to navigate the Northern Sea Route, either in one, two or three seasons, nobody had any doubt.

The only exception was a poet who published some verses "To I. L.

Tatarinov" in an Archangel newspaper. He was of a different mind: He is well! God watches over him! The man's astounding energy and risk Have unlocked the Arctic's frozen disk. The icefield crumbles and retreats before him.

I had known a good deal before reading these clippings. In the letter which Sanya had found at Ensk, Father wrote that "most of the sixty dogs had had to be shot at Novaya Zemlya". Vyshimirsky's statement which Sanya had taken down spoke about rotten clothing and damaged chocolate. In the newspaper Arkhangelsk I read the letter of a merchant named E. V. Demidov, who stated that "the curing of meat and the preparation of ready-made clothes were not my line of business" and that "in the present instant I acted as an agent. Moreover, as I had a big business of my own to attend to, I naturally could not examine every piece of meat and every fish that went into the barrel. Besides, Captain Tatarinov kept wiring: 'Stop purchases, no money'. And so on. Why start fitting out an expedition when you have no money? If there was anything faulty in such hurried preparations, then those to blame for it should be sought not among the local businessmen, but higher up..."

What I didn't know-nor Sanya either, and I can't understand why Mother never mentioned it-was that "three days before St. Maria set sail it was discovered that in the forepeak, below the second deck and well below the waterline, on both sides of the collision-bulkhead there were gashes right through the ribs and shell to the outer sheathing, which made the ship unseaworthy. These holes that bore the telltale traces of an axe and saw,were photographed and measured, the largest being 12 inches wide and 2

ft. 4 inches long, the others a bit smaller. How these holes came to be there is a mystery, one is reminded of the fact that in the event of shipwreck the new owner of the vessel would collect the insurance money."

Of course, no further confirmation is needed that Father is dead and will never come back. His doom had been sealed. He had been sent to his death.

July 18, 1935. Last night, a little after eleven, someone rang at the door. Kiren's mother said it must be the yardman, who had Come to collect the garbage. I ran, pail in hand, to open the door. It wasn't the yardman.

It was Romashov. He stepped back quickly when I opened the door and took off his hat.

"It's an urgent matter, and concerns you, that's why I have decided to call, even though it's so late."

He uttered this very gravely, and I believed at once that the matter was urgent and concerned me. I believed because he was so perfectly calm.

"Please come in."

We stood facing each other-he with his hat in his hand, I with my slop-pail. Then I recalled myself and put the pail down in a corner.

"I'm afraid it's not quite convenient," he said politely. "You have visitors, I believe?"

"No."

"Can't we talk out here, on the landing? Or go down to the boulevard. I have something to tell you-"

"Just a moment," I said quickly.

Kiren's mother was calling me. I closed the door and went back.

"Who is it?"

"I'll be back in a minute, Alexandra Dmitrievna," I said hastily. "Or, I tell you what-let Valya come down for me in fifteen minutes' time. I'll be on the boulevard."

She said something, but I did not stop to listen.

It was a cool evening and I had come out as I was. Going downstairs, Romashov said: "You'll catch a cold." He probably wanted to offer me his overcoat-he had even taken it off and was carrying it on his arm, and afterwards, when we sat down, he placed it on the seat-but he could not bring himself to do it. I didn't feel cold, though. I was excited, wondering what his visit could mean.

The boulevard was quiet and deserted.

"Katya, what I wanted to tell you is this," he began cautiously. "I know how important it is for you that the expedition should take place. For you and for-"

He faltered, then went on easily:

"And for Sanya. I don't think that it matters really, I mean that it can change anything, for your uncle, say, who is scared at the prospect. But this concerns you and so it can't be a matter of indifference to me."

He said this very simply.

"I have come to warn you."

"Of what?"

"That the expedition won't take place."

"It isn't true! C. telephoned me."

"They have just decided that it's not worth while," Romashov countered calmly.

"Who has decided? And how do you know?"

He turned away, then faced me, smiling.

"I don't know how to tell you, really. You'll think me a cad again."

"Just as you like."

I was afraid he would get up and go away-he was so calm and self-assured and so unlike the Romashov I had known. But he did not go away.

"Nikolai Antonich told me that the Deputy Chief of the N.S.R.

Administration reported on the plan for the expedition and came out against it himself. He doesn't think it's the business of the N.S.R.A. to carry out searches for the lost captains who disappeared over twenty years ago. If you ask me, though-" Romashov hesitated. He must have felt hot, because he took his hat off and held it on his knee. "It's not his own opinion."

"Whose opinion is it, then?"

"Nikolai Antonich's," Romashov came back quickly. "He's acquainted with the Deputy Chief, who considers him a great expert on the history of the Arctic. For that matter, who else could they consult concerning the search for Captain Tatarinov if not Nikolai Antonich? It was he who fitted out the expedition and afterwards wrote about it. He's a member of the Geographical Society, and a highly respected one at that."

I was so upset that for the moment I did not ask myself why Nikolai Antonich should be so interested in preventing a search, or what had made Romashov give him away. I felt aggrieved not only for my father's sake, but for Sanya's as well.

"What's his name?"

"Whose?"

"That man who says it's not worth while making a search for lost captains."

Romashov gave the name.

"I'm not going to have this out with Nikolai Antonich, of course," I went on with an effort at restraint, feeling that my nostrils were flaring.

"We know where we stand, he and I. But I'll have something to say about him at the N.S.R.A. Sanya had no time to square accounts with him, or else he pitied him-I don't know. But are you sure about this?" I suddenly asked, glancing at Romashov and thinking-why, this is the man who loves me, and whose only thought is how to bring about the ruin of Sanya!

"Why should I tell a lie?" Romashov said impassively. "You'll hear about it. They'll tell you the same thing. Of course, you have to go there and clear everything up. But ... er ... don't say who told you. On second thoughts, tell them-I don't care," he added haughtily. "Only it may get round to Nikolai Antonich and I won't be able to deceive him any more, the way I've done today."

He had betrayed Nikolai Antonich for my sake-that's what he meant. He looked at me and waited.

"I did not ask you to deceive anybody, though there's nothing to be ashamed of in deciding (I nearly said: "for the firs^ time in your life") to act honourably and to help me. I don't know what your present attitude is towards Nikolai Antonich."

"I despise him."

"Well, that's your affair." I rose. "Anyway, thank you Misha. And goodbye."

August 5, 1935. They were not at all sure at the N.S.R.A. that the search should be entrusted to Sanya. He was rather young, and though he had a long record of air service, he had comparatively little experience of work in the Arctic. He had the reputation of being a good, disciplined pilot, but could he cope with such a difficult undertaking, which called for considerable organising ability? By the way, what sort of person was he?

Wasn't there something about him in some journal, accusing him of slandering somebody-N. A. Tatarinov, if I'm not mistaken, the well-known expert on the Arctic and the captain's cousin?

I demanded that the editors of the journal publish a disclaimer, and argued that the organisation of a search party of six men was not such a difficult thing. I insisted on the search for Captain Tatarinov being entrusted to the person who had nursed that idea ever since a child. I don't know what will come of it. But somehow I feel certain that the expedition will take place despite everything, and, what's more, that I will go to Severnaya Zemlya together with Sanya. I wrote about this to the Chief of the N.S.R.A. offering my services in the capacity of geologist. Today an answer has arrived from the Personnel Department. Not exactly the answer I had hoped for, though. I was offered a job at one of the Arctic stations, at my own choice, and requested to call at the head office to talk it over. Ah, well, I'll have to start all over again, demanding, proving, insisting.

September 11, 1935. Today I went to see Grandma.

She comes to see me almost every evening. She comes in puffed up and important and talks sedately with Kiren's mother. She doesn't like the idea of me "living out" when "she has such a lovely room" at home. And she is afraid of somebody called Dora Abramovna who had dropped in twice already

"to sniff things out".

"I'm getting old now," she said to me one day with tears in her eyes,

"but I've never lived so lonely as I do now."

But yesterday she didn't come, and this morning she phoned to say that her heart was bothering her. When I asked her whether Nikolai Antonich was at home she got angry.

"What a silly question," she said. "Where do you expect him to be?

Gadding about counting shacks, like you?"

Then she said he was out, and I quickly got ready and went over to see her.

She was lying on the sofa, covered with her green old coat.

Laurel-water drops stood on a little table beside the sofa-the only medicine she believed in-and when I asked her how she was, she dismissed my question with a wave of the hand.

"One of those dumb dogs that can't bark," she snapped. "You can tell at once she lived in a nunnery. Religious. 'Then why are you in service?' I say to her. I gave her the sack."

She had dismissed the domestic help, and that was very bad, because she was a good servant, even though she was religious. At one time Grandma had been pleased that the woman had once been a nun.

"Grandma, what have you done!" I said. "Now you're ill and all alone.

I'll have to take you to my place now."

"You will do nothing of the kind! The idea!"

She flatly refused to undress and get into bed, and said that it wasn't her heart at all, it was just that she hadn't cooked a meal the day before and had eaten horse-radish with olive oil-it was the horseradish, it didn't agree with her.

"If you don't go to bed at once, I'm going away."

"Hoity-toity!"

Nevertheless, she undressed, got into bed, groaning, and abruptly fell asleep.

There was always a draught in Mother's room when you opened the window, and so I opened the door in the corridor to air the room. Then I went into my own room. How cheerless and bare it looked, the room I had lived in for so many years! Yet it had been improved since my departure. The bed was covered with Grandma's lace bedspread, the curtains were white as white and even a little stiff with starch, everything was clean and tidy, and the volume of the encyclopedia, which I must have taken down before I left, remained open at the identical page. I was expected back here...

I thought I caught a glimpse of a figure hurrying down the corridor when I came out of the room.

I couldn't imagine my sick grandmother running about the corridor in her green velvet coat, but somebody had been running there, and in a green coat, too. Yet it was Grandma, because, though I found her in bed when I went back to her room, she looked as if she had just flopped into it and hadn't had time to draw up the blanket.

It was very funny to see how hard she was pretending. She even blinked sleepily to show that she had just come awake and that running down the corridor was farthest from her thoughts. Obviously, she had been spying on me to see whether I was homesick, hoping I would come back.

"Have you had the doctor, Grandma?" I asked, when she had finally stopped rubbing her eyes and yawning loudly.

She hadn't. She didn't want any doctor.

"Nonsense! I'm going to call him at once."

But Grandma went up in the air at this and said that if I called the doctor she would dress immediately and go off to Maria Nikitichna-the neighbour.

So far not a word had been said about Nikolai Antonich. But when Grandma put on a dead-pan expression, I knew it was coming.

"The whole house is going to pieces," she began with a sigh. "Your deserting him has hit him badly! He's lost his grip on things, doesn't care about anything. Doesn't care whether he eats or not."

"He" meant Nikolai Antonich.

"And he writes and writes-day and night," Grandma went on. "First thing in the morning, soon as he's had his tea, he wraps my shawl round him and sits down at Ms desk. 'This, Nina Kapitonovna, will be my lifework,' he says. 'As to whether I'm guilty or not, my friends and enemies will now judge for themselves.' And he's got so thin. Absent-minded, too," Grandma communicated in a whisper. "The other day he sat at the table in his hat. I think he's going mad."