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aarghhaaaarrrghhh · 4 months ago

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A Summer in a Pioneer's Neckerchief/Лето в пионерском галстуке - Chapter Thirteen

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Chapter Thirteen. A Lullaby for a Counsellor

The next morning, Yurka was playing pioneerball on the beach with the second troop. It was packed with people. The girls from the second troop who were taking part in the play were there as well: Nastya – Portovna, Katya, who was playing Luzgina, and Yulya, the village traitor. They greeted Yurka in unison. Yurka began to feel very pleasantly.

The score was in the first troop’s favour, but what won out overall was friendship.

Yurka complained at Ksyusha – the only one of the PUK girls playing:

“We should call our team ‘Friendship’ next time, then we might actually win already.”

“Exactly!” Ksyusha replied gaily, and even smiled at him. Yurka was dumbfounded – Ksyusha? Smiled? At him?

Having finished playing and wound up by the heat, Yurka set off to go swim, but really to drown Mikha together with Vanya. They had promised to be ready as soon as the score was announced, but they were still holding back on the beach. Yurka was tired of waiting and jumped into the water first, but no sooner had he cooled off and begun to relax than Olga Leonidovna arrived on the beach with Volodya.

The directress was gesticulating with concentration at him, while in the meantime, he was searching for someone with concentration. Yurka guessed who, stuck his fingers in his mouth and loudly whistled. Volodya noticed him, straightened his shoulders, waved and smiled, his glasses shining. And Yurka remembered what had been the night before. It was not like he had forgotten, but in that moment, he remembered especially sharply, to the extent that he felt Volodya’s breath and scent on his lips. His chest grew warm, and he froze in place with a stupid smile on his face; he went slack and almost went under the water, but he came back to his senses and put his arms in motion.

Olga Leonidovna tugged Volodya by the wrist – like Yurka, he too was unmoving as he watched him – and dragged him towards the guys from the second troop, who were sitting in a circle on their towels. The towards Pasha from Yurka’s troop, then to Mitka and Vanya. Once the guys had bowed their heads to her in fright, Olga Leonidovna took Volodya by the hand and retreated with him.

The visit went by quickly enough; Yurka did not even have time to get out of the water. He shouted to Mikha and Vanka and they came running towards him, spraying sand over the people sitting on the beach and splashing the people paddling in the river.

“What did she want?” asked Yurka.

“She was calling us to the theatre to be extras,” replied Vanka. “Well, I say ‘called’, she said we’d come and that’s that.”

“Oh…”

“Uh-huh!” Mikha echoed. “Yurets, listen, your director, he’s… strict, right? Mean? Just don’t tell anyone I said that.”

“Volodya?” Yurka laughed as he thought back to the night before, when those usually strict eyes behind the glasses came right up close to his face and closed, and did not open again until their long, warm kiss had ended. Even in the cool water, Yurka sweated. “Oh… It’s… If something’s not going right, Mikh, it’s Olga Leonidovna, not Volodya, who’ll rip your head off.”

“We’ve been ambushed!”

“Hey, Mikh, it’s alri-i-ight,” drawled Vanka. “They gave Petlitsyn a role with actual lines, after all. Me and you just have to stand in silence, and it’ll come together.”

“It won’t just come together!” Yurka was indignant. “Guys, you need to respect Volodya! Just give it a try, for me…”

“We will, we will,” assured Mikha.

“Understood, loud and clear!” Vanka affirmed. “Hey, come on, let’s swim already, eh? I’m freezing here.”

“Race you!” Yurka commanded and broke out in first place.

When they had returned to the beach, Yurka unhurriedly towelled down and, looking out at the opposite bank of the river in the hopes of seeing the willow tree there, declared meditatively:

“Petlitsyn got given a speaking role, you say? Yezavitov, clearly. That’s bad – Volodya didn’t want that. Mitka would have been better, oh-ho-ho, what a voice that one has.”

“And where is he, by the way?” inquired Vanka as he stretched out languidly on the hot sand.

The answer followed without delay.

“Hello, pioneers! Have a listen of the Pioneer’s Dawn,” Mitka himself responded from the speaker. “Tomorrow is the long-awaited celebration – the birthday of our beloved pioneer camp Lastochka. Two important activities to do with this will take place today. The first: the full rehearsal for the amateur creative arts club concert will begin after midday. Artists from the first troop are to be at the plaza at four o’clock, from the second troop, at four-thirty…”

Mitka dictated the rehearsal times for all the remaining troops, while the activist girls from the first and second troops focussed on writing down what he said. Olga Leonidovna had decided to put on at least some kind of activity in place of the play, and would be directing a small medley concert, only an hour in total, consisting of short, simple numbers, so that the artists would only need a day to prepare. Yurka was not taking part in it. He only knew that the girls were planning to do some kind of dance.

Mitka concluded with that activity and immediately moved on to the second, which was far more important and affected everybody holidaying at the camp:

“Over the course of today, everybody in the camp must, without fail, report to the medic’s for measuring weight gain. Attendance is compulsory. Larisa Sergeyevna will only admit pioneers as part of their troops. Your counsellors will communicate to you information about attendance times.”

Up to that point, Mitka had been speaking drily and matter-of-factly, but suddenly his tone warmed up. Everyone guessed that the important news had wrapped up, which meant that the radio broadcast was also just about at an end. But Mitka had more to say:

“In honour of the forthcoming, unscheduled weight-gain measurement, allow me to read out a poem beloved by many pioneers, On the Scales.”

Mitka had never read poems out before – it was a news programme, not entertainment, and the ears of everyone in both troops at the beach pricked up. Mitka, having cleared his throat, began:

In our camp there are weights, Not just because, not for beauty, We find out in the mornings, Who’s filled out, by how many grams. No, we don’t walk far into the forest: What if we lose weight on the way?! We’re not here for birdsong. We spend the mornings on the scales.

Vanka laughed into his fist. Yurka nodded in agreement. Mitka continued in an expressive bass, without forgetting to leave pauses:

We mustn’t go traipsing about the woods, Everything is by the clock! And by the scales! And in rain, we go right under the shelter, Kids are worth their weight!

Stifled giggles sprung up around the beach.

And what drama there is here: Seryozha has lost a kilogram, And long did the medical personnel Gasp and moan. All of a sudden, our routine changed: In the morning, we run to the river–[1]

Suddenly an indistinct rustling sound rang out, then a terrifying crash. Then silence. The troops burst into laughter at the top of their lungs – Mitka had had the microphone taken away from him!

Not a half hour had gone by before the hero of the day himself appeared before them – Mitka, who right off the bat let Yurka know some important news: now Mitka too had been drawn into the play. But as revenge for the poem, Olga Leonidovna had given him one of the most laborious jobs – raising the curtain. Yurka felt sorry that the charismatic Mitka was not given a role, but on the whole, he was still glad – the most important thing was that he would not have to be the one to raise the curtain.

They marched to their troop dorms in formation like usual. By tradition, Yurka walked ahead, next to Vanka, while right behind them were the next pioneers in height order – Polina and Ksyusha. The girls were whispering loudly. Suddenly, Ulyana, who was walking behind them, butted in to the conversation and began to twitter excitedly:

“Girls, picture it, someone on the beach slipped me a note. I was getting dressed when I see something has fallen, some paper–”

“What was on it?” interrupted Ksyusha harshly.

“Let us read it, come on, give it, give it,” Polina flashed into life.

“Van, will we have a competition with the counsellors before the concert tomorrow? Rollcall. Then a competition – counsellors versus pioneers. Then the concert, is that right?” asked Yurka, not knowing at all with what to busy himself. He was in fact up to date; he had laid out the sequence of activities accurately, he simply hoped that Vanka might know something more. But he kept silent as he eavesdropped on what the girls were talking about.

“’I like you…’ Oh-hoh! Fantastic, Ul! ‘I like you’!” rejoiced Polina. “Who’s it from, do you know?”

“Yur! Konev!” Ksyusha called out, while Yurka flinched. He had nothing to do with it!

“Mm?”

“Did you happen to see someone come up to our things while we were swimming?”

“Of course I didn’t see. Your stuff isn’t any of my business!”

“Maybe it was you? You slip me a note, huh, Yurchik?” giggled Ulyana.

Yurka merely clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes after catching a jealous look from Mitka who was walking nearby.

Yurka only managed to meet with Volodya at lights out. Looking him in the eye, he knew that Volodya had been looking forward to their meeting no less than him, if not more so. Inclining his head slightly, he gave him a fixed, tender look. He was silent, but Yurka did not need words. He understood that he himself had not enough to describe even mentally the rapture that he felt from Volodya’s proximity. His breath was taken away by knowing that that closeness existed between them, the way it ran through them and bound them so tightly. Yurka dreamt of one thing only – to hurry up and kiss him.

It seemed that Volodya too wanted the same thing: without any unnecessary conversation, he nodded to Yurka in the direction of the river and, without discussing, they headed off towards the willow.

As they found themselves beneath its canopy, Yurka thought to himself that this was probably absolute happiness – touching Volodya’s face with his cheek, rubbing noses, pressing lips, all without having any memory or sensation of himself. Listening to his breathing, sensing his odour, watching his eyelashes flutter behind the frames of his glasses. This is a dream, Yurka kept telling himself, but it was not his dream; rather, it belonged to the whole world all around. It is said that a sleep is a little death and everything around really did seem to have died out. There was just the wind brushing against his skin and, with its warm gusts, making the branches of the willow sway, allowing rays of sun to break through and blaze.

Volodya wanted to sleep. He kept rubbing his tired eyes and was constantly yawning, but at Yurka’s suggestion that he take a nap, he sharply refused:

“We have too little time left. And on the contrary, we have a lot to do.”

Yurka’s breath caught.

“And what do we have to do?”

“Let’s run through the script.”

Yurka did not have any concrete plans. Afraid of his own thoughts, he had not dared dream of anything. But right then and there, when they were finally together, to practise his role?

“Why not?” he affected a smile and began: “Are you really from Leningrad? Your zity vas taken a long time ago, and if fraulein vould be zo kind as to render a small service to ze Nazi High Command…”

The lines were interesting a gave an easy distraction from his thoughts full of disappointment. Besides, parodying a German accent was very amusing for Yurka, such that he and Volodya both had a lot of fun, and even burst out laughing. Volodya took the script off Yurka and began to read himself, but he “zpoke”, as Yurka called it, too unrealistically:

“Volod, you’re overdoing it. You shouldn’t throw yourself to extremes. There has to be a harmony, like music. Here, look–”

But Volodya abruptly cut him off.

“Yur, do you know, you’re very handsome when you’re playing…”

Handsome, handsome, handsome, echoed around his head. Yurka’s eyes swam and any German, “zpeaking” and the like flew out of his head in an instant. He sat up and looked abashedly at Volodya, who was saying quietly and affectionately:

“You have such an interesting look: ethereal, but focussed. You probably don’t even notice that you never sit still – you rock back and forth, or sometimes sing to yourself, and sometimes you chew your lip. It’s so cool to watch: like, you’re kind of here with me, sitting next to me, but in reality, you’re somewhere far, far away. I look at you and wonder, where are you? You should get lost in stuff more often, I really like it…”

While he said this, Volodya grew embarrassed and got all bashful and blushed. To refuse him, so kind, gentle, so his own, was utterly impossible. But so was saying something in response – the words just caught in Yurka’s throat.

Volodya spread out on the grass and laid his head on his knee and gazed up at him from below with such a fond look that everything in his chest began to melt. It grew impossible to even breathe, let alone to speak, and Yurka laid aside the script and turned on the radio, so that the silence hanging between them did not become oppressive.

On the radio, the hour of Russian classical music was making its round again, and, when Tchaikovsky began to ring out once again, Yurka could not hold back a storm of emotion. His voice, trembling with delight, produced not at all the words that were so desperate to burst forth, but instead some others about music:

“Do you feel immersed in it? Like you’re sinking through it: the bass envelopes you, the atmosphere thickens, everything slows to a standstill and we sink slowly too, like through honey, we’re falling to the very bottom–”

“If I’d heard that two weeks ago, I would not have believed that it was Yurka Konev speaking,” Volodya smiled, but he immediately became serious. “It’s got to be you who plays the Lullaby at the play!”

“But I don’t remember it at all.”

“Relearn it! It’s got to be you, Yura. I’m begging you, play it.”

He was all aglow; the furrows on his forehead had flattened out, the exhaustion that was so habitual as to be considered one of his facial features had been wiped away. As he admired him, Yurka did not restrain himself from asking permission to stroke Volodya’s hair.

Volodya nodded. As he brushed some strands and entwined dark locks around his fingers, Yurka leaned closer and, terribly abashed, asked in a whisper:

“And can I take your glasses off? I’ve never seen you without them…”

What an intimate action it was to take Volodya’s glasses off! So exciting and anxiety-inducing that his fingers trembled, as though Volodya were going to appear before him more denuded than simply naked. His glasses turned out to be unexpectedly heavy, while his face without them was unusually sleepy and exhausted. Circles darkened beneath his eyes, on top of which Volodya was squinting funnily.

“What’s this?” he led his head along Yurka’s lap. “You have something hard in your shorts, what is it?”

“Chalk,” replied Yurka simply; he was always forgetting to take the chunk out of his shorts pocket. “I took it from Alyosha Matveyev.”

“What do you have chalk for?”

“What do you mean what for? Once you’re asleep, I’m going to use it instead of toothpaste to draw all over you. It’s the honourable way to do it, you know! Pioneers aren’t to be messed with. What an adrenaline rush – drawing on a sleeping counsellor! Not everyone would be brave enough, much less capable of going through with it.”

“And you carry it around in your pocket every day?” hemmed Volodya when he suddenly remembered: “Hey, by the way, I have a present for you!”

He got up and carefully took a big, white lump the size of an apple from his shirt pocket.

“Here. I picked it yesterday but forgot to give it to you. You did want something to remember by. Take it.” He outspread the hand he had extended to Yurka and revealed a dried white waterlily.

“You got all the way to the backwater?” whispered Yurka once the lily found itself in his outstretched palm, light as paper and yet more delicate. “You picked it anyway, despite all your saying ‘the Red Book, the Red Book…”

Volodya shrugged in thought.

“I thought it was important to you. And it… it would have died at some point anyway.”

“It’s not that it was important back then, but now… Now, I think, yes, it’s important. Thank you. I’ll preserve it.”

They were silent for a little while. To Yurka’s disappointment, Volodya stopped laying on his lap and began to sit up again. He looked at the river, thought about something of his own and suddenly, as though having just remembered something else, fired off in one breath:

“Yura, when did you realise that you didn’t feel about me in a normal way? Was it back then at the backwater when I suggested we take a dip and… got undressed?”

Yurka was terribly embarrassed by this question. Having gone red, he drawled quietly and uncertainly:

“Maybe it was then that I understood, but it all began earlier.”

“Earlier?” Volodya sighed with relief and stared Yurka in the eye. “When earlier? What did I do? Was it when I let you sleep on my shoulder?”

“No, even earlier than that. The carousel, maybe.”

“When I touched your knee?”

“‘I, I, I,’” muttered Yurka in irritation. “What’s it all got to do with you? It happened by itself, you didn’t do anything.”

“Absolutely nothing?” Yurka chewed at his lip in agitation, and his expression became imploring.

“Nothing,” nodded Yurka.

“Good…” Volodya drew out; he finally lay on the ground and once again placed his head on Yurka’s lap. “That’s good.”

Not wishing to hold back any longer, Yurka dared to reach out once again and touch his head. Volodya finally closed his eyes, while Yurka began to stroke his hair, and the whole rest of his body froze for a few long, sweet minutes.

“Shall I turn off the radio? Will you still be able to sleep alright?” he asked after a little while.

“I won’t be able to anyway.”

“Are you worried about the play?”

“Oh, no, it’s just that when you haven’t slept in a long time, falling asleep gets harder and harder, and I’ve now not slept for two nights already.”

“If you can’t fall asleep at night, sleep during the day. Right now, and I’ll keep watch over you.”

“What do you need to watch over me for?” he smiled. “I won’t be going anywhere.”

“I’ll see to it that nobody comes up to us. And what’s more – I’ll learn the script,” hemmed Yurka.

Volodya nodded:

“Let’s give it a shot.”

Yurka took his hand away from his hair and had no sooner picked up his notebook in both hands than Volodya grabbed his left hand without looking and placed it back on his head. Yurka laughed, but not a trace of emotion was reflected on Volodya’s face.

Yurka tried to learn his lines, but he could not manage to focus on the script. He kept lowering his gaze downward at Volodya’s face, stealing glances, observing how his eyelids and lashes fluttered. Admiring and worrying simultaneously.

“Still can’t?” asked Yurka quietly.

“Not at all,” replied Volodya with a sigh.

“Shall I sing you a lullaby?” guffawed Yurka.

“Yes. But I’d rather you played one. At the play. I want to see the most extraordinary Yurka, the very best in the world, at a piano and hear the Lullaby so much. You love it so much, and I… really want to watch you. To admire you. I really want to. Play it for me.”

Yurka would sooner have chewed through the trunk of the willow than refuse him in that moment. After such words, felt like the best person on the planet. How could he not? How could he not become the best? So Yurka became.

“I’ll play it. For you.”

After getting back to the camp right after bedtime, he drew a keyboard on a long piece of paper and began to train his visual memory. Further, he got some staff paper, transcribed the notes of the Lullaby and stuck them in his pocket so that they would always be with him, so that he could practise in any practical moment.

Only, he did not manage to get any practice done that evening, because Olga Leonidovna heaped him up to his ears in work. And as soon as he had finished it, as though to mock him, she gave him more. Clearly, having decided that the Yurka the blockhead was the cause of Volodya’s failures, that dried fish began to drive him around the camp until blue in the face with a thousand orders and tasks.

Volodya, meanwhile, was stuck up to his neck in counselling work – the fifth troop was also preparing a little scene for parent’s day. Yurka had utterly no time, nor opportunity to help or see him. Stressed to no end, in the evening they just about managed to find ten minutes to be alone together. Yurka had been tempted by the though that they might be together at night, but after the news that Volodya had not slept for two full days, he did not even mentally suggest going for a walk after bedtime. Anyway, Yurka had been sleeping poorly recently as well. But he could fall asleep for even a couple of hours, while Volodya was not able to at all. Yurka knew that it was no exaggeration, either – that to which he had for a long time not paid attention was now staring him in the face: the dark circles under his eyes, Volodya’s lethargy and dejection. However much Yurka wanted to be with him all the time, he did not have the moral right to demand that Volodya not sleep at all.

***

The next day, Lastochka’s birthday, Yurka did not hope to find even half an hour before the start of the festivities to be together with Volodya. But it turned out even worse: they did not find a single minute. From the very early morning, Yurka was ordered to do a million little jobs, to do five Five-Year-Plans in three years,[2] to build a couple of BAMs[3] and to carry the piano. Yurka was outraged most of all by that last one – it would fall apart. Nevertheless, Yurka’s mood was martial.

“Faster, higher, stronger!” he heard the voice of the gym instructor Semyon coming from the sports area. His voice was thunderous, bless him, it was audible from the plaza.

For the first time in his life, Yurka was officially – with Olga Leonidovna’s blessing – skipping exercise; he went going to the platform to decorate it for the concert and listened to the gym instructor. He expected the trees to crack apart from that huge voice and thought that he, Yurka, was already faster, taller and stronger than everyone else; even better, he was all-powerful. How could he think otherwise, when all these fantastical things happened to him, to that blockhead Konev? Volodya, the very same Komsomolets/hunk/nerd Volodya had kissed him on the cheek, taken him by the hand and said ‘You’re so handsome when you play.’ Yes, it happened infrequently, but that was not their fault. ‘If I had my way,’ Volodya had said the evening before, ‘I would never let you go.’

Moving the piano turned out not to be such a laborious task – Yurka had big-eared Alyosha and superintendent Sanych as helpers, the piano had wheels and the back entrance to the theatre and the platform had ramps. But the instrument was still to be pitied. While they hauled it, Yurka complained helplessly to himself under his breath, “Is a cassette deck not enough for them? What if it rains?” and as they set it up and checked the sound, he swore to himself – as sure as death and taxes, it was broken, the C no longer played.

“Oh, who’s going to tune it now?”

“Goodness knows we have people with the know-how, Yurok, we’ll find a person.” And with a sprightly step, the superintendent headed in the direction of the administrative block.

“Can’t you do it?” enquired Alyosha naively.

“Tuning? Of course not. But once upon a time, as it happens, I gave it a try – it’s just that I hate it when it doesn’t sound right, and I didn’t have the patience to wait for the tuners, so I climbed in myself. That’s when I almost got taken out by a broken string,” he remarked, not without bravado. “Do you see the scar on my chin?”

“Woah! You’re so brave, Yurka! You know, they said all sorts of things about you, but I didn’t believe. I said that Konev is a good guy – and it’s the honest truth, that’s really how it is!”

“What ‘sorts of things’ and who said them?”

“Different people say different things: some, that you’re a blockhead, others, that on the contrary, you’re aiming to be counsellor’s little helper. Don’t pay attention to it, let them say what they want.”

“Says who?” asked Yurka, thinking of Ksyusha.

“Well… just as long as it’s between me and you, alright?”

“I’ll keep silent as a partisan.”

“Masha Sidorova complained to Olga Leonidovna that you’re distracting the play’s director from his work, while here you are, tuning the pia –”

“Masha?!” Yurka cried out, taken aback. He added, more quietly, “Masha… You’re in for it from me!”

“Hey, it’s just between me and you, you promised!”

“It’s all in confidence, Alyosh, it’s all in confidence.”

Breakfast time drew near. As a first matter of business, Yurka hurried off to find Masha, to get it out of her, why she had been badmouthing him, but Masha was nowhere to be seen. The PUK girls were sitting as a pair, without Ksyusha. Yurka approached them, asking:

“You don’t happen to know where Masha is?”

Ulyana smiled coquettishly:

“And why would you need to know that?”

“Because I wanted to let her know that she’s not going to be taking part in the play anymore, it’s going to be me playing the accompaniment!”

“Oh boy…” Ulya trailed off. “Take a look in the study hall. She’s drawing posters for the celebration there with Ksyusha.”

Yurka liked the spontaneous idea of doing Masha dirty so much that he decided not to look for her. He knew that the news about her exclusion from the play would spread quickly through the grapevine; Sidorova would find him herself. He just needed to warn Volodya…

***

Having warned Volodya and had breakfast, Yurka returned to the square. The third troop also turned up there, headed by their counsellor. They stood around waiting for the musical director – the camp had even such a specialist. He was responsible for the radio and the concerts. Yurka himself took a seat to wait for the steward Sanych, who appeared looking satisfied, cheerfully communicated that the musical director would tune the instrument, and spryly went about his stewarding business. The musical director appeared with an accordion, heard Yurka out and had a little go on the keyboard. He agreed and asked him to wait until the number was run through. Yurka was not given the chance to get board – he was sent to help Alyosha decorate the stage.

The July heat was marinading the third troop pioneers; they dismally trudged through a song from the film Guest from the Future:

I hear your voice from the wonderful faraway, A morning voice in the silver dew, I hear a voice, a beckoning path Makes my head spin, like a childhood carousel.

With that dismal accompaniment, Yurka hung the heavy, dark blue curtains together with his jug-eared comrade. Both of them got worn out – the thin loops kept falling off the hooks or tearing and had to be sewn back on while it hung. The music director did not want to leave his wards, who continued to groan, rather than sing, the sad children’s song about a happy future.

Every now and then, Yurka got distracted by it. He did not particular love that film; Guest had always felt too tedious for him, and if the first watch had been interesting, then by the second Yurka was already bored of it. But he had watched the whole series more than once – his mother’s friend’s daughter Tonka adored that film, but was still too small to go to the cinema alone, so Yurka, motivated by the fifteen copecks ‘for ice cream�� industriously took her to every screening. He knew the film practically line for line. He even knew the song, but he had never once listened to it attentively, nor given the lyrics any thought. But now he was paying attention, and he grew sad – it reminded him about how time was passing, how the season would come to an end soon, and he and Volodya would have to go their separate ways.

The kids kept repeating and repeating the final couplet:

I swear that I’ll be cleaner and kinder, And to never get a friend in trouble, I hear a voice and hurry to the summons, As fast as possible, on the road where there is no trace.

Even the shadows were melting in the ridiculous heat, yet a chill ran down Yurka’s spine: On the road where there is no trace, he repeated in his head. Suddenly he understood that the song was a horror story! That it was not all about a bright future; rather, it was about the loss of a comprehensible, kind present – childhood. Yurka was already tired, his head was spinning from hunger, and delirious images turned over in his imagination: he saw the wide, grey road, himself, Volodya and everybody present there. They were walking forward, without guessing that that way was the way to nowhere, that they were not walking by themselves, but rather they were being pulled into the unknown by the black hole of the future, which would inexorably swallow him, Volodya, and all those children.

He shook his head and hurried to distract himself.

“There’s just one curtain left to hang.”

It seemed to Yurka that he and Alyosha had been hanging the curtains for an infinitely long time, while the kids kept singing and singing that awful song. Finally, the siren called them to lunch.

Yurka ate without an appetite, looking the whole time at his Volodya in the far corner of the canteen. He was standing with his back to him, wearing, like usual, shorts, a white shirt and a red neckerchief. Yurka was suddenly struck by thought that in no time at all, Volodya would no longer be dressed like that. That Volodya would change, and Yurka would change too, they would both inescapably grow up. He knew that he did not want to grow up, that he did not want into that ‘faraway’ – even worse, he was afraid of it.

In less than a week they would go their separate ways. Maybe not forever, maybe not even for years, just for months, but they would be separated. And how would Yurka see him the next year? Would Volodya become taller and wider in the shoulders? Would he smile more or less often? Would his expression get sterner, or more exhausted than it was then? Or maybe it would be the other way round and it would get softer and kinder. So many questions, and nobody could give him answers.

Lunchtime came to an end; the little raisin biscuit for desert slightly improved Yurka’s mood. He pinched another one, having resolved to move his mood from neutral to positive with its help, but glancing at the half-starved Volodya – the kids were acting up again, not letting him have a normal mealtime – and he decided to leave the biscuit for him.

They bumped into each other at the exit; Volodya began to protest, insisting that Yurka eat it himself, but Yurka was uncompromising. Volodya was grateful and promised that as soon as he had dealt with his barefoot horde, he would meet with him by the platform, if they managed before the ceremonial parade.

Yurka walked back and thought, The season’s ending – tell me something I don’t know! Of course it’s ending. Everything ends, and now it’s ending. But why so soon? But somehow it had seemed to him like all this would be forever. At camp, where one days goes by in two, a lot of things can feel like that. Yurka could not believe that in less than a week, his whole life would change: there would be no forest, nor camp, nor friends, nor theatre, nor Volodya. And already that Yurka Konev that his mum had sat on the camp bus was no more, since he had already changed. A month before, he would not have dreamt that he would do the things he had done: helping out, taking part, and most of all, taking up the piano again. How glad his mum would be when Yurka took the clutter off his instrument! But would he be glad to return to his cramped room in an old apartment in a grey nine-storey block, one of thousands in his dusty city?

The ennui of which he had already grown tired gripped Yurka once again, and in order to dispel it, he headed for that wonderful instrument that could help him forget about whatever necessary.

Alyosha and the others responsible for decorating the square ran around their separate ways with their troops. The end of the day’s work approached and silence reigned in the camp, apart from the cook Zinaida Vasilyevna, thundering as she heaved some pots out the pantry, and both the gym instructors, Zhenya and Semyon, solving crosswords as they sat on a small bench in the shade of an apple tree. Yurka climbed onto the emptying stage. He checked whether the piano was tuned, nodded in satisfaction, took out the crumpled sheet of paper with the Lullaby on it, took a seat by the instrument and arranged his score. And life began to shine in new colours.

The gentle melody flowed through the scorching air like honey. Yurka hunched over the keyboard in focus. His fingers glided over the keys and came to a stop, barely making contact. The black G flats and A sharps alternated between the second and third octaves with deep Cs, and his fingers fluttered right back up to the bright A and F. But Yurka was unsatisfied. The piece was not simple, after a long break it came back to him with difficulty. Nothing worked out, he kept playing wrong notes and shaking his head in irritation. As he repeated it again and again, fingering the keys, Yurka began to think about how, perhaps, the examiner had been right back then, at school. Perhaps he really was giftless?

Suddenly all went dark before his eyes – someone, stealing up from behind, had covered his face with their palms.

“Can you play it like this?” asked Volodya quietly. Yurka could tell from his voice that he was smiling.

“Hey, let me go!” Yurka feigned indignation.

“Nuh-uh. Tell me, Yur,” he began, without taking his hands away, “are you satisfied with yourself? We have the play in three days. Go on, train as hard as you can, so that everything succeeds, and you’ll be able.”

“I’ll be able to do it, just not right now, I’m not in the right mood. Oh Volodya, take them away! Or let’s do it like this – I’ll play it with one eye closed.”

“As if! What a fool I’ve got here. No way, both.”

“I won’t!”

“Alright, how about like this then?” he just slightly moved his fingers apart. Yurka began to be able to see the keyboard.

“The-e-ere we go! It’s another matter entirely!” Yurka burst out laughing. After glancing from side to side to check that the dancefloor was completely empty, he threw his head back and rested the back of it against Volodya’s stomach. He looked up at him from below, smiling. Volodya smiled also.

They played like that until Volodya abruptly withdrew his hands and recoiled to the side. Yurka startled in surprise, opened his eyes and followed Volodya’s gaze. By the edge of the stage, staring at them with wide eyes, stood a pale Masha, gripping a broom tightly.

Yurka felt uneasy, but one look at how frightened Volodya was, and he caught his fear as well.

“Where are you flying off to?” blurted Yurka in order to diffuse the atmosphere and turn it all into a joke.

“What?” said Masha angrily.

“On the broom,” explained Yurka. “You’re standing here, pretending to sweep a clean floor.”

“Is this, in your opinion, funny, Konev? And more to the point, what’s this all about?”

“What are you talking about? About how you’re a witch, or about how you’re little snitch?”

“Yurka, stop it!” Volodya cut in. “And you too, Masha! I already explained to you that he was joking. Yura will only be playing the Lullaby at the play!”

“Then why did he tell the girls–”

They were interrupted by the signal horn calling the pioneers back from recess. If not for it, Yurka would have bitten Masha’s head off, he was so angry at her.

Soon, Mitka announced over radio broadcast the assembly for the ceremonial parade.

The day passed by unremarkably. First was the parade: the flag, the pioneer salute, Deep Blue Nights. The everyone rushed to the sports area to compete. They ran sack races and relay races – Yurka, as it happened, beat the third troop’s counsellor – and played tug-of-war and lapta.[4] Then all the older boys were called together for football. Volodya was on the opposing team, and even then, Yurka, focussed solely on the ball and the goals, gave himself the target of beating the counsellors’ team even by himself, but it came to a draw.

The final part of the festival day, the concert, Yurka was looking forward to least of all. Still, taking part was always more interesting than watching, and there was nothing worth watching. The only thing that caught his interest and made him laugh turned out to be the fifth troop’s number, where the kids performed a skit about rocket launches at the Baikonur cosmodrome. The pilot, and at the same time, the spacecraft was Sashka. Stuck from head to toe in a grey cardboard cylinder, he proudly cast his gaze down upon the spectators from his round face hole and shook the spacecraft-coloured cone on his head. Pcholkin stood at the control panel and violently struck a red, also cardboard, button. At Sasha’s signal of Vwoosh! he was launched into space and girls dressed as stars ran all around, while all the rest of the kids began to sing a song about the Earth seen from a porthole.

Yurka had absolutely no idea why it had to do with the camp’s birthday, but it was funny.

During the next troop’s performance, Yurka began to get bored. He started to fidget on the spot and look out for Volodya. He found him very quickly – he was sitting two rows behind Yurka, his head bowed and his eyes either cast downwards or closed. Volodya looked exactly like he did at rehearsals – like he was reading the notebook laying across his lap. But it was not a rehearsal, and he had no notebook on his lap. The number finished and people began to applaud the second troop; suddenly, Volodya dropped forwards, started, and sharply raised his head. From the way his eyelids fluttered, Yurka guessed that the counsellor had been asleep. He did not manage to get to sleep in the silence beneath willow in Yurka’s lap, but he could do so there, in the din of the concert, sitting next to Olga Leonidovna.

She, as he judged, could not have failed to notice it. She looked at him with concern and asked him something, but, after hearing his response, did not start scolding him like Yurka was expecting. On the contrary, she beckoned Lena, whispered something in her ear and nodded at Volodya, who immediately got up and left. To sleep, Yurka guessed.

Well, that’s good, he thought as that dismal song about the wonderful faraway began to play yet again.

Yurka awaited the evening like Heaven’s manna.

When the festival disco started, he immediately hurried over to the fifth troop’s dorm. Finding his way in, he took all of a couple of steps down the dark corridor before he jumped on the spot – somebody bumped into his stomach and squealed in surprise.

“Sasha? Why aren’t you in your hall? On the hunt for blackcurrants again?”

“Not at all,” wheezed Sashka as he tried to catch his breath, “I was going to pee. Volodya’s asleep and Zhenya’s sitting with us, telling us horror stories…”

“That scary, huh?” chuckled Yurka.

“Not at all,” repeated Sashka dejectedly, clearly not understanding the joke. “It’s the opposite, it’s about DSC. It’s so boring! Save us, Yura!”

Torn between the desire to go to Volodya’s bedroom – especially as he was alone in there – and his duty to help the sleeping counsellor to put the children to bed, Yurka a long time on the fence. He only came back to his senses on the doorstep of the bedroom and did not notice immediately that Sashka was no longer next to him.

It was dark in the bedroom. On a chair by the door, clutching a torch, sat Zhenya, who was saying in a spooky voice:

“A car with the inscription DSC, which means ‘Death to Soviet Children’ stopped next to the boy and this old gaffer got out. He went up to the boy and started talking him into getting into the car, he promised to give him a puppy, sweets, toys. But the boy didn’t agree. He got scared and ran away, but the machine drove after him…”

“Yula!” squealed Olezhka in joy. The gym instructor jumped. The little boys all began to make a cheerful racket: “Stay with us!”, “Tell uth a howwow thtowy!”, “Is it true that there’s cars like that?”

“Come on, let’s listen to Zhenya,” suggested Yurka as he sat down on Sashka’s empty bed and frantically planned what to do next. The prospect of sitting with the boys until lights out for everybody, and then spending the night alone did not tempt Yurka.

Zhenya continued in a sepulchral voice, “The boy managed to hide in an abandoned house and did not fall into the hands of the spies, but if they’d caught him–”

But he was not allowed to finish. The door to the bedroom was flung open, and on the doorstep appeared a sleepy, dishevelled and unkempt Volodya, and Sashka, satisfied, hung around behind him.

Unable to hold back the delight flaring up withing him, Yurka stepped forward involuntarily to meet Volodya and took his hand. Volodya squeezed his palm in response, playing it off like a normal handshake. The children rejoiced – “Now it’ll be a good horror story!” Even Zhenya was glad for the counsellor arriving; he rolled his eyes and moaned:

“Finally! Can I go?”

“You can,” said Volodya sleepily and nasally. “Thank you for stepping in.”

“Will you tell a horror story now?” squeaked Sashka, squinting craftily.

Yurka guessed then that the counsellor had been helped along in waking up, and, grasping that Volodya must still be hungry, he burst into a full panic: where would he have to run, what would he have to do to feed him?

At the same time, Volodya awkwardly flopped onto the edge of an unoccupied bed and tried to smoothen out his dishevelled hair with his hand, but in fact did the opposite, and just got it more tangled. Lost, he whispered in Yurka’s ear:

“What should we tell them? We’ve not come up with anything for a long time.”

“Then think of something!” ordered Yurka. He brushed his ear with his nose, pretending as though it was by accident.

“I can’t come up with anything at all right now,” grumbled Volodya.

And as though in support of Yurka’s recent concern that Volodya wanted to eat, a new sound reverberated through the room – the hungry rumbling of his stomach. Right then, a realisation deigned to strike Yurka – almost all the children got sent parcels by their parents, and that meant that the children had food! Yurka livened up:

“I’m giving you a five-minute head start. Get thinking.”

Giving Volodya time to think, he stood in the middle of the room and began to take charge:

“Listen up, everybody! So that your counsellor’s brain can work, he needs fuel, by which I mean food. Climb in your siloes, scrape out your granaries, your counsellor needs to eat!”

“What’s a granary?” they asked from the right corner by the window.

“And a grarany? Or was it granary?” they asked from the left, by the door.

“Your parcels,” explained Yurka. “Is there anything left from your parcels or have you gobbled it all up? Sanya, I know for a fact that you’ve got biscuits under your pillow,” he poked a finger at Sashka’s bed. “I’ll swap half a pack for one excellent horror story.”

“How do you know that I’ve got biscuits?” scowled the fat boy.

“From the fact that I check your beds every morning,” Volodya rushed in, reinforcing Yurka’s guess.

To his surprise, Sanya did not argue and pulled out a packet of Jubilees, squeezed the biscuits to his chest and asked doubtfully:

“And the horror story will be really superb?”

“That depends on the biscuits,” Yurka crossed his arms over his chest.

“But the main thing is that it’s fresh and based on a true story!” Volodya gave Yurka to understand that he had thought of something to say.

“Oh-hoh!” Sanka nodded, satisfied, but his hands trembled all the same when he thrust the biscuits towards Volodya. “If the horror story turns out to be bad, then give the biscuits back!”

Volodya nodded and, having rapidly torn the wrapper off, crunched into a biscuit.

“Chewed up?” chuckled Yurka. “Deal!”

“No, not chew–” Sashka only managed to get out his indignation before Volodya, without having chewed fully, began to tell his story.

“Literally the day before yesterday in the morning, I got woken up by some kind of strange rustling in the bedroom. I open an eye, look at the floor and there’s this weird black spot crawling along the floor, all fuzzy with a strange spiky outline! And it was crawling right towards Zhenya’s bed, and at the same time, making this terrifying rustling sound…” he crunched into another biscuit. “And Zhenya’s asleep like nothing’s happening. I was overcome by terror, I don’t know what it is or what it might do! Then the spot suddenly stopped! Then it began to shift on the spot, it turned away from Zhenya’s bed and started heading for me! And I can’t even grope around on my bedside table for my glasses, I’m too scared to move! Well, somehow, I caught hold of a book instead of my glasses, I crept to the edge of the bed, preparing to attack… The spot was circling the room all the while, now it’s creeping to Zhenya’s bed. Taking advantage of the situation, I jumped up and stole up to it, but just as I was about to swat it… the spot flung itself at my leg! I cried out and jumped away. Zhenya woke up, not understanding anything that was going on. I pointed at it, he saw it and oh, how he swore! And then he pulled the blanket off his bed and through it right on the spot! He says to me, ‘Volodya, put your glasses on!’ I pick my way over to the nightstand and stick my glasses on, while Zhenya rolled the blanket up into a ball and took it in his hands. I look and out of it comes this… pink nose! And it sniffs about! Confess, who brought our Fyr-Fyr here out of his green corner? They almost gave a counsellor an aneurysm!”

Yurka couldn’t hold back – he laughed heartily. His laughter was picked up by the kids.

“That’th no howwow thtowy!” squeaked Olezhka happily. “It’th a comedy!”

“However the food is, that’s how the story’ll be. I did warn you!” declared Yurka, and, imitating Volodya’s commanding tone, “That’s all. And now it’s time to sleep.”

“Under the duvet. And without any chatting,” Volodya tagged on.

They only finished putting the children to bed half an hour later. Finding themselves outside, breathing the fresh, still warm air, Volodya cheerfully asked Yurka:

“How are you? How’s your day gone?” and he squeezed his hand for the second time that day.

“I’ve missed you!” blurted Yurka.

As though hearing from elsewhere what he had said, Yurka instantly went red and grew hoarse – he had blabbed something very candid. He coughed and slapped a seat on the carousel, inviting Volodya to sit next to him. The latter seemed to like what he had heard; he smiled, and, putting on a show, adjusted his glasses.

“I’ve als–” Volodya did not get to finish before they were interrupted.

A piercingly loud shriek, twenty voices strong, rang out from the female chambers. Volodya flew to the porch and tugged on the door, but it turned out to be locked from the inside. Yurka dashed to the window, jumped up and saw ghosts were ‘flying’ around the room with bedsheets and torches.

“Volod! Everything’s alright, it’s not an attack. Some ghosts have come to visit the girls,” he related, laughing.

Volodya ran up to him and also took a look; Yurka felt him casually put his arm round his waist.

“Six ghosts!” exclaimed the counsellor as though nothing much in particular was happening, just a hug, as it should be. “Let’s catch them!”

He disentangled from him and, with a reckless smile, he broke off for the other door – the one for the boys’ room, which turned out not to be locked. Yurka stood by the window and watched how a few seconds later, Volodya broke in with a wild cry Aha! to the room full of frightened girls, moved the confused and ragged Lena to the side and caught the first ghost. The others fled outside in fright and opened the locked door. And Yurka was waiting for them there.

They only left the dorm once all the ghosts were rendered harmless, placed back in their chambers and put to sleep.

“And what are you in such a good mood for?” Yurka was surprised.

Before, Volodya would always get angry at disobedience, while Yurka would be entertained by it, but now it had flipped round the other way. He had not noticed when it was that they swapped places.

“Firstly, I’ve finally got some sleep, secondly, I’ve realised that if I don’t learn to treat these pranks with a sense of humour, then I’ll just die of all these little things,” chuckled Volodya. “Evidently the horror story really was bad this time. It didn’t work,” Volodya took Yurka’s hand and led him into the bushes.

The thick undergrowth of lilacs and some other bush, Yurka could not make it out in the darkness, clustered together off into the distance. It was dark and quiet there; it seemed that they could hide there from anyone, even from ghosts with torches, despite that Volodya and Yurka could see the whole clearing.

But no longer were they keeping watch for anyone, nor expecting, nor following anyone, either. Finally left alone together, they were occupied solely with each other, and they embraced tremblingly, whispering to each other about whatever nonsense.

After no more than half an hour, the sound of someone’s footsteps on the path leading to the fifth troop’s dorm could be heard. Yurka heard them first and recoiled from Volodya:

“Do you hear that?”

Volodya pressed a finger to his lips and peered out of the bushes, lightly moving the branches apart, in such a way that Yurka could also see. Walking on the path, it was Masha.

She had a look into the window of the girls’ bedroom; she was looking for a long time. Clearly, she was searching for someone in the room, weakly illuminated by a nightlight. Yurka could guess who – Volodya. Not finding the counsellor there, Masha approached a different window – the boys’ bedroom. She looked, waited, listened. Figuring that he was not there either, she picked her way through the flowerbed to a third window.

“My room,” whispered Volodya.

It was absolutely dark there; Masha quickly returned to the porch and, the door quietly creaking, she cautiously made her way inside. Volodya noticeably tensed up.

“Has she gone mad? Where’s she sneaking?” Volodya twitched at his side and would have leapt up, had Yurka not grabbed him by the elbow.

“Wait! Do have something dodgy there? I mean, compromising stuff, anything like that?”

“No, not really,” he reflected.

“Then don’t get up. If she sees you roaming around in the bushes, what will she think?”

“Like hell am I going to hide here while someone rummages around in my room!”

Volodya leapt out of the bushes at just the right moment. Masha came out a minute later and collided with Volodya at the doors. It was too late by then for Yurka to come out. His anxiety grew with each passing second; his awful guess would not let him stand in peace – could lovesick Masha have gone so far off kilter that she was now stalking Volodya?

Wrestling with his mad urge to fling himself at her and tell her everything he thought, Yurka froze in the bushes and felt like a helpless idiot. The porch was too far away: he not only could not hear their conversation, Yurka could not even read their lips – the weak lamp was made flickery by the mosquitoes encircling it, it was impossible to make anything out. One thing was clear – Masha replied to Volodya in such a way that negated all his outrage.

They concluded. Masha unhurriedly left down the path and had no sooner gone down below than Yurka emerged from the bushes and ran up to Volodya:

“Well? What did she say?” he blurted, panting from worry.

“She was looking for you…” replied Volodya, perplexed. “She said that Irina is looking for you, and since you weren’t in the theatre, Masha though that you might be with me. I can’t say that it was strange. You’re in the same troop, she often helps Irina out, and it’s just so normal, but… I wasn’t expecting it.”

“No the whole thing is still weird! You know, they told me that Masha was telling on me. She was behaving very strangely, did you notice? She turns up near to us too often…”

“Are you not exaggerating?”

Seeing Volodya’s gracious smile, Yurka grew embarrassed. He probably thought that Yurka remembered their dance too well and was still jealous, and that that was why he was ready to blame Masha for anything. And if that was really what Volodya thought, then he was right. Yurka’s burning desire to leap out of the bushes and catch the spy red-handed was aroused precisely by jealousy. But Yurka also found arguments in favour of his theory.:

“It’s not the first time she’s been walking at nighttime. Remember back when Irina came to the theatre and had a go at me, she asked what I’d been doing with Masha and where we’d been walking? And it is true, wherever we are, she’s always nearby. Volod, we have to talk about her walks!”

“Let’s sort it out with Irina first.”

And Yurka headed for her almost immediately. All the same his mood was spoilt, and Volodya was paranoid again; he kept freezing, listening closely and looking around, and he would not even let him touch his hand. The evening had already come to an end.

After hastily saying goodbye to Volodya, Yurka returned to his own troop and found his counsellor. Expecting that she would be narrowing her eyebrows at him from the doorstep and would start shouting, he had already prepared to babble some justifications, but Ira stared in surprise at him and replied:

“No, not at all, I wasn’t looking for you.” Yurka had by then turtled up behind his hands, while Ira exclaimed. “But where were you, by the way?”

“With Volodya.”

“Have you seen the time?! Yura, this isn’t a game! If you’re going to be late, you should give me some warning!” Yurka was overwhelmed, wrestling with confusing, anxious feelings. A lot of girls were constantly hanging around Volodya, but it seemed to Yurka that Masha was cropping up too often. It must have been jealousy. On top of everything else, he was also evidently infected with Volodya’s paranoia.

[1] The poem is Leto na vesax (“Summer on the Scales) by Agniya Barto (1901–1981). Each verse of the poem has an AABBCC… rhyme scheme in Russian:

Jest’ v našem lagere vesy, Ne prosto tak, ne dlja krasy, My vyjasnjajem po utram, Kto popolnel, na skol’ko gramm, Net, my ne xodim v dal’nij les: A vdrug v poxode sbavim ves?!

…And so on. One day, if I revisit and revise these translations, I’d like to put some effort into making the English poetry fit the meter and rhyme of the Russian originals where possible, but that’s hard and it’s not a priority for me, so for the time being, I’ve just rendered literal, fairly word-for-word translations of all the songs and poems in the book. I’m sure I must be missing lots of puns or other jokes in the poems as well, because they just seem so random to me.

[2] The Five-Year Plans were a series of economic plans, most associated with the efforts to industrialise and modernise the Soviet Union under Stalin, consisting of production targets and quotas for various industries to fulfil over the course of five years. Many of them were declared complete (to what extent they actually were is subject to academic debate) early, and you can find a lot of old Soviet posters encouraging workers to “make five years in four” and similar slogans. One of my proudest academic achievements is getting 97.5% on my final essay, about the Five-Year Plans, for high school history when I was 18 lol.

[3] The BAM [Baikal-Amur Mainline, or in Russian, Bajkalo-Amurskaya Magistral’] is a railway in Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East. It is one of the longest railways in the world. The main route from Tayshet to Sovetskaya Gavan’ was built, with large interruptions, between 1938 and 1984.

[4] A Russian folk bat-and-ball game.

#translation #russian #lgbt #лето в пионерском галстуке #my translations

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