“Who can remember what we studied the day before yesterday?” Georgy Georgeyevich asked, allegedly with a pedagogical purpose.
Well, we couldn’t possibly all say that we didn’t remember. Besides, why should we mock such a kind teacher?
By the way, despite a certain forgetfulness, he knew his trade marvelously. And the auto-repair classroom, his pride and the subject of his ceaseless concern, was wonderful. Engines, appliances, spare parts, instruments, and everything that might be needed for the assembly or repair of a car were laid out in exemplary order on the shelves. Everything had been cleaned and sparkled as if in a display case. Each screw was in its place next to its nut. Georgy Georgeyevich demanded the same tidiness and attention from us, no matter what part of a car we were studying. We did it without drawings and models, probing the “guts” of a car with our own hands. As we did it, the “chief surgeon” was always at the side of the trainees and noticed any small thing, any oversight.
“Who has forgotten a bearing? You? What a dolt you are! No, not here, it should be attached to the crankshaft. Where’s your head? It goes on the rotor!”
And that’s how it went, on and on… But our kind teacher couldn’t become angry, he just couldn’t. We certainly did take advantage of his good nature, but we knew when to stop. Any commotion in class was mostly work related. Inventors, designers, and test drivers argued and made noise. Certainly, auto shop in itself was attractive to boys, so we were lucky to go to our school. But we were even luckier to have Georgy Georgeyevich: he possessed a pedagogical gift and a fertile imagination. He managed to instill in us an understanding that a driver-mechanic wasn’t just someone who had technical knowledge and skills but a person who was engaged in an important, dangerous and even romantic business, a person whose hands, head and soul were constantly working, a person on whom the lives of very many people depended. We had so many tank battles in our classes! We had so many car accidents.
Even inveterate lazybones didn’t miss Georgy Georgeyevich’s classes. Many of us had mopeds and scooters with small engines, and if they needed repair, we could always rely on our teachers’ help. In a word, we considered him our pal. We respected him and poked a little fun at his predilection for “preventive measures.” He most likely realized it but believed that none of the guys would report him. His trust in us was so great that when someone coughed or sneezed in class, Georgy Georgeyevich would say, to enlighten us, “That happens because you don’t take preventive measures. When you grow up, then, by all means…” and he would show the recommended dose in the air with his fingers.
I don’t know whether any of his students followed that “preventive measures” theory, but I can attest that our favorite teacher was never ill, and I don’t remember him ever sneezing. In general, he was a sturdy person, and he wore a tattered light coat, which he never buttoned, even when it was awfully cold.
The days of driving practice were especially long-awaited events. They were long awaited because each class had them only twice in a two-month semester.
The big dusty field where we learned the art of driving was a half-hour drive away from school. We rode there in a training truck, which awaited us near the school before classes. Georgy Georgeyevich drove the truck himself. We noisily disembarked from the truck onto the field, and Georgy Georgeyevich walked around the truck, climbed into the passenger seat, groaning slightly, and slammed the door loudly. While that ritual took place, we, some of us with fear, others with a sweet anticipation in our hearts, waited: who would be the first to be called.
“Lokshev, climb in!” Georgy Georgeyevich put a checkmark in a journal as tattered as his coat.
The truck jerked, moved away and began moving around the field in circles. And we, crowded together, commented on the quality of the driving as we nervously awaited our turn. We got covered with exhaust and the dust raised by the truck in dense clouds during the dry months, but that was immaterial to us. We just shook our heads and, with our eyes on the truck, discussed Lokshev’s every blunder. And he made quite a few of them.
“Look how he zigzags. What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s looking for a pole to run into.”
Everybody laughed, and I laughed along with them, but my laughter was feigned. It anyone was capable of finding a pole in the open field and running into it, it was me.
Our truck, like all domestically produced trucks, had a clutch pedal, and, on top of that, it was double. You had to press that pedal down to begin with if you wanted to change gears. It had to be pressed, as Georgy Georgeyevich taught us, without delay, smoothly and to the floor; otherwise the engine would stall. It was that damned pedal that caused me incredible agony, and not only me, of course, but it simply harassed me. It refused to be pressed without delay and certainly not smoothly. I mostly failed to feel whether it had reached the bottom and at what speed it should be released. It seemed that its only desire was to make the engine stall. And it quite often succeeded in doing that.
“Be careful! Don’t press too…” Georgy Georgeyevich’s face gradually became flushed. He was nervous too, for the hundredth time that day.
The engine roared. Before shifting to a higher gear, I revved the engine to the max. “All right… I’ll slow down by releasing the pedal… Now, the clutch pedal… and shift into neutral …” Oh my, I’d like to meet the person who invented the double clutch. Press… neutral… release… press again… and then one could shift into a higher gear. “I press…Oh!”
Once again, I hadn’t done it in time. The engine stalled. I broke out in a sweat. I started the motor once again, and now I would have to do everything all over again.
“Too fast, too fast,” Georgy Georgeyevich almost moaned. He didn’t look any better than I. “Don’t hurry. Look how you stagger and lurch, zigzagging across the field.”
“Look.” As if I didn’t know myself. As if I couldn’t hear the guys laughing and mocking over the roaring engine. And the torment continued. The truck first stalled, then moved jerkily. But at last I managed to shift into third gear and then fourth without a shameful failure. Gr-rr, gr-rrr, the engine roared less intensely. Holding the steering wheel very tightly, I stepped on the gas, this time with pleasure. Gosh, how it jumps over the bumps! I had a talent for picking them out deliberately. “Don’t speed! We’ll be thrown out!” Georgy Georgeyevich shouted. We both kept bouncing up and down, but he didn’t step on the instructor’s brake pedal. He was an understanding person and knew what guys like us needed.
Yay! Freedom! The long trail of dust, swirling and expanding, clouded most of the field behind the truck. Forward we went, forward, forward! “What Russian is not fond of driving fast?…” Who wrote that? Gogol? Yes, he did, as he described a swift ride through the snow in a sleigh drawn by three horses in the Russian countryside! E-eh-hh!
The engine was buzzing, the sides of the old body, once dark green but now faded, scratched and jagged, were squeaking loudly – I could hear it even in the cab. But we liked our old “horse,” even the noise and shaking. Is it actually a real ride when you drive down a smooth roadway without noise and shaking? You don’t even feel anything, as if you were standing in place. It’s a different story when you ride in a truck, especially inside its body on a bench placed lengthwise – even though you have to hold on to a transom, it feels like rock or Latin dancing. You sway, wriggle, all your muscles twitching in rhythm to the shaking. Your head bobs, and in another minute, it may fall off and roll somewhere…
Whee, how delightful!
“Stop! We’re done!” Georgy Georgeyevich commanded. I had gotten so worked up that I didn’t notice when he stepped on the brake pedal.