But I can't understand why the road leading down to the New Bridge is overgrown with weeds. Surely people still drive over these cobble-stones! This used to be the main road through town to the Dniester.
A sorry picture confronts me as I reach the cliffs. All that remains of the beautiful New Bridge are the tall stone piles at the foot of which the Smotrich gleams in the sunlight. They are spanned by a narrow wooden strip whose planks creak and sag underfoot.
No one crosses the bridge now. Nearly all the buildings of the old town perched on its high cliff above the river are in ruins.
With great difficulty I guess from the shattered walls what part of the town I am in. This must be Post Street. That's where we used to buy scraps of sausage on the days we received our factory-school grants...
And over there, that's where the Venice Restaurant used to be, where Monus Guzarchik held that rowdy party after his grandmother died...
Where is he now, our rowdy Monus, "non-Party" man, builder of electric locomotives? The last letter "I had from him was in 1940, when I was in Leningrad. Guzarchik wrote me that he was chief foreman at the Kharkov Locomotive Works, and sent me a booklet about his method of converting plants to assembly line production. . .
Many of the cottages round the huge Stephen Bathori Tower look as if they had been struck by a hurricane.
The tower was" built here on the orders of a Hungarian king, the usurper of the Polish throne who was seeking to conquer the Ukrainian lands of Podolia. And in 1943, (I heard this from Elena Lukyanovna), the Hitlerites shot more than seven thousand of the finest people in Hungary, who had refused to help the German invaders. The Gestapo officials had been afraid to slaughter them in Budapest, so they sent them to their death in this little Ukrainian town. Not far away I noticed the ruins of the building where Shipulinsky's cafe with its broad windows used, to stand. I remembered how I had invited Galya Kushnir to that tempting cafe. There we sat, Galya and I, chatting and sipping our coffee like grown-ups, when Father on his way home from the print-shop glanced in and saw us. The trouble I had then!...
And where is Galya Kushnir now? She and I were separated by the war. I received my last letter from her in the spring of 1941, from Odessa. She wrote that her thesis for a degree in history had been successful, and that she was continuing her studies on the history of the Black Sea Straits. Had she managed to get out of Odessa in time? And would I ever meet her again, my first love, a working girl who had become a historian?
As of old, a few women were selling flowers by the low wall at the entrance to the fortress bridge—red, white, and yellow peonies, bunches of wild daisies, bright-red poppies...
A stocky, broad-shouldered lieutenant-colonel standing with his back to me was buying flowers. He took the women's bunches in armfuls and carried them to the seat of a light army truck. From the number of petrol tins in the back of the truck I guessed that the lieutenant-colonel and his driver had come from afar and were just as much chance visitors to this town as I.
What does he need all these flowers for, I wondered, then looking up and noticing the Old Fortress towering above me, I at once forgot the soldiers.
The fortress still stood there on its steep cliffs guarding the entrance to the town from east, south, and west, just as it had for centuries. Its thick stone walls built in ancient times, strong and indestructible as the grey weather beaten cliffs on which it stood, had often saved the inhabitants of the town from enemies.
As before the square and round watch-towers with their narrow embrasures and pointed moss-grown roofs rose above the zigzagging walls of the first ring of fortifications. Green tree-tops could be seen peeping over the fortress walls. Big bushes of honeysuckle and pink heather grew on the edge of the cliffs, their roots firmly embedded in the stonework that Turkish cannon-balls had never shaken.
By the wide-open gates hung a red notice-board that seemed to have been put up only recently: Historical Reservation and Museum.
Deeply moved and excited I walked under the arch of the fortress gates.
"Our fine, dear, old lady!" I thought, surveying the fortress. "Neither time, nor the Turks, and not even Hitler's bombs could destroy you. As you have stood for centuries, an invincible stronghold on the south-west border of Podolia, you still stand, bringing joy to our people and striking terror into the hearts of the enemies that have been driven for ever from our ancient Ukrainian soil!"
As soon as I entered the grassy yard, however, I realized that even our old lady had suffered pretty badly in the' recent battles.
The watch-towers, whose loop-holes looked out on all sides, were riddled with shell-holes. The roof of the Ruzhanka Tower had disappeared altogether. The Commandant Tower was a heap of rubble. But the fortress, evidently a museum now, had been restored. Its new window-frames and fresh plaster work told me that the building had been raised from the ruins only recently.
. The noise of a car made me turn round. The same army truck with its array of petrol cans came into view. Apparently the lieutenant-colonel who was so fond of flowers had decided to look over the museum.
I saw the truck pull up near the guard-house, and turning away followed a narrow path that led to the green ' bastion behind the Black Tower.
But in vain I sought for the grey marble obelisk that had been erected' to Timofei Sergushin, the Bolshevik who had been shot by the Petlura bandits a quarter of a century ago.
Enemies and traitors in their hatred of Soviet power had tried to destroy the memory of that fine man, the first Communist to enter our little cottage in Zarechye.
But in the thick grass under the Black Tower I found a piece of marble bearing the last word of the inscription that had been written over the grave.
The base of the obelisk—a simple square of stone—was still there, so was the grave-mound. The hump of earth under which lay Sergushin's remains was thickly carpeted with periwinkle.
I stopped by the mound and my memory carried me back to those far-off days when Soviet power had only just been established in Podolia.
I remembered the evening after Sergushin had been shot, when Weasel and I and Petka Maremukha had come to this spot. In accordance with Cossack custom, Weasel had spread a red flag over the grave-mound and we had sprinkled fragrant lilac branches over it. Over the murdered man's grave we had sworn that evening to stand up for one another, like true friends, and to take vengeance on the enemies of the Soviet Ukraine for the murder of one of its finest sons.
I stood there lost in thought, my head bowed over the unkempt grave, and the words of Sergushin's favourite song came clearly to my mind:
This song that I sing would soar up like a lark
But a heart full of sorrow has given it birth.
Like a bird in a cage it rings out in the dark,
Borne down by the weight ofthe earth...
And soon, very soon, never sung to the end,
In the twilight ofautumn this song will fall still,
And replacing myself in the mine, a new friend
Will finish my song, yes he will!
Lost in thought, I did not notice that someone else had come up to the grave until crimson peonies scattered into the thick grass.
The stocky, broad-shouldered lieutenant-colonel was sprinkling flowers over Sergushin's grave, paying no attention to me at all. I glanced at him closely, and suddenly, under the stubbly beard that fringed his sunburnt face, I recognized the familiar features of Petka Maremukha... "Comrade..." I began excitedly.
Turning at the sound of my voice, the lieutenant-colonel at first looked at me very sternly, almost with annoyance, then his face changed suddenly and he shouted: "Vasil!... Good old friend!..."