and worry hidden away outside in the dark corners.
I remember our evenings, when, after long, vain attempts to get in
touch with the doctor, I caught the first launch that came along and
went to Polarnoye, where friends gathered within that circle of light, no
matter how late the hour. Who thought of night when the day was night
too!
Never before had I talked, drunk and laughed so much. The feeling
that had come over me when I first saw Katya here seemed lodged in my
heart now for all time—and the whole world went hurtling along.
Whither? Who knows! I believed that it was towards happiness.
The three of us—the doctor, Katya and I—spent all our free time
studying and sorting the records of the St. Maria expedition.
I don't know which was the more difficult-developing the films or
reading the documents of the expedition. A film, as we know, is liable to
fade with the years, and that is why the makers usually indicate the date
limit after which they cannot guarantee full quality. For the St. Maria
films this date was February 1914. Moreover, the metal containers were
full of water and the films were soaked through and had evidently been
in that condition for years. The Navy's best photographers declared it to
be a hopeless case, and even if they (the photographers) were wizards
they would never be able to develop the film. I persuaded them to try.
As a result, out of hundred and twelve photographs, dried with infinite
precautions, about fifty were adjudged "worth further handling". After
repeated printings we succeeded in obtaining twenty-two clear pictures.
I had once succeeded in deciphering Navigator Klimov's diary, written
in a crabbed, illegible, sprawling hand and smeared with seal-oil. Still
they had been separate pages in two bound notebooks. Not so
Tatarinov's papers. Apart from his farewell letters, which were better
preserved, his papers were found in the form of a compact pulpy mass,
and transforming this into a chronometric record, a logbook, maps,
charts and survey data, was, of course, beyond my powers. This was
done in a special laboratory under expert supervision. No room will be
found in this book for a detailed account of what was found in the
canvas-bound notebook which Captain Tatarinov had listed among his
enclosures. I will only say that he managed to draw deductions from his
observations and that the formulas which he put forward enabled us to
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calculate the speed and direction of the ice drift in any part of the Arctic
Ocean. This seems
almost incredible, considering the comparatively short drift of the St.
Maria which took place in areas which do not seem to offer any data for
such far-reaching deductions. But then the insight of genius does not
always need many facts to work upon.
"You have read the life of Captain Tatarinov," I had said to myself,
"but its last page has remained sealed."
"This is not the end yet," had been my answer. "Who knows, there
may come a time when I shall succeed in turning and reading that page
too."
That time had come. I had read it, and found it immortal.
CHAPTER SIX
THE HOME COMING
In the summer of 1944 I was granted leave, and Katya and I decided to
spend three weeks in Moscow and the fourth in Ensk, visiting the old
folk.
We arrived on July 17-a memorable date. It was the day the huge
column of German prisoners-of-war passed through Moscow.
We had light suitcases and so decided to make our way to the centre
of the city by Metro, but when we came out of the Metro station on
Leningradsky Prospekt we were unable to cross the road for a good two
hours. First we stood, then, getting tired, we sat down on our suitcases,
then stood up again. And still they came on. The clean-shaven generals
with sickly arrogant faces, among whom were some notorious torturers
and hangmen, must have been at Krimsky Bridge, miles away, but the
soldiers kept on coming and coming, shambling along—some in rags
and barefooted, others with their army coats thrown open.
I looked at them with curiosity. Like many other bomber pilots I had
never set eyes on the enemy all through the war, unless it was when I
dived on to a target-hardly a position from which you can see much. But
now I was "in luck"-fifty seven thousand six hundred of the enemy, in
ranks of twenty, passed before me in one lot, some of them gazing
wonderingly around them at Moscow, which looked its best that radiant
day, others staring down at their feet sullen-faced and indifferent.
Men from all walks of life, their every look and gesture were infinitely
alien to us.
I glanced at Katya. She was standing with her handbag pressed to her
bosom, deeply moved. Suddenly she kissed me tenderly.
"Was that your 'thank you'?" I asked.
"Yes," she answered gravely.
We had lots of money and so took one of the best suites in the hotel
Moskva, a sumptuous affair with mirrors, paintings and a grand piano.
At first we were a bit awe-struck, but then found that it was not so
very difficult to get accustomed to mirrors, carpets and a ceiling
decorated with flowers and cupids. We felt very good in those rooms,
which were spacious and wonderfully cosy.
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Korablev, of course, came to see us the day we arrived, looking dapper
in an embroidered white shirt which, with his smartly twirled
moustache, gave him a resemblance to some great Russian painter—
exactly which one, Katya and I couldn't for the moment remember.
He had been in Moscow in the summer of 1942 when I had knocked at
that felt-covered door of his. He had been in Moscow and nearly went
mad when he came home and found my letter telling him that I was
going to Yaroslavl to look for Katya.
"How do you like that? To look for Katya, with whom I had gone
along to the police station only the day before, because they didn't want
to register her at the Sivtsev-Vrazhek flat!"
"Never mind, Ivan Pavlovich," I said. "All's well that ends well. I
wasn't very lucky that summer. As a matter of fact I'm glad that we've
met now, when everything is really well. I was black, gaunt, and half-
crazy, but now you see before you a normal, cheerful man. But tell me
about yourself. What are you doing? How are you getting on?"
Korablev was never good at talking about himself. But we did learn
from him many interesting things about the school in Sadovo-
Triumfalnaya, where events of such great moment in my and Katya's
lives had once taken place. With every year that passed after leaving
school, it receded from us farther and farther, and we had begun to find
it strange that we were once those ardent children to whom life had
seemed so bafflingly complicated. But for Korablev school had gone on.
Every day he had leisurely combed his moustache before the mirror,
picked up his stick, and gone off to give his lessons, and new boys had
passed under the searchlight beam of his grave, loving, attentive gaze.
Oh, that gaze of his! I was reminded of Grisha Faber, who had
declared that "the gaze is all-important" and that with a gaze like
Korablev's he would have "made a career in the theatre in no time".