She asked me to tell her all about Ensk, even the post-office there.
"What about the post-office?" she said. She was rattled because I hadn't
heard of some people by the name of Bubenchikov.
"And the orchard by the synagogue! Never heard of it? Tell me
another! You must have gone after those apples scores of times."
She heaved a sigh.
"It's a long time since we left Ensk. I didn't want to move, believe me!
It was all Nikolai Antonich's doing. He came down. It's no use waiting
any longer, he says. We'll leave our address, and if need be they'll find
us. We sold all our things, this is all that's left, and came here, to
Moscow."
"Grandma!" Katya said sternly.
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"What d'you mean-Grandma?"
"At it again?"
"All right. I won't. We're all right here."
I understood nothing—whom they had been waiting for or why it was
no use waiting any longer. I did not ask any questions, of course, all the
more as Nina Kapitonovna changed the subject herself.
That was how I spent my time at our headmaster's flat in Tverskaya-
Yamskaya Street.
When I was leaving Katya gave me the book Helen Robinson against
my word of honour that I would not bend back the covers or dirty the
pages.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE TATARINOVS
The Tatarinovs had no domestic help, and Nina Kapitonovna had a
pretty hard time of it considering her age. I helped her. Together we
kindled the stove, chopped firewood, and even washed up. I found it
interesting there. The flat was a sort of Ali Baba's cave to me, what with
its treasures, perils and riddles. The old lady was the treasure, and
Maria Vasilievna the riddle, while Nikolai Antonich stood for things
perilous and disagreeable.
Maria Vasilievna was a widow—or maybe she wasn't, because one day
I heard Nina Kapitonovna say of her with a sigh: "Neither widowed nor
married." The odd thing about it was that she grieved so much for her
husband. She always went about in a black dress, like a nun. She was
studying at a medical institute. I thought it rather strange at the time
that a mother should be studying. All of a sudden she would stop talking
and going anywhere, either to her institute or to work (she was also
working), but would sit with her feet up on the couch and smoke. Katya
would then say: "Mummy's pining," and everybody would be short-
tempered and gloomy.
Nikolai Antonich, as I soon learnt, was not her husband at all, and
was unmarried for all that he was forty-five. "What is he to you?" I once
asked Katya. "Nothing."
She was fibbing, of course, for she and her mother bore the same
surname as Nikolai Antonich. He was Katya's uncle, or rather a cousin
once removed. He was a relative, yet they weren't very nice to him. That,
too, struck me as odd, especially since he, on the contrary, was very
obliging to everybody, too much so in fact.
The old lady was fond of the movies and did not miss a single picture,
and Nikolai Antonich used to go with her, even booking the tickets in
advance. Over the supper she would start telling enthusiastically what
the film was about (at such times, by the way, she strongly resembled
Katya), while Nikolai Antonich patiently listened, though he had just
returned from the cinema with her.
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Yet she seemed to feel sorry for him. I saw him once playing patience,
his head bent low, lingers drumming on the table, and caught her
looking at him with compassion.
If anyone treated him cruelly, it was Maria Vasilievna. What he did
not do for her! He brought her tickets for the theatre, staying at home
himself. He gave her flowers. I heard him begging her to take care of
herself and give up her job. He was no less attentive to her visitors. The
moment anyone came to see her, he would be there on the spot. Very
genial, he would engage the guest in conversation, while Maria
Vasilievna sat on the couch, smoking and brooding.
He was his most amiable when Korablev called. He obviously looked
at Whiskers as his own guest, for he would drag him off at once to his
own room or into the dining-room and not allow him to talk shop.
Generally, everybody brightened up when Korablev came, especially
Maria Vasilievna. Wearing a new dress with a white collar, she would lay
the table herself and do the honours, looking more beautiful than ever.
She would even laugh sometimes when Korablev, after combing his
moustache before the mirror, began paying noisy court to the old lady.
Nikolai Antonich laughed too .and paled. It was an odd trait of his-he
always turned pale when he laughed.
He did not like me. For a long time I never suspected it. At first he
merely showed surprise at seeing me, then he started to make a wry face
and became sort of sniffy. Then he started lecturing:
"Is that the way to say 'thank you'?" He had heard me thank the old
lady for something. "Do you know what 'thank you' means? Bear in
mind that the course your whole life will take depends upon whether
you know this or not, whether you understand it or not. We live in
human society, and one of the motive forces of that society is the sense
of gratitude. Perhaps you have heard that I once had a cousin.
Repeatedly, throughout his life, I rendered him material as well as
moral assistance. He turned out to be ungrateful. And the result? It
disastrously affected his whole life."
Listening to him somehow made me aware of the patches on my
trousers. Yes, I wore broken-down boots, I was small, grubby and far
too pale. I was one thing and they, the Tatarinovs, quite another. They
were rich and I was poor. They were clever and learned people, and I
was a fool. Here indeed was something to think about!
I was not the only one to whom Nikolai Antonich held forth about his
cousin. It was his pet subject. He claimed that he had cared for him all
his life, ever since he was a child at Genichesk, on the shores of the Sea
of Azov. His cousin came from a poor fisherman's family, and but for
Nikolai Antonich, would have remained a fisherman, like his father, his
grandfather and seven generations of his forefathers. Nikolai Antonich,
"having noticed in the boy remarkable talents and a penchant for
reading", had taken him to Rostov-on-Don and pulled strings to get his
cousin enrolled in a nautical school. During the winter he paid him a
"monthly allowance", and in the summer he got him a job as seaman in
vessels plying between Batum and Novorossiisk. He was instrumental in
getting his brother a billet in the navy, where he passed his exam as
naval ensign. With great difficulty, Nikolai Antonich got permission for
him to take his exams for a course at Naval College and afterwards
assisted him financially when, on graduation, he had to get himself a
new uniform. In short, he had done a great deal for his cousin, which
explained why he was so fond of talking about him. He spoke slowly,
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going into great detail, and the women listened to him with something
akin to awed reverence.
I don't know why, but it seemed to me that at those moments they felt
indebted to him, deeply indebted for all that he had done for his cousin.