a word.
"What were you doing in Ensk?" she asked me suddenly. "Have you
relatives there?"
I said yes, I had. A sister.
"I love Ensk," she remarked, addressing herself to Korablev. "It's
wonderful there. Such gardens! I've never been in any gardens since."
And suddenly she started talking about Ensk. She said she had three
aunts living there who did not believe in God and were very proud of it,
and one of them had graduated in philosophy at Heidelberg. I had never
known her to talk so much. She sat there pale and beautiful, with
shining eyes, smoking and smoking.
"Katya told me you remembered some more passages from this
letter," she suddenly switched back from the subject of her aunts and
hometown. "But I couldn't get her to tell me what it was." "Yes, I do
remember them."
I was expecting her to ask me what they were, but she said nothing. It
was as if she were afraid to hear them from me.
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"Well, Sanya?" Korablev said in a brisk tone of voice that was
obviously feigned.
"It ended like this," I said. " 'Greetings from you...' Is that right?"
Maria Vasilievna nodded.
"And it went on: '...from your Mongotimo Hawk's Claw...' "
"Mongotimo?" Korablev queried, astonished.
"Yes, Mongotimo," I repeated firmly.
"Montigomo Hawk's Claw," said Maria Vasilievna, and for the first
time her voice shook slightly. "I used to call him that."
"Montigomo, if you say so," I said. "I remember it as Mongotimo... 'as
you once called me. God, how long ago that was. I am not complaining,
though. We shall see each other again and all will be well. But one
thought, one thought torments me.' 'One thought' comes twice, it's not
me repeating it, that's how it was in the letter."
Maria Vasilievna nodded again.
" 'It's galling to think,' " I went on, " 'that everything could have
turned out differently. Misfortunes dogged us, but our main misfortune
was the mistake for which we are now having to pay every hour, every
minute of the day—the mistake I made in entrusting the fitting out of
our expedition to Nikolai.' "
I may have overstressed the last word, because Maria Vasilievna, who
had been very pale already, went still paler. She sat before us, now white
as death, smoking and smoking. Then she said something that sounded
very queer and made me think for the first time that she might be a bit
mad. But I did not attach any importance to it, as I thought that
Korablev, too, was a bit mad that evening. He, of all people, should have
realised what was happening to her! But he had lost his head
completely. I daresay he was picturing Maria Vasilievna marrying him
the very next day.
"Nikolai Antonich fell ill after that meeting," she said to Korablev. "I
wanted to call the doctor, but he wouldn't let me. I haven't spoken to
him about these letters. He's upset as it is. I don't think I ought to just
now—what do you say?"
She was crushed, confounded, but I still understood nothing.
"If that's the case I'll do it myself!" I retorted. "I'll send him a copy. Let
him read it."
"Sanya!" Korablev cried, coming to himself.
"Excuse me, Ivan Pavlovich, but I'll have my say. I feel very strongly
about this. It's a fact that the expedition ended in disaster through his
fault. That's a historical fact. He is charged with a terrible crime. And I
consider, if it comes to that, that Maria Vasilievna, as Captain
Tatarinov's wife, ought to bring this accusation against him herself."
She wasn't Captain Tatarinov's wife, she was his widow. She was now
the wife of Nikolai Antonich, and so would have to bring this accusation
against her own husband. But I hadn't tumbled to this either.
"Sanya!" Korablev shouted again.
But I had already stopped. I had nothing more to say. Our
conversation continued, though there was nothing more to talk about. I
only said that the land mentioned in the letter was Severnaya Zemlya
and that, consequently, Severnaya Zemlya had been discovered by
Captain Tatarinov. All those geographical terms, "longitude", "latitude",
sounded strange in that room at that hour. Korablev paced furiously up
and down the room. Maria Vasilievna smoked incessantly, and the
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stubs, pink from her lipstick, formed a small mound in the ashtray
before her. She was motionless and calm, and only tugged feebly now
and again at her coral necklace. How far away from her was that
Severnaya Zemlya, lying between some meridians or other!
That was all. Taking leave of her, I began muttering something again,
but Korablev advanced upon me with a stern frown and I found myself
bundled out of the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY
MARIA VASILIEVNA
What surprised me more than anything was that Maria Vasilievna had
not said a word about Katya. Katya and I had spent nine days together
in Ensk, yet Maria Vasilievna never mentioned it.
This silence was suspicious, and it was on my mind that night until I
fell asleep, and then again in the morning during Physics, Social Science
and Literature. I thought about it after school, too, when I wandered
aimlessly about the streets. I remember stopping in front of a billboard
and mechanically reading the titles of the plays, when a girl suddenly
came round the corner and crossed the street at a run. She was without
a hat and wore nothing but a light dress with short sleeves—in such a
frost! Perhaps that was why I did not immediately recognise her.
"Katya!"
She looked round but did not stop, and merely waved her hand. I
overtook her.
"Why haven't you got your coat on, Katya? What's the matter?"
She wanted to say something, but her teeth were cluttering and she had
to clench them and fight for self-control before being able to say:
"I'm going for a doctor. Mother's very ill."
"What is it?"
"I don't know. I think she's poisoned herself."
There are moments when life suddenly changes gear, and everything
seems to gain momentum, speeding and changing faster than you can
realise.
From the moment I heard the words: "I think she's poisoned herself,
everything changed into high gear, and the words kept ringing in my
head with frightful insistence.
We ran to one doctor in Pimenovsky Street, then to another doctor
who lived over the former Hanzhonkov's cimena and burst into a quiet,
tidy flat with dust-sheets over the furniture and were met by a surly old
woman wearing what looked like another dark-blue dust-sheet.
She heard us out with a deprecating shake of the head and left the
room. On her way out she took something off the table in case we might
pinch it.
A few minutes later the doctor came in. He was a tubby pink-faced
man with a close-cropped grey head and a cigar in his mouth.
"Well, young people?"
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We told him what it was all about, gave him the address and ran out.
In the street, without further ado, I made Katya put on my coat. Her
hair had come undone and she pinned it up as we ran along. But one of
her plaits came loose again and she angrily pushed it under the coat.