She looked at me in silence with a puzzled expression.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TRUE TO A MEMORY
What was that idea? I thought about it the whole evening until I fell
asleep. The next morning I awoke with a feeling that I had not slept at
all for thinking.
The whole day was like that. With this thought in my mind I went to
the Northern Sea Route Administration, to the Geographica Society and
to the office of a journal devoted to Arctic affairs. At times I forgot about
it, but only as though I had simply left it outside the door and then come
out and run into it again like an old acquaintance.
Towards the evening, tired and irritable, I arrived at Korablev's. He
was working when I came, marking exercise books. Two high stacks of
them lay on the table and he sat there in his spectacles reading them, his
poised pen coming down from time to time to pitilessly underline
mistakes. I couldn't imagine where this work had sprung from, this
being holiday-time and the school closed. But even at holiday-time he
found something to do.
"You go on with your work, Ivan Pavlovich, and I'll sit here a bit. You
don't mind? I'm tired."
For a while we sat in complete silence, broken only by the scratching
of Korablev's pen and his angry growls. I had never noticed him
growling so angrily while he worked.
"Well, Sanya, how goes it?"
"I'd like to ask you one question, Ivan Pavlovich."
"Go ahead."
"Do you know that Romashov has been visiting Vyshimirsky?"
"I do."
"And do you know what he went there for?"
"I do."
"Ivan Pavlovich," I said reproachfully. "I can't make you out, honestly,
I can't! Knowing such a thing and never telling me a word!"
Korablev regarded me gravely. He was very serious that evening—
probably a bit nervous, waiting for Katya, and not wanting me to see
that he was.
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"There are many things I haven't told you, Sanya," he retorted.
"Because although you're a pilot now you're still capable of kicking
somebody in the face."
"That was ages ago! An idea has come to me, Ivan Pavlovich. Of
course, I may be wrong. So much the better."
"There you are, getting excited again," said Korablev.
"No I'm not. Don't you think that Romaska might have demanded of
him ... might have said he would keep his mouth shut if Nikolai
Antonich helped him to marry Katya?"
Korablev did not answer.
"Ivan Pavlovich!" I yelled.
"Getting excited?"
"I'm not. What I can't understand is how Katya could let him even
entertain such an idea. Katya of all people!"
Korablev took a turn about the room with a thoughtful air. He
removed his spectacles and his face looked sad. I caught him glancing
several times at Maria Vasilievna's portrait, the one in which she was
wearing the coral necklace. It stood in its old place on the desk.
"Yes, Katya," he said slowly. "Katya, whom you do not know at all."
That was something new. I did not know Katya?
"You don't know how she has been living all these years. But I do,
because I've ... because I've taken an interest in her," Korablev said
quickly. "All the more because nobody else seemed to have been taking
much interest in her."
That was a dig at me.
"She was very miserable after her mother died," he went on. "And
there was another person at her side who was just as miserable, if not
more so. You know whom I mean."
He meant Nikolai Antonich.
"A very experienced and complex person," he continued. "A terrible
man. But he did really love her mother all his life. And that's saying a
lot. Her death brought the two closer together. That's a fact."
He lit a cigarette and his fingers shook slightly as he struck a match
and then gently laid it in the ashtray.
"Then Romashov came on the scene," he went on. "Let me tell you
that you don't know him either. He's another Nikolai Antonich, but cast
in a different mould. For one thing, he's energetic. Secondly, he's
entirely without morals, good or bad. Thirdly, he's capable of taking a
decisive step, that's to say he's a man of action. And this man of action,
who knows what he's after, comes one fine day to his teacher and friend
and says to him: 'Nikolai Antonich, would you believe it-that Grigoriev
fellow turned out to be quite right. You did swindle Captain Tatarinov's
expedition. What's more, there are quite a number of shady things
you're reticent about when answering personnel questionnaires...' Nina
Kapitonovna overheard this conversation. She did not know what to
make of it, so she came running to me. I got it right, though."
"That's interesting," I said.
There was a pause.
"As to what happened next," Korablev continued, "you can judge by
results. You know Nikolai Antonich - he doesn't do things in a hurry.
Probably this was first put to him half in a joke, casually. Then more and
more seriously and repeatedly."
"But, Ivan Pavlovich, he cannot have persuaded her, can he?"
209
"Sanya, Sanya, what a funny chap you are! Would I be telling you all
this if he had? But who knows? He would have got his way in the end,
perhaps, the way he got—"
I understood what he was going to say: "The way he got Maria
Vasilievna to marry him."
I did not know whether to stay or leave—it was already seven o'clock
and Katya might ring the bell at any moment. I found it physically hard
to tear myself away from him. I watched him sitting there smoking, his
grey head bowed and his long legs stretched out, and thought how
deeply he had loved Maria Vasilievna and how unlucky he had been and
yet how true to her memory he had remained-for that was why he had
watched over Katya so carefully all those years.
Then he suddenly said that I had better go.
"It will be easier for me to talk to her."
He saw me to the door and we took leave of each other till the
following day.
It was still quite light when I went out into the street. The sun was
setting and its rays were reflected in the windows on the opposite side of
Sadovaya.
I stood at the entrance looking down the street in the direction from
which Katya should be coming. I must have been waiting a long time,
for the windows darkened one after another from left to right. Then I
saw her, but not where I had been looking. She had come out of a side
street and was standing on the pavement, waiting for the cars to pass. A
sudden fear assailed me as I watched her crossing the road, wearing the
same dress she had worn when we met outside the Bolshoi Theatre and
looking very sad. She was quite near me now, but she walked with her
head down and did not see me. As a matter of fact I did not want her to
see me. I wished her mentally good cheer and all the best I could wish
her at that moment, and I followed her with my eyes all the way to the
door. She disappeared inside, but mentally I followed her. I could see
Korablev coming forward to meet her, trying hard to appear calm, and
taking a long time fitting a cigarette into his long holder before starting
to talk.
Now the windows were darkening quickly and the glow of sunset