lingered only in the two end windows of the block facing me.
It was only eight o'clock and I did not feel like going back to my hotel
yet. For a long time I sat in a little public garden facing the entrance to
our school. I went into the courtyard several times to see whether the
light had gone on in Korablev's flat. But they were talking in the
twilight, Korablev speaking while Katya listened in silence.
The sight of those dark windows brought back to me another
conversation, when Korablev, suddenly jumping up, had paced the room
restlessly with hands clasped on his chest. And Maria Vasilievna had sat
there, erect, her face immobile, patting her hair from time to time with a
slim hand. "Montigomo Hawk's Claw, I once used to call him." Now
white rather than pale, she sat in front of us, smoking incessantly, the
ash everywhere—even on her knees. She was calm and motionless, only
now and again gently tugging at the string of coral beads round her neck
as if it were choking her. She feared the truth, because she did not have
the strength to stand up to it. But Katya was not afraid to face the truth,
and all would be well when she learnt it.
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The light had been on now for quite a time, and I saw Korablev's long
black silhouette on the blind. Then Katya's appeared alongside, but soon
moved away, as though she had uttered a single long sentence.
It was now quite dark outside, and that was good, because it was
becoming awkward, my sitting so long in that garden and getting up
from time to time to look at the windows.
Then all of a sudden Katya came out of the house alone and walked
slowly down Sadovaya.
She was going home, no doubt. But she did not seem to be in any
great hurry. She had something to think about before returning home.
She walked along, thinking, and I followed her, and it was as if we were
alone, all alone, in the vast city-Katya walking along and I following
without her seeing me. The trams clanged as they dashed out into the
square, and cars throbbed as they waited for the red traffic light to
change, and I was thinking how hard it must be to keep your mind on
anything amid that hideous noise-it was more likely to put you on the
wrong track, make you think the wrong things. Not the things we all
needed—I, and she, and the Captain, had he been alive, and Maria
Vasilievna, had she been alive—all the living and the dead.
CHAPTER NINE
IT IS DECIDED - SHE GOES AWAY
It was already quite light in the hotel room. I had left the light
burning, and I suppose that was why I looked rather pale in the mirror.
I felt chilly and little shivers ran up my spine. I lifted the receiver and
dialled a number. For a long time there was no answer, then at last I
heard Katya's voice.
"Katya, it's me. You don't mind my ringing you so early?"
She said she didn't mind, though it had only just gone eight.
"Did I wake you up?"
"No."
I hadn't slept that night and was sure that she had not slept a wink
either.
"May I come and see you, Katya?"
After a pause she said: "Yes."
A plumpish girl with fair hair coiled round her head opened the door
to me. She was a complete stranger to me, and when I asked her, "Is
Katya at home?", she blushed and answered, "Yes."
I took a quick step forward, not knowing where I was going, only
knowing that it was to see Katya, but the girl checked me with a
mocking. "Not so fast, Commander, not so fast!"
Then she started to laugh, so uproariously and explosively, that I
could not but recognise her at once.
"Kiren!"
211
Katya came out of the dining-room just as Kiren and I stepped
towards each other over some suitcases in the hall and all but fell into
each other's arms, had not Kiren shyly backed away, so that I merely
shook her hand.
"Kiren, is it really you? What are you doing here?"
"It's me all right," Kiren said, laughing. "But please don't call me
Kiren. I'm not such a ninny now."
We began pumping each other's hand again vigorously. She must
have spent the night with Katya, because she was wearing a dressing
gown of hers, from which the buttons kept flying off while we did the
packing. Two open suitcases stood in the hall and we packed away in
them linen, books, various instruments-everything, in short, that was
Katya's in that house. She was going away. I did not ask where. She was
going away. It was all decided.
I did not ask because I knew every word that had passed between her
and Korablev, every word she had spoken to Nikolai Antonich on her
return. Nikolai Antonich was out of town, somewhere at Volokolamsk,
but all the same I knew every word she would have said to him had she
found him at home on her return from Korablev's.
She walked about determined and pale, talking in a loud voice, giving
orders. But hers was the calm of a person with a bruised mind, and I
sensed that it was best not to say anything. I just squeezed her hands
hard and kissed them, and she responded with a gentle pressure of her
fingers.
If anybody was flustered, it was the old lady. She greeted me coldly
with a mere nod and swept past me haughtily. Then she suddenly came
back and with a vindictive air thrust a blouse into the suitcase.
"Ah, well. It's all for the best."
She sat in the dining-room for quite a time, doing nothing but
criticising the way we packed, then suddenly ran out into the kitchen to
tell the maid off for not having bought enough of something or other.
It did not take us long to pack Katya's things. She had few belongings,
though she was leaving a house in which she had spent most of her life.
Everything there belonged to Nikolai Antonich. She did not leave a thing
of hers behind, though. She did not want any overlooked trifle to remind
her that she had once lived in that house.
She was taking the whole of herself away—her youth, her letters, her
first drawings, which Maria Vasilievna had kept, her Helen Robinson
and The Century of Discovery, which I had borrowed from her in my
third form.
In my ninth form I had borrowed other books from her, and when
their turn came she called me into her room and shut the door.
"Sanya, I want you to have these books," she said with a break in her
voice. "They're Daddy's, and I've always cherished them. But now I want
to give them to you. Here's Nansen, and various sailing directions and
his own book."
Then she led me into Nikolai Antonich's room and took the portrait of
the Captain down from the wall-that fine portrait of the naval officer
with the broad forehead, square jaw and light, dancing eyes.
"I don't want to leave him this," she said firmly, and I carried the
portrait into the dining-room and carefully packed it away in a bag
containing pillows and a blanket.
212
It was the only thing belonging to Nikolai Antonich which Katya was
taking away with her. If she could she would have carried away with her
from this accursed house the very memory of the Captain.
I don't know whom the little ship's compass—the one that had once