Kitabı oku: «Everything Begins In Childhood», sayfa 26

We admired the royal meal – the lion was large with a big mane, the real king of the beasts.

We were about to leave when one of us shouted, “Look!”

We saw the familiar donkey. We recognized it right away: the same kind eyes, the same little ears. Its head was the only thing left of it.

* * *

The zoo was coming to Chirchik again. We learned that it would be located close to us, in our neighborhood. We thought that was great luck. The monkeys were a nice entertainment, and we could see the elephant, even though sad, every day. We were impatient to have the zoo back.

Coming home from school, we heard the humming, clinking and roar of engines. There were many trucks in and around the clearing. A crane was unloading them with a rumble… Those were cages. A dozen of them were already in the clearing.

“Why here? Why are they here?” I asked.

I didn’t know whom I was asking, but I thought all the boys understood me. All our puddles, down to the last one, disappeared under the wheels of the trucks and were now under cages. It would make us ecstatic anywhere else, but not here.

There was almost no one but us in the clearing. And we weren’t looking at the animals but rather down, under our feet. What if one puddle with tadpoles had survived? No. There was only earth dug up by wheels, only wet, rumpled, torn up grass.

“Look here,” Vitya Smirnov said. He squatted and looked under a cage. Yes, where there had been our puddle, our breeding farm yesterday, there was now a cage with a bear. The big, brown, shaggy bear hadn’t changed since we last saw it. It was rocking back and forth and nodding its head, its mouth open, exactly as before.

We stepped away from the cage and went home.

* * *

We didn’t even listen to the frogs’ concert that night. I heard it later. I was in bed by the open window, and I was falling asleep when I heard the familiar roll call through my drowsiness. It appeared to me in my drowsy state, when I wasn’t quite awake any longer that our tadpoles had survived and that the transformation, which had always amazed us, had already happened, and they had become tiny frogs. How many of them were there? They hopped and hopped from the puddle to the arik, jumping up the grass like little greenish peas. Hey, you, brave little ones! I laughed from joy in my dream. And it seemed to me that those were our grown-up tadpole-frogs singing at the arik. They were singing for me.

“Koo-aa-a! Koo-a-a-a! Hello! Everything’s all right with us!”

Chapter 49. Soldier’s Lake

“You guys are lucky to live close to the hills!”

Vitya Yarosh and Sasha Parkhomenko, the lucky ones, only smiled in response, but their faces were beaming.

The new residential area behind the school where Vitya and Sasha lived was at the very edge of town. There was an abandoned lot beyond it, beyond which hills rose, ridge after ridge. Those ridges, a bit misty, seemed endless when seen from the roof of our building, from which we watched training battles. Many boys envied us too.

However, today the tank school wasn’t holding training. Today we were off to the hills for munitions. On the way there, we picked up Vitya and Sasha, as agreed. They both were sons of officers, so they were considered worldly-wise. They knew where the pillboxes were, where it was better to look for cartridges, and other such things.

* * *

We decided to take a hike to the hills yesterday morning on the way to school, maybe because yesterday was a somewhat special May day. It was the kind of day when you longed to go somewhere, to do something unusual.

I was dumbfounded as I stepped out of the building in the morning, perhaps from the smell, most of all. As I stepped off the porch, I was enveloped in a warm, velvet, fragrant wind. It seemed to me that we had never had such a fragrant wind before. I could smell the delicate aroma of cherry trees in bloom, and the sweet scent of roses, along with the pungent acrid smell of herbs coming from the hills.

The spicy, fragrant wind blew from the green hills down through Yubileyny settlement.

It blew on me and rushed farther and farther, up, up, to the spurs of the Tian Shan and beyond them, ignoring borders, throughout the world.

I stood with my face turned toward the wind, breathing, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I wanted nothing but to breathe and look at the trees, from which white petals, like butterflies, fell and flew away, carried by the wind, at the branches on which two black crows sat conversing right above me. They looked kinder than usual, enjoying spring. It seemed to me that their shrill voices sounded milder today, calmer than in winter, that they weren’t arguing but rather talking, that their round hazel eyes, usually malicious, had a kinder look. Here, a flock of noisy sparrows flew off the upper branches. They always argued like bazaar dealers, but today their hum sounded more cheerful, “How warm it is, how nice, how warm is the sun, chiv-chiv-chiv!”

“Valery, the glads have blossomed!”

That was Mama. She stood at the open veranda window.

The gladioluses in our garden grew along the wooden fence. They had just begun to blossom – their lower buds had opened. Their leaves and stems were covered with sparkling drops of dew.

The first stem crunched as the knife cut through it; transparent juice seeped from the cut. I immediately began to cut a second one. They would continue blossoming in Flura Merziyevna’s vase.

Then Edem and Rustem, Kolya and Sasha came out into the yard. They giggled when they saw me holding flowers, “Who are you going to give them to, Romeo?” When I told them that the flowers were for Flura Merziyevna from my mama, they grew silent. We all knew that the head teacher of our class would not return to school the next year. She would leave Chirchik for Kazan. She would go there not because Kazan was her hometown. Flura Merziyevna had been driven out of our school. Why? She was nice and kind. Was it because of Drunk Hedgehog? We couldn’t understand it.

But it was impossible to be sad for long on such a morning. We joined the stream of white and blue shirts that billowed in the wind. Red ties could be heard flapping loudly. It became noisy and merry. We forgot about Flura Merziyevna, and we decided that we would go hiking in the hills tomorrow, our day off. Kolya reminded us that shooting had recently been heard from there, so there should be lots of loot after the maneuvers.

* * *

First, we walked across the abandoned land. That was what we called the dreary space that stretched for about a kilometer between the settlement and the hills. There were shrubs and even a small grove of trees there. The land was dotted with pebbles through which grass was forcing its way. Obviously, when the new settlement was under construction, there was an area where construction equipment and various trucks were parked at its edge.

Soon, more delightful places came into view. We reached a little winding river whose source was high in the mountains, and we took a path running along it. Its banks were made of clay, which was why the water was murky. Then the river ran to the right, and we crossed a bridge and found ourselves right near the hills.

The hills stretched to the horizon like a big herd of prehistoric animals. We now walked among them close to the base, then ran up the slopes. We looked down from their high crests. Every time we did so, our neighborhood, our buildings, and the entire town grew smaller and smaller, its outline blurred.

It was nice and not difficult to walk and even climb the steep slopes. Green grass, thick and soft, like the fur of an animal, stretched under our feet. Yellow dandelions and scarlet wild poppies looked especially bright and beautiful. Now and then, a tumbleweed rushed by, now rolling along the grass, now flying up with the wind.

We climbed one of the highest hills, then stopped. We talked endlessly as we were climbing up the hill but fell silent at its top.

We were in the middle of a rippling green ocean. The warm wind pounced on us in gusts. It enveloped us and immediately raced down the hill like a skier dragging a wide invisible net behind him. From the foot of the hill, the skier went up to the next crest without stopping to catch his breath. Where he passed, the grass bent for a moment under the weight of the net.

And the wind continued to blow. A skier with a net raced down every hill. There were dozens of them, hundreds. They went up hills, one after another, and the green ocean swayed and swayed, and my head was spinning.

* * *

At last we reached the top, where Kolya looked around and said:

“The embrasure should be over there,” and he pointed at the slope of a hill that was higher than the others.

No matter how hard we peered at it, we failed to see anything. And only when we reached the foot of that hill did we notice a spot that was darker than the grass around it. That was the embrasure of a pillbox covered with a layer of turf.

Our experts, Vitya and Sasha, explained that the pillbox was very old, a few decades old. They took us to the beginning of an open trench that started on the other side of the hill.

I don’t know about the rest of the boys, but I was somewhat scared when, following the trench, we reached the underground entrance to the pillbox. After watching movies and reading books about the war, I imagined quite vividly how we would enter the pillbox and find the skeleton of a dead soldier. But it was nothing like that in the pillbox. It was a dark damp concrete space. It was so small that we barely fit into it. A narrow ray of light illuminated the earthen floor through a crack in the embrasure. The slope of the neighboring hill appeared to be a narrow green vertical tunnel when we looked at it through the crack. I bet it wasn’t easy to sit here hugging a machinegun, even during maneuvers, to say nothing of a real war.

But we were here together. After we got used to the dark and crowded conditions, we began pretending that we were soldiers. Edem began to imitate shooting a machinegun quite skillfully. As he was doing it, he chuckled to let us know that he was joking, for we were already past the age when kids imitated the sounds of shooting as they played. But, obviously, Edem couldn’t refrain from doing so. Kolya also got carried away and exclaimed that one could remain on the defensive as long as necessary, and the assailants wouldn’t even be able to get close. Sasha Parkhomenko stated with authority that that was nonsense: they would surround the pillbox and then shower it with grenades. And if they couldn’t surround the pillbox, we should remember the war hero Alexander Matrosov who covered the embrasure with his body.

We didn’t find anything in the pillbox but intense impressions. There were only pieces of rusty metal on the floor, no cartridges or cartridge cases.

“Let’s get out of here!” Vitya Yarosh said and headed for the exit. “I just remembered that there’s a training ground not far from here.”

We went around a couple of hills and spied the training ground. The hills had fallen away here, giving way to a valley. It was quite wide and so long that the end of it disappeared around the bend and was hidden by distant hills. It was covered with furrows made by the caterpillar tracks of tanks.

That was quite a training ground, with recently made furrows of caterpillar tracks and embrasures on the hills. The only things missing to complete the picture, were moving and stationary targets, which were placed in the valley and on the slopes during training. They had been removed, but there was plenty of shrapnel and cartridges where they had stood.

We pounced on the spoils like a group of mushroom pickers who had come across a clearing studded with mushrooms. The quiet valley resounded with our triumphant shouts.

“Tracer bullet shell!” I yelled, picking up an oblong shell.

“A TT pistol shell! Another one!” Yarosh shouted. He lay on the ground and groped around with both hands.

Kolya informed us that he had found cartridge cases… and more of them… still more…

The tank school cadets carried out their exercises far from the residential area, away from town. The training ground was prepped and cordoned off during big exercises. Information was sent to schools, and teachers warned students every time, reminding them of the dangers and emphasizing the possible consequences. But still someone managed to sneak into the area of exercises now and then. Naturally, those who were caught had a hard time at school and at home.

This place was extremely attractive for us adventurers. It seemed that the spirit of battle still hovered over it. And, of course, we had our loot. The hunt for ammunition had turned us into participants in a battle. Our pockets were stuffed; there was no room for more trophies. We were tired. We climbed the nearest hill and lay down in the grass. Some of us scrutinized and sorted the spoils. The others, like me, lay looking up at the sky. And I suddenly saw that it was bottomless. I had read in books that in ancient times people thought the sky was solid. It was bottomless, blue… Where does this blue color come from? Yes, we were told about the composition of air in class. But there were so many different hues! At times it was a milky blue, as if enameled, or it might be glowing, like today, or perhaps a dark, almost navy blue so that it seemed thick, or maybe cold and greenish, almost clear.

And the clouds were always different in the sky. I’d like to know if anyone has ever seen two cumulous clouds of the same shape. The day before, I had seen one of them resembling a castle fly by, and a dragon with its mouth wide open, a ship, a gigantic head with a flying beard. Is there an artist up in the sky who models them? But how does he know what castles, ships or human faces look like?

Something mysterious happens to clouds on windless days. Here they are, wavy, light, spread across the sky. You pick out a row of them, stare at it and wait. Shouldn’t it move at least a little bit? Shouldn’t it fly? No, it doesn’t. It just sits there as if it were asleep. You look at the sky an hour later, and everything has changed.

Now, there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. I lay there looking up and it seemed to me that my glance penetrated farther and farther into the firmament. It was a strange feeling. It felt as if I were not looking but rather flying into that vastness, picked up by the wind. I was weightless. I wasn’t scared. I enjoyed the sensation. I didn’t know how to express it in words, and I didn’t even try. Now, I think that it could be called the feeling of freedom, of total freedom.

A lark began to sing somewhere up there, and its song was heard everywhere, as if it was sung not by a little bird but by the sky, the whole sky…

* * *

Suddenly, someone began to talk and laugh. The magic was gone.

“There’s a lake not far from here. Shall we go for a swim?” Yarosh suggested.

“Soldier’s Lake?” Kolya Kulikov winced. “It’s just a puddle. No, I won’t go. It’s time to go home.”

None of us had been to the lake, with the exception of the two of them. Opinions were divided. My friends and neighbors, the four of them, went home. Yarosh, Parkhomenko and I went to the lake.

We decided to have a race: who could be the first to run up the hills and, without stopping, down the hills. Vitya Yarosh, a rather stout boy, his face covered with sweat, was nonetheless the first to reach the top of every hill. He sometimes fired at us as he made himself out to be an antiaircraft gunner because, naturally, we were enemy airplanes, a bomber and a fighter.

“Falcon! Falcon!” Sasha Parkhomenko, the bomber, called. “We’ve been detected! Cover me!” And, spreading his arms, he continued moving to the top of the hill from which Vitya was firing.

“Falcon is here! I’m beginning the attack!” I, the fighter, answered and, overtaking Parkhomenko, attacked Yarosh, the antiaircraft gunner. Sasha pounced on top of us, and the three of us rolled down the hill laughing.

This dashing pastime, of course, tired us out.

“How much longer before we get there?” I asked Vitya.

“It should be soon,” Vitya answered.

And again, we walked over the hills. We didn’t feel like romping any longer. Over two hours had passed since we had parted with Kolya and Edem, but the lake was not in our field of vision. We shielded our eyes with our hands in the hope of seeing the blue strip of water, but all we could see were hills. We were getting bored from such a long walk.

It was good that small incidents distracted us now and then. When an eagle with black wings spread wide soared over us, we teased Yarosh: it was not an eagle but an Egyptian vulture that spied some plump prey. Vitya might perish before reaching the lake. Suddenly, Sasha stomped his foot, bent and grabbed a small lizard. Grey, with big eyes, it wriggled and twitched and, after leaving its tail in his hand, disappeared into the grass.

“So, where’s your lake?” Sasha asked maliciously as we took a rest at the top of yet another hill. “Perhaps you’ve never been there.”

“Stop picking on me. I went there by car. I didn’t look at the road. I was reading a book.”

“Was it ‘The Three Musketeers’? You should have read it at home. Valery, let’s go back. Let him go there if he wants.”

We got up.

“Wait! I can see the road! Over there, on the right!” Vitya shouted.

Indeed, we soon walked out onto a road. But what road? Where did it go?

“To China,” Sasha said sarcastically.

It was easier walking on the road that wound between the hills, avoiding steep slopes, but we could hardly move our feet by this time. Each of us hoped that a car going to town would appear and give us a lift, but the road remained deserted; only the poles of electric power lines followed us with their sullen eyes.

We were so tired that I thought about getting rid of some of the spoils. But I felt awkward doing it in front of my friends, and they, perhaps, didn’t want to do it in front of me.

Then, suddenly, around a bend, the lake spread out before the eyes of the three travelers, as the author of one of our favorite adventure novels would have written.

Alas, not all discoveries turn out as joyful in life as in novels.

“It’s a swamp,” Sasha Parkhomenko muttered scornfully. And – I allow myself another phrase from a novel – the most profound disappointment was expressed on his tired face.

Yes, Kolya had been right. And we, for some reason, hoped that he had made it up, that he had been too lazy to walk there, and that the lake would actually turn out to be big and beautiful.

But it was rather small, just the size of two soccer fields, with bare shores. In a word, it was quite an ordinary reservoir, and even though its water glittered in the sun, we didn’t feel like going swimming. That’s how tired we were. We were also hungry and thirsty. It had been over six hours since we left home, and it had taken us almost four hours to walk to the lake.

“Are you satisfied?” Sasha asked Yarosh. Vitya only sighed in response, looking downcast and guilty.

“Look, there’s a man,” I said.

“A soldier,” Sasha specified.

A soldier dressed in a white T-shirt sat on a big car tire cleaning a dismantled submachinegun. He held a cigarette between his teeth.

I felt a bit better right away.

We went up to him, said hello, and asked for a drink of water.

“Drink. We have nothing else to offer, but we sure have plenty of water. What brought you here? It’s so far from town.”

“It’s a school excursion,” Sasha giggled, glancing at Yarosh. “The rest didn’t make it here.

The solider chuckled, “Well, well…”

I was scared that he might notice our bulging pockets, but he didn’t. The deep sound of a heavy engine was heard. A dark-green armored personnel carrier drove up to the ground near the lake. The hatch opened, and a soldier wearing a forage cap climbed out. He raised his eyebrows, “Oh, we have visitors.”

Without going into detail, we explained. The solider with the forage cap, who had a nice freckled face, nodded.

“I would give you a lift home, but I can’t. We’re staying here overnight. Have some rest and head back. They’ll be starting to look for you, right?”

* * *

The walk home seemed much more difficult, and it was so long… Unpleasant thoughts added to my fatigue – would I catch hell from Father? Back home, I learned, with a feeling of relief, that my parents had gone somewhere, and I hurried to bed. Oh, what bliss!

I propped my heavy feet against the wall. They ached, throbbed. I felt the blood pulsing through my veins, and I began falling through something, falling through…

And that’s how I fell asleep.