Page 16

Yura used the uniform jacket to sweep the shards of glass off the windowsill, then he climbed out of the troop leaders’ room. The dandelion field looked very sad indeed, so he left it behind without regret and went to where the athletic fields and tennis courts used to be. They’d looked so huge when he was young, but now they were pitiful little patches overgrown with weeds.

Everything looks bigger and more meaningful when you’re a kid , he thought as he walked a circle around the courts. He sighed and shook his head, which was stubbornly beset with the thought of how inexorably time passes, how pitiless it is to everything, like a plague that kills everything it touches.

Wary of tripping on the chunks of asphalt hiding in the wet grass, Yura was looking down at his feet, so he spotted the torn, rusted chain-link fence lying flat as though it had grown into the ground. At one time that fence had enclosed the court, and at one time Volodya had clung to it desperately, apologizing for the thing with the magazines and telling him about MGIMO.

I wonder if he ever graduated?

His gaze landed on a dark mass in some tall weeds by the side of the mess hall. Yura approached it. Long, thin rectangles lay scattered among chunks of broken brick and clumps of fallen leaves. The black ones were smaller, the white ones bigger. Piano keys. The entire instrument was here, smashed in, the panels ripped off and the lid broken. The piece of wood that had once been the front panel still bore the gold letters reading “Elegy.” The hammers were scattered around and broken wires jutted from the piano’s innards.

It was almost physically painful for Yura to see that the instrument he’d played when he was young was now in such a state. How did it get here? The movie theater’s not nearby ... It must have been some village guys from Horetivka, when Horetivka still existed.

The Elegy ... he remembered that make of piano. It had been one of the most popular uprights in the entire USSR. All day cares, schools, and other institutions tended to have that exact model. The Barn Swallow Pioneer Camp had been no exception. The very same kind, in brown, had been in the movie theater and had been used at all the rehearsals. It was the one Masha had played.

Yura reached down and touched the scattered keys. He remembered them not the way they were now, but clean and shiny. New. If they had the capacity of memory, they wouldn’t have remembered his hands, either. Back then his hands had been different. Young. Yura was spellbound by the melancholy picture of his aging hands on the timeworn keys. How alike they were.

Scenes from his memory, flat and indistinct, flickered in his mind’s eye. It was as though time had turned and raced backward, and the keys turned white right before his eyes, and now his fingers on them were young and inexperienced.

The scene came to life and became crystal clear, just as though it were real, with details, full of sounds and smells ... the movie theater, at night, in the summer of 1986, and him, a teenager, in the movie theater, in summer.

“Yur, wake up! Come on, Konev, get up already! If even one person’s late to morning calisthenics, that’s it: no best troop title for us.”

Morning calisthenics. Breakfast. Assembly. Civic duty work. Drama club. Volodya would be everywhere. There was no place to hide from him. Yurka had told him everything, and Volodya knew his hiding spots. Volodya would find him and ask, Why did you do that?

Don’t get up. Today of all days.

“Yur! Come on, Yura, wake up, let’s go,” whined Mikha, pulling Yurka’s blanket off. “Why are you dressed?” he asked, surprised, but Yurka didn’t reply.

Yurka had already known the day before that Volodya would look for him after he ran away, so he’d gone right to the place the troop leader would look last: his own cabin. He’d jumped into bed without undressing. If Volodya had shown up, it was after everyone was asleep, and he didn’t risk waking him.

Yurka didn’t know whether he’d been asleep when Volodya was there. Basically, Yurka had no idea what he’d done all night. He’d closed his eyes, but had he slept?

He got out of bed, changed clothes wordlessly, and trudged out to morning calisthenics.

Turned out to be easy to walk in a column: no need to lift your gaze off the ground. You drag yourself along, looking down at the feet of the person walking in front of you, and you’re a hundred percent sure the column will take you somewhere. And it did. It took him to the athletic fields, where the entire camp gathered to do morning calisthenics. Including Volodya. If only he could get out of there!

How easy it was to just observe the shadow of the person in front of him and copy the motions. Yurka was physically incapable of lifting his head, even though he got yelled at to pull his chin up and keep his back straight. But Yurka couldn’t do it. Volodya was everywhere. They would meet; their eyes would definitely meet; it was inevitable, unavoidable. Yurka wouldn’t drop dead on the spot, of course, but he wouldn’t be able to just stand there. Maybe his feet would be rooted to the ground, maybe his whole body would be frozen, but he’d still find a way to do something. He’d take it out on himself, all the anger and hate ... He could bite his tongue off, but his tongue wasn’t his enemy. It wasn’t something he’d said that Yurka could hate himself for; it was something he’d done. Why had he gone and done that?!

Assembly. Troop One traditionally stood facing Troop Five. Yurka and Volodya were the tallest out of everyone there, and, like everyone there, they had to look straight ahead. But Yurka didn’t obey the rule, because he could feel Volodya’s gaze. This gaze didn’t freeze him, nor did it burn him; it smothered him, so much that he felt his face was about to turn gray.

Pioneer anthem. Flag. He had to lift his hand in the Pioneer salute. Looking up high was allowed. This was good. It was okay because it wasn’t straight ahead.

They assigned everyone’s duties. Yurka was detailed to the mess hall. On his way there, he noted that the Avenue of Pioneer Heroes was paved with excellent asphalt. It was smooth, and gray, and patterned by the shadows of the birch trees along its length, and it glimmered with spots of sunlight that pierced the foliage. But the weird thing was that these little bits of light kept changing, first running together into little blotches, then spreading and diffusing like ink drops in water. Or maybe the problem wasn’t the asphalt; maybe Yurka’s eyes were the problem? No. Yurka himself was the problem. Why had he gone and done that?

While he set out chairs in the mess hall, he tried to come to terms with the idea that he and Volodya had no future together, and that after what he’d done yesterday, all he’d have from then on would be the past: their brief friendship and all else that was good, including Yurka’s leniency toward himself, his self-respect, his self-esteem, were trapped in yesterdays. And his confusing feelings for Volodya had to remain there too.

While he spread the tablecloth, Yurka decided he had to forget these feelings, whatever they were, as soon as possible. No matter what he did, any recollection of Volodya would inevitably be tainted with the memory of his own shameful act. And then he’d remember the response: “You quit that.” No, this feeling would not let Yurka live in peace. But live he would!

Yurka knew that somewhere, out there past the camp fence, was a vast, alluring terra incognita where he would undoubtedly find freedom from all of this: the memories and the shame. It would be so great if he could escape, to get out past the horizon. No—not if. When. He had to escape!

Yurka moved his spoon around his bowl. He ate slowly and mechanically, with no idea what he was eating. He wasn’t paying attention. There was a big pat of butter in his bowl, a yellow splotch on top of a pale, flavorless blob. He knew a piece of bread was disintegrating into crumbs in his left hand, and he knew there was a hot drink by his bowl, but he had no idea what was going cold in it, tea or hot cocoa. When somebody sitting across from him drank, Yurka drank. When they ate, Yurka ate. Not because he wanted to, but because somebody said he had to.

He got up only when all of Troop Five, headed by both troop leaders, had left the mess hall. While the other campers with kitchen duty cleared and wiped off the tables, Yurka hauled trays of dirty dishes and thought about what to do next.

Morning calisthenics, assembly, civic duty work ... he’d survive all that. He’d survived last night somehow, hadn’t he? But the play—his role was so small, anybody could handle it. Really, he wasn’t needed at rehearsal at all. Maybe Volodya would even take pity on him and kick him out of drama club. Then there’d be fewer encounters, after all; fewer words, fewer regrets. Maybe Yurka could even figure out how to live in a way that kept him completely away from Volodya. Maybe he could get used to not being around Volodya. It was easier because it wouldn’t be Volodya anyway—not the Volodya who’d been with Yurka up until last night, the one who was good, and kind, and interesting, the one he felt close to. But sooner or later Yurka would’ve had to endure this separation anyway. Sooner or later Yurka would’ve had to learn not to love him.

The girls tasked Yurka with putting the chairs on the tables so they could mop the floor. The chairs weren’t made of anything heavy, just the thin, almost plywood seats and aluminum legs, but he was surprised by how heavy they felt. He soon tired, but stubbornly kept on lifting chairs, one after another. This kind of boring work was very conducive to thinking.

He and Volodya would eventually run into each other, and what would he do when Volodya asked, Why did you do that? Because he would ask, obviously. He was Volodya.

Yurka let out a prayer, without knowing who it was to: “Let him never talk to me again! Let him not even come close to me, let him act like I don’t exist, let him not even look in my direction—just don’t let him ask me about anything!” Yes, it would be awful. But Yurka was strong. He could stand both contempt and hate. He and Volodya would be comrades in that contempt and hate, actually. Let them have that, at least, as the last thing they’d share. Let the worst happen, in the worst possible way, as long as Volodya didn’t ask!

Yurka walked to the middle of the mess hall, where the girls had already mopped, to set out the chairs again. He was reaching up for a chair but flinched when a soft, but painfully familiar voice said behind him: “Yura?”

He was here! Yurka locked his eyes straight ahead and his heart fell. The large, spacious mess hall, with its tiled floor and simple, white, weightless furniture, was as bright and clean as an operating room, but in a heartbeat it transformed into a dark tomb. Cracks shot through the black walls, which shifted and then slowly fell down on top of him.

“Yura, what’s going on?”

Despondent, bereft of speech, Yurka couldn’t so much as peep, or breathe, or move a muscle.

“Let’s go. We need to talk.” Volodya put his hand on Yurka’s shoulder, then shook it gently, but all Yurka did was silently duck his head. The Pukes were also on duty in the mess hall that day and they gathered around the boys. Volodya, who didn’t let go of Yurka’s shoulder, talked with them and even looked like he was smiling, but Yurka could feel Volodya’s hand on his shoulder trembling.

Volodya somehow extricated them from the girls and hissed through his teeth right into Yurka’s ear: “Yura, I said we’re going!” The floor seemed to tremble from the cold in his voice. Without waiting for any kind of reaction, he seized Volodya’s arm and dragged him from the mess hall.

Yurka didn’t know how he ended up outside. The white entrance hall, the creaking door, and the gray stairs raced past, a series of film stills in rapid succession—the way Yurka’s entire life was racing by, actually. The humid morning air touched his cheeks. Yurka found himself on a bench. Volodya had sat him down and was now looming over him, a giant grim shadow.

“Explain what happened yesterday! What’s it all mean?”

“I kissed you. Because I fell in love with you, apparently.” This is what Yurka tried to say, mentally repeating I fell in love with you as though he were seeing how it tasted. He didn’t like the taste. It was flavorless, fake. But he couldn’t come up with another explanation. So he tried to reply, “I like you,” but the words got stuck in his throat. The only thing he could actually force out was “I don’t know.”

“How can you not know? Was it a joke or something?”

Yurka flinched involuntarily. He couldn’t raise his eyes to look at Volodya. But it wasn’t just his eyes: his whole head felt so heavy, he couldn’t understand how it hadn’t broken his neck. Yurka searched obstinately for words, he strove with all his might to find an answer, his gaze combed the gray asphalt—maybe if the answer wasn’t inside him, he’d discover it out there?

Volodya waited, pacing back and forth, shuffling his sneakers along the asphalt and breathing loudly with impatience. But Yurka still had no idea how to answer him, so he just let his eyes wander over his own hands and feet as he sniffled, barely audibly. Apparently the silence was beginning to drive Volodya crazy, since he started shuffling louder and breathing more angrily, then took to cracking his knuckles. Suddenly he crouched down on his heels in front of Yurka, looked into his eyes, and said, in a painstakingly civil voice, “Please, tell me what’s going on with you. At least now, while we’re still friends, I’ll hear you, I promise. If you say you were joking, or that you were making fun of me, or even that you were getting back at me, I’ll understand. If you say it was an accident, or that you didn’t mean to, I’ll believe you.”

Yurka’s mouth twisted in pain: Volodya was giving their friendship a chance, na?vely trying to preserve at least some of it. Yurka realized this, but instead of playing along with Volodya’s lie, he threw caution to the wind, gathered up his courage, and sighed out the truth: “I meant to.”

“What?” said Volodya, looking stunned. “You meant to? What do you mean, you meant to?”

Volodya had indeed been giving them a chance, but Yurka didn’t think for even a second that there was any point. You can’t bring back the past. The good, pure spark that had flickered to life between them would go out now. All they’d have left would be embarrassment, hypocrisy, and tension. And it was all Yurka’s fault.

“But you can’t do that, Yura!” Volodya was, it seemed, completely on the same page. “That kind of thing is—is very dangerous! Don’t even think about it!”

Volodya stood abruptly and turned away. He stood there motionless for a minute and then resumed his pacing back and forth. Yurka felt his world crashing down around him as his eyes tracked Volodya’s shadow moving to and fro.

He scraped together the last dregs of self-control. Without putting much hope in it, he mumbled in a dead voice, so low it was husky, “But you said you’d understand. That we were still friends.”

“But what kind of friends can we be after that?!”

Everything went still, inside and out. The wind vanished; all sound ceased. But all of a sudden, off in the distance, as though it came from another universe, came the sound of a child screaming. Not happy shrieks, as was usually the case, but cries of terror.

Volodya stopped in his tracks and ordered, “Wait for me here.”

But as soon as he’d taken a couple of steps, Yurka lurched to run away. Quick as a flash, Volodya grabbed his wrist and made him sit down on the bench. He didn’t let go of Yurka. “I’m not done yet.”

“But we’re not friends anymore. And that’s that!”

“No it’s not. I’ve told you a hundred times, the games you’re playing are stupid and dangerous. But this—!” His voice broke. Volodya was barely able to keep himself under control. To keep from yelling, he strangled his voice down to a whisper: “Never tell anyone anything about what happened. Don’t even hint at it. In fact, you’d better forget about it all like a bad dream. And from now on, don’t you dare let yourself even think about things like that!”

His hand tightened painfully around Yurka’s wrist. Yurka winced but didn’t make a sound.

“Volodya!” called a girl in a shrill voice. Yurka didn’t recognize who it was. Right now he wasn’t in any condition to recognize anyone or anything. “Volodya, come quick!”

For the first time since Yurka had known him, Volodya acted against his own nature. Instead of automatically running off to answer whenever and wherever he was called, Volodya stayed where he was and shouted, “Can’t you see I’m busy?!”

“Volodya, it’s Pcholkin again. He made Sashka fall down!”

Volodya growled out, “Be right there!” Then he bent over Yurka and said through gritted teeth, “Wait for me here. And don’t you move a muscle!”

“Volodya!” the girl sobbed. Only then did Yurka recognize who it was: Alyona from Troop Five, who played Galya Portnova in the show. “Voloooodyaaaa! Pcholkin spun the merry-go-round toooo faaaast! Sashka’s nose is bleeeeding! The whole playground’s covered in blooood!”

Volodya blanched and finally managed to let go of Yurka’s hand. Gently, he pushed Yurka down. He hissed, “Son of a bitch!!” through his teeth and ran off to where Alyona was pointing. Yurka was left by himself.

Yurka was ashamed. He’d ruined everything. He wanted to vanish from the face of the earth, disappear, be lost, so Volodya would never see him again; to be wiped from Volodya’s memory, so Volodya wouldn’t even remember him.

They weren’t friends anymore. Volodya might sit Yurka down like that again once or twice and start asking questions. Without meaning to, he’d torture Yurka. But the biggest torture was that Yurka had destroyed their friendship. It was true, now, that they were nothing to each other. And now he was going to have to spend a whole week close to Volodya, trying not to look at him, making sure to stay out of his way, so as not to remind either of them of that humiliating kiss. But how? How was he supposed to be able to look at Volodya now? How was he supposed to speak with Volodya only at rehearsal, and only about rehearsal, without the slightest hope of hearing even a single kind word about himself? All he could do was mess things up. He longed to hear something kind, something reassuring, but what he’d get would be something else entirely: he’d get the cold shoulder from the person who in just two weeks had become closer to him than anyone else who’d ever shown him even the least bit of caring or affection. It was inevitable that Yurka would go crazy: he already was!

What use was camp to him without Volodya? Why should he torture himself living right here next to Volodya but not having Volodya? What good would it do him to suffer from pangs of conscience and burn up inside from shame? After all, Yurka hadn’t liked it here anyway, from the very first day of session.

The thought that had been running through his head all morning came to him again, insistently, blaring out louder than ever: I have to get out of here!

He got up, ripped off his on-duty armband and threw it on the ground, and ran away from that damned bench. He ran heedlessly down the path toward the Avenue of Pioneer Heroes, thinking of just one thing and motivated by just one goal: he had to get out of this camp—hopefully for good!

He only stopped once he realized he was standing in front of the bust of Marat Kazey. He flinched when he saw the face of the Pioneer Hero, for even that plaster boy was condemning him. “Paranoia,” scoffed Yurka to himself. He looked to the left, where the avenue led to the main square at the very center of camp. Straight ahead was the path to the unfinished barracks, where he’d made the secret hiding place for his smokes. To the right was the gate, the camp exit. To the right was freedom! And, through some stroke of luck, both on-duty Pioneers and the watchman were gone. They probably ran over to the commotion Pcholkin was causing , thought Yurka. Well, they’re gonna get it after this! He raced to the exit.

The heavy gate creaked, opening up onto a path through thick, dark forest, much denser than the woods in camp. It even smelled different there. It was cleaner, and breathing was easier. That was freedom for you: at first the smell of it made your head spin, and only later did it reach your brain. It reached Yurka’s brain with the thought There’s no Volodya here, so we won’t run into each other!

He ducked into the thicket. He went through the trees on purpose, since he was afraid the campers on watch duty had only stepped briefly away and might see him leaving. As he made his way along the road leading from camp to the highway, where cars and buses drove past, he hid, ducking from tree to tree. He was planning his escape. He had a long way to go and time enough to think.

The first question was when to make a break for it. Not now, for sure: he didn’t have any clothes, or money, or the keys to get in once he got home. It’d be better to try at night while everyone was asleep. No, it’d be better in the early hours before dawn. He’d have to hide somewhere near the camp and wait for the first bus. He didn’t know where to wait, since Volodya knew all his hiding places. He’d have to find a new one. Maybe out here, in this forest? Yurka decided that right now he’d walk all the way out to the bus stop, memorize the path, and look at the bus schedule. Did they run regularly out here? One of them, at least, would have to go all the way to the city bus station. And from there he could get home.

All of a sudden he remembered the smell of home. The kitchen: slightly stuffy and sweet. The sitting room: dust and paper, because of the big library filling the bookcases lining one wall. Then the smell of his room burst into his memory: the piano’s aroma of wood and lacquer. It was so quiet and peaceful there, so good. And Yurka used to think it was boring.

His next thought was alarming: nobody would be expecting Yurka at home. But he’d show up there. He’d just say it: I ran away from camp. Let me in. His mom would shriek and maybe even start crying, while his dad would start playing on Yurka’s conscience: he’d go all quiet and just look at his son with an expression of complete disappointment. That look was worse than everything else.

For a second Yurka thought about running not home but to his grandma’s, the one on his dad’s side. She loved Yurka no matter how he behaved, and she wouldn’t even say a word about it; quite the opposite, she’d secretly be happy and wouldn’t betray him to anyone. The idea was very appealing, but Yurka shook himself: Hide behind Grandma’s back? Be a coward? That’s just what I need! As though just the shame of it weren’t enough. My parents will go crazy when they hear their only and dearly beloved child has vanished. How will Mom take it? And what about Dad? He’ll stay mute the rest of his life!

Yurka dragged himself slowly along. A kilometer away from camp the forest was completely wild. In some places he had to fight through bushes or climb over fallen trunks. The path turned out to be a hard one. One time Yurka even fell into some wet, crumbly earth and got stuck, as though the camp didn’t want to let him go and was insisting he come back. But what Yurka wanted to do was cry. Like a pitiful baby. Because no matter how he distracted himself by planning his escape, no matter how he suppressed his hurt, his sad longing, his painful thoughts about Volodya, they kept bubbling up. Volodya had spoken in that nervous voice, and when he’d crouched down in front of Yurka, he’d looked at Yurka that way, the same way his dad did: a look of disappointment and sadness. “No. Don’t think about that. Better to think about escape. Better to think about crime and about punishment.”

What would Yurka’s parents do to him for this? Well, what could they do? Lock him up at home? Hardly: Yurka was too old for punishments like that. Take away his pocket money? That would hurt, but it wasn’t fatal; usually Yurka didn’t even have enough small change in his pocket to jingle. So he was used to that. Maybe they’d send him to work at his grandmother’s day care? Actually, that version sounded likeliest; his mother had already warned him he’d spend all summer working at the day care if he fought with anyone at camp again. Yurka had acted as though the threat cowed him, but the truth was that didn’t scare him a bit. He had his little friends at the day care, like Fedka Kochkin and “Celluloid” Kolka. Just like last year, the three of them would wander around the village at night, keeping watch and catching hooligans and hedgehogs. And there was a neighbor boy, too: Vova, who was Volodya’s age and just as judgmental ... Volodya! Reminders of him were everywhere. Why was everyone named Vladimir? Well, what do you expect when the leader of the world proletariat’s named Vladimir; of course half the country will be named after him. All those Vovas, Vovochkas, Vovchiks ... Volodyas ... Volodenkas ...