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The next morning Yurka was playing pioneerball with Troop Two on the beach. It was packed. The girls from Troop Two who were in the play were also here: Nastya, who was playing Portnova; Katya, who was Zina Luzgina; and Yulya, who was the village traitor. They greeted Yurka in unison. It made Yurka feel really good.

Troop One was ahead, but, as was the rule at camp, friendship came out the winner anyway.

Yurka grumbled to Ksyusha, the only Puke who was playing: “Next time we have to call our team ‘Friendship’ so we win for sure.”

“Perfect!” replied Ksyusha happily. She even smiled at him. Yurka was stupefied. Ksyusha?! Smiling at him ?!

After the game was over, Yurka, who was dying from the heat, went over to the water to swim—or, rather, to help Vanya dunk Mikha. They’d promised to be ready as soon as the final score was announced, but they got held up back on the beach. Yurka got tired of waiting and got into the water on his own, but he’d only just started swimming around, relaxing and cooling off, when Olga Leonidovna and Volodya appeared on the beach.

The educational specialist was assiduously explaining something to the artistic director, who was himself assiduously looking around, searching for someone. Yurka guessed who that was. He stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly. Volodya saw him, squared his shoulders, waved, and smiled, glasses flashing. And then Yurka remembered what had happened yesterday. He hadn’t forgotten, of course, but now he remembered it even more clearly—so clearly that he felt Volodya’s breath, Volodya’s smell, on his lips. A warm feeling spread through his chest, and Yurka went still, a stupid expression on his face. He relaxed so much that he almost went underwater, but he came back to his senses and started moving his arms again.

Olga Leonidovna yanked Volodya’s sleeve—just like Yurka, Volodya had stopped, transfixed, to gaze at him—and dragged the troop leader over to the Troop Two boys, who were sitting in a circle on their towels. Then she dragged him over to a little group of boys from Yurka’s troop: Pasha, Mitka, and Vanya. After the boys nodded, scared, Olga Leonidovna grabbed Volodya’s arm and they went away.

The whole visit didn’t take very long. Yurka hadn’t even had time to get out of the water. He shouted to Mikha and Vanka, who raced over to him, kicking sand on whoever was sitting on the beach and splashing water on whoever was playing in the river.

“What did she want?” Yurka asked.

“She was asking us to be extras in the big crowd scene,” replied Vanka. “Well, not really asking. She told us we had to, and that was that.”

“Ooooh,” said Yurka.

“‘Ooooh,’” Mikha mimicked him mockingly. “Hey, Yurets, listen: that artistic director of yours, I heard he’s, like, harsh. He’s mean! But don’t tell him I said that, okay?”

“Volodya?” laughed Yurka, remembering the way that last night into the early morning the usually stern eyes under their glasses had come right up to his face, and then closed, and hadn’t opened again until the end of that long, warm kiss. Yurka burst into a sweat even though he was in cool water. “Oh ... uh ... if something goes wrong, Mikh, Olga Leonidovna’s the one who’ll tear your head off, not Volodya.”

“Oh no, we’re done for!”

“Come on, Mikh, it’s no big deal,” said Vanka. “Petlitsyn over there’s the one who got hit with a speaking part. All you and I have to do is stand there without saying anything and we’ll be fine.”

“No you won’t!” said Yurka indignantly. “You have to do what Volodya says, guys! Just you try goofing off ...”

“We won’t!” Mikha assured him.

“We get it!” confirmed Vanka. “So can we swim now, or what? We’re gonna freeze if we stand around any longer.”

“Race you!” shouted Yurka, and leaped forward.

When they got back to the beach, Yurka dried himself off slowly as he gazed at the opposite shore, hoping to see the willow, and mused, “So Petlitsyn was given a speaking part, huh? Must be Yezavitov. That’s too bad. Volodya didn’t want that. Mitya’d be better, that voice of his is pretty darn big.”

“Where is Mitya, anyway?” asked Vanka, who had stretched out lazily on the hot sand.

The answer followed promptly.

“Greetings, Pioneers! You’re listening to the Pioneer radio newspaper Pioneer Dawn ,” said Mitka himself, his voice booming from the speaker. “Tomorrow is the long-awaited celebration for our beloved Barn Swallow Pioneer Camp! There will be two important events today in preparation for it. First is the dry run of the talent show, which begins after snack. Performers from Troop One must be at the main square at sixteen hundred hours. Performers from Troop Two—at sixteen thirty ...”

As Mitka dictated the rehearsal times for the rest of the troops, the girl tryhards from Troops One and Two copied them down intently. Olga Leonidovna had decided to have at least some kind of event to replace the play and ordered them to put together a little variety show, just an hour long, full of easy, simple songs so the performers wouldn’t need more than a day to get ready. Yurka wasn’t participating in it. All he knew was that the girls were going to do some kind of dance.

Mitka finished reciting the information for the first event and moved immediately to the second one, which was far more important and involved all the campers: “Today the whole camp has to do weigh-ins at the first aid station to confirm that everyone has become healthier and gained weight. Weigh-ins are mandatory. Larisa Sergeyevna will only see Pioneers when they come with their troops. She will not see individual Pioneers. Your troop leaders will inform you of your weigh-in times.”

Not half an hour later, Mitka himself appeared, informing Yurka of some important news as he approached: he had been drafted to participate in the play, too. But Olga Leonidovna had given him a job that required some of the heaviest lifting in the whole show: raising and lowering the curtain. Yurka felt bad that the charismatic Mitka hadn’t been given a speaking part, but in the end he was still grateful; at least now he wouldn’t be the one who had to deal with the curtain.

As usual, they marched back to their cabin in formation. Yurka traditionally walked in front, next to Vanka, followed by Polina and Ksyusha, the next tallest pioneers in their troop. The girls were whispering loudly. Suddenly, Ulyana, who was right behind them, broke into their conversation excitedly: “Girls, get this: somebody left me a note on the beach. I was getting dressed and saw that something had fallen on the ground, a little piece of paper ...”

“What’s it say?” Ksyusha interrupted rudely.

“Let me read it! Come on, hand it over!” said Polina, perking up.

“Hey, Van, will our competition with the troop leaders be before the talent show tomorrow? First the assembly, then the competition, troop leaders versus campers, and then the talent show, right?” asked Yurka, looking for something—anything—to keep himself occupied. He already knew he had listed the events in the right order; he was just hoping that Vanka might know something more. But Vanka kept quiet. He was eavesdropping on the girls.

“‘I like you!’ Oooohhh! That’s great, Ul! ‘I like you!’” cried Polina happily. “Who’s it from, do you know?”

“Hey, Yur! Konev!” Ksyusha called out. Yurka flinched. What did he have to do with any of this?

“Hm?”

“Did you happen to see if anybody came over to where our things were while we were out swimming?”

“Of course I didn’t. Like I need to keep track of your things!”

“Maybe it was you! Maybe you’re the one who left the note, huh, Yurchik?” giggled Ulyana.

Yurka sensed a jealous look from Mitka, who walking nearby, but Yurka just clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes.

Yurka wasn’t able to go see Volodya until quiet hour. When he did, he could tell that Volodya had wanted to see him just as much, if not more. Volodya tilted his head down just a little bit and looked at Yurka directly but tenderly. He didn’t say anything, but Yurka didn’t need any words. He knew he didn’t have any, either—none that were capable of expressing, even privately, the joy of being near Volodya. He caught his breath at the realization that they had that same closeness, and how much it permeated them both, and how tightly it bound them together. Yurka yearned for just one thing: to kiss Volodya as soon as possible.

It seemed as though Volodya wanted the same thing: without a word, Volodya nodded toward the river, and, without needing to discuss it, they headed toward the willow.

Once they were both underneath its branches, Yurka decided that this must be what absolute happiness was like: to forget himself, to stop sensing himself entirely as he touched his cheek to Volodya’s, nuzzled him, pressed his lips to him. Listening to his breathing, inhaling his smell, seeing the way his eyelashes fluttered behind his glasses ... This is a dream , Yurka assured himself. But it wasn’t him dreaming; it was the rest of the world. Some folks call sleep the “little death,” and, indeed, everything around them really did seem to have died away. The breeze touched their skin and, with its gentle, warm gusts, set the willow branches swaying, and as they moved they let the sunbeams come flashing and dancing in.

Volodya was sleepy. He kept rubbing his tired eyes and was constantly yawning, but he bluntly rejected Yurka’s offer to let him sleep awhile: “We’ve got too little time left. And we’ve still got a lot to do.”

Yurka caught his breath. “And what is that, exactly?”

“Let’s run these lines.”

Yurka hadn’t had any specific ideas in mind. Afraid of his own thoughts, he hadn’t even dared to imagine what might be. But right now, right here, when they were finally alone with each other, they were going to run lines ... ?!

“Why not?” he said, forcing a smile. He began, affecting a strong German accent: “My braffe Fr?ulein, I am affare zet your parents remain in Leningrad. And I am also affare zet your beloffed city hass fallen. A new flag flies above it. But I assure you zet all you haffe to do is agree to a small compromise, and ...”

Yurka’s parody of an accent was funny enough that he and Volodya ended up laughing themselves silly, distracting Yurka from his very disappointed thoughts. Volodya took the script from Yurka and started reading it himself, but he “zee’d” and “eff’d,” as Yurka put it, too artificially. “Volod, you’re overdoing it. Don’t go to extremes. It has to be harmonious, like music. Listen—”

But Volodya cut him off. “Yur, you know something? You’re really handsome when you’re playing ...”

Handsome ... handsome ... handsome ... The echo reverberated through his mind. Yurka’s vision started to swim. Any thoughts of Germans, “zees” and “effs,” and all the rest of it simply vanished. He sat and looked at Volodya, abashed. In a quiet, affectionate voice, Volodya said, “You get such an interesting look on your face. You’re inspired, but intense. You probably don’t even notice that you don’t just sit still, you rock back and forth, and sometimes you sing along under your breath, and sometimes you bite your lip. When I look at you, it’s like you’re somewhere far away. It makes me want to guess where you are. You should practice more often ... I like it a lot ...”

Volodya trailed off, blushing shyly. Refusing him when he was so good, so affectionate, when he was so dear to Yurka, was absolutely out of the question. But so was saying anything in response; the words simply lodged fast in Yurka’s throat.

Volodya lay down on the grass, rested his head on Yurka’s lap, and looked up at him with such a tender look that everything in Yurka’s chest started melting. Forget talking—even breathing became impossible. Yurka put down the script and turned on the radio to keep the silence between them from growing heavy.

The radio station was playing its Russian classical music program again, and when the sounds of Tchaikovsky came from the speaker once more, Yurka was unable to restrain the storm of emotions inside him. In a voice trembling from joy, he said not the words that were surging up inside him but other words, about music: “Do you hear how it immerses you? It’s like you’re sinking into it: the bass envelops you, the air grows thick, everything goes still, and we go still, and we descend slowly, as if through honey, until we settle on the very bottom ...”

“If I’d heard that two weeks ago, there’s no way I’d have believed that Yurka Konev was the one saying it.” Volodya smiled, but then turned serious. “You have to be the one to play the Lullaby for the show!”

“But I’ve completely forgotten how to play it.”

“Then remember! It has to be you, Yura. Please, I’m asking you. Play it.”

His face was radiant, and the furrows in his brow were smoothed away, and the ever-present weariness that had by now become just another feature of his face was gone. Yurka gazed at Volodya, lost in admiration, and couldn’t help asking if he could stroke Volodya’s hair.

Volodya nodded. Yurka brushed his fingers along Volodya’s temples and twined dark locks of Volodya’s hair around his fingers. He bent over closer. Feeling awfully shy, he asked in a whisper: “And could I take off your glasses, too? I’ve never really seen you without them ...”

What an intimate act that turned out to be, taking Volodya’s glasses off! It was so thrilling, so stirring, that his fingers shook, as though even more of Volodya was going to be revealed than if he’d been naked. Volodya’s glasses turned out to be surprisingly heavy, and his face without them looked peculiarly sleepy and tired. There were dark circles under his eyes, and on top of that he squinted in a funny way.

Then those eyes opened wider as he remembered: “Oh, that reminds me: I have a present for you!”

He sat up and carefully extracted a large white mass the size of an apple from his shirt pocket. “Here. I picked it yesterday but forgot to give it to you. You wanted one, to remember that moment. Take it.” He opened the hand that was stretched out to Yurka and revealed a wilted white water lily.

“You went all the way to the pond?” whispered Yurka as he held the lily in the palm of his hand. It was light as paper and even more fragile. “And you picked one anyway, even though you were the one who was all ‘Don’t, the Red Book, the Red Book’ ...”

Volodya shrugged pensively. “It felt like it was important to you. And it ... well, it has to die anyway, sooner or later.”

“It wasn’t all that important at the time, but now ... now, it actually is important, yes. Thank you. I’ll keep it.”

They remained silent for a time. Yurka was disappointed that Volodya didn’t lie back down with his head on Yurka’s lap but stayed sitting up. Volodya watched the river, lost in his own thoughts for a while. Then, as though he’d just remembered, he shot out in a single breath: “Yura, when did you realize that you had special feelings for me? Was it back then, in the pond, when I suggested that we go swimming? When I ... got undressed?”

Yurka was terribly disconcerted at the question. He turned red and said, quietly and hesitantly: “Maybe I realized it then, but it all started before that.”

“Before that?” Volodya sighed with relief and looked Yurka right in the eyes. “When exactly? What did I do? Was it when I let you sleep on my shoulder?”

“No, it was before that. On the merry-go-round, probably.”

“Was it when I touched your knee?”

“‘Was it when I did this? Was it when I did that?’” said Yurka, irritated. “It happened all by itself. You didn’t do anything!”

“Are you absolutely sure about that?” Volodya bit his lip in consternation, and his gaze turned pleading.

“I’m absolutely sure,” said Yurka.

“Good,” said Volodya, finally lying back down and putting his head back on Yurka’s lap. “That’s good.”

Yurka didn’t want to restrain himself any longer and risked reaching out again to touch Volodya’s forehead. Volodya finally closed his eyes. Yurka started stroking his hair, and he felt his whole being go peaceful for several long, sweet minutes.

“Should I turn the radio off? Maybe you could go ahead and get some sleep?” Yurka asked after a moment.

“I wouldn’t be able to, anyway.”

“Are you worried about the play?”

“That’s not it, it’s just that when you don’t sleep for a long time, it gets harder and harder to fall asleep, and I haven’t slept for two nights now.”

“If you can’t sleep at night, then sleep during the day. Right now. I’ll guard you.”

“Why do I need a guard?” Volodya smiled. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’ll make sure nobody comes and finds us. And I’ll also study my lines,” said Yurka, smirking.

Volodya laughed and nodded. “Let’s give it a try.”

Yurka stopped stroking Volodya’s hair, picked up the notebook, and was holding it in both hands when Volodya, without looking, took Yurka’s left hand again and put it back on his head. Yurka chuckled. There wasn’t a trace of emotion on Volodya’s face.

Yurka tried to study his lines, but he was unable to concentrate on the words. He kept looking down at Volodya’s face, admiring it, watching how his cheeks and eyelashes twitched. Yurka was consumed by both admiration and apprehension at the same time.

“Not happening?” Yurka asked quietly.

“No,” sighed Volodya.

“Should I sing you a lullaby?” laughed Yurka.

“Yes. But it’d be better if you played it. At the play. I really want to see the most extraordinary Yurka, the very best Yurka in the whole world, sitting at the piano, and I want to hear the Lullaby. You love it so much, and I ... I want to watch you so much. I want to admire you. Play it—for me.”

Yurka would sooner have gnawed the willow down with his teeth than refuse Volodya now. After hearing that, he felt like the best person on the whole planet. How could he not feel that way? How could he not become the very best Yurka of all? So he did.

“I’ll play it. For you.”

He returned to camp after quiet hour, drew a piano keyboard on a long piece of paper, and started training his visual memory. He also got some blank sheet music, copied the Lullaby onto it from the library copy, and kept it in his pocket so he always had it and could go over it anytime he had a free moment.

But that night he didn’t have a chance to practice, because Olga Leonidovna drowned him in errands. Once he finished one, she piled on even more, as though she were mocking him. Evidently she had decided that Konev the knucklehead was the cause of Volodya’s failure to have the show ready on time, so the dried-up old fish was going to work him as hard as she could in punishment.

Volodya, for his part, was completely drowning in troop leader business. Troop Five was now preparing a sketch for the camp’s special show, and Yurka had neither the time nor the opportunity to help him or even see him. From sheer longing, they managed to steal ten minutes to be together in the evening. Yurka was tempted by the idea of them getting together late at night, but knowing that Volodya hadn’t slept in two days, he didn’t even think of suggesting it. Yurka knew that he needed the rest, because the things he hadn’t paid adequate attention to earlier were obvious now: the dark circles under Volodya’s eyes, Volodya’s generally pale and subdued air. No matter how much Yurka wanted to spend every minute with Volodya, he didn’t have the right to demand that Volodya not sleep at all.

The next day, Camp Barn Swallow Day, Yurka knew it would be hard to find even half an hour before the celebration when he and Volodya could be alone. But it turned out far worse: they couldn’t manage even a single minute. Starting first thing in the morning, Yurka was tasked with a gazillion chores, like digging to the center of the earth, completing five Five-Year Plans in three years, building a couple of Baikal–Amur railroads, and moving the piano. The piano was the one that made him most indignant: it would fall out of tune!

“Faster, higher, stronger!” came the phys ed instructor Semyon’s voice from the athletic fields. He must’ve been shouting himself blue in the face if they could hear him all the way out on the main square.

For the first time in his life, Yurka was missing morning calisthenics. With Olga Leonidovna’s approval, though: he was headed to the stage to decorate it for the talent show. He listened to the phys ed instructor as he walked, expecting the trees to splinter from the impact of that thunderous voice, and thought about how he, Yurka, was already faster, higher, and stronger than he ever had been, but he was even more than that: he was just plain miraculous. There was no other way to explain it; how else could such fairy-tale wonders be happening to him, Konev the knucklehead? Volodya, that very same Komsomol Goody Two-shoes—handsome, smart Volodya—had kissed him and held his hand and told him, “You’re so handsome when you play.” “If I had my way,” Volodya had told him last night, “I’d never let you go.”

Moving the piano turned out not to be that hard: Yurka had both the jug-eared Alyosha and the facilities manager, San Sanych, to help him, and the piano had wheels, and both the movie theater and the stage had ramps. But he still felt sorry for the instrument. The whole time they were moving it, Yurka muttered futilely to himself: “They couldn’t be happy with just a tape recorder, oh no. What if it rains?” Once they’d gotten the piano in place, they tested the sound, and he cursed. Sure enough, it was out of tune now, and the B didn’t even make a sound.

“So who’s going to tune it?”

“There’s more handymen around here than you can shake a stick at, Yurok. We’ll find somebody.” The facilities manager marched off to the administration building.

“Don’t you know how?” asked Alyosha naively.

“No. I did try once; I hated it when it didn’t sound quite right, but I didn’t have the patience to wait for a tuner, so I fiddled around with it myself. Then a wire snapped and I just about bit the dust,” Yurka recalled, not without some pride. “See that scar on my chin?”

“Isn’t that something! You sure are brave, Yurka. You know what? People said all kinds of things about you, but I didn’t believe them. I told them Konev’s a good guy. And that’s right! You are!”

“Oh? And what kinds of things did they say?”

“Oh, different things: some people said you’re a knucklehead, others said the opposite, that you’re aiming for assistant troop leader. Don’t pay any attention. Let ’em say what they want.”

“Who says that?” asked Yurka, thinking of Ksyusha.

“Well ... just don’t tell anybody I told you, okay?”

“I’ll keep quiet as a partisan. They’ll never drag it out of me.”

“Masha Sidorova complained to Olga Leonidovna about you, saying you’re keeping the artistic director from doing his job, but there you are tuning the pia—”

“Masha?!” shrieked Yurka, furious. Then he added, more quietly, “Just you wait, Masha ... I’ll get you for this!”