Page 21

“Hey, but keep it a secret! You promised!”

“I’ll keep it a secret, Alyosh. It’ll be secret.”

It was time for breakfast. The first thing Yurka did was run and look for Masha so he could grill her about why she was tattling on him. But she was nowhere to be found. There were only two Pukes at breakfast; Ksyusha was missing. Yurka went over to them and asked, “Do you know where Masha is?”

Ulyana smiled flirtatiously. “Why do you want to know?”

“I just wanted to inform her that she’s no longer participating in the show. I’ll be doing the accompaniment!”

“Uh-oh ... ,” said Ulya slowly. “Go look in the club building. She and Ksyusha are making the wall newspaper for the celebration.”

Yurka was suddenly hit by an idea, one he liked so much that he decided not to go looking for Masha at all. He knew the news about her being kicked out of the play would travel through the grapevine quickly and that Sidorova would come find him herself.

After having some breakfast, Yurka went back to the main square. Troop Three and their troop leader were also there, rehearsing.

The June heat baked them as they listlessly intoned the theme song from a popular TV miniseries:

“There’s something that’s changing my everyday life,

It’s the voice of the bright future calling,

I stand: I’ve decided to walk out and meet it,

The horizon beckons, enthralling ...”

Yurka and Alyoshka were hanging the heavy navy curtains to that listless accompaniment. They were both getting tired and frustrated: some of the thin loops kept falling off the curtain hooks, while others kept tearing and had to be sewn back together then and there, with the heavy curtains pulling on them. The musical director didn’t want to release his charges, so they continued singing their sad children’s song about a bright future.

Every so often, Yurka caught himself listening to it. He didn’t especially like the television miniseries it was from; he thought it was too dull, and while it might’ve been interesting to watch the first time, the second time was already boring. But he’d seen all five episodes, repeatedly, and he was sick of it. Last year, after it premiered, it went on to play constantly on all the TV channels. He almost had the thing memorized. He knew this song, too, but he’d never paid attention to the words. Now, though, he listened to them and grew sad: the song reminded him that time was flying, that this session of camp would be over soon, and that he and Volodya would have to part.

The kids kept on repeating the last stanza:

“I promise I won’t let down my friends,

I’ll strive to be a better person.

I hear the call to leave my past behind,

I stride enthralled to the horizon.”

Even the shade was melting from the insanely hot sun, but still a shiver ran down Yurka’s back: “‘I hear the call to leave my past behind ... I stride enthralled to the horizon ... ,’” he repeated to himself. All of a sudden he realized that the song was ghastly! It wasn’t about some bright future at all, the way it was supposed to be in the show. It was about losing a good and meaningful present time: the time of childhood. Yurka was already overworked, he was reeling from hunger, and then his imagination started churning out fantastic images: he saw a broad gray path, and himself, and Volodya, and everyone who was here. They were walking up ahead, not realizing that they were headed somewhere they could never come back from—that they weren’t walking of their own accord; they were being pulled by the black hole of the future drawing them into the unknown, which would inevitably consume them all—him, and Volodya, and all those children.

He shook his head and tried to focus on something else: “We only have one more panel to hang.”

When the bugle finally called everyone to lunch, Yurka had no appetite but ate anyway, staring at Volodya over on the other side of the mess hall. Volodya was standing with his back to Yurka, in his usual shorts, white shirt, and red neckerchief. All of a sudden it occurred to Yurka that after a very short time Volodya wouldn’t be wearing them anymore. Volodya would change. And Yurka would change, too. They’d both inevitably grow up. He realized that he didn’t want to grow up; he didn’t want to go into that “bright future.” Not only that—he was actually afraid of it.

They would be parting in less than a week. Maybe not forever, maybe only even until next year, but still parting. And what would Volodya be like when Yurka saw him next summer? Would Volodya get taller and more broad-shouldered? Would he smile more often or less? Would his gaze be more strict, or more weary, than it was now? Or maybe the opposite—softer and kinder? So many questions that no one could answer.

Lunch ended. Dessert—a sweet sukharik with raisins—helped his mood a little. He decided he’d use dessert to improve his mood from neutral to good, to that end sneaking a second one, but then he took one look at Volodya, half-starved since the kids had started acting up again and were keeping him from having a decent meal, and decided to give it to him instead.

They met at the exit to the mess hall. Volodya refused to take the sukharik, insisting that Yurka eat it himself, but Yurka was adamant. Volodya thanked him and promised that as soon as he got control of his horde of urchins, he’d meet Yurka at the stage, if he could do it before the beginning of the ceremonial assembly.

Yurka walked away from the mess hall, thinking: As if this was big news, the end of session. Of course session’s ending. Everything ends, and this is ending, too. But why does it have to be so soon? He had thought this would all last forever. At camp, where each day is worth two, a lot of people thought that. Yurka couldn’t believe that in less than a week his entire life would change: there’d be no more forest, no more camp, no more friends, no more theater, no more Volodya. And there’d be no more of the old Yurka Konev, the one his mom had put on the camp bus. Because he’d already changed. As recently as a month ago he wouldn’t have been able to conceive of himself doing what he was doing now: helping, maybe even being a bit of a tryhard. But most of all that he’d be playing the piano again. It would make his mom so happy when he cleared all the stuff off his instrument. But would he be happy, after he went back to his cramped room in his damp apartment in his outdated building, one of a thousand identical buildings in his dusty old city?

That same sad longing took hold of Yurka again. To ward it off, he headed for the glorious instrument that helped him forget whatever he needed to.

Alyosha and the other people decorating the main square ran off to their cabins. It was almost quiet hour and silence reigned throughout the camp. The only people making any noise were the camp cook, Zinaida Vasilyevna, clanging the pots and pans as she hauled them from storage out to the kitchen, and the two phys ed instructors, Zhenya and Semyon, who were sitting on a bench in the shade of an apple tree, doing a crossword puzzle. Yurka got up onto the empty stage and checked that the piano had been tuned. He nodded in satisfaction, pulled the rumpled piece of paper with the music for the Lullaby on it out of his pocket, sat down at the piano, and put the piece of paper on the stand.

The tender melody began trickling through the overheated air like honey. Yurka bent in concentration over the keyboard. His fingers hovered over the keys and held still, barely touching them. The dark G-flat and A-flat octaves alternated with lower Cs and B naturals, after which his fingers floated delicately back up to the lighter Fs and Cs. But Yurka was dissatisfied. It was a complex composition, and after his long hiatus it was coming back to him with difficulty. He wasn’t getting anything right. Every so often he’d play a wrong note and jerk his head in irritation. As he repeated it over and over, running his fingers up and down the keys, Yurka began to think that maybe, back in school, that one judge had been right. Maybe he really was worthless?

Suddenly everything went dark: somebody had sneaked up behind him and covered his eyes with their hands.

“Can you play it like this?” murmured Volodya. Yurka could hear in his voice that he was smiling.

“Hey, let go!” said Yurka, feigning indignance.

“Nope!” Then, without taking away his hands, Volodya began, “So tell me, Yur: Are you satisfied with your progress? Our show is in three days. Come on, practice hard so you’re ready in time.”

“I will be, just not this very minute. I’m not in the right mood. Come on, Volodya, let go! Or how about this: I’ll play with one eye shut.”

“Nice try! What do you take me for, an idiot? No. Both eyes shut.”

“Not a chance!”

“Okay, then what about like this?” He spread his fingers apart a tiny bit. Yurka could see the keyboard.

“There we go! That’s more like it!” Yurka laughed. He looked around to make sure that the dance floor was completely deserted, then leaned his head back and rested his head on Volodya’s stomach. He looked up at him and smiled. Volodya was smiling, too.

They played that way until Volodya suddenly jerked his hands down and lurched away. Yurka flinched in surprise, opened his eyes, and watched him go. At the edge of the stage, a pale Masha was clutching a broom and staring at them, her eyes wide.

It made Yurka uncomfortable. But he took one look at the frightened Volodya and that fear passed to Yurka, too.

“Where’re you flying off to?” blurted Yurka, trying to relieve the tension and turn it all into a joke.

“What?” replied Masha angrily.

“On your broom,” explained Yurka. “You’re standing here pretending you’re sweeping a completely clean square.”

“You think this is funny, Konev? Do you want to tell me what this is all about?”

“What do you mean? The fact that you’re a witch? Or the fact that you’re a snitch ?!”

“Quit it, Yura!” intervened Volodya. “You too, Masha! I already told you he was joking. Yura’s going to play just the Lullaby, not the accompaniment for the whole show.”

“Then why did he tell the girls he was—”

They were interrupted by the bugle signaling the end of quiet hour. If it weren’t for that, Yurka would’ve started tearing into Masha, he was so mad at her.

Soon Mitka’s voice over the loudspeaker announced it was time for the ceremonial assembly.

The day flew by. First came the assembly: the flag, the Pioneer salute, singing the Pioneer anthem. Then everyone ran over to the athletic fields for the competitions. There were sack races, a tug-of-war, relay races—Yurka actually beat one of the Troop Three leaders—and a ball game called lapta. Then all the senior boys, including Volodya, were called over to play soccer. Yurka focused solely on the soccer ball and the goal, promising himself he’d beat the troop leaders’ team even if he had to do it all by himself, but it came out a tie.

The last part of the celebration, the talent show, was the part Yurka was least excited about. Partly because performing was always more interesting than just watching, but also because in this case there wasn’t even anything worth watching. The only thing that caught his attention and made him laugh was the Troop Five piece, when the kids did a skit about a rocket launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Sashka was pilot and spaceship all rolled into one. He’d been encased in a gray cardboard tube from head to toe and proudly surveyed the audience from a round hole cut in the tube for his face while he waggled the tip of the gray cardboard cone perched atop his head. Pcholkin stood at the control booth mashing his finger into a red button, also made of cardboard. At Sashka’s signal—“Fshoom!”—he was launched into space, where little girls, the stars, ran circles around him, and all the rest of the boys from Troop Five sang a song about the Earth seen through a spaceship window.

Yurka didn’t have the foggiest idea what this had to do with celebrating Camp Barn Swallow Day, but it was funny.

The next troop’s performance was boring. Yurka started shifting in his seat, looking around to find Volodya. It didn’t take him long: Volodya was sitting two rows back, his head bent, his eyes either lowered or closed. He looked exactly the way he sometimes looked at rehearsal: as though he were reading a notebook on his lap. But this wasn’t rehearsal, and he had no notebook in his lap. Troop Two’s skit ended, and everyone clapped, and Volodya’s head fell heavily, then he shook himself, then he jerked his head up. From the way he was blinking, Yurka could tell the troop leader had fallen asleep. He hadn’t been able to fall asleep in the quiet underneath the weeping willow with his head in Yurka’s lap, but he could here, at a noisy performance, sitting right next to Olga Leonidovna.

There was no way she wouldn’t notice that, of course. And she did. She immediately gave Volodya a look of concern and asked him something, but once she heard the answer, she didn’t start chiding him, as Yurka had expected. Just the opposite: she called Lena over, whispered something in her ear, and nodded toward Volodya. He stood up immediately and walked off. Yurka guessed where he was going: to sleep.

And it’s a good thing, too , thought Yurka. He resigned himself to listening yet again to the sad, listless children’s song about the enthralling horizon.

Yurka longed for evening like it was manna from heaven.

Once the celebratory dance party started that night, he ran straight for the Troop Five cabin. Once inside, he took only a couple of steps into the dark hallway when he jumped out of his skin: somebody had run into his stomach and then squeaked from surprise.

“Sasha? Why aren’t you in the boys’ room, sleeping? Are you going hunting for currants again?”

“No, it’s not that,” puffed Sashka, trying to catch his breath. “Volodya’s sleeping, so Zhenya’s sitting with us, telling scary stories. I went out to pee.”

Yurka smirked. “What, are they that scary?”

“No, it’s not that,” repeated Sashka listlessly, clearly having missed the joke. “It’s just the opposite. He’s telling the one about DSC. It’s so boring! Save us, Yura!”

Torn between his desire to go to Volodya’s room—all the more so since Volodya was there alone—and his duty to help the slumbering troop leader get the kids to bed, Yurka wavered. Ultimately, he came back to himself when he realized he was at the door to the boys’ room. He didn’t realize right away that Sashka was no longer next to him.

It was dark in the boys’ room. Zhenya was sitting on a chair by the door, holding a flashlight and intoning, in a spooky voice, “The car was labeled DSC, for Death to Soviet Children! It stopped next to the little boy, and a man came out. He walked up to the little boy and started telling him to get into the car, promising him a puppy, and candy, and toys. But the little boy wouldn’t do it. He got scared and ran away, but the car drove off after him—”

“Yuwka!” screeched Olezhka happily.

The phys ed instructor jumped. The little boys babbled excitedly: “Come sit with us!” “Tell us a scawy stowy!” “Are there really cars like that?”

“Now, let’s all listen to Zhenya,” suggested Yurka as he sat down on Sashka’s empty bed, frantically sorting through his options for what to do now. Yurka wasn’t thrilled at the possibility of spending the bit of the day that was left until lights-out with the boys, then spending the night all alone.

Zhenya continued in a voice from beyond the grave: “The little boy was able to hide in an abandoned building and avoid the spies, but if they’d caught him—”

The boys’ room door was flung open, which kept Zhenya from finishing the story. In the doorway stood a sleepy, tousled, and disheveled Volodya with a self-satisfied Sashka bobbing around behind him.

Yurka, unable to suppress the joy that suffused him, automatically moved toward Volodya and seized his hand. Volodya gripped his hand back, pretending that it was just a regular handshake of greeting. The boys were triumphant: “Now we’ll get a good scary story!” Even Zhenya was glad to see the troop leader, rolling his eyes and groaning, “Finally! Can I go now?”

“You can go now,” said the sleepy Volodya through a yawn. “Thanks for covering for me.”

“And now will you tell a scary story?” squeaked Sashka, his eyes narrowed calculatingly.

At that point Yurka realized the troop leader had had some help waking up. Then it hit him that Volodya would also doubtless be hungry, and he started fretting in earnest: Where could he go and what could he do to get Volodya something to eat?

Meanwhile, Volodya plopped down clumsily on the edge of an unoccupied bed and tried to smooth his tousled hair, but he ended up just making it stick out even more. Baffled, he whispered in Yurka’s ear: “What do I tell them? We haven’t thought anything up in a long time.”

“So think of something!” Yurka whispered back. He nuzzled Volodya’s ear with his nose, as if accidentally.

“My brain’s not working at all right now,” grumbled Volodya.

Suddenly, Yurka had a revelation: almost every child’s parents sent care packages from home, meaning that the boys had food! Yurka said excitedly, “I’m giving you a five-minute head start. Come up with something.” Yurka moved to the middle of the room and started issuing orders: “Listen up, everyone! If our troop leader’s brain is going to be able to think, it needs fuel. That is, food. Dig deep into your grain bins, scrape every last kernel out of your corncribs! We have to feed our troop leader!”

“What’s a corncrib?” someone queried from the right side of the room by the window.

“And a grain bin,” came a question from the left side of the room by the door.

“Your care packages,” Yurka explained. “Is there anything left from your care packages, or did you already go through it all? Sash, I know for a fact that you’ve got cookies under your pillow.” He stabbed his finger toward Sashka’s bed. “I’ll trade you half a pack of cookies for one first-rate scary story.”

“How do you know I’ve got cookies?” scowled the chubby boy.

“Because I check your beds every morning,” Volodya chimed in, confirming Yurka’s guess.

For a wonder, Sashka did not try to argue; he just pulled out the package of Jubilee cookies and clutched it to his chest, asking doubtfully, “Are you sure the scary story will be first-rate?”

“Depends on the cookies,” said Yurka, crossing his arms on his chest.

“But the main thing is that it’s new and based on real events!” Volodya said, indicating to Yurka that he’d had an idea for a story.

“Great!” said Sasha, nodding in approval, but his hand still wavered when he held the package of cookies out to Volodya. “But if the scary story’s no good, I get my cookies back!”

Volodya nodded and snatched the package of cookies. Crunching ensued.

“No, not all chewed—” began Sashka indignantly, but Volodya, his mouth still full of cookies, began the story: “So this was literally the day before yesterday, in the early hours of morning. Imagine this: I wake up from some kind of strange noise in the troop leaders’ room. I open one eye and look down at the floor, and there’s some kind of strange black blur crawling across the floor. It’s shapeless, but it has these scary pointed parts on it! It crawls straight up to Zhenya’s bed, making this terrifying rustling noise, like—” and he crunched into another cookie. “But Zhenya’s just sleeping like nothing’s happening. I’m paralyzed with horror: I have no idea what this thing is or what it’s capable of. But then, all of a sudden, the black blur stops. And it starts moving around, turning in circles, and then it turns around and heads away from Zhenya’s bed and toward me! But I’m too scared to move. I can’t even reach out to feel for my glasses on the nightstand. So I end up catching hold of a book instead, and I crawl over to the edge of the bed, and I prepare to attack ... It’s headed toward Zhenya again, so I take advantage of the situation to jump out of bed and go over to it, but as soon as I raise my hand to hit it, the blur rushes toward my feet! I shout and jump away. Then Zhenya wakes up and has no idea what’s happening. I poke him, but then he sees it and lets out a stream of curses! Then he picks the blanket up off his bed and throws it right on top of the blur. And he says to me, ‘Volodya, put your glasses on!’ So I go over to my nightstand and plop on my glasses, and meanwhile Zhenya is gathering the blanket up into a bundle and holding the bundle in both hands. I look at it, and what do I see sticking out of it but ... a little pink nose! And the thing is snuffling! So fess up: Which of you took Snuffly from the Red Corner and brought him in here? You just about gave a troop leader a heart attack!”

Yurka couldn’t help it and burst into loud laughter. The boys started laughing, too.

“That’s not a scawy stowy at all!” squeaked Olezhka happily. “That’s a funny stowy!”

“Right! A funny story, not a scary story, because you get what you pay for with your so-so cookies. You were warned!” announced Yurka. Imitating Volodya’s managerial tone of voice, he ordered, “That’s it. And now time for bed.”

“Blankets to chins. And no talking,” chimed in Volodya.

It took them half an hour before they could get the kids to bed. Once they’d left the cabin and taken a lungful of fresh, still-warm air, Volodya asked Yurka merrily, “How are you? How was your day?” Then he surprised Yurka by shaking his hand even though they’d already shaken hands hello that day.

“I missed you!” Yurka burst out.

As though he’d heard his own words from the outside, Yurka immediately blushed and his throat closed up tight. He’d just blurted something very candid indeed. He cleared his throat and patted the merry-go-round, inviting Volodya to sit down next to him. Volodya, for his part, seemed to like what he’d heard. He smiled, then adjusted his glasses and began, “And I also—”

He was cut off by the desperate shrieks of twenty voices coming from the girls’ room. Volodya rushed onto the porch and tried to open the door, but it was locked from the inside. Yurka ran over to the window and hopped up to peer in. He saw “ghosts” in bedsheets with flashlights flying around the room. “Volod! Everything’s all right. It’s not sabotage. It’s ghosts who flew in to visit the girls,” he informed Volodya, laughing.

Volodya ran over to him and looked in the window, too. Yurka felt Volodya casually put his arm around his waist. “Six ghosts!” exclaimed the troop leader, as though nothing all that special were going on—as though saying, So I put my arm around him. That’s totally normal. “Let’s get ’em!”

He withdrew his arm from around Yurka and with a ferocious grin he raced over to the other door, which was unlocked. Yurka stood underneath the window and watched as, a few seconds later, Volodya jubilantly cried, “Aha!” and burst into the room with the terrified girls, moved the disheveled, flustered Lena to one side, and caught the first ghost. The others were scared and rushed to flee out the cabin door, but Yurka was waiting for them in the doorway.

They didn’t leave the cabin until all the ghosts had been neutralized, delivered back to their own room, and put back in bed.

“So what’s gotten you so cheerful?” said Yurka, amazed. It used to be that Volodya got upset when people didn’t follow the rules, while Yurka was amused, but now it was the other way around. He hadn’t even noticed when they’d switched places.

“Firstly, I’ve finally slept, and secondly, I realized that if I don’t learn to have a sense of humor about pranks, I’m going to end up killing these little squirts,” chuckled Volodya. “Clearly the scary story really was bad this time. It didn’t work.”

Then Volodya took Yurka’s hand and pulled him into the thicket. Yurka couldn’t tell what the bushes were in the dark: either lilacs or some other sort of tall shrub. There was a large clump of them at a small distance from the cabin. Inside, it was quiet and dark. It felt like they could hide from everyone here, even from ghosts with flashlights, and the best part was that Volodya and Yurka could see the whole wide-open yard.

But they were no longer watching over, or waiting for, or looking for anybody. Now that they were finally alone, they had eyes only for each other. Tremulously, they embraced and whispered in eager conversation about nothing at all.

Not half an hour later came the sound of someone’s footsteps walking along the path to the Troop Five cabin. Yurka heard it first and pulled away from Volodya. “You hear that?”

Volodya put his finger to his lips, pulled a branch down a little to make a small gap in the bushes, and peeked out. So did Yurka. The person coming down the path was Masha.

She peered into the window of the girls’ room for a long time, apparently looking for someone in the dim space lit only by a night-light. Yurka could tell who she was looking for: Volodya. When Masha didn’t find him there, she went over to the other window, the one to the boys’ room. She looked in, listening and waiting. Once she was convinced he wasn’t in there, she walked through the flower bed to the third window.

“My room,” whispered Volodya.

That room was completely dark, so Masha quickly went back up onto the porch. The door gave a quiet creak as she carefully went inside the cabin. Volodya tensed visibly.

“Where does she think she’s going? Is she crazy?” He moved sharply, about to leap to his feet, but Yurka grabbed his arm.

“Wait, hold on. Is there anything wrong in there? I mean, any blackmail material, stuff like that?”

“Well, no, actually,” said Volodya, after some thought.

“So sit tight, then. What’s she going to think when she sees you lurking around in the bushes?”

“Like hell I’m going to sit here and hide when somebody’s digging around in my room!”

Volodya emerged from the bushes just in time. Masha was coming out of the cabin and ran into Volodya in the doorway. It was too late for Yurka to sneak away. His alarm grew with every passing moment. A terrible realization was driving him to distraction: Was the lovelorn Masha so far gone that she was actually stalking Volodya now?

Yurka was trying to fight down an insane urge to run over to her and tell her off. Then he froze in his tracks, realizing he was a hopeless idiot. The porch was too far away. Not only could he not hear what they were saying, he couldn’t even read their lips because the swarming bugs were making the dim light from the weak bulb flicker and it was impossible to see anything. But one thing was clear: Whatever Masha was telling Volodya was making his indignation melt away.

They finished their conversation. Masha moved calmly down the porch steps to the path and walked away. When she was out of sight, Yurka burst out of the bushes and ran over to Volodya.

“So? What did she say?!” he exploded, panting from agitation.

“She was looking for you,” replied Volodya. He sounded worried. “She said Irina was looking for you, and since you weren’t in the theater, Masha thought you might be with me. It’s not necessarily so strange. You’re both in the same troop, and she helps Irina a lot, so nothing’s out of the ordinary here, but ... I wasn’t expecting it.”

“Not so fast. This is way out of the ordinary! You know what? I’ve heard Masha is saying stuff about me. And she’s basically just acting really suspicious. Have you noticed? She winds up around us too often ...”

“Are you sure you’re not exaggerating?”

Yurka saw Volodya’s somewhat patronizing smile and faltered. Volodya doubtless thought Yurka was still jealous of the time he danced with Masha and was willing to accuse Masha of anything as a result. And if that really was what Volodya was thinking, well, he was right! Yurka’s passionate urge to leap out of the bushes and catch the spy red-handed was indeed motivated by jealousy. But Yurka thought of other arguments in support of his theory, too, and he said them aloud: “This isn’t the first time she’s gone wandering around at night. Remember that time Ira came to the theater and jumped on me, asking what I was doing with Masha and where I’d been? And you know what else? No matter where we are, she’s always there. Volod! We have to report that she’s out at night!”

“Well, why don’t you start with Irina?”

Yurka’s mood was already ruined, and Volodya was getting paranoid again: he kept holding still to listen and look around, and he wouldn’t let Yurka even touch his hand. And the evening was coming to an end, anyway.

He quickly said goodbye to Volodya, returned to his cabin, and found his troop leader. Expecting her to glare up at him and start shouting the moment he appeared at her door, he’d already prepared his mumbled excuses, but Ira just stared at him in surprise and said, “No, I wasn’t looking for you, actually.” Yurka was picking his jaw back up off the floor when Ira seemed to realize what he’d said. “But hold on: Where were you?”

“With Volodya.”

“Do you have any idea what time it is? Yura, if you need to be out after lights-out, you have to let me know!”

Yurka struggled to calm his swirling, fearful feelings as he fell asleep. There were always a lot of girls buzzing around Volodya, but it seemed to Yurka that Masha was among them too often. He was probably just jealous. And he’d evidently been infected by Volodya’s paranoia, too ...