The Journey Never Ends (Nikolay Vnukov)
The popular Soviet children’s author Nikolay Vnukov published dozens of works in a long career. In 1975’s The Journey Never Ends, translated into English here for the first time, Vnukov’s protagonist, a young boy from Leningrad named Andrey, discovers that reading books leads to a “time machine.” By working his way through a Soviet-approved reading list of works from the USSR and the West, the rather petulant and impulsive Andrey grows wiser, braver, and more patriotic.
The final episode, in which Andrey travels to Stalingrad, is particularly notable. Here he travels not to an imaginary location but to the “real” Stalingrad and even appears to have actually fought in the battle. Meeting his grandfather, he displays all the respect, awe, and fighting spirit expected of Soviet youth.
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The Journey Never Ends
The Journey Never Ends
Mama had come back from the store, and Papa had switched on the television and settled into his armchair. Andrey moved the other armchair closer to Papa’s, then clambered onto his legs.
“Let’s have a look what’s on today,” said Papa. He opened the television guide. He read it for a while then chucked it onto the table.
“No such luck, Andryukha,” he said, “Nothing interesting.”
“That’s a shame,” sighed Andrey.
“It’s a good thing if you ask me,” said Papa. “You can’t just sit there with your nose pressed up to the television every night. It’s a waste of time, and we really don’t have that much time. Do you know how long people live for? Seventy years on average. That’s 600,000 hours. And that’s your lot. So we have to use our six hundred thousand hours as well as possible. We shouldn’t waste them. We reap what we sow. I’ve already used up two hundred and sixty-three thousand, and that’s almost half of mine. I’ve lost a hundred and fifty thousand.
“That’s a shame,” said Andrey.
“Quite the opposite!” said Papa. “I wouldn’t have lost them if I’d counted them up earlier.”
“And how many have I lost?” said Andrey.
“Let’s work it out,” said Papa as he turned off the television. “You’re nine. There are 365 days in a year and twenty-four hours in a day. We have to multiply everything.”
He took a pen and notepad from his pocket and began to work it out.
“You’ve been alive for eighty-three thousand hours. You’ve spent twenty thousand in school. For sixty thousand you were too small and couldn’t do anything. That means you’ve barely lost any at all. I’m jealous! After all it’s awful if grown-ups lose eighty-thousand hours.”
“It’s a pity we can’t watch a film,” said Andrey as he looked at the television.
“It is. But there are even better things than films!”
“Like what?”
“Well, journeys, for a start. Do you know what Africa is?”
“It’s very hot and there are black people in Africa.”
“Nonsense!” chuckled Papa. “In the real Africa it’s not hot at all. There are snow-capped mountains like, for example, Kilimanjaro. Hold up, Andrey, I’ve had a great idea! What if you and I head off to Africa right now?”
“What do you mean?” said Andrey in astonishment.
“It’s very easy. The easiest thing that you can think of. When Mama goes to the shops, you and I are going to sit down and travel somewhere.”
“Sit down where? In a machine?” wondered Andrey.
“Yes, a special machine that goes even faster than a plane.”
“Faster than a plane?” Andrey was surprised. “Where will we get a machine like that?”
Papa laughed, rubbed his hands together, got up off the armchair and went over to the bookcase.
“Right here,” he said, tapping his finger on the bookcase doors.
“There’s no machine in there,” said Andrey. “I know that. There’s just books. Some with pictures and some without.”
“Honestly, ‘some with pictures and some without!’” said Papa. “You don’t know a thing even though you’re in the third grade. There’s a glorious machine right there, only you haven’t tried it yet.”
“There’s no such machine!”
“Very well. Let’s see.”
Papa opened the case. It was packed full of books – fat ones, thin ones, and even thinner ones - in rows. There were some boring ones Andrey had almost never touched. Andrey didn’t really like to read at all. Sitting by the television, though? That was something alright! But books? They’re right there on your desk at school the whole day, then you still have to come home and do your homework…
“So where’s this machine?”
“Hold on a moment,” said Papa. He reached up to the very top shelf and got down a thick brown book. “Read this,” he said, pointing to the cover.
“Atlas,” read Andrey.
“These are maps. Geographical ones, of the whole globe.” Papa opened the atlas and showed Andrey a big, wiggly yellow triangle. “Here’s Africa.”
Andrey looked at the triangular yellow blot and then over to his papa. Then he asked, “But where’s the machine?”
“Hold up a bit. Africa’s very big. We need to choose where exactly to go. Well, what do you fancy seeing? Where to?”
“I want to see a lion!” said Andrey. “And some flamingos!”
“Right. Tanzania it is!” said Papa.
He traced his finger around Africa, looking for the spot. “There it is. Off to Tanzania we go. Professor Grzimek will be our guide.” Papa got down another book. This one was green. He opened it and began to read:
“I have managed to photograph lionesses in trees several times. At Lake Manyara, near Arusha, the lions are so at ease relaxing in the trees that tourists can go and photograph them at any time…”
“Papa…”
“Wait. Look!”
Before Andrey knew what was going on something miraculous started to happen. Papa gently tapped the left side of the bookcase. It slid to one side then disappeared. The case was suddenly empty. It was as if there had never been any books there at all! It looked just like an elevator. And just like in an elevator, a little electric lightbulb dimly glowed in the ceiling. Andrey would never have believed that they should have such a strange bookcase right here at home!
Papa stepped into the elevator. “Well?” he asked.
“But where’s the machine?” Andrey was dumbfounded.
“This is it!” said Papa, slapping the wall. “Get in, look sharp. We don’t have much time.”
Andrey stepped inside. He still couldn’t believe it. Could there really be cars that were like big wooden boxes? Could there really be cars without steering wheels and tyres and seats and all sorts of shiny knobs? Where could you go in that sort of a car? Papa must have made it all up, he thought, The car, Africa, the trip. He loves to play make-believe.
Andrey looked at Papa’s face. It was serious, like when he was reading a really interesting book. Papa wasn’t joking. As Andrey stepped into the elevator, Papa clasped his shoulders tightly. The doors slid silently shut and the electric lightbulb got brighter.
“I always wanted to go to Africa, or America, or to an island in the Pacific,” whispered Papa. “I’ve always used this machine without you. I was waiting for you to grow up enough for you to come with me. So now this is our machine. You just have to imagine where you want to go and the machine’ll take us. Anywhere we want: the Moon, Mars, you name it! Lots of people have one just like it and travel all over. You can’t even imagine how fascinating it is! So many memories, so much work, and so many books, all in one place. And you fill it up with dreams, not gas! People from all over the world—explorers, writers and scientists—helped to build it. Now it’s ours, both of ours, and I’m happy that we can go together, my boy. I’m very happy indeed!”
“When will we leave?” asked Andrey.
“Why, we’ve already arrived,” said Papa. He tapped his finger on the back wall.
The electric lightbulb went out and the wall slowly lowered, as if it were a drawbridge. A moist wind blew on Andrey’s face. The bright red sunlight forced his eyes shut. When they opened, he was standing under a big old crooked tree. Just a couple of paces away, right there on the scrub, lay a dirty yellow lion with a matted mane. It was staring thoughtfully off into the distance.
“Papa!” squeaked Andrey, diving back into the elevator.
“Don’t worry, I’ve made sure we’re invisible to him. He can’t see us or smell us,” said Papa. “He has no idea we’re even here. It’s only us that can see everything. You can even stroke him.”
“He won’t bite?”
“I promise.”
Andrey went up to the lion and cautiously stroked his back. His felt the rough fur and strong, sinewy body with his fingers. It felt like it was made of tough rubber. The lion shook its head, beat its tail against the ground, and sighed. Andrey jumped backward.
“Don’t worry!” laughed Papa.
“But he probably wants to eat. Right, Papa?”
“He’s already had his lunch,” said Papa. “Look what his paws are holding.”
Andrey walked around to face the lion. He could see its big muzzle with its flat nose, its lazy yellow eyes, two clumps of tough yellow whiskers. Its triangular mouth looked just like a cat’s. The lion’s right paw was holding on to some white skin with black stripes. A pink glistening bone glistened out from the meat.
“He’s eaten a tiger!” cried Andrey.
“There are no tigers in Africa. He’s eaten a stripy horse. It’s a zebra,” laughed Papa.
The lion sighed again. It looked at the bone then licked it all over with his big pink tongue. He laid his head on his paws and closed his eyes.
“Let’s let him sleep,” said Papa. “There’s nothing else for us to do here.”
“Where are we going?” asked Andrey.
“Where would you like to go?”
Andrey looked backward. A red and green forest lay beyond the flat wall. A gentle warm breeze blew a slightly sweet but old, sour smell toward them. The trees were very odd indeed. They looked like they’d been flattened. Their leaves looked rough, almost as if they’d been cut from tin. This African forest didn’t look at all like those fun little birch forests near Leningrad. It was quite different from those pine forests where the trees are like tall columns and the smell of the tar and the freshness is so nice!
Andrey looked to the right. He could see some water glisten past some bushes dotted with dazzling yellow flowers. “Let’s go to the lake, Papa!” he said.
Papa looked at his watch. “We’ve got ten minutes or so. We can get there and back, but it’s a pity we haven’t got much time.”
Oh, how the grass scraped their feet! It felt like barbed wire. How on earth do lions manage to run around on grass like that? The water in the lake was crystal clear. They could see right to the yellow bottom and the shells around which fish darted around in dark shoals. If only they had brought a fishing rod!
Suddenly a red and green rainbow appeared over the lake.
Flup flup flup.
A sound was coming from all around.
The air shuddered. A wind blew hard into their faces.
Andrey still didn’t know what the rainbow was and what those sounds were when a group of four birds descended onto the lake’s bank. They were rather funny-looking birds. They had white crested heads, wide triangular beaks, blue long blue wings and tails. They were bright green from their neck right down to their wingtips. It was like they were wearing green waistcoats and blue suits. Black feathers hung down, half covering their eyes. The birds bravely waded into the lake. They began to splash around.
One of the birds spread its enormous wings. The red and green rainbow appeared again. Andrey could see that the bird’s wingtips were red as fire.
“Wow!” cried Andrey. “You couldn’t even draw that, you can’t get that kind of paint in the shops!”
“You’re right you can’t,” said Papa. “Those are tauracos. Remember that – tau-ra-co. That’s a rare breed. They only live in Africa.”
The tauracos finished their bath and flew off into the forest.
“Papa,” came another shout from Andrey. “Look! The water in the lake is red. The tauracos have mixed up some paint with their feathers!”
“That’s right,” said Papa. “The tauraco is the only bird in the world that can dye water with its feathers.”
“They’re quite something!” laughed Andrey.
“Dinner!” cried somebody with Mama’s voice from inside a bottle tree. Andrey jumped.
“Papa, is that Mama?”
“Of course it is. Time for us to go.”
“Is she here too?” asked Andrey in surprise.
“No, she’s at home.”
“So how can we hear here in Africa?”
“Because the word ‘because’ begins with a ‘b’,” said Papa. “Let’s go home.”
“And will we go back in the elevator?”
“In the bookcase,” said Papa.
“I don’t want dinner! I want to see more tauracos and lions and leopards and monkeys. And a giraffe!”
“That’s too much for one evening, Andrey. That’s not fair.”
“I’ll run away,” said Andrey.
“And where would you go?”
“Into the forest.”
“Try it.”
“Catch me if you can!” shouted Andrey and sprinted off along the wiry grass into the forest as fast as he could. He looked back. Papa wasn’t following. He just stood on the lakeshore laughing.
Crrrrrrrrash! Andrey felt something flat and solid. He stopped. It was the bookcase! He’d run right into it. Somehow Papa was standing right next to him.
There was the little electric lightbulb. The back wall of the case that had been lying on the ground like a drawbridge suddenly raised and shut Africa away.
“That’s your lot,” said Papa.
“Why?” shouted Andrey. “I want to…”
At this the bookcase’s doors flew open and Papa gave Andrey a push in the back. They were back in the room.
“What did you do that for?” said Andrey. “Why was it over so quick? I wanted to go into the forest and see the monkeys…”
“We have everything we need right here,” said Papa, closing a green book. There was a stout elephant on the cover. “We’ll go again tomorrow! And if you don’t want to go to Africa, we can go to America or the North Pole. You’ll have plenty of time to get a good look at everything.”
“Boys, dinner time!” shouted Mama from the kitchen. “How long do I have to wait? The food’s waiting. Mind you wash your hands first.”
* * *
The next day Andrey could barely wait for Papa to get home from the institute. At long last the doorbell rang. Andrey ran to open the door.
“I’m exhausted today,” said Papa as he took his coat off. “The work never ends, and I had a meeting to boot. Well, have you picked where you want to go? Back to Tanzania?”
“Actually I don’t want to go to Africa,” said Andrey. “Let’s go to America.”
“To visit Tom Sawyer?” smiled Papa.
“Come again?”
“There’s a jolly lad by the name of Tom who lives in America on the banks of the Mississippi River in a little town called St. Petersburg. He loves to tell tales. He has a best friend, Huck Finn, who’s quite the rogue. This Huck is always messing around with dead cats and rats. And one time he and Tom went to a cemetery at night to cure warts…”
“Oho!” said Andrey. “At night?”
“In the dead of night, when the ghosts come out.”
“Papa, there’s no such thing as ghosts! You’re making it up.”
“If you believe in ghosts they can be real for you. Tom and Huck believed in them.”
“Were they afraid?”
“Naturally. But they went anyway.”
“And did they see a ghost?”
“They saw something even scarier,” said Papa.
“What was it?”
“You can find that out from Tom Sawyer himself.”
“I want to go to America, to St. Petersburg! Hurry up, quick, Papa!”
There they were again in front of the magic bookcase. Papa opened the doors and took out the atlas and another book: “Look at the map, Andrey. I want you to see where Tom Sawyer lives. Here’s North America. That big blue line that looks like a tree is the Mississippi River. And that little circle is St. Petersburg. It’s very small, like Zelenogorsk. Smaller, maybe. And this book,” Papa tapped the cover, “is The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It’s by a marvellous American author, Mark Twain.” He gave the book to Andrey, sand said, “Go on, open it up.”
Andrey opened the book. There was a drawing of a curly-haired boy with a round face and scampish eyes on the first page. The boy was looking off to the side. He had a little smile on his face.
“And that’s Tom Sawyer. Go ahead and start on the first chapter.”
“But I don’t want to read! We agreed we’d go to see Tom.”
“Read, I’m telling you, else the machine won’t go to America.”
Andrey reluctantly glared at the page and began to read:
“‘TOM!’
No answer.
‘TOM!’
No answer.
‘What’s gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!’
No answer.
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them.”
Andrey was reading so intensely, racing through the book’s pages, that he didn’t even notice Papa slipping away and how it was getting dark outside. His room was in total darkness when Papa returned and tapped him on the shoulder.
“That’s enough,” said Papa. “Go get into the bookcase.”
“But what about you?”
“I’m not going today. I’m tired. Besides, Tom won’t tell you a thing if I’m there. I’d just get in the way.”
“I don’t want to go on my own!” Andrey was frightened.
“Are you afraid?” said Papa. “I never thought my boy was a coward.”
“I’m not a coward,” said Andrey. “But how will I get back?”
“I’ll call you in an hour.”
“Will I be able to hear you?”
“Didn’t we hear Mama calling us?”
“And the bookcase won’t go anywhere?”
“It’ll always be right where it’s needed. Don’t worry. It’ll always help you out.”
Papa moved the books to one side.
“Okay, I’ll go then,” said Andrey. He stepped inside. The lightbulb immediately began to flicker, the doors slammed shut, and the back wall lowered like a drawbridge.
Andrey hesitantly looked outside. A long line of two-storey clapboard houses ran along the street in front of him. The street was overgrown with grass. Each house had a fenced-off vegetable patch or a little garden. The fence boards were neatly whitewashed or painted in blue, pink and yellow.
Some boys were playing in the street. Andrey watched closely. The boys were throwing marbles up in the air then crawling around on their knees and measuring the distance between them on the ground. “Three! Five! Seven!” they shouted.
“Aha,” thought Andrey. “The winner is the one who can guess the distance between his and his opponent’s marbles correctly. That’s easy. What a shame I don’t have any marbles.”
The game soon ended. A boy in checked trousers held up by one suspender loosely thrown over one shoulder was the winner. His white shirts was smeared in red berry juice. His wavy hair stuck out everywhere like springs. He stuffed the marbles he’d won into his pockets and whistled as he set off down the street towards Andrey.
Andrey stepped out of the bookcase. The boy stopped. An expression of surprise crossed his face.
“Hey, who are you?” he cried.
“I’m Andrey.”
“Andrew?” repeated the boy. “I don’t know any Andrews in this town. Where are you from?”
“I’m from Leningrad,” said Andrey.
“Leee-niiin-grad,” repeated the boy. “Is that upriver or downriver?”
“It’s in the Soviet Union!” said Andrey.
The boy chuckled and spat on the ground.
“Hokum!” he said. “Want me to sock you?”
“What for?” asked Andrey.
“’Cause you’re talking nonsense about some Leniiiiingrad. Pfft! Making out like you’ve seen the whole word when you ain’t been no further than Saint Louis!”
“Idiot!” said Andrey. “Our Leningrad is a thousand times bigger than your St. Petersburg!”
“I’m the idiot?” exclaimed the boy. “I’m gonna sock you so hard your mama won’t recognize you!” He started to roll up his left shirtsleeve.
“Hold up,” said Andrey, “Are you called Tom?”
“What does it matter what I’m called?”
“Tell me! Tom. Are you Tom?”
“You know too much,” said the boy as he rolled up his right sleeve. “Just say one more word and Tom Sawyer’s gonna…”
“Aha, so you are Tom Sawyer!” exclaimed Andrey. “That’s a stroke of luck, meeting your right away. My father told me about you.”
“Your father? And just who’s your father exactly?”
“He’s an engineer.”
“Oho, what a big fish!” laughed Tom. “Some sort of a scientist. He probably reads books?”
“He has a lot of books. A whole bookcase full of them.”
“Don’t matter to me,” said Tom. “I don’t give a fig for you and your father. So I’m gonna sock you, you idiot!”
He strode forward and threw an uppercut. If Andrey hadn’t managed to leap out the way, Tom’s fist would have hit him right in the chin.
“Hold on!” cried Andrey. “Did you know there’s a book about you?”
The boy dropped his fists and murmured, “A book about me? You’re lyin’!”
“Honest!”
The boy shook his head in disbelief: “Swear it. A blood oath.”
“I…I don’t know how.” Andrey was confused.
“What a sissy!”
The boy pulled a long pin with a round end from his shirt. He gave it to Andrey, saying, “Prick your finger, squeeze out a drop of blood and say, ‘I swear on my blood.’”
“Then what?”
“Huh?”
“Where do I put the blood?”
“Lick it off if you want, that’s the end.”
“Okay, I’ve got it,” said Andrey. He did everything the boy had asked.
“Okay,” said Tom. “Now I believe you. There’s a book written about me?”
“All about you,” said Andrey. “You painting the fence, meeting Becky Thatcher, and going with Huck Finn and a dead cat to cure the warts at the cemetery.”
“That was a night!” remembered Tom. “The frost still gets me. You couldn’t see three steps ahead. And there were ghosts behind every tree! Me and Huck waitin’ under the trees when ol’ man Williams brought those demons with him…”
“Demons and ghosts are made up,” said Andrey. “Where I’m from nobody’s believed in them for a long time.”
Tom laughed. “If they’d been sittin’ in that cemetery with us we’d see if they didn’t believe! What else is there?”
“I didn’t read everything yet but I read about how you were pirates.”
“It was great on Jackson’s Island,” smiled Tom. “What kind of a guy wrote a book like that? How does he know about me?”
“The author’s name is Mark Twain.”
“Mark Twain?” Tom said in surprise. “That ain’t a person’s name. Know what that is? Mark number two! That’s what the riverpilots call out when they’d measurin’ the depth under the boat. Mark number two! That means everything’s okay and you can go further, it’s deep enough. Got it? And that’s what the drunkards shout in the saloons. Mark number two! Meanin’ they want another couple of drinks. Got it?”
“Got it,” said Andrey. “Only I know for sure that the author’s name is Mark Twain.”
“I’d love to take a look at that book!” said Tom. “Does it have pictures?”
“Yes.”
“And they drew me?”
“They did.”
“Do I look like me?” Tom straightened up and stuck one leg out to the side.
“The spitting image!” said Andrey.
“The spi…wait, what did you say?”
“The spitting image.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means you’re just the same.”
“Wow! I’ve never heard of that before. You’re a swell guy! We’d have done with you at the cemetery. Got any warts?”
“Three. On my left hand.” Andrey spread his fingers wide. Tom looked over his hand like he was an expert.
“Good ‘uns! We’ll get ‘em off no problem. Tonight. I had even bigger ones, and on both hands.”
“Do we need to bring a dead cat?” asked Andrey.
“It’s not that easy to get hold of a dead cat. But there’s other ways…hey-o, here comes my friend Huck!” exclaimed Tom.
Andrey turned around. A boy of about ten in wide trousers held up with a cord tied around his chest and a broadbrimmed straw hat, one side of which was breaking off, was coming.
“Over here, Huck!” shouted Tom, waving his hand. The boy lazily wandered up to them and took a look at Andrey.
“What’s this then, Tom?”
“This is Andrew. He’s from another town, he only got here today. Where you from? I forgot.”
“From Leningrad.”
“Hear that? Says he’s from Leningrad but I don’t know any Leningrads.”
“Lyin’, probably!” said Huck.
“I thought he’s lyin’ too, almost socked him one! But he said someone’s written a book about us, about you and me.”
Huck let out a long whistle and pulled up his trousers.
“A book! What idiot’d want a book about us?”
“You don’t get nothin’, Huck!” shouted Tom. “He says they even wrote about how we were pirates and hid on Jackson’s Island. And about the dead get we took to old man Williams’ grave.”
“Is that right, Andrew?” said Huck, turning to Andrey.
“The honest truth. I read it myself. They even drew you in that hat and those trousers in the book.”
Huck sighed. “If my pa finds out they’re writin’ about me and drawin’ me too in books, that’ll be the end of me. That’s for sure.”
“Hokum,” said Tom. “That ain’t gonna happen.”
“Hey, Tom, you don’t know my father. He’ll tell everyone I made him look a fool in public.”
The boys fell silent.
“Okay,” said Tom, “but maybe he won’t find out anythin’. He can’t read and he don’t listen to gossip. Let’s think up a way to fix Andrew’s warts.”
“You got warts?” Huck inquired. “Show ‘em here.”
Andrey showed him.
“You’ll need putrid water for that. We’ll go into the forest tonight. I know a well with putrid water near Cardiff Hill.”
“It’s all on track, Andrew!” said Tom. “If Huck says he knows a well then he knows a well. That’s for sure. You won’t have no warts tomorrow!”
“What’ll we do until the evening?” asked Huck.
“We’ll think of something!”
“You guys got any chewing gum?” asked Huck. “I’m burnin’ to chew on something.”
“Not me,” said Tom.
“Me neither,” said Andrey.
“Shucks,” said Huck. “Got any tobacco?”
“You know I don’t smoke,” said Tom.
“Me neither,” said Andrey.
“No point in it,” said Tom. “Your head spins and your mouth burns something awful. What do people want with smokin’? Better chew gum than smoke.”
“True,” said Huck. “But when we ain’t got gum tobacco’ll do.”
“Guys, I know what we can do right now!” exclaimed Tom. “Let’s go catch fish off a raft!”
“That’s the stuff!” said Andrew. “It says in the book you’re a real fishing expert.”
“Not quite an expert,” said Tom modestly. “Huck’s the real expert! Ain’t that right, Huckleberry?”
“No fishing ‘til after lunch,” said Huck. “Nothin’ll bite right now. The best fishing’s early morning before the sun comes up, or late in the evening.”
“That’s true, Huck,” said Tom. “Let’s go to the widow Douglas’ house and play Robin Hood.”
“Agreed!” said Huck, perking up. “I love Robin Hood.”
“Will you teach me?” asked Andrey.
“There ain’t nothing easier,” said Tom. “You can be the Sheriff.”
“And I’ll be the monk, Friar Tuck,” said Huck.
“Let’s go!” cried Tom, and they ran off down the street.
“Tom! Stop! Where are you off to?” rang out a voice behind them. “Aunt Polly told you to sweep the yard.”
Andrey turned around. A boy in a shirt and check trousers just like Tom’s, but a little shorter than Tom, was chasing them.
“Quit hasslin’ me, Sid, or I’ll wallop you!” shouted Tom, doubling his place.
“I ain’t afraid of you!” shouted Sid. “You’re the one who’s gonna get walloped, by Aunt Polly tonight!”
“You done nagging?” Tom stopped. “Right, come here, Sidney, I’m gonna get you!” But Sid Sawyer didn’t wait for Tom to get him. He shook his fist at Tom and dove into an alleyway between the houses.
“Always the same,” said Tom. “Now he’ll wait then hit me when I ain’t expecting it. One time I gave him a beating and he waited ‘til the evening and hit he in the head with a rock. I had such a shiner I couldn’t get my hat on.”
“All the boy does is nag and whine,” said Huck.
“And makes Aunt Polly make an example of me all the time. And he loves Sunday School too. Ugh! Do you love Sunday School?” Tom asked Andrey.
“What’s Sunday School?”
“It’s where they make you learn the catechesis and memorize Bible verses on a Sunday even though you just want to go hang out.”
“Nobody studies on Sundays where I’m from,” said Andrey. “What’s the Bible?”
“Hah, look here Huck,” he laughed. “He doesn’t know what the Bible is, the idiot! The Bible’s the holy book about Christ and his followers.”
“There’s no such thing as God, though!” Andrey said in surprise. “It’s all make-believe. They’d laugh you down if you talked about God where I’m from.”
Tom stopped. His eyes were filled with fear and his face had turned pale.
“What’re you talkin’ about?” He said in a terrified whisper. “Cross your heart this moment or you’ll be damned!”
Huck was looking at Andrey with the same frightened expression. He whispered something, spat over his shoulder, and crossed himself. Tom did the same. Andrey looked at them in astonishment:
“Are you serious, guys, that you believe in all that nonsense?”
“Nonsense?!” said Tom. “You’ll think it’s some nonsense when the devil’s carryin’ you off into the fire on a fryin’ pan!”
“You’d better cross yourself, Andrew,” said Huck, “or you’ll be in trouble.”
“Not in the least, guys! Nobody believes in God where I’m from, and nothing happens to them.”
“Cross yourself,” said Tom. “Or we ain’t going nowhere.”
“I can’t. I’m a pioneer.”
“Hucky, I don’t know what to make of this guy. Let’s go, buddy, before things get bad.”
Tom rapidly strode off down the street. Huck hoisted his trousers up and set off after him.
Is this ending before it got going? wondered Andrey. Are they serious?
“Huck! Tom! Wait!”
Huck turned around.
“You know, I really can’t,” shouted Andrey. “I don’t believe in God, but I do want to play Robin Hood!”
Huck stopped. “Tom, maybe he don’t need to cross himself?”
“What?” Tom stopped too.
“Well. Maybe I could cut a bit of hair off his head and burn ‘em? The devil won’t get him then and it’ll all be okay.”
“No, Huck. There ain’t nothin’ more powerful against the devil than crossing.”
“What if I cross him?”
“I dunno, Hucky. Maybe a guy’s got to do it himself.”
“Listen up, Tom. There’s an Injun that lives here, Jo. He don’t believe in any God, but nothin’ bad’s happened to him.”
“The Injun’s a dead man. That’s what everyone says. He sold his soul to the devil.”
“Maybe you’re right, Tom, but I know for sure that if a guy gets crossed you’ll ward off evil.”
Tom thought for a moment, rubbed his legs together, and sighed, “Maybe you’re right, Huck.”
Huck crossed his hand over Andrey. Andrey laughed.
“Idiot,” said Tom. “You can’t laugh else the cross won’t work. Don’t laugh.” He crossed Andrey twice. “That’ll do. Now let’s go to Widow Douglas’ place!”
The game of Robin Hood was wonderful. Tom had hidden a whole arsenal in a special place in the forest. There were swords and bows and arrows. They each had a go at being the Bandit of Sherwood Forest, but Tom played him best. He was so good at hiding and climbing trees that Andrey and Huck couldn’t catch him and bring him to jail.
They played until it got dark. When it got so dark they couldn’t even see their own hands, Huck said: “Time to go, guys.” They headed off into a thicket to find the well with the putrid water.
When night fell the wind picked up. The leaves of the distant trees on Cardiff Hill rustled loudly. Before long the path they had taken disappeared. Branches cracked and dry grass crunched underfoot. It got darker and quieter. The boys couldn’t see each other. Andrey only knew where he was going by listening to the movement of leaves.
“Tom,” whispered Andrey, “maybe we ought to go back? I don’t need to get rid of my warts. We can do it another time…”
“Dinnertime!” Tom said in Papa’s voice. Something behind Andrey clicked and it suddenly became light, as if the moon had suddenly come up. The bookcase doors flung open and Papa dragged Andrey by the arm back into the room.
“Dinnertime.”
“Please!” shouted Andrey. “We just went into the forest to cure my warts, and now you’re shouting for me to come to dinner! It was so amazing! Just another fifteen minutes, please, Papa!”
“Nobody makes it out of the forest again in fifteen minutes,” said Papa. “You’ve got the whole evening tomorrow. You’ll have plenty of time to see them again. So, what did Tom Sawyer make of you?”
“First we almost had a fight,” said Andrey. “Then we made friends. Then we met Huck Finn, and we made friends too! They’re so great, Papa! Only it’s so funny how they believe in God and the devil.”
“It was like that back then, Andrey,” said Papa. “People believed in those things. But they’re good boys. One time a long while ago Tom, Huck and I were pirates on Jackson’s Island. We went looking for a treasure chest filled with gold that Injun Jo had hidden in a cave.”
“But Papa, were Tom and Huck just the same when you were little?”
“They were.”
“But how?”
“Because they’ll always be little boys. Even in a hundred years from now. Books don’t grow old.”
“No, really, tell me how?”
“You’ll understand someday, Andrey, just not now. Now it’s time for dinner. And you’ve homework to do.”
“Papa, can I always go in the machine on my own now?”
“Of course you can,” smiled Papa. “And every time it’ll be a little bit better than the last. Just remember: the machine starts when you read a book about the heroes you want to meet”
* * *
When Andrey got home from school he headed straight for the bookcase: while there was nobody at home he could go fishing with Tom Sawyer, just like they’d talked about. Better, though, not to think about Cardiff Hill and those warts. It had all been so scary!
He opened the bookcase, took down the book with the drawing of the boy in check trousers and a straw hat on the cover, and read through a few a lines where he spotted Tom’s name. He so wanted to visit that quiet, overgrown street where those boys had played at marbles. He went as fast as he could.
“One!”
The bookcase opened.
“Two!”
The doors flung outward.
“Three!” the back wall came down like a drawbridge.
There’s the street. And here comes a little boy in check trousers and a neat, buttoned-up shirt to meet him. His shirt was very clean and he was even wearing a tie. It was a wide blue ribbon neatly knotted at the collar. Why, he wondered, was Tom dressed like that? Maybe today was a holiday, like the First of May? Heavens, the boy didn’t look like Tom Sawyer at all! His hair was beautifully combed, his nose was a little thicker, and his lips weren’t all cracked.
The boy barely even looked at Andrey as he walked past without slowing even a bit. He didn’t recognize him!
“Hey, Tom, wait up!” shouted Andrey.
The boy stopped.
“What do you want?”
His voice sounded different. And then there were the eyes and the hair…
“Are you Tom?”
“That’s me,” said the boy.
“Do you remember me?” asked Andrey. “Yesterday we made plans to catch fish off a raft. Huck was there too.”
“Huck?” asked the boy. “I don’t know no Huck. And I don’t know you either.”
“But yesterday it was you that said we should go fish off a raft! But Huck said we wouldn’t get a bite, so we went to play Robin Hood in the forest.”
“We don’t go fishin’ off of rafts. We fish off the bank where the old cannons are. I didn’t plan to go fishin’ yesterday, it rained, so Phil Adams came and we spent the whole day at home.”
“But you are Tom?” asked Andrey.
“That’s right.”
“Tom Sawyer?”
“I don’t know any Tom Sawyer. I’m Tom Bailey.” The boy shrugged.
“Oh. Tom Bailey.”
Andrey looked around in confusion. It was only then that he noticed the street he was on and the houses all around didn’t look at all like what he’d seen yesterday. Those homes had smooth clapboard, but these ones were built from big, dark logs. There was no grass here, but two rows of elm trees stood tall like soldiers all along the street.
“Is this St. Petersburg?” asked Andrey.
Tom Bailey looked at him as if he were mad.
“St. Petersburg!” he whistled. “I don’t know any St. Petersburg. This is Rivermouth.”
“Rivermouth?!” exclaimed Andrey. “I wanted to go to St. Petersburg. How did this happen?”
“You’re something all right!” said Tom Bailey. “You come to a town but you don’t even know what it’s called. Where are you from?”
“From Leningrad.”
“Never heard of it. Must be out east, right?”
“I’m not sure,” said Andrey. “I got everything mixed up. Maybe I took the wrong book…”
BOOM! Something exploded in the sky. Andrey and Tom looked upward as one. A rocket tore into the sky behind the roofs, leaving a smoke trail in its wake. Suddenly it stopped as if it were too exhausted to climb up a big hill, burst into a bright green star, and went out. A little white cloud was all that was left.
“Right, I haven’t got time to stand here chinwagging with you,” said Tom Bailey. “You know what today is? It’s the Fourth of July. Independence Day. There’ll be a big fireworks display on the square tonight. My friends are waiting. You seem like a good guy, so if you want you can come with. I’ll introduce you to Phil, Charley Marden, and Pepper Whitcomb. Then you can tell us all about yourself. Well, are we going?”
“Let’s go,” said Andrey.
There was a crowd of people on the square in front of a big stone house decorated with streamers, greenery and a big red-and-white striped flag that looked a bit like a mattress. Ladies in cheerful dresses, men in tails, and boys in jackets with shiny buttons stood in the square. A blue stage decorated with striped flags towered over the bows, bright umbrellas and hats. Someone dressed all in black was waving his hands on the platform. From a distance he looked like a beetle wiggling its legs.
“That’s the town secretary, Elkins,” Tom whispered to Andrey. “Stay here and don’t move. I’ll find my friends.” He dove into the crowd.
Andrey tried to catch what Elkins was saying, but he could only hear bits and pieces:
“Feller citizens…Boston tea…the King’s power…our first day o’ freedom…the Brits…”
The men craned their necks and the ladies stood on tiptoe. Everyone listened carefully. But Andrey was bored, so he began to look at two girls in nice lace dresses who were standing close by. The girls spotted Andrey, turned around, and sniffed. Then they whispered in each other’s ears and glanced over at Andrey. They must have thought Andrey’s school uniform looked odd.
At that very moment, Elkins shouted loudly on the platform:
“Hurrah!”
“Hurrah! Long live American independence,” came thundering from every side.
The crowd threw their hats in the air and stomped their feet. The men applauded. Tom and three other boys came through the crowd. The tallest boy was sported a black top hat, just like he was a grown-up! The second boy was short and chubby. His face was absolutely covered in freckles. The last boy carried a hefty stick over his shoulder like it was a rifle.
“Here he is,” said Tom Bailey. “Only I don’t know his name. What’s your name?”
“Andrey!”
“Pleased to meet you.”
All four bowed with great ceremony. Then they each shook Andrey’s hand and introduced themselves:
“Charley Marden,” said the tall boy as he doffed his top hat.
“Pepper Whitcomb,” squeaked the freckled lad.
“Phil Adams,” said the last boy in a deep bass voice.
“And you know me already,” said Bailey. “Let’s go, boys, we’ll find a quiet spot to talk.”
“We can go to Main Street,” said Pepper.
“Too many people.” Phil Adams shook his head.
“Pettingill’s Candy Store!” suggested Charles Marden.
“Hurray!” shouted Pepper. “We’ll have a treat!”
The candy store was right there on the square on the lower-level of a two-storey house. Charles Marden pushed the frosted-glass door open and a little bell gave a cheerful tinkle. The boys went into a small room.
There were boxes wrapped up with pink and blue ribbons on shelves all along the walls. On the boxes’ lids, beautiful girls with curls smiled and clutched bouquets of roses to their chests. Towers of cream cakes and pyramids of candy in bright wrappers glimmered white and pink in cabinets. The sweet smells of vanilla and rum floated up from cakes and desserts powdered with icing sugar. A salesgirl in a lace apron and cap stood behind the counter. She looked exactly like the beauties on the candy boxes.
They’re an interesting bunch, thought Andrey. He’s no Tom Sawyer; he didn’t want to fight me right off the bat…this is a new adventure!
There was a café in a backroom. The boys filed in and sat at one of the tables. Mr. Pettingill sat at the book of the room behind a green curtain. He took their orders. Charley Marden ordered the ice cream. Not a minute had passed when a girl in a white apron set a gleaming tray on the table in front of them. Scoops of raspberry and vanilla ice cream were piled high in sundae glasses. A thin little spoon stuck out from the top of each mountain.
“Okay, now let’s talk!” said Charles Marden.
But they didn’t get to talk. It felt as if the boys didn’t find Andrey very interesting. They piled into their ice cream. Soon the glasses were empty. Andrey didn’t lag behind the others. It was so nice to feel the ice cream melt in his mouth!
“Hey, guys, let’s not miss this chance,” said Tom Bailey. “What does our guest think about us? I bet he hasn’t tried ice cream anything like this before!”
“Let’s chat now,” suggested Andrey.
“When our glasses are empty?” giggled Pepper. “That’s no fun.”
“Let’s get more!” explained Martin as he licked his spoon.
“Do you have enough money?” asked Phil Adams.
Marden took a leather wallet from his pocket and showed it to the others.
“If I say we should get more it means I’ve got enough.”
He leaned over to Tom Bailey and whispered something in his ear. Tom winked at the others, and said, “So…we’ve got this rule that the new guy has to order. Five more, please, Andrew!”
“Why the new guy?” muttered Andrey. “If Marden wants to treat us…”
“That’s the rule,” said Tom. “You have to prove you’re not a coward.”
Andrey got up. Of course he wasn’t a coward! But order another five ice creams? Well I never! He disappeared behind the curtain. Mr. Pettingill was sitting at the counter writing in a thick book. He looked very stern.
“Mr. Pettingill, can we have another five portions?” asked Andrey quietly.
“Raspberry or vanilla?” asked Mr. Pettingill, looking up from his book.
“Both, please!”
“One moment.”
Andrey emerged from behind the curtain and went over to their table. What’s going on? Where are they? he wondered.
The empty glasses were on the tray, and the chairs were strewn around the table. But there was nobody there! Not a single soul! Andrey’s arms and legs felt cold. Darn! They’d run off while he was talking to Mr. Pettingill—and he didn’t have any American money! What sort of jokes do these American boys like to play? He could hear the tinkle of spoons from the back. They were bringing the ice cream!
Andrey made a break for the door. The sales assistant was putting pastries on a glass dish. He couldn’t go through the shop! He looked left, he looked right. The window! Andrey leaped onto the sill, shut his eyes and jumped. His heels slammed into the sidewalk. It was a good thing that he’d only been on the first floor. Now he’d have to run as fast as he could!
He opened his eyes. There was no sidewalk, no candy store, and no Rivermouth. He was standing in front of the bookcase holding a book. He looked down at the cover: TOM BAILEY: THE STORY OF A BAD BOY. He must have taken this one down instead of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
“Oh dear,” sighed Andrey. “Some friends they turned out to be!” All the same he still wanted to tell them about Leningrad, the Neva, and the White Nights. It would have been better to visit St. Petersburg and Tom Sawyer.
* * *
“So how did you and Tom get on at Cardiff Hill?” asked Papa when he got back from work.
“We didn’t,” said Andrey. “I ended up in Rivermouth by mistake and met Tom Bailey. Phil Adams, Charley Marden and Pepper too. They were awful. They invited me to a candy store to eat ice cream, but then they ran away.”
“Ah, so you’ve been in Mr. Pettingill’s candy store. I went there too!” smiled Papa.
“And you had ice cream with them?” asked Andrey in astonishment.
“Of course. But that was a long time, maybe twenty years, ago. And they blew me off too!”
“Did you jump out the window?” asked Andrey.
“I did,” said Papa. “That was one of my favourite books as a child. I got it as a gift when I was in about third or fourth grade, just like you. The book’s made it this far, and now it’s yours. You met my old pals. Don’t be mad at them, they’re good boys. They just get bored in perfect little Rivermouth, so they pull all sorts of pranks. You’ve got it good. They and their parents pray before breakfast every day. They just write out boring lines and cram pointless Latin in school. They go home and it’s just the same: ‘You can’t go in there, don’t touch this, remember your parents are gentlefolk so mind you’re only friends with good boys.’ That’s why they pull pranks: to make life a bit more fun. You’re a lucky boy in comparison with them, Andrey.”
* * *
I got the books mixed up by accident last time, thought Andrey. But what if I just pick a book at random this time? I could close my eyes, take a book down and, without looking what it’s called, read a few lines from the middle. I wonder what would happen?
He stood by the open bookcase and looked at all the different coloured spines. How about this one with the machine gun belt on the cover? He took the book down, opened it to the middle, and began to read:
“‘Off I went. Nobody did a thing. I don’t know whether it’s because I was wearing a black Cossack hat or because nobody even noticed me. I suddenly saw someone waving to me from the furthest window. Vaska! It was Vaska! Just as filthy and beaten up as yesterday, but now his bruises had turned green and yellow. His head and shoulders were poking out the window. He was waving: ‘Go away!’”
The books slid to one side and Andrey, without taking his eyes off the page, stepped into the case.
One!
Two!
Three!
A dusty street. White houses with red tiled roofs. Gardens behind them. The branches of the apple trees bending under the weight of red and yellow fruit. Some were even propped up so they wouldn’t fall. There were pears and thickets of dark, deep blue prunes. Every house had a little porch. Girls wearing long skirts covering high boots and red and blue-flowered tops sat on the steps. Lads in blue, yellow and brown shirts covered in buttons and bobbles sat on the railings. They chewed seeds, spitting the husks out to one side, and joked with the girls.
Andrey walked down the street, staring at the houses, gardens, boys and girls. What was this? Where had he landed?
The street came to an end by a big white house. It had a big porch. There were twenty or so people of all ages sitting on the railings and the steps. One old man was wearing Cherkessian dress. He had a beshmet with shiny cartridges and bullets slung across his chest, a white-handled dagger in a gilded sheath at his waist, and a shaggy black hat.
The old man was waving his hands and explaining something. Everybody was listening intently. He must have been in charge.
Andrey stopped and stared at the old man. There was a little blue sign at the door. Something was written on it: “AREA DIRECTORATE.” Where was he? When was this? And where?
Suddenly a heavy hand clapped him on the shoulder.
“Don’t budge, laddie boy! I know you!”
Andrey jumped and looked up. A burly, black-bearded Cossack in a shaggy hat just like the old man’s was standing over him.
“Off we go, quick march, laddie!”
The Cossack seized Andrey by the collar and dragged him up the stairs onto the porch. Everybody got up and watched. Andrey managed to wriggle free.
“Hey, who do you think you are? You can’t do that!”
“Quick march, laddie, keep going!”
Andrey had barely managed to catch his breath when he found himself in a short, dark corridor. The bearded man shoved him through a door and followed him into a big room. There was a desk in the middle, and piles of rifles stood along the walls.
“Your health, Ataman,” said the bearded man as he pushed Andrey toward the desk. At the desk a pockmarked, bald man was smoking a pipe.
“Greetings, Polikarp Semenovich,” he said without getting up. “Who’ve you brought, then?”
“A Bolshevik spy.”
“Well, well,” said the pockmarked man, squinting at Andrey. “He’s barely out of his mother’s arms and he’s already spying!”
Oh no, thought Andrey, I’m in deep trouble now! I need to get out of it somehow, I have to say something…
“Please let me go,” he pleaded, “I’m innocent. I’m only here by accident…”
“Well, well,” the pockmarked man laughed. “Everyone ends up here by accident. Nobody ever seems to arrive on purpose. And where are you from?”
“I’m from Leningrad. I’m in the third grade at school number 76.”
“What’s that?” The man stood up. His eyes opened wide. “Le-nin-grad? The Bolsheviks have already named a town after him? Well, thank you, Polikarp Semenovich. You’ve got us a bigwig.”
The bearded man clicked his heels to show his gratitude.
“I’d seen the lad before. He’s in the same gang as yesterday’s boy.”
“Which one?” asked the pockmarked man. “The one that bit Sidor Porfirych’s finger? Vicious little sod. Bring the other one. They might as well say hello!”
The bearded man did an about-turn and left. The Ataman sat at his desk and puffed at his pipe. The sour tobacco smoke scratched Andrey’s throat. He could barely stop himself sneezing. A minute or two later the bearded man came back into the room. He was dragging a boy in great oversized boots and an enormous jacket that was almost like an overcoat. The boy’s face was filthy, and he had a black eye. In one hand he was clutching the sleeve of his jacket, which had been torn off, and in the other he was holding up his trousers.
“Do you know him?” asked the Ataman, pointing at Andrey.
The boy turned around and looked up at Andrey.
“No.”
“Well, then. He’s come to pay a visit, and you, you fool, are turning him away. That’s not on. You’ll offend your friend. He’s worried about you. He says you’re from the same Bolshevik unit.”
The boy flinched and turned to look at Andrey.
“That’s right,” said the Ataman. “You’ve got big ideas. But you can’t hide them from us.”
“We know all about you,” added the bearded man.
The boy went pale and blinked. Andrey couldn’t hold back. He darted over to the desk.
“Why are you lying?!” he shouted right into the Ataman’s pockmarked face. “I didn’t say anything to you! I didn’t tell you about any units, and I don’t know this boy at all! I got here by accident. I just opened the book to the wrong page!”
The Ataman leaned back in his chair and smirked, saying, “You little whelp! What a bookworm! He reads and everything. He’s a spy! Stick them both in the cooler, Polikarp Semenovich.”
The bearded man grabbed both boys by their collars and, kneeing them both, led them from the room. There was a long clapboard barn in the courtyard. It was guarded by a Cossack with a long forelock and a rifle.
“Give our guests a good welcome, Spiridon!” said the bearded man.
The Cossack threw his rifle over his shoulder, got a key out of his trousers, and put the key into an enormous rusty lock. He kicked the door and it creaked open. A stale smell came out of the born. “In you get!” bellowed the bearded man. He pushed the boys into the barn.
“Mama!” wailed Andrey as he fell into the darkness. His forehead hit something hard. His eyes were brimming up.
“Ma—!” he screamed. He woke up. He was at home. The bookcase doors were open. He could see the dense rows of books. He looked around furtively. The bearded man was nowhere to be seen. All was quiet. He could hear the alarm clock quickly ticking away the seconds in the next room. And here was his satchel with his schoolbooks. He’d thrown it on the floor by the door.
That was a close one, thought Andrey. Any longer and I wouldn’t have got away. I suppose I oughtn’t to take books at random anymore. I’ll always need to look what they’re about. He looked at the book’s cover. It was The Youth Army by Grigory Miroshnichenko.
The front door’s lock clicked. Mama was home. Andrey threw himself at her.
“Mama! I almost got shot by some Cossacks!”
“Oh, you gave me a fright, Andrey!” said Mama as she took her coat off. “What Cossacks? What happened?”
“The tsar’s Cossacks, “ said Andrey. “They almost got me and another boy. One of them had such a big beard. And the other was an Ataman. He was all pockmarked and bald. The bearded one called me a Bolshevik spy, and the other one sent us both to the cooler—”
“What a tale, Andrey” said Mama in alarm. “Where did all of this go on?”
“In the bookcase!” said Andrey.
“Which bookcase is that?”
“Ours! If you get out a book and read a few pages the bookcase becomes empty, then you can go in it and travel anywhere you want.”
“Did you work too hard today?” Mama’s eyes were full of surprise. “How many classes did you have?”
“Four.”
“Have you been home long?”
“I’m not sure. As soon as I got here I went traveling off to the Cossacks. I didn’t know I’d end up there. I just opened a book at rand—”
“How many times have I told your father you’re too young to read those books?” sighed Mama. “And you do have such an imagination!”
“Mama, no, I’m not too young. Do you know where else I’ve been? To St. Petersburg to see Tom Sawyer, and to Rivermouth to see Tom Bailey, and today I just picked a book at random and ended up with the Cossacks.”
“I’m going to have a talk with your father. I’m afraid we’ll forbid you to read books from the case,” said Mama.
“He won’t do that!” said Andrey confidently. “He said that I understand things now and that he likes that.”
“Your father is like a child himself,” said Mama. “He doesn’t know what he’s playing with.”
“It’s not a game, Mama! It’s all true!”
Mama didn’t answer. She went into the kitchen.
That was a mistake, thought Andrey, I shouldn’t have told her anything.
* * *
Mama and Papa had their talk that evening. Andrey could hear their voices from behind the kitchen door.
“What are these trips in the bookcase all about?” asked Mama.
“Nothing in particular,” said Papa. “I just showed him a time machine behind the books. I taught him how to start the machine, then we went to Africa. We saw a lion and some tauracos—they’re very rare.”
“You love make believe too much, Viktor, and now you’re encouraging the boy. He’s still too young…”
“Playing make believe is one of the best things somebody can do, Valya,” said Papa. “Let him do it. He’s at the age when he should be buried in books.”
“But he’s reading books that are too old for him!”
“Don’t worry. If he understands what’s happening in the book it means he’s old enough.”
“He gave me a real scare today. He said he was almost shot by some Cossacks!”
Papa laughed. “Good lad! I’d have loved to be there!”
“Off with you, then, and leave me to it in the kitchen,” said Mama. She sounded hurt. “I wanted to have a serious talk and you—”
“I’m dead serious,” said Papa.
* * *
“Right then, Andrey,” said Papa, sitting down at the table where Andrey was doing his homework. “You have to face the music when you’re playing make believe, my boy. What are you drawing?”
“It’s a Cossack.”
“He looks a bit funny. More like a snowman with a broom.”
“That’s not a broom, it’s a rifle!” said Andrey.
“And what are those sticks?”
“That’s the gun firing, when the smoke comes out the barrel.”
“I see,” said Papa. “You’ve got his face just right. What a fine beard! He looks a real fiend!”
Andrey picked up a blue pencil and started to draw a sword hanging from the Cossack’s waist. It looked like a long fish. He sat back and admired his work: “Perfect!”
“Have you done your homework?” asked Papa.
“Ages ago.”
“Fancy watching television, then?”
“I can’t, I’m busy,” said Andrey. “I need to know what happens to the boy in The Youth Army. I need to help him.”
“What boy are you talking about?”
“The boy who was in the barn with me.”
“Okay,” said Papa. “And how do you plan to help him?”
“We’ll think up a way to escape.”
“You’re a good boy, Andrey!” laughed Papa. “Of course you must help! You must!”
After dinner Andrey fired up the machine. He knew he’d end up at the Cossacks’ base in that cold barn and that the scary bearded Cossack might come at any moment. But he wasn’t afraid. When the back wall of the bookcase descended into the darkness, he clenched his teeth and took a step forward.
His eyes quickly got used to the gloom in the barn. He could see the other boy. He was sitting by the wall with his chin on his knees. He was so small and skinny, and his head was almost completely swallowed up by his enormous jacket.
Andrey took a seat on the ground beside him.
“What’s your name?” whispered Andrey.
“Vaska,” quietly muttered the boy. “Yours?”
“Andrey. Why have they put you in here?”
“Because I had a fight with the Cossack lads.”
“With grown-ups?” Andrey was amazed.
“What? No, with boys. The grown-ups would give you such a crack of the whip that you’d fly right off to the station.”
“So you’re not a Cossack?”
“No! We’re from a different town. My father works for the railway. He’s a machinist at the depot.”
“What was that unit the Ataman was talking about? The one he thought we were from?”
“He’s talking absolute tripe, that stupid Ataman,” said Vaska, “How could I be in a unit? Look at me.”
Andrey looked. Vaska didn’t look a bit like a soldier. He was too skinny, and he was very frightened.
“Are you in a unit, then?” asked Vaska after a while.
“I am! I’m in a unit in school! We have lots! One for each grade. And when we put them all together it’s a squad.”
Vaska suddenly grabbed Andrey’s arm.
“Listen, Andrey, don’t say a word about your unit! They’ll ask about it, they’ll try to trick you, they’ll beat you. Just keep quiet! Bite your tongue off if you have to, but not a word! They’ll kill you if they find out. They found my revolver, even though I didn’t have any bullets in it, and now I’ve been here five days.”
“Why do you have a revolver, Vaska?”
“What do you mean, why? We were collecting weapons for the—” the boy suddenly cut himself off.
“What are you afraid of?” asked Andrey. “Don’t worry, I won’t give you away. Pioneer’s honour! Are you in a unit?”
“Well, we just started it,” said Vaska. “There’s only four of us so far. We’re getting some guns and bullets, then we’ll get the Cossacks and the Whites!”
“Super! That’s a great idea!”
Andrey moved closer to Vaska and put his arm around the boy’s shoulder. “Listen up, Vaska,” he said, “soon there won’t be any Whites in the Soviet Union. None at all. They’ll lose the Civil War.”
“For the love of God be quiet! Imagine if that Cossack outside hears you! How do you know they’ll lose?” Vaska squeezed Andrey’s mouth shut. He was terrified.
“They told us all about it in school.”
“That’s quite something!” delightedly whispered Vaska.
“There won’t be any more rich people or poor people. Everyone will be equal. Okay? And everyone will be able to go to school. And everyone will have a job!”
“Amazing!” said Vaska. “Uncle Sabbutin told us all about it. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘we’ll get rid of all these rich folk and start a new life. We’ll build a school in the village…’”
“Who’s Uncle Sabbutin?”
“A battery commander I know. He’s fighting with the Reds in Kursavka. He’s a Bolshevik.”
Vaska looked at Andrey proudly. He stuck his hand into his jacket lining and pulled out something small and shiny: “Look what I’ve got.” Andrey peered down at Vaska’s palm. He could see a scuffed little Red Army star.
“A cavalryman gave that to me when our lot were leaving the village. As soon as they get rid of the Whites I’ll pin it on my shirt again.” Vaska blew on the star, wiped it, and hid it back into his jacket.
“All our Octoberists wear those,” said Andrey.
Vaska thought for a moment, then gave Andrey a disbelieving look: “But where are you from exactly?”
“The Soviet Union.”
“And…what’s the Soviet Union?”
“You’re so strange! That’s what the country was called after the Revolution.”
Vaska thought to himself again. “And what’s this word, Sawviet?” he asked.
“It’ll take a long time to explain.”
“We’ve got all night. Please tell me.”
“It really is a long story,” said Andrey. “So if we want to get out of here…”
“But where would we go?”
“To your friends. Then I’ll tell you all about what happens after the Revolution.”
“We could hide out at Ivan Vasilevich’s. The Cossacks don’t pay him much attention,” murmured Vaska.
“Then let’s escape!”
“We could get out through the roof,” said Andrey, “or maybe dig a trench.”
“Not a chance,” said Vaska. “We’re going to go right through the door.”
“But how?”
“Easy. The guard will bring us some water soon. It’ll be the one with the big forelock, Spiridon. He brings a bucket to drink from for the night. As soon as he opens the door, I’m going to tackle him, and you give him a shove in the chest. As hard as you possibly can. He’ll fall over, and we’ll make a dash for the station. Don’t worry about me, I’ll make it, so just you shove him as hard as you can. He’s a big fellow. Got it?”
“Got it. How do we get to the station?”
Vaska gave him detailed directions. They spent a whole hour working out their plan to attack the Cossack, then Vaska said:
“This is it! Shh! He’ll be here any moment!”
They stole up to the barn door. Vaska stood right by the hinges, and Andrey was just beside him. The minutes dragged on. Andrey flinched at the slightest sound. What if they didn’t manage to knock the Cossack over? What then?
At last there was a tinkling in the courtyard, followed by the sound of heavy steps. Someone stopped by the barn door and began to turn the key in the lock. Vaska motioned to him to get ready. Andrey crouched down and tensed himself up. His heart was pumping. The pressure was making his ears ring.
The lock creaked and the door slowly swung open. A bucket was thrust into the barn. The Cossack Spiridon followed.
“Hey, spies! You alive?” he shouted, peering into the darkness.
A grey shadow threw itself at Spiridon: Vaska! Andrey took a couple of steps and shoved Spiridon in the chest. He hit him so hard that his fingers cracked. The bucket clattered into the ground, soaking his legs with water.
“Ooooof!” The Cossack’s legs flew into the air over Vaska’s head. His sword clanged as it hit the ground, and his hat rolled away.
“Run!” shouted Vaska. They tore off in different directions.
Andrey ran past the Directorate, across the street and into an alleyway, just like Vaska had told him to.
Two gunshots rang out behind him. “Get them! Catch them!” Spiridon had come to and was firing into the air. Andrey heard some quick, soft steps behind him. Somebody was catching up. He looked around. A Cossack in a white Cherkessian hat and coat was headed right for him. In the twilight the little white figure looked like a ghost. The Cossack was holding a glimmering little dagger.
They’ve got me now! thought Andrey. He was terrified, but right here at the end of the alley he could see the open bookcase. What a stroke of luck—right on time! Panting heavily, he raced into the case just as the wall closed and sealed him off from the Cossack.
* * *
They had meant to go on a trip into the country on Sunday, but when they woke up it was cloudy and rainy.
Papa was fixing an electric iron in the kitchen. Andrey sat next to him moping.
“Papa, can I visit some Indians?”
“Why Indians?” asked Papa.
“Well, Tom Sawyer told me about the Indians. He wanted to run away to live with them, but then he decided it’d be better to be a pirate. I don’t want to be a pirate. I want to learn about Indians, but you don’t have any books about them.”
“You can’t have looked very hard,” said Papa. “Hold on, I’ll find one.”
Papa wiped his hands, took Andrey into the living room and got a dark brown book out of the bookcase. A bow and three arrows—one blue, one white, and one green—were on the spine.
“Here’s a book about Indians in Canada.”
“Sat-Okh. The Land of Salt Rocks,” read Andrey. “Papa, who’s Sat-Okh?”
“You’ll see. Fancy a trip to Canada?”
“I do! Will you come too?”
“I’m a bit busy. And isn’t it more fun when you go on your own?”
“It is more fun that way.”
“Off you go then!”
Andrey opened the book and began to read. He didn’t even notice how he stepped into the bookcase, how the doors slammed shut and the back wall lowered to the ground.
…He woke up in a glade in a thick, dark forest. Columns of enormous trees soared into the sky so you couldn’t see the sun. The sunlight only touched their very tops. Bright clouds floated past them.
A small fire burned in the middle of the glade. Three boys in embroidered grey jackets and red-tasselled trousers stood around the fire. Andrey thought they must be girls at first, because their shiny black hair was so long. One of the boys even had his hair in two plaits that came down to his chest. All three boys were carrying bows and had knives in leather sheaths at their waists.
Andrey watched one of the boys take an arrow from the quiver on his back and notch it onto his bow. He spread his legs wide, took aim and drew the bow. \
What’s he firing at? wondered Andrey. He looked about the trees and the glade. There was nothing to shoot at in the trees. But the boy was carefully finding his target. His two friends intently followed his every motion.
Whap! The bowstring snapped forward. The bright arrow flew through the air and disappeared into some bushes on the edge of the glade. Andrey only now saw it: a deer’s head poking out the bushes.
Why doesn’t the deer run? Isn’t he afraid? thought Andrey. A second arrow whistled past and struck the deer between the eyes. Aha! It’s not real—it’s just for target practice! guessed Andrey. I wonder what it’s made from?
The little Indian who’d hit the deer didn’t whoop for joy or run to get his arrow. He just signed something to the others and stepped to one side. The second shooter took his place.
This one shot quicker.
One! And the first arrow hit the deer’s eyes.
Two! The second landed next to the first shooter’s arrow.
“Amazing!” shouted Andrey. “Brilliant!” The three Indians turned around as one. For a moment they and Andrey simply stared at each other. Then the first shooter raised his right hang as if to greet Andrey. The second shooter put his right hand to his chest and looked at Andrey inquisitively.
What does that mean? thought Andrey. What do they want from me, and why aren’t they saying anything? Or are they deaf?
The third Indian slung his bow across his back, went up to Andrey and ran his fingers along Andrey’s shirtsleeve.
“White man,” he said. “Where are you from? What do you want in our forest?”
“I don’t want anything,” said Andrey. “I’ve come to have a look—”
“What do you want to see, white man?”
“Well…how you hunt…how you ride horses…how you live…”
The Indians looked at one another and began to make rapid signals at each other with their hands.
“Is this how you talk?” asked Andrey.
“This is the language of the hunter,” said the second shooter. “When we’re in the forest we talk like this so the birds and the beasts can’t hear us.”
“Amazing!” exclaimed Andrey. “And you can say anything you like with your hands?”
“Anything.”
“And you understand everything?”
“Everything. They teach us when we’re still little.”
“What were you talking about just now?”
“We decided that we should take you to our teacher in the camp.”
“So you have schools and teachers too?” Andrey was surprised.
“That’s right.”
“Where’s your camp?”
“Not far from here, by the river.”
One of the Indians darted into the bushes and plucked the arrows out of the deer’s head. He put his arrow in its quiver and gave the other two to the first shooter. Andrey so desperately wanted to have a go at firing a real Indian bow, but he was shy to ask. These young Indians seemed so serious. They seemed more like grown-ups.
The boys put their boys in special covers, threw them over their shoulders and headed off into the undergrowth along a barely visible path. One of them turned around and made a sign to Andrey: follow us.
They silently sped along the path. Andrey could barely keep up. He tripped over invisible winding roots, bumped into bushes, and rustled the leaves. The Indian at the back kept turning around to look at him in annoyance.
After ten minutes they came out onto the banks of a wide river. Andrey at once spotted some triangular teepees amongst the trees and a fleet of colourful canoes on the sand by the water. The boys arrived at another glade. Andrey found himself by a big grey teepee with a bird that looked like an owl drawn on the side. An old man came out of the teepee. The boys raised their hands in greeting. He did the same, then his gaze fell on Andrey.
“White boy, if you’re my friends’ friend and have come in peace, then my teepee is your teepee,” he said.
“I have come in peace, Uncle,” said Andrey. “I just want to see how you live and spend time with you.”
The Indian chuckled when he heard the unfamiliar word “Uncle,” but his face quickly became serious and stern again.
“Are you a friend of my young friends, white boy?” he asked again.
Andrey looked over at the boys. The first shooter put his hand to his chest:
“Father and teacher Big Deer, he came to us in the forest and watched as fire at the Caribou’s head. He wants to stay with us. Will you permit him to stay?”
Big Deer approached Andrey, placed his heavy hand on Andrey’s head and turned his face toward him:
“Do you want to learn with my young friends? Do you want to learn the language of the forest, to understand the birds and the beasts, to hunt wild goats with us in the mountains and to become a true warrior?”
“I do,” said Andrey.
“Did you think hard before you came here? Are you sure you’re ready?”
“I am,” whispered Andrey.
“Then we accept!” said Big Deer. “Little Beaver, Long Belt and Quick Moccasin, he will stay in your teepee. I have spoken.” He turned around and went back into his tent.
“You’re our brother now,” said Little Beaver, who’d been the first shooter, to Andrey. He took Andrey to a teepee right on the edge of the glade. Long Belt and Quick Moccasin followed.
“This is your home,” said Beaver as he drew back the triangular leather flap. “Enter.”
Andrey had to stoop as he went inside. The floor was covered in fresh green foliage, and animal skins lay on the ground. Three enormous bales of hay tied together were placed against the walls. Hunting bags, bows, quivers, arrows, kettles, and bunches of sweet-smelling grass hung from the teepee’s poles. A pyramid of dry branches and birch bark covered a shallow pit in the centre of the floor. Long Belt knelt down and lit a fire.
Quick Moccasin took a chunk of fresh meat from a yellow birchbark box. He cut it into chunks and gave it to the others. Little Beaver and Long Belt slid the chunks onto some arrows, sat down at the fire and begin to cook the meat. The teepee was filled with a delicious smell.
Andrey sat down next to Little Beaver and watched the meat hiss and turn brown. He liked how the Indians did everything quietly, carefully and seriously. They didn’t joke or argue. Everyone knew what they were supposed to do.
When the meat was almost cooked, Beaver took some frybread out of a leather bag. He broke it into four equal parts, skewered each piece on an arrow with some meat, and handed the arrows out. He said:
“Eat, my friends, this is mountain goat meat. May the Spirit of the Forest drive many more goats toward our hunting trails!”
Everybody began to eat. Andrey had never tasted such tasty, succulent, smoky meat! He finished his portion much quicker than Moccasin and Long Belt. As he was finishing his hunk of bread, he asked:
“How do you say ‘bread’ in your language?”
“Bannock,” said Beaver.
“Did you hunt the goat yourself?”
The others looked at Andrey in astonishment.
“Yesterday evening Quick Moccasin killed it by Jumping Deer Cliff. If he hadn’t killed it we would have no dinner.”
“You mean you’d just go to bed hungry?”
“Yes. If we hadn’t killed the killed it would mean we were bad hunters. And we wouldn’t have deserved food. We’d just have had the bannock.”
“And nobody at all gives you food, even if they hunted something?”
“We wouldn’t take their meat even if they offered it. We would be disgraced,” said Moccasin. “A true hunter catches everything himself.”
Beaver fetched a birchbark bucket out from behind some sacks. He passed it around the circle. The bucket was filled with cold, delicious water. Each of the boys swigged a few mouthfuls.
“Why do you have names like Quick Moccasin, Long Belt, and Little Beaver? Don’t you have surnames?” asked Andrey.
“What’s a surname?” asked Long Belt.
“It’s…” Andrey struggled for words. “Well, it’s like, for example, I’m Andrey Vasilyev. My fahter’s name is Viktor. That means I’m Andrey Viktorovich Vasilyev. Does that make sense?”
“That’s a lot of words,” said Long Belt. “What did you do to get your name? And what’s an Andrey?”
“Well…Andrey…it’s just an ordinary word. It was chosen for me when I was born. Mama and Papa wanted to call me that, so they did.”
The Indians looked back and forth then burst out laughing.
“Right away when you were born?” asked Moccasin.
“Yes.”
The Indians laughed again. Andrey was hurt.
“But you don’t get yours like that?” Andrey asked. “Why did your parents call you Quick Moccasin?”
“They didn’t call me anything. I still don’t have a real name yet.”
“What do you mean? What about ‘Moccasin’?”
“That’s not a real name. It’s a kind of nickname. The boys call me that because nobody can catch me when I run. But I’ll get a real name soon.”
“And what about Long Belt?”
“That’s a nickname too. When he was little he kept running off into the forest, quick as a grey hare! His mother tied him to a tree with a long belt so he wouldn’t get lost or eaten by a wolverine or a wolf.”
The boys all laughed.
“And Little Beaver’s the same?”
“No. Little Beaver’s his real name. He got it last year when he saved two baby beavers from a fire. He almost got trapped in the fire himself.”
“I burned my arm,” said Beaver. He lifted his sleeve to reveal a big white scar by his elbow.
“Where are the baby beavers now?” asked Andrey.
“They’re still alive. They’re already grown up. I’ll show them to you later.”
“But what happens if you don’t perform a great deed? What would you be called then? Would they use your nickname forever?”
The Indians glanced back and forth at each other again. Andrey’s question seemed very odd to them.
“But…what if? …then what?” said Andrey.
Beaver shrugged.
“That never happens,” said Long Belt. “At least I don’t remember it.”
“Me neither,” said Moccasin.
“But what if it’s really impossible to do something great?” Andrey kept at it. “Then what?”
“People would call you Lost Face and laugh at you. Life would be hard. You would never be a true warrior or hunter.”
The fire was burning out. Only a few glimmering embers were left. Black shadows stole across the teepee’s walls. Moccasin threw a dry branch onto the fire. It sparked alight. The shadows leapt across the walls.
“Time to sleep,” said Little Beaver. “Tomorrow we will go to Rapid Flowing Cliff to hunt. The boys moved the bays of hale to one side and spread the wolf and deer skins out to make soft beds. They made one for Andrey too.
Sleeping in the dark teepee, breathing in the pleasant smell of the branches on the floor and listening to the rustle of the trees was so cozy. Andrey couldn’t stop thinking of tomorrow’s hunt! He’d never been so comfy. When the last ember turned to ashes, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was awoken by a piercing shriek. Big Deer was standing at the entrance to the teepee, blowing into a bone whistle. Andrey wanted to spend just a few more minutes lying on the warm skins, but the boys were already up. It wouldn’t be fair to make them wait, so he got up too. All four of them ran out into the cold morning air. They were only wearing trousers. Andrey felt the cold straight away. His body was covered in goose bumps all over.
A white fog hung over the glade and heavy dew covered the grass. Andrey would see some figures moving in the fog. More boys were coming out of the other teepees.
“Are we doing morning gymnastics?” asked Andrey, rubbing his shoulders with his hands.
“What are gymnastics?” asked Little Beaver.
Andrey showed him a few exercises that he and his father would do. The Indians giggled.
“Only silly little squirrels jump like that!” said Long Belt. “Do all the white people do it too?”
Andrey was hurt again.
“Then how do you jump in the mornings?”
They were interrupted when Big Deer gave another blast of his whistle. The Indians sprinted off toward the river, racing either other on the way. Andrey set off in hot pursuit. He warmed up, the goose bumps went away, and he even began to get hot. They ran to a spot where a great cliff towered over the water. It looked like an old man hunched over. The boys climbed up the old man’s back, tore off their trousers, and leaped into the water. Andrey meant to jump, but when he got to the cliff edge he shut his eyes—the cliff rose up so steeply that looking down, let alone jumping, was very scary. Little white wisps of fog floated over the water. The Indians were chattering and swimming around. Dark heads would sometimes pop up out of the water by the cliff’s foot.
I can’t swim! thought Andrey, stepping away from the edge. What would happen if I jumped? Goose bumps broke out all over his body again. Behind him someone gave a cry:
“Go on!”
Something pushed Andrey in the back. Before he even managed to scream, he was spinning through the air. He struck the water with a great big splash. He tried to catch his breath. His whole body seized up. He desperately tried to wave his arms and flap his legs. “MA—” cried Andrey. His head disappeared into the icy depths. I’m drowning! he thought.
He watched white bubbles flying upwards. Beneath was only a grey darkness. He floated downward. There was no air. A thundering sound filled his ears. Andrey opened his mouth wide, meaning to cry “Save me!” But no sound came out. Water flooded into his mouth.
Andrey opened his eyes on the sandy riverbank. Beaver, Belt and Moccasin were holding his arms and legs. Another fair-haired boy sat with them. Andrey wanted to sit up, but as soon as he tried to move his head, the river, the forest and the boys began to swim before his eyes. The fair-haired boy turned him onto his stomach and clapped him hard on the back. He felt a little better and shifted onto his side. His body was shaking, as if he was freezing cold. The fair-haired boy began to rub his shoulders and legs. The shaking stopped and he felt much better, but there was still a ringing in his ears. Andrey weakly smiled and muttered:
“I almost drowned, you see…”
The fair-haired boy placed his hand on Andrey’s neck.
“I didn’t know you can’t swim.”
“So it was you that pushed me in?”
“It was.”
“You idiot! Is that normal here?”
“I didn’t know,” said the boy. “We’re all taught to swim when we’re three. I thought that you were just afraid of the water.”
Andrey felt ashamed: “Three years old! I’m nine and I can’t even stay afloat…”
“It’s okay, it doesn’t matter…” he muttered.
“Would you like to be my brother?” said the boy.
“Me?”
“Yes! What’s your name? Do you have a real one already?”
“My name’s Sat Okh, or Long Feather.” The boy proudly held his head high.
“Okay, let’s be friends,” said Andrey.
The fair-haired boy offered his hand: “You’ll be my brother, Andrey. My teepee shall always be your teepee, my meat shall always be your meat. When you need help, you may call. I will come.”
“Thank you, Sat Okh. If I can help you, I will.”
Holding hands, they fell silent for a while.
“Why do you have fair hair? You’re a bit different from the other Indians, aren’t you?” asked Andrey.
“My mother is a white woman,” explained Sat Okh.
“A white woman?” Andrey exclaimed. “How did she end up here?”
“It’s a long story. Too long to tell now. But I’ll tell you some other time.?
I should give him a gift, my pocket knife with two blades. It’s just like a hunting knife, thought Andrey.
There was another whistle from the glade. Big Deer was signaling the end of the swimming. The boys got dressed and ran back to the camp.
The sun rose brightly over the pine trees.
* * *
After breakfast they sat around a fire and listened to their teacher.
“Today you’ll hike to the Rapid Flowing Cliffs,” said Big Deer. “You’ll all hunt together. May the forest be a big brother and a second home to you. If you treat him as a brother he will always give you food and shelter. Don’t waste your arrows. A true hunter notches his bow only when he sees worthy prey. And do not forget to thank the Spirit of the Forest if he sends you a goat or a rabbit. I have spoken.”
Big Deer took a small bow and leather quiver that had been hanging on the teepee’s struts. He offered them to Andrey.
“Take this bow, white boy, brother of my young friends. May its string never become weak. May the arrows you fire from it sing a song of fortune.”
Andrey slung the quiver over his shoulder and took the bow with both hands.
“Thank you, Big Deer,” he said.
Oh, how we wanted to run out of the teepee, put an arrow to the boy and fire it—even if it was just at a tree! But the Indians were carefully preparing for the hunt, and Andrey didn’t want to show them how impatient he was. Little Beaver took some embroidered moccasins out of his sleeping place and threw them over to Andrey.
“Put these on. You won’t get far in the forest with those shoes.”
Andrey slipped his boots off and slid the comfy Indian shoes, which were as light as slippers, onto his feat. Long Belt gave him a tasselled leather jacket.
Big Deer checked that the hunters were ready: “Go.”
The boys left the teepee, crossed the glade, and disappeared into the undergrowth. Little Beaver led the way. Andrey had already noticed that the other boys followed him, since he was the elder. As soon as the entered the forest all conversation stopped. They communicated with hand signals. Andrey didn’t understand what they were saying. He thought that he ought to learn the signs as soon as he had the chance. They walked for a long time.
The sun rose high over the treetops. The forest air became heavy and stuffy. Andrey was sweating a lot. He wanted to sit on one of the rocks and relax, but the Indians didn’t stop. Andrey desperately hurried to keep up.
A cloud of mosquitoes buzzed overhead. They stuck to his wet face. His arms hurt as they bit. Soon his neck was swelling up and starting to itch. What he wouldn’t have given for a river or a lake! To throw off his clothes, dive into the chilly water, and cool his body off! But there were no rivers.
The forest became thicker and thicker, and it was more and more difficult to get through the spiky bushes. Long Belt took out a tomahawk and chopped back the most thorny branches as he went.
It suddenly became cooler. The mosquitoes began to disappear. Andrey could hear the roar of water. The trees parted. The boys were in a stony clearing by the foot of a high cliff. A waterfall rushed downward in a foaming white column. A little semicircular lake lay at the base of the cliff.
“Oof!” sighed Andrey as he set his bow and quiver on the ground and raced into the water. He lay by a small stream flowing from the lake and thrust his face into the icy water. The Indians did the same. They sat and relaxed for a few minutes.
“There are many rabbit warrens on that side of the lake,” said Little Beaver. Andrey took aim at a tree trunk on the stream’s bank and tried to draw his bow. He couldn’t pull the string back. It was as solid as a steel bar. It was slipping through his fingers and the arrow was jumping all over the place. Real Indian bows were quite different from the ones you could buy in toy stores in Leningrad. The middle of the bow was thick, and its ends were so tense you could barely bend them.
How does it fire? wondered Andrey.
“Bosh!” the bowstring flew out of his fingers with a hollow sound. The arrow arced sharply into the sky. It hit the ground about twenty paces from the tree. Andrey’s thumb was burning with pain. The Indians laughed. Moccasin fell chortling to the floor and rolled around. Andrey’s cheeks burned. He was so ashamed he felt like running away. His thumb was numb: the bowstring had grazed it, and it was almost bleeding.
Little Beaver went up to Andrey. “Watch,” he said. He notched an arrow on his bow, bent his index finger and hooked the bowstring. He clutched the end of the arrow between his index and middle fingers, and placed his thumb over his index fingers. He braced his legs, raised the bow, and with a smooth motion drew back the string.
Thwaaang! The arrow whizzed into the air and hit the tree trunk at face height.
“Got it?”
“Yes,” said Andrey. He took the bow and did everything just like Little Beaver had, but his arrow shot past the tree and disappeared into the bushes.
Now Long Belt and Quick Moccasin took turns at teaching him: “Look! Do it like this! Watch. …got it?” Their arrows whistled through the air and landed exactly where they’d aimed.
Andrey watched and learned. An hour passed before he managed to hit the tree. This really wasn’t like firing those bendy little arrows that boys in Leningrad love. The Indian boys fired an arrow two-hundred paces with no trouble! Little Beaver said that he could hit a goat at a hundred paces.
At noon they set off across the stream. They stopped on the other side in a clearing littered with rocks from the cliffs.
“Now everybody will hunt for themselves,” said Beaver.
The boys headed in different directions. Andrey wandered amongst the boulders, holding his boy at the ready and scanning every bush and rock for a rabbit. But he didn’t see a thing except a sort of black bird slowly wheeling over the clearing. It was so hot that Andrey wanted to give up and run back to the stream to sip the cold water and lie in the shade again.
He wondered how the Indians were getting on. If only he knew how to follow tracks! He stared hard at the ground but couldn’t see any signs. The grass was just grass, the stones were just stones. Not a sign of rabbit tracks. He didn’t even know what to look for.
Suddenly, right there ahead in the shale, he caught sight of a grey blob hopping around. He looked closer. A rabbit!
The little grey creature ran from one spot to another, stood stock still for a time, and stood up. Then it crossed its front paws over its chest. Andrey froze. The rabbit hopped towards him. It hadn’t spotted the danger. What a stroke of luck! The rabbit was still too far away for Andrey’s arrows. Andrey took cover behind a large boulder and carefully raised his bow. Better not miss! he thought. The rabbit stood up once again, wiggled its ears, looked around, and slowly hopped toward the nearest bush. It sniffed the ground around the bush’s roots and lay down in the shade.
Andrey waited. The rabbit didn’t budge. Was it asleep? Andrey wanted to get a little closer. He crouched down and, trying not to make a sound as he trod on the grass, came out from behind the boulder. The rabbit didn’t notice him moving. Its ears were pressed against its body, and it lay still under the bush.
Andrey managed to steal right up to him—he was so close that he could see the rabbit’s white whiskers and quickly twitching nose. I’ve got him now, he thought. He knelt down, took aim, took a deep breath and, just like Little Beaver had shown him, drew back the bow.
There was a loud bang. The whole clearing shook and a cloud of smoke blew into the air. The stones, the bushes, and the rabbit—which had leapt to its feet—were lost in the grey fog. Andrey’s bow flew out of his hands. He heard his mother’s voice:
“What’s going on?! It’s two o’clock and you’re not asleep!”
Andrey lifted his head. He was on the floor in front of the bookcase. The book was on his knees, and Mama stood over him in a dressing gown. Her face looked very angry.
“Bed! This instant!”
“Mama—”
“Don’t mama me! No more reading in the evenings from now on. I forbid it, you hear me? I forbid it!”
“I’ll do it anyway!” said Andrey.
“We’ll see about that.”
“I will!” Andrey insisted defiantly.
“Give me that book.”
“I won’t!” He clutched the book to his chest.
“Right then! Want me to wake up your father?”
Andrey slowly got up. He put the book back on the shelf and went to the bathroom to clean his teeth. There was no point arguing. The clock on Papa’s desk said it was ten to two.
I wonder if I would’ve got the rabbit? wondered Andrey as he squeezed some toothpaste out of the tube and onto his toothbrush. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll find out tomorrow! I’ll go straight back to Long Belt, Quick Moccasin and Little Beaver when I get back from school. And if Mama tells me off I’ll stay there forever! Honest, I will!”
* * *
Andrey spent the whole day at school daydreaming about the Indians. What a life! Oh, to be in the forest the whole time with no mathematics and no parents! And the boys live like grown-ups and hunt wild goats with their teacher Big Deer. Big Deer was so wonderful too! He probably never tells the boys off. And how patiently they listen to him! It would be tough to get up so early every morning, of course. And—brrrr!—to swim in the cold river. Andrey could almost feel the cold. And then there were the mosquitoes. You could get used to those, mind. Indian school was definitely better than his school. He wouldn’t have to sit there, bent over his desk, writing out lines in his book: “MAMA MEETS MASHA,” “MASHA LOVES MAMA.” He’d just have to listen and remember things.
But did Big Deer really compare to his own teacher, Vera Fedorovna? Andrey looked at Vera Fedorovna and smiled as he pictured her in Indian dress with a bow over her shoulder, wielding a tomahawk. He could see it now: Vera Fedorovna creeping through the hidden forest paths and all his classmates in a chain behind her. Grishka Novikov is at the back wearing his glasses. His sight’s so bad. He’s tripping and falling, tumbling into the bushes, and losing his glasses. Vera Fedorovna tells himm off: “Novikov, don’t fall behind! Novikov, you’re holding everybody up!”
A wild goat hops out onto the path. He pauses. He looks with shock at the class. Vera Fedorovna whispers: “Everybody stop!” She takes an arrow and puts it to her bow. Everybody I looking on. The goat is looking back.
“Wait, I want to play too!” shouts Grishka Novikov, crawling out of the bushes on all-fours.
Vera Fedorovna takes aim. Her arrow flies into the treetops.
The goat doesn’t take its eyes off the arrow. Baaaa!
Andrey’s head fell to the desk as he laughed and laughed. His neighbour, Ira Antonova, poked him in the side, asking “What’s got into you?”
“Why are you laughing, Vasilyev?” demanded Vera Fedorovna. “Stand up!”
Andrey stood up.
“Why are you interrupting me, Vasiley?”
“I’m not interrupting you.”
“How can you say that when everybody is writing and you’re laughing?”
“Vera Fedorovna, do you know how to shoot a bow and arrow?” asked Andrey.
The rest of the class giggled.
“A bow and arrow?” Vera Fedorovna’s eyes suddenly twinkled with delight. “What do you know about bows and arrows, Vasilyev? Come and draw one on the board.”
Andrey traced an arc with the chalk, then a bowstring stretching from one end of the arc to the other.
“What kind of a bow is that?”
“That’s…it’s just an ordinary hunting bow. An Indian one.”
“You’ve drawn a simple bow. Only the very first hunter-gatherers had those. The Indian bows are much more complex. Have you ever seen an Indian bow?”
“I have…”
“And do you remember how it’s made?”
How it’s made? thought Andrey, I didn’t really manage to get a really close look at the one Big Deer gave me. That was Vera Fedorovna for you. How did she know so much about everything?
“Sit down. We can talk about bows another time.”
“Cat got your tongue, did it?” giggled Irka Antonova. Andrey shook his fist at her and turned around.
Beaver, Moccasin and Belt were probably by the falls in the forest again. The trees would be blowing in the wind, and the cold spray would be splashing them in the face. Moccasin would light a fire. Maybe they’d hunt a rabbit or catch some fish, then cook the meat on their arrow tips. Then they’d go back to the camp and the teepee and tell each other tales of their adventures around the fire. Andrey decided he’d go back this very evening: back to his friends and back to the glade, and he’d take a good look at those Indian hunting bows!
* * *
When he got home from school, Andrey forced himself through his homework. The whole time he was trying not to look over at the bookcase. Better to spend a couple of hours on homework now and spend the rest of the evening in the Indian camp.
At last his homework was done. He put his pen down, slid his books into his satchel, and filled out his diary. Everything was complete and he could at last go to Canada.
Andrey opened the bookcase and reached for the book with the colourful arrows on its spine. But the book wasn’t there. It wasn’t on the bottom shelf and it wasn’t on the top shelf. Andrey knelt down and looked under the case. Nothing but Papa’s dumbbells in the corner. He rifled through the shelves again. Maybe Papa had put the book somewhere before he went to work? It had been right there, close to Tom Sawyer. Papa’s bookshelves were very organized, and he was always annoyed when something was out of place. So why had the book gone? How odd. Andrey had put it right there on the middle shelf when Mama had made him go to bed. Where could it have got to? Andrey looked read the books’ names once more. Then once more again. The Land of Salt Rocks had disappeared.
The lock in the front door clicked. Mama was home. Andrey raced over to her.
“Mama, have you seen The Land of Salt Rocks?”
“Have you already had your lunch? I left it on the stove for you. You just need to turn the plate on and heat it up,” said Mama.
Typical. Mama only ever thought about one thing. Now she’d say that he had to eat and then do his homework.
“Mama, I’m not hungry. Honest! I’ll eat with you later—”
“What are you like, Andrey? You do everything backwards! How many times have I told you that you should eat before you work? I’ll have to transfer you to the longer schooldays. At least you’ll get fed that way.”
“I don’t want to switch!” cried Andrey. “Nobody in my class does the long days!”
“If only you were more independent,” sighed Mama.
“I am too independent! What can I do if I’m not hungry? Anyway, I already did my homework!”
“Go out and play,” said Mama. “I’ll make dinner.”
“I don’t want to! I want to visit Sat Okh in Canada! Where’s my book?”
“I’m not giving it to you. No more reading until two in the morning like you did yesterday.”
Aha, so she’d hidden it! That’s why it wasn’t in the bookcase!
“Mama, please give it, please! I won’t stay up ‘til two. Honest I won’t! I’ll just play for a little bit. I’m desperate…”
“I said you’re not getting it, so don’t pester me. I’ll be talking to your father again this evening,” said Mama sternly. She left the kitchen.
Andrey went back into the living room and stopped to look at the bookcase. What would he do? There was no way to get back to Canada. He wouldn’t see Little Beaver, Long Belt or Quick Moccasin. He wouldn’t see the camp or the waterfall, and he’d never find out how hunting bows are made. Andrey wiped away the hot tear rolling down his cheek.
There were still lots of books on the shelves. And behind the book lay the magical machine that he could use to travel wherever he wished.
Stop! he thought to himself. Maybe there would be no Land of Salt Rocks and no Little Beaver, but he still had Tom Sawyer, Charles Marden, and Vaska and the Cossacks. Maybe he could pick at random again…maybe…this one! He took a thick little book down and opened it. What wonderful pictures there were. And what an interesting title: The Black Book and Shvambrania! He wondered what that meant.
Quick, to the machine! Quickly!
One!
Two!!
Three!!!
Somebody grabbed his upper arm hard. Andrey looked up. A tall, heavyset man in a dark blue uniform with gold buttons was standing next to him. The man had a ginger beard parted in the middle and evil, squinting eyes.
“Weeeell, well, weeeeell then. A new one,” he thundered. “To class with you.”
He led Andrey along a long, empty corridor. They passed tall yellow doors. Behind the doors Andrey could hear noises, clapping, and laughter.
“It must be a school,” guessed Andrey, “but it’s not at all like mine. Who’s this man? Why does he have a uniform and stars on his lapels?”
A door opened. The shaven head of a young boy poked out. He saw Andrey and the man in the uniform and squeaked out: “Inspector!” The door slammed, but it was too late. Without releasing his grip on Andrey, the Inspector flung the door open and looked inside.
Rows of shaven-headed boys in identical uniforms with starched collars sat at yellow desks with shiny black lids. They leapt up when they saw the Inspector.
“A class awaiting its teacher must remain silent,” said the Inspector in a soft yet somehow unsettling voice. “Do you think I didn’t see you, Semenov? You get a B for your behaviour. Bring your book to me in the teachers’ room after class.”
The boy who’s looked into the corridor hung his head. The Inspector squinted around at the rest of the class and pushed Andrey toward an aisle on the right: “The third one along, by the window. Don’t forget.”
Andrey went over to the third desk and stood next to a chubby boy who was a whole head taller than him.
“Weeeeeell, well, well, laddies. Enough horseplay? Enough mucking around? Attention! Stepan Gavria, pull that belly in. Hide it! Second year here and you still can’t stand at your desk right, you little scoundrel! Youkreenians, I tell you! Who’s that dumbo over there? Is that you, Tufeld? I’m talking to you, boy, what are you gawping at? You worthless loafer, when I get you, I’ve a good mind to…Well then, you bunch of halfwits, ready for your lesson, are you? Got lazy over the summer and forget everything, did you? Well we’ll soon get you back in shape, you noisy little buggers!”
Andrey had never heard words like that before. He poked his chubby neighbour:
“Why does he keep swearing like that?”
“Quiet!” hissed the boy. “Or he’ll write us up in the Black Book.”
“Werkel! Silence!” bellowed the Inspector. “Two hours. No lunch! What did I say?”
“Two hours. No lunch…” repeated the chubby boy as he shifted from one foot to the other.
Andrey looked around very carefully. The other boys were standing, indifferent and dumb, at their desks. What kind of a school was this?
“You there! New boy!” continued the Inspector. “I’ll say this only once. You’re not in some prep school now, you’re in the Pokrov Men’s Gymnasium. What did I say?”
“In the Pokrov Men’s Gymnasium,” repeated Andrey.
“Weeeeeell then. Stand up! Don’t move a muscle! Don’t make a sound!”
The Inspector left the classroom. A thickset, red-headed man came through the door. He also wore a uniform, but it was so small it looked like it would burst at any moment. His starched collar poked into cheeks so fat they were like a hippo’s. A pair of indifferent little green eyes looked out from under the man’s hairy red eyebrows.
“Oooooh, ‘ippopotamus…” whispered Andrey’s neighbour in an unfamiliar accent.
The teacher put a book on the lectern, stood before the class, and began to snigger:
“Hee hee hee! Relax on your holidays, did you? Welcome back, then—hee hee hee!—welcome back! Sit—hee hee hee!—sit down, sit down.”
The boys took their seats. The teacher sunk into his chair too. A red tuft of hair poked out the top of his head. His sniggering filled the room.
“And now, boys, we—hee hee!—we’ll see what you’ve forgotten over the summer. Aleferenko, up to the board—hee hee hee.”
A tall skinny boy went up to the board and picked up the chalk.
“Draw—hee hee hee!—a triangle.”
Aleferenko began to draw a triangle.
“Is he the mathematics teacher?” whispered Andrey to Werkel.
“He is. Monokhordov is ‘is name.”
“Is he nasty?”
“You bet.”
“Now then, Aleferenko. Hee hee hee!” Monokhordov turned to look at the board. “What’ve you drawn—hee hee hee!—for us, then?”
“It’s a…a…triangle,” answered Aleferenko.
“Now dr—hee hee hee!—draw the hypotenuse of the triangle.”
Aleferenko traced the sides of the triangle with the chalk, but he didn’t mark the hypotenuse. The hypotenuse seemed to be lost on him.
“Hee hee hee! What’s—hee hee—this triangle, then?”
“Huh?” Aleferenko despondently stared at the board. “It’s an ordinary one…a regular triangle…”
“Hee hee! Well then—hee hee hee!—draw me a four-sided triangle.”
Aleferenko began to nervously draw something on the board.
“That’s enough!” said Monokhordov. “Sit down—hee hee hee!—you idiot! Where have you ever—hee hee hee—seen a four-sided triangle? You’ve got a four-sided head. An F for you, hee hee hee!”
What a terrible school! And what an awful teacher! Andrey turned to Werkel and said:
“Hey, are all your teachers this bad?”
“Shhhhhh!” hissed Werkel, “Or we’ll go in the book!”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we’ll go without dinner.”
Eurgh, that would be a drag. Andrey could barely wait for the end of the lesson and all that hee-hee-hee. It felt like nobody knew anything—including the teacher. When the bell rang and Monokhordov left, the class exploded into frantic noise. Some of the pupils tore into the corridor. One of the others went up to the podium, stood up on tippy-toes and burst into song:
“Ohhh, dark night!
Oh, I am afraid!”
A big boy in a tattered shirt sat down next to Andrey and asked, “What’s your name? …What? Vasilev? Mine is Fjutingeich-Tpruntikovsky-Chimparchifarechesalov-Fimin-Trepakovsky. Bet you can’t say it without pausing for breath!”
Andrey couldn’t say it.
“You’ll get it eventually!” promised the boy. “This is my second time in third grade. Where are you from? Do you like eating seed husks? No? You don’t even know what they are? Oho! You’ll soon find out when you go without lunch. Got a smoke? No? Sod that, then.”
He slapped the top of Andrey’s head and ran off into the corridor. A pale boy with big ears took his place.
“Who’s your father? …an engineer? A young and wounded engineer sold fried fish on the pier. What’s that there?” He pointed beneath the desk. Andrey leant in to have a look. The boy grabbed Andrey’s nose and pulled down on it sharply.
“Hey, let me go, you fool!”
“Little fool, little fool, see my money and you’ll droo—hey, what are you snivelling for? You’ll go without your lunch, and you won’t like that, you son of an engineer.”
The boys surrounded Andrey, pushing and pulling him from every side. One of them grabbed a button on his shirt: “Whose is this?”
“It’s mine!” said Andrey.
“If it’s yours, you can have it!” He tore the button right off and thrust it into Andrey’s hand. “And whose is this?” he said as he grabbed the next button.
“I don’t know,” said Andrey.
“So it’s not yours?” He tore the button off and threw it on the floor.
“The Monitor’s coming! It’s Scritchy Scratch!” shouted somebody. The boys ran off.
A little man with a walrus moustache and round, buggy eyes entered the room. He looked at the pupils, who were now at their desks. Then he approach Andrey.
“On your feet!”
Andrey opened his desk and stood up.
“Why is it so noisy in here?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“New boy? Why are you in such a state?” The Monitor pointed his terrible finger at Andrey’s shirt—and motioned toward the holes where his buttons had been.
“It—it wasn’t me,” muttered Andrey. “They…it was…accident…”
“Uniform must be in proper condition. A uniform must be looked after,” said the Monitor in a cruel voice. “Three hours. No lunch. What did I say?”
“Three hours. No lunch.”
“Get out! Into the corridor!”
The boys surrounded Andrey again in the corridor. They jumped around, bent over him, pulled rude faces and ran around him on all fours.
Maybe they’re all mad? wondered Andrey quietly. Somebody struck him so hard in the stomach his eyes began to cloud over.
“Son of an engineer!”
“Oho!”
Andrey’s head was spinning. He grabbed the shirt of the closest boy, pulled him in, and hit him back. Something struck him hard in the legs and he fell to the ground.
“Bundle!”
Screaming, flapping, sweaty bodies piled on top of him. It was hard to breathe. Andrey felt himself starting to pass out.
“Let him go!”
Click. Click. Click. Silence. Andrey was back in the living room. Phew! He looked around the room. Everything was just the same: his satchel, his jacket, and his books on the desk…
* * *
That evening when he was lying in bed and falling asleep, Andrey could just about hear his parents talking.
“I’m not against him travelling in this machine of yours,” said Mama. “But he’s just going all over the place. First America, then the Indians, now this school…his brain must be in such a pickle. We have to give him some direction. For example, if he wants to learn about the Revolution, then let’s choose the most interesting books: The Youth Army, The White Sail, The Old Fortress, I, the Worker’s Son, and so on. And there’s more: he’s not reading the books in order, he’s just picking random bits from the middle. He’ll quickly get bored doing that.”
“Valya, do you remember reading as a child?” asked Papa. “Did you have a special system?”
“Well…alright, I’ll admit I didn’t,” answered Mama after a moment. “But I…”
“…you began by looking at the pictures,” laughed Papa. “Am I right?”
“You’re right. Good pictures are half the book!”
“And when you looked at the pictures, I’ll bet you wanted to know what was going on in the best ones?”
“I did.”
“So you never started at the beginning, you ju—”
“Only sometimes,” objected Mama.
“Okay. Only sometimes. And even today when you buy a book, do you read through the first few pages? I doubt it. You probably don’t even realize it, but you skim a few pages in the middle and judge the whole book by them. We do it without thinking.”
“You’re right, Viktor. But I’m not just reading bits and pieces like Andrey. He’s being so muddled about it. And that won’t do.”
“In my eyes, Valya, you can’t understand everything in one fell swoop. The world isn’t black and white. You have to see the world like it’s a mosaic made of little pieces, then, at the end of the day every piece has its own place.”
“You’re probably right,” said Mama.
“Why did you hide the book about the Indians?”
Mama chuckled.
“I didn’t hide it! I took to have a quick look at it, then I got lost reading it, took it to work and left it there.”
“See?!” laughed Papa. “And you say you’ve got a system!”
* * *
Here’s what happened the next day.
Papa came home from work and, as usual, asked:
“Where did you go today, Andrey?”
“Nowhere yet,” answered Andrey. “I was doing my homework. I had a lot to do for Russian. I spent two hours on it.”
“Did you finish?”
“It’s all done.”
“So where are you thinking of going?”
“I want to visit Robinson on the desert island.”
“Oho, that’s quite the idea! Why do you want to visit Robinson?”
“I wanted to visit the Indians really, but Mama won’t give the book back.”
“She will. You’ll get to visit them again. She was angry that you were reading in the middle of the night. Give her some time to cool off and she’ll give the book back.”
“She’s being so unfair, she’s reading it herself!”
“When she’s done she’ll give it back.”
“That’s why I found a different book, the one about Robinson. I already started reading.”
“Maybe I’ve got time to come with you?” wondered Papa aloud as he glanced at his watch. “I haven’t been on that island for a long time. Here, fetch the book over.”
Andrey went to the next room and spent a long while shuffling papers and opening and closing his desk drawers. He came back, looking a little sheepish.
“Robinson’s gone too...”
“Did you leave it at school?”
“No, I had it here.”
“That’s odd. Think carefully: are you sure you didn’t take it to school?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe,” answered Andrey doubtfully. “Maybe I put it in my satchel by accident then left it somewhere? It’s not in my satchel now. Oh, I did so want to visit the island!”
Papa thought for a moment, then said, “It’s a pity we don’t have the book right here, but we can go all the same, Andrey. Do you remember the line, ‘I could not deliver myself from the waves so as to draw breath’?”
“No, I haven’t got that far yet. My ship’s only just got caught up in the storm.”
“Aha, so you’re still miles away from the island! Listen carefully and I’ll tell you what happens. The crew knows the ship’s about to go down. They get in the lifeboats and cast off. The waves drag one boat away. Another one capsizes and the mariners die. At least, everybody except Robinson. He ends up on an island. Nobody lives there. There’s just birds and wild goats. He spends twenty-eight years there. He builds a house, sows corn, and tames the wild goats.”
“Stop, Papa, don’t spoil it! Let’s go, right to when he gets thrown overboard.”
“I’m not sure if the machine will work without the book. Let’s give it a shot, though,” said Papa as he climbed inside the bookcase. “Right. ‘I could not deliver myself from the waves so as to draw breath…’ I can’t quite remember how it goes then, but I don’t think that matters. Wait: ‘I struck forward against the return of the waves, and felt ground again with my feet.’”
The doors creaked shut and the back wall descended. A salty wave of water struck Andrey’s face. It stung his eyes. He wiped them with his soaking shirtsleeves then looked at the dark green ocean rolling out right up to the horizon before him. The hot sun was blinding, and gulls circled like white sparks on the green background. Their calls sounded like children crying.
Further down the shore waves boiled over into snow-white, foamy crests and broke against the jagged black cliffs before roaring up the sand toward Andrey then harmlessly retreating. Whoooosh…wwwwhhhhhooooosh…
“Look, look, the machine’s worked without the book!” exclaimed Papa. He was shielding his eyes from the sun as he stood right there next to Andrey on the shore. “This, Andrey, is Robinson Crusoe’s island. It’s called Juan Fernandes. Stunning, isn’t it?”
“It is!” said Andrey. “Where does Robinson live?”
“Just in from the shore, in a forest, in a nice little hut surrounded by a fence made from logs. It’s a real fortress!”
“Can we go?” said Andrey.
“Let’s. But when we get close to the hut, we’ll have to call out loud to let him know we’re coming. Otherwise he’ll take fright and shoot at us. He hasn’t seen any other people for a long while.”
They climbed up the sandy beach and set off into the forest. Andrey immediately spotted a tribe of monkeys who were frantically swinging about in the tree canopy. Then he saw a big green parrot sitting on a big branch and looking very wise.
“Poll-y!” said the parrot as Andrey and Papa went by. “Polly! Robin! Hello!”
“Papa, look! He can talk!”
“Then he must be the parrot who sits on Robinson’s shoulder. Look lively, Andrey, the hut must be somewhere close!”
But they couldn’t find it anywhere. They passed a sunny clearing that was filled with red flowers, crossed a rapidly flowing stream, and went deeper into the forest.
Suddenly Andrey stopped and sniffed the air.
“Are you okay?” asked Papa.
“It smells of sunflower oil.”
“You’ve gone crazy, there’s no sunflower oil here.”
“Honest, it does smell of oil! Can’t you smell it too? Sunflower oil and fried potato!”
“You’re making it up. Robinson never had potatoes or sunflower oil. Although...” Papa stuck his nose in the air. “I think I can smell something.”
“You see?”
They made their way through a thicket of thorny bushes into another clearing filled with red flowers. At the same moment they spotted a log fence and a hut whose roof was made from palm leaves.
“Stop!” said Papa. “Now we have to shout for him.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and gently called out: “Robinson Crusoe!”
There was no answer, but the smell of oil and potatoes was getting stronger and stronger. Andrey’s mouth was watering.
“I want to eat. Let me have a go at shouting.”
“No, no, you might frighten him. It’s best I do it. He hasn’t heard other people’s voices for a long time. You do it like this…” He shouted a bit louder: “Robinson Cruuussoooeeee!”
A gate in the fence opened. Out looked Mama. She was carrying a knife. Papa stopped with his mouth open and his eyes all scrunched up as his hands fell to his sides. Andrey froze. They must have looked very silly, because Mama burst out laughing and pointed through the gate with her knife.
“What are you standing there gawping for? Come in.”
“It’s…you’re the one cooking the potatoes?” spoke Papa at last.
“It’s me,” said Mama. “We haven’t had our dinner yet, have we?”
“Wait. I really haven’t the faintest idea what’s going on. How did you end up here? And where’s Robinson Crusoe?”
“Come in, come in, the dinner’s burning!” said Mama and disappeared into the hut.
“Papa, I know how this happened!” said Andrey. “It’s because we’re travelling without the book. The machine hasn’t brought us the whole way. We’re half on the island and half at home. Don’t you think?”
“Perhaps, perhaps…” said Papa. He was very confused.
They went inside. Inside the hut, under the palm leaves, they found a very familiar gas stove with a big frying pan full of golden potatoes on top. Mama waved them off with her knife. The potato smelled so delicious Andrey’s head was spinning!
And right there on the grass lay a book: The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Andrey ran over to the book.
“There it is! Found it! Where did you get it, Mama?”
“It was on your desk, Andrey. I picked it up, opened it, and got to reading. Then when I started the dinner I brought it into the kitchen.”
“We were looking for it all over!” said Andrey. “Then we decided to try the machine without the book!”
“You boys will be boys,” said Mama. “Go and wash your hands in the stream and sit down to eat. Then we’ll all go and look for Robinson together. I think he’s sleeping on the other side of the island tonight.”
* * *
At school, Vera Fedorovna was talking about the war. Andrey already knew that an important celebration was going to take place in May. It would be the thirtieth anniversary of the victory over the fascists.
Vera Fedorovna asked whose grandfather had fought in the war. Almost everybody raised their hands.
“Slava Nikitin, tell us about your grandfather,” said Vera Fedorovna.
“My grandpa was called up right at the beginning of the war,” said Slava. “He fought on the Karelian Isthmus. That’s near Leningrad. Then he was in Poland, at Warsaw. He won three medals: the medal for courage, the medal for the liberation of Warsaw, and the medal for victory over Germany.” Then Slava fell silent.
“Is that all?” asked Vera Fedorovna.
“Yes,” said Slava.
“Vera Fedorovna, may I talk about my grandmother?” Kseniya Vasilevskaya asked after raising her hand.
“Of course you may. Sit down, Slava. Tell us about your grandmother, Kseniya.”
Kseniya blushed and stood up.
“Once my grandma and the other grandmothers went to Luga to dig trenches. They worked for a long time. Fascist planes attacked them. They had to run and hide in the forest. Then they were taken back to Leningrad. When the blockade started, grandma was delivering letters and telegrams. She’d often leave a house and right then a bomb would hit the house and it would be destroyed. Sometimes she’d go to a house but it wasn’t there any more. It had been destroyed or burned down. She also won three medals: the medal for valiant labour, the medal for the defence of Leningrad, and the medal for Leningrad’s 250th anniversary. She was so young then.”
“Wonderful, Kseniya. You can sit down. Your grandmother sounds splendid. Who else wants to tell us about their grandparents?”
Almost everybody raised their hands again.
“Andrey Vasilyev!”
Andrey got up.
“My grandfather fought at Stalingrad. He won the Order of the Red Star, two medals for bravery, another one for his military service, and medals for the defence of Stalingrad and the capture of Koenigsberg.”
“And did he ever talk to you about what happened during the war?”
“Of course. One autumn when he was going to the Stalingrad Front he found a boy clinging onto the train’s buffer. The boy wanted to go to the front too. The fascists had killed his mother and father. So grandpa invited the boy onto the train, but the boy was sent back behind the lines.”
“How interesting!” said Vera Fedorovna.
“And my grandpa captured Berlin!” cried Grisha Samokhin.
“Children, everybody wants to talk about their own grandparents,” said Vera Fedorovna, “but we can’t do it all in one lesson. Tomorrow’s Sunday. You’ll have a whole day off. Bring me some pictures of the war on Monday. Draw the war as you imagine it was like, then we’ll make an album of the best pictures for Victory Day. Are we agreed?”
“Yes, we are!” cried the children.
* * *
What can I draw? thought Andrey as he stood beside the bookcase. Grandpa never talks about it that much. And it’s boring just to copy a picture from a book. It’s not really your picture…but if I could see the war for real…why doesn’t Papa have many books about the war?
He started to take down book after book from the lowest shelf: one about some or other forest, one about albums, one about cars... Andrey dug deep into the bookcase. There was a second row of books he’d never looked at before. He took several books out and cried out for joy: they were about the war. But they had a strange word in the title: memoirs. The Memoirs of Marshal Meretskov, The Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov, The Memoirs of Pilot Kuznetsov…and then a title leapt out at him: THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD. Andrey grabbed the book, opened it, and looked at the pictures of military movements: red arrows whose tips pointed right into the bend of the River Volga. Andrey shuddered with excitement. He was about to find out what war was really like!
With a familiar movement, Andrey move the shelves and the books out of the way. He stepped into the machine. The doors slammed shut. The drawbridge lowered…
What was this? He was facing another wall. This one was made from red boards. There were two enormous iron plates, some wheels, and tracks too. Aha! This must be the back of a train. The iron plates must be the buffers. But what was it blocking his exit from the machine?
Andrey tried to look inside, but he couldn’t see. The gaps in the siding were too narrow. He climbed onto the buffer and grabbed an iron rod above him with both hands. At that very moment the carriage jerked and began to slide forward along the rails. The bookcase was gone.
The brownish green autumn steppe surrounded the carriage on both sides. A few bushes cropped up on either side, and the sky overhead was pale. Just where the bookcase had been, Andrey could see a blob that must have been the railway station. He just about caught the name: Povorino.
The carriage was gathering speed. Its wheels clattered faster and faster. Povorino receded into the distance. All that was left was the steppe, the enormous steppe all around, and the clouds, and the wind…
Andrey clung onto the iron rod even tighter and pressed himself against the buffer. He’d never been on a train like this. It was interesting and scary all at once.
Before long the monotonous clatter of the wheels and the swaying carriage began to make him sleepy. He dozed off and almost fell off the buffer. Then, when they were overtaking another train, he saw some aeroplanes in the grey sky fly low overhead. There were nine of them. They were dark-green and quick, and they had red stars on their wings.
They must be going to the front, thought Andrey, just like my train…
By the evening the train had arrived at a stop. Soldiers began to jump down from the carriages. They rattled buckets and big iron kettles as they ran over to a brick house. The words ‘hot water’ were marked on the side of the house. A long line quickly grew up.
Andrey was so cold that he could hardly bend his fingers to let go of the iron rod. He sat on the coupling, all covered in dust, trembling and rubbing his numb hands. A young lieutenant in a neat tunic and a new winter hat got out of the carriage. He looked about twenty, but there were already two medals pinned to his chest: one for bravery, and one for military service. That meant he wasn’t a novice. He’d been at the front.
The lieutenant was astonished to see Andrey.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” he called over. “Come on, get down from there! What were you thinking, clinging onto a military train like that? You know what you’ll get for that?”
“I’m not getting down,” said Andrey. “I’ve nowhere to go.”
“What do you mean, nowhere to go? Where did you get on?”
“At Povorino.”
“Where are your parents?”
“I don’t have any.”
“What happened?”
“The Germans killed my mother and father. Then they burned our village. I’m the only one who made it out alive—”
“Are you telling the truth? Lots of people lie about that sort of thing.”
“I’m not lying! Honest!”
“So you just ride the trains?”
“What else can I do? The troops at the front are so kind. They always give me some food.”
“And what’s your name?”
“Andrey. Andrey Vasilyev.”
“Well that’s a turn-up!” laughed the Lieutenant. “We’re the same: my name’s Vasilyev too! Right then, my dear relative Andrey, you’ve travelled too far. You’re almost at the front now. You’ll disappear without trace if you stay here. You might get killed by a plane. Let’s take you back to a unit behind the lines.”
“No, I won’t go!” said Andrey. “I’m all alone. Nobody needs me. Lieutenant, please, take me with you to the front!”
“Are you crazy, Andrey? The front’s, well, it’s—”
“Take me!” said Andrey, almost crying. “If you don’t take with me I’ll go with someone else. Please take me!”
“I can’t.”
The engine pulling the train began to puff loudly and a gentle tug echoed down the carriages. The soldiers ran back to the train with their kettles and buckets. The Lieutenant waved to Andrey.
“Good luck! But don’t travel on the buffers any longer, you hear me?”
“I don’t want to stay here!” cried Andrey. He threw himself after the Lieutenant and grabbed his waist. “Take me with you!”
“Hey, Vasilyev! Vasilyev!” someone shouted from the carriage. “Hurry it up!”
A dozen arms reached out of the carriage to meet the Lieutenant, but they pulled two people back inside: Lieutenant Vasilyev and Andrey, who was still clutching his waist.
* * *
Double bunk beds built from wooden slats ran along either side of the carriage. Soldiers were occupying them. Some were sewing things onto their greatcoats, and others were drinking tea from mugs or right from the kettle. One soldier was even cleaning his gun. He’d taken it to pieces and laid the pieces out on his mattress.
“Wahey, reinforcements!” shouted someone from the top bunk. “Aleksey, where did you get hold of him?”
“I found him on the buffer. He’s trying to get to the front,” said the Lieutenant.
The soldiers surrounded Andrey.
“Give your ma and pa the slip, did you?” asked an old soldier sitting by the door.
“He says he has no parents. The Germans killed them,” said the Lieutenant.
“Oh, poor lad,” sighed the old man. He clasped Andrey’s soldier, and said, “What’ll you do now, mm?”
“I want to fight,” said Andrey very quietly. The carriage rocked with laughter.
“Why are you laughing?” said the old man. “The lad’s got nowhere to go.”
“The CO’ll send him back at the first stop.”
“No. We’ll adopt the boy,” said the old man. He shifted over a bit and patted his hand on the board he sat on. “Sit down, little soldier. Let’s have some tea.”
Andrey sat down.
“My name’s Ivan. Uncle Vanya,” said the old man. “And my surname’s Kukhta.”
“My name’s Andrey.”
“Pleased to meet you,” smiled Kukhta. He opened his canvas bag, took out a little aluminium kettle, a mug, two big black crusts of bread, and scooped up a whole handful of sugar. A minute or two later and Andrey was holding a steaming mug and a crust of bread.
“I’ve got two lads just like you back home,” aid Kukhta, dipping a teabag into the mug. “The oldest is ten, and the younger one hasn’t even started school yet. If it wasn’t for the war, of course…”
At this everybody at once started to talk about what life would have been like without the war. Andrey was warming up. The wheels clattered away rhythmically, and the carriage swayed. The soldiers’ voices grew dimmer and simmer then seemed to disappear altogether.
“That’s right, hero, you have a sleep!” said Kukhta. He picked Andrey up and placed him, sitting up, on a bunk. “Right, lads, let’s make him a nice cosy little spot.”
Someone put a soft bundle under his head and somebody else covered him with a greatcoat. Darkness fell.
A thunderous noise woke Andrey. The train was still. In the darkness he could hear footsteps, shouting, and the clink of metal. There was another loud bang somewhere close. Everything inside the carriage was lit up red. Andrey could see snarling shadows racing across the nighttime steppe through the open door. Something on the embankment was burning. It was shooting out flame like a sparkler. Clouds of smoke shone purple.
“Lad, lad, where are you?” Andrey heard Kukhta’s voice.
“I’m here!” shouted Andrey, crawling over to the edge of the bunk.
“Over here, quick march!”
Heavy hands seized Andrey by the armpits and lifted him off the wooden slats. There was a loud and terrifying shudder overhead. Dust poured down onto Andrey’s head.
“They’ve got a machine gun, the buggers!” said Kukhta. He pressed Andrey to his body. “Come on, soldier, you and I are in a jam alright!” Kukhta raced over to the door and leapt down onto the embankment. He pushed Andrey into the darkness: “Under the carriage! Quick!”
Andrey banged his knee against a rail and crawled forward. A blinding, trembling light burst forth right next to him. Another sound roared past his ears: Dk—dk—dk—dk! Andrey pressed his face against the ground. He could smell the train fuel. He could just about catch sight of tanks with white crosses on their turrets standing on the steppe. Their guns were pointed right at the train.
Fascists! he thought. But how did they manage to get through to the railway?
At that moment somebody fell on top of Andrey, paindfully kneeing him in the back.
“Hey, who’s that?”
“It’s me!” squeaked Andrey.
“Ah, my frontline soldier! Lie down flat and don’t show yourself!”
It was Lieutenant Vasilyev’s voice. From just above the rail, Andrey could see what was happened on the steppe. A narrow flame darted out from one of the guns. The blast deafened Andrey. He gasped for breath. It suddenly grew light and got very hot. The train carriage’s wooden sides were on fire.
“Get behind the embankment! Run!” someone cried.
Andrey propped himself up on his elbows and crawled forward. Suddenly his arms slipped and he tumbled forward. The guns howled overhead, banging away as if somebody was beating an iron butt with a hammer.
“Kukhta!” cried Andrey. “Kukhta! Uncle Vanya!”
“I’m here!” Kukhta’s enormous hands pressed Andrey against the ground. Andrey saw Kukhta’s sweaty face against the red light of the fire.
“We got one with an anti-tank gun, so the other skedaddled! Are you afraid?”
“Very,” said Andrey honestly.
“This is war, my boy. War is always frightening. What shall we do with you now?”
“I don’t know,” said Andrey.
“We’re right at the front line. We ought to send you to the medical battalion behind the lines.”
“Uncle Vanya, if only the bookcase were here…”
“What bookcase is that?”
“My bookcase. That’s how I got here.”
“Did you catch a fever in that train carriage?” Kukhta was concerned. He bent over Andrey and put his rough palm against Andrey’s temple.
“No, I didn’t. The bookcase is in our living room at home. It’s full of books, and there’s a machine behind them. My father showed me…”
“Oh, you poor thing…” sighed Kukhta.
The battle fell silent. Soldiers were raising about on the rails above, trying to put out the fire in the carriage. Lieutenant Vasilyev appeared next to Kukhta.
“How’s my namesake? Is he alive?”
“He’s alive.”
“The other one didn’t get far,” said the Lieutenant gleefully. “The anti-tank boys got nailed the turret then got another one in the side.” Andrey realized that he must be talking about the second fascist tank.
“How many of our lot are dead?” asked Kukhta.
“Twenty or so. They got the engine, too, the buggers. We’ll have to get to the position on foot now.”
“Well then, Vasilyev,” said Kukhta sternly. “You’ve brought this little lad onto the train, so you’ll have to look after him. I think he’s got a temperature. He got too cold on that buffer. Take him to the medical battalion.”
“I don’t want to go to the medical battalion, I want to go with you!” cried Andrey, hopping up and down.
“Can’t be done,” said the Lieutenant in a strict voice and grabbing Andrey by the arm. “Can’t you see what it’s like around here? We’re leaving, right now. It’s twenty kilometres’ forced march to the town and then straight into the fight.”
“I’ll carry your ammunition!” cried Andrey with tears in his voice. “I’m not afraid of anything! Honest!”
The Lieutenant laughed. “This isn’t the civil war, my boy; we don’t need anybody to carry our ammunition. Let’s go.”
Andrey wormed his hand out of Vasilyev’s, but the Lieutenant grabbed him by the shoulder: “Let’s go.”
They walked along the embankment up to the end of the train and stopped by a carriage with a big red cross on a white circle painted on it.
“Hey, doc! I’ve got a patient for you!”
A head wearing a hat appeared from the door: “Who’s that you’ve got there?”
Vasilyev picked Andrey up and thrust him into somebody else’s hands. Andrey was thrust into darkness. The carriage’s door closed by itself. An electric lightbulb flickered in the ceiling, suddenly became surrounded by a lampshade, and Andrey saw Mama’s worried face.
“What’s with you? Why are you shouting?”
“They’re…sending…medical battalion!” sobbed Andrey. “Mama, I saw Grandpa! He was so young…he was a lieutenant! The fascists attacked their column. Kukhta wanted to adopt me, but then he said I had to go back from the line, because the front was so close, and Grandpa took me to the medical battalion…”
“Show me what you’ve been reading.”
Andrey showed her.
“The Battle of Stalingrad. That’s a book for grown-ups! What were you doing with a book like that?”
“Mama, you see, we had to draw something for Victory Day for school. I didn’t know…well, remember Grandpa used to talk about that boy he’d saved from the train’s buffer? I wanted to see what war was really like! I said the fascists had killed my parents so the soldiers took me with them.”
Mama smiled a little strangely, embraced Andrey’s head, and pressed it close to her chest.
“Andrey, Andrey! You do love your make-believe. You take after your father! But you’re too young to be reading books like that.”
“But I’ll be able to draw the war now. My drawing will be better than everybody else’s!”
“Don’t count your chickens.”
Mama took the book from Andrey’s hands, put it back on the shelf, and shut the bookcase.
That evening Grandpa came to visit. He looked quite different from Papa, since he had neither a beard nor a moustache. Only a few wrinkles and grey hairs suggested that he wasn’t young any more. He even walked along the street so quickly that Papa struggled to keep up with him. Once on the dacha, Grandpa even played a hectic game of football with the neighbours’ boys! All that, even though he’d been wounded twice at the front.
Andrey was putting the finishing touches to his picture. Dark blue watercolour washed around the page, showing that it was night. A long line of carriages stretched along an embankment. Fiery orange tongues of flame shot upward. A fascist was climbing out the bottom hatch of a destroyed tank.
“Wow, that’s the war alright!” said Grandpa as he looked over Andrey’s shoulder. “Is that the Germans shooting at our column? Where did you see that?”
“At Stalingrad. It’s the train you were on, Grandpa. And the boy you saved. It’s how the tanks attacked you at night and your carriage caught fire.
“It’s spot on. It happened near Mikhailovka,” said Grandpa. “You’ve captured it very nicely. But our gunners got both tanks.”
“The gunners fired from underneath the carriage? Right, Grandpa?”
“That’s right. You seem to know everything, as if you’d seen it for yourself. Good boy.”
Andrey drew some clouds of smoke pouring from the tanks’ turrets, and then a dead fascist on the ground. Grandpa sat down and slid the picture closer. He spent a few moments looking at it intently.
“You’ve got it just right again, Andrey. The medical carriage was the second from the engine, and ours was the last carriage. What a funny coincidence!”
Andrey wanted to say that it wasn’t a coincidence at all, that he’d been there. But he thought the better of it. Kukhta thought he’d been ill, but Grandpa would probably think he’d gone mad. It was better to keep quiet about the machine and what he’d seen.
“Grandpa, what was the name of that boy that you brought into the train?”
Grandpa rubbed his temples, trying to remember.
“Hold on…why, he was called Andrey, just like you. Yet another coincidence.”
“What happened to him?”
“After the tank battle I sent him and our wounded behind the lines.”
That means it’s true, thought Andrey, I saw Grandpa, and he saw me. Only he didn’t recognize me because I wasn’t born yet. Andrey chuckled.
“What’s up?” asked Grandpa.
“Maybe me and Andrey are the same boy!”
Grandpa shook his head, muttering, “You and your stories. Go on and finish your picture.”
Andrey dabbed his brush in the black paint and drew another gunner on the embankment.
“Grandpa, where’s Kukhta now?”
“Have I ever told you about Kukhta?” Grandpa was surprised.
“You have.”
“Ivan Kukhta died. He made it through Stalingrad, Kursk and Kiev. Then in Brody, right on the border, a German mine...”
He fell silent as he remembered his comrade. Then he looked back at the picture.
“Why didn’t you draw me, eh? Go on, draw me too. Right here by the last carriage.”
Andrey sketched out the young lieutenant in his new winter hat and, right beside him, added another, tiny figure with skinny little arms and legs that looked like a beaver’s paws.
* * *
Mama was making dinner in the kitchen. Papa turned on the television and settled into his armchair. Andrey moved his chair closer to Papa’s.
“Let’s have a look what’s on today,” said Papa. He leafed through the television guide.
“There’s nothing interesting,” said Andrey. “I already looked.”
“Not even any good films?”
“No.”
“What shall we watch, then?”
“Nothing,” said Andrey.
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“It was you that said people don’t have much time.”
“But a films are only an hour-and-a-half long!”
“There are better things than films,” said Andrey.
“You cheeky lad! Out with it, what do you want to do instead?” said Papa, laughing.
“A desert island!” said Andrey “With buried treasure!”
“We don’t have any books about islands with treasure.”
“Sure we do!” said Andrey. He went into the other room and brought back a book. Its cover showed an old sailing ship.
“What a fine schooner,” said Papa. “It’s called the Hispaniola. Did Grandpa give you that?”
“No, I got it at school. We had an exhibition of pictures for Victory Day. Do you remember my picture of Grandpa’s column and the fascist tanks? I won first prize.”
“Oho! What a clever boy you are, Andrey! I haven’t been to Treasure Island for a long time. Twenty years, perhaps.”
“Shall we go, then?” asked Andrey.
“Let’s go,” said Papa with delight. He went over to the television and clicked the switch to ‘off’. The blue screen disappeared into a white dot and went out.
“Only, Papa, I’ll take you to the island! You don’t do anything, okay, Papa?”
“Okay.”
…behind the bookcase, a fresh breeze was already puffing up the Hispaniola’s white sails. Captain Smollett was watching some new passengers being brought on board…
