Thus I settled at the colony in a small room of a wooden house. The colony occupied a large three-storey red-brick building located almost in the centre of Ulyanovsk in Bazarnaya Square. A large yard with shacks and workshops was adjacent to the building. All the kids studied in classes for four hours and for four hours they worked here in the yard in the workshops.
Of course, it was difficult to build a team from juvenile criminals. Each kid, aged from 8 to 16, already had a criminal record. Each group had its ‘warlord’ and I decided to start with him. But how would I pinpoint him? I began by simply walking around, watching and listening. I would come to a class, sit at the back, and observe how their life went on. The exercise books issued by the Russian teacher for dictation would instantly turn into playing cards and a real ‘battle’ would begin. Anything might be lost up to or including dinner. In the canteen you might see a scene such as one boy, stuffed, having eaten several dinners, and the losers drooling…
My suggestion of joining hobby groups: shooting, aircraft modelling, sailing, got not so much as a nibble. But after watching closely a couple more times and consulting with the tutors and teachers I selected eight boys from different groups and walked them to the Pioneers’ Palace, which was really splendid, in Ulyanovsk. And there, as I had arranged, we were received like dear old friends. Then I walked the boys to the tank and aerotechnical schools. We were received with interest everywhere: they showed us around, talked a lot and even became our sponsors. The tank cadets and the aircraftsmen began to spend time with us. It was they, I understand now, who lit a flame in the souls of these difficult kids. The ice was broken!
By the end of the third month of my work as a Pioneer leader the first detachment of Young Pioneers had been formed. For the first time a Pioneer’s bugle resounded in the colony yard, a drum began to tap and 30 boys with red ties, a standard bearer and his assistants, marched past an improvised tribune, walked out through the gate and joined the columns the people of Ulyanovsk’s May Day parade. But we had hardly gotten ourselves organised when an order, forbidding any kind of Pioneer activities in the juvenile offender colonies, arrived. I was fired…
The flying school’s supplementary intake hadn’t started yet and I was still living in the colony. I started work at the Volodarskiy Munitions Plant, situated across the Volga. The manager of the human resources department asked me “What do you want to do here?”
I answered that I begged to be employed at any kind of work but my trade was construction — steel fixer, caulker…
“Will you go to Accounts as a clerk?”
“But I’ve never worked in accounting.”
“Not a problem, you’ll learn”, the human resources officer said and added as if thinking it over: “If I send you to a workshop, they do shiftwork and for the first three months you’ll be on an apprentice’s wage. But in Accounts there’s only one shift and a permanent salary. You’ll just have to learn. When you see the chief accountant say you used to work as a clerk.
“I won’t be able to work as a clerk”, I kept repeating.
“You will, you will!” — And he registered me as an accounts clerk.
When I came to the chief accountant he asked me what kind of clerk I used to be.
“What d’you mean, what kind?” I was surprised.
“Well, was it bookkeeping or accounting?”
“Bookkeeping”, I replied smartly, remembering the official’s instructions.
“That’s good. Go to the transport department and see the senior accountant.”
I was immediately offered employment in the transport department accounts section and shown the desk I would sit at.
“Please tally up the statements” — the accountant handed me a stack of paper sheets covered with writing. But how to calculate, what with? There was an abacus in front of me and there was some kind of small machine. Everyone around me was smartly clicking their abacus beads, but of course I had no idea how to calculate that way! However, by lunchtime I had added up all the sheets but, to be honest, not with the abacus but on a sheet of paper. So that nobody could see how I was calculating I put it into a half-open drawer of the desk.
During lunch break everybody went to the canteen. They called me along but I declined and decided to talk to Maria Borek, — a bookkeeper sitting next to me. Maria would have her lunch an hour earlier than the rest so the section would not be unattended. As soon as everyone was gone I asked her “Maria Michaylovna39, please explain to me how to calculate on an abacus, and what this machine in front of me is for.”
Maria Mikhaylovna gave me a surprised look through her pince-nez, “That’s an adding machine. But how are you going to work without special training?”
I stood silent, and what could I say?
“Well, we will practise during the lunch break and for an hour after work, and now I will explain adding and subtracting on the abacus to you…”
Many years have gone since then but I still remember Maria Mikhaylovna Borek, a Leningrader born and bred. She taught me bookkeeping, supported me in every possible way, looked out for me. She got me involved in the social life too. Nevertheless, when I heard about the additional draft to the flying school I immediately brought my application for the entrance examination. But I was rejected during the preliminary interview.
“During the last draft you concealed that your brother was an enemy of the people, and now you want to worm your way into the school again? You won’t fool us — we’re awake!”
And again I was riding the Ulyanovsk-Moscow train. The wagon was crowded and filled with tobacco smoke. Children were crying. Lying on the topmost bunk I was sighing for my dear brother and my ruined dream. But how could my brother be an enemy of the people? But my brother was the people! Our parents had had sixteen children — eight of them had died, eight had survived. Poverty had made my father take any work. He used to work sometimes as a truckdriver — he carried fish from Ostashkov, from Seliger, sometimes he used to go to Torzhok for cucumbers. There had been years when he worked at a dye-works in Petrograd. My father froze in the trenches of the Imperialist War40, and defended Soviet rule during the Civil War. After all those battles he came home sick and died in 1925 at the age of forty nine. Vasya — the eldest of my brothers — wanted to study very much. But having done four years at the Sidorovskaya school he went by decision of a family council to work as a tailor’s ‘boy’.
Father said back then, “Mother, let’s sell our sheep and I’ll take Vas’ka41 to Petrograd. I’ll ask Egor Antonovich up there to put in a word for him with the boss. Very likely he’ll be a tradesman. There’s nothing here, is there? No place to study, and no way to keep him clad, shod and fed.”
And then he addressed his son, “Maybe, son, you don’t want to learn to be a tailor — then go and be a cobbler with Uncle Misha. He’s your uncle, your mum’s brother — he won’t lead you astray… The choice is yours.”
Vasya chose tailoring and studied right up until the October Revolution. The sixteen year old lad got himself a rifle during the days of the Revolution and went to war with it to fight against the Cadets42. Wounded, Vasya managed somehow to make his way to Aunt Agrafena’s, a distant relative of our father. The Aunt panicked and sent a letter to the village, writing that only God knew if Vasya would live or die. On receiving this news my mother abandoned everything and rushed to save her son. She nursed him back to health and brought him home — tall, skinny and shaven-headed. But Vasya didn’t stay at home long and soon found a job on the railways in Kouvshinovo. And some time later the workers put him forward for the position of salesman in their store. There was hunger and devastation in the country — back then they would choose as salesmen the most reliable men, the ones they trusted. Then Vasya was transferred to Rzhev, then to Moscow. It was a common biography of working class guys in those years: worked, studied on the job, became a Communist. Later he graduated from the Planning Academy, a Komvuz43. The workers of the Moskvoshvey44 N5 factory elected him as their
deputy to the Mossovet45. “Head of the Planning Department of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Trade — what kind of enemy of the people is that?” I thought, turning over in my mind my dear brother’s whole life. “Defamation! Slander!” And I remembered my mum praying to God, kneeling before the icons, as she firstly listed all our names, the names of her children, begging God for health and wisdom for us, and then at the end of each prayer repeating: “God save them from slander!” Back then, in my childhood, I didn’t understand that word but now it was exposed before me in all its terrible nakedness…
How slowly the train was going! But on the approach to Moscow I had become somehow indifferent to everything. Where was I going, what for, whom to? Here was Moscow, the city of my Comsomol youth. It was here where my fate had turned so suddenly, binding a village girl to the city and the sky… Moscow met me with an overcast and rainy day. This time no one was meeting me, nobody was waiting for me. I rang my brother Vasiliy’s apartment from the train station. His wife Katya answered. Recognizing my voice she burst into sobs and couldn’t say a word for a while. Having calmed down a bit Katya asked “Where are you now, Nyurochka46?”
“At the Kazanskiy train station.”
“Wait for me near the main entrance, I’ll come around shortly.”
And there I was, standing and waiting. An hour went by, then another… And suddenly I noticed a poorly dressed woman with a hangdog look.
“Katya?”
It turned out she had been looking for me dressed in military uniform and I was looking for her: a beautiful woman with splendid hair, sparkling eyes and proud carriage… Again there were tears… She grasped my hand and led me inside the station. We found a vacant bench and sat down, and Katya told me Vasya had been tried by a troika47 that had sentenced him to ten years behind bars. Vasya had been accused of espionage and connections with British intelligence. His article in the ‘Economy newspaper’ had been allegedly reprinted by the British, and by this he had given away some sort of state secret…
“Ten years! For what?” Katya said, sobbing. “Nyurochka, my dear, please don’t ring me up or pop into my place anymore. Today I came by only to pick up Yurochka’s gear. We’re roaming between friends’ places at the moment although many of them are afraid of us… And I’m afraid I may be arrested at home… What will happen to Yurka48 then?” Katya wept. I was in tears as well. We parted…
Where was I to go? To Victor in his aviation unit? By no means, looking like this… To the aeroclub? No. To the Metrostroy? To pitying looks, to let everything remind me of my happiest time, my daring dreams, to let every allusion to the past make my life miserable? No way! Maybe later, but what now?.. I’ll follow my nose! Here in the timetable there is a train that will take me to my brother Alexey. So I’m off to that town…
And now the train was dawdling, halting at each sub-station, drearily rattling its wheels… I didn’t find my brother in Sebezh — he had been transferred to a new post. I stayed overnight at the neighbours’ place and in the morning I was on the road again. I had only 12 roubles left in my purse. I was just two roubles short of the fare to the town where my other brother Lesha49 worked. Not a drama — I bought a ticket for all the money I had, and being one station short of the destination wouldn’t be a big deal — I could walk it. Again I was riding in a passenger wagon on an upper bunk and nearly crying. Did I really have no willpower? And if I did why was I lying like this, flat on my back not wanting to make any effort? Why was I not fighting for my right to fly? I remembered the words of the First Secretary of the Comsomol Central Committee Sasha Kosyrev50, loved by all young people: “Never deviate from your chosen course. Keep moving forward courageously and proudly…”
“Keep advancing courageously and proudly!” I repeated these words aloud and at that moment the train, shuddering with all its long and clumsy body, stopped as if giving me a choice.
“Where are we?” I asked, my head hanging down.
“Must be Smolensk!” A man answered.
“How long are we stopping”
“Half an hour at least”
Unexpectedly for my neighbours in the wagon, I nimbly jumped down from my bunk, slipped my coat on, picked up my trunk and rushed for the exit.
9. ‘Kokkinaky’
The train left. At the time it swung past the last traffic lights in Smolensk I was approaching the obkom51 building. The winter dawn was only beginning to blue the white walls of the houses of the ancient city and the obkom doors were still locked. Having knocked a while at the entrance doors and feeling badly chilled, I set out jogging down the street. I ran up to the announcement board and back. And I did so several times until a pleasant warmth flowed through my whole body. Time went by and the day was beginning. Now right by me the first tram rumbled past, the first truck honked. And the door to my dreams opened… I burst into the obkom together with the first visitors. I stuck my head into one room, then another — no, that wasn’t it.
“Where will I find your Secretary?” I asked in a peremptory voice some weedy chap with spectacles proceeding importantly along the corridor with a brief case. He glanced at me in wide-eyed astonishment: who was this wanting “Himself”? But, detecting determination in my face and look, he asked no questions but said simply:
“Over there, around the corner there’s a door padded with black leatherette…”
A small chubby secretary blocked my way through this door with her chest but then either my appearance or look or my considerable height made her let me through to the door to my dreams. Seizing the opportunity I resolutely crossed the threshold and straight from the entrance, afraid of being stopped, blurted out in a rush “I need a job and accommodation. And as soon as possible!”
A young man sitting at a large desk raised his head a bit and looked at me through his spectacles in astonishment.
“What exactly is your problem, comrade?”
“My problem can’t wait…”
Terribly agitated, and confused because of it, I began to tell about myself: the underground, the aeroclub, the flying school, my brother… I talked without concealing anything, like in the confessional. The secretary listened to me in silence and I saw a real concern and involvement in his look. It seemed to me that he understood he had before him a person who had been deprived of her life’s work. Not just a girl but a Comsomol member who had mastered the complicated craft of flying. A major war was just round the corner, industry had been growing at an unprecedented pace, the army had re-armed and there was a desperate shortage of trained pilots. The obkom secretary knew all that perfectly. Listening to my confused story he was more and more surprised at how they could without any reason remove a student-pilot from flying at a time when flying personnel was so badly needed, when the OSOAVIAHIM had no time to train students for the flying schools. When the pre-army training program was strained to the limit! “What kind of documents have you got on you?”
“Here you are”, I laid my passport, Comsomol membership card, red certificate — the citation I had received from the Government for the construction of the first stage of the underground — and the certificate that I had completed gliding and flying training in the aeroclub.
Reading the documents, the secretary was questioning me, ringing someone, calling someone to come around, and I was sitting on a couch and… crying.
“Well, will you be able to train our guys in gliding?”
“Of course I will!”
“Excellent. You’ve got the right papers.”
Even my breathing stopped!
“Well, cry-baby, let’s go for lunch”, I heard his mocking voice.
“Thanks, I’m not hungry.”
“Let’s go, let’s go”, he pulled me by the arm.
After lunch, seeing my empty purse, he lent me 25 roubles till my first pay.
“It seems you were interested in work and lodging?” There was craftiness in the secretary’s voice. “Whilst you were crying here we recommended you to the Smolensk flax w
orks as a bookkeeper. You’ll be balancing the accounts. And you will organise a gliding school there. There is a go-ahead, youthful bunch there. Shoot off to the personnel department now. I have made all arrangements. As soon as you settle in go to the aeroclub and see the commissar — I’ve heard there is a training detachment for those who have already completed pilot preparation. How many brothers do you have?” the secretary asked suddenly.
“Five.”
“Well now, how rich you are in brothers, and I have none! If you’re gonna write about all your brothers you’ll use up too much paper. Is that clear?”
“Thanks for your advice!”
“Show all your “credentials” at the aeroclub and request they accept you into the training detachment. Should any questions arise, don’t be shy, come around…”
“Thanks”, sobbing through my nose, I muttered, and shot off to the flax works thanking my stars: what a lucky girl I was to come across good and kind-hearted people!
On the same day I was employed as a spinners’ salary clerk, and by night-time I had been lodged in a dormitory in a room where the best shock worker, Antonina Sokolovskaya, lived. And I was accepted into the aeroclub’s training detachment and I began to fly again. What a joy it was — to rush to the aeroclub after work. A lorry would be already waiting for us there and we would ride in it to an aerodrome located a fair way from the city…
Well into autumn we sat exams on the theory and practice of flying before the State Board and were disbanded pending special orders. I had no hope of getting a referral to a flying school. After all there were five other girls in our detachment, hereditary natives of Smolensk, and I was a newcomer. Therefore I decided not to attend the aeroclub anymore and started getting ready for an aviation institute. An aviation one and nothing else. If I failed to become a pilot at least I’d be near the planes. Once upon a time my brother Vasiliy had insisted on my studying… “Once upon a time”… And only a year and a half had passed since I bade farewell to Moscow, the Metrostroy, the aeroclub, my comrades, Victor, my brother. Somewhere up north Vasiliy was doing his term “incommunicado”…
Over Fields of Fire Page 5