The Town By The Sea tof-3

by Владимир Павлович Беляев Неизвестный Автор

  "Feeling whacked, Vasil?"

  In Bobir's voice I sensed an acknowledgement that he considered the work of foundry man higher than his own job as a mechanic. . .

  "Whacked! What makes you think that? Just an ordinary day’s work!" I answered quietly, rubbing my eyes.

  "Where were you so late last night?" Now Sasha s voice was searching and curious.

  "Where I had to be! Mind you get that slab fitted straight and screw the bolts up tight."

  "Don't worry we know what we're doing!" Sasha grunted, and setting his feet against the mixture-box, tugged wildly at the spanner handle.

  "Come and smear the moulds, lad!" Naumenko called.

  He had already brought in a box of iron moulds from the stores. I got a tin of graphite grease and sat down with my partner on the sand.

  It was so hot and stuffy that the grease which had been firm in the morning was now like thin

  porridge. I felt muzzy. The sweat dripped off us even at this easy job of dipping our fingers into the grease and smearing the inside of each mould.

  "Know what this is for?" Naumenko asked. "To make the moulds slip easily on the rollers?" "That's right. And the other reason is to make them slip off easily with the sand."

  "Do they stay in the mould-box then?" "What did you think? When the iron cools in moulds like these, it gets a smooth hard surface and you can use it straightaway, without grinding."

  "Neat idea!" I said and remembered that I had often seen a drop of liquid iron fall on a smooth metal slab and become quite smooth when it got cool.

  Kashket's red kerchief showed up for a moment behind the smoking moulds. He was strolling down the alley nibbling sunflower seeds and spitting out the shells.

  Today he had drifted into the foundry later than anyone. As soon as he saw the examiner's notice, he raised a terrible howl, ran to the foreman, took him into the yard where defective castings were usually dumped, threatened to complain to the disputes commission and denied emphatically that the spoilage was his fault. Since then he had been wandering about the shop doing nothing.

  Noticing us at our box of moulds, Kashket swung round sharply. For a moment he posed before us in his red kerchief, munching sunflower seeds, then he asked: "Getting ready beforehand?"

  The question seemed rather pointless and Uncle Vasya did not answer. He went on silently smearing the moulds with graphite.

  "Out to earn more than anyone else? Want to buy yourself a house and garden?" 'Kashket taunted.

  "I'm out to help the working class, not fill the scrapyard like you!" Naumenko cut him short, reaching for a mould,

  "I wonder what tune you'll sing the day after tomorrow when they give you a write-up like I got today?"

  "Wonder as much as you like, but don't chuck your sunflower shells down here. They get in the sand!" Uncle Vasya said angrily.

  "The sifters will look after that, don't worry!" said Kashket and spat a shell neatly at our feet.

  "Little stuff like that won't come out in sifting. It'll get in the mould and there'll be a flaw... Stop making a mess, I say!" Uncle Vasya snapped, quite fiercely this time.

  "All right, old pal, keep your hair on," said Kashket soothingly and put the seeds in his pocket.

  Squatting beside me, he picked up a mould and started smearing it with grease. His breath reeked of vodka.

  "But if you reason the thing out calmly, Uncle Vasya, you'll see you're only wasting your time with what you're doing now," Kashket lisped, rubbing his finger round the mould.

  "What do you mean?" Naumenko asked with a stern look at Kashket.

  "However much you grease the things, it won't do any good. The model's badly constructed, and that's why the castings are bad. It's high time they made new ones instead of blaming the workers for spoilage!"

  "You brought that on yourself," Naumenko replied. "You jaw a lot, but you don't know how to mould."

  "We'll see how much you and your Komsomol pal turn out," Kashket said, getting up and hoisting his trousers.

  "You'd better push off out of here and leave others to do the watching, you half-baked tiddler. I've had enough of you dancing around in front of me like a devil in church!"

  And although Naumenko spoke as though he attached no importance to Kashket's words, I realized that Kashket had got under his skin. I could see that Naumenko would give his ears to turn out those rollers well.

  "Perhaps the model really isn't constructed right, Uncle Vasya?" I said.

  "You listen to that scatter-brain a bit longer!" Naumenko burst out. "He'll tell you plenty more yarns like that.. . Do you think you can believe a single word he says!"

  . . . The next day we buckled into the work and went ahead even faster. Before lunch we had packed eighty-seven moulds. I wanted to slip out to see Golovatsky after lunch, but Uncle Vasya gave me the job of sharpening up the cores with a rasp. As I sharpened the cores for our last lot of moulds, I reflected that moulding these rollers had turned out to be the easiest job I had ever done. But what the castings would be like, we still did not know. We should know that only on Monday, when the moulds were opened.

  Today was Saturday.

  When we knocked off, one hundred and five glowing moulds stood on the moulding floor.

  LETTERS TO FRIENDS

  ''You can cackle away, I'm off to write a letter to the chaps!" I said to Petka and Sasha, having listened patiently to all their jokes about my evening out.

  I still had not told them where I had been the day before yesterday. From the ruthless interrogation they had given me it appeared that they intended to keep me under perpetual surveillance in case I "broke away from the collective." Comrade-like, they were afraid I might be going to the bad, and they kept dropping hints to find out what I had been doing. But I could not confess. If I so much as mentioned the crayfish supper at the engineer's, they would be down on me like a ton of bricks. Yet hadn't I defended our honour against the engineer? Of course I had!

  Leaving my friends in the attic, I changed into slippers and put my foundry boots out in the goat's shed till Monday.

  By the fence in our yard stood a little rickety summer-house overgrown with grapes. Inside there was a small table.

  The shady summer-house was a fine place to write letters. A light breeze blew from the sea, rustling the pages of my exercise-book.

  To start with I wrote some postcards: to Furman at the October Revolution Works in Lugansk, to Monus Guzarchik in Kharkov, and, of course, to Galya Kushnir in Odessa. All the morning I had been thinking what to write to her. The snub she had given me by taking Tiktor's side in the Francis Joseph affair now seemed quite trivial.

  Forgetting all the sharp words that had passed between us, I thought only of the fond, gentle things. Suddenly I found myself comparing Galya to Angelika, with all her superstitions, her icon-lamp, her sad fairy, and her craze for the Charleston.

  "Of course Galya is a thousand times more genuine and sincere!" I thought. And I carefully wrote at the end of the postcard:

  ". . . And if this postcard reaches you, Galya, try and find time to write to me. Tell me how you're getting on, how you like the work and Odessa, tell me about everything. And remember our walks round the Old Fortress and all the good things that happened to us. Petka and Sasha Bobir send you their warmest 'Komsomol greetings. We're living together in a little house right by the Azov Sea.

  "Komsomol greetings,

  "Vasily Mandzhura."

  I could not be sure that my postcards would reach my friends. When we parted, we had only noted down the names of the factories where we were going to work. And at those factories there were thousands of other workers!

  To Nikita Kolomeyets I decided to write a long, detailed letter. His address was engraved in my memory for life:

  "Factory-Training School, Hospital Square, nr. Motor Works." I wrote the address carefully on the envelope and put a pebble on it to stop it blowing away. As soon as I opened the exercise-book, however, I realized that someone had been using i
t. Two pages had been torn out of the middle, and the first page was scrawled with Sasha's familiar handwriting. I read what was written there and could not help smiling.

  "To the Chief of the Town Security Department.

  "I have a very good memory. If I see a person once, I never forget him. The reason why I am telling you all this, Comrade Chief, is that you..."

  At this point Sasha's letter broke off. The word "you" followed the deleted phrase: "won't laugh at me, like my friends.".

  Again I remembered the day of our arrival, and how the agitated Sasha had tried to prove that he had seen Pecheritsa by a refreshment kiosk. I hadn't forgotten Sasha's wrathful shout, when Petka suggested that he might have been seeing a ghost.

  Folding the scribbled page, I put it in the pocket of my blouse and started composing my letter to Nikita. It turned out to be a very long one. This was not so much my fault as Nikita's.

  The evening before we parted, Nikita had said: "I'll only ask you for one thing, old chap—the more details the better. Everyone's life consists of thousands of little details, and only the man who finds out what they're all about and the right way to deal with them can be called a real man. So tell me all the instructive details you notice at your new place of work, Vasil, old chap. And I'll try to find out what they're all about and make use of them on the next course."

  Now I was giving Nikita his instructive details "at full blast," as the stokers say. I told him everything: how Tiktor had turned away from us, how we had been afraid at first that we should be lodging with a big house-owner, how Sasha had "seen" Pecheritsa by a refreshment kiosk. Zuzya Trituzny, the footballer with the cannon-ball shot, who had nearly spoilt our chances of getting a job, I described in sizzling terms. I told Nikita that in my spare time I was thinking of a new way of heating the machines. I gave him a very detailed description of my visit to Madame Rogale-Piontkovskaya's dancing-class. And so that Nikita should not tell me off for going to dances (you never knew what ideas he might get into his head!) I explained my reason for visiting the establishment: ". . . to see for myself if this Rogale-Piontkovskaya was a relative of that old Countess in Zarechye who gave Petlura and Konovalets riflemen such a welcome."

  I asked Nikita to find out more about what had become of the Countess and her aristocratic brother.

  Then followed a very favourable description of our director Ivan Fyodorovich Rudenko, who had been so decent to us. I told Nikita about Ivan Fyodorovich's concern for the workers, how he wanted to raise the foundry roof and how he was trying to puzzle out himself the technical secrets that the former owners had taken away with them.

  It was getting dark and I had to finish, but my pen went on writing and writing.

  I continued my letter with a piece of information that seemed to me most important:

  "... Tell Kozakevich to make his new pupils in the foundry cut their sleeves short at the elbow. We had so much spoilage because of those long sleeves, and no one ever noticed it. I only got to know the dodge when I came here. And it's quite simple really. When a trainee is working on a mould he catches his cuffs in the sand. While he's patching up one place, he makes a mess in others. And the result is all sorts of cracks and bumps. It's much easier and quicker to mould with your sleeves short. Get Zhora to tell the foundry trainees all about metal moulds and what they're for. In fact, the best thing would be if he did a casting or two with an iron mould, just as an example. It would help them a lot. Then they won't feel like me, for instance, who'd never seen an iron mould till I came here. . ."

  The sun was already dipping into the sea. A warm milky' twilight crept over the tired, sun-baked earth. But still I wrote. My arm ached, even more than from moulding.

  A PLAN OF ATTACK

  The moon rose full and serene. Its mellow light spangled the calm waters of the bay. The pale-pink chestnuts round the park were silently shedding their last blossoms. Scattered on the ground in the moonlight, they looked like pop-corn.

  The three of us had spent the whole of Sunday by the sea, lounging about on the beach like regular holiday-makers. My back still red and tingling from the sun, I had been dragging my feet across the sticky asphalt of Park Street when I nearly bumped into Golovatsky. He was dressed in a light open-necked shirt, cream flannels, and sandals.

  "Trying to escape from the heat!" Golovatsky said greeting me. "The fan at home's gone wrong. I've been trying to read, but it's too sultry. Just wears you out. Let's go down there, a bit further from the road." And Golovatsky pointed into the depths of the park.

  As a matter of fact, it being Sunday, I had intended to visit Turunda. I had even invited my friends to go with me, but they had refused. Golovatsky's suggestion made up my mind for me.

  We joined the strollers in the park and followed the path past the open-air cinema, which was surrounded by tall railings. The projector was humming and from near the screen came the sound of a piano. Today they were showing two films—The Bear's Wedding and Bricks—in one programme, and it had attracted a lot of people. For a Sunday, the park itself was comparatively empty.

  The green nook into which Golovatsky and I wandered was completely deserted. Through the park railings we could see the moonlit side-road that led into Genoa Street. The air seemed fresher under the branching trees and we began to feel better as we leaned back on a park bench.

  "Ssh! Look, Mandzhura!" Golovatsky nudged me and pointed towards the road.

  In the light of the moon I caught sight of two girls in flimsy cotton dresses. As soon as they reached the shade of the trees, one of the girls sat down on the front door-step of a house. In frantic haste, as if someone were chasing her, she began to do something to her feet. The other girl did the same. Soon I

  realized that both girls were taking off their shoes. Then, like snakes shedding their skins, they peeled off their long stockings, pushed them into their shoes and carefully wrapped them in pieces of paper they must have been keeping for the purpose. Apparently much relieved to be rid of their foot-wear, the girls skipped away in the direction of the Liski. The next moment a whole flock of girls ran up and took refuge in the shade of the trees. Sitting down on the same door-step, they did the same thing as their predecessors, and wrapping their tight shoes in newspapers and handkerchiefs, scampered happily away to their homes.

  Smiling and glancing at me mysteriously, Golovatsky said: "You can't help laughing, can you? That's a sight you can see any evening out here."

  "Look, there are some more!" I whispered.

  Two girls appeared in the road, hobbling. One of them, with a fringe, was wearing a sailor's blouse. The other had rigged herself out in a kind of tunic with great, billowing sleeves.

  The girl in the sailor's blouse could not even reach the cherished door-step. Clinging to an old lime-tree for support, she kicked off her shiny shoes.

  "What a relief!" her voice reached us faintly. "I thought I'd die they pinched me so!"

  "Take your stockings off, Madeleine," said her friend, who was already sitting on the door-step. "You'll make a hole in them."

  "Wait a bit, let my toes have a rest." And the girl in the blouse walked about slowly under the lime-trees, as if she were cooling her feet on the stone pavement.

  "You were just asking for it to order such small ones," said her friend, pulling off her stockings.

  "But I take sixes as it is, I can't wear bigger than that. Everybody would laugh..." was Madeleine's reply.

  The two girls melted into the shadows.

  "That one in the blouse works at the plant," said Golovatsky.

  "Where are they all coming from?"

  "Regular attenders at Madame Piontkovskaya's dancing-classes . . . Ever been there?"

  "Yes, I have!" I grunted, then I hesitated—should I tell Golovatsky how Madame had called me a lout?

  "What was your impression?"

  "The most daft-making place I've ever seen!"

  "Put it there, pal!" Golovatsky exclaimed. "So you and I are of the same opinion . . . Rogale-Pi
ontkovskaya's joint puts a man's mind to sleep. It's just dope that blinds him to everything really interesting in the world ..."

  Golovatsky glanced round and went on: "These trees, the stars that shine in the sky, even the grains of sand under your feet still hold hundreds of secrets that haven't been discovered yet. Those secrets are waiting for the man who will come and unearth them and use them for the good of society. Look at those cottages over there. Think how they're built. Couldn't they be built better, more easily, more comfortably, more sturdily than our grandfathers built them. Couldn't they be built so that the sun would shine in them all day? Surely that's a task worth devoting your life to. Or let's imagine ourselves on the beach. How little we know about the sea! Here we are, still hauling in our nets by hand, but in some places they're using electric winches. Or here's another task—harness the power of the tides to make it serve socialism! Isn't that a dream that, can be turned into reality? And then think of those dozens of people, who could have such an interesting future before them; wasting hour after hour kicking their legs about like a lot of

  puppets. It's a disgrace!"

  "But we ought to put a stop to it!"

  "You see, Mandzhura, I've already tried once to fight Madame's influence, but some of our more orthodox comrades wouldn't have it. 'You're getting petty, Tolya,' they said. 'We've got big problems to solve, and you bother about people going for a hop!' But I'm not being petty at all. Even if Madame Rogale-Piontkovskaya pops off tomorrow, we'll still be fighting her influence for a long time to come . . . That girl in the blouse, she's a decent, very intelligent girl. One day in the library I glanced at the file and was absolutely thrilled to see how many books she'd read. Then her friends got her on this fox-trotting business. After a couple of times she was a different girl. First she gave herself this fancy fringe, then she started plucking her eyebrows in zigzags, and soon she was changing her name."

  "In church? A Komsomol girl?!"

  "She hasn't gone that far yet," Golovatsky said. "She held the christening party at home. A straightforward name like 'Olga' doesn't suit her any more, now she's 'Madeleine.' And her friends were only waiting for the signal. Only the other day they were Varvara, Dasha, Katya, but no sooner do they go to Madame's than they have to have foreign names: Nelly, Margot, Lizetta ... In the tool-repair shop there's even one Beatrice—used to be Avdotya ..."