The Town By The Sea tof-3
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As I shook the sand out of my boots, I reflected that it would not be a bad idea to introduce Kharkov ways at our foundry. What was the sense in walking all the way through town in a dirty, scorched set of overalls, when you could wash and change at the works, like the men on the case-hardening furnace!
I remembered the spring evening when we had been strolling through the streets of our home town, munching sunflower seeds and nuts, and Furman and Guzarchik had run up to tell us our passes to the factories of the Ukraine had arrived. It was such a short time ago, and yet how much had happened in our lives since that Saturday evening, and how confident and grown-up we all felt now.
"Dear old home town," I thought, splashing about like a duck beside the well. "Shall I ever see you again? Shall I ever walk down the boulevards again listening to the rustle of the leaves? Shall I climb up on to the battlemented wall of the Old Fortress and gaze down on the broad lands of my Podolia, on the foaming spring waters of the Smotrich? We have scattered over the Ukraine to take up new lives. I wonder if we shall ever come together again on the steep cliffs of our old town and march together, with songs and torches, through the dark forests to the swift-flowing Dniester."
NIKITA IN NEED
"Dear Vasil,
"Forgive me, old chap, for not answering at once. I've been up to my neck in it. Talk about having your hands full! You went away to your factories, the school was empty and it seemed the time had come for us to sit back and sun ourselves on the rocky banks of the Smotrich. But we decided
otherwise. At a time like this, when the Party has called upon us to make a full-scale offensive on private enterprise, and put all our energy into the industrialization of the country, what right have we to take a rest cure?
"I got the first-year Komsomol members together, Polevoi invited the instructors, and at a general meeting we decided to renovate the school without any outside help.
"Every day for over a month we turned up at the school, putting the place into shape, making new tools, and enlarging the various shops. You wouldn't know your foundry now, Vasil! It's been whitewashed inside and out. Kozakevich has made a big casting of the metal-workers' trade union badge and hung it over the entrance. Nowadays, when people pass, they know at once that iron is smelted in this clean little building, where the ratecollectors used to hold their meetings. And do you remember the store-room near the locksmiths' shop? It no longer exists! We have knocked down the wooden partition and put another three benches in the extra space. That means another nine places at the school for training the new generation of industrial workers. Just think what that means, Vasil! Next autumn we shall be able to take nine extra boys and girls who would like to make friends with the hammer and chisel.
And suppose every factory-training school follows our example? That will make a whole division for the army of the industrial proletariat! Our Soviet youth, plus machinery, plus a socialist attitude to labour, plus the ability to understand blue-prints, and to build the future according to those blue-prints!
"I am very glad for you that the director of the works turned out to be a real Bolshevik and treated you understandingly, as a Communist director should. From your letter, Vasil, I conclude that you have established excellent relations with your Komsomol organization at the works, and that they respect you. That is why, since I still look upon you, old chap, as a delegate of the Podolian Komsomol to the Azov coast, I have a big request to make to you, Maremukha, and Bobir.
"Do you remember the state farm on the bank of the Dniester where you and I made friends in the days when you used to live at the Party School? The District Party Committee has decided to put the whole farm with its land and outbuildings at the disposal of a Youth Agricultural Commune. This commune will train young specialists for agriculture. And they, in their turn, will show the rest of the peasantry how to farm on new, Soviet principles.
"The number of volunteers for the commune has been terrific. Young people from all over the place who have read about the commune in the newspapers are showering the District Committee with requests to be sent there.
"But now there's a hitch. We've got everything in the commune—cows, horses, plough-land, young people ready to work, enthusiasm and the desire to devote oneself to a good cause—but we're short of machinery! Our Komsomol members at the school will, I am sure, be able to repair the ploughs and harrows for their brother commune. Working overtime, we'll manage to turn out a few straw-cutters for them. But that's about the limit of our resources. And yet it's absolutely essential to supply the chaps at the commune with at least five reapers. It stands to reason, of course, that no one from the centre will send us reapers in the middle of the season. But how fine it would be if when harvest time comes round, our chaps drove out into the fields on good, new Soviet reaping machines!
"And when I read what you wrote about your works making reapers I naturally thought to myself: 'Here's the man who will help our young commune!' Yes, Vasil, say what you like, but you've got to help us! Polevoi and I are certain, and the District Committee of the Komsomol is certain, too, that you will bring it off.
"Go and see the works Party organization, go and see the director and explain to them what a great political effect it will have if a model youth commune springs up on the border between us and the Rumania of the landowners. Tell them... But why explain everything to you! Won't you be able to get us five reapers without that? Ask, insist, get Golovatsky to help you. Judging from your letter, he's a helpful sort of chap. In short, Vasil, the whole factory-training school, as well as every Komsomol on the border
have put their hopes on you.
"You may be asked who will pay for these reapers? Don't worry about that. As soon as we receive your telegram telling us the amount we must pay, we'll send the money at once. We have already started collecting the money. We have performed two plays at the Shevchenko theatre, we have held a fancy-dress ball there, like the one we held to collect gifts for the Red Cossacks. And the District Committee has also got some cash for the commune. In short, Vasil, you've got to act, act at full pressure!
"Oh, and I nearly forgot! You ask whether there's any news of Pecheritsa. There certainly is, and a lot of it. But I think it would be premature to write about it just now.
"Best wishes to you all from Polevoi, 'Kozakevich, and self.
"Dmitry Panchenko sends you his greetings and says he is sure you, Maremukha, and Bobir will justify our hopes about the reapers.
"Sincerest Komsomol greetings,
"Nikita Kolotneyets."
I showed the letter to my friends. Sasha read it and muttered something vaguely. Petka scratched his head and said:
"Now we're in for it! Five reapers will take a bit more buying than a reel of cotton!"
"But what's the news about Pecheritsa?" I said suddenly.
"They must have nabbed him," Sasha came out of his reverie. "I told you I had seen him here!"
"You saw him here and they caught him there? Very queer!" I said, bringing Sasha down to earth. "In fact, it's all a bit queer..."
"Don't you know iKolomeyets?" Petka said. "That's him all over. He always liked making a mystery of things."
"Well, what shall we do, chaps?" I asked, thinking of Nikita's request.
"Go and see the director, what else!" Sasha exclaimed promptly, as if it was the obvious thing to do.
"Let's go together."
"Count me out for today," said Sasha. "I've got a job on at the flying club that will take me all night to finish."
"What about you, Petka?" I asked, looking imploringly at Maremukha.
"I've told you already, Vasil: we've got a technical class this evening. How can I miss that!"
But I did not go to the director. First I called on Tolya Golovatsky to ask his advice.
Of course, I remembered the state farm on the Dniester that Nikita had written about. I remembered how mysterious it had seemed to me when our carts drove up to the gates in the dead of night. The farm-house was surrounded
by tall poplars and a white stone wall. Horses could be heard champing in the stables. A watchman, rifle in hand, loomed out of the darkness of the yard, and before opening the heavy gates, asked us many questions.
And how could I forget the first night at the farm, when I lay in the crisp hay, with a rifle pressed to my side, under the iron roof of the barn! Or our morning bathes in the swift, cold waters of the Dniester! Or the smell of mint near a gooseberry bush that I had found while wandering through the neglected garden!... And how I used to enjoy those Sunday trips to the little town of Zhvanets for the state farm's mail.
. . . Before me stretches the dusty cart-track above the Dniester. The hooves of the light-bay horse plop into the soft dust raising little grey clouds behind us. I loll in the creaking saddle and look across the Dniester at the houses on the edge of Khotin and the ruins of an ancient fortress on the Bessarabian bank. My horse flicks his ears and keeps trying to snap at the ripening ears of corn by the roadside.
And then I'm on my way back with a packet of fresh newspapers and magazines. If there is no wind,
I twist the reins round my arm and read the newspapers as I am riding along. I glance over the head-lines and consider what I shall be reading to the young people of the village who attend our club at the state farm.
That summer, Polevoi had given me the job of reading the papers aloud on Sundays. At first I refused. I could not even imagine myself telling the be-ribboned young girls and their boy friends from the village about the news in the papers. And my first session certainly was an ordeal. I could not take my eyes off the page and all the time I wanted to look up and see what impression I was making on my listeners. At last I made a break and, running my fingers through my hair, took a calm look at the lads and lassies gathered round me. After that everything went swimmingly. I even managed to answer their questions.
And now I was very glad to hear that a youth commune would be set up in the village I knew so well. That really was good news!
Every day the cheerful songs of young people would float across the Dniester into landowner-ruled Bessarabia. The members of the commune would certainly build a new power station to replace the little petrol engine that only supplied current until ten in the evening. Who could tell, perhaps what they wrote in the newspapers about milking cows with electricity would come true at the commune!
I imagined the former landowner's mansion given over to our young people, gleaming with electric light, ringing with songs and cheerful talk. How many young Bessarabians would be drawn across the river by those lights! After all, whom had those people to turn to in their trouble, if not to us! This was their only hope—our happiness, which might one day, like the flames of a blazing fire, leap across into Bessarabia...
But it was all very well to think about such things as I went to Golovatsky's; it was quite a different matter, however, to come down from dreams of the future to the present day and carry out Nikita's request.
Golovatsky, too, was rather taken aback when he heard the news.
"Your friend is a little bit naive," Tolya said as he finished reading the letter. "He thinks you've just got to wave your hand and you'll have five reapers ready and waiting for him! But of course, a commune on the border like that is an important job for the Komsomol. We certainly can't leave your friends' letter unanswered... You know what? Let's go and see the director." "He won't be at the works now, will he?" "We'll call on him at home," Golovatsky said. "At home?" I repeated. "Is that all right?" "Why not! This is a matter of public importance. Ivan Fyodorovich isn't one of those bourgeois specialists, like Andrykhevich. Besides he's attached to our Komsomol organization as a Party member. Come on, there's nothing to be scared of."
Golovatsky's resolute tone reassured me. But when we turned off the avenue to the left I was again puzzled.
"Doesn't Rudenko live in the centre?"
"He lives in Matrosskaya Settlement. Open to all the winds that blow! The craftsmen from the works have always lived there. You knew Rudenko used to work in the foundry before the Revolution, didn't you?"
"But couldn't he have moved into the centre of the town?"
"Of course, he could," Golovatsky replied, "specially as the old director's house was empty in those days. But he didn't want to. 'What's the use of all those halls and passages to me?' he said. 'Three rooms are all I want. And it's more free and easy down by the seaside!' " Golovatsky waved his arm in the direction of the shore, which we were approaching along a broad, dirt road with burdock and steppe grass growing in the ditches. "And Rudenko was quite right," Tolya went on. "He got the old owner's house made into a night sanatorium for the workers at our plant. If a worker doesn't feel too good, as soon as he knocks off work, he goes up there. There are lockers in the entrance-hall. As soon as he gets inside he can take off his working clothes and go under a shower. Then he goes to another locker where there's clean underwear, a dressing-gown and bedroom slippers ready for him. Everything's spick and span, the food's good, there's peace and quiet, everybody sleeps with his window open winter and summer, amusements in the evening. And in the morning, at the sound of the hooter, everyone goes straight off to work."
"Has the director got a big family?" I asked.
"Only himself and his wife."
"No children?"
"One of his sons was killed by Makhno's men. The other's an airman, a squadron commissar. He's home on leave now."
"Bobir was telling me that a flyer called Rudenko had brought a training aircraft to the flying club...."
"Yes, that's the director's son," Golovatsky explained. "He's a daring chap. He spent his leave here last year too. Paddled all the way to Mariupol in a canoe. It's a terrific distance, you know. Suppose a storm had caught him coming round Belorechenskaya Kosa? It'd have been good-bye to him then."
I realized why Sasha had been so thrilled when he told us about the airman.
"I wonder if we'll find Ivan Fyodorovich at home?" said Golovatsky, crossing a plank over the ditch at the side of the road.
In an orchard of apple-trees surrounded by a rough-cast wall stood a small cottage. We went up to one of the open windows. Quiet voices and the clattering of crockery could be heard from inside.
"Must be having dinner!" Tolya whispered and tapped on the window-frame with his finger. "Is Ivan Fyodorovich at home?"
The lace curtains parted and we saw the sun-tanned face of our director.
"Hullo, you young people! Just at the right time! I've been wanting to tell you off for a long while, Tolya."
"Me? What for?" Golovatsky exclaimed.
"For a good reason!" the director said. "But come in and have something to eat first."
"We've had our dinner, thanks," Golovatsky said hastily. "You finish yours, we'll wait for you down on the beach."
"Come in and make yourself at home!" the director insisted.
But Golovatsky refused. "We'll be down there," he said, waving in the direction of the sea.
The shore behind the little dwarf apple-trees was covered with greyish-green steppe grass and
stinging nettles. All round there was an abundance of spurge, meadow-sweet, and even the bushy, yellow-flowering garmala. Not far from the water's edge, in the midst of the pale-green steppe foliage, stood an oak bench. It must have been under water many a time during storms.
Golovatsky sat down on the bench, and turning his smooth, oval face towards me, asked: "What does he want to tell me off about, I wonder?"
"Perhaps he was joking and you're getting windy for nothing," I consoled him.
"No, he's angry about something."
At that moment we heard footsteps behind us. The director was striding across the soft sand. He was wearing a pair of slippers on his bare feet, and blue working trousers. His sleeves were rolled up revealing brown, muscular arms with a thick growth of grey hair on them.
"Well, my fine friend, why don't you and your Komsomol pals ever show yourselves in the works dining-hall?" the director challenged Golovatsky
and, sitting down on the bench, put his arm round his shoulder,
"But Ivan Fyodorovich!..." Golovatsky protested.
"I know I'm Ivan Fyodorovich. They've been calling me that for fifty years or more. But what about those pledges you made when we opened the dining-hall. You said that while the workers were having their meals in the break you, Komsomol members, would give political talks—about workers' conditions in Britain, and about China, and about that humbug Chang Tso-lin... And what's been done? Yesterday I went round there—not a sign of Chang Tso-lin. Today I went there—workers from every shop in the dining-room, but not a murmur from you... Surely you aren't going to let me down like that!..."
"Yes, it's my fault... I'm sorry, Ivan Fyodorovich," Golovatsky admitted and, pulling off his checked cap, bowed his head until a lock of his auburn hair touched the bench. "You know why it happened? We've been preparing for a big campaign against those dances. All our people are working on that."
"Dances aren't the main thing, Tolya, they're a side-line. The main thing for us is production, industrialization, agriculture, education. We've got to get all the efforts of the working class focussed on those things."
"That's just what we've come to see you about, Ivan Fyodorovich," said Golovatsky hastily, and whispered to me: "Give him your letter, Vasil."
I handed Nikita's letter to the director and felt my chest tighten with excitement. The fate of our request hung in the balance!
Ivan Fyodorovich pulled an ancient, metal-rimmed pair of spectacles out of his pocket, and perching them on his aquiline nose, started to read Nikita's flowing handwriting. As he read, the expression of his tired eyes grew kinder.
"It's a grand idea, lads," he said at last. "Communes like that are just the place for training leaders of the peasantry. And the men who are trained there will lead the peasant masses on to a broad transformation of agriculture. But what can I do to help—that's the question. I've been expressly forbidden to sell the stuff we produce. The works isn't an agricultural machinery shop."