The city education section had received complaints: the orphanage staff were not always coping with their work and there had been infringements of labour discipline.
As Marusya was walking towards the car, the section’s deputy head had come hurrying after her. He had handed her a letter he’d received only a few minutes earlier: a complaint from two of the orphanage staff about the unfortunate behaviour of one of the assistants and about the director’s inexplicable refusal to dismiss this assistant. Klava Sokolova, the assistant in question, had sung and wept, in an inebriated state, in front of the children; and a truck driver, who had come to the home in a three-tonner, had twice stayed the night in her room.
Marusya now had to look into all this. She sighed grimly, nerving herself for a conversation that was sure to be painful both for Tokareva and for herself.
She entered a spacious room, its walls covered by children’s drawings, and asked the woman on duty, who looked about twenty, to call Tokareva. Marusya looked at her disapprovingly as she hurried towards the door; she disliked the young woman’s fringe.
Marusya walked slowly about the room, taking a good look at the drawings. One was of a dogfight. In a whirl of black smoke and flame, black German planes were raining down from the sky; huge Soviet planes were flying calmly among them. The Soviet pilots’ faces were outlined in red, the planes’ wings and fuselages were red, and the planes’ five-pointed stars were a denser, heavier red.
Another drawing showed a land battle. Huge red guns, belching red flame, were firing red shells; fascist soldiers were perishing amid explosions that flung heads, hands, helmets and a huge number of German boots high into the sky, higher even than the Soviet planes. The third drawing showed giant Red Army soldiers launching an attack; the revolvers in their mighty hands were bigger than the fascists’ puny black cannon.
Separate from all these hung a large framed watercolour of young partisans in the forest. The fluffy, sunlit birch trees were executed perfectly, and the slim young girls had tanned knees—the artist, who must have been one of the older children, clearly had both real talent and a good grasp of the subject matter. Marusya immediately thought of her daughter. Vera was almost grown up now, and the young men would be starting to notice her. As for the young lads in the water-colour, they were all well built, blue-eyed and pink-cheeked. The girls had almond-shaped eyes, pure and transparent as the sky over their heads. One girl had waves of long hair down to her shoulders, another had plaits wound around her head, and a third had a wreath of white flowers. Marusya liked this watercolour, in spite of its one obvious fault: the faces of some of the young boys and girls were almost identical, all in profile, and with the same turn of the head. It seemed that the artist had been impressed by some particular face and had then attached this face to bodies of either sex, adding either short hair or long plaits. Nevertheless, the painting was impressive and moving; it was an expression of an ideal, of something noble and pure.
And it brought to mind the many arguments she had had about art with Zhenya: she, of course, was right, and Zhenya was wrong. Zhenya painted what mattered to Zhenya, whereas this artist painted what mattered to everyone. And Zhenya had no right to accuse her of bombast and falsity. She would have liked to take this painting back home and show it to her. Zhenya would hardly be able to criticize the work of an artist guided only by the pure inspiration of a child’s soul. Anyway, what was this truth of Zhenya’s? There were two truths, not one. There was a vile, dirty, cruel and humiliating truth that made it harder to live, and there was this truth of a pure soul, born to put an end to Zhenya’s vile and humiliating truth.
Yelizaveta Savelievna Tokareva came in—a stout woman with grey hair and a cross face. After working for many years in a bakery she had moved to administrative work at the raikom. Then she had been offered the post of deputy director at the bakery where she had formerly kneaded dough. But she did not get on well in this post, apparently unable to impose her authority. After a month she was dismissed—and given a new job as director of this children’s home. She liked working with children and had just completed a special course. Nevertheless, here too things were not going well for her. The education section kept having to send inspectors. Tokareva had received an official reprimand, and a month ago the second secretary had summoned her to the raikom.
Marusya shook hands with her and said she had come to discuss some recent complaints.
They walked down a cool, newly washed corridor. It smelled pleasantly fresh.
From behind a closed door came the sound of children singing. Tokareva, glancing at Marusya out of the corner of her eye, said, “This is the youngest group. It’s too early to teach them to read and write. They do singing instead.”
Marusya opened the door and saw a group of little girls standing in a half-circle.
In another room, she saw a little boy sitting at a table on his own and drawing in a notebook with a coloured pencil. He was probably about five, with red cheeks and a snub nose. He looked sullenly at Tokareva, then turned away. Pouting angrily, he went on drawing.
“Why’s he sitting here all on his own?” asked Marusya.
“He’s been very naughty,” said Tokareva. And then, in a loud, serious voice, “His name is Valentin Kuzin. He drew a swastika on his tummy in indelible ink.”
“That’s terrible,” said Marusya. But once they were back out in the corridor, she began to laugh.
Tokareva evidently had a weakness for drapes and curtains. In her room she had white cloths of one kind or another in the window, on her desk, on her bed and by the washstand. Above the bedhead, arranged in a fan shape, were a number of family photographs—elderly women in kerchiefs and men in black shirts with bright buttons. There were also a few group portraits: probably, some Party activists on a training course and Stakhanovite workers at the bakery.14
Marusya sat down at the desk, opened her briefcase and took out a sheaf of papers. First she asked about Sukhonogova, the deputy storekeeper. One of the assistants had happened to go past her house and had seen her little boy parading around in shoes from the children’s home. “Why have you not acted on this?” Marusya asked. “This was reported to you a long time ago.”
Without looking at Marusya, Tokareva said, “I’ve been to Sukhonogova’s house and looked into this incident in detail. It truly isn’t a matter of theft. The boy’s boots were falling apart and towards the end of winter he was unable to walk to school. Sukhonogova took his boots to be mended and borrowed some of our shoes for two days. As soon as she got the boots back from the cobbler, she returned the shoes without the least wear and tear. He’s a boy, she says, who just won’t stay at home. If it’s not skating, it’s skiing. And so he’d worn out his boots. And none of us had any shoe coupons just then. And what with the war, and her husband being away in the army for over a year now. . .”
“My dear friend,” Marusya replied severely, “I don’t doubt Sukhonogova’s need, but that’s no excuse for her to borrow without authorization from the children’s-home store. As for it being wartime, that’s no excuse at all. Anything but! Now more than ever, every state kopek is sacred, every state lump of coal, every state nail . . .” For a moment Marusya stumbled, and this made her feel angry with herself. She went on, “Think what sufferings are now being inflicted on people. Think of the rivers of blood now flowing in the struggle for our Soviet land. Do you not understand? This is no time for sentimentality and special exemptions. Yes, the slightest misdemeanour from my own daughter and I’d subject her to the very harshest punishment. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions from this conversation, but I advise you to act without delay.”
“Yes, of course, I’ll do as you say,” Tokareva said with a sigh. Then, taking Marusya aback, she asked, “And what about the question of evacuation?”
“You will be notified,” Marusya replied, “in due course.”
“The children keep asking about it,” Tokareva said apologetically. “Some were brought here by sold
iers. Some were picked up by people who were already refugees themselves. Others somehow made their way here alone. At night, when the sky’s full of planes, the children know better than we do which planes are German and which are our own.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” said Marusya. “How’s little Slava Berozkin? I sent him to you myself. His mother’s just been asking about him.”
“He’s not so well. He’s had a cold the last few days. Let me take you to the sickbay—you can have a word with him there.”
“Later. When we’re done with business.”
Marusya questioned Tokareva about the various recent incidents in the home. It turned out that there hadn’t, after all, been so very many.
One fourteen-year-old boy had run away during the night, making off with eight towels he had stolen from the storeroom. A second, who had always done well in his lessons, was discovered by a teacher in the flea market, begging for money to go to the cinema. When questioned, he admitted that he didn’t really mean to go to the cinema at all. He was trying to save up some money for a rainy day. “What if the Germans bomb the home?” he said. “What’ll become of me then?”
Tokareva was not especially bothered by incidents of this kind. “They’re good children,” she said resolutely. “If you explain to them what they’ve done wrong, they feel genuinely sorry. They’re nearly all good, honest children. True Soviet children! And we do, by the way, have an entire Internationale of them now. In the past there were only Russians, but now we’ve got children from Ukraine and Belorussia. We’ve got Romanies, we’ve got Moldavians. Who haven’t we got? To be honest with you, even I wouldn’t have believed they’d all get on so well together. And if sometimes they come to blows, well, what do you expect? After all, children are children—and anyway, adults in football stadiums are no better. I even get the feeling that they’re growing more united than ever. Russian, Ukrainians, Armenians, Belorussians—all becoming a single family.”
“That’s wonderful!” said Marusya, deeply moved. “Everything you’re telling me is truly remarkable.” She was in the state of happy excitement that came to her whenever she felt that everyday life was merging with her ideals. There were tears in her eyes and she was breathing hot and fast. There was, she felt, no greater happiness than this. She had certainly never known any greater happiness with her family or in her love for her husband and daughter. It was because of the intensity of her feelings at times like this that she felt so angry and upset when Zhenya, who never understood anything at all, referred to her as cold-hearted.
Marusya had expected this visit to be difficult and unpleasant. Issuing official reprimands or requesting someone’s dismissal were not tasks she undertook lightly. She did such things only when duty required, when there was no other option. If at times she seemed harsh and implacable, like a prosecuting counsel, this was because it was such a struggle for her to overcome her instinctive dislike of severity.
And it had certainly never occurred to her that she might experience moments of real joy in the children’s home, that she might be moved by the work of a young artist, or by something that Tokareva told her.
The official part of the meeting was nearly over. Tokareva had been suspected of nepotism, but it was clear that this suspicion was entirely unfounded. On the contrary, she had, in fact, recently dismissed a relative of one of the raikom officials. This woman, one of the matrons, had ordered the kitchen to prepare her a special meal, from products set aside for sick children.
Tokareva had given her a warning, but the matron, understanding this as her boss’s expression of anger at not being included, had ordered the kitchen to prepare a special meal for two. Tokareva had then dismissed her. This had angered the raikom official to whom the matron was related.
In her mind Marusya went through the many positive things she had seen: the cleanliness of the rooms and the bed linen; the general kindness of the staff; and the quality of the meals, which were more substantial than in many other such homes.
“We certainly shouldn’t dismiss her, but we must find her a reliable deputy,” Marusya said to herself, making a few notes in her notebook and imagining what she would soon be saying to the head of the education section.
“And who painted that picture of the partisans? Your young artist has real talent,” she said. “We should send the picture to Kuibyshev, I’d like our comrades in the People’s Commissariat to see it.”
Tokareva blushed, as if it were she who was being praised. She did, in fact, very often say, “Something horrible has happened to me again” or “Something very funny has happened to me today”—and it would then emerge that she wanted to talk not about her own life but about the good or bad deeds of her children, a child’s illness or recovery from illness.
“The artist is a little girl,” she said. “Shura Bushueva.”
“An evacuee?”
“No, she’s from nearby, from Kamyshin. She painted it from her imagination. The evacuees, the children who’ve seen fighting, have done drawings too, but I really didn’t want any of their drawings up on the walls. They’re ghastly—all dead bodies and blazing buildings. There’s one boy who lived under the Germans. He drew Russian prisoners of war eating rotten horsemeat. No, I can’t bear to look at drawings like that.”
They walked down the corridor and out into the yard. The bright sun made Marusya screw up her eyes. At the same time, she put her hands over her ears because of the din of merry, discordant voices. Twelve-year-olds in football shirts, raising clouds of dust, were kicking a ball around with desperate determination. A shaggy goalkeeper in blue ski trousers was leaning forward, resting his hands on his knees and watching the ball’s every move. His eyes, his half-open mouth, and even his legs, neck and shoulders all declared that nothing in the world was more important, right now, than this game.
Some smaller boys, armed with wooden rifles and plywood swords, were running along beside the fence. Advancing towards them was an orderly column of soldiers, all wearing three-cornered hats made from newspaper.
A small girl was skipping nimbly over a rope that two of her friends were twirling for her. Others were waiting their turn, watching intently, silently moving their lips as they counted the number of successful jumps.
“It’s for them we’re fighting this war,” said Marusya.
“I think our children must be the best in the world,” Tokareva declared with conviction. “I’ve got boys here who are true heroes. That one over there, Semyon Kotov, the goalie—he was a scout for a front-line unit. He was caught by the Germans. They knocked him about, but he didn’t say a word. And now he keeps begging to return to the front. And see those two girls?”
Two little girls in blue dresses were walking through the yard. One was fair-haired; the other, who was holding a cloth doll, had quick, dark eyes and a tanned complexion. Her head bowed towards her doll, she was listening to her fair-haired friend. The friend was speaking quickly and with barely a pause. The two women couldn’t hear what she was saying, but it looked as if she were angry.
“Those two are inseparable,” Tokareva continued. “They were brought here from the reception centre together and they stay together from morning till night. The fair-haired one’s an orphan, a Polish Jew—Hitler’s slaughtered all her family. And the other one, the one with the doll, is from a family of Volga Germans.”
They entered the wing that housed the workshops and the sickbay. Tokareva took Marusya into the workshop, a large half-dark room imbued with the cool damp—so pleasant on a stifling summer’s day—that is to be found only in old buildings with thick stone walls. The workshop was empty, except for a boy of about thirteen sitting at the furthest table. He was peering into a hollow brass tube. When the two women came in, he looked at them crossly.
“Zinyuk,” Tokareva asked the boy, “what are you doing here all on your own? Don’t you like football?”
“I don’t want to play football. I’ve got a lot of work to do, I’ve no time for games,” the boy sai
d, and went back to examining his tube.
“My small university,” said Tokareva. “Zinyuk keeps asking if he can go and work in a factory. I also have construction engineers, mechanical engineers and aircraft designers—and there are other children writing poems and painting pictures.” And then, quietly and somewhat unexpectedly, she added, “What a terrible business it all is . . .”
They went through the workshop and out into the corridor.
“This way,” said Tokareva. “Here’s the sickbay. As well as Berozkin, there’s a Ukrainian boy we all thought was dumb. Whatever we asked him, he never answered a word. And so we thought he was dumb. And then one of our nurses, or rather, one of our cleaners, began to take care of him. And—it seems she has a way with children—all of a sudden he began to speak.”
14
IT WAS a small room and there were patches of sunlight creeping slowly across the wall, their warmer white standing out against the limewash. There were some wild flowers in a pot-belly jar on a little table, but another patch of sun, broken up by the glass into a spectrum of pure, airy colour, eclipsed the pale greens, blues and yellows of these flowers from the dusty steppe.
“Do you remember me, Slava?” asked Marusya, as she went over to Slava Berozkin’s bed. He had the same features and the same colour eyes as his mother, Tamara. And his eyes had the same sad look.
Slava looked thoughtfully at Marusya and said, “Yes, Auntie, I remember you.”
Marusya did not know how to talk to children. She could never find the right tone. Sometimes she would talk to six-year-olds as if they were only three, sometimes as if they were already adult. Children would correct her, saying, “We’re not babies, you know.” Or they would yawn and ask her to repeat long words they didn’t understand. Now, with Tokareva standing beside her, after a discussion that had at times been difficult, Marusya wanted to show that she could be kind and warm-hearted; she didn’t want Tokareva to think her un-feeling. With a smile on her face, she asked, “Well, how are you finding it here? Have any swallows flown in to see you?”
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