Anatoly Rybakov: The Dirk

But Misha did not see whether Polevoy had escaped. He was struck down by a terrible blow with the butt of a revolver and he sagged like a sack into the corner under a canvas rain-coat hanging from the rack.

Swathed in bandages, Misha lay quietly in bed listening to distant sounds coming in through the slightly stirring lace curtains.

People were walking in the street. He heard their footsteps on the wooden sidewalk, and their deep-toned voices speaking in Ukrainian...

A cart squeaked by...

A boy rolled a wheel, driving it with a stick.

All these sounds reached Misha through a sort of haze and were jumbled up with his short quickly-forgotten dreams. Polevoy... The Whiteguards... The dark night into which Polevoy had vanished... Nikitsky... The dirk... The blood on Polevoy's face, on his own face... Warm, sticky blood...

Grandfather told him what had happened. A detachment of railway workers had surrounded the town and not all the bandits got away on their swift horses. But Nikitsky had escaped. Polevoy had beer wounded in the fight and was now in the hospital at the railway station.

"What a hero you are!" Grandfather said with a pat on Misha's head.

But he was not a hero at all! A hero would have shot all the bandits and captured Nikitsky.

Misha wondered what Polevoy would do when they met.

Probably slap him on the back and say, "Well, Mikhail Grigoryevich, how are things?"

Perhaps he would give him a revolver and a belt to hang it on, and they would walk down the street together, armed and bandaged like real soldiers. That would give the fellows something to look at! Even Petukh would not be able to scare him then.

Mother entered the room. Grandfather had sent her a telegram and she had come down from Moscow a few days ago.

She tidied the bed clothes, cleared the plates and bread from the table, and brushed off the crumbs.

"Mother," Misha asked, "is the cinema in our block working?"

"Yes."

"What picture are they showing?"

"I don't remember. Lie still."

"I am. Has our bell been repaired?"

"No. You'll do it when you come home."

"Of course, I will. Who'd you see of the fellows? Did you see Slava?"

"Yes."

"And Shura Bolshoi?"

"Yes, I saw them all. Lie quietly, I tell you!"

What a pity he was going to Moscow without the bandages! How the fellows would have envied him with them! And what if they were not taken off after all and he went to Moscow all bandaged up? Wouldn't that be grand! And he would not have to wash...

Mother was sitting by the window, sewing something.

"How much longer will I be in bed, Mother?"

"Until you get well."

"But I feel quite well. Let me go out."

"Don't be silly! Lie still and stop talking."

"Grudging me a little walk," Misha thought gloomily. "Wants to keep me here in bed! See if I don't get up and run away."

He imagined to himself how Mother would enter the room and find him already gone. She would weep and pine away with grief; but it would be no good and she would never see him again.

Misha gave Mother a sidelong glance. She was bent over her sewing. Now and then she stopped to bite off the thread.

She would have a hard time without him! She'd be all alone. And no one would be there when she came home from work. The room would be empty and dark, and every evening she would sit thinking of Misha. He felt a lump rising to his throat.

She was so frail and reserved, with her grey, radiant eyes; so tireless and industrious. She came home late from the factory, cooked the dinner, tidied the room, washed Misha's shirts, darned his socks, and helped him with his home-work. Yet whenever she asked him to do something like chopping wood, going to the baker's for bread or warming up the dinner, he always found some excuse for backing out.

Dear, adorable Mummy! How often had he distressed her by disobeying his teachers and misbehaving in school! Mother had been called to school on several occasions and she had pleaded for Might before the headmaster. How many things had he smashed, torn or spoiled! Books, clothes... All his misdeeds fell on Mother's thin shoulders. But she worked patiently, darned and sewed. And he was ashamed of holding her hand in the street "like a little boy." He never kissed Mother-he thought that was sloppy. And to-day, too, he had been thinking of some way to distress her, after she had dropped every thing at home, suffered an agonizing week travelling in goods-vans and brought him all the things he needed. She had carried them all herself and now never left his bedside.

Misha half closed his eyes. The room was quite dark. Only the corner where Mother was sitting was illumined by the golden light of the passing day. She was sewing, her head bent over her work, and singing softly.

Blacker than treachery, blacker than tyranny,

Black is an autumn night,

Black as the prisons that loom in the mistiness,

Black is the tyrant's might.

And the word "Hear..." that started the refrain was as drawn-out and melancholy as a groan.

This was the song of a young prisoner with fine features, who sang it with his hands clutching the bars of his prison while his eyes gazed on the happy, inaccessible world outside.

Mother sang on and on. Misha opened his eyes; he could just dimly make out her pale face in the darkness. One song followed another and all of them were mournful and sad.

Misha suddenly burst out crying.

"Misha, darling, what's the matter?" Mother asked gently, bending over him.

Without a word, he flung his arms round her neck, pulled her towards him, and pressed his face against her warm, familiar blouse.

"Mummy, darling, I love you so!" he whispered.

Misha recovered quickly; the only bandage left was on his head. He was allowed to get up for short intervals and to sit up in bed, and, finally, his chum Genka was let in to see him.

Genka came into the room timidly and stopped near the door. Misha did not turn his head.

"Sit down," he said weakly and watched Genka out of the corner of his eye.

His friend sat down gingerly on the edge of a chair, stared open-mouthed at Misha, and vainly tried to hide his rather dirty feet under the chair.

Misha lay on his back with his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Every line on his face expressed pain and suffering. From time to time he touched the bandage on his head-not because his head ached but to make Genka give it its proper due.

"How d'you feel?" Genka asked, finally plucking up his courage.

"All right," came the faint response, but the deep sigh that followed was meant to show that he really felt ill and was heroically enduring racking pain.

"You're going to Moscow?" Genka asked after a pause.

"Uh-huh," Misha replied with another sigh.

"They say you're going in Polevoy's troop train."

"How d'you know?" Misha sat up immediately. "Who told you? "

"Someone."

Silence. Misha looked up at Genka.

"And what've you decided to do?"

"About what?"

"About going to Moscow."

"Why d'you ask these things?" Genka said, shaking his he angrily. "You know quite well that Father won't let me go."

"But your aunt, Agrippina Tikhonovna, has often asked you come. And in the letter Mother brought from her she says she wants you to come now. If you go you'll be living in the same block with us. "

"I'm telling you Father won't let me," Genka sighed. "Mother won't either."

"But Aunt Nyura's not your real mother."

"She's good to me just the same."

"Agrippina Tikhonovna's better."

"Oh, how can I go?"

"That's easily done: in the box under the carriage. You can hide there and as soon as we pull out of Revsk you can come out and join us."