Владимир Беляев - The Town By The Sea

"From my own cellar!" he said heaving a deep breath. And to the waiter: "Nikolai Ivanovich, bring us some glasses, please."

"'Coming right away, Yosif Vikentievich!" the waiter called.

It was the first time anyone had addressed my old friend by his patronymic in my presence. I didn't

even know that Weasel was a "Vikentievich!"

Well, our childhood days were over now. Gone were those wonderful times when we used to run about the grassy banks of the Smotrich hoping to find Turkish coins in the mud.

"What's your job on this ship, Yuzik?" I asked.

"I'm fourth mate," Yuzik replied. "Before I came to the Azov Sea, I'd sailed on quite a few other craft—the Toiler of the Sea, the Feodosiya, and the Pestel. I went through my practical training on the Transbalt. Even went abroad on her."

"How did you manage it all in the time!" I said, envying Weasel a little. "We only finished at the factory-training school this year."

"I'm older than you," Yuzik replied with dignity. "You and Maremukha were still at the people's school when I was manning sails off Batumi."

A heavy wave struck the ship. Tea-spoons scattered over the buffet-counter. A few olives slipped off their plate and rolled over the floor.

"Oho!" said Yuzik, and listened for a moment. "That took us head on. The wind's changing. It'll be blowing right from the East soon."

"Will an east wind be better or worse than the one we've got now, Yuzik?" I asked as off-handedly as I could, but there must have been a note of alarm in my voice.

Yuzik eyed me keenly.

"Afraid of getting drowned, Vasil? Don't worry! This ship can weather any storm. A change of wind can't hurt her."

With the head wind howling louder and louder outside it was pleasant to sit among a circle of new friends listening to your old friend yarn about his voyage, remembering other old friends and the battle with those boy-scout snobs...

Then Yuzik took me over the ship, showed me the stokehold, the chart house, the crew's quarters, and finally led me to his cabin. He made his bed on a little couch, and since I was his guest, offered me the narrow bunk with a high side to prevent one from falling out.

The cabin was cosy and well looked after. Above the table hung a bookshelf with a number of books on navigation and steering. I thumbed through one of the books whose margins were covered with notes in Yuzik's hand. It was hard to believe that my old friend had already learnt something so incomprehensible to me as this science of navigating a ship.

A kind of map moulded in lead hung over the couch. There was something familiar about it. On glancing at it more closely I recognized the outlines of our town, copied from a map of the sixteenth century.

Putting his arm round my shoulder, Yuzik said: "I bought it in Odessa. I thought I'd seen it somewhere before, so I took a closer look. And blow me if it wasn't our town!"

"The Old Fortress is shown on it too! Look!" I exclaimed, examining the fortress with its walls and bastions that barred the entrance to the town.

"It's very fine work. Everything's shown, even the smallest tower," Weasel assented. "And the river Smotrich. See how it makes a loop round the town that's knotted by the fortress?"

"And here's the fortress bridge! Gosh the banks are steep here! Remember, Yuzik, how we carried flowers across that bridge to Sergushin's grave and Maremukha was frightened all the time that we'd be stopped by Petlura men?"

"As if I could ever forget it!" Weasel answered, and I realized that the evening we had spent tending the grave of the murdered Bolshevik had made a deep mark on him too. "But where do you three live?"

"In Primorskaya Street. Almost next door to the harbour."

"Gosh, what a pity!..." Yuzik murmured. "If I'd known, I should always have dropped in to see you when we were in port. . ."

When at last we had exchanged all our news, it seemed almost as if we had never parted. We realized that not only had we grown up and become men, but that our young country had grown up too.

I learnt that while he was still on the Black Sea Yuzik had been admitted to the ranks of the Communist Party. The oldest of our trio, he had become a Communist at the time of Lenin's death in 1924. Lying on the little plush coach, his feet propped against the wall of. the next cabin, Yuzik asked: "Is yours an important invention, Vasil? Or just a little thing?"

So I had to tell him about that too.

... I had found people who were willing to take up my proposal. Andrykhevich's remark about my "fantastic ideas" had scared off Fedorko, the foreman, but it had not affected our director. After all, someone at head office had even called Ivan Fyodorovich a "reckless character" because he was planning to raise the roof of the foundry and complete the blast-furnace without stopping production.

The director had called me up and said: "Well done, Mandzhura! Go on plugging away at things, as you are now. It's a good thing to work hard and fulfil your target, but use your brains as well. Let your imagination go!.. . You won't object if we put an engineer with you on the job for a week or so, will you? Not to make him a co-designer, of course, but to get your idea into proper technical shape." Naturally I agreed willingly.

Soon a placard appeared over the works gate: "Young Workers! Follow the example of the young foundry men. Vasily Mandzhura's rationalization proposal will save the plant 660 working hours per day. His proposal to get rid of the heaters and introduce a central heating system will also protect workers from catching cold and other illnesses!"

This placard, so I heard later, had been drawn on Golovatsky's advice by the same artists from the metalworkers' club who had caricatured the frequenters of Rogale-Piontkovskaya's dancing-saloon.

Rudenko thanked me publicly on behalf of the whole works and awarded me a prize of 500 rubles.

We were no longer in danger of having to make do with "tropical furniture." That night, while I chatted with Yuzik, my friends were sleeping at home on proper comfortable beds, with spring mattresses. And there was a bed in the attic for me, too, covered with a green woolly blanket.

With this unexpected windfall we subscribed to Home University for Workers, as well as to several magazines and a daily newspaper.

Following Golovatsky's advice I bought myself an excellent brown tweed suit and a good pair of shoes at the co-operative store.

And even then II still had ninety-five rubles left over. This I put away in the savings bank. I told none of my friends what I needed the savings for. That was a secret. I had decided to save the money in case Angelika needed it when she was in Leningrad. Whether asked for my help or not, I considered it my duty to assist her at the start of her independent life.

"Well, now I understand why you've been made a delegate to the conference!" Yuzik said, when I had told my story. "And what are your plans for the future?"

"Everything's decided, Yuzik!" I answered proudly. "All three of us are going to study at the workers' university. Work in the day-time, study in the evening. The winter will pass in no time... Where will you

be this winter, when the sea freezes?"

"On the Black Sea. Odessa-Sukhumi line. Or perhaps I'll get a job on an ice-breaker, helping the Azov Sea fishermen."

"Ice-breakers are little ships, aren't they?"

"Yes, not very big. Sailors laugh at them. 'Old tin cans!' they call them. But I don't mind. While you're young you can learn navigation even on coasting vessels. And soon, you know, we'll be having ocean-going ships here. That'll mean long voyages. We may even go up to the Arctic. Look up there," Yuzik nodded at the bookshelf, "I'm studying the charts of the Barents and Karsk seas in my spare time."

"So you like your life too, Yuzik?"