Владимир Беляев - The Town By The Sea

As of old, a few women were selling flowers by the low wall at the entrance to the fortress bridge—red, white, and yellow peonies, bunches of wild daisies, bright-red poppies...

A stocky, broad-shouldered lieutenant-colonel standing with his back to me was buying flowers. He took the women's bunches in armfuls and carried them to the seat of a light army truck. From the number of petrol tins in the back of the truck I guessed that the lieutenant-colonel and his driver had come from afar and were just as much chance visitors to this town as I.

What does he need all these flowers for, I wondered, then looking up and noticing the Old Fortress towering above me, I at once forgot the soldiers.

The fortress still stood there on its steep cliffs guarding the entrance to the town from east, south, and west, just as it had for centuries. Its thick stone walls built in ancient times, strong and indestructible as the grey weather beaten cliffs on which it stood, had often saved the inhabitants of the town from enemies.

As before the square and round watch-towers with their narrow embrasures and pointed moss-grown roofs rose above the zigzagging walls of the first ring of fortifications. Green tree-tops could be seen peeping over the fortress walls. Big bushes of honeysuckle and pink heather grew on the edge of the cliffs, their roots firmly embedded in the stonework that Turkish cannon-balls had never shaken.

By the wide-open gates hung a red notice-board that seemed to have been put up only recently: Historical Reservation and Museum.

Deeply moved and excited I walked under the arch of the fortress gates.

"Our fine, dear, old lady!" I thought, surveying the fortress. "Neither time, nor the Turks, and not even Hitler's bombs could destroy you. As you have stood for centuries, an invincible stronghold on the south-west border of Podolia, you still stand, bringing joy to our people and striking terror into the hearts of the enemies that have been driven for ever from our ancient Ukrainian soil!"

As soon as I entered the grassy yard, however, I realized that even our old lady had suffered pretty badly in the' recent battles.

The watch-towers, whose loop-holes looked out on all sides, were riddled with shell-holes. The roof of the Ruzhanka Tower had disappeared altogether. The Commandant Tower was a heap of rubble. But the fortress, evidently a museum now, had been restored. Its new window-frames and fresh plaster work told me that the building had been raised from the ruins only recently.

. The noise of a car made me turn round. The same army truck with its array of petrol cans came into view. Apparently the lieutenant-colonel who was so fond of flowers had decided to look over the museum.

I saw the truck pull up near the guard-house, and turning away followed a narrow path that led to the green ' bastion behind the Black Tower.

But in vain I sought for the grey marble obelisk that had been erected' to Timofei Sergushin, the Bolshevik who had been shot by the Petlura bandits a quarter of a century ago.

Enemies and traitors in their hatred of Soviet power had tried to destroy the memory of that fine man, the first Communist to enter our little cottage in Zarechye.

But in the thick grass under the Black Tower I found a piece of marble bearing the last word of the inscription that had been written over the grave.

The base of the obelisk—a simple square of stone—was still there, so was the grave-mound. The hump of earth under which lay Sergushin's remains was thickly carpeted with periwinkle.

I stopped by the mound and my memory carried me back to those far-off days when Soviet power had only just been established in Podolia.

I remembered the evening after Sergushin had been shot, when Weasel and I and Petka Maremukha had come to this spot. In accordance with Cossack custom, Weasel had spread a red flag over the grave-mound and we had sprinkled fragrant lilac branches over it. Over the murdered man's grave we had sworn that evening to stand up for one another, like true friends, and to take vengeance on the enemies of the Soviet Ukraine for the murder of one of its finest sons.

I stood there lost in thought, my head bowed over the unkempt grave, and the words of Sergushin's favourite song came clearly to my mind:

This song that I sing would soar up like a lark

But a heart full of sorrow has given it birth.

Like a bird in a cage it rings out in the dark,

Borne down by the weight ofthe earth...

And soon, very soon, never sung to the end,

In the twilight ofautumn this song will fall still,

And replacing myself in the mine, a new friend

Will finish my song, yes he will!

Lost in thought, I did not notice that someone else had come up to the grave until crimson peonies scattered into the thick grass.

The stocky, broad-shouldered lieutenant-colonel was sprinkling flowers over Sergushin's grave, paying no attention to me at all. I glanced at him closely, and suddenly, under the stubbly beard that fringed his sunburnt face, I recognized the familiar features of Petka Maremukha... "Comrade..." I began excitedly.

Turning at the sound of my voice, the lieutenant-colonel at first looked at me very sternly, almost with annoyance, then his face changed suddenly and he shouted: "Vasil!... Good old friend!..."

Half an hour later we were sitting on the dewy grass under Karmeluk's Tower, deep in conversation.

Maremukha's driver, a red-cheeked tank corporal, spread out a cape-tent on the grass and piled it with good things. "But look here, Vasil," Petka interrupted me, "why didn't you answer my letters when you were in Leningrad? I bombarded you with them. I even wrote to the staff department of that aircraft factory you were working at. Where's your engineer Vasily Mandzhura, I said. And they just wrote back once that you'd been sent off on a job, and nothing more. Where did you get to?"

"They sent me to the Bolshevik Works..." At. that moment we heard an old man's voice behind us: "Comrades! Aren't you ashamed of yourselves! This is a historical reservation, and you scatter your rubbish about here!"'

We swung round at the sound of the voice, as if we had been schoolboys caught here by the care-taker in the old days.

On a mound close by stood a grey-haired old man in an old-fashioned canvas blouse with a black bow-tie and gold pince-nez. He had appeared silently, like a vision from one of our childhood dreams, and the mere fact of his appearance had made us a good quarter of a century younger.

Were it not for the old man's familiar pince-nez, we might not have recognized him as Valerian Dmitrievich Lazarev. But he. it was—our favourite history master and the first head-master of the Taras Shevchenko People's School. Leaping to his feet, Petka brought up his hand in salute. "Our deepest apologies, Valerian Dmitrievich! We were so excited we forgot where we were. This rubbish shall be removed at once."

"I beg your pardon! But how do you come to know my name?" Lazarev responded, obviously a little confused as he stepped down from the mound.

How could he have recognized in this grizzled officer with medal ribbons on his chest that short little chap who had once run barefooted after a lot of other little boys with a lantern, all of them longing to go down the underground passage!

Lazarev had seen thousands of pupils like him in his many years as a schoolmaster—could he remember them all!

"How do you know my name?" Lazarev repeated, planting himself in front of Maremukha.

Then I intervened: "

"When shall we be going down the underground passage with you again, Comrade Lazarev?"

"Just a moment!.., What's all this about?" The old man took off his pince-nez and wiped them with his handkerchief. "You aren't from the regional education committee, are you, comrade?"