Владимир Беляев - The Town By The Sea

I looked down and remembered my childhood years in this town. How many times after the spring floods had we searched the muddy banks of the river hoping to find the crown of some Turkish vizir, or at least a few gold ducats!

We had found no gold, but we had found great happiness, the happiness of having a country to live in that is the envy of honest working people throughout the world.

"Yes, time and environment change people. Those are true words of yours, Petka!" I said after a thoughtful pause. "And I'm sincerely glad that not only people like us who were brought up by the Komsomol and the Party, but even those like Angelika, who in the twenties were still wavering over what path to take, have found the experience of the past twenty-five years so beneficial."

"Is Angelika's husband alive?" Petka asked.

"Killed at Gatchina, when the siege of Leningrad was broken. He never came back after volunteering for the front in the first months of the war. He was a major when he was killed... By the way, you can hear her playing the piano on the radio sometimes from Leningrad. If you like it, write to her. Tell her, Tm Petka, that neighbour of yours whom Vasil introduced to you on the shore of the Azov Sea.' She'll be so glad to hear from you. She often speaks of that meeting. You see, it's our youth, Petka, those fine stirring days of our youth!..."

"How grateful we should feel to our Party and the Komsomol for that youth!" said Maremukha, gazing at our ancient town spread out before us, so small but still so pretty even now amid its green orchards and boulevards.

The west wind was bringing up a great grey-black cloud from the Dniester forests. Slowly it mounted to a peak, like the smoke of a distant fire, and its summit was purple and threatening in the light of the setting sun.

"How did that get here!" I said in surprise. "It was so sunny this morning... You know what that cloud reminds me of? The smoke from the fire of the Badayev warehouses in Leningrad. That was the biggest and, I think, about the worst raid we had. The smoke was so thick and heavy we thought at first it was a bank of cloud. Perhaps we'd better make a move, Petka? It looks like a storm."

"No hurry," Petka said, smiling and glancing westwards. "Rain's nothing to be afraid of! We've seen worse storms than this. They can't frighten us now. We're grown up..."

March 1935, Leningrad October 1951, Lvov

Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics