The grandfather at once crawled over the seat to his grandson, and
together they started to pull in the wet end of the line.
Soon they came to the hooks. But they found few bullheads on them, and
small ones at that.
Gavrik took the big-headed little fishes firmly by their slippery
gills, deftly pulled the hooks out of their rapacious jaws and threw them
into the tank, which had been lowered into the sea.
But barely three hooks out of ten had a real catch. On the others
dangled small fry or crabs.
"They don't go for shrimps," Grandpa muttered sadly. "Just think of it.
Nothing but small fry. Meat's the bait to use. They'd go for meat all right.
But how to get meat when it's eleven kopeks a pound at the market! It's a
joke!"
Suddenly a tremendous hulk pouring forth brown smoke bore down on them.
Two slanting shadows flew over the waves. The sea burst into frightful
noise. A steamer passed by close to the boat, her red float-boards working
busily.
The boat was thrown up, then let down, then thrown up again.
The flags of the line bobbed frantically, almost under the
paddle-wheels. A little closer and they would have been ground into
splinters.
"Hi there, on the Turgenev!" Grandpa shouted in an unrecognisable
voice, spreading out his arms as though trying to stop a galloping horse.
"Gone blind? Can't you see the line? Filthy pigs!"
But the steamer had already passed by.
She was noisily drawing away-with her tricolour flag at the stern, with
her life-belts and life-boats, with her passengers, with her columns of
brown anthracite smoke- leaving behind a broad, snow-white, lacy pattern on
the clear dark-green water.
That meant it was seven o'clock in the morning.
The Turgenev served the fishermen as a clock. At eight in the evening
she would pass on her way back to Odessa from Akkerman.
To get the bullheads to market in time they would have to hurry.
Grandfather and grandson made a hasty breakfast of tomatoes and bread
washed down with water from the keg, which by now had turned warm and taken
on an oaky flavour. Then they quickly went back to their work on the line.
"CALL THAT A HORSE?"
At about nine o'clock Gavrik was on his way to town, with the tank of
bullheads on his shoulder. He could have put them in a basket, of course,
but the tank made a better impression. It showed that he was carrying live,
absolutely fresh fish straight out of the sea.
Grandpa remained at home to mend the line.
Although Gavrik was only nine, Grandpa had no qualms about entrusting
him with such an important mission as the sale of the fish. He relied on his
grandson fully. The lad had a head on his shoulders. He was not a baby.
Whom else could the old man depend upon if not his own grandson?
Gavrik was fully aware of the importance and responsibility of his job,
and it was with a businesslike and preoccupied air that he tramped along the
hot path among the strong-smelling bushes, leaving in the dust distinct
imprints of his small feet with all their ten toes.
His air of concentration and importance as much as said: "You may do
what you like-swim in the sea, lounge about on the sand, ride a bicycle, or
drink soda water at the stand. Me, I'm a fisherman, and my job is to catch
bullheads and sell them at the market. Nothing else concerns me."
As he passed the beach house, where over the cashier's window hung a
spotted black board with the figure "76°" chalked on it, Gavrik gave a
scornful and disgusted smile at what he saw: a chubby white-bodied man with
a handkerchief on his bald head had stopped up his nose and ears with his
fingers and was ducking himself in the clayey water near the shore, staying
close to the safety-rope, which was covered with a slimy green beard.
There were two ways of getting to the top of the bluff: by the long
sloping path that had three turns in it, or by the steep, almost
perpendicular wooden stairway with rotting steps.
Gavrik, it goes without saying, chose the stairway.
Compressing his lips, he ran quickly to the very top without once
pausing for breath.
A dusty but shady lane brought him past the "Warm Sea-Baths
Establishment" to the Military School.
There he was practically in town.
In the shade of the dappled plane trees of French Boulevard an open
horse-tram was lumbering along towards Arcadia. The sunny side of the tram
was covered with an awning. A sheaf of bamboo fishing-rods, with
red-and-blue floats, jutted out from the rear platform. Three lively old
mares clicked their hoofs along the fine gravel. The brakes screeched and
moaned at the turns.
But what really drew the boy's attention was the kvass stand.
It was a big box-like affair with a double-sloping roof that rested on
two posts. The outside was painted green and the inside white-thick, shiny
oil paint.
As to the kvass man, he was so extraordinarily elegant and handsome
that every time Gavrik passed by that corner he stopped to marvel and envy.
Gavrik never gave much thought to what he would be when he grew up.
There wasn't any particular choice. But if he did have a choice, it would be
a kvass man, of course.
All the Odessa kvass vendors were as spruce and handsome as a picture.
And this one especially. He was the dead spit of Vanka Klyuchnik."
Yes, that was it. With his high merchant's cap of fine navy-blue serge,
his blond curls, and his shiny high boots. And the shirt! Lord, a shirt like
that was fit to be worn only on Easter Sunday: bright-red, with sleeves like
balloons, and long-all the way to the knees, with a hundred blue glass
buttons!
Over the shirt he wore a black waistcoat with a silver watch-chain
fastened in a buttonhole with a little silver rod.
One look at that flaming shirt was enough to make anybody pant for a
drink of cold kvass.
And the way he worked! Quickly, deftly, smoothly.
"Give us a glass, laddie," a customer would say.
"Which would you like? The sour or the sweet? The sweet's a kopek a
mug, and the sour's two for a kopek."
"I'll have the sour."
"Coming right up."
In the twinkling of an eye one hand lifted the round cover of the
locker by the ring and dipped into the deep icy darkness for a bottle, while
the other wiped the white counter with a rag-it was dry anyway-rinsed a huge
mug with a thick false bottom in a pail of water, smartly turned the mug
over and set it down with a bang in front of the customer.
The small corkscrew bit into the cork. The bottle, pressed between the
boots, exploded. Out of its neck rose long ringlets of brown foam.
The handsome fellow turned the bottle over into the mug, filling
one-quarter with lemon-yellow kvass and three-quarters with foam.
The customer eagerly blew off the foam and then drank and drank and
drank. Meanwhile Vanka Klyuchnik wiped the counter with a flourish and swept
the wet kopek with the eagle on it into a tin box which once had held
Krakhmalnikov Bros, lozenges.
There was a man! That was the life!
Naturally, Gavrik was dying for a drink of kvass, but he had no money.
Perhaps on the way back, although that was doubtful. The fact was that
though there were about two hundred bullheads in the tank, Grandpa was
heavily in debt to the fishwife with whom they dealt. The week before, he
had borrowed three rubles from her for corks and hooks for the line and had
returned only one ruble forty-five. That left the debt at more than a ruble
and a half-a huge sum.
If the fishwife agreed not to hold back all the money everything would
be fine. But what if she kept all of it? In that case they would be lucky to
have enough to buy meat for bait and bread, let alone kvass.
Gavrik spat, exactly the way grown-up fishermen do when burdened with
cares.
He shifted the tank to the other shoulder and continued on his way,
carrying with him in his mind's eye the handsome picture of Vanka Klyuchnik
and the fragrant coolness of the sour kvass he had not drunk.
From here on stretched real city streets, with tall houses, shops,
warehouses, gateways.
Everything lay in the mottled shade of acacias whose leaves shone like
long green grapes.
A closed wagon clattered down the street. The patches of shade sped
downwards along the horses in their high German collars, along the driver,
and along the white sides with the sign: "Artificial-Ice Plant."
Cooks carrying baskets walked by. The shade slipped across them too.
Dogs with tongues hanging out ran up to the water tins attached to the
trunks of trees. With their tails curled up into a loop, they lapped the
warm water, extremely pleased with the Odessa city council for seeing to it
that they did not go mad from thirst.
All this was familiar, humdrum.
But here was something to marvel at-a little cart with a pony harnessed
to it. Gavrik had never seen such a little horse in all his life. It was no
bigger than a calf but otherwise exactly like a real horse.
A tan, fat-bellied little thing with a chocolate-coloured mane and a
small but bushy tail, in a straw hat with holes for the ears, with shaggy
eyelashes raised, it stood quietly and modestly, like a well-bred little
girl, in the shade of the acacias at the entrance to a house.
A group of children had gathered round it.
Gavrik walked over and stood for a long time in silence. He did not
know how to react to this phenomenon. There was no doubt about it: he liked
the little horse, but at the same time it irritated him.
He inspected it from all sides. Yes, it was a horse: hoofs, forelock,
teeth. But how disgustingly small!
"Call that a horse?" he said with scorn, wrinkling his nose.
"It's not a horse, it's not a horse," chanted a little girl with two
pigtails, squatting in glee and clapping her hands. "It's not a horse at
all. It's only a pony."
"It is a horse," Gavrik said gloomily. The very next instant he was
annoyed and ashamed at having let himself be drawn into conversation with
such a beribboned little creature.
"It's a pony, it's a pony!"
"From the circus," Gavrik remarked in a hoarse bass, as though
addressing no one in particular. "An ordinary one from the circus."
"It's not from the circus, it's not from the circus! It's a pony, and
it's delivering Nobel paraffin. See the tins?"
Yes, in the cart stood shiny paraffin tins.
This came as a complete surprise to Gavrik. Paraffin, as everybody
knew, was bought in a shop in one's own bottle at a kopek a quart.
But for it to be delivered to homes in a cart, and a cart drawn by a
fancy pony-that was a bit too much!
"It's a plain horse!" Gavrik retorted angrily as he walked away.
"It's a pony! It's a pony! It's a pony!" the little girl called after
him like a parrot, jumping up and down and clapping her hands.
"You're a pony yourself," thought Gavrik. But unfortunately he had no
time for a real argument.
After skirting the public garden, through whose iron fence came the
hot, dry fragrance of myrtle and thuja with its tart little cones, the boy
stopped, threw back his head and stared for a rather long time at the clock
on the railway station.
He had learned to tell time only recently, and now he could not pass a
clock without stopping to reckon.
He still counted on his fingers those strange little sticks of Roman
numerals which were so unlike the usual figures in arithmetic. He knew only
that the top figure was twelve and that it was from there you had to start
counting.
He set the fish tank down at his feet. His lips began to move. "One,
two, three, four," he whispered, crinkling his forehead and bending his
fingers back firmly.
The small hand pointed to nine and the big one to six.
"Nine and a half," the boy said with a sigh of satisfaction, wiping the
sweat from his nose with the tail of his shirt.
That was what it looked like, but it would do no harm to check.
"What time is it?"
A gentleman in a pongee jacket and a tropical helmet put a golden
pince-nez to his Roman nose, tilted his short grey beard, threw a glance at
the clock, and said quickly, "Nine-thirty."
Gavrik was dumbfounded.
"But doesn't it say nine and a half?"
"That means it's nine-thirty," the man said sternly, without looking at
the boy. Then he climbed into a cab and drove off, holding his ivory-handled
walking stick between his knees.
Gavrik stood there for a while, his mouth with its missing teeth open,
trying to decide whether the gentleman had been making fun of him or whether
it was really so.
Finally he raised the tank to his shoulder, hitched up his trousers and
continued on his way, turning his head from side to side and smiling
mistrustfully.
So nine and a half was the same as nine-thirty! Queer. Very queer. At
any rate, it wouldn't hurt to ask someone who knew.
MADAM STOROZHENKO
"Lobsters! Lobsters! Lobsters! Lobsters!"
"Flat-fish! Flat-fish! Flat-fish!"
"Live mackerel! Mackerel! Mackerel!"
"Mullet! Mullet!"
"Middies! Middies! Middies! Middies! Middies!"
"Bullheads! Bullheads! Bullheads!"
The loudest and shrillest voices of all the market women belonged to
the fishwives: Fish Row was famous for that.
You had to have the calm courage of Odessa housewives and cooks to walk
at a leisurely pace along that lane of tables, baskets and vats piled with
fish and lobsters and other shellfish.
Under sheds and huge canvas sun-shades the quivering, gleaming riches
of the Black Sea lay spread out for all to behold.
What a variety of shapes, colours and sizes!
Nature had done all she could to safeguard her wonderful creations and
protect them from destruction, to make them as unnoticeable as possible to
the human eye. She had camouflaged them in all the tints of the sea.
Take that noble and expensive fish, the mackerel, queen of the Black
Sea. Her taut body, as straight and smooth as a spindle, was coloured in the
most delicate moire shades ranging from sky-blue to deep-blue.
This, Gavrik knew, was the colour of the sea far from shore, and just
where shoals of mackerel usually passed.
A crafty creature, the mackerel!
Although Gavrik saw mackerel every day and could spot a shoal half a
mile away, he never failed to marvel at how beautiful and clever they were.
Or take bullheads. Their haunt was the rocks near the shore, and also
the sandy bottom. That was why they were brownish like the rocks or
yellowish like the sand.
Just think of it!
Then there were the big flat-fish, which preferred the slimy bottom of
quiet little bays. The striking thing about these fish was the
greenish-black colour of their thick skin, covered with flat bony bumps like
seashells. Flat-fish had both their eyes on the upper side, and they
reminded you of the charcoal drawings children make on fences: a head in
profile, but with two eyes.
True, flat-fish had wax-coloured bellies, like a sucking-pig's, but
they never showed them; they always lay at the bottom, hugging the sand.
The boy marvelled at the craftiness of the flat-fish too.
There was also the mullet, a humpbacked little red-and-black fish with
big scales that looked blood-stained.
Large pink seashells exactly like them glittered at the bottom of the
clearest bays.
As to silversides, these swarmed at the surface of the sea near the
shore, where they could not be told apart from the silvery Hashes of the
morning sun.
Yes, Nature was crafty. But man, Gavrik knew, was craftier. He placed
his nets, he cast his invisible fishing lines, he flashed his spoon-bait and
flies-and then these fish, which you could never notice in the sea, showed
all the splendour of their magic colours in the baskets and on the stalls of
the marketplace.
Money for good tackle-that was the main thing!
Looking for his fishwife, the boy walked past baskets swarming with
light-green lobsters. They made a rustling sound as they reached upwards
with nippers spread apart convulsively, like scissors.
The silversides were glistening heaps of silver coins.
Under their wet netting the springy shrimps made a clicking noise and
shot out salt in all directions.
Shiny scales stuck to the boy's bare feet. His heels slid on fish guts.
Scrawny market cats, their eyes insane, with pupils narrowed to
vertical slits, crept along the ground in search of prey, ears flattened
back and shoulder-blades jutting up rapaciously.
Housewives carrying string bags with carrots sticking out of them
weighed thick slices of flat-fish in their hands.
The sun was burning hot. The fish were dying.
The market-woman Gavrik was looking for sat on a child's bench under a
canvas sun-shade big enough for a giant, surrounded by baskets of fish.
The huge woman was dressed, despite the heat, in a winter jacket with
puffed sleeves, and she had a sand-coloured shawl wrapped crosswise over her
bosom; across one shoulder hung a heavy money-bag.
Gavrik stopped respectfully at a distance to wait until she finished
bargaining with a customer.
He knew very well that he and Grandpa were completely dependent upon
this woman, and that meant he had to be as polite and unassuming as
possible. If he had worn a hat he would have removed it. But he wore no hat,
and so he did the best he could: he set the fish tank gently on the ground,
let his arms hang at his sides, and looked down at his bare shuffling feet
with their grey suede socks of dust reaching to the ankles.
The customer was buying only two dozen bullheads but the bargaining
went on a frightfully long time.
She walked away ten times, and ten times she came back. Ten times the
fishwife picked up the brass pans of her balance all covered with fish
scales, and ten times she threw them back into the basket of flat-fish.
The fishwife gesticulated rapidly with her fleshy hands in their black
knitted mitts, not forgetting to hold her little finger out at an elegant
angle.
She ran her sleeve across her shiny purplish-red face with its black
moustache and grey ringlets of hair on the chin. She nervously pushed big
iron hairpins back into place in her greasy jet-black hair.
"Just look at them, madam," she cried hoarsely. "You won't find
bullheads like these anywhere else. I tell you, these bullheads are worth
their weight in gold!"
"They're tiny," the customer said, walking away in disdain. "Not even
worth frying."
"Come back, madam! You say they're not worth frying? Where'll you find
bigger ones? Maybe from the Jews! Then go to 'em! You know me. I'd never
palm off small fry on a steady customer!"
"Ten kopeks a dozen for these bullheads? Never! Not a kopek more than
eight."
"Two dozen for nineteen."
"For that money I'd rather go somewhere else and buy salmon."
"My last price is eighteen, madam. Take it or leave it. Where are you
going, madam?"
At last the deal took place. The fishwife gave the customer the
bullheads and threw the coins into her moneybag.
Gavrik waited patiently until the fishwife took notice of him. She knew
he was there, but she pretended for a long time not to see him.
Such was the custom of the market-place. If you needed money, you had
to wait. Nothing terrible about it. A person wouldn't die if he stood there
a while.
"Fresh fish! Live bullheads! Flat-fish! Flat-fish! Flatfish!" The
fishwife paused for breath and then suddenly said, without looking at
Gavrik, "Well, show it here!"
The boy opened the fish tank and moved it over to her.
"Bullheads," he said respectfully.
She dipped her paw into the tank and pulled some out with a practised
hand. She gave them a quick glance and then stared at Gavrik, her round eyes
as blue-black as Isabella grapes.
"Well? Where's the bullheads?"
Gavrik was silent.
"Where's the bullheads, I ask you?"
The boy sadly shifted his feet and gave a modest smile, trying to turn
the unpleasant conversation into a joke.
"Why, there they are, ma'am. You're holding them. Can't you see?"
"Where's the bullheads?" the fishwife suddenly screamed, turning red as
a beet with rage. "Where are they? Where? Show me. I don't see 'em. D'you
mean to say what I'm holding in my hand? These ain't bullheads -they're
lice! Anything here worth frying? Not a thing! All you ever bring me is
small fry! Take your small fry to the Jews!"
Gavrik was silent.
He couldn't call them big bullheads, of course, but still they weren't
as tiny as the screaming fishwife made them out to be. However, he was not
in a position to argue.
When the fishwife finished shouting she coolly transferred the
bullheads from the tank to her basket, deftly counting them off by tens.
Her hands moved so quickly that Gavrik was unable to keep count. He
felt she was cheating him. But there was no way of checking, for there were
other bullheads in her basket.
Who could tell which was which?
Gavrik was struck with horror. He broke into a sweat from excitement.
"To make it a round number, two hundred and fifty," said the fishwife,
covering the basket with a strip of sacking. "Take you tank, and good-bye.
Tell your grandfather he still owes me eighty kopeks. Tell him not to
forget. And tell him not to send me any more teenies-I won't take 'em!"
The boy was dumbfounded. He tried to say something but his throat
contracted.
The fishwife was not paying him the slightest attention. She was
calling her wares again.
"Flat-fish, flat-fish, flat-fish! Bullheads, bullheads, bullheads!"
"Madam Storozhenko," the boy finally managed to get out, "Madam
Storozhenko. . . ."
She turned her head impatiently. "You still here? Well?"
"Madam Storozhenko, how much are you paying me for a hundred?"
"Thirty kopeks a hundred, seventy-five for the lot. You owed me a ruble
fifty-five and now you owe me eighty kopeks. Tell that to your grandfather.
Good-bye."
"Thirty kopeks a hundred!"
Gavrik was so hurt and so angry he wanted to shout, to punch her in the
nose with all his might, so that blood flowed from it. Yes, so that the
blood flowed. Or to bite her.
But instead he gave a quick, fawning smile. "Madam Storozhenko," he
muttered, almost in tears, "but you always used to pay us forty-five."
"You're lucky you're getting thirty for such trash. Now be off!"
"But Madam Storozhenko, you're getting eighty for 'em. . . ."
"Clear out and stop pestering me! It's my fish and I set my own price.
I don't take no orders from you. Flatfish! Flat-fish! Flat-fish!"
Gavrik looked at Madam Storozhenko. She sat on her child's bench-huge,
unapproachable, stony.
He could have told her that Grandpa and he had no money at all, that
they absolutely had to buy bread, and meat for bait, and that all they
needed was fifteen or twenty kopeks. But was it worth humbling himself?
The pride of fisherfolk spoke up in the boy.
With his sleeve he wiped away the tears that were stinging his peeled
nose, blew his nose into the dust with two fingers, raised the light fish
tank to his shoulder and walked off with his rolling gait of the Black Sea
fisherman.
As he walked along he wondered where he could get some meat and bread.
"LOWER RANKS"
Although, as we have seen, Gavrik had a life of toil and cares, quite
like a grown-up, we must not forget that he was, after all, only a boy of
nine.
He had friends with whom he liked to play, run, scrap, catch sparrows,
shoot with catapults and do everything else all Odessa boys of poor families
did.
He belonged to the category known as "street urchins", and this gave
him a wide acquaintance.
Nobody prevented him from going into any courtyard or playing in any
street.
He was as free as a bird. The whole city was his.
Even the freest bird, however, has its favourite haunts, and Gavrik's
were the seaside streets in the Otrada and Maly Fontan districts. There he
was an unchallenged king among the boys, who envied and admired his
independent life.
Gavrik had many friends, but only one real chum, Petya.
The simplest thing would be to go and see Petya and put their heads
together about bread and meat.
Naturally, Petya didn't have any money, especially a big sum like
fifteen kopeks. There was no use even thinking about that. But Petya could
take a chunk of meat from the kitchen and some bread from the cupboard.
Gavrik had been inside Petya's house once, as his guest last Christmas,
and he knew very well that they had a cupboard piled with bread and that
nobody gave it any notice. It would be no bother at all to bring out as much
as half a loaf. Those people didn't pay any attention to things like bread.
But the trouble was he didn't know whether Petya had come back from the
country. He ought to be back by now, of course. Several times during the
summer Gavrik had gone to Petya's yard to find out. But Petya had been still
away.
The last time their cook, Dunya, said they would soon come. That was
about five days ago. Perhaps they were already there.
From the market Gavrik set out for Petya's. Luckily, it was not far
away: Kulikovo Field and the corner of Kanatnaya, just opposite the railway
station and next to the Army Staff building. It was a big four-storey house
with two front entrances. And a wonderful house it was; if you wanted to
live like a lord, you couldn't find a better.
In the first place, it was just the thing for street fights because it
had two gateways: one leading out to Kulikovo Field, or simply Kulichki, and
the other to a marvellous vacant lot with bushes, tarantula holes, and a
rubbish-heap; only a small rubbish-heap, true, but an exceptionally rich
one.
If you dug properly in it, you could always collect a mass of useful
things-from chemist's vials to dead rats.
Petya was lucky. It wasn't every chap had a refuse-heap like that next
to his house!
In the second place, little suburban trains drawn by a tiny engine ran
past the house, so that you didn't have to go very far to put a cap or a
stone under the wheels.
In the third place, the Army Staff building was next door.
Behind its high stone wall facing the field lay a mysterious world
guarded day and night by sentries. Behind that wall were the rumbling
machines of the Army Staff printing plant. And what interesting scraps of
paper the wind carried over the wall: ribbons, strips, vermicelli!
The windows of the staff clerks' quarters faced the field too. By
standing on a rock one could look through the grating and see how the clerks
lived, those extraordinarily handsome, important and dashing young men in
the long trousers of officers but with the shoulder straps of privates.
Gavrik had learned from reliable sources that the clerks belonged to
the ordinary "lower ranks", that is to say, were plain soldiers. But what a
world of difference between them and the soldiers!
With the possible exception of the kvass vendors, the staff clerks were
the most elegant, best-dressed and handsomest fellows in town.
When they saw a clerk the chambermaids from the nearby houses turned
pale and began to tremble and looked as though they would faint any minute.
They mercilessly scorched their hair and temples with curling-irons, they
dabbed their noses with tooth powder and they rouged their cheeks with
toffee paper. But the clerks paid no attention to them.
To any Odessa soldier a chambermaid was a superior and unapproachable
being, but to a staff clerk she was no more than "a dull peasant" and not
worthy of a glance.
In their rooms behind the grating the staff clerks sat on iron beds
softly strumming guitars; they were sad and lonely. They sat without their
jackets, in long trousers with a broad red stitched belting, and clean
shirts with black neckties such as officers wore.
If a staff clerk appeared in the street of a Sunday evening, it was
always arm in arm with two seamstresses wearing their hair puffed up high in
front.
Staff clerks were unbelievably rich. With his own eyes Gavrik once saw
one of them riding in a droshky.
But strange as it seemed, staff clerks belonged to the "lower ranks".
At the corner of Pirogovskaya and Kulikovo Field Gavrik once saw, with his
own eyes, a general in silver shoulder straps striking a clerk across the
mouth and shouting in a voice that sent shivers down Gavrik's back, "Is that
the way to stand, you dog? Is that the way?"
The clerk stood stiffly at attention and rolled his head, his
light-blue peasant eyes bulging like a common soldier's. "Sorry, Your
Excellency!" he muttered. "I'll never do it again!"
It was this dual position that made the staff clerks, such strange,
wonderful and at the same time pathetic creatures, like fallen angels exiled
as punishment from heaven to earth.
The life of the ordinary sentries, whose quarters were next door to the
staff clerks, was very interesting too.
These soldiers also had two natures.
One was when they stood in pairs, in full sentry uniform, with their
cartridge belts, at the alabaster front entrance of the Army Staff building,
springing smartly to attention and presenting arms the way sergeants did,
that is, shifting their well-greased bayonets slightly to the side whenever
an officer came in or went out.
The other was a plain, domestic, peasant nature, when they sat in their
barracks sewing on buttons, polishing their boots or playing
draughts-"dames", as they called it.
Bowls and wooden spoons were always drying on their windowsills, and
there were many left-over pieces of black army bread which they readily gave
to beggars.
They readily talked to boys, too, but the questions they asked and the
words they used made the boys blush to their ears and run away horrified.
The two courtyards were asphalted and were just the place for playing
hopscotch. Fine squares and numbers could be drawn on the asphalt with
charcoal or chalk. The smooth sea pebbles slid across it wonderfully.
If the janitor lost his temper at the hullabaloo raised by the playing
children and went after them with his broom, there was nothing easier than
running into the next courtyard.
Besides, the house had wonderful and mysterious cellars with woodbins.
It was simply marvellous to hide in those cellars among the firewood
and various junk, in the dry, dusty darkness, while out in the yard it was
bright daylight.
In a word, the house where Petya lived was an excellent place in every
respect.
Gavrik entered the yard and stopped under the windows of Petya's flat,
which was on the second storey.
The yard, split diagonally by the distinct midday shadow, was
absolutely empty. Not a boy in sight. Evidently they were all in the country
or at the seaside.
Shuttered windows. The hot, lazy stillness of noon. Not a sound.
But from somewhere far away-perhaps even as far as Botanicheskaya
Street-came the spluttering and popping noise of a red-hot frying pan.
Judging by the smell, it was grey mullet being fried in sunflower oil.
"Petya!" Gavrik called, his hands cupped round his mouth.
Silence.
"Pe-et-ya!"
Closed shutters.
"Pe-e-e-et-ya-a-a!!"
The kitchen window opened and the white-kerchiefed head of Dunya, the
cook, looked out.
"They haven't come yet." It was the usual reply, spoken quickly.
"When will they?"
"We expect them this evening."
The boy spat on the ground and rubbed the spittle with his foot. He was
silent for a while.
"Please, ma'am, as soon as he comes tell him Gavrik was here."
"Yes, Your Honour."
"Tell him I'll drop round tomorrow morning."
"It'll be quite all right if you don't. Our Petya will be going to
school this year. And that means good-bye to all your monkey-business."
"Never mind," Gavrik muttered dourly. "Only don't forget to tell him.
Will you?"
"I'll tell him, don't cry."
"Good-bye, ma'am."
"Good-bye, you beauty."
Dunya, it seemed, was so fed up with doing nothing all summer long that
she had descended to an exchange of banter with a little ragamuffin.
Gavrik hitched up his trousers and strolled out of the yard.
A bad business! What next?
He could, of course, go to his big brother Terenti at Near Mills. But
in the first place, Near Mills was a long way off, and the walk there and
back would take a good four hours. And in the second place, after the
disturbances he didn't know whether Terenti would be at home or not. Quite
likely he was in hiding somewhere or else had nothing to eat himself.
What sense was there in wearing out his feet for nothing? They were his
own, weren't they?
The boy walked out on the field and looked in at the barracks windows
as he passed by.
The soldiers had just finished their midday meal and were rinsing their
spoons on the windowsill. A pile of leftover bread was drying under the hot
sun.
The bread was black and spongy, with a chestnut-coloured crust that
actually looked sour, and flies were crawling over it.
Gavrik stopped near a window, entranced by the sight of such abundance.
He was silent for a while, and then to his own surprise he blurted out
roughly, "Give me some bread!"
But he immediately remembered himself, picked up his tank and walked
away. "I didn't mean it," he said, showing the soldiers his gap-toothed
smile. "I don't want any."
The soldiers crowded at the windowsill, calling and whistling to the
boy. "Hi there! Where you running to? Come back!"
They stretched out pieces of bread to him through the grating. "Take
it. Don't be afraid."
He stopped in indecision.
"Hold out your shirt."
There was so much good-natured gaiety in their shouts and in the fuss
they were making that Gavrik saw there would be nothing humiliating about it
if he did take some bread from them. He walked back and held out his shirt.
Chunks of bread flew into it.
"Won't do you any harm to try our army bread and get used to it!"
In addition to about five pounds of bread, the soldiers gave Gavrik a
good helping of yesterday's porridge.
He stowed it all neatly into the fish tank, accompanied by earthy jokes
about the effect of army rations on the stomach, set out for home to help
Grandpa mend the line.
Late that afternoon they put out to sea again.
THE BOAT AT SEA
When he saw that the steamer did not stop and did not lower a boat, but
continued on her course, the sailor calmed down a bit and began to think
clearly.
His first concern was to throw off some of his clothes; they interfered
with his swimming.
The jacket was water-logged and as heavy as iron, but it came off
easiest of all. He did it in three movements, turning over several times and
spitting out the bitter, salty sea water.
For a while the jacket floated along after him with its sleeves spread
out, like a living thing; it did not want to part from its master and tried
to wind itself round his legs.
After the sailor had kicked the jacket a few times it fell behind and
slowly sank, swaying and dropping from layer to layer until it was lost in
the depths to which the cloudy shafts of the late afternoon light faintly
penetrated.
The boots gave him the most trouble of all. They stuck as though filled
with glue.
He furiously scraped one foot against the other to throw off those
coarse navy boots with the rust-coloured tops which had given him away.
Paddling with his arms, he danced in the water; one minute his head went
under, the next his shoulders reared up over the surface.
But the boots would not yield. He filled his lungs with air and then,
dropping his head under the surface, tugged at the slippery heel of one of
the boots, mentally letting out a string of the vilest oaths and cursing
everything under the sun.
At last he pulled off that damned boot. The second came easier.
However, the relief Rodion felt when he had got rid of his boots and
trousers was accompanied by an overpowering weariness. The sea water, of
which he had swallowed a good deal despite all his precautions, had set his
throat afire. Besides, he had smacked the water painfully hard in his dive
from the ship.
The past two days he had had hardly any sleep, had walked about forty
or fifty miles, and had been under great nervous strain. Now everything was
going dark before his eyes. Or was that because evening was falling fast?
The water had lost its daytime colour. The surface had become a bright,
glossy heliotrope, while the depths were a frightening colour, almost black.
From where he was, the sailor could not see the shore at all. The
horizon had narrowed almost to nothingness. The edge of the cloudless sky
was touched with a transparent green afterglow, and a faint, barely
perceptible star twinkled in it.
That showed where the shore was and which way he had to swim.
All he now had on was his shirt and underdrawers, and these were no
hindrance. But his head whirled, and the joints of his arms and legs ached.
With every minute he found it harder to swim.
At times he felt he was losing consciousness. At others he was on the
verge of vomiting. Every now and then he was seized by a brief, sudden
paroxysm of fear. His loneliness and the depth frightened him.
Never before had he felt like that. He must be ill, he thought.
His short wet hair seemed dry and hot and so coarse that he could
almost feel it pricking his head.
There was not a soul in sight. Overhead, in the empty darkening air, a
sturdy-winged gull with a body as plump as a cat's flew by. In its long bent
beak was a small fish.
A new spasm of fear gripped the sailor. He felt that any minute now his
heart would burst and he would go to the bottom. He wanted to cry out but he
could not unclench his teeth.
Suddenly he heard the soft splash of oars. A few moments later he saw
the black silhouette of a boat.
He mustered all his strength and struck out after the boat, thrashing
his feet desperately. He caught up with it and succeeded in grabbing hold of
its high stern.
Hand over hand he managed somehow to pull himself to the boat's side,
which was lower, and with an effort he looked in; the boat tilted.
"Come now, none of your tricks!" Gavrik shouted in a threatening bass
when he saw the wet head sticking out over the gunwale.
The boy was not at all surprised to see the head. Odessa was famous for
its swimmers.
Some swam out as far as three or four miles from shore and returned
late in the evening. This was probably one of them.
If he was such a hero he had no business catching hold of people's
boats for a rest. He ought to keep right on swimming. They'd put in a good
day's work and were tired enough as it is, without dragging him!
"Come now, stop fooling! Push off or I'll let you have it with this
oar!"
To give more weight to his words he bent over as if to take the oar out
of the rowlock, exactly the way Grandpa did on such occasions.
"I'm-ill-" the head said, panting.
Over the side stretched a trembling arm to which the sleeve of an
embroidered shirt was plastered.
This, Gavrik saw at once, was not a swimmer: people didn't go swimming
in the sea in embroidered shirts.
"What's the matter-your boat sink?"
The sailor was silent. His head and arms hung lifelessly inside the
boat while his legs, clad in drawers, dragged in the water. He had fainted.
Gavrik and Grandpa dropped their oars and with difficulty pulled the
limp but frightfully heavy body into the boat.
"How hot he is!" said Grandpa, catching his breath.
Although the sailor was wet and shivering, his whole body burned with a
dry, unhealthy heat.
"Want a drink?" asked Gavrik.
The sailor did not reply. He merely rolled his glazed, unseeing eyes
and stirred his swollen lips.
The boy offered him the water-keg. He pushed it aside weakly and
swallowed his saliva in revulsion. A second later he vomited.
His head fell and banged against the thwart.
Then, like a blind man, he reached out in the darkness for the keg,
found it and, his teeth chattering against the oaken side, managed to gulp
down some water.
Grandpa shook his head. "A bad business!"
"Where are you from?" asked the boy.
Again the sailor swallowed his saliva. He tried to say something but
only managed to stretch out his arm and then dropped it lifelessly.
"To the devil with him!" he muttered indistinctly. "Don't let anybody
see me. I'm a sailor-hide me somewhere-or else they'll hang me-it's the
truth, so help me God-by the true and holy-"
He evidently wanted to make the sign of the Cross but couldn't raise
his hand. He tried to smile at his weakness but instead a film passed over
his eyes.
Again he lost consciousness.
Grandfather and grandson exchanged glances but neither said a word.
Times were such that keeping mum was the best policy.
They carefully laid the sailor on the floor-slats, through which
unbailed water splashed up, placed the keg under his head and sat down at
the oars.
They rowed slowly, idling along so as to reach shore when it was
altogether dark. The darker the better. Before landing they circled about
for a while near the familiar crags.
Fortunately, there was no one on the shore.
It was a warm, dark night full of stars and crickets.
Grandfather and grandson pulled the boat up on the beach. The pebbles
rustled mysteriously.
While Grandpa remained behind to guard the sick man Gavrik ran ahead to
make certain the coast was clear.
He soon returned. From his soundless footsteps, Grandpa gathered that
all was well. With great difficulty, but gently, they pulled the sailor out
of the boat and stood him on his legs, propping him from both sides.
The sailor put his arm round Gavrik's neck and pressed him to his now
dry and extraordinarily hot body. He did not realise, of course, how heavily
he was leaning on the boy.
Gavrik braced his legs more firmly. "Can you walk?" he asked in a
whisper.
The sailor did not reply but took a few swaying steps forward, like a
sleepwalker.
"Easy does it, easy does it," urged Grandpa, supporting the sailor from
behind.
"It's not far. Only a couple of steps."
They finally made their way up the little hill. No one saw them. And
even if anyone had, he would hardly have paid any attention to that reeling
white figure supported by an old man and a boy.
It was a familiar enough scene: a drunken fisherman was being led home
by his relatives, and if he wasn't swearing or bawling songs that was simply
because he had taken too much.
The minute they got the sailor into the hot and smelly darkness of the
hut he collapsed on the plank-bed.
Grandpa covered the tiny window with a piece of plywood from a broken
box and closed the door tightly. Only then did he light the small,
chimneyless paraffin lamp, turning down the wick as low as possible.
The lamp stood in the corner, on a shelf covered with an old newspaper.
On the same shelf lay the army bread wrapped in a damp rag to keep it
fresh, a cup made out of a tin can, the soldiers' porridge in a tin bowl,
two wooden spoons, and a big blue seashell with coarse grey salt in it-in a
word, a poverty-stricken but neat household array.
An old smoke-blackened icon was nailed in the corner above the shelf:
an oblong coffee-coloured stain that was the face of St. Nicholas the
Miracle Worker-the protector of fishermen-looked down with glittering eyes
painted in the manner of the old Kiev school.
A wisp of smoke and the lamp-light streamed up the ancient face from
below. It seemed to be alive, to be breathing.
For a long time now Grandpa had believed in neither God nor the devil.
He had not seen them bring either good or evil into his life. But in St.
Nicholas the Miracle Worker he did believe.
How could he not believe in this saint who helped him in his difficult
and dangerous occupation? Especially since this occupation, fishing, was the
most Important thing in Grandpa's life.
But lately, to tell the truth, the miracle worker had been falling down
on the job.
When Grandpa was younger and stronger, when he had had good tackle and
a sail, the miracle worker had been of some use.
together they started to pull in the wet end of the line.
Soon they came to the hooks. But they found few bullheads on them, and
small ones at that.
Gavrik took the big-headed little fishes firmly by their slippery
gills, deftly pulled the hooks out of their rapacious jaws and threw them
into the tank, which had been lowered into the sea.
But barely three hooks out of ten had a real catch. On the others
dangled small fry or crabs.
"They don't go for shrimps," Grandpa muttered sadly. "Just think of it.
Nothing but small fry. Meat's the bait to use. They'd go for meat all right.
But how to get meat when it's eleven kopeks a pound at the market! It's a
joke!"
Suddenly a tremendous hulk pouring forth brown smoke bore down on them.
Two slanting shadows flew over the waves. The sea burst into frightful
noise. A steamer passed by close to the boat, her red float-boards working
busily.
The boat was thrown up, then let down, then thrown up again.
The flags of the line bobbed frantically, almost under the
paddle-wheels. A little closer and they would have been ground into
splinters.
"Hi there, on the Turgenev!" Grandpa shouted in an unrecognisable
voice, spreading out his arms as though trying to stop a galloping horse.
"Gone blind? Can't you see the line? Filthy pigs!"
But the steamer had already passed by.
She was noisily drawing away-with her tricolour flag at the stern, with
her life-belts and life-boats, with her passengers, with her columns of
brown anthracite smoke- leaving behind a broad, snow-white, lacy pattern on
the clear dark-green water.
That meant it was seven o'clock in the morning.
The Turgenev served the fishermen as a clock. At eight in the evening
she would pass on her way back to Odessa from Akkerman.
To get the bullheads to market in time they would have to hurry.
Grandfather and grandson made a hasty breakfast of tomatoes and bread
washed down with water from the keg, which by now had turned warm and taken
on an oaky flavour. Then they quickly went back to their work on the line.
"CALL THAT A HORSE?"
At about nine o'clock Gavrik was on his way to town, with the tank of
bullheads on his shoulder. He could have put them in a basket, of course,
but the tank made a better impression. It showed that he was carrying live,
absolutely fresh fish straight out of the sea.
Grandpa remained at home to mend the line.
Although Gavrik was only nine, Grandpa had no qualms about entrusting
him with such an important mission as the sale of the fish. He relied on his
grandson fully. The lad had a head on his shoulders. He was not a baby.
Whom else could the old man depend upon if not his own grandson?
Gavrik was fully aware of the importance and responsibility of his job,
and it was with a businesslike and preoccupied air that he tramped along the
hot path among the strong-smelling bushes, leaving in the dust distinct
imprints of his small feet with all their ten toes.
His air of concentration and importance as much as said: "You may do
what you like-swim in the sea, lounge about on the sand, ride a bicycle, or
drink soda water at the stand. Me, I'm a fisherman, and my job is to catch
bullheads and sell them at the market. Nothing else concerns me."
As he passed the beach house, where over the cashier's window hung a
spotted black board with the figure "76°" chalked on it, Gavrik gave a
scornful and disgusted smile at what he saw: a chubby white-bodied man with
a handkerchief on his bald head had stopped up his nose and ears with his
fingers and was ducking himself in the clayey water near the shore, staying
close to the safety-rope, which was covered with a slimy green beard.
There were two ways of getting to the top of the bluff: by the long
sloping path that had three turns in it, or by the steep, almost
perpendicular wooden stairway with rotting steps.
Gavrik, it goes without saying, chose the stairway.
Compressing his lips, he ran quickly to the very top without once
pausing for breath.
A dusty but shady lane brought him past the "Warm Sea-Baths
Establishment" to the Military School.
There he was practically in town.
In the shade of the dappled plane trees of French Boulevard an open
horse-tram was lumbering along towards Arcadia. The sunny side of the tram
was covered with an awning. A sheaf of bamboo fishing-rods, with
red-and-blue floats, jutted out from the rear platform. Three lively old
mares clicked their hoofs along the fine gravel. The brakes screeched and
moaned at the turns.
But what really drew the boy's attention was the kvass stand.
It was a big box-like affair with a double-sloping roof that rested on
two posts. The outside was painted green and the inside white-thick, shiny
oil paint.
As to the kvass man, he was so extraordinarily elegant and handsome
that every time Gavrik passed by that corner he stopped to marvel and envy.
Gavrik never gave much thought to what he would be when he grew up.
There wasn't any particular choice. But if he did have a choice, it would be
a kvass man, of course.
All the Odessa kvass vendors were as spruce and handsome as a picture.
And this one especially. He was the dead spit of Vanka Klyuchnik."
Yes, that was it. With his high merchant's cap of fine navy-blue serge,
his blond curls, and his shiny high boots. And the shirt! Lord, a shirt like
that was fit to be worn only on Easter Sunday: bright-red, with sleeves like
balloons, and long-all the way to the knees, with a hundred blue glass
buttons!
Over the shirt he wore a black waistcoat with a silver watch-chain
fastened in a buttonhole with a little silver rod.
One look at that flaming shirt was enough to make anybody pant for a
drink of cold kvass.
And the way he worked! Quickly, deftly, smoothly.
"Give us a glass, laddie," a customer would say.
"Which would you like? The sour or the sweet? The sweet's a kopek a
mug, and the sour's two for a kopek."
"I'll have the sour."
"Coming right up."
In the twinkling of an eye one hand lifted the round cover of the
locker by the ring and dipped into the deep icy darkness for a bottle, while
the other wiped the white counter with a rag-it was dry anyway-rinsed a huge
mug with a thick false bottom in a pail of water, smartly turned the mug
over and set it down with a bang in front of the customer.
The small corkscrew bit into the cork. The bottle, pressed between the
boots, exploded. Out of its neck rose long ringlets of brown foam.
The handsome fellow turned the bottle over into the mug, filling
one-quarter with lemon-yellow kvass and three-quarters with foam.
The customer eagerly blew off the foam and then drank and drank and
drank. Meanwhile Vanka Klyuchnik wiped the counter with a flourish and swept
the wet kopek with the eagle on it into a tin box which once had held
Krakhmalnikov Bros, lozenges.
There was a man! That was the life!
Naturally, Gavrik was dying for a drink of kvass, but he had no money.
Perhaps on the way back, although that was doubtful. The fact was that
though there were about two hundred bullheads in the tank, Grandpa was
heavily in debt to the fishwife with whom they dealt. The week before, he
had borrowed three rubles from her for corks and hooks for the line and had
returned only one ruble forty-five. That left the debt at more than a ruble
and a half-a huge sum.
If the fishwife agreed not to hold back all the money everything would
be fine. But what if she kept all of it? In that case they would be lucky to
have enough to buy meat for bait and bread, let alone kvass.
Gavrik spat, exactly the way grown-up fishermen do when burdened with
cares.
He shifted the tank to the other shoulder and continued on his way,
carrying with him in his mind's eye the handsome picture of Vanka Klyuchnik
and the fragrant coolness of the sour kvass he had not drunk.
From here on stretched real city streets, with tall houses, shops,
warehouses, gateways.
Everything lay in the mottled shade of acacias whose leaves shone like
long green grapes.
A closed wagon clattered down the street. The patches of shade sped
downwards along the horses in their high German collars, along the driver,
and along the white sides with the sign: "Artificial-Ice Plant."
Cooks carrying baskets walked by. The shade slipped across them too.
Dogs with tongues hanging out ran up to the water tins attached to the
trunks of trees. With their tails curled up into a loop, they lapped the
warm water, extremely pleased with the Odessa city council for seeing to it
that they did not go mad from thirst.
All this was familiar, humdrum.
But here was something to marvel at-a little cart with a pony harnessed
to it. Gavrik had never seen such a little horse in all his life. It was no
bigger than a calf but otherwise exactly like a real horse.
A tan, fat-bellied little thing with a chocolate-coloured mane and a
small but bushy tail, in a straw hat with holes for the ears, with shaggy
eyelashes raised, it stood quietly and modestly, like a well-bred little
girl, in the shade of the acacias at the entrance to a house.
A group of children had gathered round it.
Gavrik walked over and stood for a long time in silence. He did not
know how to react to this phenomenon. There was no doubt about it: he liked
the little horse, but at the same time it irritated him.
He inspected it from all sides. Yes, it was a horse: hoofs, forelock,
teeth. But how disgustingly small!
"Call that a horse?" he said with scorn, wrinkling his nose.
"It's not a horse, it's not a horse," chanted a little girl with two
pigtails, squatting in glee and clapping her hands. "It's not a horse at
all. It's only a pony."
"It is a horse," Gavrik said gloomily. The very next instant he was
annoyed and ashamed at having let himself be drawn into conversation with
such a beribboned little creature.
"It's a pony, it's a pony!"
"From the circus," Gavrik remarked in a hoarse bass, as though
addressing no one in particular. "An ordinary one from the circus."
"It's not from the circus, it's not from the circus! It's a pony, and
it's delivering Nobel paraffin. See the tins?"
Yes, in the cart stood shiny paraffin tins.
This came as a complete surprise to Gavrik. Paraffin, as everybody
knew, was bought in a shop in one's own bottle at a kopek a quart.
But for it to be delivered to homes in a cart, and a cart drawn by a
fancy pony-that was a bit too much!
"It's a plain horse!" Gavrik retorted angrily as he walked away.
"It's a pony! It's a pony! It's a pony!" the little girl called after
him like a parrot, jumping up and down and clapping her hands.
"You're a pony yourself," thought Gavrik. But unfortunately he had no
time for a real argument.
After skirting the public garden, through whose iron fence came the
hot, dry fragrance of myrtle and thuja with its tart little cones, the boy
stopped, threw back his head and stared for a rather long time at the clock
on the railway station.
He had learned to tell time only recently, and now he could not pass a
clock without stopping to reckon.
He still counted on his fingers those strange little sticks of Roman
numerals which were so unlike the usual figures in arithmetic. He knew only
that the top figure was twelve and that it was from there you had to start
counting.
He set the fish tank down at his feet. His lips began to move. "One,
two, three, four," he whispered, crinkling his forehead and bending his
fingers back firmly.
The small hand pointed to nine and the big one to six.
"Nine and a half," the boy said with a sigh of satisfaction, wiping the
sweat from his nose with the tail of his shirt.
That was what it looked like, but it would do no harm to check.
"What time is it?"
A gentleman in a pongee jacket and a tropical helmet put a golden
pince-nez to his Roman nose, tilted his short grey beard, threw a glance at
the clock, and said quickly, "Nine-thirty."
Gavrik was dumbfounded.
"But doesn't it say nine and a half?"
"That means it's nine-thirty," the man said sternly, without looking at
the boy. Then he climbed into a cab and drove off, holding his ivory-handled
walking stick between his knees.
Gavrik stood there for a while, his mouth with its missing teeth open,
trying to decide whether the gentleman had been making fun of him or whether
it was really so.
Finally he raised the tank to his shoulder, hitched up his trousers and
continued on his way, turning his head from side to side and smiling
mistrustfully.
So nine and a half was the same as nine-thirty! Queer. Very queer. At
any rate, it wouldn't hurt to ask someone who knew.
MADAM STOROZHENKO
"Lobsters! Lobsters! Lobsters! Lobsters!"
"Flat-fish! Flat-fish! Flat-fish!"
"Live mackerel! Mackerel! Mackerel!"
"Mullet! Mullet!"
"Middies! Middies! Middies! Middies! Middies!"
"Bullheads! Bullheads! Bullheads!"
The loudest and shrillest voices of all the market women belonged to
the fishwives: Fish Row was famous for that.
You had to have the calm courage of Odessa housewives and cooks to walk
at a leisurely pace along that lane of tables, baskets and vats piled with
fish and lobsters and other shellfish.
Under sheds and huge canvas sun-shades the quivering, gleaming riches
of the Black Sea lay spread out for all to behold.
What a variety of shapes, colours and sizes!
Nature had done all she could to safeguard her wonderful creations and
protect them from destruction, to make them as unnoticeable as possible to
the human eye. She had camouflaged them in all the tints of the sea.
Take that noble and expensive fish, the mackerel, queen of the Black
Sea. Her taut body, as straight and smooth as a spindle, was coloured in the
most delicate moire shades ranging from sky-blue to deep-blue.
This, Gavrik knew, was the colour of the sea far from shore, and just
where shoals of mackerel usually passed.
A crafty creature, the mackerel!
Although Gavrik saw mackerel every day and could spot a shoal half a
mile away, he never failed to marvel at how beautiful and clever they were.
Or take bullheads. Their haunt was the rocks near the shore, and also
the sandy bottom. That was why they were brownish like the rocks or
yellowish like the sand.
Just think of it!
Then there were the big flat-fish, which preferred the slimy bottom of
quiet little bays. The striking thing about these fish was the
greenish-black colour of their thick skin, covered with flat bony bumps like
seashells. Flat-fish had both their eyes on the upper side, and they
reminded you of the charcoal drawings children make on fences: a head in
profile, but with two eyes.
True, flat-fish had wax-coloured bellies, like a sucking-pig's, but
they never showed them; they always lay at the bottom, hugging the sand.
The boy marvelled at the craftiness of the flat-fish too.
There was also the mullet, a humpbacked little red-and-black fish with
big scales that looked blood-stained.
Large pink seashells exactly like them glittered at the bottom of the
clearest bays.
As to silversides, these swarmed at the surface of the sea near the
shore, where they could not be told apart from the silvery Hashes of the
morning sun.
Yes, Nature was crafty. But man, Gavrik knew, was craftier. He placed
his nets, he cast his invisible fishing lines, he flashed his spoon-bait and
flies-and then these fish, which you could never notice in the sea, showed
all the splendour of their magic colours in the baskets and on the stalls of
the marketplace.
Money for good tackle-that was the main thing!
Looking for his fishwife, the boy walked past baskets swarming with
light-green lobsters. They made a rustling sound as they reached upwards
with nippers spread apart convulsively, like scissors.
The silversides were glistening heaps of silver coins.
Under their wet netting the springy shrimps made a clicking noise and
shot out salt in all directions.
Shiny scales stuck to the boy's bare feet. His heels slid on fish guts.
Scrawny market cats, their eyes insane, with pupils narrowed to
vertical slits, crept along the ground in search of prey, ears flattened
back and shoulder-blades jutting up rapaciously.
Housewives carrying string bags with carrots sticking out of them
weighed thick slices of flat-fish in their hands.
The sun was burning hot. The fish were dying.
The market-woman Gavrik was looking for sat on a child's bench under a
canvas sun-shade big enough for a giant, surrounded by baskets of fish.
The huge woman was dressed, despite the heat, in a winter jacket with
puffed sleeves, and she had a sand-coloured shawl wrapped crosswise over her
bosom; across one shoulder hung a heavy money-bag.
Gavrik stopped respectfully at a distance to wait until she finished
bargaining with a customer.
He knew very well that he and Grandpa were completely dependent upon
this woman, and that meant he had to be as polite and unassuming as
possible. If he had worn a hat he would have removed it. But he wore no hat,
and so he did the best he could: he set the fish tank gently on the ground,
let his arms hang at his sides, and looked down at his bare shuffling feet
with their grey suede socks of dust reaching to the ankles.
The customer was buying only two dozen bullheads but the bargaining
went on a frightfully long time.
She walked away ten times, and ten times she came back. Ten times the
fishwife picked up the brass pans of her balance all covered with fish
scales, and ten times she threw them back into the basket of flat-fish.
The fishwife gesticulated rapidly with her fleshy hands in their black
knitted mitts, not forgetting to hold her little finger out at an elegant
angle.
She ran her sleeve across her shiny purplish-red face with its black
moustache and grey ringlets of hair on the chin. She nervously pushed big
iron hairpins back into place in her greasy jet-black hair.
"Just look at them, madam," she cried hoarsely. "You won't find
bullheads like these anywhere else. I tell you, these bullheads are worth
their weight in gold!"
"They're tiny," the customer said, walking away in disdain. "Not even
worth frying."
"Come back, madam! You say they're not worth frying? Where'll you find
bigger ones? Maybe from the Jews! Then go to 'em! You know me. I'd never
palm off small fry on a steady customer!"
"Ten kopeks a dozen for these bullheads? Never! Not a kopek more than
eight."
"Two dozen for nineteen."
"For that money I'd rather go somewhere else and buy salmon."
"My last price is eighteen, madam. Take it or leave it. Where are you
going, madam?"
At last the deal took place. The fishwife gave the customer the
bullheads and threw the coins into her moneybag.
Gavrik waited patiently until the fishwife took notice of him. She knew
he was there, but she pretended for a long time not to see him.
Such was the custom of the market-place. If you needed money, you had
to wait. Nothing terrible about it. A person wouldn't die if he stood there
a while.
"Fresh fish! Live bullheads! Flat-fish! Flat-fish! Flatfish!" The
fishwife paused for breath and then suddenly said, without looking at
Gavrik, "Well, show it here!"
The boy opened the fish tank and moved it over to her.
"Bullheads," he said respectfully.
She dipped her paw into the tank and pulled some out with a practised
hand. She gave them a quick glance and then stared at Gavrik, her round eyes
as blue-black as Isabella grapes.
"Well? Where's the bullheads?"
Gavrik was silent.
"Where's the bullheads, I ask you?"
The boy sadly shifted his feet and gave a modest smile, trying to turn
the unpleasant conversation into a joke.
"Why, there they are, ma'am. You're holding them. Can't you see?"
"Where's the bullheads?" the fishwife suddenly screamed, turning red as
a beet with rage. "Where are they? Where? Show me. I don't see 'em. D'you
mean to say what I'm holding in my hand? These ain't bullheads -they're
lice! Anything here worth frying? Not a thing! All you ever bring me is
small fry! Take your small fry to the Jews!"
Gavrik was silent.
He couldn't call them big bullheads, of course, but still they weren't
as tiny as the screaming fishwife made them out to be. However, he was not
in a position to argue.
When the fishwife finished shouting she coolly transferred the
bullheads from the tank to her basket, deftly counting them off by tens.
Her hands moved so quickly that Gavrik was unable to keep count. He
felt she was cheating him. But there was no way of checking, for there were
other bullheads in her basket.
Who could tell which was which?
Gavrik was struck with horror. He broke into a sweat from excitement.
"To make it a round number, two hundred and fifty," said the fishwife,
covering the basket with a strip of sacking. "Take you tank, and good-bye.
Tell your grandfather he still owes me eighty kopeks. Tell him not to
forget. And tell him not to send me any more teenies-I won't take 'em!"
The boy was dumbfounded. He tried to say something but his throat
contracted.
The fishwife was not paying him the slightest attention. She was
calling her wares again.
"Flat-fish, flat-fish, flat-fish! Bullheads, bullheads, bullheads!"
"Madam Storozhenko," the boy finally managed to get out, "Madam
Storozhenko. . . ."
She turned her head impatiently. "You still here? Well?"
"Madam Storozhenko, how much are you paying me for a hundred?"
"Thirty kopeks a hundred, seventy-five for the lot. You owed me a ruble
fifty-five and now you owe me eighty kopeks. Tell that to your grandfather.
Good-bye."
"Thirty kopeks a hundred!"
Gavrik was so hurt and so angry he wanted to shout, to punch her in the
nose with all his might, so that blood flowed from it. Yes, so that the
blood flowed. Or to bite her.
But instead he gave a quick, fawning smile. "Madam Storozhenko," he
muttered, almost in tears, "but you always used to pay us forty-five."
"You're lucky you're getting thirty for such trash. Now be off!"
"But Madam Storozhenko, you're getting eighty for 'em. . . ."
"Clear out and stop pestering me! It's my fish and I set my own price.
I don't take no orders from you. Flatfish! Flat-fish! Flat-fish!"
Gavrik looked at Madam Storozhenko. She sat on her child's bench-huge,
unapproachable, stony.
He could have told her that Grandpa and he had no money at all, that
they absolutely had to buy bread, and meat for bait, and that all they
needed was fifteen or twenty kopeks. But was it worth humbling himself?
The pride of fisherfolk spoke up in the boy.
With his sleeve he wiped away the tears that were stinging his peeled
nose, blew his nose into the dust with two fingers, raised the light fish
tank to his shoulder and walked off with his rolling gait of the Black Sea
fisherman.
As he walked along he wondered where he could get some meat and bread.
"LOWER RANKS"
Although, as we have seen, Gavrik had a life of toil and cares, quite
like a grown-up, we must not forget that he was, after all, only a boy of
nine.
He had friends with whom he liked to play, run, scrap, catch sparrows,
shoot with catapults and do everything else all Odessa boys of poor families
did.
He belonged to the category known as "street urchins", and this gave
him a wide acquaintance.
Nobody prevented him from going into any courtyard or playing in any
street.
He was as free as a bird. The whole city was his.
Even the freest bird, however, has its favourite haunts, and Gavrik's
were the seaside streets in the Otrada and Maly Fontan districts. There he
was an unchallenged king among the boys, who envied and admired his
independent life.
Gavrik had many friends, but only one real chum, Petya.
The simplest thing would be to go and see Petya and put their heads
together about bread and meat.
Naturally, Petya didn't have any money, especially a big sum like
fifteen kopeks. There was no use even thinking about that. But Petya could
take a chunk of meat from the kitchen and some bread from the cupboard.
Gavrik had been inside Petya's house once, as his guest last Christmas,
and he knew very well that they had a cupboard piled with bread and that
nobody gave it any notice. It would be no bother at all to bring out as much
as half a loaf. Those people didn't pay any attention to things like bread.
But the trouble was he didn't know whether Petya had come back from the
country. He ought to be back by now, of course. Several times during the
summer Gavrik had gone to Petya's yard to find out. But Petya had been still
away.
The last time their cook, Dunya, said they would soon come. That was
about five days ago. Perhaps they were already there.
From the market Gavrik set out for Petya's. Luckily, it was not far
away: Kulikovo Field and the corner of Kanatnaya, just opposite the railway
station and next to the Army Staff building. It was a big four-storey house
with two front entrances. And a wonderful house it was; if you wanted to
live like a lord, you couldn't find a better.
In the first place, it was just the thing for street fights because it
had two gateways: one leading out to Kulikovo Field, or simply Kulichki, and
the other to a marvellous vacant lot with bushes, tarantula holes, and a
rubbish-heap; only a small rubbish-heap, true, but an exceptionally rich
one.
If you dug properly in it, you could always collect a mass of useful
things-from chemist's vials to dead rats.
Petya was lucky. It wasn't every chap had a refuse-heap like that next
to his house!
In the second place, little suburban trains drawn by a tiny engine ran
past the house, so that you didn't have to go very far to put a cap or a
stone under the wheels.
In the third place, the Army Staff building was next door.
Behind its high stone wall facing the field lay a mysterious world
guarded day and night by sentries. Behind that wall were the rumbling
machines of the Army Staff printing plant. And what interesting scraps of
paper the wind carried over the wall: ribbons, strips, vermicelli!
The windows of the staff clerks' quarters faced the field too. By
standing on a rock one could look through the grating and see how the clerks
lived, those extraordinarily handsome, important and dashing young men in
the long trousers of officers but with the shoulder straps of privates.
Gavrik had learned from reliable sources that the clerks belonged to
the ordinary "lower ranks", that is to say, were plain soldiers. But what a
world of difference between them and the soldiers!
With the possible exception of the kvass vendors, the staff clerks were
the most elegant, best-dressed and handsomest fellows in town.
When they saw a clerk the chambermaids from the nearby houses turned
pale and began to tremble and looked as though they would faint any minute.
They mercilessly scorched their hair and temples with curling-irons, they
dabbed their noses with tooth powder and they rouged their cheeks with
toffee paper. But the clerks paid no attention to them.
To any Odessa soldier a chambermaid was a superior and unapproachable
being, but to a staff clerk she was no more than "a dull peasant" and not
worthy of a glance.
In their rooms behind the grating the staff clerks sat on iron beds
softly strumming guitars; they were sad and lonely. They sat without their
jackets, in long trousers with a broad red stitched belting, and clean
shirts with black neckties such as officers wore.
If a staff clerk appeared in the street of a Sunday evening, it was
always arm in arm with two seamstresses wearing their hair puffed up high in
front.
Staff clerks were unbelievably rich. With his own eyes Gavrik once saw
one of them riding in a droshky.
But strange as it seemed, staff clerks belonged to the "lower ranks".
At the corner of Pirogovskaya and Kulikovo Field Gavrik once saw, with his
own eyes, a general in silver shoulder straps striking a clerk across the
mouth and shouting in a voice that sent shivers down Gavrik's back, "Is that
the way to stand, you dog? Is that the way?"
The clerk stood stiffly at attention and rolled his head, his
light-blue peasant eyes bulging like a common soldier's. "Sorry, Your
Excellency!" he muttered. "I'll never do it again!"
It was this dual position that made the staff clerks, such strange,
wonderful and at the same time pathetic creatures, like fallen angels exiled
as punishment from heaven to earth.
The life of the ordinary sentries, whose quarters were next door to the
staff clerks, was very interesting too.
These soldiers also had two natures.
One was when they stood in pairs, in full sentry uniform, with their
cartridge belts, at the alabaster front entrance of the Army Staff building,
springing smartly to attention and presenting arms the way sergeants did,
that is, shifting their well-greased bayonets slightly to the side whenever
an officer came in or went out.
The other was a plain, domestic, peasant nature, when they sat in their
barracks sewing on buttons, polishing their boots or playing
draughts-"dames", as they called it.
Bowls and wooden spoons were always drying on their windowsills, and
there were many left-over pieces of black army bread which they readily gave
to beggars.
They readily talked to boys, too, but the questions they asked and the
words they used made the boys blush to their ears and run away horrified.
The two courtyards were asphalted and were just the place for playing
hopscotch. Fine squares and numbers could be drawn on the asphalt with
charcoal or chalk. The smooth sea pebbles slid across it wonderfully.
If the janitor lost his temper at the hullabaloo raised by the playing
children and went after them with his broom, there was nothing easier than
running into the next courtyard.
Besides, the house had wonderful and mysterious cellars with woodbins.
It was simply marvellous to hide in those cellars among the firewood
and various junk, in the dry, dusty darkness, while out in the yard it was
bright daylight.
In a word, the house where Petya lived was an excellent place in every
respect.
Gavrik entered the yard and stopped under the windows of Petya's flat,
which was on the second storey.
The yard, split diagonally by the distinct midday shadow, was
absolutely empty. Not a boy in sight. Evidently they were all in the country
or at the seaside.
Shuttered windows. The hot, lazy stillness of noon. Not a sound.
But from somewhere far away-perhaps even as far as Botanicheskaya
Street-came the spluttering and popping noise of a red-hot frying pan.
Judging by the smell, it was grey mullet being fried in sunflower oil.
"Petya!" Gavrik called, his hands cupped round his mouth.
Silence.
"Pe-et-ya!"
Closed shutters.
"Pe-e-e-et-ya-a-a!!"
The kitchen window opened and the white-kerchiefed head of Dunya, the
cook, looked out.
"They haven't come yet." It was the usual reply, spoken quickly.
"When will they?"
"We expect them this evening."
The boy spat on the ground and rubbed the spittle with his foot. He was
silent for a while.
"Please, ma'am, as soon as he comes tell him Gavrik was here."
"Yes, Your Honour."
"Tell him I'll drop round tomorrow morning."
"It'll be quite all right if you don't. Our Petya will be going to
school this year. And that means good-bye to all your monkey-business."
"Never mind," Gavrik muttered dourly. "Only don't forget to tell him.
Will you?"
"I'll tell him, don't cry."
"Good-bye, ma'am."
"Good-bye, you beauty."
Dunya, it seemed, was so fed up with doing nothing all summer long that
she had descended to an exchange of banter with a little ragamuffin.
Gavrik hitched up his trousers and strolled out of the yard.
A bad business! What next?
He could, of course, go to his big brother Terenti at Near Mills. But
in the first place, Near Mills was a long way off, and the walk there and
back would take a good four hours. And in the second place, after the
disturbances he didn't know whether Terenti would be at home or not. Quite
likely he was in hiding somewhere or else had nothing to eat himself.
What sense was there in wearing out his feet for nothing? They were his
own, weren't they?
The boy walked out on the field and looked in at the barracks windows
as he passed by.
The soldiers had just finished their midday meal and were rinsing their
spoons on the windowsill. A pile of leftover bread was drying under the hot
sun.
The bread was black and spongy, with a chestnut-coloured crust that
actually looked sour, and flies were crawling over it.
Gavrik stopped near a window, entranced by the sight of such abundance.
He was silent for a while, and then to his own surprise he blurted out
roughly, "Give me some bread!"
But he immediately remembered himself, picked up his tank and walked
away. "I didn't mean it," he said, showing the soldiers his gap-toothed
smile. "I don't want any."
The soldiers crowded at the windowsill, calling and whistling to the
boy. "Hi there! Where you running to? Come back!"
They stretched out pieces of bread to him through the grating. "Take
it. Don't be afraid."
He stopped in indecision.
"Hold out your shirt."
There was so much good-natured gaiety in their shouts and in the fuss
they were making that Gavrik saw there would be nothing humiliating about it
if he did take some bread from them. He walked back and held out his shirt.
Chunks of bread flew into it.
"Won't do you any harm to try our army bread and get used to it!"
In addition to about five pounds of bread, the soldiers gave Gavrik a
good helping of yesterday's porridge.
He stowed it all neatly into the fish tank, accompanied by earthy jokes
about the effect of army rations on the stomach, set out for home to help
Grandpa mend the line.
Late that afternoon they put out to sea again.
THE BOAT AT SEA
When he saw that the steamer did not stop and did not lower a boat, but
continued on her course, the sailor calmed down a bit and began to think
clearly.
His first concern was to throw off some of his clothes; they interfered
with his swimming.
The jacket was water-logged and as heavy as iron, but it came off
easiest of all. He did it in three movements, turning over several times and
spitting out the bitter, salty sea water.
For a while the jacket floated along after him with its sleeves spread
out, like a living thing; it did not want to part from its master and tried
to wind itself round his legs.
After the sailor had kicked the jacket a few times it fell behind and
slowly sank, swaying and dropping from layer to layer until it was lost in
the depths to which the cloudy shafts of the late afternoon light faintly
penetrated.
The boots gave him the most trouble of all. They stuck as though filled
with glue.
He furiously scraped one foot against the other to throw off those
coarse navy boots with the rust-coloured tops which had given him away.
Paddling with his arms, he danced in the water; one minute his head went
under, the next his shoulders reared up over the surface.
But the boots would not yield. He filled his lungs with air and then,
dropping his head under the surface, tugged at the slippery heel of one of
the boots, mentally letting out a string of the vilest oaths and cursing
everything under the sun.
At last he pulled off that damned boot. The second came easier.
However, the relief Rodion felt when he had got rid of his boots and
trousers was accompanied by an overpowering weariness. The sea water, of
which he had swallowed a good deal despite all his precautions, had set his
throat afire. Besides, he had smacked the water painfully hard in his dive
from the ship.
The past two days he had had hardly any sleep, had walked about forty
or fifty miles, and had been under great nervous strain. Now everything was
going dark before his eyes. Or was that because evening was falling fast?
The water had lost its daytime colour. The surface had become a bright,
glossy heliotrope, while the depths were a frightening colour, almost black.
From where he was, the sailor could not see the shore at all. The
horizon had narrowed almost to nothingness. The edge of the cloudless sky
was touched with a transparent green afterglow, and a faint, barely
perceptible star twinkled in it.
That showed where the shore was and which way he had to swim.
All he now had on was his shirt and underdrawers, and these were no
hindrance. But his head whirled, and the joints of his arms and legs ached.
With every minute he found it harder to swim.
At times he felt he was losing consciousness. At others he was on the
verge of vomiting. Every now and then he was seized by a brief, sudden
paroxysm of fear. His loneliness and the depth frightened him.
Never before had he felt like that. He must be ill, he thought.
His short wet hair seemed dry and hot and so coarse that he could
almost feel it pricking his head.
There was not a soul in sight. Overhead, in the empty darkening air, a
sturdy-winged gull with a body as plump as a cat's flew by. In its long bent
beak was a small fish.
A new spasm of fear gripped the sailor. He felt that any minute now his
heart would burst and he would go to the bottom. He wanted to cry out but he
could not unclench his teeth.
Suddenly he heard the soft splash of oars. A few moments later he saw
the black silhouette of a boat.
He mustered all his strength and struck out after the boat, thrashing
his feet desperately. He caught up with it and succeeded in grabbing hold of
its high stern.
Hand over hand he managed somehow to pull himself to the boat's side,
which was lower, and with an effort he looked in; the boat tilted.
"Come now, none of your tricks!" Gavrik shouted in a threatening bass
when he saw the wet head sticking out over the gunwale.
The boy was not at all surprised to see the head. Odessa was famous for
its swimmers.
Some swam out as far as three or four miles from shore and returned
late in the evening. This was probably one of them.
If he was such a hero he had no business catching hold of people's
boats for a rest. He ought to keep right on swimming. They'd put in a good
day's work and were tired enough as it is, without dragging him!
"Come now, stop fooling! Push off or I'll let you have it with this
oar!"
To give more weight to his words he bent over as if to take the oar out
of the rowlock, exactly the way Grandpa did on such occasions.
"I'm-ill-" the head said, panting.
Over the side stretched a trembling arm to which the sleeve of an
embroidered shirt was plastered.
This, Gavrik saw at once, was not a swimmer: people didn't go swimming
in the sea in embroidered shirts.
"What's the matter-your boat sink?"
The sailor was silent. His head and arms hung lifelessly inside the
boat while his legs, clad in drawers, dragged in the water. He had fainted.
Gavrik and Grandpa dropped their oars and with difficulty pulled the
limp but frightfully heavy body into the boat.
"How hot he is!" said Grandpa, catching his breath.
Although the sailor was wet and shivering, his whole body burned with a
dry, unhealthy heat.
"Want a drink?" asked Gavrik.
The sailor did not reply. He merely rolled his glazed, unseeing eyes
and stirred his swollen lips.
The boy offered him the water-keg. He pushed it aside weakly and
swallowed his saliva in revulsion. A second later he vomited.
His head fell and banged against the thwart.
Then, like a blind man, he reached out in the darkness for the keg,
found it and, his teeth chattering against the oaken side, managed to gulp
down some water.
Grandpa shook his head. "A bad business!"
"Where are you from?" asked the boy.
Again the sailor swallowed his saliva. He tried to say something but
only managed to stretch out his arm and then dropped it lifelessly.
"To the devil with him!" he muttered indistinctly. "Don't let anybody
see me. I'm a sailor-hide me somewhere-or else they'll hang me-it's the
truth, so help me God-by the true and holy-"
He evidently wanted to make the sign of the Cross but couldn't raise
his hand. He tried to smile at his weakness but instead a film passed over
his eyes.
Again he lost consciousness.
Grandfather and grandson exchanged glances but neither said a word.
Times were such that keeping mum was the best policy.
They carefully laid the sailor on the floor-slats, through which
unbailed water splashed up, placed the keg under his head and sat down at
the oars.
They rowed slowly, idling along so as to reach shore when it was
altogether dark. The darker the better. Before landing they circled about
for a while near the familiar crags.
Fortunately, there was no one on the shore.
It was a warm, dark night full of stars and crickets.
Grandfather and grandson pulled the boat up on the beach. The pebbles
rustled mysteriously.
While Grandpa remained behind to guard the sick man Gavrik ran ahead to
make certain the coast was clear.
He soon returned. From his soundless footsteps, Grandpa gathered that
all was well. With great difficulty, but gently, they pulled the sailor out
of the boat and stood him on his legs, propping him from both sides.
The sailor put his arm round Gavrik's neck and pressed him to his now
dry and extraordinarily hot body. He did not realise, of course, how heavily
he was leaning on the boy.
Gavrik braced his legs more firmly. "Can you walk?" he asked in a
whisper.
The sailor did not reply but took a few swaying steps forward, like a
sleepwalker.
"Easy does it, easy does it," urged Grandpa, supporting the sailor from
behind.
"It's not far. Only a couple of steps."
They finally made their way up the little hill. No one saw them. And
even if anyone had, he would hardly have paid any attention to that reeling
white figure supported by an old man and a boy.
It was a familiar enough scene: a drunken fisherman was being led home
by his relatives, and if he wasn't swearing or bawling songs that was simply
because he had taken too much.
The minute they got the sailor into the hot and smelly darkness of the
hut he collapsed on the plank-bed.
Grandpa covered the tiny window with a piece of plywood from a broken
box and closed the door tightly. Only then did he light the small,
chimneyless paraffin lamp, turning down the wick as low as possible.
The lamp stood in the corner, on a shelf covered with an old newspaper.
On the same shelf lay the army bread wrapped in a damp rag to keep it
fresh, a cup made out of a tin can, the soldiers' porridge in a tin bowl,
two wooden spoons, and a big blue seashell with coarse grey salt in it-in a
word, a poverty-stricken but neat household array.
An old smoke-blackened icon was nailed in the corner above the shelf:
an oblong coffee-coloured stain that was the face of St. Nicholas the
Miracle Worker-the protector of fishermen-looked down with glittering eyes
painted in the manner of the old Kiev school.
A wisp of smoke and the lamp-light streamed up the ancient face from
below. It seemed to be alive, to be breathing.
For a long time now Grandpa had believed in neither God nor the devil.
He had not seen them bring either good or evil into his life. But in St.
Nicholas the Miracle Worker he did believe.
How could he not believe in this saint who helped him in his difficult
and dangerous occupation? Especially since this occupation, fishing, was the
most Important thing in Grandpa's life.
But lately, to tell the truth, the miracle worker had been falling down
on the job.
When Grandpa was younger and stronger, when he had had good tackle and
a sail, the miracle worker had been of some use.