Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea

20

THAT MORNING Smolyaninov came to see me. He was in charge of various administrative tasks on our ship. In his previous life he may have worked for The New Age,[111] though I don’t know for sure.

“I have to tell you,” he said, “that some of the passengers are unhappy that you didn’t join in yesterday when they were gutting fish. They’re saying you’re work-shy and that you’re being granted unfair privileges. You must find a way to show that you are willing to work.”

“All right, I’m quite willing to show my willingness.”

“But I really don’t know what to suggest. I can hardly make you scrub the deck.”

Ah! Scrubbing the deck! My childhood dream!

As a child I had once seen a sailor hosing the deck with a large hose while another sailor scrubbed away with a stiff, long-handled brush with bristles cut at an angle. I had thought at the time that nothing in the world could be jollier. Since then, I’ve learned about many things that are jollier, but that stiff, oddly-shaped brush, those rapid, powerful splashes as the water hit the white planks, and the sailors’ brisk efficiency (the one doing the scrubbing kept repeating “Hup! Hup!”) had all stayed in my memory—a wonderful, joyous picture.

There I had stood, a little girl with blue eyes and blonde pigtails, watching this sailors’ game with reverence and envy, upset that fate would never allow me this joy.

But kind fate had taken pity on that poor little girl. It had tormented her for a long time, but it never forgot her wish. It staged a war and a revolution. It turned the whole world upside down, and now, at last, it had found an opportunity to thrust a long-handled brush into the girl’s hands and send her up on deck.

At last! Thank you, dear fate!

“Tell me,” I said to Smolyaninov. “Do they have a brush with angled bristles? And will they be using a hose?”

“What!” said Smolyaninov. “Do you mean it? You’re really willing to scrub the deck?”

“Of course I mean it! Only don’t, for heaven’s sake, change your mind. Come on, let’s go…”

“You must at least change your clothes!”

But I had nothing to change into.

For the main part, the Shilka’s passengers wore whatever they could most easily do without. We all knew that it would be impossible to buy anything when we next went ashore, so we were saving our everyday clothes for later. We were wearing only items for which we foresaw no immediate need: colorful shawls, ball gowns, satin slippers…

I was wearing a pair of silver shoes. Certainly not the kind of shoes I’d be wearing next time I had to wander about searching for a room.

We went up on deck.

Smolyaninov went off for a moment. A cadet came over with a brush and a hose. Jolly streams of water splashed onto my silver shoes.

“Just for a few minutes,” whispered Smolyaninov. “For appearances’ sake.”

“Hup! Hup!” I repeated.

The cadet looked at me with fear and compassion.

“Please allow me to relieve you!”

“Hup-hup!” I replied. “We must all do our share. I imagine you’ve been humping coal; now I must scrub the deck. Yes, sir. We must all do our share, young man. I’m working and I’m proud of the contribution I’m making.”

“But you’ll wear yourself out!” said somebody else. “Please allow me!”

“They’re jealous, the sly devils!” I thought, remembering my childhood dream. “They want to have a go too! Well, why wouldn’t they?”

“Nadezhda Alexandrovna! You truly have worn yourself out,” said Smolyaninov. “The next shift will now take over.”

He then added, under his breath, “Your scrubbing is abominable.”

Abominable? And there I was, thinking I was just like that sailor from my distant childhood.

“And also, you look far too happy,” Smolyaninov went on. “People might think this is some kind of game.”

I had no choice but to relinquish my brush.

Offended, I set off down below. As I passed three ladies I didn’t know, I heard one of them say my name.

“Yes, I’ve heard she’s here on our boat.”

“You don’t say!”

“I’m telling you, she’s here on this boat. Not like the rest of us, of course. She’s got a cabin to herself, a separate table, and she doesn’t want to do any work.”

I shook my head sadly.

“You’re being terribly unfair!” I said reproachfully. “She’s just been scrubbing the deck. I saw her with my own eyes.”

“They got her to scrub the deck!” exclaimed one of the ladies. “That’s going too far!”

“And you saw her?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Well? What’s she like?”

“Long and lanky. A bit like a gypsy. In red boots.”

“Goodness me!”

“And nobody’s breathed a word to us!”

“That must be very hard work, mustn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said. “A lot harder than just stroking a fish with a knife.”

“So why’s she doing it?”

“She wants to set an example.”

“And to think that nobody’s breathed a word to us!”

“Do you know when she’ll be scrubbing next? We’d like to watch.”

“I’m not sure. I’ve heard she’s put her name down to work in the boiler room tomorrow, but that may just be a rumor.”

“Now that really is going too far!” said one of the ladies, with concern.

“It’s all right,” said one of her companions reassuringly. “A writer needs to experience many things. It’s not for nothing that Maxim Gorky worked as a baker when he was young.”

“But that,” said the other lady, “was before he became a writer.”

“Well, he must have known he’d become a writer. Why else would he have gone to work in a bakery?”

Late that evening, when I was sitting alone in our bathroom-cabin, there was a quiet knock at the door.

“May I?”

“You may.”

In came a man in uniform. I had never seen him before. He looked around the cabin.

“You’re alone? Perfect.”

And, turning round, he called out, “Come in, gentlemen, we’ll be on our own.”

In came a few other men. Among them was O the engineer.

“Well?” asked O. “What is it we’ve come here to discuss?”

“A very serious matter indeed,” whispered the man in uniform. “We’re being deceived. They say we’re going to Sebastopol, but really we’re heading for Romania, where the captain will hand us over to the Bolsheviks.”

“Why on earth would there be Bolsheviks in Romania? You’re talking nonsense.”

“By the time you know for sure that I’m not, it will be too late. I can only tell you that the Shilka is at this very moment heading toward Romania. There’s only one thing we can do: Go to the captain tonight and confront him. Then we must hand over the command to Lieutenant F. He’s a man we can trust. I know him well, and what’s more, he’s related to a very well-known public figure. So, we must act straightaway. Please make your decision.”

Everyone fell silent.

“Gentlemen,” I began, “none of this is substantiated and it is all extremely unclear. Why don’t we just wait till tomorrow? We could simply go to the captain and ask him why we’re no longer heading for Sebastopol. Confronting him in his cabin at night would be outright mutiny.”

“So that’s where you stand, is it?” said the ringleader—and fell ominously silent.

There we were in the half-dark little cabin, whispering together like inveterate conspirators. Clattering above our heads was the tiller chain—our traitorous little captain steering the boat toward Romania. All straight out of an adventure novel.

“You’re right,” said O the engineer. “Best to wait till tomorrow.”

And the ringleader unexpectedly agreed: “Yes, maybe. Perhaps that will be best of all.”

In the morning O told me that he had been to see the captain. And the captain had gladly given him a very simple explanation: He had changed course in order to avoid some minefields.

How surprised the poor man would have been had we burst into his cabin in the middle of the night, clenching daggers between our teeth.

Later I saw Lieutenant F. A tall, melancholy neurotic, he seemed not to have known about the plan to proclaim him the ship’s dictator. Or maybe he had known… When we reached Sebastopol, he left the ship.