Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Twenty Years

“Would you believe it, it was only at his funeral that I learned he used to be the school’s star, 20 years ago. He danced! Can you believe that? He was an officer, you know, he’d seen fire. I can’t even picture it – him, dancing, with his military posture. The school was famous then, not like now, the students from those old classes went places! Sashenka Stroyev sails a merchant vessel on international routes, he’s a Captain; Lenochka Korneva married a Moscow diplomat, last year she sent me Teacher’s Day greetings from Prague; Lyoshenka Stepanov is the party organization secretary at the Kirov plant. Pavlik Boldin – he’s in outer space somewhere, all I know is he prepares our Soyuz rockets for launch. Those old classes don’t forget – they come to their reunions every 10 years; it’s the newer crop that don’t care for the school that much… I only knew him after he’d already started drinking. Sometimes he even showed up tipsy to teach, and the kids didn’t pay him any mind, did whatever they wanted. He buried his first wife 10 years earlier – his son now teaches, also geography, in School No. 2. It was at the funeral that the thought really struck me, for the first time perhaps: here was a man, and now he’s gone – and nothing is different. Of course, in those last years he only kept his job because of the School District Head, Kirill Georgiyevich – he used to be our principal. They started together. They retired from the army together and took the entry exams for the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute at the same time; when they graduated, they got their assignments together. Only Kirill Georgiyevich had the party streak in him, and the other one wasn’t a real fighter. Whenever I chaired the party meetings, he’d always sit in the corner, quietly, but if there was any task to be done, he’d wrinkle his face like so, and sigh – but would complete it conscientiously, with military precision. Eventually, I only charged him with political information sessions for the teachers, but soon he wiggled his way out of that, too. He’d started drinking by then, but I don’t think it was a regular thing yet. But I’ll tell you a secret – Kirill Georgiyevich himself goes on binges as well. The ladies and I worried that he’d lose it after the funeral. And he’d just come out of the hospital, his heart is worthless. They were friends, he and the old geography teacher, you know, real, wartime friends. And another student of his, Sashenka – he cried. His widow stood there like a rock. If you think about it – what’s she got left? They couldn’t have children. Just lived, you know. And the school – it was the school, of course, that did him in. He always carried a big load; he had to work. His second wife is a restoration technician – you know what they make, something between 105 and 120. But to imagine him – an officer! I wouldn’t have believed it. Women couldn’t keep their hands off him, apparently, he was their pet. I never knew him to be like that in all my ten years at the school…”

All this suddenly surfaced in Yegorshin’s memory after Taisiya Petrovna’s own funeral, 20 years after that of the geography teacher she’d been talking about. The former officer. In the late sixties, Taisiya Petrovna was at the peak of her glory: children would follow her anywhere, and the teachers adored her, too, although she taught high school history and was, at the time, the secretary of the school’s party organization. Of course, she had a lot more energy then: she regularly led field trips to historic battlefields, or excursions around the city – and always gave it her all. And her trivia contests! Her Do You Know Your Native Land? was even broadcast on national radio. When they had that prize of a trip to Bulgaria, to the Golden Sands, she was the first choice, of course. But she was strict. She could beat parents into submission like no one else, and vetted the candidates for the parent advisory group herself – all for the betterment of the school, of course. And her husband hadn’t left her yet, then. And her mother was alive – she babysat the kids. Now her son serves up North on a submarine, based next to Murmansk; her daughter’s got two of her own and lives with her husband close to the chemical plant – he is the senior nitrates engineer. They all came to the funeral together. There were people from the School District and the District Party Committee too, but the teachers all felt like strangers. Yegorshin was the only one from the school who had been her student. There was something so absurd about her death: she died of pneumonia. Who dies of that anymore? It was a grim funeral, too solemn, morose. And all because there wasn’t anyone left who knew her when she was young.

Yegorshin sat in the empty teachers’ lounge – he had a break between classes. Next door, the leader of the pioneers and a young history teacher were putting together a poster for the “Memorial” society. Yegorshin could understand why they didn’t like Taisiya Petrovna.

Then the bell rang and children filled the room:

“Alexander Alexandrovich, what time is our rehearsal today?”

Yegorshin directed the school’s musical theater.

Turyansky himself, when he came to Stargorod on tour, watched one of their shows. And liked it. Afterwards, they spent the night in the Yegorshins’ kitchen, drinking vodka and singing.