The Town By The Sea

SPRING MORNING

Day came. The porters started cleaning the station and I went out into the street. Sleepy and hungry, I felt I should scarcely be able to last a day on bread and soda water. The long journey, the lack of food, the worry and excitement of it all had drained my strength. I swayed as I walked down the street.

The trams had not started yet, but there were plenty of people about. Janitors were opening gates. Housewives with shopping-bags in their hands were hurrying off to market. They were all heading in one direction, so to kill time I wandered after them.

"Blagbaz," the famous Kharkov market, was the first place to wake up.

Stalls were opening one after the other. Miserable and unwashed, I walked round "Blagbaz" until a pungent appetizing smell struck my nostrils. It even ousted the smells of salted cabbage and celery. Nostrils quivering, like a hound on the scent, I made in the direction of the smell. A lean-faced market woman, in a wadded jacket, was bustling about by two smoking braziers on which stood two huge pots.

"Hot flachkies! Hot flachkies! Buy up, buy up, good people! Very tasty, very cheap! You'll never find such tasty flachkies anywhere else, not even in fairyland! Oh, they're lovely! The best cheapest food you can get in the world! Buy my flachkies! .."

... If any of you have ever stood in a market, beside a blazing brazier, with a clay bowl in your hands, and a rough wooden spoon—it must be a wooden spoon—and standing thus, eaten fresh, hot, peppery tripe cutlets, or flachkies as they are called in the Ukraine, with cream and spice, and onions, and garlic, and red pepper, and grated cheese, all scented with laurel leaves and parsley, you will understand just how hard it was for me not to break into my last ruble.

Even three hours later, when the offices opened and I walked up to the tall building on the corner of Karl Liebknecht Street, my mouth was still burning with the red pepper.

Those flachkies hadn't been so cheap, after all. Half a ruble gone already! Now what? Suppose the head of the Central Committee's education department was away and I had to wait for him?

Enough! No more luxury today! Until tomorrow 'I must not spend a single kopek. No soda water for me. I could drink from the tap—it was free and just as good. I must save my money, so that I could at least buy a scrap of bread to keep me going on the road back, when I should be dodging the inspectors.

I had no trouble getting into the building. My Komsomol membership card and other papers were inspected and returned to me with a pass.

I walked into the spacious entrance-hall and handed the pass to the sentry. The sentry checked it and showed me where to go. As soon as I entered the hall, I began to feel timid. When I had to take my coat off, I felt worse. At the cloak-stand, together with my hat, galoshes and chumarka. I seemed to lose half my courage.

"What floor, comrade?" the liftwoman called out to me. I had heard before that in the capital there were machines that carried people right to the top of buildings, but it was the first time I had ever seen a lift.

"I want Room 246," I said to the liftwoman, looking at my pass.

"Get in, I'll take you up."

"No thanks," said I and walked off hurriedly down the carpeted corridor to the stairs. Stairs were safer!

At a cautious pace I mounted the stairs. During my travels, my feet had got used to the warm galoshes and now, as 'I walked along in my thin-soled shoes, I felt as if I had nothing on my feet at all.

Wondering at the cleanliness and quiet everywhere, I turned into a corridor at the top of the stairs. All the doors had little numbers on them, but I could not find the education department.

A shortish, thick-set man in top-boots was walking down the corridor towards me with steady, deliberate tread. I could not see his face—the sun from the windows was shining in my eyes.

"Please, comrade, can you tell me..." I began, hurrying up to the man.

"I can indeed," he said and stopped in front of me.

But I could ask no more. . , Before me stood the very man whose photograph 'I had seen the evening before in the newspaper.

In my surprise I forgot the number of the room I was looking for.

To help me out of my confusion, he asked cheerfully:

"Got lost? Where are you from, lad?" "I'm from the border. . ." "From the border? A visitor from afar, eh? What's your business?"

And at that moment a daring thought flashed into my head—what if I told the General Secretary himself all about our troubles?

"May I speak to you?" I asked.

As soon as we entered the big, light office with its large square windows looking out over a garden, he offered me a chair, and I suddenly felt my courage return. It was as if my old acquaintance Kartamyshev were sitting in front of me. Still a little nervous and glancing at the bunch of telephones assembled on the end of the big desk, but speaking quite calmly, I explained why my mates had sent me to Kharkov.

The Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Ukraine heard me out very attentively.

Twice he picked up a big green pencil and noted something on his pad. When he did this, I would stop, but then he would nod and I would go on again.

When I began to narrate how Pecheritsa had in-, suited Polevoi with that article in the paper, the secretary asked: "So Pecheritsa insisted on the dismissal of an instructor merely because he had not learnt Ukrainian soon enough?"

"Yes, that's it! And the way he insisted! He called Polevoi a chauvinist. But how can he be a chauvinist when he's been a Bolshevik right from the start of the Revolution! And why force Nazarov to learn Ukrainian in such a hurry, when he hasn't been in the Ukraine a year yet?" I asked hotly.

The secretary smiled, and encouraged by his smile, I went on: "And now what's happened?—they're going to close the school. Well, it's not so bad for a chap who's got a mother or father living in town, they can help him until he gets fixed up somewhere. But what about the chaps who came to us from orphanages—what are they going to do? The Petlura men killed their fathers, and there's nobody in town they can turn to. They won't even have anywhere to live. They used to live in the factory-school hostel, but now, as soon as the school is closed, Pecheritsa wants to put the musical college students into the hostel. They're his favourites, they sing in his choir. But what will happen to the chaps from our school? And our training hasn't cost the state a thing—the school pays its way entirely. We make straw-cutters ourselves and sell them to the peasants and live on what we make out of it. It's good for us, and the peasants get the machines they need. It brings town and country together. We thought we would finish at school, become workers and be sent to factories in the Donbas, and other chaps would be taken on at the school. And suddenly this happens... And all because of Pecheritsa. . ."

The secretary smiled again and said: "Steady on, don't get so upset. The situation isn't half so bad as you think it is."

"But just imagine it!" I said, spurred on by his encouragement. "They've got enough unemployed at the town labour exchange as it is, and now Pecheritsa will push us on to them. After all that training... And even if the exchange sends us out as pupils to private craftsmen, what shall we be doing? Mending saucepans or soldering wash-tubs! Was that what we hoped to do when we started at the factory-training school? Is it our fault there aren't any big factories in our district yet?. . ."

The secretary interrupted me with a question concerning what I had told him earlier.

"Is that what he actually said: 'No one will allow the blue sky of Podolia to be soiled with factory smoke?' Or did you just make that up for effect?"

"What, do you think I'm making all this up?" I said offendedly. "That's just what he said."

"Curious... very curious... I didn't know he was working so openly. What a landscape-painter, eh! Luckily for us, the people of the Ukraine won't ask him where to build their factories. We shall build them where they are needed. We'll soil the sky a bit here and there, and the air will be all the fresher for it."

"Polevoi always tells us that our country can't live without industrialization because the foreign capitalists would swallow us up," I agreed.

"Does he now! Good! You are lucky to have such a good director. Everyone who's in charge of even the smallest undertaking should look at the future from a revolutionary point of view. Tell me, how many fine young chaps like you are there at your school?"

"Fifty-two... And we all belong to the metal-workers' trade union."

"Many Komsomol members?"

"Over half."

"And when is your course due to finish, according to plan?"

"In May. Very soon. That's the whole point!"

"Will all your chaps want to go away to other towns?''

"Not half they will! They'd go on foot! What do you think we studied for? When we started at school they promised us we all should get jobs at big factories ...”

"When did you arrive—today?" the secretary asked unexpectedly, again writing something on his pad.

"Yesterday evening. I would have got here yesterday, but the train was late."

"Where did you spend the night?"

"At the station. I got a bit of sleep on one of the benches..."

"At the station?. . . Why didn't you go to a hotel? Or the peasants' hostel? You know, the big building in Rosa Luxemburg Square.. ."

"Well, er. . . It wasn't bad at the station. . ."

"What's come over you all of a sudden? You were rattling away just now. Come on, confess: you didn't have enough money?"

"I did, but..."

And little by little I told the secretary my troubles.

Shaking his head sympathetically, the secretary smiled, then breaking into a laugh, said: "Those Sharks of New York let you down, lad! You're feeling hungry now, I bet?"

"Oh, no ... no, thanks, I've had breakfast. . ." "Well, listen to me, lad," said the Secretary of the Central Committee, rising. "I am quite sure that decision will be rescinded. I'll make enquiries today and I think your hopes will come true. Not one of you will be left stranded —that's certain. Very soon we shall be needing young intelligent workers like you everywhere. Both in the Donbas and in Yekaterinoslav. At a meeting in Moscow last year, Comrade Stalin put it quite plainly: 'We need fifteen or twenty million industrial proletarians, we need the electrification of the principal regions of our country, the organization of agriculture on co-operative lines, and a highly developed metal industry. And then we need fear no danger. And then we shall triumph on an international scale.' And isn't it the duty of our young people to help the Party carry out that task? Of course it is. Don't you worry, the Party won't let you down.. . As

for your personal troubles, they can soon be put right. Go to Comrade Kirillov in room thirty-two. He will find you accommodation and all the other things. Take this note."

He scribbled a few words and handed me a sheet from his note-pad.

"Have a rest today and go to the theatre in the evening. Go and see Saksagansky acting. There's a really great Ukrainian artist for you! One of these days, when you grow up, people will envy you that you saw him acting in person. You'll find it a lot better in all ways than those 'Sharks.' Spend the night here and leave tomorrow. . . Yes, and give Kartamyshev my regards. Tell him to keep a close eye on that frontier. Well, good-bye, lad!" And the secretary offered me his hand.

I said good-bye and sped joyfully out of the room, nearly tripping over the carpet as I went.

As I closed the door behind me, I heard the secretary speaking into one of his telephones: "A comrade who's come here on a visit will be dropping in to see you. He's been robbed. We shall have to help him. . . Yes, from the fund for Communists in need of assistance. . ."

I don't know how long I spent at the Central Commit tee. Maybe an hour, maybe more. The time flew past with out my noticing it. When I came out from under the arch, the sun shone brightly in my eyes. The morning mist had drifted away, and on the bare trees in the university square opposite, the crows, sensing the approach of spring, were cawing loudly. The roofs were dripping, and the snow, dark and crumbly like sugar soaked in tea, melted before my eyes.

Here was luck! I still couldn't get over my good fortune. I had thought I should have to stay here for about three days, arguing and going all over the place, but after one talk—everything was settled! And so quickly! It was really amazing. Perhaps I had dreamt it all? Of course not! I fingered the crisp new notes in my pocket. They were from Kirillov. Just in case they might be needed I had given him the list of pupils and our letter to the Central Committee of the Komsomol. I had never expected to get any money when I went to see Comrade Kirillov. 'I had just gone in and shown the secretary's note to an elderly man in a navy-blue tunic, and after asking me a few questions and having a good laugh, he had handed me a whole fifty rubles. He had also given me a pass to the hostel for visiting Party workers, in Artem Street, as if I were already a member of the Party.

With a great load off my mind and rejoicing for my friends at school, I skipped gaily across the street and wandered into the deserted park covered with melted snow.

The last snow of winter, grey and thin as jelly, slithered about under my feet. Here and there, black patches of sodden earth covered with dead leaves and frozen grass showed on the mounds. What a fine park it was on that glorious sunny morning! And no one else about except me, who scarcely knew whether I was on my head or my heels for joy!

I turned round. Through the bare trees 'I could see the familiar outlines of a tall building. For a moment I fancied I could see someone smiling in the sunlight and waving to me from a big window—the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Ukraine, a true friend of Comrade Stalin. In my joy I stamped my foot so hard that I cracked the hard trampled coating of ice on the foot-path and sunk ankle-deep in snow. I stood like that and listened.

Far away the trams were clanging, crows were flapping about in the birches, in the next street a motor-horn quacked like a duck, but all these sounds were drowned by the beating of my heart.

Spring was coming and the sun was warm, and that spring morning I quite forgot I was in a big, strange city...