The Town By The Sea

A PLAN OF ATTACK

The moon rose full and serene. Its mellow light spangled the calm waters of the bay. The pale-pink chestnuts round the park were silently shedding their last blossoms. Scattered on the ground in the moonlight, they looked like pop-corn.

The three of us had spent the whole of Sunday by the sea, lounging about on the beach like regular holiday-makers. My back still red and tingling from the sun, I had been dragging my feet across the sticky asphalt of Park Street when I nearly bumped into Golovatsky. He was dressed in a light open-necked shirt, cream flannels, and sandals.

"Trying to escape from the heat!" Golovatsky said greeting me. "The fan at home's gone wrong. I've been trying to read, but it's too sultry. Just wears you out. Let's go down there, a bit further from the road." And Golovatsky pointed into the depths of the park.

As a matter of fact, it being Sunday, I had intended to visit Turunda. I had even invited my friends to go with me, but they had refused. Golovatsky's suggestion made up my mind for me.

We joined the strollers in the park and followed the path past the open-air cinema, which was surrounded by tall railings. The projector was humming and from near the screen came the sound of a piano. Today they were showing two films—The Bear's Wedding and Bricks—in one programme, and it had attracted a lot of people. For a Sunday, the park itself was comparatively empty.

The green nook into which Golovatsky and I wandered was completely deserted. Through the park railings we could see the moonlit side-road that led into Genoa Street. The air seemed fresher under the branching trees and we began to feel better as we leaned back on a park bench.

"Ssh! Look, Mandzhura!" Golovatsky nudged me and pointed towards the road.

In the light of the moon I caught sight of two girls in flimsy cotton dresses. As soon as they reached the shade of the trees, one of the girls sat down on the front door-step of a house. In frantic haste, as if someone were chasing her, she began to do something to her feet. The other girl did the same. Soon I

realized that both girls were taking off their shoes. Then, like snakes shedding their skins, they peeled off their long stockings, pushed them into their shoes and carefully wrapped them in pieces of paper they must have been keeping for the purpose. Apparently much relieved to be rid of their foot-wear, the girls skipped away in the direction of the Liski. The next moment a whole flock of girls ran up and took refuge in the shade of the trees. Sitting down on the same door-step, they did the same thing as their predecessors, and wrapping their tight shoes in newspapers and handkerchiefs, scampered happily away to their homes.

Smiling and glancing at me mysteriously, Golovatsky said: "You can't help laughing, can you? That's a sight you can see any evening out here."

"Look, there are some more!" I whispered.

Two girls appeared in the road, hobbling. One of them, with a fringe, was wearing a sailor's blouse. The other had rigged herself out in a kind of tunic with great, billowing sleeves.

The girl in the sailor's blouse could not even reach the cherished door-step. Clinging to an old lime-tree for support, she kicked off her shiny shoes.

"What a relief!" her voice reached us faintly. "I thought I'd die they pinched me so!"

"Take your stockings off, Madeleine," said her friend, who was already sitting on the door-step. "You'll make a hole in them."

"Wait a bit, let my toes have a rest." And the girl in the blouse walked about slowly under the lime-trees, as if she were cooling her feet on the stone pavement.

"You were just asking for it to order such small ones," said her friend, pulling off her stockings.

"But I take sixes as it is, I can't wear bigger than that. Everybody would laugh..." was Madeleine's reply.

The two girls melted into the shadows.

"That one in the blouse works at the plant," said Golovatsky.

"Where are they all coming from?"

"Regular attenders at Madame Piontkovskaya's dancing-classes . . . Ever been there?"

"Yes, I have!" I grunted, then I hesitated—should I tell Golovatsky how Madame had called me a lout?

"What was your impression?"

"The most daft-making place I've ever seen!"

"Put it there, pal!" Golovatsky exclaimed. "So you and I are of the same opinion . . . Rogale-Piontkovskaya's joint puts a man's mind to sleep. It's just dope that blinds him to everything really interesting in the world ..."

Golovatsky glanced round and went on: "These trees, the stars that shine in the sky, even the grains of sand under your feet still hold hundreds of secrets that haven't been discovered yet. Those secrets are waiting for the man who will come and unearth them and use them for the good of society. Look at those cottages over there. Think how they're built. Couldn't they be built better, more easily, more comfortably, more sturdily than our grandfathers built them. Couldn't they be built so that the sun would shine in them all day? Surely that's a task worth devoting your life to. Or let's imagine ourselves on the beach. How little we know about the sea! Here we are, still hauling in our nets by hand, but in some places they're using electric winches. Or here's another task—harness the power of the tides to make it serve socialism! Isn't that a dream that, can be turned into reality? And then think of those dozens of people, who could have such an interesting future before them; wasting hour after hour kicking their legs about like a lot of

puppets. It's a disgrace!"

"But we ought to put a stop to it!"

"You see, Mandzhura, I've already tried once to fight Madame's influence, but some of our more orthodox comrades wouldn't have it. 'You're getting petty, Tolya,' they said. 'We've got big problems to solve, and you bother about people going for a hop!' But I'm not being petty at all. Even if Madame Rogale-Piontkovskaya pops off tomorrow, we'll still be fighting her influence for a long time to come . . . That girl in the blouse, she's a decent, very intelligent girl. One day in the library I glanced at the file and was absolutely thrilled to see how many books she'd read. Then her friends got her on this fox-trotting business. After a couple of times she was a different girl. First she gave herself this fancy fringe, then she started plucking her eyebrows in zigzags, and soon she was changing her name."

"In church? A Komsomol girl?!"

"She hasn't gone that far yet," Golovatsky said. "She held the christening party at home. A straightforward name like 'Olga' doesn't suit her any more, now she's 'Madeleine.' And her friends were only waiting for the signal. Only the other day they were Varvara, Dasha, Katya, but no sooner do they go to Madame's than they have to have foreign names: Nelly, Margot, Lizetta ... In the tool-repair shop there's even one Beatrice—used to be Avdotya ..."

"Is Angelika a foreign name too?" I asked casually.

"You mean the chief engineer's daughter? She changed hers too. Not so much, of course. She used to be Angelina. That's only one letter different."

"Have any of the chaps done it?"

"One or two. There's a driver in the transport department, for example—Misha Osaulenko. Last year he did a daft thing—got an unemployed sailor to tattoo him all over. Not a clean patch on him anywhere. Anchors, mermaids, monkeys, St. Isaac's Cathedral, and on his back he's got a picture of a Hawaiian banana grove. Nearly gave himself blood-poisoning. Very ill, he was. And when he got better, he wanted to kick himself. As soon as he went out on the beach, he'd have a crowd round him— where's this queer painted bird sprung from? The visitors thought Misha must be an old sea-wolf; but he'd never been out to sea further than the lighthouse, and he only did that on a calm day, because he gets sea-sick. The poor chap had to go and find a quiet spot to bathe where no one could see him. But do you think that blunder taught him anything?... As soon as Madame starts her dancing-classes, he's hanging about round there. And he was a real dancer once! Of course, Madame gets round him with her compliments and gets him eating out of her hand like all the rest of them. I'm going to the works one day and what do I hear? There he is singing some outlandish song and one of his pals comes up to him and says: 'Got a light, Edouarde?'

II

"You're joking, Tolya?" I said.

"Never been more serious in my life. It's the truth. Down I went to the transport department. 'Aren't you ashamed?' I said. 'Haven't you got any self-respect at all?'"

"And what did he say?'"

"Kicked at first. That's my business, he says. But after I had talked to him for about an hour, he agreed at last that he was making a goat of himself."

"Does he still go to those hops?"

"He's changed his mind. But there are others who can't live without going there. Look at that Madeleine. She's from a working-class family, she's a good plater, but she had to go to Garagonich, the poshest shoemaker in town. 'Make me a pair of shoes like the pair in this magazine, with the highest heels you can find,' she says. Garagonich knew when he was on to a good thing, of course, and took her

whole month's pay for doing it. Made her a good four inches taller, he did. It didn't bother him whether she'd be able to walk in them. You saw her for yourself—wobbles about as if she were on stilts. . . . And all that muck oozes out of Madame's saloon. It's a hot-bed of bourgeois narrow-mindedness! Madame works on the young people like a worm. Her friends send her foreign music and gramophone records and fashion magazines, and she hands them round. It's time we put up a fight, Vasya!"

"How can we fight her, if she's got a licence?"

Golovatsky laughed.

"So you think a licence is a guarantee of protection for the private dealer? A guarantee that the state won't compete with him? You're very naive, Mandzhura! We'd better discuss what we're going to do."

... On that sultry evening, among the blossoming jasmine bushes on the edge of the park, we conceived our plan of attack on the Rogale-Piontkovskaya dance saloon.

Sitting on that bench, we worked everything out to the last detail. When everything was decided, Golovatsky asked: "Are you very fagged today?"

"No. Why?"

"What about coming down to my little place and putting our ideas on paper, so that we don't mix anything up?"