Two Captains (37 page)

Then, glamorous and dignified in white spats and a heavy knitted waistcoat, arrived Grisha Faber, actor of the Moscow Drama Theatre. He, for one, hadn't changed a bit! With a lordly air of condescension, as though all this had been arranged for his benefit, he implanted a sovereign kiss upon Korablev's cheek and sat down with legs crossed negligently. He was so conspicuous among the platform party that it began to look as if it were his anniversary that was being celebrated and not Korablev's at all. He passed a languid eye over the audience, then took out his comb and combed his hair. I wrote him a note:

"Grisha, you blighter, hullo!" He read it and waved a hand to me with an indulgent smile.

It was a wonderful evening and a good one, because everybody who spoke spoke the pure truth. Nobody lied-doubtless because it was not hard to speak the pure truth about Korablev. He had never demanded anything else from his pupils. I wish people would speak the same way about me in twenty-five years as they did about Korablev that evening.

I, too, made a little speech, then I went up to Korablev to kiss him, and bumped foreheads with Valya, who had come up to do the same from the other side. My speech had received thin applause, but when we bumped foreheads the applause became thunderous.

Tania Velichko spoke after me, but I did not even heard her, for Nikolai Antonich had arrived.

He came in-stout, dignified, condescending. Dressed in wide trousers, and bending slightly forward, he made his way towards the platform. I saw our poor old Serafima, the one who used to do the "duck" teaching by the complex method, running ahead of him to clear the way for him, while he strode along, unsmiling, taking no notice other.

I had not seen him since that ugly scene, when he had shouted at me, crackling his knuckles, and then spat at me. I found that he had changed a great deal since then. Behind him walked another man, who was also rather stout and walked with his body bent forward, unsmiling.

I should never have guessed who this man was if Valya had not whispered to me at that moment: "There comes Romashka too."

What-that Romashka? That sleek-haired, solid figure with the big, white, presentable face, wearing that smart grey suit? What had become of his yellow matted hair? His unnaturally round eyes-the eyes of an owl-which never closed at night?

He was all neat, sleek, toned down, and even the square heavy jaw did not look so square now. If anything it was fuller and quite presentable too.

If Romashka had been able to make a new face for himself he could not have made a better job of it. On someone who met him for the first time he might even have made an agreeable impression.

Nikolai Antonich stepped up on the platform, followed by Romashka, who did everything that Nikolai Antonich did. Nikolai Antonich congratulated Korablev in a cordial, though restrained manner, and shook hands with him, but did not kiss him. Romashka, too, only shook hands with him. Nikolai Antonich passed an eye over the platform party and first greeted the Head of the City Educational Department. Romashka followed suit, the only difference being that Romashka, oddly enough, carried himself more confidently, with greater assurance.

Nikolai Antonich did not notice me. That is, he made believe I was not there. But Romashka on drawing level with me, stopped and threw his hands up in mock surprise, as much as to say: "If that isn't Grigoriev!" As if I had never kicked him in his ugly face.

"Hullo, Romashka!" I said casually.

He winced, but the next moment pretended that we were old friends who were entitled to call each other "Sanya" and "Romashka". He sat down next to me and began talking, but I checked him rather contemptuously and turned away as though listening to Tania.

But I was not listening to Tania. Everything in me was boiling and seething, and it was only by an effort of will that I was able to keep a composed face.

After the meeting the guests were invited to table. Romashka overtook me in the corridor.

"The affair went on splendidly, didn't it?"

Even his voice had become mellower.

"Yes."

"It's a pity, really, that we meet so rarely. Afterall we're old friends. Where do you work?"

"In civil aviation."

"So I see," he said laughing. "I meant 'where' territorially."

"In the Far North."

"Yes, of course! I'd quite forgotten. Katya told me. At Zapolarie."

Katya! Katya had told him. I grew hot, but answered in a calm voice:

"Yes, Zapolarie."

After a pause, he asked guardedly: "Are you here for long?"

"I don't know yet." My reply, too, was guarded. "Depends on a lot of things."

I was pleased with myself for having answered so calmly and guardedly, and from that moment I fully recovered my composure. I became cold and courteous, cunning as a snake.

"Katya told me you were going to read a paper. At the Scientists' Club, I believe?"

"No, the Geographical Society."

Romashka eyed me with pleasure. He looked as if I'd made him happy by saying I was going to read the paper at the Geographical Society and not at the Scientists' Club. And so he was, though I didn't know it at the time.

"What's it about?"

"Come and hear it," I said coolly. "You'll find it interesting."

He winced again, this time markedly.

"Yes," he said, "I'll have to make a note not to miss it." And he began to write in his pocket diary. "What's the paper called?"

"A Forgotten Polar Expedition."

"I say, isn't that about Ivan Lvovich's expedition?"

"Captain Tatarinov's expedition," I said drily.

But he affected not to hear my correction.

"Some new information?"

The crafty gleam in his eyes told me at once what it was all about.

"Aha, you rat," I said to myself. "Nikolai Antonich put you up to this.

Wanted you to find out whether I intend to prove again that it was he, and not some von Vyshimirsky or other, who is to blame for the disaster which overtook the expedition."

"Yes, new information," I said.

Romashka looked at me closely. For a fleeting moment I saw the old Romashka, calculating what per cent of profit would work out if I let the cat out of the bag.

"By the way," he said, "Nikolai Antonich also has some interesting documents concerning that expedition. He has a lot of letters, some of them very interesting. He has shown them to me. Why not get him to show them to you?"

"I see," I said to myself. "Nikolai Antonich has asked you to bring us together to talk this matter over. He's afraid of me. But he wants me to take the first step. Nothing doing!"

"Well, no," I answered casually. "He doesn't know much about it, really. Oddly enough, I know more about his own part in the expedition than he does himself."

This was a well-directed blow, and Romashka, who was a dimwit for all that he had greatly developed, suddenly opened his mouth and stared at me dumbly.

"Katya, Katya," I thought, my heart sore on her account and my own.

"Well, well, so that's how it is," Romashka muttered.

"That's how it is."

We had approached the table and our conversation came to an end. I sat through the evening with difficulty and only did so for Korablev's sake, so as not to hurt his feelings. I felt out of sorts and would have liked to down a few drinks but I took only one glass-to the hero of the day. It was Romashka who proposed the toast. He stood up and waited for a long time in dignified patience for the noise at the table to subside. A self-satisfied expression crossed his face when he delivered himself of a well-turned phrase. He said something about "the friendship which links all the pupils of our dear teacher". He turned to me when he said this, and raised his glass to show that he was drinking to me too. I politely raised my own glass. My own expression must have been none too amiable, because Korablev looked closely first at him, then at me, and suddenly-for the moment I couldn't remember what it meant-laid his hand on the table and motioned to it with his eyes. The fingers began drumming on the table. It was our old pre-arranged signal warning me to keep cool. We both laughed at the same time, and I cheered up a bit.

CHAPTER THREE WITHOUT A TITLE

I had an appointment that day with a member of the Pravda editorial staff whom I wished to tell about my discoveries. He had put me off twice, being too busy to see me, then at last he telephoned and I went to see him at the Pravda office.

He was a tall, attentive old chap in spectacles, who had a slight squint, so that he seemed to be looking away all the time, thinking of something else. "A specialist of a sort in aviation," he introduced himself.

He seemed sincerely interested in my story-at any rate, he began to take it down on his writing pad as soon as I started speaking. He made me sketch a drawing of my method of anchoring a grounded aeroplane during a blizzard and said I ought to write an article about it for the Civil Aviation magazine.

He phoned the magazine there and then and arranged when and to whom I was to hand in my article. He seemed to be well aware of the significance of the St. Maria expedition and said that now, when everybody was taking such a great interest in the Arctic, the subject was a timely and useful one.

"But there has already been an article about it," he said. "If I am not mistaken, in Soviet Arctic."

"In Soviet ArcticT

"Yes, last year."

That was news indeed! An article about Captain Tatarinov's expedition in Soviet Arctic last year?

"I didn't see it," I said. "In any case, the writer cannot know what I know. I've deciphered the diaries of the navigating officer, the only survivor of the expedition to reach the mainland."

That was when I realised that the man before me was your true-born journalist. His eyes suddenly gleamed and he began taking me down quickly, even breaking his pencil in the process. Evidently it was something in the nature of a scoop. He said as much.

"Why, it's a sensation!"

Then he locked his office, and took me to see the "boss", as he declared in the corridor.

I repeated my story briefly to the "boss" and we agreed:

(a) that I would bring the diaries to the office the next day,

(b) that Pravda would send a reporter to my lecture, and

(c) that I would write an article about my discoveries and then "we shall see about where to publish it".

I should have raised the question, while there, of organising a search for the expedition, but decided that this was a special question which had nothing to do with the press. That was a pity, because the journalists would have been able to put me on to somebody at the Northern Sea Route Administration or even telephoned to that person for me. As it was, I spent two hours in the waiting-room for the honour of seeing one of the secretaries of the Head Office. I was shown into a private office, where I spent another half-hour. The secretary was busy. Every minute some sailor, airman, radio-operator, engineer, carpenter, agronomist or artist went in to see him, and all the time he had to pretend he knew all there was to know about aviation, agronomy, painting and radio engineering. At last he turned to me.

"It's only of historical interest," he said when I had rushed through my story. "We have other problems to deal with, more up-to-date."

I said I knew perfectly well that it wasn't the job of the Administration to organise searches for lost expeditions. But since a high-latitudes expedition was going out that year to Severnaya Zemlya, it was quite possible to give it the minor parallel task of exploring the area of Captain Tatarinov's ill-fated expedition.

"Tatarinov, Tatarinov..." the secretary said trying to recall something. "Didn't he write something about it?"

I said he could not have written about it, as the expedition had set out from St. Petersburg about twenty years ago and the last news of it was received in 1914.

"Yes, but who was the Tatarinov who wrote about it?"

"Tatarinov was the Captain," I explained patiently. "He set sail in the autumn of 1912 aboard the schooner St. Maria with the aim of navigating the Northern Sea Route, that is, that very Route in whose administrative offices we now happen to be sitting. The expedition was a failure, but incidentally Captain Tatarinov made important geographical discoveries. There is full reason to believe that Severnaya Zemlya, for instance, was discovered by him, not by Vilkitsky."

"To be sure, there was an article about that expedition and I read it,"

the secretary said.

"Whose article?"

"Tatarinov's, if I'm not mistaken. Tatarinov's expedition, Tatarinov's article. So what are you proposing?"

I repeated my suggestion.

"Very well, write a memo about it," the secretary said, sounding as if he felt sorry for my having to write a memo which would remain lying in his desk drawer.

I left.

It could not be just a coincidence. In a book-shop in Gorky Street I thumbed through all the issues of Soviet Arctic for the last year. The title of the article was "A Forgotten Expedition"-the title of my own paper!-and was signed "N. Tatarinov". It had been written by Nikolai Antonich!

It was a long article written in a reminiscent vein but with a faint touch of scholarship. It began by describing the schooner St. Maria as she lay at her moorings near Nikolayevsky Bridge in St. Petersburg in the summer of 1912: "The white paint on her walls and ceilings was still fresh, the polished mahogany of her furniture gleamed like a mirror and carpets covered the floors of her cabins. The storerooms and hold were packed with all kinds of supplies. They had everything conceivable-nuts, sweets, chocolate, different kinds of tinned fruit, pineapples, crates of jam jars, biscuits, and many other items, including such necessities as preserved meat and stacks of flour and cereals in bags."