Two Captains (39 page)

I was lost in thought and did not hear him come back into the room until suddenly I saw his nose and moustache above me between the curtains.

"Still breathing?"

"Still breathing, Ivan Pavlovich."

"What have you to say?"

"That I'm a hopeless, drivelling idiot," I answered, clutching my head.

"The way I spoke to her! My God! I did not understand a thing. Not a thing!

And she was waiting for me to say something. What must her feelings have been, Ivan Pavlovich! What does she think of me!"

"Never mind, she'll change her mind."

"Never! Do you know what I told her? " I said to her: 'I'll keep you informed.'

Korablev laughed.

"Ivan Pavlovich!"

"But didn't you write that you couldn't live without her?"

"I didn't!" I cried despairingly. "Sanya made that all up. But it's true, Ivan Pavlovich! It's the absolute truth. I can't live without her, and the quarrel between us is really over nothing, because I thought she didn't love me any more. But what's to be done now? What's to be done?"

"Look here, Sanya, I have a business appointment at nine o'clock. At a theatre. So if you-"

"All right. I'm going. May I call on Katya now?"

"She'll show you the door, and she'll be quite right."

"I don't care if she does, Ivan Pavlovich!" I said, and suddenly embraced him. "Damn i all, I just don't know what to do now. What do you say?"

"I have to change just now," Korablev said, going into the "bookcase".

"As for you, I suggest you pull yourself together."

I saw him take off his jacket, turn up the collar of his soft shirt and start tying his tie.

"Ivan Pavlovich!" I suddenly yelled. "Wait a minute. I quite forgot!

You said I was right when we argued about whom the Captain's letter referred to."

"I did."

"Ivan Pavlovich!"

Korablev came out of the "bookcase" brushed and combed, in a new grey suit, looking young and presentable.

"Now, we're going to the theatre," he said gravely, "and you'll learn everything. Your job will be to sit and say nothing. Sit and listen. Is that clear?"

"I'm all in the dark. But let's go."

The Moscow Drama Theatre! To judge from Grisha Faber's description, it was a big, real playhouse in which all the actors wore smart white spats like he did and spoke just as loudly and well. Something like the Moscow Art Theatre. But it turned out to be a little place in Sretenka up some side street.

The play that evening, as the illuminated showcase at the entrance announced, was Wolf's Trail, and we immediately found Grisha's name in the cast. He was playing the doctor. His name stood last in the list.

Grisha met us in the foyer, looking as resplendent as ever, and invited us at once to his dressing-room.

"I'll call him in as soon as the second act starts," he said mysteriously to Korablev.

I glanced questioningly at Korablev, but he was busy fitting a cigarette into his long holder and pretended not to have noticed my look.

There were three other actors in Grisha's dressing-room, who looked as if they belonged there. But when Grisha proffered us chairs there they tactfully went out, and he apologised for the place. "My private dressing-room is undergoing repairs," he said. We began talking about our school theatre, recalled the tragedy The Hour Has Struck, in which Grisha had played the part of a Jewish foster-child, and I said I thought him simply wonderful in that role. Grisha laughed, and suddenly the air of self-importance fell away from him.

"I don't understand what happened, Sanya. You used to draw well, I remember," he said. "What made you suddenly take to the sky? Hell, come and join our theatre. We'll make a scenic artist out 'of you. Not bad, eh?"

I said I had no objection. Then Grisha excused himself again-he had to go on very shortly and the make-up man was waiting for him- and went out. We were left alone.

"For God's sake, Ivan Pavlovich, what is it all about? What have you brought me here for? Who is 'he'? Who is it you want me to

meet?"

"You won't do anything silly, will you?"

"Ivan Pavlovich!"

"You've done one silly thing already," Korablev said. "Two, as a matter of fact. First, you didn't come and stay with me. Second, you told Katya:

'I'll keep you informed.' "

"But Ivan Pavlovich, how was I to know? You simply wrote to me that I should come to you. I never suspected it was so important. Now tell me, who are we waiting for here? Who's this person, and why do you want me to meet him?"

"All right," said Korablev. "Only don't forget-you've got to sit still and say nothing. The man is von Vyshimirsky."

We were sitting, you will remember, in Grisha's dressing-room in the Moscow Drama Theatre. But at that moment it seemed to me that all this was taking place, not in the dressing-room, but on the stage, because Korablev had hardly finished the sentence than into the room, ducking not to knock his head on the low lintel of the doorway, stepped von Vyshimirsky himself.

I guessed at once that it was he, though until that moment it had never occurred to me that the man ever existed. I had always thought that Nikolai Antonich had invented him in order to heap on him all my accusations. He had been no more than a name, and now here he was, suddenly materialising as a tall, weedy old man with a bent back and yellow-grey moustache. Nowadays, of course, he was simply Vyshimirsky, with no "von" handle to his name. He wore a uniform jacket with brass buttons-that of a cloakroom attendant.

Korablev said "good evening" to him. He responded easily, even patronisingly, with an extended hand.

"So this is who is waiting for me-Comrade Korablev," he said. "And not alone, but with his son. He is your son?" he added quickly, glancing swiftly from me to Korablev and back again.

"No he's not my son, he's a former pupil of mine. But he's an airman now and he wants to meet you."

"An airman and wants to meet me?" Vyshimirsky said with an unpleasant smile. "Why should an airman be interested in my poor person?"

"Your poor person interests him," said Korablev, "because he happens to be writing an account of Captain Tatarinov's expedition. And you, as we know, took a very active part in that expedition."

This remark did not exactly please Vyshimirsky, I could see. He darted another quick look at me, and something like suspicion-or was it fear?-flashed in his old rheumy eyes.

The next moment he assumed a dignified air and began to talk nineteen to the dozen. Almost every other word was "Comrade Korablev", and he boasted blatantly. He said that it had been a great, historic expedition, and that he had done a lot "to make it a shining success". While saying this, he kept fidgeting about all the time, standing up, making various motions with his hands, seizing his left whisker and nervously tugging it downward, and so on.

"But that was a very long time ago," he wound up in a surprised sort of way.

"Not so very long," Korablev interposed. "Just before the revolution."

"Yes, just before the revolution. In those days I wasn't working in an artel of disabled men. The work I'm doing now is only temporary, though, because I have important services to my credit. We put in some good work those days. Yes, very good work."

I was about to ask him what, exactly, that work was, but Korablev silenced me with a steady, blank gaze.

"You once told me something about this expedition," Korablev went on.

"I remember you saying you have certain papers and letters. Would you please repeat your story to this young man, whom you can simply call Sanya. Name the day and hour he can come and see you and leave your address with him."

"Certainly! I shall be delighted. You can come and see me, though I must apologise beforehand for my lodgings. I used to have an eleven-room apartment, and I don't conceal the fact, on the contrary, I write it down whenever I have to fill up a questionnaire, because I have done good service for the people. On the strength of this I have applied for a special pension, and I shall get it, because I have rendered great services. This expedition is a mere drop in the ocean! I have built a bridge across the Volga."

And off he went again! With that tuft of grey hair sticking up on his head he resembled a harassed old bird.

Then the lamp in Grisha's dressing-room went out for a second-signalling the end of the act-and this spectre of a past age vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

The whole conversation had lasted some five minutes, but it seemed to me that it had gone on for a very long time, as in a dream. Korablev looked at me and laughed; my face must have been a study.

"Ivan Pavlovich!"

"Yes, my boy?"

"Was that him?"

"It was."

"Can that be?"

"It can."

"The very same man?"

"The very same."

"What did he tell you? Does he know Nikolai Antonich? Does he go there?"

"Oh, no," Korablev said. "That he doesn't."

"Why not?"

"Because he hates Nikolai Antonich."

"Why?"

"For various reasons."

"What did he tell you? That power of attorney made out to von Vyshimirsky-where did it come from? You remember telling me

about it?"

"Ah! That's just it!" Korablev said. "The power of attorney! He nearly burst a blood vessel when I asked him about it."

"Ivan Pavlovich, tell me all about it, please, I beg you! D'you think it was nice, your telling me at the last moment that Vyshimirsky was coming?

I was so flabbergasted he must have thought me an idiot."

"On the contrary, he took a fancy to you," Korablev answered gravely.

"He has a grown-up daughter and he looks at every young man from one angle-whether he's eligible or not. You are definitely eligible-young, good-looking and an airman to boot."

"Ivan Pavlovich," I said reproachfully, "I don't know what's come over you, really. You've changed a lot, yes, you have. You know how important this is for me, yet you make fun of me."

"Oh, all right, Sanya, don't be angry. I'll tell you everything," said Korablev. "But first let's get out of here before Grisha catches us and makes us sit through a play at the Moscow Drama Theatre."

"How on earth did you find this Vyshimirsky fellow?" I asked.

"Very simple-his son goes to our school," Korablev replied.

I never understood anything about bills of exchange-the word itself had gone out of use when I started going to school. What's an "acknowledgment of loan"? What's an "endorsement"? What's a "policy"? Not in the political sense-everyone knows that. What's a "discount"?

When these and other banking terms occurred in books that I read it always reminded me of the "Chambers" at Ensk-the iron seats in the dimly-lit high corridor, and the unseen official behind the barrier to whom Mother had bowed so humbly. It was a reminder of the old, long-forgotten life, which gradually emerged from the dim past as Vyshimirsky unfolded to me the story of his misfortunes.

We were sitting in a small room with a basement window through which I could see a broom and a pair of legs-evidently belonging to the yardman.

Everything in this room was old-the rickety chairs held together with strings, the dining table on which I leaned my elbow only to remove it at once because the panel bade fair to drop off. There was dirty upholstery material everywhere-on the window in lieu of curtains, on the shabby covering of the sofa, and even the clothes hanging on the wall were covered with the same stuff. The only new things in the room were some slats, reels and coils of wire with which Vyshimirsky's son was occupied over a table in a corner of the room. The boy was about twelve, with a round, sunburnt face.

He, too, was quite new, and as far removed from the world which his father's story conjured up to me as heaven is from earth.

It was a long, disjointed tale, interspersed with references to bills of exchange and discounts, and full of digressions and a good deal of nonsense. Absolutely everything the old man had ever done in his lifetime he put down to his credit as a service rendered "to the people". He made much of his work as secretary to the Metropolitan Isidore, declaring that he had an intimate knowledge of the life of the clergy and had even made a special study of it in the hope that this might be "of benefit to the people". He was prepared to blow the lid off this Metropolitan at any moment.

Another job he laid to his credit was with some admiral by the name of Heckert. This admiral had "an insane son" and Vyshimirsky took him around restaurants so that nobody should guess that he was insane, a fact which

"they tried to conceal".

Then he started talking about Nikolai Antonich, and I pricked up my ears. I had been convinced that Nikolai Antonich had always been a teacher.

He was a typical schoolmaster. Even at home he was always lecturing, citing examples.

"Nothing of the sort," Vyshimirsky said with a vicious grimace. "He took that up when he was at the end of his tether. He was in business. He played the stock-market, he was a stock-jobber. A wealthy man who played the market and engaged in business."

This was the first piece of news. It was followed by a second. I asked what connection there was between Captain Tatarinov's expedition and stock-jobbing. What had made Nikolai Antonich take a hand in it? Was it because it was profitable?

"He would have taken a still more willing hand in it if the expedition had been to the next world," said Vyshimirsky. "He counted on that, counted very strongly." "I don't understand." "He was in love with the Captain's wife. There was quite a lot of talk about that at the time. Quite a lot. But the Captain did not suspect anything. He was a fine man, the Captain, but simple-minded. A regular sea-dog!" '