ayers of the
population into contact with education.  And you, my friends,  want to stand
in their  way. But  you have no right to! How could  you? Why,  it's a crime
from a scientific point of view! Many comrades ... Juniors, as you call them
... are very gifted in  mathematics. Take Rudenko, for instance. He's a very
fast learner. But you, my friends, have been poisoned by the die-hard spirit
of the old  school  and are  used to thinking  that attending classes  is  a
shameful  way of spending  your time. For shame! In conclusion, I would like
to tell you a historical  anecdote. The Roman emperor Caligula  once brought
his horse  into the  senate and ordered  the  senators to bow to it. I would
never have bowed to that arrogant creature,  my  friends.  However, if today
the presence of  Comrade Chubarkov's horse at  this meeting will further the
establishment of friendly  relations and order in the school, then today, on
behalf of science, I bow my head to our four-legged guest."
     At this Alexander Karlovich bowed to the horse.
     The horse backed away nervously at the sound of  the deafening applause
that followed. The matter was then taken to  a vote, which brought defeat to
Hefty and  his troglodytes. Everyone  pledged to start  studying in earnest,
beginning the  very  next  day.  Then Stepan made a  short  speech  from the
saddle.
     "E-muet in French is a letter you write  but don't ever pronounce. So I
have a suggestion. It'll make  things easier for us and do them a good  turn
while they're at it. Let's write a letter to the French workers, or to their
children, and tell them to do away with that e-muet."
     The proposal  to  write  such a  letter to the children of  France  was
unanimously  adopted. As we were about to disperse, a group of Red Army  men
suddenly entered the auditorium.
     "There! See? He wanted to shut us up by force!" Hefty shouted.
     Everyone was startled.
     "Quiet,  everybody!" one  of  the  men  said.  "Let's be a little  more
disciplined here. Comrades! The close proximity of the  front lines has  put
the town under martial  law. The 4th  Army  will need  this building for its
headquarters.  Please  see  that the building  is cleared  tomorrow, Comrade
Chubarkov."
     No one spoke. Then, in the stillness, the commissar's horse breathed in
loudly and whinnied.
     The  horses of the  4th  Army that  were tethered  outside whinnied  in
reply.


        OUR WANDERING SCHOOL

     The town became a large army camp.  Countless wagon trains lumbered  up
and  down the  streets,  tying themselves into knots  at  the intersections.
Unshaven men in greatcoats untangled the knots. They  were in  charge of the
town.  Orderlies  rode  their horses up onto  the pavements,  handing in and
accepting envelopes at the windows of the various offices. The camels in the
wagon trains threw their heads back and bellowed loudly. Their sticky saliva
fell upon Breshka Street. The camel drivers shouted hoarsely: "Tratr! Tratr!
Chok! Chok!" Fountains of spray rose on the river where shells hit the water
and  then fell helplessly back again  seconds later.  Finally, a slow-motion
boom would come crashing  down upon  the town.  Soldiers practised  throwing
hand grenades on the river bank.
     An elephantine-like armoured car raised its cannon-trunk on the square.
The live camels were followed  by hopping iron ostriches, those  dock-tailed
gigs with tall  stacks,  the army field kitchens. It seemed then to Oska and
me that the vehicles on the square were playing our favourite game of animal
lotto  called  "The Cameroons  Races", where  each card  had a  picture of a
running elephant,  camel  or ostrich.  Near the storehouses  some  men  were
moving a  pile of barrels with black  numbers painted on the bottoms. A  fat
man would call out a number, another  man would consult some papers and then
stamp them, as if the rubber stamp  were a large  lotto disc. Every now  and
then a rider on a lathered horse would appear.
     "What about accommodations?" they'd be asked.
     "Everything's full up!"
     And the players had to crawl under the trucks to sleep.
     A  strange  sign had  been  put  up  on the  school  building. It read:
"Travtochok". Translated into  everyday language, it was  supposed  to stand
for something like:
     "Vehicles of the special column's  automotive unit". Actually,  though,
no one knew exactly what the mysterious "Travtochok" stood for.
     Not  more than two or three  automobiles were usually parked outside of
"Travtochok", but the former school yard was always jam-packed with  camels.
The  people  of  Pokrovsk lost  no  time  in  renaming  the  unpronounceable
"Travtochok"  into Tratrchok, which,  when translated  from  camel-language,
meant "whoa" and "giddiyap".
     Our school began moving from one place to another. In the beginning, we
were  transferred to the former seminary building. A day later we were moved
to  a small  house with  a fire-tower.  Naturally, the  tower drew us like a
magnet. It seemed to beg us to use it for some prank, if only to spit on the
heads of passers-by or shout "Fire!". However, we did not feel up to pranks.
There  was  a restlessness  in  the  crowded classrooms, and boys  talked in
whispers in the back  rows. The day after the general ruckus Volodya Labanda
stopped Alexander Karlovich in the street.
     Volodya stared  at the  ground and scuffed the dirt with the tip of his
shoe like  a  horse  as he said:  "You  talked about Kostya Rudenko being so
gifted. I used to do math problems  pretty good, too, didn't I?  You  said I
was good in math, too."
     "Of course I remember. You definitely have a good head for mathematics,
but you're lazy."
     "No,  I'm  not.  We just felt  like  horsing around  since freedom  was
declared. I don't  think it  was fair of you  to talk about the Juniors like
that  and not say anything  good  about anybody  else. They'll think they're
better than everybody now."
     "Aha! So  my  arrow struck  home!"  Alexander Karlovich  exclaimed.  He
sounded  quite  pleased. "Well, why  don't you  try to catch up with them? I
must warn  you,  though,  that  it  won't  be  easy. They're doing quadratic
equations now."
     "We'll manage. You'll see!"


        ALGEBRA ON THE FIRE-TOWER

     That very same day we  agreed that the Juniors  had become stuck-up and
that we could not  tolerate such a state of affairs any  longer. Which meant
we would have to catch up with them. The  girls promised to keep up with us.
We retrieved our  dusty schoolbooks and amazed our  parents  by  poring over
them.  We discovered that we had dropped very  far  behind  and had  to stay
after  school and study  till late at  night  at  home in order to catch up.
Alexander Karlovich, who had lost weight on a teacher's skimpy food rations,
would selflessly stay on  after classes.  We  stole  bread for  him from the
storeroom and  placed it on  the lectern.  He  would  proudly refuse it, but
then, being  carried  away  by  a problem, would begin  pinching off  pieces
unthinkingly, until he had accidentally eaten it all.
     "That's some freedom you've got! You used to be  swell fellows, but now
you're all bookworms. Why don't you go ahead and ask them to give you marks?
Ah!" Hefty would say and spit in disgust.
     He was especially hard on  Stepan,  who said he couldn't care less  and
went on studying furiously, for he told us that revolutionaries had to climb
right onto the barricades of learning, too.
     We felt we had covered so  much ground in algebra  in two  and  a  half
weeks that we  asked  Alexander Karlovich  to  test  one of us. He called on
Labanda.  The  Juniors  were amazed.  Never  before  had the pupils  been so
intent.  The  only  sound in  the classroom was that of  the  chalk  hitting
against the blackboard as it produced heavy white figures. Labanda was doing
a problem that involved a reservoir and two pipes. Everything was proceeding
nicely. Water kept pouring in through one pipe and out through the other. It
soon became  clear that if both pipes were open the reservoir would fill  in
six hours. But  then suddenly something happened and it began draining as we
watched. Labanda had hit a shoal. He chewed on his nail.
     "Think," Alexander Karlovich said.
     "I'm thinking," Labanda said unhappily. "If we subtract  two pipes from
four pails...."
     Go back to the beginning and do all your figuring out loud."
     We had spotted the mistake. Labanda had written a minus sign instead of
a  plus sign at the very start. Now the minus had  surfaced and stoppered up
one of the pipes. We were dying to prompt him. However,  we did not  want to
expose his lack of knowledge, not with  the Juniors looking on. Just then we
heard   someone   whispering.   Someone   was   prompting.   It  was  Kostya
Rudenko-Beetle.  And then the rest of  the  class, which had once been known
for its imaginative  prompting  and shameless  cribbing,  the class that had
always considered  it a terrible crime to refuse to offer illegal help, this
very same class now began stamping loudly to drown out the whispering voice.
The boys shouted:
     "Quit it, Rudenko! Let him do it himself!"
     This bucked Labanda up. He concentrated, found the error and solved the
problem. Then,  in order to inform Pokrovsk of this, we raised a flag on the
fire-tower. We had painted the following message on it: "X= 18 pails".


     THE "B" GRADE'S PROGRESS

     Our joy did not last long.
     Two days  later Labanda rushed into the room and said that the parallel
"B" grade,  which we  had  more or less  forgotten  about, since it was  now
located in another building,  was up to equations of  the highest order with
several unknown quantities. It didn't seem possible.
     "You're lying!" someone shouted.
     "Tell us another!" Stepan said.
     "I'll drop dead if I am!" Labanda even crossed himself.
     We were crushed.
     At this point Kostya Beetle said he knew how to  solve them  and  would
show  the "B's" how to  do it. Stepan  was dead set  against  it. He said it
didn't count if only one person could do them, it would just be singling out
the best pupil, like before, but that what counted was if everybody could do
them.  Once again  we  all rushed to  our textbooks.  We  would come back to
school in the evenings and Kostya would help us. Hefty never  came  to these
after-school sessions. He  would say that  a hungry stomach was  not fit for
learning,  that  this  was  no time for studying  and that, anyway, he could
solve any problem we could and  better. When all the unknown quantities were
brought out into the open, we challenged the "B's" to an algebra match. They
accepted  the  challenge. We  decided  it would be a  joint written test  in
algebra, with teams made up of the best mathematicians in each grade. Stepan
Gavrya,  Volodya Labanda, Kostya Beetle, Zoya 'Beanpole, and  I  were on the
"A" team. Hefty  joined us the day before  the  test. We were very reluctant
about having him on the team, but he swore he wouldn't let us down.


        THE NIGHT BEFORE THE TEST

     The evening  before the test our team met at school for a last practice
session. Alexander Karlovich,  looking very weary, made us  review the whole
book. Then he  gave  us several tricky problems which  we finally solved. He
was very pleased from a "purely scientific point  of view",  .but  he gasped
when  he looked at the clock, for it  was midnight, and since  we were under
martial law, there was an eleven o'clock curfew.
     "Well, comrades, tnat means we spend the  night  in the kennel.  That's
for sure!"
     "Come on. If they stop us we'll say we're going  to the  drugstore  for
medicine," Labanda said.
     Stepan and I walked along together. A searchlight swept the low,  heavy
sky.  Someone  was singing: "Ah, when the night's dark".  A  military patrol
stopped us at the corner.
     "We're  going to the drugstore. He's the doctor's son. We've got to get
there," Stepan said.
     "You don't say? And  what are you going for? Castor oil?" the  Red Army
man inquired.
     "How'd you guess? That's just what we need. You see...."
     "Wait a bit  and you'll get a  big dose of  it.  Lapanin!"  the soldier
called. "Take these two fellows in."
     We were  escorted  to headquarters, where we  met  some other  midnight
seekers of castor oil. A short  while later Alexander Karlovich  was brought
in. He was indignant from every possible point of view.
     "Good evening, Alexander Karlovich!" Stepan said cheerfully.
     "I'd say it was good night," the teacher muttered. "Nice to see you all
here."
     Next the soldiers brought in  a  glum-looking black-marketeer.  He  was
carrying a big sack. "Who came in last?" he said matter-of-factly.
     "I did. Why?" Alexander Karlovich replied.
     "I'll  be  next after you tomorrow morning  and don't  forget!" The man
then stretched out on the floor. He was snoring a moment later.
     Heavy clouds of cheap tobacco smoke curled up under the electric  bulb.
Our guard was examining one of his boots intently, tapping the welt with his
rifle butt. This night before the test was passing sleeplessly, stupidly.
     Two hours  later Chubarkov phoned.  We were finally released. Alexander
Karlovich stopped at the  threshold, having recalled  something,  and turned
back. He had  a hard  time  waking the man on the  floor.  "Pardon  me.  I'm
leaving now. So you'll have to be next after someone else."
     We bumped  into another  military  patrol on Breshka Street. They  were
taking the "B" team to headquarters. They, too, had  been brushing up before
the test.
     "I'll bet you were going for castor oil," Stepan said.
     "No. For iodine."


        THIS IS NOT THE OLD REGIME

     "All contestants  will  now  take  their  seats,"  Forsunov, the  chief
referee, said solemnly.
     The sleepy-eyed mathematicians sat down. To make sure there would be no
cribbing each contestant shared a desk with a member of the opposite team.
     Alexander  Karlovich and the "B's" math teacher were both nervous. They
resembled  managers whose boxers  were in  the ring  for  their first  bout.
Alexander  Karlovich  went over  to each  of our boys  and whispered: "Think
first. And don't rush. Be sure you don't mix up your signs. If there are any
problems on proportions they'll be stuck because that's their weak  point. I
know it for a fact. But the main thing is to think."
     Forsunov asked the teachers to take  their places. Alexander  Karlovich
and his colleague sat at the large table. Mokeich  was already seated  there
beside an empty chair left for the commissar.
     Beanpole  Zoya, our class champion, looked more stern than  usual.  The
girls  who were not taking part in the match kept glancing at  us anxiously.
They  filled  the  inkwells to  the top, tried out the pens,  sharpened  the
pencils and wished everyone good  luck. Then they went out into the corridor
where the audience crowded in a doorway, promising to be very quiet.
     Mokeich took out  his  large conductor's  pocket watch. Forsunov placed
the  watch on the  table to mark  the time  each  contestant  spent  on  the
problem. If  both teams solved it, the one  whose separate members solved it
sooner would be the winner and get the prize, which was a  double portion of
sugar. Besides, the pupil who solved it first would become the school's best
mathematician.
     "I'm counting on  everybody's honesty," Forsunov said. "I was the  best
cribber under the old principal, and that's why I'm warning you:  as long as
I'm  here  and  watching, nobody'll ever crib anything and get away with it.
Understand?"
     "Huh! What d'you think we're going to do? Cheat on our own side?"
     We were cut to the quick. Indeed! This wasn't tsarist times.
     "On your mark! Get ready!" Forsunov said.


        A PROBLEM CONCERNING TRAVELLERS

     "Two travellers going  in the same direction set out from two different
cities, with  one traveller following the other. After some days, the number
of which equals the sum  of miles covered in  a  day, the  second  traveller
caught up with the first one.  The second traveller  had by then covered 525
miles. The distance between the two cities  was 175 miles.  How many miles a
day did each one cover?"
     The starting time had been marked. The travellers were on the road, and
everyone was  engrossed  in the problem. A stillness settled on the backs of
our heads, pressing them closer to the desks. The test was under way.
     However,  we  did  not  experience  the  familiar  sense  of  fear  and
uncertainty which  had  confused both thoughts and  numbers  during  the old
school exams,  when one's only desire was to grasp  at the minutes that were
slipping away so feverishly, so hopelessly, and hold them back at all costs.
Ahead of us then lay the finish line and the pillory in the shape of an "F".
     But now a written test was in process and we were not scared! Alexander
Karlovich winked at us encouragingly. We recalled what he  had said. Indeed!
We  all  thought  hard.  Everything  seemed  simple enough.  There were  two
travellers, A and B. A was gradually catching up with B. And we had to catch
up with the "B's", too.
     Chubarkov  entered  the  classroom. His heavy tread and  jingling spurs
made Alexander Karlovich hiss angrily and stare pointedly first at his boots
and then at us. The Commissar unbuckled his spurs and tiptoed to his seat.
     "Who's getting the upper hand?" he whispered to Forsunov.
     "They've just started."
     The  Commissar gazed at us fondly. Fifteen minutes passed  in  complete
silence. I was  coming along nicely, with no accidents on the road. Beanpole
had filled two pages. Stepan's notepaper  was still blank. Kostya Beetle had
half-risen from his seat to re-check what he had written.  He had solved the
problem. He was the first!
     Suddenly Hefty  raced down the aisle.  He loomed over the judges' table
and  held  his  paper  on  high.  He  was  triumphant. Forsunov  accepted it
doubtfully. Hefty had the answer right.
     "Well?" the Commissar asked.
     "That's that!" Hefty  replied. The boys waiting outside in the corridor
applauded wildly.
     Once again Hefty had come out on top.
     After the bell had rung the judges checked our papers and announced the
winners.  Eight members  of  the "A" team had  solved the problem,  but only
seven ot the "B" team had. Our side had won. We had not only caught  up with
the "B's",  we had overtaken them. Besides,  our classmate Hefty was now the
school's math champion. Though he was very heavy, the boys threw him up into
the air as a sign of homage  to a victor. In  the process something fell out
of his pocket.
     Beanpole bent down to pick it up and shouted, "Look!"
     "Damn fool," Hefty  muttered.  He tried to snatch whatever  it was from
her. "Give it back! I was only doing  it for your sake anyway. If that's the
way you want it, to hell with you! Go on and lose. See if I care."
     Beanpole was holding a small  booklet. The title page read: "Key to all
problems in Algebra II by Shaposhnikov and Valtsev."
     "Traitor!" Labanda shouted and rammed his fist into Hefty's face.
     The return blow sent Labanda flying.
     It  took Chubarkov  and Mokeich to hold  Hefty back. Forsunov then said
that the "A's" had  not overtaken the "B's", but had caught up with them. We
shared both glory and sugar.


        THE RED DINNER-MISSERS

     Our school had become a true nomad, forever moving from one building to
another.
     We  were  forever  dragging  desks, bookcases, globes  and  blackboards
through the streets of town. The traffic coming  our way was made up largely
of stretchers and hearses. The terrible camels of Tratrchok, the mobile unit
of the 4th Army, pulled  the hearses. The streets smelled of carbolic  acid,
for an epidemic of typhus had swept the region.
     Commissar Chubarkov  was on the go day and night. His  unshaven  cheeks
had become so hollow it seemed he must certainly bite them when he spoke. He
was in  charge of moving the hospitals and  doubling up the various offices.
He also  helped us drag  our school property from place  to place. Chubarkov
was here, there and everywhere.
     "And  that's that!"  his  voice  would boom  on  Atkarskaya Street,  on
Kobzarevsky Street and on Breshka Street. "Hang on a while! It won't be long
now! And then, boys, the trees and the mountains will dance. Like the saying
goes:  It's not much fun  to see the ram butting Sam, but  it'll soon be the
other way around, and Sam'll be butting the ram. That's a fact!"
     Late  one afternoon  he came to  another  new  school  address. He  was
hoarse, his eyes  were  sunken and red-rimmed,  and  yellow  specks of crude
tobacco stuck to his lips. He smelled strongly of carbolic acid.
     "Comrades! I've come to ask you to  donate some of your time." He spoke
with difficulty. "They sounded me  out about  it at Headquarters, and I said
that my boys would surely do it, 'cause even algebra was like snapping their
fingers  to  them.  I told them you knew how to  figure out all  the unknown
quantities,  so's  make  them  known.  So,  boys,  who  wants  to  help  the
revolution?"
     "I do!" we shouted.
     "That depends on what it is," Hefty said and looked at his watch.
     Chubarkov then  said  that  we would have to put  up big posters in the
barracks and on Breshka Street, warning  everyone about  typhus, and that it
was a rush job.  The new  shipment of  posters had not arrived from Saratov,
and all the ones on hand at HQ  had been put up. That meant we would have to
make the posters  ourselves. There would have to be a big figure  of a louse
and a caption written in large block letters.
     He had brought along a roll of grey wrapping paper and water colours.
     It was  deathly cold in the classroom, for  the school  was not heated,
and it was five o'clock, time for us to have gone home long ago.
     "I'd have done it myself, but I'm no good  at drawing, that's for sure.
And you can't even draw .a louse if you've no talent for it. Zoya, here, and
Stepan and  Lelya have.  I saw them draw a  picture of me on the  blackboard
once. Oh, yes, I did. And it was a real good likeness, too. No mistake about
who it was."
     "Let's  do some drawing from life,"  Stepan suggested craftily. "If any
of you don't remember what  they look like, Hefty here  will  lend us a few.
His are nice and fat."
     "That'll do, Gavrya!" Alexander Karlovich snapped. "I suggest you start
working instead of wasting time."
     "This is a special emergency drawing lesson, fellows!" Stepan shouted.
     "It's late."
     "It's too cold in here."
     "It's time to go home." This  voice came from Hefty's corner. "It'll be
like it used to be, being left after school with no dinner."
     "You don't say?"  I jumped onto my desk. "Listen, fellows! Who wants to
stay after school today as  Red volunteer dinner-missers,  to draw the fight
typhus posters? If  anybody thinks  he's back  in the Boys  School, and left
after school, he can get out! Well? What do you say?"
     It was awfully cold. And we  were  awfully hungry. It was  going on six
o'clock. Hefty scooped up his books and left. He was followed by some of the
others, who tried not to meet our eyes  as they  filed  out. There were  not
many  of them. The best boys and girls stayed on, and Labanda, Kostya Beetle
and Beanpole Zoya were among them.
     We  lit the  oil  wick  lamps. The Commissar got  a  fire  going in the
bow-legged iron stove and took out the paints.  We spread the  paper out  on
the floor and set to work on the project. There were no paint brushes, so we
made do with bits of paper rolled up  tight and painted the fine parts  with
our fingers. Most of the letters were shaky. Thus, "typhus" looked as if its
knees  were buckling. The insects were much more impressive, although Stepan
and Kostya Beetle had an argument as to the exact number of legs and feelers
needed.
     "Ha! Your name's Beetle, but you don't even know how many legs it has!"
Stepan said.
     We  put it to a vote and decided  not to be stingy about the legs. Soon
we had fuzzy centipedes slithering all over our posters. We crawled about on
the cold floor. The commissar, who was dead tired  after a long  day, helped
us in every possible  way: he laid out the paints, cut the paper and thought
up slogans for the posters.  He  had a terrible  headache. We could hear him
moaning softly every now and then.
     "Why  don't  you go home, Comrade Chubarkov?" we said. "Look how  tired
you are. We can manage without you."
     But he would not, no matter how we coaxed him. He even  managed to keep
up our spirits by telling us what a wonderful job we were doing.
     Stepan and I had gone off into a  corner to compose a caption in verse.
We  had  a  hard time with the unruly words,  but  then all  of a sudden the
pieces seemed to  fall into place and  the caption was ready.  We thought it
was excellent  and felt that the Commissar would like it, too. We carried it
over to him proudly. It read:

     When all is neat and clean,
     No louse is ever seen.
     Lice lay you flat.
     And that's that!

     The Commissar  stared at  it blindly. He mumbled  something and  swayed
strangely at the desk.
     "Why can't they meet?" he whispered.  "They should.  That's for  sure."
"Who?"
     "Them. A and B. The travel... lers."
     Alexander Karlovich bent  over him anxiously. The Commissar was burning
up with the dread fever called typhus.


        THINGS LOOK BAD

     Chubarkov was dying. We could speak of nothing else in class.
     When I came home Oska was waiting for me in the hall. "They've sent the
Commissar away to  camp for three days so he'll get well quick. I heard Papa
calling headquarters. And he said camp for three days."
     "What are you talking about?  You've got everything mixed up again. And
you know, it's not funny any more."
     "Honest! I heard him."
     Papa  returned from the  hospital just then. His eyes  were so  serious
that Oska, who would usually begin  to climb  all  over him, hung back. Papa
took off his  coat.  The hall was immediately filled with the  smells of the
hospital.
     Then Papa went off to wash up, with us trailing behind. He scrubbed his
large doctor's  hands thoroughly with soap as he always did and  brushed his
short nails with a nail brush. Then he gargled his throat, throwing back his
head so that the water seemed to be boiling in his throat.
     We stood there watching the procedure that was  so familiar to us both.
Neither of us said a word. Finally, I spoke.
     "Why did Oska say you sent the commissar away to camp, Papa?"
     "Which camp? Don't talk nonsense."
     "But that's  what you  said.  I  heard you," Oska insisted. "You  said:
'Camp for three days'."
     Papa  chuckled  ruefully.  "Silly!  He's  getting  camphor  injections.
Understand? Every six hours. Because his heart is so  weak," Papa explained,
turning to speak to  me as he wiped his hands. "We can't get his temperature
down, and he's terribly undernourished.  The man had been killing himself at
his job. And goodness  knows what he's  been eating. That's  what  we're  up
against."
     "It's very bad, isn't it?"
     "It's worse than bad." Papa spoke brusquely  and tossed the towel  over
the headboard. "Our one hope is his natural strength. We'll do our best."
     "Will he be sick long?"
     "It's typhus. Who knows? We're expecting the crisis soon."
     The  moment  I entered  the  classroom  on  the  following  day  I  was
surrounded  by my friends  and some of the  older  pupils. They had all been
waiting for me.
     "When's the crisis? What did your old man say?"
     But the  crisis  had not begun, and the Commissar's  fever kept  rising
every day, while his strength ebbed with each passing hour.
     Would it really be "that's that", as the  Commissar  himself would have
said in such a case?
     Stepan and Kostya would rush off to the hospital  after school each day
to ask about Chubarkov's condition. But what could the nurse on duty say? He
had a raging fever. He was unconscious and delirious.
     Things looked bad.


        YES AND NO

     I  heard  the  phone ring in  my  sleep  that  night. I  was completely
awakened  by a loud pounding on the front door. Then I heard Stepan's  voice
saying:
     "Honest  to  God, Doctor.  I was  just  there.  They chased me out. His
heart's  nearly stopping. He's  having  that, what-d'you-call-it?  The nurse
said cry-sis."
     "Shh! Not so loud, you'll wake everyone up! They've just called me. I'm
on my way  there now. I don't want any panic. A crisis means a sharp drop in
temperature. What is it, Lelya?"
     I stood there wrapped in my  blanket, but my teeth were chattering from
nervousness.
     "I'm going with you, Papa."
     "Are you crazy?"
     "Why can Stepan go?"
     "If Stepan thinks he's going anywhere,  I'll tell  the nurses to  throw
him out. I don't believe anyone asked you to take part in a consultation."
     Papa dressed quickly  and  left,  banging  the front  door  behind him.
Stepan, feeling completely disheartened, stayed.
     The long, cold hours of  the night dragged on  endlessly, Oska woke up.
When he saw Stepan sitting  on my bed he sat up on his own, but at the sight
of two fists, mine and Stepan's,  being shaken at  him,  he darted under the
blankets again. However, I could see his  curious eye flash and knew he  was
not sleeping, but listening to our every word.
     "Do you think he'll pull through?" Stepan whispered.
     We spoke of our Commissar at length. He really was a wonderful man. And
most of the fellows and girls at school were on his side now, because he was
fair and always stood  up  for justice. He took care of our troglodytes good
that time, and there was a reason why Alexander Karlovich respected him so.
     "I know he wants to go  off to fight. He volunteered, but they wouldn't
accept his application.  They  told him they needed good men to work for the
revolution on the home front, too," Stepan said.
     "If he ever does go off, things'll be awful again."
     "That's for sure. He's on our side, but he's a mean one for discipline.
And if he goes off...."
     We suddenly fell silent, crushed by one and the same idea: how could we
be  discussing  whether he'd go off to fight or  not when now, at  this very
moment, our Commissar was fighting for his life. Perhaps.... The pendulum of
the  old wall clock  in  the dining-room swished  back  and forth loudly and
menacingly: "Yes-no ... he will-he won't...." It was  as  if it were telling
his fortune, ticking  off one second after another, as one did the petals of
a daisy.
     "Yes-no ...he will-he won't."
     Just  then a key turned in the lock.  I could hear  Papa taking off his
rubbers. Stepan and I dashed into the hall.
     We were afraid to ask, and it was so dark there that  we could not  see
the expression on my father's face.
     "Why aren't you asleep, night owls?" Papa grumbled in the darkness, but
he did not sound angry. On the contrary, he sounded triumphant.  "All right,
all  right. I know what you're going to  say. Well,  I think  he'll make it.
Your Commissar's sleeping like a baby. Something I hope you'll both be doing
in another  minute.  Off  to  bed with  you! I'll  be going on my rounds  in
another two hours."
     " 'Hoo-ray,  hoo-ray,'  they all shouted, the Schwambranians."  Indeed,
this one time they had every reason in the world to.


        A DIFFERENT STARING GAME

     The  Commissar was getting better! But he was  still very weak. The day
before he had finally  been discharged from the hospital and moved to a room
in a house that had once belonged to a rich merchant. Stepan had been to see
him. Now we all crowded around Stepan to hear his report.
     "He said that when  he  was  delirious he  kept  thinking  about  those
travellers.  You  know, about  A and  B.  The ones in the  algebra  problem.
Remember? He said he annoyed everyone to death there, asking  them why those
men couldn't meet. They kept  on travelling and  travelling,  and when  they
finally did meet he started getting better right away."
     "That's  because  he was probably  thinking about  us all the time, and
what  with the  high  fever and  all..." Beanpole  Zoya said, sounding  very
grown-up.
     "Sure. They  only let me visit him for  ten minutes. There's a hospital
nurse  on duty there. All he kept saying was: how are  things in school? And
are  we behaving  well? And  how's  Alexander Karlovich making  out  all  by
himself? And is Hefty doing any better in algebra?"
     Everyone turned to look at Hefty. His face became  crimson. He shrugged
his big  shoulders and  was about  to say something  nasty, but his eyes met
Stepan's and he turned away.
     "So  what I say  is let's  take things  easy  for  a while and not fool
around too much," Stepan said. "If he starts  getting upset  I know it'll be
the end of him. Ask Lelya  if you don't  believe me. That's what  the doctor
said. Didn't he? So  let's not pull any  pranks for a while. 'Cause  anybody
who  does might get  a good crack on the head. I'm warning  you. Am I right.
Beetle?"
     "You bet. After all, we're human beings. And you'd  have to be a pretty
low-down louse to make him sick again. I mean you, too, Hefty."
     "You just worry about yourself."  Hefty sounded  hurt. "Aren't  you all
such  little  darlings!"  He  shoved  Labanda  out of  the way  and left the
classroom.
     "The Commissar asked  me to bring him something to  read," Stepan said.
"I went over  to your house, but your brother  wouldn't lend me anything. He
said wait till you get home. Will you give me a book? I'll take it over."
     "I can take it over myself."
     I wondered what kind of book  the Commissar would like. While I browsed
through  the shelves, Oska said, "Stepan asked for  ... uh ... I forgot  the
name. Kristomonto."
     "What?"
     "Wait. Let me think."
     He  knitted his brows and puckered his lips. "Oh, I know! He didn't say
Kristomonto, he said Sacramento. That's it!"
     "There's  no such  book. The Mennonites who come here from  out-of-town
sometimes  curse like that. You know: 'Donnerwetter, sacramento!'  It's like
saying, 'For God's sake!' Well, what was the book Stepan wanted?"
     "He  said it was  about  a count,  and there's  a  gun  like it,"  Oska
prompted.
     Ah! Now I knew. It wasn't Kristomonto, and it wasn't Sacramento, It was
Monte Cristo! The Count  of Monte Cristo. But I didn't have that book. Then,
true to my Schwambranian taste in books, I chose a volume of Greek mythology
and Robinson Crusoe.
     I wrapped the two books carefully in a sheet of old newspaper  and went
off to visit the Commissar.
     The Commissar's room was very  poor. A newspaper  was spread out on the
table instead of a cloth, and the spout of a tin kettle protruded from under
a quilted jacket that had been thrown over it to  keep it warm. A  soldier's
mess tin was cooling forlornly on the woodstove that had gone out. There was
a small stack of books on  a bamboo bookstand.  The title of the  one on top
was: "Political Literacy". The  only item of luxury in the room was the bed.
It was  so wide you  could lie  across it, the  headboard and footboard were
scalloped  and upholstered in bright carpeting. Why, this was no bed, it was
a two-horse  sleigh! It had probably  belonged to the merchant. Portraits of
Karl Marx and Lenin were tacked to the peeling walls. A large poster printed
in heavy type hung on the wall over the bed. It depicted a Red Army man in a
cloth  helmet with a five-pointed red star on it. No matter from which angle
I looked at the poster, the soldier seemed to be staring straight at me, and
his finger  seemed to be  pointing straight at  me as he asked in the stern,
demanding words of the caption: "Have you volunteered for the Red Army?"
     I  didn't feel too sure of myself  to  begin with. No one had met me at
the door. The hospital nurse was apparently gone, and I had to knock several
times before I heard a very faint  voice that was apparently the Commissar's
say: "Come in."
     The Commissar's hair was cut very short. He had lost so much weight you
could see his bony shoulder through the outsized collar of his cotton shirt.
He smiled at me weakly and somewhat shyly.
     "Hello. Well... now  that  the doctors are  through with me, I  see the
doctors' sons are taking over. That means I should be getting better. That's
for sure. Well, how are you crocodiles coming along?"
     He asked me all about life at school. Then I read aloud to him from the
Labours of Hercules, trying to put the right feeling into my voice, but as I
read of the nine-headed Hydra of  Lernea  whose heads  Hercules chopped off,
one after another, I got carried away by the story. I had chosen this second
labour  of Hercules, because I  had often heard  speakers at  mass  meetings
refer to the rabid,  many-headed hydra of the counter-revolutionary  forces.
And so I read  on of the hero who defeated the fierce monster and  let  out'
its poisonous black blood.
     The commissar was asleep. He  had probably  fallen asleep in the middle
of the  story. His broad but  bony chest rose  and fell evenly. I sat there,
not knowing what to do. Should I leave? It somehow seemed impolite to do so.
Should I go on  sitting there? That was silly. And then,  who could tell how
long I would have to wait?
     It  was very  still in the  room,  the only  sounds  being those of the
Commissar's breathing and a feeble crack  now and then from the  cooling tin
kettle  on the table.  The Red  Army man  on the poster had not for a moment
taken his burning gaze from me, and his finger  pointed directly at me.  But
now  I, too,  could not take my eyes from  him. It  was pretty much like our
staring  game  in  school.  However,  his  hard  eyes  bored  through  me so
relentlessly I felt I was going to blink and lose.
     "Water," the  Commissar whispered, though his pale eyelids did not even
flicker in his dark, sunken sockets.
     I rushed to pour some  water into a mug. The tea was still warm. I held
the mug as he drank. He opened his eyes a bit and looked at me gratefully.
     "Pour yourself some  tea. It's only carrot-tea, though. And  there's no
sugar. They won't let  me have saccharine. They say it's  no  good for  your
kidneys, not after typhus."
     I didn't  want  to offend him  and so  poured myself some of the cloudy
brew.  It had a burnt taste, it was not sweet, it was tepid and tasteless. A
plan was forming in my mind. I would carry it out the very next day.
     I  raised my  eyes over  the  rim of  the  mug as I  sipped and glanced
cautiously at the wall  opposite. The Red Army man was still staring at  me,
but he couldn't make me feel uneasy any longer. I knew what I had to do.


        SUGAR AND TEA

     I went  to visit the Commissar  the  next day. There were four lumps of
sugar  in my pocket, my  school ration  for that and the  following day. The
Commissar  looked  slightly  better. His  eyes were brighter,  and  when  he
smiled, the  old sharp glint was back  again, even  though it came and went.
When it did his eyes became dull again. That meant he was still very weak.
     "I hope you won't  be angry about yesterday and me popping off to sleep
when you  were reading. I'm not my old self  yet,  and my  head feels fuzzy.
Besides, that was  a pretty tall  tale. I had a look  at this other book you
brought me,  the one about Robinson. I like it better, though it's not  what
I'd care  to read  about now. I feel bad enough lying here all  by myself. I
want to get back  out among people  again. In  times  like these, every  man
counts,  and here I  am, like Robinson, wasting  my time on a desert island.
It's  enough to  make you  sick! Well,  that's that. It's  time for me to be
getting  up and about.  I  put my feet down off the bed  yesterday. Come on,
doctor's son, give me a hand. I'll see how things go today."
     "I don't think you should yet. Papa said  you have to stay  in bed till
you're stronger."
     "Never mind what Papa said. All those doctors  and their  medicines are
meant for different, more delicate people. You know our  kind. We're  tough!
Come on, let's not waste time talking."
     He got his  thin  legs over the side  of the bed by raising  and moving
each one by the knee with  both hands.  Then  he stuck each foot into a felt
boot that was standing by the bed.
     "Now you give me some support on this side, and I'll hold on to the bed
on the  other. All right,  here  we go. You  know the  old stevedore's  cry:
heave-ho, heave-ho ... there she goes!"
     He  rose with great difficul