More laughter — hilarious laughter, everyone rolling on the carpet — and also more drinks.
Tchersky! An opera house in Tchersky! Oh, no! Not that, Kolya! No opera houses in Tchersky. God knew where the opera houses were — maybe as far as Novosibirsk. They flew them out in a big plane! In Novosibirsk they had opera houses now, and theatres, everything. Well, they must have had them when he was there last.
Ah, when he was there last, he said, and grew solemn. (The moment had come now and he braced himself.) The vodka had flowed very freely all evening and a tear now stood in his eye. When he was in Novosibirsk last!
What, Kolya? What? Unhappy memories?
Yes, unhappy. A person had to keep them to himself.
Why to himself? It helped a person to speak.
No. He wouldn’t burden them with unhappy stories.
What burden? With friends? Take a drink, Kolya. Speak.
He took a drink. Well then, he said, and wiped his eyes. Well … In Novosibirsk he had left a most tragic case. A white girl. Dying. He had met the family in his early tearabout days there. The father had worked at an institute outside the town; Akademgorodok — Science City. He had done odd jobs for the family, a fine family, just the three of them, father, mother, daughter.
And then evil things had happened. The mother, still a young woman, had taken ill and died. And a grandmother had come to look after the girl — just eight or nine years old at the time. This was twenty years ago. Until one day, out of nowhere, another disaster. The father too had gone — not dead, just gone, disappeared. A letter saying urgent government business and he would be in touch. But he had not been in touch. Not from that day to this, not a single word — nothing.
What nothing? Innokenty said. How could they live on nothing?
Money wasn’t a problem, Kolya said. Money came, regularly, from the ministry that had employed him. It was just — no word from him, no idea what had happened.
The ministry couldn’t tell them what had happened?
The grandmother tried. She tried everybody, the ministry, the place where he’d worked, his colleagues. Nothing.
So then what?
So then time passed, he went back to Chukotka, got a driving job. And the girl wrote from time to time. Told him the grandmother had died. Until suddenly, this year, a few months ago, she wrote again, very urgently. Could he come and see her at once? Which as it happened he could. The driving season had just ended, it was June, he was going to the Black Sea. So he went to Novosibirsk first, and saw her. And was shocked by what he saw. The girl was desparately ill, wasting away — the same disease as her mother, and the same age, twenty-nine. And the doctors said nothing could be done for her.
Well he couldn’t accept that, wouldn’t believe it. On the Black Sea they had other doctors, different cures. So he had taken her there, gone to top specialists, paid them privately. But the same story: nothing to be done. And the Black Sea was too hot for her, so he had taken her back to Novosibirsk. And there they had stayed, and had wept together …
Until, he said, wiping his eyes again, one day she had asked him to do something for her, one last thing.
When she first knew of her illness, she had gone herself to Akademgorodok — the place her father had worked. Had pleaded with them, pestered them, gone from office to office. And in a certain room, where records were kept, had overheard officials whispering together about a place in the Kolymsky region. And dimly from her childhood she remembered her father had also spoken of this place. A mysterious kind of place, a weather station, from which he had received reports, also spoken of in whispers. And from this she had got it into her head that it was the explanation of his disappearance. He was in this mysterious place. He was not allowed to write!
And this was what she wanted of him — to take a letter to her father, begging one last word and his blessing before she died. She knew Kolya drove about in the north. To her, Chukotka, the Kolymsky region, were all the same. They knew nothing of the north down there, none of them. So, for a dying girl, what else could he do? He had come up to Tchersky and taken a job with the transport company and looked for this weather station. Of course he knew now there wasn’t such a place … But yes, that was the reason Novosibirsk had sad memories for him.
Wait a minute! Innokenty said. He had been staring hard at him. Twenty years ago you say this man disappeared?
Twenty years ago.
But twenty years ago there was a weather station here — our science place up in the hills!
You don’t say so! Kolya said.
I do say so, Innokenty said. That’s what they said then. And there has never been any other weather station in the region.
God above — you mean I’ve actually found it? Kolya said.
God has found it! Stepanka’s old mother said. She had thrown her pipe down and was weeping. He has led you to it! My Stepanka will take this letter for you. He’ll see her father gets it.
It’s a miracle! Kolya said. I can’t believe it! Only tell me when it can be done!
In just a week, Innokenty told him. When the helicopter brings the others down, the new party will take the letter up.
And the reply — when would I get it?
Four weeks later, when they come down again.
Ah God! Too late! Kolya said, bitterly. She’ll never last that time. In two weeks I have to leave. To be at her deathbed.
Then what’s to be done?
They had another drink while thinking what was to be done.
Nobody could think what was to be done.
Was it possible, Kolya said at last, his face creased up as he puzzled the matter out, was it possible for them to get him up there somehow?
Well, Innokenty said. Possible, yes. He could go up as a member of a party. The stinking heads didn’t know one from another. But what was to be gained? He would still have to stay there four weeks. They didn’t bring them down again for four weeks.
And if he was changed?
Changed?
Kolya tried working this one out, too, his face again very creased. He worked it out once, and he worked it out twice, and by the second time tears had turned to laughter and even the old lady was rolling on the floor with her pipe.
Oh God, yes! Oh God, why not — if it could be done? Comfort for a dying girl — and in such a way — from people who were free and did what they wanted!
All night the blizzard raged and he drowsed by the stove, disturbed occasionally as men stumbled out to re-tether the leaders keeping the herd together. But in the morning the weather was clear and the helicopter came with the vitamins, and he went back with it; the Evenks waving boisterously up at him as he rose in the sky. ‘We’ll meet again,’ they had told him, winking. Oh yes! Yes, indeed they would!
So that part too was over.
And now there remained only the last.
38
After his week’s rest Kolya Khodyan signed on for work again at the Tchersky Transport Company. And he returned the bobik.
The story of his supposed Evenk girl had passed around, he saw, for he was greeted everywhere with hilarity.
‘Had your rest cure, Kolya? Found something nice and comfortable to rest on?’
He smiled sheepishly, and took all this.
From Yura, the Kama truck chief, there was no hilarity. The plan called for him to go and see the little man anyway; but that same morning he was sent for.
He decided to walk the half kilometre to the hangar.
‘What’s this, Kolya?’ Yura furiously demanded. ‘What? I put you down for a long haul. And this note comes back: “No long distances — struck off”. What the hell! What’s happening here? What?’