Regarding the issue of noises. Solovyov’s awareness of the female component of sex was not limited to blood. Prior to entering into sexual activity, he also already had a notion of moaning. As performed by his classmates, moaning turned out to be even less attractive than the motions they demonstrated. Be that as it may, under the sexual roles that Solovyov had adopted and delegated, Leeza was not responding to his masculine movement with feminine moaning. Having been convinced by his classmates at some point that one thing was guaranteed to evoke the other, Solovyov’s unease was no joke. After sharing his doubts with Leeza, she faintly began moaning a little. Insecurely listening to her moans, Solovyov did not find them convincing, which distressed him even more. Sometimes it even seemed to him that Leeza was moaning out of a sense of duty rather than on account of a physiological necessity to moan.
Furthermore. At times it occurred to Solovyov that Leeza was experiencing far less need than he in these forbidden and, at the very least, premature relations they had entered into. This was not just because it was never she who initiated their little madnesses (that could be written off to female shyness) but that her attitude toward coitus was passionless in some sense. Leeza never had to be persuaded and she yielded right away but she yielded: calmly, benevolently, and without Solovyov’s impatience and trembling. It seemed that in this realm, as in many others, she did not want to distress him. Generally speaking, Leeza’s conformity seemed boundless. At times, when Solovyov was especially impatient and there was no opportunity for seclusion in the offing, they made love without preparation or undressing. Leeza agreed to that, too.
Later, when he remembered these hectic relations, which were for all intents and purposes childlike, despite their adult content, Solovyov never stopped feeling surprised that Leeza did not become pregnant. All they knew about the realm of precautions was that there were safe and unsafe days in terms of conception. Leeza had won math meets so she calculated the days. As far as birth control devices went, there was no opportunity at all for young people to buy them in a place where everyone knew them. Solovyov went several times to the regional capital, where he bought condoms, sweating profusely from embarrassment. The condoms were quickly gone and a trip to the city required an entire day. The only birth control device they always had in abundance was the ability to break their embraces at the right moment. This required no small force of will and malfunctioned several times. Solovyov regarded the absence of consequences as their exceptional luck since it would have been catastrophic for both of them at Kilometer 715 if Leeza had become pregnant.
There is no doubt that the adolescents’ luck truly was exceptional. They made love constantly, not just inside but also in the open air. Sometimes Solovyov and Leeza stepped into the woods on their way home from school to indulge themselves in love, on the mosses and lichens they had just finished studying in biology. The contours of those florae were imprinted on Leeza’s pink bottom when she got up from the ground and brushed herself off. They did that more than once in the snow, too, spreading out Solovyov’s skimpy coat and melting the snow’s crust with their hot fingers. Even so, Solovyov’s room was the primary spot for their intimate relations. The association of their encounters with the train schedule not only brought about a degree of order that was rare in cases like this but also lent them an unexpected Pavlovian nuance: trains passing through the station evoked an involuntary erection for Solovyov.
Now, he sensed an erection unassociated with any railroad effect. When Solovyov opened his eyes, he knew he had just woken up. The first thing he saw was Zoya’s unblinking gaze directed at him. Solovyov turned over on his stomach. With a crocodile-like motion, he raked hot pebbles toward himself and squinted again. He realized that this time he had woken up as a person able to swim. He certainly did like Zoya.
7
Zoya invited Solovyov to her place that evening. He arrived with a bouquet of flowers but knew right away that what he had presumed would happen was not to be. There, in Zoya’s room, in addition to Solovyov, was the old-fashioned gentleman he had seen the day before, as well as a thin old woman. She was wearing a black hat with the veil folded back and black mesh gloves. A few minutes later, the doorbell rang and a man with the look of a mighty warrior entered. He appeared to be over sixty. Despite his age, biceps of significant size revealed themselves under an untucked, cotton, pensioner’s sort of shirt. Solovyov thought the group seemed worthy of a painting. At first, he just could not grasp what, exactly, had gathered such dissimilar people.
General Larionov had gathered them. This became clear when Zoya introduced the attendees to one another. At first, Solovyov thought he had misheard. The old woman turned out to be Princess Meshcherskaya, although—and here, a tinge of apology could be heard in Zoya’s voice—she was not born until after the revolution.
‘That never prevented me from being a princess,’ the old woman said, before offering her hand to Solovyov.
He bent over her extended hand and felt the mesh texture of her glove on his lips. He was kissing a princess’s hand (admittedly, any lady’s hand) for the first time in his life. As was the case with the beach, no such opportunity had presented itself either in Petersburg or (even more so) near station Kilometer 715.
The two gentlemen in attendance were the children of White Guardsmen that the general had somehow saved from death. This circumstance permitted them, as they expressed it, to not only deeply revere the general but also to have been born in the first place. Based on several phrases these people uttered, Solovyov concluded that they had transferred their love for and devotion to the general on to Zoya, who was a sort of adopted daughter to the deceased, even though he had never seen her. This apparently comforting circumstance made Solovyov wary. He grew definitively upset upon remembering yesterday’s encounter with Shulgin (that turned out to be his name). Given the terms of his guardianship, something obviously taken very seriously, the chances of developing a relationship with Zoya seemed slim.
Zoya asked Solovyov to help her as she was preparing to serve tea. They went to the kitchen, where there stood a balding man, five to seven years older than Solovyov. He could not be called a fat man in the strictest sense; he was more likely flabby. Slackened. Threatening to either collapse or deflate. Somehow, he was not completely standing, but slanted, resting against a firm support behind his back. Zoya nodded at him, barely noticeably, and turned on the gas under the teakettle. Solovyov greeted him to avoid awkwardness. Answering ‘hi’ (it was quiet and perhaps even shy), the unknown man disappeared into his own room. Though they had never met, Solovyov recognized him immediately: this was Taras Kozachenko.
As they waited for the teakettle to boil, the curious Solovyov examined the spacious kitchen where the legendary general had put in an appearance every day over the course of more than half a century.