Page 105 of Pioneer Summer

Off to the side, someone started huffing indignantly. Yurka stole a look and saw Masha scowling and glaring at the educational specialist.

“Well! In honor of such an event”—Pal Palych clapped his hands again and turned to Matveyev—“Alyosha, get the camera! In honor of such an event, we will ... ahem ... have our picture taken!”

Alyosha nodded and ran off backstage. He came back a minute later and thrust the camera into the director’s hands, saying, “Pal Palych, maybe it’d be better for me to do it? You know I have experience, remember ...”

“No, Alyosha. No, it’s an expensive new piece of equipment, so let’s have me do it myself.”

Pal Palych examined the camera as though it were a UFO. Then he nodded to himself with yet another affirmative “Hem” and began arranging the kids: “So then. Those of you who are taller, get in the middle. Shorter ones sit on the bench. No, Sasha, you get on the edge, by Yurka. Now, then ... Volodya, hold on: Where are you going? Let’s have you sit on the bench in the middle, too. Konev, don’t follow him! You stay where you are!”

“Wait for me!” Mitka shouted from offstage. “I’ll be right there. I’m just changing my shirt ...”

A minute later he came out from backstage looking a little silly: flustered, sweaty, and disheveled, and holding Yurka’s red cap. When Yurka saw him with it, he decided they should swap: he’d pulled his neckerchief out from underneath his shirt and arranged it on his chest for the picture but then decided that a Pioneer neckerchief didn’t go with a Fascist uniform jacket. He tossed the jacket to Mitka.

“And I’ll take that,” Yurka said, taking his cap from Mitka and plopping it on backward, satisfied. Apparently a red baseball cap went with a Pioneer neckerchief just fine.

Mitka stood next to Yurka. Yurka sniffed, then held his breath. He’d realized why Mitka had changed shirts: clearly he’d sweated buckets hauling that curtain up and down.

“Get ready ... ,” said the director.

Yurka saw Volodya shake his head as though he was thinking,Ah, the hell with it.Volodya jumped up, moved Mitka over, and stood next to Yurka.

“Volod ... hem ... Now, what’s this?” said Pal Palych, letting air out through his pursed lips in reproach.

“This is even better, Pal Palych!” Volodya assured him.

“Hem ... ah, well, yes. That is, yes. That is better. So. Everyone get ready ... Three ... two ... one ...” And he clicked the shutter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE FAREWELL BONFIRE

After the show the sky cleared. The clouds, which never had shed their rain, floated off to the east. The speakers poured out music all over the whole camp. Kind, good, lyrical children’s songs from movies and cartoons played all during lunch and after it, only going quiet right before the assembly to allow the head troop leader to give the command: “Campers, attention! To the ceremonial assembly dedicated to the closing of the session. Forward, march!”

The Pioneer troops, dressed up in their white shirts and red neckerchiefs and flight caps, formed into three columns and marched toward the main square. Two of Troop One’s columns were headed by girls: Ira Petrovna, happy and more beautiful than ever, and Masha, the troop commander. A task with a lot of responsibility—carrying the troop banner—was entrusted to Yurka, leading the third column.

Proud, with his hair combed, his clothing neat and tidy, and wearing white gloves, Yurka yearned to see Volodya as soon as possible: he’d never been given such an honor and he’d never been so proud of himself. He assumed his position at the assembly and focused on Troop Five, which was just now coming onto the square, bringing up the rear of the long chain of people. A pleasant warmth spread through his chest when he saw the touchingly agitated Olezhka, whose hands visibly shook as they held his troop banner. Yurka shifted his gaze to Alyona, who was unchildlike in her seriousness. She had played the little girl Galya Portnova in the show, but in real life she was commander of her troop. And then Yurka’s gaze rested for a very long time on Volodya’s serious and solemn face. Volodya saw him, raised his brows slightly, and smiled. Yurka gave a small nod in response.

Bright rays of sun pierced the occasional clouds, falling through the thick forest foliage and the leaves of Yurka’s apple tree and landing on theflag-bedecked main square. The bust of Zina Portnova, clean and white, looked down sternly from her pedestal at the Pioneers, assembled in a large arc. On the flagpole behind her the camp flag billowed proudly: a red barn swallow on an azure background. Overhead, in the clear sky, the little white puffs of parachutes slid slowly through the blue down to earth. Far in the distance, almost all the way to the horizon, the airplane that the parachutists had jumped out of was leaving a white trail that echoed the shape of the barn swallow’s wings on the flag.

“Campers, attention! Ready, front!” shouted the head troop leader. “At ease! Troop commanders, prepare to give your reports!”

Masha and the other troop commanders assumed their positions in front of the tribunal where Pal Palych and Olga Leonidovna stood and began taking turns stepping forward to give their reports.

Masha threw her hand up in the Pioneer salute. “Comrade chairman of the troop council! In preparation for the ceremonial closing assembly of Session Two of camp, Troop One is in formation!” Masha said loudly and clearly. “Reported by Troop One commander Sidorova, Mariya!”

The head troop leader gave the salute and replied, “Report accepted.”

After all the reports had been presented, the director gave a speech to open the ceremony. Then it was Olga Leonidovna’s turn to speak. She was far more genuine than she had been at the beginning of the session, but year in and year out she always wound up her speech with the same exact words: “The barn swallow is a bird that, like our Pioneers, comes back every year from wintering in warmer climates to return to its native nest ...”

Smiling, the educational specialist surveyed the campers with an unusually affectionate expression. She was speaking to everyone, without exception, but Yurka knew better: he wouldn’t be coming here again.

There was the sound of a needle rustling on a record, and then from the speakers, scratchy and off-key, issued the melody every Soviet citizen learned as a child: the Pioneer anthem. Every person there flung up a hand in the Pioneer salute. Yurka watched the flag come down, bringing their session of camp to a close, as he and everyone else sang about campfires and midnight-blue skies.

He still thought the song was meaningless and pretentious, but now he realized something else: what was important about the anthem wasn’tthe words. Not at all. What was important was that the act of singing the anthem was supposed to unite all of Camp Barn Swallow, everyone from great to small. And everyone was indeed singing: the old (to Yurka) Communists, the younger Komsomol members, the school-age Pioneers, and the youngest Little Octoberists from Troop Five, along with their troop leader. Volodya was standing facing Yurka, looking at him and smiling in a way that was tender but sad. Yurka thought in passing that Volodya had forgotten how to smile without sadness.

Yurka’s eyes started welling up. He was tired of thinking about parting. He was tired of grieving. His eyes were red and burning after his sleepless night. His weariness and the tension from preparing for the show were making themselves felt. The weather, in defiance of all sadness, was almost artificially clear and bright, but it didn’t make Yurka feel any better at all. It was as though the weather was challenging him to relish his last day, as though it was telling him,Nothing like this will ever happen again.

That’s true, it won’t, agreed Yurka mentally. He wouldn’t be going to Pioneer camp next summer. He would never sing the anthem or put on that neckerchief again. There was no telling how often Yurka had looked forward to wearing it for the last time. The older he had gotten, the more he hated the thing. The noose. Yurka hadn’t felt proud of wearing his Pioneer neckerchief since middle school and had always tried to find a way to take it off as soon as he could, so everyone would think he was grown up. But as soon as he really did grow up, everything turned upside down. The day had come, the day he realized, with smothering sadness, that he had finally done what he’d wanted to do for so long: he’d grown up. His childhood was over.

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