Page 124 of Pioneer Summer

He forced himself to collect his thoughts and stand up. His gaze shifted from the concrete floor to the padded, pleather-covered door of Volodya’s apartment. His heart went tight. Yura realized that he would never, ever get inside this apartment. He’d never see Volodya’s room. Even if nothing of Volodya was left inside the apartment anymore, even if the couch he’d slept on wasn’t in his room anymore, even if the nightstand he’d put his glasses on every night before bed wasn’t there, even if the desk he’d sat at wasn’t there, then at least the window Volodya had looked out of when he was writing Yurka letters was still there. Yura wanted to look out that window. It felt like that would bring them closer together. Or at least if he could see the marks Volodya’s furniture had made on the floor. They’d prove Volodya really existed, Yura hadn’t just been imagining him.

I will find him! I will!His feet moving reluctantly, he made himself walk away down the stairs.

In hopes of finding letters from the Davydovs’ friends or relatives, Yura broke open the door of their mailbox. The blood pounded in his head as he saw that there were two letters there! But his hope faded as quickly asit had blossomed: they were his own letters. The second-to-last one, in which he’d declared his love, and the last one, in which he’d said he was leaving in July.

Then, despite the hopelessness of the situation, Yura’s spirits lifted just a tiny bit. It hadn’t been his fault, after all, that Volodya had sent that last telegram telling him not to write anymore. He hadn’t even read the letter that Yura had been so worried about. There was hope after all that Volodya still loved him, still needed him. But this also meant he didn’t even know that Yura was leaving soon.

Yura left Volodya’s apartment building and went straight to Volodya’s institute, where after some effort he found out that Volodya had collected his records and documents and left. And that this had also been just before New Year’s.

Yurka spent the whole way to Kursk train station, where he’d get his train back to Kharkiv, trying to decide whether to go to Tver or not.It’s not far. But I don’t have much money left. But if I don’t at least try, I’ll never forgive myself. I’ll never forgive myself for it.

The metro was loud, thundering and clattering. On the opposite seat a young man put his jacket down on his girlfriend’s lap and tentatively squeezed her hand. It was just like in Volodya’s dream, except that this pair didn’t have to hide their hands.

It’s a sign, thought Yura. So he transferred to another metro line and headed for Leningrad Station, where the train for Tver left from.

Once he got to Tver, he stopped at a post office, bought a phone book, and began calling all the Davydovs one by one. He called over half the numbers, but nobody knew a Vladimir Davydov. His heart skipped a beat when a girl finally said Vladimir was home and called him to the phone. The seconds of waiting stretched into minutes, or hours. It was like Yura had gotten lost in time and space and couldn’t tell whether he’d really been waiting for a long time at all. But his wait finally came to an end: Vladimir answered. Yura’s heart fell. This Vladimir Davydov was an old man.

Trying not to lose heart, Yura ran his finger down the lines of text in the phone book. A few lines down was something that made his finger tremble: the name Davydov, Vladimir Leonidovich.

Yura stood for half an hour in the telephone booth, the receiver glued to his ear, cursing through gritted teeth: he couldn’t get through. The line was busy. It was getting late, but the phone kept giving him nothing but those short, rapid beeps. Yura decided it was time to pay Comrade Davydov a visit.

The entrance of the old Khrushchov-era building reeked of cats. Yurka rang the doorbell. A girl replied from inside, without opening the door. She heard what Yura had to say and called the Vova who lived there to the door. A young voice answered her. The lock clicked and the door opened, revealing a tall, broad-shouldered man of about thirty.

“I’m looking for Volodya Davydov.”

“Yes? What can I do for you?”

“It’s not you, it’s probably your cousin. He lived in Moscow, he had dark hair and glasses, I was at camp with him,” babbled Yura, digging in his pocket for the single photo he had of Volodya, in which he was with Troop Five. “Volodya was a troop leader there in ’86. The Barn Swallow Pioneer Camp, outside of Kharkiv. I ... hold on a minute, I’ve got a picture of him here ...”

“Don’t know who you’re talking about,” answered Vova brusquely.

“Hold on a second—here’s the picture.” Yura held the photograph out to Vova, but the man didn’t even look at it.

“Don’t know who you’re talking about,” he announced again, and shut the door, pinching the photo between the door and the doorframe. Yura pulled the bent photo back out, straightened it, and saw with dismay that the corner had been torn off.

That was it. The end. Period. But Yurka couldn’t bring himself to believe it. He thought he must still have a chance; he just wasn’t looking in the right place. He thought he could find Volodya if he just had a little more time.

The only thing left to Yura when he got back to Kharkiv was to pin his hopes on others. He wasn’t going to be able to meet the new residents of his apartment, if there even were any: the Konevs’ apartment had been state-owned, not theirs, so they hadn’t been the ones who sold it to a new owner. Yura wrote a note to the new residents, asking them not to throw away any letters that came to him but to send them to his temporary address in Germany, and left it with the neighbors in the apartment next door to give tothem. But he didn’t hold high hopes: the neighbors were alcoholics and had always feuded with his parents. In a P.S. to the note Yura added that soon he’d send a letter to this address with a new permanent address in Germany.

He asked his buddies from the building the same thing: to stop by his old apartment every so often, in case the new residents were there, and tell them everything, and also to check the mailbox from time to time, in case a letter from Volodya came.

And that was it.

He did the work of gathering his things and getting ready to leave in a kind of daze. The airport, the flight, the transfer to the distribution center—it was all a blur, too.

And then there he was. It was 1991 and he was in Germany. He hadn’t done a single thing to get there, while ever since Volodya had been little he’d dedicated his whole life to getting out to America.

Did he? He has to have. It’d be too unfair otherwise!Yura thought.Maybe he’s already there?

For a long time he felt utterly foreign in the country. He was ashamed of his accent and cringed every time he heard the word “immigrant.” The tone was always disgusting, demeaning. And he was a Russian immigrant to boot. That’s what the Germans said, anyway, despite the fact that the entire world had been following the collapse of the USSR and everyone knew that Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus were different countries now. And Yura was not Russian. But what was he—whatcouldhe be, here? A quarter German, a quarter Jewish, and half Ukrainian, with a good knowledge of German language and history and a lively interest in culture. But knowledge of the language, culture, and history couldn’t change the fact that he was an immigrant; in fact, he was something even worse, essentially a refugee. He felt disdain and contempt for himself and hated himself for it.

Trying every day to convince himself that he had no other choice—he had to forget Volodya—Yura lived through his first month in Germany. But it felt to him like surviving, not living.

August had a fantastic beginning: Yura made it into the conservatory immediately, on the first try. But a short while later, on August 19, 1991, a heavy blow awaited him.

He was sitting in his room, testing out a new piano his uncle had given him, when he was startled by someone pounding on his door like a crazy person. It was his mom. She started shouting so loudly that her voice temporarily drowned out the music: “Yura! Come here, quick! Yura, there are tanks in Moscow! Gorbachov’s been overthrown! Good Lord, what’s happening? Tanks!”

Yura, unable to believe his ears, moved slowly into the living room, overcoming the awful resistance of the air, suddenly thick as soup. He lowered himself onto the sofa in front of the TV and sat there until late at night. And the next morning, too, and all the next day, the images stood before his eyes: Yeltsin on a tank, the crowd around the Russian White House and on Red Square. Later, the press conference held by the State Committee on the State of Emergency, and Yanayev, whose hands shook so badly, he couldn’t hold the piece of paper. Yura’s hands were shaking just as badly. He was starting to panic. Worse than he ever had before. The kind of panic that had probably tortured Volodya when he was unable to control himself and thrust his hands in burning-hot water.

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