Page 3 of Pioneer Summer

Yurka was so lost in thought, so dissolved in his contemplation of Volodya, that he almost missed the most important part of the morning: the flag-raising ceremony. Good thing the girl next to him nudged him. He,too, looked at the flag and sang the Pioneer anthem, as required, with its evocation of blazing campfires, midnight blue skies, and workers’ children marching and singing happily. Except that after the last words—“always be prepared!”—he fixed his eyes on Volodya again and stood still as a post. Eventually, Troop Five started falling out. The leader of Troop Five was poking at the bridge of his nose as they did, attempting to push up his glasses, as he counted to himself: “Twelve ... oh! Thirteen ...” Then he followed the children away.

Yura shook his head morosely, surveying the square again. Time spares nothing and no one; even this square, full of deep meaning for him as the place where he’d first seen his V., was getting overgrown with trees. Give it ten more years and it’d be impossible to push through the bushy, bright-leafed maple branches, and the Pioneers’ plaster body parts peeking out of the underbrush would scare random explorers half to death. Or worse: the new development would reach all the way out here, and his beloved camp would be bulldozed and replaced by an elite cottage community.

Yura wandered over to the western corner of the square, to the path along which the junior troop leaders led their charges back to the junior cabins after assembly. The path went on down to the river, but he stood where he was and looked around for the trail hidden in the grass. Relying more on his memory than on what his eyes told him, he spied the fork he was looking for: to the left he could make out the outlines of the athletic fields and courts, while to the right, a little farther off, he could see the remains of the junior cabins. But Yura turned back to the square and walked across it in the other direction, toward the outdoor stage and the movie theater. He strolled slowly, looking up at the tall trees, feeling like he was in some kind of weird dream. He was pretty sure he recognized this area: the power shed was over there on that little rise, and if he kept going, he’d wind up at the storage shed. As he recalled those old scenes in his mind, he experienced that poignant ache again, warm and familiar despite the bitter strangeness of what this place had become.

He quickly made it to the outdoor stage, the place where his story—their story—had begun.

The dance floor and stage, partially covered by a band shell, was enclosed by a low railing that was now falling apart. The area had once been decorated by red flags and colorful posters reading glory to the communist party of the soviet union and we are young leninists that had already been old back when Yura was a camper. A long, dirty-orange banner with poetry on it lay ripped and faded on the ground. Yura looked down at the torn rag underfoot and read the part he could see: pioneer, remember to treat your scarf well ... He turned away. A copy of the day’s schedule had traditionally hung to the right of the stage. Now its single remaining line informed him that at four thirty it was time to do civic duty work.

To the left, at the very edge of the dance floor, Yurka’s old observation point, a magnificent triple-trunked apple tree, still stood. At one time it had been adorned by heavy, plump fruit and strings of lights, but now it was desiccated, bent, and cracked. No one could’ve climbed it now, it’d break. Although Yurka had already fallen out of it, twenty years ago, when his troop leader assigned him to hang strings of multicolored lights on it.

That had been his first task, assigned right at the beginning of the session. Yurka never even knew what hit him.

After the opening assembly he got moved into his cabin; then—in body, but not in spirit—he attended the troop council, where delegates from each troop met to plan the upcoming camp session. After lunch he made a beeline for the athletic fields to meet the new kids and find the people he knew from past camp sessions. The loudspeakers blared out a welcome to all the new arrivals, informing them that meteorologists did not foresee any heavy precipitation over the next week and exhorting them to have an active and beneficial stay and to bask in the sun. Yurka immediately recognized the sonorous voice of Mitka, a good singer and guitarist who’d been the announcer last year, too.

He caught sight of some familiar faces scattered among the new campers. Polina, Ulyana, and Ksyusha were chattering by the tennis court. Yurka had already seen them at the assembly. He’d been in the same troop as them for five years in a row. For some reason Yurka and the girls had disliked each other from the get-go. He remembered them as snot-nosed ten-year-olds;now they had grown up and blossomed into actual young women. Even so, Yurka still couldn’t bring himself to feel friendly toward them, stubbornly continuing his animosity toward the trio of gabby gossips.

Vanka and Mikha, also Yurka’s longtime troopmates, waved at him in unison. Yurka nodded in response but didn’t go over to them. They’d start pestering him with questions about how his year had gone, and Yurka had no interest in answering, “Not that great, as usual,” then having to explain why. He’d known the pair of them since he was little, too, just like the trio of girls. But these two were the only ones he talked to, when he talked to anyone at all. Vanka and Mikha were nerds, meek and pimply, but funny. They weren’t exactly girl magnets, but they did respect Yurka. He bought their respect with the cigarettes he shared sometimes during quiet hour when they sneaked out and hid behind the camp fence.

Masha Sidorova was also standing nearby, looking baffled as she searched the crowd. Yura had known her for four years now. She had it in for Polina, Ulyana, and Ksyusha, and she was condescending, and she always talked down to Yurka. But last summer she’d gotten along really well with Anyuta.

And Anyuta was awesome. Yurka really liked her. He was friends with her and had even asked her to dance—twice. And the best part was that she had! Both times! Yura liked her pealing cascades of laughter. And also Anyuta was one of the only ones who hadn’t turned away from him last year, after—

Yurka clamped down on that thought. He had no desire to recall what had happened then and how he’d had to apologize afterward. He surveyed the athletic fields again, hoping Anyuta was here somewhere, but she was nowhere to be found. He hadn’t seen her at assembly, either. And judging from the way Masha was looking around, baffled, as she searched for her friend, it seemed unlikely that Anyuta was here.

Yurka asked Masha about Anya, who snapped: “Looks like she’s not coming.” So he shoved his hands in his pockets, scowled, and wandered up the path, thinking about Anyuta. Why hadn’t she come? It was too bad they’d become friends only as their camp session was ending. Then they’d parted ways, and that was it. That year, Anyuta had been his only happy memory from Camp Barn Swallow. She’d said she really wanted to come to campagain but wasn’t sure she’d be able to. Something about her father having some kind of problem with the Party, or maybe his job ...

Yurka wandered over to the power shed. He kicked the lower branches of a thick cluster of lilacs growing there. He was annoyed at it. He didn’t like the smell; it was cloying and clung to the nose. But, for lack of anything better to do, he stopped to look for flowers with five petals. Once his mother had told him that if you find one, you should make a wish and eat it, and then your wish will come true. As if he had anything to wish for, though. A year or so ago, he’d had both dreams and plans ... but now ...

“Konev!” The stern voice of Irina, Yurka’s troop leader, rang out behind him. Yurka gritted his teeth and glanced over his shoulder. A pair of bright green eyes drilled suspiciously into him. “What are you doing walking around here by yourself?”

Irina had been his troop leader for three years now. The short brunette, tough but fair, was one of the few people at Camp Barn Swallow who Yurka got along with.

Yurka ducked his head. “Aw, MarIvanna ... ,” he began pleadingly, without turning around.

“Whatdid you say?”

His little joke of calling her Marya Ivanovna, the archetypal stern schoolteacher name, had backfired. With a small crack Yurka broke off the lilac branch that had the biggest, most luxurious bunch of flowers. He turned around and held it out to the troop leader with a flourish: “I’m enjoying the flowers. Here, Ira Petrovna, this is for you!”

“Konev!” Ira turned red and was obviously taken aback, but made her voice even stricter. “You are disturbing the public order! Good thing I’m the one who saw you over here. What if it’d been one of the senior staff?!”

Yurka knew his troop leader wouldn’t tell on him to anyone. First of all, because she felt sorry for him, for some reason, and so she was indulgent even in her strictness, and second of all because the troop leaders themselves could get reprimanded when their charges got out of line, so they tried to resolve things without getting the administration involved.

Ira sighed and put her hands on her hips.

“Well then, as long as you’re over here goofing off, I have an important public duty for you. Go find Alyosha Matveyev, in Troop Three, the redheadwith freckles. Take him and go get two ladders from the facilities manager and bring them to the outdoor stage. Once you’re there, I’ll give you some strings of lights to hang for tonight’s dance. Got it?”

Yurka was more than a little disappointed: he’d been planning on going to the river, but now he had to try not to fall off a ladder instead. But he nodded. Grudgingly. Still, Irina narrowed her eyes at him: “Are you sure you’ve got it?”

“Yes, Marya Iva—dang it! Yes, ma’am, Ira Petrovna, ma’am!” Yurka drew himself up and clicked the heels of his nonexistent boots together. He was the only one who addressed her formally, using her patronymic as well as her first name, utterly clueless that doing this really hurt her feelings.

“Konev, you’re on thin ice here! I was already tired of your little jokes last session!”

“I’m sorry, Ira Petrovna. Understood, Ira Petrovna. Consider it done, Ira Petrovna!”

“Go on, you troublemaker. Hop to it!”

Alyosha Matveyev turned out to be not only redheaded and freckled but jug-eared to boot. He wasn’t a first-time camper, either, and babbled endlessly about past camp sessions. He bounced chaotically from one topic to the next, tossing out names, occasionally asking, “Do you know so-and-so? What about so-and-so, remember him?” And Alyosha’s red curls and ears weren’t the only things that stuck out: his teeth did, too, especially when he smiled, which was all the time. Alyosha, funny and sunny, literally radiated energy and a thirst for life. And he was devastatingly industrious—“devastatingly” because five minutes of his help was worse than an hour of anyone else’s hindrance. As a result, Yurka quickly came to learn why everyone at camp thought long and hard before giving him even the smallest assignment.

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