Page 33 of Pioneer Summer

“What’s up with you? I ... you know what, Yur?” Volodya drew his hand along the chain-link fence and it rattled softly. “I’ve seen magazines like that too, you know.”

“Oh, really? And where’d you get them?” Yurka turned around and fixed Volodya with a mistrustful gaze.

“I’m a student at MGIMO, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. There are some guys there whose parents are diplomats; sometimes they can scrounge up things like—”

“Wait—where?” Yurka actually shouted. “Where do you go? The Moscow State Institute of—where diplomats are trained?!” Ah, sothatwas how Volodya had known how to get him out of quiet hour!

“Shh. Yes. Just please don’t tell anyone about the magazine! Yura, this is serious. If there’s even the most absurd little rumor about something like that, I’ll get kicked out.”

“No way. They wouldn’t do that!”

“They absolutely would. They got a guy in my year who had that kind of magazine on him. He was gone less than a month later.”

“But if it’s so easy to get the boot, how’d you even get in? Family connections?”

“Gee, thanks! You think I couldn’t do well enough to get in on my own?”

“It’s not about how smart you are, it’s just that it’s practically impossible to get in. The competition’s fierce, and you have to be ideologically impeccable, and you have to collect all those approvals from your high school’s Komsomol Council and from your regional Komsomol Council and from your regional Party Committee, and you have to go to all the meetings ...”

Volodya nodded in affirmation as he listened to Yurka, who kept counting off on his fingers all the things you had to do, and what you had to be a member of, and what you had to participate in—and how, and how often—and where you had to go ... Suddenly Yurka realized: Who else but Volodya would be able to get in to a place as prestigious as MGIMO?

“Well ... I barely got in, to be honest,” said Volodya modestly, smiling, once Yurka deigned to finish counting. “I failed the medical evaluation, if you can believe that. Because of my vision. I fought it tooth and nail. I passedmy army physical—I’m fit for military service—but then they wouldn’t let me into college ... Anyway, it’s a long, boring story.”

“What’s it like to go there? Is it hard?”

“I wouldn’t call it easy. The main thing is it’s interesting. The guys in the dorms have really fun get-togethers. I live at home, of course, but I stop by the dorms almost every day.”

“Polite little get-togethers with tea and cookies, right?” Yurka joked, momentarily forgetting that he was mad at Volodya. “Come on, tell me. Are they depraved?”

“Of course not! Come on, we’re Komsomol members!” Volodya gave him a stern look but then smiled and whispered, “Just kidding. We have it all: cards, girls, port, samizdat ...”

“Wait, what? Port? You have alcohol, too?” Yurka was also whispering now. “Where do you get it? When our neighbor got married, they couldn’t even get a bottle of vodka for the wedding, they drank ethanol. My dad’s a doctor, he got it from work.”

“Well, I justcallit port,” explained Volodya. “My classmate Mishka brings it. He lives way outside Moscow, in a little village where they make excellent moonshine. The taste of it reminds some people of brandy, but it reminds me of port. I’m scared for Mishka, though—it’s a big risk to bring it in.”

Yurka’s hurt feelings vanished during this conversation. He forgot them so fast, it was as though they had never existed—not the feelings, or the falling-out, or even the reason they’d argued in the first place. It was like they were talking about what they always talked about, as frankly as they always did, like their behavior and outward appearance was the same as usual: Yurka was tousled and engaged; Volodya was calm and cool and a little bit condescending. There was just one difference: the tall, seemingly sky-high chain-link fence standing taut between them.

“Yur, let’s go to rehearsal, huh? Afterward I’ll tell you whatever you want,” offered Volodya. His face had cleared; the lines on his forehead had vanished. “Just tell Irina that you’re leaving with me.”

Yurka nodded. He ran over to Ira and got her permission to leave, glancing as he did so at the handsome phys ed instructor, Zhenya, who was busy nearby. Yurka put his racquet on a bench and left the court.

“So you just abandoned everybody and came out here looking for me?” he inquired as they turned off the main square and walked toward the dance floor.

“I left Masha in charge. She does a good job, of course, but she can’t run a rehearsal, and we have to work hard today because we can’t work tomorrow.”

“That’s right—Summer Lightning’s tomorrow,” said Yurka, disappointed. This meant that after rehearsal today, because they had to get ready for the big mock battle, they wouldn’t be able to spend any time together. Like everyone else, Yurka would be busy sewing his fabric shoulder boards onto his uniform shirt. It would take a while, since he wasn’t all that great with a needle and thread, but if they were too loose, they’d be too easy for enemy fighters to tear off during “battle.” Everyone wore them: one torn-off shoulder board meant you were wounded, two meant you were dead. And after he was done with that, Troop One had planned an evening of parading in formation and singing. And tomorrow all the staff and campers would be completely immersed in the mass game from early morning until late at night.

Yurka should’ve gone to be a scout for Central Command after all.

CHAPTER SEVEN

EARLY MORNING AWKWARDNESS

A gust of wind made the empty window frame, where not a single bit of glass remained, creak so long and loud that Yura shuddered. The rain had ended a while ago, but fat individual drops were still falling from the roof and plopping loudly onto the broken pavement of the path, making the grass rustle and plinking as they splashed on the broken glass scattered on the ground. Breezy gusts sent the sounds whirling around the dandelion lawn. It felt like nature itself was imitating life, filling the emptiness and trying to deceive him. And Yura would have gladly been deceived. But he couldn’t be, because it wasn’t just empty here; it was dead. The daily life of Troop Five had been so vibrant, playful, and noisy. Now all that was left of it were the gaping holes where the windows of the boys’ room had been and the smaller, narrower window of the tiny troop leaders’ room to the left. Once it had been Volodya’s room. Once it had been where Volodya had gone to sleep and woken up, even though he was always too busy to get a full night’s sleep ... Yura smiled to himself.

He well remembered how he’d longed to get into Volodya’s room. Once he’d even managed a quick look inside, but he’d never actually been invited in.

But why say never? Just because he hadn’t been in the past didn’t mean he couldn’t go there now. Even though Volodya wasn’t there to invite him.

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