Page 48 of Pioneer Summer

“I’m especially sensitive. Come on,” said Yurka, then turned and rushed ahead. Volodya followed him.

They were more than halfway along the winding path when Volodya mumbled hesitantly that he was afraid the battery wouldn’t last long and turned the radio off. A heavy silence descended. Even the birds had gone quiet. Volodya kept opening his mouth and then closing it again without saying a word, as though he were trying to ask about something but couldn’t work up the nerve. As they approached the dock he finally managed it. “So about that Lullaby ... is there maybe some important way it’s connected to you? Don’t take this the wrong way, but ... going white like that because of music ... it’s strange.”

“Volodya, I already told you everything about myself. There’s nothing else. Why are you harping on secrets so much? It’s like you have a whole cupboard full of them!”

“You know all my big secrets now, too. But I have others, of course. Just like everybody else.”

“Then tell me the worst one!”

Volodya paused. After a moment he said hesitantly, “I’ve never had a friend like you before, and I probably never will again. And also, lately I’ve been seeing myself in you, so ... Well, like I was saying, I avoid people. There’s a reason for that, of course ...”

And he went quiet. Clearly, he wanted to tell Yurka something that was genuinely important. Yurka could not only hear it in his tone of voice but read it in his tense posture and his clenched fists. His burning curiosity began to eclipse the alarm and sadness that had been brought on by hearing the Lullaby, and the longer Volodya remained silent, the more his curiosity overshadowed them.

“Well?” Yurka, tired of waiting, couldn’t stand it anymore.

“I’m like Tchaikovsky!” Volodya flung out.

“Like Tchaikovsky? How?”

Volodya turned and looked Yurka right in the eye. So directly that it made Yurka uncomfortable, so he blinked. But then Volodya’s pensive mood seemed to evaporate all at once. He turned back into his businesslike, condescending troop leader self and announced firmly, “I like music.”

“Well, duh, of course you do. Gee, thanks for the revelation!”

“Yur, come on, be serious: Do you really not know?” Volodya laughed. But his laugh was strange, hysterical.

“Know what?”

“About Tchaikovsky ...”

“What don’t I know? I know everything: where he was born, where he lived, how much he wrote, what he wrote ... Oh! Here’s something interesting: his last piece, Symphony No. 6, is called the Pathétique. ‘Pathétique’ means full of deep emotion, about life and death,” he explained, unsure why he was still talking. “He wrote it, and he directed it, and then nine days after the premiere, he died!”

“Oh, well, that’s good.”

“What? What’s good about that?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Tell me!”

Volodya’s mysterious behavior was irritating Yurka. He started circling Volodya, begging him, “Tell me! Come on, tell me!” But Volodya just smiled awkwardly and shook his head no.

Yurka was frustrated. “I’m not leaving until you tell me!”

Volodya looked at the boathouse visible on the opposite shore and gave in. “I read his diary. It was translated into English, but it was complete.”

“His actual diary? The thing he wrote with his own hand? Not his autobiography but his actualdiarydiary?” asked Yurka, stunned.

“You got it,” replied Volodya, with a sly smile. His entire face hadFinally I know even just a teeny bit more about music than you do!written all over it. He clearly enjoyed making this big of an impression on Yurka.

“I didn’t know there was anything like that ... but ... So what’s it say? And why isn’t it in Russian? Is it really not in Russian?”

“It is, but the versions published in the USSR have been edited. They’ve had bits taken out.”

“What do you mean, ‘taken out’? Why? That makes no sense: Why should Americans get to know more than Russians? He’s our composer!”

“But there’s stuff there, in those diaries, that’s ... gratuitous.”

“What?” Yurka’s eyes lit up. He grabbed Volodya by the arm and shook him. “What is it? Tell me! What is it? Did it say what he was like? How he composed?”

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