Page 5 of Pioneer Summer

“What are you talking about, Olga Leonidovna?! What sabotage?”

“One reprimand’s not enough? You want a matched set on your record?!”

“No. Of course not. It’s just that Yura—he’s still a child, after all, and he has a lot of energy. He needs to direct that energy into the proper channel ...”

“Some child! He’s almost two meters tall!”

She was exaggerating his height, of course. One meter seventy-five centimeters, they’d announced at his last checkup, and not a centimeter more.Yurka hoped to god he’d eventually hit two meters. Although there was no god in the USSR.

“He’s a creative boy, he needs a club that’s a little more active.” Ira Petrovna wouldn’t let it go. “We have an athletics group, right, Yura? Or else we have a drama club that just started, and Volodya does need more boys. Please, Olga Leonidovna, give him a chance! I’ll take full responsibility.”

“You’ll take full responsibility?” the educational specialist said, showing her teeth in a sneer.

Yurka was sure this was the end, but all of a sudden Olga Leonidovna scoffed.

“Fine. I’m holding you personally responsible. And no more warnings.” She glanced at Yurka. “Konev, if a single thing goes wrong, you’ll both answer for it. That’s right, you heard me: Irina will be punished for your mistakes. Maybe that’ll keep you in line.” Then she barked, “Volodya!”

Volodya had been hauling the music equipment out of the movie theater to set it up for the dance. When he heard his name, he stopped, blanching and blinking nervously. But then his darting glance shifted to Yurka, and in a flash Volodya changed completely: the color came back to his face, he squared his shoulders, and he marched boldly over to the instructor.

“Yes, Olga Leonidovna?”

“You’re getting a new actor. And to make sure he doesn’t sit around twiddling his thumbs when you need help with your drama club, we’re going to broaden the scope of Konev’s responsibilities. I want daily reports on his progress.”

“Yes, Olga Leonidovna. Konev ... it’s Yura, right? Rehearsal’s in the movie theater right after snack. Don’t be tardy, please.”

Taaaaardy, Yurka laughed to himself, mocking Volodya’s pretentious Moscow accent with its long, drawn-outa’s. But Volodya actually had a nice voice. It was a little deeper than the standard baritone, silky and pleasant, yet not at all singsongy or trained.

Up close, the troop leader didn’t look scared anymore. Quite the opposite. As Volodya walked up to Yurka and looked closely at him, Volodya seemed a completely different person, calmly taking hold of his glasses by both arms and resettling them on the bridge of his nose, then lifting hischin and looking down at Yurka a trifle superciliously. Yurka—who came up to Volodya’s nose, as it happened—leaned back on his heels and confirmed, “Understood. I’ll be on time.”

Volodya nodded and looked away, his gaze landing on some kids poking around the speaker cables. He ran over to them, sternly shouting: “Hey, what are you doing? Those cables are for the light and sound equipment!”

Yurka turned away. The dance floor was humming like a disturbed beehive. The Pioneers were getting back to business, each with a different task: hanging things, fixing things, painting, washing, sweeping ... and behind Yurka, in the band shell, he heard the creak of stretching cord. The kids were getting ready to hang up the big cloth banner that was spread out flat on the stage. San Sanych, the facilities manager, thundered, “Pull!” The cord twanged taut and the broad, bright red length of cloth with snow-white letters snapped into the air right over Yurka’s head.

Yurka scoffed, picked at the considerably frayed edge of his own Pioneer neckerchief, and scornfully chanted the ubiquitous Pioneer poem: “Pioneer, remember to treat your scarf well, and honor the story of duty it tells ...”

CHAPTER TWO

A STRAIGHT-UP CLOWN SHOW

The intermittent sprinkles of rain had turned into a steady shower, and the wind had picked up, blowing the choking smell of burnt diesel over from the construction site. The odor felt so out of place here that he had to get away from it, so Yura hurried over to the movie theater. He wouldn’t have been able to stay away from it anyway, even if he hadn’t been caught in the noxious wind and cold rain, since the theater was the place that brimmed most with memories of that summer.

The tall wooden building stood just next door to the outdoor stage. It was surprisingly well-preserved, except for the gaping black holes and protruding shards of glass where the large windows had been.

The steps leading up to the entrance creaked exactly as they had two decades ago, the evening they’d first met. Deep down, Yura was even glad to hear the creaking: How often do you get the chance to hear the pure, undistorted sounds of your childhood? If only he could hear the piano, too, Tchaikovsky’s deep, tender Lullaby, the leitmotif of that summer. This building was forever associated with music for Yura.

The outside of the movie theater was well-preserved; the inside, not so much. Thick, moth-eaten curtains fluttered at the windows. The door, insulated with felt padding, had at some point been broken down, and through the empty doorframe a strip of daylight pierced the large dim room. The light spread across the backs of the green seats that still stood in even rows. It fell on the bare wall, throwing the texture of the peeling paint into relief. It illuminated the dirty parquet floor. Yura’s gaze slipped along the band of light and landed on some parquet tiles that had been pulled out of the floor. Some of the light-brown wooden rectangles lay in jumbled piles, but others were placed next to each other, for all the world like broken-off piano keys. Like the keys of the piano that had been here, inside this very theater.

The stage. A birch sapling had forced its way up through the foundation over on the left, exactly where Volodya had been sitting on that fateful evening. It had broken through the rotten parquet floor and was reaching for the light, stretching toward the hole in the ceiling through which pale rays slanted into the large, dark room. The young tree’s unusually lush foliage only emphasized the surrounding emptiness, the absence of the piano that had once stood there.

Yura picked his way along the piano-key parquet tiles toward the birch. The moment he touched its slightly dusty leaves, he knew he didn’t want to leave. Not for anything. He wanted to stay here until it got dark, and look at the birch, and wait until the heavy curtain parted and the actors came out onto the stage. He leaned his shovel against the wall and sat in one of the decrepit seats. It creaked. Yura smiled, remembering the way the floor had squealed piteously underfoot during their first rehearsal, when Yurka had hesitated behind the felt-padded door that now lay flat on the porch. He’d been furious at Ira Petrovna then—so furious!

“No way, Ira! Aw, come on, Petrovna! What do I need your dumb theater for?!” Yurka had just gotten back from visiting the nurse and was in the worst mood ever. No surprise, given how many people had seen him not only get chewed out but made to look like a total idiot, too. That Olga Leonidovna could just go to hell and take her moralizing with her! All day Yurka was outraged and insulted and tried to think of a way to get out of attending rehearsal. But he couldn’t. So he had to clamp down on his cantankerousness, knowing that if he didn’t go to the theater that evening, he’d be betraying Ira Petrovna, who had put her head on the line for him.

But he was still furious—even planning on slamming the door to show everyone what he thought about this amateur hour nonsense. When he opened it, though, just as that top step had emitted its tiny creak—just as he was poised and ready for action—he froze in the doorway.

Volodya was the only one in the whole theater. He was sitting way over to the left, reading something in a notebook and munching on a pear. A radio next to him was trying to play Pachelbel’s Canon, constantly hissing and sputtering from interference. The static kept drowning out the sound of thepiano, and Volodya finally laid his notebook on his lap and, without taking his eyes off it, reached over and fiddled with the radio antenna.

Yurka was transfixed. This Volodya was artless, even touching. Hunched over in concentration, without a trace of bravado, the troop leader was sitting on the edge of the stage, swinging one foot back and forth. He bit into the pear with a crunch, chewed thoughtfully, then choked and coughed, giving his head a shake; evidently he’d read something he didn’t like. His glasses slid down to the tip of his nose.

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