Page 63 of Pioneer Summer

Don’t get up. Today of all days.

“Yur! Come on, Yura, wake up, let’s go,” whined Mikha, pulling Yurka’s blanket off. “Why are you dressed?” he asked, surprised, but Yurka didn’t reply.

Yurka had already known the day before that Volodya would look for him after he ran away, so he’d gone right to the place the troop leader would look last: his own cabin. He’d jumped into bed without undressing. If Volodya had shown up, it was after everyone was asleep, and he didn’t risk waking him.

Yurka didn’t know whether he’d been asleep when Volodya was there. Basically, Yurka had no idea what he’d done all night. He’d closed his eyes, but had he slept?

He got out of bed, changed clothes wordlessly, and trudged out to morning calisthenics.

Turned out to be easy to walk in a column: no need to lift your gaze off the ground. You drag yourself along, looking down at the feet of the person walking in front of you, and you’re a hundred percent sure the column will take you somewhere. And it did. It took him to the athletic fields, where the entire camp gathered to do morning calisthenics. Including Volodya. If only he could get out of there!

How easy it was to just observe the shadow of the person in front of him and copy the motions. Yurka was physically incapable of lifting his head, even though he got yelled at to pull his chin up and keep his back straight. But Yurka couldn’t do it. Volodya was everywhere. They would meet; their eyes would definitely meet; it was inevitable, unavoidable. Yurka wouldn’t drop dead on the spot, of course, but he wouldn’t be able to just stand there. Maybe his feet would be rooted to the ground, maybe his whole body would be frozen, but he’d still find a way to do something. He’d take it out on himself, all the anger and hate ... He could bite his tongue off, but his tongue wasn’t his enemy. It wasn’t something he’d said that Yurka could hate himself for; it was something he’d done. Why had he gone and done that?!

Assembly. Troop One traditionally stood facing Troop Five. Yurka and Volodya were the tallest out of everyone there, and, like everyone there, they had to look straight ahead. But Yurka didn’t obey the rule, because he could feel Volodya’s gaze. This gaze didn’t freeze him, nor did it burn him; it smothered him, so much that he felt his face was about to turn gray.

Pioneer anthem. Flag. He had to lift his hand in the Pioneer salute. Looking up high was allowed. This was good. It was okay because it wasn’t straight ahead.

They assigned everyone’s duties. Yurka was detailed to the mess hall. On his way there, he noted that the Avenue of Pioneer Heroes was paved with excellent asphalt. It was smooth, and gray, and patterned by the shadows of the birch trees along its length, and it glimmered with spots of sunlight that pierced the foliage. But the weird thing was that these little bits of light kept changing, first running together into little blotches, then spreading and diffusing like ink drops in water. Or maybe the problem wasn’t the asphalt;maybe Yurka’s eyes were the problem? No. Yurka himself was the problem. Why had he gone and done that?

While he set out chairs in the mess hall, he tried to come to terms with the idea that he and Volodya had no future together, and that after what he’d done yesterday, all he’d have from then on would be the past: their brief friendship and all else that was good, including Yurka’s leniency toward himself, his self-respect, his self-esteem, were trapped in yesterdays. And his confusing feelings for Volodya had to remain there too.

While he spread the tablecloth, Yurka decided he had to forget these feelings, whatever they were, as soon as possible. No matter what he did, any recollection of Volodya would inevitably be tainted with the memory of his own shameful act. And then he’d remember the response: “You quit that.” No, this feeling would not let Yurka live in peace. But live he would!

Yurka knew that somewhere, out there past the camp fence, was a vast, alluring terra incognita where he would undoubtedly find freedom from all of this: the memories and the shame. It would be so great if he could escape, to get out past the horizon. No—notif. When.He had to escape!

Yurka moved his spoon around his bowl. He ate slowly and mechanically, with no idea what he was eating. He wasn’t paying attention. There was a big pat of butter in his bowl, a yellow splotch on top of a pale, flavorless blob. He knew a piece of bread was disintegrating into crumbs in his left hand, and he knew there was a hot drink by his bowl, but he had no idea what was going cold in it, tea or hot cocoa. When somebody sitting across from him drank, Yurka drank. When they ate, Yurka ate. Not because he wanted to, but because somebody said he had to.

He got up only when all of Troop Five, headed by both troop leaders, had left the mess hall. While the other campers with kitchen duty cleared and wiped off the tables, Yurka hauled trays of dirty dishes and thought about what to do next.

Morning calisthenics, assembly, civic duty work ... he’d survive all that. He’d survived last night somehow, hadn’t he? But the play—his role was so small, anybody could handle it. Really, he wasn’t needed at rehearsal at all. Maybe Volodya would even take pity on him and kick him out of drama club. Then there’d be fewer encounters, after all; fewer words, fewer regrets. MaybeYurka could even figure out how to live in a way that kept him completely away from Volodya. Maybe he could get used to not being around Volodya. It was easier because it wouldn’t be Volodya anyway—not the Volodya who’d been with Yurka up until last night, the one who was good, and kind, and interesting, the one he felt close to. But sooner or later Yurka would’ve had to endure this separation anyway. Sooner or later Yurka would’ve had to learn not to love him.

The girls tasked Yurka with putting the chairs on the tables so they could mop the floor. The chairs weren’t made of anything heavy, just the thin, almost plywood seats and aluminum legs, but he was surprised by how heavy they felt. He soon tired, but stubbornly kept on lifting chairs, one after another. This kind of boring work was very conducive to thinking.

He and Volodya would eventually run into each other, and what would he do when Volodya asked,Why did you do that?Because he would ask, obviously. He was Volodya.

Yurka let out a prayer, without knowing who it was to: “Let him never talk to me again! Let him not even come close to me, let him act like I don’t exist, let him not even look in my direction—just don’t let him ask me about anything!” Yes, it would be awful. But Yurka was strong. He could stand both contempt and hate. He and Volodya would be comrades in that contempt and hate, actually. Let them have that, at least, as the last thing they’d share. Let the worst happen, in the worst possible way, as long as Volodya didn’t ask!

Yurka walked to the middle of the mess hall, where the girls had already mopped, to set out the chairs again. He was reaching up for a chair but flinched when a soft, but painfully familiar voice said behind him: “Yura?”

He was here! Yurka locked his eyes straight ahead and his heart fell. The large, spacious mess hall, with its tiled floor and simple, white, weightless furniture, was as bright and clean as an operating room, but in a heartbeat it transformed into a dark tomb. Cracks shot through the black walls, which shifted and then slowly fell down on top of him.

“Yura, what’s going on?”

Despondent, bereft of speech, Yurka couldn’t so much as peep, or breathe, or move a muscle.

“Let’s go. We need to talk.” Volodya put his hand on Yurka’s shoulder, then shook it gently, but all Yurka did was silently duck his head. The Pukeswere also on duty in the mess hall that day and they gathered around the boys. Volodya, who didn’t let go of Yurka’s shoulder, talked with them and even looked like he was smiling, but Yurka could feel Volodya’s hand on his shoulder trembling.

Volodya somehow extricated them from the girls and hissed through his teeth right into Yurka’s ear: “Yura, I said we’re going!” The floor seemed to tremble from the cold in his voice. Without waiting for any kind of reaction, he seized Volodya’s arm and dragged him from the mess hall.

Yurka didn’t know how he ended up outside. The white entrance hall, the creaking door, and the gray stairs raced past, a series of film stills in rapid succession—the way Yurka’s entire life was racing by, actually. The humid morning air touched his cheeks. Yurka found himself on a bench. Volodya had sat him down and was now looming over him, a giant grim shadow.

“Explain what happened yesterday! What’s it all mean?”

“I kissed you. Because I fell in love with you, apparently.” This is what Yurka tried to say, mentally repeatingI fell in love with youas though he were seeing how it tasted. He didn’t like the taste. It was flavorless, fake. But he couldn’t come up with another explanation. So he tried to reply, “I like you,” but the words got stuck in his throat. The only thing he could actually force out was “I don’t know.”

“How can you not know? Was it a joke or something?”

Yurka flinched involuntarily. He couldn’t raise his eyes to look at Volodya. But it wasn’t just his eyes: his whole head felt so heavy, he couldn’t understand how it hadn’t broken his neck. Yurka searched obstinately for words, he strove with all his might to find an answer, his gaze combed the gray asphalt—maybe if the answer wasn’t inside him, he’d discover it out there?

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