Page 99 of Pioneer Summer

He loved that letter, and he loved that name, and he loved that person, and he lovingly drew a big, beautiful heart around theV. He used to laugh at people who drew things like that. He used to think it was stupid, childish. But that was before he’d met his V.

Yurka heard footsteps on the path leading to the unfinished barracks. He recognized them and suddenly felt shy. Volodya had finished so quickly! But Yurka wasn’t done drawing his heart yet. He pulled the chalk down in a crooked line, intending to bring it to meet the other line to make the point at the bottom of the heart, but out of nowhere he started to feel uncertain: What would Volodya think when he saw it? Maybe he, serious as he was, would think it was silly. Maybe he’d think it was just naive childishness and tell Yurka, “You need to grow up!” And then Yurka would be not just embarrassed but hurt.

To avoid being caught red-handed, he blindly drew a final line with his chalk and then ducked into the bushes. But he accidentally spoiled the heart: instead of a sharp point at the bottom, there was a curve. It wasn’t a heart at all. It was an apple. An apple that had the letterVinside it.

Volodya noticed the letter. He stopped. His shoulders shook—was he laughing?—and he shook his head back and forth a few times. Yurka thought Volodya would leave after that, but Volodya stood over the drawing for a good minute, examining it from various angles, as though he wastrying to commit every flourish and every little detail to memory. Yurka was getting sopping wet in the sodden bushes, but he had no complaints. He admired Volodya as the older boy stood over that uneven, misshapen heart.

Volodya moved to take a step, and Yurka’s heart skipped a beat: he couldn’t be about to scuff it away, could he? But Volodya had no intention of scuffing or trampling anything. He gave the heart a wide berth, walking all the way out in the grass. He could’ve walked along the edge of the paving stones; it would only have smudged the heart a little, just a teeny, tiny bit, just a centimeter of it. That’s what Yurka would’ve done. But Volodya walked around the heart, treading on the wet, muddy grass.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE SHOW

The morning of the show, the morning of the last day of Session Two of the Barn Swallow Pioneer Camp of the summer of 1986, emerged overcast and gloomy. By the time breakfast started, the sky was completely dark; a north wind had chased in a mass of heavy gray rain clouds, which hung directly over the camp, so fat they looked fit to burst. The only question was when they’d let loose. But Yurka—like Volodya, and like the entire cast—had no time to think about extraneous matters. Work was going full steam ahead; they had no time left for anything, not even sadness. Although Yurka was occasionally visited by sad thoughts, of course. How could he not be, after that nighttime conversation, after everything that had been said?

Yurka finished painting the stage decorations, set them up in their places, touched base with the actors, double-checked the cues for the sound effects, told Alyosha Matveyev what he needed to do during the show, and carried chairs from the mess hall to the theater because there weren’t enough seats in the audience for everyone. In between all those tasks he also managed to run through his lines, rehearse the scene with Krause a couple of times, and practice the Lullaby, which it seemed he could again play even with his eyes shut.

On top of everything else, Olga Leonidovna also showed up to rehearsal first thing in the morning. She spent a long time walking around the movie theater with Volodya, discussing something with him. The conversation made Volodya completely despondent; he told Yurka that the educational specialist had demanded that he sit in the audience with her and the camp director. She had said that the show was the Pioneers’ own work and she needed to see what they were capable of when the troop leaders weren’t helping. “Will you sub in as director for me today?” Volodya asked.

Yurka agreed. He wasn’t upset by the responsibility that had fallen to him. He knew the script backward and forward, and he already had a ton of responsibilities anyway: running the lights, prompting the kids if they forgot their lines, making sure the curtain was open and closed at the right times, and so forth. Overseeing the entire show didn’t really add much extra work. Plus it had already become a habit for Yurka to keep himself busy to avoid his own sad, longing thoughts. Right now he was avoiding them with all his might, but despite his best efforts, fragments of his conversation with Volodya kept coming back to Yurka periodically, first throwing him into a fever, then giving him chills.

One part came back to him most of all: “I’ve thought a lot about us, and about myself. And of course about what I’m going to do about my abnormality.” Yurka’s heart went painfully tight. At that moment he was moving the stage decorations for the first scene out from backstage and issuing instructions to Alyoshka and Mikha, who were helping him. He stopped and looked over at the stage, where Volodya was explaining something to Vanka, who was playing one of the Germans.

Why do you treat yourself like this?Yurka asked Volodya silently.In what way are you “abnormal”? Have you even seen yourself? How can you think that?He shook his head dejectedly.

Yurka and Mitka were checking that the curtain opened and shut smoothly. Volodya’s voice sounded in Yurka’s thoughts: “I spent a lot of time on this and found out a little about how it’s treated.” A shiver ran down Yurka’s spine. He stood still, then took a deep whiff of the dusty air, recalling how he and Volodya had kissed for the first time, wrapped up in that very curtain. Yurka started shaking as soon as he imagined the doctors eradicating those memories from Volodya’s head, those feelings from Volodya’s heart.

“You’re not the first person for whom I’ve had ... this.” What was he like? That first one, the other Volodya Davydov? Of course Yurka couldn’t help wondering about him. Was that Volodya as good as his Volodya? He must have been, because Volodya couldn’t fall in love with a bad person, right? Yurka felt ambivalent about this other Volodya. If he, Yurka, had been Volodya’s first love, then maybe Volodya wouldn’t have considered himself such a monster, wouldn’t have taken all of this so hard ...

After breakfast he went to the mess hall to get the chairs for the theater. He heard the clattering and clanging of dishes in the kitchen, and with them Volodya’s words: “I don’t want to do anything that’ll harm you! And I won’t! Yurka, it’s harmful! It is!” And then remembered Volodya’s hands over the vat of boiling water and understood, in a burst of realization like an electric shock. At the time, Yurka couldn’t figure out why Volodya was doing that, but now it all made sense: it was punishment! Volodya deliberately caused himself pain in order to punish himself! But why? What an idiot that boy was! Did he really need to punish himself for these feelings, these good, exalted feelings?

Was that why Volodya had been so stern about forbidding Yurka to touch him? He kept telling Yurka to move his hand away; he didn’t want to kiss Yurka for real ... But what would’ve happened if Yurka hadn’t moved his hand, if he had kissed Volodya for real, despite Volodya’s resistance? Because Yurka wanted so badly to experience that kind of thing with Volodya ... He didn’t see anything shameful about it, it was simply an expression of his love, but Volodya obviously regarded it as something that would ruin both of them. Or—how had he put it? That he was afraid of defiling Yurka? But that just made no sense, and it also made Yurka a little mad: How come Volodya got to decide everything without even asking him? Why was he so intent on being the only guilty one?

Nice try, but no, thought Yurka, grinding his jaw.I can make decisions myself. I can tell the difference between good and bad. And no matter what Volodya says, these feelings are the best thing that’s happened to me my whole life. They can’t ruin anyone or anything!

But he didn’t end up finding a time to get Volodya alone to talk. That whole morning all they could do was exchange sad or knowing glances or murmur work-related phrases as they prepared for the show. It wasn’t until right before the show, when the audience was already starting to take their seats, that Volodya finally came to Yurka, who was in the supply closet with the rest of the cast, getting into his outfit for the performance.

Yurka was having a sense of déjà vu as he stood in front of the mirror, trying, with shaking hands—he was already in the throes of stage fright—to tie his neckerchief. Then Volodya approached, put his hand on his shoulder,turned him around, and started tying the red knot at Yurka’s neck. It was all exactly the same way it had been before Summer Lightning, except that now they were in a tiny room that was crowded with people. Yurka looked around in fear, searching for Masha, but didn’t see her. And what was wrong with this, anyway—with Volodya helping him tie his neckerchief?

“Yur,” said Volodya quietly. “I’m really looking forward to your Lullaby.” Even more quietly, he added, “It’s the only thing I’m looking forward to ...”

Yurka took a long, searching look into Volodya’s sad eyes. “I’ll be playing it just for you. Promise you’ll watch me the entire time.”

Volodya nodded. “Of course.” He smoothed the ends of Yurka’s neckerchief and turned around to the rest of the boys in the supply closet: “Does everyone remember I won’t be here backstage with you? Listen to Yura, he’s in charge!”

The boys nodded and Volodya left. Olezhka ran over to Yurka and gazed, entranced, at his neckerchief. He had evidently understood Volodya’s order literally, since he paused and waited expectantly. Finally he asked, in a whisper, “Yuwa, is it twue that the Pioneews won’t take someone like me, who can’t say theiwr’s?”

“What? That’s stupid! Who’s telling you that?” Yurka couldn’t restrain himself.

“Oh, you know ... I heawd it fwom lots of people.”

“Of course the Pioneers will take you! Grandpa Lenin himself said hisr’s different, and he wasn’t just a Pioneer, he was the leader of the world proletariat! So it’ll all work out for you, too, Olezhka! Don’t you listen to anybody, you’ll—”

“So I don’t have to listen toyou?” Olezhka narrowed his eyes shrewdly, grinning.

Yurka hadn’t even finished rolling his eyes before Olezhka darted away.

By one o’clock the audience was filled to bursting. There weren’t enough seats for everyone even with the extra chairs from the mess hall, so some people had to sit in the aisle. The house lights went down and the auditorium went silent. Then Volodya came out onstage in front of the closed curtain. The honor of saying some introductory words fell, as was proper, to theartistic director. And, as was also proper, he began, “Esteemed audience members, we offer for your consideration a show marking the anniversary of our beloved Pioneer Hero Zina Portnova Barn Swallow Pioneer Camp ...”

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