Pioneer Summer

Chapter Three Yurka Makes A Deal

CHAPTER THREE YURKA MAKES A DEAL

Yurka was especially fond of mornings at Camp Barn Swallow. But only up until the point he had to emerge from under his warm blanket and drag himself outside to the camp washstand. Everything would be just fine ... The birds would be singing, the trees whispering, and the whole camp would be sleepy and melancholy ... But then they’d play a recording of the call to reveille over the loudspeaker, and although it was just a bugle, you might think, listening to it, that it was sinners shrieking in hell.

Regardless of the daytime heat, it got very cold at night in the woodsy environs. After warming up during the day, the ground cooled off, and by morning reveille a blanket of mist descended on the camp, along with a damp chill that was especially penetrating in contrast to the warm cabin. Even the kids whose parents had tempered them from birth with cold showers had to gather their courage to wash at the camp washstand, which was nothing more than a roof over a couple of metal troughs with faucets. The water from the washstand faucets came directly out of the ground, like water from a mountain spring, so not only was it not warm, it was so freezing cold it burned and made your teeth ache. But there was one indisputable benefit to washing with it: you definitely weren’t sleepy afterward.

Yurka, covered in goose bumps and wishing he could crawl back under his blanket, rubbed his face with his towel, gave an energetic “Brrr,” and threw his towel over his shoulder. He didn’t realize someone was talking to him until his gaze fell on Ira Petrovna.

“Konev! Are you even listening to me?”

“Ira Petrovna? What is it? Good morning!” Yurka could tell that Ira Petrovna was angry, but he wasn’t sure how he could’ve gotten in trouble already, given that he’d just gotten out of bed.

Irina rolled her eyes and ground through gritted teeth: “I’m asking you for the last time: Why did you tear up the lilacs yesterday? Hm?”

Yurka goggled at her in amazement. “What lilacs?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know! The lilacs behind the power shed!”

“I didn’t tear anything up, Ira Petrovna!”

“Like hell you didn’t! Who did, then?” She looked at him suspiciously.

“I don’t kn—”

“You were late to dinner yesterday, and then I saw leaves and petals by the door to the cabin and a bouquet in a jar on Polya’s nightstand. And this isn’t the first time you’ve broken off lilac boughs, either! The lilacs are almost done flowering anyway, but now that you’ve torn them up, they look disgraceful!”

“But why’s it automatically me? Polya could’ve broken off those boughs herself!”

Yurka was horribly hurt: here it all went, again, and for no reason, again. He really and truly hadn’t done it, but he was the one being accused. By inertia, apparently. Because the easiest thing, of course, was just to blame him: he was always stirring up trouble anyway, so it must be him this time, too.

Yurka scowled, trying to guess how much trouble he’d get in this time for something he hadn’t done.

“Irin, it really wasn’t him,” came a voice behind him. Yurka turned and saw Volodya. “Yura was in the theater yesterday, and then he was helping me bring a boy to the first aid station. That’s why he was late to dinner. So it was someone else who tore up your lilacs.”

Ira Petrovna stopped short, gave Yurka a look of amazement, and turned to Volodya. “He was helping you?”

“You heard it at the staff meeting: yesterday there was an accident in my club. Sashka fell off the stage and Yura stepped up to help,” Volodya assured her.

If there was one person she had to believe, it was Volodya. Irina was taken aback. Yurka let out a breath and shot Volodya a look of immense gratitude: he’d come not a moment too soon!

“I didn’t know that; we didn’t talk about it at check-in ... Never mind, then, Konev,” said Ira Petrovna. “If you really were helping, then good work. I’ll go ask the girls where they got the lilacs.”

“Fine, but couldn’t you have gone to them first?” he grumbled resentfully.

She just tousled Yurka’s hair as she left, making him huff in annoyance. He was angry enough to snap “What about an apology?” at her back.

She paused for a moment, tossed a “Sorry” over her shoulder, and walked away.

“Thank you,” said Yurka, smiling, as he turned to Volodya. “I thought I was really going to get it there.”

“No problem. You really aren’t to blame. It seems Olga Leonidovna’s already managed to convince Irina to blame you anytime there’s something strange going on. So now she’s picking on you.”

“But wait—what are you doing over here?”

“I came to tell you we’re heading to the river around ten. You volunteered to help yesterday—”

He was interrupted by Ira Petrovna, who’d suddenly reappeared. “Yura, after breakfast, instead of cleanup duty, go get Mitya from Troop Two. You remember him, don’t you? Take him and check the mattresses in the junior cabins. The kids were complaining that some of them were damp. Put the unusable ones in storage. I’ll get someone to bring new ones to the junior cabins by quiet hour.”

Yurka groaned in despair. “Gee, Ira Petrovna, thanks for not hitching me to a plow, at least!”

“Don’t clown around with me, or—” She broke off upon catching sight of Ksyusha coming out of the cabin. “Ksyusha, hold on! I have to ask you something about the lilacs ...”

“Somebody’s sure gonna get raked over the coals now,” said Yurka with a smirk.

Volodya sighed. “I’m guessing you’re not going to be able to make it to the beach?”

Yurka shrugged. “I’ll try to take care of this as fast as I can.”

He washed and headed back to his troop cabin to change. He shook hands in greeting with Vanka and Mikha, who were lolling on the bench by the entrance, and gave a short nod to Masha, who was grinning suspiciously. He was on the threshold, about to go into the cabin, when he stopped dead in his tracks. His troop’s wall newspaper was posted by the door. Every troop wrote one by hand every week on a large sheet of paper, applauding the good troop members and scolding the bad ones, and posted it publicly on the outside of their troop cabin for all to see. This issue was dedicated to the ceremonial opening of the session and the first day of camp. It was a nice, big, eye-catching wall newspaper, but it made Yurka’s mood go sour: he’d been subjected to public censure in the form of a caricature.

Half of the paper was taken up by a cartoon of a great big apple tree. From it, a stick figure version of Yurka was hanging upside down with a strand of lights wrapped around his ankle, arms and legs flailing. The drawing had actually turned out pretty well, it was funny, but the expression on Yura’s face was just too stupid. It wasn’t a face so much as an ugly mug, with a wide snout like a pig’s and a gaping mouth displaying a missing front tooth. But Yurka had all his teeth! And they were excellent, too! It was offensive. He was grown-up, basically, so stuff like this didn’t work on him, but it was still able to hurt his feelings. It already had, so many times ...

No matter how funny it was, it was still offensive. And since all the troops in camp avidly read each other’s wall newspapers, he’d be getting ribbed for his piggy snout all day, all over camp.

Even the delicious tvorog breakfast cake couldn’t get rid of the bad taste the wall newspaper left in his mouth. Before he went over to start hauling mattresses, Yurka got the artist’s name from his fellow troop members. It was Ksyusha. One of the Pukes. Yurka wasn’t going to go get revenge on her or anything—but he did make note of it.

The Mitka whose voice was broadcast from the radio was the one assigned to help Yurka. Or rather, Yurka was the one doing the helping, because Mitka was sent out on tasks like this all the time, where he was moving, lifting, and carrying things. Mitka not only sang well and had a good speaking voice, he was also big and strong. Yurka, thinking of all the things Mitka was that he wasn’t, felt out of sorts all of a sudden.

Sure enough, some of the mattresses were wet. The boys hauled out the six damp ones and dumped them next to the cabin. At first Yurka blamed the kids: they’d gotten scared, they hadn’t been able to hold it, they were still just Little Octoberists, these things happened at that age ... But when it turned out that all the wet mattresses were on beds right next to each other, Yurka walked around with an intent look on his face, then rubbed his chin in contemplation.

“Hey, Mit! Maybe the roof’s leaking. I heard there was some rain a few days ago. Maybe something happened to the roof?”

Mitya peered up at the ceiling, examining it closely, but didn’t see any stains. “And nobody noticed the water dripping from the ceiling?”

“There was nobody in the cabin then, it was in between sessions ... Listen, we need to climb up there and take a look.”

“You go right ahead. The roof wouldn’t hold me, anyway,” Mitya said, laughing.

Yurka nimbly ascended to the roof—he didn’t even need a ladder—and immediately spotted the issue. Right over the area where the wet beds were, the asphalt roofing material had cracked, so water was evidently getting in through the crack. Yurka crouched down and picked at the tarry surface with his fingernail, talking to himself as he figured it out: “This stuff probably cracked back last winter from the cold, and now, between the pouring rain and the burning heat, it’s finally given up the ghost. Need to tell the facilities manager ...”

“Yuwka! Hi, Yuwka!” he heard suddenly, down beneath him. Yurka was so startled, he jumped out of his skin.

A group of kids in yellow bucket hats was walking past: Troop Five, preceded by both its leaders, was making its way to the river. One of the little boys—Olezhka, who was also in drama club—had stopped, breaking up the column, and was shouting and waving both arms. Olezhka couldn’t say his r ’s right. This flaw in his speech became especially noticeable when he was shouting at the top of his lungs.

“Volodya, look! It’s Yuwka up thewe!”

“Hey! You get down off the roof or you’ll fall!” Volodya shouted sternly.

“What are you doing up there?” squeaked Sasha, the chubby boy who’d been injured the day before.

“I’m on the lookout for treasure hunters,” said Yurka, making it up on the spot. “They come here and poke around. Did you know this area was occupied by the Germans during the war?”

Suddenly he was filled with horror—but it wasn’t because he was about to fall. No. Yurka had seen the terrified but furious Ira Petrovna rushing toward him along a dirt path, raising a cloud of dust.

“Come on back to earth, Gagarin,” said Volodya. “I mean it. Get down.”

“Konev! For goodness’ sake— Konev !” Ira Petrovna’s shriek seemed to carry through the entire camp. “Hurry up and get off that roof! Now!”

“You want me to hurry up? Whatever you say.” Yurka stood back up and walked over to the side of the roof, pretending he was about to jump off.

“Oh no, Yurochka, don’t! Don’t do that! Just go down the same way you went up!” Ira cried. Once she caught sight of Yurka’s devious grin, she turned to Volodya and begged, “Volodya, do something!”

Volodya narrowed his eyes, mentally calculating the height of the roof, and then asked, completely calm: “So, are you coming to the river with us?”

The kids bellowed, “Come!” “Yes!” “Yes, he is!” “Come with us, Yuwka!”

“Well, I don’t know ... I still have to move those mattresses ... Or maybe you’ll let me go, Ira Petrovna? Mitka can move them himself ...” Yurka wobbled precariously on his tiptoes at the very edge of the roof.

In a thin, terrified voice, Ira Petrovna squeaked, “Go wherever you want, Konev! Just climb down from there normally, without jumping!”

Yurka shrugged as if to say, Why not? He crouched as though he were about to begin climbing down, but then jumped anyway. Ira Petrovna shrieked. When Konev emerged safe and sound from the bushes by the cabin, she blew out a breath in exasperation.

“We put the pile of wet mattresses over there,” Yurka said, smiling. “You don’t trust me, Ira Petrovna! You think I’m going to use a self-inflicted injury to get out of work. But you’re wrong!”

Ira Petrovna sighed in relief, so shaken that she had to lean against a tree. “Oh, Konev! Get yourself out of my sight!” But she was the one who left.

Twenty pairs of children’s shoes were arranged on the yellow sand in two even rows. Nearby, Polina, Ulyana, and Ksyusha were laying out on their towels, bodies arranged in graceful poses to get the most sun. A little farther away, a bored Masha lolled in a bit of shade with a volume of Chekhov. When he looked at Masha, Yurka was reminded of Chekhov’s comment about the gun hanging on the wall that eventually will have to be fired. He had no idea why. Nothing about Masha looked threatening—quite the opposite, in fact. She looked very romantic, with her light ruffled dress that fluttered in the breeze, occasionally baring a bit of tawny-gold thigh. Where does she find the time to sunbathe? Yurka wondered.

Without coming up with an answer—actually, without even bothering to try—he turned and saw Vanka and Mikha on the other end of the beach. They were also stretched out on towels, so evidently they’d just finished their civic duty work of sweeping all the common areas. But Yurka walked past them. Right now, he wasn’t interested in friends or girls. He was interested in Volodya.

Volodya was standing ankle-deep in the water, staring intently at the campers under his care. The river rippled in lazy little wavelets while the sun flashed off the surface and sparkled in the splashes of water sent up by the frolicking children. Troop Five was churning and squealing in the shallow zone, roped off by nets and buoys. It looked like the water was boiling. Zhenya, the handsome physical education instructor, was floating in a boat behind the barrier. Every so often he’d grunt a warning at the daring Olezhka, who kept swimming right up to the buoys. Lena, Troop Five’s second leader, was also on the beach, sitting in a chair raised on a platform. She kept an eye on the kids and shouted orders from a megaphone, but she remained perfectly relaxed and calm, unlike Volodya.

“Pcholkin! Quit splashing!” Volodya ordered.

Pcholkin quit, but as soon as the leader looked the other way, he snickered and splashed up gouts of water again.

A few steps and Yurka was next to Volodya, but he didn’t even have a chance to open his mouth before Volodya waved him off: “No time. Not now. Sorry.” Without turning his head, Volodya’s peripheral vision caught another infraction. He shouted, “Pcholkin! One more time and you’re out of the water!” right in Yurka’s ear.

Yurka blinked helplessly, deafened. Just to be on the safe side, he went back to the beach. He couldn’t bring himself to distract Volodya—at least, not until Pcholkin had been ejected from the water back onto dry land. The leader was pale with worry and getting more nervous every minute. Yurka would only have gotten in the way.

Vanka saw his friend and waved at him to come join them. Yurka willingly joined him on his towel. As Yurka listened to his friends with half his now-deaf ear, he kept getting distracted—by Volodya, or the Pukes, or Masha. The last of these was actually only pretending to read; what she was really doing was glaring sternly at the flirtatious girls and then gazing fondly at Volodya, waiting to see whether the businesslike leader would look her way. He didn’t. He was watching the splashing kids intently without taking his eyes off them; it even seemed like he was trying to blink as little as possible.

“You up for a game of twenty-one, Yurets?” Mikha pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket.

“Deal,” said Yurka absentmindedly. He took off his sandals and sat cross-legged on the sand. “What are we betting? Flicks?” The traditional finger flicks to the loser’s forehead were no joke. Unfortunately so, because with Yurka paying attention to anything and everything but the game, he kept losing. Badly. His forehead was burning from all the flicks by the time Mikha suggested a new game.

“Should we play durak next? And for the loser ... takeoff-and-landing, maybe?” suggested Mikha, eyes narrowed craftily. This punishment was an especially painful one: a slap to the front and then the back of the head. Vanka rubbed his hands together. Yurka nodded.

Yurka was finally able to get into the game while playing durak; no surprise, given what was at stake. But he had rotten luck. He only got two trumps, and they were both low: a two and a six.

Mikha was the first to get rid of all his cards; he eyeballed his companions, flexing his hands in anticipation and smiling an evil little smile. Yurka could tell what he was thinking just looking at him: I’m gonna give you such a takeoff-and-landing, you’ll black out.

Yurka played his last trump and cringed inwardly: he only had one card left, a ten of spades. He was screwed. Vanka bobbed up and down with glee and flung down the queen of trumps, shouting victoriously, “Wham! Take that!” Yurka scoffed in disgust. He’d been destroyed. He sighed and turned to Mikha.

Whack! Mikha smacked him hard in the forehead with the palm of his hand: takeoff. Yurka’s head flew back from the force of it. Then, before he could come to his senses, thwack! Mikha belted him on the back of the head: landing. Yurka’s head jerked forward, so far his nose almost touched his chest. First he saw stars; then everything really did sort of go dim.

“I’ll get you for that!” he whispered, blinking and trying to focus his eyes again. “One more game? Loser does a dare?”

“But what’s the dare?”

“When you lose, I’ll tell you!”

“Just nothing indecent! And nothing to do with leaders! I’m not going to run around behind Irina with scissors asking to cut her hair again.”

“Fine.”

Yurka focused all his will. He knew how to win without any trumps at all by thinking ahead, remembering his opponents’ cards, and counting turns. But this time Yurka got lucky: a three, a seven, and an ace. Oh, he’d show them!

And show them he did. Not only was he the first one to get rid of all his cards, he also counted turns and saw that Mikha, Mr. Takeoff-and-Landing himself, would be the one to lose. Which is exactly what happened. Mikha tossed his cards on the towel and edged warily closer to Yurka. “Well?”

“Go to the middle of the beach, kneel, and bow all the way to the ground four times while you shout—” But here Yurka leaned over to Mikha’s ear and whispered the words so Vanka wouldn’t hear.

“Aw, come on! Four times? Why?” scowled Mikha.

Vanka snorted, amused, and replied before Yurka could: “Because you had four cards left. If you don’t like it, we can always count points instead, like in twenty-one ...”

“Okay, okay,” Mikha answered. Downcast, he trudged off to perform his task.

But he didn’t go to the middle of the beach, like he’d been commanded to. He only took a few steps, then he stopped right in front of the Pukes. He gave Yurka a questioning look, but Yurka, baffled, was caught stock-still, and it took a few seconds for him to unfreeze and wave his arms frantically: “No, not here, keep going.” But it was too late. Vanka watched Mikha fall slowly to his knees and gasped: “Oh, here it comes!” while Yurka stifled a giggle.

Mikha knelt, then repeatedly bowed down and prostrated himself, beating his head on the sand as though trying to break through while yelling loud enough for the whole beach to hear: “Let me into your mine shaft!”

“Hey, Pronin! What are you, crazy?” Ulyana shrieked.

“Get out of here!” scoffed Polina, waving him away.

“Let me into your mine shaft!”

“Misha, that’s enough! You got sand all over my dress!” Ksyusha said indignantly.

“Let me into your mine shaft! Let me into your miiiine shaaaaft!”

Yurka was lying on the ground, gasping with laughter. Vanka was clutching his belly with one hand and pounding his towel with the other. The Pukes were pelting Mikha with whatever dresses, skirts, and blouses came to hand and shrieking so loudly that even the whole of Troop Five went quiet. Masha smiled, observing the fracas from her shady spot. Even Lena giggled. But Volodya turned around, annoyed and scowling, to snap harshly at them: “Girls! Quiet down!”

The “girls” only quieted down after a red-faced Mikha fled the beach in nothing but his swim briefs.

“But why a mine shaft?” asked Vanka, elbowing Yurka.

Yurka smiled and shrugged. “What else is underground? It’s the first thing that came to mind.”

Soon it grew quiet again—or what passed for quiet at a river beach at a Pioneer camp. Yurka, languishing from the heat, decided to go take a dip. As he got up from his towel, he overheard: “Volodechka’s gotten really bad ...” He turned to look at the girls and saw a frowning Ksyusha talking. “Girls like us are sitting over here in bathing suits, but he pays zero attention, even when that fool Pronin starts carrying on at us.” She clicked her tongue in disappointment. “You try your hardest, but all he’s got on his mind is kids.”

“He just really likes them. Which is a rare quality, by the way.” Polina turned over onto her back. “It’s cute. He’ll make a good dad.”

Yurka heard this as he was taking off his shirt and shorts. “Wow, what a model future mother,” he scoffed. Fortunately for him, the girls didn’t hear anything. They continued their conversation.

“Maybe something happened and now he’s worried?” Ulyana said, trying to defend Volodya.

“What is there to worry about? Both the phys ed instructor and the other troop leader are right there,” Ksyusha drawled lazily. “No, he’s gone all mean somehow. Just you wait, that Pcholkin’s gonna get it—”

“No, that’s not what I’m talking about!” interrupted Ulyana. “Maybe he has a girlfriend? That second leader there, Lena, for example. Why not? They sleep in rooms right next to each other, so maybe they ... well, you know. And then they had a fight?”

Polina even sat up. “You might just be right!”

“That’s impossible!” said Ksyusha confidently.

“Why’s that?”

“Because Volodya wasn’t at the dance yesterday, but Lena was, and she danced with Zhenya!”

“That’s right!” Polya said, excited. “Everybody goes to the dance, even the leaders of the youngest troops. It’s the best part!”

“Whoa there, Pol! Instead of getting all worked up, what about getting Volodya to show up today?” Ksyusha suggested. “Then we can see who he dances with.”

“Why does it have to be me?! What’s the—”

Polya didn’t even have a chance to get good and outraged. Ksyusha interrupted her: “Hey, Konev!” she snapped. “What are you doing standing there? Eavesdropping?”

Yurka was nonplussed at that. Like he really needed to eavesdrop on their stupid blabbering when they were shouting for the whole beach to hear! He could have ignored the outburst, but, to keep up appearances, he grumbled, “I’m standing here because I want to. It’s not your private beach.”

“Well, it’s not yours, either. Beat it!” retorted Ksyusha.

“Whoa, what’s gotten into you?” said Yurka, flabbergasted. He’d never heard girls talk like that.

“You’re making us look stupid in front of Volodya, that’s what’s gotten into me! We all heard you put Pronin up to it!”

“Oh? And who drew a picture of me as an idiot in the wall newspaper?” Yurka folded his arms across his chest angrily.

“It’s your own fault, you’re the one who pulled down those lights. So go on, get out of here! You’re blocking our UV rays!”

“Well—no amount of UV rays are gonna help you, you jerk. When you’re that stupid, nothing can help you. Any of you!”

He snatched up the shorts he’d tossed on the sand and walked away. He was angry and offended, of course, but he was more perplexed than anything else. If the three of them got what they wanted from Volodya, what then? Would they divide him in thirds or something? Although they already were dividing him up ... or rather, not Volodya himself, but the work of ... of doing what? Seducing him? Conducting an investigation into his personal life?

This was all incredibly dumb to Yurka. After all, he knew the real reason Volodya was so worried. First they’d scared him with drowning victims, now the kids were having water fights. No wonder he was worried to death!

And at that exact moment, a panicked “Heeeelp!” came from the water and the phys ed instructor blew his whistle.

Volodya flinched visibly and jerked forward, about to leap into the water fully dressed. But the thin, girlish voice rang out again, and this time it was tearful, not frightened: “He’s shoving me again!”

“Damn these kids!” Yurka read Volodya’s lips.

It was a false alarm: nobody was drowning, the kids were just goofing around. The senior campers relaxed. All of them, that is, except Volodya, who swallowed nervously and clenched his fists. At that exact moment, the kids got completely out of hand and an honest-to-goodness fight broke out, with furious poking, shoving, and shouting.

Yurka had no intention of calmly watching Volodya and discussing the situation, like the Pukes. His expression went cold and stern; he swiveled his awesome foreign-import cap so it was on backward and, to be even more imposing, he glared angrily at the little kids. He stomped through the water to Volodya to break up the fight and call the hooligans to order.

After a brief but fierce battle with Pcholkin, who tried to swim away, the two of them managed to drag him by his swim briefs back to dry land. Yurka stood him on the sand and leaned down to him. “Pcholkin, do you want to become a Pioneer?”

“Yes!”

“Did you know that the Pioneers don’t take little boys who hit little girls?”

“No! I mean ... but she started it!”

“Doesn’t matter who started it. You can’t hurt girls!”

While Yurka lectured the hooligan, Volodya heaved a sigh of palpable relief and headed back into the water to monitor the other children. Yurka left the touchingly chagrined Pcholkin to serve his time onshore and went to help Volodya count his troop’s flip-flops, clothing, and heads.

Yurka’s efforts were not in vain. He was very pleased to hear not just the whole trinity of Pukes but even Masha—who was usually focused on Volodya—exclaim, “Yurka did such a good job! An honest-to-goodness assistant troop leader!” That proud “good job” was so gratifying that Yurka forgot his hurt feelings for a while, and the words Ira Petrovna had said to him kept reverberating happily in his heart: “I never doubted you, Yura. But now I’m actually proud of you! I’ll talk about this at the staff meeting, let them all know what kind of person our Konev is!”

But of all the things people said to him, the sweetest, the absolute nicest and happiest thing of all was Volodya’s quiet, exhaled “Thanks,” along with the benevolent gleam in his gray-green eyes. That “Thanks” warmed Yurka to the bottom of his heart all that day and night. Because it had been earned, and also because it had been said by him, by Volodya ... someone who, after that brief half hour together at the beach, Yurka thought he understood better, was closer to. Someone who was maybe even almost a friend.

As it happened, the rambunctious children on the river weren’t Volodya’s worst problem. That same day, during rehearsal, Olezhka decided to tyrannize the artistic director about getting a big part in the play. He did have a loud voice, and memorized his dialogue quickly, and really got into character ... but his speech impediment made it hard to tell what he was saying half the time. Volodya didn’t want to insult Olezhka, but at the same time he couldn’t assign him a big speaking part. In the end, he promised he’d listen to the others, too, and then pick whoever was best. He assured Olezhka he’d get a part no matter what.

Yurka, bored, observed the free-for-all. Watching Masha had stopped being boring and started to become physically painful: in the background she kept pounding out the same old piece, the Moonlight Sonata, which everyone was sick of by now. What was worse, she also played it badly. Yurka tried not to listen, but he heard it anyway, and wished that both Masha and the damned instrument were far, far away.

Music ... he couldn’t imagine himself without music. It had sent its roots deep inside him, become part of him. But now—how long had he been trying to rip it out of himself? A year? His whole life? It had been so hard for him to learn to live in silence, but, out of nowhere, here was a piano, and here was Masha, an excellent example of how not to play. And temptation came out of nowhere, too, along with the certainty that Yurka could’ve played better than her—not now, maybe, but earlier, a whole lifetime ago, back when he still could, when he still knew how. Now he’d forgotten. All he had left was listening to others while he suffocated in his own silence, emptiness, and burning self-hatred.

He watched Masha with gritted teeth. He tried to sneer at the way she cast longing glances at Volodya, but he couldn’t sneer. All he could do was get inexplicably angrier and angrier. He wanted to refocus his anger on someone else, like the trinity, but the girls hadn’t even shown up to rehearsal.

Yurka barely made it to the end of rehearsal before running off to change for the dance. As he was leaving the cabin, completely immersed in thoughts of the pack of cigarettes in their hiding place behind the fence around the unfinished barracks, someone called his name: “Yurchik!”

Polina grabbed Yurka by the elbow and gave him a conspiratorial look. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

Yurka hesitated for a moment or two, still feeling angry from earlier, but his curiosity won out.

“What do you want?” He turned around and looked at her, half-questioning and half-angry.

“Are you mad at us or something? Don’t be mad, Yur. Come on, come over here.” Polina pulled him into the girls’ room of their cabin. Ulyana and Ksyusha were waiting there. Yurka really didn’t like their sarcastic expressions.

“Listen, Yurchik ...” Polina smiled sweetly and twisted a lock of wheat-gold hair around a finger. “You get along really well with Volodya, right?”

Yurka sighed. So that was what they wanted. The whole trio had a giant crush on the troop leader and now they wanted Yurka to get them together. Fat chance! Although ... Suddenly he thought of a cunning plan.

“Yes,” Yurka answered, letting his gaze pass mysteriously over the three of them. “We talk some. What about it?”

“Does he ever, like, go to the dances, do you know?”

Yurka shrugged.

“I don’t know. He’s probably busy with the little kids.”

Polina perked up and actually bit her lip: “Listen, but what if you could maybe get him to come to the dance somehow?”

Even though he already knew what he was going to do, Yurka pretended he was considering her proposal.

“I can try. No promises. But ...”

“But what?” Polya smiled even more sweetly than before, but it was such a fake sweetness that Yurka’s teeth almost stuck together the way they did when he ate toffees.

“What do I get in exchange?” He smirked impudently.

“What do you want?”

He assumed a thoughtful mien again, going so far as to scratch his chin.

“For Ksyusha to kiss me! On the cheek! Twice, and in front of everybody!”

“What?!” Ksyusha, who’d been sitting calmly on the bed until that point, went red and jumped to her feet. Evidently she disliked Yurka’s proposal.

He spread his hands wide. “Either that, or you go get him to come to the dance yourselves!”

The trinity exchanged glances. Ulyana sighed, “Well, at least we tried,” while Ksyusha shook her head vigorously in protest.

“Yurchik, wait outside the door for a minute, could you?” asked Polina, shooting a sly look at Ksyusha. “We’ll be just a second.”

He nodded. He didn’t even have a chance to get outside before the girls started whispering furiously behind him. A couple of minutes later, a sullen Ksyusha poked her head out. “Fine. It’s a deal.”

Yurka nodded solemnly. And when he left the mess hall after dinner, he headed right over to the junior cabins to invite Volodya. A deal was a deal.