freckles on it. If you looked at his eyes, mouth and nose separately they
somehow did not seem to go together, but if you looked at them all
together, you got Vitalka.
I hardly remember what I was like, The only photograph of that time I
still have is of mother, Uncle Seva, Lenka and me. On it I am
well-groomed, lobster-eyed and amazingly clean and tidy. Vitalka used to
say that apart from my sticking-out ears, I did not look at all like
myself in that picture.
And, anyway, I hardly ever looked in a mirror.
True, there was one mirror I was always passing: it stood in the hall
at the foot of the stairs and was cloudy, tarnished and full-length.
Whenever I dashed past it to run up the stairs, a puny, thin-legged lad
with peeling sunburnt shoulders would dash past with me in this mirror as
if it were a dark narrow doorway.
But I never got a really good look at myself because there was never
time. I was always hurrying upstairs to our cabin, our headquarters, our
fortress and kingdom, our watchtower. It was like a little house built on
top a larger one and consisted of only one small room, its walls made of
bare boards. All sorts of tiny creatures, such as spiders, beetles and
crickets, lived in the cracks between these creaky old boards, but we
weren't afraid of them and did them no harm.
The walls were decorated with my wooden weapons and Vitalka's
paintings - not all of them, of course, but the best ones - and I was
especially fond of "The Flying Dutchman" and "The Revolt of the
Gladiators".
"The Flying Dutchman" showed a mysterious dark frigate with tattered
sails. The pointed end of a crescent moon was peeping through the largest
hole in the sail and a small yellow light was burning faintly on the
stern.
The "Gladiators" was even better. It showed rebellious gladiators in
Roman circus chasing rich men in long robes down marble steps.
Hanging there, too, was a huge old-fashioned watch belonging to
Auntie Valya's grandfather. It was silver, bulbous and French-made and
she had given it to us so that we learnt to appreciate the value of time.
However, she did not let us touch it and always wound it herself.
The room had two windows facing south and north. The bright sun used
to shine through the south window all day long and in the evenings a
large star whose name we did not know used to twinkle in the radiant sky
seen through the north window. Sometimes a pink porous moon peeped into
that windows from the east.
We used to study the moon through a small brass telescope which
Auntie Valya had also inherited from her grandfather and we used to
imagine how long, long ago his pupils had observed the planets through
similar telescopes.
Despite its venerable age, the telescope was still in good working
order and the moon through it looked like a huge crispy round loaf, and
seemed so close you felt you could reach out and touch it.
... I only have to shut my eyes and I remember everything in the
minutest detail. No, more than that, it's as if I am back in the small
room again.
It is quite dark. The telescope is standing on a window-sill and
Vitalka and I are squatting down in front of it. In the gloaming our
beetles and crickets are rustling and scrapping about in the cracks and
under the pictures on the walls. The telescope smells sourly of old
brass. Vitalka is breathing rapidly as he looks through the eyepiece and
I am sitting beside him, with my cheek pressed against his, waiting for
my turn. His shaggy hair is tickling my temple.
All of a sudden Vitalka says in a whisper, "Those schoolboys, all
those years ago, d'you think they studied the planets in the same way?"
"Of course they did!"
"But it was so long ago... It's even hard to imagine. After all, they
didn't even have electricity then."
"So what? The telescope was invented by Galileo even longer ago.
You've been looking through it for a whole hour now, Vitalka. More
over..."
He moved his head aside and I pressed my eye to the eyepiece.
... Looming before me all of a sudden was a terrifyingly mysterious
and alien world. A bumpy desert with stone rings and craters... What was
it like? Who lived there? Would we ever find out?
Vitalka and I were firmly convinced that space flights would start
any day now. After all, several Sputniks were already circling the Earth.
However, this did not make the Moon seem any less mysterious.
"... You've been looking for a whole hour," grumbled Vitalka.
I tore myself away from the telescope with a sigh. What's that? Could
that golden rosy disc shining high above the attics and aerials really be
the same planet that was so close only a moment ago?
Vitalka sat by the eyepiece while I climbed onto the warm windowsill
and sat next to the telescope with my legs dangling outside. Close by my
elbow its dark lense seemed like a huge bulging eye, and the moon's
reflection was floating deep inside it like a golden seed.
I grinned craftily and covered the lense with my palm. The telescope
jerked angrily.
"What are you doing?" asked Vitalka.
"It's a Martian spaceship flying by."
"You'll be flying yourself if you don't watch out," threatened
Vitalka. "Down to the planet Earth. How about that?"
"No, I'm fine up here, tanks... Look, Vitalka, there's a motorship.
Perhaps it's the "Tobolsk?""
Over the roofs, firs and poplars the silhouette of a ship with three
coloured lights appeared round the bend of the light bank of the river.
Vitalka quickly climbed through the window, sat down next to me, took
the telescope off its stand and looked through it. We often did this when
we wanted to watch the things going on around us. True, everything in the
telescope was upside down but this made it even more interesting.
After gazing for about half a minute through the eyepiece like
Admiral Nelson in the film "Lady Hamilton", Vitalka shook his head in
disappointment and said, "So much for your motorship! It's a tug.
Land-lubber, that's what you are!"
I should have shoved Vitalka into the room for saying this, sat
astride him and pulled his ears. But, first of all, I'm not sure I was
strong enough and, secondly, I felt rather awkward because my mother was
just across the road whereas his parents had been far away for a whole
month and I had aroused a false hope in him.
To take his mind off it, I said, "There definitely aren't any people
on the Moon. But as for Mars... Well, if there are..."
"Then what?" asked Vitalka.
"If there are... It means there must be boys on it, too?"
"Well.. I suppose so..."
"I wonder if they play at soldiers?"
Chapter Three
Playing at soldiers was our favourite game. We started it the first
summer we made friends and two years later had several large shoeboxes
containing a huge army: about three thousand infantrymen, cavalrymen,
gunner and scouts. Our brave men were about the size of a little finger.
We drew them on cardboard and then cut them out with nail scissors.
Or, to be more precise, it was Vitalka who drew them for even then he
was already a fine artist and, most importantly, he had a fantastic
imagination and made tons of different-coloured uniforms, feathered
helmets, drums and banners...
However, it was I who made the entire artillery for both armies.
Auntie Valya used to give us empty cotton reels which at once became gun
barrels and wheels. From the cannons we fired peas, dried ashberries and
the tiny glass beads which Auntie Valya also gave us and which were heavy
and especially lethal shells.
Whenever it was drizzling and we did not feel like going outside, we
would lay out a battlefield on the floor, spreading a mounted formation
of dragoon and hussar regiments over a wide front, hiding scouts and
observers in little nooks and crannies and standing our
different-coloured infantrymen and chasseurs in square formation. Next we
laid out our batteries, put a pile of shells by each cannon and attached
rubber bands to the barrels...
The artillery would ruthlessly mow down the cardboard troops, and
defensive breastwork, redoubts and bulwarks would have to be quickly
erected.
Then one day Vitalka hid his army behind a high thick paper wall
which had bricks painted on it and looked just like an impregnable
fortress.
In their brightly-coloured mauve and blue uniforms my generals were,
like me, completely nonplussed for a while. Then, however, they hid from
enemy fire behind an upturned stool and held a council of war (while
Vitalka's artillery kept up a barrage from loopholes). And five minutes
later we declared to our enemy, "Ha-ha! We aren't afraid of the big bad
wolf!"
Then we lifted the cannons' wheels onto supports so that their
barrels were pointing upwards and opened high-angled mortar fire. The
shells flew into the air and then rained down on our enemies' heads.
Panic broke out behind the fortress wall. Falling into the soldiers'
midst, the shells bounced off the floor and struck someone or other every
time.
Entering upon negotiations, Commander-in-Chief Vitalka accused us of
violating the honourable rules of warfare. He argued that our shells were
bouncing off the ceiling and this was making their blows harder.
"Well, that's great!" I said ruthlessly. "That's just what we want."
"But it's not fair. In real life the sky isn't hard and so shells
can't possibly bounce off it."
"But we're playing at old-fashioned war. At that time people still
didn't know that the sky wasn't hard. On the contrary, they were always
talking about the heavenly firmament!"
"Well, so what! It still wasn't hard then either," retorted Vitalka,
smashing my cunning argument.
"How do you know?" I blurted out. "Perhaps it was. After all, nobody
flew up and checked, did they?"
Vitalka blinked, obviously at a loss, then came up with a real plum,
"How do you know nobody did? Perhaps they did!"
"Ha, ha!" I said. "Well, what did they fly in, then?"
"Ho, ho," replied Vitalka gloomily, realising he had lost the
argument. "Magic carpets."
I glanced at him with pity and sighed.
If only we had known...
But we did not know anything yet and were completely absorbed in the
battle.
"Take your wall away and I'll lower my cannons," I suggested.
"Get stuffed!" graciously rejoined Field-Marshal Gorodetsky and
swiftly re-formed his troops in long columns with large gaps between
them. His losses at once diminished. Then he opened his fortress gates
and led a troop of silver-foil armoured knights into the attack.
To protect my left flank, I hurriedly set about building a redoubt
out of dominoes...
And so on and on raged the battle.
The floor in our room was made of large blocks of some sort of wood
which was not found locally. Over the years the soft wood had become worn
and grooved and its surface was now streaked with hard prominent veins.
It was painful crawling across it on all fours but we did not think about
ourselves in the heat of the battle. Changing positions, rushing from our
infantry to our cannons and from one flank to another, we crashed onto
the floor this way and that, making such a racket that the cut-glass
tinkled in Auntie Valya's dresser downstairs and our elbows and knees
became deeply imprinted with red patterns from the wooden floor.
We regarded these imprints and bruises as war wounds and were even
proud of them. But looking us over after yet another battle, Auntie Valya
would shake her head and wince. Women always feel sorry for war
casualties. However, if you ask me, it was her dainty glasses and jugs
that Auntie Valya felt really sorry for. Once she even said, "My dear
generals! I want to save you from injury and the house from destruction."
Vitalka and I exchanged glances. Had we really driven poor Auntie
Valya to such a state of despair that she had decided to turn us out of
our watchtower?
"There's a carpet in my box-room," she informed us. "Of course, it's
not very new but if you beat the dust out of it and clean it, you can lay
it on the floor upstairs, and then there'll be much less din and
battering."
A carpet? Hurrah! We could have wrestling matches on it, simply lie
side-by-side on it and talk about everything under the sun. Or drag it
out onto the roof and sunbathe on it without worrying about scratching
our stomachs on iron sheeting. Or make a tent or shelter of some kind out
of it and live in it like nomads!
It's only grown-ups who think carpets can only be hung on walls or
laid on floors. But we, you see, knew the true value of things!
The carpet was standing in a large roll against a corner of the
box-room. We had, of course, been there several times before but had
never taken any notice of it because it was partly hidden behind all
sorts of junk. As we forced our way towards it, I scraped myself against
a broken birdcage and a holey silk lampshade fell on Vitalka's head.
The roll was certainly impressive-looking. I patted its woven back
and it was hard and rough to the touch.
"It's probably terribly heavy," I sighed.
"Yes, you're right there. If it falls on us, we'll be squashed like
flies," Vitalka consoled me. "Well, let's have a go..."
The carpet turned out to be amazingly light.
"It's as light as a feather!" said Vitalka in surprise.
We dragged it out into the corridor in no time at all and then lifted
it onto our shoulders and solemnly carried it out into the yard, Vitalka
walking ahead with the red silk lampshade swaying on his head like a
bell.
"Give it a good beating now," Auntie Valya called after us.
We unrolled it on the grass and saw it was about three metres long
and two metres wide, a dingy grey colour and smelt of store-rooms, mould
and old sacks.
"It stinks," said Vitalka and broke off a large old burdock stalk
while I went to look for the mop stick by the porch.
We began beating it from both sides and the dust flew up like smoke
from a volcano. The carpet shook and wriggled as if it were alive. We
sneezed and giggled and from the porch Auntie Valya kept admonishing us
not to beat it so hard or else the neighbours would call out the fire
brigade.
Finally we grew tired and stopped sneezing. The breeze carried away
the cloud of dust. Now we could make out the carpet's pattern. Well, it
was just like any other and nothing to write home about, with various
jagged triangles, and angular squiggles round its edges, and two large
superimposed squares in its centre formed an octagonal star with another
star inside it like a cog-wheel. After being cleaned the carpet was still
grey, and its pattern a faded reddish-brown. It still smelt of the
box-room, and its pile where it had not been worn out now looked wiry and
springy.
But what did it matter! We were exhausted! We looked at one another
and both flopped onto the carpet. I collapsed with my eyes tightly shut
and so my first sensation was particularly amazing. It seemed as if I had
fallen onto something soft, silky, warm and alive and not onto an old
carpet.
I opened my eyes in surprise and sat up. My palms slid across the
carpet's bristly surface which looked hard and prickly but felt as if I
Новинки >> Русской фантастики (по файлам) | Форумов | Фэндома | Книг