201

p Stolen from beginning to end from Daniel Defoe,
except that Robinson has not long to wait for his
Friday

p The Aral is not a cheerful sea.

p Flat shores overgrown by wormwood. Sands. Low hills.

p Islands in the Aral Sea lie flat like pancakes on a frying-pen, and are hard to detect.

p No birds. No foliage. No signs of human life, except in summer.

202

p The biggest island in the Aral is called BarsaKelmes.

p No one knows what this name really means, but the Kirghiz say it means “Island of Death".

p In summer fishermen from the town of Aralsk go out to Barsa-Kelmes. The fishing is excellent. The sea fairly seethes with fish. But when the white caps appear in autumn, the fishermen take refuge in the quiet cove of Aralsk and stay there until spring.

p If the storms set in before they have had time to transfer their whole catch to the mainland, the salt fish is left in wooden sheds on the island for the winter.

p During severe winters, when the sea freezes over from the Bay of Chernyshov to the very Island of Barsa-Kelmes, the jackals have a fine time of it. They run over the ice to the island and feast themselves on salted barbel or carp until their bellies burst. In that case the fishermen do not find the remains of their catch in the spring, when the flooding of the Syr Darya, red with clay, crushes the ice.

p From November to February storms rage up and down. The rest of the time there are only little rains, and in the summer the Aral is as smooth as a mirror.

p A dull sea, the Aral.

p It has only one beauty—the amazing blue of its waters.

p A deep blue, a velvety blue, with the sparkle of sapphire.

p Any geography book will tell you that.

p On sending off Maryutka and the lieutenant, the commissar counted on quiet weather for a week or so. The old men of the settlement said the signs indicated quiet weather.

p And so the smack with Maryutka, the lieutenant and two Red Army men in it (Semyanny and 203 Vyakhir, chosen because they had some knowledge of seafaring) set out for Kazalinsk.

p A steady breeze filled the sail and rippled the water cheerily. The rudder creaked in a lulling way, and thick white foam curled away from the prow.

p Maryutka untied the lieutenant’s hands. There was nowhere a man could run away to from a boat—and Lieutenant Govorukha-Otrok took turns at the tiller with Semyanny and Vyakhir.

p He steered himself into captivity.

p When it was not his spell he lay on the bottom of the boat under a rug, smiling at his thoughts— secret thoughts, officer-thoughts, incomprehensible to anyone but himself.

p This worried Maryutka.

p “Why should he wear that grin all the time? As if he was going to a picnic. But it’s clear what’ll happen to him—a cross-examination and ... goodbye. He’s wrong in the head if you ask me.”

p But the lieutenant went on smiling, unaware of Maryutka’s opinion.

p At last her curiosity got the better of her.

p “Where did you learn to handle a boat?" she said.

p The lieutenant considered a moment.

p “In St. Petersburg,” he said. “I had a yacht. A big one. I went to sea in it.”

p “Yacht?”

p “A sailing-vessel.”

p “I know that as well as you. I saw plenty of yachts in Astrakhan. The bourjuis had as many as you like. All white. Tall and graceful as swans. That wasn’t what I meant. What was her name?

p “Nelly.”

p “Strange name.”

p “My sister’s name. I named the yacht after her.”

p “Good Christians don’t have names like that.”

p “Her name was Yelena. But we called her Nelly in the English manner.”

204

p Maryutka gazed silently at the pale sun pouring its cold white honey over everything. It was slipping down the sky to meet the blue of the water.

p “This water! Blue as blue!" she said at last. “The Caspian’s green. Did you ever see anything as blue as this?”

p “According to Forel, it’s number three,” murmured the lieutenant, as if to himself.

p “What’s that?" said Maryutka, turning to him alertly.

p “I was just talking to myself. About the water. I read in some book on hydrography that the water of this sea is a very bright blue. A scientist named Forel charted the colours of various bodies of water. The bluest is the Pacific Ocean. According to his chart, the Aral is number three.”

p Maryutka half closed her eyes as if to conjure up a picture of this chart showing different intensities of blue.

p “It’d be hard to think of anything bluer than this. As blue as.. . .” Suddenly her own yellow, catlike eyes came to rest on the lieutenant’s ultramarine ones. She started forward and a thrill went through her whole body, as if she had made some extraordinary discovery. Her lips parted in amazement. She murmured, "Your eyes are the same—the very, very same. I thought there was something familiar about this sea.”

p The lieutenant said nothing.

p Orange blood splashed the horizon. The water in the distance was blue with inky shadows in it. An icy breeze came off the surface of the sea.

p “From the east,” said Semyanny, pulling the rags of his uniform round him.

p “Looks like a storm,” said Vyakhii.

p “Let it blow. In another two hours we’ll be in sight of Barsa. If there’s a wind we’ll put in for the night.”

205

p Silence. The boat began to toss on the dark crests of the waves. Shreds of cloud were drawn across the grey-black sky.

p “Sure enough—a storm.”

p “We’ll be in sight of Barsa soon. Ought to be off there to port. Hell of a place, Barsa. Sand-banks everywhere. And wind. Pull in the sail, damn you! Pull it in! It ain’t the general’s suspenders!”

p But the lieutenant was too late. The boat dipped over and a splash of foam struck the faces of its passengers.

p “Why are you shouting at me? Maria Filatovna let the tiller slip.”

p “I let the tiller slip? Mind what you’re saying, you fish-pox! I’ve had a tiller in my hand since I was five years old!”

p The boat was pursued by towering black waves that snapped at its sides like dragons with dripping jaws.

p “God Almighty! Where’s that bloody Barsa? It’s as black as hell.”

p Vyakhir looked to the left.

p “Hooray! There she is!" he shouted joyfully.

p A pale streak gleamed whitely through the foam and the gloom.

p “Hard a-port!" shouted Semyanny. “God willing, we may reach it.”

p The prow made a cracking sound, the beams groaned. A wave broke over the sides, leaving the passengers ankle-deep in water.

p “Bail her out!" screamed Maryutka, jumping to her feet.

p “Bail? Nothing to bail with.”

p “Your caps!”

p Semyanny and Vyakhir tore off their caps and began feverishly bailing out the water. The lieutenant hesitated a moment, then pulled off his Finnish fur cap and joined in.

206

p The gleaming white strip came rushing towards the boat and became visible as a flat beach covered with snow. It was made whiter than ever by seething foam.

p The wind raged, hissed, howled, driving the smashing waves higher and higher. In a wild burst it attacked the sail, thrusting it out like a bloated belly.

p The worn canvas burst with a report like a cannon shot.

p Semyanny and Vyakhir rushed to the mast.

p “Hold her!" shouted Maryutka, who was lying on the tiller.

p A roaring wave rushed on them from behind and laid the boat on its side, pouring over it in a cold, glassy stream.

p When the boat righted it was flooded almost to the gunwale and neither Semyanny nor Vyakhir were to be seen. The rags of the torn sail streamed wet in the wind.

p The lieutenant was sitting up to his waist in water crossing himself with quick little movements.

p “God damn you! Bail out the water!" cried Maryutka.

p He jumped up like a wet puppy and started bailing.

p “Semya-a-anny! Vya-a-akhir!" called Maryutka into the night, into the wind, into the clamour.

p There was no response.

p “Drowned, the poor bastards!”

p The wind drove the flooded boat towards shore. The waters churned. The keel struck bottom.

p “Out!" shouted Maryutka, leaping into the water. The lieutenant followed her.

p “Haul her in!”

p Blinded by the splashing water, buffeted by the waves, they seized the boat. It ground heavily into the sand. Maryutka seized the rifles.

207

p “Get out them sacks of food.”

p The lieutenant meekly obeyed. On reaching a dry spot Maryutka dropped the rifles in the sand. The lieutenant put down the sacks.

p Once more Maryutka called into the darkness:

p “Semya-a-anny! .. . Vya-a-akhir!:..”

p No answer.

p She sat down on the sacks and cried like a woman.

The lieutenant stood behind her, his teeth chattering. But he managed to shrug his shoulders and say to the wind: “Robinson Crusoe and his good man Friday.”