Page 23 of Pioneer Summer
“Beethoven’s ‘Appassionata.’ Wait, don’t argue. Let me explain. First of all, it’s Lenin’s favorite piece of music. And secondly—”
“But it’s hard. Who can play it?”
“Masha!” Yurka exclaimed. But a moment later he realized Volodya was right: nobody at camp could play the “Appassionata,” not even Yurka. “Okay, fine. Play the ‘Internationale’ instead.”
“As a tribute to Musya Pinkenzon?”
“Yep,” confirmed Yurka, happy they had both thought of the story of the eleven-year-old violinist, who was famous because while the Nazis were preparing to execute him and his family, he’d started boldly playing the Socialist anthem, the “Internationale,” and had been shot dead on the spot.
“That’s a good idea, I’ll suggest it to Masha. But the ‘Internationale’ is an anthem, after all; it’s stirring, triumphant. Doesn’t work for background. Let’s just stick with the Moonlight Sonata as the background music for now, okay?”
“But that’s what I’ve been saying, is that it doesn’t work for that! You don’t begin with a nocturne! You don’t start out with a theme of eternal rest for the departed!” Yurka drew in a deep breath, preparing to release another machine-gun volley of his thoughts on the Moonlight Sonata, but he was interrupted.
The porch creaked, the door to the movie theater banged open, and an enraged Ira Petrovna appeared in the doorway. Yurka had never seen her like this: her eyes flashed, her mouth was a mean, crooked line, and her cheeks were red-hot.
“Konev! I don’t know what you were trying to accomplish here, but you did it. Congratulations!”
Ira was burning with rage. She shouted so loud as she came down the steps toward him that Yurka’s heart jumped into his throat. The next emotion he felt after his fright was anger: she was trying to blame him for something again!
“What have I done now?” Yurka took a step toward Ira.
She stopped in the central aisle. Yurka walked up the aisle and stopped in front of her. Staring right into Ira’s eyes, Yurka was about to kick one of the seats as hard as he could, to release at least a little of the anger boiling inside him. But Volodya came up out of nowhere to stand beside him and wordlessly lay a hand on his shoulder.
Ira was raging. “Konev, where did you sneak off to all night? Why didn’t Masha come back to the troop cabin until it was almost morning? What were you doing to her?”
“But I came back before that!”
At this, Volodya turned to Ira and spoke up. “Ira, let’s take it slow and figure things out. What did he do?”
“Why don’t you quit poking your nose into other people’s business, Volodya! Here you are defending him at staff meetings when he’s molesting our girls!”
At hearing this from Ira Petrovna, Yurka’s eyebrows shot up and he froze in shock. Volodya croaked out a hoarse whisper: “What?”
Ira remained silent.
As soon as he found his tongue again, Yurka shouted, “I’m so sick of Masha! I wasn’t doing anything to her! She’s got some nerve, saying stufflike that!” He was about to throw in some curses for good measure but broke off, flabbergasted, as the meaning of what he’d heard finally sank in:Volodya’s defending me?!Heedless of Ira Petrovna’s angry, shouted retort, he stared at Volodya and blinked stupidly. His desire to break something into smithereens evaporated.
But Ira was still in full swing: “The best girl in the troop! She’sthis closeto getting into the Komsomol! But as soon as she takes up with you, here we go: her work’s sloppy, she sleeps through morning calisthenics, she sneaks out of—”
Volodya interrupted her. “Okay. Stop. Irin, are you trying to tell me that Masha wasn’t in her troop cabin last night?”
“Yes!”
“And because Yura wasn’t there either, you think he was with her?”
“Yes, exactly!”
“And did anybody see them together?”
“No, but it’s obvious!”
The “obvious” was what finally made Yurka lose it. Incapable of swallowing that bitter pill, he kicked at one of the seats. The seat cushion popped off and fell to the floor. Nobody but the troublemaker himself paid any attention.
“What could be obvious to you, though? Yurka was with me!” Volodya was beginning to get mad.
“You’re just covering for him again, but he’s taking the best girl Pioneer in the troop and—” Then Ira used such a dirty word that Yurka froze in shock.
“I’m telling you again: Konev was with me!” Volodya snapped.
