The Magic Carpet

Vladislav Krapivin

The Magic Carpet

(c) Vladislav Krapivin 1975,2000

(c) Translated by Jan Yevtushenko, 1984

Vladislav Krapivin

The Magic Carpet

To my little

drummer Pavlik

I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night feeling tremendously

happy and then lie there staring at the ceiling, trying to remember why.

Why of course! Only a moment ago Vitalka was laughing here beside me.

No, not that tall thin man by the name of Vitaly Andreyevich who recently

came to stay: I mean the real Vitalka - a young lad in a blue tee shirt

with shaggy fair hair, peeling sunburnt shoulders and scratched bony

elbows.

Yes, only a moment ago we were flying over familiar streets together

with our legs dangling from the carpet. The warm wind seemed to be

beating its soft furry wings against our legs and the morning sun was

warming our backs.

Drifting past down below were dark green clumps of poplars, brown

iron roofs and the silver dome of the town circus. Rising out of the

scanty yellow clouds and heading towards us was the white belfry, which

looked like a fortress tower, and looming in its top windows were bells

which had withstood the passage of time. Its convex roof was made of

rusty iron squares, some of which had come off and were sticking up as if

the roof had been ruffled by the wind.

Vitalka and I sat with our arms round each other's shoulders and

laughed. How funny that ruffled roof looked! How funny those small

toy-like barges and launches were on the river below! How funny one of

Vitalka's old canvas shoes had dropped off his foot! It was worn down at

the heel and had developed a little hole in the part covering his big

toe, so we did not bother chasing it. After landing on the circus dome

and swishing downwards like a toboggan down a slope, it jumped off the

cornice as off a ski-jump and somersaulted into the dense poplars.

"Kick the other one off!" I yelled for what good was one shoe?

But Vitalka shook his head, got a reel of cotton out of his pocket

and tied it to his shoe.

"I'll tow it!" he said.

We swooped sharply down towards the river and flew so low over the

water that our feet dipped into it and swept up fountains of spray and

foam. Vitalka let go of his shoe and skimmed the water behind us as if it

really was in tow. What fun that was!

"A hydrofoil!" I shouted and laughed so much I fell flat on my back

and kicked my wet feet in the air.

The thread snapped and the shoe went on swimming along on its own.

Sooner or later some unlucky fisherman was bound to fish it out instead

of a gudgeon. What a joke! We flew under an old wooden bridge creaking

under the weight of heavy lorries, and began climbing towards some old

white walls and towers on a grassy slope...

... My memories gradually fade but I still feel happy and lie there

smiling in the dark because, you see, it all actually happened. And so

what if it's over! What really matters is that it actually happened!

Yes, it really did.

Chapter One

I spent my childhood in a small northern town spreading on the bank

of a large river. The houses were mostly made of wood with plank

pavements running along their board fences and intricate patterns carved

on their lopsided old gates. And behind the gates stretched spacious

yards covered with soft grass and dandelions with dense burdock and

nettle patches around their edges. In the yards stood sheds and long

stacks of pine and birch logs which smelt of forests and mushrooms.

What a lot of space there was. There was even enough for a game of

football - unless some had hung out their washing on the lines.

Of course, there were new districts in the town as well, five-storey

houses made out of multi-coloured blocks. Here and there you came across

old brick buildings with columns and patterned balconies, but most of the

streets were lined with one and two-storey wooden houses, which, unlike

peasant cottages, had large, two-metre-high windows.

The streets ran down to the steep riverbank where stood a stone

monastery which had been built on the orders of Peter the Great(*). It

* Peter the Great (1672-1725) -

Russian tsar; it was on his instructions

that a navy was formed in Russia, towns

and fortresses built, factories and workshops

opened and the Academy of Sciences founded. (Tr.)

was not only a monastery but also a fortress with high walls and towers

with narrow loopholes.

Rising high over the walls and towers and church's domes was a white

belfry with a huge round black clock, about three metres in diameter. It

was a pity that the clock did not work.

It had stopped a very long time ago, in 1919, during the Civil

War(**). Word has it that a machine-gunner climbed to the top of the

** The Civil War (1918-1920) - the struggle

waged by Russia to defend the state of

workers and peasants established after

the Revolution of 1917 against counter-

revolutionary forces attempting to restore

the rule of the rich in the country. (Tr.)

belfry and kept half the town under fire for a long time. Finally, a

steam tug, which had been converted into a gunboat and named "World

Revolution", chugged round Stony Cape and let rip at the belfry from its

gun.

What happened to the machine-gunner is anyone's guess, but the clock

was damaged and stopped ringing. Nobody tried to mend it. Its wooden

beams and staircase were badly burnt and wrecked and so it was

practically impossible to get near the clock. And even if you did, how

could you fathom out its complex mechanism? You see, it had been forged

from bronze, turned and assembled by a self-taught clock-maker back in

the time of Catherine II(*) and he had not left a draft behind him.

* Catherine II (1729-1796) - Empress of

Russia from 1762.

Anyway, who had time for clocks in those days? In the '30s someone

decided to blow the whole monastery up and take it apart brick by brick

as had been done with several churches. True, the plan was never carried

out but nobody thought of repairing the belfry a shipyard and a new port.

Then the war(**) broke out and afterwards there were plenty of other

things that needed doing.

** Second World War in Russia (1941-1945).

That is why the hands on the huge clock-face looming over the town

like a black moon stood at five to one for over forty years.

But all the same the belfry was beautiful and famous. It was

especially admired by ship captains. All the motorships going down-stream

from Stony Cape set their course on the belfry and it was on all the

pilots' charts.

Motorships often passed by. Vitalka and I would go to sleep and wake

up to the sound of their drawn-out and rather sad hooting.

Vitalka and I lived together or, at least, in summer we did, ever

since we made friends. And that was simply ages ago and two years before

the adventure with the carpet. I was then going on eight and Vitalka had

only just turned nine. He saved me then. It's a long story with a sad

beginning but a happy ending.

Before I was born, my father had fought in the war against the nazis.

He returned home alive but he had had a lung wound. At first it did not

cause him much pain and he started working as a physics teacher and

married. Then I came along. The years rolled quietly by and then all of a

sudden he fell ill again and died.

Mother and I lived alone for almost three years but when I was in the

first year at school, Uncle Seva, Vsevolod Sergeyevich, that is, and

five-year-old Lena appeared on the scene. He worked in the river-port's

administration and wore a cap with an anchor.

But neither this cap nor its owner appealed to me. Nothing about him

did, not even his manner of talking, rather muffled and hollow, almost

the same as Dad's.

Ha had a thin face, a beard, to straight wrinkles above his thick

brows, and large brown eyes. If you weren't trying to find fault with it,

you could say it was a perfectly normal and even pleasant face. His eyes

weren't angry-looking but quite the reverse and he used to gaze adoringly

at Mum and rather guilty at me.

Who wanted his looks, guilty or not!

Don't imagine I was rude to him or sulked. No, I always said good

morning and good night to him and even started calling him Uncle Seva

instead of Vsevolod Sergeyevich. Because Mum asked me to. But whenever

Uncle Seva tried to pat my shoulder or stroke my head, I shied away as if

I had been stung. And I could do nothing about it, and, to tell the

truth, did not want to.

And then there was Lenka! She immediately fastened to Mum as if she

had always been her daughter. Even started calling her Mummy! Whenever

she did that, I shuddered as if cold drops of water were trickling down

my neck. Mum once took me aside, stood me in front of her and said

quietly, "Oleg, darling... She's only little. And she doesn't even

remember her own mother. Can't you understand how hard it is not to have

a mother?"

I did understand. Oh yes, I understood that perfectly well! Of course

I did! Even in my last year at kindergarten, I was ready to burst into

tears if mother was held back and did not arrive in time to pick me up.

And whenever she went out to the cinema in the evening, I was plunged

into grief as into icy water.

That's why I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. But it makes

no difference how often you nod if you still feel resentful.

I wasn't mean to Lenka. Sometimes I even went to the kindergarten to

collect her. And once I showed her how to make two-funnelled little

steamers out of paper. But when Lenka took my china kitten without asking

and dropped it smashing it to smithereens that was the last straw.

Silently, choking back my tears, I gathered all the pieces in a newspaper

(thinking I might glue them back together later) and got my old school

satchel from under the sofa.

I stuffed the bits of china into my satchel along with a sweater, a

book entitled "The Snow Queen", a bottle of water, half a loaf of bread,

a length of sliced sausage, a box of matches and Dad's "For Victory"

medal on its black and orange ribbon. Then I took my school uniform out

the wardrobe: trousers with a neat patch over the left knee, shirt with

buttons like army ones except without stars, and belt with a brass buckle

inscribed with twigs, a book and the letter "S". Over the long months of

school life I had got fed up with this uniform, which was lumbering and

heavy like a knight's armour. But what could I do? You won't get far on a

long journey without warm clothes.

"Are you going to school?" Lenka asked dejectedly.

"You fool," I said vindictively. "Who goes to school during the

holidays?"

I wiped my eyes, snapped my buckle and dug my feet into Mum's rubber

boots, which were far too big for me. I turned back their tops so that

they look like hunters' or musketeers' boots and poked the long thin

dagger I had made from a metal hacksaw down the right one. Its handle

was wrapped in insulating tape and its hilt was made of copper wire.

Finally, I put a small spade down my left boot.

I also took the gun with a tight rubber band which fired

aluminium-wire pellets. One of them could go right through a thick sheet

of paper thirty feet away. And if you hit a wild animal in the eye, it

was as good as dead.

Without saying another word to Lenka, I left home, stamping loudly

along in my boots and silently bidding farewell to childhood.

I decided to head for the woods on the other side of the river and

make a dugout among the roots of an old tree. I would sleep on bedding

made of sweet-smelling forest grass, hunt hares and sit by a small cosy

camp-fire in the evenings, talking to my faithful dog and reading it the

fairy-tale about the Snow Queen. After covering a whole block at a fairly

brisk pace, I began to feel less sure of myself.

In my heart of hearts I knew perfectly well that I would hardly

manage to make a real dugout suitable for living in not only in summer

but also winter. I also realised it would be terrifying to sit alone by

a campfire. And, what's more, I felt very bad about killing lovely,

sweet little hares which I had read tons of stories about.

But most of all (why make a secret of it) I felt sad about leaving

Mum.

My faithful dog Jim (which lived in our street and was not really

mine) treacherously left me as soon as I had fed it my last bit of

sausage. I stopped at a crossroads completely at a loss about what to do

next.

I would have been simply delighted if Mum and Uncle Seva had spotted

me then: they should have been coming back from the cinema at any moment.

Mum would have taken me firmly by the hand, led me home, given me a good

scolding and perhaps even put me in the corner behind the wash basin.

But I wouldn't have minded! I would have been captured but not defeated.

But how could I go home myself! It would be such a disgrace and such a

defeat!

But Mum and Uncle Seva did not appear, and all that was left for me

to do was lie down in the gutter and die of grief. However, this was not

a very suitable place to die in, firstly, because passers-by would see me

and, secondly, because although it was evening, it was very hot and I was

sweating in my trekking gear. Just try lying down to die in such stifling

heat! You wouldn't lie there long, I assure you.

So nothing was left to do but keep going. I wandered on, and another

half block later destiny sent me Vitalka, who was trotting along the edge

of the pavement, rolling a barrel hoop ahead of him. He stopped a short

distance away from me and spun the hoop round and round until it became a

transparent ball. Then he burst out laughing, banged the "ball" on its

head, stopped its spinning, looked up and spotted me.

"Hey, Oleg! Where are you off to?"

We knew each other by sight but had never been friends. We simply

played in the same crowd sometimes. I did not even know where he lived.

But it just so happened that it was he I ran into on my sad journey.

"Going to camp?" he asked.

I knew if I started speaking, I would burst into tears and so I just

shook my head. Vitalka stopped laughing and enquired in a different

tone, "Going to the woods?"

I nodded. Vitalka grew serious and for some reason or other put the

hoop over his shoulder, looked me over, taking in my boots and satchel

and asked quietly, "For good?"

I did not even wonder how he had guessed, as all that mattered now

was keeping my tears back and so I nodded again.

Vitalka walked around me, carefully touched my satchel then stood in

front of me again. For the very first time I had a good look at Vitalka's

eyes.

He was a wise fellow even in those days.

"What'll you do along in the woods? he asked. "Better come to my

place."

If I had not been afraid of opening my mouth, I would have started

arguing. How could I go home with someone I hardly knew? He'd probably

get into hot water with his folks who would say he had brought a tramp in

from the street.

But I could not say anything and standing there in silence was

ridiculous and so, with hanging head, I set off beside Vitalka.

He took me into an old house, through its hall and up a creaking

staircase to a small low-ceilinged room furnished with a couch on blocks,

a lopsided table and an antiquated chair with voluted arms and a spring

sticking out of its bottom. Its walls were lined with pictures of some

sort but I did not pay any attention to them at the time.

Vitalka dragged my satchel off me and said, "Look, you're sweaty all

over. Slip your things off and go and wash."

It was a relief to clamber out of my armour-like trekking gear.

Vitalka gave me his old slippers to wear instead of my boots and took me

downstairs to the wash basin.

The basin turned out to be just like the one at home: blue enamelled

with a long bolt for a tap which you pushed up and then a stream of water

gushed into your palms.

So familiar and homely was the basin that I hurriedly dipped my face

into my palms full of water.

At once I began feeling better.

"Perhaps everything will sort itself out after all," I thought.

Vitalka obviously sensed that I had cheered up for he slapped his wet

palm on my back above the low neck of my tee shirt and said brightly,

"Quick march!"

We "quick marched" into a room with a cut-glass chandelier which was

on although it was still quite light outside. This sparkling glassy light

was all I noticed at first.

"Auntie Valya, this is Oleg. Give us something to eat, will you?"

said Vitalka.

And then I spotted Auntie Valya.

"Go-od ev-en-ing..." I stammered in terror.

Auntie Valya was looking at us over her spectacles. She was tall,

hook-nosed and wearing a blue dress with a stand-up collar. Her smooth

hair was gathered in a tight bun at the back. I had seen stern thin

ladies like her in an English film about a boy called David Copperfield,

but never before had I met anyone like her in real life.

She nodded in reply to my "good evening" and said to Vitalka,

"Something to eat? Well... But have you washed your hands?"

Vitalka stretched out his palms spread wide and waved them about, and

as I did not dare to he took my hands and showed them to Auntie Valya

too.

"Well, in that case..." she said. "Off you go to the kitchen."

Then we ate sausages and hot potatoes and drank cold milk. I

remembered mother's lessons on how to behave at other people's houses and

sat straight with my elbows off the table and tried to handle my knife

and fork properly.

But Vitalka dangled his legs and drank the milk noisily.

"You ought to learn some table manners from your friend," remarked

Auntie Valya.

"He's just feeling shy because it's his first visit here," retorted

Vitalka fearlessly. (Alas, he later proved to be right.)

"Do you live far away?" Auntie Valya asked me.

"Why, no!" Vitalka hurriedly intervened. "He lives in our street, at

Number Fourteen where that dog Jim comes from. Know where I mean?

I expected Auntie Valya to angrily ask why she should remember dogs

called Jim, but she simply nodded.

"He's going to stay here tonight," said Vitalka in a very casual sort

of way.

Auntie Valya raised her brows slightly.

"Here we go," I thought with dread and got ready to be bombarded with

questions. Auntie Valya glanced at Vitalka, however, lowered her brows

and said, "Take another pillow upstairs."

...We lay down on Vitalka couch. It was rather cramped but it did not

matter...

"Out with it then," ordered Vitalka.

I knew I would have to tell him. The only problem was I did not know

how to explain everything.

"Left home for goods?" Vitalka whispered.

I sighed.

"Had a thrashing?" he asked understandingly.

"Why, no! Nobody even laid a finger on me!"

"But you've been hurt in other ways, have you?"

I swallowed the lump in me throat again.

"No, it's not that... It's because of Lenka... Well, not only her but

things in general. And because of the kitten..."

And so I began telling him. And very soon, of course, burst into

tears. Vitalka did not try and comfort me but simply asked me to repeat

certain things when I paused. And after hearing me out, he said wisely,

"Well, never mind. This sort of thing often happens..."

"Yes, that's true!" I thought. "But whatever's going on at home now?"

I threw back the blanket.

"Where are you off to?"

"I'm going home. Mum's probably out searching for me..."

Vitalka drew the blanket over me.

"She knows. Auntie Valya went and told her. You can go home

tomorrow."

I felt absolutely exhausted. Gratefully I nuzzled against Vitalka's

bony shoulder and fell fast asleep.

I woke up very early, left Vitalka asleep and carefully tiptoed down

into the hall and unlatched the door.

And then I rushed home like the wind! Mum was waiting for me by the

gate. She took hold of my shoulders. Her palms were dry and hot.

I smiled inanely and looked down at my feet in Vitalka's slippers.

"Oleg, darling," she said, "promise me that you won't set off on any

distant journeys without warning me first. Agreed?"

"Okay..." I replied hoarsely and buried my face in mother's blouse.

Later that day I ran over to see Vitalka. He must have been waiting

for me because he was sitting on the porch under the patterned awning

watching me walk up.

"Come for your things?" he said.

"No. I've just dropped round... Is that alright?"

He smiled and at once seemed the same age as me and no older.

"Let's climb up to my watchtower!"

... In the evening we persuaded mother to let me sleep at Vitalka's

again.

"He's got a telescope. We're going to look at the moon," I said in a

pleading tone, hopping with impatience.

"And we haven't finished making our soldiers," Vitalka chimed in.

Mum signed for some reason and gave in.

... And so my things stayed at Vitalka's. Even Mum's boots, and Dad's

medal, and the gun, the dagger and the kitten, too. Vitalka's father,

Andrei Nikolayevich, glued it together when he came back from one of his

trips. He also knocked together another bed opposite Vitalka's, pulled

his cap (just like Uncle Seva's) over my ears and said, "Enjoy

yourselves, lads..."

Chapter Two

Andrei Nikolayevich Gorodetsky was the captain of the cargo motorboat

"Tobolsk". He sailed down the river from our town to the sea, and

sometimes even sailed across the sea. Vitalka's mother always went with

him, working either a cook or a waitress. They were away for a month or

more at a time and spent only a few days at home between trips. And thus

they worked from springtime until the rivers became icebound. While they

were away Vitalka and Auntie Valya lived alone (and then I appeared).

They lived in a spacious old house which Auntie Valya's grandfather

had bought in his youth. Auntie Valya told how her grandfather had been

most reluctant to buy it but was then appointed principal of a grammar

school and it was considered improper for a headmaster to live in a

rented apartment. In the small town he was regarded as a very important

person. Later, however, he got the sack because revolutionaries had been

holding meetings in his house. Nevertheless, the house continued to be

known as the "principal's" right up to the 1917 Revolution, and the

authorities always regarded it as a "dangerous den".

There were many old things in the house. Staring down grimly at

Vitalka and me from framed photographs on the walls were bearded men in

long uniform coats and ladies in ankle-length dresses. Behind the

coloured-glass panels of the dresser sparkling cut-glass goblets were

lined. Auntie Valya cherished them greatly. There was a bookcase

containing thick tomes and journals. The books seemed boring to us but we

sometimes browsed through the bound collections of literary journals.

Auntie Valya had a cuckoo clock with a large cuckoo covered with real

feathers, which used to spring or rather flop out of a little window

every half-hour and hang on a thin spring, hoarsely crying something

halfway between "cuckoo" and "quack-quack". Vitalka and I were often

woken up at night by this eerie cry, but Auntie Valya never awoke

although she slept in the same room where the clock was. She was a deep

sleeper, and this often saved us from a scolding.

The kitchen was dominated by a huge bronze samovar with medals

stamped in its round belly. Whenever he was at home, Andrei Nikolayevich

enjoyed "stoking the works", as he put it, and we would spend the whole

evening sitting at the table while the samovar hissed and puffed and

pretended to be angry.

But the gramophone with its huge horn stood completely idle as Auntie

Valya played even her favourite old records of Chaliapin and Sobinov(*)

on an ordinary modern record player. And so the old gramophone simply

dozed under a crocheted napkin on a little table in the corner. Of course

it felt neglected! After all, its mechanism and powerful spring worked

just as well as they had done years ago.

(*) Fyodor Ivanovich Chalapin

(1873-1938) and Leonid

Vitalyevich Sobinov (1872-1934) -

famous Russian singers

When Auntie Valya went out, we used to stand the gramophone on the

floor, unhook its horn, wind its handle as far as it would go and then

take turns to sit on its turntable, which was covered with crimson

velvet. Slowly and then faster and faster the gramophone would spin you

around.

Oh, what fun it was! The room whirled round and round and everything

would turn into multi-coloured stripes. The main thing was not to get

frightened and keep your balance so you did not fly off the turntable.

Well, and if you did, it did not matter much: you simply crashed to the

floor, sat there until your head stopped spinning, and then got up.

Getting on his feet, Vitalka always used to slap the back of his trousers

in a business-like manner to make sure the record pintle had not made a

hole in them and then say, "What good training it is! Just like being

test pilots!"

Nowadays any boy would say, "Just like being astronauts", but there

weren't any at that time for, you see, Vitalka and I became friends three

months before the first sputnik was launched.

Auntie Valya, it seemed to me, guessed about our antics with the

gramophone. In fact, she guessed about many things and forgave many

things, too, because she only looked strict.

Incidentally, she was the sister of Vitalka's grandmother and not his

aunt, and Vitalka's father was her nephew. He had lost his parents at an

early age and she had brought him up. And now she was bringing up

Vitalka, and me into the bargain because I used to stay at their house

for days at a time during the summer months.

So how did she go about our upbringing? Well, she considered that

boys should not smoke, gamble or swear, and that was all she really

minded about.

As for smoking... Well, we did try once. I found a sealed packet of

cigarettes in a ditch one day and we hid behind the shed and lit up...

It was ghastly! I went around for the rest of the day feeling as if I had

drunk a bowl of soapy water and everything around was wrapped in a

revolting pea-green fog. Vitalka did not feel any better either. I never

touched a cigarette since even when I grew up. I once asked Vitalka when

he was much older if he had started smoking and he replied as he had done

as a young lad, "Do you think I'm bonkers?"

We never gambled either. More often than not we did not have any

money and if we did, we shared it. So what was the point of winning it

off each other?

We sometimes used swear words but Auntie Valya did not understand

them because we made them up on the spur of the moment, depending on what

had happened. Sometimes they sounded like the curses, she would say,

"Vitalka and Oleg! You're quite impossible people."

That meant she was really angry and we had to keep quiet and mind how

we behaved. And if we did not, she would say, "I'll turn you out of the

house and you can sleep in the yard until you learn to behave decently

again."

But not once did she ever drop a hint to me that it was her house and

not mine and that I ought not forget this, for, to tell the truth, I

sometimes did.

Mum felt I was running away from home because of Uncle Seva and Lenka

and this upset her, but it was no longer true. You see, Vitalka and I had

become inseparable and there was nothing else to it.

Mum finally realised this but something else continued to worry her.

You see, I had never suffered from lack of appetite, and I ate more meals

at Auntie Valya's than at home.

"How can she feed the two of you on her pension?" Mum would ask

anxiously.

She was not reassured when I informed her that besides Auntie Valya's

pension, she also had Vitalka's parents' wages. I found out later that

Mum had even tried to offer Auntie Valya money for my "keep" but Auntie

Valya had firmly said, "We'll let this matter drop."

Auntie Valya never said much in general and if everything was running

smoothly, we knew beforehand what she would say. For instance, in the

mornings she used to thump the ceiling with her mop handle and call,

"Gentlemen! The sun's up! It's time you were, too!"

And before breakfast she was bound to say, "I do hope you've washed,

even if it was a lick and a promise?"

And in the evenings when we came in from the street after a hard day,

she always said, "Lord! Just look at yourselves!"

Well, and if we had, what would we have seen? The likenesses of our

Mums and Dads, I suppose (although I only saw my dad on photographs

then). Otherwise, ordinary little boys. Each, of course, something

special as well.

Vitalka was slightly taller than me with fair hair which was always

far too long and unkempt. He had long greyish-green eyes, a large mouth,

thick lips, but a thin, very slightly hooked nose with five yellow

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

was stroking an affectionate wild animal with a short but fluffy coat.

Vitalka was squatting nearby and staring at me in bewilderment.

I silently lay face downwards, pressed my check, bare arms and legs

against the lovely warm carpet, and cuddled it. Then I felt that it smelt

not only of mould and mice but also of something mysterious and strange

that reminded me of the South. It was as if someone had rubbed the seeds

of some foreign plants into its fibre.

Sighing, I opened my eyes and saw that Vitalka was lying there in the

same way with his nose pointing towards me.

Why, this is really something," he said, smiling with his cheek still

pressed against the carpet.

I said nothing because Vitalka was certainly right.

"Auntie Valya's granddad probably brought it back from somewhere like

Persia," Vitalka went on. "Auntie Valya told me he did a lot of

travelling when he was young."

"Yes, it was probably made by some old craftsmen whose secret has

since been lost," I said.

"Probably..." said Vitalka.

We turned over slowly onto our backs.

"But didn't Auntie Valya know that it's... like this? Why did she

stuff it in her box-room?"

"Perhaps she did but then forgot," replied Vitalka. "After all,

she's... well, you know, not as young as she used to be. Elderly people

forget a lot of things."

"But she's got a good memory," I stood up for her.

"Well, yes, she has... But perhaps she didn't realise what it was

like. After all, she didn't roll on it like us."

"Why not?" I asked in surprise.

Vitalka grinned and said, "Well, you've seen that photo of her as a

young girl, haven't you? In a dress almost down to her ankles, with all

sorts of frills and lace and a bow at the back, and high buttoned boots.

Just try and roll about dressed like that!"

Feeling sorry for Auntie Valya, who had been deprived of such

pleasure, I blissfully stretched out on the carpet and began stroking it

again.

"It feels alive, doesn't it? And we beat the poor thing with

sticks..."

"Never mind," said Vitalka, consolingly. "It's clean now - unlike

us!"

He bent his grimy arm and blew on it and I spotted a red drop on his

elbow.

"Look, you've scratched yourself," I said.

Smiling, Vitalka touched the drop with his little finger and the drop

snapped in half, releasing a pair of transparent little wings and flew

off into the thick grass.

"Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home..." said Vitalka after it had

already disappeared.

"I wonder if ladybirds can fly high up in the sky like planets," I

said.

"Nope," said Vitalka. "Why should they? They live in the grass, after

all."

"Yes, but what if it wanted to? All of a sudden?"

"It never would want to," said Vitalka. "You may perhaps because

you're a person. But it's just an insect."

I was lying with my arms spread out, with my left palm in the grass

and the tall stem of a dandelion between my fingers. Absent-mindedly I

started playing with it while thinking about how I would still try to fly

higher and higher even if I were a ladybird. Of course, high up the

pressure's different and it's cold and there's not enough air but I would

still keep on flying until my breath ran out.

I imagined myself lying here like this and slowly starting to rise

towards a solitary cloud pierced through with July sunlight.

All of a sudden the ground under the carpet seemed to stir and

everything around moved. Something similar happens when you feel giddy

for a moment or two. The dandelion stem I was holding dived down and its

fluffy head slipped through my fingers, spilling its seeds. Then I

noticed that a cracked old barrel standing nearby was sinking down too.

"Mummy!" I shrieked and tumbled into the grass.

I had quite a painful fall because the carpet was already about five

feet off the ground!..

Even now I feel embarrassed when I recall this incident. You see, the

fact remains that I took fright and ditched Vitalka. The only consolation

I have is that Vitalka did the same: he shrieked and flopped into the

grass, only from the other edge of the carpet.

And then we sat in the flattened grass and stared in horror at each

other.

"What are you up to?" asked Vitalka.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"How did you do it?"

"I didn't Honest, I didn't," I replied because I realised at last

that Vitalka thought I had been playing a trick on him.

The carpet landed smoothly between us like a large sheet of paper. I

hiccuped and said, "That's who did it."

Vitalka looked round thoughtfully, glanced under the carpet for some

reason and then stared enquiringly at me again. All sorts of conjectures

and fantastic ideas flashed through my mind: Perhaps it was a little

earthquake that shook us up?.. Perhaps we were both dreaming or

hypnotised?.. Perhaps... Perhaps... But what on earth could it have

been?!

I hiccuped again and asked Vitalka, "Shall we have a go?"

"Well... all right..." he said unenthusiastically.

Slowly we sat down on the carpet as if it were a hotplate.

"It's not g-going up," said Vitalka.

"That means, we just imagined it did."

"Both of us?"

I hiccuped a third time and rubbed my bruise. Had I imagined my

bruise too?

"Did you do anything when it... well, you know what?" asked Vitalka

in a whisper.

"No, nothing. I wasn't even thinking of it."

"What were you thinking of, then? asked Vitalka exactingly.

"Wait a mo... well, of the ladybird, I think... And whether it would

fly up to the clouds or not."

"You WERE thinking about flying," said Vitalka excitedly. "So that's

it... Let's have a go!" He screwed up his eyes and ordered. "Come on!

Let's try!"

The carpet lay still.

"Off we go!" Vitalka said and began rocking as if urging the carpet

on.

But it did not move.

"I want to go up to the roof," said Vitalka, almost pleading. And I

did, too. It was rather frightening but I still wanted the carpet to move

and the wall of the house to slide down smoothly and the patterned eaves

to loom before us.

And then... And then we were lifted up by a gentle, caressing force.

We saw straight ahead the edge of the iron roof and the wooden eaves with

their dainty carving and round openings from one of which a sparrow was

curiously peering at us as though from a port-hole.

My first instinct was to do my trick again, holler and tumble off but

Vitalka grabbed hold of my shirt and yelled, "Don't! We're too high

up..."

I froze and the carpet began to descend slowly.

"That's it," whispered Vitalka. "You can't jump off every time. We've

got to get used to it."

And with these words we landed.

"If only we know what makes it fly," said Vitalka in a whisper again

and then had another go, "Well, come on! Let's fly!"

Then I guessed...

"You don't have to order it! You just have to want to fly. I mean,

you just have to imagine you're flying... Wait a mo..."

I looked at the clumps of wormwood and burdocks growing by the fence

and thought how we would be rising and skimming over the grass towards

them... And off we went!

I mentally did a complete turn by the fence and imagined I was

circling and the carpet obeyed!

"Faster!" I not so mush commanded as willed it. The oncoming wind

began rustling as we flashed by the log, the porch, the shed and past the

log pile again... Then I landed in the middle of the yard. My heart was

booming like a drum. Vitalka was sitting close to me and clinging onto my

shoulder.

"Now you have a go," I said generously. "You know how? Just imagine

you're flying all by yourself and that's all there is to it."

"I see," he said hurriedly. "Right... now..."

We gently rose again and the carpet cut across the yard, flew

smoothly over the fence and over the street and I noticed a square shadow

racing along the road below.

"What are you doing? We'll be spotted!" I yelled.

We flew back into the yard and landed smoothly in the same place as

before.

"It does as it's told..." said Vitalka in a quiet delighted voice.

"Does as it's told! I said reproachfully. "Why on earth did you go

over the street? Somebody might see us!"

Vitalka beamed and shrugged his shoulders.

"So what. After all, it's only a dream..."

He sprawled on his back, and, dreamily kicking his legs in the air,

said with a wistful sigh, "It's a lovely dream. If only it would last for

a long time."

I glanced at his shaggy hair, grabbed hold of a fair lock and pulled

it quite hard.

"Ow!" he roared, "What did you do that for, you jammy toadog?"

"See, you're not dreaming!" I said but then all of a sudden an

alarming thought occurred to me: what if I was?!

"Now you pinch me," I said quickly.

Vitalka got his own back by pinching me really hard above the elbow

and I yelled not so much with pain as with joy for it meant I wasn't

dreaming after all!

And so, delirious with joy, we hugged one another and romped about

the carpet, bashing all the remaining dust out of it with our elbows and

feet. Then we stopped for it suddenly occurred to us both that we might

be hurting it, and so we quietened down and began stroking it like a big

dog. Vitalka thoughtfully touched the lock of hair I had tugged and said,

"You mean this is really happening and it's not a dream?"

Chapter Four

We laid the carpet between the camp-beds in our watchtower and then

began anxiously to wonder if it would fly again. So we sat down and tried

to fly up to the ceiling.

"Hurrah! We've done it!"

Then Auntie Valya banged on the ceiling and called, "Soldiers! Your

dinner's getting cold!"

Catching sight of us, she gasped and ordered us to fill the tub with

water and wash each other clean. We meekly did as we were told.

That meal-time we behaved so perfectly that Auntie Valya began

worrying we might have swallowed some germs with the dust and gone down

with something. However, after feeling our foreheads and setting her mind

at rest, she told us to go and buy some potatoes at the market after

lunch. Now, this was the chore we hated most - dragging a heavy basket

right across town in the baking heat. This time, however, we joyfully

jumped at the idea.

Anything to make the time pass more quickly!

Anything to make the night come sooner! For we could only test the

magic carpet out properly at night. If we did so in the daytime, you can

imagine what a rumpus we would cause in the town!

Of course, we did not wait until it grew completely dark. In

midsummer the nights here are silvery as if the air has been sprinkled

with aluminium dust. Sometimes you can even see well enough to read a

book, especially if it is printed in bold type. At night, however, the

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