TIMUR AND HIS SQUAD
It was all of three months since Colonel Alexandrov, the commanding officer of an armoured unit, left home.
Presumably, he was with his unit.
In the middle of the summer he sent a wire home advising his daughters Olga and Jenny to rent a cottage in the country near Moscow and to spend the rest of their vacation there.
Jenny stood leaning on the handle of her broom in front of Olga, her print head-scarf pushed back, and scowled as her sister issued instructions:
"I'll take the things down in a lorry and you clean up the flat.
It's no use frowning and pouting.
When you leave, lock the door.
Return the books to the library.
Don't go dropping in to say good-bye to all your girl friends but go straight to the station.
From there you will send Daddy this telegram.
Then take the train and come straight to the villa. Jenny, you must do as I tell you.
After all, I'm your sister. . . ."
"And I'm yours."
"Quite right, but I'm older than you—and besides, it's what Dad told us to do."
When Jenny heard the engine of the lorry start up in the yard, she heaved a sigh and glanced around the room.
Complete disorder met her eyes.
She went up to the dusty mirror in which was reflected the portrait of her father on the opposite wall.
All right, then!
Granted Olga was older and had to be obeyed for the time being!
But it was she, Jenny, who had her father's nose and mouth and eyebrows.
And, most likely, it would turn out to be she who had inherited his character too.
She tightened the knot of her kerchief, kicked off her sandals and picked up a duster.
Then she whisked the cloth off the table, set a pail under the tap, grabbed the broom and swept a pile of rubbish toward the door.
Soon the oil stove was spluttering and the primus buzzing.
The floor was flooded with water.
Soapsuds frothed in the zinc washtub.
And, outside, passers-by gaped up at a barefoot girl in a red sun-dress standing fearlessly on a third-floor windowsill cleaning a wide-open window.
The lorry sped along the broad, sun-flooded road.
Olga sat in the back in a wicker chair, resting her feet on a suitcase and leaning against a soft bundle.
On her lap a reddish-yellow kitten was playing with a bunch of cornflowers.
At the 20th milepost they were overtaken by a motorised column.
The soldiers, who sat in rows on wooden benches, the muzzles of their rifles pointed skyward, were singing lustily.
At the sound of the singing the doors and windows of j cottages were thrown wide open.
Excited children tumbled out over fences and through gates.
They waved and cheered, throwing the men half-ripe apples, and before the column disappeared from view started games of soldiers, cutting their way through thick tangles of weeds and nettles in dashing cavalry charges.
The lorry turned off into a sprawling holiday estate and came to a stop in front of a small wooden house with ivy-covered walls.
The driver and his assistant let down the sideboards and began to unload. Olga opened the door of the glassed-in porch.
From here there was a view of a rambling, neglected garden.
At the farther end of the garden stood a ramshackle two-storey shed flying a small red flag.
Olga returned to the lorry.
Here, a spry old lady, the milkwoman from next door, popped up at her elbow.
She had come to offer to scrub out the cottage and to clean the windows.
While the neighbour was making ready her mops and pails, Olga picked up the kitten and strolled out into the garden.
Warm blobs of resin glistened on the trunks of the cherry trees.
A pungent aroma of currants, moon daisies and wormwood filled the air.
The mossy roof of the shed was full of holes, and through these holes taut strings ran out and disappeared into the foliage of the nearby trees.
Olga pushed through a clump of hazels, and paused to brush a cobweb from her face.
What was that?
The red flag was gone from the pole on the roof of the shed.