Artyom had spent the summer doing odd jobs: digging ditches for plumbing, laying pipes, helping mechanics. He did not shy away from any kind of work, equally happily ran along to fetch a wrench and a pack of “Belomor”, held down whatever he was told to, hammered at whatever he was supposed to, but did not violate his principles. From square one, he let the team know:
“I… er… don’t smoke. Yeah. Don’t even offer.”
The next day, Artyom put on his nice jacket, took a bouquet of flowers, and headed off to Rosa’s. It was five tram stops away, but Artyom was too afraid of ruining the bouquet to get on the tram, and carried it in front of himself like a candle the whole way. So he was late, and by the time he arrived, the dorm rec room was stuffed full of extremely noisy young people at tables of varying sizes. Deafened by the laughter and yelling, Artyom hung back by the entrance, trying to find Rosa behind the mountainous salads.
“Timka’s here! Guys, pass my brother over!”
Before Artyom knew it, he was grabbed, lifted, and just as requested, carried along the tables and put on his feet next to Rosa.
“Your present, Rosa!”
And only then did Artyom see that on either side of the bride and bridegroom were his brothers. Rosa kissed him, and Yakov muttered approvingly, “Good job, Shpendik. Just don’t let anything slip to Father.”
Rosa generally came by in the mornings, and Artyom saw her rarely. Unlike Petka, who came by their plumbing ditches, taught Artyom how to do gas welding, and became friends with him over the summer. Petka knew everything and could do anything, and Artyom was more at ease with him than with his brothers.
But that was over the summer. When September approached, Artyom got his pay and brought the money to his mom.
“Here.” He laid out all the bills and all the change on the table.
“Money earned by labor needs a good wallet,” his mom said, and took out the wallet that had been bought specifically for this occasion. “Put your money in it and go shopping with Rosochka and Piotr.”
“No, mom. That’s for you. For the household.”
“You will have a suit, and I will have pleasure. Do you think that is so little, the pleasure you get from seeing a suit that your son bought with his own money?”
Artyom stretched out the argument for a little longer out of principle, and then put his money in the wallet, and the next morning, headed over to his sister’s. But Rosa was at the college, and Piotr was the only one at the dorm.
“A suit is great,” Piotr said approvingly. “I know what kind you need: a Mostorg suit. Or a Leningrad one. Or there’s a kind that has one button, it’s called a sport cut. Or maybe you want it made to order? We can buy some merino wool…”
“My jacket’s fine, really,” Artyom said. “I’m, er, turning sixteen. An occasion?”
“That’s an occasion,” Piotr nodded. “You want it made by then?”
“I want, er…” Artyom gravely paused. “I want to celebrate it.”
“I see,” Piotr said. “Instead of the suit?”
“Instead, yeah. And I can say I lost the money. Or that it was stolen.”
“No, that won’t do,” Piotr said seriously. “That’s no good at all, your first paycheck and you lie about it? You’d be starting your life with a lie, little brother, isn’t that right? That’s the first thing. And the second thing is, why hurt your mother and father? They will also want to celebrate with you on your birthday. Correct?”
“Correct, I guess. But, you know, what about you and Rosa?”
“We’ll wish you a happy birthday separately,” Piotr smiled. “Now go tell your mom that you’re exchanging the suit for a birthday party.”
Mom agreed right away, Father grumbled a bit but also agreed, and Artyom, instead of having to go shopping, ran over to his dear friend Zhorka’s, for a consultation on who should be invited to his first ever soiree.
Zhorka Landys had two things he enjoyed: skating and stamp collecting, and while skating was an interest, stamps were his passion. He dug through grandma’s drawers looking for them, begged acquaintances for them with an indignity that approached humiliation, traded for, bought, and sometimes stole them, unable to resist the temptation. He was the first person in the class to join MOPR, personally wrote letters to Germany, then to Spain, and then to China, hungrily peeled off the stamps, and immediately composed new missives. This level of activity secured for him the reputation of a businesslike and resourceful person, and Artyom needed his advice.
Zhorka took out some paper and opened the discussion.
“You, me, Valka Aleksandrov, Pashka Ostapchuk..” Running through the male half of the class did not take long. Then Zhorka put aside his pen and stood up from the table.
“Write the girls yourself.”
“Yeah that’s for sure,” Landys said with pleasure. “You know where I just wrote a letter? To the League of Nations about the child question. Maybe they’ll answer? Imagine the stamp on that!”
“Yeah, that’s a question!” Zhorka laughed. “Just say who else I should write besides Zinka Kovalenko.”
“Iskra.” Artyom frowned in concentration. “Well, who else? Lena Bokova, she’s friends with Pashka. And…”
“And Sashka Stameskin,” Zhorka interrupted. “Otherwise Iskra will sulk, and without Iskra…”
Neither of them liked Sashka: he was from a different group with whom they had more than once had serious clashes. But Iskra might not come without Sashka, and that would almost certainly rule out Zinochka’s presence.
“Write Stameskin down,” Artyom shrugged. “He’s part of the working class now, maybe he isn’t so conceited anymore.”
“And Vika Lyuberetskaya,” Zhorka said firmly. Artyom smiled. Vika had long been Zhorka’s dream. An impossible one, like an answer from the League of Nations.
The date for the party was set for the third Sunday of September. They were not yet quite used to the word “Sunday” and wrote “on the third general day off”, but the post worked faster than Artyom had figured: on Wednesday, Iskra came up to him and sternly asked:
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