EUGENE DUBNOV
87
dog paddle somewhere else. Yura also went away-to be more precise,
went back to go down the slide once again.
When he surfaced, the pretty Latvian and Jowls were no longer to be
seen. But soon enough he came upon them once more, when he had
gone deeper into the pool where the water reached his chin in order to
do the crawl, which he preferred to all other swimming styles.
Jowls was already teaching the girl to swim, helping her to lie on her
stomach and supporting her while she kicked out her legs on the surface
of the bathing-pool and shoveled the water underneath herself. At first
he helped her to float by supporting her with both hands at her stomach
and at her back. But then, before Yura's very eyes, his right hand glided
up along her stomach and his left hand went down her back-and now
he was supporting her from below, under the top of her bathing cos–
tume, while stroking the hollow between her back and her buttocks.
Yura indignantly and impatiently waited for her to lose her temper, as
he already had, and to dismiss Jowls, but such hopes were destined to
be disappointed. The girl seemed scarcely to have noticed that she was
being clutched by her breasts and that somebody was stroking her back–
side. She continued floating as if nothing had happened, chattering hap–
pily with Jowls (Yura could not hear what they were talking about, as
they a few yards away, but there could be no mistaking the tone).
Yura was so absorbed in these happenings that he hadn't even noticed
they had been surrounded. To be exact, only Jowls and the Latvian girl
had been surrounded: Yura remained outside the circle. Jowls and the
girl were ringed round by some half-dozen young fellows of roughly the
same age as Jowls. Their leader, a shortish swarthy fellow (whom Yura
mentally nicknamed Gippo) didn't even bother to notice Jowls-head–
ing straight for the girl, he just threw at him a peremptory "Out of my
way!" (Yura, intrigued by what was going on, had, unobserved, come up
closer where he could see and hear practically everything, while sen–
sibly remaining outside the circle.)
Gippo had come really close to the girl, who was no longer dog–
paddling but standing on her feet with a frightened look on her now–
pale face.
"Please," she begged Jowls, almost sobbing, "please, take me away
from here, I'll go with you where you wanted me to go, I'll do anything,
please-please! "
But he was already at a respectable distance from her, with a servile
smirk on his fat face. His whole expression showed just how well he had
understood Gippo's command, and how from now on he would claim
no connection with the girl at all.
