Zhenya Bogorad’s parents were up all night. They telephoned all their friends and, taking a cab, made the rounds of every militia station in the city, and of every hospital. They even stopped off at the criminal court, but all to no avail. Zhenya had disappeared without a trace.
The following morning the principal of the school called in Zhenya’s classmates, including Volka, and questioned each one.
Volka told the principal about meeting Zhenya at the movies the night before, though he quite naturally said nothing about his beard. The boy who sat next to Zhenya in class recalled that he had seen him on Pushkin Street close to six o’clock the previous evening, that he was in high spirits and was rushing to the movies. Other children said the same, but this was of no help.
Suddenly, one boy remembered Zhenya said he wanted to go swimming too.
In half an hour’s time every volunteer life guard in the city was searching for Zhenya Bogorad’s body. The river was dragged within the city limits, but yielded nothing. Divers traversed the entire river-bed, paying special attention to holes and depressions, but they, too, found nothing.
The fiery blaze of sunset was slowly sinking beyond the river, a faint breeze carried the low sounds of a siren from the recreation park, a signal that the second act of the evening’s play at the summer theatre was about to begin, but the dark silhouettes of the river boats could still be seen on the water. The search was still on.
This cool, quiet evening Volka was too restless to sit at home. Terrifying thoughts of Zhenya’s fate gave him no peace. He decided to go back to school, perhaps there was some news there. As he was leaving the school yard, Hottabych joined him silently at the gate, appearing from nowhere at all. The old man saw Volka was upset, yet he was too tactful to annoy him with his questions. Thus, they continued on in silence, each lost in his own thoughts. Soon they were walking down the wide granite embankment of the Moskva River .
“What kind of strange-headed people are standing in those frail vessels?” the old man asked, pointing to the river boats.
“Those are divers,” Volka answered sadly.
“Peace be with you, O noble diver,” Hottabych said grandly to one of the divers climbing out of a boat near the bank. “What are you searching for on the bottom of this beautiful river?”
“A boy drowned,” the diver answered and hurried up the steps of the first-aid station.
“I have no more questions, O highly respected diver,” Hottabych said to his disappearing back.
Then he returned to Volka, bowed low and exclaimed:
“I kiss the ground beneath your feet, O most noble student of Secondary School No. 245!”
“Huh?” Volka started, shaken from his unhappy thoughts.
“Am I correct in understanding that this diver is searching for the youth who has the great honour of being your classmate?”
Volka nodded silently and heaved a great sigh.
“Is he round of face, sturdy of body, snub of nose and sporting a haircut unbecoming to a boy?”
“Yes, that was Zhenya. He had a haircut like a real dandy,” Volka said and sighed heavily again.
“Did we see him in the movies? Was it he who shouted something to you and made you sad, because he’d tell everyone you had such a beard?”
“Yes. How did you know what I was thinking then?”
“Because that’s what you mumbled when you tried to conceal your honourable and most beautiful face from him,” the old man continued. “Don’t fear, he won’t tell!”
“That’s not true!” Volka said angrily. “That doesn’t bother me at all. On the contrary, I’m sad because Zhenya drowned.”
Hottabych smirked triumphantly.
“He didn’t drown!”
“What do you mean? How d’you know he didn’t drown?”
“Certainly I am the one to know,” Hottabych said. “I lay in wait for him near the first row in the dark room and I said to myself in great anger, ‘No, you will tell nothing, O Zhenya! Nothing which is unpleasant to your great, wise friend Volka ibn Alyosha, for never again will you see anyone who will believe you or will be interested in such news!’ That’s what I said to myself as I tossed him far away to the East, right to where the edge of the Earth meets the edge of the Heavens and where, I assume, he has already been sold into slavery. There he can tell whomever he wants to about your beard.”