Everyone returns, except the very best friends… — Vladimir Vysotsky
Nikolai had met the wind a long time ago—or so it seemed to him. To little Nikolenka, as his mother and grandmother called him, anything that happened last year was a long time ago. Perhaps that was only natural. Some people describe events ten years in the past as if they happened yesterday. But those are people for whom ten years are no longer a particularly long time. Nikolenka's grandmother, for instance, was over eighty. Just think what ten years would mean to her. She was entitled to talk that way. But if twelve-year-old Nikolai called ten years ago “just recently,” he would sound ridiculous.
“Nikolenka!” a voice called from the yard. “Time for lunch!” It was Grandma.
“Coming!” he shouted, then turned to his friends. “Are you coming out again after lunch?”
“I don't know,” said Zina, shrugging. “My family are going to visit somebody.”
“And you're going with them?” Nikolai asked.
“Of course!” the girl smiled. “Who's going to leave me at home alone?”
“I'm not going home for lunch at all,” Timofey said. “I'll wait for my parents.”
“You're going to stay outside hungry?” Nikolai asked in surprise. “Tim, come and eat at our house!”
“No!” Timka shook his head. “I can't. If Dad finds out, I'll be in trouble.”
“What for?” Nikolai stared. “We're neighbours!”
“So what? Dad absolutely forbade me to eat at other people's houses. He'd make me stay home for a week.”
“But are you hungry?” Zina asked.
“No,” Timofey answered. “Not yet. I'll wait for my parents.”
A stout woman, Lyudmila Alexeyevna, appeared in the gateway and shook a warning finger.
“Nikolenka, what's going on? Everyone's at the table waiting for you.”
As Nikolai passed his grandmother, he said through clenched teeth:
“Gran, how many times must I tell you not to call me Nikolenka in front of my friends? In fact, don't call me that when they're not around either. What kind of a name is Nikolenka?” He screwed up his face and repeated in a horrible nasal voice, “Nikolenka, Nikolenka, Nikolenka… Ugh! It sounds disgusting!”
“Good heavens, Niko… Kolya, what are you saying? By the way, Turgenev wrote… I think… no, I've remembered, it was Tolstoy! Tolstoy wrote a story with a boy called Nikolenka in it.”
“Then let him stay in Tolstoy's story,” her grandson said, looking sternly into her eyes. “And please don't call me that anymore. I'm asking you nicely. Is it really so difficult? When you ask me to do something, I agree. I help you; I don't argue…”
“All right, all right, Niko… Nikolai. I won't do it again. Don't be upset with me, grandson. Forgive me, please. Honestly, it just slipped out…”
“Fine, let's forget it,” the boy said with a wave of his hand. “I'll eat quickly. Timka's waiting.”
His parents and younger sister were at the table. Katya had recently turned four and already considered herself a grown-up.
“Kolyan!” That was what she called her big brother. To be fair, Nikolai had taught her the nickname himself. “We're starving to death here!”
“You don't look it!” Nikolai grinned. “Your cheeks are like a hamster's.”
“Mummy! Mummy! Kolyan's calling me names!” Katya shouted.
Mum shook her head disapprovingly.
“Nikolai, are you doing this on purpose? Do you want to ruin lunch for everyone?”
“Sorry, Mum!” her son smiled, then went over and hugged his sister. “Sorry, Katya. I was joking.”
“All right, I forgive you,” Katerina replied condescendingly.
“And where do you think you're sitting?” Dad said. “Who's going to wash your hands for you? Pushkin?”
Dad had a funny habit of dragging Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin into every household matter. Whenever anything needed doing, he asked, “Who's going to do it, Pushkin?” The poet was apparently supposed to make Nikolai's bed, wash the bedroom floor, put a hat on his head in cold weather, put his bicycle away in the garage, and so on. If the poet had known how many duties he was expected to perform, he would surely have written another novel in verse—perhaps entitled Nikolai Zvyagintsev.
After lunch Katya was ordered to take her afternoon nap. Nikolai was already exempt from that particular “duty.” Having eaten his fill, he went outdoors. To his great disappointment, Timka had vanished, perhaps gone to the lake.
The holidays had only just begun. It was time to see his old friend again. Without further thought, Nikolai went into the woods to find Fim the wind.
Incidentally, it was Nikolai who had given the wind his name.
The wind first spoke to him the previous summer. Nikolai had wandered into a birch grove, where it was cool and shady. He sat on the ground, leaned against a tree and closed his eyes. Birds chirped around him, tree trunks creaked, leaves rustled, and the sun seemed to be playing a game, sending spots of light dancing across his face and making him dodge them.
And suddenly…
“Fim-fim!” someone said right beside him.
Nikolai jumped to his feet, looked around and peered behind the tree, but found nobody.
“Strange,” he thought. “Who could that be? Maybe a new bird has come here. I've visited this place so often, but I've never heard such a funny call.”
“Fima-fima!” came the voice again.
“Hey! Who are you?” Nikolai called towards the treetops. “Who's Fima?”
Silence. Nikolai listened. Then a long cry rang through the forest: “Fi-fi-fi-fi-ma-a-a-a!”
“Fima, who are you?” the boy repeated.
And somebody answered:
“Wind! I'm the wind!”
“Then let's introduce ourselves,” the boy suggested. “I'm Nikolai. What's your name?”
“We winds have no names!” the invisible speaker rustled.
“How can you have no names?” Nikolai objected. “That's impossible. They told us at school that there are all sorts of winds: breezes, storms, hurricanes, typhoons and lots more. Which one are you?”
“Those are my older brothers,” the wind whispered. “And they're not names, they're descriptions. Although people give especially strong winds names, mostly women's names for some reason. But that's far away. They're our relatives; they never come here. My grandfather told me about them.”
“How interesting!” Nikolai cried. “So winds have fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers too?”
“Of course,” the wind said, whistling somewhere overhead.
“Listen, Wind, would you mind if I called you Fima? Do you want to be my friend?” Nikolai asked.
“Can a human and the wind really be friends?” the wind rustled.
“I think they can,” Nikolai replied.
“Then we're friends,” the wind agreed.
“You still haven't told me,” the boy said, lifting his hands towards the sky, “do you like the name Fim?”
“It's a lovely name,” the wind whispered, tousling the boy's hair. “I like it.”
“Wonderful!” Nikolai said happily. “Then we've met properly. I'm Nikolai, and you're Fim.”
The boy wandered through the woods for a long time that day. He and Fima talked, then sang songs together. In a meadow they sent dandelion parachutes floating into the air, and the wind carried them in different directions. Beyond the forest they chased great balls of tumbleweed formed from dried plants.
That evening Nikolai asked his father:
“Dad, can a person be friends with the wind?”
It turned out that humans and the wind had been friends for thousands of years.
“People have always been friends with the wind,” Dad answered unexpectedly. “Even when our ancestors were still living in the wilderness. The wind has always helped people.”
“How?” his son asked in surprise. “Please tell me.”
“On the hunt, for example,” his father said. “When a man was hunting a wild animal, he approached against the wind.”
“But walking against the wind is harder!” the boy said.
“Exactly!” Dad agreed. “But then the animal can't smell the hunter. Understand?”
“I do, I do!” Nikolai nodded. “And what else? How else did the wind help?”
“People didn't work out how to use the wind's power all at once, of course. But gradually they learned. Long ago they put sails on ships. In ancient China, long before our era, they flew kites. You can buy them in shops now, but when I was a boy, my friends and I made our own…”
“And they flew?” Nikolai's mouth fell open. “Home-made ones?”
“Of course!” Dad smiled. “Why else would we make them? For decoration?”
“Dad, teach me how to make a kite!” Nikolai cried.
“Why go to all that trouble?” Dad chuckled. “Let's go to the shop tomorrow and buy one.”
“No, no, no!” his son protested. “That wouldn't be interesting. Let's build one ourselves.”
“Are you sure you want to spend all that time on it? It'll take us the whole day!” Dad tried to dissuade him.
“So what? Do you want me to tell you a secret?” the boy asked mysteriously.
“Go ahead!” Dad nodded.
“But you mustn't tell anybody. Deal?”
“I'm a fish!” Dad covered his mouth with his hand. “I mean, I'll be silent as a fish.”
“I've made a friend in the forest!”
Dad gave an astonished grunt.
“Tell me more!” he said, suddenly alert. “What friend? Where does he live?”
When the boy saw how tense his father had become, he burst out laughing.
“He isn't a person, Dad!”
“Then what is he?” Dad sighed with relief.
“It's the wind. Just an ordinary wind. His name is Fim.”
Dad cleared his throat into his fist, kissed his son on the forehead and said quietly:
“Son, I've got a favour to ask you. Don't tell anyone else about this, all right? Not even your friends. You haven't mentioned your new friend to anybody yet, have you?”
“No!” the boy shook his head.
“Good!” Dad praised him. “Let's keep it our secret.”
“Have you ever had a wind for a friend?” Nikolai asked.
“Not so far,” Dad answered. “How did you meet yours?”
“I was walking through the grove, and he whispered in my ear, 'Fim-fim!' I thought it was a bird. Then he said 'Fim-fim' again. So I asked, 'Who are you?'”
“And what did he say?” his father asked warily.
“He said, 'I'm the wind,'” Nikolai replied with a smile.
“And then?” Dad asked nervously, watching his son from under his brows.
“Then we introduced ourselves,” Nikolai said. “We agreed that his name would be Fim and that we'd be friends.”
“I see.” His father sighed heavily. “You know, Kolya, I'm feeling rather tired today. Do you mind if I go and rest? Get ready, because at the weekend we'll make our kite. Meanwhile, think what we'll call it.”
The boy hugged his father and whispered:
“Thank you. I'll ask Fim to carry our kite really, really high.”
“Excellent!” Dad said, and went off to his bedroom.
That night Nikolai dreamed of an ocean and a raging wind. It howled, roared and growled like a bear. Nikolai stood on the shore, breathing deeply. The wind seized great chunks of dark-grey cloud and threw them in different directions. Then it gathered the clouds into an armful and shaped them into figures: first a giant horse's head, then a great ship drifting out of the hands of the wind-giant, then a castle floating in the air. How beautiful it was!
The next day Nikolai told his new friend that he and Dad were going to make a kite at the weekend and bring it to a field for its first flight.
“Fim, you'll help us fly it really high, won't you?” the boy asked.
“F-f-f-f!” the wind replied, then added, “I'll help! Just make it properly.”
“My dad flew kites when he was little. We've decided not to buy one, but build it ourselves.”
“That's g-o-o-od!” the wind whispered. “I love flying kites too. When I was young, my father taught me how to keep them in the air. You have to know how to do that properly. Make the slightest mistake, and the kite goes into a spin.”
“Listen, Fim, where's your dad now?” the boy suddenly asked. “Maybe we could introduce him to my dad?”
“That won't work,” the wind rustled. “Adult winds don't live with their parents. We only meet now and then.”
“So you're all alone here?” the boy asked.
“Why alone?” Fim snorted. “Now I have you, my friend Nikolai.”
“But before that you were alone?”
“Yes,” the wind hummed gloomily.
“Will you ever fly away? Will you stay here forever?”
“I'll fly a-w-a-ay, Nikolai. I'll fly north, and another wind will come here.”
“I'll miss you,” the boy said sadly.
“I'll miss you too,” replied the wind.
On Saturday, when they had finished making the kite, father and son went to test it. They made such a joyful commotion that nearly every boy and girl living in the village came running to the field. Most astonishingly, on the following day Fim was already carrying five kites into the sky. The local children had found the idea highly contagious.
Only Nikolai's kite was home-made, however, and he was tremendously proud of that. The evening after its first flight, he and Dad had painted a bright red star on their flying machine and written its name beneath: Star.
“Sounds good, doesn't it?” Nikolai said.
Over the summer, Star needed repairing several times. Nikolai became an experienced pilot. By now he could almost build a kite with his eyes closed. At the end of August, he said goodbye to Fim. They agreed to meet again the following summer.
* * *
And now that day had arrived.
“Fim! Fim!” Nikolai shouted as he entered the forest. “Answer me!”
The woods were silent. The trees did not stir. Only something rustled in the grass.
“F-i-i-im!” the boy called even louder.
But there was no answer this time either.
“He's probably flown north,” Nikolai thought with a heavy sigh. “We didn't even get to say goodbye…”
That evening he told his father the sad news. Dad stroked his son's hair and said:
“Don't be sad, son. He'll come back one day. Winds are free to fly wherever they like. You'll certainly meet him again. Friends always find each other sooner or later.”
© Mikhail Samarsky. English translation prepared for the samarski.com working edition.