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favorite. He didn’t have his own children, he was an incorrigible bachelor. He loved us to death. We loved him in our child’s way, like a peer or overgrown child. Long ago, Vanya and Ilya had come up with a complicated nickname for him. The name jumped out of Uncle’s mouth every time he visited us in Petersburg. A fancier of restaurants and café chantants, Uncle would invariably demand on the first night of his visit that Father accompany him “somewhere.” Father, knowing
how
these excursions “somewhere” ended, would always mutter that “now there’s not even anywhere to go.” To which Uncle, throwing his handsome head back, would reproachfully spread his hands, which were long like Father’s, and flex his fingers.
    “Please, Dima! You have Ernest, Cuba, and two Donon’s.”
    These were the names of the four most luxurious restaurants in the city. After which Father and Uncle disappeared until the morning. So for us, Uncle Yury became Ernestcubantwodonons. When his carriage drove into the gates of the northern estate, Nastenka and I would race around the rooms, shouting “Ernestcubantwodonons has arrived!”
    While feeding us, Uncle assured everyone that we would be setting out for Warsaw ourselves in a matter of days. Dymbinsky was prowling the city in search of some “devilishly important papers.” This dragged on for several weeks: Uncle was waiting for help from his German friends. But the Germans suddenly left Kiev without even informing Uncle. And somehow Petliura with his “barbaric, primitive hordes” suddenly approached Kiev very quickly. People talked about him with horror. Petliura entered the city in order to “hang officers, kikes, and ‘Moscvitoes.’” He was Ukrainian. People said he left only Ukrainians alive. I imagined him as the sorcerer in Gogol’s “Terrible Revenge,” the most terrifying story on earth. As soon as the Germans ran off, Dymbinsky disappeared. And our jolly self-assured uncle became panicked. He shook Father by the shoulders and shouted that “you must run from Lipki as fast as you can.” He was certain that Petliura’s people would come right straight here to pillage, to the wealthiest neighborhood. Father began to shout back that he knew how to shoot. But he soon dismissed Uncle with a wave of his long hand and began to pack. In the morning we left Lipki in two carriages. Father and I sat in the first one; in the second was Ernestcubantwodonons with a heap of things and his old servant, Savely. There was a slight frost. Despite the fact that it was December, not much snow had fallen. But after a sleepless night of packing and shouting I was chilled and shivering, and
desperate
to sleep. I was dozing in the carriage, slouched against Father and clutching a Ciy biscuit tin in my hands. I had all my treasures in it, a jumble of beloved objects — a collection of pencils, a Swiss penknife, and a tin pistol with a box of percussion caps. Twice we stopped and I woke up: the first time was when a small, plump, very anxious lady with two traveling bags took a seat with Uncle; the second time was on some terribly crooked street when Dymbinsky, holding a briefcase and dressed in a gray summer suit and fuzzy sheepskin hat, his arm bandaged, squeezed in with us. He handed Father the briefcase and kept muttering hoarsely and insistently about a place called Pushche-Voditsu and some barracks. His eyes were red, and the fuzzy hat made me sleepy. I dozed off again. And opened my eyes at the sound of nearby thunder. Both wagons stood on a street with one-story houses surrounded by gardens lightly covered in snow. A fat redheaded woman wearing a nightgown, her braid half undone, was hurriedly closing the shutters. There was another rumble, even closer.
    “Six-inch shells. No smaller,” said Dymbinsky and tapped the driver’s back. “Turn around!”
    A large black Mauser suddenly appeared in his hand. Cussing, the cabby turned into a side alley. Far away, three men in