  We re-analyze archival Ginga data of the soft X-ray transient source GS
2023+338 covering the beginning of its May 1989 outburst. The source showed a
number of rather unusual features: very high and apparently saturated
luminosity, dramatic flux and spectral variability (often on ~1 sec time
scale), generally very hard spectrum, with no obvious soft thermal component
characteristic for soft/high state.
  We describe the spectrum obtained at the maximum of flux and we demonstrate
that it is very different from spectra of other soft X-ray transients at
similar luminosity. We confirm previous suggestions that the dramatic
variability was due to heavy and strongly variable photo-electric absorption.
We also demonstrate that for a short time the source's spectrum did look like a
typical soft/high state spectrum but that this coincided with very heavy
absorption.
