Karimov was telling him about how he had met a wounded lieutenant who had gone back home to his village. He appeared to have come merely to tell this story.
‘He was a good lad,’ said Karimov. ‘He talked about everything very openly.’
‘In Tartar?’
‘Of course.’
Viktor thought that if he were to meet a wounded Jewish lieutenant, he certainly wouldn’t start talking to him in Yiddish. He only knew a dozen words and they were just pleasantries like bekitser and haloimes.
This lieutenant had been taken prisoner near Kerch in the autumn of 1941. Snow had already fallen and the Germans had sent him to harvest the remaining wheat as fodder for horses. He had waited for the right moment and then disappeared into the winter twilight. The local population, both Russians and Tartars, had helped him escape.
‘I now have real hopes of seeing my wife and daughter again,’ said Karimov. ‘Apparently the Germans have different kinds of ration-cards just as we do. And he said that many of the Crimean Tartars have fled to the mountains – even though the Germans don’t harm them.’
‘When I was a student, I did some climbing in the Crimea myself,’ said Viktor.
As he spoke, he remembered that it was his mother who had sent him the money for the journey.
‘Did your lieutenant see any Jews?’ he asked.
Just then Lyudmila looked in through the door and said: ‘My mother still hasn’t come back. I’m quite anxious.’
‘Oh dear, I wonder what’s happened to her,’ said Viktor absent-mindedly. When Lyudmila had closed the door, he repeated his question:
‘What did your lieutenant have to say about the Jews?’
‘He said he’d seen a Jewish family being taken to be shot – an old woman and two girls.’
‘My God!’
‘And he said he’d heard of some camps in Poland specially for Jews. First they’re killed and then their bodies are cut up – just like in a slaughterhouse. But I’m sure that’s only a rumour. I asked him about the Jews because I knew you’d want to know.’
‘Why just me?’ Viktor said to himself. ‘Isn’t it going to interest anyone else?’
Karimov thought for a moment and then said:
‘I forgot. He also said that the Germans ordered new-born Jewish babies to be taken to the commandant’s office. Their lips are then smeared with some kind of colourless preparation and they die at once.’
‘New-born babies?’
‘But I’m sure that’s just someone’s imagination – like the camps where corpses are cut up.’
Viktor started to pace up and down the room.
‘When you think about new-born babies being killed in our own lifetime,’ he said, ‘all the efforts of culture seem worthless. What have people learned from all our Goethes and Bachs? To kill babies?’
‘Yes,’ said Karimov. ‘It’s terrible.’
Viktor could sense Karimov’s sorrow and compassion, but he was also aware of his joy. Karimov now had more hope of seeing his wife again. Whereas he, Viktor, knew only too well that he would never again see his mother.
Karimov got ready to go home. Viktor didn’t want to say goodbye and decided to accompany him for part of the way.
‘You know one thing,’ he said as they were putting on their coats, ‘Soviet scientists are very fortunate. Try and imagine the feelings of an honest German chemist or physicist who knows that his discoveries are helping Hitler! Imagine a Jewish physicist whose family are being killed off like mad dogs – imagine what he feels, when, against his will, his discovery is used to reinforce the power of Fascism! He knows that, but he can’t help feeling proud of his discovery. It must be terrible!’
‘Yes,’ agreed Karimov. ‘But a thinking person can’t just stop thinking.’
They went out onto the street.
‘I feel awkward about your coming with me,’ said Karimov. ‘The weather’s terrible and you’ve only just got back yourself.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Viktor. ‘I’ll come as far as the corner.’ He looked at his friend’s face and said: ‘I enjoy walking down the street with you – even if the weather is terrible.’
‘Soon you’ll be going back to Moscow. We’ll have to say goodbye. You know, these meetings have meant a lot to me.’
‘Believe me,’ said Viktor. ‘I feel sad too.’
As Viktor was on his way back, someone called out his name. Viktor didn’t hear at first. Then he saw Madyarov’s dark eyes looking straight at him. The collar of his overcoat was turned up.
‘What’s happening?’ he asked. ‘Have our meetings come to an end? You’ve vanished off the face of the earth. Pyotr Lavrentyevich is angry with me.’
‘Yes,’ said Viktor, ‘it’s a pity. But we did both say a lot of things in the heat of the moment.’
‘Yes, but no one’s going to pay any attention.’
Madyarov drew closer to Viktor. His large, melancholy eyes looked even more melancholy than usual.
‘Still,’ he said, ‘there is one good thing about our not meeting any more.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I have to tell you this,’ said Madyarov, almost gasping, ‘I think old Karimov’s an informer. Do you understand? You meet quite often, don’t you?’
‘That’s nonsense. I don’t believe a word of it.’
‘Can’t you see? All his friends and all the friends of his friends are just labour-camp dust. His whole circle has vanished. He’s the only one left. What’s more, he’s flourishing. He’s been granted his doctorate.’
‘And what of it?’ said Viktor. ‘I’m a doctor myself. And so are you.’
‘The same goes for us. Just think a little about our wonderful fate. You’re not a child any more.’
9
‘Vitya, Mother’s only just got back.’
Alexandra Vladimirovna was sitting at table with a shawl round her shoulders. She moved her cup of tea closer and then pushed it away again.
‘Guess what?’ she said. ‘I spoke to someone who saw Misha just before the war.’
Speaking in a deliberately calm, measured tone because of her excitement, she went on to say that the neighbours of a colleague of hers had had someone to stay from their home-town. The colleague had happened to mention the name Shaposhnikova and he had asked if Alexandra Vladimirovna had a relative called Dmitry.
After work, Alexandra Vladimirovna had gone to her colleague’s house. There she had learned that this man had recently been released from a labour camp. He had been a proof-reader on a newspaper and had spent seven years in the camps for missing a misprint in a leading article – the typesetters had got one letter wrong in Stalin’s name. Just before the war he had been transferred for an infringement of discipline from a camp in the Komi ASSR to one of the special-regime ‘lake camps’ in the Far East. There he had slept next to Dmitry Shaposhnikov.
‘I knew from the very first word that he really had met Mitya. He said: “Mitya just lay there on the bedboards, whistling ‘Little Bird Where Have You Been?’” Mitya came round shortly before he was arrested – and whatever I asked, he just smiled and whistled that same tune . . . This evening the man’s going on by lorry to his family in Laishevo. He said Mitya was ill – scurvy and heart trouble. And he said Mitya didn’t believe he’d ever get out. Mitya had told him about me and Seryozha. He had a job in the kitchen – apparently that’s the best work of all.’
‘Yes,’ said Viktor. ‘It’s not for nothing he’s got two degrees.’
‘You never know,’ said Lyudmila. ‘This man might be a provocateur.’
‘Why should a provocateur bother with an old woman like me?’
‘All right, but there is an organization that’s interested in Viktor.’
‘Lyudmila, you’re talking rubbish,’ said Viktor impatiently.
‘But why was this man released?’ asked Nadya. ‘Did he say?’
‘The things he said are quite incredible. It seems to be a world of its own, or r
ather a nightmare. He was like someone from a foreign country. They’ve got their own customs, their own Middle Ages and modern history, their own proverbs . . .
‘I asked why he’d been released. He seemed quite surprised. “I was written off,” he said. “Don’t you understand?” In the end he explained that sometimes, when they’re on their last legs, “goners” are released. There are lots of different classes in the camps – “workers”,fn1 “trusties”, “bitches”fn2 . . . I asked him about the ten years without right of correspondence that thousands of people were sentenced to in 1937. He said he’d been in dozens of camps but he hadn’t met one person with that sentence. “Then what’s happened to all those people?” I asked. “I don’t know,” he answered, “but they’re not in the camps.”’
‘Tree-felling. Deportees. People serving additional time . . . It just appals me. And Mitya’s lived there. He’s used those same words – “goners”, “trusties”, “bitches” . . . Apparently there’s a special way of committing suicide: they don’t eat for several days and just drink water from the Kolyma bogs. Then they die of oedema, of dropsy. People just say, “He was drinking water” or “He began drinking”. Of course, that’s when they have a bad heart already.’
Alexandra Vladimirovna looked round at Nadya’s furrowed brow and Viktor’s tense, gloomy face. Her head on fire and her mouth quite dry, she went on:
‘He said that the journey’s even worse than the camp itself. The common criminals have absolute power. They take away people’s food and clothes. They even stake the lives of the “politicals” at cards. Whoever loses has to kill someone with a knife. The victim doesn’t know till the last moment that his life’s just been gambled away. Yes, and apparently the criminals have all the important posts in the camp. They’re the ones in charge of the huts and the work-gangs. The politicals have no rights at all. The criminals call them “ty”. They even called Mitya a Fascist.’
In a loud voice, as though she were addressing a crowd, Alexandra Vladimirovna announced:
‘This man was transferred from Mitya’s camp to Syktyfkar. In the first year of the war a man from Moscow called Kashkotin was appointed director of the lake-camps, including Mitya’s. He’s been responsible for the execution of tens of thousands of prisoners.’
‘Oh my God!’ said Lyudmila. ‘But does Stalin know of these horrors?’
‘Oh my God!’ said Nadya angrily, imitating her mother’s voice. ‘Do you still not understand? It was Stalin who gave the order for the executions.’
‘Nadya!’ shouted Viktor. ‘Cut it out!’
He flew into a sudden rage – the rage of a man who senses that someone else knows his hidden weaknesses.
‘Don’t you forget,’ he shouted at Nadya, ‘that Stalin’s the commander-in-chief of the army fighting against Fascism. Your grandmother trusted in Stalin to the last day of her life. And if we still live and breathe, it’s because of Stalin and the Red Army . . . First learn to wipe your nose properly, then criticize Stalin – the man who’s halted the fascists at Stalingrad.’
‘Stalin’s in Moscow,’ said Nadya. ‘And you know very well who has really halted the Fascists. You are peculiar. You used to come back from the Sokolovs and say just the same things yourself . . .’
Viktor felt a new surge of anger. He felt as though he would be angry with Nadya for the rest of his life.
‘I never said anything of the kind. You’re imagining things.’
‘Why bring up all these horrors now?’ said Lyudmila. ‘Soviet children are giving their lives for the Motherland.’
It was at this moment that Nadya showed how well she understood her father’s weaknesses.
‘No,’ she said, ‘of course you didn’t. Not now – not when your work’s going so well and the German advance has been halted.’
‘How dare you!’ cried Viktor. ‘How dare you accuse your own father of being dishonest? Lyudmila, did you hear what the girl said?’
Instead of giving Viktor the support he had asked for, Lyudmila just said: ‘I don’t know why you should be so surprised. She’s picked it up from you. You’ve said things like that to that Karimov of yours, and that awful Madyarov. Marya Ivanovna’s told me all about your conversations. And anyway you’ve said quite enough here at home. Oh, if only we could go back to Moscow!’
‘Enough of that!’ said Viktor. ‘I know what you’re about to say.’
Nadya was silent. Her face looked ugly and shrivelled, like an old woman’s. She had turned away from Viktor; when he finally caught her eye he was surprised at the hatred he saw in it.
The air was thick and heavy, almost unbreathable. Everything that lies half-buried in almost every family, stirring up now and then only to be smoothed over by love and trust, had now come to the surface. There it had spread out to fill their lives. It was as though there were nothing between father, mother and daughter save misunderstanding, suspiciousness, resentment and anger.
Had their common fate really engendered nothing but mistrust and alienation?
‘Grandmama!’ cried Nadya.
Viktor and Lyudmila turned simultaneously towards Alexandra Vladimirovna. She was sitting there, her head in her hands, looking as though she had an unbearable headache.
There was something pitiful about this helplessness of hers. She and her grief were of no use to anyone. All she did was get in the way and stir up quarrels. All her life she had been strong and self-disciplined; now she was lonely and helpless.
Nadya suddenly knelt down and pressed her forehead against Alexandra Vladimirovna’s legs.
‘Grandmama,’ she murmured. ‘Dear, kind Grandmama . . . !’
Viktor got up and turned on the radio. The cardboard loudspeaker moaned and wheezed. It could have been the autumn weather, the wind and snow over the front line, over the burnt villages and mass graves, over Kolyma and Vorkuta, over airfields and the wet tarpaulin roofs of first-aid posts.
Viktor looked at his wife’s sombre face. He went over to Alexandra Vladimirovna, took her hands and kissed them. Then he bent down to stroke Nadya’s head.
To an outsider it would seem as though nothing had changed in those few moments; the same people were in the same room, oppressed by the same grief and led by the same destiny. Only they knew what an extraordinary warmth had suddenly filled their embittered hearts . . .
A booming voice suddenly filled the room:
‘During the day our troops have engaged the enemy in the regions of Stalingrad, north-eastern Tuapse and Nalchik. On the other Fronts there has been no change.’
Footnotes
fn1 I.e. prisoners still capable of a full day’s work.
fn2 Common criminals who have broken the underworld code.
10
Lieutenant Peter Bach was taken to hospital after receiving a bullet-wound in the shoulder. The wound turned out not to be serious; the comrades who had accompanied him to the field-hospital congratulated him on his luck.
Even though he was still groaning with pain, Bach felt blissfully happy. Supported by an orderly, he went to take a bath.
The sensation of the warm water on his skin was a real pleasure.
‘Is that better than the trenches then?’ asked the orderly. Wanting to cheer up the lieutenant, he gestured towards the continual rumble of explosions. ‘By the time you’re released, we’ll have all that sorted out.’
‘Have you only just been posted here?’ asked Bach.
‘What makes you think that?’ replied the orderly, rubbing the lieutenant’s back with a flannel.
‘Down there no one thinks it will be over soon. People think it will take a very long time indeed.’
The orderly looked at the naked lieutenant. Bach remembered that hospital personnel had instructions to report on the morale of the wounded. And he himself had just expressed a lack of confidence in the might of the armed forces. He said very distinctly: ‘Yes, just how it will turn out is anyone’s guess.’
What had made him repeat these dangerous
words? No one can understand unless he himself lives in a totalitarian empire.
He had repeated these words because he was annoyed with himself for feeling frightened after saying them the first time. And also out of self-defence – to deceive a possible informer by a show of nonchalance.
Then, to dissipate any unfortunate impression he might have produced, he said: ‘It’s more than likely that this is the most important concentration of forces we’ve assembled since the beginning of the war. Believe me!’
Disgusted at the sterility of the complex game he was playing, he took refuge in a game played by children – squeezing warm soapy water inside his clenched fist. Sometimes it squirted out against the side of the bath, sometimes straight into his face.
‘The principle of the flame-thrower,’ he said to the orderly.
How thin he had become! Looking at his bare arms and chest, he thought of the young Russian woman who had kissed him two days before. Could he ever have imagined having an affair, in Stalingrad, with a Russian woman? Though it was hardly an affair. Just a wartime liaison. In an extraordinary, quite fantastic setting. They had met in a cellar. He had had to make his way past ruined buildings that were lit only by the flashes of shell-bursts. It was the kind of meeting that it would be good to describe in a book. He should have seen her yesterday. She probably thought he had been killed. Once he was better, he’d go and see her again. It would be interesting to see who’d taken his place. Nature abhors a vacuum . . .
Soon after his bath he was taken to the X-ray room. The doctor sat him down in front of the screen.
‘So, Lieutenant, I hear things have been tough over there,’ he said.
‘Not as tough as they’ve been for the Russians,’ Bach replied, wishing to please the doctor and be given a good diagnosis, one that would make the operation quick and painless.