Captain of the Steppe

by Oleg Pavlov

  But when the soldiers grew so bold as to start dragging the provisions out of their sacks, Kolodin put a stop to their marauding. He picked up a can of stewed beef that had rolled out and began treating the soldiers to it: some in the eye, others across the head, and drove them all away.

  When the daft buggers had been lined up at the railway station, they grew boisterously happy, probably thinking they were to be sent home. They got themselves on the train quickly and efficiently. The old bloke was still threatening the drunk conductor to make sure the carriage entrances were locked up overnight, to which the latter agreed surprisingly easily, while Sanka had already started assigning shelves to the men, and taking their military belts off their greatcoats as a kind of passport to ensure they would not desert. It was a second-class citizen among trains, one of those that made unscheduled stops, that was driven onto sidings at night to make way for the express services, and that also stopped at every nameless station to take on more passengers. They didn’t even serve the usual stinking tea, and there was nowhere to wash.

  The old bloke grew silent on the journey. Kolodin, too, stayed wordless. By dusk, the train had made a good distance from Karaganda; all around the wild expanse of the steppe reached away. ‘It’s about time we ate something, or we’ll forget,’ said the old bloke, and Sanka heard him. He pulled out flasks of water, dry black bread and stewed meat from the sack he had been guarding, and began calling and otherwise summoning the men to get their food.

  Once they had eaten, the rejects, who had been causing a racket from every shelf, grew tired and settled down to sleep. The old bloke was puzzled as to why they were sending Sanka, a bright, healthy soldier, off to kick the bucket in the construction battalion alongside the rest of them. He couldn’t restrain his curiosity, and sat down alongside the Russian soldier. ‘Can’t you sleep? Do you know, for instance, where they’re sending you?’

  ‘Don’t you mix me up with them,’ replied Kolodin. The old bloke took offence: ‘Hey listen, you, they’re sending you off to serve in Baikonur, in a construction battalion. You’ll be munching on radiation. So you really are a fool, after all.’ He hadn’t meant to blurt out the secret, but he had wanted to appear important and needed, and he also thought that he wasn’t giving away anything he shouldn’t, just leaving an impression. ‘I take you there and then I come back. It’s not the first time I’ve done this trip. How come you ended up here? How come the army didn’t work out for a strapping lad like you?’ Kolodin said nothing. The old bloke didn’t feel like speaking to him any more.

  At one point, in the dead of night, when the carriage, piled to the ceiling with motionless bodies, was barely moving, Kolodin cloaked himself in his greatcoat and began to make his way towards the door, taking nothing with him. He stepped through this scrapyard of bodies with difficulty, emerging and pitching up in the doorway, cold, clean, and alive. But the immeasurable length of the black steppe surface was broken by the lights of an unknown station. The train, hauling itself along and rattling its metallic vertebrae, was slowly pulling alongside a bit of inhabited land. Solitary yells rang out, some faint, others more distinct. Sanka could see a little brick-built station, neatly whitewashed, resembling a peasant hut. The night was thick with people hustling to and fro. Sack-like shadows had begun to quiver in puffs of illuminated dust. Along the sides of the virtually motionless wagons rained a tiny hailstorm: people were running along the train, tapping on the wagons as they went, looking for any that were unlocked or without conductors.

  The pause began to feel oppressively drawn-out, as though just ahead of the train’s dumb head, the iron rails had been torn up. Suddenly, a Kazakh climbed up into the doorway that Sanka was sitting in, a swarthy man, sweating from his run alongside the carriages. He took fright at the apparition of this huge soldier and froze on the footplate, muttering in Kazakh, ‘It’s setting off, it’s setting off … ’ Kolodin moved towards him, reaching out to help, but the Kazakh jumped down in fear and disappeared into the darkness. With no time to think it over, as though he had lost his balance, Sanka tore down after him and found himself on hard, solid ground. His head span. He staggered, gulping down gusts of air made cold by the wind, and did not notice that the wagon behind him had set off and was moving in a long line of others that looked just like it.

  The little station building lay there in its own bright spot, empty of people, while the carriages went on and on, leaving behind a lifeless steppe, as though carrying off its last inhabitants. And Kolodin was left alone, not yet realising his predicament. All his tobacco had been used up. His identity documents were still in their little official case, along with the sack that contained the entire extent of that time-served soldier’s property.

  Having breathed unfettered air to the point of breakdown, Kolodin felt an ominous void inside himself. It was this that drew him towards the little station, from the darkness towards the light. The whitewashed hut was surrounded by a flexible fence woven from the boughs of a steppe shrub. Smoke hung over the roof, and windows goggled out from the walls at regular intervals just above ground level. The building itself was squat, as though it had been flattened. The yard smelt of dung bricks, and dogs lay around on the cold ground. As soon as Sanka stepped inside the fence, they roused themselves and began to howl, although they shrank from attacking. These curs were more likely strays than servants of the people that owned the place.

  Kolodin stepped back, but the dogs suddenly fell quiet and turned towards a well-fed, loosely dressed man who had jumped angrily out onto the porch. ‘Who’s carrying on out there?’ he roared, not coming down. Sanka weighed the matter up, waiting. The Kazakh, though, suddenly making out the army greatcoat and fur hat, called again, this time more cautiously: ‘Ai, Warrior, where are you going, and where have you come from?’

  ‘I got left behind by the train, I need to get to Karaganda,’ responded Kolodin, growing scared. ‘I could do with knowing when the train to Karaganda will be.’

  ‘So what was your rank, what was your unit?’ asked the Kazakh, delaying; he hadn’t believed this masterless soldier from the word go.

  ‘I’m from the Karaganda escort … ’

  ‘Oi, a soldier! Good, a soldier! Come in ’ere, come in … Give me your document, ’kay?’ It was plain to see that the Kazakh was in charge of this station lost out in the steppe; he was an elderly bloke who’d grown a pot belly, a moustache and a beard that looked like a hairy fist. His face was round and cake-like, but his eyes were dark and caustic. You wouldn’t have taken him for anything other than Kazakh. But still less would you have taken him for anything other than the pettiest of petty officials. Born to be light and straightforward, his face had swollen into crude, impudent features. His uniform jacket was too tight for his stout frame and swollen gizzard, while his wide uniform trousers were tucked into cowhide officers’ boots. On top of his head, as though on a nail, perched a faded peaked cap with a brand-new red star; this also seemed to have been taken from someone else’s swede. ‘My ID, my papers, they’re still on the train. I haven’t got anything, I left it all there … ’ Sanka said, as though for the record; he hung his head.

  ‘Ai, that’s bad! Left behind, were you?’ A little uneasy, given that he hardly came up to this soldier’s chest, the stationmaster walked around him, looking him over and patting him; either he was marvelling at the soldier’s bear-like build, or he was secretly searching him and judging what would be the best side to tackle him from. ‘Ai, batyr, there’ll be no Karaganda for a long, long time … ’ he sang out, as he circled around the soldier.

  ‘So what am I to do, father?’

  ‘You get on the train tomorrow! I give you a ticket, I give you something to eat. I give you everything. Balakaev admire the army. Balakaev in charge here. Left behind, were you?’

  ‘I told you, I need to get to Karaganda … ’

  ‘Ai, Karaganda-manda. Not for a long time yet. Listen, I give you a ticket tomorrow. All right? You come in, though. Balakaev pour vodka.�
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  They walked into this place that was half-station and half-dwelling, finding themselves immediately in a spacious, scruffy changing room with a row of bare government-issue benches; the air inside was grey from the tobacco smoke it had absorbed. Further off stretched only an empty, draughty passage, in the gloom of which Kolodin thought he saw a chain of doors, set almost flush into the wall. It was warm in the passage, and it smelt of frying, boiling and laundry. The room they came into from the yard was for official use, but it was also lived in, to a certain extent. On the wall, as in every boss’s office, there hung a portrait of Lenin – dome-headed, narrow-eyed, looking like a Kazakh. There was also a portrait of comrade Brezhnev, in which he was depicted as still youthful, resilient and, once again, almost incontrovertibly resembling a Kazakh. Balakaev, as he had called himself, hurried to seat the wary soldier at the desk, clearing its surface of documents and other litter. He was in two minds whether to leave the soldier alone, and so simply looked into the passage, shouting impatiently in Kazakh: ‘Wife, get up, you stupid cow. Bring me vodka and something to eat, and look lively!’ Meanwhile he hurriedly reassured the soldier with an oily smile. ‘I call my wife. We eat, drink … ’ And again he yelled into the passage: ‘Look lively! Ai, you stupid cow!’ He sat down, wheezing, to get his breath back. Shortly after, an old woman, so tired as to seem almost dead on her feet, noiselessly appeared in the room, holding a little, opaque green bottle and a wooden bowl containing pieces of mutton flesh that had been fried to go with the drink. Noticing the soldier, the old woman shrank back and sprang to her husband in fright. ‘Wife mine, idiot mine … ’ The Kazakh pulled a face at Kolodin and continued speaking in Kazakh, not changing his sickly sweet, oily expression: ‘You idiot, keep quiet … He’s a deserter, we’ll have to inform the department once he’s got drunk.’

  ‘Let him be … ’ the old woman said, quietly.

  ‘He’s come to the wrong guy for that!’ barked the Kazakh, not taking his now chill gaze from his wife, and then he burst out laughing: ‘Ai, the fool! She thought the wars were carrying me away! Och, och. Pour vodka, wife, Balakaev makes friend with guest.’

  Sanka also laughed, to keep in with his kind host. The Kazakh poured him a glass and nudged the mutton closer to him: ‘Let’s drink for our army!’ Kolodin was embarrassed just to grab the meat, so he drank, each time rejoicing that this other kindly soul was pouring refills so often, so that he could chase them down simply and easily with the mutton, which was really tasty. He was a hopeless drinker. Unused to vodka, he got a skinful more quickly than he got his stomach full.

  The Kazakh grew weary of the young lad, who had turned wild: he was banging his fist on the table and demanding more vodka. He dragged the soldier’s greatcoat from him and passed it to his wife on the sly. He dragged Sanka himself off into a dark store cupboard and tipped him onto some sacks, bolting the door.

  It was searingly cold in the cupboard. From his sprawling position on the sacks, Kolodin obstinately drew himself upright and made for freedom, away out of the damp and the dark, but he was stymied by the bolts. ‘Open up, father, I feel dreadful!’ He hammered on the door, growing scared of the place. Just the other side of the door, the Kazakh called out evilly, ‘Sit still, Sit still! Here, Balakaev the boss.’

  ‘Open up!’

  ‘Sit quiet, deserter. Listen, for you is prison.’

  ‘You bastard! Open up, or else I’ll break it down!’

  ‘Listen, Balakaev have gun, will shoot!’

  The Kazakh was trying to scare the deserter, but he had no illusions about the strength of the bolts. And when the door began to splinter under this wrathful, bear-like onslaught, launched by a man who apparently had nothing left to lose, Balakaev fled to safety, in disarray. After long, despairing attempts, Sanka broke through the door. Seeing that there was neither gun nor Kazakh on guard, he set off determinedly, aiming for the outside, but remembering something, he turned back, enraged still further, in search of his stolen greatcoat. Finding no trace of it in the room where they had been drinking, Kolodin made out an axe in the corner and picked it up, in recollection of the unobtrusive doors in that shadowy passage, behind one of which, perhaps, the Kazakh might have hidden. He broke one down with the axe, but behind it was nothing more than railway-workers’ lanterns and tools. The next door he sent flying open with one blow: in the little room behind, in the middle of bare, washed-down walls, a feeble lightbulb smouldered on its flex, illuminating children asleep on sagging government-issue bunks. Among them, among her own children, the stationmaster’s old woman was keening quietly to herself, her knobbly knees planted firmly into the floor. She couldn’t cover all her sons and daughters with her own body, so she threw herself at the feet of the soldier. ‘Where’s my greatcoat? Hand it over!’ croaked Kolodin, brandishing the axe in the dim light. ‘The coat, the coat, or I’ll kill them all, you bitch!’

  At this, the children woke, and Sanka, left for a moment by the old woman who had shot off to fetch his coat, looked venomously at them; at the mere sight of him, they began wailing and weeping. As soon as he got his property back, Sanka dropped the hefty axe on the spot. He made his way rapidly out of the house, then ran along the sleepers that vanished into the distance, going, as far as he could tell, back: back to distant, unattainable Karaganda.

  It seemed to Sanka Kolodin that he was being chased. He clearly heard both the howl of dogs and the clatter of boots in the steppe night. He fell, rose, and again exerted every sinew. Until he fell off the tracks … Laying on his back until he recovered, the escapee scrambled onto all fours but, suddenly, clutching at his throat, he sank face down onto the stony ground in a surprise fit of asphyxiation, worse than any pain. Sanka swelled up, and his horror-stricken eyes, streaming with tears, nearly burst out of their sockets. And just at that moment, when it seemed he would surely rupture, from his throat there came a whistle, needle-thin; and then the remnants of what he had eaten without looking, washed down with the stationmaster’s vodka, came flying up. Afterwards, Kolodin drew a breath, like an infant who had just emerged from its mother’s belly, and crawled away, fearing to look at the puddle of vomit that had nearly choked him.

  There was no sound of any pursuit to be heard. And Sanka could not see the lights of the station in the distance … He felt at ease, even though he did not know why he was still alive.

  The deserter was pulled out of this puppyish oblivion by the rumble of a locomotive; first one train and then another, heading in different directions, were dragging themselves along above him.

  The tracks at this point ran tight along a curving ridge, and the cautious engine-drivers bridled their steel horses, so as not to topple over sideways at full speed.

  Creeping up to the tracks, Kolodin hid, and waited for a goods train. The one that came was made up of empty coal trucks. Letting the engine pass far ahead, he leapt up onto the embankment and ran level with the shaking trucks, trying to catch hold of their sheer, deeply gouged sides. The wagons were inching away, but suddenly there was a flash of light and he saw shackles hanging down. He grabbed at them and was instantly dragged off the embankment, dangling in dumb panic, although the wagons were still moving. As petrified as ever, Sanka jerked his way up the shackles and tumbled over the screeching side, falling into the very bottom of the truck, which was strewn with coal. Instead of an impact, he experienced great relief, as though both pain and fear had been knocked out of him. Sprawling, listening to the coal skittering along the hollow iron truckbed, he looked up at the iridescent starry night, sparkling like a goldmine. It was arrayed above the warped sides of the coal truck, seemingly returning secretly from a journey to unknown parts.

  The train stopped at a station while Sanka was asleep. A railwayman made his way aboard the wagon and shouted, with a guffaw: ‘Come on then, get up, you lousy fucker! You fleeing from the front? Who the hell are you?’ The deserter crawled into a corner and sat dumbly quiet. ‘Don’t stay quiet!’ The railwayman was upset. ‘Come o
n, tell me your tale, I love this stuff … I have all the luck: the useless gits always turn up on my shift. Run away, then, have you? What are you staying quiet for? Look, don’t stay quiet, or I’ll turn you in, you hear? Maybe I’ve got a soft spot for runners. Maybe I did a bit of time for it myself.’

  ‘I need to get to Karaganda,’ said Sanka.

  ‘We’ve got our own Karaganda here, as far as you’re concerned.’

  Chuckling, the railwayman arrested the soldier and dragged him off. Passing under trains of goods vans that stretched for kilometres, they made their slow way to the depot.

  Sanka had no idea which way to run in this clanking metal forest, so he obediently followed after the railwayman, who was asking him questions as gleefully as if he had started rooting around in Sanka’s very innards.

  At the depot, the work team cheerfully joined in, drinking and chasing it down with obscenities: a real rabble. ‘His mummy’s in Karaganda, a dear old lady. He’s his dear old mum’s first and last child, bugger me if all her hopes aren’t placed on him. He’s running from the construction battalion, he’s running for liberty! Well I’ve grown to love him, he’s like a brother to me now. Look, I’d spill blood for him. Brothers, Fedulych, what should we do, then? Well, it was me that found him!’

  The man to whom the team leader had appealed asked without looking at him, ‘Is it true, then, all that bollocks about your mother this windbag was spouting?’