Captain of the Steppe

by Oleg Pavlov

  No one came to see Khabarov off, but he was glad to be left alone in the world. He set off in his felt boots and sheepskin coat, with a bottle of spirits stuck down the front, the one thing he had taken for himself. The bottle was just as much government property as the sheepskin; Khabarov had been given it by the medical officer in place of medicines and hospitals. That bottle comprised all his luggage, and it was surprisingly light, considering it provided him with drink, warmth, wellbeing and comfort: not so much a bottle as a mother. Taking a swig for the road, the captain walked and walked along the snowy ridge of the narrow-gauge rails, going ever deeper into the indistinct distance. Again and again he turned back towards the camp, to wave goodbye once more. Although he hadn’t wanted to trouble the men to come and see him off, they spent a long time parting with him: even on that twilit day you could see a long way from the watchtowers. And so the captain did wave, thinking that the soldiers were looking out for him from the towers. The sentries could indeed make him out: there he was, crawling along crookedly, like an ant, and when the captain was lost from view, hidden by the snowstorm, they began to wait for him to come back.

  The blizzard cheered Khabarov. Sheaves of snow formed flurries in the storm; they bustled and whirled, and from that white thread they instantly wove snow-white shawls with frilly edges, which flew in the wind, capering and dancing about. Here Khabarov took another swig from the bottle, not knowing when he would get there.

  Having left the settlement, Khabarov was no more than halfway along the route to Stepnoi before he got lost on the steppe; by now, even in his mind, he was no longer aiming for Ugolpunkt but drowning in these blizzard-struck expanses. The captain had chosen the simplest route for his hike, which was also the airiest. He had been walking along the narrow-gauge track, or the ski-track it formed, which did indeed lead to Ugolpunkt. The direction was clear, like a diagram, but as it ran through the snow and blizzard, it began to spin in the air. Khabarov walked towards the station halt for so long that more than once he thought he had strayed from the tracks. Slinking away, the snowy track slipped out from under his feet and carried itself off ever further, and he was forever sliding off to the side, unable to keep up with it. Khabarov recognised the halt from the charred beams sticking out of the snowdrifts.

  At some point then, at the Stepnoi junction, he suddenly panicked that he wouldn’t make it to Ugolpunkt: the distance that had opened out before him was so great, not to mention the coming snowstorm. And here Khabarov took another swig from the bottle as he made it to the top of the snowy rampart that the railway embankment had become, but he didn’t take a single step along it. The very moment he began thinking about the direction he should take to reach Ugolpunkt, everything in his head began whirling round like a wheel. Unsure which way to head, the captain looked in both directions as they twirled and danced, but he simply could not bring himself to choose one over the other, afraid, and becoming ever more so, of getting it wrong. Drowsily, he sat down on the spot, desperately trying to remember the right way to go. He came to just as the skies began to darken. The unfettered wind had whipped up a merry, drunken snowstorm, a proper blizzard. That wind seemed stronger than everything else, than either the snow or the harsh cold. It had shattered the winter! The air had built up great masses of snow, which were smashing themselves to pieces in the dark, carving themselves up into rumbling shards. And the captain recognised in those rumbles the blowing of the Buran; the Buran used to appear in the most placid steppe to collect little debts, but so many years had passed since it last came …

  If the captain was to survive, he had either to wait or to crawl back to the settlement; but then, in the knowledge that should the people there not already know of the Buran, they would nevertheless soon be feeling its blasts themselves, he crawled out of his hole in the snow and forced his way a little further. He had no idea where he was going, but the thing was not to move backwards. He walked and crawled and dragged himself along, and paused to get his breath back, but when he no longer had the strength to keep moving forwards, he lay down and mourned that he could not, although he was not sorry for himself. Getting to his feet in a moment of lucidity, he could not work out what he was doing there. He stopped, but once more set his face into the scouring, icy firmament and forced himself on. At one point, he realised that his bottle of spirits had vanished in the Buran. At another, after a hazy period, he understood that he was missing his fur hat. But the captain did not intend to let himself freeze over, to die in that spot, and he pushed himself onwards because, or so it seemed, people had faith in him. Like a draught-horse, he dragged his frostbitten legs. Like a river drags its icy waters, he dragged his frostbitten belly, and by now it seemed to him that he was hauling along the entire earth, the entire weight of the earth with its forests and seas. And then he crawled out of his sheepskin coat, was violently sick, and crawled on a bit more, still alive, still breathing …

  Somewhere along the way, his life gave out. The captain himself no longer wanted to crawl onwards. In his last moments of lucidity, Khabarov delved under the crust of the snow; the top layer in that particular place turned out to be thin and fresh. He sank down into the loose snow so deeply that the roaring of the Buran faded away. There in the warmth, the sounds of the wind muffled by the snow, and warm at last, he dozed off. And then, painlessly and without waking, he died, and so never even knew for sure that he had.

  The Buran raged over the steppe for three impenetrable days, then cleared in a matter of minutes. The steppe was covered by a calm, even, unbroken surface, and the light reflected by this surface, while sickly, was unbelievably clear; it poured out over the scarcely living expanse. Some of the sentry posts had not been abandoned at all; they had been taken up by men who had faith in the captain. The company had stood firm. It sometimes happened that stool pigeons and other such wicked personages would run across from the camp to the guardhouse, imagining that the zeks were about to do them in. The sentries let them through, and they sat in the corners, scared.

  A great many things were destroyed by that Buran in Karabas; the soldiers could hardly recognise it when they emerged, but all were cheered by at least being able to see the sky, and nothing could contain their joy, for it was tired of being confined.

  10

  For Glory, and for the Peace of his Soul

  Not a word was said to the public about the natural disaster that struck regions of northern Kazakhstan, but leaving aside these regions, for a while it seemed that burials were everywhere, and the smoke from the funeral fires lay so thick you might easily have hung a hammer in it. Meanwhile, wherever it was applicable and for local use only, an expression became current: ‘the Buran belt’, by which was meant the lands that had been ravaged and destroyed by the extreme weather.

  For a little while longer, Karabas was cut off from the outside world: telegraph poles had been toppled by the Buran over an extent of many kilometres and the company’s radio transmitter was out of action. Helicopters appeared in the skies over the settlement and dropped supplies, which maintained life in the camp. The zeks rebuilt one of the barracks for themselves, where a small number of sentries kept them under guard. There was no work to be done; the camp was run by the warders. The soldiers elected a leader, one of their own, whom they respected. The most pleasant weather set in, and there was enough to eat in what was supplied. They didn’t think about the captain, as sometimes happens when a man leaves but is due to come back, and everyone is so certain of this that they actually forget about him. A quiet, inspiring way of life took hold in the settlement, one that the men in it had never before experienced, which was surprising, if you recall that they had been born for such a life. Everything they needed dropped down from the sky without delay, and amid the devastation they lived more peacefully and ordinarily than ever, there being no forced labour or drilling. But then, from the direction of Stepnoi, there came an unexpected convoy. From Karabas, they saw that columns of men were moving towards them in good order, albeit flound
ering through snow up to their bellies, while behind them tractors were dragging logs, coils of barbed wire, barrels of diesel oil and warm shelters.

  With the column of soldiers came officers, too, who were surprised to find that all this time there had been no commanding officer in the settlement. ‘So where’s your commander?’

  ‘He went to fetch our pay.’

  ‘Lucky him, living a life on what others have provided!’ The officers were from an escort unit and could not hang about for long. The escort had been ordered to transport the prisoners to secure camps, while in Karabas itself they would leave a garrison of soldiers and craftsmen, who were supposed to restore all the damage by the spring.

  They sorted out the zeks, signed for them, then led them along the narrow-gauge track in one great contingent, using tractors to clear the way right up to the halt, where they loaded the prisoners up onto the platforms. There they were set to work, passing down the supplies of wood, metal, boxes of nails and brackets, cement, bricks, lime and foodstuffs that were there awaiting onward transit. Strange people bustled round, shouting orders. But they all fitted in soon enough.

  The work did not stop, even at night. There were enough people to form a legion: it was a wild, wide contingent, like a gypsy camp. Fires burned, guard dogs howled, sometimes there were gunshots. The little engine shuttled between Stepnoi and the camp: carrying a motley cargo one way, and returning packed with people. The bright, white night rocked, while this swarm of ants scurried all around. Arriving at the pick-up point, the engine poured out diesel fumes, like a ship. There were many volunteers: they had been selected from around the region and gradually brought into the settlement; they were labourers, real men.

  You would not believe how friendly and cordial those days were, when Karabas was being stripped down and rebuilt; the jovial chatter was unending. The place teemed with people; everything came together. There was a tale you’d not pass on – you’d never credit it – of another incident from those days, concerning a man, the camp engine driver; you know, the old bloke with the gammy leg. He took pleasure from diesel fuel, and had acquired a source of this pleasure. He was no more than a camp louse, but he had a high opinion of himself, what with being an engine driver. The old man’s heart used to sing as he saw out his term on the camp shunter, running on government-supplied diesel, telling perfect strangers, more often than not the labourers, ‘I feel sorry for this machine. She’ll die if she’s not set to work. She needs looking after, just like a cow, and she needs the same kind of love.’

  The old fellow had respect for the labourers, seeing as they weren’t scared of hard work and they took an interest in the mechanics of his shunter, and because they did not begrudge a man – that is, him – a bit of tobacco. And this shunter driver took such a shine to these blokes who had come in from elsewhere that he would go off with them for a bite to eat or for a smoke break as though he was a labourer himself. So only at night did he part from them, heading back into his barracks at the camp, under lock and key, while the others spent the night at liberty in the army barracks, where they had rebuilt the roof and generally restored order as speedily as if it were their own home. And somehow, one day, the shunter driver did not go back for roll-call in the barracks, but went instead like a free man with the other blokes; he sat with them chatting over a drop of vodka, and lay down to sleep in the army barracks, where they gave up a bunk and mattress for him. And during this time they wouldn’t have looked for him in the camp barracks anyway: the warders had got used to the fact that the engine driver worked at night as well. Old Pegleg had no kind of escort accompanying him, they just kept track of where he was by eye, like a little child; and anyway, what with the job he had, he was always in sight. That night, the old bloke did not close his eyes for excitement at spending the night among free men, who not only hadn’t driven him out but had given him a mattress. He lay there, tossing and turning, nearly waking everyone up. ‘What’s troubling you?’ one of them asked.

  ‘Can’t sleep, I could smoke a rollie, you know … ’

  ‘Smoke one, then. Here’s a light, and some baccy.’ Well then. He had a smoke, in the cold, out of respect for those asleep inside. Then he sat quietly over a drop to drink, and stayed like that till the very morning: he’d lie down, then have a smoke, then a drop to drink … If it had been a church, they’d have been reading matins when the engine driver walked back into the camp; everyone else was still asleep. The warder asked him, as he was letting him into the barracks, ‘And just where did you manage to get pissed?’ The engine driver replied, ‘We’re not drinkers, we’ve been working … ’ And in the morning, back to work. The blokes called out to him, ‘Where did you slope off to, in the night?’

  ‘I’m supposed to be in the prison barracks.’

  ‘Well, obviously! But don’t let it upset you!’

  During those days, they didn’t start looking for Captain Khabarov. The settlement managed to set itself to rights, and emptied of people. They gave out the overdue wages, and that’s when they remembered the captain – when there was no one to receive his pay!

  So much time had passed. If the captain had kept walking tirelessly, he could have gone right round the world and so back to Karabas. Once they’d searched around a bit, but not found him present, a report went from the battalion to the regiment that the company commander had gone AWOL.

  When this report reached the Special Department and came into the hands of Skripitsyn, he realised that there was no way the captain would have run off somewhere; if he was missing, that meant he was dead. He kept on at himself, under his breath, ‘He would have died, regardless.’ Stepping into action, Skripitsyn declared the captain AWOL, then began searching for his remains, being the only person who knew that Khabarov could not be among the living, since the life or death of some captain meant nothing to the regiment.

  It was he who circulated written portraits of the vanished officer: ‘Officer missing: medium height; strong build; thick dark hair, shot with grey; prominent forehead; wide oval face; moustache; prominent and fleshy nose and lips; eye colour unknown; no distinguishing features.’ Then he made his way to Karabas, setting himself up in the administrative office and conducting constant interrogations, as though thirsting to find out everything about the captain that the man himself had concealed while still alive, and about what the soldiers being questioned were hiding: the truth about his death.

  But there weren’t many men left in Karabas who had lived through the Buran: some were in hospital, others had been replaced. The few survivors tried to tell the Special-Department agent that when the wages had not arrived on time, the captain had set out on foot for Ugolpunkt, while the Buran had blown in on the settlement that very night. The remaining soldiers admitted no guilt, even though Skripitsyn tried to squeeze the truth out of them, being party to allegations from the prison warders that there had been a mutiny in the company and the soldiers had refused to do their duties. And then Skripitsyn realised that it was Captain Khabarov himself who was covering for the people under him, and that he had come up with the idea of dying deliberately in order to save them from the courts, even at the price of his own life.

  Despite coming away empty-handed, Skripitsyn did not call off the search for the body. Although the circumstances of Khabarov’s death were now clear to the Special-Department agent, he searched for the missing captain’s remains with even greater energy, as though he might be able somehow to get one step ahead in something important. Finding someone in the vast snowy steppe was akin to resurrecting them. And when Skripitsyn was informed that nothing had been found in the latest search area, he made himself scarce, as though he himself were the corpse. Whenever it was timidly suggested that they might never find the captain at all, that he might have been eaten by wolves or foxes, as happens to all the other carrion on the steppe, Skripitsyn would erupt, and the search, which had been winding down, would carry on once more at a dizzying pace.

  Another thing that played on the ag
ent’s nerves was the fact that Khabarov’s hat and sheepskin jacket had been found: the first on the steppe, over Kulunda way, and the second in the little town of Karakalinsk. Both were recognised as property of the regiment and items the captain had been wearing when he left the settlement. And if you believed for one moment that the captain had been in both those places, which were about a hundred kilometres distant from one another, then searching for him truly did seem pointless, for no one could track down a man like that.

  Then came a weekday at the very end of March. There was still plenty of snow on the ground; it seemed as though winter had hidden in the snow and was secretly keeping it cold, which was why the drifts still seemed to tower like boulders. But by now, warm sunlight was playing over its firm surface. The air was so warm it felt stuffy. As though there was not enough of it for the drifts themselves, the snow became porous, breathing. Half the company was out on guard duty while, in the barracks square, the soldiers who were off duty for now were messing about, building snowmen and hurling snowballs at them. When the fun wore off, it came into their heads to let the guard dogs out, so that they, too, could mess around, running about heedlessly in the square. This made the soldiers happier again, as they flung snowballs at the dogs. When they started rounding them up, the thrill of the chase wore off. The dogs had gone wild in their aimless running about, and no longer heeded any commands. They set about rummaging in the snow, even swallowing it, and then they were forgotten, until a guard dog’s howl suddenly rang out through the barracks and did not then subside: in a snowdrift right by the barracks wall, the guard dogs had dug up the body of Captain Khabarov. They were howling and whining; you’d have sworn they recognised him.

  The captain was curled up into a ball, just as he had fallen asleep under the snow, and because he had slept soundly for such a long time, there was no power on earth that could unbend him and straighten him out. His sinews had turned into steel hawsers. They carried him like that into the barracks and set him down by the stove, curled into a ball. All around there was quiet, as though the men were trying not to disturb him. In all that time he had not changed, being preserved by the cold. Some idiot turned up, saying with surprise, ‘Ah, Khabarov has arrived.’ But he hadn’t arrived, he had left. And nothing more is known, now, about those men who clustered round him; neither how they make their living these days, nor anything else. In the homely warmth, Khabarov began gradually to thaw. From beneath him ran a pure liquid, like tears. And then it seemed that he was a piss-artist, lying in a filthy puddle. He turned a blueish-grey in the heat, while his tunic became irremediably slimy. They decided not to wait any longer, then, and quickly sent a report to the regiment, which immediately demanded to have the located captain sent on, so he would only spend the one night in the barracks.