However, when the steamer was pulling up to the pier, when home and Anisa appeared tangibly close, his thoughts veered away from Tatyana. “Thank you,” he told her as she indecisively reached him a piece of paper: her address in Ulan-Udé “I’ll write you,” he solemnly assured her, pocketing the paper into his sheepskin. He had no intention of doing so however; all his thoughts lived for Anisa now.
Later, when he saw his wife, when he heard her voice, he simply forgot all about Tatyana. He forgot, as if not he but another man had been voyaging with her up the Yenissey.
Anisa looked more beautiful than ever—simply ravishing in the blue fox over her full shoulders. Beautiful, but aloof. Ilya tried not to pay any attention to the neighbors’ innuendos.
Anisa used to keep his things in order—now she had to be reminded. His mitt got torn; he asked her to mend it, he asked her again; one morning, he got out the darning box and began to mend it himself. Anisa and his mother-in-law pretended not to see. He finished, went out and put the mitt into his pocket; he thought everybody was making fun of his unwomanly, clumsy stitches.
But that was a minor point which could have been overlooked if the main issue had still been alive—it wasn’t. Love can be feigned, indifference can’t. Ilya hurtfully complained to his wife one day. She was honestly surprised. “What do you want?” She asked. “I’m alive. What else do you want?” She repeated, arrogantly curious.
He was overcome by a painful anger toward this well-fed woman. “You’re no wife, you’re a whore,” he insulted her for the first time in his life.
“You’re right,” she faced him boldly, her arms akimbo. “Do you think a decent woman would have agreed to live with you? If my father were alive, and things were different, how much do you think you would have seen of me, you Buryat bastard?”
She screamed, burst out in tears, and became red in the face. If it hadn’t come from Anisa, Ilya would have found it amusing to listen to all that vituperative monologue hurled for no reason. But it came from his wife; the whole outburst was so savage that it had left him speechless. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he had suddenly seen himself in the mirror, not as he knew himself now: robust, firm on his feet, a little pale perhaps on top of the solid, northern sunburn—but once again as the little, black-haired boy who wasn’t allowed to sit at the table when his father had company.
He dressed in silence and left.
A wind coming from Mongolia drove little sand waves along the ground.
Ilya knew that if he didn’t make his decision now he would never be able to look at himself again. He walked fast. He frowned in order not to have to look at the trees or houses, because the trees, houses, even the ground itself—everything was running back to her. Only the wind was on his side, it pushed him from behind in gusts: “Go on, go on.”
“Where to?” He didn’t know.
He was already outside of the town limits when a driver he knew called out to him. Wouldn’t he like a lift to Ulan-Udé? Ilya jumped into the cab; he told the driver that he had a new assignment—as a matter of fact he did. He felt like smoking. While fumbling for a cigarette, he pulled out from his pocket the crumpled piece of paper with the address on it. There were no cigarettes, though. He returned the paper to its place and accepted a thin Chinese cigarette from the driver.
When Tatyana saw him enter the door, she blushed and rushed to meet him. Then one look into his unhappy eyes and she knew that he didn’t come to her but had run away from his wife.
She didn’t try to pry anything out of him, as if there was nothing unusual about his coming to her. She put the teakettle on the kerosene heater and began to cover the table. How poor her place looked after home! Ilya fumbled in his pockets but had to apologize for leaving his last ruble at home.
“I have some,” she advised him simply as she saw him search for his money. She put on her beret and went out.
A dreary thought came to his mind: he would have liked to get drunk. But Tatyana didn’t buy any vodka, though she had spent plenty on food. She was happy to treat him, without any fuss; she had even thought of cigarettes. He took a smoke and took his jacket off.
She made the bed and asked him if he wanted to lie down. “I have some work left to do,” she said, putting out the top lights. The light of a shaded night lamp fell on the little table in a yellow, warm circle. She got out some books, but, of course, did no studying. He knew that she wanted to let him fall asleep.
When she came by the bed on tip-toes, he grasped her hand.
“Sit down please. …”
She sat down on the very edge.
“I’m beat, Tanya,” he muttered, “don’t be angry with me.”
“Don’t think of it, go to sleep.” She gingerly patted his fingers as if he were sick. He fell asleep.
When the generous Trans-Baykal sun came streaming through the dazzlingly transparent windowpanes and woke him up, he wondered where she had slept.
“I should have covered it,” she observed, “but I’ve got no blinds or curtains. I love to see the sky, night and day. Don’t you?”
The sun rays passed through her hair: it seemed now not platinum but golden blond, and she herself taller and handsomer than on the boat. It occurred to him that never before had he seen her in high heels.
Breakfast was ready; she was in a hurry to get to her job. She showed him where to leave the keys if he felt like going out. “If you feel like it,” she had said as if there were no question about his staying with her.
The sun and the brilliant, blue sky beamed into the hospitable window. Blunt and distraught, incapable of thinking or deciding for himself, he curiously examined his haven. No, this little room wasn’t that poor; it was rather spacious without all the inert mantles, embroideries, napkins and endless china figurines which he hated as much as he loved life.
And the little rug at his bedside wasn’t cheap, either! How wonderful it felt lying on the floor instead of looking down untouchably from the wall. Ilya also noticed expensive crystal flower vases. She feels secure already, Dovie Girl; he thought; people who live from hand to mouth don’t buy vases.
Her clothes were not gaudy but tasteful; they resembled their owner in a way. He was amazed to realize that even this morning, the morning which might turn out to be the most difficult in his life, the nearness of this dear, stubborn woman gave him great comfort. He could be so candid with her! Perhaps because her past was so hard. …
He opened the door for her, helped her take off her coat, hung it up too, then turning around, gave her a weak smile.
Seeing his guilty smile, noticing his tired face, drawn in the last twenty-four hours, she shivered. She looked a trifle disheveled and her face was pink from the fresh air.
“Stop tormenting yourself,” she told him firmly, as she dropped her down-soft scarf on the chair. “Please get this into your head: I don’t want anything from you. There’s nothing I expect from you, and there’s nothing I want of you. Can’t you see that?”
She had walked up to him and while talking held her arms on his shoulders, almost hugging him. There was no doubt in his mind, however, that she meant what she said; that the only thing she wished, like a mother, was that he stop suffering.
“Please don’t,” she suddenly blushed and reeled away as he tried to pull her to him. Then without saying anything else she pressed her cheek to his quilted jacket.
“Let’s go away from here, Tanyusha,” he suggested bluntly, tightly clenching his jowls. He caressed her hair and thought, no matter what, he had to get away from here, away from Kyakhta. He couldn’t allow himself to cavil; he ought to forget everything.
As soon as Ilya went through the necessary formalities, Tatyana was also allowed to leave. They set out as husband and wife for Pripyatin in the Ukraine, where her relatives lived.
After the severe grip of the Trans-Baykal weather he was amazed at the slothful mildness of the Ukraine. As compared with the reserved Siberians, the people here seemed easygoing and friend
ly. Very soon he became chummy with his new relatives. Her uncle visited them on holidays for dinner. He liked to slap Ilya on his broad back and tell him, “That woman got herself a heck of a husband. Quite independent!”
But he’d invariably end the discussion like this: “By the way, she ain’t bad either. It was her first husband that almost finished her off. But, in good hands. …”
“What are good hands, rough ones?” Ilya wondered with a smile.
That was the autumn before the war. They were sitting in the orchard. The two men sat behind a wooden table covered with a flowered oilskin cloth; Tatyana made herself comfortable on the bench, her legs pulled up and her back resting against her husband’s. The sun had set; dusk was falling; the sky was cloudless and grand, turning thicker and growing into an emerald dark.
“Are your hands good?” Ilya asked again, gingerly turning his head—his back felt too warm and cozy to disturb it.
Tatyana’s eyes lit up; her teeth simply sparkled as she laughed out. She stretched quietly, and briefly her cheek touched Ilya’s. But then their backs pulled apart, and she began to feel chilly.
“Tanyusha, please pick me a sour apple from the tree,” Unc asked with a robust yawn.
Laughing, she pranced down from the bench and gracefully ran to the apple tree. Ilya was right behind her. She decided to pick a few apples from the higher branches. Upwards flashed her tanned legs and her dainty slippers.
“Don’t jump, I’ll take you down.”
Ilya reached out and nimbly pulled her down. For a moment he held her up—he couldn’t have held Anisa that way; Anisa was a little taller than he, full and weighty. Tatyana felt like a feather.
“Dovie Girl,” he said, letting her down. “Just amazing how much spunk there is in this little you. Drop by drop and you get what you want.”
A beetle got into her hair; her fair skin glistened under the slipped shoulder strap of her bodice. He freed the beetle. She turned her dark face up at him, admiring him in silence with huge, strangely transparent eyes. He saw in them something he had never been able to see in Anisa’s eyes.
He kissed her on the lips—timidly, as if she weren’t his wife. Again, he peered into her eyes.
“Again,” she asked him softly. So softly that he could only guess what she had said.
That evening brought nothing out of the ordinary, however. After they had taken Unc home Tatyana semed rather edgy. She complained of being cold and sleepy. Ilya didn’t mind. He felt so light and good that night, so peacefully attuned with the full, quiet country, that had it not been for this dear load on his left arm he might have simply soared like a bird.
When war came, when he was called, she cried but didn’t let him see her tears. When time came to part she cuddled up to him. She looked so defenseless, had grown years older in a few days. “Please, as much as you can, watch yourself,” she implored. “If something, please … come back. No arms, no legs, anything … please come back. I’ll be waiting for you. …”
Being a good shot, hunter and pathfinder, Ilya was assigned to scouting. The new trade, the trade of war, he learned calmly, as conscientiously as ever. But he so longed for home; he had enjoyed so little of it!
Now, as they stood on the threshold of Germany, when his conviction grew stronger with each day that he would survive this war, a new obsession began to torment him: what if he, alive and unscathed, found out that there was nothing to come back to, nothing ahead of him? He’d curse destiny that had made him happy and for such a short time. He’d find himself struggling with a helpless kind of jealousy, seeing Tatyana so irresistible that she couldn’t help having men drawn to her, adore her. Then doubts would give rise to fury, which was good in battle, but in those infrequent periods of quietude in between patrols, he’d feel like striking out against himself and against those around him.
3
The little frost was trying to firm up as the evening deepened. However, compared with the vigorous, Siberian cold, this winter was just a baby. Shaking himself like a big dog, Ilya got up from the ground and went to see the regiment commander.
The commander, a young major with nine decorations, presented him with the plan of operation, reading off with slow deliberation the names of German-populated points.
“There’s the second echelon for you.” Captain Tshernikhov whispered to Ilya.
“Of course, in the first echelon are the Germans, in the second are we.”
The regiment commander didn’t keep them long. For the first time, at least on the map, they were on German soil. The feeling of keen pride, just retribution, which was common to all of them, was so strong that it had supplanted all other feelings. Elated the same way as the others by the palpably close victory, Ilya was annoyed at the vice-politoff who suddenly switched him back to the agonizing fruitless thoughts: “We’ll send another inquiry about your wife, Second Lieutenant,” Prostakov had said, walking up to him. “Also, vou still remember our talk; take good care of your men.”
Prostakov walked back to the regiment commander who apparently knew what it was all about.
“Well, what are you writing in your reports,” the commander winked. “Is the political-moral condition in good shape?”
“You think of it as a joke, Ivan Semenitch,” Prostakov sighed gravely, “but you should see how people become brutalized in four years. There are some whose souls are so bleeding that you can’t touch’em.”
“You’re the educated one, so go on heal those sick souls,” the commander suggested, as he was leaving to inspect the sub-units. There wasn’t much time left.
The enemy engaged them in a heavy battle on this side of the border.
Fedka was wounded. Getting down to his knees, Ilya unbuckled him and pulled down his wide trousers. The bowels were pushing out of his sinewy belly in a blue foam. “A swig of vodka, sarge. …” Fedka moaned, crumpling some withered leaves between his fingers and jerking his head.
Ilya poured him some vodka from the canteen and kissed him on his bloodless lips. Two scouts took Fedka to the rear.
The Germans withdrew in a hurry. …
The morning was overcast and grey as the regiment had fought its way across the border. Then, everything became silent—so silent that Ilya began to wonder: “Have they capitulated?” The scouts followed fresh caterpillar tracks of Russian tanks. They came to a steep bank overhanging a narrow, clear river; they passed a line of abandoned barges bearing long, unRussian names; they crossed the bridge to the other side. “There she is, the damn Nazi Germany.” A freshly tar-painted legend screamed at them in sprawling black letters from the wall of the first two-storied building.
Slate houses capped with sharp red tile stretched out in two long files. Carts, bundles lay around in the street. Quilt down danced freely in the wind. Like snow it hugged the soil, the walls, and fences, but unlike snow it refused to melt, staying white as would snow on the face of a corpse.
A youthful scout, Fimotchka, reported to Ilya as Fedka’s replacement.
“Not a soul, Comrade Second Lieutenant. The Gerries are gone.”
They walked up the street, clinking their forged heels against the cobblestone. A corpse of a German officer was doubled over a low palisade, his hands and long hair sweeping the soil. It seemed the Nazi was bowing to his belt to welcome the entering Russian armies.
They caught up with the Germans toward evening. For a while the enemy was returning the fire, but soon he pulled back again. The regiment occupied a large village. The settlement, miraculously intact, almost untouched by artillery fire, looked peaceful and turned out to be almost empty. Its residents had fled in panic, leaving behind all their valuables. In some cottages lamps were still burning and dishes with remnants of food were left on the tables.
“Eich-vier” Captain Tshernikhov spelled out its name for Vera. “Stopover. Let’s feed the men; maybe they’ll let us spend the night here. They’ve already picked a house for your medicos.”
They walked together toward a sing
le-storied, little house with the customary abandon of soldiers who’d occupy any enemy trench or any enemy-held building. Assisted by a corpsman, Vera hastily unfolded her uncomplicated household, looking forward to working for a change in daylight, under a roof, with her hands washed—instead of in an underground helter-skelter.
The windowpanes vibrated finely under the black masking paper when a battery of 120 mm. pulled by. Soon excitable voices outside slowly died away together with the unceasing stamping of feet.
Vera took real pleasure in leisurely washing her hands under the faucet and in wiping them bone-dry with a towel she got from the cupboard. Distraught and curious at the same time, she examined the German home. It was the first time in her life she had seen one. She was amused by the funny embroidery over a wide, wooden bed, bearing the sentence in tiny Gothic: “God, remain with us.” Yet she was on the alert, and Tshernikhov knew why; Vera was waiting for somebody from the second battalion to come in and tell her that everything was O.K. there, that the batcom was alive.
“I heard they are digging in on the western fringe,” Tshernikhov remarked. Then, he remembered Prostakov’s request. “Vera, Prostakov wanted you to talk to Shirayev—when you got a chance. Of course, only when you got a chance. You know, he can’t find his family, makes all kinds of mad threats. Everybody’s mad,” he stopped, shaking his head about the disquieting thought that occurred to him. Indeed, the soldiers had a reason to be mad, especially now when they were walking on the German soil.
When Vera had heard him mention “western fringe,” which was manned by the second battalion, she joyously turned around—all the fatigue gone from her face. However, the rest of what Tshernikhov had to say had no cheer for her.
“What’s the matter with your Shirayev? Is he a baby? Go take care of him,” she pouted. “Why does everybody come to me? I’m as tired as hell, too.”
“Oh, you are a woman,” Tshernikhov explained apologetically. “You women know how to talk.”
Treasury of Russian Short Stories 1900-1966 Page 11