by Oleg Pavlov
They ran along the cramped, narrow path between the rows of wire fencing, jostling and bumping into each other. Yet for some reason Matiushin fancied that there was open space all around them. And suddenly a hand pulled him out, and someone shook him and shouted at him to stay there and not move from the spot. Matiushin realised he had been left alone. The ground skulked in the darkness under his feet. He was surrounded by a confusion of fences, crooked rows of wire, the searing, harsh, white beams of searchlights.
The Alsatians’ barking carried on, but it was like dull flashes. If something was happening, it was a long way from Matiushin. The soldiers standing on the path one span of wire away from him were already smoking – he spotted the little lights. His heart kept alternately freezing and exploding, shifting about inside him. Soon a new, uncertain light appeared. Day was beginning and the searchlights began to fade, as usual. Morning came. Men close to each other in the cordon started waving their arms and calling out. It was as if they had discovered each other.
Matiushin exchanged shouts with the sentries; none of them knew what had happened in the zone that night – from the towers they couldn’t see, but they had heard some kind of ruckus over by the barracks.
When morning was established, he grew weary again, with the uncertainty and the waiting. It began to drizzle. But then his squad appeared on the path. They were slouching along, angry. The men were leaving the cordon of their own accord and swarming into the guardhouse.
Matiushin wanted to sleep, especially now that this futile night had become even less comprehensible. The only thing that kept him on his feet was that he still had to march as far as the guardhouse. He was so burnt-out that he slept as he walked. His thoughts and feelings drifted along on their own and it was like waking up when he suddenly realised that he was still thinking about something, feeling something and drifting along, without even knowing what for or where to. He couldn’t even grasp that all the bunks in the sleeping area had been taken long ago so there wouldn’t be anywhere for him to lie down and he would have to wait. About half the platoon was left without places in the guardhouse. Those who had stood through the night in the cordon were all without bunks. Matiushin lay down on a bench in the little mess room and fell into a dead sleep. The only thing he had time to feel was a tremulous, bitter unity with all the men: that they had all burnt themselves out together, and now they were falling asleep together, and the same silence was lulling them all.
He was shaken awake at breakfast time, to free up the table – the rations had been brought from the barracks on a trolley. Matiushin dragged himself off the bench and, enveloped in a kind of mist, he chewed up a mess tin of hot mushy peas. He marched off to the tower and suffered through his shift there. Arriving back at the guardhouse like a corpse, Matiushin thought that now at last he would catch up on his sleep, all legal and above board: according to regulations he was supposed to sleep now. However the soldiers weren’t allowed into the sleeping area in the guardhouse. Those who were sleeping had been driven out into the yard long before this reveille. He had the idea that the political officer wanted to exercise his power and that was why he was keeping everyone out in the yard – but where would that get him? He’d just mock them a bit and then have to let them sleep anyway. He needed to rehabilitate himself in his own eyes, but the men needed their rest too, otherwise they’d break down. If the officer couldn’t let it go, it meant his petty little soul had taken a serious battering. It meant he’d screwed things up and he knew it; in his own heart he sensed that he was no hero. With this thought, that the political officer knew all this, it would be equally pleasant for Matiushin to stand sleeplessly to attention or to sleep: go on, torment yourself, little officer; eat your heart out.
A feeble, irritating rain with hardly any water in it had been falling without a break since the morning. They were lined up for Arman. Matiushin recognised his voice from the very first words. But even the pitiful, soaking-wet rank of men, this chaotic bunch, this human trash had hustled itself together in a common clumsy impulse to line up in front of him and look like men. But the political officer suddenly flared up and shouted at them, no longer seeing their eyes or faces or even, it seemed, the men themselves:
‘What kind of way is that to hold your rifles? Lower the barrels! Barrels down!’
They were still standing in the yard in damp monkey jackets, as if they were up to their chests in the ground, and Matiushin was already cursing the officer and this fine rain and he wanted to get under some kind of roof as soon as possible. Delaying the change of guard for longer and longer, Arman shouted that last night they had all insulted his honour as an officer.
He’s found himself someone to blame, the little officer’s exonerated himself, Matiushin thought. That night the political officer had been too cowardly to go into the zone to find out what was happening. He had rushed around behind their backs, like that warder who had stuck his nose into a barracks hut in the middle of a fight and gone running off to holler about it. It wasn’t clear who Arman had saved either. He’d driven the soldiers who didn’t know what was going on into that barracks instead of himself, although the convicts had long ago separated their own men and even carried one wounded man to the hospital. But now the political officer had gathered his wits and was striding to and fro; he’d started tediously summing up the night: who had committed what blunders, what all the commotion was about, how the soldiers had behaved on the towers and in the cordon. Now the events had acquired a clear outline for him, a kind of glassy transparency, and he had a very coherent understanding of what had happened and when.
Finally he stated what everyone already knew – that last night a prisoner had been killed in the zone: the man had been stabbed in the zone in a drunken fight, a troublemaker, and finally given up the ghost in hospital. Drinking bouts had become more frequent in the zone. Someone in the company, someone here was in contact with the prisoners and was selling liquor.
It could never have occurred to Matiushin that the political officer would decide to punish everyone for the vodka tower by launching a devastating frontal attack. He started feeling sick and fury stirred inside him, but it was powerless fury, which is even more terrible. Has it begun? It has begun! This was the way it was now: it was life or death.
Matiushin suddenly realised that Arman was watching him, keeping his eyes on him. And Matiushin froze: so that was Arman’s plan, he was roasting Matiushin like this, and he kept turning up the heat, directing it straight at him. Matiushin tried not to tremble so the men would see how staunchly he was holding out. He fancied that the soldiers would outlast Arman: they’d been standing for an hour already, but no one had flinched yet. Arman had miscalculated here. Overstepped the mark, not even bothered to hold a secret interrogation with each of them separately. Maybe in secret and out of sight they would have informed on each other. But he wanted them to inform in front of everyone, so that it would be a kind of group denunciation – he wanted to humiliate and debase the whole platoon. Or he was expecting that Matiushin himself wouldn’t be able to stand it. What Arman wanted, clearly, was not an informer but a witness – that was what he had set his sights on; he wanted proof, not hints and whispers. Arman knew, just as everyone here knew everything about everyone else, but just let him try to prove it. And he wouldn’t get a witness like that out of the soldiers, not even if he buried the entire platoon in the guardhouse for ever. No one would testify.
Then, with a solemn air, Arman went off into the guardhouse, leaving the soldiers quiet and shaken by what had just taken place in the little yard. Everybody waited desolately for the political officer to come back out to the ranks, but Arman didn’t appear and the yard started buzzing drearily.
Pomogalov came on duty as the watch officer and relieved the political officer, but the men weren’t relieved, the entire platoon was left there and given another twenty-four hours of guard duty as punishment. Hiding away in the little room, Matiushin drank chifir. He wasn’t going anywhere; he’d had
enough. He wasn’t going to budge from the spot, not even if they dragged him. He’d stood his watch and, even if they drove the platoon out onto the towers, let those whose turn it was march out: he was on leave and he was going to drink chifir and get warm. Hearing them assembling men into a squad as another hellish twenty-four hours began, Matiushin swore painfully in his fury, but immediately his strength faded, leaving him weak, and his burnt-out soul stopped feeling anything at all, yet he understood with his chifir-numbed mind that things had turned out wrong, they’d turned out even worse, and there was no way they could have turned out better. Matiushin sipped chifir and everything around was quiet. Everyone had accepted that they were staying on duty. Some strode into the squad, some headed for the bunks to catch up on their sleep. And Matiushin suddenly thought that it was actually good to stay for a second turn, otherwise he would have had to get up, get in line and march, and he wouldn’t have been able to finish his chifir. His eyes were gluing themselves shut and he dozed off with the mug in his hand. For what seemed a single, brief moment everything went dim in front of his eyes and a warm, sweet mist embraced him. But he opened his eyes and the mist dispersed. They shook him awake to go to the tower. His three hours had run out. Matiushin’s feet carried him along the path of their own accord, as if he was moving through water. Not over the surface but just above the very bottom, he was pulled along by a slow, deep current. And everything was good. It was warm, calm and easy, but there wasn’t any air, he was filled up to his throat with flabby water, like lead.
Part Four
Some great brute had squashed him up on the bunk … The pushy soldier was clearly one of those who had stood on the towers from the early twilight until midnight and got thoroughly chilled in the blustery steppe wind. They’d come back to the guardhouse at the latest change-over and were waiting for the commander to get the other squad up off the well-warmed bunks so that it would be their turn to thaw themselves out with someone else’s warmth and grab an hour or two of sleep until they were roused again. But this one hadn’t been able to wait, clearly he was completely shattered. In the darkness Matiushin couldn’t make out his face. The soldier and he were lying with their sides against each other and the soldier was sound asleep, but Matiushin had been woken by the other man’s dogged determination. He didn’t have the willpower to fall asleep now, even though he was so sleepy … If he’d been told to lie down on stones, he would have lain down on stones, just as long as he knew that on those stones no one would wake him. Just a short sleep, really deep. Sometimes it happened that the commander woke them to go on duty and, in the bustle of the general preparations, someone would decide to snooze for a moment, lie back down on the bunk until the others were ready and fall so deeply asleep that he had to be dragged out of the dormitory by force and then doused with water.
After the previous night Matiushin was barely alive. And he needed to get some sleep, at least now between watches. But he just lay there on the bunk with his eyes open, struggling with all his might not to fall asleep just before reveille. Otherwise he’d flake out completely and get doused with water as well. They’d hoist him up off the bunk to go on duty and he’d have to live through three hours before he could lie back down again.
But the bastard who’d woken him was totally oblivious … He could have waited for his turn … They were lying with their sides against each other and, hearing how mightily the soldier’s heart was pounding, Matiushin forced himself to think of his own heart, which he couldn’t even hear beating.
When Pomogalov appeared in the sleeping area and started swearing in the darkness as he shook awake the squad that was catching up on its sleep, Matiushin realised quite distinctly that his turn had come to go out into the zone, but it took him a long time to gather the strength to tear himself off the bunk. They slept fully clothed. Matiushin pulled out his belt with the gun-clip pouch on it from under the mattress and put it on. Then he sat up on the bunk and caught his breath. He had to wind on his footcloths. But they were cold, damp with sweat. He wound them on any old how, then pulled over his terminally battered, concertinaed boots, heaved them onto his feet and was surprised at how heavy they felt, as if he’d buried his legs in the ground up to the knees.
Around him the soldiers were getting up, some in silence, some noisily, in a fury, half-blind in their drowsy state, grabbing footcloths and boots, sharing them out. Pomogalov spurred them on.
‘Get out into the light, you can sort things out there!’
Matiushin was about to go, but he dawdled, suddenly remembering the soldier on the bunk he’d just left. The soldier had turned over onto his stomach, put his hands under his head, stretched out on the bunk and reached his arm across the place that Matiushin had left. The man’s heart was beating regularly and his chest expanding more deeply, and that meant there was something in this life that Matiushin wouldn’t get because of him. Only Matiushin didn’t know what it was that he wouldn’t get. And now the commander had come along and was driving Matiushin out on guard duty. But that bastard would stay there, and he’d catch up on his sleep better and faster – and Matiushin wanted to chase out the man who was sleeping. He’d missed his own turn to catch up and now he realised how strong his hatred was as he tried to make out the bitter enemy of his heart in the darkness. It looked like his enemy had caught up all right. And now Matiushin had to as well.
Matiushin started shaking the sleeping man.
‘What are you doing sleeping, get out on duty!’
‘But I … But they … ’ The soldier tumbled over onto his side and started flailing about: a leg this way, an arm that way … He was trying to crawl away.
‘Get up, the watch officer ordered me to get you up.’
‘Fucker … Get off me, brother, I’m only just back from the tower … Go away, I’ll kill you …’
Matiushin reluctantly took his hands off the soldier, who immediately went limp, muttering something. The only thing Matiushin could make out was that he was angry. And he was tossing about again, trying to crawl away and hide. You got what you deserve, you bastard, Matiushin thought, I gave you a good shaking. And although all his weakened insides stubbornly resisted any haste, Matiushin was so agitated that he drove himself on. As if that was what he lived for – tearing himself off a bunk and clambering back onto it.
To perk themselves up before going on duty in the zone, the soldiers drank chifir with the black bread left over from the evening before. Rebrov, who was lackeying in the guardhouse, prepared the chifir. He cut up the loaf too and sprinkled sugar on the slices. Eight men going off in the night squad, the same number as there were guard posts on the towers. Matiushin came late and was last to sit down at the table.
‘Give me some chow!’ he demanded.
The men sipped on their chifir, looking cunningly from Matiushin to the lackey and back again. Rebrov stood there shamefaced and bewildered.
‘It’s like this, Vasenka. The bread’s all gone … I didn’t spot that there wasn’t enough.’
‘What, you bastard?’ Matiushin yelled in a strangled voice, sensing that everyone around him was holding their breath and waiting.
‘There wasn’t enough bread …’
Matiushin couldn’t understand: how could he have been left without bread? And then suddenly he snapped … It was that bastard’s fault, the one who woke him up early. It was his fault Matiushin didn’t get any bread. And everyone around him was chewing away and supping tea. Matiushin was the only one sitting there like a fool, like a poor relative. These ugly bastards didn’t seem to have hurried at all, but they’d got a good measure of everything – they wouldn’t be feeling hungry. He suddenly fancied that the business with the bed and the bread had all been set up – they were starting to grind him down on the sly. They’d set Rebrov on him, and that freak was only too happy to oblige them.
‘Well, I’ll be having a word with you … Give me some chifir!’
Rebrov came to life and started pouring ha
stily. He was in such a hurry that he poured Matiushin’s chifir into a light-blue mug. Everyone went quiet when he held out the blue mug to Matiushin, and Matiushin squeezed back against the bench. But Rebrov didn’t understand a thing, the fool; he smiled guiltily, eager to oblige and declared:
‘I brewed it up with boiling water! Really hot!’
Someone suddenly let out a laugh.
‘It’s Pomogalov. He’s guzzling his tea and he doesn’t want to drink out of the poofy blue one either!’
‘How’s it come to this, no decent mugs in the guardhouse!’
‘Come on, suicide boy, take a sup …’
‘I won’t take what’s not mine, I’ll do without.’