Doomed City

by Arkady Strugatsky

  Outside the window Skank started twittering in a shrill voice, and throats husky from smoking started braying hoarsely. Andrei raised his head and listened. The devil only knows, he thought. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that she tagged along with us. At least it’s some kind of amusement for the men . . . Only just recently they’ve started fighting over her.

  There was another knock at the door.

  “Come in,” Andrei said bad-temperedly.

  Sergeant Vogel walked in—huge and red-faced, with wide, blurred patches of black sweat below the arms of his tunic. “Sergeant Vogel requests permission to address Mr. Counselor!” he barked, pressing his palms against his thighs and thrusting out his elbows.

  “Go ahead, Sergeant,” said Andrei.

  The sergeant squinted sideways at the window. “I request permission to speak in confidence,” he said, lowering his voice.

  This is something new, Andrei thought with an ominous feeling. “Come on in and sit down,” he said.

  The sergeant tiptoed up to the table, sat down on the very edge of an armchair, and leaned toward Andrei. “The men don’t want to go any farther,” he said in a low voice.

  Andrei leaned back in his chair. So, he thought. This is what things have come to . . . Wonderful . . . Congratulations, Mr. Counselor . . . “What does that mean—they don’t want to. Who’s asking them?”

  “They’re worn out, Mr. Counselor,” Vogel said in a confidential tone. “The tobacco’s almost finished. The diarrhea has worn them down. But worse than that—they’re frightened. It’s fear, Mr. Counselor.”

  Andrei looked at him without speaking. He had to do something. Immediately. But he didn’t know exactly what.

  “We haven’t seen a single human in eleven days of walking, Mr. Counselor,” Vogel went on, almost whispering. “Mr. Counselor recalls that we were warned there’d be thirteen days with no people in sight, and then—curtains for everyone. There are only two days left, Mr. Counselor.”

  Andrei licked his lips. “Sergeant,” he said, “shame on you. An old war dog like you, believing old wives’ tales. I didn’t expect that of you!”

  Vogel grinned crookedly, thrusting out his huge lower jaw. “Not at all, Mr. Counselor. You can’t frighten me. If only all of them out there . . .” He jabbed a large, gnarled finger at the window. “If only I had just Germans out there, or at least Japs, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, Mr. Counselor. But what I’ve got out there is riffraff. Ities, Armenians or some such—”

  “Stop right there, Sergeant!” Andrei said, raising his voice. “Shame on you. You don’t know the army regulations! Why are you addressing me unordered? What kind of laxness is this, Sergeant? On your feet!”

  Vogel ponderously got up and stood to attention.

  “Sit down,” Andrei said after a deliberate pause.

  Vogel sat down as awkwardly as he had gotten up, and for a while neither of them spoke.

  “Why have you come to me and not to the colonel?”

  “I beg your pardon, Mr. Counselor. I did go to the colonel. Yesterday.”

  “And what came of it?”

  “The colonel was not inclined to take my report under consideration, Mr. Counselor.”

  Andrei laughed. “Precisely! What kind of damned sergeant are you, if you can’t keep your own men in order?” They’re frightened, he tells me! Little children . . . “They should be afraid of you, Sergeant!” he bellowed. “Of you! Not the thirteenth day!”

  “If only they were Germans . . .” Vogel began again morosely.

  “What is all this?” Andrei asked cajolingly. “Do I, the head of the expedition, have to teach you what has to be done when subordinates mutiny, as if you were some snot-nosed kid? For shame, Vogel! If you don’t know, read the regulations. As far as I’m aware, this is all provided for there.”

  Vogel grinned again, shifting his lower jaw. Evidently cases like this were not provided for in the regulations after all.

  “I thought more highly of you, Vogel,” Andrei said harshly. “Much more highly! Get this into your head once and for all: no one is interested in whether your men want to go on or they don’t. We’d all like to be at home right now, not trudging through this scorching heat. Everyone’s thirsty, and everyone’s exhausted. But nonetheless everyone carries out their duty, Vogel. Is that clear?”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Counselor,” Vogel growled. “Permission to leave?”

  “On your way.”

  The sergeant withdrew, ferociously stomping across the dried-out parquet in his boots.

  Andrei took off his jacket and went over to the window again. The gathering seemed to have calmed down. The impossibly tall Ellisauer towered up in the circle of light, hunching over to examine some document—Andrei thought it was a map—that broad, bulky Quejada was holding up in front of him. A soldier emerged from the darkness, walked past them, and disappeared into a building—barefoot, seminaked, disheveled, carrying his automatic by the strap.

  At the spot he had come from, another soldier’s voice called out in the darkness: “Beaky! Hey, Tevosyan!”

  “What do you want?” a voice answered from an invisible cargo sled, where cigarettes flared up and faded away like fireflies.

  “Turn the light this way! I can’t see a damned thing.”

  “What do you need it for? Can’t you do it in the dark?”

  “They’ve crapped everywhere here already . . . I don’t know where to step . . .”

  “The sentry’s not supposed to go,” a new voice joined in from the throng. “Dump where you’re standing!”

  “Aw, give me some light, for fuck’s sake! Is it too much bother to move your ass?”

  Lanky Ellisauer straightened up, and in two strides he was beside the tractor and swiveled the headlamp to shine along the street. Andrei saw the sentry. Holding his lowered trousers with one hand, he was hovering uncertainly on bent knees beside the massive iron statue that some weirdos or other had put up right on the sidewalk at the nearest intersection. The statue represented a stocky character wearing something like a toga, with a shaved head and repugnant, toadish features. In the light of the headlamp the statue looked black. Its left arm pointed up to the heavens, and its right arm was stretched out above the earth, with the fingers of the hand splayed out. Right now an automatic rifle was hanging on that arm.

  “Good job, thanks a bunch!” the sentry roared, overjoyed, and squatted down in a firm position. “You can shut it off now!”

  “Come on, come on, get on with it!” someone encouraged him from the sled. “We’ll give you covering fire, if you need it . . .”

  “Aw, shut off the light, guys!” the sentry begged, getting edgy.

  “Don’t shut it off, Mr. Engineer,” a voice from the sled advised. “He’s joking. And the regulations don’t allow—”

  But Ellisauer turned the light away after all. Andrei heard jostling and guffawing on the sled. Then two of the men started whistling a duet—some kind of march.

  Everything’s just the same as ever, thought Andrei. If anything, they’re more cheerful than usual today. I didn’t hear any of these jokes yesterday or the day before. Maybe it’s the apartment houses? Yes, it could be that. Nothing but desert and more desert, but now there are houses! At least they can catch up on their sleep in peace; the wolves won’t bother them. Only Vogel’s no alarmist. Uh-uh, he’s not that kind . . . Andrei suddenly imagined himself tomorrow, giving the order to move out, but the men bunch up together, with their automatics bristling out, and say, “We won’t go!” Maybe that’s why they’re so cheerful right now—they’ve settled everything among themselves, already decided to turn back tomorrow (“. . . what can he do to us, the gutless jerk, the crummy office clerk?”) and now they couldn’t give a damn, they don’t have a care in the world, they don’t give a fuck . . . And Quejada, the bastard, is with them. He’s been whining for days now that it’s pointless to go any farther . . . he looks daggers at me during the evening reports . . . he’d only be d
elighted if I went creeping back to Heiger empty handed, with my tail between my legs . . .

  Andrei shrugged his shoulders with a shudder. It’s your own fault, you wimp—you dropped the reins, you lousy democrat, you damned populist . . . You ought to have put that Hnoipek with the ginger hair up against the wall that first time, the slimeball, taken the whole gang by the throat in a single stroke—I’d have them all toeing the line now! And it was just the right opportunity! A gang rape, and a brutal one, and the victim was a native girl, an underage native girl . . . And the insolent way that Hnoipek grinned—that insolent, sated, loathsome grin—when I yelled at them . . . and the way they all turned green when I pulled out the revolver. Ah, Colonel, Colonel, you’re a liberal, not a combat officer! “Oh, why start shooting straightaway, Counselor? After all, there are other means of influence!” Uh-uh, Colonel. It’s obvious you can’t influence these Hnoipeks any other way . . . And after that everything went askew. The girl attached herself to the squad, I shamefully turned a blind eye (out of amazement, was that it?), and then the squabbling and brawling over her began . . . And again I should have interfered in the first fight, put someone up against the wall, had the girl flogged and slung her out of the camp . . . Only where could we sling her out to? We were already in the burned-out districts, there was no water there, the wolves had appeared . . .

  Down in the street someone started furiously growling and swearing, something fell over and started clattering around, and a completely naked monkey came flying backward out of a doorway into the circle of light, landed smack on his ass, raising a cloud of dust, and before it could even pull up its legs, another monkey pounced like a tiger out of the same doorway, and they went at it tooth and claw, rolling around on the cobblestones, howling and snarling, wheezing and spitting, flailing at each other with all their might.

  Andrei gripped the windowsill with one hand and dull-wittedly fumbled at his belt with the other, forgetting that his holster was lying in the armchair, but then Sergeant Vogel emerged from the darkness, swooping down like a sweaty black storm cloud driven by a hurricane, and hovering over the miscreants. And then he had grabbed one by the hair and the other by the beard, jerked them up off the ground, slammed them against each other with a dry crunch and tossed them away in opposite directions, like puppies.

  “Very good, Sergeant!” the colonel’s weak but firm voice declared. “Tie the scoundrels to their beds for the night, and tomorrow put them in the advance guard out of turn for the whole day.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Colonel,” the sergeant replied, breathing heavily. He glanced to the right, where a naked monkey was scrabbling at the cobblestones, struggling to get up, and added uncertainly, “If I might make bold to report, Colonel, one isn’t ours. The cartographer Roulier.”

  Andrei shook his head with a jerk, clearing a space in his throat, and roared in an unnatural voice. “Put cartographer Roulier in the advance guard for three days, with full combat gear. If the fight is repeated, shoot both of them on the spot!” Something cracked painfully in his throat. “Shoot all miscreants who dare to fight on the spot!” he croaked.

  When he recovered his self-control, he was already seated at the table. Too late, probably, he thought, examining his dirty, trembling fingers. Too late. I should have acted sooner . . . But you’ll toe that line for me! You’ll do what you’re ordered to do! I’ll order half of you to be shot . . . I’ll shoot you myself . . . but the other half will toe the line for me. No more . . . No more! And Hnoipek gets the first bullet, whatever the circumstances. The first!

  He rummaged behind his back, pulled out his holster and belt, and took out the pistol. The barrel was packed with dirt. He pulled back the bolt. It moved sluggishly, pulling back halfway and jamming in that position. Dammit, everything’s jammed, everything’s filthy . . . Outside the window it was quiet, with only the steel tips of the sentries’ boots clicking on the cobblestones in the distance, and someone blowing his nose on the ground floor and droning loudly through his teeth.

  Andrei walked to the door and glanced out into the corridor. “Duggan!” he called in a low voice.

  Something stirred in the corner. Andrei started and looked that way: it was the Mute. He was sitting in his usual pose, with his legs crossed over each other and interwoven in some highly complex fashion. His eyes glinted moistly in the semidarkness.

  “Duggan!” Andrei called more loudly.

  “Coming, sir!” a voice answered from somewhere deep inside the building. He heard footsteps.

  “Why are you sitting here?” Andrei asked the Mute. “Come into the room.”

  Without stirring from the spot, the Mute raised his broad face and looked at him.

  Andrei went back to the table, and when Duggan knocked and glanced into the room, Andrei told him, “Clean up my pistol, please.”

  “Yes, sir,” Duggan said respectfully, and took the pistol. At the door he moved aside to let Izya into the room.

  “Aha, a lamp!” said Izya, heading straight for the table. “Listen, Andrei, have you got another lamp like that? I’m sick of using a flashlight—my eyes hurt . . .”

  Izya had lost a load of weight over the last few days. All his clothes hung loose; everything on him was torn. And he stank like an old goat. But then, everyone stank that way. Apart from the colonel.

  Andrei watched as Izya, taking no notice of anything, pulled over a chair, sat down, and moved the lamp across toward himself. Then he started taking old, crumpled papers out from under his jacket and laying them out in front of him. As he did this, he bobbed up and down on his chair in his habitual fashion, peering at the papers as if he were rifling through them, as if he were trying to read them all at once, and every now and then plucking at his wart. It was hard for him to get to the wart now, because his cheeks and neck and even, seemingly, his ears, were covered with an immensely thick coating of hair.

  “Listen, why don’t you get a shave, really?” said Andrei.

  “What for?” Izya asked absentmindedly.

  “The whole command staff shaves,” Andrei said angrily. “You’re the only one walking around like a scarecrow.”

  Izya raised his head and looked at Andrei for a while, exposing yellowish, long-unbrushed teeth among the hair. “Yes?” he said. “Well, you know, I’m not big on prestige. Look at the jacket I’m wearing.”

  Andrei looked. “You could darn that too, by the way. If you don’t know how—let Duggan have it.”

  “I think Duggan has enough to do without me . . . And by the way, who are you intending to shoot?”

  “Whoever I need to,” Andrei said darkly.

  “Well, well,” Izya said, and immersed himself in reading.

  Andrei glanced at his watch. There were ten minutes to go. Andrei sighed and reached under the table, groped to find his shoes, pulled out the stiff socks and surreptitiously sniffed at them, then lifted up his right foot toward the light and examined the skinned heel. The abrasion had started healing over slightly, but it was still painful. Wincing in anticipation, he cautiously pulled on his rigid sock and moved his foot a bit. Wincing really hard now, he reached for his shoe. When he had his shoes on, he put on the belt with the empty holster, straightened his jacket, and buttoned it.

  “Here,” said Izya, pushing a pile of papers covered in writing across the table to him.

  “What’s that?” Andrei asked, totally uninterested.

  “Paper.”

  “Aah . . .” Andrei picked up the sheets of paper and put them in the pocket of his jacket. “Thank you.”

  Izya was already reading again. Fast, like a machine.

  Andrei remembered how much he hadn’t wanted to bring Izya on this expedition—with his absurd vegetable-plot-scarecrow appearance, with his provocatively Jewish features, with his insolent giggling, with his self-evident inability to handle heavy physical demands. It had been absolutely clear that Izya would cause him a heap of trouble, and the archivist would be pretty useless in field conditions verging on com
bat conditions. But things hadn’t turned out that way at all.

  That’s to say, things had turned out that way as well. Izya was the first to skin his feet. Both of them at once. Izya was insufferable at the evening report sessions, with his idiotic, inappropriate little jokes and gratuitous informality. On the third day of the journey he managed to fall through into some kind of cellar, and the entire team had to help drag him out of there. On the sixth day he got lost and delayed their departure by several hours. During the skirmish at 340 kilometers he behaved like a total cretin and only survived by a miracle. The soldiers mocked him and Quejada constantly quarreled with him. Ellisauer turned out to hate all Jews on principle, and Andrei had to read him the riot act about Izya . . . It happened. It all happened.

  And despite all this, pretty soon Izya turned out to be the most popular figure on the expedition, with the possible exception of the colonel. And even more popular in some ways. First, he found water. The geologists spent a long time vainly searching for springs, drilling rocks, sweating, and making exhausting forays during the general rest halts. Izya simply sat in a cargo sled under a grotesque improvised parasol and rummaged through old documents, of which he had accumulated several crates. And four times he predicted where to look for underground cisterns. True, one cistern was dried out, and the water in another was rank and fetid, but the expedition had twice discovered excellent water, thanks to Izya and only Izya.

  Second, he found a cache of diesel oil, after which Ellisauer’s antisemitism had become largely abstract. “I hate yids,” he explained to his lead mechanic. “There’s nothing on Earth worse than a yid. But I’ve never had anything against Jews! Take Katzman, for instance . . .”

  And what was more, Izya supplied everyone with paper. Their supplies of bathroom tissue had run out after the first outbreak of gastrointestinal disorders, and Izya’s popularity—as the only owner and custodian of paper wealth in country where you couldn’t find so much as a burdock leaf or a clump of grass—had risen to astronomical levels.