by James Meek
Anna realised she had never for a moment thought that her husband was insane. How much easier it would have been if she’d been able to do that. He sounded as if he was asking her to stay. It made Anna understand that if they survived she would have to leave.
Alyosha called for his mother and she went and sat on the bed and fussed over him. His eyes were open and he was half-lucid. His temperature was high and his shoulder ached. He asked after Samarin and Anna told him Mr Samarin was fine and that he, Lyosh, was a brave boy. Anna looked over to the doorway where Balashov was waiting.
‘Gleb,’ she said. He walked over and resumed his position on the floor, his face level with Alyosha’s.
‘This is Gleb Alexeyevich, our good friend from the village,’ said Anna. ‘He’s come to see what brave people – I mean, he’s come to see how you are.’
‘Hello, Alyosha,’ said Balashov.
‘Hello,’ said Alyosha.
‘You’re going to have a fine scar. Your friends’ll be jealous.’
‘I’m going to be a hussar, like my father,’ said Alyosha. ‘He had a lot of scars.’
‘Yes,’ said Balashov. ‘I heard that he had scars.’
‘He died in the war.’
‘Did he? You know I’m sure that he can see you, all the same, when you’re in trouble, and put in a good word.’
Alyosha winced and drew in breath. ‘Will it still hurt like this when I’m grown up, in the army?’
‘The pain goes away, unless something reminds you of the wound. But that doesn’t happen very often.’
From outside, they heard shouting, glass breaking, and shots. A single explosion a few hundred yards away made the glass in the window shudder. Anna flinched and saw her husband duck and cover his head with his arms for a second.
‘Don’t be frightened,’ said Alyosha to Balashov. ‘The hussars’ll come.’
Balashov let his arms fall. ‘Goodbye, Alyosha,’ he said. ‘I’ll pray for you. Get well, grow tall, be wise, love your mother.’ He kissed his son on the forehead and stood up.
‘What should we do?’ said Anna. ‘Take him downstairs? Would that be safer?’ Outside the shooting intensified.
‘Stay away from the window,’ said Balashov. He went to the door. Anna asked him where he was going.
‘If an angel falls so as to save someone, it must please God, though never so greatly that God can save the angel,’ said Balashov.
‘Wait,’ said Anna. ‘Where are you going? Let’s kiss goodbye, at least.’
Balashov was gone downstairs, shouting mad words she could only half understand, of farewell, of affection, perhaps, though she wasn’t sure. Develchen arrived with a fistful of moss and frostblackened leaves.
‘They’re shooting,’ he said. ‘The man coming downstairs says he’s going to hell. I say to him Our Man knows how to get by in the Lower World. Take a weighted rope, he says. The big demons are easy to trip when they’re running towards you.’
The Gift Horse
By mid-morning Mutz and the others on the roof could see that the Reds had begun to attack the town to the north-west. Plumes of dirty grey smoke would erupt like djinns from the houses near the railway, the crack of the blast arriving a few seconds later. Two of the houses were on fire. Machine guns pecked at the air on either side. Towards noon, single shots began to be aimed at Mutz’s position. Jagged points of wood would jerk erect to invisible blows. They saw Czechs running from house corner to house corner towards the bridge, to the west, and down the station road, to the north. Dezort and his two left the roof to cover the bridge from the ground. Nekovar gave all his rifle ammunition to Broucek. Broucek let off a few rounds into the corners of houses, trying not to hit anyone, but to let them know that they were there. There was no sign of Matula.
‘I thought we’d be going home before we had to fight again,’ said Broucek. ‘I feel like a farmer getting a drought for the fifth year straight.’
The attackers brought a small mortar to bear on the barn. A shell landed not far away, shattering windows in Anna’s house.
‘I see it,’ said Nekovar. ‘Behind that alder tree.’ He picked up a length of plank roughly fashioned into the shape of a tennis racquet, pulled the pin out of a grenade, tossed the grenade in the air, swung and whacked it with the bat. The grenade landed in a ditch outside Anna’s neighbour’s house and did not go off.
‘Don’t do that again,’ said Mutz.
‘Just to scare them off, brother,’ said Nekovar. ‘It isn’t my game. I prefer football, as you know. But I used to watch the aristos and bosses play when I worked as a groundsman at the All-Bohemian Lawn Tennis Association. That was how they would usually hit the ball, but sometimes a good player would hit it from above, with great force. It was more accurate. Like this.’ He stood up, balancing awkwardly against the rope, took another grenade, depinned it, put it in the air, leaned back and smashed it downwards. It landed short of the alder tree and exploded, littering the snow with yellow leaves and twigs and sending the mortar crew running.
‘That would be fifteen-love,’ said Nekovar. He grinned, lost his footing, slid down the roof and fell to the ground. When they reached him he was bleeding from a long gash at the back of his skull and hardly breathing. They ran the gauntlet of fire to carry him across the street to Anna’s house. Anna and Develchen had brought Alyosha downstairs to the divan in the parlour and they laid Nekovar out on the kitchen table. With difficulty, Mutz persuaded Broucek to return to the roof. Anna and Develchen were left to tend Nekovar. There was nothing they could do. Anna stood looking down at him, wondering where to begin bandaging his head, when Nekovar opened his eyes. They were surprisingly bright. He stared at Anna for a while. The sight seemed to please him. He spoke, in a quiet but clear voice.
‘Pane,’ he said. ‘Sister, please tell me. You don’t have to hide it from me now. Just tell me, what is the secret? What is the secret of the mechanism that arouses women?’
‘Hm,’ said Anna. ‘If you promise not to tell anybody.’
‘I promise,’ whispered Nekovar.
Anna bent down and said quietly in Nekovar’s ear: ‘There’s a tiny, tiny, tiny bone women have inside their vaginas, two inches in, on the left. It’s very hard to find, really very hard, but if you do find it, and pinch it ever so lightly, while stroking her right ear lobe as if you were stroking the ear of a baby mouse, that woman is set in motion to love you forever. That’s how we work.’
‘Ah!’ said Nekovar. ‘I knew Broucek was hiding it from me. Thank you.’ He sighed, smiled a smile of bliss and closed his eyes. Noon came. The late autumn sun had a little warmth left at its height. It flashed off meltwater across Yazyk. Mutz and Broucek felt it on their backs. More houses were burning now. They could smell the smoke. The shooting had slackened but not stopped. They did not know Nekovar was dead. They could see their former comrades setting up the mortar again. Down by the bridge, Dezort shouted up. He was shaking his head at them and making a thumbs-down sign.
‘Is that singing?’ said Broucek.
‘I can’t hear it,’ said Mutz. ‘Perhaps I should give myself up to Matula.’
‘I wouldn’t let you, brother. Besides, would it save us?’
‘We could make a run for the forest.’
‘I can hear singing.’
Mutz could hear it, too. A chorus of unskilled but strong voices, singing Russian words in music that sounded like the hymns the English and American missionaries sang. Broucek pointed to the procession. It was coming from the square towards the bridge. Balashov was at the head, carrying a white cloth on a pole in one hand and leading a black horse with the other. Behind him walked dozens of villagers, dressed in white and pale grey and cream under black coats and cloaks. They were all singing, and as they walked, more villagers, mainly men but with a few women, came out of their houses to join them. They crossed the bridge and turned the corner into the station road, passing Anna’s house and passing beneath Mutz and Broucek.
‘What should
I do?’ said Broucek.
‘I don’t know,’ said Mutz. ‘Cover Balashov as far as you can see him.’
The procession had some eighty souls in it now, all singing, drowning out the sound of small arms fire continuing to the north west. Balashov sang out the loudest.
Hallowed father, our Redeemer,
A singing nightingale in the green garden,
While the Holy Ghost, the true first mover,
Sounds the heavenly bell
Calling the white sheep to him:
‘You, my sheep, my white sheep,
You will go to Paradise in joy,
In your hearts, you will all be happy,
You will not be naked forever,
In the garden, you will be precious birds,
I shall protect you from all misfortune,
I shall put grace in your hearts;
He who wants to receive grace,
So must he suffer for God.
You must apprehend the works of God,
You must receive the golden cut,
That your soul will have no sins to answer for,
That your hearts will be forever pure.’
Our father, our Redeemer,
Is at his golden table always;
The fearless ones shall see him
The hard, audacious ones,
To them is Zion given.
For them, a white horse shall be brought.
Quickly mount this white horse, my friend,
And rejoice in your heart,
Hold tight to the golden reins
Travel far from here,
Walk through your country
And slay the fearful dragon.
We will plant green gardens everywhere.
Two hundred yards from the bridge crossroads a Czech sentry stepped out from behind a house and ordered the procession to halt. Balashov said he had brought a good horse for Captain Matula.
‘Who are the other people?’ said the soldier.
‘These are my friends.’
‘They should stop their singing.’
Balashov turned and nodded and the singing stopped. Matula came out from cover with Hanak, who was warning him about the sniper.
‘Not with these people around,’ murmured Matula, who was gazing at the horse. His eyes were as lifeless as ever but the skin around them trembled at the thought of a mount.
‘How much do you want for it?’ he said to Balashov.
‘It’s a gift, Captain.’
‘I know the classics! You’ve got twenty Reds and Yid soldiers hiding in its belly, haven’t you.’ Matula stroked the horse’s head. The beast shifted its feet. It was saddled. ‘You were singing about a white horse.’
‘We know horses of different colours.’
‘I’ve never seen any of you God-botherers riding a horse before, let alone one like this. Where did you steal it? What do you want?’
‘We hope you can prevent the destruction of the town,’ said Balashov. ‘Would you like to ride him?’
Matula looked up and down the road. ‘Why don’t you ride him, local man?’ he said. ‘Show me what sort of pride the beast’s got. If he drops you in the dirt like a sack of flour off the back of a cart I’ll know he’s worthy for an officer to ride. Go on, up you get. Come on, man, there’s no need to go hugging and kissing your friends, it’s a horse you’re mounting, not the gallows.’
Balashov began to mount the horse, but put his right foot in the stirrup. The Czechs laughed. Balashov tried again, swung into the saddle heavily and tugged the reins to try to make the horse turn round. The stallion would not budge.
‘The horse should be riding you!’ roared Matula, slapping his thighs. His eyes filmed with water, like rocks after rain.
Somehow Balashov made the horse turn round and the two began to amble back the way they had come, through the procession, which had fallen back a little to either side of the road. Matula was careful to keep the villagers between him and Broucek as he watched Balashov trot down the road.
‘Well, he’s managed to stay on, which marks down the horse,’ said Matula. ‘Gorgeous animal,’ he muttered.
Balashov reached Anna’s house and turned Omar again. He saw Anna looking at him.
‘What are you doing?’ she said.
‘Going away.’
‘Where?’
‘Where I need to go. Go inside, it’s not safe out. How’s Alyosha?’
‘The same. Gleb, whatever you’re doing, I’m begging you, don’t.’
The horse bowed and tossed its head and pawed the slush of the half-frozen road. ‘You know,’ said Balashov, ‘when you’re no longer a man, and no longer an angel, life can be very tiresome.’
Anna began to move towards him. ‘You sound more like a man to me than you have for a long time,’ she said.
‘And, though you’ve been kind today, no longer a father.’
‘I told you, you’re still that,’ said Anna. ‘I burned all my photos of you.’ She held up her camera. ‘I have a couple of plates left. May I?’
‘I have to go,’ said Balashov.
Anna sighted and pressed the shutter. ‘It’s done,’ she said.
‘Goodbye,’ said Balashov. ‘We did love, didn’t we?’ He leaned forward, whispered in Omar’s ear, and moved away.
‘Yes,’ said Anna, when he was already out of earshot. ‘We did.’
Up the road Matula frowned as he watched Balashov canter back. ‘He’ll never control him at that speed. He’s going to break his neck. Too bad if he takes the horse with him.’ Horse and rider were approaching at a gallop. ‘It’s a miracle he’s staying on. He must have put glue on the sides of his boots. Although …’ Matula stroked the corner of his mouth, a gesture he had last performed under fire on the Baikal ice floe. ‘I wonder if local man has been a little deceitful with us about his experience, Hanak. What’s this fellow’s name?’
An instant before reaching Matula, so fast that only Matula understood what was happening, Balashov took his right hand off the reins, reached into his long coat, drew a cavalry sabre, held it high above his head, drew it back across his left shoulder, braced in the stirrups, and leaned off the saddle to the left. As he passed Matula the full force of his released arm and the full momentum of the charging horse went behind the swing of the heavy, sharpened sabre, into the gap between Matula’s chin and his collar.
‘Beautiful stroke!’ cried Matula. His voice diminished to a crackling whisper as the upper part of the throat and the mouth from which it emerged arced, with his head, into the air and into a bunch of dock leaves on the far side of the road. A silly gush of blood fountained out of the headless man who stood there and lashed into the snow as the villagers scattered. Hanak fired his pistol twice at Balashov, shooting him in the back and killing him as he reined Omar in, before Hanak was hit himself by a single shot from Broucek.
Anna heard the shots and the cries of the villagers. She could go there. She would not. She would not leave Alyosha. She was sure she would never see her husband alive again. She caught sight of herself in one of the few uncracked panes of glass left in her house. Her face frightened her. It was like one of the faces of the railway platforms in times of famine, or of the Jewish women in times of the pogroms, when they are moving from living to enduring.
Alyosha was awake. He had heard the horse.
‘Did the hussars come?’ he said.
‘No. That was Mr Balashov.’
‘He said his name was Gleb, like papa.’
Anna hugged him. ‘It’s only a name,’ she said. ‘Although, little son, Mr Balashov has certain things in common with your father. For some men, the closer something is, the less they care about it, and the farther away something is, the more they want it. Oh, don’t listen to me. We’re going to leave Yazyk. We have to find a city to live in. What do you think about Lieutenant Mutz? Do you like him?’
Among The Worlds
Anna and Mutz barely saw each other, and didn’t speak, until the next day. With
the death of Matula the Czechs accepted the authority of Mutz and Dezort, and their promise that they would leave Yazyk. They put Matula’s corpse on a stretcher, head and body together, and went to the Reds with it, under a truce flag. Two of the Reds had been wounded in the fighting. In a meeting, eloquent proposals were seconded and voted for that all the Czechs should be put to death. Bondarenko argued for clemency, on sanitary grounds if on no other, and, when the discussion seemed to be going against him, pulled Matula’s head out from under the blanket covering it and waved it at the assembled rail workers, tempering their desire for revenge. Mutz saw that Matula’s eyes were open. In death, they had, at last, acquired an expression. It was little more than a dull surprise, though Mutz wondered if he saw there the echo of an instant of admiration for the sabre blow which decapitated him, and in that instant, an acknowledgement of his greater defeat, that there were others beside himself and the Tungus to contest for the rule of the taiga.
The Red train steamed into the station, shunting the Czechs’ broken-down locomotive before it. The sides tended to their wounded, while the castrates extinguished fires and began repairing the damage to their homes. None of the villagers had been hurt in the fighting, but most of the houses facing the railway line were damaged or destroyed, and there were scuffles as the castrates accused Czechs or newcomers of looting. Red flags appeared over the station and the administrative building. Bondarenko led a squad through the town like a sorcerer, pointing to things and declaring them to be the property of the people. Mutz spent hours persuading; persuading the Reds’ overworked, hungover doctor to go to see Alyosha, persuading Bondarenko that the Czechs should be allowed to keep their weapons and, until they reached the Pacific, their train, persuading the suspicious Czechs that the Reds were to be trusted and persuading the socialist Czechs that they weren’t. There was no fraternising until the evening when Mutz, Dezort and Bondarenko came out of hours of unsuccessful negotiation on the terms of the Czechs’ departure to find that the senior Czech and communist cooks had agreed on the best way to cook a heifer which had been killed by shellfire (boil it).