by Неизвестный
The woman opened the window just long enough to take in the paper-wrapped package.
“Hey, open it a little more!”
“I can’t: the room will get cold. Every time I open it I lose three pieces of firewood.”
She had light pink skin. When she laughed, child-like dimples showed in both cheeks. She wasn’t a bad woman. She merely had to do what she could to obtain money. Her parents and brother were short of food. Her sister, who had children, had come to get tobacco for her husband.
Matsuki brought bread. He brought sugar. He brought what he could buy with his salary of five yen, sixty sen. But he was much too poor to support her entire family. Someone who drew a higher pay was desired.
It wasn’t only the soldiers who were starved for sex. There was a certain big shot with a salary more than eighty-five times greater than Matsuki’s who also lusted after female flesh.
“I have something to do,” said Galya. “It’s rude of me, but won’t you please come tomorrow?”
“It’s always ‘come tomorrow.’ If I come tomorrow, it’ll be the day after tomorrow.”
“No, really tomorrow—Tomorrow I’ll be waiting.”
4
The snow had gotten deep.
The road packed solid by those who came to the mess hall in search of leftovers was obliterated by fresh drifts. The children tramped through them and restored it.
Their effort was erased by new carpets of snow. The houses on the hill looked like rocks, buried by the snow.
From a mountain some way off, partisans were tirelessly watching the village. Not only that, at night wolves frequently attacked the sentries. The wolves came running nimbly over snow deep enough to swallow their whole bodies.
The wolves found no food in the mountains. Spotting a chance, they would raid a village and make off with chickens, puppies, or a pig. They formed howling packs and rushed in with such force that it seemed destined they would kill and devour anything they encountered. The sentries dreaded facing them. Sentries had guns, true, but there were only two of them. The beasts would duck the bullets and close in on the men. It was terrifying. The soldiers had to help each other and fight them. If luck failed them, the wolves’ fangs would pierce their armpits or throats.
It continued to be overcast. The days were short, the nights long. Not once did the sun show its beaming face. Matsuki was spending his second winter in Siberia. He was tired and melancholy. It seemed to him that the sun had abandoned the earth and flown off somewhere. He was certain he’d get sick if things continued like this. Nor was it only Matsuki. All his fellow soldiers were gloomy and exhausted. So they went to visit women. Only women still possessed the power to excite their interest.
Galya, bearing up under the public gaze, came to the mess hall. Her bleached white skirt glimmered from underneath an old coat made of rather good material.
“You don’t let a man come anywhere near you. Even if I had leftovers, I wouldn’t give them to you.”
“Oh, I see.”
She spoke in her agreeable, crystal clear voice.
“Serves you right.”
“Fine.”
She spun around smartly on the high heels on her polished black shoes and started to walk toward the hill.
“No, I was only joking! Someone else was just here and took everything we had.”
Matsuki called out from behind.
“Never mind, I don’t need it.”
Her slender long legs bounding like resilient springs, she climbed the hill.
“Galya! Wait! Wait!”
Clutching a package of dried noodles, he ran after her.
Soldiers stepped out of the mess hall and watched, laughing.
Matsuki, breathless, caught up with the woman and threw the package of noodles into her empty washbasin.
“Here, it’s yours.”
Galya stopped and looked at him. Then revealing her dazzlingly white teeth, she said something. He couldn’t understand her words. But he knew from the soft, rounded tone that she was eager to have him think well of her. He felt he had done a good thing to go running after her.
Turning around on the way back, he saw Galya slipping on the snowy path as she climbed the hill.
“Hey, don’t overdo it!” Takeishi hollered from the mess hall entrance. “If you keep at it this hard, I’ll go after her myself!”
5
Yoshinaga’s company was to be detached from the battalion and sent to guard Iishi.
Between H. and S. there lay a rather broad stretch of forested land. A mountain and a large valley formed a part of it. A river flowed through the forest. The area’s topography was not precisely known.
A railway bridge located in the zone was constantly getting blown up. Without anyone’s noticing it, sleepers were being ripped up. A military train would suddenly be ambushed.
Telegraph wires could be counted on to be severed, and communication between H. and S., repeatedly cut.
It was safe to imagine the region was a partisan hideout. The mission of the company sent to garrison Iishi was to secure communications.
Yoshinaga was putting together his belongings on Matsuki’s bunk. He was to move out of the mess hall and return to his company.
He reflected on how often he had been exposed to danger. A great number of men had already been dropped by bullets, lost their eyes, or had arms torn off.
There was a man he had stood sentry with one evening who suddenly spouted blood from his chest and toppled over. His name was Sakamoto. He remembered the scene vividly.
The shot had come out of nowhere.
The two had been standing on a mountain ridge. It was time for the relief sentries to line up and march out of the guardhouse. In fifteen minutes they could return to the guardhouse and rest.
A bright red sun was about to slip beneath the horizon. A herd of cows and horses, hides bathed in sunlight, ambled lazily across the steppe. It was the middle of October.
“I’m hungry,” said Sakamoto and yawned.
“If I were home this time of day, I’d be ready to toss the hoe on my shoulder and head back from the field.”
“That’s right, isn’t it. It’s potato season.”
“Um.”
“Wouldn’t I like to eat one!”
With that Sakamoto had yawned once again. Was his mouth still stretched open when he was knocked over into the grass like felled lumber?
Yoshinaga leaped up.
Another shot zipped past him, grazing his head.
“Hey! Sakamoto! Hey!”
He had tried calling him.
The uniform was stained dark by the blood.
Sakamoto merely moaned, “Ooooh.”
They had sailed from Japan and landed at Vladivostok. Ever since the instant of their arrival, everyone had been oppressed by the danger.
The locomotive burned firewood. Yoshinaga boarded it to travel some thousand miles into the interior. At times they’d jump off to exchange gunfire, then get back on and boil their rice. The kindling smoldered. It was winter. Because it ran on wood, the locomotive frequently slowed to a halt. For two months he didn’t wash his face. He looked black by the time he arrived. It was too cold to breathe. To top it off there was an epidemic of influenza. Enemy airplanes roared over the barracks. Streets fluttered with red flags.
What did they do there? Conditions eventually turned grim, spelling defeat, so they burned what they couldn’t take and fell back. The Reds cut their line of retreat. They fought and continued to withdraw. The Reds were everywhere, like influenza germs. Again they fought. So what did they do next?
There were days when they slept in the swamp of melting snow and mud and woke up only to open fire. More than once they were sprayed from above by machine-gun bullets.
Yoshinaga thought it quite amazing that he was still alive. If he’d ever strayed a foot or two to either side, he might be dead.
But how was he to know what would happen from now on? How could anyone know? Nobody cared wort
h a fart if he died. The only human who worried about him was his mother, who sold firewood in a village.
Next to his skin he wore the amulet case she had made for him. It was a rather large cloth pouch sewn out of new white cotton. Grime and sweat had turned it black and smelly. He thought he’d open it and replace the pouch. He slit it open with scissors. An indecent profusion of charms had been stuffed in. Konpira Shrine, Nanzan Hachiman Shrine, Tensho Kodai Shrine, on and on—they came from every possible source and denomination. His mother evidently felt the more there were, the greater the likelihood was of obtaining divine favors.
The talismans were so frayed that the original paper shapes were nearly unrecognizable. There was more. Something had been separately wrapped in paper. He opened it. It contained bank notes. A five, ones, fifty-sen bills—in all about ten yen. She’d slipped in the money she’d saved peddling firewood.
“Hey, hey. There’s money in my charm pouch,” Yoshinaga said happily.
“What?”
“Money in the charm pouch!”
“Really?”
“Would I lie?”
“Ho, the man’s rich.”
Matsuki and Takeishi came running from the table. The notes, too, were black with sweat and dirt.
“Look at that, bills from back home!” Matsuki and Takeishi held up the notes and tenderly gazed at them. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen these.”
“Mother must have put them in for me on the sly.”
“It took you long enough to discover! What a great find!”
“Hmm, I struck it rich—I’ll share.”
Yoshinaga thought that at best he’d have to go to Iishi day after the next. He’d be forced to cross a snowed-in valley and a mountain. Partisans hid there. Shooting was inevitable, again.
Would he live, he wondered. Who knew? Who the hell knew?
6
At the canteen Matsuki purchased bean-jam buns, sugar, pineapples, tobacco, and more.
When the night fell, he wrapped them all in newspaper and went up the hill. Rock-hard frozen snow clacked against his boots. Air cut into his nose. He reached the summit and went down the opposite slope. A light was burning in that window by the foot of the hill. Silhouettes flitted across the pane.
Walking, he tried out the words.
“Galya.”
“Galya.”
“Galya.”
“What a lively woman you are!”
How would he say it in Russian? Voices seemed to float up from the base of the hill. The voice of a woman over thirty. And what seemed to be that of a Japanese. What were they saying? He paused. It sounded somewhat like Galya’s mother, he thought. Abruptly it stopped. Soon blue curtains swept across the nearby window, blocking the view.
“What’s this? They don’t go to sleep so early . . .”
He ducked under the barbed wire and stalked up to the window.
“Good evening, Galya.”
The stepping-stone he had strategically placed to enable him to reach the window had been removed.
“Galya.”
A lump of snow came flying at him. It struck the edge of his arctic coat and disintegrated. Another flew at him. It hit his back. He noticed neither but kept looking intently up at the window.
“Galya!”
He called with his face upturned. Bright stars shone crisply against the winter night.
“Hey you!”
The man who had been hurling the snowballs made a scraping noise with his boots and jumped out from behind a white birch. It was Takeishi.
Matsuki started. He almost dropped his newspaper bundle onto the snow. Surprised by an officer or someone unknown, he was ready to throw everything and run.
“You’ve come again,” laughed Takeishi.
“It’s you. Don’t do this.”
It took a while for Matsuki’s heart to resume its regular pace. As soon as he realized it was Takeishi, he flushed with embarrassment at the thought he’d been in such a hurry to please a woman with Yoshinaga’s money. He wished he’d come without the sugar and pineapples.
“Someone got here ahead of us.” Takeishi lowered his voice and pointed to the window. “I thought it might be you, so I was waiting to see how things stood.”
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Noncom or officer?”
“I didn’t see. I don’t know.”
“Who could it be?”
“Want to go in and see?”
“No, no. . . . Let’s go back.”
Matsuki had no desire to come face to face with an officer or anyone else. It would do no good.
Takeishi disagreed. “It’d be cowardly to just go back like this.” He rapped loudly on the windowpane.
“Galya, Galya, good evening!”
An annoyed male voice sounded from the next room.
“Galya!”
“What d’you want?”
Her younger brother Kolya thrust his face past the curtains. Although he’d had to quit the army preparatory school in Vladivostok, he wore the uniform with its white shoulder badges.
“Where’s Galya?”
“She’s busy.”
“Tell her to come for a second.”
“What is it? That?”
Kolya was eyeing Matsuki’s bundle.
“Drink.” Before Matsuki could reply Takeishi produced a pint-and-a-half bottle of Masamune. “We’ve got lots of good things.”
Tearing off the wrapping Takeishi held up the bottle before Kolya’s eyes. Matsuki noted a touch of experience in the gesture.
“Let me have it,” said Kolya and put out his hand, but there was something uncharacteristically limp in his manner. He faltered. This was highly unusual for someone as assertive as Kolya.
Takeishi, too, had brought things and was giving them away, thought Matsuki. No reason, then, to be ashamed of his own purchases. Seeing Kolya so hesitant made him feel especially generous.
“Here, have this too.” He took out a can of pineapples.
Kolya was fidgeting.
“Go on, take it.”
“Thank you.”
This oddly sharp-faced, somehow disheartened boy seemed like an intriguing character to Takeishi.
“Would you like more?”
His reserve suggested he wanted it but felt it would be bad to accept.
“Tobacco and sugar.” Matsuki raised them up to the window.
“Thank you.”
As Kolya left the window with his presents, Takeishi whispered to Matsuki: “Someone is definitely here.”
“But who? I’ve no idea.”
“I think I’ll go in and see for myself.”
The two strained their ears. They sensed something happening in the room beyond the next. A door creaked open. A saber sheath rattled. Takeishi placed his hands on the windowsill, pulled himself up, and peered in.
“Can you see?”
“No, only a boiling samovar. . . . Hey, the people in this house couldn’t possibly be selling their own daughter, could they?”
Kolya came through the door. When he spotted Takeishi seemingly trying to enter the room from the window, his expression changed at once.
“No! You mustn’t! Don’t do that!”
The voice was hoarse and thick with rebuke.
Instantly convinced by its desperate quality that he’d done something impermissible, Takeishi slid down from the window.
Kolya started for the window, turned back, and slammed shut the door.
For several minutes the two men remained beneath the window. Lights glowed and twinkled in snow-covered houses. Women lived there too, thought Takeishi. In one of them Yoshinaga would be sipping hot tea and mourning his imminent separation from Liza. Maybe he was urging the slender little Liza to go with him to Iishi. No doubt he, too, had bought and taken her something she would like. Takeishi recalled Yoshinaga’s furrowed, good face and was moved to smile.
Guarding Iishi would be hazardous.
Li
ghts on the hillside were vanishing behind curtains, one by one.
“Good night.”
Three or four soldiers emerged from Gudkov’s house nearby. They spoke animatedly as they walked, and their conversation resounded to the bottom of the hill. They were returning to the barracks.
All of a sudden Matsuki and Takeishi heard Galya’s cheerful voice directly overhead. Both felt instantly resurrected.
“Boo!” Laughing, she showed her face in the window. “Won’t you come in?”
From the entrance Matsuki scanned the kitchen, bedroom, and workroom.
“Who was here?”
“Maiyor.”
“Who?”
“Maiyor was here.”
“What’s that? What’s a maiyor?” Matsuki and Takeishi stared at each other. Mai-yoru in Japanese might mean “stop by to dance.” Had someone come to dance?
7
To Matsuki, a major was not a rival he could joke with.
The two men stepped into the room. At that very moment the major was departing by the kitchen door. He was choked with fury. He was a fleshy, bearded man weighing nearly two hundred pounds. His boots kicked the hardened snow into fragments. His flared nostrils drank in the freezing air and expelled it as dense clouds of steam.
He was burning with humiliation and rage. At length he managed to control himself. Taking enormous strides, he struck out for the headquarters. Then suddenly he turned and retraced his steps.
The major marched up to the window Matsuki and Takeishi had been standing under moments earlier. He was robust and tall. Through a gap in the curtains he could see into the room even without standing on tiptoe.
Two enlisted men, a bottle of Masamune between them, were facing each other across a table. Galya was chatting with them, her face a little flushed. Her white teeth glistened. Lips, pungent as mint, were parted in a smile.
His jealousy and wrath exploded within him. He had the overpowering urge to roar out in the gruffest voice he kept in reserve for commanding the battalion. The growl forced its way to the uppermost part of his throat.
It took an immense effort to suppress it. Then with greater strides than ever, he rushed back to the regiment.