The moon was shining and the street was quite empty. Once again she saw Nadya arm in arm with her lieutenant; they were walking down the road towards the flat. Suddenly Nadya started to run and the young man in the military greatcoat stood there in the middle of the road, gazing after her. Everything most incompatible suddenly fused together in Lyudmila’s heart: her love for Viktor, her resentment of Viktor, her anxiety on Viktor’s behalf; Tolya who had died without ever kissing a girl’s lips; the lieutenant standing there in the road; Vera climbing happily up the staircase of her house in Stalingrad; poor homeless Alexandra Vladimirovna . . .
Her soul filled with the sense of life that is man’s only joy and his most terrible pain.
56
Outside the main door of the Institute, Viktor met Shishakov getting out of his car. Shishakov raised his hat and said hello; he clearly didn’t want to talk.
‘That’s bad,’ thought Viktor.
At lunch Professor Svechin was sitting at the next table, but he looked straight past Viktor without saying a word. Stout Doctor Gurevich talked to Viktor with particular warmth on his way out of the canteen; he pressed his hand for a long time, but as the door of the director’s reception room opened, he quickly said goodbye and walked off down the corridor.
In the laboratory, Markov, who was talking to Viktor about setting up the equipment for photographing atomic particles, suddenly looked up from his notes and said:
‘Viktor Pavlovich, I’ve heard that you were the subject of a very harsh discussion during a meeting of the Party bureau. Kovchenko really had it in for you. He said: “Shtrum doesn’t want to be a part of our collective.”’
‘Well,’ said Viktor, ‘that’s that.’ He felt one of his eyelids beginning to twitch.
While they were discussing the photographs, Viktor got the feeling that it was now Markov who was in charge of the laboratory. He had the calm voice of someone who is in control; Nozdrin twice came up to him to ask questions about the equipment.
Then Markov’s face took on a look of pathetic entreaty.
‘Viktor Pavlovich, if you say anything about this Party meeting, please don’t mention my name. I’ll be accused of revealing Party secrets.’
‘Of course not.’
‘It’s just a storm in a teacup.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Viktor. ‘You’ll get by without me. And the ambiguities surrounding the operation of psi are quite impossible.’
‘I think you’re wrong,’ said Markov. ‘I was talking to Kochkurov yesterday. You know what he’s like – he’s certainly got his feet on the ground. Well he said, “I know Shtrum’s mathematics have overtaken his physics, but somehow I find his work very illuminating, I don’t know why.”’
Viktor understood what Markov was saying. Young Kochkurov was particularly interested in the action of slow neutrons on the nuclei of heavy atoms. In his view, work in this area had great practical possibilities.
‘It’s not the Kochkurovs of this world who decide things,’ said Viktor. ‘The people who matter are the Badins – and he wants me to repent of leading physicists into Talmudic abstraction.’
Everyone in the laboratory seemed to know about yesterday’s meeting and Viktor’s conflict with the authorities. Anna Stepanovna kept giving Viktor sympathetic looks.
Viktor wanted to talk to Sokolov, but he had gone to the Academy in the morning and then rung up to say that he’d been delayed and probably wouldn’t return that day.
Savostyanov, for some reason, was in an excellent mood.
‘Viktor Pavlovich,’ he said, ‘you have before you the esteemed Gurevich – a brilliant and outstanding scientist.’ He put his hands on his head and stomach to denote Gurevich’s bald head and pot belly.
On his way home in the evening, Viktor suddenly met Marya Ivanovna on Kaluga Street. She saw him first and called out his name. She was wearing a coat he hadn’t seen before and he took a moment to recognize her.
‘How extraordinary!’ he said. ‘What’s brought you to Kaluga Street?’
For a moment she just looked at him in silence. Then she shook her head and said: ‘It’s not a coincidence. I wanted to see you – that’s all.’
Viktor didn’t know what to say. For a moment his heart seemed to stop beating. He thought she was going to say something terrible, to warn him of some danger.
‘Viktor Pavlovich, I just wanted a word with you. Pyotr Lavrentyevich has told me what happened.’
‘You mean my latest success,’ said Viktor.
They were walking side by side – but in silence, almost as though they didn’t know one another. Viktor again felt embarrassed. He looked at Marya Ivanovna out of the corner of one eye and said: ‘Lyudmila’s very angry with me. I suppose you feel the same.’
‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘I know what compelled you to act in that way.’
Viktor gave her a quick look.
‘You were thinking of your mother.’
He nodded.
‘Pyotr Lavrentyevich didn’t want to tell you . . . He’s heard that the Party organization and the Institute authorities have really got it in for you . . . Apparently Badin said: “It’s not just a case of hysteria. It’s political hysteria, anti-Soviet hysteria.”’
‘So that’s what’s the matter with me,’ said Viktor. ‘Yes, I thought that Pyotr Lavrentyevich was keeping something back.’
‘Yes. That upset me very much.’
‘Is he afraid?’
‘Yes. And he considers you to be in the wrong.
‘Pyotr Lavrentyevich is a good man,’ she added quietly. ‘He’s suffered a lot.’
‘Yes,’ said Viktor. ‘And that’s what’s upsetting. Such an audacious, brilliant scientist – and such a cowardly soul.’
‘He’s suffered a lot,’ repeated Marya Ivanovna.
‘All the same, he should have told me.’
He took her arm. ‘Listen, Marya Ivanovna, what is all this about Madyarov? I just don’t understand.’
He was haunted by the thought of their conversations in Kazan. He kept remembering odd words, odd phrases, Karimov’s alarming warning and Madyarov’s own suspicions. He was afraid that his blatherings in Kazan would soon be added to what was already brewing in Moscow.
‘I don’t understand myself,’ she replied. ‘The registered letter we sent Leonid Sergeyevich was returned to us. Has he changed his address? Has he left Kazan? Has the worst happened?’
‘Yes, yes,’ muttered Viktor. For a moment he felt quite lost.
Marya Ivanovna obviously thought that her husband had told Viktor about the letter that had been returned. But Sokolov hadn’t said a word. When Viktor had asked that question, he had been thinking of the quarrel between Madyarov and Pyotr Lavrentyevich.
‘Let’s go into the park,’ he said.
‘We’re going in the wrong direction.’
‘There’s a way in off Kaluga Street.’
He wanted to know more about Madyarov, and to tell her of his and Karimov’s suspicions of one another. The park would be empty; no one would disturb them there. Marya Ivanovna would understand the import of such a conversation. He would be able to talk freely and openly about everything that troubled him, and she would be equally frank.
A thaw had set in. On the slopes you could see damp rotting leaves peeping out from under the melting snow; in the gullies, however, the snow was still quite thick. The sky above was cloudy and sombre.
‘What a beautiful evening,’ said Viktor, breathing in the cool, damp air.
‘Yes, and there isn’t a soul around. It’s like being in the country.’
They walked down the muddy paths. When they came to a puddle, he held out his hand and helped her across.
For a long time they didn’t say a word. Viktor didn’t want to talk about the war, the Institute, Madyarov, or any of his fears and premonitions. All he wanted was to keep on walking, without saying a word, beside this small woman with the light yet awkward step – and to prolong this feeling o
f lightness and peace that had suddenly come over him.
Marya Ivanovna didn’t say a word. She just walked on beside him, her head slightly bowed.
They came out onto the quay. The river was covered with a layer of dark ice.
‘I like this,’ said Viktor.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘it’s good.’
The asphalt path along the quay was quite dry and they walked more quickly, like travellers on a long journey. A wounded lieutenant and a stocky young girl in a ski-suit were coming towards them. They had their arms round one another and were stopping every now and then to kiss. As they passed Viktor and Marya Ivanovna, they kissed again, looked round and burst out laughing.
‘Who knows?’ thought Viktor. ‘Perhaps Nadya came for a walk here with her lieutenant.’
Marya Ivanovna looked round at the young couple and said:
‘How sad it all is.’
She smiled. ‘Lyudmila Nikolaevna told me about Nadya.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Viktor. ‘It is all very strange.’
Then he added:
‘I’ve decided to phone the director of the Electro-Mechanical Institute and offer my services. If they don’t accept me, I’ll have to go somewhere like Novosibirsk or Krasnoyarsk.’
‘Yes, that’s the best thing you can do,’ she said. ‘What can I say? You couldn’t have acted any other way.’
‘How sad it all is.’
He wanted to say what a deep love he felt now for his work and his laboratory. He wanted to say that when he looked at the new apparatus – now almost complete – he felt a strange blend of joy and sorrow; that he sometimes felt he would come back to the Institute at night and peer through the windows. But he didn’t say anything; he was afraid Marya Ivanovna would think he was putting on an act.
As they came to the exhibition of war-trophies, they slowed down to look at an aeroplane with black swastikas and at the grey German tanks, field-guns and mortars.
‘They look terrifying enough even like this,’ said Marya Ivanovna.
‘They’re not so bad,’ said Viktor. ‘By the time the next war comes, they’ll seem as innocent as muskets and halberds.’
They reached the gate.
‘So our walk’s come to an end,’ said Viktor. ‘What a pity this park’s so small. You’re not tired?’
‘Not at all. I do a lot of walking.’
Either she was pretending not to understand or she really didn’t.
‘It’s strange,’ he said. ‘Our meetings always seem to depend on your meetings with Lyudmila or mine with Pyotr Lavrentyevich.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘but how else could it be?’
They left the park; the noise of the city surrounded them again, destroying the charm of their quiet walk. They came out onto a square not far from where they had first met.
Looking up at him – as though she were a little girl and he were an adult – she said:
‘Just now you probably feel a special love for your work, for your laboratory and equipment. But you couldn’t have acted in any other way. Another man could – but not you. I’ve brought you bad news, but I always think it’s best to know the truth.’
‘Thank you, Marya Ivanovna,’ said Viktor, squeezing her hand. ‘And not only for that.’
He thought he could feel her fingers trembling in his hand.
‘How strange,’ she said. ‘We’re saying goodbye almost exactly where we met.’
Viktor smiled. ‘It’s not for nothing that the ancients said, “In my beginning is my end.”’
Marya Ivanovna frowned as she puzzled over this. Then she laughed and said: ‘I don’t understand.’
Viktor watched as she walked down the street: a short, skinny woman, not someone a passer-by would turn round to look at.
57
Darensky had seldom been so bored or depressed as during these weeks in the Kalmyk steppe. He had sent a telegram to Front Headquarters, saying that he had completed his mission and that his continued presence on the extreme left flank – where there was in any case no activity – served no purpose. With an obstinacy he found incomprehensible, his superiors had still not recalled him.
It wasn’t so bad when he was working; what was most difficult was when he was off duty.
There was sand everywhere; dry, rustling, slippery sand. Of course, even this supported life. You could hear the rustle of lizards and tortoises and see the tracks left by the lizards’ tails. Here and there you came across small thorn bushes, themselves the colour of sand. Kites hovered in the air, searching for refuse or carrion. Spiders ran past on long legs.
The stern poverty, the cold monotony of the snowless November desert, seemed to have devastated the men who had been posted here. Their way of life, even their thoughts, seemed to have become equally dreary.
Little by little, Darensky had submitted to this monotony. He had always been indifferent to food, but now he thought of little else. The endless meals of sour-tasting soup made from pearl barley and marinated tomatoes – followed by pearl-barley porridge – had become a nightmare. Sometimes he found it unbearable to sit in the gloom of the small barn, in front of puddles of soup splashed over a table knocked together from a few planks, watching everyone sipping this soup from flat tin bowls; all he wanted was to get out – to escape the rattle of spoons and the nauseating smell. But as soon as he left, he began to count the hours till the next day’s meal.
The huts were cold at night. Darensky slept badly; his back froze, his ears and legs froze, his fingers froze, his cheeks froze. He went to bed without undressing, with two pairs of foot-cloths round his feet and a towel round his head.
At first he had been amazed at the way people he met seemed almost to have forgotten the war; they seemed to have no room in their minds for anything except food, tobacco and clean laundry. But soon he noticed himself thinking of all kinds of trivia, all kinds of petty hopes and disappointments as he talked to the commanders of divisions and batteries about axle-grease, ammunition supplies and how best to prepare the guns for the winter.
Front Headquarters now seemed impossibly distant; his dream was to spend a day at Army Headquarters, near Elista. But it wasn’t Alla Sergeyevna and her blue eyes that he dreamed of: he dreamed of a bath, clean underwear and soup with white noodles.
Even the night he had spent at Bova’s now seemed pleasant and agreeable. It hadn’t been such a bad hut after all. And they hadn’t talked only about soup and clean laundry.
The worst torment of all was the lice.
It had taken him some time to realize why he was always itching; he had failed to understand people’s knowing smiles when he had furiously begun scratching his thigh or armpit in the middle of a serious discussion. Every day he had scratched with increasing zeal. He had felt a constant burning under his armpits.
He had thought he had eczema, that the dust and sand must be irritating his dry skin. Sometimes, on his way somewhere, he would stop and suddenly begin scratching his legs, his stomach, the small of his back. It was worst of all at night. He would wake up and scratch furiously at his chest. Once, when he was lying on his back, he had stuck his legs up in the air and moaned as he scratched at his thighs. His eczema seemed to be aggravated by heat. Under the blankets, it became unbearable; if he went out into the frost, it calmed down. He decided to go to the first-aid post and ask for some ointment.
One morning he had turned down his shirt collar and seen a row of sleepy, full-grown lice along the seam. There were dozens of them. He had looked round in embarrassment at the captain who slept in the next bed. He was sitting there with a ferocious expression on his face; he had spread out his pants and was squashing the lice that infested them. He was moving his lips silently, evidently keeping a tally.
Darensky took off his shirt and began doing the same. It was a quiet, misty morning. There was no shooting, and no planes going by overhead. You could hear distinct cracks as the lice perished, one after another, beneath the fingernails of the two officers. The
captain glanced at Darensky and muttered:
‘There’s a fine one for you – a real bear of a louse! A breeding sow!’
His eyes still on his shirt collar, Darensky said:
‘Don’t they issue any powder?’
‘They do,’ said the captain. ‘But it’s a waste of time. What we need is a good wash, but there isn’t even enough water to drink. They can’t even wash the plates properly in the canteen. There’s certainly no chance of a bath.’
‘What about the ovens?’
‘That’s no use either. The uniforms come back scorched, and the lice just get a sun-tan . . . And when I think of the time we were quartered in Penza! I never even went to the canteen. The landlady fed me herself. She was a nice plump woman – and not too old. We had baths twice a week, beer every day . . .’
‘I know,’ said Darensky. ‘But what’s to be done? It’s a long way to Penza.’
The captain looked at him seriously and said, as if revealing a secret:
‘There is one good method, comrade Lieutenant-Colonel. Snuff! You grind up a brick, mix it with snuff and sprinkle it on your underwear. The lice begin sneezing. That makes them jump – and then they bash their heads in against the brick.’
The captain kept such a straight face that it took Darensky some time to realize this was a joke.
During the next few days, he heard at least a dozen stories in a similar vein. The folklore of lice was evidently a rich field of study.
Day and night, his mind was occupied with a host of questions: food, a change of underwear, clean uniform, louse-powder, extermination of lice by ironing them with a heated bottle, by freezing them to death, by burning them to death . . . He no longer thought of women at all. He remembered a saying the criminals had used in the camps:
‘You may live, but you won’t love.’
58
Darensky had spent all day inspecting the guns of the artillery division. He hadn’t seen a single plane or heard a single shot.
The division’s commander, a young Kazakh, said very clearly and without a trace of an accent:
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