Life and Fate

by Vasily Grossman

  The queue was moving very quickly. That seemed a bad sign – the answers people were getting must be vague and laconic. Then it was the turn of a smart, middle-aged woman and there was a delay; the word went round that the man on duty had gone to check something in person – a mere telephone call hadn’t been enough. The woman had turned round and was half-facing the queue; her slightly narrowed eyes seemed to be saying that she had no intention of letting herself be treated in the same manner as this miserable crowd of relatives of the repressed.

  Soon the queue began to move again; a young woman who had just left the window said quietly: ‘Everyone’s getting the same answer: ‘Parcel not accepted.’

  ‘That means the investigation’s still not completed,’ explained the woman in front of Yevgenia.

  ‘What about visits?’

  ‘Visits?’ The woman smiled at Yevgenia’s naivety.

  Yevgenia had never realized that the human back could be so expressive, could so vividly reflect a person’s state of mind. People had a particular way of craning their necks as they came up to the window; their backs, with their raised, tensed shoulders, seemed to be crying, to be sobbing and screaming.

  When Yevgenia was seventh in the queue, the window slammed shut and a twenty-minute break was announced. Everyone sat down on the chairs and benches.

  There were wives and mothers; there was a middle-aged engineer whose wife – an interpreter in the All Union Society for Cultural Relations – had been arrested; there was a girl in her last year at school whose mother had been arrested and whose father had been sentenced in 1937 to ‘ten years without right of correspondence’; there was an old blind woman who had been brought here by a neighbour to enquire after her son; there was a foreigner, the wife of a German Communist, who spoke very poor Russian. She wore a foreign-looking checked coat and carried a brightly-coloured cloth handbag, but her eyes were the eyes of an old Russian woman.

  There were Russian women, Armenian women, Ukrainian women and Jewish women. There was a woman who worked on a kolkhoz near Moscow. The old man who had been filling in the form turned out to be a lecturer at the Timiryazev Academy; his grandson, a schoolboy, had been arrested – apparently for talking too much at a party.

  Yevgenia learnt a great deal during those twenty minutes.

  The man on duty today was one of the good ones . . . They don’t accept tinned food in the Butyrka . . . You really must bring onion and garlic, they’re good for scurvy . . . There was a man here last Wednesday who’d come to pick up his documents, he’d been three years in the Butyrka without once being interrogated and had then been released . . . Usually people are sent to a camp about a year after they’ve been arrested . . . You mustn’t bring anything too good – at the transit prison in Krasnaya Presnaya the ‘politicals’ are put together with the common criminals and everything gets stolen . . . There was a woman here the other day whose elderly husband, an important engineer and designer, had been arrested. Apparently he’d had a brief affair in his youth and gone on sending the woman alimony for a son he’d never even set eyes on. The son, now adult, had deserted to the Germans. And the old man had got ten years for fathering a traitor to the Motherland . . . Most people were sentenced under article 58-10: Counter-Revolutionary Agitation, or not keeping their mouths shut . . . There had been arrests just before the first of May, there were always a lot just before public holidays . . . There was one woman who’d been phoned at home by the investigator and had suddenly heard her husband’s voice . . .

  How strange it all was. Here, in the waiting-room of the NKVD, Yevgenia somehow felt calmer, less depressed, than after her bath in Lyudmila’s house.

  What wonderful good fortune to have a parcel accepted!

  One of the people near her said in a stifled whisper: ‘When it comes to people who were arrested in 1937, they just say whatever comes into their head. One woman was told: “He’s alive and working.” She came back a second time and the same person gave her a certificate saying that her husband had died in 1939.’

  Now it was Yevgenia’s turn. The man behind the window looked up at her. His face was like that of any other clerk; yesterday he might have been working on the desk at a fire station, and tomorrow, if he was ordered to, he might be filling in forms for military decorations.

  ‘I want to enquire about someone who’s been arrested – Krymov, Nikolay Grigorevich,’ said Yevgenia. She had the feeling that even people who didn’t know her would be able to tell that she wasn’t speaking in her normal voice.

  ‘When was he arrested?’

  ‘November.’

  The man took out a form. ‘Fill this in. You don’t need to queue again – just hand it straight in. And come back tomorrow for the answer.’

  As he handed her the form, the man looked at her again. This time his rapid glance was not that of an ordinary clerk at all – it was the glance of a Chekist, an intelligent glance that remembers everything.

  She filled in the form with trembling fingers – just like the old man from the Timiryazev Academy who not long before had been sitting on the same chair. When she came to the question about her relationship to the person arrested, she wrote ‘Wife’, underlining the word heavily.

  She handed the form in, sat down on the bench and put her passport back in her bag. She kept moving it from one part of the bag to another; finally she realized this was because she didn’t want to leave the people in the queue.

  At that moment she wanted only one thing: to let Krymov know that she was here, that she had given up everything for him, that she had come to him.

  If only he could find out that she was here, so near him!

  She walked down the street. It was already evening. Most of her life had been spent in this city. But that life – with its theatres, art exhibitions, orchestral concerts, dinners in restaurants and visits to dachas – was now so distant as to be no longer her own. Stalingrad and Kuibyshev had disappeared – as had the handsome, sometimes divinely handsome, face of Novikov himself. All that was left was 24 Kuznetsky Most. It was as though she was walking down the unfamiliar streets of a city she had never seen before.

  24

  Viktor took off his galoshes in the hall and said hello to the old housekeeper. At the same time, he glanced at the half-open door of Chepyzhin’s study.

  ‘Go on then,’ said old Natalya Ivanovna helping him off with his coat, ‘he’s waiting for you.’

  ‘Is Nadezhda Fyodorovna at home?’

  ‘No, she went to the dacha yesterday with her nieces. Viktor Pavlovich, do you know if the war will soon be over?’

  ‘There’s a story going round,’ Viktor answered, ‘that some people told Zhukov’s driver to ask him when the war would be over. And then Zhukov got into his car and said, “Can you tell me when the war will be over?”’

  ‘What are you doing – taking my guests away from me like that?’ Chepyzhin came out to meet Viktor. ‘Invite your own friends, my dear.’

  Viktor nearly always felt happier when he saw Chepyzhin. Now he felt a lightness of heart he had quite forgotten. And when he saw the rows of books in Chepyzhin’s study, he did as he had always done and quoted a line from War and Peace: ‘Yes, they didn’t just waste their time, they wrote.’

  The apparent chaos of the bookshelves was similar to that of the workshops in the factory at Chelyabinsk.

  ‘Have you heard from your sons?’ he asked Chepyzhin.

  ‘I had a letter from the older one, but the young one’s in the Far East.’

  He took Viktor’s hand and pressed it silently, saying what could never be said in words. Old Natalya Ivanovna came over to Viktor and kissed him on the shoulder.

  ‘What news have you got, Viktor Pavlovich?’ asked Chepyzhin.

  ‘The same as everyone – Stalingrad. There’s no doubt about it now. Hitler’s kaput. But as for my own life, well, that’s a mess.’

  He began to tell Chepyzhin about his troubles. ‘My friends and my wife are all telling me to repent
. To repent my rightness.’

  Viktor talked about himself greedily and at length. He was like an invalid who thinks of his illness day and night.

  Then he grimaced and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I keep remembering that conversation of ours about a mixing-tub and all the scum that comes up to the surface . . . Never in my life have I been surrounded by so much filth. And what’s particularly painful, almost unbearable, is that for some reason all this has to coincide with the Russian victories.’

  He looked Chepyzhin in the eye.

  ‘What do you think? Is that just coincidence?’

  Chepyzhin had an extraordinary face. It was simple, coarse, with high cheekbones and a snub nose, the face of a peasant – yet at the same time so fine and intelligent as to be the envy of any Englishman, even Lord Kelvin.

  ‘Wait till the war’s over,’ he answered gloomily. ‘Then we’ll know what’s coincidence and what isn’t.’

  ‘The swine may have finished me off by then. Tomorrow my fate’s being decided by the Scientific Council. That is, it’s already been decided by the Institute authorities and the Party Committee. The Scientific Council’s just a formality. You know – the voice of the people, the demands of the community.’

  It was strange talking to Chepyzhin – the things they were discussing were very painful, but somehow it wasn’t in the least depressing.

  ‘And I thought they’d be offering you everything you wanted on a silver platter – on a golden platter,’ said Chepyzhin.

  ‘Why? I’ve been “dragging science into the swamp of Talmudic abstraction”, cutting it off from reality.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Chepyzhin. ‘It’s amazing. You know, sometimes a man loves a woman. She’s what gives his life meaning, she’s his happiness, his joy, his passion. But for some reason all this is considered almost indecent; he has to pretend he sleeps with her simply because she prepares his meals, darns his socks and washes his clothes.’

  He held up his hands, the fingers spread, in front of his face. They too were extraordinary – powerful, worker’s hands, like claws and yet somehow aristocratic.

  ‘But I don’t feel ashamed,’ he cried angrily. ‘And it isn’t just so I can have my meals prepared that I need her. The value of science lies in the happiness it brings to people. Our fine Academicians think that science is the domestic servant of practice, that it can be put to work according to Shchedrin’s principle: “Your wish is my command.” That’s the only reason why science is tolerated at all. No! Scientific discoveries have an intrinsic value! They do more for the perfection of man than steam-engines, turbines, aeroplanes or the whole of metallurgy from Noah to the present day. They perfect the soul! The human soul!’

  ‘I quite agree with you, Dmitry Petrovich, but I’m afraid comrade Stalin thinks differently.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s wrong. Besides, there’s another side to all this. Maxwell’s abstract idea can be tomorrow’s military radio signal. Einstein’s theory of gravitational fields, Schrodinger’s quantum mechanics and the conceptions of Bohr can all yield very concrete applications. That is what these people don’t realize. And yet it’s so simple you’d think even a goose could understand.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Viktor, ‘of course today’s theory is tomorrow’s practice. But I don’t need to tell you how reluctant our authorities are to accept that.’

  ‘No,’ said Chepyzhin, ‘it was the other way round for me. It was because I know that today’s theories are tomorrow’s practice that I didn’t want to be director of the Institute. But there’s one thing I don’t understand. I was quite sure that Shishakov had been appointed to carry out research into nuclear reactions. And in that field they can’t get by without you . . . In fact I still do feel sure of that.’

  ‘I don’t understand your reasons for leaving the Institute,’ said Viktor. ‘I can’t make out what you’re saying. I understand that the authorities set the Institute various tasks which you find disturbing. That’s clear enough. But the authorities have made mistakes in less esoteric realms than ours. Look at the way the boss was always strengthening our ties of friendship with the Germans; only a few days before the outbreak of war he was sending Hitler whole trainloads of rubber and other raw materials of strategic importance. And in our field – well, even a great politician can be pardoned for failing to understand what’s going on there . . . As for my life – everything’s been back to front. My work before the war was closely linked to practice. In Chelyabinsk I used to go to the factory and help set up the electronic apparatus. But since the war began . . .’

  He waved his hand in mock despair.

  ‘I’m lost in a labyrinth. Sometimes I feel awkward, sometimes I feel quite terrified. Heavens . . . ! All I wanted was to establish the physics of nuclear reactions. What’s happened is that time, mass and gravity have collapsed and space has become two different things; it no longer really exists and has no meaning except in terms of magnetism. There’s a clever young man in my laboratory called Savostyanov. Well, once I got talking to him about my work. He asked lots of questions; I replied that all this wasn’t yet a theory – just a few ideas and a general direction of research. Parallel space is merely an exponent in an equation, not a physical reality. The only symmetry so far is in a mathematical equation; I don’t yet know if there’s a corresponding symmetry of particles. Mathematics has left physics behind; I don’t know whether or not the physics of particles will ever fit into my equations. Savostyanov listened for a long time and then said: “All this reminds me of a fellow-student of mine. He got hopelessly muddled with some equation and said: ‘You know, this isn’t science – it’s a blind couple trying to screw in a patch of nettles.’”’

  Chepyzhin burst out laughing.

  ‘It’s odd that even you can’t see the significance to physics of your own mathematics,’ he said. ‘It’s like the cat in Alice in Wonderland – first you see the smile, then the cat itself.’

  ‘Dear God . . . !’ said Viktor. ‘But deep down I know that this is the central axis of human life. No, I’m not going to give in. I’m not going to betray the faith.’

  ‘I can appreciate what a sacrifice it must be to part with the laboratory at the very moment when the link between physics and your mathematics is about to emerge,’ said Chepyzhin. ‘It must be hard for you, but I’m very glad: honesty is never just wiped off the slate and forgotten.’

  ‘I just hope I’m not wiped off the slate myself,’ said Viktor.

  Natalya Ivanovna brought in the tea and shifted the books to make room on the table.

  ‘Ah! Lemon!’ said Viktor.

  ‘You’re an honoured guest,’ said Natalya Ivanovna.

  ‘A nonentity,’ said Viktor.

  ‘Come on!’ protested Chepyzhin. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Dmitry Petrovich, tomorrow my fate’s being decided. I’m sure of it. Where will I be the day after tomorrow?’

  He moved his glass of tea closer. Beating out the rhythm of his despair with a teaspoon, he said absent-mindedly, ‘Ah! Lemon!’, then felt embarrassed at having repeated the same words in exactly the same intonation.

  For a while neither of them spoke. Then Chepyzhin said: ‘I’ve got some thoughts I’d like to share with you.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Viktor as absent-mindedly as before.

  ‘Nothing special,’ said Chepyzhin, ‘just a few whimsical notions . . . As you know, the idea of an infinite universe is already a truism. A metagalaxy will one day seem like a sugar-lump that some thrifty Lilliputian takes with his tea. While an electron or a neutron will seem like a whole world populated by Gullivers. Even schoolboys understand this.’

  Viktor nodded and thought to himself: ‘Yes, this isn’t anything special. The old man’s not on form today.’ His thoughts turned to Shishakov and tomorrow’s meeting: ‘No, I’m not going. If I do go, then I have to either repent or argue about politics – and that’s the equivalent of suicide.’ He gave a slight yawn and thought: ‘A we
ak heart. That’s what makes people yawn.’

  ‘One might think that only God was able to limit Infinity,’ Chepyzhin went on. ‘Beyond a cosmic boundary, we have to admit the presence of a divine power. Right?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Viktor, thinking to himself: ‘I may be arrested any day, Dmitry Petrovich. I’m not in the mood for philosophy. Yes, I’m probably done for. I talked too much when I was in Kazan. I said things I shouldn’t have said to a fellow called Madyarov. Either he’s an informer, or else he’s been arrested and they’ve made him talk. It’s a mess, a terrible mess.’

  He looked at Chepyzhin. Aware that Viktor was only pretending to pay attention, Chepyzhin continued:

  ‘I think there is a boundary limiting the infinity of the universe – life itself. This boundary’s nothing to do with Einstein’s curvature of space; it lies in the opposition between life and inanimate matter. In my opinion, life can be defined as freedom. Life is freedom. Freedom is the fundamental principle of life. That is the boundary – between freedom and slavery, between inanimate matter and life.

  ‘Now, as soon as freedom first appeared, it began to evolve. It evolved along two lines. First: man has more freedom than protozoa. The whole evolution of the living world has been a movement from a lesser to a greater degree of freedom. This is the very essence of evolution – the highest being is the one which has the most freedom.’

  Viktor was now watching Chepyzhin thoughtfully. Chepyzhin nodded as though approving of his attentiveness.

  ‘And then there’s a second, quantitative, line of evolution. If we assume the weight of an average man to be fifty kilos, then humanity now weighs 100 million tons. That’s a great deal more than, say, a thousand years ago. The mass of animate matter will constantly increase at the expense of that of inanimate matter. The terrestrial globe will gradually come to life. After settling the Arctic and the deserts, man will burrow under the earth, continually pushing back the horizons of his underworld cities and fields. Eventually there will be a predominance of animate matter on earth. Then the other planets will come to life. If we try to imagine the evolution of life over infinity, then the animation of inanimate matter will take place on a galactic scale. Inanimate matter will be transformed into free, living matter. The universe will come to life. Everything in the world will become alive and thus free. Freedom – life itself – will overcome slavery.’