Life and Fate

by Vasily Grossman

  Getmanov and Nyeudobnov were egging Novikov on; he shared their excitement, but for some strange reason kept putting off his departure. It was only as he got into his jeep that he realized it was because he was expecting Zhenya.

  It was over three weeks since he had heard from her. Each time he made his way back to HQ, he hoped to find Zhenya waiting for him on the steps. She had come to share in his life. She was with him when he talked to his brigade commanders, when he was called to the telephone by Front Headquarters, when he drove up to the front line and felt his tank trembling at the shell-bursts like a young horse. Once, telling Getmanov the story of his childhood, he had felt as though he were telling it to her. He would say to himself: ‘God, I really stink of vodka. Zhenya would notice in no time.’ Or: ‘Now, if only she could see that!’ He had wondered anxiously what she would think if she knew that he had sent a major before the military tribunal. Among the clouds of tobacco smoke and the voices of telephonists in an observation post on the front line, among the gunfire and the exploding bombs, he would be thinking of her . . .

  Sometimes he felt jealous of her past. Sometimes he dreamed of her; he would wake up and be unable to get back to sleep. At times he felt sure their love would last for ever; at others he was afraid of being left on his own again.

  As he got into his jeep, he glanced round at the road leading back to the Volga; it was deserted. He suddenly thought angrily that she should have arrived long ago. Perhaps she had fallen ill? Once again he remembered the day in 1939 when he had heard the news of her marriage and almost shot himself. Why did he love her? He had had other women who were just as good. Was it a joy or a kind of sickness to think so obsessively about one person? It was a good thing he hadn’t got involved with any of the girls on his staff. Yes, he had a clean slate. Though there had been one night three weeks ago . . . What if she stopped on the way and spent the night in that hut? The young woman might start talking to Zhenya. She might describe him and say: ‘Yes, that colonel’s a splendid fellow!’ What nonsense goes through one’s head, what nonsense!

  50

  Novikov returned to his headquarters at noon on the following day. He was aching all over – in the small of his back, in his neck and spine, – after being shaken about on icy, pot-holed roads that had been ploughed up by the treads of tanks. It was as though the soldiers had infected him with their own exhaustion, with the stupefaction they felt after so many days without sleep.

  As they drew up, he saw a group of people standing on the porch. There was Yevgenia Nikolaevna standing beside Getmanov, watching the approaching jeep. He felt a flame burning into him, he gasped with a mad joy that was close to pain. He was about to leap out of the still-moving jeep when Vershkov, who was sitting behind him, said:

  ‘So the commissar’s taking the air with that doctor of his. We should take a photo of them. That would make his wife happy.’

  Novikov went inside. He took the letter held out to him by Getmanov, turned it over, recognized Zhenya’s handwriting, and stuffed it into his pocket.

  ‘All right,’ he said to Getmanov. ‘I’ll tell you how I see the situation.’

  ‘But what about the letter? Don’t you love her any longer?’

  ‘Thank you. That can wait.’

  Nyeudobnov came in and Novikov began.

  ‘The only problem is with the men themselves. They’re falling asleep in their tanks during combat. They’re worn out. The brigade commanders included. Karpov’s not too bad, but Byelov fell asleep while he was talking to me – he hasn’t stopped for five days. The drivers and mechanics are falling asleep on the move. They’re too exhausted even to eat.’

  ‘But Pyotr Pavlovich,’ Getmanov broke in, ‘how do you see the general situation?’

  ‘There’s no risk of a counter-offensive in our sector. The Germans have lost their nerve. They’re taking to their heels as fast as they can.’

  As he spoke, he could feel the envelope between his fingers. He let it go for a moment and then quickly grasped it again; he was afraid it might escape from his pocket.

  ‘Very well,’ said Getmanov. ‘That seems clear enough. Now listen to what I’ve got to say. The general and I have been right to the top. I spoke to Nikita Sergeyevich himself. He gave his word that we would not lose our air support.’

  ‘But Khrushchev has no direct military authority,’ said Novikov.

  ‘Yes and no,’ said Getmanov. ‘The general’s just received confirmation from Air Army Headquarters. The aircraft are staying with us.’

  ‘And the roads aren’t bad at all,’ said Nyeudobnov hurriedly. ‘The forces in the rear will catch up with us in no time. The main thing, comrade Lieutenant-Colonel, is that it’s your own decision.’

  ‘Now he’s demoting me,’ thought Novikov. ‘He really must be worried.’

  ‘Yes, gentlemen,’ said Getmanov. ‘It seems more and more as though we really will be the ones to begin the liberation of Mother Ukraine. I told Nikita Sergeyevich that our men are besieging their officers, that their greatest dream is to be called “The Ukrainian Corps”.’

  Novikov felt irritated by this falsehood. ‘There’s only one thing they’re dreaming of,’ he said, ‘and that’s having a few hours’ sleep. Do you understand? They’ve been on the move for five days and five nights.’

  ‘So it’s been decided, has it?’ said Getmanov. ‘We’re pressing on. Right?’

  Novikov half-opened the envelope, stuck two fingers inside and felt the letter itself. His whole body ached to look again at the familiar handwriting.

  ‘What I’ve decided,’ said Novikov, ‘is to call a halt for ten hours. The men need to recover their strength. They need a rest.’

  ‘Ten hours!’ said Nyeudobnov. ‘We’ll throw away everything if we lose ten hours.’

  ‘Wait a moment,’ said Getmanov. ‘Let’s just think about it a little.’ His cheeks, his ears, even his neck were slowly turning red.

  ‘I already have thought about it,’ said Novikov with a slight laugh.

  Getmanov exploded:

  ‘To hell with them all! So what if they haven’t had enough sleep! There’ll be time enough for them to sleep . . . And you want to call a halt just because of that! You’re dithering, Pyotr Pavlovich, and I protest! First you delay the beginning of the offensive. Now you want to put your men to bed. It’s becoming quite a habit. I intend to report this to the Military Soviet. Do you think you’re in charge of a kindergarten?’

  ‘Wait a moment,’ said Novikov. ‘Wasn’t it you who kissed me for not sending in the tanks until I’d knocked out the enemy artillery? You should put that in your report too.’

  ‘You say I kissed you for that?’ said Getmanov in astonishment. ‘You must be mad! . . . Let me be quite frank. As a Communist, I feel disturbed that you, a man of the purest proletarian origin, should repeatedly allow yourself to be influenced by alien elements.’

  ‘So it’s like that, is it?’ said Novikov, raising his voice. ‘Very well then.’

  He got to his feet, threw back his shoulders and shouted furiously:

  ‘I’m in command here. And what I say goes. As for you, comrade Getmanov, for all I care you can write reports, stories and whole novels about me! And you can send them to whoever you please – even comrade Stalin himself.’

  He went through into the adjoining room . . .

  Novikov put down the letter he had just read and gave a whistle. He used to whistle like that when he was a little boy. He would stand under his friend’s window and whistle to him to come out and play. It was probably a good thirty years since he had whistled like that . . .

  Then he looked out through the window. No, it was still light . . . In sudden, hysterical joy he cried out: ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything!’

  For a moment he thought he was about to fall down dead. He walked up and down the room. He looked again at the letter on his desk. It was like a white, sloughed-off skin that a viper had just crawled out of. He put his hands to his chest
and his sides. The viper wasn’t there. It must have crawled inside him already. It must be burning his heart with poison.

  He stood for a moment by the window. The drivers were laughing as they watched Marusya the telephonist walk past to the lavatory. The driver of the staff tank was carrying a bucket from the well. Sparrows were busying themselves in the straw beside the entrance to the cow-shed. Zhenya had once said that sparrows were her favourite bird . . . And now he was on fire – just like a house. The beams had given way. The ceiling was falling in. Cups and plates were crashing to the floor. Cupboards were toppling over. Books and pillows were tumbling about, flying through the smoke and the sparks like birds . . . ‘I shall be grateful all my life for everything pure and noble that you have given me. But what can I do? The past is stronger than I am. I can’t kill it, I can’t forget it . . . Don’t blame me – not because I’m not guilty, but because neither of us know quite what I am guilty of . . . Forgive me, forgive me, I’m crying for us both.’

  So she was crying, was she! Novikov felt a sudden fury. The filthy bitch! The snake! He wanted to punch her on the jaw, in the eyes. He wanted to crack that whore’s nose of hers with the butt of his revolver . . .

  Suddenly, unbearably suddenly, he felt helpless. There was nothing in the whole world that could help him, only Zhenya, and she had destroyed him . . .

  He looked in the direction she should have been coming from and said: ‘What have you done to me, Zhenechka? Can you hear me? Look at me, Zhenechka! Look what you’ve done to me!’

  He stretched out his hands to her. Then he thought: ‘All this is a waste of time.’ Yes, he had waited all those years, but now she had made up her mind. She wasn’t a little girl. She had dragged it out for years, but now she had made up her mind. She had made up her mind – he must try to understand that.

  A few minutes later he was again trying to find refuge in hatred: ‘No, no, of course you didn’t want me when I was an acting major in Nikolsk-Ussuriysk. But it was another story when I was promoted. You wanted to be the wife of a general. Well, women are all the same . . .’ He soon realized what nonsense this was. She had left him for a man who was on his way to a camp, to Kolyma. What would she get out of that . . . ? ‘“Russian women” – a poem by Nekrasov.fn1 She doesn’t love me, she loves him. No, she doesn’t love him, she pities him. It’s just that she pities him. But doesn’t she have any pity for me? No one in the Lubyanka, no one in the camps, no one in hospital with a missing arm or leg can be more unhappy than I am. Very well, I’ll go to a camp myself. Which of us will you choose then? Him! You two are the same breed, but I’m a stranger. That’s what you called me – a stranger. Yes, I’ll always be a peasant, a miner. Even if I become a marshal, I’ll still never be an intellectual. I’ll still never be able to make head or tail of all that painting of yours . . .’

  In a loud hate-filled voice he asked: ‘But why? Why?’

  He took his pistol out of his back pocket and weighed it in the palm of his hand. ‘I’m going to shoot myself. And not because I can’t live without you – but to torment you with guilt. You whore!’

  He put his pistol back in its place.

  ‘She’ll have forgotten me in a week.’

  No, he was the one who needed to forget. He mustn’t look back. He mustn’t give her another thought.

  He went up to the table and began to read the letter again. ‘My dearest, my poor darling . . .’ It wasn’t the cruel words that hurt, it was the ones that were full of pity, full of affectionate, humiliating pity. He felt as though he could hardly breathe.

  He could see her breasts, her shoulders, her knees. There she was – on her way to that wretched Krymov. ‘But what can I do?’ She was travelling in a crowded, airless wagon. Someone asked her a question and she answered: ‘To join my husband.’ She had the sad, docile eyes of a dog.

  And he had looked out of this very window to see if she was on her way to him. His shoulders shook. He sniffed and gave a kind of bark; he was choking back his terrible sobs. He remembered how he’d ordered some chocolate and nougat from the Front Commissariat. ‘Don’t you dare touch them,’ he’d said to Vershkov, ‘or it’ll be the end of you!’

  Once again he muttered: ‘See what you’ve done to me, my Zhenechka, my little one! You might have some pity!’

  He suddenly dragged his suitcase out from under the bed. He took out Zhenya’s letters and photos – the ones he’d been carrying around for years, the one she’d sent in her last letter, and the very first, cellophane-wrapped passport photo – and began tearing them to shreds with his large, powerful fingers. On tiny shreds of paper he recognized words he had read hundreds of times, words that had made his head spin. He watched her face, her neck, her eyes, her lips, all slowly disappear. He was working as fast as he could. When it was done he felt better; he felt as though he had eradicated her, as though he had stamped out the last trace of her, as though he had freed himself from a witch.

  He had lived without her before. He could get over it! In a year or so he’d be able to walk straight past her without his heart so much as missing a beat. He needed her as much as a drunk needs a cork! But he understood all too quickly how vain these thoughts were. How can you tear something out of your heart? Your heart isn’t made out of paper and your life isn’t written down in ink. You can’t erase the imprint of years.

  He had allowed her to share in his thoughts, in his work, in his troubles. He had allowed her to witness his strengths and his weaknesses . . .

  And the torn-up letters hadn’t disappeared. The words he had read hundreds of times were still in his memory. Her eyes were still gazing at him from the photographs.

  He opened the cupboard door and poured out a large glass of vodka. He drank it down and lit a cigarette. He lit it a second time – though it hadn’t gone out. His head was full of clamouring grief; his insides were on fire.

  ‘Zhenechka, my dearest, my little one, what have you done, what have you done, how could you?’

  He stuffed the torn shreds of paper back into the suitcase, put the bottle back in the cupboard and thought: ‘Well, that’s a little better.’

  Soon his tanks would reach the Donbass. He would visit the village where he had been born and the spot where his old people had been buried. His father would be proud of his Petya now; his mother would be full of pity for her unfortunate little son. When the war came to an end, he would go and live with his brother’s family. His little niece would say: ‘Uncle Petya, why are you so quiet?’

  He suddenly remembered a moment from his childhood. The dog had gone off after a bitch on heat and had come back all chewed up. He had a torn ear, his mouth was crooked, one eye was half-closed because of a swelling, and tufts of his long hair had been torn out. He had stood there by the porch, his tail between his legs. Petya’s father had looked at him and said good-naturedly: ‘So you were just the best man, were you?’

  Vershkov came in.

  ‘Are you having a rest, comrade Colonel?’

  ‘Just for a few minutes.’

  He looked at his watch and thought: ‘All brigades to halt until seven o’clock tomorrow morning. To be transmitted in code.’

  ‘I’m going to visit the brigades again,’ he told Vershkov.

  A fast drive was a welcome distraction. They were going at eighty kilometres an hour on an appalling road. The jeep swayed wildly as it careered over the pot-holes. The driver kept looking at Novikov pathetically, begging to be allowed to drive more slowly.

  They reached the headquarters of the 1st brigade. How everything had changed in only a few hours! How Makarov had changed – it was as though they hadn’t seen each other for years.

  Quite forgetting the usual formalities, Makarov threw up his hands in bewilderment and said: ‘Comrade Colonel, Getmanov has just transmitted an order direct from Yeremenko. Your own order has been rescinded and we’re to press on with the offensive immediately.’

  Footnotes

  fn1 A poem in celebration of the wive
s of the Decembrist conspirators, who followed their exiled husbands to Siberia.

  51

  Three weeks later Novikov’s tank corps was withdrawn from the front line and placed in reserve. It was time to overhaul the tanks and bring the brigades up to their full strength. Both men and tanks were exhausted after covering four hundred kilometres, fighting all the way.

  At the same time Novikov received a summons from Moscow. He was to report to the General Staff and to the Central Administration for Senior Field Ranks. It was uncertain whether or not he would be returning to his command.

  During his absence General Nyeudobnov was to take over the command. A few days before this Getmanov heard that the Central Committee had decided to retire him from active service. He was to be appointed secretary of the obkom in a newly-liberated part of the Donbass; this was a post to which the Central Committee attached particular importance.

  Novikov’s summons provoked considerable discussion both at Front Headquarters and at the Armoured Forces Administration. Some people made out that it was of no great import, that Novikov would soon resume his command. Others argued that it had to do with Novikov’s delay at the beginning of the offensive and his unfortunate decision, at the very climax of the offensive, to call a ten-hour halt in order to rest his men. Still others claimed that it was the result of his failure to establish good relations with his commissar and his chief of staff – both of whom had excellent records.

  The secretary of the Front Military Soviet, a man who was usually well-informed, said it had to do with compromising ties of a personal nature. At one time he too had thought that Novikov’s misfortunes stemmed from his disagreements with his commissar. But this was not the case: he had seen with his own eyes a letter of Getmanov’s addressed to the very highest authorities. In this letter Getmanov protested strongly against Novikov’s removal from the command. He said that Novikov was a commanding officer of outstanding abilities and a man who was both morally and politically above reproach.