Andreyev had gone away for a few days soon after her arrival. He wanted to see his factory and his old home in the northern part of Stalingrad. Alternatively, he may have been angry with Natalya for leaving her son in Leninsk – or perhaps he wanted to leave her his ration-card so she wouldn’t eat the Spiridonovs’ bread.
Natalya had got down to work almost the minute she arrived. She put her heart into the work and everything came easily to her. Sacks of coal, heavy buckets of water, tubs of washing – all this was nothing to her.
Now Vera was able to take Mitya outside for half an hour. She would sit down on a stone and gaze at the mist on the steppe, at the water sparkling in the spring sunshine.
Everything was quiet and the war was now hundreds of kilometres away. Somehow things had seemed easier when the air had been filled with the whine of German planes and the crash of shell-bursts, when life had been full of flames, full of fear and hope. Vera looked at the oozing pimples on her son’s face and felt overwhelmed with pity. She felt a similar pity for Viktorov. Poor, poor Vanya! What a miserable, sickly, whining little son he had!
Then she climbed up the three flights of stairs, still covered in litter and rubbish, and returned to work. Her melancholy dissolved in the soapy water, in the smoke from the stove, in the damp that streamed down the walls.
Sometimes her grandmother would call her over and stroke her hair. Her usually calm, clear eyes would take on an expression of unbearable tenderness and sorrow.
Vera never talked to anyone – her father, her grandmother, or even five-month-old Mitya – about Viktorov.
After Natalya’s arrival the flat was transformed. She scraped the mould off the walls, whitewashed the dark corners, and scrubbed off the dirt that seemed by then to have become a part of the floorboards. She even got down to the immense task of cleaning the rubbish, flight by flight, from the staircase – a job that Vera had been putting off till it got warm.
She spent half a day repairing the black, snake-like stovepipe. It was sagging horribly and a thick tarry liquid was oozing from the joints and collecting in puddles on the floor. She gave it a coat of whitewash, straightened it out, fastened it with wire and hung empty jam-jars under the dripping joints.
She and Alexandra Vladimirovna became firm friends from the first day – even though one might have expected the old woman to take a dislike to this brash young girl and her constant stream of risqué anecdotes. Natalya also made friends with dozens of other people – the electrician, the mechanic from the turbine room, the lorry-drivers.
Once, when she came back from queuing for food, Alexandra Vladimirovna said to her: ‘Someone was asking for you just now – a soldier.’
‘A Georgian I suppose?’ said Natalya. ‘Send him packing if he shows his face here again! The fool’s got it into his head he wants to marry me.’
‘Already?’ asked Alexandra Vladimirovna in astonishment.
‘They don’t need long. He wants me to go to Georgia with him after the war. He probably thinks I washed the stairs just for him.’
That evening she said to Vera: ‘Let’s go out tonight. There’s a film on in town. Misha can take us in his truck. You and the boy can go in the cab, and I’ll go in the back.’
Vera shook her head.
‘Go on!’ said Alexandra Vladimirovna. ‘I’d go myself if only I were a bit stronger.’
‘No. It’s the last thing I feel like.’
‘We’ve got to go on living, you know. Here we’re all widows and widowers.’
‘You sit at home all day,’ Natalya chided. ‘You never go out. And you don’t even take proper care of your father. Yesterday I did his washing myself – his socks are all in holes.’
Vera picked up her baby and went out to the kitchen. Holding her son in her arms, she said: ‘Mityenka, your mama isn’t a widow, is she?’
Spiridonov was always very attentive towards Alexandra Vladimirovna. He helped Vera with the cupping glasses and he twice brought a doctor from the city. Sometimes he pressed a candy into her hand, saying: ‘Now don’t you go giving that to Vera. That’s for you – she’s already had one. They’re from the canteen.’
Alexandra Vladimirovna knew very well that Spiridonov was in trouble. Sometimes she asked him if he’d heard from the obkom yet, but he always shook his head and began talking about something else. One evening, though, after he’d been told that his affair was about to be settled, he came home, sat down on the bed beside her and said: ‘What a mess I’ve got myself into! Marusya would be out of her mind if she knew.’
‘What are they accusing you of?’
‘Everything.’
Then Natalya and Vera came in and they broke off the conversation.
Looking at Natalya, Alexandra Vladimirovna realized that there is a particular type of strong, stubborn beauty that no amount of hardship can injure. Everything about Natalya was beautiful – her neck, her firm breasts, her legs, her slim arms that she bared almost up to the shoulder. ‘A philosopher without philosophy,’ she thought to herself. She had noticed before how women used to a life of ease began to fade, to stop taking care of themselves, as soon as they were confronted with hardship; this was what had happened to Vera. She admired women who worked as traffic-controllers for the army, women who laboured in factories or did seasonal work on the land, women who worked in filthy, dusty conditions – and still found time to look in the mirror, to curl their hair, to powder their peeling noses. Yes, she admired the obstinate birds who went on singing no matter how bad the weather.
Spiridonov was also looking at Natalya. He suddenly took Vera by the hand and pulled her towards him. As though begging forgiveness for something, he kissed her.
Apparently quite irrelevantly, Alexandra Vladimirovna said:
‘Come on, Stepan! We’re neither of us going to die yet. I’m an old woman – and I’m going to get better. I’m good for a few more years.’
He glanced at her and smiled. Natalya filled a basin with warm water and placed it beside the bed. Kneeling down on the floor, she said: ‘Alexandra Vladimirovna! It’s nice and warm in the room. I’m going to wash your feet for you.’
‘You idiot – you must be out of your mind! Get up at once!’ shouted Alexandra Vladimirovna.
59
During the afternoon Andreyev came back from the workers’ settlement around the factory.
First he went in to see Alexandra Vladimirovna. His sullen face broke into a smile: she had got up that day for the first time. There she was, sitting at the table, her spectacles on her nose, reading a book.
He said it had taken him a long time to find the place where his house had once stood. The whole area was nothing but trenches, craters and debris. Lots of workers had already gone back to the factory, and more were appearing every day. They even had policemen there. He hadn’t been able to find out anything about the men who had served in the people’s militia. They were burying bodies every day, and they were still finding more in the trenches and cellars. And everywhere you looked there were pieces of twisted metal.
Alexandra Vladimirovna kept on asking questions. She wanted to know where he’d spent the night, whether it had been a difficult journey, what he’d had to eat, how badly the open-hearth furnaces were damaged, what the workers themselves were getting to eat, whether he’d seen the director . . .
That very morning Alexandra Vladimirovna had said to Vera:
‘You know I’ve always made fun of people’s superstitions and premonitions. But for once in my life I feel quite certain of something: Pavel Andreyevich is going to bring news from Seryozha.’
She was wrong, but what Andreyev did have to say was still important. The workers had told him that they were getting nothing to eat, no wages, and that the dug-outs and cellars they lived in were cold and damp. The director had become a different person. While the Germans were attacking, he had been everyone’s best mate. But now he didn’t so much as say hello to anyone. And he’d had a new house built for him, a new car deli
vered from Saratov . . .
‘No one could say things are easy at the power station,’ said Andreyev. ‘But the workers haven’t got it in for Stepan Fyodorovich. They know he’s on their side.’
‘That’s a sad story,’ said Alexandra Vladimirovna. ‘But what are you going to do yourself, Pavel Andreyevich?’
‘I’ve come back to say goodbye. I’m going home – even if I haven’t got a home. I’ve found myself a place in a cellar with some of the other workers.’
‘You’re doing the right thing,’ said Alexandra Vladimirovna. ‘It may not be much of a life there, but it’s all you have.’
‘Here’s something I dug up for you,’ he said, taking a rusty thimble out of his pocket and handing it to her.
‘I’ll soon be going into town myself,’ she told him. ‘I want to see my own home on Gogol Street. I want to dig up bits of metal and glass too.’
‘Are you sure you haven’t got out of bed too soon? You look pale.’
‘No. I’m just a bit upset by what you’ve told me. I’d like things on this earth of ours to be different.’
Andreyev gave a little cough. ‘You remember Stalin’s words the year before last? “My brothers and sisters . . .” But now that the Germans have been defeated, the director builds himself a villa, you can only speak to him with an appointment, and we brothers and sisters are still in our dug-outs.’
‘Yes,’ said Alexandra Vladimirovna, ‘it’s a sad story. And still no news of Seryozha – he’s just vanished into thin air.’
In the evening Spiridonov came back from Stalingrad. He’d gone out in the morning without telling anyone that his case was to be settled that day.
‘Is Andreyev back yet?’ he asked in a brusque, authoritative tone. ‘Any news of Seryozha?’
Alexandra Vladimirovna shook her head.
Vera could see at once that her father had had too much to drink. She could tell by the way he opened the door and took off his coat, by the way he put down the little presents of food he’d brought, by the tone of his questions and the strange glitter in his unhappy eyes.
He went up to Mitya, who was asleep in the laundry basket, and bent over him.
‘Don’t you go breathing all over him,’ said Vera.
‘He’ll be all right,’ said Spiridonov. ‘He’ll get used to it.’
‘Sit down and have some supper! You’ve been drinking – and you haven’t had a bite to eat with it. Do you know what? Grandmama’s just got up for the first time.’
‘Now that really is good news!’ said Spiridonov. He dropped his spoon into the plate and splashed soup all over his jacket.
‘Oh dear, you really have had a few too many,’ said Alexandra Vladimirovna. ‘What’s happened, Stepan? Have you been celebrating?’
Spiridonov pushed away his plate of soup.
‘You eat that up!’ said Vera.
‘Well,’ said Spiridonov, ‘I’ve got some news for you all. I’ve incurred a severe reprimand from the Party, and the Commissariat are transferring me to a small peat-burning generating station in the Sverdlovsk oblast. In a word, I’m a has-been. I get two months’ salary in advance and they provide me with somewhere to live. I begin handing over tomorrow. We’ll be given enough ration-cards for the journey.’
Alexandra Vladimirovna exchanged glances with Vera.
‘Well that’s certainly something to celebrate!’
‘You can have your own room – the best room,’ said Spiridonov.
‘There will probably only be one room,’ said Alexandra Vladimirovna.
‘Well, that will be yours, Mama.’
It was the first time in his life that Spiridonov had called her Mama. There were tears in his eyes – no doubt because he’d been drinking.
Natalya came in and Spiridonov changed the subject. ‘So what does the old man have to say about the factories?’
‘Pavel Andreyevich was waiting for you,’ said Natalya, ‘but he’s just gone to sleep.’ She sat down at the table, resting her cheeks on her fists. ‘He said the workers hardly have anything to eat at all – just a few handfuls of seeds.
‘Stepan Fyodorovich,’ she asked suddenly, ‘is it true that you’re leaving?’
‘Yes,’ he replied gaily. ‘I’ve heard the news too.’
‘The workers are very sorry.’
‘They’ll be all right. I was at college with Tishka Batrov. He’ll make a splendid boss.’
‘But who will you find to darn your socks with such artistry?’ asked Alexandra Vladimirovna. ‘Vera will never manage.’
‘Now that really will be a problem,’ said Spiridonov.
‘It looks like we’ll have to send Natalya off to the Urals too,’ said Alexandra Vladimirovna.
‘Sure!’ said Natalya. ‘I’ll go any time.’
They all laughed. Then there was a strained, uncomfortable silence.
60
Alexandra Vladimirovna decided to accompany Spiridonov and Vera as far as Kuibyshev; she was intending to stay for a while with Yevgenia Nikolaevna.
The day before their departure the new director lent her a car. She set off to visit the ruins of her old home.
On the way she kept asking the driver: ‘Now what’s this? And what was here before?’
‘Before what?’ asked the driver irritably.
Three different strata of life lay exposed in the ruins: life before the war, life during the fighting, and life today. One building had started out as a tailor’s and dry cleaner’s; then the windows had been bricked up, leaving small loopholes where German machine-guns had been mounted; now women queued at these loopholes to receive their bread ration.
Dug-outs and bunkers had sprung up among the ruined houses. These had provided shelter for soldiers, radio-operators and command-posts. Reports had been drawn up and machine-guns had been re-loaded. And now children were playing outside them. Washing was hanging up to dry. The smoke rising up from the chimneys had nothing to do with the war.
The war had given way to peace – a poor, miserable peace that was hardly any easier than the war.
Prisoners-of-war were clearing away heaps of rubble from the main streets. Queues of people with empty milk-cans were waiting outside cellars that now housed food-stores. Rumanian prisoners were lazily digging dead bodies out of some ruins. There were groups of sailors here and there, but no soldiers at all; the driver explained that the Volga fleet was still sweeping for mines. In some places lay sacks of cement and heaps of new beams and planks. Here and there the roads had been newly asphalted.
In one empty square she saw a woman harnessed to a two-wheeled cart loaded with bundles. Two children were helping, pulling on ropes tied to the shafts.
Everybody wanted to go back into Stalingrad, back to their homes, but Alexandra Vladimirovna was about to leave.
‘Are you sorry that Spiridonov’s leaving?’ she asked the driver.
‘What does it matter to me? Spiridonov worked me hard, and so will the new man. They just sign their instructions – and off I go.’
‘What’s this?’ she asked, pointing to a thick, blackened wall with gaping windows.
‘Just various offices. What they should do is let people live here.’
‘And what was it before?’
‘This was the headquarters of Paulus himself. It was here he was taken prisoner.’
‘And before that?’
‘The department store. Don’t you recognize it?’
The wartime city seemed to have overshadowed the old Stalingrad. It was all too easy to imagine the German officers coming up from the cellars, to see the German field-marshal walking past this blackened wall while the sentries all stood to attention. But was it really here that she had bought a length of material for a coat or a watch as a birthday present for Marusya? Had she really come here with Seryozha and got him a pair of skates in the sports department on the first floor?
People who visit Verdun, the battlefield of Borodino or Malakhov Kurgan at Sebastopol must find it equally
strange to find children playing, women doing their washing, carts full of hay and old men carrying rakes. Columns of French soldiers and trucks covered in tarpaulins once passed over fields that are now full of vines; now there is only a hut, a few apple trees and some kolkhoz sheep where Murat’s cavalry advanced, where Kutuzov sat in his armchair and ordered the Russian infantry to counter-attack with a wave of his tired hand. Nakhimov stood on a mound where now there are only chickens and a few goats searching for blades of grass between the stones; this is where the flash-bombs described by Tolstoy were launched, where English bullets whistled and wounded soldiers screamed.
Alexandra Vladimirovna found something equally incongruous in these queues of women, these small huts, these old men unloading planks, these shirts hanging up to dry, these patched sheets, these stockings twirling about like snakes, these notices pasted over lifeless façades.
She had realized how flat everything now seemed to Spiridonov when he had talked about the arguments in the district committee over the allocation of cement, planks and manpower. She had sensed how bored he was by the endless articles in Stalingradskaya Pravda about the clearing away of rubble, the cleaning up of streets, the construction of new public baths and workers’ canteens. He had only come to life when he talked about the bombing, the fires, the visits of General Shumilov, the German tanks advancing from the hill-tops, the counter-fire of the Soviet artillery.
It was on these streets that the war had been decided. The outcome of this battle was to determine the map of the post-war world, to determine the greatness of Stalin or the terrible power of Adolf Hitler. For ninety days one word had filled both the Kremlin and Berchtesgaden – Stalingrad.
Stalingrad was to determine future social systems and philosophies of history. The shadow of all this had blinded people to the provincial city that had once led a commonplace, ordered life.
Alexandra Vladimirovna asked the driver to stop, then got out of the car and picked her way with some difficulty through the debris that still littered the deserted street. She stared at the ruins, half-recognizing the remains of houses.
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