Stalingrad

by Vasily Grossman

  Zhenya came into the room, carrying a large, pale blue dish. Tamara, looking prettier for being a little flushed, was walking beside her, hurriedly adjusting the white towel thrown over the pie.

  “The edge is a little burnt,” Zhenya declared. “I got distracted.”

  “It’s all right,” said Vera. “I’ll eat the burnt bits.”

  “Why’s the girl always so greedy?” said Marusya, looking pointedly at her husband. All Vera’s failings—she believed—came wholly from him.

  “And I say again that they won’t cross the Don,” Spiridonov declared vehemently. “The Don will be the end of them.” Brandishing a long knife, he got to his feet. The weightiest mealtime responsibilities—dividing a watermelon, slicing up a pie—were always entrusted to him. Afraid of making the pie crumble, of failing to justify his family’s trust, he said, “But shouldn’t it be left to cool down a little?”

  “What do you think?” asked Seryozha, looking at Mostovskoy. “Will the Germans get across the Don?”

  Mostovskoy did not answer.

  “They’ll cross the Don soon enough. They’ve already taken all of Ukraine and half of Russia,” Andreyev said grimly.

  “So your opinion,” said Mostovskoy, “is that the war’s lost?”

  “It’s not a matter of opinions,” said Andreyev. “I’m just saying what I’ve seen. Opinions are for people smarter than me.”

  “And what makes you think the Don will be the end of the Germans?” asked Seryozha, addressing Spiridonov in the same squeaky voice as before. “They’ve crossed the Berezina and they’ve crossed the Dnieper. Now they’re heading for the Don and the Volga. Which river’s really going to be the end of them? The Irtysh? The Amu-Darya?”22

  Alexandra looked at her grandson thoughtfully. Usually he was shy and silent. She thought it must be the presence of the two young lieutenants that had stirred him up. What she didn’t know was that Seryozha had drunk some of Kovalyov’s moonshine. He was no longer thinking clearly. To himself he now seemed uncommonly clear-headed and intelligent, but he was not certain that his many gifts were being fully appreciated.

  Vera leaned over towards him and asked, “Seryozha, are you drunk?”

  “Not in the least,” he answered crossly.

  “Let me explain, my friend,” said Mostovskoy, turning to Seryozha. Everyone fell silent, listening eagerly. “I’m sure you all remember Stalin’s remarks about the giant Antaeus. Each time his feet touched the ground he grew stronger. Well, what we see today is an anti-Antaeus. He imagines he’s a giant and a warrior, but he isn’t really. When this false warrior advances over land that is not his, each step makes him not stronger but weaker. The earth does not lend him strength; on the contrary, a hostile land saps his strength until in the end he collapses. Such is the difference between the true Antaeus and today’s vulgar pseudo-Antaeus, who has sprung up overnight like some fungus or mould. And our Soviet regime is a powerful force. And we have the Party, a Party whose will calmly and rationally unites and organizes the might of the people.”

  Seryozha was looking at Mostovskoy intently, his eyes dark and gleaming. Mostovskoy smiled and patted him on the head.

  Marusya got to her feet, raised her glass and said, “Comrades! Here’s to our Red Army!”

  Everyone turned towards Tolya and Kovalyov, all wanting to clink glasses with them and to wish them health and success.

  Next came the ceremony of slicing the pie. Splendid and ruddy, this pie evoked both joy and sorrow. It conjured up a more peaceful past that, like all pasts, now seemed to embody nothing but good.

  Spiridonov said to his wife, “Marusya, remember when we were both students? Swaddling clothes hanging up to dry, little Vera screaming loud enough to bring the house down, and you and me handing round slices of pie to our guests. And great cracks in the window frames, and a cold draught coming up through the floor.”

  “How could I not remember?” Marusya replied with a smile.

  Also turning to Marusya, Alexandra said slowly and thoughtfully, “And I used to bake pies in Siberia. You and Ludmila were living with Grandad, and Zhenya wasn’t yet born. What didn’t we live through then! Crossing the Yenisey in spring, while the ice was breaking up. Being pulled on a sledge by reindeer, through a howling blizzard. It was so cold the windowpanes burst. We stored our milk and our water in solid form. And the nights lasted for ever and ever. I used to bake cranberry and lingonberry pies. I used to bake pies filled with Siberian salmon . . . Our comrades would come and join us. Heavens, how long ago that all seems.”

  “Pheasant pie is delicious. We used to eat it in the Issyk-Kul valley,” said Sofya Osipovna.

  “Jakhshi, jakhshi!” said Seryozha and Vera in one voice.

  “Seems I’m the only one here with no pies to recall,” said Mostovskoy. “I either ate in student canteens or in restaurants in foreign cities. And then, after the Revolution, it was canteens or houses of recreation.”23 After a moment, he went on, “No, I lie. One Easter during my time in prison we were given a slice of kulich. And then, for lunch, there was an excellent kasha and mushroom pie. It wasn’t exactly home cooking, but believe me, it’s still a joy to recall!”

  “Dear God!” said Marusya. “Does Hitler really want to take everything from us? Our lives, our homes, our loved ones, even our memories?”

  “Let’s all agree not to say another word about the war today!” said Zhenya. “Let’s just talk about pies!”

  At that moment little Luba walked up to her mother, pointed at Sofya and announced triumphantly, “Mama, look what a big sugar lump that Auntie’s given me!” Unclenching her fist, she exhibited a cube of sugar, moistened by the warmth of her pale yet dirty hand. “See,” she went on in a loud whisper. “We mustn’t go yet. Maybe there’ll be more!”

  Everyone was looking at Luba. Luba turned to her mother and saw her embarrassment. Realizing she had betrayed their secret poverty, she buried her head in her mother’s lap and burst into tears.

  Sofya stroked Luba’s head and sighed loudly.

  After this, something changed. It was clearly impossible to make the evening into a last merry supper, with no mention of today’s or tomorrow’s troubles.

  The conversation returned to the matters on everyone’s mind: the Red Army’s long retreat, the reasons for its repeated defeats, the possibility that even moving to Kazan might not be enough, that they might all have to move again—to Siberia or the Urals.

  “And what if the Japanese invade through Siberia?” asked Zhenya.

  Tamara looked at Luba, whose head was lying in her lap. Hiding her disfigured, work-worn hands in Luba’s curly hair, she said quietly, “Is this really the end?”

  Spiridonov spoke of “former people”24 who, rather than planning to leave, were keenly awaiting the Germans.

  “Yes,” said Sofya. “I’ve met that sort too. There was a doctor yesterday who told me quite straightforwardly that he and his wife had already made up their minds. They’re going to stay in Stalingrad, no matter what.”

  “Yesterday I met some actors I know from Leningrad,” said Zhenya. “I couldn’t believe it. They wanted me to go to Kislovodsk with them. ‘Germans or not,’ they said, ‘Kislovodsk is a good place to be.’”

  “What of it?” said Seryozha, “What’s more surprising is how often we all get it wrong. People we think rock-solid turn out to be pathetic wimps. But I’ve heard about one boy who was quite desperate to go to flying school. The authorities kept refusing him because of his social origin, but in the end they gave in. He graduated and they say he died the death of a hero. Like Gastello!”25

  “Look at the young ones,” Alexandra Vladimirovna said quietly to Sofya. “Tolya’s a real man now. When he came to visit us before the war he was still a child, but now he’s our defender. His voice, his mannerisms, even his eyes—everything about him is different.”

  “Have you noticed how his friend can’t keep his eyes off our Zhenya?” Sofya replied in her low voice.

&nb
sp; “And Tolya even drinks like a man now. Last summer, though, when he and Ludmila were staying with us, he went out for a walk—and it started to rain. Ludmila snatched a raincoat and a pair of galoshes and went down to the Volga to look for him: ‘He’ll fall ill, the boy’s very susceptible to tonsillitis . . .’”

  Meanwhile, at the other end of the table, the young ones were arguing.

  “The army’s fleeing in panic,” said Seryozha.

  “Not in the least,” Kovalyov replied angrily. “Since Kastornoye we’ve fought every day.”

  “Well, how come you’ve retreated so fast?”

  “If you’d seen combat, you wouldn’t ask.”

  “But why do our men keep surrendering?”

  “Why do you think? But as for our own regiment, it’s certainly done its fair share of fighting.”

  “Some of the wounded I’ve seen in hospital,” said Vera, “are saying it’s like the first months of the war all over again.”

  “The worst part,” said Kovalyov, his irritation fading, “is crossing the rivers. Day and night, the bombing never stops. You certainly want to move fast then. My mate was killed. I was wounded in the shoulder, bleeding like a stuck pig. At night the sky’s all lit up with flares—and it rains bombs.”

  “Soon it’ll be the same here,” said Vera. “I’m scared stiff.”

  “You really don’t need to be scared,” said Spiridonov. “We’re a long way from the front line and they say our anti-aircraft defences are very strong indeed. As strong as around Moscow. Maybe one or two planes will get through, but not more than that!”

  “Oh yes,” laughed Kovalyov, “we know your one or two planes. If the Fritzes want to set us alight, they certainly will. Isn’t that so, Tolya?”

  “But no bombers have got through yet,” Spiridonov replied. “Our anti-aircraft guns can put up a wall of fire.”

  “Wait till the Fritzes set their minds to it. If rivers don’t stop their ground forces, they certainly won’t stop their planes. First their bombers will give you a good dusting, then you’ll be seeing their tanks.”

  “I see,” said Spiridonov.

  Kovalyov had more experience of the war, and was more sure of himself, than anyone else in the room. Every now and then he would give a little smile, conscious of the ignorance and naiveté of his listeners.

  He reminded Vera of the lieutenants in her hospital. They would glance mockingly at the nurses while arguing furiously about matters comprehensible to them alone. Yet he was also similar to young boys she had known from school clubs before the war, boys who had come round to play cards or who had wanted to borrow—just for an evening, leaving as security a difficult-to-obtain school textbook—her copy of King Solomon’s Mines or The Hound of the Baskervilles.26

  “I think this may be the end,” said Sofya, pushing her plate away. “Evil is stronger than good.”

  There was a general silence.

  “Time to put up the blackout curtains,” said Marusya. And, pressing her fists against her temples, as if to deaden some pain, she muttered, “War, war, war . . .”

  “Time, I think, for another glass,” said Spiridonov.

  “No, Stepan!” said Marusya. “Not after the dessert!”

  Kovalyov unhooked his water bottle from his belt. “I’d been meaning to keep some for the road. Better, though, to share it with good people like yourselves! Well, Tolya, all the best. I won’t stay the night. I’ll be off in a moment.”

  He poured out what was left of his yellowish vodka, sharing it between Tolya, Spiridonov and himself. “All gone,” he said to Seryozha, shaking the empty bottle in front of him and making the stopper rattle.

  Kovalyov staggered a few steps, then said to Zhenya, “I’m as good as dead. Get it? People can talk all they like, but in five days I’ll be back at the front. Get it? But that doesn’t frighten me, I’ll be killed anyway. I won’t live to see an end to the war. Get it? Twenty years. Call it a lifetime. Understand?”

  He was looking her straight in the face, with greedy, beseeching eyes. And she understood: he wanted her love. His days were numbered. Tears came to her eyes—she understood only too clearly.

  Spiridonov put an arm around Kovalyov’s shoulders, as if to accompany him on his way. Spiridonov had drunk too much, and Marusya was looking at him with pain and fury. His one glass too many seemed to have upset her as much as all the war’s tragedies.

  Standing in the doorway, Kovalyov burst out in sudden rage, “What makes men surrender, I’ve heard people ask. Words, words, words . . . Fritz is still over 200 kilometres away, but people here are already packing their things. Before the front reaches Stalingrad, bureaucrats will be eating pies in Tashkent. Do you know what it’s like at the front? Lie down for a few hours—and you wake to find Fritz has advanced a hundred kilometres during the night. War’s one thing—words are another. I’ve seen bureau-rats take fright at a puff of wind. But soldiers get taken prisoner and die—and then bureau-rats in Tashkent point the finger at them. And believe me, I know those finger-pointers. If they were encircled, you wouldn’t catch them marching 500 kilometres, half-starved, to break through the German front. They’d be collaborators, they’d be polizei! They’d have fattened up nicely. But us soldiers have souls—and we know what it takes to keep fighting! Truth, that’s what I care about. I want the truth, and I want it straight!”

  Kovalyov’s words were spoken somewhat at random, but there was nothing to stop any of his listeners from taking them personally. Kovalyov may well have hoped that one of them would answer him back. Then he’d have really let rip. He might have produced a weapon.

  But everyone sensed that something had snapped, or broken free, deep inside Kovalyov. They knew he would be unable to control whatever this thing was. They all kept silent and avoided his eyes. His face had gone pale, with patches of skin that looked grey and dirty.

  He slammed the door behind him and let out a long volley of curses as he went down the stairs.

  “And there I was,” said Vera, “thinking I’d be getting a day off from the hospital. He’s shell-shocked. They’re all shell-shocked.”

  “There’s no shell shock that shocks like the truth,” said Andreyev. He sounded so sad that everyone turned to look at him.

  When Zhenya came back into the room, Mostovskoy asked, “Have you heard anything from Krymov?”

  “No,” she replied. “But I know he’s here in Stalingrad.”

  “Oh, I forgot,” said Mostovskoy, looking perplexed. “I forgot that you’ve separated. But it’s my duty to report to you that he’s a good man. I’ve known him a long time, since he was a boy.”

  10

  THE MOMENT their guests were gone, a sense of calm and peace returned to the Shaposhnikovs’ apartment. Tolya volunteered to do the washing-up. The family’s cups, saucers and teaspoons seemed sweet and dear to him—very different from the ones in the barracks. Vera laughed as she put an apron on him and tied a kerchief round his head.

  “What a wonderful smell of home, of home and warmth, just like in peacetime,” said Tolya.

  Marusya put her husband to bed and repeatedly checked his pulse. She was afraid his snoring might be a symptom of heart palpitations.

  Looking into the kitchen, she said, “Tolya, let someone else do the dishes. You should write your mother a letter. You need to take better care of those who love you.”

  But Tolya didn’t feel like writing to his mother. He was playing about like a mischievous child. First he called out to the cat, mimicking Marusya’s voice. Then he got down on his hands and knees and pretended to headbutt the cat: “Come on, come on, little ram! Let’s see your horns!”

  “If it weren’t for the war,” Vera said dreamily, “we’d be going to the beach tomorrow. We’d be taking a boat out, wouldn’t we? But as it is, I haven’t even felt like going for a swim. I haven’t gone to the beach once.”

  “If it weren’t for the war,” said Tolya, “I’d be going to the power station tomorrow, with Uncle Stepa
n. I really would like to see it, in spite of everything.”

  Vera leaned over towards him and said very quietly, “Tolya, there’s something I want to tell you about.” But just then Alexandra Vladimirovna came in. Vera winked at Tolya and shook her head.

  Alexandra began questioning Tolya: Had he found military school difficult? Did he get out of breath if they had to march fast? Was he a good marksman? Were his boots the right size? Had he got photographs of his family? Had he got enough handkerchiefs, needles and thread? Had he got enough money? Was he getting regular letters from his mother? Did he ever have time to think about physics?

  Tolya felt surrounded by the warmth of his family. This meant a lot to him, but it was as troubling as it was calming. It made the thought of his imminent departure all the more painful; difficulties are easier to bear when your heart is hardened.

  Then Zhenya came in too. She was wearing the blue dress she used to wear when she came to visit Ludmila and Viktor in their dacha. “Let’s have tea in the kitchen,” she said. “Tolya will like that!”

  Vera went out to fetch Seryozha. A moment later she came back and said, “He’s lying in bed crying, burying his face in the pillow.”

  “Oh, Seryozha, Seryozha,” said Alexandra Vladimirovna. Saying, “Leave this to me,” she went to speak to her grandson.

  11

  WHEN THEY left the Shaposhnikovs, Mostovskoy invited Andreyev to go and have a look at the town with him.

  “Go out on the town with you?” laughed Andreyev. “Two old fellows like us?”

  “For a quiet stroll,” said Mostovskoy. “It’s a fine evening.”

  “All right,” said Andreyev. “Why not? Tomorrow I don’t start till two.”

  “Is your work very tiring?” asked Mostovskoy.

  “At times.”

  Andreyev liked this small man, with his bald head and alert little eyes.

  For a while they walked in silence. It was a beautiful summer evening. The Volga was barely visible in the twilight, but it made its presence felt everywhere; every street, every little lane, lived and breathed the Volga. All the hills and slopes, the orientation of the streets—everything was determined by the river’s curves and the steep cliffs of the west bank. And the monuments, the squares and parks, the giant factories, the little old houses on the outskirts, the tall new apartment blocks with blurred reflections of the summer moon in their windows—all had their eyes on the Volga, all were turned towards it.