For a while Viktor was seized by a kind of feverish joy. Another day, another two days—and the German advance would be slowed. It would be halted. It would be repelled.
The 26 June bulletins spoke of a new German advance—towards Minsk; German tanks had effected a breakthrough. On 28 June there was news of a major tank battle near Lutsk; nearly 4,000 Soviet and German tanks had taken part. On 29 June Viktor read that the enemy were attempting to break through towards Novograd-Volynsky and Shepetov; then he read about fighting not far from the Dvina. There were rumours that Minsk had been taken and that the Germans were now moving down the highway towards Smolensk.
Viktor was in anguish. No longer was he keeping a tally of destroyed German tanks and German planes that had been shot down. Nor did he keep telling his family and colleagues that the Germans would be halted when they reached the old, pre-1939 frontier. Nor did he continue to calculate the German tank corps’ supplies of petrol and oil, dividing their estimated total reserves by their likely consumption per day.
Any moment now, he feared, he would hear that the Germans were advancing on Smolensk. And then on Vyazemsk. He would look at the faces of his wife and children, of his colleagues, of passers-by, and think, “What will become of us all?”
On the evening of Wednesday, 2 July, Viktor and Ludmila went to their dacha. Ludmila had decided that they should collect their most important belongings and take them to Moscow.
They sat outside in silence. The air was cool and the garden flowers shone bright in the twilight. It seemed as if a whole eternity had passed since that last Sunday of peace.
“It’s very strange,” Viktor said to Ludmila, “but my thoughts keep returning to my mass-spectrometer and my research into positrons. Why? What’s the use? It’s crazy. Am I just an obsessive?”
Ludmila did not reply. They went back to looking into the darkness.
“What are you thinking about?” Viktor asked.
“I can only think about one thing. Soon Tolya will be called up.”
In the darkness Viktor found his wife’s hand and squeezed it. That night Viktor dreamed he entered a room full of pillows and sheets thrown onto the floor. He went up to an armchair that still seemed to preserve the warmth of whoever had just been sitting in it. The room was empty; the people who lived there must have left all of a sudden in the middle of the night. He looked for a long time at a shawl hanging over the chair and almost down to the floor—and then understood that it was his mother who had been sleeping in this chair. Now the chair was empty, standing in an empty room.78
Early the next morning, Viktor went downstairs, took down the blackout curtain, opened the window and turned on the radio.
He heard a slow voice. It was Stalin.
“This war against fascist Germany,” he said, “cannot be considered an ordinary war. It is not only a war between two armies. It is also a war for the Fatherland, a great war fought by the entire Soviet people against the fascist German forces.”
Stalin had then asked whether the fascist forces were truly as invincible as their propaganda boasted. Catching his breath, Viktor had moved closer to the radio, wondering how Stalin would answer his own question.
“Of course not!” he had said. “History shows us that there have never been invincible armies.” These simple words had helped Viktor and others to glimpse what lay far off in the future, to see beyond the dense clouds of dust raised over Soviet soil by the boots of millions of invading fascist soldiers.
Viktor had been through a great deal since that morning, but never, after Stalin’s speech, had he felt the fear and heartache of those first ten days of the war.
•
In the middle of September 1941 Viktor had been due to leave Moscow for Kazan, on an Academy of Sciences special train.
On the scheduled day there was a terrible air raid. The train was unable to leave and the passengers were led down into the metro. They spread newspapers over the rails and oil-stained stones and sat there until dawn.79
In the morning, sticky with sweat and half-dead from the lack of air, pale figures had emerged from underground. The instant they reached the surface, each experienced a brief explosion of happiness, a happiness seldom felt or appreciated by living beings accustomed to being alive; they had seen daylight and breathed air. They had sensed the warm morning sun.
All day long their train remained in a siding. By evening, everyone’s nerves were fraying.
The barrage balloons80 had already gone up, the sky’s blue was fading and the clouds were turning pink—but these peaceful colours inspired only anguish and fear.
At eight o’clock, grating and grinding, as if the carriages no longer believed in the possibility of movement, the train moved away from the heat of the station and into the cool of the fields.
Viktor stood at the end of the carriage, watching the telegraph wires, the Moscow buildings and streets, the last suburban trams, the smoky pink of the city sky—all slipping more and more swiftly away from him. He was leaving Moscow, perhaps forever. For a moment he wanted to throw himself under the wheels of the train.
Forty minutes later there was an air-raid alert. The train stopped and the passengers got out into the forest. Over the city, swaying anxiously, almost as if it were breathing, hung a pale blue tent of searchlight beams. The trajectories of anti-aircraft shells—coloured threads drawn by an invisible steel needle—embroidered the sky with living patterns of red and green. There were the flashes of the exploding shells, and the roar of the guns themselves. Now and again there was a slow, sullen, muted rumble—a high-explosive bomb falling on some Moscow building. And then—rising slowly into the air—something yellow and heavy, like the slow flapping of wings.
It was cool in the forest. The slippery, prickly pine needles smelled of the sadness of autumn. The trunks of the pines were like quiet, kind old men, standing about in the evening stillness. It was beyond anyone’s ability to take in such complex and contradictory impressions: the evening freshness, a sense of peace and safety—and the fire, smoke and death now raging through Moscow. One and the same space somehow contained both silence and thunder, the body’s instinctive wish to move eastwards and an ache of shame in response to this wish.
It was a difficult journey—what with the train’s slow progress, the lack of air, and long waits in Murom and Kanash.
During these long stops there were hundreds of people—clerks, scientists, writers, composers—wandering over the tracks, talking mainly about potatoes and where to find water that had been boiled . . . Viktor was astonished by the behaviour of people he had met previously at art exhibitions, at concerts in the Conservatory and during summer holidays in Crimea or the Caucasus.
A lover of Mozart, who had made a special trip to Leningrad to hear a performance of his Requiem, turned out to be selfish and quarrelsome; he installed himself on the top bunk of his compartment and refused to yield it to a woman with a small baby.
On one of the top bunks in his own compartment there was someone Viktor knew quite well; during Intourist excursions to Bakhchisaray, Chufut-Kale and other sites in Crimea he had seemed kind and obliging. On the train, however, he didn’t let anyone see his supplies of food. During the night Viktor heard the rustle of paper and the sound of interminable chewing. And come morning, he found cheese rind in one of his shoes.
There were also people who astonished Viktor by their kindness and selflessness.
And there was anxiety—an ever-deepening anxiety, and a sense that what lay ahead was dark and murky.
Watching a freight train pass slowly by, Viktor had pointed to a truck bearing the words “Mosc. Vor. Kiev. Rail.” and said to Sokolov, “Perfectum.” And Sokolov had nodded and pointed to another truck with the words “Cent. Asia. Rail.” and said, “Futurum.”81
Viktor remembered the crowds at the stations. He remembered people he knew, striding between the lines of freight trucks, among piles of filth and rubbish—one man carrying some boiled potatoes, another hol
ding with both hands a large bone he had been gnawing.
•
Now that he was, at last, on his way back to Moscow, Viktor thought about those bleak days—and he understood that he had been wrong. The people he had seen then had not, after all, been weak and helpless. He had failed to understand the power that united them, that brought together their knowledge, their capacity for labour and their love of freedom. Their strength had kindled a war of liberation.
And in spite of his anxiety and bitterness, somewhere in the depth of his consciousness was a spark of joy. Once again he thought, “Those forebodings of mine were wrong. My mother’s alive. I’ll see her again.”
37
THEY ARRIVED towards evening. During those summer months, evening Moscow was endowed with a sad, troubled charm. The city did not fight the coming of darkness; it did not light up its windows or illuminate its streets and squares. Like a mountain or valley, Moscow moved smoothly from dusk into darkness. Those who did not witness those evenings will never know how calmly and surely darkness descended on buildings, how pavements and asphalt-covered squares faded into the night. The water beside the Kremlin quay shone as peacefully in the moonlight as some village stream flowing timidly through clumps of rushes. The night-time boulevards, parks and squares seemed impenetrable, devoid of paths or tracks. Not even the faintest ray of city light hindered the evening and its unhurried work. And there were moments when the barrage balloons in the pale blue sky seemed like silvery night-time clouds.
“What a strange sky,” said Viktor, striding along the station platform.
“Yes,” said Postoev, “it is strange. But what will really surprise me is if they’ve done as they said and sent a car to collect us.”
Quickly, in silence, the passengers went their separate ways. It was wartime; no one had come to meet the train, and there were no women or children among the passengers. Most of the men getting out of the carriages were army commanders, wearing raincoats and greatcoats and with green haversacks on their backs. They hurried along without a word, glancing up now and again at the sky.
In the Hotel Moscow, Postoev asked for a room no higher than the third floor, saying he had a weak heart. The receptionist said the lower floors were fully occupied, but that he needn’t worry—the lift was working perfectly. “Everyone has a weak heart now,” she added with a smile. “No one likes air raids.”
“What do you mean?” Postoev replied. “I like them very much.” He then questioned her about the times of meals, the system of meal coupons and whether or not the restaurant was supplied with vodka and wine.
“But you have a weak heart, comrade Academician. Why do you want to know about vodka and wine?”
The hotel corridors were full of commanders, and there were a few beautiful women. Postoev—a grey-haired Hercules—attracted attention.
Through the half-open doors they could hear loud voices and, now and again, an accordion. Elderly waiters were carrying trays of the simple diet of the year 1942: soup, buckwheat kasha and grey, frozen potatoes. The glitter of the massive nickel-plated dishes served only to underline the frugality of the meals. Each tray, however, was graced with a pot-bellied carafe of vodka. This was one of Moscow’s biggest pluses—it always had supplies of vodka. Muscovites used to go with empty cans and flasks and ask the waiters to fill them with this precious liquid.
Postoev and Viktor entered their room and took off their raincoats. Postoev inspected the beds, felt the blackout curtains and reached for the telephone. “I must call the manager,” he said. “I don’t like this room, and I need to have a word with him about our meals.”
“Leonid Sergeyevich,” Viktor replied. “The manager’s hardly going to want to come up to the seventh floor. Better to find out when he’ll be in his office and call on him there.”
Postoev shrugged and picked up the receiver.
They had barely managed to wash before an important-looking man with a dark complexion knocked at the door and entered.
“Leonid Sergeyevich?” he asked.
“Yes, yes, that’s me,” said Postoev, walking towards him. “And this is Viktor Pavlovich Shtrum.” But the manager merely nodded at Viktor; his attention was all on Postoev.
The manager quickly agreed to provide them with superior meals. Postoev went on to explain that they would like a two-room suite no higher than the second floor.
The manager nodded, noted this down and said, “Tomorrow I’ll be able to provide you with everything. And I’ll come round in person.”
Viktor realized that Postoev’s magic sprang from his absolute and unshakable self-assurance. Everyone who encountered him understood at once that his privileges—to travel first class, to eat veal rather than potatoes, to sit in a comfortable chair at the very front of a conference hall—were guaranteed not by law, but by his very nature. Postoev’s self-assurance when speaking with receptionists, ticket collectors or hotel managers was all one with his general certainty as to the importance of his work, the uniqueness of his erudition and the value of his scientific and technical experience. And as the country’s most senior adviser on the production of high-quality steel, he did indeed have reason to feel sure of himself.
The manager began to name the various academicians and other scientific luminaries who had stayed in the hotel. He could remember with astonishing exactness the numbers of the rooms in which Vavilov, Fersman, Vedeneyev and Alexandrov had stayed, though he seemed to have little idea which of them was a geologist, which a physicist and which a metallurgist.82 The manager was used to dealing with important people; he had a calm, confident manner, and this allowed him to tread the fine line between offering a respectful welcome and delicately allowing it to become apparent that he was tired and busy. He evidently ranked Postoev very high indeed; he showed only the most minimal sign of being tired or busy, and he could hardly have been more respectful or welcoming.
When the manager left, Viktor flung up his hands in astonishment and said, “Leonid Sergeyevich, another minute and he’d have arranged for a choir of maidens in white tunics to be brought to our room, with garlands of roses.”
Postoev burst out laughing. His beard, his heavy shoulders and even his armchair all began to shake. The glass beside the water carafe tinkled, yielding to the power of this large, laughing body.
“Heavens!” he said. “The things you say! But then there’s something about hotel air—it always contains a microbe of student frivolity.”
Tired though they were, both men took a long time to get to sleep that night. But, rather than talking, they chose to read. Strangely, they had each brought the same book: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.83 Postoev kept getting up, pacing about the room, then taking different medicines. “You’re not asleep?” he said quietly. “I feel a weight on my heart. I was born in Moscow, on Vorontsovo Field. My whole life’s been in Moscow, everything near and dear to me is in Moscow. Both my mother and father are buried in the Vagankovo cemetery, and I’d like to . . . I’m an old man. But Hitler and his Nazis, damn them, they just keep on advancing . . .”
In the morning Viktor changed his mind. Instead of going with Postoev to the Party committee, he decided to go on foot to his own apartment, and from there to the institute.
“I’ll be at the committee by two,” said Postoev. “Ring me then. First I must visit the commissariats.”
He looked bright-eyed, animated, as if he were looking forward to his various meetings. It was hard to imagine that this was the same man who, during the night, had spoken of death, old age and the war.
38
VIKTOR set off to the telegraph office to send a telegram to his wife. He walked up Gorky Street, along the spacious, deserted pavement, past shop windows that had been boarded up and packed with sandbags.
After sending the telegram, he went back down to Okhotny Ryad, meaning to walk across Kamenny Bridge and then go through Yakimanka to Kaluga Square.
An infantry unit was crossing Red Square.
Past an
d present suddenly met. There before him were the Kremlin and the Lenin mausoleum. Viktor could see today’s sky and the soldiers’ severe, exhausted faces. And, at the same time, he was standing at the end of a railway carriage, on an autumn evening, thinking he was leaving Moscow forever.
The clock on the Kremlin tower struck ten.
Viktor walked on, moved by every new detail, every smallest thing that he saw. He looked at windows masked with strips of blue paper, at the remains of a building—now fenced off—that had been hit by a bomb, and at barricades made from pine logs and sacks of earth, with slits for guns and machine guns. He looked at tall new buildings with shining windows, at old buildings with crumbling stucco, at newly painted signs: the words AIR-RAID SHELTER, with a bright white arrow beneath them.
He looked at what passed for crowds in this city now almost on the front line: commanders and soldiers, women in boots and tunics. He looked at half-empty trams, at army trucks packed with soldiers, at cars camouflaged with splodges of black and green. Some of the windscreens had been holed by bullets.
He looked at silent women standing in queues, at children playing in small squares and yards—and he imagined that they all knew he had only come back from Kazan the day before and that he had not spent the cruel, cold Moscow winter alongside them.
•
As he fumbled with his key, the door of the neighbouring apartment half opened. The animated face of a young woman peered out, and a laughing yet stern voice asked, “Who are you?”
“Me? Somebody who lives here, I suppose,” said Viktor.
He went inside and breathed in the stale, musty air. The apartment had barely changed since the day they left. The piano and the bookshelves, though, were grey with dust, while a piece of bread left on the dining table had grown a fluffy layer of greenish-white mould. Nadya’s white summer shoes and tennis racket were peeping out from under the bed, and Tolya’s dumb-bells were still lying in a corner.
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