Like many people with an excess of inner energy, Krymov drank only occasionally, when he felt the need—as he liked to put it—to give himself a good shake. In reply to the old man, he shook his head.
“It’s not just from beetroot,” said the old man. “It’s top quality, from real sugar.”
The old woman quietly put out glasses for all five of them and then a large dish with a mountain of tomatoes and cucumbers. She sliced some bread and carefully sprinkled a little salt over it, then threw down two forks and a knife with an unusually fine blade. One fork had a thick black wooden handle; the other, evidently acquired during the war, was made of silver.
She did all this in a few seconds, with remarkable deftness. It was as if she were simply flinging things onto the table, but each glass landed in just the right place. Tomatoes, knife, forks—everything appeared in the blink of an eye.
After muttering “Your good health!” the old couple emptied their glasses, then had a few mouthfuls. Without another word, the old woman refilled the glasses.
When it came to food and drink, the two of them clearly knew what they were doing.
It was good vodka, with a real kick, burning hot but not in the least acrid. Krymov was impressed. “This place isn’t a hut!” he said to himself. “It’s a temple to moonshine.”
The old woman glanced at Krymov and, as if sensing his confusion, said, “Go on, have a bite to eat. After vodka like this, you need more than tobacco!”
As for the young woman, the way she looked at Krymov seemed to keep changing. One moment, her eyes were young and wild; next, they seemed kind and wise.
Then the old man said, “In 1930 we slaughtered all the pigs and we drank for two weeks on end. Two men went mad. And there was one old man who drank two litres, went out into the steppe, lay down in the snow and fell asleep. They found him in the morning with a broken bottle beside him. The night was so cold that even the moonshine had frozen solid.”
“The moonshine I make wouldn’t have frozen,” said the old woman. “It’s like pure spirit.”
The old man was already a little tipsy. “You don’t understand,” he said. “That’s not what I’m talking about.” And he tapped the German propaganda leaflet.
And the conversation suddenly turned, with awful frankness, to what had been and what would be. The old man did not see the Soviet retreat as a temporary setback; he believed that the Soviet regime was finished. The retreat confirmed what he had always believed.
“A Party member, are you?” he asked Krymov.
“Yes,” Krymov replied. “My hair’s going grey now, but I’ve been a Communist since I was a boy.”
“And what can you Communists do to me now?” asked the old man.
“My men are close by,” Krymov replied quietly.
“Glad to hear it,” the old man said good-naturedly.
The old man was drunk, and this made him want to speak out. It wasn’t so much that he wanted an argument; it was more that he wanted to speak freely, no holds barred, about everything that had been forbidden.
He was, he believed, simply a witness. He was a historian.
As she listened to her husband inveigh against the kolkhozes, the blood went to the old woman’s face. Wanting to help him, she said, “And you must tell them about Luba, the woman who stole peas from our kitchen garden. And then she stuffed herself on plums in our orchard. And we didn’t dare say a word against her—the moment the general went to sleep, there she was, playing cards with his adjutant . . . And don’t forget our kolkhoz chairman! When he left, he took all the best horses, and he went off with four whole poods of kolkhoz honey.152 And the shop! Salt, kerosene and calico all got delivered there—but what good did that do us? All we ever got to see of that calico was the chairman’s wife flouncing around in a new dress.”
“That was the least of it,” said the old man. “There were things far worse than that.” He was astonished how old, long-forgotten words were now coming back to him, as if they had been engraved in his memory, and it was with intense feeling that he now pronounced these words: “The Vineyards of the Crown Department . . . Adjutant General Saltykovsky’s estates . . . A winery belonging to a member of the state Duma . . . Company Commander Nazarov, of the Cossack Regiment of His Majesty’s Life Guards . . . The ataman of the stanitsa . . .”
In the old days, everyone had lived calmly and comfortably. No one, he seemed to believe, had suffered real need.
As for this new world, with its tractors and combine harvesters, with its Magnitogorsks and its Dnieper dams, with its chairmen and brigade leaders, with everyone studying to be agronomists, doctors, teachers and engineers—nothing in this new world had brought anyone any good at all. Now people all worked like madmen. And to think of all the families deported in 1930 . . . And now the Soviets had retreated to the Caucasus, now they were all on the run . . .
The old couple spoke with particular anger about how hard everyone had to work for the kolkhoz. But the young woman replied, “What are you two moaning about? The people who do the real work don’t moan. When did either of you two do any work? All you ever did was make moonshine—and sell it to that same kolkhoz chairman!”
Krymov had long been aware of a human peculiarity he couldn’t quite understand. The people who did the moaning and grumbling were not those whose lives were truly hard. This was true of individuals, and it was true of entire regions. Soviet power had done so much for the Don steppes, and for the region between the southern lakes and the Volga. Soviet power had battled against trachoma, tuberculosis and syphilis—it had healed a whole people. Soviet power had built schools. It had built a capital out in the steppe, with theatres, museums and cinemas. Huge flocks of sheep now grazed the Kalmyk steppe—but he’d heard the whole region was seething. Travelling about the steppe was dangerous. The locals murdered the wounded. They hid in the reeds and shot at you as you passed by. Whereas in the bogs and forests of Belorussia, where the soil was thin and poor and life was a thousand times harder, every escaped prisoner of war or soldier who’d broken out of encirclement was greeted as if they were long-lost sons.
“But as for the Germans!” the old woman was saying in a sing-song voice, “We’ve nothing to fear from them. The Germans are releasing prisoners of war. They’re giving us back our land. They’re not even harming Party members—they just register them, then let them walk free. The only people with anything to fear from the Germans are the people us Russians have always had reason to fear, the people we love least of all.”
Krymov knew very well how pointless it was to argue at times like this. The twenty-five years since the Revolution had only strengthened this couple’s prejudices. They had not suddenly changed. No one had suddenly cast a spell on them. It was just that they were now coming out with thoughts they had previously kept to themselves.
Krymov remembered how, in autumn 1941, near Chernigov, he had ordered a man to be shot for telling his soldiers they’d be better off if they were taken prisoner by the Germans. As if reading his mind, the old man said, “And don’t you go thinking it’s just me. There are young men who think the same as me, and there are old men who think the same as me. You’re not going to be able to shoot all of us.”
Krymov had fought against people like this all his life. He had fought tirelessly.
Transformed into heat, the psychic energy he had expended would have been enough to bring to a boil all the waters of Lake Baikal. When it seemed necessary, he had been merciless—but he had also been patient, more patient than the most patient of doctors, gentler than the gentlest of teachers. And at this most bitter hour of all, everything he had fought against was still obstinately present, calmly eating tomatoes, digesting food, drinking and inviting him to drink too.
Krymov abruptly got to his feet, pushed the stool away and went out onto the street. Semyon followed him.
It was twilight outside. The sandy track through the orchards looked very white.
66
“WHAT’
S happened to our Sarkisyan?” Krymov asked Semyonov. “He should have been here long ago.”
Semyonov bent forward and whispered in Krymov’s ear, “A soldier passed by not long ago. He said there’s no one at all to the west. Just no man’s land. We need to move east—at least another twenty kilometres.”
“No,” said Krymov. “We must wait here for Sarkisyan. But we’re not staying the night with these rotgut-makers. Go and have a look in that barn over there—there’ll probably be some hay we can sleep on.”
Semyonov wanted to protest: Where was he going to find hay? Seeing the grim look on Krymov’s face, he walked silently to the gate.
It turned dark. The street was quiet and deserted. There was a glow in the sky from some distant blaze, and an evil, uncertain light hung over the whole of this Cossack village, over its houses, barns, wells and orchards.
Dogs were beginning to howl and from somewhere to the eastern edge of the village Krymov could hear singing, wailing and drunken shouts. Above him he could hear buzzing and whining. Night-flying Heinkels were circling over the burning earth.
Looking at the sky and listening to the voices, Krymov recalled a terrible moment from the winter offensive. Lieutenant Orlov, a bold, cheerful nineteen-year-old, had asked to be released from duty for two hours—his unit had just retaken the town where he had been born and he wanted to see his family. Krymov never saw him again. After discovering that his mother had left with the Germans as the Red Army approached, Orlov had shot himself.
“Betrayal. A mother’s betrayal. What could be more terrible?” Krymov said to himself.
The distant fire was still burning.
Krymov felt someone quietly draw near him, looking at him. It was the young woman. Unconsciously, not even thinking about her, he must have expected this; seeing her so close to him was no surprise. She sat down on one of the steps of the porch, her arms round her knees.
Lit by the distant glow, her eyes were shining and the now soft, now sinister light brought out her beauty to the full. She must have sensed, not with her mind or even her heart but through every inch of her skin, that he was looking at her bare upper arms, at the play of light on her legs, at the two smooth, slippery braids that fell down from her neck and curled onto her knees. She said nothing, knowing that there were no words to express what was happening between them.
This tall man with the furrowed brow and calm dark eyes looked very different from the young drivers and soldiers who, in exchange for love, had offered her tinned meat, petrol and millet concentrate.
She was not shy or submissive. These days she was having to fight for her life as roughly, as straightforwardly, as any man. She ploughed, shod horses and chopped wood; she mended roofs and walls. Little boys and old men were now doing most of the women’s work—digging the garden, herding the cattle and looking after the babies—and she was doing the work usually done by the adult men.
She put out fires, chased thieves from the grain store, delivered the wheat to the district town and negotiated with the military authorities about the use of the mill. She knew how to cheat, and if anyone tried to cheat her, she knew how to outwit them, how to deceive the deceiver. And even her ways of deceit were male—more like the bold fraud of an important bureaucrat than the simple tricks of a peasant woman.
It was not her style to add water to milk or to swear that yesterday’s milk, already beginning to turn, was fresh from the cow. Nor did she come out with quick, shrill, peasant-woman curses. When she was angry, she cursed and swore like a man, slowly and expressively.
And in these days of the long retreat, in the dust and thunder of war, as Heinkels and Junkers buzzed about the sky, she found it strange to remember the quiet, shy days of her youth.
The man with greying hair looked at her. There was vodka on his breath, but there was a serious look in his eyes.
It was a joy to have her sitting beside him. Krymov would have liked to go on sitting like this, beside this young and beautiful woman, for a long time, for the rest of the evening and the next day too. In the morning he would go out into the garden, then into the meadow. Come evening he would sit at table and, by the light of an oil lamp, watch her strong, bronzed hands make the bed. When she turned towards him, he would see in her fine eyes a look of gentle trust.
Still not saying a word, the young woman got to her feet and walked a little way across the bright sand.
He watched her walk away, knowing she would come back. And she soon did. “Come along. Why sit here all on your own? Everyone’s in that house over there.”
Krymov called Semyonov, ordering him to check his sub-machine gun and not to leave the car.
“Are the Germans close?” she asked. Krymov didn’t answer.
He followed her into a large house. The room felt hot and airless; it was crowded and the stove was lit.
Sitting at the table were a number of women, some old men and some young, badly shaven lads in jackets.
A very pretty young woman was sitting by the window, her hands on her lap.
When Krymov spoke to her, she bowed her head and, with the palm of one hand, began to brush invisible crumbs from her knees. Then she looked at him. There was a purity in her eyes that neither hard labour nor grim need could darken.
“Don’t try anything on with her!” the other women called out, laughing. “Her man’s in the Red Army. She’s waiting for him. She lives like a nun. But she’s got a good voice. We’ve asked her here so she can sing to us.”
A man with a black beard and a broad forehead, evidently the man of the house, was making sweeping gestures with his long arms and shouting hoarsely, “Let’s make it a party! It’s the last day I’ll be drinking with you, my friends!”
He was drunk, and he looked mad. Sweat was dripping down his forehead and into his eyes and he had to keep wiping it away, sometimes with a handkerchief, sometimes with his hand. He walked heavily, and each step he took set objects in the room trembling. Dishes, glasses and cutlery clinked on the table—as in a station buffet when a heavy freight train goes past. Women kept letting out little cries—he repeatedly seemed about to crash to the ground. Nevertheless, he kept going; he even tried to dance.
The old men had pink faces. They too were sweating—from vodka and the lack of fresh air.
Beside these old men, the young lads seemed quiet and pale. Either they weren’t used to drinking and were feeling sick or else vodka wasn’t enough to quell their anxieties. If your whole life still lies ahead of you, then war makes you more anxious.
When Krymov looked at these lads, they avoided his eyes; probably they had found some ruse to escape conscription.
The old men, on the other hand, came up to him and struck up conversations of their own accord. The man with the black beard said, “You should have stood firm! Yes, by God, you should have held your ground!” He then flung up his hands in despair and hiccupped with such violence that even the old women, used to him as they were, looked startled.
There was a rich spread—everyone must have brought whatever they could. Looking at the food on the table, the women repeated, “We must feast while we can—tomorrow the Germans will be helping themselves!”
On the table were fried eggs—in huge pans the size of the sun—and ham, pies, fatback, bowls of dumplings with cream cheese, jars of jam, bottles of wine made from grapes, and vodka made from real sugar.
The man with the black beard, gesticulating with arms that seemed to reach almost from the table to the wall, yelled out, “Eat and drink, eat and drink! Tonight’s for feasting—and then it’s the Fritzes! Here’s to feasting and freedom!”
Approaching Krymov, he seemed to turn suddenly sober. He offered him food and said, “Eat, comrade chief! My eldest son’s fighting too—he’s a lieutenant!”
Then he went over to a very silent man sitting in an armchair beside the oak sideboard. Krymov heard him say, “Eat, my good man, eat and drink! We’ve held nothing back from you—so don’t hold back now! Eat all you can
!” And then, with no apparent connection, “My elder brother was in the tsar’s personal bodyguard. He served with devotion till that last day in Dno.”153
Drunk as he was, the bearded man was still able to say the right thing to the right person; he knew who to tell about his son, who was in the Red Army, and who to tell about his elder brother.
Krymov looked at the silent man. He had foxy eyes and the face of a wolf. Sensing some hostility on his part, he asked, “And who are you?”
“I live here in the village. I’m a Cossack,” the man replied in a slow, lazy voice. “I’ve come for the feast.”
“What feast?” asked Krymov. “Has there been a birth or a wedding? Or is it the tsar’s name day?”
The man seemed to be one and the same colour all over; his skin and hair, his eyes and even his teeth were all the same dusty yellow. There was an exaggerated, almost sleepy calm about his gaze, and about his manner of speech, that reminded Krymov of the careful movements of a tightrope walker treading a familiar but mortally dangerous path under the high dome of a circus tent.
Smirking a little, the man slowly got up from the table and tottered towards the door. He did not come back. He too may not have been as drunk as he seemed. There was a general silence as he made his sleepy way out, and two of the old men exchanged looks.
It was as if Krymov had happened upon a secret—some secret knowledge shared by these pink-faced, sly yet simple-minded old men.
Now and again Krymov noticed that the woman who had brought him along was looking at him. Her eyes were sad and stern, questioning.
Then, from different parts of the room, people began asking the pretty young woman by the window to sing. She smiled, straightened her hair and her blouse, laid her hands on the table, glanced at the blacked-out window and began to sing. Everyone joined in, quietly and seriously—you’d have thought not one of them had been drinking.
Stalingrad Page 45