Each minute brought more light. Not far away was a dense flock of sheep, some white, some black. They were bleating quietly, stirring up thin clouds of pink dust as they moved over the tawny, hummocky ground.
Their shepherd had a large staff over his shoulder and his cloak billowed behind him.
It was a touching sight. In the low sun’s broad rays, the sheep looked like small boulders moving between the hummocks, and the shepherd with his staff and cloak might have been drawn by Gustave Doré.
Then the flock drew nearer, and Darensky saw that the shepherd’s cloak was a tarpaulin and his heavy staff was an anti-tank rifle. He was walking along the edge of the road, and the sheep were nothing to do with him.
Darensky returned to the pickup.
“Ready now?” he asked.
The lieutenant, a timid, skinny young man, said, “The major’s not here yet, comrade Lieutenant Colonel.”
“Where is he?”
“He went off to find some milk for breakfast. It seems the cow here’s not in milk.”
“I don’t believe it!” said Darensky. “Milk and cows—I don’t believe it. When every minute’s precious!” He paced silently about the yard for several minutes, then burst out, “How much longer will I have to wait for your dairyman?”
“He’ll be back any moment,” the lieutenant said guiltily. He had rolled himself a cigarette, but he threw it onto the ground.
“Which way did he go?”
“Over there,” said the lieutenant. “Permission to look for him?”
“Don’t bother,” said Darensky.
He now felt crosser than ever with the major. Like many irritable people, he often vented his frustration and anger almost at random, on whoever happened to be present.
And when Berozkin appeared with a watermelon under one arm and a litre bottle filled with milk, Darensky almost choked with rage.
“Ah, comrade Lieutenant Colonel,” said Berozkin, placing the watermelon on the passenger seat, “did you sleep well? I’ve brought us some milk—fresh from the cow!”
Darensky glared at him, then said with cold fury, “Just look at yourself—you look more like a pedlar than a commander. It’s because of pedlars and petty traders like you that we were routed in 1941. Here we are, not far from Stalingrad. Every minute counts—and you wander about the village bargaining for milk!”
The blood mounted to Berozkin’s tanned face, turning it darker still. After a few seconds, he replied quietly, “I apologize, comrade Lieutenant Colonel. Our lieutenant was coughing all night. I thought some fresh milk would do him good.”
“All right,” said Darensky, now embarrassed. “But let’s be off now!”
Darensky was afraid of Stalingrad. He thought he was making his way to the front too slowly, but what really troubled him was that he would be there extremely soon.
Darensky glanced at the major. Until now, what irritated him had been the man’s imperturbable calm—but now he looked tense and shocked. His jaw had dropped, and there was a bewildered, almost crazed look in his eyes. Involuntarily, Darensky looked around: What had the major just seen? Were they about to encounter something terrible? Had German parachutists landed this side of the Volga?
But the road, gashed by wheels and tank tracks, was empty. All Darensky could see was some refugees, trudging along past the huts.
“Tamara! Tamara!” called Berozkin—and a young woman in shoes held together with string, with a bag over her shoulders, suddenly froze. Beside her stood a little girl who looked about five years old. She too was carrying a bag, sewn from a pillowcase.
Berozkin walked towards them, still holding the bottle of milk.
The woman stared at the commander coming towards her with a bottle of milk, then cried out, “Ivan! Vanya! My darling Vanya!”
And this cry was so frightening, so charged with complaint, horror, grief, reproach and happiness that everyone who heard it flinched, as if from a burn or some other sudden physical pain.
The woman ran forward and flung her arms around Berozkin’s neck, her body racked by silent sobs.
And the little girl in sandals stood beside her, gazing wide-eyed at the bottle of milk in the large, bronzed, big-veined hand of her father.
Darensky realized that he too was shaking. This chance meeting in the steppe was not something he ever spoke about. But even thirty years later, when he was a lonely old man, he would feel the same overwhelming anguish when he remembered this moment—when he remembered how this man and woman had first looked at each other, and how he had glimpsed in their faces all the savage grief and homeless happiness of those terrible years.
It was then, he came to believe, that he first truly took in all the bitterness of the war—standing in the sands beyond the Volga and hearing a homeless, dust-covered woman with beautiful eyes and the thin shoulders of an adolescent girl say, in a loud voice, to a broad-faced forty-year-old major, “Our Slava’s dead. I failed him.”
Berozkin led the woman and the little girl to the hut. Then he came out again, went up to Darensky and said, “Excuse me, comrade Lieutenant Colonel, I’m holding you up. Please go on your way without me. I’ve just found my family.”
“We’ll wait,” said Darensky. He went to the pickup and said to the supplies officer, “If this were my truck, I tell you I’d take this woman to Kamyshin, even if it meant throwing out the other passengers.”
“No,” said the supplies officer. “I have a mission to carry out, and these two could be talking all day and all night. A good-looking young woman, a major who’s got what it takes, and it’s a year since they last saw each other. They’ve got more than enough to keep them busy.” He winked at the silent driver and at the young lieutenant, who was looking at Darensky with profound admiration, and began to laugh. His laughter was the abrupt, staccato laughter of a professional teller of jokes.
Darensky realized that it would indeed be better if they went on their way. There was, after all, nothing he could do for the major. “All right,” he said, “start the engine. I’ll fetch my things.”
He entered the dark hut, looking down at the ground, and reached out for his suitcase. He heard the old woman say something, with a sob. He saw a look of pain on the face of the old man, who was standing there holding his hat. He saw the pale, excited face of the young daughter-in-law. This chance meeting in the steppe had affected all of them.
He tried not to look at Berozkin and his wife, thinking it must be unbearable for them to be among so many strangers and to be the focus of their attention.
“We’ll go on our way, comrade Major,” he said loudly. “Allow me to wish you all the best. You’ll be staying here for a while, I think.”
He shook Berozkin’s hand. Going up to Tamara, he again felt overwhelmed by emotion. She held out her hand. Darensky felt his eyes fill with tears as he bowed his head low and carefully raised her delicate, little girl’s fingers to his lips. There were dark grooves on them, from cutting potatoes, and it was a long time since they had been washed.
“Excuse us,” he said, and hurried out of the hut.
13
IT WAS a meeting that wrenched their hearts. Tenacious as thistles or steppe grass, overwhelming grief at once choked every stirring of joy.
Most terrifying of all was the lack of time; it was impossible for the family to stay together for more than a day.
Caressing his daughter, Berozkin felt overwhelmed by grief for his son. Luba could not understand why, whenever her father took her in his arms or stroked her hair, he suddenly frowned, as if he were angry. Nor could she understand why her mother, who had grieved so much for her father, kept crying now that she had found him again.
One night, Mama had dreamed that Papa had come back. Luba had heard her talking and laughing in her sleep. But now that they had found each other, all Mama could do was repeat, “No, no, I must stop crying. Why am I so stupid?”
Nor could Luba understand why her parents were so quick to talk about parting, why they we
re noting down addresses, why her father said he would put them on a car or a truck going to Kamyshin, why he asked Mama if she had any photos, since his old ones had almost faded away by now.
Her father fetched his things from the barn and laid out a spread on the table. Only once in her life, at the Shaposhnikovs’, had Luba seen anything like it. There was fatback, and tinned meat and vegetables, and sugar, and butter, and salmon roe, and sausage, and even some chocolates.
Mama sat at the table like a guest, and her father prepared everything himself. And then Mama began tasting food from the tins and breaking off pieces of bread, and Luba kept asking, “Can I have some sausage? . . . Can I eat a little fatback?” “Of course you can,” said her father. He handed her some bread and butter, and she put a piece of fatback on top and began to eat. It was very tasty, so tasty that she started to laugh. Then she looked at her father. He was watching Mama, who was eating very quickly, her fingers trembling as she put pieces of sausage and tinned meat in her mouth—and there were tears in his eyes. What was the matter? Was her father upset that they were eating all his supplies of food? Luba froze with resentment, but then, in her little heart, she understood what he was going through. And instead of feeling happy to have found a protector, she wanted to protect and comfort her father in his grief and helplessness. Looking into the darkest corner of the hut, where she thought the forces of evil were hiding, she said sternly, “Don’t touch him!”
Mama talked about all that the Shaposhnikovs had done for them in Stalingrad, and about how she and Luba had survived the fire. After the apartment burned down, she hadn’t gone back there for five days. The Shaposhnikovs had looked for her and Luba, but in the end they had to leave; they had gone to Saratov by truck, and from there to Kazan by steamer. They left her an address and a long letter. She and Luba managed to cross the Volga by ferry and then they had set off on foot.
And then Mama began to tell their whole story from the very beginning, and Luba got bored, since she knew it all already: they had no winter coats; they were bombed four times; their basket of bread disappeared; they travelled for twelve days in a cattle wagon, in midwinter; there was no bread; Mama sewed, did people’s laundry and dug vegetable beds; bread cost a hundred roubles a kilo; in one town Mama was issued a ration of sugar and butter and she swapped it for bread; it was easier to get bread in the villages than in cities. They lived in one village for three months, and the children were always full; not only did they have bread every day, but they also had milk. She was going to barter her ring and brooch for rye flour, but they got stolen, and after that she had to take Slava to a children’s home. At least they gave him bread there. Bread, bread, bread. Four-year-old Luba well understood the meaning of this momentous word.
“Mama,” she said, “can we keep some sweets for Slava?”
Her mother started shaking and sobbing again, silently, in a way Luba had never seen before. Then she started to hiccup, and Papa said in a strange, sleepy voice, “This is war. It’s the way things are. It’s the same for everyone.”
Then Papa began to tell his own story. He mentioned old friends, some of whom Mama remembered, and Luba noticed that Papa kept repeating the word “killed,” just like Mama repeated the word “bread.”
“Killed, killed, killed,” he kept saying. “Mutyan was killed on the second day, when we were still near Kobrin. And remember Alexeyenko? He was last seen in the forest near Tarnopol, lying on the ground with a stomach wound, with German sub-machine-gunners close by. And Morozov—not Vasily Ignatievich, but the Morozov who acted in the play with you—he was killed during the counterattack near Kanev, on the Dnieper. A direct hit from a mortar. And Rubashkin too—I’ve heard he was killed near Tula. He was taking his battalion across the highway when they were strafed by a Messerschmitt. A large-calibre bullet straight in the head. He was a good man. Remember how he taught us to salt mushrooms? And Moiseyev too. He shot himself—I heard from a man who saw him do it. It was July last year. He was surrounded, caught in a bog, and he could barely move—wounded in the leg. He just took out his revolver and that was that . . . And so here we are . . . I must be the only regimental commander from our division who’s still alive. But guess who I bumped into yesterday? Aristov, my old supplies boss! Remember him? He looked as if he was just back from a holiday by the sea. I’ll give you his address and write him a note. He’s a good fellow, he’ll do all he can for you and then send you on your way to Saratov. He has trucks setting off for Saratov every day.”
“And what about you?” asked Mama. “Heavens, I wrote so many letters! There’s nowhere I didn’t inquire. You know about everyone, but no one could tell me anything about you.”
“Me?” Papa replied with a shrug. “I’ve just been with my guns. We’ve kept at it, but we’ve still retreated a long way. Well, we must be sure not to lose each other again—that’s the main thing.”
He went on to say that he was on his way back to his regiment. The division had been in reserve. But when he came out of hospital, he found the division had been brought forward. Now he was trying to catch up with it.
And then he added, “Tamara, let me wash your clothes for you. You need a rest.”
“Heavens, after all you’ve been through!” she replied. “Still the same as ever—my kind, wonderful man. My sweet flint!” And they both smiled—that was what she had used to call him before the war.
Then Luba began to fall asleep, and her father said, “She’s tired.”
And her mother said, “We’ve been walking for ten days. And she gets very frightened by all the planes—she can tell the German ones from their sound. She keeps waking at night, crying and screaming. And now she’s just eaten a lot, which she’s not used to.”
While she was asleep, her father picked her up in his arms. She remembered him carrying her out to a barn that smelled of hay. In the evening she woke up and had another meal. There were German planes in the sky, but she didn’t feel frightened. She just went up to Papa, put his big hand on her head, and stood there quite calmly, listening to the noises above her.
“Sleep, Luba, sleep,” said her mother—and Luba fell asleep again.
It was a strange night, both happy and bitter.
“We’ve found each other again. You’ve come back from the dead—and now we have to part again, forever. No, it’s not possible.”
“Don’t sit like that. Make yourself comfortable. And drink some more milk. Really, you’re so thin now. Sometimes I’m not quite sure if it’s really you.”
“He’s gone. Lying at the bottom of this terrible river. It’s night down there. It’s cold and dark, and there’s no power in the world that can help him.”
“I’ll give you my underclothes. That’ll be better than nothing. And I’ve got some new boots, box calf, good quality. I’ve only worn them twice and I really don’t need them. And I’ll make you up two pairs of foot cloths—soon it’ll be winter.”
“The last time I saw him, he kept asking, ‘When will you take me home?’ But how could I know? Fool that I am, I just felt happy to see he was a bit less thin.”
“I’ll sew my field-mail address to your skirt. That’ll be safer than your jacket—your jacket might disappear.”
“I must look quite scary. I’m nothing but skin and bones. Aren’t you ashamed of me?”
“Your legs are so thin, and I can see blood on your feet. You’ve walked a long way.”
“What are you doing, my love? Kissing my feet when all I want is to wash off the dust.”
“Did he still remember me?”
“No, no, I can’t spend any more time on my own. I can’t, I really can’t. I’m going to follow you—even if you drive me away with a stick.”
“Luba—think about Luba.”
“I know, I know. Tomorrow Luba and I will get in a truck going to Kamyshin.”
“Why aren’t you eating anything? Here—have this biscuit. And wash it down with some milk, even if it’s only a sip.”
“I c
an’t believe it. It’s you, it’s really you. And the same as always. You even say the very same words—‘Here . . . even if it’s only a sip.’”
“I may look the same now, but you should have seen me last September. Hollow cheeks, face overgrown with stubble . . . I remember thinking that my Tamara wouldn’t want to look at me.”
“Howling and whining up in the sky above us, day and night, all year long. I suppose you must have been close to death many times?”
“No, not really, nothing much. No more than everyone else.”
“What does he want? What does the monster want?”
“In the villages, women say to their children, ‘Don’t cry. If Adolf hears you, he’ll fly straight here in his plane.’”
“My sweetest of dandies. Cleanly shaved head, neat, clean nails and a clean white collar. When I glimpsed you just now, it was like a thousand-pound weight off my heart. And I’ve told you everything, from beginning to end. But don’t think I’m like this with anyone else. Usually I keep things to myself. Anyway, who’d want to listen to me? No one but you, no one in the world but you.”
“You must promise to eat better. You’ll have a military rations card now. And you must drink some milk every day. All right?”
“This is so wonderful. It’s you. Well and truly you.”
“I knew we’d be meeting. I knew it yesterday.”
“Remember when Slava was born? The car had broken down. We left the maternity home on foot. You carried him in your arms. No, this is our last meeting, I know it. We’ll never see each other again, and she’ll end up in a children’s home.”
“Tamara!”
“Did you hear that?”
“Doesn’t matter. It landed in the river.”
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