The Road (4 page)

“It’s only in the daytime that he’s so smart,” said Beila. “At night, when there are bandits on every street and the whole town’s in uproar, he sits there looking like death. All he can do is shake with terror.”

“Don’t interrupt,” Magazanik said crossly, “when I’m talking to someone.”

Every now and then he would slip out to the street and come back with the latest news. The Revolutionary Committee had been evacuated during the night, the district Party Committee had gone next, and the military headquarters had left in the morning. The station was empty. The last army train had already gone.

Vavilova heard shouts from the street. An airplane in the sky! She went to the window. The plane was high up, but she could see the white-and-red roundels on its wings. It was a Polish reconnaissance plane. It made a circle over the town and flew off toward the station. And then, from the direction of Bald Hill, cannons began firing.

The first sound they heard was that of the shells; they howled by like a whirlwind. Next came the long sigh of the cannons. And then, a few seconds later, from beyond the level crossing—a joyful peal of explosions. It was the Bolsheviks—they were trying to slow the Polish advance. Soon the Poles were responding in kind; shells began to land in the town.

The air was torn by deafening explosions. Bricks were crumbling. Smoke and dust were dancing over the flattened wall of a building. The streets were silent, severe, and deserted—now no more substantial than sketches. The quiet after each shell burst was terrifying. And from high in a cloudless sky the sun shone gaily down on a town that was like a spread-eagled corpse.

The townsfolk were all in their cellars and basements. Their eyes closed, barely conscious, they were holding their breath or letting out low moans of fear.

Everyone, even the little children, knew that this bombardment was what is known as an “artillery preparation” and that there would be another forty or fifty explosions before the soldiers entered the town. And then—as everyone knew—it would become unbelievably quiet until, all of a sudden, clattering along the broad street from the level crossing, a reconnaissance patrol galloped up. And, dying of fear and curiosity, everyone would be peeping out from behind their gates, peering through gaps in shutters and curtains. Drenched in sweat, they would begin to tiptoe out to the street.

The patrol would enter the main square. The horses would prance and snort; the riders would call out to one another in a marvelously simple human language, and their leader, delighted by the humility of this conquered town now lying flat on its back, would yell out in a drunken voice, fire a revolver shot into the maw of the silence, and get his horse to rear.

And then, pouring in from all sides, would come cavalry and infantry. From one house to another would rush tired dusty men in blue greatcoats—thrifty peasants, good-natured enough yet capable of murder and greedy for the town’s hens, boots, and towels.

Everybody knew all this, because the town had already changed hands fourteen times. It had been held by Petlyura, by Denikin, by the Bolsheviks, by Galicians and Poles, by Tyutyunik’s brigands and Marusya’s brigands, and by the crazy Ninth Regiment that was a law unto itself. And it was
the same story each time.

“They’re singing!” shouted Magazanik. “They’re singing!”

And, forgetting his fear, he ran out onto the front steps. Vavilova followed him. After the stuffiness of the dark room, it was a joy to breathe in the light and warmth of the summer day. She had been feeling the same about the Poles as she had felt about the pains of labor: they were bound to come, so let them come quick. If the explosions scared her, it was only because she was afraid they would wake Alyosha; the whistling shells troubled her no more than flies—she just brushed them aside.

“Hush now, hush now,” she had sung over the cradle. “Don’t go waking Alyosha.”

She was trying not to think. Everything, after all, had been decided. In a month’s time, either the Bolsheviks would be back or she and Alyosha would cross the front line to join them.

“What on earth’s going on?” said Magazanik. “Look at that!”

Marching along the broad empty street, toward the level crossing from which the Poles should be about to appear, was a column of young Bolshevik cadets. They were wearing white canvas trousers and tunics.

“Ma-ay the re-ed banner embo-ody the workers’ ide-e-als,” they sang, drawing out the words almost mournfully.

They were marching toward the Poles.

Why? Whatever for?

Vavilova gazed at them. And suddenly it came back to her: Red Square, vast as ever, and several thousand workers who had volunteered for the front, thronging around a wooden platform that had been knocked together in a hurry. A bald man, gesticulating with his cloth cap, was addressing them. Vavilova was standing not far from him.

She was so agitated that she could not take in half of what he said, even though, apart from not quite being able to roll his
r
’s, he had a clear voice. The people standing beside her were almost gasping as they listened. An old man in a padded jacket was crying.

Just what had happened to her on that square, beneath the dark walls, she did not know. Once, at night, she had wanted to talk about it to
him
, to her taciturn one. She had felt he would understand. But she had been unable to get the words out...And as the men made their way from the square to the Bryansk Station,
this
was the song they had been singing.

Looking at the faces of the singing cadets, she lived through once again what she had lived through two years before.

The Magazaniks saw a woman in a sheepskin hat and a greatcoat running down the street after the cadets, slipping a cartridge clip into her large gray Mauser as she ran.

Not taking his eyes off her, Magazanik said, “Once there were people like that in
the Bund. Real human beings, Beila. Call us human beings? No, we’re just manure.”

Alyosha had woken up. He was crying and kicking about, trying to kick off his swaddling clothes. Coming back to herself, Beila said to her husband, “Listen, the baby’s woken up. You’d better light the Primus—we must heat up some milk.”

The cadets disappeared around a turn in the road.

Moscow
spends the last ten days of April preparing for May Day. The cornices of buildings and the little iron railings along boulevards are repainted, and in the evenings mothers throw up their hands in despair at the sight of their sons’ trousers and coats. On all the city’s squares carpenters merrily saw up planks that still smell of pine resin and the damp of the forest. Supplies managers use their directors’ cars to collect great heaps of red cloth.

Visitors to different government institutions find that their requests all meet with the same answer: “Yes, but let’s leave this until after the holiday!”

Lev Sergeyevich Orlov was standing on a street corner with his colleague Timofeyev. Timofeyev was saying, “You’re being an old woman, Lev Sergeyevich. We could go to a beer hall or a restaurant. We could just wander about and watch the crowds. So what if it upsets your wife? You’re an old woman, the most complete and utter old woman!”

But Lev Sergeyevich said goodbye and went on his way. Morose by nature, he used to say of himself, “I’m made in such a way that I see what is tragic, even when it’s covered by rose petals.”

And Lev Sergeyevich truly did see tragedy everywhere.

Even now as he made his way through the crowds he was thinking how awful it must feel to be stuck in a hospital during these days of merriment, how miserable these days must be for pharmacists, engine drivers, and train crews—people who have to work on the First of May.

When he got home, he said all this to his wife. She began to laugh at him, but he just shook his head and carried on being upset.

Still turning over the same thoughts, he continued to let out loud sighs until late into the night. His wife said angrily, “Lyova, why do you have to feel so sorry for the pharmacists? Why not feel sorry for me for a change and let me sleep? You know I’ve got to be at work by eight o’clock.”

And, the next day, she did indeed leave for work while Lev Sergeyevich was still asleep.

In the mornings he was usually in a good mood at the office, but by two in the afternoon he would be missing his wife, feeling anxious and fidgety and constantly watching the clock. His colleagues understood all this and used to make fun of him.

“Lev Sergeyevich is already looking at the clock,” someone would say—and everyone would laugh except for Agnessa Petrovna, the elderly head accountant, who would pronounce with a sigh: “Orlov’s wife is the luckiest woman in all Moscow.”

This day was no different. As the afternoon wore on, he grew fidgety, shrugging his shoulders in disbelief as he watched the minute hand of the clock.

“Someone to speak to you, Lev Sergeyevich,” a voice called from the adjoining room. It turned out to be his wife—phoning to say that she would have to stay on at work for an extra hour and a half to retype the director’s report.

“All right then,” Lev Sergeyevich replied in a hurt voice, and he hung up.

He did not hurry home. The city was buzzing, and the buildings, streets, and sidewalks all seemed somehow special, not like themselves at all. And this intangible something, born of the May Day sense of community, took many forms. It could be sensed even in the way a policeman was dragging away a drunk. It was as though all the men wandering about the street were related—as though they were all cousins, or uncles and nephews.

Today he would have been only too glad to saunter about with Timofeyev. It was unpleasant being the first to get back home. The room always seems empty and unwelcoming, and there is no getting away from frightening thoughts: What if something had happened to Vera Ignatyevna? What if she had twisted her ankle jumping off a tram?

Lev Sergeyevich would start to imagine that some hulking trolley car had knocked Vera Ignatyevna down, that people were crowding around her body, that an ambulance was tearing along, wailing ominously. He would be seized with terror; he would want to phone friends and family; he would want to rush to the Emergency First-Aid Institute or to the police.

Every time his wife was ten or fifteen minutes late it was the same. He would feel the same panic.

What a lot of people there were on the street now! Why were they all sauntering up and down the boulevard, sitting idly on benches, stopping in front of every illuminated shop window? But then he came to his own building, and his heart leaped for joy. The little ventilation pane was open—his wife was already back.

He kissed Vera Ignatyevna several times. He looked into her eyes and stroked her hair.

“What a strange one you are!” she said. “It’s the same every time. Anyone would think I’ve come back from Australia, not from the
Central Rubber Office.”

“If I don’t see you all day,” he replied, “you might just as well be in Australia.”

“You and your eternal Australia!” said Vera Ignatyevna. “They ask me to help type the wall newspaper—and I refuse. I skip
Air-Chem Defense Society meetings and come rushing back home. Kazakova has two little children—but Kazakova has no trouble at all staying behind. And that’s not all—she’s a member of the automobile club as well!”

“What a silly darling goose you are!” said Lev Sergeyevich. “Who ever heard of a wife giving her husband a hard time for being too much of a stay-at-home?”

Vera Ignatyevna wanted to answer back, but instead she said in an excited voice, “I’ve got a surprise for you! The Party committee’s been asking people to take in orphanage children for a few days over the holiday. I volunteered—I said we’d like a little girl. You won’t be cross with me, will you?”

Lev Sergeyevich gave his wife a hug.

“How could I be cross with my clever girl?” he said. “It scares me even to think about what I’d be doing and how I’d be living now if chance hadn’t brought us together at that birthday party at the Kotelkovs.”

On the evening of April 29, Vera Ignatyevna was brought back home in a Ford. As she went up the stairs, pink with pleasure, she said to the little girl who had come with her, “What a treat to go for a ride in a car. I could have carried on riding around for the rest of my life!”

It was the second time Vera Ignatyevna had been in a car. Two years before, when her mother-in-law had come to visit, they had taken a taxi from the station. True, that first ride had not been all it might have been—the driver had never stopped cursing, saying his tires would probably collapse and that, with such a mountain of luggage, they should have taken a three-ton truck.

Vera Ignatyevna and her little guest had barely entered the room when the doorbell rang.

“Ah, it must be Uncle Lyova,” said Vera Ignatyevna. She took the little girl by the hand and led her toward the door.

“Let me introduce you,” she said. “This is Ksenya Mayorova, and this is comrade Orlov, Uncle Lyova, my husband.”

“Greetings, my child!” said Orlov, and patted the little girl on the head.

He felt disappointed. He had imagined the little girl would be tiny and pretty, with sad eyes like the eyes of a grown-up woman. Ksenya Mayorova, however, was plain and stocky, with fat red cheeks, lips that stuck out a little, and eyes that were gray and narrow.

“We came by car,” she boasted in a deep voice.

While Vera Ignatyevna was preparing supper, Ksenya wandered about the room examining everything.

“Auntie, have you got a radio?” she asked.

“No, darling. But come here—there’s something we have to do.”

Vera Ignatyevna took her into the bathroom. There they talked about the zoo and the planetarium.

During supper Ksenya looked at Lev Sergeyevich, laughed, and said pointedly, “Uncle didn’t wash his hands!”

She had a deep voice, but her laugh was thin and giggly.

Vera Ignatyevna asked Ksenya how much seven and eight came to, and what was the German word for a door. She asked her if she knew how to skate. They argued about what was the capital of Belgium; Vera Ignatyevna thought it was Antwerp. “No, it’s Geneva,” Ksenya insisted, pouting and stubbornly shaking her head.

Lev Sergeyevich took his wife aside and whispered, “Put her to bed. Then I’ll sit with her and tell her a story—she doesn’t feel at home with us yet.”

“Why don’t you go out into the corridor and have a smoke?” answered his wife. “In the meantime we can air the room.”

Lev Sergeyevich walked up and down the corridor and struggled to recall a fairy tale. Little Red Riding Hood? No, she probably knew it already. Maybe he should just tell her about the quiet little town of Kasimov, about the forests there, about going for walks on the bank of the Oka—about his grandmother, about his brother, about his sisters?

When his wife called him back, Ksenya was already in bed. Lev Sergeyevich sat down beside her and patted her on the head.

“Well,” he asked, “how do you like it here?”

Ksenya yawned convulsively and rubbed her eyes with one fist.

“It’s all right,” she said. “But it must be very hard for you without a radio.”

Lev Sergeyevich began recounting stories from his childhood. Ksenya yawned three times in quick succession and said, “You shouldn’t sit on someone’s bed if you’re wearing clothes. Microbes can crawl off you.”

Her eyes closed. Half asleep, she began mumbling incoherently, telling some crazy story.

“Yes,” she whined. “They didn’t let me go on the excursion. Lidka saw when we were still in the garden...Why didn’t she say anything...?And I carried it twice in my pocket...I’ve been pricked all over...but it wasn’t me who told them about the glass, she’s a sneak...”

She fell asleep. Lev Sergeyevich and his wife went on looking at her face in silence. She was sleeping very quietly, her lips sticking out more than ever, her reddish pigtails moving very slightly against the pillow.

Where was she from? The Ukraine, the north Caucasus, the Volga? Who had her father been? Perhaps he had died doing some glorious work in a mine or in the smoke of some huge furnace? Perhaps he had drowned while floating timber down a river? Who had he been? A mechanic? A porter? A housepainter? A shopkeeper? There was something magnificent and touching about this peacefully sleeping little girl.

In the morning Vera Ignatyevna went off to do some shopping. She needed to stock up for the three days of the holiday. She also wanted to go to the
Mostorg Department Store and buy some silk for a summer dress. Lev Sergeyevich and Ksenya stayed behind.

“Listen,
mein liebes Kind
,” he said. “We’re not going out anywhere today, we’re going to stay at home.”

He sat Ksenya down on his knee, put an arm around her shoulder, and began telling her stories.

“Sit still now, be a good girl,” he would say every time she tried to get down. In the end Ksenya sat still, snuffling occasionally as she watched this talking uncle.

By the time Vera Ignatyevna got back, it was already four o’clock. There had been a lot of people in the shops.

“Why are you looking so sulky, Ksenya?” she asked in a startled voice.

“Why shouldn’t I look sulky?” Ksenya answered. “Maybe I’m hungry.”

Vera Ignatyevna hurried into the kitchen to prepare supper; Lev Sergeyevich carried on entertaining their little guest.

After supper, Ksenya asked for a pencil and some paper, so she could write a letter. “But I don’t need a stamp,” she added. “I’ll give it to Lidka myself.”

While Ksenya was writing, Vera Ignatyevna suggested to her husband that they all go out to the cinema, but Lev Sergeyevich did not like this idea. “What on earth are you thinking of, Vera? The crowds tonight will be terrible. In the first place we won’t be able to get tickets. In the second place, it’s the kind of evening one wants to spend at home.”

“It’s our good fortune to spend all our evenings at home,” retorted Vera Ignatyevna.

“Please don’t start an argument,” snapped Lev Sergeyevich.

“The girl’s bored. She’s used to being with other people all the time. She’s used to being with her friends.”

“Oh, Vera, Vera,” he replied.

Later in the evening they all had tea with cornel jam, and they ate a cake and some pastries. Ksenya enjoyed the cake very much indeed; Vera Ignatyevna felt worried, put her hand on the little girl’s tummy, and shook her head. Soon afterward the girl’s tummy did indeed start to ache. She turned very sullen and stood for a long time by the window, pressing her nose to the cold glass. When the glass became warm, she moved along a little and began to warm another patch of glass with her nose.

Lev Sergeyevich went up to her and asked, “What are you thinking about?”

“Everything,” the girl answered crossly, and went back to squashing her nose into the glass.

In the orphanage they were probably about to have supper. There hadn’t been time for her to receive her present, and she was sure to be left something boring, like a book about animals. She already had one of those. Still, she’d be able to do a swap. This Auntie Vera was really nice. A pity she wasn’t one of the staff. The girls who’d stayed behind in the orphanage were going to spend all day riding about in a truck. As for herself, she was going to become a pilot and drop a gas bomb on this strange Uncle Lyova...There were some quite big girls out in the yard...they were probably from group seven.

She dozed off on her feet and banged her forehead against the glass.

“Go to bed, Ksenka!” said Vera Ignatyevna.

“I butted the glass just like a ram,” said Ksenya.

Lev Sergeyevich woke up in the night. He put out a hand to touch his wife’s shoulder, but she wasn’t there.

“What’s up? Where’s my darling Verochka?” he thought in alarm.

He could hear a quiet voice coming from the sofa, and sobs.

“Calm down now, you silly thing,” Vera Ignatyevna was saying. “How can I take you back at night? There aren’t any trams, and we’d have to walk all the way across Moscow.”

“I kno-o-o-w,” answered a deep voice, in between sobs. “But he’s so very dismable.”

“Never mind, never mind. He’s kind, he’s good. You can see
I’m
not crying!”

Lev Sergeyevich covered his head with the blanket, so as not to hear any more. Pretending he was asleep, he began quietly snoring.