The White Guard (25 page)

   was at once obvious from his expression that he liked it very much at the Turbins' and did not want to go away.

   'It's all arranged', replied Elena and nodded graciously. 'We have agreed. Stay here and make yourself as comfortable as you can. But you can see what a misfortune . . .'

   Lariosik looked more upset than ever. His eyes became clouded with tears.

   'Elena Vasilievna!' he said with emotion, 'I'll do everything I can to help. I can go without sleep for three or four days on end if necessary.'

   'Thank you.'

   'And now,' Lariosik said to Nikolka, 'could you please lend me a pair of scissors?'

   Nikolka, so amazed and fascinated that he was still as dishevelled as when he had woken up, ran out and came back with the scissors. Lariosik started to unbutton his tunic, then blinked and said to Nikolka:

   'Excuse me, I think I'd better go into your room for a minute, if you don't mind . . .'

   In Nikolka's room Lariosik took off his tunic, revealing an extremely dirty shirt. Then armed with the scissors he ripped open the glossy black lining of the tunic and pulled out of it a thick greenish-yellow wad of money. This he bore solemnly into the dining-room and laid on the table in front of Elena, saying:

   'There, Elena Vasilievna, allow me to present you with the money for my keep.'

   'But why are you in such a hurry?' Elena asked, blushing. 'You could have paid later . . .'

   Lariosik protested hotly:

   'No, no, Elena Vasilievna, please take it now. At difficult times like this money is always extremely necessary, I understand that very well!' He unwrapped the package, from which a woman's picture fell out as he did so. Lariosik swiftly picked it up and with a sigh thrust it into his pocket. 'In any case it will be safer with you. What do I want it for? I shall only need to buy a few cigarettes and some canary seed for the bird . . .'

   For a moment Elena forgot about Alexei's wound and she was so favourably impressed by Lariosik's sensible and timely action that a gleam of cheerfulness came into her eyes.

   'Maybe he's not such a booby as I thought he was at first', she thought. 'He's polite and conscientious, even if he is a bit eccentric. It's an awful shame about the dinner service, though.'

   'What a type', thought Nikolka. Lariosik's miraculous appearance had driven the gloomy thoughts from his mind.

   'There's eight thousand roubles here', said Lariosik, pushing the packet across the table, which from the color of the money looked like scrambled eggs with chopped chives. 'If there's not enough we'll count it again and I'll write home for some more.'

   'No, no, that doesn't matter, later will do', replied Elena. 'I'm going to tell Anyuta right away to heat the water so you can have a bath. But tell me - how did you come here? I don't understand how you managed to get through.' Elena began to roll the money into a bundle and stuff it into the huge pocket of her dressing-gown.

   Lariosik's eyes filled with horror at the memory.

   'It was a nightmare!' he exclaimed, clasping his hands like a Catholic at prayer. 'It took me nine days . . . no, sorry, was it ten? Just a moment. . . Sunday, yes, Monday . . . No, it took me eleven days travelling here from Zhitomir!'

   'Eleven days!' cried Nikolka. 'You see?' he said reproachfully, for some reason, to Elena.

   'Yes, eleven days. When I left the train belonged to the Hetman's government, but on the way it was taken over by Petlyura's men. One day we stopped at a station - what's it called now? Oh dear, I've forgotten . . . anyway, it doesn't matter . . . and there if you please, they wanted to shoot me. These troops of Petlyura's appeared, wearing pigtails . . .'

   'Blue ones?' Nikolka asked with curiosity.

   'No, red . . . yes, red ones . . . and they shouted: "Get out! We're going to shoot you on the spot!" They had decided I was an officer, hiding in a hospital train. And the only reason I had been able to get on that train was because Mama knew Doctor Kuritsky.'

   'Kuritsky?' Nikolka exclaimed meaningfully. 'I see . . . our Ukrainian nationalist friend. We know him.'

   'Yes, that's him ... it was he who brought the train to us at Zhitomir . . . God! I started to pray, believe me. I thought this was the end. And d'you know what? The bird saved me. I wasn't an officer, I said, I was an ornithologist, and I showed him the bird. I'm a bird-breeder, I said . . . Well, one of them punched me on the back of the neck and said "All right, bird-man, you can go to hell for all I care!" The insolence! As a gentleman I ought to have killed him, but I could hardly . . . you understand . . .'

   'Elena', came a weak voice from Alexei's bedroom. Elena swung round and ran out without waiting to hear the rest of the story.

   
#

   On December 15th, according to the calendar, the sun sets at half past three in the afternoon, so by three o'clock twilight began to settle on the apartment. But at that hour the hands on Elena's face were showing the most depressed and hopeless time on the human clock-face - half past five. The hands of the clock were formed by two sad folds at the corners of her mouth which were drawn down towards her chin, whilst in her eyes, depression and resolution had begun their struggle against disaster.

   Nikolka's face showed a jagged, wavering twenty to one, because Nikolka's head was full of chaos and confusion evoked by the significant enigmatic words: Malo-Provalnaya . . .', words spoken by the dying man in the fighting at the crossroads yesterday, words which somehow had to be deciphered no later than the next few days. The chaos and difficulties had also been evoked by the puzzling and interesting figure of Lariosik falling from the sky into the Turbins' life and by the fact that a monstrous, grand event had befallen them: Petlyura had captured the city. Petlyura, of all people - and the City, of all places. And what would happen in it now was incomprehensible and inconceivable even to the most intelligent of human minds. One thing was quite clear - yesterday saw the most appalling catastrophe: all our forces were thoroughly beaten, caught with their pants down. Their blood shrieks to

   heaven - that is one thing. Those criminals, the generals, and the swine at headquarters deserve to be killed - that is another. But as well as sickening horror, a burning interest grew in Nikolka's mind - what, after all, is going to happen? How are seven hundred thousand people going to live in a City in the power of an enigmatic personality with such a terrible, ugly name - Petlyura? Who is he? Why is he here? Hell, though, all that takes second place for the moment in comparison with the most important thing, Alexei's bloody wound . . . horrible, horrible business. Nothing is known for sure of course, but in all probability Myshlaevsky and Karas can be counted as dead too.

   On the slippery, greasy kitchen table Nikolka was crushing ice with a broad-bladed hatchet. The lumps of ice either split with a crunch or slithered out from under the hatchet and jumped all over the kitchen, whilst Nikolka's fingers grew numb. Nearby was an ice-bag with a silvery cap.

   'Malo . . . Provalnaya . . .' Nikolka mouthed silently, and across his mind's eye passed the images of Nai-Turs, of the red-haired janitor, and of Myshlaevsky. And just as the image of Myshlaevsky, in his slashed greatcoat, had entered Nikolka's thoughts, the clock on the face of Anyuta, busy at the stove with her sad, confused dreams, pointed ever more clearly to twenty to five - the hour of sorrow and depression. Were his different-colored eyes still alive and safe? Would she hear his broad stride again, the clinking sound of his spurs?

   'Bring the ice', said Elena, opening the door into the kitchen.

   'Right away', said Nikolka hurriedly, screwing up the cap, and running out.

   'Anyuta, my dear', said Elena. 'Make sure you don't say a word to anyone about Alexei Vasilievich being wounded. If they find out, God forbid, that he was fighting against them, there'll be trouble.'

   'I understand, Elena Vasilievna. Of course I won't tell anyone!' Anyuta looked at Elena with wide, anxious eyes. 'Mother of God, the things that are happening in town. I was walking down the street today and there were two dead men without boots . . . and

   blood, blood everywhere! People were standing around and looking . . . Someone said the two dead men were officers. They were just lying there, no hats on their heads or anything ... I felt my legs go all weak and I just ran away, nearly dropped my basket . . .'

   Anyuta hunched her shoulders as though from cold as she remembered something else, and immediately a frying-pan slid sideways out of her hands on to the floor . . .

   'Quiet, please, for God's sake', said Elena, wringing her hands.

   At three o'clock that afternoon the hands on Lariosik's face were pointing to the zenith of strength and high spirits - twelve o'clock. Both hands overlapped at noon, sticking together and pointing upwards like two sharp sword-blades. This had come about because after the catastrophe which had shattered Lariosik's tender soul in Zhitomir, after his terrible eleven-day journey in a hospital train and after so many violent sensations, Lariosik liked it very much indeed at the Turbins'. He could not yet have told them why he liked it, because he had not so far properly explained it to himself.

   The beautiful Elena seemed a person deserving of unusual respect and attention. And he liked Nikolka very much too. As a way of showing this, Lariosik chose the moment when Nikolka had stopped dashing in and out of Alexei's room, and began to help him set up the folding steel bed in the library.

   'You have the sort of frank expression which makes people trust you', Lariosik said politely and stared so hard at that frank expression that he did not notice that he had caused the complicated, creaking bed to snap shut and crush Nikolka's arm between the two halves of the frame. The pain was so violent that Nikolka gave a yell which, although muffled, was so powerful that it brought Elena rushing into the room. Although Nikolka exerted all his strength to stop himself from howling, great tears burst spontaneously from his eyes. Elena and Lariosik both gripped the patent folding bed and tugged long and hard at it from opposite sides until they released Nikolka's wrist, which had turned blue.

   Lariosik almost burst into tears himself when the crushed arm came out limp and mottled.

   'Oh my God!' he said, his already miserable face grimacing even harder, 'What's the matter with me? Everything I touch goes wrong! Does it hurt terribly? Please forgive me, for God's sake . . .'

   Without a word Nikolka rushed into the kitchen, where at his instructions Anyuta ran a stream of cold water from the tap over his wrist.

   By the time the diabolical patent bed had been prised apart and straightened out and it was clear that Nikolka had suffered no great damage to his arm, Lariosik was once more overcome by a delightful sense of quiet joy at being surrounded by so many books. Besides his passion and love for birds, he also had a passion for books. Here, on open shelves that lined the room from floor to ceiling, was a treasure-house. In green and red gold-tooled bindings, in yellow dust-covers and black slip-cases, books stared out at Lariosik from all four walls. The bed had been long made up; beside it was a chair with a towel draped over its back, whilst on the seat, among the usual male accessories - soap-dish, cigarettes, matches and watch - there was propped up a mysterious photograph of a woman. All the while Lariosik stayed in the library, voyaging around the book-lined walls, squatting down on his haunches by the bottom rows, staring greedily at the bindings, undecided as to which to take out first,
The Pickwick Papers
or the bound volumes of the
Russian Herald
for 1871. The clock-hands on his face pointed to twelve o'clock.

   But as twilight approached the mood in the Turbins' apartment grew sadder and sadder, and as a result the clock did not strike twelve, the hands stood still and silent, like a glittering sword wrapped in a flag of mourning that stood at half-mast.

   The cause of the air of mourning, the cause of the discord on the clock-faces of all the people in the dusty, slightly old-fashioned comfort of the Turbins' apartment was a thin column of mercury. At three o'clock in Alexei's bedroom it showed 39.6° Centigrade. Turning pale, Elena was just about to shake it but Alexei turned his head, looked up at her and said weakly but insistently: 'Show

   it to me.' Silently and reluctantly Elena showed him the thermometer. Alexei looked at it and sighed deeply.

   By five o'clock he was lying with a cold gray bag on his head, little lumps of ice melting and floating in the bag. His face had turned pink, his eyes glittered and looked very handsome.

   'Thirty-nine point six . . . good . . .' he said, occasionally licking his dry, cracked lips. 'Ye-es . . . May be all right . . . Though I won't be able to practice . . . for a long time. If only I don't lose my arm . . . without an arm I'm useless . . .'

   'Please don't talk, Alyosha', begged Elena, straightening the blanket around his shoulders . . . Alexei was silent, closing his eyes. From his wound in his left armpit, a dry prickly heat spread out over his whole body. Occasionally he filled his chest with a deep breath, which gave his head a misty feeling, but his legs were turning unpleasantly cold. Towards evening, when the lamps were lit everywhere and the other three - Elena, Nikolka and Lariosik -slowly ate their supper in silence and anxiety, the column of mercury, expanding and bursting magically out of its silver globule crawled up to the 40.2 mark. Then Alexei's alarm and depression began to melt away and dissipate. The depression, which had come to him like a gray lump that spread itself over the blanket, was now transformed into yellow strands which trailed out like seaweed in water. He forgot about his practice, forgot his anxiety about the future because everything was smothered by those yellow strands. The tearing pain in the left side of his chest grew numb and still. Fever gave way to cold. Now and again the burning flame in his chest was turned into an ice-cold knife twisting somewhere within his lung. When this happened, Alexei shook his head, threw off the ice-bag and crawled deeper under the blankets. The pain in his wound altered from a dull ache to a spasm of such intensity that the wounded man began involuntarily to complain, in a weak, dry voice. When the knife went away and was replaced by the flame, the fever flooded back again through his body and through the whole of the little cavity under the bedclothes and the patient asked for a drink. The faces of Nikolka, then of Elena and then of Lariosik appeared through the mist, bent