Captain of the Steppe

by Oleg Pavlov

  When the sunny days and summer blooms came to an end, the rains gave the earth no respite. It became charred and heavy, like a fire that has been quenched. The birds feared to fly in such weather, and roamed across the damp earth with bowed heads. In between the downpours, they flew off to warmer climes, flapping their damp wings heavily, as if they were cast-iron.

  Worry oppressed Khabarov, too. When the sun blazed, he was happy, thinking that the potatoes were absorbing its warmth. And when the rains poured, he was happy, thinking that the potatoes were drinking their fill. However, the captain did not know when to dig up the potatoes, as if this had to happen on a single day, like death or birth.

  In the company office, the electric light shone feebly; they were definitely cutting down the supply. Mice roamed the floor heedless of Khabarov, although they were squeaking about something in very fearful, complaining tones. The captain had never believed in God, but he suddenly got down on his knees in the middle of the office. He called out to him loudly. And he did not pray, mind, he did not bow down, never having known how to; rather he held himself upright, like an honest soldier on parade. To begin with, he reported that throughout this great country there was nothing but rotten potatoes. And after he had fallen silent and brought his breathing under control, he asked, ‘If You actually exist, then help my company, if possible, to gather plenty of potatoes. For this, I will start to believe in You, and I will pay with my life, if that is required.’

  Maybe it was the mice scratching and rustling, but it seemed to the captain that a whisper, ever so quiet, ran through the office, so that even his breath caught at the unexpected compassion. Khabarov felt deeply sorry for himself in the holy silence that suddenly surrounded him. He did not hear anything more, as though he had gone deaf. But when he noticed the first rays of dawn glimmering in the window, he marched into the barracks to rouse the soldiers.

  He awoke them one by one, persuading each to get up: ‘Get up, son, help me this one last time, you see I haven’t got anyone else.’ The servicemen forced themselves out of their bunks.

  When they got to the field, the company waited for the fog to clear. In silent torment, the captain looked over the potato patches and the equally earthy, sullen faces of the soldiers. ‘Right, well, put your backs into it … ’ He waved his hand, sending them off through the pre-dawn silence along the dimly lit edges of the field.

  The spades’ sudden incursion stirred the motionless breast of the earth. A metallic grinding and ringing clove through the chilly silence, which shattered under their weight, sending a wave of pitiful cold into the men’s hearts. You had only to turn over the patches for potatoes to pour out. The soldiers did not have hands enough to gather and stuff them into sacks. Flushed by such a victory, the captain wandered off to one side, away from everyone. Soldiers were already dragging sacks of potatoes back to the barracks, as though they were fallen comrades.

  Then they washed their blackened hands in silence, apart from the sound of running water. They cast off their overalls, sticky with mud, and everyone was issued with clean underwear. Barefoot, in just their vests and pants, they sat at the trestle tables like dummies, no longer feeling either hungry or cold. Orders came to fry the potatoes, which still smelt of soil, and also, due to a lack of frying pans, to boil them in cauldrons and dress them with melted fat. Later, when it was already getting on for night-time, the dinner was served. The potatoes, still steaming, were devoured by buzzing mouths.

  To set the seal on the day, the captain was supposed to ring the regiment and give his usual short report. The report was received by the officers on duty at the regiment, who rarely passed on anything in return themselves, unless they were known to Khabarov. The communication link went something like this: first, you ring the regiment and request a conversation; only then do they provide one, as they see fit.

  The telephone was black and heavy, the receiver flattened by two weighty fists; it had a strict, official air. Peregud, whose drinking had made him a superstitious man, seriously believed that this telephone was used to eavesdrop on all the conversations that took place in the office, and for this reason he hardly ever swore there. Captain Khabarov himself sometimes felt tormented when he caught sight of the phone, although the apparatus looked lifeless.

  The time for this mandatory call had long since passed. It was surprising to think that someone at the regiment might have given Karabas its liberty. Mind you, Khabarov would have liked to conceal everything. The potatoes had been grown from the regimental supplies and so still needed to be accounted for; they were property of the state. It had been easy to hide them in the ground, but now it did not seem right. He had become hopelessly confused, to the point of exhaustion. And then the telephone suddenly began to rumble in the office, blowing out sonorous bubbles.

  The ringing did not abate, but bubbled on, giving the captain such bad shakes that he was almost fizzing. No longer able to endure this torture, he tore the receiver from the hook and heard the old-woman’s babble of the switchboard operator: ‘Calling the Sixth, calling the Sixth, come in, comrade Khabarov! … Khabarov? Wait, I’m connecting you, there’s someone to speak to you.’

  Something crackled and strange voices burst in, but soon a deep, powerful silence flowed along the line. Immobile, bewildered, the captain waited a good half-hour. At one point he tried to blow down the receiver that had apparently gone dead, and knocked it, to check whether it had indeed broken, but he was pulled up by a distant voice. ‘Stop blowing, comrade Khabarov. Have you not realised who you’re about to speak to? You can wait!’ Matters had taken a strange, not to say mysterious, turn. The captain suddenly realised that actually he did not understand anything. Something had occurred, the likes of which had never happened before. Then he was told from afar, ‘He’s still busy. Keep waiting.’

  The captain was overcome by chills, as though he had been stripped naked and presented for someone’s close inspection. And then the silence was broken: he was shaken by a voice that was more than powerful. ‘Khabarov?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Captain Khabarov.’

  ‘I already know you’re a captain. So, what? Are you still asleep?’

  ‘No, sir! I am on duty!’

  ‘You see? He’s on duty! So what’s all this business with the potatoes you’ve got going on there? Bloody hell!’

  In a daze, the captain blurted out: ‘Permission to report, sir! The potatoes! They are all in one piece, so they are!’

  ‘Ach, in one piece, eh? But how come they’re there at all, with no orders? What are you up to? Who do you think you are, the regimental commander?’

  ‘Yes, sir … No, sir … I was too scared to report it … Permission to report, sir … ’ spewed out Khabarov. The voice cut in, loftily: ‘You’re lying. I know your brother – if he’s not a thief, he’s an idiot. Whose potatoes are they now? Eh? How many are there now? What were you thinking? Answer me!’

  ‘To feed the men.’

  ‘You what? How can that be?’

  ‘The soldiers are living on just grains. We get supplied rotten food. You can’t buy anything for money, you see, the army stores don’t make it out this far! It’s like we’re not alive out here, or something!’ erupted Khabarov.

  ‘And did you report this to the regimental commander?’

  ‘No, sir!’

  ‘So that’s how it is! Utter chaos, and they put up with it, they don’t say a word. Is that really a regiment? It’s a pile of shit! Well, I don’t know. They’re dying of hunger, how can it have come to this? It’s all clear to me now. Well done, captain. Potatoes, were you saying? Well, then, it’s in the nick of time. I’ll support you in this.’

  ‘Yes, sir! We should set up a smallholding! There’s plenty of land, here. It could help us out, and other people, too. We could have everything we need right here: meat and veg, too.’

  ‘How do you mean? So that you’d feed yourselves?’ The voice thawed with understanding. ‘That’s the right solution. That’s right, so long as
, you understand, you put everything in their mouths! I support this, yes … There’s plenty of land, here, you’re thinking along the right lines, with that. It’s everywhere around us, that’s right, the land is. You see? You’ve put some thought into this! Well done!’

  ‘Someone needs to give me the orders, though!’ Khabarov dared to slip a word in. ‘The orders! It’s just that I’m due to retire, I’m worried I might not have time … ’

  The voice was outraged. ‘What now? Let a fellow like you go? I won’t allow it! Like it or not, you’ll be serving ’til your dying day. You’ll get your orders! I’ve found out all there is to know about you. Just wait. I’ll turn this regiment over from top to bottom, I’ll have them run off their feet! The dirty, filthy, you know, pieces of shit!’ The receiver buzzed, and then that powerful silence flowed out once again.

  The switchboard operator’s babble cut in, bringing the captain back down to earth. ‘Come in the Sixth. There will be no further communication, I am disconnecting you.’

  Khabarov held the receiver in his hands for a long time before he replaced it. He had not even noticed that scared faces were being thrust into the office, that the door had long since stood wide open and the soldiers had gathered on the threshold as though on parade, and were eavesdropping and peeking in at what was happening. ‘So who were you talking to?’ He turned around quietly, surprised to see them, and the words came from him of their own accord: ‘To a general … ’ It seemed to surprise the captain that they believed him without a sound. Actually, he’d meant to say, ‘Probably to a general … ’ But now he himself believed that he had been talking to a general. Who else could it have been? The soldiers went quiet; their envious glances scorched him.

  ‘Well, my lads, now you’ll get enough to eat. We’ll be feeding us, ourselves. We’ll have everything we need to live on. Everything!’ said the captain, joyfully. ‘All I’ve got to do now is wait for the orders … Wait, just wait, now.’

  However, no one cheered up. The soldiers began to disperse quietly. Meanwhile, the captain spent the rest of the night babysitting the potatoes. They were piling the sacks into a clapboard shack where they housed the dogs over winter. All the written-off equipment – broken pails or worn-through boots – was dumped in this shack, where it grew into great clumps. The shack had an electric lightbulb and a strong padlock, which between them were worth more than all the rubbish stored within.

  The captain stumbled and bashed his head, regretting the absence of a decent store for his potatoes. It made him angry, he vowed to ring and report it … The soldiers were shifting the potatoes in. The captain dragged the sacks around, so that they formed an ordered rank, even putting right the ones that were already in place, as if he was scared to be found with nothing to do. Then, when he was left by himself in the little shack, he poured a few sacks’ worth into a pile and began to sort the potatoes into large and small: he left the smaller ones for food, but he put the very heaviest and healthiest-looking tubers to one side, already dreaming about growing more like these.

  Forcing himself to sort through the potatoes diligently, Khabarov soon became worn out. They were falling from his hands and his failing eyesight could scarcely tell big from small as he slipped into a doze. When he finally sank into his bunk, his body, like that of a stranger, fell straight asleep. But his head was already anxiously contemplating the company farm.

  3

  Comrade Skripitsyn

  One boring morning, dull as the reflection in a puddle of rainwater, a regimental lorry scraped along the full length of the clumsy gate and wobbled its way into the barrack square, where it stood snarling or belching, one of the two. Its canvas belly was empty, but it had grown heavy from being jolted across the trackless steppe. In the square, dragging on a soggy cigarette, was a sentry: a young Tatar boy with a drooping lip to which the cigarette had stuck, wreathing his unwashed face with white smoke. He half-rose, squinting at the lorry while dragging harder on his expiring dog-end. In just his underwear, wearing his boots without socks, the Tatar boy tried to give the vehicle standing by the gatehouse a cunning once-over. This arrival had been accompanied by a most unusual hush. The guard dogs had stayed quiet, although usually brutish howls erupted from Karabas as soon as they caught a whiff of strangers. And so the Tatar boy looked on as if it were merely smoke, which was the only reason he didn’t get scared when out of the smoke – that is, out of the truck – some people emerged.

  The first he made out to be a real fine specimen, one of those healthy and strong Russian soldiers who serve the officer class separately. The one who emerged after this paragon, however, was not an officer at all, but a specialist warrant officer in swamp-green epaulettes. His greatcoat did not improve this person’s appearance; in fact it laid bare all his awkwardness; it hung from his rounded shoulders and, where it should have concealed his rear end, his backside drew the material taut and, incredibly, like a mountain, thrust itself out. Meanwhile, his chest and paunch wobbled. The man himself was at best average in height, so the hems of his greatcoat almost swept the floor.

  ‘Where has everyone gone?’ shrieked the warrant officer, alarmed.

  ‘They’re asleep,’ said the Tatar lad, rubbing his hands in the chilly wind.

  ‘What about your captain? Where’s Khabarov?’

  ‘He’s asleep. Everyone’s asleep.’

  ‘Here, you. You … why aren’t you saluting a senior rank?’

  ‘No one salutes here, that’s the sort of people we’ve got.’

  ‘What sort of nonsense is this?’ the warrant officer grumbled. ‘Just where did that old blockhead ring?’ He looked at the Tatar boy with both curiosity and disgust, as he might look at a louse he’d caught. The new arrival was tired, and his weak, constricted voice almost made him seem kind, even if he was looking both round about and directly at the Tatar lad with no warmth whatsoever. It was clear he’d spent more than just the one day travelling: the grey cloth of his greatcoat was covered in dust from the road. He couldn’t stand still, so set off walking about the empty, slushy square. The young Tatar latched on to him, splashing after him through the mud. ‘Who are you, anyway, what have you come to us for? Have you been posted here?’ The warrant officer did not respond to these questions, as though he hadn’t even heard them. Instead, he sought some answers of his own. ‘So, just what’s really going on here?’

  ‘I don’t know, truth be told,’ said the Tatar lad, in surprise. ‘We haven’t got anything here.’

  ‘But why is everyone asleep?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t give a toss about ’em. I like being on my own.’

  ‘Are there any other officers in the company, aside from Khabarov?’

  ‘I don’t know who there is or who there isn’t. There was Velichko, the deputy political officer, but he’s gone, banged up in the zone. There’s Peregud, but he’ll be sleeping off the booze. I don’t know where. Maybe he’s around, maybe not. And Khabarov’s asleep, so they won’t wake him. Here, listen to this! Yesterday, a general rang him. They reckon that Khabarov will go away soon, the general will take him. So, what about you, then? Are you our new commander?’ The warrant officer kept quiet, and the Tatar boy took umbrage, deciding that they didn’t believe him. ‘He did! Everyone heard it. Cross my heart. The general himself rang!’

  By now, as he looked around the deserted yard, the warrant officer was sure that he hadn’t been expected and no one had made ready to meet him. Increasingly irritated, he tore into the bright specimen still waiting idly by the truck. ‘Sanka, quit standing there like an idiot!’ This Sanka stepped smartly across, and stretched, scaring the Tatar off. The warrant officer did not lift his eyes from the ground and the lanky soldier waited obediently. ‘You know what, Kolodin? I’m going to take a walk around. You keep your eyes on that shack there, don’t let anyone near it. That’s material evidence. And get the company up on their feet before I get back. Parade them in the square, and let them wait.’

  The soldier sai
d nothing in reply, because, most likely, he had been taught to carry out every order in silence as soon as his boss gave the word. The warrant officer walked around the clapboard shack that had caught his eye, and then around the barracks, too; he moved sluggishly, and looked into every window. When he had disappeared behind a distant corner, Kolodin turned towards the Tatar lad, but the boy let fly insolently at the newcomer: ‘What you looking at, anyway? Give me a smoke!’ Kolodin flourished his fist and punched him, and when the Tatar boy fell down, clapping his hands over his busted mouth, said to him indifferently, ‘Get up … Who’s the company sentry? You heard, the order was to rouse them.’ But the Tatar lad just rolled around in the doorway, moaning. ‘Bastard! What did you do that for? You’ve knocked a tooth out. Ow!’ Kolodin grabbed him and gave him a good shake. ‘I said, who’s on sentry?’ In his anger he raised his hands again and the Tatar started snivelling even more wretchedly, his startled, scared eyes open wide to the bad weather. ‘Go wash your ugly mug. And go wake up your “sort of people”. You heard what was said. Tell them to go line up in the square.’

  A short while later, the anxious soldiers were crowded in the square under Kolodin’s watchful eye, while the Tatar, now washed and with all his buttons done up, sat nearby, at the entrance, inspiring envy as well as blind fury among the company. He was regally smoking a cigarette given to him by Kolodin, and between drags he would spit, trying to hit his fellow soldiers.

  The soldiers dodged in silence, and only the very bravest showered obscenities upon him from afar. The company had tended to shun the Tatar, being somewhat afraid of the stupid stunts he used to pull, and now he had properly scared them all, waking the barracks up with bloodcurdling howls and proffering his knocked-out tooth for each of them to touch. ‘There’s some power for you! No one ever knocked me tooth out before, but he did.’ The Tatar lad was still boasting now, and asking Kolodin for smokes: one cigarette after another. But once he’d got them, he jealously drove off anyone else who tried to join in getting a bit of baccy off the lad who’d just arrived. The Tatar puffed himself up and hissed: ‘These freebies – he knocked me tooth out, what did he do for you?’