Four Soldiers

by Hubert Mingarelli

  But as nothing came, I sat up and looked at Pavel. I thought that would help me remember. I stared at him, but still nothing came. So I thought that perhaps we simply hadn’t gone out last night.

  Yes, that was it. It was coming back to me now. He’d touched my arm in the middle of the night, and, just as I’d started getting up so I could go outside with him, he’d tugged on my shoulder to tell me that he’d prefer to stay where we were. I lay back down in bed and I must have fallen asleep again very quickly because I don’t remember anything else.

  At that moment Pavel asked where the Evdokim kid had gone. We looked around. Then Kyabine called out to him in his booming voice. He appeared almost instantly from behind the grass in the field and came over to sit with us on the bank. He still had a bit of that panic-stricken, despairing look he’d had when Pavel had yelled at him about the horse, and about all the dead horses. He’d unbuttoned his jacket and pulled his sailor’s shirt out of his trousers.

  ‘Listen,’ said Pavel, not looking at the kid but lying motionless and staring at the surface of the water, ‘if there’s one thing you ought to write, it’s that we’re all sad because we have to leave and we won’t be able to come back here.’

  The kid opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ Pavel asked him. The kid nodded and Pavel went on: ‘Yeah, say that we’re all sad because we had some good moments here, some really great moments, and we know that we won’t have any more, and where we’re going there won’t be any good moments, because all that is behind us now. You understand? That’s what you should write.’

  Then he turned to the kid and smiled at him kindly, and in a tight voice he said: ‘Yeah, we’d like you to write that.’

  Then he fell silent. He looked back at the pond and slowly took his cigarette case out of his pocket. But he didn’t open it, he kept it in his hand.

  The kid didn’t look despairing any more. He stared at Pavel as if he was the brigade commander or even his own father, with an expression of gratitude in his eyes and at the corners of his lips, and it touched me to see that.

  Kyabine, Sifra and I said nothing.

  What was there to say, after all? Pavel had said it for us. What he’d said was exactly what we all wanted too. We wanted the kid to write about that, about the pond and all that, about all the good moments we’d had here.

  There was a long silence then because Pavel wasn’t talking any more, he was just lying there motionless with his cigarette case in his hand, and we weren’t talking either, so it was completely silent because this morning there wasn’t the faintest breath of wind.

  39

  BUT PAVEL TOLD the Evdokim kid to wait before he started, since he didn’t know all the things we’d done at the pond.

  We all looked at one another for a moment.

  Then we began. We told the kid the things he hadn’t seen – everything we’d done at the pond before Sergeant Ermakov brought him to us. We all spoke except for Sifra. He didn’t say anything but he looked happy when we mentioned him, especially when I said that it had been his brilliant idea to wash our blankets in the pond.

  The kid listened to what we said.

  He stared without blinking at whoever was speaking.

  At one point I felt sorry for him because we were speaking so fast, and sometimes Kyabine would start talking before Pavel or I had finished what we were saying.

  Suddenly we fell silent, because it was over.

  The kid took out his notebook and uncoiled the string that held the pencil to it.

  As he opened his notebook, he looked at all four of us, sitting in a row on the bank. I nodded to him to signal that it was time for him to get started. ‘And try not to forget anything,’ I added.

  He nodded at me to reassure me that he would.

  Pavel started tapping his cigarette case against his knee. Finally he opened it and gave one to each of us. Except to the Evdokim kid, who didn’t smoke, and who wasn’t paying any attention to us any more anyway because he’d started writing in his notebook. Occasionally he would look up at us briefly before returning to his task.

  40

  WE SMOKED IN silence. We didn’t move much and we were still quite pensive.

  We didn’t want to move much because the Evdokim kid was writing things that talked about us and our pond. It was really strange and I’m sure the others all felt the same.

  Kyabine would sometimes glance at the kid as if he were on the lookout for something. I’m sure that he was thinking about the fish he’d caught and cooked and eaten here, only yesterday, and that he was hoping the kid was going to write that in his notebook since he had witnessed it himself.

  He was right to hope for that. I agreed with him that it was one of the good moments we had spent here. The circle of stones that Kyabine had laid to cook the fish was still there, with the blackened flat stone balanced on top of the others. At last I said to the kid, in a low voice so I wouldn’t distract him too much: ‘Don’t forget to talk about Kyabine’s fish.’

  The kid looked up at me and I gestured at the circle of stones.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I won’t forget.’

  ‘Write about him cooking it and all that.’

  The kid nodded and went back to his notebook.

  Kyabine looked at me and smiled. And then after a while, speaking in a low voice like I had so as not to distract the kid, he called out: ‘Pavel!’

  ‘What, Kyabine?’

  Kyabine took a breath and whispered: ‘So we’re leaving tonight, Pavel, huh?’

  Of course he’d heard that we were leaving tonight when we were at the camp, and I’d said it to him again just afterwards. But he needed to hear it said another time by one of us. As though, coming from us, it suddenly wasn’t such bad news. Pavel understood this. In a considerate voice, he replied: ‘Yes, that’s right, we’re leaving tonight.’

  Kyabine stared straight ahead then. He thought for a moment. He picked up a stone from between his legs. He needed to hear us again. In a trembling voice he asked: ‘So we’re going to continue like we have been, right? We’re going to stick together?’

  Kyabine knew the answer to this question too. He knew we would continue as we had been. All the same, we signalled to him that obviously nothing would change for the four of us, what did he think, of course we would stick together. Then, in an anxious voice, he said: ‘But what if they mix up the companies one day? Pavel, you know they’re always doing that.’

  There was a silence.

  Frightened, Kyabine asked: ‘Eh? What would we do?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Kyabine,’ Pavel told him. ‘Even if they mix up the companies, we’ll always work things out.’

  Kyabine nodded again, and this time he smiled gratefully too. And so, wanting to reassure us in turn – or, actually, no, I think he just wanted to thank us for talking to him like that – but anyway, he said to us: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll always carry the tent.’

  Nobody wanted to make fun of him, to say things like ‘you’d better’ or that they had no intention of helping with that chore.

  After that, Kyabine took the stone that he was holding in his hand and threw it in the pond. The surface of the water rippled around the point of impact. A bit further away, a fish jumped out of the water. Kyabine picked up another stone, then he let it drop to the ground between his legs. We were all full of worries and fears, but that morning it was Kyabine – the huge, muscular Uzbeki – who was showing it most.

  ‘It’ll be all right, Kyabine,’ I told him.

  ‘You really think so?’ he asked.

  But it wasn’t me who answered him. Instead, for once, Sifra spoke without first being asked a question. He just wanted to say something. In his gentle, persuasive voice he told Kyabine: ‘Yes, it’s true, Kyabine. It’ll be all right, because we’ll always stick together.’

  It did us all good to hear Sifra say that, so gently. It was so unusual to hear any words at all come out of Sifra’s mouth that these
ones carried special weight. They seemed to bear the stamp of truth. As if the baby Jesus himself had said them. Kyabine appeared to relax.

  While this was going on, the Evdokim kid continued to set down in his notebook all those moments we had spent together at the pond, all those moments that were behind us now.

  While he was sitting across from us, thinking perhaps about how he was going to write about Kyabine and the fish, I had the strange sensation that if I just stretched out my arm I’d be able to touch the evening with the back of my hand, and that suddenly I’d hear the sound of us raising camp, the tread of our company marching down the road in a column. Walking through the night to who knew where.

  But thankfully tonight Kossarenko’s company was going to raise camp and set out before us. We were going to follow them at a distance and try to march at the same speed as them so we didn’t catch them up.

  I thought: Let our company march behind Kossarenko’s for as long as possible, sheltered by them, at least until tomorrow morning. And I hoped for Kossarenko’s men that there would be no moon tonight and that they would manage to march in complete silence.

  41

  I FELT THE sun on my back.

  I saw it reflected on the surface of the water.

  It was good that the water should be calm and the air still today.

  Something moved furtively in the grass behind us. Kyabine turned around to look. There was nothing there.

  Pavel was sitting next to me. He was breathing slowly. I saw his shoulders rise. He was staring intensely ahead of him.

  Then suddenly I started hoping that Kossarenko’s company would march before ours for all eternity and that they would eternally hear the first bullets whistle before we did, hear the terrible shells explode, and see before we did everything we feared, may God protect them and forgive me.

  42

  WHEN THE EVDOKIM kid closed his notebook, he looked satisfied. And because we hadn’t wanted to move while he was writing, because we’d just stayed where we were, sitting motionless in a row under the burning sun, we were beginning to feel hot in our coats.

  It wouldn’t have made much difference to the kid if we’d moved while he was writing. He didn’t need us any more, because he knew exactly what he had to say. But since he would sometimes glance up and observe us briefly, we had the impression that it might help him if we were always in sight, so we didn’t stir.

  We waited until he’d put his notebook away in his jacket pocket.

  Only then did we take off our coats.

  Pavel spread his out on the grass behind us. He walked over to the water and said: ‘Let’s stay here.’

  He turned around and looked at us. He calmly sized us up and said: ‘Let’s stay here, eh? What do you think?’

  I nodded. ‘Yeah, let’s stay. Ermakov can go fuck himself. There are plenty of other idiots to help him dismantle the company office.’

  Coldly smiling, Pavel added: ‘There are plenty of other poor idiots who can march tonight too. But not us. We’re going to stay here.’

  I quickly went over what he had just said. I heard it as clearly as an echo, and I said: ‘What do you mean, Pavel? Why are you talking about tonight?’

  He didn’t answer. The sun was in his eyes, so he pushed down the visor of his cap. It made a line of shadow over his eyes, though I could still see them sparkling from the darkness.

  Next to me, Kyabine had started to fidget when Pavel pushed down his visor. Pavel’s words were slowly starting to percolate in his head.

  Pavel addressed him: ‘We’re fine here, aren’t we, Kyabine?’

  Kyabine lowered his head, then looked up and answered in an anxious voice: ‘Yes, we’re fine.’

  Pavel spread out his arms and lifted his hands up to Kyabine, as if to point to both him and his answer. Then he turned back to the pond and lifted up the visor on his cap. Suddenly, his back to us, he said: ‘So why should we start marching again like dead men?’

  Kyabine, Sifra and I were all alone with that now. All three of us were helpless and anxious because we had understood what it was Pavel was suggesting. And now he had turned his back on us and seemed to want to stay silent.

  So in a weak voice I called out to him: ‘Pavel!’

  ‘What?’

  In a whisper I said: ‘What are you talking about, Pavel? Why wouldn’t we go back to camp tonight?’

  Instead of replying to me, Pavel – still with his back to us, facing the pond – said to Kyabine: ‘Hey, Kyabine, wouldn’t you like to catch some more fish?’

  Kyabine looked at Sifra and me in a panic. His idiot’s eyes blinked and rolled.

  Patiently, Pavel said: ‘Go ahead, Kyabine, answer me!’

  Kyabine answered honestly: ‘Yes, I’d like to.’ Then he added: ‘But they’re too small, really, aren’t they?’

  Pavel nodded, then said: ‘But what if there are some bigger ones, Kyabine?’

  ‘I haven’t seen any,’ Kyabine replied. ‘All I’ve seen are little ones.’

  Still facing the pond, Pavel explained: ‘Yeah, but you can always throw the little ones back in the water until you catch a big one. I’m sure there are some big ones swimming at the bottom of the pond. I bet if all four of us tried, we could catch some. You can cook them, Kyabine – you’ve got the knack. And afterwards we’ll eat them. And tonight we’ll sleep here, and if it rains we’ll go to the station to sleep. We can clean the station up and take a load of grass there to sleep on. From time to time, we’ll requisition blankets and tobacco, and at night we’ll go back to the station. And we can bring back a chicken and some leeks when we’ve had enough of eating fish.’

  ‘Maybe we could try to catch the big ones tonight?’ Kyabine asked excitedly.

  ‘Yeah, why not,’ said Pavel kindly.

  On a roll, Kyabine added: ‘We can cook them on my stones and afterwards we can go back to the company.’

  Pavel did not move or speak.

  ‘Eh, Pavel, what do you think?’ Kyabine said. ‘Can we try to catch some now?’

  In a sad voice, Pavel said: ‘Yeah, if you want to, Kyabine.’

  Then Kyabine, his throat tight, asked desperately: ‘But afterwards we’ll go back to the company, right?’

  A long silence followed, as empty as a day’s march.

  Then Pavel nodded.

  In a sudden panic, Kyabine said: ‘But we don’t have the big mess dish. We didn’t bring it with us!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We need the big dish to catch the fish,’ Kyabine explained. ‘How else can we do it?’

  At that, he set off abruptly, without a second thought, towards the camp. I told him to come back. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I said. ‘If Ermakov sees you, he’ll make you stay at the camp all day to help him dismantle the company office.’

  But, leaping through the tall grass, he yelled back over his shoulder: ‘I’m clever. He won’t see me.’

  He disappeared into the grass.

  I tried again to make him come back. But in the distance we heard: ‘I’m clever!’

  But the truth was, he wasn’t. Not Kyabine. He was stronger than Pavel, Sifra and me put together. He was incredibly strong and loyal, and he had a voice like thunder. But clever? No.

  For an instant I thought about running after him, but I had no chance of catching him now.

  Pavel crouched in front of the pond. He pushed the visor of his cap back up his forehead. He plunged his hands into the still water. He let them float on the surface for a moment. Then he took them out again and wet his face. Time had passed and the sun had risen higher in the sky.

  43

  SIFRA SAT DOWN and balanced his rifle on his knees.

  He had listened to all of that in silence, sometimes shooting us frightened, helpless looks, as if we were his mother and father and we were deciding his future.

  That was all he’d done.

  But I don’t want you to think that Sifra just skulked near us like a shadow. No, that’s not how he was. I w
ant you to know that, on the contrary, he was always with us, gentle and attentive, with that gentle, prophetic look in his eyes, and almost always silent. I would really like you to understand him.

  44

  KYABINE SUDDENLY APPEARED from the grass behind us, carrying the big mess dish over his head. ‘Told you I was clever, didn’t I?’ he shouted.

  And it was true: he had been clever. He must also have been very lucky. He took off his boots and went into the water. We asked him what was happening in the camp, if the others had started taking their tents down yet. ‘I didn’t look,’ he answered as he waded into the water.

  ‘What do you mean, you didn’t look?’ asked Pavel, stunned.

  ‘No, I didn’t look.’

  When he was in the pond up to his knees, Kyabine turned around and asked the Evdokim kid: ‘If I catch a big one, you’ll add that, won’t you?’

  The kid said yes, of course he would add it. Kyabine bent down and plunged the big dish into the water, and after that he stopped moving. Soon afterwards he yelled that he’d got one. He came back to the bank and we all crowded round to see the fish. It wasn’t big. Kyabine sat down and put the dish between his legs. We asked him if he was going to eat it. He said no, he just wanted to watch it swim. We left him to watch his fish.

  I was standing on the bank, trying not to think about anything, or at least not about tonight, when Kyabine called out to me: ‘Benia, come and see.’

  His voice was mysterious.

  He signalled for me to sit down next to him and in silence he showed me something that was floating in the air. It was a tiny bit of grass. It stayed there on its own, hovering in the air like that, just in front of our eyes, and it was really surprising. Then I spotted a sort of spider’s thread. It was almost invisible, and the bit of grass was suspended from the end of it. Kyabine didn’t see the thread.