Life and Fate

by Vasily Grossman

  Bach looked up towards the door and caught sight of Lenard.

  37

  Stumpfe, once the finest soldier in the company, a man the new recruits had regarded with frightened admiration, was now unrecognizable. His large, blue-eyed face was thin and sunken. His uniform and greatcoat were just crumpled rags that barely kept out the wind and frost. He had lost his sharp intelligence and his jokes no longer made anyone laugh.

  An enormous man with a vast appetite, he suffered more acutely from hunger than anyone else in the company. His constant hunger drove him out foraging early in the morning. He dug about in the ruins, begged, gathered up crumbs, hung around outside the kitchen. Bach had grown used to his tense, watchful face. Stumpfe thought about food incessantly; he searched for it even when they were fighting.

  As he made his way back to the bunker, Bach caught sight of the huge back and shoulders of this eternally hungry soldier. He was digging in a patch of wasteland where the kitchens and supply-depot had once stood. Here and there he found old cabbage leaves and tiny acorn-sized potatoes that had escaped the pot. Then an old woman appeared from behind a stone wall. She was very tall and was wearing a ragged man’s coat, tied with a piece of string, and a pair of down-at-heel hobnailed boots.

  She walked towards the soldier, staring down at the ground as she stirred around in the snow with a hook made from a thick piece of twisted wire.

  Their two shadows met on the snow; otherwise they would have been unaware of each other’s presence.

  Finally the vast German looked up at the old woman. Trustingly holding out a cabbage leaf that was stone-hard and full of holes, he said slowly and solemnly: ‘Good day, madam.’

  The old woman pushed back the piece of rag that had fallen forward onto her forehead, looked at him with dark eyes that were full of kindness and intelligence, and said equally slowly and majestically: ‘Good day, sir.’

  It was a summit meeting between the representatives of two great peoples. Bach was the only witness; the soldier and the old woman forgot the meeting immediately.

  As it grew warmer, big flakes of snow settled on the ground, on the red brick-dust, on the crosses of graves, on the turrets of abandoned tanks, in the ears of dead men waiting to be buried.

  The snow filled the air with a soft grey-blue mist, softening the wind and gunfire, bringing the earth and sky together into one swaying blur.

  The snow fell on Bach’s shoulders; it was as though flakes of silence were falling on the still Volga, on the dead city, on the skeletons of horses. It was snowing everywhere, on earth and on the stars; the whole universe was full of snow. Everything was disappearing beneath it: guns, the bodies of the dead, filthy dressings, rubble, scraps of twisted iron.

  This soft, white snow settling over the carnage of the city was time itself; the present was turning into the past, and there was no future.

  38

  Bach was lying on a bunk behind a cotton curtain that screened off a small corner of the cellar. A woman was sleeping beside him, her head on his shoulder. Her face was very thin and looked somehow both childish and withered. Bach looked at her thin neck and at the outline of her breasts under her dirty grey blouse. Very gently, so as not to disturb her, he lifted an untidy tress of hair to his lips. It was springy and smelt of life and warmth.

  The woman opened her eyes.

  On the whole she was a sensible, practical woman. At different moments she could be tender, sly, patient, calculating, submissive, quick-tempered. Sometimes she seemed morose and stupid – as though something had broken her; sometimes she sang arias from Faust and Carmen in Russian.

  Bach had never tried to find out what she had done before the war. He had come to see her when he felt like sleeping with her; otherwise he had never given her a thought. He had never worried about whether she had enough to eat, whether she might have been killed by a Russian sniper. Once he had given her a biscuit he happened to find in his pocket; she had seemed grateful and had then offered the biscuit to her elderly neighbour. At the time he had been touched, but he had seldom remembered to bring her anything to eat.

  She had a strange, very un-European name – Zina.

  Until the war, Zina seemed not to have known the woman who lived with her. She was an unpleasant old woman, amazingly hypocritical, full of insincere flattery, and obsessed with food. At this moment, with a wooden pestle and mortar, she was methodically grinding some mouldy grains of wheat that smelt of petrol.

  Until the encirclement, the Germans had quite ignored the Russian civilians; now they visited their cellars frequently and got the old women to help with all kinds of tasks: washing clothes – with cinders instead of soap – cooking up bits of garbage, darning uniforms . . . The most important people in the cellars were the old women, but the soldiers did call on the younger women as well.

  Bach had always thought that no one knew of his visits to this cellar. One day, however, he had been sitting on the bunk, holding Zina’s hand between his own, when he had suddenly heard German being spoken behind the curtain. A voice that seemed familiar was saying: ‘No, no, don’t go behind that curtain. That’s the lieutenant’s Fraülein.’

  They lay there, side by side, without saying a word. His friends, his books, his romance with Maria, his childhood, his ties with his birthplace, his school, his university, the Russian campaign itself – his whole life had become insignificant . . . All that was simply the path he had followed on his way to this bunk fashioned from the remains of a charred door . . . The thought that he might lose this woman was appalling. He had found her, he had come to her; everything that had happened in Germany, in the whole of Europe, had been merely a prelude to this meeting. Until now he had failed to understand this. He had often forgotten her. He had enjoyed seeing her simply because he had thought there was nothing serious between them. But now she was all that remained of the world. Everything else lay buried under the snow . . . There was only this wonderful face, these slightly dilated nostrils, these strange eyes, the tired, helpless, childish look on her face that drove him so crazy. In October she had visited him in hospital; she had found out where he was and had come all the way on foot. And he hadn’t even got out of bed to see her.

  She knew he wasn’t drunk. But he was on his knees, kissing her hands, kissing her feet, pressing his forehead and cheeks against her knees; he was talking quickly, passionately, but she couldn’t understand, he knew she couldn’t understand, she didn’t know that terrible language of his.

  Soon the wave which had carried him to this woman would tear him away from her, would separate them for ever. Still on his knees, he threw his arms round her legs and looked into her eyes. She listened, trying to guess what he was saying, trying to understand what had happened to him.

  She had never seen such an expression on the face of a German. She had thought that only the eyes of a Russian could look so tender, so imploring, so mad, so full of suffering.

  He was telling her that here, in this cellar, as he kissed her feet, he had understood love for the first time – not just from other people’s words, but in his heart, in his blood. She was dearer to him than all his past, dearer to him than his mother, than Germany, than his future with Maria . . . He had fallen in love with her. Great walls raised up by States, racist fury, the heavy artillery and its curtain of fire were all equally insignificant, equally powerless in the face of love . . . He gave thanks to Fate for having allowed him to understand this before he died.

  She couldn’t understand what he was saying. All she knew, all she had ever heard was ‘Halt, komm, bring, schneller, kaputt, brot, zucker’. But she could see how moved he was; she could guess what he was feeling. The German officer’s hungry, frivolous mistress sensed his helplessness and felt both tender and indulgent. She knew Fate would separate them and she was reconciled to this. But now, seeing his despair, she sensed that their liaison was developing into something unexpectedly deep and powerful. She could hear it in his voice, she could see it in his eyes, in the
way he kissed her.

  As she played dreamily with his hair, she felt a sudden fear that this obscure force might seize hold of her too, might cause her to stumble, might be her ruin . . . Her heart was throbbing; it didn’t want to listen to the cynical voice of warning.

  39

  Yevgenia got to know a new circle of people – people from the prison queues. On seeing her, they would ask: ‘Well? Any news yet?’ By now she had become quite experienced; instead of listening to advice, she gave it to others: ‘Don’t worry. Maybe he’s in hospital. The conditions in hospital are very good. Everyone in the cells dreams of being sent there.’

  She had managed to find out that Krymov was in the Lubyanka. None of her parcels had been accepted, but she hadn’t lost hope: at Kuznetsky Most they would often refuse a parcel the first time, even the second time, and then suddenly say: ‘Come on then, give us your parcel.’

  Yevgenia went to Krymov’s flat. A neighbour said that the house-manager had come round two months before with two soldiers; they had gone into Krymov’s room, taken a lot of books and papers, put a seal on the door and left. Yevgenia looked at the wax seals and the bits of string; the neighbour, who was standing beside her, said: ‘But for the love of God – I never told you anything.’

  Then, as she showed Yevgenia to the door, she plucked up courage and whispered: ‘What a fine man he was! He even volunteered to go to the front.’

  Yevgenia didn’t once write to Novikov.

  How confused she was! She felt pity, love, repentance, joy at the Russian victories, guilt about Novikov, anxiety on his behalf, fear that she would lose him forever, an aching feeling of having surrendered all her rights . . .

  Only a little while ago she had been living in Kuibyshev. She had been about to go to the front to visit Novikov; the bond between them seemed as necessary, as inevitable, as Fate itself. Yevgenia had been horrified at the idea that she was bound to him for ever, separated for ever from Krymov . . . There had been moments when everything about Novikov had seemed alien to her. His hopes, his worries, his circle of friends had nothing whatsoever in common with hers. There was something absurd about the idea of her pouring out tea at his table, receiving his friends, talking to the wives of colonels and generals.

  She remembered Novikov’s indifference towards Chekhov’s ‘The Bishop’ and ‘A Boring Story’. He preferred the tendentious novels of a Dreiser or a Feuchtwanger. But now that she knew her separation from Novikov was final, she felt a surge of tenderness; she thought many times of his obedient readiness to agree with everything she said. Then she felt overwhelmed by grief – would his hands never again touch her shoulders, would she really never see his face again?

  Never before had she met such an unusual combination of shy kindness and rough strength. She was so drawn to him – he was so free of harshness and fanaticism, there was such a special, wise, peasant kindness in him. But as soon as she thought this, Yevgenia felt the presence of something dark and unclean. How had the NKVD found out what Krymov had said about Trotsky? Everything that tied her to Krymov was so desperately serious; it had been impossible to draw a line through their life together.

  She would follow Krymov. What did it matter if he didn’t forgive her – she deserved his never-ending reproaches. She knew that he needed her, that in prison he thought of her all the time.

  Novikov would find the inner strength to get over their separation. But she had no idea what she needed for her own peace of mind. The knowledge that he no longer loved her, that he had calmly forgiven her? The knowledge that he was quite inconsolable, that he still loved her and would never forgive her? And was it easier to believe they had separated for ever, or to trust that one day they would be reunited?

  What suffering she had caused everyone close to her. Could she really have done all this not for other people, but for herself, to gratify her own whims? Was she just a neurotic intellectual?

  That evening, when they were all sitting at table, Yevgenia suddenly looked at her sister and asked: ‘Do you know what I am?’

  ‘You?’ asked Lyudmila in surprise.

  ‘Yes, me,’ said Yevgenia. Then she explained: ‘I’m a small dog of female gender.’

  ‘A bitch?’ said Nadya gaily.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Yevgenia.

  They all burst out laughing – though they knew very well that Yevgenia was not joking.

  ‘You know,’ said Yevgenia, ‘an admirer of mine in Kuibyshev, Limonov, once gave me a definition of middle-aged love. He said it was a spiritual vitamin deficiency. A man lives for a long time with his wife and develops a kind of spiritual hunger – he’s like a cow deprived of salt, or an Arctic explorer who’s gone without vegetables for years on end. A man with a forceful, strong-willed wife begins to long for a meek, gentle soul, someone timid and submissive.’

  ‘This Limonov of yours sounds a fool,’ said Lyudmila.

  ‘What if a man needs several different vitamins – A, B, C and D?’ asked Nadya.

  Later, as they were about to go to bed, Viktor said:

  ‘Zhenevyeva, we often make fun of intellectuals for their doubts, their split personalities, their Hamlet-like indecisiveness. When I was young I despised that side of myself. Now, though, I’ve changed my mind: humanity owes many great books and great discoveries to people who were indecisive and full of doubts; they have achieved at least as much as the simpletons who never hesitate. And when it comes to the crunch, they too are prepared to go to the stake; they stand just as firm under fire as the people who are always strong-willed and resolute.’

  ‘Thank you, Vitenka,’ said Yevgenia. ‘Are you thinking of the small female dog?’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Viktor.

  He wanted to say something that would please Yevgenia.

  ‘I was looking again at your painting, Zhenechka. I like it because of the feeling in it. Avant-garde art is nothing but novelty and audacity; there’s no God in any of it.’

  ‘You can say that again!’ said Lyudmila. ‘Green men, blue huts . . . It’s totally cut off from reality.’

  ‘Listen, Milka,’ said Yevgenia. ‘Matisse once said, “If I use green, that doesn’t mean I’m about to paint some grass; if I use blue, that doesn’t mean I’m painting a sky.” Colour is simply an expression of the inner world of the artist.’

  Viktor had wanted to please Yevgenia, but he couldn’t help adding mockingly:

  ‘Eckerman, on the other hand, said: “If Goethe were God, if he had created the world, he too would have made the grass green and the sky blue.” Those words mean a lot to me. After all, I’m not entirely a stranger to the material God formed the world from . . . Though of course I also know that there are no paints or colours, only atoms and the void between them.’

  Such conversations were rare, however. Usually they talked either about the war or about the Public Prosecutor.

  It was a difficult time. Yevgenia’s leave was coming to an end; soon she would have to return to Kuibyshev.

  She dreaded having to explain herself to her boss. She had gone off to Moscow without saying a word; day after day she had hung around prisons and written petitions to the Public Prosecutor and the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs.

  Yevgenia had always been terrified of official institutions and of having to write official requests; even the need to renew her passport had been enough to give her insomnia. Recently, though, her whole life seemed to have been made up of meetings with policemen, difficulties with passports and residence permits, statements and petitions addressed to the Public Prosecutor . . .

  There was a deathly calm in Lyudmila’s house. Viktor no longer went out to work; he just sat in his room for hours on end. Lyudmila came back from the special store looking angry and upset – the other wives no longer even said hello to her.

  Yevgenia was very conscious of Viktor’s nervousness. If the phone rang, he shuddered and rushed to pick up the receiver. While they were talking during meals, he often interrupted with a sudden: �
�Sh! Sh! I think there’s someone at the door.’ He would go out into the hall and come back again with an embarrassed smile. The two sisters were well aware of the reason for this constant anxiety.

  ‘That’s how you develop persecution mania,’ said Lyudmila. ‘The psychiatric hospitals were full of people like that in 1937.’

  In view of Viktor’s constant apprehension, Yevgenia was particularly touched by the way he treated her. Once he even said: ‘Remember, Zhenevyeva, I don’t care in the least what anyone thinks of the fact that someone living in my house is trying to help a person who’s been arrested. Do you understand? You must look on this as your own home.’

  Yevgenia enjoyed talking to Nadya in the evenings.

  ‘You’re too clever for your own good,’ she said once. ‘You don’t sound a bit like a young girl; you sound more like a member of a society for former political prisoners.’

  ‘Future political prisoners,’ said Viktor. ‘I suppose you talk politics with your lieutenant too.’

  ‘And what of it?’ asked Nadya.

  ‘You should stick to kissing,’ said Yevgenia.

  ‘That’s what I was going to say myself,’ said Viktor. ‘It’s less dangerous.’

  Nadya was drawn to dangerous subjects; one moment she’d suddenly ask about Bukharin, the next she’d ask whether it was true that Lenin had thought highly of Trotsky and hadn’t wanted to see Stalin during the last months of his life. Had he really written a testament that Stalin had kept secret?

  When they were alone together, Yevgenia avoided asking Nadya about Lieutenant Lomov. Nevertheless, she soon knew more about him and Nadya’s relationship with him than Lyudmila did – from listening to Nadya talk about politics, about the war, about conversations she’d had with her friends, about the poetry of Mandelstam and Akhmatova.