Life and Fate

by Vasily Grossman

  Lomov was obviously sharp-witted and difficult; his attitude towards everything generally accepted was one of cynicism. He wrote poetry himself; it was from him that Nadya had learnt her indifference towards Sholokhov and Nikolay Ostrovsky and her contempt for Demyan Byedniy and Tvardovsky. And Nadya was obviously parroting him when she said with a shrug of the shoulders: ‘Revolutionaries are either stupid or dishonest – how can one sacrifice the life of a whole generation for some imaginary future happiness?’

  Once Nadya said to Yevgenia:

  ‘Why is it that the older generation always has to believe in something? Krymov believes in Lenin and Communism, Papa believes in freedom, Grandmother believes in the people and the workers . . . But to us, to the younger generation, all that just seems stupid. It’s stupid to believe in things. One should live without beliefs.’

  ‘The lieutenant’s philosophy?’ Yevgenia interrupted.

  She was taken aback by Nadya’s answer:

  ‘In three weeks he’ll be at the front. There’s philosophy for you: alive today, dead tomorrow.’

  Talking to Nadya, Yevgenia often remembered Stalingrad. Vera had also talked to her; Vera had also fallen in love. But what a difference between the clear simplicity of Vera’s feelings and the confusion of Nadya’s! And how her own life had changed! What a difference between her view of the war then and her view of it now, in these days of victory. Nevertheless, the war went on, and what Nadya had said was still true: ‘Alive today, dead tomorrow.’ What did the war care whether a lieutenant played the guitar and sang, whether he believed in the bright future of Communism and volunteered for work on the great construction sites, or whether he read the poetry of Annensky and had no faith whatsoever in the imaginary happiness of future generations?

  Once Nadya showed Yevgenia a handwritten copy of a song written in one of the camps. It was about the freezing holds of the transport ships, the roar of the ocean, the way ‘the zeks, suffering from seasickness, embraced like blood-brothers,’ and how Magadan, the capital of Kolyma, rose up out of the mist.

  When they first got back to Moscow, Viktor had lost his temper if Nadya so much as mentioned these subjects. Now, however, he had changed completely. Unable to restrain himself, he would complain in Nadya’s presence how impossible it was to read these unctuous letters addressed to ‘the great teacher, the best friend of all gymnasts, the wise father, the powerful coryphaeus, the brilliant genius,’ a man who in addition to all this was kind, compassionate and modest. It began to seem as though Stalin himself ploughed fields, forged metal, fed babies in their cradles and handled a machine-gun – while the workers, students and scientists did nothing but pray to him. But for Stalin, a whole great nation would have perished long ago like helpless cattle.

  One day Viktor counted eighty-six mentions of Stalin’s name in one issue of Pravda; the following day he counted eighteen mentions in one editorial. He railed against the illegal arrests, the absence of freedom, and the way semi-literate Party members had the right to give orders to scientists and writers, to correct them and tick them off.

  Something had indeed changed in Viktor. His growing horror at the destructive fury of the State, his increasing isolation and helplessness, his sense of doom – all this sometimes engendered fits of recklessness, a contempt for the dictates of prudence.

  One morning Viktor ran into Lyudmila’s room. She felt quite taken aback by his unaccustomed look of excitement and joy.

  ‘Lyuda, Zhenya! I’ve just heard on the radio. We’ve set foot once more in the Ukraine!’

  That afternoon, when Yevgenia came back from Kuznetsky Most, Viktor saw the expression on her face and asked – just as Lyudmila had asked him in the morning: ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘They’ve taken my parcel! They’ve taken my parcel!’ said Yevgenia.

  Even Lyudmila could understand how much a parcel from Yevgenia would mean to Krymov.

  ‘A resurrection from the dead,’ she said, and added: ‘I think you really must still love him. I’ve never seen you with eyes like that before.’

  ‘Probably I really am mad,’ Yevgenia whispered to her sister. ‘I’m happy first because Nikolay will get my parcel, and secondly because I’ve realized today that there’s absolutely no question of Novikov having informed. Do you understand?’

  ‘You’re not just mad,’ said Lyudmila angrily. ‘You’re worse than mad.’

  ‘Vitya, darling, do play us something on the piano,’ said Yevgenia.

  Viktor hadn’t sat down at the piano for a long time. But now, instead of making excuses, he fetched some music, showed it to Yevgenia and asked: ‘Is that all right?’ Lyudmila and Nadya both disliked music; they went out into the kitchen. Viktor began, and Yevgenia listened. He played for a long time. When he’d finished, he just sat there without saying a word or even looking at Yevgenia; then he began another piece. There were moments when Yevgenia had the impression that Viktor was sobbing, but she couldn’t see his face. Suddenly Nadya flung open the door and shouted:

  ‘Turn on the radio! That’s an order!’

  The music stopped and was replaced by the metallic roar of Levitan’s voice; at that moment he was announcing: ‘The town was taken by storm, together with an important railway junction . . .’ Then he listed the generals and units which had distinguished themselves in combat, beginning with General Tolbukhin. Suddenly he said in an exultant voice: ‘And also the tank corps commanded by Colonel Novikov.’

  Yevgenia gave a quiet sigh. Then, as the announcer went on in his powerful, measured voice, ‘Eternal glory to the heroes who have died for the freedom and independence of the Motherland,’ she began to cry.

  40

  Yevgenia left. Now there was nothing to lighten the gloom in the house.

  Viktor just sat at his writing desk for hours on end; often whole days went by without him even leaving the house. He was frightened: he felt sure he would meet people who had it in for him; he would be unable to avoid their merciless eyes.

  The telephone was now absolutely silent. If it did ring – once every two or three days – Lyudmila would say: ‘That’s for Nadya.’ And she would be right.

  Viktor hadn’t immediately understood the gravity of what had happened. At first he had even felt relieved to be sitting among his beloved books, in silence, far away from those morose, hostile faces. Soon, however, the silence at home began to oppress him; it made him feel anxious and gloomy. What was happening in the laboratory? How was the work going? What was Markov doing? He grew quite feverish at the thought that he was just sitting at home doing nothing at a time when he might be needed. But it was equally unbearable to imagine them getting on fine without him.

  Lyudmila bumped into a friend of hers on the street – Stoinikova, who had a secretarial job in the Academy. She told Lyudmila every detail of the meeting of the Scientific Council; she had taken it down in shorthand from beginning to end.

  The most important thing was that Sokolov hadn’t spoken. Shishakov had said: ‘We’d like to hear what you think, Pyotr Lavrentyevich. You’ve been a colleague of Shtrum’s for a long time.’ Sokolov had answered that he had had heart trouble during the night and found it difficult to speak.

  Strangely, this news brought Viktor no joy whatsoever.

  Markov had spoken on behalf of the laboratory. He had been more measured than anyone else, avoiding political accusations and dwelling instead on Shtrum’s unpleasant personality. He even mentioned his talent.

  ‘He’s a Party member. He had to speak,’ said Viktor. ‘He’s not to blame.’

  Most of the speeches, however, were terrible. Kovchenko had called him a cheat and a rogue. ‘And now this Shtrum hasn’t even deigned to appear,’ he had said. ‘He really has gone too far now. We’ll have to speak to him in a different language. He’s asking for it, after all.’

  Grey-haired Prasolov, who used to compare Viktor’s researches with those of Lebedev, had said: ‘Certain people have managed to draw a quite indecent amount of atten
tion to Shtrum’s dubious theorizings.’

  Doctor Gurevich had delivered a particularly unpleasant speech. After admitting his own grave mistake in overestimating Shtrum’s work, he had remarked on his racial intolerance and said that a man who goes astray in politics must also go astray in the realm of science.

  Svechin had spoken of ‘the worthy Shtrum’ and had quoted words of his to the effect that physics was a unity, that there was no German physics, American physics or Soviet physics.

  ‘I did say something of the sort,’ said Viktor. ‘But to quote from a private conversation at that kind of meeting is a form of denunciation.’

  Viktor was surprised that Pimenov had spoken: he wasn’t directly connected with the Institute and no one had compelled him to speak. He confessed to having attached excessive importance to Shtrum’s research and to overlooking its faults. It was quite extraordinary. Pimenov had once said that he bowed down before Viktor’s work and that it was a joy to be able to assist in its realization.

  Shishakov had spoken only briefly. A resolution had been proposed by Ramskov, the Secretary of the Institute Party Committee. It was a harsh one, asking the Administration to amputate the decaying limbs from a healthy collective. What was most hurtful was that the resolution didn’t so much as mention Viktor’s scientific achievements.

  ‘So Sokolov behaved quite impeccably,’ said Lyudmila. ‘Where’s Marya Ivanovna then? Surely he can’t be that frightened?’

  Viktor didn’t answer.

  How peculiar it was. Although the Christian notion of forgiveness was quite alien to him, Viktor didn’t feel in the least angry with Shishakov or Pimenov. Nor did he feel resentful towards Svechin, Gurevich or Kovchenko. But one person made him speechless with fury; as soon as he thought of him, he felt such an oppressive rage that he could hardly breathe. It was as though Sokolov were to blame for all the injustice, all the cruelty, that Viktor had suffered. How could Pyotr Lavrentyevich forbid his wife to visit the Shtrums! What base cowardice! What vile cruelty!

  What Viktor was unable to admit was that this fury stemmed as much from his own secret guilt concerning Sokolov, as from Sokolov’s behaviour towards him.

  Lyudmila talked more and more about material matters. Their excess living space, ration cards, salary attestations for the house management committee, the need to transfer to a different store, a ration book for the coming quarter, Viktor’s out-of-date passport, the fact that he needed a certificate of employment in order to renew it – all these questions weighed on her day and night. How could they get enough money to live on?

  At first Viktor had pooh-poohed all this, saying, ‘I’ll stay at home and concentrate on theory. I’ll build my own laboratory hut.’ Now, though, it was no longer a laughing matter. The money Viktor received as a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences was barely enough to pay for the flat, the dacha and the communal expenses. And he was weighed down by his sense of isolation.

  But they had to live!

  The idea that he could teach in an Institute of Higher Education now seemed impossible. There was no question of a politically dubious individual having contact with the young.

  What could he do?

  His position as a well-known scientist made it difficult for him to obtain a more modest post. No personnel officer would be willing to appoint a Doctor of Science as a technical editor or a secondary-school physics teacher. They would just gasp in astonishment.

  When the thought of the work he had lost, the humiliations he had undergone and his state of dependency and need became quite unbearable, he thought: ‘If only they’d arrest me right now!’ But then what about Lyudmila and Nadya? They would still need something to live on.

  As for selling strawberries from the dacha . . . They only had the dacha until May – then the lease had to be renewed. The dacha went with his job, not with being a member of the Academy. And out of pure negligence he’d forgotten to pay the rent; he’d meant to settle his arrears at the same time as he paid for the first six months of the next year. But sums of money that had then seemed trivial now seemed horrifyingly vast.

  How could he get some money? Nadya needed a new coat.

  By borrowing? But one can’t borrow unless one has some hope of repaying. By selling off their belongings? But who’d want to buy china or a piano in the middle of a war? And anyway, he didn’t want to do that. Lyudmila loved her collection of porcelain; even now, after Tolya’s death, she sometimes took it out and admired it.

  He often thought of going to the Military Commissariat, renouncing the exemption he was entitled to as an Academician, and volunteering to serve in the ranks. This thought somehow made him feel calmer.

  But then he would feel anxious and tormented again. How would Lyudmila and Nadya make a living without him? By teaching? By renting out a room? But that would immediately bring in the house management committee and the police. There’d be interrogations, fines, searches at night . . .

  How wise, how powerful, how threatening all these officials suddenly appeared – these house managers, district police-inspectors, housing inspectors, secretaries of personnel departments! To a man with no place in the world, even a slip of a girl at a desk in a rations office seems endowed with a vast, unshakeable power.

  A sense of fear, indecisiveness and helplessness hung over Viktor all day long. But this feeling was by no means unchanging and uniform; on the contrary, each part of the day had its own particular melancholy, its own particular terror. Early in the morning, after the warmth of his bed, when the windows were still veiled by a cold, opaque semi-darkness, he felt like a helpless child faced with some awesome power that was about to crush him; he wanted to burrow under the blankets, curl up, screw up his eyes and keep absolutely still.

  Later on in the morning he would think sadly about his work, longing to go into the Institute again. He felt then that he was someone useless, stupid and talentless.

  It was as though the State, in its fury, was able to take away not only his freedom and peace of mind, but even his intelligence, his talent and his belief in himself. It had transformed him into a grey, stupid, miserable bourgeois.

  Before lunch he would come to life for a while and even feel quite cheerful. But immediately afterwards his melancholy would return – as empty, thoughtless and tedious as ever.

  The worst moments of terror came as twilight set in. Viktor had become terrified of the dark, as terrified as Stone Age man caught at dusk in the middle of a forest. His terror grew as he sat there and mulled over his memories. Out there in the darkness beyond the window a cruel and inevitable fate was watching. Any moment now he would hear a car in the street, a ring at the door, and then the scraping and squeaking of boots here in the room. There was nowhere he could escape to . . . And then suddenly, with a flash of joy and anger, Viktor no longer cared . . .

  ‘It was all very well for those nobles who criticized the Tsarist regime,’ he told Lyudmila. ‘If one of them fell into disfavour, he just got into his carriage and left the capital for his estate in Penza. Everything was waiting for him – his neighbours, the park, all the joys of the country. He could go out hunting or sit down and write his memoirs. I wonder how those Voltairians would have got on with two weeks’ redundancy pay and a reference in a sealed envelope that wouldn’t even get them a job as a janitor.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Vitya,’ said Lyudmila. ‘We’ll survive. I’ll work at home. I’ll do embroidery and make painted scarves. Or I might work as a laboratory assistant. I’ll find a way of feeding you.’

  Viktor kissed her hands. She couldn’t understand why his face had taken on such a guilty, martyred expression, why a look of such pitiful entreaty should suddenly have come into his eyes.

  Viktor paced up and down the room, singing the words of an old romance under his breath:

  ‘ . . . he lies forgotten, quite alone . . .’

  When Nadya heard about Viktor’s idea of volunteering for the front, she said: ‘There’s one girl I know, Tonya Ko
gan, whose father volunteered. He was a specialist in Ancient Greek. He ended up in a reserve regiment near Penza, cleaning latrines. He was very short-sighted; once the captain came in and he swept some rubbish straight at him. The captain gave him a punch that burst his ear-drum.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Viktor. ‘I won’t sweep rubbish at captains.’

  These days, Viktor talked to Nadya as though she were an adult. Never before, it seemed, had he got on so well with her. She had taken to coming home straight after school; Viktor thought it was because she didn’t want to cause him anxiety and felt very moved. When she talked to him now, she no longer had that mocking look in her eyes; instead, they took on an expression of warmth and seriousness.

  One evening Viktor got dressed and set off for the Institute; he wanted to look in through the windows. Perhaps the lights would be on for the second shift? Perhaps Markov had already finished installing the new apparatus?

  Suddenly he felt afraid of meeting someone he knew and turned into a side-street. It was dark and deserted. He felt strangely happy. The snow, the night sky, the cool fresh air, the trees and their dark branches, the narrow strip of light escaping through the black-out curtain of a one-storey wooden house – everything was so beautiful. He was breathing in the night air, he was walking down a quiet side-street and no one was looking at him. He was alive, he was free. What more did he need? What more could he want? Then Viktor returned home and his happiness evaporated.

  At first he had waited anxiously for Marya Ivanovna to get in touch. The days passed and she still didn’t ring. Everything had been taken away from him – his work, his honour, his peace of mind, his belief in himself. Could they really have taken away the last refuge of all – love?

  There were moments when he would sit there in despair, his head in his hands, thinking that it was impossible for him to go on living without her. Sometimes he would mutter: ‘Well then, well then.’ Or he would ask himself: ‘Does anyone need me?’