Heels clacking, a girl in a white gown brought in a tray covered with a towel.
Spiridonov opened a drawer in his desk and took out half a white loaf wrapped in newspaper and held it out to Alexandra.
“I can also offer you something stronger,” he said—and tapped on the drawer. “Only don’t go telling Marusya. You know what she’s like—she’ll eat me alive.” And he at once began to look like the usual Stepan, the man she had known for many years.
Alexandra took a sip of vodka, smiled and said, “You have interesting ladies here, that young girl’s a delight, and not every drawer in your desk is filled with plans and diagrams. And there I was, imagining you work round the clock, day and night.”
“Well, there is a little work to be done now and again,” he said. “And talking of young girls—you’ll never guess what our Vera’s been up to. I’ll tell you when we’re in the car.”
Somehow it seemed very strange to Alexandra to be hearing family talk in this office.
Spiridonov glanced at his watch. “We’ll be off in half an hour, but first I must check a few things in the workshops. You stay here and have a rest.”
“Can’t I come with you? This is my first time here.”
“What’s got into you? There are a lot of stairs—I’ll be going up to the first and second floors. Stay here and rest.” It was clear, though, that Spiridonov was pleased. Really, he very much wanted to show Alexandra Vladimirovna the power station.
They walked across the yard in the twilight. Pointing out the different buildings, Spiridonov explained, “Those are the transformers, oil-filled transformers . . . The boiler room, the cooling tower . . . Here’s where we’re building an underground command post. Just in case . . . as the phrase goes.”
He looked up at the sky and said, “It’s terrifying. What if they really do bomb us? With the equipment we have now . . . With turbines like these. . .”
They entered a large, brightly lit hall—and at once felt caught up, gently but inescapably spellbound, by the supercharged atmosphere of a large power station. Nowhere else—neither a blast furnace, nor an open-hearth furnace, nor a rolling mill—evokes the same emotions. The vastness of the work being done in a steel-making plant is only too obvious; it can be sensed in the heat of the molten iron, in the roar of the furnace, in the dazzling brightness of the vast blocks of metal. What Alexandra saw here was very different—electric light that was clear and steady, a cleanly swept floor, white marble switchboards, the stillness of the steel and cast-iron housings, the subtle curves of the turbines and control wheels, and the workers’ calm, attentive eyes and measured movements. The warm gentle breeze, the dense, low hum, the barely perceptible flicker of copper and steel—these expressions of the silent speed of the turbine blades, of the springy resilience of steam, testified to a mysterious power. The energy created by this power was something higher and nobler than mere heat.
Most overwhelming of all was the dull sheen of the silent dynamos; their apparent stillness was profoundly deceptive. Alexandra breathed in the warm breeze coming off the flywheel. This was rotating so swiftly and silently that it might not have been moving at all. The spokes appeared to have merged, as if covered by a fine grey cobweb—and only the flickering of this cobweb betrayed the speed of the wheel’s movement. There was a faint, slightly bitter smell of ozone, or garlic. The atmosphere was like in a field after a thunderstorm, and Alexandra thought how different it was from the greasy atmosphere of chemical factories, the stifling heat of a forge, a cloudy dust-filled mill or the dry airless heat of sewing workshops and clothes factories.
And once again this man she thought she knew so well—who had been married for so many years to her own daughter—seemed entirely new to her.
It was not only his movements, his voice, his smile and general expression that were different; at a deeper level he seemed still more different. When she heard him talking to the workers and engineers, when she watched their faces, she could see that he and they were united by something of crucial importance to all of them. When he walked through the different halls, speaking to fitters and mechanics, listening to motors, leaning over flywheels and instruments, his face always wore the same look of quiet attentiveness. It was a look that could be born only of love; at moments like this Spiridonov and his workers and engineers seemed to have left behind all their usual thoughts and worries, all their domestic joys and sorrows.
Slowing his pace as they approached the central control panel, Spiridonov said, “And now we come to our holy of holies.”
On a high marble column, mounted on sheets of heavy copper and glossy plastic, was an array of switches, rheostats and acorn-shaped indicator lights—some red and some pale blue.
Close by stood a thick-walled steel case, half as tall again as a human being, with a narrow observation slit.
“This is in case we get bombed—for the man on control-panel duty,” said Spiridonov. “Armour-plated, like a battleship.”
“A Man in a Case,” said Alexandra. “But not quite what Chekhov had in mind.”34
Spiridonov went up to the control panel. Patches of blue and red light fell on his face and jacket.
“Connecting the city!” he said, pretending to move a massive lever. “Connecting the Barricades . . . The Tractor Factory . . . Krasnoarmeisk . . .”
His voice trembled with emotion; in the strange blue and red light his face looked excited and happy. Silent and serious, the workers nearby were all watching.
A little later, in the car, Spiridonov leant over towards Alexandra and, too quietly for the driver to hear, whispered, “Remember the cleaning woman who showed you to my office?”
“Olga Petrovna, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right, Olga Petrovna, she’s a widow. Well, she had a young man living in her apartment who worked for me as a fitter. This young man went to flying school—and then he ended up in hospital, here in Stalingrad. And now he’s written to Olga to say that the daughter of the director of Stalgres—our very own Vera—is working as a nurse in the hospital, and that the two of them want to get married. Can you believe it? And Vera hasn’t yet said a word to me. I only know all this from my secretary, Anna Ivanovna. And she only knows because she heard from Olga Petrovna. Really, can you believe it?”
“Well,” said Alexandra, “that all sounds very good. As long as he’s a decent man, as long as he’s kind and honest.”
“Yes, but at a time like this, for the love of God! And anyway she’s still only a girl. Wait till it happens! Wait till the day you’re a great-grandmother—I’d like to hear what you have to say then!”
It was too dark for Alexandra to make out his expression, but his voice was the voice she had known for many years. The look on his face, she was sure, would be no less familiar.
“And not a word to Marusya about the bottle—all right?” he said very quietly, and laughed.
Alexandra was seized by a sudden, sad, maternal tenderness towards her son-in-law.
“And you, Stepan, may soon be a grandfather,” she said gently—and patted him on the shoulder.
17
DURING his visit to the Tractor Factory raikom Spiridonov learned something unexpected: Ivan Pavlovich Pryakhin, whom he had known for many years, had been promoted. He was to be first secretary of the obkom, the Party committee for the entire province.35
Pryakhin had once worked in the Tractor Factory’s Party office. Then he had gone to study in Moscow. Not long before the war he had returned to the Tractor Factory, this time as Party organizer.
Spiridonov had known Pryakhin for a long time, but they had never seen a lot of each other. He did not understand why he felt so affected by this news, which did not directly concern him.
He went to Pryakhin’s office and found him putting on his coat, about to go out. “Greetings, comrade Pryakhin, and my congratulations on your promotion!”
Pryakhin—large, slow and with a broad forehead—turned to look at Spiridonov and said, “Well, comrade Spiridonov,
we’ll still be seeing each other, the same as always, perhaps more often now.”
They left the building together.
“Let me give you a lift,” said Spiridonov. “I can drop you off on my way back to Stalgres.”
“No, I’d rather walk,” said Pryakhin.
“Walk?” Spiridonov said in surprise. “That’ll take you three hours.”
Pryakhin smiled but didn’t reply. Spiridonov looked at Pryakhin, smiled and also didn’t say anything. He realized that this taciturn man wanted, as the war drew closer, to walk the streets of the city where he had been born, to walk past a factory he had seen being built, past gardens he had seen being planted, past the school he had helped to build, past new blocks of apartments into which he had helped people to settle.
Spiridonov stood by the main door, waiting for his driver. He watched Pryakhin walk away.
“Now it’ll be him I have to report to!” he thought. He wanted to smile, but he was too moved. He remembered some of his previous meetings with Pryakhin. During the official opening of the school for the factory workers’ children Pryakhin had reprimanded the foreman for the appalling state of the parquet floors in some of the classrooms; his cross voice and preoccupied look had jarred with the celebratory atmosphere of the day. Spiridonov also remembered how, long before the war, there had been a bad fire in one of the workers’ settlements; seeing Pryakhin stride through the grey-blue smoke, he had said to himself with relief, “Ah, the district committee—here to the rescue!” And then there had been an occasion when a new workshop was about to come into operation. For three days and nights Spiridonov barely slept. Then Pryakhin turned up. It was as if he were just passing by, not needing to say anything in particular, but, each time he spoke, he had said something helpful about whatever was most troubling Spiridonov at that moment. Today, hearing of Pryakhin’s promotion, Spiridonov had felt the same as he had during the fire: “Ah, the district committee—here to the rescue!”
Spiridonov now saw Pryakhin in a new light: “The man must be feeling real anguish. He’s put his whole life into building this city. He wants to look at everything one more time. Yes, Stalingrad is our life—his life and mine.”
And it seemed likely that, when they were saying goodbye, Pryakhin had guessed what Spiridonov was thinking; he had squeezed his hand very firmly, as if to thank him both for his understanding and for his reticence, for not saying, “Ah, yes, I see. You’re wanting to look once more at the places where your life has gone by, at what you’ve worked so hard to construct.”
Few people like it when someone digs about in their soul and then broadcasts to the world what they’ve discovered there.
When he got back to Stalgres, Spiridonov returned at once to his everyday concerns, but the thoughts stirred up by this chance encounter remained with him. They did not simply dissolve in the noise of the everyday.
18
IN THE evening Zhenya blacked out the windows, pinning together a medley of shawls, jackets and old blankets.
The room at once felt stifling. Small beads of sweat appeared on the foreheads and temples of everyone at the table. The yellow salt in the salt cellar began to look moist, as if it too were sweating. On the other hand, the blackout did at least spare everyone from the sight of the troubling wartime sky.
“Well, comrade ladies?” asked Sofya, who was out of breath. “What’s new in our glorious city?”
But the comrade ladies did not answer. They were hungry and more interested in the potatoes, which were very hot. They were carefully picking them out of the saucepan, blowing on their fingers as they did so.
Spiridonov, who had had both lunch and supper in the Party committee dining room, was the only person not eating.
“From next week I’ll be sleeping at the power station,” he said. “That’s the latest from the obkom.” He coughed and added slowly, “Do you know? Pryakhin’s going to be the new first secretary.”
No one responded.
Marusya had just come back from a voluntary meeting for education workers. She began telling everyone about the high morale in the factory where the meeting had been held.
Marusya was considered the best-educated member of the family. As a schoolgirl, she had impressed everyone with her diligence, with her ability to keep studying all day long. Later, at the same time as attending the pedagogical institute, she obtained an external degree from the Faculty of Philosophy. Before the war, the Party publishing house printed her booklet Women and the Economy of Socialism. Spiridonov had one copy rebound in yellow leather with the title engraved in silver; the object of family reverence, this never left his desktop. He greatly respected Marusya’s judgement; in any discussion about friends and acquaintances, no one’s opinion mattered more to him.
“The moment you enter the workshop, all your worries and doubts slip away,” said Marusya, taking a potato from the saucepan but then, in her excitement, putting it back again. “A nation so hard-working and self-sacrificing cannot be defeated. But it’s only on the shop floor that I’ve truly sensed this determination. We should all of us stop whatever we’re doing now and go and work at armament factories or kolkhozes. And to think that our Tolya’s already at the front!”
“It’s worst of all for us young,” said Vera. “It’s not so bad for those who are elder.”
“Not ‘elder,’” said Marusya. “Older.” She constantly corrected Vera’s small mistakes.
“Your jacket’s covered in dust!” said Spiridonov. “It needs a good clean.”
“It’s sacred, factory dust,” said Marusya.
“Do have something to eat, Marusya,” said Spiridonov, afraid lest his wife’s love of exalted sentiment might lead her to neglect her share of the fried sturgeon he had brought back from the Party canteen.
“Everything Marusya says is true,” said Alexandra Vladimirovna, “but poor Tolya! He really was very upset.”
“War’s war,” said Marusya. “The motherland requires us to make sacrifices.”
Zhenya looked quizzically at her elder sister. “A single voluntary meeting’s all very well, dear Marusya—but imagine making your way to that factory every morning, in winter darkness, knowing there may be German bombers overhead, and then hurrying back again in the dark every evening. And nothing to put on the table but salty cheese and fish that’s just salt and bone.”
“And what gives you the right to talk with such authority?” Marusya replied. “Have you been working at a factory for the last twenty years? The trouble is, you’re constitutionally incapable of understanding that to be a part of a vast collective is a source of constant moral uplift. The workers make jokes, their confidence never flags. You should have seen the moment when a new gun was wheeled out of the workshop. The commander shook the hand of the old foreman, and the foreman embraced him and said, ‘God grant you return safe and sound from the war!’ I felt such love for my country that I could have gone on working not for another six hours but for another six days.”
“Heavens!” said Zhenya with a sigh. “We don’t disagree about what’s really important. Your words are very noble, and I’m with you heart and soul. But you talk about people as if it isn’t women who bring them into the world but newspaper editors. I know what you say about the factory is true, but why do you always have to sound so grand and lofty? Like it or not, it comes across as false. The people you talk about are figures on posters—and I don’t like that. I don’t want to paint posters.”
“But that’s just what you should be doing!” interrupted Marusya. “Instead of strange daubs no one can understand, you should paint posters. But I know what you’ll say next. You’ll start going on about truth to life . . . How many times do I have to tell you that there are two truths? There’s the truth of the reality forced on us by the accursed past. And there’s the truth of the reality that will defeat that past. It’s this second truth, the truth of the future, that I want to live by.”
“Closing your eyes to everything around you?” said Zheny
a.
“Well, you don’t see very much either,” Marusya retorted. “You don’t even want to see the wood for the trees.”
“No, Marusya,” said Sofya Osipovna. “You’re wrong. I can tell you as a surgeon that there is one truth, not two. When I cut someone’s leg off, I don’t know two truths. If we start pretending there are two truths, we’re in trouble. And in war too—above all, when things are as bad as they are today—there is only one truth. It’s a bitter truth, but it’s a truth that can save us. If the Germans enter Stalingrad, you’ll learn that if you chase after two truths, you won’t catch either. It’ll be the end of you.”
“The retreat,” Vera began slowly, “is becoming a rout. Today they brought in a new batch of wounded. The stories they tell are quite dreadful. But on the way here I met my friend Zina. She lived in Kiev for three months, under the Germans. She makes out it wasn’t so bad there. There were markets, interesting films, officers who were rather well educated—”
“Vera, don’t you dare talk like that!” said Spiridonov. “You know as well as I do what you get for spreading counter-revolutionary rumours in wartime!”
“What’s got into the young?” said Marusya. “When we were your age, we knew better. And let me say for the hundredth time—you should choose better friends!”
“Dear Mama and Papa,” Vera replied. “You two are like little children, with all your prejudices and taboos. I’m only telling you what I’ve heard. I’m not wanting to live under the Germans. Zina also said there’d been killing in Kiev, that Jews had been killed there. And what with poor Uncle Dmitry being in a camp, she also thought that Granny might just as well stay here in Stalingrad.”
“I can’t believe it!” said Marusya. “Such cynicism from my own daughter!”
“It can’t be true,” said Sofya. “There must be tens of thousands of Jews in Kiev. It’s impossible to kill all of them.”
“Whatever may have happened in Kiev,” said Alexandra, “I can’t stay here under the Germans. Nothing could be more appalling. Anyway, I’m responsible for Seryozha—I can’t do anything that might endanger the boy.”
Stalingrad Page 13
