Court Martial (37 page)

'Here, give her a candle fuck,' shouts Shenja, delightedly, forcing a thick wax candle up into the woman's exposed sexual parts. 'Conceited upper-class mare!' She forces her down, brutally, across the table.

'Come on boys,' grins Gilda. 'The gate's open! Give it to her! A bitch like her, that looks down on us, 'cause we don't understand books!'

'Mother, mother,' screams the little boy, striking weakly at the drunken mob.

'Let me get at it,' grins Yorgi, slobbering as he opens his trousers. 'Here, you bitch, there ain't one this big in the whole of Kiev! Stop screamin'l It's good for you!'

'I'm gonna have her from the back,' titters one-legged Mischa with his trousers down round his one ankle.

'Shut up you little whore' son,' shouts Kosnow, the muscular fur hunter, sending the little boy flying across the floor.

'Pull her down a bit farther,' gurgles Mischa, lasciviously. 'I can't get it all the way up. There, that's it! Take this in your rotten, Ukrainian cunt!'

Each time one of the drunken, slobbering men has finished, Shenja throws a bucket of water over the raped woman.

'We believe in cleanliness here,' she says, laughing harshly, 'but Kiev whores like you wouldn't understand that!'

'You don't fuck a whore for nothin',' Shenja roars with laughter. 'Costs a kopeck a go, boys!'

'Cheapest whore I've ever had,' howls Fjedor, happily, pushing three kopecks up between the woman's legs.

When they are bored with it, they roll her under the table. She cries desperately for her boy, who is lying unconscious under a bench.

'Listen to that mare howling,' shouts Yorgi, irritably. 'Throw her out!'

They kick her out, brutally, into the snow.

'My boy,' she screams, desperately, hammering madly on the heavy door.

Gregorij picks up the boy and throws him out of the door as if he were a ball. He lands a good distance away in a snow drift.

'These traitors to the people've got to be wiped out,' roars Mischa, banging the table. 'I read in
Pravda
the other day that they are showing their horrible faces everywhere. Think, they fished out a Jew who had sneaked into the position of
sampolit
57
. They shot him,' he adds, after a short pause.

'If you stop and stand still you damn well die,' says Yorgi, for no reason, handing Mischa a full mug of beer.

On a sudden impulse Shenja announces a round on the house. All talking stops. Silence falls over 'The Red Angel'. The amazement is universal. Nobody can remember the fat hostess ever having been
that
generous.

'I'll push that whore kid of hers back up her cunt,' screams Gregorij, falling to the floor with a crash.

'Get your rotten fingers off my legs,' snarls Shenja. 'You're the last man'll ever get inside my drawers!'

'If you'd tried it once you'd never fuck with nobody else!' grins Nikolaij, foolishly.

'You little turd,' jeers Shenja. 'Me, as has sailed the Seven Seas and served diplomats and generals? Think I'd sink to a snow monkey like you? I once got fucked by a real lord in the middle o' the Atlantic Ocean!' She smiles, happily at the remembrance. 'He was a real Englishman with a proper castle where a Duchess used to walk every night when it was full moon! When he shot his load it was
blue
. Blue as the lamp outside the commissariat!'

'And since then you ain't never washed your cunt,' jeers Tanja, who has been sent to the village, temporarily. Not even the
polittruk
knows what she has done. It is whispered that an order will come, one day, for her to be liquidated. It has happened before. Others say she is an informer.

'I was a lorry driver on the Omsk, Moscow, Leningrad trip,' boasts Dimitrij.

'Now you only do the run from "The Red Angle" to the reindeer pen,' grins Cholinda, the milkman's wife.

'You don't know what you're talking about, woman,' Dimitrij spits contemptuously. 'Omsk, Moscow, Leningrad's the toughest route in the whole Soviet Union. By the time you roll down Newski Prospect you're half batty!'

'Suit you then,' Cholinda screams with laughter. 'You've never been anythin' else!'

'When I cracked up at last,' continues Dimitrij, refusing to be interrupted, 'I went on the tramp and've travelled by train free o' charge, over the whole of the Soviet Union. The good thing about trains is there's always a set of tracks leading away from where a fellow is. And if you get to some place in the winter where it's too cold to sleep outdoors, then you can count on it there's a gaol around where you can get a warm an' some grub.'

'Yes, that's a good thing about the Soviet Union,' shouts Yorgi, patriotically, 'we ain't got no shortage of gaols. Long live Stalin!'

'The day came when I had to give up that wonderful, free life,' smiles Dimitrij, sorrowfully. 'It was in Odessa. I was lying dreaming on a bench in the Park of the Proletariat, when I felt a knockin' on my think-box. There stood some dope of a
garadovoj
,
58
grinning at me, and whirling his long truncheon like a wheel. He'd hit me across the soles of my feet with it and I felt it all the way through my body. Right out to the ends of my hair it'd gone.

'"I am leaving," I said, bowing politely. "I am lying here quite by mistake!"

'"You're not so dumb as you look," grinned this
garadovoj
, giving me one in the middle of the forehead with his truncheon so that I wouldn't forget too soon that people are not allowed to sleep in the Park of the Proletariat. I moved off at top speed, but hadn't more than put my nose outside the park before I was arrested. It was, unluckily, just in the false dawn, when the milk-carts come rumblin', an' it's the best part of the day for the coppers. I'd been looking forward to a cuppa coffee and a bite, too!

'Well, they drove me to
spjaetsyalniyi stamtsyja
.
+
There they gave me a goin' over which made me admit that work was a great blessing for all Soviet citizens.' He throws his arms wide and looks over the ice-covered windows. 'And now here I am in company with a bottle of vodka!'

Above the bar Captain Wasilij Sinsow lies in bed watching Tamara, who moves up and down the room, like an angry cat, with a cigarette between her sensuous lips.

'What the hell is there to do in this dirty hole?' she hisses. Tuck and get drunk! I'm tired of it! Why don't you ever go out with me?'

'Where the hell'd we go?' he asks, irritably. 'We went to the pictures last week!'

'Pictures,' she snarls, angrily 'Wynn call that a cinema? Political shit! We've got to
do
something! We'll go mad else! We'll die and we won't even know it!'

'Let's go skiing, when the storm has dropped,' he suggests, weakly.

'Ski? Now I
do
believe you've gone mad! I'm cured of skiing for the rest of my life!'

He supports himself in the bed on one elbow and shows his beautifully white teeth in a big smile.

'As soon as we've won the war, we'll take a holiday in the Crimea,' he comforts her. 'We'll go sailing and make love on the deck with only the gulls to see us!'

And in the evening we'll have dinner at a restaurant!' She laughs, and her face lightens at the thought.

'And we'll stay all night. As long as we want to. And we'll fill ourselves up with caviare and Crimean wine,' he promises.

'When we've won the war,' she sighs, sadly, emptying the vodka glass. 'You've heard of the Thirty Years War, I suppose? Why shouldn't this one last just as long? Well, there'd only be twenty-eight years of it left.'

'Twenty-seven,' he corrects her, beginning to whistle.

'What's a year more or less?' she groans, resignedly. 'Oh, hell, Wasilij, I feel as if I were locked in a stinking prison! You lie there on your back all day, drinking. What the hell are you
doing
here anyway?'

'I'm training Home Guards,
you
know that,' he answers her, angrily. 'I'm also keeping an eye on enemy movements, and sending wireless information if they get here. It's a very important job and you know it!'

'Oh, shut up!' she laughs, wildly. 'They do say the Germans are stupid, but I'll never believe they'd be stupid enough to come here! Nobody'd be
that
stupid! Only Soviet citizens are dumb enough to live in a hole like this.' She passes her hand over his coal-black hair, kisses him on the lips, and passes her tongue over his. 'I'm bored! Four months alone with you! Everywhere snow, nothing but snow! It's driving me
mad
! We can't even be bothered to make love any more! We can do all the hundred and ten positions in our sleep! Find something
new
to do, you fool!'

'Maybe we could arrange a dog race,' he suggests, without believing it himself. 'There's a lot of sledge-dogs here!'

'Those village curs are too stupid to learn to race,' she considers. 'Do you remember when we used to go to the races in Moscow and then to the Bolshoi in the evening? Give me a drink!' She holds out her glass towards him. 'Get up for Christ's sake! What do you think you're for?'

'Not so impertinent, woman,' he says, threateningly. 'I can soon have you back in gaol!'

'Maybe that wouldn't be so bad! I'd soon find myself a nice lesbian bitch!' She gets up and sits in a chair. She puts her feet on a crazy table, and her black chemise slides up her legs.

He gives a long whistle.

'Come here and let me fuck you! You've got the loveliest thighs ever, and your cunt's the world's best. Not even those capitalist bitches are as well-equipped as you are!'

'Shut up!' she snarls, lighting one of her long, perfumed cigarettes. 'Let's get away from here, Wasilij! Moscow people can't live in a hole like this! Our brains rot! Yesterday I caught myself talking to a reindeer, and what the devil have I got to talk to a crazy reindeer about?'

She jumps on to the bed, curls herself round him, let's the tip of her tongue run over his face while her fingers run down over his hairy body.

'You're a lovely man, Wasilij! You're a damned rogue but you can do everything a woman likes a man to do!' She draws back and looks searchingly at him. 'You said you had connections. The best anybody could ask for. Why the hell are we sitting here then? Isn't it about time you got hold of them and got us out of here?' She kisses him again, rolls on top of him and bites his ear. 'Let's go to Murmansk for a day! Spend a couple of days in the places the naval officers go to. Order them to get the dogs in harness and we'll soon be in Murmansk!'

'Are you mad?' he replies. 'You know we can't do it. This is a very responsible post I've been given here! Suddenly the Germans'll be here! Then I've got full responsibility and I'm the commander. It can mean promotion, decorations, and if we're lucky we'll be the only ones left and can pretty the story
up
a bit!'

'Tell me now, Wasilij, isn't there something wrong under that hair of yours? If we are the only ones left alive we'd better be pretty careful what we say in Moscow.' She looks deeply into his naive eyes. 'Have you ever met a German? They're good shots! If they really come here I'll be interested to see how your drunken Home Guard'll function!'

A noisy banging can be heard from the bar-room below.

'Listen to them,' she says, contemptuously. 'God help us if the Germans arrived at this moment! What a lot of blood'd be spilt! Russian blood!'

'Be careful what you say,' he snarls, pushing her away, angrily. 'You don't know me!' With a wicked gleam in his eyes he pulls a Nagan from under his pillow and presses it against her temple. 'I'd liquidate you, if I wanted to!'

'You wouldn't dare,' she jeers at him, provokingly. 'You shoot me and all you've got to fuck with is that fat, greasy bitch down below. Noticed the smell of her? She hasn't had a wash since '36, when the Party started the "save water" campaign.'

He throws himself back on the bed, laughing madly.

'What a hell of a woman you are! Nobody could get really angry with you.' He throws her a grifa.

They smoke for a while in silence. Then she reaches lazily for the balalaika.

He jumps out of bed and dances wildly around the room in the Tartar manner. He points the Nagan at the ceiling and empties the magazine.

She laughs noisily and throws a crystal vase at the wall. Splinters of glass fly around their ears.

Naked he springs over the furniture and with a long jump ends in the bed. Brutally he pulls her down on top of him. She hits him on the head with the balalaika, and screams with pain when he puts out his cigarette on her naked shoulder.

'Shut up,' he shouts. 'Pain and erotic love belong together!' He catches her by the hair and forces her head down between his thighs. 'Suck it, you dirty whore!'

'Swine,' she mumbles, closing her lips around his enormous weapon.

'Get moving,' he roars, lecherously.

She looks up at his fat, stupid face and snaps her teeth together suddenly with all her might.

He screams with pain and kicks her off him.

She spits out the lump of flesh and wipes her mouth, which is smeared with blood.

He goes down screaming and presses his hands over his bloody crotch.

'Pig!' she hisses. 'You thought you could treat me anyway you liked!' She lights a grifa coolly, and looks at him maliciously.

'You crazy bitch, you've bitten it off,' he shouts, despairingly, taking a few steps towards her.

'So what?' she grimaces at him and goes backwards towards the door. 'You didn't know how to use it anyhow. You always wanted it French, but you've never had it as French as you've had it tonight!'

'Get a doctor,' he pleads with her, beside himself.

'A doctor,' she laughs, contemptuously. 'The only doctor we've got here is the fat woman, who once took an eight-day nurse's course. She couldn't even help a pig to farrow!'

'You'll pay for this,' he groans, looking at his hands, which are covered with blood.

'You're dying,' she confirms, as if she is telling him it is cold outside.

'It's murder,' he sobs, falling to the floor.