Doctor Zhivago (45 page)

"
I have been wounded twice and discharged as an invalid.
"

"
Next you
'
ll be handing me a reference from the People
'
s Commissariat of Education or Health to prove that you are a Soviet citizen, a
'
sympathizer,
'
'
entirely loyal.
'
These are apocalyptic times, my dear sir, this is the Last Judgment. This is a time for angels with flaming swords and winged beasts from the abyss, not for sympathizers and loyal doctors. However, I told you you were free, and I won
'
t go back on my word. But remember, it
'
s for this once. I have a feeling that we
'
ll meet again, and then our conversation will be quite different. Watch out.
"

Neither the threat nor the challenge disturbed Yurii Andreievich. He said:
"
I know what you think of me. From your point of view you are right. But the issue you wish me to discuss with you is one I have been arguing with an imaginary accuser all my life, and it would be odd if I had not by now reached some conclusion. Only I could not put it into a couple of words. So if I am really free, permit me to leave without having it out with you. If I am not, then you must decide what to do with me. I have no excuses to make to you.
"

They were interrupted by the telephone. The line was repaired. Strelnikov picked up the receiver.

"
Thanks, Gurian. Now be a good fellow and send somebody along to see Comrade Zhivago to his train; I don
'
t want any more accidents. And give me the Razvilie Cheka Transport Department.
"

When Zhivago had gone, Strelnikov telephoned the railway station.

"
There
'
s a schoolboy they
'
ve brought in, keeps pulling his cap over his ears and he
'
s got a bandaged head, it
'
s disgraceful.—That
'
s right.—He
'
s to have medical aid if he needs it.—Certainly.—Yes, like the apple of your eye, you
'
ll be responsible to me personally.—Food, too, if necessary. That
'
s right. Now, let
'
s get down to business.… I
'
m still talking, don
'
t cut me off. Damn, there
'
s somebody else on the line. Gurian! Gurian! They
'
ve cut me off.
"

He gave up trying to finish his conversation for the time being.
"
It could be one of my former pupils,
"
he thought.
"
Fighting us, now he
'
s big.
"
He counted up the years since he had stopped teaching to see if the boy could have been his pupil. Then he looked out of the window toward the panorama of the horizon, and searched for the part of Yuriatin where they had lived. Suppose his wife and daughter were still there! Couldn
'
t he go to them? Why not now, this very minute? Yes, but how could he? They belonged to another life. First he must see this one through, this new life, then he could go back to the one that had been interrupted. Someday he would do it. Someday. But when, when?

The train that had brought the Zhivago family was still on a siding behind several other trains that screened it from the station, yet they had a feeling that their connection with Moscow—which till now had remained unbroken—snapped that morning, that it had come to an end. Here began another territory, a different, provincial world, which had a center of gravity of its own.

Here people were closer together than in the capitals. Although the station area was cleared of civilians and surrounded by Red Army units, passengers for the local trains managed in some unaccountable way to get to the tracks, to
"
infiltrate,
"
as we would say today. They had already crammed the cars, thronging in the open sliding doors, and they walked back and forth along the train and stood in small groups on the embankment.

All of them, without exception, were acquainted; they waved and called out as soon as they caught sight of each other, and they exchanged greetings as they passed. Their speech and dress, their food and manners, were all a little different from those of people in the capitals.

"
How do they earn their living?
"
the doctor wondered. What were their interests and their material resources, how did they cope with the difficulties of the times, how did they evade the laws?

All these questions were soon answered in the most vivid way.

Escorted by the sentry who dragged his rifle after him or used it as a walking stick, the doctor went back to his carriage. It was a sultry day. The hot sun beat down on the rails and the roofs of the cars. The black puddles of oil on the ground blazed with a yellow shimmer, like gold leaf.

The sentry
'
s rifle butt plowed a furrow in the sand. It clinked against the ties.

"
The weather has settled,
"
he was saying.
"
Time for the spring sowing—oats, wheat, millet—it
'
s the best time. It
'
s too early for the buckwheat, though. Where I come from we sow the buckwheat on the Feast of Akulina. I
'
m not from these parts, I come from Morshansk, in the Tambov government. Eh, Comrade Doctor, if it wasn
'
t for this here civil war and this plague of a counterrevolution, do you think I
'
d be wasting my time in strange parts at this season? The class war has run between us like the black cat of discord, and just look at what it
'
s doing.
"

Hands stretched out of the carriage to help him up.

"
Thanks, I can manage.
"

Yurii Andreievich hoisted himself into the car, and after regaining his balance embraced his wife.

"
At last! Thank God, it
'
s ended well,
"
she said.
"
Actually, we knew you were all right.
"

"
What do you mean, you knew?
"

"
We knew everything.
"

"
How?
"

"
The sentries told us. How could we have stood it otherwise? As it is, Father and I nearly went out of our minds. There he is, he
'
s fast asleep, you can
'
t wake him, sleeping like a log after all the excitement. There are several new passengers, I
'
ll introduce you in a moment, but listen to what everybody
'
s talking about—they are all congratulating you on your lucky escape. Here he is,
"
she said suddenly, turning and introducing her husband over her shoulder to one of the new passengers who was hemmed in by the crowd at the back of the freight car.

"
Samdeviatov,
"
the stranger introduced himself, raising his soft hat over other people
'
s heads and pushing his way forward through the press of bodies.

"
Samdeviatov,
"
thought the doctor.
"
With a name like that he ought to have come straight out of an old Russian ballad, complete with a bushy beard, a smock, and a studded belt. But he makes you think of the local Arts Club, with his graying curls, mustache, goatee ...
"

"
Well, did Strelnikov give you a fright?
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said Samdeviatov.
"
Tell the truth.
"

"
No, why? We had an interesting talk Certainly he has a powerful personality.
"

"
I should think so. I
'
ve got some idea of what he
'
s like. He
'
s not from these parts. He
'
s one of you Moscow people. Like all our newfangled things. They too are imported from the capital. We wouldn
'
t have thought of them ourselves.
"

"
Yurochka, this is Anfim Efimovich, he knows everything,
"
Antonina Alexandrovna said.
"
He
'
s heard about you and about your father, and he knew my grandfather—he knows everyone, absolutely everyone!—I suppose you must have met the schoolteacher, Antipova?
"
she slipped in casually, and Samdeviatov replied just as casually:
"
What about Antipova?
"
Yurii Andreievich heard this exchange but did not say anything, and his wife went on:
"
Anfim Efimovich is a Bolshevik. Be on your guard, Yurochka. You must watch your tongue when he is around.
"

"
Really? I
'
d never have thought so. I
'
d have taken him for an artist of some sort.
"

"
My father kept an inn,
"
said Samdeviatov.
"
He had seven troikas on the road. But I went to the university, and it
'
s true that I
'
m a Social Democrat.
"

"
Listen to what Anfim Efimovich told me, Yurochka, and by the way, if you don
'
t mind my saying so, Anfim Efimovich, your name is a real tongue-twister!—So, listen, Yurochka, we
'
ve been terribly lucky. We can
'
t change at Yuriatin—part of the town is on fire and the bridge has been blown up, you can
'
t get through. Our train will be switched to another line, and that line happens to be just the one we need to get to Torfianaia. Isn
'
t it wonderful! We don
'
t have to change and lug all our stuff from one station to another. On the other hand, we
'
ll be shunted back and forth for hours before we really start off. Anfim Efimovich told me all that.
"

Antonina Alexandrovna was right. Cars were coupled and uncoupled, and the train was shifted endlessly from one congested line to another where other trains blocked its way into the open country.

The town lay in the distance partly hidden by the rolling countryside. Only now and then did its roofs, the chimneys of its factories, and the crosses on its belfries emerge above the horizon. One of its suburbs was on fire. The smoke drifted across the sky looking like a gigantic horse
'
s mane blowing in the wind.

The doctor and Samdeviatov sat on the floor of the freight car, their legs dangling over the side. Samdeviatov kept pointing into the distance and explaining what they saw to Yurii Andreievich. Every now and then the train would jerk noisily and drown his voice, and he would lean across bringing his mouth close to the doctor
'
s ear and repeat what he had said, shouting himself hoarse.

"
That
'
s a movie house, the
'
Giant,
'
they
'
ve set on fire. The cadets were holding it, though they
'
d surrendered earlier. Otherwise, the fighting isn
'
t over yet. You see those black dots on the belfry? Those are our people, sniping at the Czechs.
"

"
I can
'
t see a thing. How can you see them at such a distance?
"

"
That
'
s the artisans
'
quarter, Khokhriki, burning over there. Kholodeievo, the shopping center, is farther on. I
'
m interested because our inn is there. Luckily, it
'
s only a small fire, it hasn
'
t spread. So far the center has remained intact.
"

"
What did you say? I can
'
t hear you.
"

"
I said the center, the center of the town—the cathedral, the library…Our name, Samdeviatov, is a garbled Russian form of San Donate. We
'
re supposed to be descended from the Demidovs.
"