Doctor Zhivago (69 page)

"
What a pest you are. Can
'
t you leave us alone? Well, get on with it, what is it you want?
"

"
I want scissors. Don
'
t be so surprised. I
'
d like to borrow a pair of scissors to cut my hair and my beard. I could do it here and give them back to you at once, it wouldn
'
t take a minute. I
'
d be terribly grateful.
"

The woman looked astonished and mistrustful. She clearly doubted his sanity.

"
I
'
ve just arrived from a long journey. I wanted to get a haircut but there isn
'
t a single barbershop open. So I thought I
'
d do it myself, but I haven
'
t any scissors. Would you kindly lend me some?
"

"
All right. I
'
ll give you a haircut. But I warn you. If you
'
ve got something else in mind—any tricks such as changing your appearance to disguise yourself for political reasons—don
'
t blame us if we report you. We are not risking our lives for you.
"

"
For heaven
'
s sake! What an idea!
"

She let him in and took him into a side room little bigger than a closet; next moment he was sitting in a chair with a sheet wrapped around him. and tucked under his chin as at the barber
'
s. The seamstress went out of the room and came back with a pair of scissors, a comb, clippers, a strap, and a razor.

"
I
'
ve done every kind of job in my life,
"
she explained, noticing her client
'
s astonishment.
"
At one time I was a hairdresser. I learned haircutting and shaving when I was a nurse in the other war. Now we
'
ll snip off that beard and then we
'
ll have a shave.
"

"
Could you cut my hair very short, please?
"

"
I
'
ll do my best. Why are you pretending to be so ignorant, an educated man like you? As if you didn
'
t know that we now count time by the decade and not by the week, and today is the seventeenth of the month and the barbers have their day off on every date with a seven in it.
"

"
Honestly I didn
'
t know. I
'
ve told you, I
'
ve just come from a long way off. Why should I pretend anything?
"

"
Don
'
t fidget or you
'
ll get cut. So you
'
ve just arrived. How did you come?
"

"
On my feet.
"

"
Along the highway?
"

"
Partly that, partly along the railway track. I don
'
t know how many trains I
'
ve seen, all buried in the snow. Luxury trains, special trains, every kind of train you can think of.
"

"
There, just this little bit to snip off and it
'
s finished. Family business?
"

"
Heavens, no! I worked for a former union of credit co-operatives as their travelling inspector. They sent me on an inspection tour to eastern Siberia and there I got stuck. No chance of a train, as you know. There was nothing for it but to walk. Six weeks, it took me. I can
'
t begin to tell you all I
'
ve seen on the way.
"

"
If I were you, I wouldn
'
t begin. I see I
'
ll have to teach you a thing or two. Have a look at yourself first. Here
'
s a mirror. Get your hand out from under the sheet and hold it. All right?
"

"
I don
'
t think it
'
s quite short enough. Couldn
'
t you take off a bit more?
"

"
It won
'
t stay tidy if it
'
s any shorter. As I was saying, don
'
t start telling anything at all. It
'
s better to keep your mouth shut. Credit co-operatives, luxury trains, inspection tours—forget all about such things. It isn
'
t the moment for them. You could get into no end of trouble. Better pretend you are a doctor or a schoolteacher. There now—beard cut off, now we
'
ll shave it clean. Just a spot of lather and you
'
ll be ten years younger. I
'
ll go and boil the kettle.
"

"
Whoever can she be?
"
Yurii Andreievich wondered. He had a feeling he had some connection with her—something he had seen or heard, someone she reminded him of—but he could not think who it was.

She came back with the hot water.

"
Now we
'
ll have a shave. As I was telling you, it
'
s much better not to say a word. Speech is of silver, silence is gold. That has always been true. And your special trains and credit co-operatives—better think of something else, say you are a doctor or a teacher. As for seeing sights, keep that to yourself. Whom are you going to impress these days? Am I hurting you?
"

"
A little.
"

"
It scrapes a bit, I know, it can
'
t be helped. Just a little bit of patience, my dear man. Your skin isn
'
t used to the razor and your beard is very coarse. It won
'
t take a minute. Yes. There
'
s nothing people haven
'
t seen. They
'
ve been through everything. We
'
ve had our troubles, too. The things that went on under the Whites! Murder, rape, abduction, man hunts. There was one little lordling who took a dislike to an ensign. He sent soldiers to ambush him in a wood outside the town, near Krapulsky
'
s house. They got him and disarmed him and took him under guard to Razvilie. In those days Razvilie was the same as the regional Cheka is nowadays—a place of execution. Why are you jerking your head like that? It scrapes, does it? I know, my dear, I know. It can
'
t be helped. Your hair is just like bristles. There
'
s just this one tough place. Well, the ensign
'
s wife was in hysterics.
'
Kolia! Kolia! What will become of my Kolia!
'
Off she went, straight to the top, to General Galiullin. That
'
s in a manner of speaking, of course. She couldn
'
t get straight to him. You had to pull strings. There was somebody in the next street over there who knew how to reach him, an exceptionally kind person, very sensitive, not like anyone else, always stood up for people. You can
'
t think what went on all over the place, lynchings, atrocities, dramas of jealousy. Just as in Spanish novels.
"

"
That
'
s Lara she
'
s talking about,
"
thought Yurii Andreievich. But he kept prudently silent and did not ask for details. Her absurd remark about the Spanish novels again oddly reminded him of something—precisely by its absurdity and irrelevance—but he still couldn
'
t think what it was.

"
Now, of course, it
'
s all quite different. Admittedly there
'
s any amount of investigations, informing, shooting, and so on. But the idea is quite different. To begin with, it
'
s a new government, it
'
s only just come into power, it hasn
'
t got into its stride yet. And then, whatever you say, they are on the side of the common people, that
'
s their strength. In our family we are four sisters, counting myself, all working women. It
'
s natural that we should be drawn to them. One sister died. Her husband was a political exile, worked as manager at one of the local factories. Their son—my nephew, that is—he
'
s at the head of the peasant forces—he
'
s quite a celebrity.
"

"
So that
'
s who she is,
"
Yurii Andreievich realized.
"
Liberius
'
s aunt, Mikulitsyn
'
s sister-in-law, the one who is a local legend, barber—seamstress—signal woman—Jack of all trades!
"
But he decided to say nothing so as not to give himself away.

"
My nephew was always drawn to the people, ever since his childhood. He grew up among the workers at the factory. Perhaps you
'
ve heard of the Varykino factories? Now look at what I
'
ve done, fool that I am. Half your chin is smooth and the other half is bristly. That
'
s what comes of talking. Why didn
'
t you stop me? Now the lather
'
s dry and the water is cold. I
'
ll go and warm it up.
"

When she came back, Yurii Andreievich asked:
"
Varykino, that
'
s somewhere miles out in the country, isn
'
t it? That should have been safe enough in all these upheavals.
"

"
Well, it wasn
'
t exactly safe. They had it worse than we did in some ways. They had some sort of armed bands out there, nobody quite knows what they were. They didn
'
t speak our language. They went through the place, house by house, shot everyone they found and went off again, without a by-your-leave. The corpses just stayed in the snow. That was in the winter, of course. Do stop jerking your head, I nearly cut you.
"

"
You were saying your brother-in-law lived in Varykino. Was he there when all this happened?
"

"
No. God is merciful. He and his wife got out in time—that
'
s his second wife. Where they are, nobody knows, but it
'
s certain that they escaped. There were some new people there as well, strangers from Moscow. They left even earlier. The younger of the two men, a doctor, the head of the family, he
'
s missing. That
'
s in a manner of speaking, of course; it was called
'
missing
'
to spare their feelings. Actually he must be dead—sure to have been killed. They kept looking and looking for him, but he never turned up. In the meantime the other one, the older of the two, he was called back home. A professor he was, an agronomist. The government called him back, I was told. They all stopped in Yuriatin on their way to Moscow, just before the Whites came back. Now you
'
re at it again, twisting and jerking. You really make me cut your throat. You get your money
'
s worth out of your barber, my dear man.
"

So they were in Moscow!

"
In Moscow! In Moscow!
"
The words echoed in his heart at every step of the cast-iron stairs, as he climbed them for the third time. The empty flat again met him with the hellish din of scampering, flopping, racing rats. It was clear to Yurii Andreievich that, however tired he was, he would never get to sleep unless he could keep this abomination away from him. The first thing before settling down for the night was to stop the ratholes. Fortunately, there were fewer of them in the bedroom than in the rest of the flat, where the floor boards and skirtings were in a worse state. But he had to hurry. It was getting dark. It was true that a lamp stood on the kitchen table—perhaps in expectation of his coming it had been taken down from its bracket and half filled with kerosene, and a match box with a few matches in it had been left out. But it was better to save both the matches and the kerosene. In the bedroom he found a small oil lamp; the rats had been at the oil but a little was left.