Little Apple (2 page)

Instead of waiting for Vit¬torin to reply, he promptly launched into an account of his own doings.

"In my case everything went off in double-quick time - J saw to that. Five days under observation at Brest-Litovsk, a new set of kit, and off to Vienna. Now I'm on my way to the reserve battalion - in other words, on leave. Vienna's quite a sight - you'll get a shock when you see the place, it's awful. Influenza raging, pitch-black streets at night, nothing to eat in the restaurants, not even the better ones, people queueing up for a morsel of beef. . . Yes, my friend, it's a far cry from the old days, when I used to dine on stuffed grouse and wild duck braised in red wine at the Weide in Hietzing. It doesn't bear thinking of. The opera - that's the only thing left. Care for a decent cigarette? Cercle du Bosphore, first-class brand - I bought them off a carpet dealer who got back from Constantinople last week. The word in Vienna is, the whole of the Bulgarian army has gone over to the Entente. Some allies, eh? How true it is, I don't know."

A Red Cross nurse nodded to Emperger as she left the station buffet on the arm of a hussar captain. He clicked his heels and bowed.

"That's Vicky Fröhlich," he whispered to Vit¬torin. "You know, the coal magnate's niece - she's nursing at Neusandec. I wonder how Captain Nadherny managed to latch on to her. Do you know the man? He's got a glass eye - spends every morning in the Café Fenstergucker."

The stationmaster appeared in the doorway and announced the arrival of the train for Neusandec, Gorlice and Sanok.

"Seen any of our friends yet?" Vit¬torin asked.

Emperger was still staring after the Red Cross nurse.

"Should I put a bit of a spoke in Nadherny's wheel, I wonder?" he mused. "That girl's far too good for him. I'd stand a fair chance with her."

"The others," Vit¬torin insisted, "- have you heard anything from them?"

"The Professor's back in Vienna already," Emperger replied. "It was in all the papers: 'Professor Junker returns from a Russian POW camp.' He's lucky, of course, to have been a civilian internee - no reporting to any regimental depot for him. Kohout I bumped into at the quartermaster's stores in Brest-Litovsk. Impossible fellow, Kohout - downright suspicious, the way he fraternizes with the rank and file. He'll come to a bad end, you mark my words."

"What about Feuerstein?"

"Feuerstein's brother was waiting for him at Kiev with some discharge papers in his pocket. My own affairs are shaping nicely too. As soon as the war's over I'm joining the Credit Bank as a legal adviser. They're keeping the job open for me."

Vit¬torin listened with only half an ear. He had been waiting on tenterhooks for Emperger to broach the subject that preoccupied him so unceasingly, day and night, but the man confined himself to matters of supreme unimportance. Was it a deliberate ploy, an attempt to trivialize the Chernavyensk agreement? Vit¬torin decided to clarify the situation once and for all.

"Is there any news of a certain subject?" he asked point-blank. "Did you discuss it with Kohout?"

"Discuss what?"

"Discuss
what?"
Vit¬torin repeated angrily. "Why, Selyukov, of course."

"Selyukov? What news would there be? There's nothing to be done for the moment. I haven't given a thought to Selyukov, quite frankly, nor to Chernavyensk. It's as if I'd never been there. You'll feel just the same once you're back in Vienna. The first day, when I woke up in my own bed at home, I looked at the time: five forty-five! God Almighty, I thought, five forty-five, I'd better get up quickly, reveille will be sounding any minute! And then of course, as you can imagine, I lay back and wallowed in an indescribable sense of bliss, and as I lay there I recalled Camp Regulations, Paragraph 2: 'When reveille sounds, all prisoners of war will get up, make their beds, wash, and clean their huts. Tea may be drunk until 0800. Well, I told myself, all bad things come to an end. Now I can drink tea any time I feel like it."

Vit¬torin glanced at the clock, summoned the waiter, and paid. The Vienna express was due in five minutes' time. Emperger insisted on accompanying his friend and former room-mate out on to the platform. Here he hurriedly imparted a few more useful tips on life in Vienna.

"You can go around in civvies if you like - nobody cares. If you want to buy something to eat, try the North-West Station. You can get everything there: meat, butter, eggs, flour - you know, from the men on leave from Galicia. They make you pay through the nose, of course, but still. Coffee-houses? Don't touch the stuff they call mocca. If you fancy a real mocca, go to the Café Pucher and mention my name to the waiter. They still serve genuine Turkish coffee there, but only to special customers."

"I think we'll hold our first meeting around Christmas," Vit¬torin said. "We'll have to fit it in with our leave, so we're all in Vienna at the same time."

"We'll all be on leave soon, if you ask me," said Emperger.

"There are rumours to that effect. So long, Vit¬torin. Take care of yourself."

The train was crowded. Vit¬torin sat huddled beside his bedding-roll in the dimly-lit corridor and tried to sleep, but a hateful voice kept jolting him awake.

"Sdravstvuyte —
welcome," it said in melodious tones, and Vit¬torin sat up with a start, transfixed by a fleeting vision of the strangely chiselled profile, the domed, rather bulbous forehead, the slightly parted lips with their hint of arrogance, the cigarette between the slender, tanned fingers. Had he ever seen Mikhail Mikhailovich Selyukov without a cigarette? Yes, once, when that drunken Cossack struck the Austrian captain from Przemysl with his
nagaika
and Selyukov came to the prisoners' hut to apologize in person, his full-dress uniform adorned with the Order of Vladimir and the Cross of St George. "The fellow will be dealt with most severely. You know what penalty Russian military law prescribes for a Cossack, a peasant. Believe me, Captain, I couldn't be more sorry." And then, with an inclination of the head, he had shaken hands with his prisoner and brother officer. Oh yes, Mikhail Mikhailovich Selyukov knew his manners. He was no peasant, no Cossack - he could be charming when he chose, and all the worse for that.

The train stopped. Vit¬torin went to the window and peered out. He had once spent a holiday near here, twelve - no, fourteen years ago. His uncle had still owned the mill in those days. Now he toured the villages selling threshing machines.

Fourteen years. How quickly time went by, yet tonight seemed endless, absolutely endless. Only a quarter to one. Tomorrow he would be in Vienna. Had they received his telegram? Who would be at the station? His father, his sisters - Franzi too, perhaps. If only he could sleep . . .

He closed his eyes, but sleep was ousted by a vision from the past, a memory that haunted him relentlessly. He was back in Chernavyensk, standing outside the camp commandant's office. He had a request to make. Selyukov could be gracious as well as sadistic. "Submit your request, Lieutenant," he would say, "I'm listening. Whatever I can do for my prisoners of war" he would continue in French, "I do . . ."

Vit¬torin's fingers were numb with cold. The
starshi,
the Russian NCO who was escorting him, brushed the snow off his greatcoat, stamped his feet, adjusted his cap, and knocked.

Staff Captain Selyukov was seated at his desk. He didn't look up; he continued to leaf through a book, smoking and making notes as he did so. He had an elegant, nonchalant way of holding his cigarette left-handed while writing: he compressed it between the tip of his little finger and his ring finger. The desk was littered with military manuals, miscellaneous printed matter, French novels.

Grisha, Selyukov's orderly, put his head round the door, saw that his master was busy, and withdrew. The room was filled with a faint, subtle aroma of Chinese tobacco. There was something else in the air as well: a whiff of some exotic scent. Of course, Selyukov occasionally received women visitors. If she was in the room, the woman whose name no one in the camp knew - if she was there, the thin-faced young woman with the apprehensive, darting eyes, she could only be concealed behind the screen. Vit¬torin strained his ears for the sound of her breathing.

Five minutes went by, and still Selyukov didn't look up. Every now and then, as he wrote, his tongue would emerge from between his teeth, caress his upper lip, and disappear again. Vit¬torin watched this silent proceeding with a peculiar relish for which he could find no explanation. Eight minutes. The white enamel cross on the yellow ribbon was the Cross of St George. Selyukov also had the Order of Vladimir and St George's Sabre, but those he wore on special occasions only.

He completed his work at last. The NCO, standing at attention with his hands on his trouser seams, said a few words in Russian.

Mikhail Mikhailovich Selyukov propped his head on his hand and stared straight through Vit¬torin with half-closed eyes.

"You must submit your request to the non-commissioned officer of the day," he drawled, as though addressing the coat hanging on the wall behind Vit¬torin. "It's not my job to listen to complaints from prisoners of war. You know the rules here. You're breaking camp regulations. This is the third time you've pestered me with requests and complaints."

Vit¬torin flushed scarlet and stared at the screen.

"Your conduct is unbecoming to an officer," Selyukov went on. "In France they call it
bochisme.
To teach you respect for Russian military law, you're confined to quarters for ten days. You may go."

Vit¬torin, eager to justify himself, stood his ground and put what he had to say into French. Selyukov must be made to see that he was dealing with an educated, cultivated person who was fluent in the language of diplomacy. "It's cruel, sir," he said in that language. "It's quite inhuman to stop our letters for three weeks, just because two lights were still on at eleven. My comrades ..."

Vit¬torin couldn't get another word out - he was unequal to the situation. Selyukov tapped the ash off his cigarette. Then he nodded to the NCO.

"Pashol."

He said it very quietly - so quietly that it sounded as if it meant "One moment" or "Wait a minute", not plain "Out!"
Pashol!
The NCO turned about, grabbed Vit¬torin by the shoulder, and hustled him out of the office.

The Tyrolean lance-corporal in the other ranks' camp across the way caught hold of the Russian medical officer who had slapped his face and strangled him with his bare hands - yes, and was executed by firing squad the next day without turning a hair. And I? What of me?

Very well, Mikhail Mikhailovich Selyukov, so you chose to treat me
à la canaille. Pashol!
Very well. The French call it
bochisme,
do they? As you wish, but every dog has his day. We'll discuss it in due course, Mikhail Mikhailovich Selyukov. You think I'll forget? You're mistaken, Captain. There are some things one never forgets. Conduct unbecoming to an officer, did you say? The French call it
bochisme?
Just you wait, Captain. The day of reckoning will come. I won't forget.

Pashol
. . . Had she heard that, the woman behind the screen? A Frenchwoman, so it was said in camp - a landowner's child bride who travelled four hours by sleigh each time she came to see Selyukov.
Pashol
. . . Had she understood? Oh yes, of course she had. Perhaps it had amused her — perhaps she'd laughed, perhaps she'd chuckled to herself, silently and inaudibly, in her hiding place behind the screen.

Vit¬torin bit his lip. Shame and anger brought the blood to his cheeks, and he clamped his forehead against the cold windowpane. He hadn't said a word to his comrades about what had happened in Selyukov's office, but the memory of that ignominous encounter ate its way into his distraught soul like some corrosive poison.

He wasn't alone. His friends, too, had a score to settle with Selyukov. They were bound by a pledge, an oath solemnly sworn over the open grave of one of their comrades.

Vit¬torin straightened up. Determination flooded through him.

We'll get down to business as soon as the war's over and we're all back in Vienna again. The Professor, being the eldest, can preside over our deliberations. Feuerstein will put up the money and I'll be given the job of returning to Russia. It's mine by right, and I won't let anyone dispute it.

Here I am, Captain, don't you remember me? Lieutenant Vit¬torin of Hut 4, Chernavyensk Camp. That's right, the French call it
bochisme.
Why so pale, Your Excellency? You weren't expecting me? You thought I'd forget? Oh no, I haven't forgotten. What did you say?
Pashol?
No, Captain, I'm staying — I want a word with you. Remember the air force lieutenant you deprived of officer status because his papers weren't in order? Think for a moment, take your time. When he refused to work in the other ranks' kitchen you locked him up in a cellar. He was sick - recurrent fever, chronic malaria — but you left him lying on a plank bed in that filthy cellar until. . . You claimed he was malingering. 'The camp medical office has got better things to do than cope with prisoners' vagaries,' you said. 'He's putting it on, pretending he's ill. There's nothing wrong with him at all.' The day he was buried we swore an oath, the five of us, and now, as you see, the day of reckoning has come. You don't remember? But you do remember me, don't you? Conduct unbecoming to an officer, the French call it. . . There, take that! That's for
bochisme,
and that's for impounding our mail, and that - stop, what are you looking for? Your revolver? That'll do you no good, Captain. Ah, here's Grisha.
Sdravstvuy,
Grisha. Tell your orderly, Captain, that I'll shoot him if he so much as lifts a finger. Yes indeed, I've come prepared. You challenge me to a duel? Very well, that sounds reasonable. The choice of weapons is yours. My seconds will . . .

The conductor, coming down the train with a lantern in his hand, was suddenly confronted by an infantry lieutenant standing in the middle of the corridor, pale as death, with one clenched fist extended. He walked on, shaking his head, turned to look back when he reached the communicating door, shrugged, and disappeared into the next carriage. Vit¬torin retired to his corner feeling faintly annoyed and sheepish.