Red Army (33 page)

“All right,” Gordunov said. “That sounds logical enough. But don’t go soft on me, Levin.”

Levin was relieved. He had been prepared to argue his point. “And the prisoners,” he said. “I’ll move them into the basement of the town hall. Or somewhere nearby. I won’t waste men guarding them. Two should be able to handle it.”

“All right, all right. Listen, Levin. You have the makings of a decent soldier. The important thing now is to hang on, no matter how bad the situation may look. Remember, the enemy is paying a price, too. For all we can tell, he may be far worse off than we are.” Gordunov paused to look Levin up and down. Levin suddenly sensed that there was something more that the battalion commander wished to communicate to him. “I know,” Gordunov picked up again, “that you truly believe ... in things with which I personally have some difficulty. Perhaps you despise me, Levin. That’s ultimately of no consequence. But you must hold on. You cannot let anything interfere with the mission. There are other old buildings. Other towns. Even other men to replace the dead. But there is no other mission for us. You cannot let anything else matter to you.”

Levin wanted to assure his commander that he could be counted upon, that he would never let him down. But Gordunov wasn’t finished.

“You’re a different type of man from me,” the battalion commander said. “Probably a better sort, who knows? But now there’s this bridge. Bridges, if we’re lucky. I just want you to understand . . .” Gordunov caught himself. “We’ve got to move. That’s enough philosophy. Move the damned command post. But do it quickly. And get down and visit all your positions. Keep the men under tight control. And good luck.”

Gordunov turned to go. In the muted light provided by the hospital’s emergency generators, Levin caught the sparkle of an awkwardly rigged metal brace showing from beneath a slash in the bottom of Gordunov’s trouser leg. Levin felt a tide of emotion sweep over him. He wanted to say something human and decent to this man after all, to recognize him as a comrade, almost to apologize. But Gordunov quickly limped away, and before Levin could sort out his feelings, the battalion commander had disappeared into the night.

Major Bezarin wanted to move. He felt his resentment swelling toward genuine anger as the hours burned away. Propped up in the commander’s hatch of his tank, he focused on the tiny bead of light that marked the rear of the tank ahead of his own. It was still too dark to discriminate the shapes, but Bezarin could feel the other tanks stopped in the road ahead of him and behind him, a mighty concentration of power not only wasted at the moment, but, worse still, at risk in their compact, stationary mass. Bezarin had been allowed no choice in the positioning of his battalion. The regiment’s chief of staff had halted the column without warning, telling Bezarin simply to close up and await further orders. When Bezarin asked if he could deploy off the road into dispersed tactical positions, the chief of staff had brusquely dismissed the idea with the remark that this was no time for nonsense, that the entire regiment had to be prepared to resume movement on a few minutes’ notice. And with the reminder that the directive remained in effect limiting radio use to monitoring only, the chief of staff had gone to tuck in the trail battalion.

Bezarin imagined that he could feel the heavy iron breath of his tanks, his steel stallions aching to break loose. Even with the engines cut, the pungent smell of exhaust hung on in the low-lying roadway, corrupting the cool morning air. To move, to fight, was to have a chance. But it was exasperating, a terrible thing, to be forced to wait without any information. According to the books, Bezarin knew he was supposed to be planning for his commitment and preparing his companies. But he had received no word on where or when or under what circumstances his tanks would enter the battle. He had forced his company commanders to inspect each of their vehicles for its readiness, then he had discussed abstract options with them. But finally, he had realized that he was only robbing them of sleep. Now he waited alone for the fateful radio transmission, or for a courier to ride down along the column, searching for the command tanks. But the radio remained silent, and the only sound was of the occasional tanker dismounting to relieve himself by the side of the road. Beyond the local envelope of silence, the ceaseless war sounds grumped in the distance, teasing him. It reminded him of waiting in the lobby at a film theater, listening to the muffled sound track hint at the drama behind the closed doors of the auditorium. From left to right, the horizon glowed as though the edge of the world had caught fire, flickering in slow motion, then flashing like a photographer’s bulb, streaking the running clouds with gypsy colors. Bezarin wanted to enter that world of testing and decision before he could begin to doubt himself in earnest.

His feeling of helplessness was aggravated by the memory of his unit’s canal crossing near Salzgitter the evening before. The flagmen had waved the vehicles onto the tactical bridging at regulation intervals, and the only signs of war were a few burned-out hulks from the day’s battle. The tone of action, even the sense of urgency, was reminiscent of a demonstration exercise at which a very important observer was present, nothing more. Then, without warning, the canal exploded with fire, heaving tanks, bridging, water, and flames into an inscrutable sky. No one knew exactly what had happened, but Bezarin lost an entire tank platoon and, by sheer chance, his battalion chief of staff and operations officer. Since he had already been forced to send forward two officers to replace losses in committed units, the loss was a sharp blow, burdening him with the need to compensate personally for the cadre shortfall. At the same time, he had surprised himself by thinking frankly that he was glad he had not grown closer to any of the men who had been killed.

The unit had been quickly rerouted over an alternate bridge. But the incident felt like a warning -- and a personal challenge to Bezarin. Then, in the growing darkness and confusion, they had been diverted well to the south as the attack up ahead bogged down again. The fatal crossing had been unnecessary. Now he and his tanks waited on a sunken road at the edge of a wood in Germany. Bezarin had not expected too much of Lieutenant Colonel Tarashvili, the regiment’s commander. But it seemed outrageous that he had sent no word, no information on the situation whatsoever.

A compact figure vaulted up onto the deck of Bezarin’s tank, almost slipping on the clutter of newly added reactive armor. The movement took Bezarin by surprise, isolated as he was in his thoughts and his padded tanker’s helmet. But he quickly sensed a familiar presence. He canted his helmet back so he could hear.

The visitor was Senior Lieutenant Roshchin, commander of the Fifth Company, Second Battalion -- Bezarin’s youngest and least-experienced company commander. Bezarin had kept close to Roshchin’s company during the deployment and march, nursing him along. Yet there was something about the boyish lieutenant that brought out Bezarin’s temper. He found himself barking at Roshchin over small oversights or inconsequential misunderstandings, and his own lack of self-control only made him angrier still. Through it all, Roshchin reacted with servility and a few mumbled excuses. The boy had the feel of a spaniel addicted to his master’s beatings.

Even now, Bezarin almost shouted at the lieutenant to get back to his company. But he captured the words while they were still forming on his lips. Roshchin, he realized clearly, would be nervous, frightened, unsure. Universal human emotions, as Anna would have called them.

“Comrade Commander,” Roshchin said, “any word?”

The simple question seemed unforgivably inane to Bezarin, but he was determined to be decent toward the boy.

“Nothing. How’s your company doing?”

“Oh, the same, thank you, Comrade Commander. Most of the men are sleeping. Always one crew member on lookout, though, just like the regulations say.” He huddled closer to Bezarin, who could smell the night staleness of the boy’s breath now. “The march was exhausting; you’re all shaken to bits by the time you stop.” Bezarin could feel the lieutenant searching through the darkness for a sign of human solidarity, but he could not find the right words to soothe the boy. “I couldn’t sleep, myself,” Roshchin went on. “I really want to do everything right. I’ve been going over my lessons in my head.”

A number of sharp retorts bolted through Bezarin’s mind. Roshchin was a graduate of the Kasan tank school, renowned for the poor quality of its alumni. Bezarin painted in the lieutenant’s features from memory. Short, like virtually every tanker. A blond saw blade of hair across the forehead, and the small sculpted nose you saw on certain women with Polish blood. There was neither crispness nor presence to Roshchin, and Bezarin worried over how the lieutenant would perform in combat.

“The war must be going well,” the lieutenant said, his voice clearly asking for confirmation.

It was as though Roshchin studied to say things that permitted no reasonable reply, as though his every utterance demanded that Bezarin make a fool of him.

“Of course it’s going well,” Bezarin responded, forcing the words out, sounding stilted to himself, a bad actor with a poor script.

“I wish I could have a cigarette. One smoke,” Roshchin said.

“When it’s light.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to send letters soon?”

Anna. And the letters unwritten, the words unsaid. A remembrance impossibly foreign to the moment.

“Soon, I’m sure,” Bezarin said.

“I’ve written four already,” Roshchin said. “Natalya loves to get letters. I’ve numbered them on the envelopes so that she’ll know what order to read them in, even if they all arrive at once.”

Bezarin wanted to ask the lieutenant when on earth he had had time to write love letters. But he kept to his resolve to behave decently. It suddenly occurred to him that this boy might not be alive for more than a few hours. And that he had a young wife who meant as much to him as ... Bezarin switched mental tracks, recalling Roshchin’s pride in displaying the stupid-faced bridal snapshot taken by some hung-over staff photographer in a cavernous wedding palace, where marriages were matters of scheduling and norms as surely as were military operations. The stiff, unknowing smiles in the snapshot had made Bezarin unreasonably jealous as the lieutenant insisted on showing them to his new commander.

“I suppose . . . that you miss her,” Bezarin said, measuring out the words.

“How could I not miss her?” Roshchin answered. “She’s a wonderful girl. The best.” There was new life in the lieutenant’s voice now.

“And . . . how does she like army life?”

“Oh, she’ll get used to it,” Roshchin said cheerfully. “It takes time, you know. Really, you should marry, Comrade Commander. It’s a wonderful state of affairs.”

Advice from this naive, clumsy lieutenant was almost too much for Bezarin to bear. But he let it roll off.

“You should go and get a little sleep,” Bezarin told the boy. “I don’t want you to be exhausted. We’ll get into the fight today.”

“Do you really think so?”

If we’re not caught in this stinkhole of a forest, lined up like perfect targets on a damned road, Bezarin thought.

“I’m sure of it. And I want you at your best.”

“I won’t let you down, Comrade Commander. I wouldn’t want Natalya to be ashamed of me.”

Leave me, Bezarin thought. Get out of here, you son of a bitch.

“You’ll do fine,” Bezarin said. “Now get back to your company.”

The first morning light had crept up on the two officers during their talk. To Bezarin, the mist wrapping loosely around the trees resembled dirty bandages.

“Go on,” Bezarin repeated with forced affability. “I’ll wake you in plenty of time.”

The lieutenant saluted. Something in the alacrity of it made Bezarin feel as though the boy were saluting a grizzled old general, or his father. Well, I’m not that old, Bezarin thought. Not quite. Thirty-one isn’t old enough to be the father of a senior lieutenant.

For an instant, the terrible responsibility he had for the lives of his men glimmered in front of Bezarin. Then the vision evaporated into more conditioned and customary forms of thought. But the morning felt suddenly damp, and his head ached. He repositioned his tanker’s helmet. They said that the close-fitting headgear made you go bald, if the war went on too long. What would Anna think of him with a bald pate? And what did she think of him, anyway? Did she think of him at all now? He remembered how she had liked to touch his hair. With one specific, unchanging gesture. No, a bald head would not do. My captain, she said. My fierce warrior captain. But he was a major now, and she was part of history.

Anna liked the birches when their small leaves went the color of old copper. One by one, the leaves deserted as the northern wind probed and gathered force. Then a gusting assault tore them away by the hundreds, revealing the silver-white fragility of the limbs. He remembered the feel of the buttons on a woman’s dress. And if I see her again. If ever I see her again . . .

Bezarin smiled mockingly at himself. You can tell her you were supposed to be commanding a tank battalion on the edge of a battle and you thought of laying her ass down in some borrowed apartment.

But his practiced cynicism did not work to its full potential now. He attempted to turn his thoughts back to his duty. Yet he knew that she would be there now, just beyond the edge of his vision. That one time in his life he had been truly afraid. Terrified to ask a thin, laughing girl with hair the color of pouring brandy if she would marry him. Because she laughed so easily when they were alone, and he knew he loved her helplessly and that he could bear losing her more easily than he could have borne her laughter in that unarmed instant. In the subtle light he could see the broad steel shoulders of his tanks taking shape up along the road, and it struck him as absurd that he should be allowed to command such lethal machines when he could not bring himself to risk the wound of a girl’s decision.

The radio spoke.

Bezarin recognized the voice of the regiment’s commander, passing a brevity code. Bezarin scrambled to copy the message, then to break it out using the sheets he kept in his breast pocket.