The White Guard (23 page)

   Nikolka had a long way to go. As he crossed through Podol the twilight deepened and enveloped the frostbound streets. Swirling in the pools of light from the street-lamps, a heavy fall of snow began to muffle the sound of anxious, hurrying footsteps. Occasional lights twinkled through the fine network of snowflakes, a few shops and stores were still gaily lit, though many were

   closed and shuttered. The snowfall grew thicker. As Nikolka reached the bottom of his own street, the steep St Alexei's Hill, and started to climb up it, he noticed an incongruous scene outside the the doorway of No. 7: two little boys in gray knitted sweaters and woolen caps had just ridden down the hill on a sled. One of them, short and round as a rubber ball, covered with snow, was sitting on the sled and laughing. The other, who was older, thinner and serious-looking, was unravelling a knot in the rope. A youth was standing in the doorway and picking his nose. The noise of rifle fire grew more audible, breaking out from several directions at once.

   'Vaska, did you see how I fell off and hit my bottom on the kerb!' shouted the youngest.

   'Look at them, playing so peacefully', Nikolka thought with amazement. He turned to the youth and asked the youth in an amiable voice:

   'Tell me, please, what's all the shooting going on up there?'

   The young man removed his finger from his nose, thought for a moment and said in a nasal whine:

   'It's our people, beating the hell out of the White officers.'

   Nikolka scowled at him and instinctively fingered the revolver in his pocket. The older of the two boys chimed in angrily:

   'They're getting even with the White officers. Serve 'em right. There's only eight hundred of them, the fools. Petlyura's got a million men.'

   He turned and started to pull the sled away.

   
#

   At the sound of Nikolka opening the front gate the cream-colored blind flew up in the dining-room window. The old clock ticked away, tonk-tank, tonk-tank . . .

   'Has Alexei come back?' Nikolka asked Elena.

   'No', she replied, and burst into tears.

   The whole apartment was in darkness, except for a lamp i
n the
kitchen where Anyuta, leaning her elbows on the table, sat and wept for Alexei Turbin. In Elena's bedroom logs flamed in the

   stove, light from the flames leaping behind the grate and dancing on the floor. Her eyes red from crying about Alexei, Elena sat on a stool, resting her cheek on her bunched fist, with Nikolka sprawling at her feet across the fiery red pattern cast on the floor.

   Who was this Colonel Bolbotun? Earlier that day at the Shcheglovs some had been saying that he was none other than the Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich. In the half darkness and the glow from the fire the mood was one of despair. What was the use of crying over Alexei? Crying did no good. He had obviously been killed - that was clear. The enemy took no prisoners. Since he had not come back it meant that he had been caught, along with his regiment, and he had been killed. The horror of it was that Petlyura, so it was said, commanded a force of eight hundred thousand picked men. We were fooled, sent to face certain death ...

   Where had that terrible army sprung from? Conjured up out of the freezing mist, the bitter air and the twilight ... it was so sinister, mysterious . . .

   Elena stood up and stretched out her arm.

   'Curse the Germans. Curse them. If God does not punish them, then he is not a God of justice. They must surely be made to answer for this - they
must.
They are going to suffer as we have suffered. They will suffer, they will . . .'

   She repeated the word 'will' like an imprecation. Her face and neck were flushed, her unseeing eyes were suffused with black hatred. Her shrieks reduced Nikolka to misery and despair.

   'Mightn't he still be alive?' he asked gently. 'After all he is a doctor . . . Even if he had been caught they may not have killed him but only taken him prisoner.'

   'They will eat cats, they will kill each other just as we have done,' said Elena in a loud voice, wagging a threatening finger at the stove.

   'Rumors, rumors . . . They said Bolbotun's a grand duke-ridiculous. So's the story of Petlyura having a million men. Even eight hundred thousand is an exaggeration. Lies, confusion. The hard times are really starting now. Looks like Talberg was doing the right thing after all by getting out in time . . . Flames dancing on the floor. Once everything was so peaceful and the world was

   full of wonderful places. There never was such a hideous monster as that red-bearded janitor. They all hate us, of course, but he's like a mad dog. Tried to twist my arm behind my back.'

   
*

   Outside, gunfire began again. Nikolka jumped up and ran to the window.

   'Did you hear that? Did you? And that? It could be the Germans. Or maybe the Allies come to help us at last? Who is it? Petlyura wouldn't be shelling the City if he's already taken it.'

   Elena folded her arms across her chest and said:

   'It's no good, Nik, I'm not letting you go. I beg you not to go out. Don't be crazy.'

   'I only wanted to go as far as the little square in front of St Andrew's church. I could look and listen from there. It overlooks the whole of Podol.'

   'All right, go. If you feel like leaving me alone at a moment like this, then go.'

   Nikolka looked embarrassed.

   'Well, then I'll just go out into the yard and listen.'

   'And I'll go with you.'

   'But Lena, suppose Alexei comes back while we're both in the yard? We won't hear the front door bell out there.'

   'No, we won't. And it'll be your fault.'

   'Very well, Lena, I give you my word of honor I won't move a step outside the yard.'

   'Word of honor?'

   'Word of honor.'

   'You won't go past the gate? You won't climb up the hill? You promise to stay in the yard?'

   'I promise.'

   'All right, go then.'

   *

   The City was swathed in the deep, deep snow of December 1918. Why were those unidentified guns firing at nine o'clock at night -and only for a quarter of an hour? The snow was melting on

   Nikolka's collar, and he fought the temptation to climb up the snow-covered hillside. From the top he would be able to see not only Podol but part of the Upper City, the seminary, hundreds of rows of lights in big apartment houses, the hills of the city dotted with countless flickering lights. But no one should break his word of honor, or life becomes impossible. So Nikolka believed. At every distant menacing rumble he prayed: 'Please, God . . .'

   Then the gunfire stopped.

   'Those were our guns', Nikolka thought miserably. As he walked back from the gate he glanced in at the Shcheglovs' window. The white blind was rolled up and through the little window in their wing of the house he could see Maria Petrovna Shcheglov giving her little boy Peter his bath. Peter was sitting up naked in the tub and soundlessly crying because the soap was trickling into his eyes. Maria Petrovna squeezed out a sponge over Peter. There was some washing hanging on a line and Maria Petrovna's bulky shadow passed back and forth behind, occasionally bending down. Nikolka suddenly felt how warm and secure the Shcheglovs were and how cold he was in his unbuttoned greatcoat.

   #

   Deep in the snow, some five miles beyond the outskirts of the City to the north, in an abandoned watchman's hut completely buried in white snow sat a staff-captain. On the little table was a crust of bread, the case of a portable field-telephone and a small hurricane-lamp with a bulbous, sooty glass. The last embers were fading in the stove. The captain was a short man with a long sharp nose, and wearing a greatcoat with a large collar. With his left hand he squeezed and crumbled the crust of bread, whilst pressing the knob of the telephone with his right. But the telephone seemed to have died and gave no response.

   For three miles around the captain there was nothing but darkness, blizzard and snowdrifts.

   By the time another hour had passed the captain had abandoned the telephone. At about 9 p.m. he snorted and for some reason said aloud:

   'I'm going mad. Really the right thing would be to shoot myself.' And as though in answer to him the telephone rang.

   'Is that Number 6 Battery?' asked a distant voice.

   'Yes, yes', the captain replied, wild with excitement.

   The agitated, faraway voice, though muffled, sounded delighted:

   'Open fire at once on the target area . . .' quacked the blurred voice down the line, '. . . with maximum fire-power . . .' the voice broke off. '. . . I have the impression . . .'At this the voice was again cut off.

   'Yes, I'm listening', the captain screamed into the receiver, grinding his teeth in despair. There was a long pause.

   'I can't open fire', the captain said into the mouthpiece, compelled to speak although well aware that he was talking into nothingness. 'All the gun crews and my three lieutenants have deserted. I'm the only man left in the battery. Pass the message on to Post-Volynsk.'

   The captain sat for another hour, then went out. The snowstorm was blowing with great violence. The four grim, terrible field-guns were already half buried in snow and icicles had already begun to festoon their muzzles and breech-mechanisms. In the cold of the screaming, whirling snowstorm the captain fumbled like a blind man. Working entirely by feel, it was a long time before he was able to remove the first breech-block. He was about to throw it into the well behind the watchman's hut, but changed his mind and went into the hut. He went out three more times, until he had removed the four breech-blocks from all the guns and hidden them under a trap-door in the floor, where potatoes were stored. Then, having first put out the lamp, he went out into the darkness. He walked for about two hours, unseen and unseeing through the darkness until he reached the highway leading into the City, lit by a few faint sparse street lamps. Under the first of these lamps he was sabred to death by a party of pigtailed horsemen, who removed his boots and his watch.

   The same voice came to life in the receiver of a telephone in a dug-out four miles to the west of the watchman's hut.

   'Open fire at once on the target area. I have the impression that

   the enemy has passed between your position and ours and is making for the City.'

   'Can you hear me? Can you hear me?' came the reply from the dugout. 'Ask headquarters . . .' He was cut off. Without listening, the voice quacked in reply:

   'Harassing fire on cavalry in the target area . . .' The message stopped abruptly and finally.

   Three officers and three cadets clambered out of the dugout with lanterns. The fourth officer and two cadets were already in the gun position, standing around a lantern which the storm was doing its best to put out. Five minutes later the guns began to jump and fire into the darkness. They filled the countryside for ten miles around with their terrible roar, which was heard at No. 13 St Alexei's Hill . . . Please God . . .

   Prancing through the snow, a troop of cavalry leaped out of the dark beyond the lamplight and killed all the cadets and four of the officers. The battery commander, who had stayed by the telephone in the dugout, shot himself in the mouth.

   The battery commander's last words were: 'Those swine at headquarters. It's enough to make one turn Bolshevik.'

   That night Nikolka lit the lamp hanging from the ceiling in his room in the corner of the apartment; then with a penknife he carved on the door a large cross and an irregular inscription:

   'Col. Turs. Dec. 14th. 1918. 2 p.m.' He left out the 'Nai' from the colonel's name for security, in case Petlyura's men searched the apartment.

   He did not want to sleep, in case he missed hearing the doorbell He knocked on the wall of Elena's room and said:

   'Go to sleep - I'll stay awake.'

   After which he at once fell asleep as though dead, lying fully dressed on his bed. Elena did not sleep until dawn and stayed listening in case the bell should ring. But the bell did not ring and there was no sign of their elder brother Alexei.

   A tired, exhausted man needs sleep, and by eleven o'clock next morning Nikolka was still asleep despite the discomforts of sleeping in tight boots, a belt that dug into his lower ribs, a throttling collar and a nightmare that crouched over him with its claws dug into his chest.

   Nikolka had fallen asleep flat on his back with his head on one side. His face had turned purple and a whistling snore came from his throat . . . There was a whistling snowstorm and a kind of damned web that seemed to envelop him from all sides. The main thing was to break through this web but the accursed thing grew and grew until it had reached up to his very face. For all he knew it could envelop him so completely that he might never get out, and he would be stifled. Beyond the web were great white plains of the purest snow. He had to struggle through to that snow, and quickly, because someone's voice had apparently just called out 'Nikolka!' Amazingly, some very lively kind of bird seemed to be caught in the net too, and was pecking and chirping to get out. . . Tik, tik, tikki, Tweet, Too-weet! 'Hell' He couldn't see it, but it was twittering somewhere nearby. Someone else was bewailing their fate, and again came the other voice: 'Nicky! Nikolka!'

   'Ugh!' Nikolka grunted as he tore the web apart and sat up in one movement, dishevelled, shaken, his belt-buckle twisted round to one side. His fair hair stood on end as though someone had been tousling it for a long time.

   'Who? Who? Who is it?' asked Nikolka in horror, utterly confused.

   'Who. Who, who, who, who's it? Who's it? Tweet, tweet!' the web replied and the mournful voice, quivering with suppressed tears, said:

   'Yes, with her lover!'

   Horrified, Nikolka backed against the wall and stared at the apparition. The apparition was wearing a brown tunic, riding-breeches of the same color and yellow-topped jockey's boots. Its dull, sad eyes stared from the deepest of sockets set in an improbably large head with close-cropped hair. Undoubtedly the apparition was young, but the skin on its face was the grayish skin