The White Guard (34 page)

   'Have pity on an orphan, Christian people, good people ... A blind man ... A poor man . . .'

   Dressed in black, his hindquarters encased in leather like a broken beetle, a legless man wriggled between the legs of the crowd, clutching at the trampled snow with his sleeves to pull himself along. Crippled beggars displayed the sores on their bruised shins, shook their heads as though from
tic douloureux
or paralysis, rolled the whites of their eyes pretending to be blind. Tearing at the heart-strings of the crowd, reminding them of poverty, deceit, despair, hopelessness and sheer animal misery, creaking and groaning, they howled the refrain of the damned.

   Shivering dishevelled old women with crutches thrust out their desiccated, parchment-like hands as they moaned:

   'God give you good health, handsome gentleman!'

   'Have pity on a poor old woman . . .'

   'Give to the poor, my dear, and God will be good to you . . .'

   Capes, coats, bonnets with ear-flaps, peasants in sheepskin caps, red-cheeked girls, retired civil servants with a pale mark on their cap where the badge had been removed, elderly women with protruding bellies, nimble-footed children, cossacks in greatcoats and shaggy fur hats with tops of different colors - blue, red, green, magenta with gold and silver piping, with tassels from the fringes of coffin-palls: they poured out on to the cathedral courtyard like a black sea, yet the cathedral doors still gave forth wave upon wave.

   Heartened by the fresh air, the procession gathered its forces, rearranged itself, straightened up and glided off in an orderly and proper sequence of heads wearing check scarves, mitres, stovepipe hats, bareheaded deacons with their long flowing hair, skullcapp-ed monks, painted crosses on gilded poles, banners of Christ the Saviour and the Virgin and Child and a host of ikons in curved and wrought covers, gold, magenta, covered in Slavonic script.

   Now like a gray snake winding its way through the City, now like brown turbulent rivers flowing along the old streets, the

   innumerable forces of Petlyura made their way to the parade on St Sophia's Square. First, shattering the frost with the roaring of trumpets and the clash of glittering cymbals, cutting through the black river of the crowd, marched the tight ranks of the Blue Division.

   In blue greatcoats and blue-topped astrakhan caps set at a jaunty angle the Galicians marched past. Slanting forward between bared sabres two blue and yellow standards glided along behind a large brass band and after the standards, rhythmically stamping the crystalline snow, rank on rank of men marched jauntily along dressed in good, sound German cloth. After the first battalion ambled a body of men in long black cloaks belted at the waist with ropes, with German steel helmets on their heads, and the brown thicket of bayonets crept on parade like a bristling swarm.

   In uncountable force marched the ragged gray regiments of Cossack riflemen and battalion on battalion of
haidamak
infantrymen; prancing high in the gaps between them rode the dashing regimental, battalion and company commanders. Bold, brassy, confident marches blared out like nuggets of gold in a bright, flashing stream.

   After the infantry detachments came the cavalry regiments riding at a collected trot. The excited crowd was dazzled by rank on rank of crumpled, battered fur caps with blue, green and red tops and gold tassels. Looped on to the riders' right hands, their lances bobbed rhythmically like rows of needles. Jingling gaily, the bell-hung hetmen's standards jogged along among the ranks of horsemen and the horses of officers and trumpeters strained forward to the sound of martial music. Fat and jolly as a rubber ball, Colonel Bolbotun pranced ahead of his regiment, his low, sweating forehead and his jubilant, puffed-out cheeks thrusting forward into the frosty air. His chestnut mare, rolling her bloodshot eyes, champing at the bit and scattering flecks of foam, reared now and again on her hind legs, shaking even the 200-pound weight of Bolbotun and making his curved sabre rattle in its scabbard as the colonel lightly touched her nervous flanks with his spurs.

   For our headmen are with us, Shoulder to shoulder Alongside as brothers . . .

   chorused the bold
haidamaks
as they trotted along, pigtails jogging.

   With their bullet-torn yellow-and-blue standard fluttering and accordions playing, rode the regiment of the dark, moustached Colonel Kozyr-Leshko mounted on a huge charger. The colonel looked grim, scowling and slashing at the rump of his stallion with a whip. The colonel had cause to be angry - in the misty early hours of that morning the rifle-fire from Nai-Turs' detachment on the Brest-Litovsk highway had hit Kozyr's best troops hard and as the regiment trotted into the square its ranks had been closed up to conceal the gaps in them.

   Behind Kozyr came the brave, hitherto unbeaten 'Hetman Mazeppa' regiment of cavalry. The name of the glorious hetman, who had almost destroyed Peter the Great at the battle of Poltava, glittered in gold letters on a sky-blue silk standard.

   Streams of people flowed around the gray and yellow walls, people pushed forward and climbed on to advertisement-hoardings, little boys clambered up the lamp-posts and sat on the crossbars, stood on rooftops, whistled and shouted hurrah . . .

   'Hurrah! Hurrah!' they shouted from the sidewalks.

   Faces crowded behind glassed-in balconies and window-panes.

   Cab-drivers climbed unsteadily on to the boxes of the sleighs, waving their whips.

   'They said Petlyura's troops were just a rabble . . . Some rabble. Hurrah!'

   'Hurrah! Hurrah for Petlyura! Hurrah for our Leader!'

   'Hurrah!'

   'Look, Manya, look! There's Petlyura himself, look, on the grayhorse. Isn't he handsome . . .'

   'That's not Petlyura, ma'am, that's a colonel.'

   'Oh, really? Then where is Petlyura?'

   'Petlyura's at the palace receiving the French emissaries fromOdessa.'

   'What's the matter with you, mister, gone crazy? What emissaries?'

   'Pyotr Vasilievich, they say Petlyura (whisper) is in Paris, did you know?'

   'Some rabble . . . there's a million men in this army.'

   'Where's Petlyura? If they'd only give us one look at him.'

   'Petlyura, madam, is on the square at this moment taking the salute as the parade marches past.'

   'Nothing of the sort. Petlyura's in Berlin at the moment meeting the president to sign a treaty.'

   'What president? Are you trying to spread rumors, mister?'

   'The president of Germany. Didn't you know? Germany's been declared a republic.'

   'Did you see him? Did you see him? He looked splendid .. . He's just driven down Rylsky Street in a coach and six horses.'

   'But will they recognise the Orthodox Church?'

   'I don't know. Work it out for yourself . . .'

   'The fact is that the priests are praying for him, anyway . . .'

   'He'll be stronger if he keeps the priests on his side . . .'

   'Petlyura. Petlyura. Petlyura. Petlyura . . .'

   There was a fearsome rumbling of heavy wheels and rattling limbers and after the ten regiments of cavalry rolled an endless stream of artillery. Blunt-muzzled, fat mortars, small-caliber howitzers; the crews sat on the limbers, cheerful, well-fed, victorious, the drivers riding calmly and sedately. Straining and creaking, the six-inch guns rumbled past, hauled by teams of powerful, well-fed, big-rumped horses and smaller hard-working peasant ponies that looked like pregnant fleas. The light mountain artillery clattered briskly along, the little guns bouncing up and down between their jaunty crews.

   'Who said Petlyura only had fifteen thousand men? It was all a lie. Just a rabble, they said, no more than fifteen thousand and demoralised . . . God, there are so many I've lost count already. Another battery . . . and another . . .'

   His sharp nose thrust into the upturned collar of his student's greatcoat, Nikolka was shoved and jostled by the crowd until he

   finally succeeded in climbing up into a niche in a wall and installed himself. A jolly little peasant woman in felt boots was already in the niche and said cheerfully to Nikolka:

   'You hold on to me, mister, and I'll hang on to this brick and we'll be all right.'

   'Thanks,' Nikolka sniffled dejectedly inside his frozen collar, 'I'll hold on to this hook.'

   'Where's Petlyura?' the talkative woman babbled on. 'Oh, I do want to see Petlyura. They say he's the handsomest man you've ever seen.'

   'Yes,' Nikolka mumbled vaguely into the beaver fur, 'so they say . . .' ('Another battery . . . God, now I understand . . .')

   'Look, there he goes, driving in that open car . . . Didn't you see?'

   'He's at Vinnitsa', Nikolka replied in a dry, dull voice, wriggled his freezing toes inside his boots. 'Why the hell didn't I put felt boots on? Hellish cold.'

   'Look, look, there's Petlyura.'

   'That's not Petlyura, that's the commander of the bodyguard.'

   'Petlyura has a palace in Belaya Tserkov. Belaya Tserkov will be the capital now.'

   'Won't he come to the City, then?'

   'He'll come in his own good time.'

   'I see, I see . . .'

   Clang, clank, clank. The muffled boom of kettledrums rolled across St Sophia's Square; then down the street, machine-guns thrust menacingly from their gun-ports, swaying slightly from the weight of their turrets, rolled the four terrible armored cars. But the enthusiastic, pink-cheeked Lieutenant Strashkevich was no longer inside the leading car. A dishevelled and far from pink-cheeked Strashkevich, waxy-gray and motionless, was lying in the Mariinsky Park at Pechyorsk, immediately inside the park gates. There was a small hole in Strashkevich's forehead and another, plugged with clotted blood, behind his ear. The lieutenant's naked feet stuck out of the snow and his glassy eyes stared straight up into the sky through the bare branches of a maple tree. It was very

   quiet round about, there was not a living soul in the park and scarcely anyone was to be seen even on the street; the sound of music from St Sophia's Square did not reach as far as here, so there was nothing to upset the complete calm on the lieutenant's face.

   Hooting and scattering the crowd, the armored cars rolled onward to where Bogdan Khmelnitzky sat and pointed northeastwards with a mace, black against the pale sky. The great bell was still sending thick, oily waves of sound over the snowbound hills and roofs of the City; in the thick of the parade the drums thumped untiringly and little boys, maddened with excitement, swarmed around the hooves of the black Bogdan. Next in the parade was a line of trucks, snow-chains clanking on their wheels, carrying choirs and dancing groups in Ukrainian costume -brightly colored embroidered skirts under sheepskin tunics, plaited straw wreaths on the girls' heads and the boys in baggy blue trousers tucked into their boot-tops . . .

   At that moment a volley of rifle-fire came from Rylsky Street. Just before it there had been a sudden whirlwind of peasant women screaming in the crowd. There was a shriek and someone started running, then a staccato, breathless, rather hoarse voice shouted:

   'I know those men! Kill them! They're officers! I've seen them in uniform!'

   A troop of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, waiting their turn to march into the square, forced their way into the crowd and seized a man. Women screamed. The man who had been seized, Captain Pleshko, cried out weakly and jerkily:

   'I'm not an officer. Nothing of the sort. What are you doing? I'm a bank clerk.'

   Beside him another man was arrested, white-faced and silent, who wriggled in the soldiers' grip.

   Then the crowd scattered down the street, jostling each other like animals let out of a sack, running away in terror, leaving an empty space on the street that was completely white except for one black blob - someone's lost hat. A flash and a bang, and Captain

   Pleshko, who had thrice denied himself, paid for his curiosity to see the parade. He lay face upward by the fence of the presbytery of St Sophia's cathedral, spreadeagled, whilst the other, silent man fell across his legs with his face to the ground. Just then came a roll of drums from the corner of the square, the crowd surged back again and the band struck up with a boom and a crash. A confident voice roared: 'Walk-march!' Rank upon rank, gold-tasselled caps glittering, the 10th Cavalry Regiment moved off.

   
#

   Quite suddenly a gray patch between the domes of the cathedral broke open and the sun burst through the dull, overcast sky. The sun was bigger than anyone had ever seen it in the Ukraine and quite red, like pure blood. Streaks of clotted blood and plasma flowed steadily from that distant globe as it struggled to shine through the screen of clouds. The sun reddened the dome of St Sophia with blood, casting a strange shadow from it on to the square, so that in that shadow Bogdan turned violet, and made the seething crowd of people look even blacker, even denser, even more confused. And gray men in long coats belted with rope and waving bayonets could be seen climbing up the steps leading up the side of the rock and trying to smash the inscription that stared down from the black granite plinth. But the bayonets broke or slithered uselessly away from the granite, and Bogdan wrenched his horse away from the rock at a gallop as he tried to fly away from the people who were clinging on to the hooves of his horse and weighing them down. His face, turned directly towards the red globe, was furious and he continued steadfastly to point his mace into the distance.

   At that moment a man was raised on to the slippery frozen basin of the fountain, above the rumbling, shifting crowd facing the statue of Bogdan. He was wearing a dark overcoat with a fur collar and despite the frost he took off his fur hat and held it in his hands. The square still hummed and seethed like an ant-heap, but the belfry of St Sophia had stopped ringing and the bands

   had marched off in various directions down the snowbound streets. An enormous crowd had collected around the base of the fountain: