45
WE WERE SITTING on our railway sleepers. Our bags were packed, our blankets rolled up and tied underneath them. We’d folded up the tent and it was ready to be fastened to Kyabine’s back. All over the camp, they were waiting, just like us, each man sitting next to his belongings. Evening fell. This was the first time since we’d come out of the forest that not a single fire crackled and glowed here at dusk. We could hear almost nothing. Occasionally the lads next to us whispered things to each other.
The Evdokim kid had gone to talk with the other kids, the ones who’d walked up the railway tracks with him.
Sifra was next to me. I said to him that at least we were leaving with clean blankets. He said we should have washed our coats too. I said yeah, it was a shame that we hadn’t done that. And suddenly I wished we had one more day here, so we could go to the pond to wash our coats, and frantically rub away the dirt to celebrate that extra day. And why not have another extra day to let them dry in the sun?
Kossarenko’s company entered our camp. Kossarenko was marching at the front with a sergeant. Just behind them, a man led five mules. They were good, fat mules. They must have requisitioned those mules, because their own mules — the company’s mules, I mean — had been eaten in the forest, like ours.
The company halted. Our commander went over to Kossarenko. They shook hands. Our commander took out a cigarette case and they started talking.
It was too dark now to recognise the men from Kossarenko’s company who we’d met in the forest last winter.
When Kossarenko and our commander had finished their cigarettes, Kossarenko talked to the mule-driver and his sergeant. Some of the lads from their company took the bags off two of their mules and divided them between the three others. Our commander called out to someone from our company to take the two mules. Then he looked at his watch. Just after that, Kossarenko gave the order to leave, and while his company was getting ready, I thought to myself: In an hour, that will be us.
When the company disappeared into the night, Pavel, who had been sitting on the sleeper across from me until then, stood up. He looked all around and he seemed to be listening for something.
‘What are you doing, Pavel?’ I asked.
He didn’t reply. He just shook his head and sat back down on the sleeper. Suddenly Kyabine asked me: ‘So how does it stay there on its own like that?’
‘What?’
And then I remembered. He was talking about the bit of grass that was floating in the air.
‘I don’t know, Kyabine,’ I lied. ‘It just does.’
He was disappointed by this response. But I thought I’d done the right thing. All of a sudden I wanted to tell Kyabine not to worry and I wanted this hour to be over and us to be marching because all four of us were sad and lost and we were so afraid. And if I’d known, I’d have taken all three of them in my arms and then they’d have been so embarrassed, and God, so would I, but having said it, having suddenly thought it, I have the impression that I actually did it and now I’m even sadder.
The hour passed and we left.
46
WE MOVED THROUGH the darkness, between fields.
I walked next to Pavel. In front of us were Kyabine and the Evdokim kid. And in front of them was Sifra. Kyabine was carrying the tent on his back and his bag on his chest. The Evdokim kid was carrying the tent pole and his blanket.
We didn’t know how far the company was stretched out on the road because it was too dark to see.
The sky was dark too — it looked like the plain upside down — and sometimes the moon illuminated the edges of clouds and the fields, and all the men in the company that we could see had strange silhouettes then because of the way they were carrying their loads, because of the blankets, bags and guns and all the other junk that they had on their backs.
Some of them had their tin cup and plate tied to their belts next to each other and they kept clanking together, making a continual racket. Those men were real idiots.
But I guessed that the company must be stretched out quite a long way because the mules that Kossarenko had given us — the mules that were walking at the front of the column — well, we hadn’t heard their horseshoes for quite some time.
All we heard was the metal clanking of the idiots.
Someone said: ‘Hey, put your pans away!’
Someone replied: ‘Shut your mouth!’
Sergeant Ermakov wasn’t far away. Somewhere ahead of us, he shouted into the night: ‘I’ll shut you all up in a minute! Silence!’
Then one of those idiots started singing in a low voice. He sang so softly that we couldn’t understand the words. But we quickly realised that he was singing in time with the clanking of his tin cup against his plate.
Kyabine turned back to Pavel and me, and he nodded in the direction of where the song was coming from. He seemed to like it.
The man who was singing did not keep it up very long. Either he ran out of breath or he just didn’t feel like it any more. We continued advancing through the darkness, and sometimes someone would cough or whisper something, and strangely, at the moment when they fell silent again, we became aware that it was nighttime. And I thought: At least tonight Pavel won’t wake up in terror because he’s dreaming that Sifra has cut his throat. I was happy for him, and for Sifra too. Or at least I tried to think I was. Because in reality I wasn’t completely happy. It had always been thanks to Pavel’s nightmares that I’d been able to spend those moments alone with him. And so I felt a bit ashamed that I couldn’t feel completely happy for Pavel and Sifra.
We heard a rumbling noise ahead of us. It grew closer, then it passed us on the bridge. Because of the noise and the darkness, we weren’t able to tell if there was any water under the bridge.
The rumbling of the wooden planks faded behind us. Then we didn’t hear anything any more.
We marched in silence. Nobody spoke.
The strangest, funniest silhouette of all those in front of us was Kyabine’s, loaded as he was with the tent and his bag, and with the butt of his rifle appearing to come out of his neck.
I asked Pavel in a whisper how he was. He replied that he was fine. Kyabine turned around because he heard us. I asked him the same question. He told me everything was all right. And at that, he touched Sifra’s shoulder. Sifra turned around and signalled that he was fine. The Evdokim kid seemed to be holding up too. Sometimes he would lift his head and look up at the sky.
47
WE STOPPED FOR a rest. We didn’t know how long we’d been walking. We were out of breath. Pavel, Kyabine, Sifra, the kid and I sat on our bags in the middle of the road and we spread our blankets over our backs before the cold of the night could freeze us.
Sergeant Ermakov ordered everyone to their feet. The ones who’d lain down in the field to sleep for a while were herded onto the road. Some of them had actually fallen asleep and they made strange movements when they got up, blinking confusedly in the darkness as they tried to work out where they were.
The kid had taken off his felt peasant boots and was holding his ankles. Pavel was staring at something over my shoulder.
We caught our breath. Slowly the air moved under our blankets and froze our sweat.