We asked them if they’d heard the news that we would be leaving soon. They told us that everyone had heard the news.
And where are we going? we asked them. No one knew.
Pavel gestured to us. It was nearly time. We walked closer to the pine forest. But not too close because the cook didn’t like it when everyone crowded around the kitchen before he had given the signal.
Suddenly we heard the ladle bang against the bucket.
We rushed over to the kitchen. We were the first ones there and we held out our mess tins. But we didn’t see what they were putting in the tins because we were looking past the kitchen at some young lads sitting under a pine tree outside the company office. There were five or six of them. The oldest one was younger than Sifra. They were all eating out of the same saucepan. Most of them were dressed like peasants. Three officers — Kaliakine, our commander, Lieutenant Dymov and Sergeant Ermakov — were leaning against the company office, pensively watching them eat.
‘Who are they?’ we asked the cook.
‘They came up the train tracks,’ the cook replied.
‘And?’
‘They want to enlist.’
Before we went away, we asked him if there was any tea tonight. No, there wasn’t, he replied. We asked him if there might be any just for us. But the answer was still no. That bastard — he’d already forgotten that we were the ones who’d brought him the pig.
We walked back to the tent with our mess tins. All of those men boiling water for tea would soon be disappointed. They’d be drinking plain hot water instead. As we were passing, we called out to them: ‘Hurry up, there’s tea tonight!’
17
IT WAS KYABINE’S turn to sleep with the watch. Pavel handed it to him and he kissed it lovingly. We really liked it when he did that. He knew it, and his kisses became ever more passionate. Sometimes Pavel told him that if the woman in the photograph had known that a big Uzbeki idiot kissed her like that every third evening, it would have put her off men for ever. Kyabine asked him what the hell he knew about it. Pavel replied that he knew.
Finally Kyabine delicately placed the watch under his blanket and lay down. I asked him if he would let me have the watch tonight in return for a cigarette.
‘What?’ he said.
I asked him again. Would he agree to let me have his turn with the watch if I gave him a cigarette? He thought about this for a moment and then asked: ‘How many would you give me?’
He’d heard me say one, of course. I wasn’t going to let him rip me off. ‘One, Kyabine,’ I repeated. ‘One cigarette.’
‘Two,’ he said.
‘You can keep the watch, Kyabine,’ I told him.
He realised I wasn’t going to back down. He seemed to hesitate, then he raised himself up on one elbow. I took out a cigarette and handed it to him. He kissed the watch one last time before giving it to me.
‘And who gets to sleep with it tomorrow?’ he asked.
I replied that we would go back to our normal rota tomorrow, which meant that it was my turn.
‘Ah!’ he sighed, disappointed.
He remained raised up on his elbow. I was afraid he was going to change his mind. I put the watch in my pocket, blew out the oil lamp and lay down.
It was a pleasant feeling to have a clean blanket. I said this to Sifra because it had been his idea to wash them, but he didn’t reply. He was already asleep.
I lay there with my eyes wide open.
I could smell the oil from the lamp and I thought about our winter in the forest.
18
WHEN PAVEL WOKE me in the night, I accidentally knocked Kyabine’s leg as I was getting out of bed. He looked up and said: ‘What are you doing?’
We didn’t answer. I tucked my coat under my arm. But Kyabine wouldn’t let it go.
‘What are you doing? Where are you going?’
‘Go back to sleep, Kyabine!’ I told him.
‘Huh?’
‘Everything’s fine. Just go back to sleep.’
We left the tent and rushed out of the camp before Kyabine had time to think of getting up and following us.
That night, Pavel didn’t want to go to the pond. He stopped at the pile of sleepers and sat down on them. I left him in peace. I climbed onto the train tracks and walked on the ballast, slowly, because I didn’t want to go too far away.
Sometimes, during the daytime, I thought about what I might say to Pavel to console him. And of course I found things to say. But at night, when it was just the two of us, either I didn’t dare say those things or I couldn’t remember them. So sometimes I was afraid that Pavel would think he was unlucky having a comrade like me. What good did it do him to wake me up and bring me with him if I never said a word to console him?
I made a U-turn and walked back to the sleepers. But when I got to where Pavel was sitting, I just kept going because I had the impression that he still wanted to be alone a little longer.
I would have liked to light a cigarette but I preferred to wait and smoke one with him.
I walked another hundred yards or so and then I turned back again. When I reached him, I sensed that he was feeling better, so I asked if he was all right.
He nodded. I sat on the sleeper facing him and offered him a cigarette. I could see glimmers in the distance — almost certainly Kossarenko’s camp. They still had fires lit at that time of night.
I held back from doing what I had been planning to do since the previous night. I waited until we had finished our cigarettes. And even after we’d thrown the butts on the train tracks and I was watching their glowing ends fade, I continued to hesitate.
Then at last I did it. I took the watch from my pocket and handed it to Pavel. Because it was so dark, he asked me what it was.
‘Take it,’ I said. ‘It’s the watch.’
19
PAVEL CALMED DOWN and we went back to the camp. He’d accepted the watch and I was proud of myself for having had that idea to console him. We both knew that the watch didn’t really bring us luck and that we weren’t really sleeping with the woman inside it. As I’ve said, we just liked to imagine those things. All the same, when it was our turn to have it, we were always very happy to put it in our pocket for the night. And Pavel must have felt that way now. Two nights running with her — he must have been doubly happy. I didn’t regret the cigarette it had cost me. In fact, if Kyabine had insisted, I’d have given him more for it. Thankfully he didn’t realise how much I needed the watch.
The path was wide enough for us to walk side by side. This was the path we’d run along when we were racing with the railway sleepers. That gave me an idea for a conversation, so I said: ‘We beat Kyabine good and proper, in that race.’
‘What?’
‘It was here that we had the race,’ I reminded him.
‘Oh… yeah.’
‘We beat him good and proper, eh?’
It wasn’t as cold as the night before. I was sleepy. I felt good because we were headed back to the camp and I would soon be able to go to sleep. I hoped we could sneak into the tent without waking Kyabine.
I was dog-tired but everything was fine. I was happy that I’d had the idea of the watch, and I was happy that I’d soon be back in bed. Then suddenly everything stopped being fine because I started wondering again: what if I took Sifra’s place in Pavel’s dream? What if it was me who cut his throat? What would happen then? Would Pavel still want me to go with him at night? I knew the answer to that last question. Pavel would never say to me: ‘I dreamed that you cut my throat — let’s go outside. I want you to come with me because I need you by my side.’ No, he would probably ask Kyabine or Sifra instead. And I understood that.