When we reached the tent, I felt sad and worried. Pavel was feeling better. He fell asleep straight away with the watch.
I lay there with my eyes open.
I was sleeping next to Sifra. I heard him breathing and may God have mercy on me but at that moment I hoped with all my strength that it would always be him who held the knife in Pavel’s dreams.
20
SERGEANT ERMAKOV POKED his head through the gap in our tent. He looked at each of us in turn. We knew he couldn’t be here to take us on an expedition, because we’d gone with him only yesterday. So we asked him what he wanted. ‘Get out of there!’ he ordered.
The sun had risen and we should have been up, but we were nice and warm under our blankets.
‘Let us sleep!’ Pavel groaned.
‘Get out of there!’ Sergeant Ermakov repeated.
We didn’t move. Sergeant Ermakov grew angry. He started kicking the tent. So we had to get up and go outside before he tore it.
The camp was shrouded in mist. The sun was still hidden behind the pine forest. Next to Sergeant Ermakov was one of the young lads we’d seen eating outside the company office the previous day. He had a blanket draped over his shoulders. Beneath that he wore a sailor’s shirt and a jacket.
Pavel sat on a railway sleeper to put on his boots.
‘He’s going to be with you,’ said Sergeant Ermakov.
We stared at Sergeant Ermakov in astonishment. Then Kyabine, Sifra and I turned to Pavel, who had stopped in the middle of putting his boots on. Silently we asked him to say something to Sergeant Ermakov. He seemed to understand this and told the sergeant: ‘We’re not going to take him. You, Sergeant, are going to kick him out of the army and send him back to his mother.’
The kid looked down at his peasant’s boots. Sergeant Ermakov remained calm and said: ‘You’ll have to tell him how things work around here, the organisation and all that.’
As he finished putting on his boots, Pavel said: ‘We’re not going to tell him anything because we don’t want him.’ At that, Pavel looked up at us and asked: ‘Eh? Do we want him?’
We weren’t as bold as Pavel in front of Sergeant Ermakov. None of us said a word, but it was still an eloquent response. Sergeant Ermakov sat on the sleeper facing Pavel and said: ‘You’ve got a bloody big mouth.’
Pavel pulled apart the opening of the tent. ‘Look, Ermakov,’ he said. ‘You can’t fit five of us in there.’
Sergeant Ermakov did not look inside the tent. It was a good thing he didn’t, really, because there was plenty of room for five people in there. He said calmly: ‘We’re going to be leaving this place soon.’
Then he stood up and left.
The kid continued staring at his peasant’s boots.
21
WE PREFERRED TO stay in the camp that morning. We played dice. We didn’t gamble. The dice kept falling off the wooden crate. We didn’t speak. We took turns to throw the dice. We hardly bothered keeping score. The kid sat there and watched us. He was sitting on the end of Kyabine and Sifra’s sleeper. He still had the blanket over his shoulders. We had nothing against him. We just didn’t want him to be there.
When the kid got up to go and take a piss, Kyabine waited until he’d moved out of earshot and then asked why we weren’t going to the pond. Pavel said it was risky, showing it to the kid, because Sergeant Ermakov might change his mind and put him in a different tent. And if he did that, then we could wave goodbye to the tranquillity of the pond.
I thought about this and said to Paveclass="underline" ‘Yeah, but seeing as we’re going to be leaving soon anyway, we might not get to go there at all any more.’
Pavel admitted this was true.
‘And I don’t think Ermakov is going to change his mind,’ I added.
The kid returned. He’d taken the blanket off his shoulders and was holding it under his arm. Sifra told him to put the blanket in the tent.
The kid stepped over the wooden crate and went into the tent. We started playing again. In a low voice Kyabine asked: ‘So are we going to the pond?’
Pavel threw the dice.
22
KYABINE AND THE kid went to fetch the meal. The kid did not have a mess tin or any cutlery. But when he came back, he had everything he needed: a mess tin, a half-pint mug, a knife and a spoon.
We ate and smoked. We played dice for a bit and then we questioned the kid. And this is what he told us: he was from Vsevolozhsk, near Lake Ladoga. He’d taken the train from St Petersburg. He’d travelled on a running board all the way to Mogilev. Then from Mogilev to Voronezh. That was where he’d been told where to find part of the Third Army: us.
At the Cheka office he’d been given the clothes he was wearing, plus some underwear and a regulation blanket. He’d been told to wait for other new volunteers and to follow the railway tracks to our camp.
We asked him if he’d ever held a rifle before. Yes, he said, a hunting rifle. We asked him his name. He was called Kouzma Evdokim. I asked him how many times he’d been hunting. Just once, he said. Kyabine asked him if he had any tobacco. No, but he did have some tea left.
We lit the fire, boiled some water and prepared the tea. This time we didn’t have to worry about how many cups we would make. There was plenty: enough for a whole kettle’s worth. The tea tasted bitter. It wasn’t as good as the tea we’d been given before. But, all the same, we drank every drop of it.
After that, we went for a walk around the camp. The Evdokim kid came with us. We still had the bitter taste of his tea in our mouths. We stopped outside Yassov’s tent. He’d copied our idea of putting a railway sleeper outside his tent. He was sitting at one end of it and sculpting a hand. Five or six finished hands were lined up next to him on the sleeper. He glanced up at us then continued to work.
We still didn’t want his hands. But it was interesting to watch him sculpt.
23
WE WALKED UP the railway tracks and just as we were about to enter the field and head to the pond, Pavel hesitated. Then he signalled that we should continue along the tracks. It was a shame. Sometimes Pavel was overly cautious. I felt sure that Ermakov wouldn’t change his mind about the kid now and put him in another tent.
We walked for an hour and finally reached a station. The inside was empty: no chairs or tables remained. The floor was covered with printed pages. There was a dry turd in one corner. Kyabine threw it out of the window. We sat down on the floor and played dice. I lent Kyabine some tobacco. He rolled one cigarette and smoked it, and he gambled with the rest of the tobacco. He swore to Sifra that he was going to win and pay him back what he owed.
The Evdokim kid watched us play for a while then he went away and we forgot about him. The station was full of smoke. We threw the dice on the papers that covered the floor.
Occasionally clouds floated above the station. The sunlight came and went.
Suddenly I said: ‘Where’s the kid?’
No one answered.
It was my turn to play. I threw. I counted my points and Pavel picked up the dice.
I got up and went out. The Evdokim kid was sitting there on the platform, his back to the station wall. He was writing in a notebook with a grey cardboard cover. When he saw me, he closed the book and looked embarrassed.
‘So!’ I said.
He lowered his eyes and started fiddling with the corners of the notebook’s cover. I stood there a little longer in the doorframe and then I went back into the station and, as I sat down, I announced that the kid was writing something in a notebook.