Many of us were still washing and counting the lines of longshirts, while others of us went off with Commander Vyžlata to another cupboard, which he opened with another key on the ring. Then he handed out scrubbing brushes and floor-cloths… We scrubbed and washed the floors upstairs and peeked into the dining room… We saw the new boy painting over the face of the Lord Jesus.
Then Commander Vyžlata heard our report that the longshirts were filling up the kitchen and eating, and that some had fallen asleep, sprawled on blankets beside the stove — that the kitchen was gradually becoming a longshirt camp… Then we heard an uproar, and the Commander ran to the dining room and some of us ran after him.
In the kitchen Šklíba and Martin were fighting with the new boy, kicking over his pots, which contained white paint. There wasn’t much left of the holy picture in the dining room: Christ and his Mother had almost been painted out… Commander Vyžlata grabbed Šklíba and Martin, each by an ear, and said, ‘What’s this then?’ and Šklíba said, ‘We want the sisters and Christ back!’ and Commander Vyžlata clapped one hand around his own ear in a funny way, and bent down over Šklíba and said, ‘What’s that I hear?’ and Šklíba stamped his foot and I could see he was about to burst into tears. Then Commander Vyžlata spoke severely, ‘There are boys here who look after their little comrades,’ and I almost yelped, because Commander Vyžlata suddenly leapt towards me and grabbed me by the shoulder and shouted, ‘See! This boy is almost the double of the lad I’ve brought you. This boy washes the little boys’ bottoms without complaining — and that’s something out of which friendship can be forged! But we also have here victims of the obscurantism of the old, dying world!’ Commander Vyžlata roared at Šklíba. ‘Listen lad, before you and I swear to be friends, I want you to understand one thing: there were no sisters here. There were never any of them nuns here! Right?’
‘There were!’ Šklíba shouted back.
‘You are a stupid, stubborn boy,’ said Commander Vyžlata. ‘Tell me again: were there nuns here?’
Šklíba shook his head.
‘Were their sisters here?’
‘Yes!’ Šklíba shouted.
‘But sisters are nuns, and no nuns were here. So they weren’t here and there’s an end of it. You’ll get the point one day, my lad,’ said Commander Vyžlata.
The first day of our new life ended with us sorting the longshirts into small and smaller. We assembled them on the first floor and Commander Vyžlata walked past their yawning ranks and pointed: you to the left, you to the right… We drove the ones assigned to us into the littlest ones’ dormitory, grinning at each other and winking, expecting tears, screams and shouts! But Commander Vyžlata locked himself in with the youngsters. He was only there briefly, and when he came out there was no uproar. They were quiet and asleep.
There wasn’t even time to register our surprise. Commander Vyžlata nodded to us and we went into the dining room and sat at our places, as if for lessons.
‘I know, lads,’ said Commander Vyžlata. ‘It’s evening and you’ve had a hard day of it. But, believe me, I came here convinced that I could turn this home full of ne’er-do-wells in the middle of nowhere into a first-rate unit. The nuns stuffed your heads full of nonsense. Have any of them ever had to get a hut full of Russian street urchins to sleep? No. But I have. As a son of the regiment I was forged by Stalin’s Flying Brigade. They sent me from the Centre to cleanse this place. We’re going to cleanse it together! We’ll sling out all those vile old papers full of nonsense! Together we shall cleanse it by fire, and that way we will forge a glorious friendship. And I, my lads, will prepare you for life in the new age. I, lads, have been seared by the fiercest fires of the twentieth century! Yes, I was forged on the anvils of the twentieth century! So now I’m prepared to nurture you for the new age. And in this new age I want you to become leaders and commanders. Understood? Together we shall lay the foundations. Agreed?’
We said nothing. He didn’t want us to answer. That was obvious.
‘Boys!’ Commander Vyžlata shouted. ‘Others threw in the towel, but I picked it up and, believe me, I take this challenge seriously. Listen closely!’ Commander Vyžlata stood up.
‘Many of you are orphans.’ He started walking about, waving his arms around as he spoke. ‘You’ve been neglected. You’re morally defective. You’re a bunch of sneaks and liars and petty thieves. You’re scumbags. Village kids of your age are already slogging away in the fields, and the only thing you know how to do is say your prayers.
‘I’m sure you’re thinking, “This is all bullshit, I’m gonna run away”… Because that’s all you’ve ever learned, running away… But you can’t run away now. You’d die of starvation and hypothermia. But by the spring, lads, I’ll have you forged… You’ve got just one hope, lads! That hope is work! And work is everything that I’m going to tell you to do! I’ve already ordered airguns and knapsacks and billycans and mess tins. Which of you wants to learn how to shoot and crawl and throw hand grenades at the enemy?’
We all shouted, ‘Me! Me! Me!’ and Commander Vyžlata nodded. Now the new boy, the one who looked quite like me, came up to him and the Commander smiled and placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘This boy and I have travelled the world together,’ he said cheerily. ‘I met this boy in a faraway eastern land, where I snatched him from his dying family in the midst of combat.’ The Commander was smiling… and we were glad he’d stopped calling us names and being so cross. We were always calling each other names, but it was never for real, and sometimes the nuns used to call us ‘little demons’, ‘gallows-fodder’ or ‘scallywags’. And they’d call the youngsters ‘sweetheart’ or ‘angel’ or ‘poor wee thing’ or ‘frightened little bird’ and stuff like that… but that wasn’t name-calling either. And Commander Vyžlata told us how he had snatched this boy from a horribly dysfunctional family — a drunken father who was a waste of space and a mother dying from an infectious disease — so that he could forge him into a future commander. ‘Which is what lies ahead for you, too, my lads!’ And the Commander would have us know that the new boy had an important task… in place of the religious painting in the dining room he was going to do a portrait of Private Fedotkin from Stalin’s Flying Brigade! ‘You’ll be hearing all about Private Fedotkin and the son of the regiment. I can promise you that, lads,’ Commander Vyžlata bellowed, and some of us shouted ‘Yeah!’ and ‘Yes!’ because that was the kind of thing that made the Commander happy.