In one empty square she saw a woman harnessed to a two-wheeled cart loaded with bundles. Two children were helping, pulling on ropes tied to the shafts.
Everybody wanted to go back into Stalingrad, back to their homes, but Alexandra Vladimirovna was about to leave.
'Are you sorry that Spiridonov's leaving?' she asked the driver.
'What does it matter to me? Spiridonov worked me hard, and so will the new man. They just sign their instructions – and off I go.'
'What's this?' she asked, pointing to a thick, blackened wall with gaping windows.
'Just various offices. What they should do is let people live here.'
'And what was it before?'
'This was the headquarters of Paulus himself. It was here he was taken prisoner.'
'And before that?'
'The department store. Don't you recognize it?'
The wartime city seemed to have overshadowed the old Stalingrad. It was all too easy to imagine the German officers coming up from the cellars, to see the German field-marshal walking past this blackened wall while the sentries all stood to attention. But was it really here that she had bought a length of material for a coat or a watch as a birthday present for Marusya? Had she really come here with Seryozha and got him a pair of skates in the sports department on the first floor?
People who visit Verdun, the battlefield of Borodino or Malakhov Kurgan at Sebastopol must find it equally strange to find children playing, women doing their washing, carts full of hay and old men carrying rakes. Columns of French soldiers and trucks covered in tarpaulins once passed over fields that are now full of vines; now there is only a hut, a few apple trees and some kolkhoz sheep where Murat's cavalry advanced, where Kutuzov sat in his armchair and ordered the Russian infantry to counter-attack with a wave of his tired hand. Nakhimov stood on a mound where now there are only chickens and a few goats searching for blades of grass between the stones; this is where the flash-bombs described by Tolstoy were launched, where English bullets whistled and wounded soldiers screamed.
Alexandra Vladimirovna found something equally incongruous in these queues of women, these small huts, these old men unloading planks, these shirts hanging up to dry, these patched sheets, these stockings twirling about like snakes, these notices pasted over lifeless façades.
She had realized how flat everything now seemed to Spiridonov when he had talked about the arguments in the district committee over the allocation of cement, planks and manpower. She had sensed how bored he was by the endless articles in Stalingradskaya Pravda about the clearing away of rubble, the cleaning up of streets, the construction of new public baths and workers' canteens. He had only come to life when he talked about the bombing, the fires, the visits of General Shumilov, the German tanks advancing from the hill-tops, the counter-fire of the Soviet artillery.
It was on these streets that the war had been decided. The outcome of this battle was to determine the map of the post-war world, to determine the greatness of Stalin or the terrible power of Adolf Hitler. For ninety days one word had filled both the Kremlin and the Berchtesgaden – Stalingrad.
Stalingrad was to determine future social systems and philosophies of history. The shadow of all this had blinded people to the provincial city that had once led a commonplace, ordered life.
Alexandra Vladimirovna asked the driver to stop, then got out of the car and picked her way with some difficulty through the debris that still littered the deserted street. She stared at the ruins, half-recognizing the remains of houses.
When she came to her own home, she found that the wall facing the street was still there. Through the gaping windows, her farsighted eyes could make out the light blue and green walls of her flat. But the rooms had no floors or ceilings and there was nothing left of the staircase. The bricks had been darkened by flames; here and there they had been scarred by splinters.
With a terrible clarity, she was aware of all that life had been for her: her daughters, her unfortunate son, Seryozha, her many irrevocable losses, her present homelessness. There she was, looking at the ruins of her home – an old, sick woman in an old coat and trodden-down shoes.
What was in store for her? Although she was seventy years old, she had no idea. What was in store for the people she loved? Again she had no idea. Through the empty windows of her house she could see the spring sky looking down at her.
The lives of those close to her were unsettled, confused, full of doubts and mistakes, full of grief. What would happen to Lyudmila? What would be the outcome of her family troubles? Where was Seryozha? Was he even alive? How hard things were for Viktor Shtrum! What would happen to Vera and Stepan Fyodorovich? Would Stepan be able to rebuild his life again and find peace? What path would Nadya follow – that clever little girl who was so difficult and so kind-hearted? And Vera? Would she be broken by the hardships and loneliness she had to endure? And Zhenya? Would she follow Krymov to Siberia? Would she end up in a camp herself and die the same death as Dmitry? Would Seryozha forgive the State for the deaths of his innocent mother and father?
Why were their destinies so confused, so obscure?
As for those who had been killed or executed, they were still alive in her memory. She could remember their smiles, their jokes, their laughter, their sad lost eyes, their hopes and despairs.
Mitya had embraced her and said: 'It doesn't matter, Mama. Please don't worry yourself about me. There are good people even in camp.' And there was young Sonya Levinton with her dark hair and the down over her upper lip. She was declaiming poems with a fierce gaiety. There was Anya Shtrum, as pale and sad as ever, as intelligent and full of mockery. And young Tolya, stuffing down his macaroni cheese – she had got quite annoyed with him for eating so noisily and for never helping Lyudmila: 'Is it too much to ask for a glass of water?' 'All right, all right, but why ask me? Why don't you ask Nadya?' And Marusya. Marusya! Zhenya always made fun of your preaching. And you tried so hard to make Stepan into a good, right-thinking Communist… And then you drowned in the Volga with little Slava Byerozkin and old Varvara Alexandrovna… And Mostovskoy. Please explain to me, Mikhail Sidorovich… Heavens, what could he explain now?
All of them had been unsettled; all of them had doubts and secret griefs. All of them had hoped for happiness. Some of them had come to visit her and others had just written letters. And all the time, in spite of the closeness of her large family, she had had a deep sense of her own isolation.
And here she was, an old woman now, living and hoping, keeping faith, afraid of evil, full of anxiety for the living and an equal concern for the dead; here she was, looking at the ruins of her home, admiring the spring sky without knowing that she was admiring it, wondering why the future of those she loved was so obscure and the past so full of mistakes, not realizing that this very obscurity and unhappiness concealed a strange hope and clarity, not realizing that in the depths of her soul she already knew the meaning of both her own life and the lives of her nearest and dearest, not realizing that even though neither she herself nor any of them could tell what was in store, even though they all knew only too well that at times like these no man can forge his own happiness and that fate alone has the power to pardon and chastise, to raise up to glory and to plunge into need, to reduce a man to labour-camp dust, nevertheless neither fate, nor history, nor the anger of the State, nor the glory or infamy of battle has any power to affect those who call themselves human beings. No, whatever life holds in store – hard-won glory, poverty and despair, or death in a labour camp – they will live as human beings and die as human beings, the same as those who have already perished; and in this alone lies man's eternal and bitter victory over all the grandiose and inhuman forces that ever have been or will be…