He watched Lyudmila climb up the steps and explain herself to the janitor.
Viktor walked round the corner and then paced back to the main entrance. People were rushing along with their string bags; inside them were glass jars full of grey potatoes or bits of macaroni in a grey soup.
'Vitya,' his wife called out. He could tell from her voice that she had regained her self-possession.
'So,' she said, 'he's in Saratov. The assistant medical director happens to have been there not long ago. He's written down the address for me.'
At once there was a mass of things to do and problems to sort out. She needed to know when the steamer left and how she could get a ticket; she'd need to pack some food and borrow some money; and somehow she'd have to get an official authorization…
Lyudmila Nikolaevna left with no food, none of her things, and almost no money; in the general confusion and bustle of embarkation she made her way onto the deck without a ticket.
All she took with her was the memory of parting with her husband, her mother and Nadya on a dark autumn evening. Black waves lapped noisily against the sides of the boat. A fierce wind blew from downstream, howling and flinging up spray from the river.
21
Dementiy Trifonovich Getmanov, the secretary of the obkom [12] of one of the German-occupied areas of the Ukraine, had been appointed commissar of a tank corps now being formed in the Urals.
Before setting out to join the corps, Getmanov flew in a Douglas to Ufa where his family had been evacuated.
His comrades in Ufa had looked after his family well; their living conditions turned out to be not bad at all. Getmanov's wife, Galina Terentyevna, had a poor metabolism and had always been remarkably stout; rather than growing thinner since being evacuated, she had put on still more weight. His two daughters and his youngest son, who had not yet begun school, all seemed in good health.
Getmanov was in Ufa for five days. Before his departure several of his closest friends came round to say goodbye: his wife's younger brother, Nikolay Terentyevich, who was the deputy office-manager of the Ukrainian Council of People's Commissars; one of his old comrades, Mashuk from Kiev, an official in the State security organs; and his sister-in-law's husband, Sagaydak, an executive in the propaganda department of the Ukrainian Central Committee.
Sagaydak arrived after ten o'clock, when the children had already gone to bed and people were talking in undertones.
'How about a quick drink, comrades?' asked Getmanov. 'A drop of vodka from Moscow?'
Taken separately, each one of Getmanov's features was large: his shaggy, greying head, his broad forehead, his fleshy nose, the palms of his hands, his fingers, his shoulders, his thick powerful neck… But he himself, the combination of these parts, was quite small. Strangely, it was his small eyes that were the most attractive and memorable feature of his large face. They were narrow, almost invisible beneath his swollen eyelids. Even their colour was somehow uncertain – neither grey nor blue. But there was something very alive about them, something penetrating and shrewd.
Galina Terentyevna, rising effortlessly despite her corpulent body, left the room. The men fell silent, as often happens – both in a village hut and in the city – when vodka is about to appear. Soon Galina Terentyevna returned with a tray. It seemed surprising that her large hands should have been able, in such a short time, to set out so many plates and open so many tins of food.
Mashuk glanced round at the wide ottoman, the Ukrainian embroidery hanging on the walls, the hospitable array of tins and bottles.
'I can remember that ottoman from your flat, Galina Terentyevna,' he said. 'Let me congratulate you on getting it out. You've got a real talent for organization.'
'Hear, hear!' said Getmanov. 'And I wasn't even at home when we were evacuated. She did it all by herself!'
'I couldn't just give it away to the Germans,' said Galina. 'Anyway Dima's used to it. When he comes home, he sits straight down on it and starts going over his work.'
'You mean he comes home and goes straight to sleep on it,' said Sagaydak.
She went out to the kitchen again. Mashuk gave Getmanov a broad wink. 'I can see the woman already!' he said under his breath. 'Our Dementiy Trifonovich isn't one to waste time. He'll soon be friends with some pretty young medical officer.'
'Yes, he's a passionate man,' agreed Sagaydak.
Getmanov brushed this aside. 'Come off it now. I'm an invalid.'
'Oh yes,' said Mashuk. 'And who used to come back to his tent at three in the morning in Kislovodsk?'
The guests all burst out laughing. Getmanov glanced quickly but intently at his wife's brother. Galina came back into the room. Seeing everyone in fits of laughter, she said: 'I only have to be out of the room for half a minute and you're all talking nonsense to my poor Dima!'
Getmanov filled the glasses with vodka. With great deliberation, the guests began choosing something to eat. Looking at the portrait of Stalin on the wall, Getmanov raised his glass and said: 'Well, comrades, let's drink first of all to our father. May he always remain in good health!'
He pronounced these words in a rather bluff, free-and-easy tone of voice. The implication was that they all understood Stalin's greatness very well, but were drinking to him now as a human being, someone they loved for his straightforwardness, modesty and sensitivity. And Stalin himself, looking up and down the table and then at the ample breasts of Galina Terentyevna, appeared to say: 'Very well, fellows, I'll just get my pipe going. Then I'll bring my chair up a bit closer.'
'That's right, may our father live for a long time! Where would we be without him?' said Nikolay Terentyevich.
Holding his glass to his lips, Getmanov looked round at Sagaydak, as though expecting him to say something. Sagaydak just looked at the portrait as if to say, 'What more needs to be said, Father? You already know everything.' He downed his vodka and the others followed suit.
Dementiy Trifonovich Getmanov had been born in Liven in the province of Voronezh, but had worked many years in the Ukraine and had long-standing ties with his Ukrainian comrades. His links with Kiev had been further consolidated by his marriage to Galina Terentyevna: her many relatives occupied conspicuous positions in the Party and Soviet apparatus in the Ukraine.
Getmanov's life had been relatively uneventful. He had not taken part in the Civil War. He had not been hunted by the police and had never been exiled to Siberia at the decree of a Tsarist court. At conferences and congresses he usually read his reports from a written text. Even though he had not written them himself, he read these reports well, expressively and without hesitation. Admittedly, they were by no means difficult to read – they were printed in large type, double-spaced, and with the name of Stalin always in red. As a young man, Getmanov had been intelligent and disciplined; he had intended to study at the Mechanical Institute but had been recruited for work in the security organs. Soon he had become the bodyguard of the secretary of the kraykom, the area Party committee. He was taken notice of and sent on courses for Party workers. Then he was accepted for work in the Party apparatus – first in the organizational and educational department of the kraykom, then in the personnel department of the Central Committee. After a year he became an assistant in the Senior Appointments Department. And in 1937 he became secretary of the obkom, the oblast Party committee – 'master of the oblasf, as people said.
His word could decide the fate of a head of a university department, an engineer, a bank manager, a chairman of a trade union, a collective farm or a theatrical production.