Adam adopted what he considered to be the correct pose for an adjutant to a field-marshaclass="underline" he stood quite still, his hands resting on the back of a chair, his back turned to the door that any moment now would be flung open, his eyes gazing calmly, attentively and affectionately at Paulus himself.
Paulus leant back, away from the table, compressing his lips. If the Fuhrer wanted play-acting, then he was ready to comply.
Any minute now the door would open; this room in a dark cellar would be scrutinized by men who lived on the earth's surface. The pain and bitterness had passed, what remained was fear: fear that the door would be opened, not by representatives of the Soviet High Command who had prepared their role in this solemn scene, but by wild, trigger-happy soldiers. And fear of the unknown: once this final scene had been played out, life would begin again. But what kind of life and where? Siberia, a Moscow prison, a barrack-hut in a labour camp?
45
That night the people on the left bank had seen multi-coloured flares light up the sky over Stalingrad. The German army had surrendered.
People had immediately begun crossing the Volga into the city itself. They had heard that the remaining inhabitants of Stalingrad had endured terrible hunger during these last weeks; the officers, soldiers and sailors from the Volga fleet all carried little bundles of tinned food and loaves of bread. A few of them also brought some vodka or an accordion.
These unarmed soldiers who entered Stalingrad during the night, who handed out bread and kissed and embraced the inhabitants, seemed almost sad; there was little singing or rejoicing.
The morning of z February, 1943, was very misty. The mist rose up from the holes pierced in the ice and from the few patches of unfrozen water. The sun rose, as harsh now in the winter winds as during the blazing heat of August. The dry snow drifted about over the level ground, forming milky spirals and columns, then suddenly lost its will and settled again. Everywhere you could see traces of the east wind: collars of snow round the stems of thorn-bushes, congealed ripples on the slopes of the gullies, small mounds and patches of bare clay…
From the Stalingrad bank it looked as though the people crossing the Volga were being formed out of the mist itself, as though they had been sculpted by the wind and frost. They had no mission to accomplish in Stalingrad; the war here was over and no one had sent them. They came spontaneously, of their own accord – soldiers and road-layers, drivers and gunners, army tailors, mechanics and electricians. Together with old men wrapped in shawls, old women wearing soldiers' trousers and little boys and girls dragging sledges laden with bundles and blankets, they crossed the Volga and scrambled up the slopes of the right bank.
Something very strange had happened to the city. You could hear the sound of car-horns and tractor engines; people were playing harmonicas, soldiers were shouting and laughing, dancers were stamping down the snow with their felt boots. But, for all this, the city felt dead.
The normal life of Stalingrad had come to an end several months before: schools, factories, women's dressmakers, amateur choirs and theatre groups, crèches, cinemas, the city police had all ceased to function. A new city – wartime Stalingrad – had been born out of the flames. This city had its own layout of streets and squares, its own underground buildings, its own traffic laws, its own commerce, factories and artisans, its own cemeteries, concerts and drinking parties.
Every epoch has its own capital city, a city that embodies its will and soul. For several months of the Second World War this city was Stalingrad. The thoughts and passions of humanity were centred on Stalingrad. Factories and printing presses functioned for the sake of Stalingrad. Parliamentary leaders rose to their feet to speak of Stalingrad. But when thousands of people poured in from the steppes to fill the empty streets, when the first car engines started up, this world capital ceased to exist.
On that day newspapers all over the world reported the details of the German surrender. People in Europe, America and India were able to read how Field-Marshal Paulus had left his underground headquarters, how the German generals had undergone a preliminary interrogation at the headquarters of Shumilov's 64th Army, and about what General Schmidt, Paulus's chief of staff, had been wearing.
By then Hitler, Roosevelt and Churchill were looking for new crisis points in the war. Stalin was tapping the table with his finger and asking the Chief of the General Staff if arrangements had been completed to transfer the troops from Stalingrad to other Fronts. The capital of the world war, full as it was of generals, experts in street-fighting, strategic maps, armaments and well-kept communication trenches, had ceased to exist. Or rather, it had begun a new existence, similar to that of present-day Athens or Rome. Historians, museum guides, teachers and eternally bored schoolchildren, though not yet visible, had become its new masters.
At the same time, an everyday, working city was coming into being – with schools, factories, maternity homes, police, an opera and a prison.
A light dusting of snow had fallen on the paths along which men had carried shells, loaves of bread and pots of kasha to gun emplacements, along which they had dragged machine-guns, along which snipers and artillery observers had crept to their stone hiding-places.
Snow had fallen on the paths along which messengers had run between companies and battalions, the paths leading from Batyuk's division to Banniy Ovrag, to the slaughterhouse and the water-towers. Snow had fallen on the paths where the inhabitants of the wartime city had gone for a smoke, to celebrate a comrade's name-day with a few drinks, to have a wash in a cellar, to play a game of dominoes, to have a taste of a neighbour's sauerkraut. Snow had fallen on the paths leading to dear Manya and the beautiful Vera, to menders of watches and cigarette-lighters, to tailors, accordion-players and storekeepers.
A whole network of capricious, winding paths was being covered by snow; not one fresh footprint could be seen on all these thousands of kilometres. This first snowfall was soon followed by a second. The paths blurred and faded.
Meanwhile thousands of people were making new paths, ordinary paths that didn't wind about in great loops or hug the walls of ruins.
The old inhabitants of the city felt both happy and empty. After defending Stalingrad for so long, the soldiers felt strangely depressed.
The whole city was suddenly empty and everyone could feel it – from army commanders and commanders of infantry divisions to ordinary soldiers like Polyakov and Glushkov. This feeling was absurd. Why should a victorious end to the slaughter make one feel sad?
The telephone on the commanding officer's desk was silent in its yellow case. A collar of snow had settled round the housing of the machine-gun. Battery-commanders' telescopes and embrasures had clouded over. Well-thumbed maps and plans were transferred from map-cases to pouches, and sometimes to the kitbags and suitcases of commanders of platoons, companies and battalions…
At the same time crowds of people were wandering among the dead houses, shouting loud 'hurray's' and embracing one another. They looked at each other and thought: 'What fine brave lads you are! Just like us in your winter hats and your jackets! But what we've achieved doesn't even bear thinking about. We've lifted the heaviest burden in the world. We've raised up Truth over Lies. We've just accomplished what most people only read of in fairy-tales.'
All these people belonged to the same city: some of them came from Kuporosnaya Balka, others from Banniy Ovrag, others from the water-towers or from 'Red October', still others from Mamayev Kurgan. And the people who had lived in the centre, on the banks of the Tsaritsa, near the wharves, behind the oil-tanks, came out to meet them. The soldiers were both hosts and guests. The wind roared as they showered one another with congratulations. From time to time they fired a few shots into the air or let off a hand-grenade. They clapped each other on the back, threw their arms round each other, kissed with cold lips and then broke into light-hearted curses… They had all risen up from under the earth: metal-workers, turners, ploughmen, carpenters, navvies… They had ploughed up stone, iron and clay; together they had fought off the enemy.