Life And Fate

'Why's he a lout?' asked Alexandra Vladimirovna. 'Life has to go on.'

'Well? Is lunch ready? What are we waiting for? ' asked Spiridonov.

'We're waiting for Natalya and her pies.'

'We're going to miss the train waiting for those pies,' he grumbled.

He didn't feel like eating, but he'd put some vodka aside for their final meal and he did feel like a good drink. He also very much wanted just to go and sit in his office for a few minutes, but it would have been too awkward – Batrov was having a meeting with the heads of the different shops. The bitterness he felt made him still more desperate for a drink. He kept shaking his head and saying: 'We're going to be late, we're going to be late.'

There was something agreeable about this fear of being late, this anxious waiting for Natalya. He didn't realize that it was because it reminded him of times before the war when he'd gone to the theatre with his wife. Then too he had looked constantly at his watch and repeated anxiously: 'We're going to be late.'

He very much wanted to hear something nice about himself. This need made him still more depressed.

'Why should anyone pity me?' he moaned. 'I'm a coward and a deserter. Who knows? I might even have had the cheek to expect a medal "For the defenders of Stalingrad ".'

'All right then, let's have lunch!' said Alexandra Vladimirovna. She could see that Spiridonov was in a bad way.

Vera brought in a saucepan of soup and Spiridonov got out the bottle of vodka. Alexandra Vladimirovna and Vera both said they didn't want any.

'So only the men are drinking,' said Spiridonov. 'But maybe we should wait for Natalya.'

At that moment Natalya came in with a large bag and began spreading her pies out on the table. Spiridonov poured out full glasses for Andreyev and himself and half a glass for Natalya.

'Last summer,' said Andreyev, 'we were all eating pies at Alexandra Vladimirovna's home on Gogol Street.'

'Well, I'm sure these will be every bit as delicious,' said Alexandra Vladimirovna.

'What a lot of us there were on that day,' said Vera. 'And now there's just you, Grandmama, and me and Papa.'

'We certainly routed the Germans,' said Andreyev.

'It was a great victory – but we paid a price for it,' said Alexandra Vladimirovna. 'Have some more soup! We'll be eating nothing but dry food on the journey. It will be days before we see anything hot.'

'No, it's not an easy journey,' said Andreyev. 'And it will be difficult getting on the train. It's a train from the Caucasus that stops here on its way to Balashov. It's always crammed with soldiers. But they will have brought some white bread with them.'

'The Germans bore down on us like a storm-cloud,' said Spiridonov. 'But where are they now? Soviet Russia has vanquished them.'

He remembered how not long ago they could hear German tanks from the power station. And now those tanks were hundreds of kilometres away. Now the main fighting was around Belgorod, Chuguyev and Kuban.

But he was unable to forget his wound for more than a moment. 'All right, so I'm a deserter,' he muttered. 'But what about the men who reprimanded me? Who are they? I demand to be judged by the soldiers of Stalingrad. I'm ready to confess all my faults before them.'

'And Mostovskoy was sitting right next to you, Pavel Andreyevich.'

But Spiridonov wouldn't be diverted. His resentment welled up again. He turned to his daughter and said: 'I phoned the first secretary of the obkom to say goodbye. After all, I am the only director who stayed on the right bank through the whole of the battle. But his assistant, Barulin, just said: "Comrade Pryakhin's unable to speak to you. He's engaged."'

As though she hadn't even heard her father, Vera said: 'And there was a young lieutenant, a comrade of Tolya's, sitting next to Seryozha. I wonder where he is now.'

She wanted so much to hear someone say: 'Who knows? Maybe he's alive and well, still at the front.' Even that would have consoled her a little. But Stepan Fyodorovich just went on with his own thoughts.

'So I said to him: "I'm leaving today. You know that very well." "All right then," he said, "you can address him in writing." To hell with them all! Let's have another drink! We'll never sit at this table again.'

He turned to Andreyev and raised his glass. 'Don't think badly of me when I'm gone!'

'What do you mean, Stepan Fyodorovich? We workers are on your side.'

Spiridonov downed his vodka, sat quite still for a moment – as though he'd just surfaced from under the sea – and then attacked his soup. It was very quiet; the only sound was Spiridonov munching his pie and tapping away with his spoon. Then little Mitya started screaming. Vera got to her feet, walked over to him and took him in her arms.

'You must eat your pie, Alexandra Vladimirvna!' said Natalya in a very quiet voice, as though it were a matter of life and death.

'Certainly!' said Alexandra Vladimirovna.

With drunken, joyous solemnity, Spiridonov announced:

'Natalya, let me say this is everyone's presence! There's absolutely nothing to keep you here. Go back to Leninsk for your son – and then come and join us in the Urals! It's not good to be on one's own.'

He tried to catch her eyes, but she lowered her head. All he could see was her forehead and her dark, handsome eye-brows.

'And you too, Pavel Andreyevich! Things will be easier for us if we stick together.'

'What do you mean? Do you think I'm going to begin a new life at my age?'

Spiridonov glanced at Vera. She was standing by the table with Mitya in her arms, crying. For the first time that day he saw the walls of the room he was about to leave. Everything else became suddenly of no importance: the pain of dismissal, the loss of the work he loved, his loss of standing, the burning shame and resentment that had prevented him from sharing in the joy of victory.

The old woman sitting next to him, the mother of the wife he had loved and now lost for ever, kissed him on the head and said: 'It doesn't matter, Stepan my dear. It doesn't matter. It's life.'

61

The stove had been lit the previous evening and the hut had felt stuffy all night. The tenant and her husband, a wounded soldier who'd only just come out of hospital, didn't go to sleep until it was nearly morning. They were talking in whispers – so as not to wake up the old landlady or the little girl who was sleeping on top of a trunk.

The old woman was unable to sleep. She was annoyed by all this whispering. She couldn't help but listen. She couldn't help but try to link together the odd phrases she overheard. If only they'd talk normally! Then she'd just listen to them for a little while and fall fast asleep. She wanted to bang on the wall and say: 'What's all this whispering about? Do you really think what you're saying is that interesting?'

She kept making out odd phrases here and there:

'I came straight from hospital. I couldn't get you any candies. It would have been another story if I'd been at the front.'

'And all I had to give you was potatoes fried in oil.'

Then the whispering became inaudible again. Probably the woman was crying.

Then she heard the words:

'It's my love that kept you alive.'

'I bet he's a real breaker of hearts!' thought the old woman.

She dozed off for a few minutes. She must have been snoring -when she woke up, the voices were louder.

'Pivovarov wrote to me in hospital. I'd only just been made a lieutenant-colonel. And now they're putting me forward for promotion again. It's the general's doing – he put me in command of a division. And I've been awarded the Order of Lenin. And all for that day when I was buried under the ground! When I had lost touch with my battalions and all I could do was sing stupid songs. I keep feeling as though I'm an impostor. I can't tell you how awkward I feel.'