The thoughts of these men may have been trivial – an abandoned dog, a hut in a remote village, hatred for another soldier who's stolen your girl… But these trivialities are precisely what matter.
Human groupings have one main purpose: to assert everyone's right to be different, to be special, to think, feel and live in his or her own way. People join together in order to win or defend this right. But this is where a terrible, fateful error is born: the belief that these groupings in the name of a race, a God, a party or a State are the very purpose of life and not simply a means to an end. No! The only true and lasting meaning of the struggle for life lies in the individual, in his modest peculiarities and in his right to these peculiarities.
Novikov had the feeling that these men would succeed, that they would outwit and overcome the enemy. This vast reserve of intelligence, labour, bravery, calculation, skill and anger, of all the different endowments of these students, schoolboys, tractor-drivers, lathe-operators, teachers, electricians and bus-drivers – all this would flow into one, would coalesce. And once united, they were certain to conquer. They were too rich not to conquer.
If one failed, another would succeed; if it wasn't in the centre, it would be on a flank; if it wasn't in the first hour of battle, it would be in the second. These men would surpass the enemy in both strength and cunning; they would break him, destroy him… Victory depended on them alone. In the smoke and dust of battle they would turn, they would break through, they would strike a fraction of a second earlier than the enemy, a fraction of an inch more accurately, more crushingly…
Yes, they held the answer. These lads in their tanks, with their cannons and machine-guns, were the most precious resource of all.
But would they unite? Would the inner strength of all these men coalesce?
Novikov stood and watched. He felt a sense of mounting joy and confidence about Zhenya: 'She'll be mine! She'll be mine!'
54
What an extraordinary time this was! Krymov felt that history had left the pages of books and come to life.
Here, in Stalingrad, the glitter of sunlight on water, the colour of the sky and the clouds, struck him with a new intensity. It had been the same when he was a child: the patter of summer rain, a rainbow, his first glimpse of snow, had been enough to fill him with happiness. Now he had rediscovered this sense of wonder – something nearly all of us lose as we come to take the miracle of our lives for granted.
Everything Krymov had disliked in the life of these last years, everything he had found false, seemed absent from Stalingrad. 'Yes, this is how it was in Lenin's day!' he said to himself.
He felt that people were treating him differently, better than they had done before the war. It was the same now as when he had been encircled by the Germans: he no longer felt he was a stepson of the age. Recently, on the left bank, he had been preparing his talks and lectures with enthusiasm, quite reconciled to his new role.
Nevertheless, there were times when he did feel a sense of humiliation. Why hadn't he been allowed to continue as a fighting commissar? He had done his job well enough, better than many others…
There was something good about the relations between people here. There was a true sense of dignity and equality on this clay slope where so much blood had been spilt.
There was an almost universal interest in such matters as the structure of kolkhozes after the war, the future relations between the great peoples and their governments. The day-to-day life of these soldiers – their work with spades, with the kitchen-knives they used for cleaning potatoes and the cobblers' knives they used for mending boots – seemed to have a direct bearing on their life after the war, even on the lives of other nations and states.
Nearly everyone believed that good would triumph, that honest men, who hadn't hesitated to sacrifice their lives, would be able to build a good and just life. This faith was all the more touching in that these men thought that they themselves would be unlikely to survive until the end of the war; indeed, they felt astonished each evening to have survived one more day.
55
After his evening lecture, Krymov was taken to Batyuk's bunker. Lieutenant-Colonel Batyuk, a short man whose face expressed all the weariness of the war, was in command of the division disposed along the slopes of Mamayev Kurgan and alongside Banniy Ovrag.
Batyuk seemed glad of Krymov's visit. For supper there was meat in aspic and a hot pie. As he poured out some vodka for Krymov, Batyuk narrowed his eyes and said: 'I heard you were coming round giving lectures. I wondered who you'd visit first – me or Rodimtsev. In the end you went to Rodimtsev's.'
He smiled at Krymov and grunted. 'It's just like being in a village. As soon as things quieten down in the evening, we start phoning our neighbours. What did you have to eat? Has anyone been round? Are you going anywhere yourself? Did the high-ups say which of us has got the best bath-house? Has anyone been written about in the newspaper? Yes, they always write about Rodimtsev, never about us. To read the newspapers, you'd think he was defending Stalingrad all by himself.'
He gave his guest some more vodka, but himself just had some tea and a crust of bread. He seemed indifferent to the pleasures of the table.
Krymov realized that the deliberateness of Batyuk's movements and his slow Ukrainian manner of speech were misleading; in fact he was mulling over some very difficult problems. He was upset that Batyuk didn't ask a single question about his lecture. It was as though it bore no relation to any of Batyuk's real concerns.
Krymov was appalled by what Batyuk told him about the first hours of the war. During the mass retreat from the frontier, Batyuk led his own battalion west to hold a ford against the Germans. His superior officers, retreating along the same road, thought he was about to surrender to the Germans. There and then, after an interrogation consisting only of hysterical shouts and curses, it was decided to have Batyuk shot. At the last moment – he was already standing against a tree – he was rescued by his own soldiers.
'Yes, comrade Lieutenant-Colonel,' said Krymov. 'That's no joke.'
'I didn't quite die of a heart attack,' said Batyuk. 'But my heart hasn't been the same since – that's for sure!'
'Can you hear the firing over in the Market?' asked Krymov in a rather theatrical tone. 'Is Gorokhov up to something?'
Batyuk glanced at him.
'I know what Gorokhov's up to. He's playing cards.'
Krymov said he'd heard there was going to be a meeting of snipers at Batyuk's; he'd like to attend.
'Certainly,' said Batyuk. 'Why not?'
They began to talk about the Front. Batyuk said he was worried by the gradual build-up of German troops in the north of the sector; it was mostly taking place at night.
Finally the snipers assembled; Krymov realized who the pie was intended for. Men in padded jackets sat down one after another on benches beside the wall and round the table; they seemed shy and awkward, but at the same time conscious of their own worth. The new arrivals stacked their rifles and tommy-guns in the corner, trying to make as little noise as possible; they might have been workers putting down their axes and spades.
The famous Zaitsev looked somehow kind and gentle – just a good-natured country lad. But when he turned his head and frowned, Krymov glimpsed the true harshness of his features.
It reminded him of a moment at a conference before the war. Looking at an old friend seated beside him, he had suddenly seen his seemingly hard face in a different light. His eyes kept blinking, his mouth was half-open and he had a weak nose and chin. Altogether he seemed feeble and irresolute.