Borchak disliked Malinsky the way a man might dislike a particular food. But he hated the front commander’s chief of staff. Borchak could not even stomach looking at Chibisov. His purpose was to manage Malinsky. But he would have enjoyed destroying his smug little Jew of a deputy.
The Jews had always been and always would be a problem. Until they were finally expunged from Russia. Oh, the Jews could make revolutions. But they never knew when to stop. Borchak found it impossible to believe that Chibisov was truly loyal to the Soviet Union. But the chief of staff was clever. And Malinsky protected him.
Of course, that might open up new possibilities. If Chibisov could be implicated in something unsavory, and if Malinsky could be induced to defend his subordinate a bit too publicly, a bit too vehemently…
There was always a way. Every man had his weakness, his flaw, his instant of poor judgment, and it would be vital to keep the military firmly under control after the fighting ceased and the real work began. The military men thought they were so grand. But the difficult part of it all would be the occupation, the painstaking rebuilding of an acceptable government on the Rhine, the deals, the seeming compromises, the appearance of civilized, even generous behavior as the undesirable elements in reformed Germany were quietly eliminated. Entirely new formulas had to be developed to keep the Germanies divided, to maintain a sufficient degree of hatred and rivalry between them. The Soviet Union had not paid so great a price in blood to see the Germanies unified. Such a thought was anathema to all sensible men… Borchak was aware of the intense debates in Moscow over what sort of restrictive federalism might be safely permitted, and over what contours the occupation would take on. So far, as his own boss had told him with a bitter laugh, the only thing anyone agreed on was that the new capital would be Weimar.
Borchak finished his report. He was not completely satisfied with it, but he felt that he was beginning to build up his arsenal of weapons to bring Malinsky low. Should the need arise. When you could not strike a man directly, you needed to weave a web of incidentals around him. Borchak was confident that he could do the latter.
He slipped the completed report into his courier briefcase. But before he went to the special communications center to send it, he drew out another message form and addressed it privately to his office-mate in Moscow.
“Dear Rodion Mikhailovitch,” he began, “please look in on Yevdokia and the children, if you can find the time. Greet them from me; tell them I love them and that my thoughts are with them. Tell Yevdokia I said to go ahead with the plans to add the additional room onto the dacha before winter, but also that she need not be overly extravagant. I look forward to seeing all of you again. Greetings to Irina. Arkady.”
Twenty-one
The brigade’s operations maps decorated the wall of the German living room. Battery-powered lamps shone their harsh, flattening light about the crowded room, striking Anton’s eyes as he moved from officer to officer, checking, correcting, struggling to remain lucid despite his building fever.
At midnight, he had led his wounded brigade across the big bridge at Bad Oeynhausen. He had dismounted to empty his bowels yet again and to watch the progression of bristling war machines on the march, their spiky outlines silhouetted by fires burning out of control in the town. The bridgehead had been in a chaotic state, guarded by a crust of air-defense batteries, hastily dug-in antitank positions, grubby air-assault troops, and a battered assortment of scarred-up tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. Major General Anseev, the corps commander, had flown down in a light liaison helicopter, a brave act given the density of nervous gunners packed into the bridgehead. He hastened to brief Anton on a possible change in the situation. Indicators were building of a possible counterattack by U.S. Army forces coming up from the south. The information only consisted of bits and pieces, and the corps commander even acknowledged that there might be nothing to it, just the imaginings of overwrought staff officers. But Anton had to rush his force through one designated pass across the Teutoburg forest ridge, a distance of more than fifty kilometers on a network of secondary roads, then to prepare for a possible wheel to the south. If an American grouping did appear, it was imperative to hold them west of the Teutoburg and south of the Paderborn-Soest-Dortmund line. Anton was to prepare contingency measures for a meeting engagement opened from the march, as well as for a hasty defense, as dictated by the developing situation. The corps’ attack helicopters would forward base west of the Weser by first light. Since he was marching on the southern flank of the corps, Anton would have first call on the aircraft. Further, he would receive heavy multiple rocket launchers and additional tube artillery from the corps artillery brigade.
Images fuzzed in Anton’s head. He understood what the corps commander said, but it only sounded hopelessly difficult, an unreasonable burden. He would have to pull in his commanders and hastily reorganize, without sufficient time for even the most rudimentary staff procedures. The additional assets made available by the corps commander only sounded like additional headaches. It all seemed so nightmarishly hard to manage, impossible to keep under control.
“The front is making every effort to locate the American grouping, if such a force is actually out there,” the corps commander said. “If anything critical comes up, I’ll personally open the long-range net. You may, of course, open up the net upon initial contact. But I don’t think there will be a problem before daylight, at the earliest. The Americans couldn’t move that fast.” The corps commander stroked his mustache. “In the meantime, go like the wind. Speed is the best security.”
Anton nodded. A part of him hoped with the hope of a child that the corps commander would see how ill he was and relieve him of his responsibilities on the spot. But the corps commander seemed totally immersed in the military problem.
Anton braced himself. He told himself that his diarrhea was slackening, although he knew he was running a high fever. How would it do, he asked himself, for the son of General Malinsky, the privileged son of the great General Malinsky, to miss the war because he had a case of the shits? But the sarcasm did not work. And Anton knew that he would keep on going until his body physically quit on him, paying the price of his father’s terrible love.
Anton cared less and less for his personal pride now. But he could not imagine letting the old man down. Not without absolute physical failure. Or death, Anton thought, before dismissing the notion as the morbidity of illness.
He wished he were home, in bed, with Zena caring for him. He could lie propped up in his bed, drinking tea, and Zena could read to him. Perhaps a lesser tale by one of the giants whose pens had swept across the Russian earth before the Revolution. And he could draw Zena close to him, until her straight thick red hair blazed on the white of the bedclothing.
I’ll do this for my father, Anton thought, growing undisciplined in his mental processes. I’ll do this for him. Then that’s the end. Then it will be my life, the days will belong to me… and to Zena. But he refused to trace his fantasy through its practical dilemmas.
The corps commander flew off into the clear night. Anton dispatched his couriers, then he remounted to leap along the column with the core of his staff. They erected a temporary command post in an abandoned German house that stood by yet another crossroads. Anton felt magnetized by the inevitability, the irony of that. It was as though the war were all about roads, and no matter the obvious vulnerability, crossroads determined all events of significance.