“Listen, why don’t you get a shave, really?” said Andrei.
“What for?” Izya asked absentmindedly.
“The whole command staff shaves,” Andrei said angrily. “You’re the only one walking around like a scarecrow.”
Izya raised his head and looked at Andrei for a while, exposing yellowish, long-unbrushed teeth among the hair. “Yes?” he said. “Well, you know, I’m not big on prestige. Look at the jacket I’m wearing.”
Andrei looked. “You could darn that too, by the way. If you don’t know how—let Duggan have it.”
“I think Duggan has enough to do without me… And by the way, who are you intending to shoot?”
“Whoever I need to,” Andrei said darkly.
“Well, well,” Izya said, and immersed himself in reading.
Andrei glanced at his watch. There were ten minutes to go. Andrei sighed and reached under the table, groped to find his shoes, pulled out the stiff socks and surreptitiously sniffed at them, then lifted up his right foot toward the light and examined the skinned heel. The abrasion had started healing over slightly, but it was still painful. Wincing in anticipation, he cautiously pulled on his rigid sock and moved his foot a bit. Wincing really hard now, he reached for his shoe. When he had his shoes on, he put on the belt with the empty holster, straightened his jacket, and buttoned it.
“Here,” said Izya, pushing a pile of papers covered in writing across the table to him.
“What’s that?” Andrei asked, totally uninterested.
“Paper.”
“Aah…” Andrei picked up the sheets of paper and put them in the pocket of his jacket. “Thank you.”
Izya was already reading again. Fast, like a machine.
Andrei remembered how much he hadn’t wanted to bring Izya on this expedition—with his absurd vegetable-plot-scarecrow appearance, with his provocatively Jewish features, with his insolent giggling, with his self-evident inability to handle heavy physical demands. It had been absolutely clear that Izya would cause him a heap of trouble, and the archivist would be pretty useless in field conditions verging on combat conditions. But things hadn’t turned out that way at all.
That’s to say, things had turned out that way as well. Izya was the first to skin his feet. Both of them at once. Izya was insufferable at the evening report sessions, with his idiotic, inappropriate little jokes and gratuitous informality. On the third day of the journey he managed to fall through into some kind of cellar, and the entire team had to help drag him out of there. On the sixth day he got lost and delayed their departure by several hours. During the skirmish at 340 kilometers he behaved like a total cretin and only survived by a miracle. The soldiers mocked him and Quejada constantly quarreled with him. Ellisauer turned out to hate all Jews on principle, and Andrei had to read him the riot act about Izya… It happened. It all happened.
And despite all this, pretty soon Izya turned out to be the most popular figure on the expedition, with the possible exception of the colonel. And even more popular in some ways. First, he found water. The geologists spent a long time vainly searching for springs, drilling rocks, sweating, and making exhausting forays during the general rest halts. Izya simply sat in a cargo sled under a grotesque improvised parasol and rummaged through old documents, of which he had accumulated several crates. And four times he predicted where to look for underground cisterns. True, one cistern was dried out, and the water in another was rank and fetid, but the expedition had twice discovered excellent water, thanks to Izya and only Izya.
Second, he found a cache of diesel oil, after which Ellisauer’s antisemitism had become largely abstract. “I hate yids,” he explained to his lead mechanic. “There’s nothing on Earth worse than a yid. But I’ve never had anything against Jews! Take Katzman, for instance…”
And what was more, Izya supplied everyone with paper. Their supplies of bathroom tissue had run out after the first outbreak of gastrointestinal disorders, and Izya’s popularity—as the only owner and custodian of paper wealth in country where you couldn’t find so much as a burdock leaf or a clump of grass—had risen to astronomical levels.
Less than two weeks went by before Andrei realized, with a certain degree of envy, that they all loved Izya. Everyone. Even the soldiers, which was absolutely incredible. During the halts, they jostled around him and listened openmouthed to his prattle. Without being asked, they lugged his metal crates of documents from place to place, taking pleasure in it. They complained to him and showed off to him like schoolboys with their favorite teacher. They hated Vogel, they were in awe of the colonel, they fought with the scientific staff, but with Izya, they laughed. And not at him but with him! “You know, Katzman,” the colonel said one day, “I never understood what commissars were needed for in an army, but I think I’d take you on for that job.”
Izya finished sorting out one batch of documents and extracted another one from under his jacket. “Is there anything interesting?” Andrei asked. He didn’t ask because he was really curious but simply because he wanted somehow to express the affection he suddenly felt at this moment for this clumsy, absurd man with his sleazy appearance.
Izya barely had time to give a brief nod. Before he could reply, the door swung open and St. James stepped into the room.
“With your permission, Counselor?” he said.
“Please come in, Colonel,” said Andrei, getting up. “Good evening.”
Izya jumped to his feet and moved up an armchair for the colonel.
“Most kind of you, Commissar,” the colonel said, and sat down slowly, in two stages. He looked the same as usual—trim and fresh, with a fragrance of eau de cologne and good tobacco—only his cheeks had become a little hollower just recently and his eyes had sunk in quite startlingly. And he didn’t walk around with his distinctive swagger stick any longer but with a long black cane, on which he noticeably leaned when he had to remain standing.
“That disgraceful fight under the windows…” said the colonel. “I apologize for my soldier, Counselor.”
“Let’s hope that was the last fight,” Andrei said morosely. “I don’t intend to tolerate this any longer.”
The colonel nodded absentmindedly. “Soldiers always fight,” he remarked casually. “In the British Army it’s actually encouraged. Fighting spirit, healthy aggression, and so on… But you are right, of course. In such arduous field conditions it’s quite intolerable.” He leaned back in his chair, took out his pipe, and started filling it. “But the potential enemy is still nowhere to be seen, is he, Counselor?” he said humorously. “In this connection, I foresee great complications for my poor general staff. And also for the Messrs. Politicians, to be frank.”
“On the contrary!” Izya exclaimed. “The hectic times are just about to start for all of us! Since no genuine enemy exists, he has to be invented. And as universal experience demonstrates, the most terrible enemy is an invented one. I assure you, it will be an incredibly gruesome monster. The army will have to be doubled in size.”
“So that’s how it is?” said the colonel, still in humorous vein. “I wonder who will invent him? Could it possibly be you, my commissar?”
“You!” Izya said triumphantly. “You, first and foremost.” He started counting on his fingers. “First, you will have to set up a department of political propaganda attached to the general staff—”
There was a knock at the door, and before Andrei could answer, Quejada and Ellisauer walked in. Quejada was sullen and Ellisauer was smiling down vaguely from somewhere right up under the ceiling.
“Please be seated, gentlemen.” Andrei greeted them coolly. He rapped his knuckles on the table and told Izya, “Katzman, we’re starting.”