Ellisauer, all twisted out of shape, leaned out from behind Quejada’s fat shoulder and squeaked pitifully. “Please… I’ve got to go… Again…”
“Sit down,” Andrei told him. “We’re just finishing up.” He leaned back in the armchair and grasped the armrests. “Orders for tomorrow. I’m declaring a long halt. Ellisauer! Put all your men on the faulty tractor. I give you three days; kindly get it done in that time. Quejada. All day tomorrow, attend to the sick. The day after tomorrow, be prepared to accompany me on deep reconnaissance. Katzman, you will go with us… Water!” He tapped his finger on the table. “I need water, Katzman! Colonel! Tomorrow I order you to rest. The day after tomorrow you will take command of the camp. That’s all, gentlemen. Dismissed.”
2
Shining the flashlight down at his feet, Andrei hurried upstairs to the next floor—he thought it was the fifth at this point. Dammit, I’m not going to make it… He stopped for a moment, tensing every muscle as he waited for an acute urge to pass. Something in his belly churned with a muted glug and he felt a bit better. The fiends, they’ve fouled every level—there’s nowhere left to step… He reached the landing and pushed on the very first door. The door half-opened with a squeak, and Andrei squeezed in through the opening and sniffed. It didn’t seem too bad… He shone his flashlight around… Right beside the door, on the dried-out parquet, white bones lay in a tangle of stiffened rags, and a skull with clumps of hair caked on it grinned toothily. Clear enough: they looked inside and took fright. Moving his legs unnaturally, Andrei almost ran along the passage. The parlor… Dammit, something like a bedroom… Where’s their john? Ah, there it is…
Afterward, feeling calm, although the griping in his gut still hadn’t completely subsided and he was covered in cold, sticky sweat, he walked back out into the corridor and took the flashlight out of his pocket again. The Mute was right on cue, standing there, leaning his shoulder against some kind of endlessly tall, polished cupboard, with his large hands thrust in under his broad belt.
“Standing guard?” Andrei asked him with casual affability. “You do that, stand guard, or someone might sneak round a corner and stick a knife in my back—then what will you do?”
Andrei suddenly realized he’d gotten into the habit of talking to this strange man as if he were a huge dog, and he felt embarrassed. Giving the Mute a friendly pat on his cool, naked shoulder, he set off along the corridor, no longer hurrying, shining the flashlight right and left. Behind him he could hear the Mute’s soft footsteps following, neither moving closer nor falling back.
This apartment was more luxurious. Lots of rooms packed with heavy antique furniture, massive chandeliers, huge, blackened paintings in museum-style frames. But almost all the furniture was smashed: armrests had been torn off armchairs, chairs without legs were scattered around the floor, doors had been ripped off wardrobes. Did they use the furniture to heat the place, then? Andrei thought. In this heat? Strange…
To be honest, the entire house was a bit strange—he could completely understand the soldiers. Some apartments were standing wide open, and they were simply empty, absolutely nothing but the bare walls. Others were locked from the inside, sometimes even barricaded with furniture, and if you managed to break in, there were human bones lying on the floor. It was the same in the other houses nearby, and they could assume the picture would be the same in the other houses of this district.
None of this seemed to make any sense at all, and so far even Izya Katzman hadn’t come up with any sensible way to explain why some of the residents of these houses fled, taking with them everything they could carry, even books, and others had barricaded themselves in their homes, only to die there, apparently from hunger and thirst. And maybe from cold, too—in some of the apartments they had discovered wretched little iron stoves, and in others fires had clearly been lit directly on the floor, or on sheets of rusty iron that most likely had been torn off the roof.
“Do you understand what happened here?” Andrei asked the Mute.
The Mute slowly shook his head.
“Have you ever been here before?”
The Mute nodded.
“Did anyone live here then?”
No, the Mute signaled.
“I see,” Andrei muttered, trying to make out what was represented in a blackened painting. He thought it was some kind of portrait. Apparently of a woman…
“Is this place dangerous?” he asked.
The Mute looked at him with absolutely still eyes.
“Do you understand the question?”
Yes.
“Can you answer it?”
No.
“Well, thanks for that at least,” Andrei said thoughtfully. “So maybe things aren’t too bad after all. OK, let’s go home.”
They went back to the second floor. The Mute stayed in his corner, and Andrei went through into his room. Pak the Korean was already waiting for him, talking to Izya about something. When he saw Andrei, he stopped speaking and got up to greet him.
“Sit down, Mr. Pak,” Andrei said, and sat down himself.
After a very slight pause, Pak cautiously sank down onto the seat of his chair and put his hands on his knees. His yellowish face was calm, and his sleepy eyes glinted through the cracks between his puffy eyelids. Andrei had always liked him—in some subtle way Pak reminded him of Kensi, or maybe it was simply that he was always neat and clean, always good-natured and amiable with everyone, but without any familiarity; he was laconic, but polite and respectful—always a little apart, always keeping a subtle distance… Or maybe because it was Pak who put a stop to that absurd skirmish at 340 kilometers: when the shooting was at its height, he walked out of the ruins, holding up his open hand and slowly advancing toward the shots…
“Did they wake you up, Mr. Pak?” Andrei asked.
“No, Mr. Counselor. I hadn’t gone to bed yet.”
“Is your stomach bothering you a lot?”
“No more than everyone else’s.”
“But probably no less,” Andrei remarked. “And how are your feet?”
“Better than everyone else’s.”
“That’s good,” said Andrei. “And how are you feeling in general? Are you completely worn out?”
“I’m fine, thank you, Mr. Counselor.”
“That’s good,” Andrei repeated. “The reason why I bothered you, Mr. Pak, is that I’ve declared a long halt tomorrow. But the day after tomorrow I intend to make a short reconnaissance sortie with a special group. Fifty to seventy kilometers ahead. We have to find water, Mr. Pak. We’ll probably travel light but move fast.”
“I understand you, Mr. Counselor,” said Pak. “I request permission to join you.”
“Thank you. I was going to ask you to do that. So we leave the day after tomorrow, promptly at six in the morning. You’ll be issued field rations by the sergeant. Agreed? Now let me ask you this: What do you think, will we succeed in finding water here?”
“I think so,” said Pak. “I’ve heard a thing or two about these parts. There ought to be a spring here somewhere. According to the rumors, there was a very abundant spring here. It has probably been depleted now. But it might possibly be enough for our team. We need to check it out.”
“But maybe it has completely dried up?”
Pak shook his head. “It’s possible, but highly unlikely. I’ve never heard of springs completely drying up. The flow of water can be reduced, even greatly reduced, but apparently springs don’t dry up completely.”