“Never mind, I’ll go as I am,” said Andrei.
He walked into the corridor, taking out his flashlight on the way. The Mute got up to meet him. On the right, from inside the apartment behind a half-open door, Andrei heard low voices. He stopped.
“In Cairo, Duggan, in Cairo!” the colonel insisted grandly. “I see now that you’ve forgotten everything, Duggan. The Twenty-First Yorkshire Fusiliers, and their commander at the time was old Bill, the fifth Baronet Stratford.”
“I beg your pardon, Colonel,” Duggan protested respectfully. “We could consult the colonel’s diaries…”
“Don’t bother, no diaries needed, Duggan! Attend to your pistol. You promised to read to me tonight as well.”
Andrei walked out onto the landing and ran into Ellisauer, standing there like a telegraph pole. Ellisauer was smoking, hunched over with his backside propped against the iron banister.
“Last one before bed?” Andrei asked.
“Precisely, Mr. Counselor. I’m just on my way.”
“Off to bed, off to bed,” Andrei said he walked on past. “You know the saying: the more you sleep, the less you sin.”
Ellisauer giggled respectfully as Andrei walked away. You half-witted beanpole, Andrei thought. You just try not getting that done in three days—I’ll harness you to the sled…
The lower ranks had installed themselves on the ground-floor level (although they’d gotten into the habit of crapping on the upper floors). He couldn’t hear any conversations here—apparently all of them, or almost all, were already sleeping. The apartment doors leading into the lobby were wide open—left that way to create a draft—and through them emerged a discordant medley of snoring, sleepy smacking of lips, muttering, and hoarse heavy-smoker coughing.
Andrei first of all glanced into the apartment on his left. The soldiers had occupied this one. He saw light coming from a little room with no windows. Sergeant Vogel was sitting at a small table in just his shorts, with his peaked cap tilted to the back of his head, diligently filling out some kind of record sheet. There was good order in the army; the door of the little room was standing wide open so that no one could come in or go out unnoticed. At the sound of steps, the sergeant quickly raised his head and peered, shielding his face from the light of the lamp.
“It’s me, Vogel,” Andrei said in a quiet voice, and walked in.
In a flash the sergeant had moved up a chair for him. Andrei sat down and looked around. So there was good order in the army. All three cans of disbursable water were here. The boxes of canned goods and hardtack for tomorrow’s breakfast were here too. And a box of cigarettes. The sergeant’s superbly cleaned pistol was lying on the table. The room had an oppressive, male, field-campaign odor. Andrei set one hand on the back of the chair.
“What’s for breakfast, Sergeant?” he asked.
“The usual, Mr. Counselor,” Vogel replied in surprise.
“See if you can think up something different from the usual,” said Andrei. “Rice porridge with sugar, maybe… Is there any canned fruit left?”
“It could be rice porridge with prunes,” the sergeant suggested.
“Make it with prunes, then. Issue a double ration of water in the morning. And a half bar of chocolate for every man… We do still have chocolate?”
“We have a little bit,” the sergeant said reluctantly.
“Then issue it… What about cigarettes—the last box?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Well, nothing can be done there. Tomorrow as usual, and starting the next day reduce the ration… Ah yes, and another thing. From now on, starting today, a double water ration for the colonel.”
“I beg to report, sir—” the sergeant began.
“I know,” Andrei interrupted. “Tell him it’s an order from me.”
“Yes, sir… Would the counselor care to… Anastasis? Where are you going?”
Andrei looked around. A soldier, also wearing only his shorts and boots, was standing, swaying unsteadily, in the passage, totally addled with sleep.
“Sorry, Sergeant…” he muttered. He was obviously completely out of it. Then his arms straightened out against his sides. “Permission to absent myself to visit the latrine, Sergeant?”
“Do you need paper?”
The soldier smacked his lips and wiggled his face.
“Negative. I have some.” He held out a scrap of paper clutched in his fist, obviously from Izya’s archives. “Permission to go?”
“Granted… I beg your pardon, Mr. Counselor. They’ve been running all night. And sometimes they just go right where they are. The manganese crystals used to help, but now nothing does any good… Would you care to check the sentries, Mr. Counselor?”
“No,” Andrei said, getting up.
“Will you order me to accompany you?”
“No. Stay here.”
Andrei went back out into the lobby. It was just as hot here, but at least the stink wasn’t quite so bad. The Mute soundlessly appeared beside him. He heard Private Anastasis stumble and hiss through his teeth on the steps one floor higher. He’ll never get to the john; he’ll dump it on the floor, Andrei thought with queasy sympathy.
“Right, then,” he said to the Mute in an undertone. “Shall we check out how the civilians have settled in?”
He walked across the lobby and in through the door of the apartment opposite. The field-campaign odor hung in the air here too, but the good order of the army was lacking. A dimmed lamp in the passage faintly illuminated an untidy, jumbled heap of instruments in tarpaulin covers and guns, a dirty rucksack with its contents chaotically dragged out, and canteens and mess tins dumped by the wall. Andrei took the lamp and stepped into the nearest room, and immediately stumbled over someone’s shoe.
The drivers were sleeping here, naked and sweaty, stretched out on crumpled sheets of tarpaulin. They hadn’t even laid out any bedsheets… But then, he supposed, the bedsheets were probably dirtier than the tarpaulin. One of the drivers suddenly raised himself and sat upright, without opening his eyes, fiercely scratched at his shoulders, and mumbled indistinctly, “We’re going hunting, not to the bathhouse. Hunting, got that? The water’s yellow… under the snow it’s yellow, got that?” Without finishing what he was saying, he went limp again and slumped over onto his side.
After checking that all four drivers were there, Andrei moved on to the next apartment. This was the residence of the intelligentsia. They were sleeping on folding camp beds, covered with gray sheets, and they, too, were sleeping restlessly, snoring unhealthily, groaning, and gritting their teeth. Two cartographers in one room and two geologists in the next one. In the geologists’ room Andrei caught an unfamiliar, sweetish smell, and immediately remembered the rumors going around that the geologists smoked hash. The day before yesterday Sergeant Vogel had confiscated a reefer from Private Tevosyan, thumped him in the face, and threatened to put him in the advance guard and leave him there to rot. And although the colonel had taken a rather humorous view of the incident, Andrei had found it all very disturbing.
The other rooms in the huge apartment were empty, except for the kitchen, where Skank was sleeping, completely swaddled in rags—they had obviously worn her out this evening. Her skinny, naked legs, sticking out from under the rags, were covered in raw grazes and some kind of blotches. Yet another disaster visited on us, Andrei thought. The Queen of Shamakha. Damn the rotten bitch to hell. The filthy whore… Where is she from? Who is she? Babbling her gibberish in an incomprehensible language… Why is there an incomprehensible language in the City? How is that possible? Izya was totally floored when he heard it… Skank. That’s the name Izya gave her. A good name. It really suits her. Skank.