read. "In reply to your inquiry..."
"Why Vspolye?"
"The evacuation centre is there. It's two kilometres outside Yaroslavl."
"Is that all now?" "Yes."
312
"Now listen to me, then," I said, fighting for self-control. "I can't
forgive, or not forgive you, whatever you may have done for Katya. After
what you did for me this is no longer a personal quarrel between us. You
weren't quarrelling with me when you wanted to finish me off and left
me, a badly wounded man, in the wood to die. You were committing a
military offence, a dastardly crime for which you will be tried as a
scoundrel who violated his oath."
I looked him squarely in the eye and was amazed. He was not
listening to me. Somebody was coming up the stairs, two or three people
judging by the footfalls which echoed hollowly on the staircase.
Romashov looked about him uneasily and stood up. There came a knock
at the door, then a ring.
"Shall I open?" Vyshimirsky asked from behind the partition.
"No!" Romashov shouted. "Ask who it is," he added quietly, as though
collecting himself, and walked across the room with a light, almost
dancing tread.
"Who's there?"
"It's from the house management, open the door."
Romashov gave a sharply indrawn breath.
"Tell them I'm not at home."
"I didn't know. Somebody phoned and I said you were at home."
"At home, of course," I said loudly.
Romashov threw himself upon me and seized my arms. I pushed him
away. He squealed, then followed me out into the hallway and took up
the same position as before, between the wall and the
wardrobe.
"Just a minute," I said. "I'll open the door."
Two men came in—an elderly one, who was evidently the house
manager, judging by the dour, businesslike expression of his face, and
that same young man with the cool manner and the smart cap whom I
had seen in the house manager's office. The young man first looked at
me, then, unhurriedly, at Romashov.
"Citizen Romashov?"
"Yes." Vyshimirsky's teeth chattered so loudly that everyone looked
round at him. "Weapons?" "I have none," Romashov answered, almost
unruffled. Only a
vein throbbed in his otherwise impassive face.
"Well, get your things together. Just a change of underwear.
Accompany the prisoner, will you," he said to the house manager.
"Your documents, Captain."
"It's all nonsense, Nikolai Ivanovich!" Romashov was saying in a loud
voice in the next room, where he was packing his knapsack. "I'll be back
in a few days. It's that same stupid old business about the offal.
Remember me telling you about it—the offal from Khvoinaya?" '
Vyshimirsky's teeth chattered again. It was obvious that he had never
heard about that offal before.
"Sanya, I hope you find her in Yaroslavl," Romashov said louder.
"Tell her-"
Standing in the hall, I saw him drop the knapsack and stand for a while
with closed eyes.
"Never mind," he muttered.
313
"Excuse me, may I ask you for a glass of water," the man in the cap said
to Vyshimirsky.
Vyshimirsky gave it to him. Now we all stood in the hall—Romashov
with his knapsack on his back, the house manager, who had not said a
word throughout, and a bewildered Vyshimirsky with the
empty glass in his hand. For a minute or so all were silent. Then the
young man pushed open the door.
"Goodbye, excuse me for disturbing you." And with a polite gesture he
motioned Romashov forward.
Probably, if I had the time, I would have tried to discover some deep
meaning in the fact that fate, working through a member of the Moscow
C.I.D., has so abruptly interrupted my conversation with Romashov. But
the Yaroslavl train was leaving at 8.20 and in the time left to me I had
to:
(a) present myself to Slepushkin and complete all the personnel
formalities besides, and that might take a good hour and a half;
(b) drop in at the Rewards Department—while still at M—v I had
received notice that the award of my second Order of the Red Banner
had been endorsed and I could receive the document at the People's
Commissariat;
(c) get something to eat on the journey—nearly everything I had
brought with me from M-v I had left with a fellow-airman of the Baltic
Fleet in Leningrad;
(d) book my ticket, but this did not worry me much, as I would have
gone without one.
What's more, I had to write to the military prosecutor about
Romashov.
All this appeared to me absolutely necessary, that is, my life during
the four or five hours before my train was due to leave, was to be rilled
with these particular cares. But what I should have really done was
simply to go back to Valya Zhukov, who was a few minutes' walk away,
and then—who knows?—I might have found time to give some thought
to that jumble of truth and lies with which Romashov had tried to put
himself right with me.
I even paused in Arbat Square, in two minds whether to drop in for a
minute on Valya or not. Instead, I went into a barber shop-I had to get
shaved and change my collar before reporting to the Hydrographical
Department, where one rear-admiral was going to introduce me to
another.
At five o'clock sharp I presented myself to Slepushkin, and at six.
I was enlisted in the H.D. personnel for posting to the Far North at the
disposal of R. Two or three years ago these laconic, formal words would
have conjured up a distant scene of wild rolling hills lit up by the timid
sun of a first Arctic day, but just now what with excitement and all these
cares on my mind, I mechanically thrust the document into my pocket
and walked out, thinking of my omission in not having asked R. to get in
touch with Yaroslavl by military telegraph line.
314
I shall not dwell on the hour and a half that I lost in the Rewards
Department and my other errands. But I must describe this last
memorable encounter I had in Moscow.
Very tired, I went down into the Metro at Okhotny Ryad. It was the
close of the working day, and although in the summer of 1942 there was
still plenty of room in Moscow's Metro, there was a crowd at the top of
escalator. As I peered into the faces of the Muscovites coming up on the
moving belt towards me, it suddenly occurred to me that throughout
that busy, tiring day I had seen nothing of Moscow. I noticed from afar a
heavily-built man in a thick cap and an overcoat with broad square
shoulders floating up towards me, waxing larger as he waited with an air
of lofty toleration for that noisy machine to carry him to the top.
It was Nikolai Antonich.
Had he recognised me? I doubt it. Even if he had, of what interest to
him was a little captain in a shabby tunic, with an ugly kitbag from
which a hunk of bread stuck out?
His somnolent, imperious glance slid over my face incuriously.
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PART NINE
TO FIND AND NOT TO YIELD
CHAPTER ONE
THIS IS NOT THE END YET