Kuznets and Ignatov retire to the commandant’s headquarters, as is their established habit. Ignatov isn’t drinking much of late but he’s with Kuznets, so how could he not sit a while and indulge the chief?
“You and I need to talk, Vanya,” says Kuznets, pouring strong-smelling alcohol into cloudy faceted glasses.
Ignatov wipes crumbs from the table with his palm, takes out what’s left of last night’s dinner – cucumbers, carrot, onion, all sorts of greens, and bread – then pulls the window curtains. Kuznets is talking in broad circles, though, and is in no hurry to get to the point, so first they drink to the future victory over fascism, then to comrade Stalin, to the valorous Red Army, and to the courageous home front (“A good home front, my dear man, is half the victory!”).
“So what was it you wanted to talk about, Zin?” says Ignatov, remembering what Kuznets said. His head is already growing heavy, as usual, filling with big, unwieldy thoughts, and his body is lightening, as if it will fly away any minute.
“Ah,” smiles Kuznets, placing a powerful brown hand on the nape of Ignatov’s neck and pulling him toward himself. “You haven’t forgotten.”
Their foreheads meet over the table and their front locks of hair touch.
“I look at you, Vanya,” says Kuznets, directing a dulled brownish eye at Ignatov, “and I just never tire of it.”
Kuznets’s face is right beside Ignatov’s. Deep pores are distinctly visible on a large nose with dark blue veins.
“Everything’s good with you. You’re holding eight hundred souls in your fist. Achieving production targets. Fulfilling the plan. The kolkhoz is working and the artels, too. The cucumbers…” He takes a large, bumpy squiggle of a cucumber from the table. “Even these are the tastiest on the Angara. Believe me, I know!” Kuznets pokes the cucumber into a puddle of salt sprinkled on the table and bites it with a crunch, spraying Ignatov with small drops. “You even stopped drinking. Why’d you stop drinking, Ivan?”
Kuznets isn’t shy about showing he’s well informed about life in the settlement and its commandant, knowing far more than Ignatov himself has reported.
“I had enough,” says Ignatov, wiping the spray from his cheeks.
“And you didn’t find a woman.” Kuznets smiles sneakily, shaking the bitten cucumber. “You’ve been living a lonely existence since you banished Glashka.”
Kuznets knows about the brief, long-forgotten little couplings with the redheaded Aglaya, though apparently he doesn’t know about the love with Zuleikha that has abruptly come to an end.
A heavy hand presses at Ignatov’s neck again.
“Is that really what you wanted to talk about?” Ignatov says. “Women?”
“Eh, no!” Kuznets chomps juicily at the cucumber, finishes it, and pokes the end at Ignatov’s forehead. “This is about you, a hero! Vanya, it’s time for you to be promoted from sergeant to lieutenant, junior lieutenant for starters.”
Ignatov swats the cucumber end from his forehead. He looks at Kuznets’s bushy black brows, where a heavy drop of sweat is swelling in a deep wrinkle between them. Kuznets has never once raised the topic of promotion with him.
“Here in the woods it’s all the damn same if you’re a sergeant or a lieutenant.”
“What? You’ve decided to stay here forever or something?” Kuznets smirks slyly and his pupils are sharp and narrow. “You used to want to leave. You took me by the throat.”
“I did.”
“So it’s your choice, and you’re still young. But it’s not fitting for someone a mere step away from becoming a second lieutenant in state security to stagnate as a settlement commandant. Huh?” Kuznets’s palm squeezes the nape of Ignatov’s neck. “I’ve already filled out an appraisal form on you. Years of flawless service, I said, dedication to the motherland’s ideals. I just haven’t sent it yet.”
“I’m not getting this, Zin. You’re holding something back.”
“What’s to understand?” Kuznets licks his lips and his bluish-gray tongue with white bumps flashes for a moment. “War, Vanya. We’re living in fast-moving, chaotic times. It even rings in your ears. Heads are rolling. Stars are rolling, too, and they’re made of red silk, framed in silver. They’re on smart people’s uniform cuffs.”
“It’s only been a couple months since your last…” Ignatov looks sideways at Kuznets’s uniform jacket, which is hanging neatly on the back of a chair. There’s a brand-new dark ruby bar in maroon collar tabs with a raspberry-colored edging, a sign of Kuznets’s recent promotion.
“That’s what I’m telling you, my dear man. It’s that kind of time, when anything’s possible, do you understand me? Anything! Promoted to first lieutenant in half a year, another year to captain. You and I just need something to happen, something big and loud. Did you hear about the uprising at the Pargibsky commandant’s headquarters? About the attempt on the commandant in Staraya Klyukva? They arrested about a hundred, and that’s just the plotters. That’s what we need, for lots of people to be involved. We’ll give the whole affair a clever name…”
“What kind of uprisings and escapes are there now, you fool? Anybody who escaped a long time ago is coming back to the settlements now, to get away from the war, from the army.”
“Exactly, Vanya! They’re all afraid of the fascists. But some people are waiting for the enemy. And, like good hosts, they’re preparing a welcoming ceremony for the occupiers, with bread and salt. That’s who you and I are going to find in the settlement. We’ll discover the plot, reveal it, shoot the organizers under wartime law, and send their lousy accomplices to the camps. All Siberia will find out. It’ll be a lesson to the settlers, as a precaution! An example to other commandants’ headquarters. And you and I” – Kuznets pokes a brownish fingernail at himself, below his Adam’s apple – “we’ll be fixing new collar tabs onto our uniforms.”
He’s breathing deeply, hotly. Sweat’s flowing from his forehead in two glistening streams, along the sides of his nose and further down, into the stiff brushes of his mustache.
“You’re off your head, Zin. You’re prattling on here, you’re smashed.”
“Nobody’ll check. I’ll take the case myself.” His palm on Ignatov’s neck is now a sweaty iron pincer. “You’ll compile the list of suspects yourself. Everybody you’re sick of, who gets in the way, get them out, the dogs. I won’t interfere – you can even put Gorelov on it. Your love for him is well known. We’ll crack them all, don’t worry. It’ll be a crystal-clear case. They’ll write about you and me in textbooks.”
“Hold on. You’re proposing that these are, what, my people?”
“Well, who else’s?” There’s a yellowish tinge in the network of red veins in Kuznets’s dark eyes. “I’m no magician here – I can’t pull a hundred plotters out of a magic hat for you. But you’ve got lots of people. This won’t ruin you. If you feel sorry for the old ones, pick the new ones, the outsiders. They won’t survive here anyway – they’ll drop like flies in the winter.”
Ignatov lowers his gaze to Kuznets’s broad, damp lips.
“Well?” say the lips.
“Take your hand off me, you’ll break my neck.”
The hot, damp palm releases Ignatov’s neck.
“Well?” repeat the lips.
Ignatov takes the flask and splashes the remainder of the alcohol into their empty glasses. He tightens the metal top slowly, with a squeak, and puts the flask back on the table.
“I didn’t think,” he says, “comrade lieutenant, that you’d test me, a former Red Army man. I thought you trusted me, based on our old friendship.”