Ignatov didn’t understand how it was possible to love a woman. One could love great things: revolution, party, one’s country. But a woman? Anyway, how could the very same word express one’s relationship with such different entities, as if you were placing the Revolution and some woman on two pans of a scale. It ends up being silly. Even Nastasya – as alluring and winsome as she was – was still a woman. He could be with her for a night or two, half a year at most, to amuse the man in him, and that would be it, enough. What kind of love was that? Only feelings, a bonfire of emotions. It’s nice while it burns but when it dies down, you blow away the ash and live on. And so Ignatov didn’t use the word love when he spoke; he didn’t want to defile it.
Bakiev summoned Ignatov abruptly one morning. “Vanya, my friend,” he said, “the real assignment you’ve been waiting for is here. You’re going to a village to fight enemies of the Revolution – there are still a lot left there.” Ignatov’s heart went still from joy: on a horse again, in battle again! They gave him a couple of Red Army men as subordinates and a detachment of recruits. And she – she, the adored one, in a white sheepskin coat and on a chestnut horse – was among them. Fate, for certain, was bringing them together.
He dropped in on Ilona before leaving, parting with her coolly. She immediately burst into tears when she saw the coldness in his eyes: “You don’t love me, Ivan?” He got so angry his teeth even clenched. “Loving is for mothers and children!” he said and left immediately. “I’ll wait for you, Ivan, do you hear? I’ll wait!” she called after him, as he went. In short, she put on a show.
Nastasya’s another matter. This one wouldn’t wring her hands and sigh. This one knows why men need women and women need men.
There she is, riding by: smiling broadly, unashamed, looking him straight in the eye. Her sharp little teeth pull a mitten off her plump hand and she ruffles the horse’s mane with her tender fingers, running her hand through the strands. Patting him.
Ignatov feels sudden hot shivers running from the back of his head, past the nape of his neck, and flowing down his spine. He averts his gaze, frowning; it’s not fitting for a Red Army man to think about women on the job. She’s not going anywhere. And he spurs his horse, galloping to the front of the caravan.
They’ve been riding for a long time. Along boundless hills that were once Kazan Governate and are now Red Tataria, they see the tail ends of other caravans stretching just as slowly and inexorably toward the capital – white-stoned Kazan. The rear of their own caravan is probably looming in front of someone else, but Ignatov doesn’t know because he doesn’t like looking back. Every now and then they ride through villages where the people bring bread from their houses, thrusting it into the hands of the dekulakized, sitting dejectedly on sledges. Ignatov doesn’t forbid this: let them. They’ll eat up less state-issued chow in Kazan.
Yet another hill has been left behind but Ignatov has already quit counting them; he’s lost track. And then, in the monotonous scrape of sledge runners, he hears Prokopenko’s sudden loud shout, “Comrade Ignatov, come here!”
Ignatov turns. The caravan’s even ribbon is torn in the middle. The forward part continues moving slowly ahead but the rear part is standing still. The dark figures of cavalrymen bustle around at the gap, waving their arms, their horses prancing nervously.
Ignatov rides closer. There it is, the reason: the sledge with the tiny woman with the big green eyes. The harnessed horse is standing, head down, and the foal has settled in by her belly, hurriedly sucking on a maternal udder, groaning from time to time; it had gotten hungry. The road is only wide enough for one sledge, so those behind can’t ride past.
“The mare’s on strike,” complains Prokopenko, at a loss, his black brows knitted. “I’ve already tried all kinds of things with her…”
He earnestly tugs the horse by the bridle but she shakes her mane and snorts – she doesn’t want to go on.
“We have to wait until she’s done feeding,” the woman in the sledge quietly says.
The reins lie on her knees.
“Women wait for their husbands to come home,” Ignatov snaps. “We have to move.”
He jumps to the ground. From his overcoat pocket he takes bread crusts sprinkled with pebbles of coarse gray salt that he’d saved for his own horse. He thrusts them at the stubborn beast, who smacks her glistening black lips and eats. There now, watch it… He strokes her long muzzle, which is prickly with stiff gray hairs.
“A caress works on a horse, too,” says Nastasya, who’s ridden up and is smiling broadly, gathering the semicircles of her cheeks into dimples.
Ignatov tugs at the bridle: Come on, sweetie. The horse finishes chewing the last crust and obstinately lowers her head to the ground: I’m not moving.
“You won’t budge her,” chimes in the taciturn Slavutsky, pensively rubbing the long thread of the scar on his face. “She won’t go till she’s ready.”
“She won’t go. That means…” Ignatov tugs harder, then sharply jerks the bridle.
The horse neighs plaintively, showing her crooked yellow teeth and pawing at the ground. The foal hurriedly sucks at the udder, looking sideways at Ignatov with eyes like dark plums. Ignatov swings his arm and beats the mare’s flank with the back of his hand: Move it! The horse neighs louder, shakes her head, and stands. To the flank, again. Move it, I’m telling you! Move it! To hell with you, you damned demon! The horses standing nearby are agitated, adding their wary voices and rearing.
“She won’t go,” Slavutsky stubbornly repeats. “Even if you beat her to death. She’s a mother, that’s all there is to it.”
He’s harping on it, that officer ass. He came over to the Red Army ten years ago and his way of thinking still isn’t theirs, isn’t Soviet.
“We’ll have to give in to the mare, won’t we, comrade Ignatov?” Nastasya raises her brow, stroking her horse’s neck, calming him.
Ignatov grabs the foal’s flank from behind and tugs, attempting to tear him from the udder. The foal’s legs twitch like locusts and he slips under his mother’s belly, to the other side. Ignatov topples backward into a snowbank; the foal continues feeding. Nastasya laughs melodiously, her breasts pressing against her horse’s shaggy mane. Slavutsky turns away, flustered.
Cursing, Ignatov rises to his feet and brushes the snow from his hat, overcoat, and breeches. He flaps his arm at the sledges that have gone ahead:
“Stop! Stop!”
And now the cavalrymen are galloping to catch up with the front of the detachment: Stop! Rest until further command!
Ignatov takes off his pointy hat, wipes his reddened face, and casts angry glances at Zuleikha.
“Even your mares are counterrevolutionaries!”
The caravan rests, waiting for the month-and-a-half-old foal to drink enough of his mother’s milk.
After a lush, dark blue evening has fallen on the fields, there’s still a half-day of travel left to Kazan. They have to spend the night in a neighboring canton.