What?
Ignatov slows his pace. There it is, in the young lady from their division who’s running past with eyes as frightened and red as a rabbit’s under thick mascara-coated lashes. There it is, in several unknown soldiers straining hard as they drag heavy boxes with documents. And it’s there in someone’s cautious sidelong glance from behind a column.
Has something happened? Bakiev probably knows.
Without stopping at his own office, Ignatov hurries to Bakiev’s office on the third floor. A long, thin corridor leads there, lined with narrow rectangular doors where the flourishes of brass handles glimmer dimly. It’s usually crowded and smoke-filled here. Now all the doors are tightly closed, as if they’re locked.
Something has definitely happened.
Ignatov strides along parquet that’s come loose and turned dark gray over time; the marred boards squeak shrilly under his boots. He notices one of the door handles slowly dip down and noiselessly go still, then return to its position again, as if someone inside wanted to go out but thought better of it.
What the hell…?
The door to Bakiev’s office is wide open. Standing beside it are two unfamiliar soldiers with rifles. They look closely at Ignatov, unblinking.
Was it really something to do with Bakiev?
That can’t be.
It can’t be, but something has happened.
Ignatov lowers his gaze. Don’t stop. His feet carry him past the office. The soldiers step back reluctantly, letting him pass. Out of the corner of his eye he notices, in the depths of the office, several overturned chairs on a floor littered with papers, the wide-open mouth of a safe, and a dark gray silhouette by the window, absorbed in reading documents.
Don’t look. Don’t speed up. There’s an exit to the back stairs at the end of the corridor. Use that to go down and get out of here. To the train station! Ignatov strides along the corridor.
“Hey!” rings out a shout behind him.
He stops and turns around. The dark gray silhouette has come out of the office and is watching Ignatov.
“You here to see Bakiev?”
“No, sir.”
“What department are you from?”
“The fifth.” Ignatov doesn’t know why he lies.
Would he really run if he had to? From his own? After all, they’d shoot him like a dog. Why run if you’re not guilty of anything? They’d sort it out and let him go. But what if they didn’t? So should he run anyway?
The silhouette silently goes back into the office. The soldiers turn away. Ignatov opens the door to the back stairs and slips down the steps to the first floor. He leaves the building without looking at anyone. He strides to the train station with his head uncovered but not feeling the cold.
Shame rolls over Ignatov like a hot wave, melting his ears. What were you afraid of, you fool? Your own comrades, doing their job honestly? It’s a mistake about Bakiev, he tells himself. Definitely a horrendous, unbelievable, ludicrous mistake. Possibly because of someone’s slander. Or maybe just a misprint, an absurd mishap. It happens, surnames get mixed up and they take the wrong person. Out of negligence.
Then why are you running away like a coward, like the lowest rat? Why don’t you go back to the ransacked office and shout in the dark gray man’s face: “Bakiev isn’t guilty of anything! I’ll vouch for him!”?
Ignatov stops and squeezes his pointy cavalry hat in his hand. And leave the special train without a commandant? It departs in an hour. They can slap you with desertion for failure to appear at the site of service. And that’s summary execution. He knows because he himself has enforced sentences like this. He pulls his hat down on his head and hurries to the train station.
Everybody knows Mishka Bakiev is a clever person, a Party member, and a revolutionary. He’s our man, to his last drop of blood, to his last breath, Ignatov thinks. They’ll sort this out and let him go for sure. It just can’t be that they wouldn’t release him. Let him go and apologize in front of the entire collective. And punish those to blame.
For sure.
UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
“Zuleikha Valieva!”
“I’m here!”
In Zuleikha’s whole life, she’s never uttered the word “I” as many times as she has during this month in prison. Modesty is a virtue so it doesn’t befit a decent woman to say “I” a lot without reason. The Tatar language is even constructed so you could live your whole life without once saying “I.” No matter what tense you use to speak about yourself, the verb will go into the necessary form and the ending will change, making the use of that vain little word superfluous. It’s not like that in Russian, where everybody goes out of their way to put in “I” and “me” and then “I” again.
A soldier by the entrance yells out surnames loudly, painstakingly. Zuleikha’s seeing him for the first time. Is he new?
“Volf Lee…? Lei…? Lei-be?”
“How many times have I asked for medical personnel to call me by my first name and patronymic!”
Volf Karlovich has repeated this phrase, word for word, every day at roll call. The other escort guards have already learned it by heart but this one peers into the darkness with surprise. And then, suddenly:
“To the exit! With your things!”
Zuleikha jolts as if she’s been struck by a whip. She presses her little bundle to her chest.
The human mass around her stirs, surges, gapes, and extends hands. “Where? Where are they being sent? And us? Where are we going?”
“The rest are to remain in place!”
Volf Karlovich rises with dignity, brushes himself off, and lets Zuleikha go first. They make their way to the exit, stepping over bodies, heads, sacks, suitcases, arms, parcels, and swaddled infants. The unfamiliar soldier also calls the mullah’s widow and the morose peasant’s family, with the innumerable children, and leads them out of the cell.
After so many days of darkness, light from a kerosene lamp seems as bright as a sliver of sun. After the cell’s stuffy air, the cold air in the corridor intoxicates. Legs tired from constant sitting have slackened and plod falteringly along, but the body is glad to be moving. How long had they stayed in the dungeons? Neighbors confirmed it was several weeks; they’d kept track with the daily roll calls.
They walk along the corridor with escort guards to the front and back. The guards sometimes stop and call for more people from other cells. When they leave the prison, there are already so many they can’t be counted. Villagers, Zuleikha understands as she walks and examines the faces and clothes of her traveling companions. Some of them have fresh, even rosy, faces and were brought in recently. Others, though – like the people from her town – can barely stand. The mullah’s widow has aged and grayed but she’s stubbornly pulling the cat’s empty cage behind her. The peasant’s wife has withered to yellowness and is, as before, clasping two swaddled babies to herself like bundles.
“Finally!” Leibe’s joyful whisper quivers right by her ear. “They’re transferring the infirmary to the rearguard!”
Zuleikha nods. To the rearguard, fine, to the rearguard. She’s seeing Leibe in the light for the first time. His facial features are as graceful as a youth’s, his curly gray hair is bright and silvery, and even his wrinkles are delicate and intelligent. Long, weeks-old stubble covers his cheeks, lending him an air of nobility, and he’s not nearly as old as it seemed in the beginning, probably younger than Murtaza. He’s just dressed oddly, like a pauper, in an ancient, very shabby and moth-eaten blue dress uniform that’s torn in many places, and he’s wearing house slippers without backs on his rag-wrapped feet.