with trembling lips. But he said impassively: 'Yes, it's a lie.'
My heart sank, went cold and leaden within me.
He must have sensed it. He came up and took my hand-easily and
boldly. I wrenched it free.
'If I wanted to deceive you I would simply have shown you the
newspaper, which reports in black and white that Sanya was killed. But I
told you what nobody else in the world knows. It is ridiculous,' he said
267
haughtily, 'to think that I did this for base personal motives. Or that I
believed that such news could help me win your favour? But it's the
truth, and I dare not conceal it from you.'
I still sat motionless, but everything around me began to drift away-
Sasha's table with the brushes in the tall glass and that red-haired
soldier at the table, whose name I had forgotten. I was silent, I didn't
want anything, but the soldier for some reason hastily left the room and
came back with a grey, elegant little woman, who clutched her head
when she saw me and cried: 'Katya, my God! Give me some water!
What's the matter, Katya? '
December 30, 1941. Bertha died a fortnight ago, on one of our 'alert'
days, when the bombing started first thing in the morning, or rather
continued from overnight. She did not die from starvation—poor
Rosalia repeated a dozen times that starvation had nothing to do with it.
She wanted to have her sister buried the same day, as the ritual
required. But it was impossible. So then she hired a long, mournful Jew,
and he read prayers all night over the dead woman, who lay on the floor
in a shroud made from two separate bedsheets - this, too, was in
accordance with the ritual. The bombs were falling very near, not a
single pane of glass was left whole that night in Maxim Gorky Prospekt,
and the streets were bright and ghastly with the lurid glow of
conflagrations, while that mournful man sat mumbling prayers, then
quietly fell asleep. Coming into the room at daybreak I found him
peacefully sleeping next to the dead woman with his prayer-book under
his head.
Romashov managed to obtain a coffin—at that time, a fortnight ago, it
was still possible—and when that thin little old woman was laid into that
huge, rough-hewn box, it looked as if even there, in the coffin, she were
cowering with terror in a corner.
One had to dig the grave oneself-the grave-diggers, Romashov
thought, demanded an 'outrageous' price. He hired boys to do it — the
same boys whom Rosalia had taught to paint.
Very animated, he ran downstairs ten times, held whispered
conferences with the house manager, patted Rosalia on the shoulder,
and ended up by getting angry with her for insisting on having Bertha
buried in a shroud of two separate bedsheets.
'Sheets can be bartered for bread! ' he shouted. 'She doesn't need
them. In any case somebody will take them off her in a day or two.'
I sent him about his business and told Rosalia that everything would
be the way she wanted it.
It was early morning. Tiny brittle snowflakes eddied in the air, then
suddenly, as if in a hurry, fell to the ground, when Romashov and the
boys carried the coffin out, bumping against the walls and turning
awkwardly on the landings, and placed it on a hand sled in the yard. I
wanted to give the boys money, but Romashov said he had arranged to
pay them with bread.
'A hundred grams per head in advance,' he said gaily. 'Okay, boys? '
The boys nodded consent without looking at him.
'Are you going upstairs, Katya? ' he went on. 'Will you please fetch
the bread. It's in my coat.'
I don't know why he put the bread in his coat—maybe to conceal it
from Rosalia or that Jew. The coat hung in the hall.
268
I remember thinking as I went upstairs that I ought to dress warmer.
I had been feeling a bit feverish in the night and I daresay it would be
better for me not to go to the cemetery, which was said to be a good
seven kilometres away. But I was afraid that without me Rosalia would
drop on the way.
The piece of bread, wrapped in a bit of paper, was in the coat pocket.
Together with the bread I pulled out what felt like a soft little bag. It
dropped on the floor and I opened the door on the landing to pick it up,
it being dark in the hall. It was a yellow chamois-leather tobacco-pouch:
among other gifts, we sent such tobacco-pouches to the front for the
soldiers. After a moment's thought I untied it. Inside lay a photograph
broken in half and some rings. 'Trucked them somewhere,' I thought
with disgust. The photograph was an old one, and had some writing on
the back, which was hard to make out, as the letters had completely
faded. I was about to put the photo back but some odd feeling restrained
me, a feeling that I had once held this tobacco-pouch in my hand.
I went out onto the landing, where there was more light, and began to
spell out the writing. 'If it's worth...' I read. A white sharp light flashed
before my eyes and stabbed my very heart. The writing on the
photograph read: 'If it's worth doing at all, do it well.'
I don't know what happened to me. I screamed, then found myself
sitting on the landing, groping about for that photograph. Through a
darkness that clouded my eyes I read the inscription and recognised C.
in a flying helmet, which made him look like a woman. C. with his large
eagle-like face and kind sombre eyes looking out from under his heavy
eyebrows. It was the photograph of C., which Sanya had always carried
about with him. He kept it in his pocket-book together with other
documents, though I had told him a thousand times that the
photograph would be worn away in his pocket and that it should be
framed and placed on his desk.
In a fury, I rushed back into the hall, tore the coat off the hanger and
flinging it out on to the landing, turned the pockets out. Sanya was dead,
killed. I don't know what I was looking for. Romashov had killed him.
The other pocket contained some money. I crushed the notes and threw
