In the summer of 1943, after the breakthrough on the Kursk bulge and the liberation of Orel,1 Gordon, recently promoted to second lieutenant, and Major Dudorov were returning separately to their common army unit, the first from a service trip to Moscow, the second from a three-day leave there.
They met on the way back and spent the night in Chern, a little town, devastated but not completely destroyed, like most of the settlements in that “desert zone” wiped off the face of the earth by the retreating enemy.
Amidst the town’s ruins, heaps of broken brick and finely pulverized gravel, the two men found an undamaged hayloft, where they made their lair for the night.
They could not sleep. They spent the whole night talking. At dawn, around three in the morning, the dozing Dudorov was awakened by Gordon’s pottering about. With awkward movements, bobbing and waddling in the soft hay as if in water, he was gathering some underthings into a bundle, and then, just as clumsily, began sliding down the hay pile to the doorway of the loft on his way out.
“What are you getting ready for? It’s still early.”
“I’m going to the river. I want to do me some laundry.”
“That’s crazy. We’ll be in our own unit by evening; the linen girl Tanka will give you a change of underwear. What’s the rush?”
“I don’t want to put it off. I’ve been sweating, haven’t changed for too long. The morning’s hot. I’ll rinse it quickly, wring it out well, it’ll dry instantly in the sun. I’ll bathe and change.”
“All the same, you know, it doesn’t look good. You must agree, you’re an officer, after all.”
“It’s early. Everybody around is asleep. I’ll do it somewhere behind a bush. Nobody will see. And you sleep, don’t talk. You’ll drive sleep away.”
“I won’t sleep any more as it is. I’ll go with you.”
And they went to the river, past the white stone ruins, already scorching hot in the just-risen sun. In the middle of the former streets, on the ground, directly in the hot sun, sweaty, snoring, flushed people slept. They were mostly locals, old men, women, and children, left without a roof over their heads—rarely, solitary Red Army soldiers who had lagged behind their units and were catching up with them. Gordon and Dudorov, watching their feet so as not to step on them, walked carefully among the sleepers.
“Talk softly, or we’ll wake up the town, and then it’s good-bye to my laundry.”
And they continued their last night’s conversation in low voices.
2
“What river is this?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. Probably the Zusha.”
“No, it’s not the Zusha. It’s some other.”
“Well, then I don’t know.”
“It was on the Zusha that it all happened. With Christina.”
“Yes, but in a different place. Somewhere downstream. They say the Church has canonized her a saint.”
“There was a stone building there that acquired the name of ‘The Stable.’ In fact it was the stable of a collective farm stud, a common noun that became historical. An old one, with thick walls. The Germans fortified it and turned it into an impregnable fortress. The whole neighborhood was exposed to fire from it, and that slowed our advance. The stable had to be taken. Christina, in a miracle of courage and resourcefulness, penetrated the German camp, blew up the stable, was taken alive and hanged.”
“Why Christina Orletsova, and not Dudorova?”
“We weren’t married yet. In the summer of forty-one we gave each other our word that we would get married once the war was over. After that I moved about with the rest of the army. My unit was being endlessly transferred. What with these transfers, I lost sight of her. I never saw her again. I learned of her valiant deed and heroic death like everybody else. From newspapers and regimental orders. They say they’re going to set up a monument to her somewhere here. I’ve heard that General Zhivago, the brother of the late Yuri, is making the rounds of these parts, gathering information about her.”
“Forgive me for bringing her up in our conversation. It must be painful for you.”
“That’s not the point. But we keep babbling away. I don’t want to hinder you. Get undressed, go into the water, and do your work. And I’ll stretch out on the bank with a blade of grass in my teeth, I’ll chew and think, and maybe take a nap.”
A few minutes later, the conversation picked up again.
“Where did you learn to wash clothes like that?”
“From necessity. We had no luck. Of all the penal camps, we landed in the most terrible one. Few survived. Beginning from our arrival. The party was taken off the train. A snowy waste. A forest in the distance. Guards, rifles with lowered muzzles, German shepherds. Around that same time, new groups were driven in at various moments. They formed us into a wide polygon the size of the whole field, facing out, so as not to see each other. The order came: on your knees, and don’t look to the sides or you’ll be shot, and then began the endless, humiliating procedure of the roll call, which was drawn out for long hours. Kneeling down the whole time. Then we stood up, other parties were taken elsewhere, and we were told: ‘Here’s your camp. Settle in as you can.’ A snowy field under the open sky, a post in the middle, an inscription on the post: ‘Gulag 92 Y N 90’ and nothing more.”
“No, for us it was easier. We were lucky. I was serving my second term, which usually followed on the first. Besides, the article was different and so were the conditions. After my release, my rights were restored, as they were the first time, and I was again allowed to lecture at the university. And I was mobilized in the war with the full rights of a major, not in a penal unit like you.”
“Yes. A post with the number ‘Gulag 92 Y N 90’ and nothing else. At first we broke off laths for huts with our bare hands in the freezing cold. And, you won’t believe it, but we gradually built the place up for ourselves. We cut wood for shacks, surrounded ourselves with palings, set up punishment cells, watchtowers—all by ourselves. And we started logging. Tree felling. We felled trees. Eight of us would hitch ourselves to the sledge, load it with logs,
