at her breast. She thought about her friend Zina Melnikova, about Sergeyevna – the old woman who looked after her here – about spring, about her mother, about the hole in her shirt, about the quilted blanket, about Seryozha and Tolya, about washing-powder, about German planes, about the bunker at the power station and her own unwashed hair. All these thoughts were somehow infused with her feelings for her baby; it was only in relation to him that they had meaning.
She looked at her hands, her legs, her breasts, her fingers. They were no longer the same hands that had played volleyball, written essays and turned the pages of books. They were no longer the same legs that had run up the school steps, that had been stung by nettles, that had kicked against the warm water of the river, that passers-by had turned to stare at.
When she thought about her son, she thought simultaneously of Viktorov. There were airfields not far away. He was probably very close. The Volga no longer separated them. Any moment some pilots might come into the hold.
'Do you know Lieutenant Viktorov?'
'Yes, we certainly do.'
'Tell him that his son's here – and his wife.'
The other women came to visit her in her little corner. They shook their heads, smiled and sighed; some of them cried as they bent over the baby. It was themselves they were crying over and the baby they were smiling at; this went without saying.
The questions people asked Vera all centred around one thing: how she could best serve her child. Did she have enough milk? Was she getting mastitis? Was she suffering from the damp?
Her father appeared two days after the baby's birth. Unshaven, his nose and cheeks burnt by the icy wind, his collar turned up, his coat fastened at the waist by a tie, carrying a small suitcase and a bundle, no one would have taken him for the director of the Central Power Station.
She noticed that when he came up to her bunk, his trembling face turned first of all to the creature beside her. Then he turned away; she could tell from his back and shoulders that he was crying. She realized that he was crying because his wife would never know about their grandson, would never bend over him as he himself had just done. Only then, angry and ashamed that dozens of people had seen him crying, did he say in a hoarse voice:
'So… You've made me a grandfather.'
He bent down, kissed her on the forehead and patted her shoulder with a cold, dirty hand. Then he said:
'Krymov came round on the anniversary of the Revolution. He didn't know your mother had died. And he kept asking about Zhenya.'
An old man, wearing a torn jacket that was losing its padding, came up and wheezed:
'Comrade Spiridonov, people are awarded the Order of Kutuzov, the Order of Lenin, the Red Star – and all for killing as many men as they can. Just think how many men have died on both sides. Well, I think your daughter deserves a medal that weighs a good two kilos -for giving birth to new life in a hell-hole like this.'
It was the first time since the baby's birth that anyone had said anything about Vera herself.
Spiridonov decided to stay on the barge till Vera was stronger. Then they could go to Leninsk together. It was on the way to Kuibyshev; he'd have to go there for a new appointment. The food on the barge was obviously quite appalling. Once he'd warmed up a bit.
he set off into the forest to find the command post of the
62
It had been a difficult day on the barge. The clouds lay heavily on the Volga. There were no children playing outside, no women washing clothes in the holes in the ice; the icy Astrakhan wind tore at the frozen rags and bits of rubbish, forcing its way through crevices in the walls of the barge, whistling and howling through the hold.
Everyone sat there without moving, numb, wrapped up in shawls and blankets. Even the most talkative of the women had fallen silent, listening to the howl of the wind and the creaking boards. When night came, it was as though the darkness had sprung from the unbearable sadness, from the terrible cold and hunger, from the filth, from the endless torments of the war.
Vera lay with a blanket up to her chin. On her cheeks she could feel the draught that whistled into the hold with each gust of wind. Everything seemed hopeless: her father would never be able to get her out of here; the war would never come to an end; next spring the Germans would spread right over the Urals and into Siberia; there would always be the whine of planes in the sky and the thunder of bombs on the earth.
She began to doubt, for the first time, whether Viktorov really was nearby. After all, there were airfields in every sector of the front. And he might no longer even be at the front – or even in the rear.
She moved the sheet aside and looked at her baby's face. Why was he crying? She must be passing her sadness to him, just as she passed on her milk and her warmth.
That day everyone felt crushed by the mercilessness of the cold and wind, by the vastness of the war that had stretched out over the Russian steppes.
How long can one bear a life of continual cold and hunger?
Old Sergeyevna, the midwife, came over to Vera.
'I don't like the look of you today. You looked better on the first day.'
'It doesn't matter,' said Vera. 'Papa will be back tomorrow. He'll bring some food with him.'
Even though Sergeyevna wanted the nursing mother to have some fats and sugar, she replied sourly:
'Yes, it's all right for you lot, you leaders and directors. You always get enough to eat. All we ever get is half- frozen potatoes.'
'Quiet there!' someone shouted. 'Quiet!'
All they could hear was an indistinct voice at the other end of the hold. Then the voice rang out loud and clear, drowning every other sound. Someone was reading a news bulletin by the light of the oil-lamp.
'…A successful offensive in the Stalingrad area… Several days ago our forces on the outskirts of Stalingrad launched an offensive against the German Fascists… Our forces are advancing along two axes – to the north-west and to the south of Stalingrad…'
Everyone stood there and cried. A miraculous link joined them both to the men marching through the snow, shielding their faces from the wind, and to the men who now lay on the snow, spattered with blood, their eyes growing dim as their lives ran out.
Everyone was crying: workers, old men, women, even the children – whose faces had become suddenly adult and attentive.
'Our forces have taken the town of Kalach on the east bank of the Don, Krivomuzginskaya railway station, the town and station of Abgasarovo…'
Vera was crying with everyone else. She too could feel the link between the exhausted listeners in the barge and the men marching through the darkness of the winter night, falling and standing up again, falling and never standing up again.
It was for her and her son, for these women with chapped hands, for these old men, for these children wrapped in their mothers' torn shawls, that the men were going to their death.
She thought with ecstasy how her husband might suddenly come in. Everyone would gather round him and call him 'My son!'
The man came to the end of the bulletin. 'The offensive launched by our troops is still continuing.'
63
The duty-officer had just given a report to the general in command of the 8th Air Army on the sorties made by their fighter squadrons during the day.
