Viktor couldn't explain why she must not phone Marya Ivanovna, but he felt ashamed at the idea of Lyudmila unwittingly becoming a link between them.
'Lyuda, from now on our contact with people has to be one-sided. If a man's been arrested, his wife can only visit people who've invited her. She doesn't have the right to say: 'I want to come round.' That would be humiliating for both her and her husband. You and I have entered a new epoch. We can no longer write to anyone ourselves; we can only reply to letters. We can no longer phone anyone; we can only pick up the receiver when it rings. We don't even have the right to greet acquaintances – they may prefer not to notice us. And if someone does greet me, I don't have the right to speak first. He might consider it possible to give me a nod of the head, but not to talk to me. I can only answer if he speaks first. You and I are pariahs.'
He paused for a moment. 'Fortunately for the pariahs, however, there are exceptions. There are one or two people – I'm not talking about family, about Zhenya or your mother – whom a pariah can trust. He can contact these people without first waiting for a sign. People like Chepyzhin.'
'Yes, Vitya,' answered Lyudmila, 'you're absolutely right.'
Viktor was amazed. It was a long time since Lyudmila had agreed with anything he said.
'And I have a friend like that myself – Marya Ivanovna,' she went on.
'Lyuda!' said Viktor. 'Do you realize that Marya Ivanovna's given her word to Sokolov not to go on seeing us? Now phone her! Go on! Phone her after that!'
He snatched up the receiver and held it out to Lyudmila. As he did so, a small part of him was hoping: 'Perhaps she will phone. Then at least one of us will hear Marya Ivanovna's voice.'
'So it's like that, is it?' said Lyudmila, putting down the receiver.
'What can have happened to Zhenevyeva?' said Viktor. 'Our troubles have brought us together. I've never felt such tenderness towards her as I do now.'
When his daughter came in, Viktor said: 'Nadya, I've had a talk with Mama. She'll tell you about it in detail herself. Now I'm a pariah, you must stop going to the Postoevs'.'
[…]
28
Darensky felt a strange mixture of feelings as he looked at the German tanks and lorries that had been abandoned in the snow, at the frozen corpses, at the column of men being marched under escort to the East.
This was retribution indeed.
He remembered stories about how the Germans had made fun of the poverty of the peasant huts, how they had gazed in surprise and disgust at the simple cradles, the crude stoves, the earthenware pots, the pictures on the walls, the wooden tubs, the painted clay cocks, at the beloved and wonderful world in which the boys then fleeing from their tanks had been born and brought up.
'Look, comrade Lieutenant-Colonel!' said his driver.
Four Germans were carrying one of their comrades on a greatcoat. You could tell from their faces, from their straining necks, that soon they too would fall to the ground. They swayed from side to side. They tripped over the tangled rags wound round their feet. The dry snow lashed their mindless eyes. Their frozen fingers gripped the corners of the greatcoat like hooks.
'So much for the Fritzes,' said the driver.
'We never asked them to come here,' said Darensky.
Suddenly he felt a wave of happiness. Straight through the steppe, in a cloud of mist and snow, Soviet tanks were making their way to the West. They looked quick and fierce, strong and muscular…
Soldiers were standing up in the hatches. He could see their faces and shoulders, their black helmets and their black sheepskins. There they were, tearing through the ocean-like steppe, leaving behind them a foaming wake of dirty snow. Darensky caught his breath in pride and happiness.
Terrible and sombre, a steel-clad Russia had turned her face to the West.
There was a hold-up as they came to a village. Darensky got out of his jeep and walked past two rows of trucks and some tarpaulin-covered Katyushas. A group of prisoners was being herded across the road. A full colonel who had just got out of his car was watching; he was wearing a cap made from silver Astrakhan fur, the kind you can only obtain if you are in command of an army or if you have a quartermaster as a close friend. The guards waved their machine-guns at the prisoners and shouted: 'Come on, come on! Look lively there!'
An invisible wall separated these prisoners from the soldiers and lorry-drivers. A cold still more extreme than the cold of the steppes prevented their eyes from meeting.
'Look at that!' said a laughing voice. 'One of them's got a tail.'
A German soldier was crawling across the road on all fours. A scrap of torn quilt trailed along behind him. The soldier was crawling as quickly as he could, moving his arms and legs like a dog, his head to the ground as though he were following a scent. He was making straight for the colonel. The driver standing beside the colonel said: 'Watch out, comrade Colonel. He's going to bite you.'
The colonel stepped to one side. As the German came up to him, he gave him a push with his boot. The feeble blow was enough to break him. He collapsed on the ground, his arms and legs splayed out on either side.
The German looked up at the man who had just kicked him. His eyes were like those of a dying sheep; there was no reproach or suffering in them, nothing at all except humility.
'A fine warrior that shit makes!' said the colonel, wiping the sole of his boot on the snow. There was a ripple of laughter among the onlookers.
Everything went dark. Darensky was no longer his own master; another man, someone who was at once very familiar to him and yet utterly alien, someone who never hesitated, was directing his actions.
'Comrade Colonel,' he said, 'Russians don't kick a man when he's down.'
'What do you think I am then?' asked the colonel. 'Do you think I'm not a Russian?'
'You're a scoundrel,' said Darensky. He saw the colonel take a step towards him. Forestalling the man's angry threats, he shouted: 'My surname's Darensky. Lieutenant-Colonel Darensky – inspector of the Operations Section of Stalingrad Front Headquarters. I'm ready to repeat what I said to you before the commander of the Front and before a military tribunal.'
In a voice full of hatred, the colonel said: 'Very well, Lieutenant-Colonel Darensky. You will be hearing from me.'
He stalked away. Some prisoners came up and dragged their comrade to one side. After that, wherever Darensky turned, he kept meeting the eyes of the prisoners. It was as though something attracted them to him.
As he walked slowly back to his jeep, he heard a mocking voice say: 'So the Fritzes have found a defender!'
Soon Darensky was on his way again. But they were held up by another column of prisoners being marched towards them, the Germans in grey uniforms, the Rumanians in green.
Darensky's fingers were trembling as he lit a cigarette. The driver noticed this out of the corner of his eye and said: 'I don't feel any pity for them. I could shoot any one of them just like that.'
'Fine,' said Darensky. 'But you should have shot them in 1941 instead of taking to your heels like I did.'
He said nothing more for the rest of the journey.
This incident, however, didn't open his heart. On the contrary, it was as though he'd quite exhausted his store of kindness.
What an abyss lay between the road he was following today and the road he had taken to Yashkul through the Kalmyk steppe. Was he really the same man who, beneath an enormous moon, had stood on what seemed to be the last corner of Russian earth? Who had watched the fleeing soldiers and the snake-like necks of the camels, tenderly making room in his heart for the poor, for the weak, for everyone whom he loved?
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