'So we've whiled the whole night away,' he thought.
Had he ever known a worse morning? Had he really, only a few weeks ago, been lying in a bomb-crater, happy and free, while friendly pieces of iron whistled over his head?
Time had become confused: it was only very recently that he had left Stalingrad, yet he had been sitting here in this office for an interminable length of time.
What a grey, stony light it was. The windows looked out onto the central pit of the Inner Prison. It wasn't light at all – it was just dirty water. Objects looked still more hostile, still more sullen and official than they had under the electric light.
No, it wasn't that his boots were too small; it was simply that his feet had swollen.
How had his past life and work become linked to the time he had been surrounded in 1941? Whose fingers had joined together things that could never be joined? And what was this for? Who needed all this? Why?
His thoughts burned so fiercely that there were moments when he quite forgot the aching pain in his spine and the small of his back. He no longer even felt how his swollen legs were bursting open the tops of his boots.
Fritz Hacken… How could he forget that in 1938 he had been sitting in a room just like this? Yes, but there was something very different in the way he had been sitting then – inside his pocket he had had a pass. What was worst of all was the way he had been so anxious to please everyone – the official in charge of issuing passes, the janitors, the lift attendant in military uniform. The investigator had said: 'Comrade Krymov, please assist us.'
No, there was something still more vile – his desire to be sincere! Yes, now he did remember. All that had been required of him was sincerity. And he had indeed been sincere: he had remembered Hack-en's mistaken appraisal of the Spartakist movement, the ill-will he had felt towards Thalman, the way he had wanted royalties for his book, the way he had divorced Else when Else was pregnant… He had, of course, remembered good things as well… The investigator had noted down the sentence: 'On the basis of many years' acquaintance I consider it improbable that he should have been involved in any direct sabotage against the Party; nevertheless, I am not able totally to exclude the possibility that he is a double agent…'
Yes. He had informed… Yes, and all the information about him in this file – this file that was to be kept in perpetuity – had been gathered from comrades of his who had also no doubt wished to be sincere. Why had he wanted to be sincere? His duty towards the Party? Nonsense! The really sincere thing to do would have been to bang his fist furiously on the table and shout: 'Hacken's my brother, my friend. He's innocent!' But instead he had fumbled about in odd corners of his memory, catching fleas, remembering all kinds of trifles, playing up to the man without whose signature his permit to leave the large grey building would remain invalid. He could remember very well his happy, greedy feeling when the investigator had said to him: 'Just a minute, comrade Krymov, let me sign your pass for you.' He himself had helped to pull the noose round Hacken's neck. And where had the seeker after truth gone when his exit-pass had been signed and validated? Hadn't it been to see Muska Grinberg, the wife of his friend? But then everything he had said about Hacken was true. Maybe, but then so was everything that had been said about him. He really had told Fedya Yevseev that Stalin had an inferiority complex about his ignorance of philosophy. Even the mere list of people he had associated with was quite terrifying: Nikolay Ivanovich Bukharin, Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev, Lomov, Shatskin, Pyatnitsky, Lomi-nadze, Ryutin, Shlyapnikov with the red hair; he'd been to the Institute to see Lev Borisovich Deborin in the 'Academy'; Lashevich, Yan Gamarnik, Luppol; he'd been to the Institute to see Ryazanov when he was an old man; he'd twice stayed with his old friend Ekhe when he was in Siberia; and then in their day he'd seen Skrypnik in Kiev, Stanislav Kossior in Kharkhov, and Ruth Fischer; and yes… Well, thank God the investigator hadn't mentioned the most important thing of all: Trotsky himself had thought well of him…
He was rotten all the way through. Why though? And were they any more guilty than he was? But he hadn't signed any confessions. Just wait, Nikolay, you will! Just like they did! Probably the real horrors are kept till later. They keep you for three days without sleep and then start beating you up. None of this seems much like Socialism, does it? Why does my Party need to destroy me? We were the ones who made the Revolution – not Malenkov, Zhdanov and Shcherbakov. We were merciless towards the enemies of the Revolution. Why has the Revolution been so merciless towards us? Perhaps for that very reason. Or maybe it hasn't got anything to do with the Revolution. What's this captain got to do with the Revolution? He's just a thug, a member of the Black Hundreds.
There he had been, just milling the wind, while time had been passing.
He was exhausted. The pain in his back and legs was crushing him… All he wanted was to lie down on his bunk, stick his legs in the air, flex his bare toes, scratch his calves.
'Stay awake!' shouted the captain, for all the world as though he were shouting out orders in battle.
It was as though the Front would break and the whole Soviet State collapse if Krymov were to close his eyes for one moment.
Krymov had never in all his life heard so many swear-words.
His friends, his closest associates, his secretaries, the people he had had the most intimate conversations with, had gathered together his every word and action. He was appalled when he remembered, 'Ivan was the only person I told about that'; 'That was when I was talking to Grishka – I've known him since 1920'; 'That was when I was talking to Mashka Kheltser, oh Mashka, Mashka!'
Suddenly he remembered the investigator saying that he shouldn't expect any parcels from Yevgenia Nikolaevna… That was a reference to a conversation in his cell with Bogoleev. People had been adding to the Krymov collection as recently as that.
In the afternoon someone brought him some soup. His hand was trembling so badly that he had to bend forward and sip from the rim of the bowl, leaving the spoon tapping away by itself.
'You eat like a pig,' said the captain sadly.
After that, one other thing happened: Krymov asked to go to the lavatory. This time he walked down the corridor without thinking anything at all, but he did have one thought as he stood over the lavatory-pan: it was a good thing his buttons had been ripped off- his fingers were far too shaky to be able to cope with fly-buttons.
Time passed, slowly doing its work. The State – the captain and his epaulettes – was victorious. A dense grey fog filled Krymov's head. It was probably the same fog that filled the brain of a monkey. Past and future had disappeared; even the file with its curling tapes had disappeared. There was only one thing left in the world – his need to take off his boots, have a good scratch and go to sleep.
The investigator came back.
'Did you sleep?' asked the captain.
'Your superior officer doesn't sleep,' replied the investigator in a schoolmasterly tone of voice. 'He takes a rest.' This was a very old chestnut.
'Of course,' agreed the captain.
The investigator was just like a worker coming on shift who looks over his bench and exchanges a few businesslike words with the man he is relieving; he glanced first at Krymov, then at his writing-desk, and said: 'Very well, comrade Captain.'
He looked at his watch, took the file out of his drawer, and said, in a voice full of animation: 'Now then, Krymov, let's continue.'
They got down to work.
Today, it was the war that most concerned the investigator. Once again he turned out to have a vast fund of knowledge: he knew about Krymov's different postings; he knew the numbers of the regiments and armies concerned; he mentioned the names of people who had fought beside him; he quoted remarks Krymov had made at the Political Section, together with his comments on an illiterate memorandum of the general's.
All Krymov's work at the front, the speeches he had made under fire, the faith he had been able to impart to his soldiers through the constant hardships of the retreat-all this had suddenly ceased to exist.
He was a miserable chatterbox who had demoralized his comrades, destroying their faith and infecting them with a feeling of hopelessness. How could it be doubted that German Intelligence had helped him to cross the lines in order to continue his work as a saboteur and spy?
During the first few minutes of the new session the investigator's lively enthusiasm communicated itself to Krymov too.
'Say what you like,' he said, 'but I'll never admit to being a spy.'
The investigator glanced out through the window. It was getting dark; he could no longer clearly make out the papers on his desk.
