and offered it to Nyeudobnov.
'Have a drink, comrade General, while your guts are still in one piece.'
Nyeudobnov raised his eyebrows and looked questioningly at Novikov.
'Please, comrade General, feel free!'
Novikov was annoyed by the way Getmanov always seemed to be in control of every situation. At meetings he held forth at length about technical matters he knew nothing about. And, with the same assurance, he would invite people to lie down for a rest on someone else's bed, offer them someone else's cognac, or read through papers that had nothing to do with him.
'We could appoint Major Basangov temporarily,' said Novikov. 'He knows what's what. And he was taking part in tank-battles right at the beginning of the war, near Novograd-Volynsk. Does the commissar have any objections?'
'Of course not,' said Getmanov. 'It's not for me to object… There is one thing, though. The second-in-command of the second brigade is an Armenian; you want the chief of staff to be a Kalmyk – and we've already got some Lifshits as chief of staff of the third brigade. Couldn't we do without the Kalmyk?' He looked at Novikov, then at Nyeudobnov.
'That's how we all feel,' said Nyeudobnov. 'And on the face of it you're right. But then Marxism's taught us to look at things differently.'
'What matters is how well the comrade in question can fight the Germans,' said Novikov. 'That's what Marxism tells me. I'm really not interested in where his grandfather prayed – whether he went to church, to a mosque…,' he paused for a moment to think, '… or to a synagogue. What matters in war is how well you can fight.'
'Quite right,' said Getmanov brightly. 'We're certainly not having synagogues and meeting-houses in our tank corps. We are, after all, defending Russia.'
A frown suddenly appeared on his face. 'Quite frankly,' he went on angrily, 'all this makes me want to vomit. In the name of the friendship of nations we keep sacrificing the Russians. A member of a national minority barely needs to know the alphabet to be appointed a people's commissar, while our Ivan, no matter if he's a genius, has to 'yield place to the minorities'. The great Russian people's becoming a national minority itself. I'm all for the friendship of nations, but not on these terms. I'm sick of it!'
Novikov thought for a moment, glanced at the papers on the table, then tapped a fingernail against his glass. 'So that's how it is. You think I discriminate against Russians out of a particular sympathy for Kalmyks?'
He turned to Nyeudobnov. 'Very well, I'm appointing Major Sazonov as temporary chief of staff of the second brigade.'
'A fine soldier,' said Getmanov quietly.
Yet again, Novikov, who had always been rude, harsh and highhanded with people, realized how uncertain of himself he felt with Getmanov. 'It doesn't matter,' he told himself. 'Politically, I'm illiterate. I'm just a proletarian who happens to know about war. My task is very simple – to smash the Germans.'
But however much he laughed at Getmanov's military ignorance, Novikov couldn't deny that he was afraid of him.
Getmanov was short and broad-shouldered. He had a large stomach and a large head with tousled hair. He was very active, quick to laugh, and he had a loud voice. He appeared inexhaustible. Despite the fact that he had never served at the front, people said of him: 'Yes, our commissar's a true soldier.' He enjoyed holding meetings and his speeches went down well with the troops: he made lots of jokes and spoke very simply, often quite coarsely.
He walked with a slight waddle and often made use of a stick. If an absent-minded soldier was slow in saluting him, he would stop in front of him, leaning on his famous stick, take off his cap, and make a deep bow – like some old man in a village.
He was quick-tempered and resented it if someone answered him back; if anyone did argue with him, he would at once start puffing and frowning. He once lost his temper and punched Captain Gubyonkov, the chief of staff of the heavy artillery regiment; the latter was rather obstinate and – in the words of his comrades – 'terribly high- principled'.
On this occasion, Getmanov's orderly had simply remarked: 'The swine – he really drove our commissar crazy.'
Getmanov felt no respect for people who had gone through the terrible first days of the war. He once remarked about Makarov, the commander of the First Brigade and a favourite of Novikov's, 'All that philosophy of 1941 – I'll shove it down his throat!' Novikov hadn't said anything, though he enjoyed talking to Makarov about that terrible but fascinating time.
On the surface, Getmanov, with his bold, sweeping judgements, seemed the very antithesis of Nyeudobnov. Nevertheless, there was something similar about them that brought them together.
Nyeudobnov's calm, deliberate manner of speaking, his blank, but expressive expression, were truly depressing. Getmanov, on the other hand, would laugh and say: 'We're in luck. The Fritzes have done more to put the peasants' backs up in one year than we Communists in twenty-five.' Or 'What can we do? The old boy really likes it when people call him a genius.' But this boldness of Getmanov's, far from being infectious, usually quite unnerved the man he was talking to.
Before the war, Getmanov had been in charge of an
Now he spoke with the same authority about the quality of fuel and the rate of deterioration of engines, about tactics in battle, about the co-ordination of tanks, artillery and infantry if they broke through the enemy front, about medical assistance under fire, about radio codes, about the psychology of the soldier in combat, about the relations between one tank-crew and another, and between the individual members of each crew, about running repairs and major overhauls, and about the removal of damaged tanks from the battlefield.
Once, after a gunnery exercise, Novikov and Getmanov had stopped in front of the winning tank. As he answered their questions, the soldier in command had gently caressed the side of the tank. Getmanov had asked if he had found the exercise difficult.
'No, why should I? I love my tank very much. I came to the training school straight from my village. The moment I saw her, I fell in love. Impossibly in love.'
'So it was love at first sight, was it?' said Getmanov. He burst out laughing.
There was something condescending in Getmanov's laughter – as though he were criticizing this young man's ridiculous love for his tank. Novikov felt then that he himself could be equally ridiculous, that he could fall equally stupidly in love. But he said nothing of this to Getmanov. Getmanov had then become serious again.
'Good lad! Love for one's tank is a great strength,' he said sententiously. 'It's brought you success.'
'But what's there to love about it?' Novikov had asked ironically. 'It offers a magnificent target. Anyone can put it out of action. It makes an appalling din that gives its position away to the enemy and drives its crew round the bend. And it shakes you about so much you can hardly even observe, let alone take aim.'
Getmanov had looked at Novikov and smiled sardonically. Now, as he refilled the glasses, he looked at Novikov with that same smile and said: 'We'll be going through Kuibyshev. Our commanding officer will have a chance to see a friend or two there. Here's to your meeting!'
'That's all I needed,' thought Novikov. He was blushing like a schoolboy and he knew it.
Nyeudobnov had been abroad when the war began. It was only in early 1942, on his return to the People's Commissariat of Defence in Moscow, that he had first heard the air-raid warnings and seen the anti-tank defences beyond the Moscow river. Like Getmanov, he never asked Novikov direct questions about military matters, perhaps because he was ashamed of his own ignorance.
Novikov kept wondering how it was he had become a general. He began to study the pages of forms that made up Nyeudobnov's dossier; his life was reflected there like a birch tree in a lake.
Nyeudobnov was older than Novikov or Getmanov. He had been imprisoned in 1916 for belonging to a Bolshevik circle. After the Civil War he had been sent by the Party to work in the OGPU. [28] He had been posted to the frontier and then sent to the Military Academy where he had been secretary of the Party organization for his year… He had then worked in the military department of the Central Committee and in the central office of the People's Commissariat of Defence.
