Life And Fate

refused to work, it wouldn't change anything. They'd be dead in less than an hour.'

'No,' said Ikonnikov. 'I can't. I just can't do it.'

'Then that's the end of you,' said Mostovskoy.

'He's right,' said Chernetsov. 'This comrade knows very well what it means to attempt to instigate a strike in a country where there's no democracy.'

His argument with Mostovskoy had upset him. Here, in the Nazi camp, the phrases he had repeated so often in his Paris apartment sounded absurd; they rang false even in his ears. The other prisoners were always repeating the word ' Stalingrad '. Like it or not, the fate of the world hung on that city.

A young Englishman had made a victory sign and said: 'I'm praying for you all. Stalingrad 's halted the avalanche.' Words like these made Chernetsov feel happy and excited.

He turned to Mostovskoy.

'Heine said that only a fool reveals his weaknesses to an enemy. Very well, maybe I am a fool, but you're right – I do understand the meaning of the struggle being fought by your army. That's a bitter admission for a Russian socialist. It's hard to both rejoice and suffer, to hate you but feel pride in your achievements.'

He looked at Mostovskoy. For a moment it seemed as though even his good eye had filled with blood.

'But do you really not understand, even here, that man cannot live without freedom and democracy?'

'Come on now!' said Mostovskoy sternly. 'That's enough of your hysterics.'

He looked round. Chernetsov thought Mostovskoy must be wondering whether the men coming in from work had noticed how straightforwardly and naturally he was talking to a Menshevik, an emigre. He probably felt ashamed to be seen like this by the foreigners – and above all by the other Russians.

Chernetsov's blood-filled socket stared blindly at Mostovskoy.

Ikonnikov reached up and grasped the bare foot of the priest sitting on the second tier of boards.

'Que dois-je faire, mio padre? Nous travaillons dans una Vernich-tungslager. '

Ikonnikov looked round at the three men with his coal-black eyes.

'Tout le monde travaille la-bas. Et moi je travaille la-bas. Nous sommes des esclaves,' he said slowly. 'Dieu nous pardonnera.'

'C'est son metier, ' added Mostovskoy.

'Mais ce n'est pas votre metier,' said Gardi reproachfully.

'Yes, that's what you said, Mikhail Sidorovich,' said Ikonnikov, speaking so quickly he almost tripped up over his own words, 'but I'm not asking for absolution. It's wrong to make out that only the people in power are guilty, that you yourself are only an innocent slave. I'm helping to build an extermination camp; I'm responsible before the people who are to be gassed. But I'm free. I can say 'No!' What power can stop me if I have the strength not to be afraid of extinction? I will say 'No!' Je dirai non, mio padre, je dirai non! '

Gardi placed his hands on Ikonnikov's grey head.

'Donnez-moi votre main,' he said.

'Now the shepherd's going to admonish the lost sheep for his pride,' said Chernetsov.

Mostovskoy nodded.

But, rather than admonishing Ikonnikov, Gardi lifted his dirty hand to his lips and kissed it.

68

The following day Chernetsov was talking to one of his few acquaintances among the Soviet Russians, a soldier called Pavlyukov who worked as a medical orderly in the infirmary. Pavlyukov was complaining about having to leave his present job to join the digging gangs.

'It's the Party members,' he said. 'They've got everything sewn up. They hate me because I bribed the right people and got myself a good job. But they know how to look after themselves, all right – they always end up working in the kitchens, washrooms and stores. Do you remember what it was like before the war, grandad? Well, it's the same here. They even get their men in the kitchen to give them the biggest portions of food. An Old Bolshevik gets looked after as if he were in a health-resort, but the rest of us are no better than dogs. They just look straight through you even when you're starving to death. Is that fair? After all, we've had to endure Soviet power too.'

Chernetsov admitted it was twenty years since he had last lived in Russia. He knew that the words 'emigre' and 'abroad' immediately made Soviet Russians keep their distance. But Pavlyukov didn't react at all.

They sat down on a pile of planks. Pavlyukov, who seemed a real son of the people with his wide nose and forehead, looked at the sentry pacing about his concrete tower and said: 'I've got no choice. I'll have to join up with Vlasov. Otherwise it'll be the end of me.'

'Is that your only reason?' asked Chernetsov. 'Is it just a matter of survival?'

'I'm certainly not a kulak,' said Pavlyukov, 'and I've never had to slave away in the camps felling trees, but I've got my own grudges against the Communists. 'No, you mustn't sow that… No, you mustn't marry her… No, that's not your job…' You end up turning into a parrot. Ever since I was a child, I'd wanted to open a shop of my own – somewhere a man could buy whatever he wanted. With its own little restaurant. 'There, you've finished your shopping – now treat yourself to a beer, to some vodka, to some roast meat!' I'd have served country dishes. And my prices would have been really cheap. Baked potatoes! Fat bacon with garlic! Sauerkraut! And you know what I'd have given people to go with their drinks? Marrow-bones! I'd have kept them simmering away in the pot. 'There, you've paid for your vodka – now have some black bread and some bone-marrow!' And I'd have had leather chairs so there wouldn't be any lice. 'You just sit down and be quiet – we'll look after you!' Well, if I'd come out with any of that, I'd have been sent straight off to Siberia. But I really don't see what harm it could have done anyone. And I'd only have charged half the price of the State shops.'

Pavlyukov cast a sidelong glance at Chernetsov.

'Forty men from our barracks have already signed up.'

'Why?'

'For a bowl of soup. And a warm greatcoat. And because they don't want to be worked to death.'

'Any other reasons?'

'Some of them have ideological reasons.'

'What exactly?'

'Oh, various ones. The people killed in the camps. The poverty in the villages. They just can't stand Communism.'

'No,' said Chernetsov, 'that's not right. It's despicable.'

The Soviet citizen looked at the emigre with half-mocking, half-bewildered curiosity.

'It's just not right,' repeated Chernetsov. 'It's dishonourable. This is no time to settle scores. And it's the wrong way to go about it. You're not being fair to yourself or to your country.'

He stood up and rubbed his buttocks.

'No one could accuse me of sympathy for the Bolsheviks,' he said. 'But believe me – now's not the time to settle accounts. Don't do it. Don't join Vlasov!' In his excitement he had begun to stammer. 'Listen to me, comrade,' he repeated, 'don't do it!'

Pronouncing the word 'comrade' took him back to the days of his youth. 'Oh God,' he muttered, 'oh God, could I ever…?'

… The train drew away from the platform. The air was thick with dust and carried a variety of disparate smells – lilac, fumes from the kitchen of the station restaurant, smoke from the locomotives, the smell that comes from rubbish-dumps in the spring.

The lantern drew slowly further away. In the end it was just a still point among the red and green lights.

The student stood for a while on the platform and then went out through the gate beside the station. As she said goodbye, the woman had flung her arms round his neck and kissed his hair and forehead, overwhelmed – like he was – by a sudden surge of emotion… He walked away from the station. His head span and a new happiness welled up inside him; it was as though something were beginning that would eventually fill his whole life.

He remembered that evening when he finally left Russia. He remembered it as he lay in hospital after the