Encounters
The Gor’ky House of Culture was jammed with military men. Soldiers and officers were crowded around the massive double doors inside. From time to time the doors swung open and a dapper major wearing horn- rimmed glasses pushed down on the end of his nose appeared. Bringing a sheet of paper up close to his glasses, he unintelligibly called out a few last names, and then like a cuckoo in a cuckoo clock, he disappeared again behind the doors.
More and more fresh crowds of military men entered the hallway. I was standing by a window. Suddenly a pair of hands grabbed me from behind and gave me a tight squeeze, and someone stuck a cigarette into my mouth.
It was Akimov. He looked at me, smiling widely. Sergeant Andreyev was standing beside him, waggishly saluting me.
‘Fancy meeting you both here!’ I said. ‘For what should I congratulate you, friends?’
‘It’s a military secret,’ Akimov replied, pressing a finger to his lips. ‘It wouldn’t be bad to wind up on the list of Heroes [of the Soviet Union, the highest Soviet combat honour].’ He was still the same tireless joker. Two military Orders already decorated Akimov’s breast – the Red Banner and the Red Star.
Andreyev said, ‘He deserves to be a Hero. After all, he blew a German tank onto its back, just like it was a dung beetle.’
‘An ordinary matter. All sorts of things happen in a scrap. You just hope for the best and try to stay out of trouble. And you, Yosif, what’s the occasion for congratulating you?’
‘For the medal “For courage”.’
The door flew open, and again the bespectacled major appeared. No one responded to the announcement of many of the names.
They called for Akimov. He straightened his shoulders, raised his head, gave us a wink, and with a precise step marched up to the oak door, opened it in a businesslike fashion, and disappeared into the shadows inside. A few minutes later, he re-emerged and rejoined us.
‘Look! Look! Our Akimych sauntered back like a dandy, but just see why! Attaboy, Hero!’ the sniper Nikolay Smirnov cried out.
As he was leaving after receiving his own decoration, Andreyev told me: ‘Comrade Senior Sergeant, don’t leave, wait for us at the gates.’
A new group of front-line soldiers arrived. Orlov was among them, who had managed to leave the hospital in time to take part in the latest operation. From one glance at Orlov, I understood that something had happened. But what, and to whom?
‘Have you seen Romanov?’ I asked Orlov. ‘No, he’s been away on some assignment.’ ‘And where’s Sabinov?’
Orlov took a hard drag on his cigarette, coughed fitfully and dryly, and rapidly drummed his fingers on the windowsill.
‘Where’s Sabinov?’ I repeated.
Orlov glumly looked at me: ‘Leonid’s in the hospital with wounds to his eyes. Whether he’ll be able to see or not is unknown.’
At last the major called for me. In the spacious office, high-backed chairs were standing along the walls. Sitting behind a desk covered with a fringed brocade tablecloth, was our division commander Major-General Trushkin, wearing a new general’s tunic. He was grey-haired, and had the tired face of an old man. Next to the Major-General, a small, but solidly- built man with a weathered face wearing a worn-out civilian suit was seated; his dark hair bristled like a hedgehog. He smiled courteously, looking at us. The General sat with both elbows heavily leaning on the table. His eyelids were heavy and yellowish, and when he glanced at me, his lids slowly rose. The wrinkles on his face now and then smoothed out, as if yielding their place to an aged smile. The General was holding a large red pencil and tapping it on the desk as he conversed with his neighbour. Behind a small, round table covered with red cloth, sat the division’s chief of combat troops, a swarthy young man with a luxurious black moustache, Lieutenant Colonel Lyubavin. He was quickly ticking off the names of the honourees on a list lying in front of him on the table, reading the documents and handing oblong boxes together with the papers to the General. The rhythmic ticking of a metronome emitting from a loud- speaker gave this minute a stern solemnity.
Suddenly the ticking stopped. A voice replaced it: ‘Attention! Attention! Citizens, the district is being subjected to an artillery barrage. Stop the movement of all transport vehicles, and the populace is to take cover.’
Sirens were wailing outside. Their sounds filled the air and gripped the heart.
The man in civilian dress glanced at the General. Trushkin, paying no attention to the warning or the ruckus outside, continued to hand out the decorations. It seemed as if he was thinking, ‘Don’t be surprised, esteemed guest. You earned your honour to just such music, and you’ll receive this honour to the same.’
Exiting out into the yard, I couldn’t find my comrades. Crossing the wasteland that had become the House of Culture’s grounds, I emerged on Novosikovsky Street; the air was filled with smoke and red dust. Women and children ran past me, crying something on the run and waving their arms, but their voices were drowned out in the thunder of explosions.
I stood in a building’s arched entrance, tightly pressed against a wall, so that a blast wave wouldn’t hurl me onto the bridge. Suddenly someone behind me touched my arm. Looking back, I saw a woman covered in brick-dust from her head to her feet. There was no fear in her calm eyes. She unhurriedly told me, ‘Get into a shelter, Comrade, right this way.’
Climbing down several stairs, I opened a door sheathed with iron and entered a quite spacious cellar, already furnished by people. A lamp was burning. Along the right wall, there were beds, both large and small, desks, and numerous suitcases and bundles. To the left, there were two jerry-built stoves and little kitchen tables. Next to the door was a plank couch, covered with white oilcloth, and a makeshift medicine cabinet – apparently, this corner was a little medical station.
An old woman walked up to me. She was wearing an armband that read ‘Attendant’.
‘Lo, God has brought you to us,’ she said soothingly. Suddenly the entry door flew open with a bang, and a peremptory voice shouted from the entrance: ‘Aunt Pasha! Call the doctor!’
Two women carried in an 11 or 12-year-old blood-soaked girl on a stretcher. She was constantly moaning and calling for her mother: ‘Mama, where are you? Give me your hand, I’m in pain.’ The girl turned her head from one side to the other, casting an anxious gaze on each of us. The doctor, gaunt and all in white, entered the cellar through a spare entry. He gave the girl an injection and asked me to lift the girl from the stretcher and lay her on the plank couch. I carefully took her into my arms. The girl gave a subtle wince and requested water.
The doctor began to apply a needless bandage . . . Within several minutes, the girl passed away. Aunt Pasha folded the dead girl’s thin arms on her breast, tied them together with a strip of gauze, and gave the sign of the cross three times over the girl’s body.
cellar and climbed the stairs into the yard. The artillery barrage had ceased. The silence now was startling. From the Narva Gates, a solitary trolley car departed in the direction of the front. It moved slowly, its wheels clattering on the rail joints.
I stood there for some time at the House of Culture, waiting for my comrades, but neither Akimov nor Andreyev appeared. My eyes were still seeing the image of the dead child. Her death strikingly reminded me of the death of my older son Vitya. I was almost wild to go and see my motherless son Volodya, to be with him together if only for a minute, but I had no separate pass card for this, and I was forced with bitterness in my heart to reject this idea. I stood for several minutes on the corner of Narva Prospekt, and then set off for the front on foot.
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