Life And Fate (Orange Inheritance)

Guryev, the divisional commander, had set up the regimental command-posts inside the furnaces. Krymov had the impression that the people inside these furnaces – furnaces that until recently had forged steel – must be very special, must themselves have hearts of steel.

You could hear the tramp of German boots; you could hear orders being shouted out; you could even hear quiet clicks as the Germans reloaded their tommy-guns.

As he climbed down, shoulders hunched, into the mouth of a furnace that was now the command-post of an infantry battalion, as his hands felt the warmth that still lingered in the fire-bricks, a sort of timidity suddenly came over Krymov; it was as though the secret of this extraordinary resistance was about to be revealed to him.

In the semi-darkness he made out a squatting figure with a broad face, and heard a welcoming voice.

‘Here’s a guest come to our palace! Welcome! Quick – some vodka and a hard-boiled egg for our visitor!’

A thought flashed through Krymov’s brain: he would never be able to tell Yevgenia Nikolaevna how he had thought of her as he climbed into a dark, airless steel-furnace in Stalingrad. In the past he’d tried to forget her, to escape from her, but now he was reconciled to the way she followed him wherever he went. The witch – she’d even followed him into this furnace!

It was all as clear as daylight. Who needed stepsons of the time? Better to hide them away with the cripples and pensioners! Better to make them into soap! Her leaving him was just one more sign that his life was hopeless. Even here in Stalingrad they didn’t want him as a combatant.

That evening, after his lecture, Krymov talked to General Guryev. Guryev had taken off his jacket and kept wiping the sweat off his red face. In the same harsh voice he offered Krymov vodka, shouted orders down the telephone to his battalion commanders, abused the cook for failing to grill the shashlyks correctly, and rang his neighbour, Batyuk, to ask if they were playing dominoes on Mamayev Kurgan.

‘We’ve got some good men here,’ said Guryev. ‘They’re a fine lot. Batyuk’s certainly got a head on his shoulders. And General Zholudyev at the tractor factory’s an old friend of mine. And then there’s Colonel Gurtyev at “The Barricades” – only he’s a monk, he never drinks vodka at all. That really is a mistake.’

Then he told Krymov about how no one else had so few men as he did – between six and eight in each company. And no one else was so cut off from the rear – when they sent him reinforcements, a third of them would arrive wounded. No one else, except perhaps Gorokhov, had to put up with that.

‘Yesterday Chuykov summoned Shuba, my chief of staff. They had a disagreement over the exact position of the front line. Poor Colonel Shuba came back in a terrible state.’

He glanced at Krymov.

‘Do you think Chuykov just swore at him?’ He burst out laughing. ‘No, he gets sworn at by me every day. He came back with his front teeth knocked out.’

‘Yes,’ said Krymov slowly. This ‘yes’ was an admission that the dignity of man didn’t always hold sway on the slopes of Stalingrad.

Then Guryev held forth about how badly the war was reported in the newspapers.

‘Those sons of bitches never see any action themselves. They just sit on the other side of the Volga and write their articles. If someone gives them a good dinner, then they write about him. They’re certainly no Tolstoys. People have been reading War and Peace for a century and they’ll go on reading it for another century. Why’s that? Because Tolstoy’s a soldier, because he took part in the war himself. That’s how he knew who to write about.’

‘Excuse me, comrade General,’ said Krymov. ‘Tolstoy didn’t take part in the Patriotic War.’

‘He didn’t take part in it – what do you mean?’

‘Just that,’ said Krymov. ‘He didn’t take part in it. He hadn’t even been born at the time of the war with Napoleon.’

‘He hadn’t been born?’ said Guryev. ‘What do you mean? How on earth?’

A furious argument then developed – the first to have followed any of Krymov’s lectures. To his surprise, the general flatly refused to believe him.