Life And Fate

In every word the two sisters said, in all the sad, joyful, absurd or touching events they related, they could sense the presence of friends and family who had died but who would always be bound to them. Whatever they said about Viktor evoked the shade of his mother Anna Semyonovna; Dmitry and his wife, who had both died in camps, loomed behind any mention of their son Seryozha; and Lyudmila herself was always accompanied by the steps of a shy young man with broad shoulders and full lips. But neither of them mentioned any of this out loud.

'I haven't heard any news of Sofya Osipovna. She seems to have vanished into thin air,' said Yevgenia.

'The Levinton woman?'

'Yes, of course.'

'I never did like her… Are you doing any drawing?'

'I did in Stalingrad. But not since I moved to Kuibyshev.'

'Viktor took two of your pictures when we were evacuated. You should be flattered.'

'I am,' said Yevgenia with a smile.

'Well, madam general, you haven't said a word about what matters most of all. Are you happy? Do you love him?'

Fingering her dressing-gown, Yevgenia replied:

'Yes, I am happy. I'm fine. We love each other…'

She glanced quickly at Lyudmila.

'Shall I tell you why I came to Moscow? Nikolay Grigorevich has been arrested. He's in the Lubyanka.'

'Good Lord! What on earth for? He's such a hundred-per-cent Communist.'

'What about our Dmitry? Or your Abarchuk? He was a two-hundred-per-cent Communist.'

'But your Nikolay was so harsh. He was quite ruthless at the time of general collectivization. I remember asking what on earth was happening. And he just said: "The kulaks can go to the devil for all I care." He had a lot of influence on Viktor.'

'Lyuda,' said Yevgenia, a reproachful note in her voice, 'you remember only the worst about people and you always bring it up at the wrong moment.'

'What do you expect of me? I've always been one to call a spade a spade.'

'Fine,' said Yevgenia, 'but don't imagine that's always a virtue.'

She lowered her voice to a whisper.

'Lyuda, I was summoned for interrogation.'

She took her sister's scarf and draped it over the telephone. 'Apparently the mouthpieces can be bugged. Yes, I've had to make a statement.'

'You and Nikolay were never officially married, were you?'

'No, but what of it? They interrogated me as though I were his wife. Let me start from the beginning. I was sent a summons to appear at the office and to bring my passport. I went through hundreds of names – Dmitry, Ida, Abarchuk, everyone I knew who'd ever been arrested – but I can tell you I didn't once think of Nikolay. I was told to come at five o'clock. It was just an ordinary office with huge portraits of Stalin and Beria on the wall. The investigator was a very ordinary-looking young man, but he looked straight through me as if he knew everything and said: "Are you aware of the counter-revolutionary activities of Nikolay Grigorevich Krymov?" Several times I thought I'd never be allowed out of the building. Once – can you imagine it? – he even hinted that Novikov… that I had become involved with Novikov in order to elicit information from him, and report it to Krymov. I felt quite paralysed. I said: "But Krymov's such a fanatical Communist. Just to be in his company was like attending a Party meeting." The investigator replied: "If I understand you correctly, you're implying that Novikov himself isn't a true Soviet citizen." I said: "You are strange. At the front people are fighting the Fascists, while you, young man, sit in the rear and sling mud at them.' I thought I'd get a slap in the face, but he actually blushed and looked embarrassed. So, Nikolay's been arrested. The accusations are quite crazy: Trotskyism and links with the Gestapo.'

'How appalling!' said Lyudmila, thinking to herself: 'What if Tolya's unit had got surrounded? Then he'd have had the same accusations levelled against him.'

'Vitya will take this very badly,' she said. 'He's incredibly nervous at present. He thinks he's about to be arrested. He keeps going back over everything he's ever said, who he said it to and when. Especially during that unfortunate time in Kazan.'

Yevgenia stared at her sister for a while. Finally she said:

'Shall I tell you the most terrible thing of all? This investigator said to me: "How can you claim to be ignorant of your husband's Trotskyism when he himself told you Trotsky's verdict on one of his articles: 'Splendid, that's pure marble'?" On my way home I remembered Nikolay saying to me, "You're the only person who knows those words." That night it suddenly hit me – I told that story to Novikov when he came to Kuibyshev in the autumn. I was horrified. I thought I was going out of my mind…'

'You poor woman. But then that's the sort of thing that would happen to you.'

'What do you mean?' asked Yevgenia. 'It could just as well have happened to you.'

'No. You left one man for another. Then you told the second man about the first. What do you expect?'

'You've probably done the same. You left Tolya's father. I'm sure you've talked about him to Viktor Pavlovich.'

'You're wrong,' said Lyudmila emphatically. 'Anyway that's different.'

'Why's it different?' asked Yevgenia, feeling suddenly irritated. 'What you're saying now is just plain stupid.'

'Maybe it is,' answered Lyudmila calmly.

'Have you got the time?' asked Yevgenia. 'I've got to go to 24 Kuznetsky Most.'

Giving vent to her anger, she went on:

'You've got a difficult character, Lyuda. I can understand why Mama lives like a gypsy in Kazan instead of staying with you in your four-room flat.'

Yevgenia immediately regretted these harsh words. Wanting Lyudmila to understand that the trust between them was stronger than any chance misunderstanding, she said:

'I do want to trust Novikov. But still… Who else could have told the security organs? It's terrible. It's like being lost in a fog.'

Yevgenia would have given so much to have her mother beside her. She would have leant her head on her shoulder and said: 'Dearest, I'm so tired.'

'You know what might have happened?' said Lyudmila. 'Your general might have mentioned this conversation to someone else who then reported it.'

'Yes,' said Yevgenia, 'of course! How strange I never thought of something as simple as that.'

In the quiet calm of Lyudmila's home, Yevgenia felt even more conscious of the confusion inside her… The thoughts and feelings she had repressed, the secret pain and anxiety from the time she and Krymov had separated, the tenderness she still felt for him, the way she still felt somehow accustomed to him – everything had flared up with renewed intensity during these last weeks.

She thought of Krymov when she was at work, when she was in a tram, when she was queuing for food. She dreamed of him almost every night, moaning, crying out in her sleep, waking up repeatedly.

She had terrible nightmares, full of fires and scenes of war. There was always some danger threatening Nikolay Grigorevich – and she was always powerless to protect him.

And when she got washed and dressed in the morning, afraid of being late for work, she would still be thinking of him.

She didn't think she loved him. But is it possible to think so incessantly of someone you don't love? And if she didn't love him, how could she feel such distress over the tragedy that had overtaken him? And why – when Limonov and Shargorodsky made fun of the supposed non-entities who were his favourite artists and poets – did she always want to see Nikolay, to run her fingers through his hair, to comfort and fondle him?

She no longer remembered his fanaticism, his lack of concern over people who had been arrested, the anger and hatred in his voice when he had talked about the kulaks. Now she only remembered his good side; she only remembered what was sad, touching and romantic about him. It was his weakness that gave him power over her. There had always been something helpless in the way he smiled, his movements were awkward and his eyes were those of a child.