Life And Fate

'A Georgian I suppose?' said Natalya. 'Send him packing if he shows his face here again! The fool's got it into his head he wants to marry me.'

'Already?' asked Alexandra Vladimirovna in astonishment.

'They don't need long. He wants me to go to Georgia with him after the war. He probably thinks I washed the stairs just for him.'

That evening she said to Vera: 'Let's go out tonight. There's a film on in town. Misha can take us in his truck. You and the boy can go in the cab, and I'll go in the back.'

Vera shook her head.

'Go on!' said Alexandra Vladimirovna. 'I'd go myself if only I were a bit stronger.'

'No. It's the last thing I feel like.'

'We've got to go on living, you know. Here we're all widows and widowers.'

'You sit at home all day,' Natalya chided. 'You never go out. And you don't even take proper care of your father. Yesterday I did his washing myself – his socks are all in holes.'

Vera picked up her baby and went out to the kitchen. Holding her son in her arms, she said: 'Mityenka, your mama isn't a widow, is she?'

Spiridonov was always very attentive towards Alexandra Vladimirovna. He helped Vera with the cupping glasses and he twice brought a doctor from the city. Sometimes he pressed a candy into her hand, saying: 'Now don't you go giving that to Vera. That's for you -she's already had one. They're from the canteen.'

Alexandra Vladimirovna knew very well that Spiridonov was in trouble. Sometimes she asked him if he'd heard from the obkom yet, but he always shook his head and began talking about something else. One evening, though, after he'd been told that his affair was about to be settled, he came home, sat down on the bed beside her and said: 'What a mess I've got myself into! Marusya would be out of her mind if she knew.'

'What are they accusing you of?'

'Everything.'

Then Natalya and Vera came in and they broke off the conversation.

Looking at Natalya, Alexandra Vladimirovna realized that there is a particular type of strong, stubborn beauty that no amount of hardship can injure. Everything about Natalya was beautiful – her neck, her firm breasts, her legs, her slim arms that she bared almost up to the shoulder. 'A philosopher without philosophy,' she thought to herself. She had noticed before how women used to a life of ease began to fade, to stop taking care of themselves, as soon as they were confronted with hardship; this was what had happened to Vera. She admired women who worked as traffic-controllers for the army, women who laboured in factories or did seasonal work on the land, women who worked in filthy, dusty conditions – and still found time to look in the mirror, to curl their hair, to powder their peeling noses. Yes, she admired the obstinate birds who went on singing no matter how bad the weather.

Spiridonov was also looking at Natalya. He suddenly took Vera by the hand and pulled her towards him. As though begging forgiveness for something, he kissed her.

Apparently quite irrelevantly, Alexandra Vladimirovna said:

'Come on, Stepan! We're neither of us going to die yet. I'm an old woman – and I'm going to get better. I'm good for a few more years.'

He glanced at her and smiled. Natalya filled a basin with warm water and placed it beside the bed. Kneeling down on the floor, she said: 'Alexandra Vladimirovna! It's nice and warm in the room. I'm going to wash your feet for you.'

'You idiot – you must be out of your mind! Get up at once!' shouted Alexandra Vladimirovna.

59

During the afternoon Andreyev came back from the workers' settlement around the factory.

First he went in to see Alexandra Vladimirovna. His sullen face broke into a smile: she had got up that day for the first time. There she was, sitting at the table, her spectacles on her nose, reading a book.

He said it had taken him a long time to find the place where his house had once stood. The whole area was nothing but trenches, craters and debris. Lots of workers had already gone back to the factory, and more were appearing every day. They even had policemen there. He hadn't been able to find out anything about the men who had served in the people's militia. They were burying bodies every day, and they were still finding more in the trenches and cellars. And everywhere you looked there were pieces of twisted metal.

Alexandra Vladimirovna kept on asking questions. She wanted to know where he'd spent the night, whether it had been a difficult journey, what he'd had to eat, how badly the open-hearth furnaces were damaged, what the workers themselves were getting to eat, whether he'd seen the director…

That very morning Alexandra Vladimirovna had said to Vera:

'You know I've always made fun of people's superstitions and premonitions. But for once in my life I feel quite certain of something: Pavel Andreyevich is going to bring news from Seryozha.'

She was wrong, but what Andreyev did have to say was still important. The workers had told him that they were getting nothing to eat, no wages, and that the dug-outs and cellars they lived in were cold and damp. The director had become a different person. While the Germans were attacking, he had been everyone's best mate. But now he didn't so much as say hello to anyone. And he'd had a new house built for him, a new car delivered from Saratov…

'No one could say things are easy at the power station,' said Andreyev. 'But the workers haven't got it in for Stepan Fyodorovich. They know he's on their side.'

'That's a sad story,' said Alexandra Vladimirovna. 'But what are you going to do yourself, Pavel Andreyevich?'

'I've come back to say goodbye. I'm going home – even if I haven't got a home. I've found myself a place in a cellar with some of the other workers.'

'You're doing the right thing,' said Alexandra Vladimirovna. 'It may not be much of a life there, but it's all you have.'

'Here's something I dug up for you,' he said, taking a rusty thimble out of his pocket and handing it to her.

'I'll soon be going into town myself,' she told him. 'I want to see my own home on Gogol Street. I want to dig up bits of metal and glass too.'

'Are you sure you haven't got out of bed too soon? You look pale.'

'No. I'm just a bit upset by what you've told me. I'd like things on this earth of ours to be different.'

Andreyev gave a little cough. 'You remember Stalin's words the year before last? "My brothers and sisters…" But now that the Germans have been defeated, the director builds himself a villa, you can only speak to him with an appointment, and we brothers and sisters are still in our dug-outs.'

'Yes,' said Alexandra Vladimirovna, 'it's a sad story. And still no news of Seryozha – he's just vanished into thin air.'

In the evening Spiridonov came back from Stalingrad. He'd gone out in the morning without telling anyone that his case was to be settled that day.

'Is Andreyev back yet?' he asked in a brusque, authoritative tone. 'Any news of Seryozha?'

Alexandra Vladimirovna shook her head.

Vera could see at once that her father had had too much to drink. She could tell by the way he opened the door and took off his coat, by the way he put down the little presents of food he'd brought, by the tone of his questions and the strange glitter in his unhappy eyes.

He went up to Mitya, who was asleep in the laundry basket, and bent over him.

'Don't you go breathing all over him,' said Vera.

'He'll be all right,' said Spiridonov. 'He'll get used to it.'

'Sit down and have some supper! You've been drinking – and you haven't had a bite to eat with it. Do you know what? Grandmama's just got up for the first time.'

'Now that really is good news!' said Spiridonov. He dropped his spoon into the plate and splashed soup all over his jacket.

'Oh dear, you really have had a few too many,' said Alexandra Vladimirovna. 'What's happened, Stepan? Have you been celebrating?'