As Adamsky is dragged out of the tent by the soldiers, the Father rushes after them with Fanny right behind him. “No!” he yells. An entire platoon bows its head at the sound of the voice they have been wanting to hear for so long. They know full well that the only way of rescuing the Father from the Department for Public Security and Order requires keeping him bound and gagged in his tent, and yet no-one dares to try it, even though they are painfully aware that their reluctance exposes their saint to grave danger.
Three of the four fugitives are brought to Colonel Pazhari. The fourth and easiest prey is the only one they cannot find. From what Pazhari can gather, this character is rather conspicuous: a gaunt, strange man, with tousled beard and sidelocks, as żyd as they come.
“Search for him,” Pazhari orders. “He must be somewhere in the camp.”
Pazhari could not be more right, although there is one particular fact that has escaped him, and the soldiers who sent Cantor to replace Oleg have kept this fact to themselves. When the order came to arrest the four suspects, without reflection or coordination they pretended not to know anything about Cantor. When the messenger arrived at their tent with the order, they sized him up and shrugged, surprised at the very injunction, let alone the possibility of finding a żyd in their tent.
Once he had left, they were struck by the gravity of their actions. Why had they risked everything for the sake of a wretched matchstick? If the truth came out, one of them, or all of them, would pay dearly. Good Lord, they might face a military court. And yet, for some strange reason, they resolved not to give him up, as if Cantor – that orphaned żyd and insatiable nomad – was one of them. Imagine that.
In any event, as the colonel turns to the retrieved suspects, he wonders about their missing friend, because none of these three strikes him as a killer. The woman is indeed unconventional, staring into his eyes without fear. What is she looking for? He does not know, but even if she is plotting something, her pale, exhausted and worn-out face assures him she won’t get very far. Road dust and burnt gunpowder have painted her light hair grey underneath her headscarf, and her complexion resembles a blackened cabbage leaf. Her frailty and distress, as well as the fact that she is unarmed, make it hard to imagine that her fists could be dangerous.
The hulk standing next to her, however, is a colossus. Despite his age – fifty-five, maybe sixty? – Pazhari would prefer to see him handcuffed, mainly because of his scarred mouth, which suggests battle experience. His imposing figure is tamed, however, by a frightened demeanour, making the colonel seriously doubt that this massive body could take part in a lethal assault. The man is taciturn, introverted, with his eyes fixed on the ground. This cocoon will never grow a butterfly with iron wings.
The third suspect calls himself Captain Adamsky and won’t stop babbling about the Third Regiment, Fifth Division, Eleventh Army, in which he supposedly served. What Pazhari sees, however, is a midget wearing a private’s uniform, a gnome boasting a pimp’s sideburns, a character one often sees coming out of taverns at sunrise to stagger about the streets like a headless chicken, making one ask oneself: “Am I really sacrificing my life for this?” If he was indeed a captain, there’s no way of proving it. He doesn’t have any documents to show, and right now his word is not worth a fart.
“Why aren’t they shackled?” Pazhari asks the garrison commander.
“Sir . . .” the soldier hesitates. “We cannot shackle the Father. He is our guest.”
“The father?” Pazhari asks. “Whose father?”
The head of the guard says nothing, embarrassed.
“He really is the Father,” Zarobin says.
Pazhari is irritated by Zarobin’s reverence for this man, but then, all of a sudden, he understands what they are trying to say.
“Which one?” he demands, astounded, guessing before Glazkov points him out.
“And this is his niece,” Demidov adds.
“But as for him,” Zarobin says, pointing at Adamsky, “no-one knows what he’s doing here.”
“I am Captain Adamsky, Third Regiment, Fifth Division, Eleventh Army.”
“You are under arrest,” Pazhari says, coldly.
Even though the unexpected arrest has undoubtedly disrupted Adamsky’s ability to think clearly, he is still able to estimate the distance between his fist and the colonel’s face and lands a lightning-fast punch on Pazhari’s chin.
Adamsky has come to learn that punching faces can have varying degrees of effectiveness. You can crush a cheekbone, break a nose, smash eye sockets, break a man’s teeth one by one . . . But a single strike to the chin will go much further. And indeed, Colonel Pazhari collapses on the spot, and Adamsky flees the tent like a demon.
If one were to assess his odds of escaping the camp, well, one would focus on these facts: a veteran long past his prime, who has celebrated fifty-six springs, breaks out of the camp commander’s heavily guarded pavilion. Beyond a circle of officers’ tents, tens of thousands of troops are performing their morning drills with their weapons at the ready. In the outer circle, thousands of fearless horsemen are waiting with their fit and well-fed mounts. And yet our man still thought it would be a sound idea to try and break through this line of defence.
There’s one advantage Adamsky has always had, though. Most of the soldiers surrounding him do not know what combat is really about. Sure, they wrestle one another during training, shoot at fixed targets and jump over obstacles on horseback like English gentlemen. But all one has to do is chew off one of their ears, and you’ll have them crawling on the ground licking the dirt in search of it.
Adamsky exceeds his own expectations. He pushes past the sentries, runs through the circle of officers’ tents, pierces fifteen eyes (two of which belong to the same officer), crushes seven noses (leaving one man completely snoutless), tears off twenty-one earlobes (three of which are quickly found, though their rightful owners cannot identify which one is theirs), and one hundred and twelve bullets, two bullets for every year of Adamsky’s life (the captain counted them all), miss the man Pazhari thought a gnome and a pimp.
Why does the getaway fail? As always with Adamsky, his hot temper is to blame. Had he used the turmoil he unleashed to get past the furthest guard and flee on the back of a young colt, he might have reached Ada, the young woman with whom he wants to build a future. But Adamsky can’t help but attack every ear that comes his way, and finally a furious mass of men-at-arms are pinning him down.
Now he is surrounded by dozens of sentries, all of whom know exactly what his mouth is capable of, and the mere sight of him compels them to touch their noses and ears to make sure they are still there. Exhilarated, Adamsky gets down on his knees, crosses himself four times and stretches out his arms for the chains.
Bound and bruised, the captain is dragged back to the camp’s deputy commander. After all, there’s no better proof of courage and cunning in combat than attacking a chained soldier. Pazhari has since recovered from the blow to his chin, despite his rattled head and aching tongue, while Adamsky lies on his side, groaning and spitting blood. Zizek and Fanny are paralysed at the sight of his mangled body. Pazhari bends down to take a look at his face.
“Why?” the colonel asks Adamsky.
“Why not?” the captain says.
Pazhari respects the honest answer, but he cannot let it pass. “Take him away,” he orders the sentries. “I want three guards on him even when he pisses. And you!” Pazhari turns to Fanny and Zizek. “You are coming with me.”