VIKTOR had a great deal to do in Moscow. There were many complex administrative matters to attend to.
In spite of this, he saw Nina almost every evening. They would go for a walk along Kaluga Street or visit the Neskuchny Garden. One evening they went to see the film Lady Hamilton.150 During these walks it was Nina who did most of the talking. Viktor usually walked beside her and listened; now and again he would ask a question. Viktor already knew a great deal about Nina: that she worked in a sewing co-operative; that she had moved to Omsk after her marriage; that her elder sister was married to a section head at one of the Urals factories. Nina had also told him about her brother, the commander of an anti-aircraft unit, and about how angry all three of them had felt when their father remarried after the death of their mother.
Everything Nina told him so trustingly and straightforwardly was important to Viktor. He remembered the names of Nina’s friends and relatives. Now and again he would say something like “I’m sorry. Please remind me of the name of Claudia’s husband.”
What moved Viktor most, however, was what Nina told him about her marriage. Her husband was clearly a bad man. He sounded rude, ignorant and egotistical, a careerist and a drunkard.
Sometimes Nina came and helped Viktor prepare dinner. He was touched when she said, “Maybe you like peppers. Let me bring you a few—I’ve got some next door.” One day she said, “You know, I’m so glad to have got to know you. And it’s very sad that I’ll soon be leaving.”
“I promise to come and visit you,” he replied.
“So people always say.”
“No, no, I mean it. I’ll stay in a hotel.”
“No, you won’t. You won’t even send me a postcard.”
One evening, getting home late after being delayed at a meeting, he thought sadly as he went past Nina’s door, “Today I won’t see her at all—and soon I’ll be leaving.”
The following morning Viktor went to see Pimenov, who greeted him with the words, “Everything’s done now. Yesterday your plan received the approval of the redoubtable comrade Zverev. You can send a telegram to your family and let them know you’ll be back soon!”
That evening Viktor was supposed to be seeing Postoev, but he phoned him to say that he had to deal with an unexpected problem and was no longer able to come. Then he went straight back home.
On the landing he caught sight of Nina. His heart began to race. He was almost gasping for breath.
“Why? What is it?” he said to himself, though the answer, of course, was obvious.
He saw Nina’s face light up, and she called out, “Wonderful—how good that you’ve come back early! I’ve just written you this little note.” And she handed him a letter, folded into a triangle.151
Viktor opened the note, read it and put it in his pocket.
“Are you really leaving this instant?” he asked. “I was hoping we could go for a walk.”
“I don’t want to go to Kalinin,” Nina replied, “but I have to.” Seeing the disappointment on Viktor’s face, she added, “I’m definitely coming back on Tuesday morning and I’ll stay here in Moscow till the end of the week.”
“I’ll go to the station with you.”
“No, that would be awkward. I’m travelling with another woman from Omsk. I’m sorry.”
“In that case you must come round for a moment right now. We can drink to your speedy return!”
As Nina went in with him, she said, “Oh, I quite forgot! Yesterday some commander came round and asked for you. He said he’d come again this evening.”
They drank a little wine.
“Does it make your head spin?” asked Nina.
“My head’s spinning, but not from the wine,” he said—and began to kiss her hands. Just then the bell rang.
“Probably yesterday’s commander,” said Nina.
“I’ll have a word with him outside,” Viktor said determinedly. A few minutes later he came back, accompanied by a tall figure.
“Let me introduce you,” said Viktor. Almost apologetically, he said, “This is Colonel Novikov. He’s just come from Stalingrad. He’s brought messages from my family.”
Novikov gave a slight bow, maintaining the impassive, blind politeness that war imposes on people who regularly have no choice, at any time of day and night, but to burst in on the private lives of others. Novikov’s blank eyes said that Viktor’s private life was nothing to do with him, and that he was not in the least interested in the nature of the relationship between the professor and this beautiful young woman.
Behind these blank eyes, however, Novikov was thinking, “Oh, so you soldiers of science are no different from the rest of the world. You have your campaign wives too!”
“I’ve brought you a little package,” he said, opening his bag. “And everyone sends their warmest greetings—Alexandra Vladimirovna, Marya Nikolaevna, Stepan Fyodorovich and Vera Stepanovna.” As he went through these names—somehow failing to mention Zhenya—Colonel Novikov no longer had the air of an important senior commander; he seemed more like an ordinary Red Army soldier, passing on messages to the families of those with whom he had been sharing a dugout.
Viktor absent-mindedly dropped the package into an open briefcase that was lying on the table. “Thank you, thank you!” he said, “And how is everyone in Stalingrad?” Afraid that Novikov might launch into a protracted account, he at once asked more questions: “Are you here in Moscow for long? Is it just a quick visit, or will you be staying for some time?”
“Heavens,” said Nina. “I’d quite forgotten. My colleague will be here any moment. We’re going to the station together.”
Viktor saw Nina to the door. Novikov heard him follow her out onto the landing.
Viktor returned. Not knowing where to begin, he asked, “You haven’t said anything about Zhenya. She hasn’t left Stalingrad already, has she?”
Clearly embarrassed, Novikov barked out in his most official voice, “Yevgenia Nikolaevna asked me to pass on her greetings. I forgot to say this.”
Just then something passed between them. It was what happens when two electric wires are brought together, when two prickly, bristling angry wire-ends are finally united—when a current begins to flow, when a lamp lights up and all that in the twilight looked alien and hostile becomes sweet and welcoming.
After exchanging quick looks, they both smiled. “You must stay the night,” said Viktor.
Novikov thanked Viktor but said that he might be called any moment to the People’s Commissariat of Defence and that he had already given them a different address. It was impossible for him to stay at Viktor’s.
“How are things around Stalingrad?” asked Viktor.
Novikov was silent. Then he said, “Bad.”
“What do you think? Will we stop them?”
“We have to stop them. And so we will.”
“Why have to?”
“If we don’t, we’re finished.”
“A compelling reason. Here in Moscow, I have to say, people seem calm and confident. There’s even talk about bringing back factories and institutes that have been evacuated. Some say the situation is improving.”
“They’re wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“The situation is not improving. The Germans are still advancing.”
“And our reserves? Do we have many? And where are they positioned?”
“That is something neither you nor I are supposed to know about. That is a matter for the Stavka.”
“Yes,” Viktor said thoughtfully. He lit a cigarette. Then he asked if Novikov had seen Tolya during his two days in Stalingrad. He asked for news of Sofya Osipovna and Alexandra Vladimirovna.
And in the course of this conversation—though less from what he said and more from his smile or from a sudden serious look in his eyes—Viktor came to feel that Novikov already understood these people he had known for so long and whose behaviour he had puzzled over so very often.
Novikov said with a laugh that Marusya was educating all the children in the province—including her husband and daughter. He said that Alexandra Vladimirovna worried about everyone—and above all, about Seryozha—but that she got through as much work as any two normal people half her age. And he said of Sofya Osipovna, “Sometimes she recites poetry to me, but she’s as tough as they come. She could even cope with our general.”
He said nothing more about Zhenya, and Viktor did not ask. It was as if they had an unwritten agreement.
Gradually they slipped back into talking about the war. The war in those days was like some great sea where every river had its source and into which every river flowed back.
Novikov spoke of field commanders and staff officers who showed real initiative, and then he would begin cursing some bureaucrat who never missed an opportunity to play safe or pass the buck. From his gestures and tone of voice when he began to repeat this bureaucrat’s words about “the axis of movement” and “the tempo of the advance,” Viktor felt he could almost have been talking about Sukhov, the institute’s former director.
Novikov’s unexpected arrival had upset Viktor. Now he felt full of goodwill, even tenderness, towards him.
He remembered a thought that had first occurred to him many years ago, about how the apparently striking differences between Soviet people—their looks, their professions and interests—were often only superficial. The unity these things obscured was far deeper. There might seem little in common between Viktor Shtrum, an expert in mathematical theories of physics, and a front-line colonel, a man who could begin sentences with the words “As a professional soldier . . .”
But he and Novikov turned out to have a great deal in common. Many of their thoughts were similar. They loved the same things and were pained by the same things. In many ways they were brothers.
“Really, everything’s very simple,” he said to himself, somewhat mistakenly.
Viktor told Novikov about the meeting with Postoev and said what he’d been thinking about the future course of the war. When Novikov was about to leave, he said, “I’ll go with you. I need to send a telegram.”
They said goodbye on Kaluga Square. Viktor went to the post office and sent a telegram to his family in Kazan, saying he was in good health, that things were going well with the work plan, and that he should be able to return at the end of the following week.