THAT EVENING, in a large room in Pryakhin’s apartment, Pryakhin and Krymov sat together drinking tea. On the table, beside their cups and the teapot, were a bottle of wine and some newspapers. The room was in a chaotic state—the sofa and the armchairs in the wrong place, the bookcase doors wide open, and the floor littered with leaflets and newspapers. Next to the sideboard were a pram and a rocking horse. A large rosy-cheeked doll with tousled blonde hair was sitting in one of the armchairs, with a toy samovar and some tiny cups on a little table in front of her. Leaning against this table was a sub-machine gun, and lying across the back of the armchair was a soldier’s greatcoat, along with a brightly coloured summer dress.
Amid all this clutter, the two tall men, with their calm movements and measured voices, seemed out of place. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Pryakhin was saying, “The loss of the ammunition dump is a real blow. But there’s something else I need to talk to you about. This city will soon be a battleground, no doubt about it. One worry we could do without is nurseries and children’s homes. So, the obkom has ordered them to be evacuated—unlike our factories, which are not to stop work for one minute. And I’ve had my family evacuated too—I’m here on my own now.” He looked around the room, then at Krymov. “Well, well, well,” he said with a shake of the head. “A lot of water has flowed under the bridge.”
He looked around the room again and said, “My wife’s very house proud. She notices every cigarette butt, every last speck of dust—but now that she’s gone . . . Look!” And he gestured around the room. “Devastation! And this is just one apartment! What can it be like in the rest of the city? A city with great furnaces! A city renowned for its steel! We have workers here who know enough to be elected to the Academy of Sciences! And our guns! Have a word with the Germans—I’m sure they’ll have something to say about the quality of our artillery. But I want to tell you about Mostovskoy. He really is one hell of an old man! I went to see him, to try and persuade him to leave. He just wouldn’t listen! ‘Why?’ he says. ‘I’ve had enough of being evacuated, I’m not moving another inch. And should the need arise,’ he goes on, ‘I could be of use underground. Yes, I could teach you youngsters a thing or two about clandestine work—I put in a good few years of that before the Revolution.’ And he spoke so forcefully that in the end it was he who talked me round, rather than me him. I gave him some contacts and personally introduced him to one of them. No, I’ve never met anyone like him!”
Krymov nodded. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the past too. And I certainly remember Mostovskoy. At one time he was living in our own small town, as an exile. And he liked to meet young people—I was only a boy then. To me he was like a god. I believed in him like a god. One day he and I went for a walk together, just outside the town. And he read the Communist Manifesto aloud to me. There was a little hill, and a summerhouse often used by lovers. But it was autumn when he and I were there. It was raining, and now and again the wind blew the rain inside. There were dead leaves flying about—and there he was, reading aloud to me. And I was so excited. I was overwhelmed. On the way back it got dark. He took my hand and said, ‘Remember these words: “Let the ruling classes tremble before a Communist Revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. And they have a world to win.”’ And there he was, with holes in his galoshes—I can still hear him squelching along. I wept.”
Pryakhin got to his feet, went up to the wall, pointed to the map and said, “And that’s just what we did. We won the world. Look! Here we are—Stalingrad! See these three factories? These three titans! Come November, Stalgres will have completed its first ten years. And here’s the city centre, and the workers’ settlements, the new buildings, the asphalted streets and squares. And here are the parks on the outskirts—the city’s ring of green.”
“This morning those parks came under fire from German mortars,” said Krymov.
“And building this city wasn’t all plain sailing!” Pryakhin continued. “It took blood and sweat. The opposites that came together—it’s hard to grasp such contradictions. There were prisoners, former kulaks, and, working right beside them, young boys and girls, Komsomol members still at school who’d left their home and family and travelled a thousand miles to help build a great factory. The cold, of course, was the same for everyone. Forty degrees below, and a wind to knock you off your feet. At night, in the workers’ barracks, you could hardly breathe . . . Smoke, oil lamps, torn, tattered clothing hanging down from the bed boards, the foulest of foul language, sentries rattling their rifles . . . It was as if we were cave dwellers, back in the Stone Age—yet look what it brought us! Fine buildings and theatres, parks and factories, our new industrial might . . . But there in the barrack you’d hear someone cough and see their bare feet hanging down. You’d look up and see some bearded old fellow, clutching his chest, his eyes shining in the half-dark. His neighbour would be fast asleep, letting out terrible groans. And I’d have to track down the work superintendent and ask why he was behind schedule with digging the foundation pits. And I knew, of course, that the man was doing all he could. He was no sentimental Christian socialist and he was at his wit’s end himself.”
“And what happened?” asked Krymov. “Did you fulfil the plan?”
“Of course! I told the work superintendent he’d better get up off his arse. Otherwise I’d have him expelled from the Party and he’d be out there with the rest of them, hacking away at the frozen earth with a crowbar. What else could I say to the man? Life was difficult. Difficult. Difficult as it gets . . . So you might think it was more fun to be creating parks and orchards. Cherries, apple trees . . . Apples of every kind—Antonovka, Oporto, Crimean, Rosemary Russet . . . Well, we invited an old scientist to the city. He was a famous man. He used to get letters from admirers all over the world—Belgium, the south of France, America. He was full of enthusiasm, excited at the thought of establishing sweet orchards on sand and clay, on the outskirts of a city of dust and sandstorms. In all the history of horticulture, he said, there’d never been a project on such a scale. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, in comparison, were a mere kitchen vegetable patch. And he was such a sweet old man—it was as if he smelled of apples himself. We made our plans and got down to work. The scientist drove out to visit the site. Once, twice, a third time. I could sense his enthusiasm souring. Conditions were harsh. There were Komsomol volunteers, but alongside them were whole brigades of former kulaks. In the end the scientist left—he couldn’t cope. And without him we made our share of mistakes. Young apple trees died in the frosts. I sent young men to tribunals and, to be honest, I sent a good few into exile myself. And then, last spring, we invited this scientist back. We put him in a car and drove him out to see our ring of green. The orchards were in blossom, thousands of Stalingraders were going out to see them. No barracks, no mounds of filth—just heavenly gardens. Butterflies, streams, the sound of bees. Where there had been only ravines, dust, barrack huts, and rusty wire. As he was leaving, he said, ‘Really, I don’t understand a thing. I don’t understand the limits of life’s goodness. I don’t understand where evil comes to an end, where it changes to good.’ Back in the old days, the least wind off the steppe used to shroud the city in dust—but now it brings with it a breath of apples. Just like that sweet old man. Yes, what we made there is quite something. A ring of green, hundreds of thousands of workers enjoying the fresh air. Sixty kilometres of park and garden.”
“First, a ring of sand and clay,” said Krymov. “Then, a ring of green. And now, a ring of iron and steel. Remember that song from 1920? ‘Our foes crowd in from every side. / We stand here in a ring of fire.’”
“I do. But let me finish. The old man was astonished. More than that, the world was astonished! And in the meantime three new factories have come online, the Tractor Factory’s annual production is now up to 50,000 units, several thousand hectares of bog have been drained and the fertility of the Akhtuba floodplain has overtaken that of the Nile Delta. And you know as well as I do how all this was accomplished. We pitted poverty against poverty. With our teeth, with our twisted, frozen fingers we tore out a new future for ourselves. Former kulaks built libraries and institutes under armed guard. In bare feet or bast shoes they created monuments to the working class. Sleeping in barns and barracks, they constructed aircraft factories. We raised Russia—all her trillion tons—to a new height. Compared with us Bolsheviks, Peter the Great was a mere child—though it may be decades before people fully grasp what a geological shift we’ve effected! And what is it that the fascists are trampling underfoot? What is it they’re burning? It’s our own sweat, our own blood, our own great work, the unparalleled achievement of workers and peasants who fought against poverty with their own bare hands, whose only weapon against poverty was poverty itself. And this is what Hitler wants to destroy. No, never before has the world seen such a war.”
For some time Krymov looked at Pryakhin in silence. Then he said, “I’m thinking how much you’ve changed. I can hardly believe it. I remember you as a young lad in a greatcoat, and now you’ve become a man of the state. You’ve been telling me about all you’ve built. And you’ve certainly climbed high in the world yourself, up into the stratosphere. But what can I say about my own life? I was a member of the international workers’ movement. I had friends in every country—friends who were workers and Communists. And now I see fascist hordes—Germans, Romanians, Italians, Hungarians and Austrians—approaching the Volga, the same Volga where I served as a commissar twenty-two years ago. You tell me you’ve built factories and planted orchards. I can see you have a family and children. But as for me and my own life . . . Why did my wife leave me? Can you tell me? I’m sorry, brother, I’m saying the wrong thing. But you’ve certainly changed. I can hardly believe it!”
“People are always growing and changing,” Pryakhin replied. “It’s nothing to be surprised about. But I recognized you at once. You’re the same man you’ve always been. In your cotton tunic and your boots with worn-down heels, though you could certainly get yourself something better. The man I remember from twenty-five years ago, on his way to the front to subvert the tsar’s army.”
“You’re right. Times change, but I don’t. I don’t know how to change. I’ve been criticized for this. But what do you think? Is that a plus or a minus, a good quality or a bad quality?”
“Always the philosopher! Another respect in which you haven’t changed!”
“Don’t make fun of me. Times change—but a human being’s not a gramophone. I can’t just play whatever record another man chooses. I’m not made that way.”
“A Bolshevik must do what the Party—and therefore the people—requires him to do. If his understanding of the needs of the time is in accord with the Party’s, then he will do the right thing.”
“I led 200 men out of encirclement. How? Because I had the faith of a revolutionary, for all my grey hairs. Because these men believed in me! They followed me! For them I was Karl Marx and Dmitry Donskoy.19 I was both a Red Army general and a village priest. We were behind German lines. We had no radio. The Germans were telling the villagers that Leningrad had fallen and that Moscow had surrendered: no Red Army, no front, everything finished . . . And I made my way east with 200 men—ragged, with dysentery, swollen from hunger, yet still hanging on to their grenades and machine guns. Every last one of us still bearing arms. At a time like that, people don’t follow a man who’s no more than a wind-up gramophone. Nor would a man like that try to lead them. Don’t tell me you’d send just anyone behind German lines!”
“True enough.”
Krymov got to his feet and paced about the room.
“Yes, my friend, it is true.”
“Sit down, Nikolay. Listen! We have to love life, all life—the earth, the forests, the Volga, and our people, and our parks and gardens. It’s as simple as that, we have to love life. You’re a destroyer of the old, but are you a builder of the new? And moving from the general to the particular, what about your own life? What have you done to build that? Sometimes, when I’m at work, I think about how I’ll soon be back home. I’ll see the children and I’ll bend down and kiss them! That’s something good. A woman, a wife, needs a great deal—and she needs children . . . And now the fascists are at the gates of this city we’ve struggled so hard to build. We can’t allow them to wreck it. They have to be stopped.”
The door opened and Barulin came in. After waiting for Pryakhin to finish, he cleared his throat and said, “Ivan Pavlovich, it’s time you left for the Tractor Factory.”
“Very well,” said Pryakhin. He looked at his watch and stood up. “Comrade Krymov, Nikolay, sit down, take your time. Yes, have a rest. Stay as long as you like. There’ll be someone on duty here till I get back.”
“I’m going too. Has my car arrived?”
“Yes,” said Barulin. “I’ve just come in off the street—I saw it waiting outside.”
Pryakhin went over to Krymov and said, “You know, I really think you should stay here a little longer. Sit down for a while!”
“What’s going on? Why this earnest advice?”
“I know what you’re like. You won’t go to the Shaposhnikovs yourself, not for anything in the world. You’re too proud. But you need to talk to her, you really do.” He bent down and said in Krymov’s ear, “You love her, you know you do.”
“Wait a moment,” said Krymov. “Just why do you want me to stay?”
“Because she’ll be here any minute. The Shaposhnikovs know that you’re here. I’m certain she’ll come.”
“What do you mean? Why? I don’t want to see her.”
“You’re lying.”
“All right, I do want to see her. But what’s the point? What can she say to me? Why would she come? To comfort me? I don’t want to be comforted.”
Pryakhin shook his head. “I really think you should talk to her. If you love her, you must fight for your happiness.”
“No, I don’t want to. Anyway, it’s not the right time. If I stay alive, maybe we’ll meet some other time.”
“That’s a great pity. I thought I could help you to rebuild your life.”
Krymov went up to Pryakhin, put his hands on his shoulders and said, “Thank you, my friend.” He smiled and added quietly, “But it seems it’s impossible, even with the help of an obkom first secretary, to arrange my personal happiness.”
“All right,” said Pryakhin. “It’s time we were off.”
He called Barulin and said to him, “If a young, beautiful female comrade comes and asks for comrade Krymov, please apologize on his behalf and say he was called back to his unit on urgent business.”
“No, comrade Barulin, please do not apologize. Just say that Krymov’s gone, and that he did not leave a message.”
“It seems you really have been wounded,” said Pryakhin, as he made his way towards the door. “Badly wounded.”
“Yes,” said Krymov, “very badly indeed.” And he followed Pryakhin out.