第 55 页

The saddles creaked rhythmically as the horses trotted along at an even, soothing pace, their breath congealing into momentary plumes of white vapour in the frosty air. A hoary rime stood out around the nostrils of the black stallion. Stepping gracefully, her fine neck arched, the Battalion Commander's dappled mare was playing with her bit. Both horsemen wore army greatcoats belted in at the waist and with three red squares on the sleeves; the only difference was that Battalion Commander Gavrilov's collar tabs were green, while his companion's were red.

Gavrilov was with the Frontier Guards; it was his battalion that manned the frontier posts on this seventy-kilometre stretch, he was the man in charge of this frontier belt. His companion was a visitor from Berezdov — Battalion Commissar Korchagin of the universal military training system.

It had snowed during the night and now the snow lay white and fluffy, untouched by either man or beast. The two men cantered out from the woods and were about to cross an open stretch some forty paces from border posts when Gavrilov suddenly reined in his horse. Korchagin wheeled around to see Gavrilov leaning over from his saddle and inspecting a curious trail in the snow that looked as if someone had been running a tiny cogwheel over the surface. Some cunning little beast had passed here leaving behind the intricate, confusing pattern. It was hard to make out which way the creature had been travelling, but it was not this that caused the Battalion Commander to halt.

Two paces away lay another trail under a powdery sprinkling of snow — the footsteps of a man.There was nothing uncertain about these footprints — they led straight toward the woods, and there was not the slightest doubt that the intruder had come from the Polish side. The Battalion Commander urged on his horse and followed the tracks to the sentry path. The footprints showed distinctly for a dozen paces or so on the Polish side.

"Somebody crossed the border last night," muttered the Battalion Commander. "The third platoon has been napping again — no mention of it in the morning report!" Gavrilov's greying moustache silvered by his congealed breath hung grimly over his lip.

In the distance two figures were approaching — one a slight man garbed in black and with the blade of a French bayonet gleaming in the sun, the other a giant in a yellow sheepskin coat. The dappled mare responded to a jab in her flanks and briskly the two riders bore down on the approaching pair. As they came, the Red Army man hitched up the rifle on his shoulder and spat out the butt of his cigarette into the snow.

"Hullo, Comrade. How's everything on your sector?" The Battalion Commander stretched out his hand to the Red Army man, who hurriedly removed a mitt to return the handclasp. So tall was the frontier guard that the Commander hardly had to bend forward in his saddle to reach him.

The Pole looked on from a distance. Here were two Red officers greeting a soldier as they would a close friend. For a moment he pictured himself shaking hands with Major Zakrzewski, but the very thought was so shocking that he glanced furtively over his shoulder.

"Just look over, Comrade Battalion Commander," reported the Red Army man.

"Seen the track over there?"

"No, not yet."

"Who was on duty here from two to six at night?"

"Surotenko, Comrade Battalion Commander."

"All right, but keep your eyes open."

As the Commander was about to ride on he added a stern word of warning:

"And you'd better keep away from those fellows."

"You have to keep your eyes open on the border," the Commander said to his companion as their horses cantered along the broad road leading from the frontier to Berezdov. "The slightest slip can cost you dearly. Can't afford to take a nap on a job like ours. In broad daylight it's not so easy to skip the border, but at night we've got to be on the alert. Now judge for yourself, Comrade Korchagin. On my sector the frontier cuts right through four villages, which complicates things considerably. No matter how close you place your guards you'll find all the relatives from the one side of the line attending every wedding or feast held on the other. And no wonder — it's only a couple of dozen paces from cottage to cottage and the creek's shallow enough for a chicken to wade across. And there's some smuggling being done, too. True, much of it on a petty scale — an old woman carting across a bottle or two of Polish vodka and that sort of thing. But there is quite a bit of large-scale contraband traffic — people with big money to operate with. Have you heard that the Poles have opened shops in all the border villages where you can get practically everything you want? Those shops aren't intended for their own pauperised peasants, you may be sure."

As he listened to the Battalion Commander, Korchagin reflected that life on the border must resemble an endless scouting mission.

"Probably there's something more serious than smuggling going on. What do you say, Comrade Gavrilov?"

"That's just the trouble," the Battalion Commander replied gloomily.

Berezdov was a small backwoods town that had been within the Jewish pale of residence. It had two or three hundred small houses scattered haphazardly, and a huge market square with a couple of dozen shops in the middle. The square was filthy with manure. Around the town proper were the peasant huts. In the Jewish central section, on the road to the slaughter house, stood an old synagogue — a rickety, depressing building. Although the synagogue still drew crowds on Saturdays, its heyday had gone, and the rabbi lived a life that was by no means to his liking. What happened in 1917 must have been evil indeed if even in this Godforsaken corner the youngsters no

longer accorded him the respect due his position. True, the old folk would still eat only kosher food, but how many of the youngsters indulged in the pork sausage which God had cursed. The very thought was revolting! And Rabbi Borukh in a fit of temper kicked viciously at a pig that was assiduously digging in a heap of manure in search of something edible. The rabbi was not at all pleased that Berezdov had been made a district centre, nor did he approve of these Communists who had descended on the place from the devil knows where and were now turning things upside down. Each day brought some fresh unpleasantness. Yesterday, for instance, he had seen a new

sign over the gate of the priest's house: "Berezdov District Committee, Young Communist League of the Ukraine," it had read.

To expect this sign to augur anything but ill would be useless, mused the rabbi. So engrossed was he in his thoughts that he did not notice the small announcement pasted on the door of his synagogue before he actually bumped into it.

A public meeting of working youth will be held today at the club. The speakers will be Lisitsyn, Chairman of the Executive Committee, and Korchagin, Acting Secretary of the Komsomol District Committee. After the meeting a concert will be given by the pupils of the nine-year school.

In a fury the rabbi tore down the sheet of paper. The struggle had begun.

In the centre of a large garden adjoining the local church stood an old house that had once belonged to the priest. A deadly air of boredom filled the musty emptiness of the rooms in which the priest and his wife had lived, two people as old and as dull as the house itself and long bored with one another. The dreariness was swept away as soon as the new masters of the place moved in. The big hall in which the former pious residents had entertained guests only on church holidays was now always full of people, for the house was the headquarters of the Berezdov Communist Party Committee. On the door leading into a small room to the right just inside the front hall the words "Komsomol District Committee" had been written in chalk. Here Korchagin spent part of his working day. Besides being Military Commissar of the Second Universal Military Training Battalion he was also Acting Secretary of the newly-organised Komsomol District Committee.

Eight months had passed since that gathering at Anna's, yet it seemed that it had been only yesterday. Korchagin pushed the stack of papers aside, and leaning back in his chair gave himself up to his thoughts. ...

The house was still. It was late at night and the Party Committee office was deserted. Trofimov, the Committee's Secretary, had gone home some time ago, leaving Korchagin alone in the building. Frost had woven a fantastic pattern on the window, but the room was warm. A paraffin lamp was burning on the table. Korchagin recalled the recent past. He remembered how in August the shop Komsomol organisation had sent him as a youth organiser with a repair train to Yekaterinoslav. Until late autumn he had travelled with the train's crew of a hundred and fifty from station to station bringing order into the chaotic aftermath of war, repairing damage and clearing away the remnants of smashed and burnt-out railway carriages. Their route took them from Sinelnikovo to Polog, through country where the bandit Makhno had once operated leaving behind him a trail of wreckage and wanton destruction. In Gulyai-Polye a whole week went into repairing the brick structure of the water tower and patching the sides of the dynamited water tank with iron sheets. Though lacking the skill of a fitter and unaccustomed to the heavy work, Pavel wielded a wrench along with the others and tightened more thousands of rusty bolts than he could remember.

Late in the autumn the train returned home and the railway shops again were the richer for a hundred and fifty pairs of hands. . . .

Pavel was now a more frequent visitor at Anna's place. The crease on his forehead smoothed out and his infectious laughter could again be heard.

Once again the grimy-faced fraternity from the railway shops gathered to hear him talk of bygone years of struggle, of the attempts made by rebellious but enslaved peasant Russia to overthrow the crowned monster that sat heavily on her shoulders, of the insurrections of Stepan Razin and Pugachov.

One evening at Anna's, when even more young people than usual had gathered there, Pavel announced that he was going to give up smoking, which unhealthy habit he had acquired at an early age.

"I'm not smoking any more," he declared firmly.

It all came about unexpectedly. One of the young people present had said that habit — smoking, for instance — was stronger than will power. Opinions were divided. At first Pavel said nothing, but drawn in by Talya, he finally joined the debate.

"Man governs his habits, and not the other way round. Otherwise what would we get?"

"Sounds fine, doesn't it?" Tsvetayev put in from his corner. "Korchagin likes to talk big. But why doesn't he apply his wisdom to himself? He smokes, doesn't he? He knows it's a rotten habit. Of course he does. But he isn't man enough to drop it." Then, changing his tone, Tsvetayev went on with a cold sneer: "He was busy 'spreading culture' in the study circles not so long ago. But did this prevent him from using foul language? Anyone who knows Pavel will tell you that he doesn't swear very often, but when he does he certainly lets himself go. It's much easier to lecture others than to be virtuous yourself."

There was a strained silence. The sharpness of Tsvetayev's tone had laid a chill on the gathering.

Korchagin did not reply at once. Slowly he removed the cigarette from between his lips and said quietly:

"I'm not smoking any more."

Then, after a pause, he added:

"I'm doing this more for myself than for Dimka. A man who can't break himself of a bad habit isn't worth anything. That leaves only the swearing to be taken care of. I know I haven't quite overcome that shameful habit, but even Dimka admits that he doesn't hear me curse very often. It's harder to stop a foul word from slipping out than to stop smoking, so I can't say at the moment that I've finished with that too. But I will."

Just before the frosts set in, rafts of firewood drifting down the river jammed the channel. Then the autumn floods broke them up and the much-needed fuel was swept away by the rushing waters. And again Solomenka sent its people to the rescue, this time to save the precious wood.

Unwilling to drop behind the others, Korchagin concealed the fact that he had caught a bad chill until a week later, when the wood had been piled high on shore. The icy water and the chill dankness of autumn had awakened the enemy lurking in his blood and he came down with a high fever. For two weeks acute rheumatism racked his body, and when he returned from hospital, he was able to work at the vice only by straddling the bench. The foreman would look at him and shake his head sadly. A few days later a medical board declared him unfit for work and he was given his discharge pay and papers certifying his right to a pension. This, however, he indignantly refused to accept.

With a heavy heart he left the shops. He moved about slowly, leaning on his stick, but every step caused excruciating pain. There were several letters from his mother asking him to come home for a visit, and each time he thought of her, her parting words came back to his mind: "I never see you unless you're crippled!"

At the Gubernia Committee he was handed his Komsomol and Party registration cards and, with as few leave-takings as possible, he left town bound for home. For two weeks his mother steamed and massaged his swollen legs, and a month later to his great joy he was able to walk without the cane. Once again sunlight pierced the gloom. Before long he was back in the gubernia centre; three days there and the Organisational Department sent him to the regional military commissariat to be used as a political worker in a military training unit.

Another week passed and Pavel arrived in a small snowbound town as Military Commissar assigned to Battalion Two. The Regional Committee of the Komsomol too gave him an

assignment: to rally the scattered Komsomol members in the locality and set up a youth league organisation in the district. Thus life got into a new stride.

Outside it was stifling hot. The branch of a cherry-tree peeped in through the open window of the Executive Committee Chairman's office. Across the way the gilded cross atop the gothic belfry of the Polish church blazed in the sun. And in the yard in front of the window tiny downy goslings as green as the grass around — the property of the caretaker of the Executive Committee premises — were busily searching for food.