Vasily Grossman - Life And Fate

By then Hitler, Roosevelt and Churchill were looking for new crisis points in the war. Stalin was tapping the table with his finger and asking the Chief of the General Staff if arrangements had been completed to transfer the troops from Stalingrad to other Fronts. The capital of the world war, full as it was of generals, experts in street-fighting, strategic maps, armaments and well-kept communication trenches, had ceased to exist. Or rather, it had begun a new existence, similar to that of present-day Athens or Rome. Historians, museum guides, teachers and eternally bored schoolchildren, though not yet visible, had become its new masters.

At the same time, an everyday, working city was coming into being – with schools, factories, maternity homes, police, an opera and a prison.

A light dusting of snow had fallen on the paths along which men had carried shells, loaves of bread and pots of kasha to gun emplacements, along which they had dragged machine-guns, along which snipers and artillery observers had crept to their stone hiding-places.

Snow had fallen on the paths along which messengers had run between companies and battalions, the paths leading from Batyuk's division to Banniy Ovrag, to the slaughterhouse and the water-towers. Snow had fallen on the paths where the inhabitants of the wartime city had gone for a smoke, to celebrate a comrade's name-day with a few drinks, to have a wash in a cellar, to play a game of dominoes, to have a taste of a neighbour's sauerkraut. Snow had fallen on the paths leading to dear Manya and the beautiful Vera, to menders of watches and cigarette-lighters, to tailors, accordion-players and storekeepers.

A whole network of capricious, winding paths was being covered by snow; not one fresh footprint could be seen on all these thousands of kilometres. This first snowfall was soon followed by a second. The paths blurred and faded.

Meanwhile thousands of people were making new paths, ordinary paths that didn't wind about in great loops or hug the walls of ruins.

The old inhabitants of the city felt both happy and empty. After defending Stalingrad for so long, the soldiers felt strangely depressed.

The whole city was suddenly empty and everyone could feel it – from army commanders and commanders of infantry divisions to ordinary soldiers like Polyakov and Glushkov. This feeling was absurd. Why should a victorious end to the slaughter make one feel sad?

The telephone on the commanding officer's desk was silent in its yellow case. A collar of snow had settled round the housing of the machine-gun. Battery-commanders' telescopes and embrasures had clouded over. Well-thumbed maps and plans were transferred from map-cases to pouches, and sometimes to the kitbags and suitcases of commanders of platoons, companies and battalions…

At the same time crowds of people were wandering among the dead houses, shouting loud 'hurray's' and embracing one another. They looked at each other and thought: 'What fine brave lads you are! Just like us in your winter hats and your jackets! But what we've achieved doesn't even bear thinking about. We've lifted the heaviest burden in the world. We've raised up Truth over Lies. We've just accomplished what most people only read of in fairy-tales.'

All these people belonged to the same city: some of them came from Kuporosnaya Balka, others from Banniy Ovrag, others from the water-towers or from 'Red October', still others from Mamayev Kurgan. And the people who had lived in the centre, on the banks of the Tsaritsa, near the wharves, behind the oil-tanks, came out to meet them. The soldiers were both hosts and guests. The wind roared as they showered one another with congratulations. From time to time they fired a few shots into the air or let off a hand-grenade. They clapped each other on the back, threw their arms round each other, kissed with cold lips and then broke into light-hearted curses… They had all risen up from under the earth: metal-workers, turners, ploughmen, carpenters, navvies… They had ploughed up stone, iron and clay; together they had fought off the enemy.

A world capital is unique not only because it is linked with the fields and factories of the whole world. A world capital is unique because it has a soul. The soul of wartime Stalingrad was freedom.

The capital of the war against the Fascists was now no more than the icy ruins of what had once been a provincial industrial city and port.

Here, ten years later, was constructed a vast dam, one of the largest hydro-electric power stations in the world – the product of the forced labour of thousands of prisoners.

The German officer had only just woken up and hadn't yet heard the news of the surrender. He had fired a shot at Sergeant Zadnyepruk and slightly wounded him. This had aroused the wrath of the Russians in charge of the operation: the German soldiers were filing out of their vast bunkers and throwing down their arms, with a loud clatter, onto the steadily growing pile of tommy-guns and rifles.

The prisoners tried to look straight ahead – as a sign that even their gaze was now captive. Private Schmidt was the only exception: he had smiled as he came out into the daylight and then looked up and down the Russian ranks as though he were sure of glimpsing a familiar face.

Colonel Filimonov, who was slightly drunk after arriving from Moscow the day before, was standing beside his interpreter and watching General Wegler's division surrender their arms. His greatcoat with its new gold epaulettes, its red tabs and black edging, stood out among the filthy, scorched jackets and crumpled caps of the Russian officers and the equally filthy, scorched, crumpled clothes of the German prisoners. He had said yesterday in the Military Soviet canteen that the central commissariat in Moscow still contained supplies of gold braid that had been used for epaulettes in pre-revolutionary days; it was the done thing among his circle of friends to have one's epaulettes sewn from this fine old braid.

When he heard the shot and Zadnyepruk's wounded cry, Filimonov shouted: 'What was that? Who's shooting?'

'Some fool of a German,' several voices answered. 'They're bringing him along… he says he didn't know.'

'Didn't know?' shouted Filimonov. 'Hasn't the swine spilt enough of our blood?'

He turned to his interpreter, a tall Jewish political instructor.

'Bring me that officer straight away. I'll make him pay for that shot with his life!'

Just then Filimonov caught sight of Schmidt's large, smiling face and shouted: 'So it makes you laugh, does it, to know that another of our men's been crippled? I'll teach you, you swine!'

Schmidt was unable to understand why his well-meaning smile should have made this Russian officer scream at him with such fury. Then he heard a pistol shot, seemingly quite unconnected with these shouts. No longer understanding anything at all, he stumbled and fell beneath the feet of the soldiers behind. His body was dragged out of the way; it lay there on one side while the other soldiers marched past. After that, a group of young boys, who were certainly not afraid of a mere corpse, climbed down into the bunkers and began probing about under the plank-beds.

Colonel Filimonov, meanwhile, was inspecting the battalion commander's underground quarters and admiring their comfort and solidity. A soldier brought in a young German officer with calm clear eyes.

'Comrade Colonel,' said the interpreter, 'this is the man you asked to have brought to you – Lieutenant Lenard.'

'This one?' asked Filimonov in surprise. He liked the look of the officer's face and he was upset at having been involved, for the first time in his life, in a murder. 'Take him to the assembly point. And no mucking about! I want him alive and I shall hold you responsible.'