MIKHAIL BULGAKOV: THE WHITE GUARD

'What - two were frozen to death?'

'What d'you expect? One cadet and one officer. But the best part was what happened at Popelukho, that's the village near the Tavern. Lieutenant Krasin and I went there to try and find a sledge to carry away the men who'd been frostbitten. The village was completely dead - not a soul to be seen. We hunted around, then finally out crawled some old man in a sheepskin coat, walking with a crutch. He was overjoyed when he saw us, believe it or not. I felt at once that something was wrong. What's up, I wondered? Then that miserable old bastard started shouting: "Hullo there, lads . . ." So I put on an act and spoke to him in Ukrainian. "Give us a sledge, dad", I said. And he said: "Can't. Them officers have pinched all the sledges and taken them off to Post." I winked at Krasin and asked the old man: "God damn the officers. Where've all your lads disappeared to?" And what d'you think he said? "They've all run off to join Petlyura." How d'you like that, eh? He was so blind, he couldn't see that we had officers' shoulder-straps under our hoods and he took us for a couple of Petlyura's men. Well, I couldn't keep it up any longer . . . the cold ... I lost my temper ... I grabbed hold of the old man so hard he almost jumped out of his skin and I shouted-in Russian this time: "Run off to Petlyura, have they? I'm going to shoot you-then you'll learn how to run off to Petlyura! I'm going to make you run off to Kingdom Come, you old wretch!" Well, then of course this worthy old son of the soil (here Myshlaevsky let out a torrent of abuse like a shower of stones) saw what was up. He jumped up and screamed: "Oh, sir, oh sir, forgive an old man, I was joking, I can't see so well any more, I'll give you as many horses as you want, right away sir, only don't shoot me!" So we got our horses and sledge.'

'Well, it was evening by the time we got to Post-Volynsk. The chaos there was indescribable. I counted four batteries just standing around still limbered up - no ammunition, apparently. Innumerable staff officers everywhere, but of course not one of them had the slightest idea of what was going on. The worst of it was, we couldn't find anywhere to unload our two dead men. In the end we found a first-aid wagon. If you can believe it they threw our corpses away by force, wouldn't take them. Told us to drive into the City and dispose of them there! That made us really mad. Krasin wanted to shoot one of the staff officers, who said: "You're behaving like Petlyura" and vanished. Finally at nightfall I found Shchetkin's headquarters car - first class, of course, electric light . . . And what d'you think happened? Some filthy little man, a sort of orderly, wouldn't let us in. Huh! "He's asleep," he said, "the colonel's given orders he's not to be disturbed." Well, I pinned him to the wall with my rifle-butt and all our men behind me started yelling. This brought them tumbling out of the railroad car. Out crawled Shchetkin and started trying to sweeten us. "Oh, my God", he said, "how terrible for you. Yes, of course, right away. Orderly - soup and brandy for these gentlemen. Three days' special furlough for all of you. Sheer heroism. It's terrible about your casualties, but they died in a noble cause. I was so worried about you . . ." And you could smell the brandy on his breath a mile away . . . Aaah!' Suddenly Myshlaevsky yawned and began to nod drowsily. As though asleep he muttered:

'They gave our detachment a car to themselves and a stove . . . But I wasn't so lucky. He obviously wanted to get me out of the way after that scene. "I'm ordering you into town, lieutenant.

Report to General Kartuzov's headquarters." Huh! Rode into town on a locomotive . . . freezing . . . Tamara's Castle . . . vodka ...'

The cigarette dropped out of Myshlaevsky's mouth, he leaned hack in the chair and immediately started snoring.

'God, what a story . . .' said Nikolka, in a bemused voice.

'Where's Elena?' enquired the elder brother anxiously. 'Take him to get washed. He'll need a towel.'

Elena was weeping in the bathroom, where beside the zinc bath dry birch logs were crackling in the boiler. The wheezy little kitchen clock struck eleven. She was convinced Talberg was dead. The train carrying money had obviously been attacked, the escort killed, and blood and brains were scattered all over the snow. Elena sat in the half-darkness, the firelight gleaming through her rumpled halo of hair, tears pouring down her cheeks. He's dead, dead . ..

Then came the gentle, tremulous sound of the door bell, filling the whole apartment. Elena raced through the kitchen, through the dark library and into the brighter light of the dining-room. The black clock struck the hour and ticked slowly on again.

But after their first outburst of joy the mood of Nikolka and his elder brother very quickly subsided. Their joy was in any case more for Elena's sake. The wedge-shaped badges of rank of the Hetman's War Ministry had a depressing effect on the Turbin brothers. Indeed dating from long before those badges, practically since the day Elena had married Talberg, it was as if some kind of crack had opened up in the bowl of the Turbins' life and imperceptibly the good water had drained away through it. The vessel was dry. The chief reason for this, it seems, lay in the double-layered eyes of Staff Captain Sergei Ivanovich Talberg . . .

Be that as it may, the message in the uppermost layer of those eyes was now clearly detectable. It was one of simple human delight in warmth, light and safety. But deeper down was plain fear, which Talberg had brought with him on entering the house. As always, the deepest layer of all was, of course, hidden, although naturally nothing showed on Talberg's face. Broad, tightly-

buckled belt; his two white graduation badges - the university and military academy - shining bravely on his tunic. Beneath the black clock on the wall his sunburned face turned from side to side like an automaton. Although Talberg was extremely cold, he smiled benevolently round at them all. But there was fear even in his benevolence. Nikolka, his long nose twitching, was the first to sense this. In a slow drawl Talberg gave an amusing description of how he had been in command of a train carrying money to the provinces, how it had been attacked by God knows who somewhere about thirty miles outside the City. Elena screwed up her eyes in horror and clutched at Talberg's badges, the brothers made suitable exclamations and Myshlaevsky snored on, dead to the world, showing three gold-capped teeth.

'Who were they? Petlyura's?'

'Well if they were,' said Talberg, smiling condescendingly yet nervously, 'it's unlikely that I would be . . . er . . . talking to you now. I don't know who they were. They may just have been a stray bunch of Nationalists. They climbed all over the train, waving their rifles and shouting "Whose train is this?" So I answered "Nationalist". Well, they hung around for a while longer, then I heard somebody order them off the train and they all vanished. I suppose they were looking for officers. They probably thought the escort wasn't Ukrainian at all but manned by loyalist Russian officers.' Talberg nodded meaningfully towards the chevron on Nikolka's sleeve, glanced at his watch and added unexpectedly: 'Elena, I must have a word with you in our room ...'

Elena hastily followed him out into the bedroom in the Talbergs' half of the apartment, where above the bed a falcon sat perched on the Tsar's white sleeve, where a green-shaded lamp glowed softly on Elena's writing desk and on the mahogany bedside table a pair of bronze shepherds supported the clock which played a gavotte every three hours.

With an incredible effort Nikolka succeeded in wakening Myshlaevsky, who staggered down the passage, twice crashing into doorways, and fell asleep again in the bath. Nikolka kept watch on him to make sure that he did not drown. Alexei Turbin, without conscious reason, paced up and down the dark living-room, pressed his face to the windowpane and listened: once again, from far away and muffled as though in cotton wool came the occasional distant harmless rumble of gunfire.