Евгений Водолазкин - Solovyov and Larionov

Solovyov left the institute and went to the train station. He boarded a trolleybus but then got out at the very first stop and returned to the institute. In the clerical office, he requested a referral letter for the Rumyantsev Library. Just in case. When he got to the station, he learned that the earliest train was leaving in three hours; he bought a ticket. This was a very early train that arrived in Moscow at 4:30 in the morning; the library opened at nine. But Solovyov preferred waiting in Moscow to waiting in Petersburg. Inactivity felt intolerable to him now. On top of that, waiting in Moscow was waiting near Leeza.

At home, Solovyov tossed the most necessary items into a bag. He thought for a moment, then also put in the folder he had received: he had not even had a chance to open it yet. In memory of his trip to Crimea, he took a can of food. Meat he had bought at a nearby store. For an instant, he had the feeling he was leaving forever. Solovyov looked around. He had everything he needed. He shut the door hard and turned the key in the lock twice. It sounded like two distant gunshots in the echoing stairwell. Like an echo of Solovyov’s decisive actions. The clanking of the key had its own significance, even a point of no return, inasmuch, needless to say, as that descriptor could be attached to a key. Solovyov caught a taxi outside. He rode up to the station a half-hour before the train’s departure.

He went into the entrance hall and bought a newspaper. As he left the entrance hall, he put it in a trash bin. He took the can from his bag and gave it to a pauper. Went out to the platform. Under bright spotlights, pipes on the carriages were belching smoke. Or steam. Most likely steam: it disappeared instantly over the carriages’ roofs, which glistened with ice. Conductors wearing black felt boots stood by the carriage doors. They blew into their mittens from time to time, pressing their lips to their wrists. Sometimes knocking one felt boot against another with a muffled sound. Solovyov showed his ticket and went to his compartment. He greeted the three women who were already sitting there. They answered in chorus. It was nice for him that they were women, not men. The train began moving.

Only after Solovyov had climbed up to the top bunk did he remember the folder. He went back down, got the folder, and crawled back up with it. He turned on the lamp over his head. After getting used to the dim lighting, he opened the folder. He was flabbergasted.

After everything he had heard during the day, he had found something now that was capable of stunning him. There, in the poorly lighted bunk, Solovyov held in his hands the end of the general’s memoirs. He could recognize that handwriting in any lighting. Yes, he was stunned. But not surprised.

In the folder was a photocopy of the notebook Filipp had taken at one time and which had suddenly surfaced in the form of a new acquisition for the library. It remained unclear if it had been acquired from Filipp, where Filipp himself was, and whether he was still on the face of the Earth at all. There were no library markings on the manuscript at all other than the call number.

It was a thick notebook with graph paper. It was too large to copy with facing pages, so each page was copied individually, making for many sheets. Strictly speaking, the notebook could have fit the copier with the pages facing, albeit without the margins: from time to time, the general had made markings in the margins (which he had neatly ruled in pencil). Judging from the various shades of ink, the markings were made at different times. The general had obviously reread his writings more than once and left remarks and additions. ‘Dead.’ Or: ‘Still alive.’ Or (facing the words ‘It was cold’): ‘It was not so much cold as damp.’

It was not so much cold as damp when the remnants of the White Army rolled off toward Chongar. The bulk of the troops had already left Perekop a few days before and were now being loaded onto transports in the ports. The cavalry that remained on the Perekop Peninsula had covered their retreat. The cavalry then held on there until the general received a report one night that his troops were already in the ports. The cavalry soundlessly left Perekop that same night.

The heavy weapons had been disabled. They had removed the locks and left them in position. They had not extinguished their campfires, which Captain Kologrivov’s detachment was to watch over until morning. These 150 volunteers had offered to remain until morning. They covered the retreat of Perekop’s last defenders.

They led the horses by their bridles for the first several hundred meters. They saddled them before reaching Armyansk and the cavalry moved off at a trot. In the vicinity of Dzhelishay, a small number of the troops turned toward Yevpatoria and the rest continued on toward Yalta and Sevastopol. As he ascended Chongarsky Pass, the general was thinking of those who remained on Perekop. In his mind he asked their forgiveness.

A snowstorm came up on the pass. The huge, wet snowflakes did not drop to the ground. They got caught in the wind and drifted, on a low-altitude flight. Where the pass began to dip, the snowflakes soared upward, as if the hanging, murky clouds were already waiting for them to come back. It slowly grew light.

Sitting motionless in the saddle, the general observed as the remnants of his army laboriously descended from the pass. The horses began slipping on the icy road, scrabbling to keep their balance, sometimes sitting on their haunches. Some fell, trapping their riders beneath them and pinning them to the frozen mud. Shouts and foul language hung over the pass. Many dismounted and carefully led the horses down, holding them by the reins. ‘Motion along an inclined plane,’ was the general’s notation in the margin.

When they arrived in Yalta, the general gave everyone several hours to rest. He headed for evacuation headquarters, stationed in the Oreanda Hotel. The general carefully familiarized himself with the list of evacuated personnel and inventory of vessels. He assigned the transportable wounded to the steamship Tsesarevich Georgy. (Bela Kun would shoot the untransportable wounded two days later.) The steamship Kronshtadt , on which the Sevastopol Navy Hospital and the Mine and Artillery School were evacuating, took numerous wounded. The rest were loaded on ships with their own troop units.

There were not enough vessels. At the last minute, the transports Siam , Sedzhet , Rion , Yakut , and Almaz were added to the available tonnage. Under the general’s order, everything in the Crimean ports that was capable of staying afloat, including old barges, was made available for the needs of the evacuation. It worked out to 126 large and small vessels. The majority of them were already prepared to sail and stood at outer anchorage.

After noon, a launch was sent directly to the Oreanda and the general, accompanied by his deputy, Admiral Kutepov, headed to the anchorage. The launch went past steamships packed with people. Past barges so laden that their sides nearly dipped into the water. It was frightening to let them set sail. But it was even more frightening to keep them here.

The general climbed up a rope ladder to the cruiser General Kornilov . The crowd on deck was so dense that it was almost unable to part when the general made his appearance. As he crossed the deck, he could barely elbow his way behind the Cossacks clearing a path for him. The exact same sort of crowd languished in the hold. At least it was warmer there than on deck, but there was already a palpable stench: there was only one toilet for the entire hold. The hold’s largest compartment turned out to be under lock and key.

‘What’s in there?’ asked the general.