Евгений Водолазкин - Solovyov and Larionov

The wind was flattening flyers against the fence at the Tsar’s Garden; they had been scattered around several days ago. The general picked one up. In the flyer, comrade Frunze called upon Yaltans not to put up resistance. He guaranteed universal amnesty for the city’s residents. The general unclenched his fingers and the scrap of paper flew off into the empty expanse of the embankment. The city’s residents had no intention of putting up resistance.

Yalta was preparing for the Reds’ entry in a different way, though. Shop windows were being boarded up. Provisions and table silver were being hidden in houses. The measures were warranted but, as it later turned out, insufficient. When the city froze from horror a day later, both the stores and the table silver seemed like mere details. Yaltans did not even remember those amidst the terror that broke out, just as nobody among the Reds remembered comrade Frunze’s flyers.

Captain Kologrivov’s detachment entered the city after the smoke of the last steamship had disappeared beyond the horizon. Retreating under the Reds’ fire, Kologrivov had managed to save most of his detachment. They were saved that day at dawn by a very strong snowstorm that suddenly came down over Perekop. The blizzard allowed the detachment to leave and disoriented their pursuers. It accompanied the detachment for half the day, hiding it in a solid snowy shroud. Kologrivov’s detachment had not perished. They had lost their way.

In the thick snow, the detachment took a mistaken course from the start—to the peninsula’s eastern extremity—rather than the Yalta direction that General Larionov had instructed. They did not figure out their mistake until the dead of night, at the Vladislavovka junction railway station. Instead of moving toward the nearest port, Feodosia, and getting on a ship there, the detachment stayed true to the order and turned back, to the west. In order to get to Yalta, they headed along the road they had already traveled, toward the center of the peninsula, not turning south until then. Only toward the evening of the next day did Captain Kologrivov’s detachment turn up in Yalta.

When he welcomed the detachment, the general did not consider accommodating them in barracks. He housed them in homes that (according to his information) had been vacated during the evacuation. Rest was a vital necessity for the soldiers after their grueling passage. Burning their military uniforms was just as necessary for them. The general ordered that they begin with that.

He himself went to the city theater. After a brief meeting in the wardrobe room, they brought him all their Tatar costumes (around two dozen) and craftsman costumes (eight). Everything was fine with the Tatar clothing but the craftsman costumes had an ineradicably foreign air to them (they had been sewn in Italy). Furthermore, they were tidy in a nonlocal way. After some thought, the general refused them, instead requesting tuxedoes with top hats; the props for The Merry Widow were checked, as well, while searching for those. Several chimneysweeper costumes were found, too, along with ethereal prop-room ladders that the general preferred to refuse: he said he was not encouraging superfluous theatricality. He also asked if the theater had any costumes for paupers but all they found were tatters for a holy fool ( Boris Godunov ); this was unacceptably light-weight for the month of November. The general took individual pieces from the theater’s wardrobe—including a dozen sashes and hats—to have in reserve. He ordered that everything he set aside be loaded on a cart and brought to the Oreanda Hotel. Written in the notebook’s margin in the general’s hand, opposite the story of visiting the theater, was ‘a good idea.’

Not everyone, however, thought it was a good idea. That became obvious when the tardy detachment formed up by the Oreanda Hotel at dawn. The soldiers heard out the general’s explanations and glumly confirmed their readiness to submit to his orders. These were essentially neither explanations nor orders. The general did not explain anything and, even more so, did not order anything. He simply spoke about what, in his opinion, would be best to do at the given moment. The soldiers understood little of what was happening and one can only guess exactly what thoughts were slinking around in their heads regarding their military commander’s condition. Their sullenness was, as the saying goes, written all over their faces, but the inertia of their esteem for the general kept them from insubordination. In the end, they, too, lacked plans for how to save themselves.

The general headed toward the Yalta city limits with a group of horsemen dressed in Tatar costumes. The horsemen swayed beautifully in their saddles, as befits those who grew accustomed to horses in childhood. The general reminisced about how, many years ago, a horse had pawed at the ground, bringing down a rain of pebbles in a gorge. He then noticed one of his cavalrymen making his horse paw at the ground and he nodded approvingly. He recognized the Petersburg dressage school. Pebbles bounced off ledges in the gorge and flew even better than in the general’s childhood. The other horsemen kept to a steady trot and the general listened carefully to their hoofbeats. Resonant clopping on the stony road blended with dull thudding on ivy growing over the road. The rhythm should not betray any anxiety. It was the rhythm of people far from war. Someone needed to fetch kumys from the nearest Tatar village. The general said he wanted them to ride with kumys. He thought he had made provisions for everything, down to the smallest details. They looked at him with undisguised surprise. After the general had ridden off, Captain Kologrivov explained to the soldiers: ‘What has occurred once before carries a seal of approval. Do as he orders.’

‘One cannot step into the same river twice,’ objected warrant officer Sviridov.

He had left his third year of philosophy studies to go to war.

‘It doesn’t matter what river we’re stepping into,’ said Captain Kologrivov. ‘The main thing now is to not drown.’

Spurring his horse, he galloped off after the general. They had much to accomplish in the day ahead. To begin with, they placed some brand-new shoeshine booths on the corners of several streets (the ones that had stood there previously had been dismantled for firewood by residents during a cold spell). The general ordered that the booth on Morskaya Street be moved fifty meters away from the corner since it had stood on that very spot during his childhood.

Housed in the booths were shoe shiners who mastered their profession in short order. Remembering his cadet training, the general personally showed them how to shine shoes properly. He urged them not to misapply the polish since too much polish would not allow you to attain the necessary shine. It should be taken from the jar with the very edge of the brush. The general demonstrated to the trainees the proper methods for brush-handling and for rubbing a cleaned shoe with velvet. They shined shoes pretty decently for people who had held nothing but rifles in their hands for two years.

The general placed a group of men on Autskaya Street to repair the roadway. At his request, city officials sent two cartloads of cobblestones to Autskaya (across from the St. Theodor Tiron Church). The general asked that they not send round and rough cobblestones (the kind called cats’ heads ). He ordered the highest quality paving stones: cut granite blocks.

At the city council, they attempted to draw the general’s attention to the fact that the roadway in the area around the St. Theodor Tiron Church had recently been repaired; they proposed repairing a lower, thoroughly worn, part of Autskaya Street. The general’s childhood memories, however, pointed to his chosen spot, which essentially did not permit him to agree with the city officials’ arguments. He recommended pulling up the old stones to install the new ones.