The White Guard Part 20

'Why should he take an oath? They They are going to swear anoath to are going to swear anoath to him.' him.'

'Well, I'd rather die, (whisper) I won't swear . . .'

'No need for you. They won't touch women.'

'They'll touch the Jews all right, that's for sure . . .'

'And the officers. They'll rip their guts out.'

'And the landlords! Down with 'em!'

'Quiet!'

With a strange look of agony and determination in his eyes the fair-haired orator pointed at the sun.

'Citizens, brothers, comrades!' he began. 'You heard the cossacks singing "Our leaders are with us, with us like brothers". Yes, they are with us!' The speaker thumped his chest with his hat, which was adorned with a huge red ribbon. 'They are with us. Because our leaders are men of the people, they were born among the people and will die with them. They stood beside us freezing in the snow when we were besieging the City and now they've captured it - and the red flag is already flying over our towns and villages here in the Ukraine . . .'

'Hurrah!'

'What red flag? What's he saying? He means yellow and blue.'

'The Bolsheviks' flag is red.'

'Quiet!'

'Hurrah!'

'He speaks bad Ukrainian, that fellow.'

'Comrades! You are now faced by a new task-to raise and strengthen the independent Ukrainian republic for the good of the toiling ma.s.ses, the workers and peasants, because only those who have watered our native soil with their fresh blood and sweat have the right to rule it!'

'Hear, hear! Hurrah!'

'Did you hear that? He called us "comrades". That's funny . . .'

'Qui-et.'

'Therefore, citizens, let us swear an oath now in the joyous hour of the people's victory.' The speaker's eyes began to flash, he stretched his arms towards the sky in mounting excitement and the Ukrainian words in his speech grew fewer and fewer - 'and let us take an oath that we will not lay down our arms until the red flag - the symbol of liberty - is waving over a world in which the workers have been victorious.'

'Hurrah! Hurrah! . . . The "Internationale" . . .'

'Shut up, Vasya. Have you gone crazy?'

'Quiet, you!'

'No, I can't help it, Mikhail Semymovich, I'm going to sing it: "Arise, ye starvelings from your slumbers . . ." '

The black sideburns disappeared into their owner's thick beaver collar and all that could be seen were his eyes glancing nervously towards his excited companion in the crowd, eyes which were strangely similar to those of the late Lieutenant Shpolyansky who had died on the night of December 14th. His hand in a yellow glove reached out and pulled Shchur's arm down . . .

'All right, all right, I won't', muttered Shchur, staring intently at the fair-haired man. The speaker, who was now well into his stride and had gripped the attention of the ma.s.s of people nearest to him, was shouting: 'Long live the Soviets of workers', peasants' and cossacks' deputies. Long live . . .'

Suddenly the sun went in and a shadow fell on the domes of St Sophia; Bogdan's face and the speaker's face were more sharply outlined. His blond lock of hair could be seen bouncing on his forehead.

'Aaah . . . aaah . . .' murmured the crowd.

'. . . the Soviets of workers', peasants' and Red Army soldiers' deputies. Workers of the world, unite!'

'What's that? What? Hurrah!'

A few men's voices and one high, resonant voice at the back of the crowd began singing 'The Red Flag'.

Suddenly, in another part of the crowd a whirlpool of noise and movement burst into life.

'Kill him! Kill him!' shouted an angry, quavering, tearful man's voice in Ukrainian 'Kill him! It's a put-up job! He's a Bolshevik! From Moscow! Kill him! You heard what he said . . .'

A pair of arms shot up into the air. The orator leaned sideways, then his legs, torso and finally his head, still wearing its hat, disappeared.

'Kill him!' shouted a thin tenor voice in response to the other. 'He's a traitor! Get him, lads!'

'Stop! Who's that? Who's that you've got there? Not him - he's the wrong one!'

The owner of the thin tenor voice lunged toward the fountain, waving his arms as though trying to catch a large, slippery fish. But Shchur, wearing a tanned sheepskin jerkin and fur hat, was swaying around in front of him shouting 'Kill him!' Then he suddenly screamed: 'Hey, stop him! He's taken my watch!'

At the same moment a woman was kicked, letting out a terrible shriek.

'Whose watch? Where? Stop thief!'

Someone standing behind the man with the thin voice grabbed him by the belt and held him whilst a large cold palm, weighing a good pound and a half, fetched him a ringing smack across his nose and mouth.

'Ow!' screamed the thin voice, turning as pale as death and realising that his fur hat had been knocked off. In that second he felt the violent sting of a second blow on the face and someone shouting: 'That's him, the dirty little thief, the son of a b.i.t.c.h! Beat him ____ 'Hey!' whined the thin voice. 'What are you hitting me for? I'm not the one! You should stop him him - that Bolshevik! - Ow!' he howled. - that Bolshevik! - Ow!' he howled.

'Oh my G.o.d, Marusya, let's get out of here, what's going on?' There was a furious, whirling scuffle in the crowd by the fountain, fists flew, someone screamed, people scattered. And the orator had vanished. He had vanished as mysteriously and magically as though the ground had swallowed him up. A man was dragged from the centre of the melee but it turned out to be the wrong one: the traitorous Bolshevik orator had been wearing a black fur hat, and this man's hat was gray. Within three minutes the scuffle had died down of its own accord as though it had never begun, because a new speaker had been lifted up on to the fountain and people were drifting back from all directions to hear him until, layer by layer around the central core, the crowd had built up again to almost two thousand people.

By the fence in the white, snow-covered side-street, now deserted as the gaping crowd streamed after the departing troops, Shchur could no longer hold in his laughter and collapsed helplessly and noisily on to the sidewalk where he stood, 'Oh, I can't help it!' he roared, clutching his sides. Laughter cascaded out of him, his white teeth glittering. 'I'll die laughing! G.o.d, when I think how they turned on him - the wrong man! -and beat him up!'

'Don't sit around here for too long, Shchur, we can't take too many risks', said his companion, the unknown man in the beaver collar who looked the very image of the late, distinguished Lieutenant Shpolyansky, chairman of The Magnetic Triolet.

'Coming, coming', groaned Shchur as he rose to his feet.

'Give me a cigarette, Mikhail Semymovich', said Shchur's other companion, a tall man in a black overcoat. He pushed his gray fur hat on to the back of his head and a lock of fair hair fell down over his forehead. He was breathing hard and looked hot, despite the frosty weather.

'What? Had enough?' the other man asked kindly as he thrust back the skirt of his overcoat, pulled out a small gold cigarette-case and offered a short, stubby German cigarette. Cupping his hands around the flame, the fair-haired man lit one, and only when he had exhaled the smoke did he say: 'Whew!'

Then all three set off rapidly, swung round the corner and vanished.

Two figures in student uniforms turned into the side-street from the square. One short, stocky and neat in gleaming rubber overshoes. The other tall, broad-shouldered, with legs as long as a pair of dividers and a stride of nearly seven feet. Both of them wore their collars turned right up to their peaked caps, and the tall man's clean-shaven mouth and chin were swathed in a woollen m.u.f.fler - a wise precaution in the frosty weather. As if at a word of command both figures turned their heads together and looked at the corpse of Captain Pleshko and the other man lying face downward across him, his knees crumpled awkwardly to one side. Without a sound they pa.s.sed on.

Then, when the two students had turned from Rylsky Street into Zhitomirskaya Street, the tall one turned to the shorter one and said in a husky tenor: 'Did you see that? Did you see that, I say?'

The shorter man did not reply but shrugged and groaned as though one of his teeth had suddenly started aching.

'I'll never forget it as long as I live,' went on the tall man, striding along, 'I shall remember that.'

The shorter man followed him in silence.

'Well, at least they've taught us a lesson. Now if I ever meet that swine . . . the Hetman . . . again . . .' - A hissing sound came from behind the m.u.f.fler - 'I'll . . .' The tall man let out a long, complicated and obscene expletive. As they turned into Bolshaya Zhitomirskaya Street their way was barred by a kind of procession making its way towards the main police station in the Old City precinct. To pa.s.s into the square the procession only had to go straight ahead, but Vladimirskaya Street, where it crossed Bolshaya Zhitomirskaya, was still blocked by cavalry marching away after the parade, so the procession, like everyone else, was obliged to stop.

It was headed by a horde of little boys, running, leapfrogging and letting out piercing whistles. Next along the trampled snow of the roadway came a man with despairing terror-stricken eyes, no hat, and a torn, unb.u.t.toned fur coat. His face was streaked with blood and tears were streaming from his eyes. From his wide, gaping mouth came a thin, hoa.r.s.e voice, shouting in an absurd mixture of Russian and Ukrainian: 'You have no right to do this to me! I'm a famous Ukrainian poet! My name's Gorbolaz. I've published an anthology of Ukrainian poetry. I shall complain to the chairman of the Rada and to the minister. This is an outrage!'

'Beat him up - the pickpocket!' came shouts from the sidewalk.

Turning desperately to all sides, the bloodstained man shouted: 'But I was trying to arrest a Bolshevik agitator . . .'

'What? What's that?'

'Who's he?'

'Tried to shoot Petlyura.'

'What?'

'Took a shot at Petlyura, the son of a b.i.t.c.h.'

'But he's a Ukrainian.'

'He's no Ukrainian, the swine', rumbled a ba.s.s voice. 'He's a pickpocket.'

'Phee-eew!' whistled the little boys contemptuously.

'What are you doing? What right have you to do this to me?'

'We've caught a Bolshevik agitator. He ought to be shot on the spot.'

Behind the bloodstained man came an excited crowd, amongst them an army fur hat with a gold-braided ta.s.sel and the tips of two bayonets. A man with a tightly-belted coat was striding alongside the bloodstained man and occasionally, whenever the victim screamed particularly loudly, mechanically punched him on the neck. Then the wretched prisoner, at the end of his tether, stopped shouting and instead began to sob violently but soundlessly.

The two students stepped back to let the procession go by. When it had pa.s.sed, the tall one seized the short one by the armand whispered with malicious pleasure: 'Serve him right. A sight for sore eyes. Well, I can tell you one thing, Karas - you have to hand it to those Bolsheviks. They really know their stuff. What a brilliant piece of work! Did you notice how cleverly they fixed things so that their speaker got clean away? They're tough and by G.o.d, they're clever. That's why I admire them - for their brazen impudence, G.o.d d.a.m.n them.'

The shorter man said in a low voice: 'If I don't get a drink in a moment I shall pa.s.s out.'

'That's a thought. Brilliant idea', the tall man agreed cheerfully. 'How much do you have on you?'

'Two hundred.'

'I have a hundred and fifty. Let's go to Tamara's bar and get a couple of bottles . . .'

'It's shut.'

'They'll open up for us.'

The two men turned on to Vladimirskaya Street and walked on until they came to a two-storey house with a sign that read: 'Grocery'

Alongside it was another: 'Tamara's Castle - Wine Cellars.' Sidling down the steps to the bas.e.m.e.nt the two men began to tap cautiously on the gla.s.s of the double door.

Seventeen.

Throughout the last few days, since events had rained down on his family like stones, Nikolka had been preoccupied with a solemn obligation, an act bound up with the last words of his commanding officer, who had died stretched out on the snow. Nikolka succeeded in discharging that obligation, but to do so he had had to spend the whole of the day before the parade running around the city and calling on no less than nine addresses. Several times during this hectic chase Nikolka had lost his presence of mind, had given up in despair, then started again, until eventually he succeeded.

In a little house on Litovskaya Street at the very edge of town he found another cadet who had served in the second company of their detachment and from him he learned the first name, patronymic and address of Colonel Nai-Turs.

As he tried to cross St Sophia's Square, Nikolka struggled against swirling waves of people. It was impossible to get across the square. Frozen, Nikolka then lost a good half-hour as he tried to struggle free of the grip of the crowd and return to his starting point - St Michael's Monastery. From there Nikolka tried, by making a wide detour along Kostelnaya Street, to work his way round to the lower end of the Kreshchatik, and from there to get through to Malo-Provalnaya Street by devious backstreets. This too proved impossible. Like everywhere else, Kostelnaya Street was blocked by troops moving uphill towards the parade. Then Nikolka made an even bigger and more curving sweep away from the center until he found himself completely alone on St Vladimir's Hill. There, along the terraces and avenues of the park, Nikolka trudged on between walls of white snow. His way took him past the open s.p.a.ce around St Vladimir's statue, where there was much less snow, and from where he could see, in the sea of snow on the hills opposite, the Imperial Gardens. Further away to the left, stretching towards Chernigov, lay the endless plains in their deep winter sleep divided from him by the river Dnieper - white and majestic between its frozen banks.

It was peaceful and utterly calm, but Nikolka had no time for calm. Fighting his way through the snow he made his way down from terrace after terrace, surprised by the occasional tracks in the snow which meant that someone beside himself had been wandering about the park in the depths of winter.

Finally, at the end of an avenue, Nikolka sighed with relief as he saw that there were no troops at this end of the Kreshchatik, and he made straight for the long-sought goal: No. 21 Malo-Provalnaya Street. This was the address that Nikolka had taken so much trouble to find and although he had not written it down, that address was deeply etched into his brain.

Nikolka felt both excited and shy. 'Who should I ask for? I don't know anything about them . . .' He rang the bell of a side door at the far end of a terraced garden. For a long time there was no answer, but at last came the slap of footsteps and the door opened a little to the extent of a short chain. A woman's face with a pince-nez peered out and asked brusquely from the darkness of the lobby: 'What d'you want?'

'Could you tell me, please - does the Nai-Turs family live here?'

The woman's face became even grimmer and more unwelcoming, and the lenses of her pince-nez glittered.

'There's no one here called Turs', said the woman in a low voice.

Blus.h.i.+ng, Nikolka felt miserable and embarra.s.sed.

'This is Apartment 5, isn't it?'

'Well, yes, it is', the woman replied suspiciously and reluctantly. 'Tell me what you want.'

'I was told that the Nai-Turs family lived here . . .'

The face thrust itself out a little further and glanced rapidly around the garden in an attempt to see whether there was anyone else standing behind Nikolka . . . Nikolka found himself staring at a fat female double chin.

'So what d'you want? Tell me . . .'

With a sigh Nikolka glanced around and said: 'I've come about Felix Felixovich ... I have news.'

The expression on the face changed abruptly. The woman blinked and said: 'Who are you?'

'A student.'