The White Guard Part 21

'Wait there.' The door slammed and footsteps died away.

Half a minute later came the click of heels from behind the door, which opened to let Nikolka in. A light from the drawing-room fell into the lobby and Nikolka was able to make out the edge of a soft upholstered armchair and then the woman in the pince- nez. Nikolka took off his cap, at which another woman appeared, short, thin, with traces of a faded beauty in her face. From several slight, indefinable features about her - her forehead, the color of her hair - Nikolka realised that this was Nai-Turs' mother, and he was suddenly appalled - how could he tell her . . . The women stared at him with a steady, bright gaze which embarra.s.sed Nikolka even more. Another woman appeared, young and with the same family resemblance.

'Well, say what you have to say', said the mother firmly.

Nikolka crumpled his cap in his hands, turned to look at the older woman and stammered: 'I . . . I . . .'.

The mother gave Nikolka a look that was black and, so it seemed to him, full of hatred, and suddenly she cried out in a voice so piercing that it resounded from the gla.s.s doorway behind Nikolka: 'Felix has been killed!'

She clenched her fists, shook them in front of Nikolka's face and shouted: 'He's been killed . . . Do you hear, Irina? Felix has been killed!'

Nikolka's eyes clouded with fear and he thought despairingly: 'My G.o.d . . . and I haven't even said a word!' Instantly the fat woman slammed the door behind Nikolka. Then she rushed to the thin, older woman, took her by the shoulders and whispered hurriedly: 'Maria Frantsevna my dear, calm yourself . . .' She leaned towards Nikolka and asked: 'Perhaps he isn't dead after all? Oh, lord . . . You tell us - is he ... ?'

Nikolka could say nothing but look helplessly ahead of him towards the edge of the armchair.

'Hush, Maria Frantsevna, hush my dear . . . For heaven's sake -They'll hear next door . . . it's the will of G.o.d . . .' stammered the fat woman.

Nai-Turs' mother collapsed backwards, screaming: 'Four years! Four years I've been waiting for him . . . waiting . . .' The younger woman rushed past Nikolka towards her mother and caught her. Nikolka should have helped them, but quite unexpectedly he burst into violent, uncontrollable sobbing and could not stop.

The blinds were drawn on all the windows, the drawing-room was in semi-darkness and complete silence; there was a nauseating smell of medicine.

Finally the young woman broke the silence: she was Nai-Turs' sister. She turned away from the window and walked over to Nikolka, who rose from his chair still clutching the cap which he could not bring himself to relinquish in this appalling situation. The sister mechanically patted her black curls, grimaced and asked: 'How did he die?'

'He died,' Nikolka replied in his very best voice, 'he died, you know, like a hero ... A real hero .. . He saw to it that all the cadets were in safety and then, at the very last moment, he himself,' -Nikolka wept as he told the story - 'he himself gave them covering fire. I was nearly killed with him. We were caught by machine-gun fire' - Nikolka wept and talked at the same time - 'we . . . there were only us two left, and he tried to make me run for it and swore at me and fired the machine-gun . . . There was cavalry coming at us from every direction, because we had been caught in a trap. Literally from every direction.'

'And then he was wounded?'

'No,' Nikolka answered firmly and began wiping his eyes, nose and mouth with a dirty handkerchief, 'no, he was killed. I felt him myself. He was. .h.i.t in the head and in the chest.'

It had grown still darker. There was not a sound from the next room; Maria Frantsevna was silent. In the drawing-room three people stood whispering in a tight group: Nai's sister Irina; the fat woman with the pince-nez, Lydia Pavlovna, who Nikolka discovered was the owner of the apartment; and Nikolka himself.

'I haven't any money on me', whispered Nikolka. 'If necessary I can run and get some right away, then we can go.'

'I'll give you the money now,' said Lydia Pavlovna, 'the money's not important. The important thing is that you succeed. Irina, don't say a word to her about where and how ... I really don't know quite what to do . . .'

'I'll go with him,' Irina whispered, 'and we'll manage it somehow. You said he was in the barracks and that we have to get permission to see his body.'

'Well, that can be arranged . . .'

The fat woman then tiptoed into the next-door room, and her voice could be heard whispering persuasively: 'Now lie still, Maria Frantsevna, for G.o.d's sake . . . They're going now and they'll find out everything. The cadet says that he's lying in the barracks.'

'On planks?' asked the penetrating and, to Nikolka, hate-filled voice.

'No, of course not my dear, in the chapel, in the chapel . . .'

'He may still be lying at that crossroads, with the dogs gnawing at him.'

'What nonsense, Maria Frantsevna . . . you lie down quietly my dear, I beg of you . . .'

'Mama simply hasn't been normal these last three days . . .' whispered Nai's sister, pus.h.i.+ng back the same unruly curl and staring past Nikolka. 'But then, nothing is normal any longer . . .'

'I'm going with them', rang out the voice from the next room.

The sister turned round with a start and ran.

'Mama, mama, you're not coming. You're not coming. The cadet will refuse to help us if you come. He may be arrested. Lie there, I beg you, mama . . .'

'Ah Irina, Irina, Irina,' came the voice, 'he's dead, they've killed him and what can you do now? What's to become of you, Irina? And what am I to do now that Felix is dead? Dead . . . lying in the snow . . . Do you think . . .' There was the sound of sobbing, the bed creaked and Lydia Pavlovna's voice said: 'Calm yourself and be brave, Maria Frantsevna . . .'

'Oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d', said the young woman as she ran through the drawing-room. In horror and despair Nikolka thought dimly: 'Whatever will happen if we can't find him?'

By that terrible doorway, where despite the frost they could already smell the dreadful, suffocating stench, Nikolka stopped and said: 'Perhaps you'd better sit down here. There's such a smell in there that it may make you sick.'

Irina looked at the green door, then at Nikolka and said: 'No, I'm coming with you.'

Nikolka pulled at the handle of the heavy door and they went in. At first it was dark. Then they began to make out endless rows of empty coat-hooks. A dim lamp hung overhead.

Nikolka turned round anxiously to his companion, but she was walking beside him apparently unperturbed; only her face was pale and her brows were drawn together in a frown. She frowned in a way that reminded Nikolka of Nai-Turs, although the resemblance was fleeting - Nai-Turs had iron features, a plain and manly face, whilst his sister was a beautiful girl, with a beauty that was not so much Russian as somehow foreign. An astounding, remarkable girl.

The smell, which Nikolka feared so much, was everywhere. The floors, the wall, the wooden coat-hooks all smelled of it. The stench was so awful that it was almost visible. It seemed as if the walls were greasy and sticky, and the coat-hooks sticky, the floors greasy and the air thick and saturated, reeking of decaying flesh. He very soon got used to the smell itself, but he felt it safer not to look too hard at the surroundings and not to think too much. The chief thing was to stop oneself from thinking, or nausea would quickly follow. A student in an overcoat hurried past and disappeared. Over to the left, behind the row of coat-hooks, a door creaked open and a man came out, wearing boots. Nikolka looked at him and quickly looked away again to avoid seeing the man's jacket. Like the coat-hooks his jacket glistened, and the man's hands were glistening too.

'What do you want?' asked the man sternly.

'We have come,' said Nikolka, 'to see the man in charge . . . We have to find the body of a man who has been killed. Would he be here?'

'What man?' the man asked, staring suspiciously.

'He was killed here in the City, three days ago.'

'Aha, I suppose he was a cadet or an officer ... and the haidamaks haidamaks caught him. Who is he?' caught him. Who is he?'

Nikolka was afraid to admit that Nai-Turs had been an officer, so he said: 'Well yes, he was killed too . . .'

'He was an officer serving under the Hetman', said Irina as she approached the man. 'His name is Nai-Turs.'

The man, who obviously could not have cared who Nai-Turs was, glanced side-ways at Irina, coughed, spat on the floor and replied: 'I don't really know what to do. It's past working hours now, and there's n.o.body here. All the other janitors have gone. It will be difficult to find him, very difficult. All the bodies have been transferred down to the cellars. It's difficult, very difficult . . .'

Irina Nai-Turs unfastened her handbag, took out some money and handed it to the janitor. Nikolka turned away, afraid that the man might be honest and protest against this. But the janitor did not protest.

'Thanks, miss', he said, and at once grew livelier and more businesslike. 'We might be able to find him. Only we shall need permission. We can do it if the professor allows it.'

'Where's the professor?' asked Nikolka.

'He's here, only he's busy. I don't know whether I ought to announce you or not . . .'

'Please, please inform the professor at once,' begged Nikolka, 'I shall be able to recognise the body at once . . .'

'All right', said the janitor and led them away. They went up some stairs to a corridor, where the smell was even more overpowering. Then they went down the corridor and turned left; the smell grew fainter and the corridor lighter as it pa.s.sed under a gla.s.s roof. Here the doors to right and left were painted white. At one of them the janitor stopped, knocked, then took off his cap and entered. It was quiet in the corridor, and a diffused light came through the gla.s.s ceiling. Twilight was gradually beginning to set in. At last the janitor came out again and said: 'Come in.'

Nikolka went in, followed by Irina Nai-Turs. Nikolka took off his cap, noticing the gleaming black blinds drawn down over the windows and a beam of painfully bright light falling on to a desk, behind which was a black beard, a crumpled, exhausted face, and a hooked nose. Then he glanced nervously around the walls at the line of s.h.i.+ny, gla.s.s-fronted cabinets containing rows of monstrous things in bottles, brown and yellow, like hideous Chinese faces. Further away stood a tall man, priest-like in a leather ap.r.o.n and black rubber gloves, who was bending over a long table. There like guns, glittering with polished bra.s.s and reflecting mirrors in the light of a low green-shaded lamp, stood a row of microscopes.

'What do you want?' asked the professor.

From his weary face and beard Nikolka realised that this was the professor, and the priest-like figure presumably his a.s.sistant.

He stared at the patch of bright light that streamed from the s.h.i.+ny, strangely contorted lamp, and at the other things: at the nicotine-stained fingers and at the repulsive object lying in front of the professor - a human neck and lower jaw stripped down to the veins and tendons, stuck with dozens of gleaming surgical needles and forceps.

'Are you relatives?' asked the professor. He had a dull, husky voice which went with his exhausted face and his beard. He looked up and frowned at Irina Nai-Turs, at her fur coat and boots.

'I am his sister', she said, trying not to look at the thing lying on the professor's desk.

'There, you see how difficult it is, Sergei Nikolaevich. And this isn't the first case . . . Yes, the body may still be here. Have they all been transferred to the general mortuary?'

'It's possible', said the tall man, throwing aside an instrument.

'Fyodor!' shouted the professor.

'No, wait here. You mustn't go in there . . . I'll go . . .' said Nikolka timidly.

'I shouldn't go, miss, if I were you', the janitor agreed. 'Look,' he said, 'you can wait here.'

Nikolka took the man aside, gave him some more money and asked him to find a clean stool for the lady to sit on. Reeking of cheap home-grown tobacco, the janitor produced a stool from a corner where there stood a green-shaded standard lamp and several skeletons.

'Not a medical man, are you, sir? Medical gentlemen soon get used to it.' He opened the big door and clicked the light switch. A globe-shaped lamp shone brightly under the gla.s.s ceiling. The room exuded a heavy stench. White zinc tables stood in rows. They were empty and somewhere water was dripping noisily into a basin. The stone floor gave a hollow echo under their feet. Suffering horribly from the smell, which must have been hanging there for at least a hundred years, Nikolka walked along trying not to think. The janitor led him through the door at the far end and into a dark corridor, where the janitor lit a small lamp and walked on a little further. The janitor slid back a heavy bolt, opened an iron door and unlocked another door. Nikolka broke out in a cold sweat. In the corner of the vast black room stood several huge metal drums filled to overflowing with lumps and sc.r.a.ps of human flesh, strips of skin, fingers and pieces of broken bone. Nikolka turned away, gulping down his saliva, and the janitor said to him: 'Take a sniff, sir.'

Nikolka closed his eyes and greedily inhaled a lungful of unbearably strong sal ammoniac from a bottle. Almost as though he were dreaming, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his eyes, Nikolka heard Fyodor strike a match and smelled the delicious odour of a pipeful of home-grown s.h.a.g. Fyodor fumbled for a long time with the lock of the elevator door, opened it and then he and Nikolka were standing on the platform. Fyodor pressed the b.u.t.ton and the elevator creaked slowly downward. From below came an icy cold draft of air. The elevator stopped. They pa.s.sed into the huge storeroom. Muzzily, Nikolka saw a sight that he had never seen before. Piled one upon another like logs of wood lay naked, emaciated human bodies. Despite the sal ammoniac, the stench of decay was intolerable. Rows of legs, some rigid, some slack, protruded in layers. Women's heads lay with tangled and matted hair, their b.r.e.a.s.t.s slack, battered and bruised.

'Right, now I'll turn them over and you look', said the janitor bending down. He grasped the corpse of a woman by the leg and the greasy body slithered to the floor with a thump. To Nikolka she seemed sticky and repulsive, yet at the same time horribly beautiful, like a witch. Her eyes were open and stared straight at Fyodor. With difficulty Nikolka tore his fascinated gaze from the scar which encircled her waist like a red ribbon, and looked away. His eyes clouded and his head began to spin at the thought that they might have to turn over every layer of that pile of sticky bodies.

'That's enough. Stop', he said weakly to Fyodor and thrust the bottle of smelling salts into his pocket. 'There he is. I've found him. On top. There, there.'

Moving carefully in order not to slip on the floor, Fyodor grasped Nai-Turs by the head and pulled hard. A flat-chested, broad-hipped woman was lying face down across Nai's stomach. There was a cheap little comb in the hair at the back of her neck, glittering dully, like a fragment of gla.s.s. Without stopping what he was doing Fyodor deftly pulled it out, dropped it into the pocket of his ap.r.o.n and gripped Nai-Turs under the armpits. As it was pulled out of the pile his head lolled back, his sharp, unshaven chin pointed upwards and one arm slipped from the janitor's grasp.

Fyodor did not toss Nai aside as he had tossed the woman, but carefully holding him under the armpits and bending the dangling body, turned him so that Nai's legs swung round on the floor until the body directly faced Nikolka. He said: 'Take a good look and see if it's him or not. We don't want any mistakes . . .'

Nikolka looked straight into Nai's gla.s.sy, wide-open eyes which stared back at him senselessly. His left cheek was already tinged green with barely detectable decay and several large, dark patches of what was probably blood were congealed on his chest and stomach.

'That's him', said Nikolka.

Still gripping him under the armpits Fyodor dragged Nai to the elevator and dropped him at Nikolka's feet. The dead man's arm was flung out wide and once again his chin pointed upwards. Fyodor entered the elevator, pushed the b.u.t.ton and the cage moved upward.

That night in the chapel everything was done as Nikolka had wanted it, and his conscience was quite calm, though sad and austere. The light shone in the bare, gloomy anatomical theater attached to the chapel. The lid was placed on another coffin standing in the corner, containing an unknown man, so that this ugly unpleasant stranger should not disturb Nai's rest. Lying in his coffin, Nai himself had taken on a distinctly more cheerful look.

Nai, washed by two well bribed and talkative janitors; Nai, clean, in a tunic without badges; Nai, with a wreath on his forehead and three candles at the head of the bier; and, best of all, Nai wearing the bright ribbon of the St George's Cross which Nikolka himself had arranged under the s.h.i.+rt on the cold, clammy chest and looped through one b.u.t.tonhole. Her head shaking, Nai's old mother turned aside from the three candles to Nikolka and said to him: 'My son. Thank you, my dear.'

At this Nikolka burst into tears and went out of the chapel into the snow. All around, above the courtyard of the anatomical theater, was the night, the snow, criss-crossed stars and the white Milky Way.

Eighteen Alexei Turbin began dying on the morning of December 22nd. The day was a dull white and overcast, and full of the advent of Christmas. This was particularly noticeable in the s.h.i.+ne on the parquet floor in the drawing-room, polished by the joint efforts of Anyuta, Nikolka and Lariosik, who had spent the whole of the day before silently rubbing back and forth. There was an equally Christma.s.sy look about the silver holders of the ikon lamps, polished by Anyuta's hands. And finally there was a smell of pine-needles and a bright display of greenery in the corner by the piano, where the music of Faust Faust was propped up, as though forgotten for ever, above the open keys. was propped up, as though forgotten for ever, above the open keys.

At about mid-day Elena came out of Alexei's room with slightly unsteady steps and pa.s.sed silently through the dining-room where Karas, Myshlaevsky and Lariosik were sitting in complete silence. Not one of them moved as she pa.s.sed by, afraid to look into her face. Elena closed the door of her room behind her and the heavy portiere fell back motionless into place.

Myshlaevsky s.h.i.+fted in his seat.

'Well,' he said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, 'the mortar regiment commander did his best, but he didn't manage to arrange for Alyosha to get away . . .'

Karas and Lariosik had nothing to add to this. Lariosik blinked, mauve shadows spreading across his cheeks.

'Ah, h.e.l.l', said Myshlaevsky. He stood up and tiptoed, swaying, to the door, then stopped irresolutely, turned round and winked toward Elena's door. 'Look, fellows, keep an eye on her ... or she may . . .'

After a moment's hesitation he went out into the library, where his footsteps died away. A little later there came the sound of his voice and strange grieving noises from Nikolka's room.

'Poor Nikolka is crying', Lariosik whispered in a despairing voice, then sighed, tiptoed to the door of Elena's room and bent over to the keyhole, but he could not see anything. He looked round helplessly at Karas and began making silent, questioning gestures. Karas walked over to the door, looked embarra.s.sed, then plucked up courage and tapped on the door several times with his fingernail and said softly: 'Elena Vasilievna, Elena . . .'

'Don't worry about me', came Elena's m.u.f.fled voice through the door. 'Don't come in.'

The tense expression on the two men's faces relaxed, and they both went back to their places, in chairs beside the Dutch stove, and sat down in silence.

In Alexei Turbin's room there was nothing more for his friends and kin to do. The three men in the room made it crowded enough. One was the bear-like man with gold-rimmed spectacles; the other was young, clean-shaven and with a bearing more like a guards officer than a doctor, whilst the third was the gray-haired professor. His skill had revealed to him and to the Turbin family the joyless news when he had first called on December 16th. He had realised that Alexei had typhus and had said so at the time. Immediately the bullet wound near the left armpit seemed to become of secondary importance. An hour ago he had come out to Elena in the drawing-room and there, in answer to her urgent question, a question spoken not only with her tongue but with her dry eyes, her quivering lip and her disarranged hair, he had said that there was little hope, and had added, looking Elena straight in the eyes, with the gaze of a man of very great experience and therefore of very great compa.s.sion - 'very little'. Everybody, including Elena, knew that this meant that there was no hope at all and, therefore, that Alexei was dying. After Elena had gone into her brother's room and had stood for a long time looking at his face, and from this she too understood perfectly that there really was no hope. Even without the skill and experience of that good, gray-haired old man it was obvious that Doctor Alexei Turbin was dying.

He lay there, still giving off a feverish heat, but a fever that was already wavering and unstable, and which was on the point of declining. His face had already begun to take on an odd waxy tinge, his nose had changed and grown thinner, and in particular there was a suggestion of hopelessness about the bridge of his nose, which now seemed unnaturally prominent. Elena's legs turned cold and she felt overcome with a moment of dull despair in the reeking, camphor-laden air of the bedroom, but the feeling quickly pa.s.sed.

Something had settled in Alexei's chest like a stone and he whistled as he breathed, drawing in through bared teeth a sticky, thin stream of air that barely penetrated to his lungs. He had long ago lost consciousness and neither saw nor understood what was going on around him. Elena stood and looked. The professor took her by the arm and whispered: 'Go now, Elena Vasilievna, we'll do all there is to do.'

Elena obeyed and went out. But the professor did not do anything more.

He took off his white coat, wiped his hands with some damp b.a.l.l.s of cotton wool and looked again into Alexei's face. The bluish shadow around the folds of his mouth and nose was growing deeper.

'Hopeless', the professor said very quietly into the ear of the clean-shaven man. 'Stay with him, please, Doctor Brodovich.'

'Camphor?' asked Doctor Brodovich in a whisper.

'Yes, yes.'

'A full syringe?'

'No.' The professor looked out of the window and thought a moment. 'No, just three grams at a time. And often.' He thought again, then added: 'Telephone me in case of a termination' - the professor whispered very cautiously so that even through the haze of delirium Alexei should not hear him, - 'I'll be at the hospital. Otherwise I'll come back here straight after my lecture.'

# Year after year, for as long as the Turbins could remember, the ikon lamps had been lit at dusk on December 24th, and in the evening they had lit the warm, twinkling candles on the Christmas tree in the drawing-room. But now that insidious bullet-wound and the rattle of typhus had put everything out of joint, had hastened the lighting of the ikon lamp. As she closed her bedroom door behind her, Elena went over to her bedside table, took from it a box of matches, climbed up on a chair and lit the wick in the lamp hanging on chains in front of the old ikon in its heavy metal covering. When the flame burned up brightly the halo above the dark face of the Virgin changed to gold and her eyes shone with a look of welcome. The face, inclined to one side, looked at Elena. In the two square panes of the window was a silent, white December day, and the flickering tongue of flame helped to create a sense of the approaching festival. Elena got down from the chair, took the shawl from her shoulders and dropped onto her knees. She rolled back a corner of the carpet to reveal an open s.p.a.ce of gleaming parquet and she silently bowed down until her forehead touched the floor.

Myshlaevsky returned to the dining-room, followed by Nikolka, whose eyelids were puffy and red. They had just come from Alexei's room. As Nikolka returned to the dining-room he said to his companions: 'He's dying . . ,' and took a deep breath.