Little Apple (14 page)

"Over near the signalman's cabin," he said, "but he may have turned back."

"Well, he won't have got far. You go first, and don't try to run for it or you'll take a bullet with you."

They found Count Gagarin beside the signalman's cabin. He had removed his boot and bandaged his shattered knee with a strip of cloth. When he saw the Reds coming he took a couple of long pulls at his cigarette and fumbled in his pocket. With no sign of haste, he produced a ribbon in the colours of Imperial Russia and carefully wound it around his sleeve. Then he reached for his revolver, which was lying beside him in the snow, put it to his temple - the barrel glinted briefly in the winter sunlight - and pulled the trigger.

The patrol commander hurried to his side. He picked up the dead man's hand and examined it.

"I thought as much," he said. "A landowner's son - an officer in the White Guards. Well, he saved us the trouble. Very thorough, he was." He turned to the others. "Go through his pockets."

No one took any notice of Vit¬torin. He could have fled, but he stood there stunned, gazing in horror at the young Russian officer sprawled in the snow with bloodless cheeks and eyes closed, dreaming the dream of the earth.

"He was only a youngster," said one of the soldiers. "You can almost smell the mother's milk, but he had a sweetheart already. Look, he kept her picture next his heart."

He tossed the photograph into the snow.

"What shall we do with this one, comrade?" the soldier went on, jerking his thumb at Vit¬torin. "Another spy - the officer's orderly, maybe. Shall we send him to join His Excellency?"

The patrol commander strode up to Vit¬torin.

"We'll let the CO decide," he said. "Take him to the rear for questioning."

Vit¬torin, shut up in a barn immediately behind the front line, waited in vain to be summoned for interrogation. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about him. The Red sentry detailed to guard him left his queries unanswered, as did the man who relieved him at noon. An hour later Vit¬torin was marched off to Berdichev.

Brooding silence reigned in the streets of the town. It was growing dark by the time Vit¬torin and his escorts got there, but no lights were visible anywhere. In the local flea market, people were trying to sell such personal possessions as they could spare. A timid-looking girl was offering a dealer some kitchen utensils and a yellow silk curtain. Elsewhere, a bent old man was shuffling around with a Chinese vase in one hand and a pair of patched canvas shoes in the other. Dealers and sellers scattered in panic as the escorting soldiers neared the marketplace, all except the old man with the Chinese vase, who tried to hide behind a stall.

The raised boardwalks had been broken up for fuel that autumn. A woman in a tattered black silk dress was sitting on the steps outside the church. Without raising her head, she held out both hands when she heard the soldiers pass by. A sentry emerged from the shadows and shone a flashlight on Vit¬torin and his guards. Townsfolk conscripted for work on the frontline fortifications were silently, dejectedly mustering in a courtyard. Doors, walls and fences were plastered with notices from the local soviet requesting every inhabitant to contribute three sets of undergarments for the Red Army's use.

At Grigorov Prison, Vit¬torin's name was entered in the register. He gathered from what his escorts said that he was suspected of spying for the counter-revolution, but the words made little impression on him.

It was not until the cell door closed behind him that the pressure under which he had laboured all day began to ease. He saw by the meagre light of an oil lamp suspended from the ceiling that the cell housed a dozen men or more, some lying on plank beds or on the bare floor, others huddled up on bales of straw, and one seated on a broken crate. The sight was somehow reassuring; alone no longer, he was one of many companions in misfortune.

His fatigue was compounded with an urge to sit down and ponder his predicament in peace — to put what had happened in its proper perspective. Slowly and cautiously, he slid down the wall into a sitting position. Just as he did so, someone close beside him emitted a wild, shrill cry that ended in a hiss like the snarl of an enraged cat - a cry fraught with anger, fear and despair.

"Don't touch me! Be careful, don't touch me! Can't you see I'm dead?"

Startled, Vit¬torin made out an unnaturally contorted figure lying stiff and motionless on a plank bed facing the wall.

"It's outrageous, quite outrageous," the figure moaned softly. "Holy and Almighty God, they won't let me sleep."

An old man rose from his place beside the window and came over to Vit¬torin, picking his way carefully between the prisoners on the floor.

'Take no notice of him," he said. "Those folk upstairs have driven him out of his mind. He ought to be taken to a hospital, but the sick have no claim to preferential treatment here. Come with me. I'm in charge of this cell - I'll show you a place."

There was more room near the window. The prisoners had crowded together in the middle of the cell to avoid the snow-laden wind that whistled through the broken windowpanes. The old man sat down beside Vit¬torin.

"You don't come from this town, do you?" he said. "What are you accused of? Me, I'm a profiteer. My wife and I had a little flour and sugar left. She baked some cakes and I sold them in tea-rooms and on street corners. That's my crime -that's why I'm here. They arrested me when the hunt for Artemyev began. Artemyev - don't you know the name? Arte-myev, a veteran Social Revolutionary, a terrorist, a subversive of the Tsarist era. He's reputed to be on his way to Moscow to get even with Zinoviev, Lenin, Kamenev - all of his former friends - on instructions from the Mensheviks' executive committee in Paris. Our new rulers fear Artemyev more than all the White Guard generals put together. He knows how to fight, you see. He doesn't issue proclamations, he uses dynamite and infernal machines
..."

Vit¬torin clenched his teeth to stifle a groan of rage and despair. He, too, had a score to settle, but he was detained here by an absurd mischance. Fate had treacherously sided with his enemy.

"I haven't been questioned yet," he whispered angrily. "When will I be summoned for interrogation?"

"If you're lucky, not for a long time," the old man told him. "They may even forget about you."

"But I
want
to be interrogated, don't you understand?" Vit¬torin exclaimed. "I want my rights, that's all - my human rights."

The old man raised his hand in a weary, disconsolate gesture.

"Human rights?" he said. "Don't talk nonsense. Anyone sent here has forfeited his human rights. As for being interrogated, you'd be wise not to expect too much. Your interrogation will last two minutes, they won't listen to a word you say, and if the examining magistrate takes a dislike to your face he'll have you shot out of hand. That's all interrogation means."

Vit¬torin stared silently at the barred window.

"Human rights?" the old man went on. "Look at poor Bobronikov there, the self-styled corpse who startled you just now. Before the Revolution he had his own jewellery store. They brought him here - maybe he'd done a little black-marketeering - but he wasn't downhearted. 'Many's the time I've entertained the commissars at my home,' he said. 'My wife, Iraida Petrovna, will take the necessary steps.' For the first few days he amused himself by making raffia shoes and weaving little baskets out of wicker brought him by the Red Cross nurse. Then the prison governor had a bright idea. 'Citizen,' Bobronikov was told one day, 'come with us for questioning.' He was marched off to a cellar containing the bodies of two men shot a few hours before. 'Well, Citizen Bobronikov,' said the governor, 'now it's your turn. You've had it too good for too long, stuffing yourself with our bread and fish soup.' He made him kneel down, came up behind him with his revolver, and fired two shots past his ear. Then he said - it was his idea of a joke - 'All right, that'll do for today.' Bobronikov just lay there groaning. He wouldn't budge, so they had to carry him back here. Since then he's been in the world hereafter. He doesn't worry about his human rights; he keeps calling for a priest and a choir and begging to be buried."

There was silence in the cell for a while.

"Now he's asleep," the old man resumed. "He's probably dreaming that he's in the next world, weaving little baskets and raffia slippers in the presence of God. By the way, there's a pitcher of water in the corner. You won't get any bread tonight."

He blew out the oil lamp and groped his way back to the window. While settling down for the night he pointed at the ceiling.

"Hear that?" he whispered. "It's the governor. He paces up and down his room all night. He can't sleep - the dead give him no peace."

Toward seven in the morning the door was flung open. A warder came in and shone his acetylene lamp on the face of the man lying nearest him.

"Citizen Bobronikov," he shouted, "get your things ready. You're off to the station."

Bobronikov, the "Corpse", leapt to his feet with a shrill cry and fled into a corner, where he threw himself down and lashed out with his fists and feet. The old man tried to pacify him but was bitten on the finger for his pains. Hysterical screams and cries for help issued from the cell next door, which was crowded with women prisoners. Two soldiers, alerted by the commotion, hurried in and put an end to it. They pounced on the demented man and dragged him outside.

No one even contemplated going back to sleep. A bleak, cheerless day was dawning. Vit¬torin found the remains of some bread and cheese and two cigarettes in his pocket. He had just begun to eat when a tall man came over, gave a courteous little bow, and stated his name and profession. He was Leonid Vassilich Avdokhin, an attorney who owed his imprisonment to denunciation and intrigue on the part of his domestic servants. According to custom, he informed Vit¬torin in a soft, melodious voice, it was the latest arrival's job to swab the cell floor. With a covetous glance at Vit¬torin's cigarettes, he added that he hadn't smoked for a week and would gladly relieve him of that chore.

Having pocketed the cigarettes, Avdokhin politely but firmly insisted on keeping his part of the bargain. A little exercise would do him good, he said. While he was kneeling on the floor and wielding a damp swab, a bald-headed little man planted himself in front of Vit¬torin and addressed the cell at large.

"Just look at our new boy! See what a prince he is, getting someone else to do his work for him? It's disgraceful - I wonder he isn't ashamed!"

The bald man, a former employee of the local soviet, had been jailed for persistent embezzlement and bribe-taking. He was permanently at odds with all the inmates who could not lay claim to a proletarian background. The attorney came to Vit¬torin's aid.

"You should stay in your corner and keep quiet, Ivan Sergeevich - very quiet. Everyone knows what kind of a worker
you
were. Don't expect me to kneel in awe before the likes of
youl
You took your fellow citizens' roubles with one hand and pocketed them with the other - that was
your
idea of an honest job!"

The former Soviet clerk went white with rage and showered Avdokhin with abuse, calling him a dirty profiteer, a mangy rat, a louse to be crushed underfoot. Then he castigated a young man with carefully parted hair, an actor from Kiev, for having given the lawyer an approving nod.

Hostilities became general. Semyon Andreevich, a teacher from the municipal girls' school, turned on his immediate neighbour, an elderly tramp.

"Stop crowding me!" he bellowed, digging him in the ribs. "Keep your distance, you filthy old scarecrow, or I'll break every bone in your body. The way you spread yourself, anyone would think you had two backsides. Clear off, get lost! I never want to see you again."

The cell senior turned to Vit¬torin and shrugged.

"It's like this all the time. They've forgotten how to coexist like human beings. They yap at each other like dogs."

The altercation was cut short by the arrival of the Red Cross nurse, who was bombarded with questions from all sides. To the inmates of the cell she represented their sole link with the outside world and a happier previous existence, but she was forbidden to engage them in conversation. Silently, she handed out the day's bread ration and administered some drops from her medicine chest to Storoshev, a former landowner who lay on his bunk, racked with fever and wrapped in a blanket. The tramp, who had retreated into the darkest corner of the cell to avoid his neighbour's attentions, complained of lumbago and asked for some cranberries to rub into his back. Cranberry juice, he assured the nurse, was a sovereign remedy for consumption and bee stings as well as backache. He had been prescribed it by a monk in the Yakovlev Monastery named Amfilogi, or Beloved of God.

The actor sidled up to the attorney. Stroking the reddish beard he'd grown while in prison, he glanced at the nurse's departing figure and addressed Avdokhin in an undertone.

"Did you notice the way she looked at me, Leonid Vassilev-ich? She's in love with me, I've known it for days now. She only comes here for my sake."

Meanwhile, the old tramp had waxed garrulous.

"This Amfilogi, this Beloved of God," he said, "-he lived at the Yakovlev Monastery, which has many saintly relics. People come to see them holding lighted candles. In the old days I used to be given a consecrated loaf, some tea, sugar and dried oatmeal, and forty kopeks. When I turned up there this autumn I found that the monks had nothing themselves - they were going around the villages begging. There's another monastery nearby containing the relics of some other great and holy martyrs. They don't give you much there, but everyone gets twenty kopeks. However, I said to myself, it's an age since you visited the monastery at Berdichev, so I trudged all the way here, and what did I find? The pious monk had been driven out to make room for some commissars, as they're called, but commissars are no good. They don't do pilgrims any favours."

"They arrested you, the Reds - the Communists," said the actor. "They did you that much of a favour."