The Matiushin Case (21 page)

Dojo broke the silence by calling Matiushin quietly from the path, but only to make sure that there was no need for him to climb up the tower. Matiushin responded. Dojo asked, perhaps mockingly, if the flask had been sold and received the unexpected reply that it had. The trainer stood there, still and contemptuous, but he had to look sharp and restrain the Alsatian when the Chinese clambered in under the tower to look for the bundle that had been tossed there. Matiushin heard him panting and rummaging about and started feeling nervous himself: when would the Chinese find the little bundle?

Then it seemed to him that they were already dividing up the money, right there on the path: the Chinese handed the bundle to the trainer
–
the Chinese couldn't even count properly
–
and they whispered together about who should get how much, and maybe how to settle past debts too. Matiushin understood that, he'd been through it all himself and so, although the sergeant and the trainer had forgotten about him, he squinted at the zone and kept his guard up
–
thinking that he was involved in this deal. But suddenly the tower shuddered
–
the trainer was climbing up for a
talk.

The steps sounded closer and closer, heavier and more sombre.

‘There's no money. There was only a stone in it,' Matiushin suddenly heard the trainer say in a repulsive whisper outside the little
door.

Matiushin didn't believe it, knowing the trainer's habit of joking to jangle the nerves of men he was afraid of touching for real
–
as if he wanted to grind them down by instilling uncertainty and fear. But the trainer wasn't joking, he asked rapidly and angrily who had ordered the moonshine and then, not believing a word Matiushin said, he hissed:

‘Decided to rat on us, have you? Did you think Dojo and me wouldn't stick our noses into your burrow? Do you know what you get for that? You lose everything. Got that, you rat … You've pissed everyone off, no one's going to put up with anything from you any longer.'

It went quiet. Soon the guard on the next tower called out
–
the trainer and the Chinese had walked on to that one, as if crossing over to another shore. At that deep, dark hour the smooth, quiet surface of the night seemed to be hemmed in between two shores, two widely severed patches of the dry steppe. Matiushin felt as if everything was drifting away into the night, becoming strange and hopelessly distant. And the vodka tower had stepped down into this smooth surface of the night and was moving away and away, completely strange and alien to everyone.

Matiushin shuddered as if he'd been scalded
–
so they'd already decided his fate … And he only had until tomorrow left. He saw very clearly what would happen and how it would happen if he was relieved from the tower, went back to the guardhouse and never came back to the tower again. He saw it in the few minutes that it took him to live through the whole of the next day that had already started, during which he would be betrayed to Arman, and Arman would arrest him and send him under armed guard to Karaganda, to a cell in the pre-trial detention centre. After going without sleep for the fourth night in a row, more dead than alive, Matiushin suddenly felt himself retreating rapidly from life with the ease of despair, into a kind of non-existence; as if he was beginning to sleep with his eyes open, seeing dreams, but not living.

In the space of a minute Matiushin also saw the thieves in the prison torturing him, a soldier, in a cell as tight and narrow as a womb. And the firm determination to shoot himself was exposed, like the bottom of his soul, drawn into the funnel of a crater. He had to shoot himself, he understood that quite definitely, in order not to die in prison or in the zone, and because he knew everything in advance; that there was only the crushing monolith of the last day that had already begun, hatched out of the soft top of this night's head, with the vodka tower standing there on top of its mountain, still standing there. At that moment Matiushin's automatic became everything to him. Its weight had long since sunk into his shoulder, into his body, and it no longer weighed anything without Matiushin, it was cotton wool, it merely warmed his side. Death from its bullet enticed Matiushin with this kind warmth, arousing no resistance or even fear. The only frightening thing would be to leave it too late and suddenly find himself in the guardhouse, where they would disarm him and place him under arrest. Once his soul had reached this extreme boundary, as if he had passed the final circle of his own terrible non-existence, Matiushin recovered consciousness and immediately jerked the breech block.

The entire impenetrable abyss of the zone froze with not one of the thousand eyes of its lights blinking, with every one stabbing its bright ray into
him.

He remembered about the flask: it had appeared in order to be drunk at this moment, as if this were its appointed destiny.

He thought that he would smoke and swig from the flask, and then shoot himself. He measured that fate out for himself, and then he lit up … The flask, still plump with weight, brought him to his senses for a moment, inspiring the sudden thought that he mustn't drink. He absolutely mustn't, although he couldn't understand what point there was in forbidding himself to drink. But he shuddered and gulped down the liquid from the flask, choking on it, until he had drained it completely, stilling the fear of imminent death and feeling as if he had warmed himself up. His farewell thought was that he had got drunk
–
and no one would punish him for it. Holding this thought inside him like a gulp of air, Matiushin sank down onto the bottom of his box, jolly at the thought of his own fearlessness, and started smoking his final cigarette. He believed that he was acting against some kind of untruth, that he was still fighting
–
and he would win. They wanted something else from him, for him to submit, to resign himself to things and to live entangled on all sides in fears and debts. They had sheltered behind his fear but now they would have to scurry and suffer, the way he had suffered while they were guzzling and sleeping. He was going to shoot himself
–
and the vodka tower would collapse. They were the ones who'd go on trial, they were the ones who'd be put under guard tomorrow, and Arman would be punished too, he wouldn't be an officer any more, they'd find out the truth about him. And they'd drive someone else up the vodka tower instead of Matiushin
–
one of those who were willing to betray him. And the ones who weren't driven up it would see this trial, and the fear of what they'd seen would be more agonising than the trial itself, and longer.

He didn't feel it when the cigarette of death burned out in his fingers … The night went by. He saw the shimmering airy expanse open up and the chimney pierce the white clouds in the milky, twilight currents of the sky. A chilly, leaden wakefulness flooded through his veins and he grabbed tight hold of his automatic, but suddenly something struck the tower
–
someone had tossed a stone
–
and Matiushin jumped to his feet, plunging forward without a thought, bouncing up like a spring, afraid of not getting it done in time, before they bellowed out the reveille.

In the morning silence, which was as desolate as the air, Matiushin sensed someone hiding there, breathing, close to the vodka tower, someone with whom he was intimately bound by the silence.

Matiushin discerned his presence with an intuition that wasn't human, as if the convict was a pinched nerve in Matiushin's body. The convict didn't come closer to the tower but waited: not simply looking but peeking out from somewhere at one side, like a bare, stunted little tree in this morning half-light. And he was swaying like a little tree. Their eyes met when the convict staggered and stepped forward awkwardly, as if he'd missed his footing.

That moment's burden of silence and emptiness was more than Matiushin could bear. He even fancied that there was no convict, only a grey pillar. But the pillar suddenly came to life and backed away
–
and the morning surfaced again, buoyant and airy in its colourlessness.

Sensing something, the convict started walking away, trying to put some distance between himself and the tower. Matiushin was standing like a soldier now
–
like a two-legged gun made of something solid, heavy and immobile. As he watched, it was getting lighter with every minute. It was as if he was inside a bright, empty, deserted barracks hut. Only it had an earth floor and was roofed in solidly by the sky. He could hear its wooden boards groaning and the draughts droning in its chimney, and the air smelled of the boards' uninhabited forests, the dampness of the sky, the earth, and there was an old smell of a man from the corners, like the dust of bones. Suddenly the searchlights and lamps went out around the zone's entire perimeter. The master switch had been thrown in the guardhouse and the morning turned dark and cold, as if it had been overgrown by thunder clouds. A cold order was instilled in everything, as if the rows of barracks, fences and towers had been connected to an electric current. The camp morning had arrived. But the convict suddenly surfaced again out of the calm, bright, smooth emptiness.

Matiushin called to him, afraid of frightening him off
…

The convict waited a while and started moving towards the vodka tower, staggering and zigzagging. It was hard for him to manage his lame leg, which either trailed behind him or jammed against something, like a stick. Maybe it was this difficulty that made him stand there crookbacked, looking furtively back over the steps he had taken, then straighten up and move on towards the vodka tower. And while the convict was dragging himself along, Matiushin threw the empty flask down under the tower
–
for him. It clattered lightly, but the convict didn't make a dash for it, he stopped fearfully when he heard that sound.

‘Well, what have you stopped for? It's yours, all paid for … Come on, quick now. It's no distance at all from you, further over to the right, over to the right!'

‘Na-ah … I can't see it … Na-ah … ' the convict complained agonisingly, but then, with the same agony in every step, he crept out from behind the gate, straight along the sleepers onto the bare, stony space right under the tower, and suddenly flung himself on the flask after all. At that moment, when the convict emerged into the bright emptiness of the spot that had been created in order to swat a man like a fly, not giving him any chance to come to his senses, take cover or dodge away from death, Matiushin felt a repulsively sickening ease. Without even taking aim, he sensed the convict's animal warmth and blindly swung the automatic in the direction of this little man, this cornered, fragile, gristly little animal
–
and he felt as if he was going insane, he couldn't decide what to do, didn't know who to punish and what for. But then the convict grabbed the flask and stood rooted to the spot for a moment with his head thrown back, so that Matiushin could see his eyes glinting like two bright coins, frozen in terror. Looking into those eyes, Matiushin froze too, stunned. The convict turned back. His lame, infirm leg twisted under him, he collapsed and attempted to crawl away
–
but the shots were already roaring out … The convict was spun round by the detonations, no longer alive, but dodging away from the bullets, unwilling to die. But when the breech jerked emptily and jammed, the bullet-riddled body went limp and settled into eternal peace at that one empty click.

Matiushin released the automatic from his hands as if setting an animal free. Totally blank, he tumbled down inside the wooden box, breathing in the lead-grey gunpowder smoke that had settled onto its floor. Deafened, he couldn't hear anything, but the tramping of boots came closer and closer. The guards were dashing to the vodka tower. Their calling voices reached him on the wind. The barking of the Alsatians merged with the human voices, only it seemed to be cascading down from the sky, from somewhere up on high. But Matiushin, in his blank isolation, started crying like a little child. The tears flowed and he gaped blindly, not knowing why he was crying. But it felt calm and
warm.

The zone shuddered at the shots on the vodka tower.

The convicts, the entire thousand of them, went wild. They could hear the Alsatians barking. They could hear the boots tramping.

The alarm had brought out the guard!

Matiushin was dragged down off the tower, totally dazed. The convict was lying in the exclusion zone and Pomogalov was prowling round the body on his own. He picked up the flask and hid it
–
then moved away from the body, advancing on Matiushin, slapped him round the face and yelled:

‘Are you a man or a hysterical woman? Big deal, so you've blown away an escaper. I've blown away a dozen of them
–
and I'm fine.' He called the Chinese in a hoarse voice and ordered the sergeant to hide Matiushin away out of sight in the guardhouse. ‘That's right, that's right
–
drag him onto a bunk, let him catch up on his sleep, out of sight.' They lugged Matiushin through the cordon by his arms. The soldiers hanging about in the wind examined him and grinned. They'd already heard and were amazed that the suicide boy had shot a convict; only yesterday evening no one even imagined that destiny could hand him anything like
that.

They led him to the guardhouse and the silence there was deathly: the soldiers didn't know what to say to Matiushin. They seemed afraid, as if it wasn't Matiushin at all but a werewolf. They couldn't even talk to each other. And at the slightest hint that Matiushin would have to be given leave for his runaway, every man felt a huge stony lump rising up in his throat
–
who ever finds it sweet to talk about his own shattered dream? They just slapped Matiushin on the shoulder or ruffled his hair: good lad, you didn't foul it up. But Matiushin didn't believe it. He fancied they were being sly, trying to put him off his guard, that they were toying with him but they knew the truth. They knew, they knew, they knew … Just one more moment and he'd go down at his comrades' feet. Brothers, mates, stop torturing me! I wouldn't have dared, I didn't want to, it was him, the bastard, he tricked me! But Pomogalov came dashing into the guardhouse, black in the face with all his cares. He saw that Matiushin wasn't sleeping, but wandering about, working himself up to puke, and almost drove him out with his fists.