Solovyov and Larionov

19

A quiet whistling began sounding at dawn. Solovyov opened his eyes a little, just the tiniest bit, so as not to let his dream slip away. He did not exclude the possibility that the whistling had been in his dream. The dream was pleasant. The dream attempted to hold on to Solovyov’s flickering eyelashes even as it receded. Solovyov could not have retold the dream; he could not remember, even roughly, what the dream had been about, though he continued to feel its mood. The mood was all that remained of the dream and Solovyov realized he had woken up. Despite the early morning hour, it was not dark in the room. Solovyov knew this light. It was the light of the first snow. The freshness of the first snow was drifting through a small open window in the kitchen.

The whistle was sounding in his waking life. It was a quiet, cautious whistling, more of an intermittent whistle. Solovyov raised himself up on his elbow and looked around. The whistling disappeared. There was nothing unusual in the room. Solovyov lay down again and the whistling resumed. He slid his feet into his slippers and went to the kitchen. He stopped in the kitchen doorway. A great titmouse was sitting on the cupboard door.

The bird was obviously watching him, though for some reason it was not facing Solovyov. Only one of its eyes was visible, lending the bird an inappropriately coquettish appearance. The bird had flown in through the high ventilation window, which had been opened for the night. Why had it not flown out through the window? Unable to find it? Or did it not want to? Solovyov thought that they might live together. He took a step toward the bird, who fluttered to the ceiling light fixture. The sound of wings was unexpectedly loud in the quiet of the kitchen. The thought even flashed through his mind that the word fluttered was onomatopoeic. This was exactly how bird wings sounded.

Solovyov shrugged and walked over to the window. A drum beat was streaming through the little window along with the frosty air. Initially it was pure rhythm, barely discernible and almost lacking sound. This rhythm was resounding from Ofitsersky Lane, just in front of the Military Space Academy. It was located in the buildings of the former Second Cadet Corps.

Solovyov stood with his forehead pressed to the glass, surprised at the unusualness of his current place of residence. Its markedly military-space orientation. He watched as a column of cadets moved, implausibly slowly, toward the archway of his building. They probably wanted to salute the spot where engineer Los’s workshop had stood. After all, they must want very much to go to Mars if they had entered the Military Space Academy.

Despite their outward unhurriedness (and in this lies the monumentalness of how the masses move), the forward column had managed to cover a significant distance in the murky snow. Solovyov had already discerned several drummers leading the column. A man with a banner was marching ahead of the drummers. His legs rose to waist-level and with each step that imprinted itself in the snow, a tassel on the banner’s peak flew up recklessly. Perhaps he wanted to go to Mars more than the rest.

A whistling sounded behind Solovyov’s back. The bird was sitting on the cabinet again. This time the bird was not looking at him sideways. His bright yellow breast faced Solovyov. Solovyov stood on tiptoe and opened the window wider. Out of uncertainty, he spoke to the bird at full volume, ‘If you don’t want to stay, then fly.’

He walked away from the window for effect and pointed at the small ventilation window with his hand. Both the gesture and his intonation felt utterly false. The bird preferred not to move and if Solovyov were the bird, he would not have flown away, either. When Solovyov attempted to come closer to the cabinet, approaching from the other side, the bird flew up toward the lower window and hit the glass several times with a ringing thud. The bird fell to the floor, flew up, and struck the glass again. Solovyov rushed to the window and the bird flew off into the other room, tracing a semi-circle around the kitchen.

Solovyov followed the bird slowly into the other room. The bird was sitting on a bookshelf, prepared for a further encounter with the glass. Its eyes shone with the determination of a kamikaze. Solovyov stopped at the threshold, leaning against the doorjamb. He pitied the bird. He pitied the glass that might not withstand it. But the sound of the bird striking the window was genuinely unbearable for him. A prolonged, throbbing sound. The sound of live clashing with unlive.

‘Now listen, bird…’

Solovyov thought this was a voice for addressing someone standing on a ledge. Someone who had strapped on explosives. It was an unnaturally calm voice. A voice for difficult situations.

‘The big window’s taped up for winter. But I’ll open it so you can fly away…’

The bird was listening. Solovyov slowly moved along the opposite wall. After reaching the window, he forcefully slid the latch and pulled the window handle. The frame gave way with a dry crackling. Shreds of loosened cotton wool began fluttering in the wind. Holding his breath, Solovyov stole back to the doorway. Steam came out of his mouth when he finally exhaled. The surprised bird observed snowflakes melting on the parquet floor. The first column of cadets had managed to come through the archway and was now drumming from the side of the house with the open window.

‘Are you going to fly?’

The bird hesitated a little and flew over to the windowsill. Solovyov took several cautious strides toward the window. The bird could not stride. After starting to jump around the windowsill, it moved closer to the open window. Sat on the window frame as if it were a picture frame. Froze like a tiny yellow paintbrush stroke. In the mix of air currents behind the bird, there quivered towers of light and, under them, the stadium’s pseudo-classical columns. Down below, right by the window frame, the cadets were flowing like jelly over the bridge that led to the stadium. Ignoring the laws of physics—and the danger threatening them—they continued their drumming and collective marching on the bridge. The surprised bird turned its head several times. It flew away, without waiting for the bridge to collapse from the force of all those marching feet coming down at once.

When Solovyov arrived at the Institute, they told him that some woman or other from Moscow had been asking for him. She was now sitting in the institute library. Solovyov started off for the library but ran into Temriukovich along the way.

‘Listen, Solovyov…’ said Temriukovich, but then Tina Zhuk came up behind him and interrupted.

‘Not bothering you, am I? I just wanted to say…’

Temriukovich’s hand unexpectedly landed on Tina Zhuk’s lips.

‘Just for your information: you have a very loud voice. Intolerably loud for an academic establishment.’

Temriukovich turned and began shuffling down the corridor. Zhuk made a ghastly grimace and dashed off after Temriukovich.

‘Loud and unpleasant,’ Temriukovich sighed to himself. ‘With a voice like that, it’s better to keep quiet.’

‘I wanted to say that the academic secretary was looking for you,’ Zhuk uttered defiantly.

But the academic secretary himself was already approaching Temriukovich. He took the academician by the elbow and whispered something fiercely in his ear. Temriukovich continued moving, ferociously looking over the academic secretary’s head every now and then. They stopped by the library door.

‘Did you hear about how our senile one caused a stir at Cinema House?’ Tina Zhuk asked Solovyov.

She was not even trying to speak quietly.

‘Fine, what do you need from me this time?’ Temriukovich asked the academic secretary with irritation, freeing his elbow.

The academic secretary walked around the academician from the opposite side and took him by the other elbow. He was speaking to Temriukovich in an emphatically patient way. Solovyov gathered that he would not be able to get into the library so was now looking for an opportunity to get rid of Tina.

‘He barged in on a closed screening at Cinema House where they were only letting in people with membership cards…’ Zhuk rolled her eyes.

When they reached the men’s room, Solovyov excused himself and went in. Tina Zhuk did not come in. Oddly enough, thought Solovyov. Oddly enough. He stopped at a sink and turned on the water. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and wet his hands. Swept the hair off his forehead. Temriukovich raced in as Solovyov was about to leave. Temriukovich rushed for a stall without noticing Solovyov, slamming the door behind himself with a bang.

‘The only place at the institute where it’s easy to breathe,’ carried from the stall.

The end of the sentence was accompanied by furious watery burbling.

Solovyov left the men’s room and headed for the institute library. Other than the elderly librarian (how very little she resembled Nadezhda Nikiforovna!), only Murat was sitting in the reading room. He lifted his head when Solovyov appeared and Solovyov greeted him.

‘You looking for someone?’ asked Murat.

After hesitating, Solovyov told him about the researcher from Moscow.

‘There was someone,’ confirmed Murat.

The door to the reading room opened and Temriukovich came into sight. He froze silently on the threshold, not letting go of the door handle. The librarian smiled. Temriukovich went out, leaving the door open.

‘I heard a good story about him,’ said Murat. He took a box of mints out of his pocket. ‘Want one?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘So there was a premiere at Cinema House. Something of a crush at the entrance. Everybody’s showing their membership cards and invitations… Sure you don’t want one?’

Solovyov shook his head. Murat scooped out a few mints with three fat fingers and popped them in his mouth.

‘And then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere… Anyway, long story short, Temriukovich turns up. Gets in without any explanations whatsoever. “Member at Cinema House?” they ask him as he goes by and he says, “No, I have it with me”…’

Solovyov glanced at the librarian—she was laughing. There sure were all kinds of librarians.

‘Do you happen to know where that researcher might have gone?’ Solovyov asked them both.

Murat shrugged.

‘Most likely for lunch,’ said the librarian. ‘She left her bag here.’

Solovyov stopped as he was nearing the institute café and heard Tina Zhuk’s voice. Ultimately, he was not sure he needed to meet with the Moscow researcher. But he went in anyway.

Solovyov saw Tina first. She was sitting and telling a story at a table with an institute guard and two women who worked in the modern history department. The women were laughing hard. Judging from their faces, the history was extremely modern. The guard was sitting half-facing Tina and listening with dignity, as befit a strong person. Every now and then, he brushed crumbs off his camouflage uniform.

The Moscow researcher was drinking tea at the next table. She was the only person in the café that Solovyov did not know. She was around fifty. Wearing a sleeveless jacket. There was an unmotivated bow on her head. When Solovyov approached her table, she herself asked if he was Solovyov. Solovyov confirmed it. The researcher gave her name as Olga Leonidovna (an invitation to sit down) and said she worked at the Rumyantsev Library. She had brought him some materials about the Civil War.

‘I left them in the reading room,’ Olga Leonidovna smiled. ‘I’ll just finish my tea, okay?’

‘No rush.’

Solovyov smiled, too. Essentially, the bow suited her.

‘Leeza Larionova sent them for you. As I understand it, you must know her.’

A chair pulled away from the next table and Solovyov felt like the chair’s motion was floating in his eyes now.

‘And I have mine with me, too, by the way,’ said the guard, standing up.

He straightened his pants and winked at everyone there. Tina Zhuk’s other two neighbors got ready to go after him. A window floated slowly along the wall.

‘You saw Leeza in Moscow?’

‘She and I work in the same department at the library.’

‘And… how is she?’

‘She applied to the philology department last year but didn’t get in. She was working at some factory…’

‘They say it costs eight thousand green ones to get into college in Moscow,’ said Tina Zhuk. ‘Minimum.’

Olga Leonidovna looked at Tina with surprise.

‘She obviously didn’t have eight thousand.’

‘Obviously,’ said Tina, putting on lipstick in front of a little mirror, then standing up. ‘Greetings, everybody.’

The reading room was empty but Olga Leonidovna switched to a whisper.

‘This year Leeza was accepted at the correspondence course division and got a job with us. She sorts through the new acquisitions in the Manuscript Department.’ She pulled a plump folder out of a plastic bag and extended it to Solovyov. ‘It’s a photocopy. A certain something that arrived recently for the collection.’

‘Thank you.’

Leeza had held this folder in her hands. Leeza.

Solovyov left the institute and went to the train station. He boarded a trolleybus but then got out at the very first stop and returned to the institute. In the clerical office, he requested a referral letter for the Rumyantsev Library. Just in case. When he got to the station, he learned that the earliest train was leaving in three hours; he bought a ticket. This was a very early train that arrived in Moscow at 4:30 in the morning; the library opened at nine. But Solovyov preferred waiting in Moscow to waiting in Petersburg. Inactivity felt intolerable to him now. On top of that, waiting in Moscow was waiting near Leeza.

At home, Solovyov tossed the most necessary items into a bag. He thought for a moment, then also put in the folder he had received: he had not even had a chance to open it yet. In memory of his trip to Crimea, he took a can of food. Meat he had bought at a nearby store. For an instant, he had the feeling he was leaving forever. Solovyov looked around. He had everything he needed. He shut the door hard and turned the key in the lock twice. It sounded like two distant gunshots in the echoing stairwell. Like an echo of Solovyov’s decisive actions. The clanking of the key had its own significance, even a point of no return, inasmuch, needless to say, as that descriptor could be attached to a key. Solovyov caught a taxi outside. He rode up to the station a half-hour before the train’s departure.

He went into the entrance hall and bought a newspaper. As he left the entrance hall, he put it in a trash bin. He took the can from his bag and gave it to a pauper. Went out to the platform. Under bright spotlights, pipes on the carriages were belching smoke. Or steam. Most likely steam: it disappeared instantly over the carriages’ roofs, which glistened with ice. Conductors wearing black felt boots stood by the carriage doors. They blew into their mittens from time to time, pressing their lips to their wrists. Sometimes knocking one felt boot against another with a muffled sound. Solovyov showed his ticket and went to his compartment. He greeted the three women who were already sitting there. They answered in chorus. It was nice for him that they were women, not men. The train began moving.

Only after Solovyov had climbed up to the top bunk did he remember the folder. He went back down, got the folder, and crawled back up with it. He turned on the lamp over his head. After getting used to the dim lighting, he opened the folder. He was flabbergasted.

After everything he had heard during the day, he had found something now that was capable of stunning him. There, in the poorly lighted bunk, Solovyov held in his hands the end of the general’s memoirs. He could recognize that handwriting in any lighting. Yes, he was stunned. But not surprised.

In the folder was a photocopy of the notebook Filipp had taken at one time and which had suddenly surfaced in the form of a new acquisition for the library. It remained unclear if it had been acquired from Filipp, where Filipp himself was, and whether he was still on the face of the Earth at all. There were no library markings on the manuscript at all other than the call number.

It was a thick notebook with graph paper. It was too large to copy with facing pages, so each page was copied individually, making for many sheets. Strictly speaking, the notebook could have fit the copier with the pages facing, albeit without the margins: from time to time, the general had made markings in the margins (which he had neatly ruled in pencil). Judging from the various shades of ink, the markings were made at different times. The general had obviously reread his writings more than once and left remarks and additions. ‘Dead.’ Or: ‘Still alive.’ Or (facing the words ‘It was cold’): ‘It was not so much cold as damp.’

It was not so much cold as damp when the remnants of the White Army rolled off toward Chongar. The bulk of the troops had already left Perekop a few days before and were now being loaded onto transports in the ports. The cavalry that remained on the Perekop Peninsula had covered their retreat. The cavalry then held on there until the general received a report one night that his troops were already in the ports. The cavalry soundlessly left Perekop that same night.

The heavy weapons had been disabled. They had removed the locks and left them in position. They had not extinguished their campfires, which Captain Kologrivov’s detachment was to watch over until morning. These 150 volunteers had offered to remain until morning. They covered the retreat of Perekop’s last defenders.

They led the horses by their bridles for the first several hundred meters. They saddled them before reaching Armyansk and the cavalry moved off at a trot. In the vicinity of Dzhelishay, a small number of the troops turned toward Yevpatoria and the rest continued on toward Yalta and Sevastopol. As he ascended Chongarsky Pass, the general was thinking of those who remained on Perekop. In his mind he asked their forgiveness.

A snowstorm came up on the pass. The huge, wet snowflakes did not drop to the ground. They got caught in the wind and drifted, on a low-altitude flight. Where the pass began to dip, the snowflakes soared upward, as if the hanging, murky clouds were already waiting for them to come back. It slowly grew light.

Sitting motionless in the saddle, the general observed as the remnants of his army laboriously descended from the pass. The horses began slipping on the icy road, scrabbling to keep their balance, sometimes sitting on their haunches. Some fell, trapping their riders beneath them and pinning them to the frozen mud. Shouts and foul language hung over the pass. Many dismounted and carefully led the horses down, holding them by the reins. ‘Motion along an inclined plane,’ was the general’s notation in the margin.

When they arrived in Yalta, the general gave everyone several hours to rest. He headed for evacuation headquarters, stationed in the Oreanda Hotel. The general carefully familiarized himself with the list of evacuated personnel and inventory of vessels. He assigned the transportable wounded to the steamship Tsesarevich Georgy. (Bela Kun would shoot the untransportable wounded two days later.) The steamship Kronshtadt, on which the Sevastopol Navy Hospital and the Mine and Artillery School were evacuating, took numerous wounded. The rest were loaded on ships with their own troop units.

There were not enough vessels. At the last minute, the transports Siam, Sedzhet, Rion, Yakut, and Almaz were added to the available tonnage. Under the general’s order, everything in the Crimean ports that was capable of staying afloat, including old barges, was made available for the needs of the evacuation. It worked out to 126 large and small vessels. The majority of them were already prepared to sail and stood at outer anchorage.

After noon, a launch was sent directly to the Oreanda and the general, accompanied by his deputy, Admiral Kutepov, headed to the anchorage. The launch went past steamships packed with people. Past barges so laden that their sides nearly dipped into the water. It was frightening to let them set sail. But it was even more frightening to keep them here.

The general climbed up a rope ladder to the cruiser General Kornilov. The crowd on deck was so dense that it was almost unable to part when the general made his appearance. As he crossed the deck, he could barely elbow his way behind the Cossacks clearing a path for him. The exact same sort of crowd languished in the hold. At least it was warmer there than on deck, but there was already a palpable stench: there was only one toilet for the entire hold. The hold’s largest compartment turned out to be under lock and key.

‘What’s in there?’ asked the general.

‘The chief quartermaster’s cabin,’ said Admiral Kutepov.

‘Open it.’

The chief quartermaster held the key but it was already impossible to find him in the crowd. The general nodded to the Cossacks and they peppered the door, hitting it with their rifles’ butt ends. A minute later, the lock and the lower hinge had been broken off. The door swung on its upper hinge with a pitiful screech and dropped. The quartermaster’s compartment was completely stuffed with expensive furniture. Mahogany cabinets stood pressed against one another. The sides of the cabinets faced those entering, but they were astoundingly beautiful even from the side, gleaming in the porthole’s scant light. This light was reflected in several Venetian mirrors arranged along the walls. There were large crates neatly stacked in the corner of the cabin; baled tablecloths lay on them, right under the ceiling.

‘Overboard,’ said the general.

He came back on deck after finishing his inspection of the cabin. The first of the cabinets had already been delivered there. The sailors rocked the item and tossed it on the count of ‘three.’ It fell into the water with a fountain of spray and stayed afloat for a time. Then it began heavily sinking, to applause on deck. As it departed for the deep, the cabinet released bubbles as if it were a live being. As the general was making his way down to the launch, two sailors dragged the quartermaster out of the hold.

‘Does this one go overboard, too?’

‘Let him live,’ said the general.

He went ashore after visiting several more ships. He asked about those who had remained on Perekop, but nobody had seen them here yet. Dusk was falling. The general dismissed the Cossacks by the entrance to the Oreanda Hotel. He went up to his room and looked out the window at the sea. He sat at the table, poured himself some cognac from a decanter, and drank it. There was a knock at the door. He had no strength to answer.

‘May I?’

Admiral Kutepov entered the room. He laid a hand on the general’s shoulder.

‘You need to get some rest. We’re sailing in the morning.’

‘The ones coming from Perekop… They still haven’t arrived,’ said the general.

‘The Red artillery will smash us to smithereens if we don’t cast off tomorrow… May I?’ The admiral took the decanter and poured himself some cognac. ‘Besides, the ones you’re speaking of…’

‘Yes?’

‘I think nothing threatens them any longer.’

The admiral emptied his glass in one gulp and was now thoroughly savoring the drink. Pursing his lips. Closing his eyes. The general drank, too. And also closed his eyes.

When he opened them, Captain Kologrivov was standing before him. The general knew he was dreaming of Kologrivov; he saw in that nothing good for Kologrivov’s fate.

‘Well, how are you doing out there?’ the general asked, looking away.

‘Nothing threatens us any longer,’ said Kologrivov. He poured himself some cognac without asking permission.

‘It’s a pity you weren’t there. This was the only chance for you to get a genuine feel for Thermopylae after all.’

‘But there were only 150 of you.’

‘And you aren’t Leonidas, either, isn’t that right? And so here, you know, it’s one thing after another.’

The general woke up shortly before dawn. What he had thought was a firm pillow turned out to be the cuff of his sleeve. He could feel the table’s velvet covering under his hand. Lights were flashing to one another in the black motionless sea outside the window; the ships at anchor were ready to sail. The general looked at his watch. A farewell prayer service was to begin on the embankment in an hour.

The commanders of the forces sailing from Yalta came for the prayer. The embankment was packed with people. At the first sounds of the service, the general sank to his knees and all the officers followed suit. The entire huge crowd also knelt. A damp sea wind whipped at the priests’ stoles and snapped the tricolored banner against the flagpole. The general attempted to understand each word of the service but was distracted, without realizing it himself. He was thinking that the evacuation could certainly have taken place even without him.

The prayer service was ending. Bestowing his blessing, the bishop sprinkled the general with holy water and several drops fell behind his collar. There was no doubt this had already happened in his life. He had happened to experience so very many unforgettable things. Raindrops running under his tunic. Standing drowsily on the bank of the Zhdanovka River. Semi-darkness. A wind just as wet. Could that water, then, be considered holy? It had fallen straight from the sky. The general fingered a pencil in his overcoat pocket. It would have been better for him to have stayed on Perekop after all. Maybe he had stayed there, though.

The general slowly rose from his knees. From the faces of those standing, he understood they had been waiting only for him.

‘Do deign to say a parting word,’ Kutepov appealed to the general.

The general watched as the bishop’s gray hair whipped in the wind. His hair lashed at his eyes and got into lips opened from shortness of breath, but he made no attempt to remove it. This had happened in the general’s life, too. The same elderly bishop and the same gray hair whipping. But he could not remember where. Life had begun repeating itself. The bishop did not look at anyone individually and the pause did not weigh upon him. His face expressed no impatience. The general remembered: it was the violinist from his childhood. He had played right here, by the fence at the Tsar’s Garden.

‘I have nothing to say.’

Admiral Kutepov smoothed his hair and took several steps toward the crowd. He cleared his throat. A horse began neighing behind those standing.

‘We did all that we could…’

Kutepov glanced at the general, as if searching for new words. But the general was silent. Kutepov thought a bit, then asked everyone’s forgiveness. The general nodded; he found that appropriate. Kutepov cast a look around the crowd, breathed some air into his lungs, and shouted, ‘Farewell!’

‘Farewell,’ the general said to Kutepov. ‘My mission has ended.’

‘The launch is waiting for us,’ said Kutepov, nodding in the direction of the sea.

‘I commanded ground operations and now the naval operation is beginning. You’re the admiral, not I.’

The admiral looked at his watch.

‘We can’t linger any longer.’ Still acting as if he did not understand, Kutepov took a folder with a two-headed eagle from the general’s hands.

‘You’ll need that in Constantinople,’ said the general.

‘There’s no sense in waiting for them.’

‘Including a final statement of the treasury and correspondence about providing asylum.’

‘They perished on Perekop and you know it.’

‘This is not, really, about them.’

‘General, the Reds will not simply kill you, they’ll slice you to pieces.’

‘It’s not worth spending time bickering. There are 145,000 people waiting for you. And that’s just according to the lists. I think there are many more of them in reality.’

Admiral Kutepov shifted the folder from his right hand to his left, then put his hand to his peaked cap. He did that so slowly that he had time to inadvertently twist his finger at his temple. Or perhaps it only seemed that way to the general.

The embankment emptied out fairly quickly. There were only horses that had been abandoned during evacuation. Not all their saddles had even been removed. Horses nobody needed dispersed along the neighboring streets. They neighed from hunger. They were returning to the embankment again in expectation of their masters; they rubbed against icy streetlamps. The horses interpreted their abandonment as a misunderstanding.

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.

The general also reopened two stores abandoned by their owners: a shoe store and a sweet shop. All told, ten people were dispatched to staff them. Thanks to the breakdown of shoe and sweets production, there was nothing to sell in those stores. Strictly speaking, there was nothing to sell them for, either, since money was swiftly becoming simply paper. In a brief parting address, the general emphasized that the absence of wares was a temporary phenomenon since both sweets and shoes were in demand under any regime. He did not know if there would be money under the new regime. In honor of opening the sweet shop, they gave the general a lollipop that appeared, upon close examination, to be in the shape of a rooster. It was the only ware they discovered in the store. The rooster smelled of burnt sugar and had no color. When the general went outside, he gave it to a newspaper delivery boy.

A barbershop opened up after noon. In giving brief instructions to the future barbers, the general announced to them that under no circumstances should they stop making cutting motions, even when they were lifting the scissors over the client’s hair. According to the general’s observations, it was customary among genuine barbers to cut air, too. He sharpened a razor on a leather strop and neatly wiped the blade on a towel while shaving one of the trainees. In so doing, he showed several characteristic gestures he had noticed as a child—barbering mastery is judged based upon their accuracy. He cautioned against approximating a barber’s actions, saying that every little bit counts in this field. He advised taking a cigarette out of an ashtray with the ring and little fingers because only those fingers remain free of lather. The top of the head should be scratched, if necessary, with those same fingers. He recommended discussing city news during haircuts and shaving, because that is the usual practice in barbershops. He depended on their intuition for everything else.

The general lodged soldiers Shulgin and Nesterenko in a vacant two-apartment house. He was concerned the soldiers’ bachelor life might provoke inquiry into their past and ordered that two women who agreed to simulate marriage be brought to them. On top of all that, the general vaguely recalled that two families truly had lived in a house like this. The families were friends for many years. It was already impossible to decide if it was this house or not because the general remembered nothing but the front stoop.

He and his father had walked up a stoop like this to go into a house at one time. Two men were playing chess in the living room. They represented families on friendly terms. One of them held a knight (the future general could never have mistaken that figure for anything else) in his hands, touching it to his lower lip from time to time. The knight’s ears rode fully into the chess player’s puffy lip. The other man repeated some phrase, in a reverie. He had uttered the phrase many times but the general could not remember it, try as he might. Had they played here?

The general warned the reestablished families (he was certain of the resemblance between the present and past families) about the emphatic need to be friends. It was noted in the margin across from this statement that friendship did occur, as was to be expected, and eventually both couples had children as a result of simulating marriage. Boys: Shulgin junior and Nesterenko junior.

The general gathered both families in the living room of one of the apartments and proposed that the men play chess. He sat Shulgin and Nesterenko on chairs opposite one another. A chessboard was placed on a stool between them. Shulgin crossed his arms on his chest and Nesterenko was requested to press his hands into his knees. This lent a naturalness to the game that had begun. They played briskly but were not in much of a hurry. Sometimes the women would appear behind the players’ backs and cast contented gazes at the board, not understanding anything. The general advised the women to wipe their hands on their aprons during those moments. Or wrap themselves in a shawl, as if chilled. Crockery clinked ever so slightly in the sideboard when the women trod on the plank floors. The general delighted in the coziness that had come about.

‘Someone should say,’ he requested of the players, ‘“We’re bringing in the minor pieces.” That’s what they say in similar situations.’

‘Is that obligatory?’ Shulgin was curious.

The general thought and answered, ‘No, it’s not obligatory. You can just press the knight to your lower lip and say something of your own. The main thing is to utter it pensively. Several times.’

Then they left for the church, where the general seated paupers in the necessary order. One of them very much resembled Maxim Gorky, which was a definite plus in this particular situation. The similarity was so great that this person later even posed for Yalta’s monument to the proletarian writer. Another pauper, who did not resemble Gorky, was ordered to simulate not having a leg. Only this, in the general’s opinion, could ensure him certain immunity when the Red Armymen appeared.

The general instructed five musicians by the fence at the Tsar’s Garden. One of them could not play any instrument at all but had, so it seemed to the general, a good ear. His task during performances of musical compositions was to listen carefully, conveying the essence of the performance through facial expressions when possible. This musician had long gray bangs that he should toss from his eyes with a sharp head motion. He was also given a violin and asked to draw the bow near the strings. But not to touch them.

Toward the end of the day, the general ordered that a cabinet be taken out of his house. A big oak cabinet with a two-headed eagle. The general ordered a cart be brought and he positioned loaders to look after it. The loaders had just returned from Perekop and did not quite imagine how they ought to handle such a heavy item. Furthermore, they still did not understand where or why it should be moved. Recalling a famous social-democratic slogan, the general announced to them that the ultimate aim is nothing, but movement is everything. The cabinet’s aimless motion did not contradict the new ideology, making this pursuit relatively safe. As he was walking away, the general advised the loaders not to be shy about using coarse language; when in contact with the Reds this could create an atmosphere of similarity in social class.

Only late in the evening, when the entire detachment had jobs, did the general and Captain Kologrivov approach the pharmacy. The general leaned wearily against an electric streetlamp (in previous times it had used gas) by the entrance. He rummaged around in his pockets, fetched the keys, and began searching for the lock in the dying yellowy light. A minute later the door opened and a little bell jingled. The general enjoyed feeling the edges of the beveled glass on the door. The prisms reflected the evening’s last lights. They reflected the soundness of a previous life. As it happened, in those November days, it had already been three years since that kind of glass had been made.

The general and Kologrivov entered the pharmacy and looked around. Unlike many abandoned places, the pharmacy had not been ransacked. Everything remained in place there. The general took Kologrivov by the shoulders and sat him down in a chair.

‘The main thing is inner calm. Speak in a soft voice. The scrape of a little oak door, the smell of mint drops: nothing more is required here. That is the only way you will be able to exist organically in a pharmacy.’

‘I’m calm,’ said Kologrivov. ‘And I speak in a soft voice.’

The general uncorked one of the little vials and stirred its contents with a glass pestle.

‘I placed observers on the Alushtinsk road. They’ll shoot a blank from a cannon when they sight the Reds. That will be the signal to start a new life. I won’t be able to give further instruction because I’ll be busy with my own matters. That, basically, is everything.’

The streetlamp was no longer burning when the general went outside. A cold autumn rain had begun. The pharmacy windows were all that prevented Morskaya Street from plunging into darkness.

The cannon struck at 9:30 in the morning. With that shot, they began playing Oginsky’s Polonaise by the fence at the Tsar’s Garden. A detachment of Tatars rode out to the Alushtinsk Road and energetic paving work began on Autskaya Street by the St. Theodor Tiron Church. Shoeshine booths opened in various parts of Yalta during those same minutes. The quantity of staff as well as the abundance of brushes and polish allowed them to shine shoes for the entire coastline but Yaltans preferred not to leave their homes that day. Even the shops did not open that morning, with the exception of a shoe store and a sweet shop. Yalta was at a standstill, awaiting the entrance of the Reds.

First to enter the city was an armored vehicle with the uneven inscription Antichrist. It did not notice the Tatar detachment and drove past at top speed. Shots were fired into the air from the armored vehicle. To the detachment’s surprise, the armored vehicle did not notice a curve in the road, either. It did not brake until the place where the road’s shoulder turned into a steep slope. The vehicle’s front wheels went down and a belated reverse gear could no longer rectify anything. The vehicle rolled into the gorge, topsy-turvy, its armor knocking along the cliff’s overhangs. Moans resounded in the gorge after the last echo had finished rumbling. Local residents—simple, god-fearing people—surrounded the vehicle. They had no love for the Reds but they did not plan to refuse them help. The residents began conferring when they saw the inscription on the armored vehicle. They did not know who lay ahead for them to save. Withered grass rustled in the wind. Nobody could bring themselves to come closer to the vehicle with the eschatological inscription. The moaning soon stopped.

The Reds’ primary troops entered the city at that same time. Comrades Zhloba, Kun, and Zemlyachka were out front on well-fed horses. They met a Tatar detachment and even received kumys from them. Zemlyachka poured out kumys for representatives of the commanding personnel and passed the leftovers on to rank-and-file Red Armymen. Those entering the city praised the kumys, though they noted its sharp taste. Only Kun did not praise the kumys. Surprised by his silence, Zemlyachka asked if he liked the kumys. Still on his horse, Kun vomited in answer and stated that this was because he was not accustomed to it. Zhloba jokingly proposed that Kun have his stomach pumped in the city hospital. Everyone laughed so as not to offend Zhloba. Kun blushed and said he was planning to inspect the hospital anyway. Zemlyachka recommended that he record how much blood was in stock. Seeing a shoe shiner, Kun asked the advance guard to wait while he had his spattered boots cleaned. In addition to the kumys, remnants of beet salad and poorly chewed veal were apparent on his boots. Zhloba’s boots were not dirty but he dismounted to have his shined, too.

General Larionov was having his boots shined, too. This was happening at the other end of the city, by the St. Theodor Tiron Church. The mezzanine of the Chekhov house was visible about a hundred paces from the church. Maria Pavlovna Chekhova was opening the shutters. As he watched how deftly the brush moved in a shoe shiner’s hands, the general said, ‘Chekhov died only sixteen years ago but an entirely new epoch has arrived.’

The roadway was being repaired not far from the church. The knocking of wooden tampers, which pressed the paving stones, spread over Autskaya Street. The stones were laid in a fan shape on a sand foundation. The wind was tearing the last leaves from the trees in a front yard. Blackened and crumpled, they rolled along the brand-new paving stone, settling in a gutter.

The general stopped next to one of the houses as he walked down Autskaya Street. The biting November wind had come this far, too. It sounded in a squeaking gate spring and in a little flapping runner rug that had been flung on the fence. It was quiet in the house. They were playing chess there. Two men sitting on bentwood chairs were considering positions on the board. Their words were inaudible. Their calm could be sensed. A woman with a pail came down the front steps. She went behind the corner of the house and the general could no longer see her. He heard when the well’s door was set aside and the chain began unwinding. The gurgly dipping, the unhurried path up, the knock of the full pail against the well house. The general pressed his cheek to the fence. It was warm, rough wood. The woman wiped her feet and went out on the porch. Poured some water into a tank. Someone began coughing behind a curtain. The bell-like ring of the tank and the patter of water on the bottom of the basin. Everything was authentic, nothing was superfluous: a thin trill at the beginning (a little hysterically), then calmed and muted as it filled. The distant bark of dogs. The general was not worried about this house.

He turned on Botkinskaya Street and went to the pier by Alexander Square. Thick snow had begun to fall. It was wet and not even cold. The sea whipped against the embankment’s stones. There was no ice in the sea but it was hopelessly wintry, from the distant breakers to the splashes that spread in the snow. The pier’s pilings were entwined in its gray strands. The general sniffed the air—only the winter sea smelled like this.

He stopped by the gate at the Tsar’s Garden when he caught sight of the musicians. Pensive, he admired how the snow was coating them, to musical accompaniment. The general put all his money—several million—in the open violin case. Occasional pedestrians donated to the musicians, too. The case gradually filled with snow and multicolored bills that had not yet managed to become old: the snow and the bills already had the same approximate value.

The general picked up another million on the sidewalk by the Frantsia Hotel and gave it to the porter. A horsecab driver bowed to him from the coachman’s seat. The wheels turned snow into water to the sound of wet clopping; black furrows stretched sloppily behind the horsecab. A small dark blue spot was forming on the leaden sky. This was the unpredictable Yalta weather. The snowstorm had begun to subside.

The sun peeked out as the general approached the jetty. He stopped, closed his eyes, and the skin of his face felt the sun’s warmth. After standing like that for a bit, he turned onto the jetty. The snow that had fallen on the concrete was melting at full speed. The general slowly walked the rest of the way to the lighthouse. A small tree was growing out of a crack in its base. The tree’s leaves had fallen so it was difficult to tell what kind of tree it was. The general laid his palm on the base’s dirty-gray stones. They were beginning to warm up, barely enough to feel. This was like a return to life. The general closed his eyes again and imagined it was now summer. The sounds of the sea muffling what might have carried from the embankment. The wheels of coaches, shouts of kvass sellers, cries of children. Rustling of palms. Hot weather.

He opened his eyes and saw people walking toward him. They were walking unhurriedly, even somehow peaceably: Zemlyachka, Kun, and a group of sailors. Their faces were not triumphant; they were most likely preoccupied. Expecting a ploy, they were not taking their eyes off the edge of the jetty where the general stood. Those walking realized that the general was one step from the irretrievable and they feared that step. They feared the general would take it on his own.

They exchanged a few words as they drew closer. They were not looking in the general’s direction at all now. Their hearts were jumping out of their chests. Zemlyachka was striding ahead of them all. She was holding her half-fastened leather coat with her hand and its hem flapped in the wind. Kun walked a little behind her, his boots cleaned to a shine. His wooden gait gave away his flatfootedness. There was an extinguished cigarette between his teeth. He kicked pebbles as he walked but there was nothing carefree in that. Or in the sailors’ feline movements. Those walking were genuine hunters and could not hide that.

The general did not move. He was half-sitting on the base of the lighthouse and watching seagulls stroll along the jetty. They were letting out shrill sounds that were sometimes similar to a duck’s quacking, sometimes to a child’s screech. The seagulls were searching for something among the wet rocks. They groomed their feathers and raised their heads, pensively examining a sea entirely lacking ships. Never before had they seen a sea like that. The seagulls did not even fly off when the group of people walking along the jetty neared the general. They were not afraid of people.

Zemlyachka was the first to approach the general. She neared him without rushing but it was noticeable even under her leather coat how quickly her breasts were moving. As before, the general was half-sitting on the base of the lighthouse, leaning on his hands. Those walking smelled of horse sweat and unwashed human bodies. The sailors froze, awaiting an order. Kun spat out the cigarette butt. Zemlyachka took out her pen knife and silently drove it into the back of the general’s hand. She was overrun with feelings.

A bell struck on Polikurovsky Hill. It was ringing in the St. John Chrysostom bell tower. Zemlyachka and Kun were arguing about something in undertones. The sailors observed the general moving his lips, barely noticeably, and they felt sympathy toward him. His hand was still lying on the base of the lighthouse. A crimson dribble wound through cracks in the rocks. Zemlyachka was insisting that his execution had to be agonizing. Kun objected that the execution should demonstrate the humanism of Soviet power. The striking bell muted Zemlyachka’s reply. Its sound floated over the sea, filling Yalta’s entire bay. When the argument was over, they led the general to the outer side of the jetty. They placed him on the edge and tied a piece of debris from an anchor to his feet.

‘Shoot for the stomach, not the heart,’ Kun advised the sailors. ‘Then he’ll be able to drown after he’s shot, too.’

The sailors nodded.

‘I’ll be the one to shoot,’ said Zemlyachka. ‘In the groin.’

The sailors nodded again. Far below, brown seaweed undulated in time with the waves. The water had turned emerald green under the bright sun. It no longer had a repulsive wintry look and it seemed warm from a distance. The general decided to look straight ahead so as not to feel dizzy. He could see part of the embankment behind the sailors’ heads. Coaches were driving and people were walking. The embankment continued to live its own life but that life was no longer the general’s life; they were separated by a short strip of water and a group standing on the jetty. Yalta’s cozy amphitheater towered over the embankment. Smoke stretched from the chimneys of some houses. It was rising toward the sky and mixing with clouds at the very top of Ai-Petri. The sailors stepped aside. Nothing else blocked the marvelous picture. The clouds seemed motionless but in actuality they were not. They were slowly drifting toward Ai-Petri. This became particularly noticeable when the shadow of a large triangular cloud began moving along the peak. The cloud itself still did not touch the peak. It was moving more slowly than its shadow. When Zemlyachka’s leather coat appeared in front of the general, he thought the cloud would not moor at the peak during his lifetime. That it could have hurried up if, of course, all its spectators were equally important to it. But the cloud was not hurrying. It was obviously imitating the cloud the future military commander had seen from deep within Vorontsov Park in 1889. At approximately 3:00 in the afternoon, when his father, who was keen on photography, decided to take his picture. That time was considered the best for taking a photograph. The sun was still bright but the shadows had already settled prettily on the grass. The boy was standing in a glade between Lebanese cedars. The camera was on a cumbersome wooden stand located a little way below, on a walkway. His father had shortened the legs of the stand so the boy would be photographed against the backdrop of Ai-Petri. A dragonfly froze uneasily over the camera. It was not flying out of the lens; it simply hovered in one place. Its wings were indiscernible and seemed like a light thickening of air. His father needed that peak, suffused with sun, but the shadow of a cloud had already appeared on it. His father kept looking out from under the black cloth but the cloud was not thinking about moving. Only its shadow was migrating. It was creeping ever closer to Ai-Petri, depriving the peak of its last signs of luminescence. Zemlyachka energetically shook her right wrist. Larionov had been posed just as carefully in 1889 as now. Only then he was standing with his back to Ai-Petri. He had been watching the cloud then, looking around the entire time. He saw cedar branches rocking slightly in the wind. Felt the mountain’s icy freshness mixing with the aromas of the park among the cedar branches. The boy inhaled that air and his nostrils moved. Caterpillars hung down from trees on thin threads; some were transforming into butterflies. The shrubs were scattered with ripe red berries. Cones dropped slowly from cedar crowns. The cones hit, muted, against the grass, stirring up grasshoppers who jumped together like fountains, then they bounced several times before falling still. The cones had been changing places, unnoticed, when he had turned around. An ant crawled along his knee. Zemlyachka raised the hand with the revolver. The general attempted to see himself from a distance but the image turned out to be a negative. A shot rang out from the opposite side of the jetty. The seagulls began taking off with a shriek but came right back down. The general turned his head and saw Zhloba. Zhloba’s meager gestures asked Kun and Zemlyachka to approach him. Zemlyachka expressed dissatisfaction, like a person who has been interrupted at the most interesting part. She jabbed the revolver in the general’s direction but Zhloba shook his head in the negative. As if foreseeing disappointment, Kun and Zemlyachka were in no hurry to make their way to Zhloba. The sailors took sunflower seeds from their pockets and tossed them to the gulls. They liked observing the gulls beating each other with their wings in their struggle for the seeds. Zhloba’s conversation with his comrades-in-arms turned out to be anything but simple. Isolated exclamations that the wind carried, and their gestures, spoke to that. Zhloba took a paper folded into quarters from his map case. He unfolded it, showed it to both his conversation partners in turn, and placed it back in the case. The sailors laughed about the birds’ basic instincts. This spectacle ennobled them in some way. Zhloba was, perceptibly, beginning to lose patience. He took out the paper once again, pressed it up against Bela Kun’s face and held it like that for several seconds. Bela Kun did not resist. Zemlyachka turned around abruptly and left the jetty. The men went after her. The general’s gaze followed them but not one of them turned around. The sailors understood nothing. After tossing the rest of the seeds to the seagulls, they began trudging uncertainly after their commanders. One of them returned, untied the general’s feet, and bolted off to catch up to the others. The general took several steps away from the edge. The wind was intensifying. The general flung open his overcoat to greet the wind, just as people greet someone they already said goodbye to for the last time, someone who brings joy by simply existing. The general looked at the sun without squinting. Tears welled up from rays that were still bright but already orange. The sun was hanging over the other side of the embankment, illuminating masses of ice that had frozen on the streetlamps after the night’s storm. They glistened like a dazzling Christmas garland. The size of the sun exceeded the boundaries of what is reasonable. Jolting as it moved, the sun disappeared behind the mountain at unexpected speed. The sun was setting in his presence.