The Story of a Life

79

The Neutral Zone

Our train arrived at Zërnovo in the morning. The frontier patrol went through the train, checking our exit visas. Our wagon and several others were uncoupled from the train and an old shunting engine dragged us towards the border, an area called the ‘Neutral Zone’. The doors to our wagon were kept closed and a few Red Army soldiers with rifles stood guard.

At last the train came to a stop, and we got out. The wagons stood in the middle of a dry field near a track watchman’s hut. The wind had kicked up the dust. A few peasant carts stood by the barrier. Their drivers – old men with whips – cried out to us: ‘Who’s heading to the other side, to Ukraine? Come on over!’

‘Is it far?’ I asked an old man with a thin beard.

‘Not at all! Three versts from here and you can already see the Germans. Let’s go!’

We piled our luggage on the cart and walked along beside it. The rest of the carts followed us. At the rear I saw the journalists from the Riga–Orël line. They were walking behind their cart and talking in loud, happy voices. Dodya wasn’t with them. Grey Spats looked wildly out of place amid the fields, the swirling dust on the road and the wind-blown nut trees in the gullies. Once we had gone about a kilometre, he stopped, turned to the north to face Russia, shook an angry fist at her and then cursed to high heaven. The driver gave him a frightened look and then shook his head.

I think I mentioned somewhere that my mother believed in the law of retribution. No base, inhuman or cruel act, she liked to say, went unpunished. Sooner or later, retribution would come. I always laughed at my mother’s superstitions, but that day I myself almost came to share her belief in the law of retribution.

The road dropped into a hollow overgrown with brush. Our driver became nervous and urged on his old nag. We had reached the bottom of the hollow and started up the other side when out of the scrub stepped a man in a tall astrakhan hat and dusty violet riding breeches. He held a Mauser in one hand. Two bandoliers with cartridges formed a cross over his chest. Several young men in greatcoats, pea-jackets and embroidered Ukrainian shirts followed close behind. They were armed with sawn-off shotguns and swords, and some of them had ‘little lemons’ – hand-grenades – dangling from their belts. The man in the violet breeches raised his Mauser and fired in the air. The carts stopped immediately.

‘Who let you pass?’ he demanded.

‘The frontier patrol,’ Grey Spats replied nervously. The man in the violet breeches was standing right next to the journalists’ cart.

‘They must’ve been staring into their own pockets!’ he yelled. ‘But did they bother to inspect your things?’

‘Yes, they did.’

‘And your documents?’

‘Yes.’

‘I say it again, they must’ve been staring into their own pockets! Right then, have at it, boys!’

The young men began throwing the luggage onto the ground. Grey Spats screamed. The man in the violet breeches smashed him in the mouth with the butt of his Mauser. ‘Want some more?’ he asked. ‘Then shut up, you bourgeois scum, or I’ll put a hole in that hat of yours.’

Grey Spats clutched a bloodied handkerchief to his mouth and lay stretched out in the dirt fumbling for his broken pince-nez. The men started slitting the leather suitcases open with their swords. They did it neatly and skilfully – two quick slashes, criss-cross. Apparently, there wasn’t enough time to break the locks and open the cases. They worked fast and kept glancing over towards the Soviet frontier. Our driver surreptitiously nudged his horse and moved his cart forward a few steps. The men were pulling things out of the suitcases, holding the shirts and sheets up to the light, taking what struck their fancy and tossing the rest in the dirt.

‘They’re distracted,’ the driver whispered to us. ‘Walk up ahead slowly, up to that bush. There’s a bend there, and we’ll be out of sight. I’ll move on ahead real quiet like and maybe they won’t notice.’

We walked on past the bush, and the driver nudged his horse forward a few paces at a time. He gave his horse a good smack with the whip once he caught up with us, and as soon as it was over the rise the horse took off at a gallop. We started to run and after a few minutes we caught up with the cart where the driver had come to a stop.

We lit cigarettes and the driver told us that a certain ‘Ataman Kozyuba’ and his gang robbed everyone trying to cross through the Neutral Zone. They were mostly after gold and jewels. They had to work fast because even though the Soviet border patrols were not supposed to enter the Neutral Zone, sometimes they crossed over and attacked the bandits. The patrols mercilessly shot everyone they captured. We stood there smoking, all of us glum, even though we had managed to escape the bandits.

The road wound along a clearing dotted with tree stumps. The sun was going down. Its reddish rays lit the crowns of the few remaining pines. I walked along lost in thought. Suddenly, I jumped at the sound of a harsh, metallic shout: ‘Halt!’

Two German soldiers in dark greatcoats and steel helmets stood in the middle of the road. One of them was holding our driver’s mangy horse by the bridle. The Germans demanded to see my entry permit. I didn’t have one. One of them, rather stocky, guessed at my plight from the look on my face. He walked over to me, pointed in the direction of Russia and yelled: ‘Zurück!’

‘Give him five tsarist roubles,’ said the driver. ‘That should get rid of the bastard. Then we can drive on to Mikhailovsky’s farm.’

I held out my hand with a ten-rouble note.

‘No! No!’ the soldier shouted, shaking his head and looking annoyed.

‘What are you doing giving him a tenner?’ the driver asked, angrily. ‘I told you to give him five. That’s the only thing they’ll take. It’s because for years tsarist five-rouble notes were printed in Germany.’

I gave the soldier the five roubles. He put a finger to his helmet and waved at us to get moving. ‘Fa-ahr!’ he shouted.

We went on. I turned round. The Germans, their legs spread wide and their sturdy boots planted in the sandy road, were laughing and smoking. The sun glinted off their helmets. I felt a lump in my throat. I was overcome with the sensation that Russia was no more, everything was lost and there was nothing left to live for.

The singer seemed to guess what I was thinking and said: ‘Dear God, what’s become of Russia? It’s like some horrible dream.’

Vadik also stopped and looked at the Germans, his lips began to quiver and he broke down sobbing like a little child.

‘Never mind, lad,’ the driver muttered. ‘Someday, probably not soon, but someday, we’ll pay them back.’ He shook the reins, and the cart creaked on through the deep red sand marked by the Germans’ steel-shod boots. To the north, where we had left Russia behind, evening’s pink haze was thickening over the clearing. Purple clover grew in clumps along the roadside. For some reason, this made me feel better. We’ll have to see who wins, I told myself. We’ll just have to see.