The White Guard

  'Be quiet, doctor . . .'

  Anyuta, the color of chalk and wide-eyed, and Elena, her red hair dishevelled, were lifting Alexei to take off his wet, bloodstained shirt with a torn sleeve.

  'Cut it off him, it's ruined anyway', said the bearded doctor.

  They cut up Alexei's shirt with scissors and took it off in shreds, baring his thin yellowish body and his left arm freshly bandaged up to the shoulder. The ends of splints protruded above and

  below the bandaging. Nikolka knelt down carefully undoing Alexei's buttons, and removed his trousers.

  'Undress him completely and straight into bed', said the pointed beard in his bass voice. Anyuta poured water from a jug on to his hands and blobs of lather fell into the bowl as he washed. The stranger stood aside from the confusion and bustle, at one moment gazing unhappily at the broken plates, at the next blushing as he looked at the dishevelled Elena who had ceased to care that her dressing-gown was completely undone. The stranger's eyes were wet with tears.

  They all helped to carry Alexei from the dining-room into his bedroom, and in this the stranger took part: he linked his hands under Alexei's knees and carried his legs.

  In the drawing-room Elena offered the doctor money. He pushed it aside. 'No really, for heaven's sake,' he said, 'not from a colleague. But there's a much more serious problem. The fact is, he ought to go into hospital . . .'

  'No,' came Alexei's weak voice, 'impossible. Not into hosp . . .'

  'Be quiet, doctor. We shall manage quite well without you. Yes, of course, I understand the situation perfectly well. . . God knows what's going on in the City at the moment . . .' He nodded towards the window. 'He's probably right, I suppose, hospital's out of the question at the moment. . . All right then, he'll have to be treated at home. I'll come again this evening.'

  'Is he in danger, doctor?' asked Elena anxiously.

  The doctor stared at the parquet floor as though a diagnosis were imprisoned in the bright yellow wood, grunted and replied, twisting his beard:

  'The bone is not fractured . . . H'm . . . major blood-vessels intact . . . the nerve too . . . But it's bound to fester . . . strands of wool from the overcoat have entered the wound . . . Temperature . . .' Having delivered himself of these cryptic scraps of thought, the doctor raised his voice and said confidently: 'Complete rest, . . . Morphia if he's in pain. I will give him an injection this evening. Food - liquids, bouillon and so on . . . He mustn't talk too much . . .'

  'Doctor, doctor, please - one thing: he begs you not to talk to anyone about this . . .'

  The doctor glowered sidelong at Elena and muttered:

  'Yes, I understand . . . How did it happen?'

  Elena only gave a restrained sigh and spread her hands.

  'All right', growled the doctor and sidled, bear-like, out into the lobby.

  Twelve

  In Alexei's small bedroom dark-colored blinds had been pulled down on the two windows that gave on to the glazed verandah. Twilight filled the room. Elena's golden-red hair seemed a source of light, echoed by another white blur on the pillow - Alexei's face and neck. The wire from the plug snaked its way to a chair, where the pink-shaded lamp shone and turned day into night. Alexei signed to Elena to shut the door.

  'Warn Anyuta not to talk about me . . .'

  'I know, I know . . . Try not to talk too much, Alyosha.'

  'Yes . . . I'm only whispering . . . God, if I lose my arm!'

  'Now, Alyosha, lie still and be quiet . . . Shall we keep that woman's overcoat here for a while?'

  'Yes, Nikolka mustn't try and take it back to her. Otherwise something might happen to him ... in the street. D'you hear? Whatever happens, for God's sake don't let him go out anywhere.'

  'God bless her', Elena said with sincere tenderness. 'And they say there are no more good people in this world . . .'

  A faint color rose in the wounded man's cheeks. He stared up at the low white ceiling then turned his gaze on Elena and said with a frown:

  'Oh yes - and who, may I ask, is that block-head who has just appeared?'

  Elena leaned forwards into the beam of pink light and shrugged.

  'Well, this creature appeared at the front door no more than a

  couple of minutes before you arrived. He's Sergei's nephew from Zhitomir. You've heard about him - Illarion Surzhansky . . . Well, this is the famous Lariosik, as he's known in the family.'

  'Well?'

  'Well, he came to us with a letter. There's been some drama. He'd only just started to tell me about it when she brought you here.'

  'He seems to have some sort of bird, for God's sake.'

  Laughing, but with a look of horror in her eyes, Elena leaned towards the bed:

  'The bird's nothing! He's asking to live here. I really don't know what to do.'

  'Live here?'

  'Well, yes . . . Just be quiet and lie still, please Alyosha. His mother has written begging us to have him. She simply worships him. I've never seen such a clumsy idiot as this Lariosik in my life. The first thing he did when he got here was to smash all our china. The blue dinner service. Now there are only two plates of it left.'

  'I see. I don't know what to suggest . . .'

  For a long time they whispered in the pink-shadowed room. The distant voices of Nikolka and the unexpected visitor could be heard through closed doors. Elena wrung her hands, begging Alexei to talk less. From the dining-room came a tinkling sound as Anyuta angrily swept up the remains of the blue dinner service. Finally they came to a whispered decision. In view of the uncertainty of life in the City from now on and the likelihood of rooms being requisitioned, and because they had no money and Lariosik's mother would be paying for him, they would let him stay, but on condition that he observed the rules of behaviour of the Turbin household. The bird would be put on probation. If it proved unbearable having the bird in the house, they would demand its removal and its owner could stay. As for the smashed dinner service, since Elena could naturally not bring herself to complain about it, and to complain would in any case be insufferably vulgar and rude, they agreed to consign it to tacit oblivion. Lariosik could

  sleep in the library, where they would put in a bed with a sprung mattress and a table.

  Elena went into the dining-room. Lariosik was standing in a mournful pose, hanging his head and staring at the place on the sideboard where a pile of twelve plates had once stood. His cloudy blue eyes expressed utter remorse. Nikolka, with his mouth open and a look of intense curiosity, stood facing Lariosik and listening to him.

  'There is no leather in Zhitomir', Lariosik was saying perplexedly. 'Simply none to be had at all, you see. At least of the kind of leather I'm used to wearing. I sent round to all the shoemakers, offering them as much money as they liked, but it was no good. So I had to . . .'

  As he caught sight of Elena Lariosik turned pale, shifted from foot to foot and for some reason staring down at the emerald-green fringe of her dressing-gown, he said:

  'Elena Vasilievna, I'm going straight out to the shops to hunt around, and you shall have a new dinner service today. I don't know what to say. How can I apologise to you? I should be shot for ruining your china. I'm so terribly clumsy', he added to Nikolka. 'I shall go out to the shops at once', he went on, turning back to Elena.

  'Please don't try and go to any shops. You couldn't anyway, because they're all shut. Don't you know what's happening here in the City?'

  'Of course I know!' exclaimed Lariosik. 'After all, I came here on a hospital train, as you know from the telegram.'

  'What telegram?' asked Elena. 'We've had no telegram.'

  'What?' Lariosik opened his wide mouth. 'You never got it? Aha! Now I realise', he turned to Nikolka, 'why you were so amazed to see me . . . But how . . . Mama sent a telegram of sixty -three words.'

  'Phew, sixty-three words!' Nikolka said in astonishment. 'What a pity. Telegrams are very slow in getting thro
ugh these days. Or to be more accurate, they're not getting through at all.'

  'What's to happen then?' Lariosik said in a pained voice. 'Will you let me stay with you?' He looked around helplessly, and it

  was at once obvious from his expression that he liked it very much at the Turbins' and did not want to go away.

  'It's all arranged', replied Elena and nodded graciously. 'We have agreed. Stay here and make yourself as comfortable as you can. But you can see what a misfortune . . .'

  Lariosik looked more upset than ever. His eyes became clouded with tears.

  'Elena Vasilievna!' he said with emotion, 'I'll do everything I can to help. I can go without sleep for three or four days on end if necessary.'

  'Thank you.'

  'And now,' Lariosik said to Nikolka, 'could you please lend me a pair of scissors?'

  Nikolka, so amazed and fascinated that he was still as dishevelled as when he had woken up, ran out and came back with the scissors. Lariosik started to unbutton his tunic, then blinked and said to Nikolka:

  'Excuse me, I think I'd better go into your room for a minute, if you don't mind . . .'

  In Nikolka's room Lariosik took off his tunic, revealing an extremely dirty shirt. Then armed with the scissors he ripped open the glossy black lining of the tunic and pulled out of it a thick greenish-yellow wad of money. This he bore solemnly into the dining-room and laid on the table in front of Elena, saying:

  'There, Elena Vasilievna, allow me to present you with the money for my keep.'

  'But why are you in such a hurry?' Elena asked, blushing. 'You could have paid later . . .'

  Lariosik protested hotly:

  'No, no, Elena Vasilievna, please take it now. At difficult times like this money is always extremely necessary, I understand that very well!' He unwrapped the package, from which a woman's picture fell out as he did so. Lariosik swiftly picked it up and with a sigh thrust it into his pocket. 'In any case it will be safer with you. What do I want it for? I shall only need to buy a few cigarettes and some canary seed for the bird . . .'

  For a moment Elena forgot about Alexei's wound and she was so favourably impressed by Lariosik's sensible and timely action that a gleam of cheerfulness came into her eyes.

  'Maybe he's not such a booby as I thought he was at first', she thought. 'He's polite and conscientious, even if he is a bit eccentric. It's an awful shame about the dinner service, though.'

  'What a type', thought Nikolka. Lariosik's miraculous appearance had driven the gloomy thoughts from his mind.

  'There's eight thousand roubles here', said Lariosik, pushing the packet across the table, which from the color of the money looked like scrambled eggs with chopped chives. 'If there's not enough we'll count it again and I'll write home for some more.'

  'No, no, that doesn't matter, later will do', replied Elena. 'I'm going to tell Anyuta right away to heat the water so you can have a bath. But tell me - how did you come here? I don't understand how you managed to get through.' Elena began to roll the money into a bundle and stuff it into the huge pocket of her dressing-gown.

  Lariosik's eyes filled with horror at the memory.

  'It was a nightmare!' he exclaimed, clasping his hands like a Catholic at prayer. 'It took me nine days . . . no, sorry, was it ten? Just a moment. . . Sunday, yes, Monday . . . No, it took me eleven days travelling here from Zhitomir!'

  'Eleven days!' cried Nikolka. 'You see?' he said reproachfully, for some reason, to Elena.

  'Yes, eleven days. When I left the train belonged to the Hetman's government, but on the way it was taken over by Petlyura's men. One day we stopped at a station - what's it called now? Oh dear, I've forgotten . . . anyway, it doesn't matter . . . and there if you please, they wanted to shoot me. These troops of Petlyura's appeared, wearing pigtails . . .'

  'Blue ones?' Nikolka asked with curiosity.

  'No, red . . . yes, red ones . . . and they shouted: "Get out! We're going to shoot you on the spot!" They had decided I was an officer, hiding in a hospital train. And the only reason I had been able to get on that train was because Mama knew Doctor Kuritsky.'

  'Kuritsky?' Nikolka exclaimed meaningfully. 'I see . . . our Ukrainian nationalist friend. We know him.'

  'Yes, that's him ... it was he who brought the train to us at Zhitomir . . . God! I started to pray, believe me. I thought this was the end. And d'you know what? The bird saved me. I wasn't an officer, I said, I was an ornithologist, and I showed him the bird. I'm a bird-breeder, I said . . . Well, one of them punched me on the back of the neck and said "All right, bird-man, you can go to hell for all I care!" The insolence! As a gentleman I ought to have killed him, but I could hardly . . . you understand . . .'

  'Elena', came a weak voice from Alexei's bedroom. Elena swung round and ran out without waiting to hear the rest of the story.

  #

  On December 15th, according to the calendar, the sun sets at half past three in the afternoon, so by three o'clock twilight began to settle on the apartment. But at that hour the hands on Elena's face were showing the most depressed and hopeless time on the human clock-face - half past five. The hands of the clock were formed by two sad folds at the corners of her mouth which were drawn down towards her chin, whilst in her eyes, depression and resolution had begun their struggle against disaster.

  Nikolka's face showed a jagged, wavering twenty to one, because Nikolka's head was full of chaos and confusion evoked by the significant enigmatic words: Malo-Provalnaya . . .', words spoken by the dying man in the fighting at the crossroads yesterday, words which somehow had to be deciphered no later than the next few days. The chaos and difficulties had also been evoked by the puzzling and interesting figure of Lariosik falling from the sky into the Turbins' life and by the fact that a monstrous, grand event had befallen them: Petlyura had captured the city. Petlyura, of all people - and the City, of all places. And what would happen in it now was incomprehensible and inconceivable even to the most intelligent of human minds. One thing was quite clear - yesterday saw the most appalling catastrophe: all our forces were thoroughly beaten, caught with their pants down. Their blood shrieks to

  heaven - that is one thing. Those criminals, the generals, and the swine at headquarters deserve to be killed - that is another. But as well as sickening horror, a burning interest grew in Nikolka's mind - what, after all, is going to happen? How are seven hundred thousand people going to live in a City in the power of an enigmatic personality with such a terrible, ugly name - Petlyura? Who is he? Why is he here? Hell, though, all that takes second place for the moment in comparison with the most important thing, Alexei's bloody wound . . . horrible, horrible business. Nothing is known for sure of course, but in all probability Myshlaevsky and Karas can be counted as dead too.

  On the slippery, greasy kitchen table Nikolka was crushing ice with a broad-bladed hatchet. The lumps of ice either split with a crunch or slithered out from under the hatchet and jumped all over the kitchen, whilst Nikolka's fingers grew numb. Nearby was an ice-bag with a silvery cap.

  'Malo . . . Provalnaya . . .' Nikolka mouthed silently, and across his mind's eye passed the images of Nai-Turs, of the red-haired janitor, and of Myshlaevsky. And just as the image of Myshlaevsky, in his slashed greatcoat, had entered Nikolka's thoughts, the clock on the face of Anyuta, busy at the stove with her sad, confused dreams, pointed ever more clearly to twenty to five - the hour of sorrow and depression. Were his different-colored eyes still alive and safe? Would she hear his broad stride again, the clinking sound of his spurs?

  'Bring the ice', said Elena, opening the door into the kitchen.

  'Right away', said Nikolka hurriedly, screwing up the cap, and running out.

  'Anyuta, my dear', said Elena. 'Make sure you don't say a word to anyone about Alexei Vasilievich being wounded. If they find out, God forbid, that he was fighting against them, there'll be trouble.'

  'I understand, Elena Vasilievna. Of
course I won't tell anyone!' Anyuta looked at Elena with wide, anxious eyes. 'Mother of God, the things that are happening in town. I was walking down the street today and there were two dead men without boots . . . and

  blood, blood everywhere! People were standing around and looking . . . Someone said the two dead men were officers. They were just lying there, no hats on their heads or anything ... I felt my legs go all weak and I just ran away, nearly dropped my basket . . .'

  Anyuta hunched her shoulders as though from cold as she remembered something else, and immediately a frying-pan slid sideways out of her hands on to the floor . . .

  'Quiet, please, for God's sake', said Elena, wringing her hands.

  At three o'clock that afternoon the hands on Lariosik's face were pointing to the zenith of strength and high spirits - twelve o'clock. Both hands overlapped at noon, sticking together and pointing upwards like two sharp sword-blades. This had come about because after the catastrophe which had shattered Lariosik's tender soul in Zhitomir, after his terrible eleven-day journey in a hospital train and after so many violent sensations, Lariosik liked it very much indeed at the Turbins'. He could not yet have told them why he liked it, because he had not so far properly explained it to himself.

  The beautiful Elena seemed a person deserving of unusual respect and attention. And he liked Nikolka very much too. As a way of showing this, Lariosik chose the moment when Nikolka had stopped dashing in and out of Alexei's room, and began to help him set up the folding steel bed in the library.

  'You have the sort of frank expression which makes people trust you', Lariosik said politely and stared so hard at that frank expression that he did not notice that he had caused the complicated, creaking bed to snap shut and crush Nikolka's arm between the two halves of the frame. The pain was so violent that Nikolka gave a yell which, although muffled, was so powerful that it brought Elena rushing into the room. Although Nikolka exerted all his strength to stop himself from howling, great tears burst spontaneously from his eyes. Elena and Lariosik both gripped the patent folding bed and tugged long and hard at it from opposite sides until they released Nikolka's wrist, which had turned blue.