'Tell me, Private Galitsin,' said Captain Shirley. 'Did your mother ever speak to you, in English ?'
‘I
speak English very well, Comrade Captain.'
'I say, Captain Dus, do you mind if I have
a
chat with our young friend, in English ?'
Tigran Dus gazed at Alexander Galitsin. 'It will be our pleasure, Captain,' he said. 'I know how important it is to hear the native tongue many miles from home. At ease, Private Galitsin. Fall out'
Galitsin followed the English officer to the window. Captain Shirley sat down, took out a notebook. Behind them, Tigran Dus dismissed the rest of the squad, set off on an inspecti
on of the Gestapo headquarters.
In a few moments he would be with the girls on the next floor.
'Do sit down,' Captain Shirley said. 'Your name is Galitsin. In English would that have two i's, or a y somewhere?'
Galitsin sat down. It was difficult to believe that this man was an officer; he seemed to wish to be friendly. And yet he was clearly not a worker; his hands, no less than his accent, no less than his demeanour, testified to that. 'My mother often spelled it, in English,' he said. 'It has two i's.'
'You speak English very well.
What do your comrades think of you, as half English?'
'They do not think of
me as half English, Comrade Captain. And I am half Scottish.'
Captain Shirley smiled. 'An incipient nationalist, Was your mother a nationalist?'
Galitsin frowned. He wished Tigran Dus were still with them, that he might receive a lead. Intelligence off
icers, of whatever nationality
were always laying traps. It was in their blood. 'My mother was a good socialist'
'Oh, quite,' Shirley agreed. 'When did she go to Russia?'
'She went to the Soviet Union in 1925. After the betrayal of the Socialist government.'
'Oh, quite'.' Shirley wrote busily. 'They came to power again, you know.'
'And were betrayed again.'
'I suppose you could put it that way. Your grandfather was an engineer, I believe?'
‘
Yes,' Galitsin said.
'Who was sentenced for espionage?'
'He was an enemy of the Soviet Union.'
'Of course. At the expiry of his sentence he was returned to Britain. That was only a few years ago. He may still be alive,'
'Galitsin said nothing.
'And then your father was killed in the war with Finland, and your mother by the Germans. Commissar Dus has been telling me about you. You have had a tragic life, Alexander Petrovich.'
Galitsin gazed into the blue eyes. 'Many Russians have had such lives, Comrade Captain.'
'I know. I have a great respect for your people. What will you do after the war?'
Galitsin frowned. He had not thought about life after the war. He had never expected to be alive after the war. In any event, there could be no end to this war. Not a real end. 'I am a soldier,' he said.
‘I
will remain in the army.'
'Your sister is named Helena. A mother who would name her two children Helena and Alexander must have had high hopes for them?'
'I am a soldier,' Galitsin said stubbornly.
'We are all soldiers now. Have you any ambition to visit Scotland?'
'I would like to visit Scotland. I would like to see Motherwell.'
'Oh, quite,' Shirley agreed. 'I shall tell your story to an English correspondent I know, Alexander Petrovich, as Commissar Dus suggested, because I think it will be good for relations between our countries. But I must add some personal details. You do not mind?'
'No, Comrade Captain.'
'Do you have a girl back in Moscow?'
'No, Comrade Captain.'
'I suppose you have hardly had the time, as yet. What about sport ? Do you play any games ?' 'I play chess.'
'All Russian soldiers play chess, Alexander Petrovich.'
'Not as I play, Comrade
Captain. I am a very good chess
player. Captain Ascherin says that with practice I could be in the First Category.'
Shirley assumed an impressed expression. Would that make you a master?'
Galitsin smiled. 'No, Comrade Captain. After the First Category one has to become a Candidate Master before one can aspire to Masterhood. That requires much experience, much skill.'
'I imagine it does. Well, I won't keep you any. longer, Alexander Petrovich. I hope that you do manage to become a chess master, and that you are able to visit Britain. Perhaps one day we shall meet again.' He stood up, extended his hand.
Galitsin also stood up, squeezed the limp fingers, which suddenly became very strong.
‘
I should like that, C
omrade Captain,'
Tigran Dus stood in the centre of the bedroom floor, gazed at the body of Fraulein Hipp. 'What happened here, Sergeant?'
Maljutin shrugged. 'You know how it is, Comrade Commissar. These men have been trying to get into Buda for three months. We thought we would be through here by Christmas, and now it will soon be February, and still the Germans fight. My men are tired.'
'They raped us.' The voice came from a mask of blood and bruised flesh and hatred, around which the yellow strands hung and clung. 'That man beat me. He would have beaten me to death had not his own men stopped him.'
'She is a virago,' Maljutin explained. "Nazi through and through. You know what
they
are like, Comrade Commissar.'
Tigran Dus stood above the blonde girl. Her body, despite the terrible bruises it had sustained, belonged in
a
dream. Few women had bodies so perfectly shaped in reality. Fewer Russians than most, where full breasts meant thick legs, and slender legs meant a universal thinness. He wanted to cup his hands around the drooping breasts, feel the nipples against his palm. Logically, her face must be as beautiful. He wanted to take water, and wash away the blood, and look at that beautiful face, and commit it to memory. But to do that would be to lower himself to the level of the men he shepherded. He had been at war as long as any of them, and longer than most. He wanted a woman as badly as any of them. But he was a commissar, and commissars possessed no flesh and no blood and no desires. At least, no man must suspect such a weakness of them.
He turned away from the blonde girl, stood above the dark one. 'And you,' he said. "You have no complaints?'
Her eyes were wide. She encouraged him to do nothing at all, for her or to her. Her future was already decided, had been decided by the Germans, which absolved the Russians of all responsibility. The slack mouth and the liquid dark eyes and the resignation with which she gazed at him established that fact beyond risk of contradiction. He stooped, looked at the name scrawled in the dust beside her head. 'Irena Szen.' Not
a
name to remember.
'Tell your friend not to be a fool, Irena,' he said in Hungarian. 'If she keeps her mouth shut, she will not be beaten again.'
He went outside, Maljutin attentive at his side. 'The Englishman must not go in there, Sergeant.' 'Yes, Comrade Commissar.'
'But let him see the rest of the house. They admire us, the English. Let us endeavour to have them continue doing so. And when he has gone have a burial detail attend to those dead men. And the woman.'
'Yes, Comrade Commissar.' Maljutin hesitated. 'The girls may make a noise.'
'That is true. Put a guard in there with them. Let the boy do that. Galitsin.'
'Galitsin was in there already, Comrade Commissar.'
Tigran Dus smiled. 'Was he, now? We will make a man of him yet, Sergeant. Send him in there again.'
He walked down the corridor. He did not like Maljutin. He could smell the beast in the man. The Maljutins were going to be a problem after
the war. But so were the Galit
sins, the boys who knew nothing
but
war, and who were not sure whether they feared it or loved it. The Galitsins were perhaps the more dangerous. And this Galitsin had a British mother, and spoke the language like a native. Something to remember? Dus frowned, tapped a cigarette on his thumbnail. Yes, he decided, after a moment's thought, something to remember.
IV
Galitsin closed the bedroom door behind him, marched across the room, stood by the window, looked down at the street. It was noon, and the snow had melted, except in dark gutters and under the eaves, and even there it was dripping. There were people on the street again, too, Russian soldiers, going about their duties with confidence even though there was still firing only a block away.
'Bastard,' Kirsten whispered. 'Shitbag.'
Galitsin sat on the bed. Strange how. he felt he had known these two all his life, how Kirsten's'nude beauty no longer affected him. Only her hatred.
‘
You should wash your face,' he suggested. 'You will feel better.'
She moved, slowly, caress
ing her bruised back as an ani
mal might paw at an injured part Irena said something. 'Translate,' Galitsin said. 'She says she is hungry.'
Galitsin unslung his pack, took out a half-eaten sausage. The girls gazed at him, and then at each other. Kirsten said something.
'Translate.'
‘
I said you are only a boy.'
Irena Szen got to her feet, came across the room. Fraulein Hipp lay between her and the sausage, and she carefully walked around the dead woman.. She made a strange noise on the floor, because she still wore only one shoe, but she did not seem to notice. She stood in front of Galitsin, and he placed the sausage on her palm. She spoke in Magyar.
'She says thank you,' Kirsten translated.
'And you will tell her that I am sorry for what happened ?'
*You told her that already.'
'I do not know if she understood. I wish you to tell her again. It is war.'
'War,' Kirsten said. 'For you that excuses everything.' 'Tell her,' Galitsin insisted.
The German girl translated, and Irena walked back across the room to give her half of the sausage loaf,
'What does she say?' Galitsin asked.
'She says she knows that you are sorry, that you would not have behaved like this in your own country, your own town.'
'Then she will forgive me,' Galitsin said.
*No,' Kirsten said. 'She can never forgive you.*
'And you?'
'I hate you,' Kirsten said. 'I hate you aa
a
man, as
a
representative of Soviet power, as a communist. Everyone hates you, Ivan. Everyone. Even your own people hate you.'
Mother could have said that. Galitsin wondered if one result of this war would be that all people would hate soldiers, and soldiering. That would be a good thing, surely. But he knew no other trade.
The knowledge made him angry. He took the swastika flag from off the bed and
draped it over the body of the
dead woman. He walked across the room, stood above the dark girl.
'Tell her this’
he said. 'That I am sorry. I have said this, and I cannot say more than this. But the Germans did many far worse things in the motherland. I can never forgive them, either. Nor those who helped them.'
Kirsten was not li
stening to him. She was listening to another noise, a clanking, clattering sound. 'Listen,' she said.
'It is a tank. Several tanks.' 'German tanks.'
Galitsin ran to the window, ducked, dropping to his knees. Bullets and small-calibre shells splashed on the wall above his head, and part of the ceiling fell. From downstairs there came shouts of alarm. He could still see the street, and he watched a squad of clerks and writers straggling out of a building not a block away, pausing to stare at the grey monstrosities which suddenly dominated the street, and then falling apart, like wax dolls pulled into pieces by some gargantuan child. But these wax dolls had blood, and the blood filled the street.
'That for your victory.' Kirsten extended the second finger of her right hand, rigid between the curled first and third. 'That up your arse.'
Sweat poured out of Galitsin's hair, rolled down his cheeks, dampened his collar. One of the tanks had halted, not fifty yards from the Gestapo headquarters, was pumping shells into the front door and the adjacent windows. Down there was mayhem, men screaming, walls splintering, glass shattering.