The Matiushin Case (7 page)

All the new arrivals were drawn up in a column and then ordered to walk into that hut. The cold crept across their skin little by little. The place had an empty echo to it. There were low benches running along the walls, a wooden perch. The woman, who had to be the supply manager or the stores manager, or perhaps just the bathhouse attendant, paused briefly in the doorway to get her breath back before descending on them and filling up all the space.

‘Take everything off! Pull it off! Pull it all off, leave every part naked. No underpants now! You won't need them, you'll be issued with what you need.'

They got undressed and sat squashed together or stayed standing because there weren't enough benches. They jostled, scraping against each other. They didn't fold the clothes, simply dumping them straight onto the floor, and those who were standing, already naked, trampled them underfoot right there, beside the rucksacks and duffel bags. The woman watched with lively, sullen eyes, breathing heavily and shouting whenever she noticed someone hiding from her
gaze.

‘Bah, what a handsome buck! Why, I've seen so many men … ' And she ran her eyes over the floor, where the motley-coloured clothes were scattered.

She spotted something, stepped across, turned her backside towards them and bent down so that it swelled up in a huge downy pillow and the sumptuous curves of her flesh tumbled out from under her white coat. But when she soared back up as lightly as a piece of fluff and reassumed her shape, a quiet, cracked voice
said:

‘Tatyana, don't touch that.'

The man who called to her had halted in the doorway: he was short, thin and inconspicuous-looking, in a threadbare officer's shirt.

‘Ah, come on, Sergei Lvovich, you're so quick to … Why, I didn't take anything … ' she whined like an old woman.

The officer moved to one side without speaking and stood by the wall. Soldiers appeared. In just their white undershirts, as if they weren't soldiers but kitchen hands, with fresh new boots dangling round their necks like bunches of bagels and lugging armfuls of foot wrappings and shorts, bundles of brand-new belts, heaps of rags. They carried it all in in a rush
–
and piled it where they were told by the officer, who called out plaintively from time to
time:

‘Konovalov, how are our linings?'

‘Everything's top-notch … ' an implacable bass voice replied from out of the jostling crowd.

‘Konovalov, so where are the stools?'

‘Fuck it, Izmailov, I'll bury you; where are the stools?' the same boorish voice boomed
out.

The soldiers rummaged silently in their own heaps, then immediately started on the abandoned civilian clothes, raking everything together from under the naked men's
feet.

‘Konovalov, come on, get started
…'

A stool appeared from somewhere and a soldier with a forelock, who was stripped to his shorts, sat the first man on it. He stood behind him, seized his neck in his fingers, as if in a claw, and set to work with the clippers in his other hand, clenching and unclenching his fist. The man sat on the stool, naked as a corpse, and his hair showered down onto his body from the clippers. After the shearing he stood there, looking like someone else, doomed now, in full view of everyone
–
all the others had backed away from him in fright
–
and he asked if he should take his soap and bast scrubber. But Konovalov took him by the arm without saying a word, led him over to a little door, opened it so that it breathed out steam at them with a droning sound
–
and shoved him into the steam room, making everyone laugh.

The soldiers sorted through the kit without hurrying. The woman hovered close by, beside the things that were sneakily shoved to one side as still fit to be worn. The officer didn't notice that. The soldiers forced her back. They started yelling furiously:

‘Where's that shirt you filched? You take it, you greedy bitch, and we'll take turns shafting
you.'

‘Ah, you little bastards!' She left the shirt alone and started complaining loudly and indignantly. ‘Aren't you ashamed? I could be your mother! So I picked out a few rags; I didn't think you wanted them. Now just you try coming to me asking for soap!'

‘Go choke on your soap, we've plenty of our own! What's not needed is lying over there; you keep your nose out of this pile.'

However, biding her chance in the tumult of the bathhouse, she kept picking things out of that pile and hiding them inside her white coat. Soon a large lump had formed in there. Waddling well away from the soldiers, she sat down furtively by the officer, sighed and laid her hands on her swollen belly, with her face lengthening as she calmed
down.

‘Grabbed a bundle?' the officer said wearily.

‘What d'you mean? It's hardly anything: maybe I'll sew myself a housecoat out of the bits of rag
…'

‘I'll tell the supply and logistics commander to throw you out. I'm sick of this.'

‘You punish me as I deserve, Sergei Lvovich! I've robbed the Soviet Army blind, but I haven't got a pair of drawers to my name. Look at the way you've shattered your own health, and they'll sack you without any pants too
…'

The lobby of the bathhouse was emptying. The last heads were being shaved. Konovalov was working not so much zealously as lovingly. He loved his clippers, calling them his ‘filthy slut' as he blew the hair off and brushed it away after dealing with yet another head. From the steam room came the sound of water and a babble of voices, abruptly interrupted now and then by patches of silence. Some men had already darted out of the steam room, wet from head to foot and as red as if they'd just been born into the world, and now they were queuing up to get their complete new kit from the soldiers.

Matiushin had been waiting his turn for a long time. Now he'd been overcome by the hungry, hungover shakes, and he trembled as if he was waiting to be sentenced. As he trembled with those hungry shakes he thought: what did I do to deserve this? Somebody needs me, don't they? I was born to live, wasn't I, just like them? Make my life dear to them too, make them take pity on me
…

And then it seemed as if everything dissolved and he was sitting in the corner, naked, feeling like a stump of a man, with no arms or legs. The stool was empty. The soldier Konovalov turned round with the clippers in his
hand.

‘What are you doing squatting over there, like a bird on a perch?' But his exclamation didn't make Matiushin get up. ‘Get over here, you weirdo … ' Konovalov said more simply now in his surprise.

Everything went quiet and everyone in the lobby turned serious. Only Konovalov dropped his hands helplessly.

‘What's happening here? Just look at this walking wonder … Come and sit over here to get trimmed, I said.'

‘No, I won't.'

‘Why, he's drunk … ' said the officer, peering at him reluctantly. ‘Look at the drunken face on him
…'

But suddenly the officer started shaking with laughter. And then all the soldiers, and the woman, and Konovalov started laughing, their eyes goggling out so hard that the tears came; they couldn't stop themselves. And no one noticed that the officer had started gasping for breath, coughing, doubling over, hawking into his fist. Matiushin watched only the officer, mesmerised. It was all happening right there in front of his eyes: the officer broke down, no longer choking on laughter but on his own cough, huddling up into a shuddering bundle, and then he slumped off his stool, face down. The woman was the first to catch on and she rushed to help him up. They picked the officer up and sat him on his stool. He twitched silently as he grew calmer, restrained by the soldiers' hands. He was still short of air, his gaping mouth a black hole, his scarlet lips drooping, and he was struggling to say something. His lips tensed and went limp as if they were straining, but the words had proved too heavy.

‘That's it … ' he managed to squeeze out, struggling to recover his former serious bearing. ‘That's it … K-ha, k-ha … What do you want? What are you waiting for? Konovalov … K-ha, k-ha … ' And he nodded. ‘Do this one, get it over with
…'

Matiushin still hadn't gathered his wits after what he'd seen. But then Konovalov, furious, rushed over and grabbed him by the hair. Matiushin crept along on all fours, naked, crawling away from the pain and seeing everything so clearly that his eyes smarted, even the chips knocked out of the black clay floor, hearing Konovalov's heavy panting above him. Konovalov dragged him across the lobby and Matiushin suddenly couldn't care less where he was being lugged off to or what they might want to do with
him.

Afraid that he might escape, break free, Konovalov pressed Matiushin's head down against the stool as if he were washing it forcibly in a basin. His fist squeezed a metallic clanking out of the clippers and was gradually buried under a clump of hair. The bathhouse attendant surrendered to the languor that had spread through her soul and gazed at Konovalov, admiring the way he froze, motionless, leaning down over his work, and the way his whole body curved, seeming to reveal a hidden inner strength, becoming covered all over with knotty muscles. Matiushin wheezed regularly, gulping at the air, staying down on his knees with his cheek crushed against the stool, running his blank, unseeing gaze over the crowd of half-dressed, half-naked men who were either admiring or frightened by
him.

‘Oi, I'll die laughing! Oi, that's the way they strip the bristles off a wild boar! Don't you go and strip the skin off him, Petenka … ' the woman exclaimed merrily, and her face turned radiant and serene with merriment and excitement.

‘A strapping great boar!' Konovalov grunted in reply, as if complaining.

When he heard that, Matiushin felt happy, almost proud of himself, and forgot about everything, no longer aware that he was down on his knees with the clanking clippers tugging out his
hair.

Konovalov finished his work but didn't let Matiushin go: his blow tossed Matiushin over to the feet of the soldiers, who had been waiting just for this and threw themselves on him. Blunt kicks from boots showered down on Matiushin's naked body. He came to his senses and called to them, imploring:

‘Guys, don't hit me on the ears … Guys
…'

‘Stop that! Konovalov!' The order rang out suddenly and the blows subsided.

The soldiers who had been beating him moved away and Konovalov, who was afraid of nothing, but obeyed the officer who had spoken, helped Matiushin to get up and led him to the steam room, intoning under his breath:

‘Have a good soak, buddy. Feel the thrill, you bastard
…'

Scalded by his beating from the soldiers, Matiushin skidded into the steam room as if he was slithering down an icy slide.

Men who had already settled into the warm womb of the bathhouse were walking about with small tubs, moving from one tap to the next and splashing water on themselves. When the water toppled out in a solid block from the tub raised over Matiushin's head, he huddled up tight
–
and breathed out so deeply, it was almost a groan, and then thrilled to the pleasure and stroked himself with his hands. All around there were untaken tubs, gaping open. Colourless, hot and cold streams flowing. The roaring of these countless torrents set his soul trembling at the gills, like the soul of a fish. Matiushin dissolved in that roaring, nuzzling his mouth at the icy cold water disintegrating into spray, spurting out of the tap so hard that his lips went numb. He drank his fill, gulping down water straight out of a tub that was full to the brim, snuggling up to the calm, smooth little lake, barely able to hold the weight of it in his hands. Feeling as if he hadn't just quenched his thirst but found peace and freedom, Matiushin held his tub in his hands and wandered round the hut, which was rippling, mirage-like, with little pools and streams. He found a small piece of coarse rag and a small abandoned piece of soap. He washed. He sluiced himself off from the tub, tempering himself with the cold until he was blue. He got tired.

After the steam room, the air in the lobby was so light and easy, it took his breath away. The lobby was filled with vigorous, swarming merriment. The men laughed at each other, stroking their own unfamiliar naked craniums. They clambered joyfully into the loose official-issue trousers and tunics that were now theirs, feeling a new freedom in them. Everything was issued too large, for the wrong size, apart from the boots; they only stuck to the right size for the boots. The soldiers from the quartermaster's section laughed when they saw what the parade looked like. In the crush, Matiushin was given everything in the very biggest size, and on top of that they issued him with a knapsack. He squeezed through the scrum, found a place on a bench and got dressed, following standard procedure. Only he hadn't been taught how to wind on the foot wrappings
–
and he sat there crumpling up the two rags in his hands, with no idea of what to do with them, with all his buttons already done up, but barefoot. But others who were as ignorant as he was spoke up. The officers shouted for the sergeants, who had been loitering in the yard for too long, and it turned out they were keen to teach the men. Some sat down on the bench with lads they liked the look of, others stood over a small bunch of barefoot men and gave them orders on what to do from above. Matiushin was spotted too: a sergeant squatted down a bit and emerged from the bathhouse bustle in a tunic that was scorched white, with a faded little red flag tucked into his belt. He smiled, looking at Matiushin, and told him which angle to lay the foot wrapping out at and where to tuck in the ends. When Matiushin put his boots on, this goodhearted man disappeared as unobtrusively as he had arrived, leaving nothing behind except for this essential knowledge that cost nothing.