The Matiushin Case (18 page)

The automatic dangling from Matiushin's shoulder, which he hadn't handed in to the arms locker, looked as dead-beat and exhausted as Matiushin really was, although he seemed as tough as iron. Even though the bustle and confusion had settled down long ago and the watch rooms were deathly quiet with sleeping men, Matiushin carried on wasting away his rest time with this little soldier who was condemned not to sleep, penned in between these four walls, knowing that he himself would never get enough sleep, and also feeling penned in, his bones squeezed tight into a little room where it was easier to stand than sit
–
and easier to die than
live.

He refused to believe that this time of his had been counted and there would be no way for him to grab even a short minute of sleep when they drove him back out to the tower. It also pained him that those men who were sleeping like babies on the other side of the wall didn't have the strength simply to swallow down their own hunger and weakness and not prolong them sickeningly, day after day, but he also hated them because, although he was among them, he was different, alien, as if he was some freak who wouldn't be able to hold out for long on his own. That is, he hated them as if he knew that he was inexorably fated to be killed because of them, among them, but his very blood ached compassionately with a live-born, brutal love that might flare up in a furious impulse and make him shoot every one of the sleepers so that they wouldn't be tormented day after day, so that these innocent babes wouldn't be forced, day after day, day after day, to
live.

Feeling painfully unnecessary even to himself, Matiushin suddenly became aware what a secure human position he held in this little room, as if he, not the controller, were in charge here. He also realised that the ginger guy needed him, couldn't manage without him, although there was nothing in the company to make them friends, and Matiushin even resented this hardy controller's easy desk duties
–
although that too, surprisingly, bonded them together, setting each of them precisely in his place. Matiushin forgave the ginger guy for his ignoble desk job, realising that his own guard duty on the tower had earned him a stronger position than the controller in this quiet little room of his, where he even paid for attention with sweets
…

Matiushin awoke from his stupor
–
he fancied that he had heard a scream far away in the night. He was instantly flooded with strength, intent on the silence, but he couldn't hear anything
–
and then, literally a moment later, there was a lingering clamour, a howling and screaming from the direction of the zone that rolled on and on, growing like a snowball: someone was running towards the checkpoint, yelling at the top of his lungs. In that instant the ginger guy froze, surprised and fearful, looking helplessly to Matiushin, then took fright at the automatic rifle on which Matiushin had already jerked the breech lock, readying himself, and was now waiting.

‘Don't shoot, don't shoot!'

‘Shut up, you fool!' Matiushin hissed, not knowing what was going to happen to them. ‘I
…'

A screaming warder came dashing into the checkpoint area like a wild boar and rushed desperately towards the first set of bars blocking the corridor, which couldn't be unlocked from the outside, because the bolt mechanism of the barred gate was controlled from the little room, from the checkpoint.

The warder was unharmed except for a split eyebrow, but a little lake of blood had flooded his eye, and he was goggling wildly with the crimson bubble, unable to see anything through the caked blood. Not knowing that it was only his eyebrow that was split, the warder was shuddering and trembling as if his eye had been gouged out. He screeched sickeningly, squealing that there was a bloody massacre in the barracks and pressing himself against the bars in terror as if someone was pursuing him, hot on his heels, to gouge out his remaining eye and kill him; he was sobbing in his desperation to break into the shelter of the guardhouse. The iron frame of the barred door shook under his assault, seeming suddenly no heavier than a cobweb although he was only scrabbling on the spot, twitching convulsively as he dangled there in its
net.

The ginger guy started staggering towards the door but he didn't have the heart to run, and he looked tearfully back at Matiushin, afraid to unlock the barred door himself and let the wounded, squealing warder into the guardhouse. The warder, realising that the soldiers could leave him there, that their orders were the most important thing for them, started cursing them with implacable spite, demanding that they obey him, like a berserk woman.

‘Don't let him in: that might be just what they're waiting for!' Matiushin said firmly, and the warder gave a bloodcurdling
howl:

‘I hate you, you bas-ta-a-ards … ' The buttons of his uniform clattered as they slithered down over the bars and his carcass slumped onto the grey concrete floor.

Matiushin thought it was hilarious, everything suddenly seemed funny to him; the more hopelessly dark and confused it became, the funnier it was, but he too was alternately shuddering with cold and suffocating in the heat. He dashed out into the guard room and started yelling. The ginger guy rushed to Arman's watch officer's room
–
and then it began.

Many of them didn't have their boots on yet and were dragging them along behind, some had given up looking for their boots and were jostling fearfully, barefoot, around the arms locker. Some who had automatics were staggering from one corner to another without any orders, without anyone in command. But suddenly the real alarm signal was howling, and then the soldiers started thrashing about in a frenzy, thrusting each other aside, trampling over each other. Whose idea was it to turn on the siren? The soldiers were up and the siren only disorientated them, it was so deafening. Matiushin was overwhelmed by the siren's howling too, but he went dashing blindly into the formation, and although he didn't know the authorised sequence of personnel, something led him to occupy the right place, or perhaps it wasn't his, but anyway he was there with everyone.

They set off at a rush, hurtling forward with the Alsatians dashing along in a pack at the front. The dogs were swept along by a kind of frenzy that wasn't in the men, but the soldiers ran just as furiously, spurred on by the howling of the siren. The only reason Matiushin knew he was still alive was this being pressed up against the others, being at one with them. With so many men around you, it's not possible to believe in death. Or perhaps it was the hope somewhere inside him that his death would fall on another man: the one who was panting hard at Matiushin's back, or the one whose head was right there in front of Matiushin. The strongest feeling of all, though, was that nobody could be killed: that Lady Death, if she existed, would be afraid of so many men, would overshoot and miss her target. He couldn't keep up with his thoughts about death, unable to work out if he was dashing towards or running away from it, or what kind of night this was; like an animal, he was swept away by a single, headlong, mighty feeling, a clash of all the human impulses
–
love, hate, despair, fear
–
that existed separately in his soul but had suddenly united into one vital, living force, as if another heart had started beating beside his first heart, and Matiushin, who couldn't even cope with one life, suddenly had two lives in his chest.

They ran along the cramped, narrow path between the rows of wire fencing, jostling and bumping into each other. Yet for some reason Matiushin fancied that there was open space all around them. And suddenly a hand pulled him out, and someone shook him and shouted at him to stay there and not move from the spot. Matiushin realised he had been left alone. The ground skulked in the darkness under his feet. He was surrounded by a confusion of fences, crooked rows of wire, the searing, harsh, white beams of searchlights.

The Alsatians' barking carried on, but it was like dull flashes. If something was happening, it was a long way from Matiushin. The soldiers standing on the path one span of wire away from him were already smoking
–
he spotted the little lights. His heart kept alternately freezing and exploding, shifting about inside him. Soon a new, uncertain light appeared. Day was beginning and the searchlights began to fade, as usual. Morning came. Men close to each other in the cordon started waving their arms and calling out. It was as if they had discovered each other.

Matiushin exchanged shouts with the sentries; none of them knew what had happened in the zone that night
–
from the towers they couldn't see, but they had heard some kind of ruckus over by the barracks.

When morning was established, he grew weary again, with the uncertainty and the waiting. It began to drizzle. But then his squad appeared on the path. They were slouching along, angry. The men were leaving the cordon of their own accord and swarming into the guardhouse.

Matiushin wanted to sleep, especially now that this futile night had become even less comprehensible. The only thing that kept him on his feet was that he still had to march as far as the guardhouse. He was so burnt-out that he slept as he walked. His thoughts and feelings drifted along on their own and it was like waking up when he suddenly realised that he was still thinking about something, feeling something and drifting along, without even knowing what for or where to. He couldn't even grasp that all the bunks in the sleeping area had been taken long ago so there wouldn't be anywhere for him to lie down and he would have to wait. About half the platoon was left without places in the guardhouse. Those who had stood through the night in the cordon were all without bunks. Matiushin lay down on a bench in the little mess room and fell into a dead sleep. The only thing he had time to feel was a tremulous, bitter unity with all the men: that they had all burnt themselves out together, and now they were falling asleep together, and the same silence was lulling them
all.

He was shaken awake at breakfast time, to free up the table
–
the rations had been brought from the barracks on a trolley. Matiushin dragged himself off the bench and, enveloped in a kind of mist, he chewed up a mess tin of hot mushy peas. He marched off to the tower and suffered through his shift there. Arriving back at the guardhouse like a corpse, Matiushin thought that now at last he would catch up on his sleep, all legal and above board: according to regulations he was supposed to sleep now. However the soldiers weren't allowed into the sleeping area in the guardhouse. Those who were sleeping had been driven out into the yard long before this reveille. He had the idea that the political officer wanted to exercise his power and that was why he was keeping everyone out in the yard
–
but where would that get him? He'd just mock them a bit and then have to let them sleep anyway. He needed to rehabilitate himself in his own eyes, but the men needed their rest too, otherwise they'd break down. If the officer couldn't let it go, it meant his petty little soul had taken a serious battering. It meant he'd screwed things up and he knew it; in his own heart he sensed that he was no hero. With this thought, that the political officer knew all this, it would be equally pleasant for Matiushin to stand sleeplessly to attention or to sleep: go on, torment yourself, little officer; eat your heart
out.

A feeble, irritating rain with hardly any water in it had been falling without a break since the morning. They were lined up for Arman. Matiushin recognised his voice from the very first words. But even the pitiful, soaking-wet rank of men, this chaotic bunch, this human trash had hustled itself together in a common clumsy impulse to line up in front of him and look like men. But the political officer suddenly flared up and shouted at them, no longer seeing their eyes or faces or even, it seemed, the men themselves:

‘What kind of way is that to hold your rifles? Lower the barrels! Barrels down!'

They were still standing in the yard in damp monkey jackets, as if they were up to their chests in the ground, and Matiushin was already cursing the officer and this fine rain and he wanted to get under some kind of roof as soon as possible. Delaying the change of guard for longer and longer, Arman shouted that last night they had all insulted his honour as an officer.

He's found himself someone to blame, the little officer's exonerated himself, Matiushin thought. That night the political officer had been too cowardly to go into the zone to find out what was happening. He had rushed around behind their backs, like that warder who had stuck his nose into a barracks hut in the middle of a fight and gone running off to holler about it. It wasn't clear who Arman had saved either. He'd driven the soldiers who didn't know what was going on into that barracks instead of himself, although the convicts had long ago separated their own men and even carried one wounded man to the hospital. But now the political officer had gathered his wits and was striding to and fro; he'd started tediously summing up the night: who had committed what blunders, what all the commotion was about, how the soldiers had behaved on the towers and in the cordon. Now the events had acquired a clear outline for him, a kind of glassy transparency, and he had a very coherent understanding of what had happened and
when.

Finally he stated what everyone already knew
–
that last night a prisoner had been killed in the zone: the man had been stabbed in the zone in a drunken fight, a troublemaker, and finally given up the ghost in hospital. Drinking bouts had become more frequent in the zone. Someone in the company, someone
here
was in contact with the prisoners and was selling liquor.

It could never have occurred to Matiushin that the political officer would decide to punish everyone for the vodka tower by launching a devastating frontal attack. He started feeling sick and fury stirred inside him, but it was powerless fury, which is even more terrible. Has it begun? It has begun! This was the way it was now: it was life or death.