Winter of the World

He stuck his head out of the window and yelled: ‘Move that thing, right now!’ He sounded as if he was used to being obeyed.

The volunteer, a chunky middle-aged woman wearing a man’s checked cap, folded her arms. She shouted: ‘Move it yourself – deserter!’

The driver got out, red-faced with anger, and Volodya was surprised to recognize Colonel Bobrov, whom he had known in Spain. Bobrov had been famous for shooting his own men in the back of the head if they retreated. ‘No mercy for cowards’ had been his slogan. At Belchite, Volodya had personally seen him kill three International Brigade troops for retreating when they ran out of ammunition. Now Bobrov was in civilian clothes. Volodya wondered if he would shoot the woman who had blocked his way.

Bobrov walked to the front of the car and took hold of the hedgehog. It was heavier than he had expected, but with an effort he was able to drag it out of the way.

As he was walking back to his car, the woman in the cap replaced the hedgehog in front of the car.

The other volunteers were now crowding around, watching the confrontation, grinning and making jokes.

Bobrov walked up to the woman, taking from his coat pocket an identification card. ‘I am General Bobrov!’ he said. He must have been promoted since returning from Spain. ‘Let me pass!’

‘You call yourself a soldier?’ the woman sneered. ‘Why aren’t you fighting?’

Bobrov flushed. He knew her contempt was justified. Volodya wondered if the brutal old soldier had been talked into fleeing by his younger wife.

‘I call you a traitor,’ said the volunteer in the cap. ‘Trying to run away with your piano and your young tart.’ Then she knocked his hat off.

Volodya was flabbergasted. He had never seen such defiance of authority in the Soviet Union. Back in Berlin, before the Nazis came to power, he had been surprised by the sight of ordinary Germans fearlessly arguing with police officers; but it did not happen here.

The crowd of women cheered.

Bobrov still had short-cropped white hair all over his head. He looked at his hat as it rolled across the wet road. He took one step in pursuit, then thought better of it.

Volodya was not tempted to intervene. There was nothing he could do against the mob, and anyway he had no sympathy for Bobrov. It seemed just that Bobrov should be treated with the brutality he had always shown to others.

Another volunteer, an older woman wrapped in a filthy blanket, opened the car’s trunk. ‘Look at all this!’ she said. The trunk was full of leather luggage. She pulled out a suitcase and thumbed its catches. The lid came open, and the contents fell out: lacy underwear, linen petticoats and nightdresses, silk stockings and camisoles, all obviously made in the West, finer than anything ordinary Russian women ever saw, let alone bought. The filmy garments dropped into the filthy slush of the street and stuck there like petals on a dunghill.

Some of the women started to pick them up. Others seized more suitcases. Bobrov ran to the back of his car and started to shove the women away. This was turning very nasty, Volodya thought. Bobrov probably carried a gun, and he would draw it any second now. But then the woman in the blanket lifted a spade and hit Bobrov hard over the head. A woman who could dig a trench with a spade was no weakling, and the blow made a sickeningly loud thud as it connected. The general fell to the ground, and the woman kicked him.

The young mistress got out of the car.

The woman in the cap shouted: ‘Coming to help us dig?’ and the others laughed.

The general’s girlfriend, who looked about thirty, put her head down and walked back along the road the way the car had come. The volunteer in the checked cap shoved her, but she dodged between the hedgehogs and started to run. The volunteer ran after her. The mistress was wearing tan suede shoes with a high heel, and she slipped in the wet and fell down. Her fur hat came off. She struggled to her feet and started to run again. The volunteer went after the hat, letting the mistress go.

All the suitcases now lay open around the abandoned car. The workers pulled the boxes from the back seat and turned them upside down, emptying the contents on to the road. Cutlery spilled out, china broke, and glassware smashed. Embroidered bedsheets and white towels were dragged through the slush. A dozen pretty pairs of shoes were scattered across the tarmac.

Bobrov got to his knees and tried to stand. The woman in the blanket hit him with the spade again. Bobrov collapsed on the ground. She unbuttoned Bobrov’s fine wool coat and tried to pull it off him. Bobrov struggled, resisting. The woman became furious and hit Bobrov again and again until he lay still, his cropped white head covered with blood. Then she discarded her old blanket and put Bobrov’s coat on.

Volodya walked across to Bobrov’s unmoving body. The eyes stared lifelessly. Volodya knelt down and checked for breathing, a heartbeat or a pulse. There was none. The man was dead.