Life And Fate

A whole network of capricious, winding paths was being covered by snow; not one fresh footprint could be seen on all these thousands of kilometres. This first snowfall was soon followed by a second. The paths blurred and faded.

Meanwhile thousands of people were making new paths, ordinary paths that didn't wind about in great loops or hug the walls of ruins.

The old inhabitants of the city felt both happy and empty. After defending Stalingrad for so long, the soldiers felt strangely depressed.

The whole city was suddenly empty and everyone could feel it – from army commanders and commanders of infantry divisions to ordinary soldiers like Polyakov and Glushkov. This feeling was absurd. Why should a victorious end to the slaughter make one feel sad?

The telephone on the commanding officer's desk was silent in its yellow case. A collar of snow had settled round the housing of the machine-gun. Battery-commanders' telescopes and embrasures had clouded over. Well-thumbed maps and plans were transferred from map-cases to pouches, and sometimes to the kitbags and suitcases of commanders of platoons, companies and battalions…

At the same time crowds of people were wandering among the dead houses, shouting loud 'hurray's' and embracing one another. They looked at each other and thought: 'What fine brave lads you are! Just like us in your winter hats and your jackets! But what we've achieved doesn't even bear thinking about. We've lifted the heaviest burden in the world. We've raised up Truth over Lies. We've just accomplished what most people only read of in fairy-tales.'

All these people belonged to the same city: some of them came from Kuporosnaya Balka, others from Ba

A world capital is unique not only because it is linked with the fields and factories of the whole world. A world capital is unique because it has a soul. The soul of wartime Stalingrad was freedom.

The capital of the war against the Fascists was now no more than the icy ruins of what had once been a provincial industrial city and port.

Here, ten years later, was constructed a vast dam, one of the largest hydro-electric power stations in the world – the product of the forced labour of thousands of prisoners.

46

The German officer had only just woken up and hadn't yet heard the news of the surrender. He had fired a shot at Sergeant Zadnyepruk and slightly wounded him. This had aroused the wrath of the Russians in charge of the operation: the German soldiers were filing out of their vast bunkers and throwing down their arms, with a loud clatter, onto the steadily growing pile of tommy-guns and rifles.

The prisoners tried to look straight ahead – as a sign that even their gaze was now captive. Private Schmidt was the only exception: he had smiled as he came out into the daylight and then looked up and down the Russian ranks as though he were sure of glimpsing a familiar face.

Colonel Filimonov, who was slightly drunk after arriving from Moscow the day before, was standing beside his interpreter and watching General Wegler's division surrender their arms. His greatcoat with its new gold epaulettes, its red tabs and black edging, stood out among the filthy, scorched jackets and crumpled caps of the Russian officers and the equally filthy, scorched, crumpled clothes of the German prisoners. He had said yesterday in the Military Soviet canteen that the central commissariat in Moscow still contained supplies of gold braid that had been used for epaulettes in pre-revolutionary days; it was the done thing among his circle of friends to have one's epaulettes sewn from this fine old braid.

When he heard the shot and Zadnyepruk's wounded cry, Filimonov shouted: 'What was that? Who's shooting?'

'Some fool of a German,' several voices answered. 'They're bringing him along… he says he didn't know.'

'Didn't know?' shouted Filimonov. 'Hasn't the swine spilt enough of our blood?'

He turned to his interpreter, a tall Jewish political instructor.

'Bring me that officer straight away. I'll make him pay for that shot with his life!'

Just then Filimonov caught sight of Schmidt's large, smiling face and shouted: 'So it makes you laugh, does it, to know that another of our men's been crippled? I'll teach you, you swine!'

Schmidt was unable to understand why his well-meaning smile should have made this Russian officer scream at him with such fury. Then he heard a pistol shot, seemingly quite unco

Colonel Filimonov, meanwhile, was inspecting the battalion commander's underground quarters and admiring their comfort and solidity. A soldier brought in a young German officer with calm clear eyes.

'Comrade Colonel,' said the interpreter, 'this is the man you asked to have brought to you – Lieutenant Lenard.'

'This one?' asked Filimonov in surprise. He liked the look of the officer's face and he was upset at having been involved, for the first time in his life, in a murder. 'Take him to the assembly point. And no mucking about! I want him alive and I shall hold you responsible.'

The day of judgment was drawing to an end; it was already impossible to make out the smile on the face of the dead soldier.

47

Lieutenant-Colonel Mikhailov, the chief interpreter of the 7th section of the Political Administration of the Front, was accompanying Field-Marshal Paulus to the Headquarters of the 64th Army.

Paulus had left his cellar without so much as glancing at the Soviet officers and soldiers. They had stared at him with greedy curiosity, admiring his grey rabbit-fur hat and his field-marshal's greatcoat with its band of green leather ru

Mikhailov had often attended diplomatic receptions before the war and he felt confident and at ease with Paulus. He was never over-solicitous, but always cool and respectful.

He was sitting beside Paulus, watching his face and waiting for him to break the silence. He had already been present at the preliminary interrogation of the other generals; they had behaved very differently.

The chief of staff of the 6th Army had declared in a slow, lazy voice that it was the Italians and Rumanians who were to blame for the catastrophe. The hook-nosed Lieutenant-General Sixt von Armin, his medals tinkling gloomily, had added: 'And it wasn't only Garibaldi and that 8th Army of his. It was the Russian cold, the lack of supplies and munitions…'

Schlemmer, the grey-haired commander of a tank corps, wearing a Knight's Cross together with a medal he had been awarded for having received five wounds, had interrupted this conversation to ask if they would look after his suitcase. After that everyone had begun talking at once: General Rinaldo, a man with a gentle smile who was head of the medical service; Colonel Ludwig, the morose commander of a tank division, whose face had been hideously scarred by a sabre cut… Colonel Adam, Paulus's adjutant, had made the worst fuss of all. He had lost his toilet-case and he kept throwing his hands up into the air and shaking his head in despair; the flaps of his leopard-skin cap had flapped about like the ears of a pedigree dog just out of the water.