She'd wanted to reply that he'd have had to ask her view on the matter first. But she'd been too frightened to say anything at all.

He hadn't done anything wrong. He hadn't even said anything coarse or brazen. But she was frightened.

Later on in the day he'd said sadly: 'The Germans are about to launch their offensive. Probably not one of us will be left alive. This building lies right in their path.'

He had then given her a long, thoughtful look – a look that Katya found more frightening than what he'd said about the German offensive – and added: 'I'll come round some time.'

The link between this remark and what he'd said before was by no means obvious, but Katya understood it.

He was very different from any of the officers she'd seen round Kotluban. He never threatened people or shouted at them, but they obeyed him. He just sat there, smoking and chatting away like one of the soldiers. And yet his authority was immense.

She'd never really talked to Seryozha. Sometimes she thought he was in love with her – but as powerless as she herself before the man they admired and were terrified by. She knew he was weak and inexperienced, but she kept wanting to ask for his protection, to say: 'Come and sit by me.' And then there were times when she wanted to comfort him herself. Talking to him was very strange – it often seemed as though there were no war, no house 6/1 at all. Seryozha appeared to understand this and tried to adopt a coarse, soldierly manner. Once he even swore in her presence.

Now she felt that there was some terrible link between her own confused thoughts and feelings and the fact that Seryozha had been ordered to join the storming-party. Listening to the tommy-gun fire, she imagined Seryozha lying across a mound of red brick, his lifeless head and unkempt hair drooping. She felt a heart-rending sense of pity for him. Everything merged together: the many-coloured flares, her memories of her mother, her simultaneous fear and admiration of Grekov – this man who, from a few isolated ruins, was about to launch an assault on the iron-clad German divisions.

She felt ready to sacrifice everything in the world – if only she could see Seryozha again alive.

'But what if I have to choose between him and Mama?' she thought suddenly.

Then she heard footsteps; her fingers tensed against the bricks.

The shooting died down; there was a sudden silence. Her back, her shoulders, her legs all began to itch. She wanted to scratch them but was afraid of making a noise.

People had kept asking Batrakov why he was always scratching himself. He'd always answered: 'It's just nerves.' And then yesterday he'd said: 'I've just found eleven lice!' Kolomeitsev had made fun of him: 'Batrakov's been attacked by nerve-lice!'

She had been killed. Soldiers were dragging her corpse to a pit and saying: 'Poor girl! She's covered in lice!'

But perhaps it really was just her nerves? Then she saw a man coming towards her out of the darkness – and not just someone she had conjured up out of the strange noises and the flickering light.

'Who is it?' she asked.

'Don't be afraid,' said the darkness. 'It's me.'

17

'The attack's been put off till tomorrow. Today it's the Germans' turn. By the way, I wanted to tell you, I've never read La Chartreuse de Parme.''

Katya didn't answer.

Seryozha tried to make her out in the darkness; as though in answer to his wish, her face was suddenly lit up by a shell-burst. A second later it was dark again; as though by unspoken agreement they waited for another shell-burst, another flash of light. Seryozha took her by the hand and squeezed her fingers; it was the first time he had held a girl's hand.

The dirty, lice-ridden girl sat there without saying a word. Seryozha could see her white neck in the darkness.

Another flare went up and their heads drew together. He put his arms round her and she closed her eyes. They'd both of them heard the same saying at school: if you kiss with your eyes open, you're not in love.

'This is the real thing, isn't it?' asked Seryozha.

She pressed her hands against his temples and turned his head towards her.

'This is for all our lives,' he said slowly.

'How strange,' she said. 'I'm afraid somebody may come by. Until now I was only too delighted to see any of them: Lyakhov, Kolomeitsev, Zubarev…'

'Grekov,' added Seryozha.

'No,' she said firmly.

He kissed her on the neck and undid the metal button on her tunic. He pressed his lips to her thin collar-bone, but didn't touch her breasts. She stroked his wiry unwashed hair as though he were a little boy; she knew that all this was right and inevitable.

He looked at the luminous dial of his watch.

'Who's leading you tomorrow?' she asked. 'Grekov?'

'Why ask now? Who needs a leader anyway?'

He embraced her again. He felt a sudden cold in his fingers and chest, a sudden resolute excitement. She was half lying on her coat; she seemed to be hardly breathing. He felt the coarse, dusty material of her tunic and skirt, then the rough fur of her boots. He sensed the warmth of her body. She tried to sit up, but he began kissing her again. Another flash of light lit up Katya's cap – now lying on some bricks – and her face – suddenly unfamiliar, as though he'd never seen it before. Then it became dark again, very dark…

'Katya!'

'What is it?'

'Nothing. I just wanted to hear your voice. Why don't you look at me?'

He lit a match.

'Don't! Don't! Put it out!'

Once again she wondered who she loved most – him or her mother.

'Forgive me,' she said.

Failing to understand her, Seryozha said: 'It's all right. Don't be afraid. This is for life – if we live.'

'No, I was just thinking of my mother.'

'My mother's dead. I've only just realized – she was deported because of my father.'

They went to sleep in each other's arms. During the night the house-manager came and looked at them. Shaposhnikov had his head on the girl's shoulder and his arm round her back; it looked as though he were afraid of losing her. Their sleep was so quiet and so still they might have been dead.

At dawn Lyakhov looked in and shouted:

'Hey, Shaposhnikov! Vengrova! The house-manager wants you. At the double!'

In the cold, misty half-light Grekov's face looked severe and implacable. He was leaning against the wall, his tousled hair hanging over his low forehead. They stood in front of him, shifting from foot to foot, unaware they were still holding hands. Grekov flared his broad nostrils and said: 'Very well, Shaposhnikov, I'm sending you back to Regimental Headquarters.'

Seryozha could feel Katya's fingers trembling; he squeezed them.

She in turn felt his fingers trembling. He swallowed; his tongue and palate were quite dry.

The earth and the clouded sky were enveloped in silence. The soldiers lying in a huddle on their greatcoats seemed wide awake, hardly breathing, waiting. Everything was so familiar, so splendid. Seryozha thought to himself: 'We're being expelled from Paradise. He's separating us like two serfs.' He gave Grekov a look of mingled hatred and entreaty.

Grekov narrowed his eyes as he looked Katya full in the face. Seryozha felt there was something quite horrible about this look, something insolent and merciless.

'That's all,' said Grekov. 'And the radio-operator can go with you. There's no need for her to hang around here with nothing to do. You can show her the way to HQ.'

He smiled.

'And after that you'll have to find your own ways. Here, take this. I can't stand paperwork so I've just written one for the two of you. All right?'

Seryozha suddenly realized that never in all his life had he seen eyes that were so sad and so intelligent, so splendid, yet so human.