The remorseless cunning of History, however, lay still more deeply hidden. Freedom engendered the Russian victory. Freedom was the apparent aim of the war. But the sly fingers of History changed this: freedom became simply a way of waging the war, a means to an end.

33

A marvellous but somehow exhausting silence lay over the Kalmyk steppe. Did the men hurrying, that very morning, along Unter den Linden know what was about to happen? Did they know that Russia had now turned her face towards the West? That she was about to strike, about to advance?

'Don't forget the coats,' Novikov called out from the porch to Kharitonov, his driver. 'Mine and the commissar's. We won't be back till late.'

Getmanov and Nyeudobnov followed him out.

'Mikhail Petrovich,' said Novikov, 'if anything happens, phone Karpov. Or if it's after three o'clock, get hold of Byelov and Makarov.'

'What do you think could happen here?' asked Nyeudobnov.

'Who knows? Maybe a visit from one of the brass hats.'

Two small points appeared out of the sun and swooped down over the village. The whine of engines grew louder; the still silence of the steppe was shattered.

Kharitonov leapt out of the jeep and ran for shelter behind the wall of a barn.

'Fool!' shouted Getmanov. 'They're our own planes.'

At that very moment, one plane released a bomb and the other let out a burst of machine-gun fire. The air howled, there was the sound of shattering glass, a woman let out a piercing scream, a child began to cry, and clods of earth rained down on the ground.

Novikov ducked as he heard the bomb fall. For a moment everything was drowned in dust and smoke; all he could see was Getmanov standing beside him. Then Nyeudobnov emerged, standing very upright, shoulders straight and head erect. It was as though he were carved out of wood.

A little pale, but animated and full of excitement, Getmanov brushed the dust off his trousers. With an endearing boastfulness he said: That's a mercy. My trousers are still dry. And as for our general, he didn't even bat an eyelid.'

Getmanov and Nyeudobnov went off to look at the bomb crater and to see how far the earth had been thrown. They examined a piece of smashed fencing and were surprised to see that the windows of the more distant houses had been broken, but not those of the nearer ones.

Novikov watched the two men with curiosity. It was as though they were surprised that the bomb should have been made in the factory, carried into the sky and dropped to earth with only one aim -that of killing the fathers of the little Getmanovs and Nyeudobnovs. It was as though they were thinking: 'So that's what people get up to during a war.'

Getmanov was still talking about the raid when they set off. Then he cut himself short and said: 'You must find it amusing to listen to me, Pyotr Pavlovich. You've already seen thousands of them, but that was my first time.'

Then another thought struck him.

'Listen, Pyotr Pavlovich. This Krymov fellow, tell me, was he ever taken prisoner?'

'Krymov? Why do you ask?'

'It's just that I heard an interesting conversation about him at Front Headquarters.'

'His unit was once encircled, but no, I don't think he was ever taken prisoner. What was this conversation anyway?'

As though he hadn't heard, Getmanov tapped Kharitonov on the shoulder and said: 'That road there. It goes straight to the HQ of 1st Brigade – and we avoid the ravine. See if I haven't learnt to orient myself!'

Novikov was already used to the way Getmanov could never follow one train of thought. He would begin telling a story, suddenly ask a question, carry on with the story, then interrupt himself with another question. His thoughts appeared to move in zigzags, with no rhyme or reason; Novikov knew, however, that this was by no means the case.

Getmanov often talked about his wife and children. He carried a thick packet of family photographs around with him and he had twice sent men off to Ufa with parcels of food. But as soon as he'd arrived he'd begun an affair – and quite a serious one at that – with Tamara Pavlovna, a swarthy, bad-tempered doctor from the first-aid post. One morning Vershkov had announced in a tragic voice: 'Comrade Colonel, the doctor's spent the night with the commissar. He didn't let her go until dawn.'

'That's none of your business, Vershkov,' Novikov had answered. 'And I'd rather you stopped bringing me sweets on the sly.'

Getmanov made no secret of this affair. There in the jeep, he nudged Novikov and whispered: 'Pyotr Pavlovich, I know a lad who's fallen in love with our doctor.'

'A commissar, I believe,' said Novikov, glancing at the driver.

'Well, Bolsheviks aren't monks,' Getmanov explained in a whisper. 'What could the poor fool do? He's fallen in love.'

They were silent for a few minutes. Then, in a quite different tone of voice, Getmanov said: 'And as for you, Pyotr Pavlovich, you're certainly not getting any thinner. You must be in your element here. The same as I'm in my element working for the Party. That's what I was made for. I arrived at my obkom at the most difficult moment. Anyone else would have had a heart attack. The plan for grain deliveries was in tatters. Stalin himself spoke to me twice on the telephone… And I just put on weight – for all the world as though I were on holiday.'

'God only knows what I was made for,' said Novikov. 'Maybe I really was made for war.'

He laughed.

'One thing I've noticed – whenever anything interesting happens, I immediately think: "I must remember to tell Yevgenia Nikolaevna." After that raid I thought: "I mustn't forget to tell her – Getmanov and Nyeudobnov have seen their first bomb." '

'So you're drawing up political reports, are you?' asked Getmanov.

'That's right.'

'I can understand,' said Getmanov. 'There's no one closer than one's wife.'

They reached Brigade HQ and got out of the jeep.

Novikov's head was always full of names of people and places, of problems, difficulties, questions to be resolved and questions that had just been resolved, orders to be given and orders to be countermanded.

Sometimes he would wake up at night and begin wondering anxiously whether or not it was right to open fire at distances exceeding the range of the sighting gear. Was it really worth firing while on the move? And would his officers be able to take stock of a changing situation quickly and accurately? Would they be able to take decisions independently, on the spot?

Then he imagined his tanks breaking through the German and Rumanian defences. Column after column, they entered the breach and set off in pursuit of the enemy. In liaison with ground-support aircraft, self-propelled guns and motorized infantry they drove further and further towards the West, seizing fords and bridges, avoiding minefields, crushing pockets of resistance… Out of breath with joy and excitement, Novikov would sit up in bed, his bare feet touching the floor.

He never felt any desire to tell Getmanov about such moments. Here in the steppe, he felt even more irritated with him and Nyeudob-nov than he had in the Urals. 'They've arrived just in time for dessert,' he would sometimes say to himself.

He himself was no longer the man he had been in 1941. He drank more, swore a lot and had become quick-tempered. Once he had almost hit the officer responsible for fuel supplies. People were afraid of him – and he knew it.

'I don't know if I really am made for war,' he said to Getmanov. 'The best thing in the world would be to live in a hut in the forest together with the woman you love. You'd go hunting during the day and come back home in the evening. She'd cook you a meal and then you'd go to bed. War's no nourishment for a man.'

Getmanov, his head cocked, watched him attentively.