Requiem for a Soldier by Oleg Pavlov

Author:Oleg Pavlov
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: vodka, Noir, humour, prisoners, Surreal, soldiers, Faulkner, Soviet Empire, Solzhenitsyn Prize, army, tragedy, Solzhenitsyn, steppe, Russian Booker Prize, Russian, vagrants, Dostoyevsky, Kazakhstan, Platonov, Captain of the Steppe, train, Military, mice, The Matiushin Case, novel, infirmary, Karagandinskiye Deviatiny, Literary fiction, teeth, railway, refugees
Publisher: And Other Stories Publishing
Published: 2015-06-09T05:00:00+00:00

‌THE LONG FAREWELL

At Karaganda goods station, behind the solid wall around the railway warehouses, a funeral party of two – a clodhopping elderly warrant officer and a bashful young private – was awaiting its fate. Their meeting place was already submerged in twilight. They were as cold and hungry as prisoners of war. The jitters were teeming and biting them under the collar like lice. A sense of uncertainty brought together the ill-assorted strangers and from a distance, in the dark, they appeared like two stray dogs of some monstrous breed befriending one another: as tall as humans, tailless, with long grey pelts and duffle-bag bundles humped on their backs. The young soldier was still in service mode: poised in readiness and waiting at attention. Or perhaps for want of another superior, he was trying to be of service to the only senior present, listening to him as obediently as a son while the latter was busily scouring the area within two or three paces of them – spinning around, at times freezing to the spot as though he had heard a shout.

‘Ivan Petrovich, tell me what Moscow’s like.’

‘Ah, they’ve got everything in Moscow, that’s what it’s like. You ever seen a banana? Nah, didn’t think you had, but they’ve got them in Moscow. It’s like they grow on trees there… How people live in the place I have no idea. See they’ve already got it all, there’s no need to do anything, just keep picking up your wages and going on shopping sprees.’

‘Ivan Petrovich, are we going to be there long?’

‘We’ll stay as long as we can; the funds allocated won’t stretch that far. The funeral will take a day or two; they bury them awful quick. We’ll be staying with the relatives – it was really lucky that I managed to sort that out. Would be good if they could feed us too, though I’m not sure they will. If our money and rations hold out, we could be there a week. We’ll pluck up the courage and make out that we couldn’t get hold of any train tickets back. We’ll get it in the neck, of course, for each extra day – just so you’re prepared!’

‘But Ivan Petrovich, what will I be doing in Moscow?’

‘Your job is easy enough: you just go wherever I go. And my job is straightforward too: not to do anything much, apart from carry out orders. Just be sure to keep your head, be quick but don’t rush, otherwise things will get said later… They always come up with something to tick you off for. You’ll be the whipping boy, and your whole life will be screwed up. You need to follow the middle path, then you’ll be protected by the angels. Leave it to fools to do what they want, we’ll do what we’re told.’

The yawning moon appeared as a hazy luminous recess in the sky, gaping hungrily towards a number of tiny stars that were dangling like bait impaled on the points of fish hooks.

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