The Librarian by Mikhail Elizarov

Author:Mikhail Elizarov [Mikhail Elizarov]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781782270843
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2014-09-20T04:00:00+00:00

The improvised council of war was in full spate.

“We form up in a phalanx,” said Zarubin. “How many of us are there? Eighty-four?” He thought for a moment, calculating. “In eight rows: with three, five, seven, nine, eleven and fifteen men.”

“That’s not a phalanx, it’s a ‘pig’,” the Penza librarian Akimushkin objected. “That’s unpatriotic, old man. And I’m superstitious, too. We don’t want to share the fate of the Livonians, do we?”

“The Teutons…”

“Ah, what’s the difference? The dog knights.”

Kisling knitted his brows and declaimed in a sepulchral voice:

“The first rush of the Germans was appalling, wedging into the Russian ranks and charging straight through with two lines of horse-drawn turrets…”

“Tvardovsky?” asked Tsofin, who hadn’t spoken so far.

“D-minus, Yevgeny Davidovich! Sit down! And what does the younger generation think?”

“Simonov?” I suggested.

“That’s an A-plus!”

“I don’t understand…” Tsofin said with a humorous frown. “How can a teacher of Russian be called Kisling? I mean, Ivanov, Petrov…”

“Even Tsofin, if it comes to that…” Kisling continued acidly, and everyone smiled.

“Colleagues,” Golenishchev said in a conciliatory tone of voice. “It’s a ‘pig’ when the enemy attacks, but when it’s our own Russian men, it’s a ‘wedge’. There’s no problem here.”

“Then the question is closed,” said Latokhin. “Has anyone got a sheet of paper? Better if it’s squared—that makes it easier to draw. Aha, thank you…”

He took the notebook held out to him by Tsofin.

A minute later I glanced curiously over Latokhin’s shoulder. The truncated triangle looked like a plan of a theatre auditorium.

“The first twenty-seven numbers,” Latokhin explained, “are my reading room. And you, comrades, form the flanks.”

I chose a spot on the right, immediately behind the Kolontayskites. The Vologdaites and Stavropolites took the centre and the final rows of seventeen men consisted of readers from Penza, Kostroma and Voronezh.

“Comrades,” said Latokhin as soon as the all the squares had been distributed among the brigades. “Let’s quickly run through formation-training, so we won’t get under each other’s feet if there’s an alarm…”

Due credit to them, all the readers played their parts meticulously, without any commotion or jostling. I deliberately walked up onto a mound of clay. From a height the army, bristling with terrifying scythes, pikes, gaffs and hayforks, looked very impressive indeed.

Time after time we assembled and disbanded the wedge, and Latokhin only left us in peace when we could match a record-standard time—thirty seconds in full battle kit.

But in fact we didn’t get much rest. Half an hour later the Pavliks made a leisurely appearance at the far side of the quarry.

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