Fall of Giants

He was even more worried about Katerina. What would she do if he had to go to war? She was sharing a room with three other girls at the boardinghouse, and working at the Putilov factory, packing rifle cartridges into cardboard boxes. But she would have to stop work when the baby was born, at least for a while. Without Grigori, how would she support herself and the child? She would be desperate, and he knew what country girls did in St. Petersburg when they were desperate for money. God forbid that she should sell her body on the streets.

However, he was not called up on the first day, or the first week. According to the newspapers, two and a half million reservists had been mobilized on the last day of July, but that was just a story. It was impossible for so many men to be marshaled, issued with uniforms, and put on trains to the front all in one day, or indeed one month. They were called in groups, some sooner, some later.

As the first hot days of August went by, Grigori began to think he might have been left out. It was a tantalizing possibility. The army was one of the worst-managed institutions in a hopelessly disorganized country, and there would probably be thousands of men who were overlooked through sheer incompetence.

Katerina had got into the habit of coming to his room early every morning, while he was making breakfast. It was the highlight of his day. He was always washed and dressed by then, but she appeared wearing the shift she slept in, her hair bewitchingly tousled, yawning. The garment was too small for her, now that she was putting on weight. He calculated that she must be four and a half months pregnant. Her breasts and hips were larger, and there was a small but noticeable bulge in her belly. Her voluptuousness was a delightful torture. Grigori tried not to stare at her body.

One morning she came in while he was scrambling two hen’s eggs in a pan over the fire. He no longer made do with porridge for breakfast: his brother’s unborn child needed good food to grow strong and healthy. Most days Grigori had something nourishing to share with Katerina: ham, or herrings, or her favorite, sausage.

Katerina was always hungry. She sat at the table, cut a thick slice of black bread from the loaf, and began to eat, too impatient to wait. With her mouth full she said: “When a soldier is killed, who gets his back pay?”

Grigori recalled giving the name and address of his next of kin. “In my case, Lev,” he said.

“I wonder if he’s in America yet.”

“He must be. It doesn’t take eight weeks to get there.”

“I hope he’s found a job.”

“You don’t need to worry. He’ll be all right. Everyone likes him.” Grigori suffered a pang of angry resentment at his brother. It should have been Lev here in Russia looking after Katerina and her unborn baby, and worrying about the draft, while Grigori started the new life he had saved and planned for. But Lev had snatched that opportunity. And still Katerina fretted about the man who had abandoned her, not the one who had stayed.

She said: “I’m sure he’s doing well in America, but still I wish we’d had a letter from him.”

Grigori shaved a heel of hard cheese over the eggs and added salt. He wondered sadly whether they would ever hear from America. Lev had never been sentimental, and he might have decided to shuck off his past, like a lizard crawling out of its old skin. But Grigori did not voice this thought, out of kindness to Katerina, who was still hoping Lev would send for her.

She said: “Do you think you will fight?”

“Not if I can help it. What are we fighting for?”

“For Serbia, they say.”

Grigori spooned the eggs onto two plates and sat at the table. “The issue is whether Serbia will be tyrannized by the Austrian emperor or the Russian tsar. I doubt if the Serbs care one way or the other, and I certainly don’t.” He began to eat.

“For the tsar, then.”

“I would fight for you, for Lev, for myself, or for your baby… but for the tsar? No.”

Katerina ate her egg rapidly and wiped the plate with a fresh slice of bread. “What names do you like for a boy?”

“My father’s name was Sergei, and his father was Tikhon.”

“I like Mikhail,” she said. “The same as the archangel.”

“So do most people. That’s why the name is so common.”

“Perhaps I should call him Lev. Or even Grigori.”

Grigori was touched by this. He would be thrilled to have a nephew named after him. But he did not like to make demands on her. “Lev would be nice,” he said.

The factory whistle blew-a sound that could be heard all over the Narva district-and Grigori stood up to go.

“I’ll wash the plates,” Katerina said. Her job did not begin until seven, an hour later than Grigori’s.

She turned her cheek up and Grigori kissed her. It was only a brief kiss, and he did not allow his lips to linger, but all the same he relished the soft smoothness of her skin and the warm, sleepy smell of her neck.

Then he put on his cap and went out.