The Matiushin Case by Andrew Bromfield, Oleg Pavlov
Authors: Andrew Bromfield, Oleg Pavlov
Tags: Drama, Contemporary Fiction, translation, Literary Fiction, Novel, Comedy, Russia, Translated fiction, prison camp, dark humour, Soviet army, conscription, Russian Booker Prize, Solzhenitsyn Prize, Russian fiction, Oleg Pavlov, Solzhenitsyn, Captain of the Steppe, Павлов, Олег Олегович, Récits des derniers jours, Tales of the Last Days, Andrew Bromfield
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crimson when the guy took a drag on the cigarette. Short, the height of a child, but stocky and barrel-chested.
âIâve got two scars on my body from the army, and they knocked out my front teeth. But I donât bear the army any grudge. I think they did right to beat me. First, Iâm an Uzbek, and lots of Uzbeks can be stupid; it takes a fist to make them understand anything, so they post them to a construction battalion. And second, if they hadnât beaten me, I wouldnât have done anything. If someoneâs beaten me, I respect them. I respect strong people.â
âAn Uzbek! An Uzbek!â laughed Matiushin, delighted that now he knew who was talking to him, and slapped the man on the shoulder. âCome on then, tell me about it! I love Uzbeks!â
It didnât bother the man at all that Matiushin was giving him orders. That was what he wanted â to be needed, to hook on to someone. His speech was clear, pouring out from somewhere inside him. But his face, with its stony jaw muscles, was silent with a cool tension, not even human, and it guttered like candlewax in the glimmers and glints of transparent twilight from the blind end of the vestibule.
Matiushin started getting the kind of warm feeling he hadnât had with anyone for a long time. Drawing on this feeling of benevolence for the Uzbek, he felt a spiritual calm so strong that now even the stinking vestibule lulled him like a cradle. In this tenderhearted condition, he dragged the Uzbek after him back into the berth and tumbled out all his provisions for him. But the Uzbek kept talking on and on, telling only his own story and nodding dolefully, as if beating his head against an invisible wall.
For half the night they staggered from the vestibule into the carriage, from the carriage into the vestibule. And they werenât alone: no one was sleeping. Those who had drunk up all their money pestered those who could stand them a drink â and they didnât know what they were going to eat and drink tomorrow. Only the dirt-cheap cigarettes didnât run out. The hungry tobacco smoke swirled all around, as if the carriage itself was quietly smouldering, going up in smoke. The night stretched out, vastly longer than the day; it was impenetrable somehow. Its immensity made everything seem immense to Matiushin â the jagged, opened food cans, gaping like jaws; a gigantic human eye, flitting past as if under a magnifying glass; the vast space of the vestibule; huge two-legged people â and all the words that were uttered came hurtling out, flew through the air and fell like massive stone blocks.
He had long ago wearied of peering at the Uzbek and trying to make him out; he just heard his voice, sometimes distant, sometimes close ⦠Some night or other, but a different one, not his night. A filthy, dark barracks; winter. A tunic has to be washed â a man has to be cleanly dressed. The Uzbek lays out the damp tunic, secretly washed after midnight, under his sheet and sleeps on it, drying it with his body, ironing it â he says that in winter using your body is the only way to dry things. Reveille. All around sleeping men jump up, tumbling off their beds like dried peas and dressing on the hop. The tunicâs still damp, but itâs smooth. The important thing is that itâs clean and smooth â no one will see that itâs damp. Theyâre driven out into the frost to line up. The cold is terrible, ferocious. But for some reason the Uzbek is glad. Soon the tunic will freeze under his greatcoat, and then heâll stop feeling it and wonât even notice that in the afternoon itâs completely dry. That means the frost can act like the sun, can have the same power â so does that mean that heat and cold are the same thing? But the tunic really is dry on him, and he got the idea of making a lining out of white oilcloth, and no one even noticed. At night he just wiped it with a rag,
âIâve got two scars on my body from the army, and they knocked out my front teeth. But I donât bear the army any grudge. I think they did right to beat me. First, Iâm an Uzbek, and lots of Uzbeks can be stupid; it takes a fist to make them understand anything, so they post them to a construction battalion. And second, if they hadnât beaten me, I wouldnât have done anything. If someoneâs beaten me, I respect them. I respect strong people.â
âAn Uzbek! An Uzbek!â laughed Matiushin, delighted that now he knew who was talking to him, and slapped the man on the shoulder. âCome on then, tell me about it! I love Uzbeks!â
It didnât bother the man at all that Matiushin was giving him orders. That was what he wanted â to be needed, to hook on to someone. His speech was clear, pouring out from somewhere inside him. But his face, with its stony jaw muscles, was silent with a cool tension, not even human, and it guttered like candlewax in the glimmers and glints of transparent twilight from the blind end of the vestibule.
Matiushin started getting the kind of warm feeling he hadnât had with anyone for a long time. Drawing on this feeling of benevolence for the Uzbek, he felt a spiritual calm so strong that now even the stinking vestibule lulled him like a cradle. In this tenderhearted condition, he dragged the Uzbek after him back into the berth and tumbled out all his provisions for him. But the Uzbek kept talking on and on, telling only his own story and nodding dolefully, as if beating his head against an invisible wall.
For half the night they staggered from the vestibule into the carriage, from the carriage into the vestibule. And they werenât alone: no one was sleeping. Those who had drunk up all their money pestered those who could stand them a drink â and they didnât know what they were going to eat and drink tomorrow. Only the dirt-cheap cigarettes didnât run out. The hungry tobacco smoke swirled all around, as if the carriage itself was quietly smouldering, going up in smoke. The night stretched out, vastly longer than the day; it was impenetrable somehow. Its immensity made everything seem immense to Matiushin â the jagged, opened food cans, gaping like jaws; a gigantic human eye, flitting past as if under a magnifying glass; the vast space of the vestibule; huge two-legged people â and all the words that were uttered came hurtling out, flew through the air and fell like massive stone blocks.
He had long ago wearied of peering at the Uzbek and trying to make him out; he just heard his voice, sometimes distant, sometimes close ⦠Some night or other, but a different one, not his night. A filthy, dark barracks; winter. A tunic has to be washed â a man has to be cleanly dressed. The Uzbek lays out the damp tunic, secretly washed after midnight, under his sheet and sleeps on it, drying it with his body, ironing it â he says that in winter using your body is the only way to dry things. Reveille. All around sleeping men jump up, tumbling off their beds like dried peas and dressing on the hop. The tunicâs still damp, but itâs smooth. The important thing is that itâs clean and smooth â no one will see that itâs damp. Theyâre driven out into the frost to line up. The cold is terrible, ferocious. But for some reason the Uzbek is glad. Soon the tunic will freeze under his greatcoat, and then heâll stop feeling it and wonât even notice that in the afternoon itâs completely dry. That means the frost can act like the sun, can have the same power â so does that mean that heat and cold are the same thing? But the tunic really is dry on him, and he got the idea of making a lining out of white oilcloth, and no one even noticed. At night he just wiped it with a rag,
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