Red Army

Bezarin asked.

"No time. We're wasting time now. The order has been issued."

Bezarin stared at Tarashvili.

"Go on, everyone," Tarashvili said, forcing a smile. "Comrade Major Bezarin, you may remain and address any other questions to me."

Bezarin felt the clock working against him. He turned to leave with the others. But Tarashvili surprised him by catching his sleeve.

The regimental commander waited until the others were out of earshot. Then he turned his dark brown eyes on Bezarin. In their depths, Bezarin thought he glimpsed the soul of a man who wanted to be anywhere else but here, perhaps at home with his splendid-looking wife.

"What do you expect?" Tarashvili asked. "What do you really expect, my friend?" The lieutenant colonel seemed painfully sincere, as if he valued Bezarin's approval after all.

Bezarin did not know how to respond. He wanted it all to be by the book, to match his personal visions. He wanted time to issue battle 215

Ralph Peters

instructions to his companies in a concealed jump-off position, to prepare each last detail.

"We all want to do our best," Tarashvili continued. "I don't know what more you can reasonably expect."

Bezarin found himself at a loss. The words that came to mind seemed laughably formal and pompous now. Behind his back, he heard his tanks readying to move.

Tarashvili reached into the officer's pouch he wore slung over his shoulder. Smiling, he produced two chocolate bars.

"Here," he said. "Spoils of war. The West Germans make wonderful chocolate, you know."

The oddity of the gift and its timing startled Bezarin. He sensed that Tarashvili, for whatever reason, was trying to give everything he had.

Perhaps it was guilt over the wasted years and opportunities. But now it was evident that the regimental commander was lost and knew it.

"Take them," Tarashvili begged. "It's all right. You'll be glad for them later." The lieutenant colonel seemed almost pathetic. It struck Bezarin that he himself rarely considered other men as real human beings with complex problems of their own.

Bezarin reached out and took the chocolate bars. Trying to bribe me with chocolate. It's the only way he knows how to do business, Bezarin thought. But he found unexpected compassion in this image of the other man now. It was pitiful that Tarashvili had come to this.

Bezarin forced out a word of thanks. So this, he thought, is what war is really like.

In the winter, Lvov seemed to be the grayest city in the world. Dirty snow piled up along the streets, making trenches of the sidewalks. When fresh snow failed to come, the snowbanks slowly blackened along the shabby rows of old imperial buildings, architectural remnants of the years when Lvov had been Lemberg, the heart of Austro-Hungarian Galicia. The once-stately offices and departments resembled women aged beyond any possible dignity as they crumbled away between the cinder-block-and-concrete structures from the Stalinist twilight. In the winter, in the crowded silence of the streetcars, it seemed as though the last feeble capacity for joy had been crushed out of the people. The men and women of Lvov trudged through the short winter days like weary soldiers, marching past closed peeling doors and frayed posters announc-ing events already past. He had met Anna in the winter, in Lvov, and she had stood out from her background like a match struck at midnight.

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Bezarin remembered his route through the purple-gray of the faltering afternoons. He recalled the streetcars with their worn seats and their smell of urine, winter clothes, and chemicals. From the headquarters barracks, you took 23 to Konev Square, then 35 to the office block where the classrooms were located. In the old Austrian barracks, well-built and ill-heated, there was never quite enough space for all of the officers and men and activities. The streetcars, too, were overcrowded, but sometimes you got lucky coming in from the barracks and you found a seat before the benches had all filled up. Then you could read over your notes.

There was insufficient room at the university, as well, and the special classes for officers were held in makeshift classrooms at an agricultural cooperative administration center. Everyone was happy with that because there was a tearoom for the cadres that still had cakes and other snacks in the late afternoon, when more public establishments had long been emptied. It became a joke among the officers that the agricultural officials, whom the officers nicknamed "our kulaks," would never run out of food. Anna was a joke among the officers, too, but laughing about her in her absence was the only way they could cope with her.

She was an unexpected girl, this young candidate of literature. With hair that swirled around the collar of her winter coat like cognac in a proper glass. When she took charge of the class, her style had the sharpness of brandy, as well. No nonsense, Comrade Officers. Attention.

The tiny Polish girl is in charge here.