Description
The news of the war’s outbreak caught “the Sintsov family by surprise, just like many other families.” Ivan and his wife Masha had just arrived in Crimea for a vacation when the fascist invaders’ attack became known. The situation was extremely serious—”their one-year-old daughter was left there, in Grodno, near the war.”
Masha could not forgive herself for leaving their daughter alone. The decision was made that she would stay in the Moscow apartment, where her mother was supposed to return with the small daughter, while Sintsov would try to get to Grodno first and bring them back with him.
In his attempt to reach his family, Political Commissar Ivan Sintsov is thrown into the chaos of the first month of the war: his regiment is destroyed, his documents are lost, and he is forced to fight his way through German encirclement toward the east. His personal survival mission escalates into an odyssey through military catastrophe, where he must battle not only the enemy but also the suspicion of the NKVD, proving he is not a deserter. The novel captures the catastrophic retreat and the birth of a hardened resistance in the fire of defeat. Through all the horror of the war, Sintsov’s love connection with Masha, now unbearably strained by separation and danger, becomes the main reason that drives him forward.
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Chapter One
The first day of the war caught the Sintsov family by surprise, just like millions of other families. It seemed everyone had long been expecting war, and yet, at the last minute, it struck like a bolt from the blue; obviously, it is generally impossible to fully prepare oneself in advance for such an immense calamity.
Sintsov and Masha learned that the war had begun in Simferopol, in the bustling forecourt of the train station. They had just gotten off the train and were standing by an old open “Lincoln,” waiting for fellow passengers to share the fare to a military sanatorium in Gurzuf.
Interrupting their conversation with the driver about whether there were any fruits and tomatoes at the market, the radio, hoarsely and loudly across the square, announced that the war had begun, and life immediately split into two incompatible parts: the life that was a minute ago, before the war, and the life that was now.
Sintsov and Masha carried their suitcases to the nearest bench. Masha sat down, buried her head in her hands, and remained motionless as if insensible, while Sintsov, without even asking her anything, went to the military commandant to secure tickets for the very first departing train. Now they had to make the entire journey back from Simferopol to Grodno, where Sintsov had served as the secretary of an army newspaper’s editorial office for a year and a half.
To the fact that the war was a calamity in general, their family had its own, particular misfortune added: Political Commissar Sintsov and his wife were a thousand versts away from the war, here in Simferopol, while their one-year-old daughter remained there, in Grodno, right next to the war. She was there, they were here, and no power could transport them to her sooner than four days.
Standing in line at the military commandant’s office, Sintsov tried to imagine what was happening in Grodno now. “Too close, too close to the border, and the aviation, most importantly—the aviation… It’s true, children might be evacuated immediately from such places…” He clung to this thought, feeling it might reassure Masha.
He returned to Masha to tell her that everything was in order: they would leave tonight at midnight. She lifted her head and looked at him like a stranger.
“What’s in order?”
“I said the tickets are all sorted,” Sintsov repeated.
“Good,” Masha said indifferently and lowered her head into her hands again.
She could not forgive herself for having left her daughter. She had done it after long persuasions from her mother, who had specially come to Grodno to allow Masha and Sintsov to go to the sanatorium together. Sintsov had also persuaded Masha to go and even got offended when, on the day of their departure, she looked up at him and asked, “Maybe we shouldn’t go after all?” Had she not listened to both of them then, she would be in Grodno now. The thought of being there now didn’t frighten her; what frightened her was that she was not there. Such a feeling of guilt lived in her toward the child left in Grodno that she barely thought of her husband.
With her characteristic directness, she suddenly told him this herself.
“Why worry about me?” Sintsov said. “And besides, everything will be alright.”
Masha couldn’t stand it when he spoke like that: suddenly and pointlessly starting to reassure her about something that could not be reassured.
“Stop talking nonsense!” she said. “Well, what will be alright? What do you know?” Her lips even trembled with anger. “I had no right to leave! Do you understand: I had no right!” she repeated, hitting her knee painfully with a tightly clenched fist.
When they got on the train, she fell silent and stopped reproaching herself, answering all of Sintsov’s questions with only “yes” and “no.” Generally, the entire journey to Moscow, Masha lived somewhat mechanically: she drank tea, silently stared out the window, then lay down on her upper berth and lay for hours, turned toward the wall.
Everyone around them talked only about one thing—the war, but Masha seemed not to hear it. A great and difficult inner work was taking place in her, to which she could not admit anyone, not even Sintsov.
Already near Moscow, in Serpukhov, as soon as the train stopped, she spoke to Sintsov for the first time:
“Let’s go out, let’s take a walk…”
They got out of the carriage, and she took his arm.
“You know, I understand now why I barely thought of you from the beginning: we’ll find Tanya, send her off with Mother, and I’ll stay with you in the army.”
“You’ve decided already?”
“Yes.”
“And what if you have to re-decide?”
She silently shook her head.
Then, trying to be as calm as possible, he told her that the two issues—how to find Tanya and whether or not to join the army—must be separated…
“I won’t separate them!” Masha interrupted him.
But he persistently continued to explain to her that it would be much wiser if he went to his duty station, Grodno, and she, on the contrary, stayed in Moscow. If the families were evacuated from Grodno (and they probably were), Masha’s mother, along with Tanya, would surely try to reach Moscow, to her own apartment. And for Masha, if only to avoid missing them, the most sensible thing was to wait for them in Moscow.
“Maybe they are already there now, having arrived from Grodno while we’ve been traveling from Simferopol!”
Masha looked distrustfully at Sintsov and fell silent again until they reached Moscow.
They arrived at the old Artyomov apartment on Usachyovka, where they had stayed so recently and so carelessly for two days on their way to Simferopol.
No one had arrived from Grodno. Sintsov hoped for a telegram, but there was no telegram either.
“I’ll go to the station now,” Sintsov said. “Maybe I can get a seat, I’ll catch the evening train. And you try calling, maybe you’ll get through.”
He took his notebook out of his tunic pocket and, tearing off a sheet, wrote down the Grodno editorial office phone numbers for Masha.
“Wait, sit down for a minute,” she stopped her husband. “I know you’re against me going. But how can I still make it happen?”
Sintsov began to argue that she shouldn’t do it. To his previous arguments, he added a new one: even if they allowed her to travel to Grodno now, and even if they took her into the army there—which he doubted—didn’t she realize that it would be twice as hard for him?
Masha listened, growing paler and paler.
“And how can you not understand,” she suddenly cried out, “how can you not understand that I am a person too?! That I want to be where you are?! Why do you only think about yourself?”
“How ‘only about myself’?” Sintsov asked, astonished.
But she, without answering, burst into bitter tears; and when she had cried it out, she said in a businesslike voice that he should go to the station to get tickets, or he would be late.
“And for me too. You promise?”
Angered by her stubbornness, he finally stopped sparing her, snapping back that no civilians, especially women, would be allowed on the train going to Grodno now, that the Grodno area had been in yesterday’s bulletin, and it was time, finally, to look at things soberly.
“Fine,” Masha said, “if they won’t let me on, they won’t let me on, but you will try! I believe you. Okay?”
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