FICTION
Vasily Grossman
LIFE AND FATE
Mikhail Mostovskoy was kept for over three weeks in the
isolation ward. He was fed well, examined twice by an SS doctor ,
and prescribed injections of glucose .
During his first hours of confinement Mostovskoy expected to
be summoned for interrogation at any moment. He felt constantly
irritated with himself. Why had he talked with Ikonnikov? That holy
fool had betrayed him, planting compromising papers on him just
before a search.
The days passed and Mostovskoy still wasn't summoned....
He went over the conversations he had had with the other prisoners
about politics, wondering which of them he could recruit. At night,
when he couldn't sleep , he composed a text for some leaflets and
began compiling a camp phrase-book to facilitate communication
between the different nationalities.
He remembered the old laws of conspiracy, intended to exclude
the possibility of a total debacle if an agent provocateur should de–
nounce them .
Mostovskoy wanted to question Yershov and Osipov about the
immediate aims of the organization . He was confident that he would
be able to overcome Osipov's prejudice against Yershov .
Chernetsov, who hated Bolshevism and yet longed for the vic–
tory of the Red Army, seemed a pathetic figure. Now Mostovskoy
felt quite calm about the prospect of his impending interrogation .
One night Mostovskoy had a heart attack. He lay there with his
head against the wall, feeling the agony of a man left to die in a
prison. For a while the pain made him lose consciousness. Then he
came to. The pain had lessened, but his chest, his face and the palms
of his hands were all covered in sweat. His thoughts took on a decep–
tive clarity .
Editor's Note: This excerpt is from
Lifeand Fate
by Vasily Grossman, to be published
by Harper
&
Row Publishers, Inc. Copyright
IC
1980 by Editions L'Age d'Homme.
Translation copyright
IC
1985 by Collins Harvill.
