The Red Scarf

by Kate Furnivall

  “My wife.”

  The man blew out an appreciative billow of fragrant smoke. “She can talk to me while you fix your girth. I don’t get much conversation these days, not since my Yulia died.”

  Mikhail took the reins from Sofia’s hand and headed for the barn.

  “What would you like to talk about?” Sofia smiled and sat down on the bench beside him, stretching her legs out in the sunshine. The word wife had taken her by surprise, and to her ears it sounded good. She laughed as a tiny kitten with spiky white fur and bright blue eyes scurried to safety under the man’s ankles when it saw the dog trailing across the clearing. Several scrawny chickens paused in their dustbaths to bob their heads at the intruders.

  “Do you know Moscow?” the old man asked.

  “I’ve never been there, I’m afraid,” she said.

  “Is it true Stalin dynamited the sacred Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer and is planning to build a Palace of the Soviets in its place?”

  “So I believe.”

  “And what about that Dutch Communist burning down the Reichstag in Germany?” He chuckled into his beard and slapped his thigh with glee. “That’s one up the ass for that goose-stepping fascist monkey who has seized power over there.”

  “You’re very well informed.”

  “Da. I read Pravda. My son comes to see me every three months and brings me all the newspapers I need.” He nodded his head proudly and chewed at his tobacco-stained mustache. “He’s a good son to me.”

  They talked further, about bread rationing and the high prices in shops and the increase in educational places for girls and Kirov’s plans for Leningrad. None of it could touch the old man out here in the wilderness, yet he was passionate about seeing the rebirth of Russia. Alongside a steady flow of chatter, he provided a welcome meal of chicken, boiled potatoes, salted cabbage, and cucumber with smetana, and in return Mikhail took an hour to split logs while Sofia stacked them up against the wall. It was almost like normal living again. Even the dog lay in a patch of shade and snored contentedly, its stomach rumbling with chicken scraps.

  “Time for us to leave,” Mikhail finally announced. “Thank you for your hospitality. Spasibo.”

  “I’ve enjoyed the company.” He smiled at Sofia and patted her hand, pulling a face at the scars on her two fingers. “Been in the wars, have you, girl?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You should take better care of your wife in future, young man.”

  Mikhail gave Sofia a pointed look. “She’s not the easiest of women to take care of.”

  Their gaze met, and Sofia suddenly saw for the first time his fear for her, deep down, sharp and painful as a bayonet inside him, and a sense of longing hit her. She wanted to rid this man she loved of those dark tense shadows, to make him as content and relaxed as the dog in the dust.

  “When this is over,” she promised, and tipped him a crooked smile.

  He nodded and returned the smile. It was only a moment, but it was a moment she would keep safe.

  She thanked the old man, and Mikhail started to lead the horses forward, reins loose in his fingers, and that was when she slid her hand into her pocket to tuck a couple of cookies in there that their host had provided for the journey. One of her damaged fingers brushed against the white stone where it lay, warm from the heat of her body, and she felt something change. Startled, she looked around her, expecting to see something different, but still the silver birch branches shimmered gently in the breeze and a magpie spiraled down into the clearing to steal a chicken bone from the dirt. The izba looked as peaceful as ever, its windows blinking in the sun.

  But something had definitely changed. She didn’t know what, but she could sense it. Then slowly, like the echo of distant thunder, in the soles of her feet she felt the vibration of horses’ hooves. She stood totally still, listening. She could hear the nervous beating of hearts and whispers rustling the leaves. With a sudden roar her pulse pounded in her ears, blocking out the sound.

  “Mikhail,” she called, her voice louder than she intended. “They’re here.”

  “Who?”

  "The soldiers.”

  THEY prepared quickly, dismantling their packs and turning the horses into a field down by the river. Mikhail would be splitting logs in the front yard and the old man was to remain seated on his bench outside the house, this time with a wooden chess set at his side. Sofia was banished with a hoe to the vegetable patch on the other side of the barn.

  “Sofia, take no chances, do nothing . . . foolish. Promise me.” Mikhail took her face between his hands. “Promise me,” he said again.

  “We’re a happy peasant family just going about our chores.” She smiled at him and touched her hand to his chest, but he didn’t smile back.

  His eyes were serious.

  “I promise,” she said.

  “Don’t get involved,” Mikhail told her fiercely. “I’ll deal with them. Just keep your head down and get on with weeding.” He gave her a small shake that clicked her teeth together. “You’re not listening to me.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  But he knew her too well.

  THE rattle of rifle bolts surrounded the house. Sofia felt the hairs rise on her neck.

  "Who’s in charge here?”

  The demand came from the soldier at the head of the troop, a lean figure with dark hair swept off his face and quick intelligent eyes. Around him the troop fanned out, nervous and trigger-fingered, memories of the murdered patrol vivid in their minds.

  “This is my home,” Mikhail said, polite but unwelcoming. He hung the ax in one hand and stood with legs wide and thumb tucked into his belt.

  “And who are you?”

  “Mikhail Pashin.”

  “The others?”

  “My father-in-law and my wife. Why the interest in us?”

  “We’re searching for the killers who murdered a patrol.”

  “We’ve seen no strangers here.”

  “No one?”

  “No, but when I was out hunting a day or two back, I caught sight of a couple of men in soft hats and carrying rifles. Too far away to see anything more.”

  “Where?”

  “About twenty versts west of here in the forest. Near the river bend.”

  From where she stood beside the barn Sofia held her breath. Mikhail looked and sounded so convincing. The way his hand gripped the ax with familiar ease, his muscular frame containing just the right hint of territorial challenge, the manner in which his eyes returned a direct stare. Surely the soldiers would go and leave them in peace. Surely.

  A brush of fur on her leg made her look down. The yellow hound was pushing its shoulder against her knee, a faint whine in its throat. What was the matter with it?

  “Look what I’ve found.”

  The words came from one of the soldiers, a short well-built man with a neck almost too thick for his shirt collar. He was leading the three horses into the yard and grinning broadly.

  “They were down by the river, and there’s another old wheezer in the barn but he’s not worth bothering with.”

  “Four horses,” the officer said sourly. “That makes you a rich kulak.”

  Sofia’s throat closed.

  Mikhail laughed easily. “No, Comrade, I’m no kulak.” He waved a dismissive hand around the primitive home and barn. “Do I look like one of the wealthy bourgeoisie?”

  Sofia’s fingers found the white pebble and drew it from her pocket. In her head she pictured the officer’s thoughts as grains of sand, and then she left the barn and the hoe and stepped forward. Immediately came the metallic ring of the ax as Mikhail barked it against a log in warning, but she fixed her eyes on the officer.

  “Comrade, my husband is no kulak.”

  “We shoot kulaks.”

  “So there is no reason to shoot my husband.”

  She kept moving closer till she was only two paces from where the officer was leaning forward in the saddle, and she tightened her grip on the
pebble. She took a breath, reached out her hand, and touched his boot in the stirrup. She shifted the sand.

  “No reason at all, is there?” she said in a soft persuasive voice.

  His eyelids quivered, thick and greasy, then settled. “No,” he muttered. “I’m not here to hunt out kulaks anyway, but the horses will come in useful. We need them to replace the ones that were stolen.”

  “Not this one.” Sofia entwined her hand in the gray’s thick mane. Without a horse, Anna could not travel.

  “Get your hand off it.”

  “No.”

  The soldier leading the horses raised his rifle. “You heard. Let go.”

  From nowhere a fist slammed into the side of Sofia’s face, sending her sprawling to the ground.

  “How many times have I told you to do as you’re told?”

  It was Mikhail’s voice. He was standing over her, silhouetted against the pale sky. For a moment she couldn’t believe Mikhail had hit her, and she stared up at him in dismay, but his eyes were harsh. Abruptly the heat drained from the day.

  “Mikhail . . . ,” she whispered.

  “Get in the house.”

  She gave a moan, and a soft warm tongue licked her cheek. She shivered, struggled to her knees and onto her feet, her head stinging. As she touched the dog’s coat, she had an odd sense of Rafik being at her side and thought she heard his voice whispering in the clearing.

  Don’t die for nothing, Sofia. You are needed.

  She hesitated.

  You are needed.

  The gray horse was moving away, its tail twitching.

  Needed.

  The word pounded in her mind.

  Anna needed her. Anna needed the horse.

  She reached out and seized the tail. The horse reared, the metal edge of its forehoof clipping the soldier’s shoulder, and he cursed fiercely. Without hesitation the officer aimed his rifle straight at Sofia and fired.

  SIXTY

  Davinsky Camp

  August 1933

  ANNA’S lungs were worse today. She breathed carefully and coughed carefully, and made a point of swinging her hand ax carefully, but still the blade bit into the green wood and stuck.

  “You’re useless.”

  It was a guard, the older one with curly gray hair that was thinning on his scalp but thickening in his ears. Anna nodded agreement; she had no intention of wasting precious breath on words. She tugged at the ax, but this time she couldn’t release it.

  Sofia, where are you?

  A hand reached over and yanked it out of the wood for her with ease. It was Lara, the young fair-haired girl who was working the next felled tree, and she put the haft back in Anna’s hand just as the morning smoke break was called. “Spasibo,” Anna whispered, and she slithered to her knees on the bark-strewn earth without the energy to join the others. She leaned against the rough russet trunk for support and scanned the tree-line of the forest.

  “She won’t come,” Lara said.

  “She will.”

  Lara shrugged and walked off to find a light for her makhorka, but Anna was glad to be left alone. A hollow feeling crept up on her as she sat among the flakes of bark, a sense of something going wrong. At first she thought it might be the beginning of death creeping up on her, but now that Lara had gone and she could examine the emptiness of the feeling, she thought otherwise. It was the beginning of someone else’s death. How she knew this, she had no idea. It was all too strange and set cold fingers trailing up her spine and into her skull.

  “What are you crying for?” It was the guard.

  “I’m not.”

  “So stop making those whining noises.”

  Whining noises? Was she whining? She put a hand over her mouth and became aware of the sounds now trapped in her head. Shrill whines, like a dog. Her heart started to quiver.

  Who was dead?

  Vasily?

  Sofia?

  THE work day was finally over. The grate of saw and the bite of axes ceased, backs were flexed and muscles coaxed back into life as daylight trickled away behind the trees. It was at that time of day that the forest began to change, its black depths wreathed in mist and edging closer, its earthy breath more rank and menacing. Prisoners averted their eyes and guards didn’t turn their backs on it because it made them nervous. That was when the rifle shots shattered the silence of the Work Zone and two guards dropped dead among the wood chippings.

  The crack of another shot rang out, then three more in quick succession. Another uniformed body crumpled and a brigade of women prisoners started to scream. Panic flared like a forest fire because no one knew where the shots were coming from, and people started to flee for cover in all directions. Guards fired wildly into the trees, but four more grew scarlet flowers on their chests. Voices shrieked orders, heads ducked, arms flailed.

  Anna stood and stared into the forest. Using all her strength, she started to shuffle toward it.

  YOU!” Anna took no notice and pushed herself through the trees.

  "You!” The voice came again. “Stop!”

  Only death would make her stop. All around her, prisoners were taking advantage of the chaos and seizing their chance at freedom, their skeletal figures flitting into the forest like fleeing ghosts into the gray mist that enveloped it. She caught sight of Nina and Tasha disappearing far ahead of her, and she envied them their speed. A hand yanked her almost off her feet and she lashed out, but her blows were weak. Her captor was the gray-haired guard, his face a mixture of fury and terror, his mouth working in an effort at control. Without hesitation Anna pointed a finger at the sinister depths of the forest and screamed.

  “He’s there!”

  That was all it took, one brief second. The guard turned his head and she swung the hand ax that was still in her grasp. The flat of the blade connected with his skull. His fingers slid from her arm and she hurried on into the mist.

  ANNA had no idea how he found her when there were so many fleeing women in rags. So little visibility among the trees and so much panic. She could barely breathe and in her haste she stumbled and fell, but was forcing herself to her feet when he called her name.

  “Anna Fedorina?”

  She peered through the dank curtain of mist, and a tall man in dark clothes rose out of it. His long-fingered hand was extended toward her, and she saw a white stone balanced on its palm. It was Death drawing her into its embrace.

  “Anna Fedorina? I’ve been shouting for you. Someone told me you were back here.”

  “Yes. I’m Anna Fedorina.”

  “Come with me.”

  “No.”

  “Sofia sent me.”

  Anna started to shake. “Sofia!” she shouted.

  She looked frantically among the shadowy trunks. Was Sofia dead? Had she sent Death’s Messenger to fetch her, too?

  “Come quickly,” Death’s Messenger whispered in her ear.

  Without knowing how, she found herself on his broad back being transported at speed through the shadows. She rested her head on the Messenger’s damp head, and it occurred to her how like a human’s was the hair of an angel.

  SOFIA was waiting for her. She was so beautiful. Anna didn’t remember her being so bewitchingly beautiful. She was propped up against a small gray horse, a pistol in her hand and on her face a look of grim determination to defend the animal against all would-be thieves. So Sofia wasn’t dead. Thank God, she wasn’t dead. Sofia opened her arms and Anna fell into them.

  Neither spoke. They clung together, inhaling each other’s breath and letting their hearts hammer against each other’s. Dimly Anna was aware of voices shouting in the distance, but she took no notice, just held Sofia tight and felt tears hot on her skin.

  “You’re free now,” Sofia whispered.

  The familiar sound of her voice gave Anna a sudden surge of strength that cleared her mind. She lifted her head and, without releasing her hold on Sofia, asked eagerly, “Where’s Vasily?”

  DEATH’S Messenger was called Mikhail. Eve
n so, Anna would always think of him as Death’s Messenger in her own mind because he’d killed her father. Mikhail confessed that fact to her himself at their first stop for rest in the forest, and she wanted to tear out his heart there and then. To slice it into forty-one ragged pieces, one for each year of Papa’s life, but she couldn’t because it was clear he’d given it to Sofia, and Anna would steal nothing from Sofia.

  “Thank you for rescuing me, Mikhail,” she said with cool polite-ness. “The debt is repaid. A life for a life.”

  But she was glad to see the Messenger’s gray eyes remain tormented and that he felt the need to ask, “How many guards were killed back there?”

  “A handful compared to the number of prisoners you released.”

  “Still too many.”

  “No, Anna’s right,” Sofia said, brushing her hand against his in a gesture of comfort. “You’ve given those women a chance at life.”

  “If they make it to freedom.”

  “Some will, some won’t. We will.”

  Mikhail nodded stiffly. He lifted both women onto the gray horse’s back once more and set off with a long loping stride.

  WHAT does Vasily look like?”

  They were lying on a blanket together, but Anna couldn’t sleep. Her thoughts wouldn’t stop. The moon was a giant disc in the sky, bigger than any moon she’d ever seen in the camp, and the night breeze was full of secrets instead of stale and fetid. The fresh smell of forest creatures made her giddy. It swamped her senses. She muffled her cough in her scarf and kept her eyes wide open. To miss even a single minute of her freedom would be a sin. They had traveled all night and hidden unseen among the trees by day under a green canopy of branches. They heard tracker dogs in the distance, but none came near.

  “Is he still as I described to you?” Anna asked.

  “He’s tall,” Sofia said gently. “He stands very upright and swings his shoulders when he walks as if he knows exactly where he’s going. You feel he’s in control. Not just of the kolkhoz but of himself.”