Cold Blood

by James Fleming

  The vibration coming up my arms from the machine gun was like having my shoulder struck with a jackhammer. But I set my jaw and let rip, firing straight at his goggles. Lili’s forearms were constantly jabbing into my sight as she fed the belt through. Flecks of cordite and hot oil were flying out of the gun’s action, spattering us left and right.

  The Fokker was about level with our stern. It began to lift to get over the willows. Then Glebov flumped the plane back down—steadying it, wings rocking like anything, but maybe coming in at too flat an angle. I thought, It’s like the attack on the train, he hasn’t got the nerve to come in at the best angle, a steep one—then there he was above us, engine screaming, flying wires howling like a tortured animal, so low that Lili could have reached up and had his wheels for earrings.

  He’d hit the trees, had to, would never pull out in time—the notion was no sooner in my head than an updraught off the river, maybe from a pack of air gathered under the willows, swept him up and over. Was this a new manoeuvre? Was it proof of what everyone was saying about the Fokker triplane, that it could dance on a kopek?

  I watched it rise—saw it waver—cursed sun and sweat for making everything blurry.

  Stiffy said in an inquisitive voice, “Is that an aileron hanging loose, sir?”

  Baby hope drummed its heels in my breast. I grabbed Lili by the hair and shook her head, it being just handy.

  The Fokker rose, engine pitch unchanged—no, maybe it was plucking at the air a bit. Its angle grew steeper, like a rearing horse. Was he wrestling with the controls in there? Was it actually possible that something had been hit?

  I jumped to my feet. “Shoot, keep on shooting at him,” I shouted to Kobi even though he was hundreds of yards away. Now the plane was getting to the vertical and not moving at much speed at all. Maybe there was an emergency lever he could pull, maybe he’d have everything ironed out in a couple of seconds and with a chuckle would swoop down and kill us and our stupid hopes.

  The Fokker was stationary, hanging in the sky. Anyone could have hit it. And Kobi had my rifle, which had a scope.

  “Get him, Kobi,” I yelled, quite out of control, “get the bastard.”

  The Fokker was reaching the limit of what was possible for an aircraft standing on its tail. Its engine began to pink; a tinny echo nearly above us. I thought, May the bastard’s heart be pinking too, and I thumped my fist into my palm.

  Stiffy whispered, “He’s had it. God bless that bullet.”

  It was the signal. The Fokker accepted the impossibility of what it was trying to do and toppled onto its back.

  For seconds it hung there. I thought, Christ, he hasn’t been hit, he’s just showing off, playing with us. Then the engine cut out. He went into a spin, the triple wings setting up a swishing fluttering sound as the plane spiralled down. Faster and faster it fell—but not plummeting, it was impossible with wings like that unless they came off. The propeller was dragging him down, that great heavy wooden propeller. If he was alive, he wouldn’t know what day of the week it was, the rate at which the Fokker was spinning.

  The willows hid him from our view. We waited. Seconds later there was a long slow ripping noise—then silence.

  “God bless and sanctify that bullet forever,” said Stiffy. He turned, snapped to attention and saluted me.

  Shmuley and Mrs. D. walked towards us, hand in hand, little Joseph tucked in behind them with Boltikov. We looked upon each other—with smiles, love and wonderment.

  Shmuley said, “Now for Odessa.”

  I said at large, “Where’s Lili, then?”

  Mrs. D. thought she’d nipped into the wheelhouse and went to see, saying, “Poor mite, what a baptism of fire.”

  Wreckage from the Fokker began to drift down the river. A bit of its fuselage with the Red Star on it bumped along our side and I fished it out with a boathook. We agreed to nail it to the wall of the wheelhouse. Thinking about souvenirs made me ask Joseph if the Rykov flag had got onto the barge. When he said, Yes, of course it had, I took upon myself an air of triumph and looked gaily round the group to include them all in my suggestion, that we improvise a flagpole and hoist the Rykov wolf. Here and now, while the going was good.

  Joseph and Shmuleyvich, happy grins from each of them, thinking about the gold. Boltikov was smoking the celebration cigar he’d been keeping. And here was Mrs. D.—God, what a tremendous day!

  “Annushka,” I started, going to embrace her—but she held me off. She pushed me away to join the others. Raising herself up, making herself bigger and more important—the signals were unmistakable: “Glebov was Lili’s father. She’s just told me.”

  I spoke my first thought: “Had to be someone.”

  Then it struck home. “But she helped me! She helped me kill him!”

  Implacably Mrs. D. went on: “What else could she have done? Ask yourself that. Anyway, you know what it means: she’s lost both her parents in one day.”

  She looked at me as if I’d personally slit their throats. Boltikov, harrumphing, stroked his jaw. Shmuley, he didn’t dare go against her. Perhaps none of them did. They regarded me as men will in these circumstances.

  So she had it in for me, for whatever reason. She wasn’t saying anything about Elizaveta, about how it was Glebov’s due. Or how I’d saved her from the Reds and got her a new husband and a share in a shipload of gold. Oh no. With some people it’s only emotion that counts.

  Shrugging, hands in pockets, I strolled up to the bow to see how deep in the mud we were.

  I sat down on the towing bollard. I took my shirt off and felt all round my shoulder: bruising only, nothing serious. A few more scraps from the Fokker floated past—wood, canvas, what looked like a pencil.

  When would life change so that everything went well at the same time? Was every effort I made destined to fail or were my efforts simply insufficient? How the hell was I to have known that Glebov was Lili’s father? And how was I to handle this knowledge? I didn’t think I could look at her body in the same way.

  However, it only reinforced the lesson: be surprised by nothing. And there would be other lessons too, I was certain, that would rise up and strike me when their time came.

  The shadows of the past were in there murmuring with the river. There was one good thing, that Glebov was dead. The memory of Elizaveta would start to fade. She’d release me, become an occasional visitor only, become someone I could take by the hand in the dappled sunlight and talk of things past.

  I wouldn’t be bitter, wouldn’t rail against life. I’d say to it, Thank you for everything, everything: for war, revolution, love, the struggle. There’s no lot sweeter than trying, no fate more joyful than to be a pilgrim. I’d say, Thank you for not having taken my life. Thank you also for Xenia. Too bad she and Glebov got tucked up together and produced Lili. It would have been a delight to breed with her. She’d have got the Rykovs on their feet again. Whatever errors there’ve been, put them on my slate.

  To Elizaveta I’d say, No love could have equalled ours. We were closer to Heaven than God Himself. And for the last time I’d draw down the lids of her empty eyes, my fingers not lingering.