Vor: The Playback War

by Lisa Smedman

  The time . . .

  Alexi shook his head fiercely, to clear the not-yet thought. Slinging his AK-51 over his shoulder, he lifted his wrist and pushed a button on the side of his watch. Its face lit up with a green glow. The time was 9:31 P . M .

  Alexi did not realize it then, but it was the last time he could ever be absolutely certain what time it really was.

  5

  A lexi stumbled through the streets, his arms around his comrades’ shoulders. His shoulder was wet—oh yes, it was the bottle in Vanya’s left hand sloshing vodka onto him as they lurched along.

  Vanya was on Alexi’s right, a battered-looking mandolin slung over one shoulder. Nevsky, the Mongolian conscript, was on his left, gnawing on a thick ring of garlic sausage. The three of them weaved along the road, past the gray concrete buildings and barred windows of the shops. Automobiles were parked at either side of the street, but none looked as if they had been anywhere in some time. Many had flat tires or broken windows. The petrol shortage was severe enough that only military vehicles were allotted fuel. Jeeps and two-ton trucks rumbled through the silent streets, soot-belching engines trumpeting their gluttony.

  It felt good to be drunk, to unwind. To be completely irresponsible. Be as numb in body as he was in spirit. But where was he?

  Drunk as he was, it took Alexi a moment to realize that he remembered nothing that had come before this moment. He had been fighting street to street in Vladivostok and then . . .

  Somewhere between that battle and now, he’d filled his stomach with food, changed into a freshly laundered uniform, and had a bath—or so he assumed, since his hunger cramps were gone and his clothes and skin smelled of soap.

  And vodka. Which was probably why he couldn’t remember anything.

  With the abandon of the thoroughly drunk, Alexi decided that he didn’t care. All that mattered was this moment.

  The vodka should have made Alexi completely relaxed and happy, but every now and then he had the distinct impression that someone was watching him. He glanced around, and figured out why. A queue of locals were waiting in front of the GUM—the state department store. Several held plastic ration cards. By their hungry eyes and mutters, Alexi guessed that they were waiting for a food shipment to come in. Their eyes followed the three soldiers, their expressions stony.

  Alexi could understand why. These people were hungry, while the soldiers were well fed. Or at least, well supplied with what passed for food, Alexi thought ruefully, thinking about the food paste and dehydrated chips of what looked like sawdust that were a soldier’s standard rations. But the civilians’ stares made him nervous. Were they hungry enough to mug the three drunken soldiers for the sausage Nevsky was carrying?

  Alexi wished he had his AK-51 with him, antiquated though that weapon might be. Command, however, forbade the carrying of weapons behind the lines. They were probably afraid that, if the people did riot, the soldiers would support them. Just as they had during the first of the World Wars in 1917, when troops ordered to fire on demonstrators in Petrograd had handed the civilians their rifles instead.

  One of the women spat into the street as they passed.

  Vanya waved the vodka bottle at her. “Dohbridyen! ” he shouted. “We have every right to celebrate. This is our first leave in two years!” His voice wasn’t slurred; he’d obviously not had as much to drink as Alexi.

  The woman glared at him and turned away. On the other side of Alexi, Nevsky belched loudly. The smell of sausage wafted from his lips.

  “Show some respect,” he bellowed. “You’re looking at a hero of the Neo-Soviet state.”

  Alexi was surprised when Nevsky clapped him on the back. “This man saved our country from an alien invasion,” Nevsky continued. “If it weren’t for him, terrible monsters from outer space would be marching through Novosibirsk right now, cutting every last one of you to pieces with their—”

  What in Christ was Nevsky raving about? Aliens from space? That was a good one.

  “Nevsky, hush.” Vanya nodded meaningfully at an officer who had just turned the corner and was walking toward them down the street. Nevsky’s lip curled, but he took the hint. Straightening up, he even managed a deliberately sloppy salute as the officer drew nearer. The fellow, dressed in the crisp uniform of the Intelligence Corps and carrying a clipboard computer tucked under one arm, took a second look at them. He crossed the street to approach the trio.

  Vanya cursed. “Now you’ve done it,” he whispered fiercely to Nevsky. “So much for our leave.”

  Vanya handed his mandolin and the vodka bottle to Alexi, then stepped forward to greet the officer with a proper salute. Alexi clutched the mandolin and bottle to his chest, trying not to spill the vodka. His stomach was starting to feel queasy, but whether it was from the drink or the look in the officer’s eye, he couldn’t say. The world tilted a little bit, then came back into proper horizontal alignment as Nevsky grabbed the back of his collar, propping him up.

  The officer stopped and looked them over. Then he consulted his clipboard computer. “I’m looking for a Corporal Alexi Minsk of the Sixty-sixth Rad Squad. Have you seen him?”

  Alexi blinked at the officer, suddenly hopeful. Had his reassignment to the military’s space arm at last come through? No—wait a minute. Command wouldn’t send an Intelligence officer to give him the news. It would be a lowly clerk. Not a reassignment, then.

  Alexi’s mind slowly fought its way through the fuzz of vodka, seeking another, more rational explanation. After a long moment’s thought, he concluded that an officer searching for him just couldn’t be a good thing. When an officer came looking for you, it either meant disciplinary action, or extra duties, or a death in the family—not that Alexi had any living relatives. Alexi’s glasses were on, but he was having trouble focusing, thanks to the vodka. He started to speak, but his words came out slurred.

  “Shir, I—”

  “I know Corporal Minsk,” Nevsky said.

  Alexi’s heart sank. He wanted to flail a hand at Nevsky to shut up, but between the vodka bottle and Vanya’s mandolin, his hands were full.

  Nevsky continued in a rush. “Minsk is a tall fellow with a black mustache and a fierce expression—a real man’s man. He’s down at the bathhouse.” He flailed an arm in a gesture that took in the whole road.

  The officer winced slightly and backed away from Nevsky’s breath. His look of disgust deepened as Nevsky deliberately began scratching at one of the radiation sores on his forehead.

  The officer turned to Alexi. His eyes took in the rank stripes on his sleeves. “What’s your name, Corporal?”

  Alexi glanced down at his chest, wondering why the officer hadn’t just read his name tag. Oh—the mandolin was hiding it. He looked up, and caught Vanya’s slight head shake and Nevsky’s wink.

  He said the first name that popped into his mind. “Corporal Raheek, sir.”

  The officer frowned slightly, as if puzzled by the unusual surname. Then he snapped the clipboard computer back under his arm.

  “If you see Corporal Minsk, send him down to the stavka,” he said. “We have a few more questions we’d like to ask him.”

  “Yesshir,” Alexi slurred. He couldn’t salute, so he nodded instead. The slight motion left him feeling dizzy.

  When the officer left, Vanya took his mandolin back from Alexi. “Quick thinking, Corporal Raheek,” he said with a wink. “But why’d you choose such an odd name?”

  “Hmph,” Nevsky added between bites of sausage. “It sounds Indian. Knowing Alexi, it’s the name of some obscure historic figure from the previous century. Am I right, Alexi?”

  Alexi blinked in puzzlement. Where had the name come from? He had no idea.

  “It makes no difference—it worked.” Vanya tugged Alexi’s sleeve. “Let’s go before the officer figures out who you really are.”

  They moved on past the queue of people outside the GUM store, and around the corner. But even though the officer was gone—Alexi nearly tripped, looking b
ack over his shoulder to make sure—Alexi still had the distinct impression that eyes were following him.

  Nevsky appropriated the bottle and drank a hefty swig of vodka, washing down a bite of sausage. “Nicely done, Alexi,” he said. He patted the breast pocket of his combats and winked. “I wouldn’t have wanted him to confiscate my medical supplies. Greedy bastard officers always take the best for themselves.”

  He pulled a bottle of red-and-blue capsules from his pocket and spilled a few of them into his cupped palm, showing them to Alexi. “These are the latest antirad pills from the Union,” he whispered. He tipped them back into the container and sealed the lid. “And unlike ours, they work, hey, Vanya?”

  The musician grinned and rubbed his stomach. “I feel better than I have in weeks—good enough to perform, even.” He looked around. “Come on—we’re almost there.”

  Right, Alexi thought drunkenly. Almost there. Wherever there was.

  His companions each took one of Alexi’s arms and steered him down the road. As he staggered along between the two, Alexi’s mind cleared enough for him to wonder where he was. On leave in Novosibirsk, if he’d heard correctly. And that was good news.

  The vodka was a warm glow in his stomach. He grinned. Life was good. Food, drink, clean clothes—and friends to hold you up. What more could a soldier ask for?

  They were approaching a large building crowned by a gigantic silver dome. A sign that hung from the portico proclaimed it to be temporarily closed—although judging from the weather-beaten look of the sign the closure wasn’t all that temporary.

  Alexi and Nevsky were jerked to a halt as Vanya stopped suddenly. Vanya gestured at the building with a sweeping motion. “The Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater,” he announced. “Largest theater in Siberia.” He swallowed, and when Alexi glanced sideways, he saw that Vanya’s eyes were glistening.

  “Such a beautiful building,” Vanya said wistfully. “And such beautiful music that used to fill it. What a shame. It makes me wonder what we are fighting for. A people without bread should at least have music.”

  “Or vodka,” Nevsky said, tipping the empty bottle to his lips and watching as the very last drop slid into his mouth.

  The front of the building was decorated with large sculptures from the 1900s. In the heroic, larger-than-life style of the latter half of that century, they depicted a peasant, soldier, worker—and a man and woman pointing proudly into the future. If only the couple had known what the next two centuries would bring, Alexi thought, they would have dropped their arms in shame long ago.

  In front was a statue of a balding man with mustache and goatee. Nevsky stared up at it as they passed.

  “Hey!” he said, rubbing a hand across his almost-bald head. “Looks like they had rad poisoning back in the 1900s, too.” He flung the empty vodka bottle, which shattered on the statue’s chest. “Have a drink, you poor bastard, whoever you are!”

  The feeling of someone watching him was suddenly back. Alexi looked around warily, but the only eyes he could see looking at him were those in the statue’s frowning face. Had the vodka induced paranoia? Given the importance of the historic figure the statue represented, it was no wonder. He shook his head at Nevsky. “Don’t you recognize him?”

  Nevsky shook his head. “Nyet.”

  “That’sh Lenin. Father of our country.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  A series of bangs came from one side of the building, and then the sound of breaking glass. Alexi tensed as his mind flashed back to the battle of Vladivostok. After three solid days of fighting, his body still reacted instinctively to sudden noises—especially here in the quiet of Novosibirsk.

  “I found a way in,” Vanya cried out from around the corner. “Hurry, before someone spots us.”

  Alexi and Nevsky walked around the side of the building, toward the noise. Vanya had pulled the boards off a window and broken the glass. He reached in and turned the latch, opening it. Then he lifted his mandolin carefully inside and clambered in after it.

  Alexi followed, boosted inside by Nevsky. He found himself in an ornate theater lobby with plush red rugs and pillared walls. Vanya led them into the darkened theater itself, and they descended toward the stage between the dusty rows of seats. Standing near the stage, Alexi surveyed the theater. It was like a huge cavern, its hundreds of seats like empty eyes.

  Vanya pushed something into Alexi’s hand—a flashlight—and clambered up onto the stage. “Turn it on,” he instructed. “And sit down, both of you.”

  Alexi did as he was told. The lone beam of the flashlight illuminated Vanya with a soft yellow glow. Behind Vanya, the curtain rustled softly as his back brushed it. Alexi folded a front-row seat down and sat heavily on it, his booted feet splayed out in front of him. Nevsky did the same.

  Vanya’s long fingers plucked at the strings of his mandolin as he tuned it. His lips turned down in a sour grimace as one of the strings snapped. “It’s not a very good instrument,” he said to Nevsky. “Hardly worth the water-purification tablets you traded for it.”

  Nevsky shrugged and continued to munch on his sausage. “Doesn’t matter,” he assured Vanya. “That woman looked as though she could use them. Did you see her poor kids? Dysentery. The young one wouldn’t have lasted much longer, if I hadn’t given them to her.” He tore another chunk off the sausage. His chewing noises were overloud in the hushed cavern of the empty theater.

  Vanya sighed and tugged the broken string free. He coiled it neatly and stuffed it in the pocket of his pants. Then he bowed slightly to his audience of two, placed his long, delicate fingers on the strings, and took a deep breath. Suddenly his fingers flew across the strings. Nevsky stopped chewing and Alexi sat up, enraptured. The flashlight beam swung up into Vanya’s face, but the musician only closed his eyes. He ignored it—just as he must have been ignoring the pain of his chemical-burned fingers. Despite the vodka he’d drunk, he played beautifully. Eyes closed, swaying in time with the music he played, Vanya was transported to another place and time—and the music carried Alexi right along with him. The mandolin cried and trilled, its lone sound filling the acoustically perfect theater. Its strings spoke of longing, of passion, of dreams unfulfilled . . .

  With a final, lilting chord, the tune came to an end.

  For a heartbeat or two, Alexi and Nevsky sat in silence. Then Nevsky clapped his hands together and leapt to his feet. “Bravo!” he shouted, his voice echoing through the empty theater. “Encore!”

  Vanya’s lips twitched in a smile. “Even with the missing string?” he asked. He winced. “It doesn’t sound so good . . .”

  “It’sh beautiful,” Alexi shouted. “Another!”

  Vanya gave a slight bow. Then he sighed. “One makes do, in times like these,” he said.

  He launched into a quicker piece. Alexi found his boot tapping as Vanya’s fingers skipped lightly through the lively strains of a Slavic folk tune. Nevsky, unable to contain his exuberance, heaved himself up onto the stage. As Vanya’s fingers flew across the strings, Nevsky’s boots rapped out the rhythm of the trepak—the stamping dance.

  Alexi clapped his free hand on the arm of his seat, laughing. The flashlight beam wavered across the stage and back again. “Where’d you learn that, Nevsky?” he shouted. “I thought you were Mongolian.”

  “My grandfather was a Slav,” Nevsky called back, hands raised and boots stomping up dust on the stage. “Watch. He also taught me this!”

  Nevsky launched himself into a low, double-footed kick that landed him sprawling on his back. Vanya ignored him and continued to pluck out the folk tune, his rapid fingers blurring on the mandolin strings.

  Alexi laughed and staggered to his feet. He balanced the flashlight on the arm of his seat and clambered up onto the stage. As Nevsky rose to his feet, brushing the dust from his combats, Alexi pretended to applaud him.

  The Mongol bowed deeply, nearly losing his balance again. As Vanya ended one song and began another, he waved at Alexi with a fl
ourish.

  “Your turn,” he said. “Go on—I know you know the words to this song. Entertain the audience. Maybe the critics will print a good review in the Red Star.”

  Alexi turned to face the empty theater, blinking in the beam of the flashlight. The piece Vanya was playing now was a classic love song from the late twentieth century—a rock ballad by Boris Grebenshikov. It was meant to be played on electrically amplified guitar, but Vanya was doing a passable rendition on mandolin. Alexi had heard the song only one time before—in a museum that played the underground magizdat cassette on an old-fashioned magnetic tape player. But he still remembered the words. Most of them, anyway. Closing his eyes to help himself remember, he began to sing. He heard Nevsky jump down from the stage and the creak of his seat as he settled into it.

  When Alexi reached the part describing the lover, he stumbled over the name. For some reason, the English name Juliana came out instead. Alexi shook his head, unable to recall the next verse. Beside him, Vanya merely shrugged and continued to play.

  “What’s wrong, Alexi?” Nevsky called from the front row. He had picked up the flashlight and was holding it. “A sudden case of stage fright?”

  Alexi squinted at him over the flashlight glare, and Nevsky obligingly moved the beam to one side. “I don’t know,” Alexi said. “I guess I’m too drunk to re—”

  His eyes widened. The flashlight had briefly illuminated something three rows behind Nevsky—a seated figure who stared up at the stage with eyes that were twin pools of darkness. A tall, thin bald man—or a radiation-poisoned woman whose hair had fallen out. The person sat perfectly still, attention riveted on Alexi. Something long and slender and silver lay across the figure’s bony knees—something that made Alexi’s throat tighten in fear.

  Nevsky finally sensed the person behind him, or perhaps just noticed Alexi’s fixed stare. Twisting around in his seat, he swung the flashlight around to illuminate the rest of the theater. But as suddenly as he had appeared, the thin man was gone.

  But not completely. Alexi could still feel those eyes upon him. He backed slowly across the darkened stage, coming to a startled halt as the curtain brushed his back.