“Which is actually true,” Mishka Beekeeper cuts in.
Ilchenko gives him a disapproving look and drinks once more. “So, I speak a little German, you know, because I studied Goethe and Rilke and helped them translate. When the suckers told a girl: was möchtest Du trinken, I just said: ‘he wants to know if you’ll lay for a Schengen visa’.”
“Now that’s what I call party-pooping,” Squirrel says.
“Whatever… The worst thing was that some girls — not all, but some, you know what I’m meaning — just said ‘yes’. But that was not the only thing that ruined the party for me. Imagine, there was a fucking negro too. Can you believe that? He was on some fucking fellowship to study fucking sociology or whatever. Officially. Unofficially, he was selling drugs. The girls let him come to the party because he had some pretty good stuff, I’ll give him that.”
Mishka Beekeeper chuckles. “I don’t even dare think what else might have interested the girls.”
“Shut your mouth, Stalker. Anyway, I bought a few grams of dope to cheer myself up. And while I was getting high, that kurvenok fucked my girl!”
“Shame on you, man. You should have stuck to Coca-Cola.”
“That bastard gave me stronger stuff than what I wanted, Squirrel. It totally knocked me out. Yeah, okay, I admit I had too much vodka too but you’re missing my point. My point is that my girl was fucked by a fucking negro!”
“I always knew you were compensating with that machine gun,” Squirrel jokes. Ilchenko gives him a scornful glance, and now appears to be genuinely angry. Tarasov watches him, ready to intervene should a fight break out, but his soldier seems to be too drunk already to raise a hand.
“Anyway, next morning I find my girl in the next room and the negro all over her. I told her to get out of my sight and go back to Yoshkar-fucking-Ola. Then I had a… conversation… with the negro.”
“About the dope?”
“About why I shouldn’t throw him out off the balcony, Stalker. He wasn’t very… Major, how do you call it when an argument doesn’t work?”
“In your case, it’s called being totally pissed. You better go, brush your teeth and prepare your bivouac, son.”
“Is this an order?”
“Finish the story first, if you still can,” Tarasov says, softened up by the drink himself, and also curious about the end of Ilchenko’s story, even though the soldier’s words occasionally turn into drunken blabber.
“I go, komandir, I go, but let me tell you this — I found out something very interesting about negros. Their skin might be black but their brains are white. Don’t look at me like that! I saw it with my own eyes when he hit the pavement one, two, three, four — five floors below the balcony!”
Squirrel chokes on the loaf of bread he is eating.
“That was the most interesting thing I learned during my student years. There was no more studying for me anyway, because who the hell wants to study once he’s got a drug dealer’s stash in his hands? So one thing led to the other and a year after I even had my own bummer, a nice black X6. Guess how many teachers drive one. So, in the end I couldn’t care less about my degree, and all went well until one day a sucker scratched my car. I was a little too rough on him… anyway, while waiting for my turn at the militsia, along came a recruiting officer and told me that I could either go to jail or join the army.”
“With a past like that, one day you’ll make it to general,” Tarasov says.
“Major, I love you. You are a badass, but I love you! Please, Major, don’t tell the others that I didn’t finish university. You know, we’re all supposed to be badasses but being a badass with a university degree makes me a special badass. Am I not right?”
Tarasov softly pushes Ilchenko’s arm away as the soldier attempts to embrace him. “That’s your only concern after you’ve killed a man?”
“Come on, it was in St. Petersburg! Someone would have killed him anyway. Some guys on the street called me a hohol when they heard me talking. Me, who is of their blood! Damn it, didn’t we all fight the Nazis together? And then the dushmans? It’s all screwed up in the Big Land. All…”
Finally wasted, Ilchenko stretches out on the ground and starts snoring immediately. The Stalkers are quiet.
“Why does someone drink too much vodka if he can’t handle it?” Snorkbait eventually says. “Let’s go to sleep. Mishka, it’s your turn to keep the first watch.”
“That was a very touching story, but we still don’t know where to find women,” Mishka Beekeeper says, stretching his back. “Oh God — artifacts, guns, freedom, adventures… What good is there in all of this if there’s no pussy around?”
Snorkbait, the only one who has kept his mind more or less sober, gives Tarasov a questioning look. “One doesn’t just need to mention the Tribe to poop a party, I see.”
“He’s proved to be a capable and reliable soldier to me,” the major replies with a shrug. “I don’t care about what he did before.”
“That’s the kind of soldiers you have in your army? And I thought the Stalkers were a rough enough bunch.”
Tarasov looks at the snoring machine gunner. “My job is to command them, not to judge them,” he tells the Stalker. “And besides… if you are in battle, you need men like Ilchenko at your side.”
“You have a point. As a matter of fact, sometimes I’m glad we have no women around.”
“Agreed, Snorkbait.” Tarasov takes Ilchenko’s sleeping bag from the soldier’s rucksack and opens it. Before covering the snoring soldier, he looks him down for a minute. “It’s probably better for the women too.”
“Do you think it was true, or was he just bragging?”
“I don’t care. But to be honest, I guess you’re not from the Ukraine or Russia and have no idea of what some women, like Ilchenko’s girl, are willing to do to get away… to London, for example.”
“What an irony,” Snorkbait says with a smirk. “Because you have no idea of what men like me are willing to do to get out of there, mate.”
Deserter
Beyond Hellgate Camp, 27 September 2014, 13:12:48 AFT
“Shit, we’ve been here already!”
The better part of the day has already passed when Squirrel smashes his PDA to the ground. “I’m sorry, man. There seems to be no way up to that cursed plateau!”
“I can’t believe this shit. You’re supposed to be a guide, Stalker.”
Ilchenko looks tired and angry. Tarasov can’t blame him for his frustration: since they left the camp at dawn, they’ve spent all day wandering through the rugged crevasses with walls that tower several dozen meters above them. With their heavy gear, the walls themselves are too steep to climb, forcing them to seek an easier way.
“And you’re supposed to be airborne, man,” Squirrel retorts. “Why do you need me? Go, fly up there!”
Tarasov scans the area with his binoculars. No matter how many approaches they’ve tried, all have ended at an impassable section or another dead end. All he can see now is a labyrinth of sand-colored rocks and steep hills, no matter how far he looks.
“One week on havchik… maybe you’re right, Squirrel. All I need is to fart and it’ll propel me right up to the plateau.”
“Gas masks on…”
“Cut the crap, patsanni,” Tarasov says. “I think I saw something. Squirrel, have a look at that.” The major hands his binoculars to the guide and points to the mouth of a cave. “Maybe there’s an underground passage leading up in there. I don’t know… do you think we should check it out?”
“It’s your call, man,” Squirrel replies, increasing the magnification for a better look.. “It could be a mutant lair.”
“At least we’d get the chance to shoot something rather than just walk around completely lost. Let’s go.”
As they approach the cave, Squirrel points to a path leading up to its mouth. It is surprisingly well-trodden.
“Keep your weapons ready,” he whispers. “Might be a dushman hideout.”
&
nbsp; “What the hell would dushmans do here?” Ilchenko snorts.
The guide sends a scowl towards Ilchenko. “Looking for artifacts, like everyone else… why, what did you think? Pilgrimage?”
“Squirrel, step back. I’ll take point,” Tarasov says, covering the last few meters to the cave entrance with utmost caution, ready to shoot. Before entering the cave that overlooks the plains below, he switches on the flashlight he has fastened to the Vintorez with duct tape. Keeping his index finger on the trigger, he enters the cave. Then he juts his head out, signaling his companions to move up.
“Ilchenko, be prepared to mow down everything that moves. Squirrel, watch our back. We’re moving in.”
Signs of human habitation appear in the light circle of the torchlight — a mattress and a fireplace.
“Steady, rebyata. Steady.”
A shadow moves in the darkness. The major points his rifle toward the corner where he sensed movement, but what appears in the torchlight gives him a bigger scare than any mutant.
“Hold your fire!” Tarasov shouts.
It is an emaciated man with a wildly grown, dirty beard covering the lower part of his weathered face. His skin bears deep scars and wrinkles, giving him the look of a burnt out, shell of a man, thin and old like a mummy. A dusty Talib turban covers his head, but the most unnerving thing is the ragged coat he is wearing. Tarasov has to force himself to believe his own eyes: it is the coat of a Soviet officer from many years ago. One of the shoulder patches has been torn off but the other, dirty and faded, still shows a captain’s rank. He recoils into his cave and covers his eyes from the torchlight’s blinding light. His toothless mouth utters senseless blabber. “Wiy… nashi?…”
“Lower your weapons,” Tarasov tells his companions, and reaches out towards the ghost-like figure. “We mean no harm. Who are you?”
“Nash… our column.”
“If we stumbled upon a Soviet guy from that war, I’ll piss myself,” Ilchenko murmurs.
“Sovietskiy? Da! Da!” The figure steps forward and grabs Ilchenko’s arm. “Nashi, ti nashoi sinok!”
Before the soldier can do anything, the old man kisses the hand holding the machine gun. Then he touches the Ukrainian army patch on Ilchenko’s arm, his eyes open wide in bewilderment.
“Yes, we’re Ukrainians, Papa,” Ilchenko says. “We always were, actually.”
Squirrel takes a bottle from his rucksack and offers it to the old man. “Vipyi, Papa. You look like you could use a little vodka.”
“Me too,” Tarasov says.
“Count me in,” adds Ilchenko.
Holy Mother of God, Tarasov thinks, looking at the old man as if he were a creature from another planet. Then he realizes that he actually is — a living time capsule that has turned every abstract memory of the past into reality, even if it is a hardly conceivable one.
“All right… come, sit down. Are you hungry?” He asks, pointing to his mouth and making a chewing gesture. To his surprise, the man shakes his head. “Let’s get out of this cave. Come, Ilchenko, help him walk. Squirrel, get that bottle back from him. He’s confused enough. Look around, maybe you find something useful that helps us know who he is… or was.”
“I’ll be damned,” Ilchenko says offering his hand to the old man. “Come, Papa, grab my hand. Otherwise I’ll think you’re a ghost.”
The old man might be worn out, but he is not helpless. He takes a heavy wooden staff and, laughing, pats Ilchenko on the back as he walks with them into the light outside.
“Ours… you are ours… you have arrived,” he says. His words sound like those from someone who hasn’t talked for a very long time.
Ilchenko watches Tarasov pensively. He seems to be at a loss over what to do and say. Tarasov doesn’t feel much smarter than his soldier.
“I am Major Tarasov from the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This is Private Ilchenko. And the other guy is… well, call him Squirrel. He is our guide.”
“Ukrainian? How?”
Ilchenko is about to launch into a long explanation when the major signals for him to hold his tongue and turns to the old man.
“Who are you?”
“Who… I am. Now I am. Again. I am this.” The man reaches into his duster and gives Tarasov a barely readable ID card, issued by the Soviet Army. The major holds it in his hands as if it were an artifact that he had never believed existed.
“Captain Igor Vasilyevich Ivanov? 276th logistics division?”
“The column.”
“What column, Captain?”
“My column. Ours.”
“This gibberish makes no sense,” Ilchenko says.
Tarasov tries to tackle the situation by sticking to their basic needs. “We must get through to the factory on the plateau. We can’t get through. Do you know a way to the factory?”
“My column is lost.”
“We are the new column. And we must get through. Captain Ivanov, you must lead us through.”
“I hoped… that the war ended. Did it end?”
“Not exactly,” Tarasov says with a sigh. “We are here to settle unfinished business with the dushmans. Getting to the factory is part of that. Do you know a way or not?”
“I do… I know. Old kravasos is hiding there. Me, I’m hiding here. I don’t like leaving my hiding place. What news?”
“Captain… please give me a moment.”
Tarasov flags Ilchenko to follow him a few steps away.
“Things have taken a turn for the surreal, Private. What’s your view on this?”
“Sir, with all due respect, it’s 2014 now. Do you really believe that one man could have survived here for almost thirty years, all alone? Look at him — he’s more a walking skeleton than human being!”
“His ID card seems genuine. Look.” Tarasov gives the weathered card to Ilchenko. “Plus he claims to know a way to that damned factory. This means we need him, and need to play along. Let’s assume that what he says is true and he was left behind somehow by the Soviet army. What do we tell him? That his country, the mighty USSR, was humiliated and ran like a whipped dog?”
“I don’t know, sir… I don’t know.”
“And then that his country doesn’t exist anymore? And all that has happened ever since? The CIS, the putsch, Yeltsin, Putin, all that shit? Damn, maybe this guy never heard about Chernobyl either! As far as he’s concerned, his commander in chief is still Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev!”
“If we tell him, he will probably have a heart attack and we won’t get to that bloody place. And telling him all that would take so long that we would be sitting here till doomsday. I can’t see any option other than lying to him, Major.”
“Well, Ilchenko, one thing is sure — we can’t leave him here.”
“It’s your call, sir.”
“Yo, Major! Look what I’ve found.”
Squirrel emerges from the cave and gives Tarasov a battered note book.
“What the hell is this?” Tarasov says looking at the cover.
“Uhm… that’s a Homer Simpson sticker, sir.”
“I realize that, Ilchenko, it’s not me who’s been living in a cave for decades. But how did the old man obtain this? Anyway… let’s not waste more time.”
“So what shall we do with him, sir?”
“Put him out of his misery.”
“What?”
Seeing Ilchenko’s scowl, the major smiles.
“Out of the time capsule, I mean. Let’s hope it will not be too painful on him.”
Tarasov steps back to the old man. He is sitting on the ground, staring into the distance, repeatedly murmuring only two words: the column, the column.
“Captain… Igor Vasilyevich, listen up.” Tarasov squats in front of the old man and looks deep into his eyes, slowly, clearly repeating his name once more. “Igor Vasilyevich Ivanov. Listen to me: it is now the year 2014. The war ended twenty-five years ago. The Soviet army does not exist anymore. The USSR is no more.”
“What? Brezhnev is dead?”
“He is.”
“And no more USSR?”
“It’s gone.”
“Thanks to God Almighty! Oh, God has worked wonders, wonders!”
“You don’t know half of it. Now we will bring you home. Home… to Russia.”
“Russia?”
“Wherever your home is, it is time to return now.”
“Did we win the war?”
“Well… some of us were victorious. You will be among them, if you carry out a last order — from me.”
“But…” The old man touches Tarasov’s Ukrainian arm patch. “You are not from my army.”
“I am a major. Ranks did not change. You will follow my orders and guide us to the factory. We will finish our mission. Then we’ll take you to a safe place. You will be transferred home from there.”
“You speak differently… everything is different about you,” the old man says, touching Tarasov’s bulky body armor. “Your uniform is different also… so much better than ours. Oh no! You are not of my army. You are of no use to me.”
“Komandir!” Ilchenko speaks in a forced whisper, but Tarasov feels that his soldier can barely suppress his anger. “Let’s leave him to his fate or just drag him with us. This makes no sense!”
“But he has a point, Ilch,” Squirrel says. “You are not from his army.”
“That’s fucking right, Stalker! How in the hell could we be?”
“Ilchenko, cut it!” Suddenly, an idea comes to Tarasov’s mind. “You are a genius, you know that?”
Tarasov reaches into his body armor’s breast pocket and shows his father’s photograph to the Captain.
“I am one of yours! You see that? That is me! Kunduz, 1988! Look at it!”
The old man looks at the picture, then at Tarasov. His eyes open wide.
“Yes… that is you, Sergeant. So someone did survive! I knew it! The whole column couldn’t all have been lost… it could not have been that everyone died…”
For a moment, Tarasov’s mind blackens out. He closes his eyes, falling into a vortex of memories where time, dates and history have no meaning, turning his heartbeat into stormy waves of emotions that threaten to drag him down into dark depths where he would lose his mind, the desire for revenge being the only straw he can hold on to. When he opens his eyes, he finds himself back where he was, stranded in reality — a reality he needs to bend if he wants to keep his sanity.
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