Rising

by Fenek Solère

  The audience was rapt. ‘Indeed, the scientific community, resistant to anything that challenged the liberal narrative, were at first unwilling to admit that this sophisticated people was living parallel with the Levantines of Egypt and Babylon. Arkaim, older than Troy and Rome, was equipped with a storm sewage system, timber structures imbued with fire-resistant resins, and heating and cooling systems for every dwelling. Archeoastronomists even identified the lauburu planning pattern of the city as being so precise, one arc-minute, that it was only with the arrival of the almagest, two millennia later, that such precision was once again attained by mankind.’

  Tom continued to enthral his spectators for a further 20 minutes, talking about the Yamnaya DNA from western Russia spreading into Europe 4,000 years ago and the different strands of the human tree, before turning to the central theme of his polemic. ‘And today, we see a vast shadow creep over Eurasia once again. A pestilence which threatens to tip the geopolitical tectonic plates as the East moves West.’ He took a sip of water. ‘And from where does this shadow arise? It emanates from those who jealously guard their monopolies over your labour and resent your new-found freedom after centuries of servitude. But already, this transformation in fortune, this hemispheric shift of the last few days, offers us new possibilities for renewal and rebirth. Can we, the Europid descendants of the nomadic adventurers of which I have spoken, rise again after the collapse?’ Tom stopped to pour more water into the tumbler resting on the lectern. ‘Mainstream historians are looking increasingly aghast as the views of a controversial genius like Anatole Klyosov begin to chime with the material being unearthed in the most unpromising geological strata. Every day, it is becoming clearer and clearer that the anecdotes of Ancient Greece about the Pillar Peoples are being proved correct in the vastness of the steppes . . . ’

  There was almost exaltation in his words. All eyes were on him. ‘There is another way’, he insisted. ‘Our original way. Ar-ka means sky and Im means earth. Arkaim is a place where the earth reaches the sky. In Alex Sparkey’s words, the East and West are fused here. Today, in Russia, we feel that mankind is faced by the necessity to choose Oneness. Western culture must come into unity with Eastern Orthodox wisdom. If this happens, the hegemony that we once took for granted in the Land of Cities will be restored.’ With that flourish, he brought the house down. Grigori and Dimitry stormed the stage to congratulate him. ‘You have conjured up Iliodor’s vision once again!’ they shouted as a standing ovation resounded in the auditorium.

  Ekaterina took an urgent call in the middle of the after-conference dinner. At first, she could barely make out the words over the singing of White Army songs: ‘We will march to fight for Holy Russia, and spill as one our blood for her!’ When she did comprehend what had happened, she dragged Tom from the room, flagging down a taxi to her grandfather’s district.

  Chasing down torch beams, tripping over hose pipes in the smoke-filled air, they could hear the coarse dialects of firemen using spray to clear the bitter tang of the accelerant used to firebomb the block. Her grandfather’s apartment was full of scorched plaster and charred books. Ekaterina was crying, imagining the worst from the very moment the emergency was raised.

  ‘I can’t believe it’, she kept saying through the gaps between her fingers. ‘What if . . . ?’ Her words trailed off. They both understood. Tom’s arm curled around her shoulders in an attempt to comfort her.

  ‘There!’ he said, pointing at a figure wrapped in a damp blanket emerging from the bedroom. Ekaterina looked up, her face screaming relief.

  ‘Dedushka, dedushka!’ she shouted, running towards the sombre survivor coming towards them out of the darkness. ‘Kak de la?’ Herman took her face in his hands.

  ‘Orchin kraseeva devoushka’, he reassured her, ‘horosho, horosho!’ Herman’s eyes met Tom’s over Ekaterina’s shoulder. ‘So history repeats itself. We have our civil war. It is time for a strong man in Russia again’, he said, coughing through smoke-filled lungs. ‘The question, of course, is, are men like you and Grigori strong enough?’ His face beseeched the Englishman to protect his girl by whatever means necessary.

  After getting Herman to hospital, they returned to the Astoria. There were four or five threatening messages on his phone. Tom recognised Arkady’s voice and hit call back, screaming down the phone about avenging the firebombing.

  ‘You should let us handle it!’ she insisted.

  ‘No, this is personal.’

  ‘Are you trying to impress me or my grandfather?’

  ‘Maybe both of you.’ While Tom was shaving Ekaterina, flicked to and fro through the TV channels:

  Traditionalist sympathisers use the Internet monitor Roskomnadzor to prevent Navalny and Leftist activists from accessing Firechat mesh-networking social media in order to foment discord and demonstrations;

  Troops loyal to the new regime are busy removing liberal agitators from rallying sites in Red Square and the Moskvoretsky Bridge in Moscow;

  General Yegor Moskvin appears on state television. Speaking from the Kremlin, he declares that martial law will be imposed from midnight, following the barricading of roads leading to immigrant communities and the sealing off of parts of urban areas where they are the demographic majority;

  The UN, EU, and World Bank insist that Russia returns to a model of democracy acceptable to the world community;

  Nationalist composer Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov is played continuously on the radio;

  T-90 battle tanks and BTR-80 armoured personnel carriers block the Tretye Transportnoye Koltso and Garden Ring roads in Moscow;

  The Lefortovo tunnel is sealed and the M10 between the capital and St Petersburg is made into a strategic corridor, defended by air and ground forces;

  Unknown gunmen open fire on police and army units imposing order in Nizhny Tagil;

  The Pushkinsky District in St Petersburg is militarised, becoming a logistics centre to support brigades facing any potential EU threat via the Finnish border;

  GROM units conduct mass arrests of drug dealers, seizing stockpiles of weapons as well as quantities of heroin, cocaine, and synthetic marijuana known as ‘spice’ in Kemerov, Nalchik, Shakhy, Orsk, Balashikva, Rybinsk, and Korov.

  Eventually, she came to the bathroom door, leaned on the wood frame, and looked hard at him.

  ‘I want to be the next Sabine or Yevgenia Khasis.’

  ‘In prison and hunted, you mean?’

  ‘The new government will release Yevgenia from the camps.’

  ‘But Sabine’s got a harder job in France.’

  ‘You know I am descended from the Sarmatian and Alans, the tribes that gave birth to the legends about the Amazons.’ She broke off as Tom looked up from the bowl.

  ‘And brought the myths that would eventually become King Arthur and the Holy Grail to Britain.’

  ‘I see you have recalled your classes about Batradz’, she laughed.

  ‘And the warrior women buried in the Pokrovka mounds on the Kazakh border.’

  ‘Then you know our girls were not allowed to wed until they had killed a man in battle.’

  ‘They also cut off their right breasts!’

  She bent forward. ‘Not all the stories are true.’

  ‘Thank God.’

  ‘You know I am a believer in the beregini, the Slavic protector goddesses.’

  ‘Not necessarily a good Orthodox girl, then?’

  ‘Nyet! Below, old traditions remain.’

  Tom smiled as Ekaterina walked over to the window, sliding her hand up and down the lined drapes. ‘We believe the sacred feminine cocoons our lives, being conceived in the womb and returning to Mother Earth, after we die. It is a simple cycle, much less complex than the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.’

  ‘A nice idea!’ His voice sounded unconvinced.

  ‘Are you being ironic?’

  ‘No’, he replied with more than a hint of guilt.

  ‘You should be careful not to offend our deities. Moko
sh, the goddess of destiny, may be a lovely young woman who spins the thread of life, but she is also dangerous. Sometimes we Slavs call her Srecha.’ Then she began to recite:

  Where Alatyr, ‘father of stones’, is;

  On that stone Altyr

  On her throne

  Sits the maiden king.

  Mistress of needlework,

  She passes her golden thread

  Through [the eye of] a steel needle

  And sews up bloody wounds

  Tom sat in silent awe for a moment, braced by the heartfelt veracity of her words. Ekaterina’s hair cascaded over her shoulders, her pointing breasts staring down at him. She had the shapely hips and slender legs of her horseback ancestors. He could easily imagine her thundering across the windswept steppes, loosing arrows at Mongol raiders, riding her steed hard into the ripped, red heart of a stormy sunset.

  They opened some wine. Ekaterina kicked off her shoes and unzipped her jeans. ‘I think I’m getting drunk’, she said, fingers loosening his tie. He saw she wore the mask of a Veely water sprite dancing and singing in the mountain springs. Tom pushed her back onto the bed, thumbs slipping under her briefs and sliding thin cotton down over her knees.

  Celtic Cross flags begin appearing on prominent buildings and national monuments across Russia;

  Mass rallies are held in Perm’s Gorkovo Park and along Lenina and Komsomolsky Prospekt. ‘We demand our city stays Russian’ echoes across the Kama River;

  Slavic Force and Russian Action militants seize the Kremlin government building of Nizhny Novgorod and arrest the Supreme Regional Officer;

  Army Brigades rally volunteers in city and town squares, distributing food and munitions, as well as providing basic arms training;

  Right and Left gangs clash across the country;

  The military imposes local curfews to prevent looting and disorder.

  The wind came biting off the Baltic. Frost-hard teeth raked flesh. Tom cut a thin, black figure on the bleak expanse of the Dvortsovvy Most as Arkady approached, wearing a long greatcoat, his bulky body acting as a windbreaker.

  ‘Privet!’ he declared as he came close. ‘You are tired, no?’

  ‘Nyet’, the Professor replied.

  ‘You look like you burn candle at both ends!’

  Tom shrugged. ‘I am still celebrating our success!’

  ‘Or maybe you can’t handle our girls?’ Arkady laughed.

  ‘I told you to leave her out of this!’

  ‘You don’t tell me, shit!’

  ‘But burning the apartment?’

  ‘You were warned!’

  ‘But that is ridiculous. A speech . . .’

  Arkady cut him off. ‘Is incendiary!’

  ‘It makes no sense . . .’ Arkady’s fist hit him square on the nose. Tom saw a spark of light in the back of his brain and felt hot blood spurt down his shirt. He attempted to stay on his feet, but a second swinging blow to the temple sent him staggering back against the bridge railings. He stared at the ground, trying to focus, stammering his words until Arkady took him firmly by the arm and flagged down the car he had used to chase Tom and Ekaterina down Nevsky Prospekt.

  ‘Get in!’ Arkady shouted, pushing Tom onto the backseat. ‘It is too cold to stand outside debating’, he said, slamming the door, signalling Bogdan to move on. All the familiar streets rushed by the windows. Arkady handed Tom a handkerchief. ‘Clean yourself!’ he ordered, ‘I don’t want you to bleed all over the upholstery.’

  ‘The girl’s got nothing to do with this . . .’

  ‘She’s one of you!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Don’t lie!’

  ‘I’m not.’ Tom spat a loose tooth.

  ‘We know she attends street speeches by fascists.’

  ‘She’s just an impressionable student.’

  ‘Then you people should not be giving dangerous lectures, yes?’

  ‘I’ll leave if you agree not to harm her.’

  ‘This is a civil war, you think we care about whether you stay or go?’

  ‘You firebomb old men!’

  ‘And Blood and Honour stabs our boys!’

  ‘I don’t advocate violence!’

  ‘You are complicit!’ The car swept up to the kerbside outside the Astoria. Arkady brandished a Stechkin pistol fitted with a long silencer before the Englishman’s eyes. ‘You have 24 hours to leave, after that, this goes pop and your body goes swim in the Neva, understand?’ Then he pulled open the door and bundled Tom into the gutter. ‘And I’ll fuck your pretty friend just for fun’, he smirked, as the car drove off into slow, swirling traffic.

  When he got to his room, Ekaterina was gone. A handwritten note said, ‘I have an idea!’ Tom stripped and ran a shower. As he stepped into the surging water, the phone began to ring. He ignored it, washing away humiliating memories with soap and bath oils. Later, he swallowed aspirin with a slug of Jack Daniels and massaged his creaking jaw. Arkady’s attack had been so quick, the blows so accurate. He thought of the power of the disorientating strike on the side of his head and the ease with which he had been thrown around. No simple heavy could have handled him with such confidence. He had been served notice.

  Meanwhile, Ekaterina’s idea, communicated in garbled fashion via mobile to Alexei and Yuri’s Vulcari, involved a surprise attack on Arkady’s base in Ulitsa Egorova. They were joined by Roman, Tom’s taxi transfer from Pulkovo airport, and their new recruit, Saniya. Ill-timed and ill-equipped, they had rushed into action without waiting for Alyosha, or their new mentor, Peter Janssen. Bald Bogdan was the first to hear them coming. He went silent, waving a large hand, signalling the others to be quiet before picking up his SR-2 and rising from the armchair.

  Unclipping the safety, Arkady, still nursing grazed knuckles, had drawn the Stechkin from his shoulder holster. Moving to the door, his head gestured for his sidekick to respond to Yuri’s demanding knock and unconvincing claim that he had a package to deliver. Others were reaching for the AO-63 assault rifles piled against the wall. Barrels were soon pointing, ammo clips strapped together with insulation tape.

  When Bogdan’s hand swung the door open, Alexei and Yuri led the knife-wielding charge straight at the guns. The first volley punched holes through their faces, serrating arms and legs, body parts spliced clean off the bone. Saniya’s intestines spiralled like pork sausage onto the carpet.

  9.

  The future truly is ours.—Alexander Dugin

  They stood with crowds of young nationalists amidst a sea of banners in front of the city’s eternal flame, commemorating the lives of French partisans Sabine D’Orlac and Luc Dubois, whose deaths had just been announced on Russia Today. People held cold hands to the rippling red tongues rising out of the charred earth before them, passing beer bottles, strumming guitars.

  ‘We come here a lot’, Ekaterina was saying as a friend rolled what appeared to be a concoction of Russian and Lebanese blends, wrapped loosely in flapping cigarette papers. ‘It all started with Borovikov’s death in 2006, but now we know we have to do more than just protest.’ Some students stood, hands on hips, singing forlornly at the Moon, thin bodies weaving shadows in the firelight, hypnotic voices trailing off into frosty starlight. Tom recognised the chords of Ian Stuart’s ‘Gone with the Breeze’ and the familiar lyric being pronounced with a Russian accent.

  Tom was surprised to see Vladimir, Ekaterina’s would-be suitor, mount the wall, blonde quiff waving in the wind. His slender figure wrapped in a black leather jacket, he cut a dashing figure in the moonshine. ‘Comrades’, he bawled over an ocean of pale faces. ‘I say it is time to serve justice on the mobsters that have robbed us every day of our lives, our parents’ lives, and our grandparents’ lives! They controlled our money, invited invaders to take our women, and they spat on our dignity. I say the counter-revolution has begun. It is time to take back what is ours and hang the bastards by the neck. Rossiiya! Rossiiya! Rossiiya!’

  ‘Vlad is one who yearns for martyrdom’, Ekaterina
confirmed. ‘The example of Luc and Sabine will be strong with him forever.’ Then, after standing in a minute’s silent tribute as the scissor breeze rolled in off the Neva, army trucks pulled up and began handing out weapons to the young revolutionaries.

  Tom watched his partner take a matte-black OTs-33 as they stood under the crisping tree branches, her hair silvering with hoarfrost, snowflakes settling on the dome of the Church on the Spilled Blood, looming broodily over the Moika. Tom squeezed her empty hand, but Ekaterina’s eyes were fixed on the machine pistol and its 27-round magazine, red lips folded in defiance.

  ‘Katja?’

  She turned to him, the glow of the eternal flame preserved in her retina.

  ‘Another time of troubles’, she said, leading him towards the embankment where stone melted away into the icy water. Cars were moving at top speed, ignoring the falling sleet, heading in the direction of the Hermitage, towards the bridges over to the islands.

  Tom felt he was wading through shallow water, giddy roofscapes distorted by winter light, merging apartments and government buildings. ‘Do you know’, she said, ‘200,000 White émigrés left Russia during the Revolution? Many of our greatest philosophers, historians, and professors were exiled from here, forced aboard a German ship called the Oberbürgermeister Haken at the Naberezhnaya Leitenanta Shmidta.’

  ‘Not killed?’

  ‘Lenin didn’t kill everyone’, she grinned. ‘Stalin, on the other hand!’

  ‘Where did they go?’

  ‘Berlin, Prague, Paris . . . all the usual places.’

  The Karaganov Doctrine of protecting Russian ethnic populations wherever they may be is enacted;

  Despite objections from the UN, Russia restarts its humanitarian aid for those refugees living in Donbass;

  Alexander Dugin returns from exile;

  Naval patrols on the Volga bombard Muslim settlements;