by Smith, Dan
‘I didn’t harm your family,’ I said.
‘How can I believe you? Why shouldn’t I just kill you now?’
‘Because you won’t leave my wife without a husband and my children without a father. Because that would make you just like Krukov. Because you won’t leave Anna with no one to look after her. Because we are friends.’ I fixed my eyes on hers. ‘And because we’re going find to Krukov together. Is that enough reasons? And there’s another – if you kill me now, you’ll have to kill all of these men too.’
Tanya glanced away and closed her eyes. When she looked back at me, the disappointment was clear, but she took the barrel of her pistol away from my head, letting her hand fall to her side. ‘So what now?’ she said.
‘What are you doing?’ Lyudmila asked from behind us. ‘What—’ But Tanya lifted a stiff hand at her, a frustrated and angry gesture telling her to stop.
When her comrade fell silent, Tanya tightened the hand into a fist and put it to her mouth, nodding at me to go on.
‘We carry on just as before,’ I said. ‘You, me, Lyudmila and Anna.’
‘But these are your men.’
‘I don’t even know these men.’
‘But he said—’
‘I know what he said, but my unit was small, depleted like this man’s unit was, and we were only merged with another one after . . . after what happened at . . .’
‘After your heroism at Grivino.’ The man who had saluted puffed out his chest with pride.
But I felt no pride. The massacre at Grivino had sealed my decision to desert.
‘For which you were awarded the Order of the Red Banner,’ he went on. ‘We are your men, Commander Levitsky.’
He had a good-looking face with high cheekbones and fierce eyes. It was too dark to see their colour, but I imagined they would be pale and cold and blue. He might have been a little younger than me, but the difference in the years between us was emphasised by his clean-shaven skin. I remembered him as an eager soldier trying to impress me, always following my orders to the letter, but that was as much as I knew about him. By then, most of my comrades-in-arms were killed, and the ones who remained were the ones I kept close – Krukov included, which was what made his viciousness all the more distressing. But this man was one of a number who had joined my unit shortly before I chose to become a fugitive. I hadn’t fought with them or formed any bond with them. They were nothing to me but men in uniform. I couldn’t explain that to Tanya right now, though, and hoped that she would trust me a little longer.
I watched him, all of us standing in the falling snow, trying to get some measure of him, but he gave little away. I wished I could see his eyes more clearly, but the darkness conspired against me in that. I felt that if I could look into his eyes, I would know him better. Standing to attention and saluting was not enough to guarantee loyalty. I had known soldiers inform on soldiers, commanders shot simply because one of their comrades accused them of unpatriotic thoughts. This man was as likely to deceive me as he was to support me.
‘You’ll have to earn my confidence,’ I said. ‘I don’t know you, and trust is hard to come by. So for now we’ll keep your weapons, and this woman and her family will remain my hostages. You will do as I order.’
‘Of course, Commander.’
I took a few paces back, keeping Oksana in front of me, still believing that she might be the only thing keeping me alive. These men had proclaimed their loyalty to me, but words were easy to say and this was the time of lies. I couldn’t believe anything anyone told me, and if these men were my enemies, they would say and do anything to get the better of me. I couldn’t take any risks. They would be well trained and vicious.
When I reached the bottom step of the izba, aware of Lyudmila behind me, I stopped and turned to Tanya, speaking in a quiet voice so the soldiers wouldn’t hear. ‘You have to believe me. Whatever he says, you have to believe me. These are not my men. My unit was small, and I lost soldiers in battle, others by transfer. I was given what was left of another unit in the same state, one that had been operating for several weeks without a proper commander. These men. But I only knew them a matter of days, and even then it was a confusing mess. Things were complicated.’
It had been hard after Grivino. All that killing on my conscience and being called a hero for it.
‘We were given fresh orders,’ I told her. ‘Orders to . . . to do . . . terrible things.’ Worse than I had done before. Not just requisitioning food, taking conscripts and executing deserters, but to spread terror. To torture and kill and burn. To propagate fear and drive the enemy into the shadows.
‘Is that why you deserted?’
‘I don’t know these men any more than you do. I trust you more than them. Is my trust misplaced?’
‘Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me. Is that why you deserted? I have to know. I have to believe there’s something good in you.’
A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have cared what Tanya thought of me, but now I felt a pang of disappointment. ‘Have you not seen any good in me? None at all?’
‘Answer my question.’
‘Yes. Yes, it’s why I deserted.’ The word was not easy for me to say. For Tanya, it just meant I had abandoned a heartless regime, but to me, it meant something else. It meant disobeying orders, accusations of cowardice, acceptance that my loyalties had been given to a belief I could no longer embrace. And it meant that I had forsaken my own comrades, leaving some to do terrible things, while others hunted me down.
Receiving those orders had been a trigger for all the disillusionment and exhaustion that had been building in me. The yearning I’d felt last time I was with my family. The appalling thought that my own son, Misha, wanted to follow in my footsteps. The guilt of the countless lives I’d taken, including those at Grivino. And my elevation to heroism because of it.
So I deserted not because I was a coward, but because I wanted to escape the horror, to be with my wife and sons, to protect my family from men like Koschei; men who revelled in their new orders. So while Koschei had pressed his burning, five-pointed star to the skin of helpless people in his quest to proliferate the Red Terror, so I had chosen a different path.
Tanya thought about it, looking from me to the soldier and at the revolver I still held beneath Oksana’s chin.
‘Now it’s your turn to answer my question. Can I trust you?’ I pressed her. ‘I need to hear it.’
‘No,’ Lyudmila said, and that half-whispered word was heavy with disbelief, making Tanya look over her shoulder to see Lyudmila standing in the open doorway. She took a deep breath and something unspoken passed between them. An apology perhaps, or a plea for understanding. Then Tanya shook her head once at her comrade and looked at me.
‘Yes. You can trust me,’ she said. ‘For now. But when this is over, you will be Red again.’
‘And you will be Green or Blue or whichever. I understand. All scores will be settled.’ That was good enough for me. I knew that, for the moment, I could rely on Tanya.
I turned back to the soldier and raised my voice. ‘Where’s Koschei? Where’s Krukov?’
He hesitated, glancing around at the others.
‘Don’t look at them. Where is he?’
‘He’s . . .’ He seemed almost reluctant to tell me.
‘Where?’
‘He’s delivering prisoners, Comrade Commander.’
‘Delivering them where?’
‘There’s a camp—’
‘You know where it is?’ I couldn’t help but feel I was getting closer.
‘No. He doesn’t tell us everything.’ He looked back at the others again. ‘But I think it’s nearby . . . He’s returning in the morning. I . . . Yes. Tomorrow.’
‘What’s your name, soldier?’
‘Ryzhkov. Grigori Ilich Ryzhkov. Our unit joined yours just a few days before you were killed. Or that’s what we thought had happened to you.’
‘I remember you.’ But I knew almost nothing about him.
‘Tell me, Ryzhkov, why are you guarding this house? What’s so important about these people?’ I remembered the look on his face just a short while ago when Tanya threatened to kill me. I was sure his concern had been for Oksana’s life rather than mine.
‘I don’t know. All I can tell you is that Krukov ordered us to protect it with our lives. To protect the people, otherwise he would take our heads.’
‘You’re afraid of him?’ It would explain his earlier fear, his concern for Oksana, but it also brought his loyalty to me into even more doubt. How could I compete with a man who instilled this kind of reaction even in hardened soldiers?
‘Everyone is afraid of him,’ Ryzhkov said.
‘So why haven’t you run? He’s not here.’
‘Because that would make us deserters. And he always finds deserters.’
37
Aware of Tanya’s eyes on me, I asked the rest of the men to step forward one at a time and introduce themselves. I recognised some of the faces, but like Ryzhkov, they were strangers to me.
‘What about the others?’ I asked.
‘Gone,’ Ryzhkov said.
‘Following me?’
‘Some.’ He didn’t pretend to be surprised that I knew about them, but he didn’t offer any more information than he had to and I realised I had already told him more about what I knew than I should. I decided to keep everything else I had seen and heard to myself.
‘They volunteered?’ I asked. He already knew I was aware of my hunters, so it was in my interest to gather as much information as I could.
‘Some of them, Comrade Commander. Others were ordered.’ He gave me no names and I asked for none.
‘So Krukov took over right away.’ It was more a thought spoken aloud than a question. Krukov was a serious man of few words and capable of acting without any display of emotion. He’d been a reliable comrade to have at my side, had fought with me and Alek at Grivino. Alek never liked him much, but I had always thought I could trust him. This war, though, it had taught me new things about conviction in others. Now I couldn’t tell the truth from lies anymore.
‘Yes, as soon as you were gone. He had enough loyal men, and anyone who questioned his orders . . .’ He shook his head. ‘The only way to stay alive was to do what he said.’
‘You didn’t think about reporting this?’
‘To who? There’s no one to tell. Other units do the same thing. I’ve seen . . .’ Once again he let his words trail away.
I remembered what Stanislav had told me at the train before he died – that I had created Koschei – and now I understood what he meant. When Alek and I had left, we had given Krukov free rein to command the unit. We had made it possible for him to carry out our new directive in as efficient and brutal a manner as he could. We had unleashed Koschei, and in his rampage across the country, he had found Belev.
My head spun with the implications. If Alek and I hadn’t run, the medic, Nevsky, might have saved his life. My brother might be alive, and I would still be in command of my unit. And if I were still in charge of my unit, Marianna would be at home. My boys would still be at home. I would have been able to protect them better as commander of a Cheka unit than as a miserable fugitive hiding in the forest, fleeing from those who hunted him. My mistake in deserting was monumental, almost too much for me to bear.
Galina driven to insanity; flayed hands and branded stars; my brother, cold and dead in the grave; Lev, lying broken on the forest floor; Anna left fatherless. All these things would have been undone if I had stayed with my unit. Everything was my fault. I had caused it all, and now the faces of the dead filled my mind.
And that thought. He likes to drown the women. That thought was ever present, always echoing.
‘Kolya.’ Tanya’s voice breaking through the clutter. ‘Kolya.’ An arm on my shoulder. ‘Kolya.’
‘What?’
‘What do we do now?’ Tanya asked, lowering her voice. ‘You still want to leave?’
I tried to show no sign of my confusion as I concentrated on one thing only. I had to be single-minded. Hard. Cold. Cruel. I needed to be the soldier now. The Chekist commander. It was the father who had sparked this terrible chain of events, so now it was time for the other part of me to take control.
‘You say he’s coming here?’ I asked Ryzhkov. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘Maybe tomorrow, maybe later. I can’t be sure.’
‘But he took prisoners? Children?’
‘Boys of fighting age.’ There was a hint of indignation in his voice. He would have had to vindicate his actions to himself, just as I had always done, and when you tell yourself enough times that something is justified, you begin to believe it.
‘And women?’ I asked. ‘There were women too?’
‘Some.’ I didn’t ask about Marianna, didn’t even try to get any intimation that she was still alive. Partly because I didn’t want to know right now – I wanted to maintain enough hope to keep me going – but also because I didn’t want him to know about Marianna and the boys. And I wanted to keep my knowledge of Belev to myself.
‘But he told you to guard this house? These people?’
‘Yes.’
There was only one reason why he would have done that. Krukov had done the one thing I should have done, and I finally understood his reason for pushing north.
His family lived here.
He had been coming here. Not just north, but here, to this farm, to protect his own family from the Red Terror that gripped the country. He came here to shelter them from men like himself.
I beckoned Tanya closer and whispered in her ear. ‘Krukov’s coming. I think we should prepare to meet him.’
Tanya called Lyudmila from the izba and ordered her to return the horses to the barn, but she was reluctant to go. She didn’t want to leave Tanya alone with me or the other soldiers.
‘Don’t do this,’ she said, coming close to Tanya and speaking with some urgency. ‘Don’t trust him. Don’t make me leave you alone with him.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Tanya told her.
‘He’s one of them.’ She glared at me with disgust and there was poison in her words. It was Tanya who had lost her family at the hands of Bolsheviks, but she was prepared to work with me. Lyudmila, on the other hand, was not so forgiving. Something had happened to give her unwavering hatred, but I doubted I would ever know what it was. We all had our secrets, and we all told our lies. Such a web of deceit was spun round us that it was impossible to see the world as it really was.
‘Get the horses, Lyuda, please. Put them in the barn. When Krukov comes, we don’t want him to know we’re here.’
Lyudmila backed away a few paces, making her disapproval clear before she turned and trudged into the darkness, leaving a line of prints in her wake.
Tanya returned to the izba, ensured the weapons were secure in the second room, and when she was ready, she called to me and I told the men to go inside.
Once Oksana and I were alone in the yard, I released her, taking the pistol away from her throat. My arms were stiff, my hands aching.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
She didn’t look me in the eye. She hung her head and rubbed at her neck.
‘You have nothing to be ashamed of,’ I said.
‘Can I go back to my children now?’
Of course she wanted to see them. It was the most natural thing in the world. I wanted to see mine. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I want you to stay with me.’ If something were to happen tonight, I wanted to be sure that Oksana was close to me. As callous as it felt, I had a suspicion I might be able to use her as protection.
I stood for a moment, Oksana breathing heavily beside me, trying to find some calm in the quietness of the night, but there was none to be had. I let my breath steam around me, and I tipped back my head to look at the sky. The snow had thinned, the flakes becoming smaller and smaller so they were tiny flecks spiralling and dancing in the air. The grey clouds ha
d dissipated, revealing the outline of the moon; a silvery spectre, more than half grown, trying to spill its light on a sombre land. It was quite beautiful, the kind of night Marianna would have loved.
‘Come in,’ Tanya called, interrupting my thoughts. ‘We’re all waiting for you.’
‘You first,’ I told Oksana, and suddenly I wanted to be inside, to see Anna.
They had lit more lamps, filling the room with light, and they must have fed the oven because as I moved closer, I felt the warmth spilling from the room. I glanced in the direction Lyudmila had gone, seeing glimpses of her in the moonlight as she rounded up the horses, then I followed Oksana over the threshold and closed the door.
The table was no longer overturned but stood in its original position in the centre of the room, and now Ryzhkov and the other soldiers were sitting at it. Tanya had instructed them to pull the chairs as close to the table as possible, so the soldiers were wedged in place, making any sudden movement difficult. They sat with their hands on the tabletop, fingers laced together.
Tanya stood by the door to the second room in the house – the place where she had stored their weapons out of reach. Her own rifle was over her shoulder, her pistol in her hand. She did not trust the men, and was wise to keep them under watch.
The old woman and Sergei had hardly moved – they remained on the chairs at the side of the pich – and neither of them spoke when they saw me. Sergei only looked down at his feet, while the old woman, who was watching the men at the table, glared at me as if she wished it would boil my blood.
As soon as I was inside, I allowed Oksana to go to the back of the room. She hurried straight to the ladder and spoke to her children. Their worried faces appeared at the edge of the berth over the pich and Oksana reached up to touch each of them. She whispered reassuring words, and as I watched, I felt the wickedness of my actions. Instead of Oksana, I saw Marianna, and I knew how I would feel if such a thing had happened to her. What I was doing was monstrous – using women and children as a shield to get what I wanted – and the only way to crush the guilt was to tell myself I had no choice. It was the only option left open to me.