by Serhiy Zhadan; Reilly Costigan-Humes; Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler
“Where’s my suitcase?” Pasha hears but doesn’t recognize his own voice. “Where is it? Huh?”
Somebody’s kicking him in the shoulder. Pasha takes out his phone and turns on the flashlight, without getting up. The blonde woman is standing over him. Her sneaker is kicking his shoulder like he’s a dog that’s been hit by a car.
“Where’s my suitcase?” she repeats coldly.
Pasha sits up, his back resting against the brick wall.
“Out there,” he says, pointing toward the opening.
“What the fuck? Where exactly ‘out there’?” she asks.
“Well, uh, out there.” Pasha points into the darkness. “You started running, I was carrying the old man.”
“What fucking old man?” She’s starting to get riled up. “Did you just leave it there?”
“Well, uh, you started running.” Pasha fixes his glasses with his whole hand, a bit awkwardly. He’s still picking up this faint wet-dog smell, and it feels like several pairs of eyes are looking at him from somewhere in the darkness. And there’s Blondie here, too.
“Are you a complete idiot?” she yells, kicking him even harder—in the leg this time. “Are you a complete fucking idiot?”
“It was empty,” Pasha says, trying to defend himself.
“And you went through my stuff, too?” she replies, growing more enraged.
“No, uh . . . ,” Pasha answers, frightened.
“You idiot!” she yells. “Go look for it!”
Pasha gets up, like an idiot, looks for his backpack, puts it on, and goes to leave.
“Sit down!” someone yells at him from the darkness. Pasha recognizes Vira’s voice. “And you sit down, too!” Vira yells, probably at the blonde. “Sit down, both of you! You got a death wish or what?”
“You’re the one with a death wish. That goes for all of you!” the blonde woman hisses ferociously, turning around and groping her way toward the exit. “Idiots,” she says in parting, and disappears through the doorway.
“Gotta stop her,” Pasha says. It’s unclear who he’s talking to, though.
“Come on.” Vira scoots over, very close to him, finds his hand, and pulls it toward herself. “Just sit. You can go out and look once things settle down. For her and her suitcase.”
Pasha sits down obediently. Vira huddles against him, as if she’s cold, and Pasha feels as though his train station dog has come back to him. The only thing is, he smells like refreshing water and a woman’s warmth. It’s obvious that she isn’t the least bit cold. They sit there, leaning on each other. Pasha wants to say something, but he’s afraid everyone will hear him and misunderstand him, so he keeps quiet. Her hand unexpectedly slides through the wide sleeve of his jacket, slips under his sweater, touches his frozen wrist, touches his skin silently; she doesn’t say a word. And Pasha decides to go for it; he wants to find her hand and touch her wrist, too, but suddenly he hears a woman’s voice in the darkness, right above them.
“Where’s our guide? Has anyone seen him?”
Vira instantly pulls her hand back like nothing happened at all. She gets up quickly. Pasha gets up, too, and turns on his phone’s flashlight. Annushka’s standing in front of him, her mom peering out from behind her. They stand there, giving Pasha a demanding look.
“Where is he?” they ask Pasha.
“I don’t know,” he answers.
“Who does know?” Annushka asks coldly. Her mom isn’t asking any questions, but her expression is cold and demanding.
“He’s been gone for a while.” Everyone turns toward the voice—the woman who was at the front of the group is sitting up against the wall, her bag next to her. Pasha aims the light in her direction and sees that her heels have broken.
“Quit shining that light at me,” the woman says, and continues: “He’s gone. He got the fuck out of here.”
“What now?” Now Annushka’s demanding an answer from her.
“Couldn’t tell you,” the woman replies.
The old man and his granddaughter emerge from the darkness. He isn’t looking good—leaning on her shoulder, holding his chest, breathing heavily.
“We have to get going,” the old man tells Pasha.
“He needs a doctor,” the granddaughter adds, also addressing Pasha.
“Where are you gonna find a doctor out here?” asks the woman sitting in the dark.
Everyone’s quiet for a bit. Pasha can feel his phone dying.
“We have to get out of here,” Annushka tells him adamantly, as if she’s worried Pasha doesn’t understand the importance of what she’s saying.
“Well, what am I supposed to do?” Pasha asks.
“You’re the only man here,” Annushka points out.
Her mom doesn’t object. Pasha does, though, nodding at the old guy. What about him? The old guy merely coughs despairingly and waves in reply—nah, nah, you’re the only man here, count me out.
“We have to get out of here,” Annushka repeats.
“Yeah, we have to get going while it’s quiet,” Vira agrees.
It really is quiet on the other side of the wall. Not even the blonde woman is making any noise. Pasha thinks about going out to look for her, but everyone’s formed a tight circle around him—there’s no escaping. And he’s standing here, like a priest taking questions after his homily, and thinking, “This is some responsibility, real responsibility—leading a group of people I hardly know, in the dark, who knows where.” Pasha isn’t used to this kind of thing. He doesn’t even take charge in the classroom; he generally just lets the kids run the show. At home he wasn’t in charge of anything either. At home his sister was in charge of everything. And when his sister was gone, there really wasn’t any need to take charge of anything. But now he’s suddenly got a whole bunch of women, children, and sick people that he has to take somewhere.
“All right,” Pasha ventures. “Where were you going?”
“Who the hell knows,” the woman in the corner with the broken heels answers hoarsely. She gets up, picks up her bag, and approaches Pasha. “That guy said he’d get us out, so we went with him.”
“I need to get home,” the girl with the stroller responds, her quiet voice coming out of the darkness. “Everyone’s expecting me. They don’t know where I am.”
“Where do you live?” asks the woman with the broken heels.
“By School Number Five,” the girl replies.
“That’s in the other damn direction,” the woman with the broken heels says comfortingly. “Why the hell did you tag along with us?”
“I don’t know.” The girl starts crying. “He said he’d get us out and I thought he would. I need to get home,” she reminds everyone.
Pasha looks at her stroller packed with winter clothes and bottles of water.
“Okay,” he says. “We walk to the fork in the road by the meat-packing plant, then go our separate ways. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” says the woman with the broken heels, hoisting the jingling bag over her shoulder.
“Yeah,” says the girl with the stroller, quietly and timidly.
“Yeah, yeah,” says the young girl impatiently. “Let’s get going already.”
“Yeah,” says Vira.
Pasha turns around and sets out, shining his flashlight ahead.
“Hey!” Annushka yells at his back.
Pasha stops.
“Aren’t you going to turn the light off?”
“But then I won’t be able to see anything . . .”
They climb out through a smashed window. First, they pass Annushka’s mom down the line, from person to person. Pasha holds her at the top and Annushka catches her outside. Then Pasha lowers the stroller. The old man keeps coughing, but he looks at Pasha like he’s a hero. They venture out to some tram tracks and walk down them. That’s safe at least—who would lay mines along a tram route? The tracks bend toward the main avenue a little later, though. And here opinions diverge. Pasha suggests steering clear of the avenue—they’re shoot
ing everything in sight over there. Better turn right, there should be a footbridge across the train tracks over that way. And then there’s some houses, nobody’ll get us over there. None of this sounds all that convincing; Pasha realizes that he’s advocating for crossing the bridge mostly because it’s closer to the orphanage. And he isn’t any good at lying—he’s a teacher, after all.
“Where?” the woman with the bag interrupts him. “You wanna go where? There were tanks by the bridge just yesterday.”
“What are you talking about? There aren’t any tanks over there,” Vira counters. “There’s no way.”
They’re standing around arguing about tanks, and Pasha doesn’t really know what to do. “All right,” he says. “Do what you want, I’m heading for the bridge.” “That might get them off my back,” he thinks.
“Good thinking,” Vira says unexpectedly. “Good thinking. I’m with you.”
“We are, too,” Annushka and her mom reply. “Let’s go.”
“So are we,” the old man and his granddaughter add. The girl with the stroller doesn’t say anything, but she keeps standing close to Pasha, just in case.
“Have it your way,” the woman says matter-of-factly, heaves the bag over her shoulder, and sets sail down the tracks toward the avenue.
The rest of them start walking in the opposite direction. There are intermittent flashes in the sky; where they came from, it sounds as if the sky is caving in on them. Everyone freezes and then turns around.
“That’s by the train station,” Vira says quietly, but nobody responds.
So they keep walking like that—not talking and not turning around, seemingly afraid they’ll see something horrible if they do.
“Almost there,” Pasha whispers to himself—everyone can hear him, though. “Just a little farther. The park’s just past this building, and then the bridge. I know the way.” Everyone knows the way, actually. They’re all locals. Nobody can guarantee that they won’t step in somebody’s brains along the way, though. Suddenly, desperate assault-rifle fire breaks out somewhere by the avenue. Pasha darts ahead, everyone else in tow; they run over to a dark five-story apartment block.
“C’mon, go inside,” Annushka yells. “Go inside!” They string out along the wall, running to the blasted front door. Pasha dives into the black pit of the apartment block and then suddenly stops. Annushka rams into his back, dragging her mom along like she’s on a leash.
“Well?” Annushka hisses. “What’s going on? Keep moving.”
“Hold on,” Pasha suddenly says, his voice quiet.
“What’s going on over there?” Annushka asks, still confused.
“Shh,” Pasha whispers.
The rest of the group barrels into the apartment block, breathing heavily. The old man’s gasping for air, as if somebody was just holding him underwater. Everyone figures out what’s going on right away, though. Something’s up. They stop dead in their tracks and listen hard.
“Shh,” Pasha repeats. “Hear that?”
Everyone listens. And they hear the wind going from room to room, somewhere above them. And drafts sweeping in one smashed window and out another. They hear drops of water trickling in a broken pipe and the wind dragging old newspapers across the steps. Most important, they’re standing transfixed and listening. Somewhere between the third and fourth floors, on the landing, someone’s cautiously blowing on their fingers, rubbing their hands together, putting on fingerless gloves, and quietly, very quietly—so nobody, nobody at all, can hear—picking up something metal. They hear him standing up cautiously, very cautiously, crouching, looking outside, nimbly stepping over shards of broken glass, surveying the space with a trained eye, looking all around, sniffing all around, and sensing someone’s presence nearby, an uninvited presence.
“Hurry,” Pasha whispers, gasping with fear. “No talking. Follow me.”
They skirt the building, one after another, and run over to the first trees, moving from trunk to trunk. From off to the side, from the rotten grass, a potent stench hits them—something poisonous even. “Don’t look, don’t look,” Pasha repeats to himself. He keeps running. He can hear the women’s labored breathing behind him. They run over to a playground with a burned swing set and find themselves out in the open. Pasha looks around—the apartment block looms in the distance like a whale that’s beached itself out of sheer despair. Black windows that look like they’re stained with coal, no movement, no voices. This makes things even scarier. They dart toward the park and run between the trees, blending in. They’re as dark as the trees, so it looks like the crooked acacias are running alongside them. Then the park ends abruptly; Pasha runs onto a strip of asphalt, his heavy shoes pounding resonantly, runs the remaining distance, and stops right in front of the bridge. More precisely, in front of what’s left of it. Even in the pitch dark, you can see that there is no bridge, that what hangs above the dark, overgrown gully is emptiness. And there’s no bridge. There’s nothing. And descending into that gully is just like voluntarily descending into hell—you should have a really good reason. Pasha doesn’t have a really good reason, though, so he just stands there, resting his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. And the women stand behind him, not saying anything, breathing heavily.
“So, what now?” Annushka asks after she catches her breath. “Huh?”
“Dunno,” Pasha answers honestly.
“Well, where were you headed? There’s somewhere you’re going, right?” Annushka pressures him.
“Over there.” Pasha nods at hell. “I was headed over there.”
“Dammit,” Annushka replies angrily. “Frickin’ clown. All right, let’s go.” She grabs her mom’s hand and starts dragging her back to where they just came from.
“Where are you going?” Pasha yells desperately at her back, but Annushka doesn’t answer. Her mom could’ve said something, but she didn’t know the right answer.
“I’m gonna get going, too,” the girl with the stroller says after a short pause.
“Wait.” Pasha catches his breath and tries to adopt a serious tone. “Let’s go around the other side.” He points at the black fog. “We’ll go out that way.” He waves his hand in the air, vaguely depicting something, which makes things even scarier.
“Nah.” The girl pushes the stroller farther away so she isn’t tempted to argue. “I’m gonna get going. Everyone’s expecting me.”
Nobody stops her. They’re all so confused that they don’t even know what would be worse—her staying with them, here at the beginning of hell, or her going someplace where she’ll probably get shot.
“It sucks when women leave you,” Pasha thinks. “I should’ve stopped them. How can you stop women, though? Who can stop them?” Pasha can’t, he doesn’t know how. He can’t now and he couldn’t last fall. Last fall, not all that long ago, sometime in September, when things got really tough and trains loaded with military vehicles started arriving at the Station every day, when people suddenly started shooting right on the main road, Maryna came over to his house—ran over, actually—and started carrying on. Gotta go now, otherwise it’ll be too late. Gotta drop everything and get out. The way it went embarrassed Pasha in front of his old man, who was sitting in the kitchen and could hear everything, and his sister, who sat there, consoled Maryna—she loved her—then started carrying on, too, and yelling at Pasha. What kind of man are you? What are you sitting around waiting for? Take her and get out of here! Pasha tried calming everyone down, explaining everything; he said something about his employment record (to hell with your employment record!), about how the school year was just starting. He said that they had nothing to be scared of, that they didn’t have anything to do with this, that they weren’t taking sides. Pasha was “just a teacher, just a teacher,” he kept repeating, seemingly apologizing for being just a teacher. He didn’t really care about anything else. Where would he go? What use would he be anywhere else? They don’t have anything to be afraid of. Everything’s fine. He’s just a teacher. Eventual
ly, Maryna snapped and ran out of the house. Pasha went after her, but he stopped under the trees in their yard. Fall was just starting—spiderwebs were getting tangled and lost in the trees, the grass was heavy, saturated, the evening sky looked like molten metal that would soon be poured into a mold and made into something useful. Pasha’s dad stepped outside, feigned surprise when he saw Pasha but didn’t say anything, went down the walkway toward the gate, and peered inside the mailbox.
“There’s no mail on Saturdays,” Pasha reminded him. He went back inside without saying anything. “He’s really lost it,” Pasha thought. “He’s turning into a freak. I’m not going anywhere.”
“He’s really hurting,” the girl says, reminding everyone she’s still here.
Pasha turns around. The old man really is in a bad way; he’s doubled over, coughing and rubbing his temple.
“He needs a doctor,” the girl says.
“What about going to a hospital?” Pasha asks, with some hesitation. “Do you think any hospitals are still running?” he asks Vira. “Or did everyone already take off?”
“I think they all took off,” Vira replies. “That’s if they could get out.”
“So what are we supposed to do with him now?” Pasha asks, confused.
“I know a vet.”
“A vet?”
“Yeah. He treated my dog a year ago. Well, that was when I had a dog,” Vira says. “He worked out of his apartment, I remember that. He’s not exactly a doctor, but he has something. Aspirin, analgin, or something like that.”