by Serhiy Zhadan; Reilly Costigan-Humes; Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler
When it gets so cold that the kid wraps his arms around him, trying to get warm somehow, when the driver stuffs his hands in his pockets, leans against the wheel, and starts steering with his stomach, and when the women, all padded with pillows and blankets, stop shouting, they finally roll past the last factory wall, cross a black plowed field, and roll into the neighborhood. Pasha has tucked his head into his shoulders and turned his side toward the windshield so he doesn’t feel the draft as much, but soon enough he can’t help glancing at the road, checking out what’s up ahead. What’s up ahead is a long street, lined with houses. Many houses with signs of shelling, holes in the slate, black marks on the walls and fences. A local guy, frightened, enraged, peers out from behind a green metal gate. He looks at the newcomers with suspicion. Who are you? What’ve you come for? And most important, is the shelling going to start again? Pasha came here several times as a kid, with his old man. That’s to say that he doesn’t remember anything. Or anything good, at least. A mining town that merged with the city in the eighties, even though an endless industrial park has always separated the two. A certain degree of autonomy, separation. Nevertheless, everyone works in the city. They used to, that is. Before the war. The neighborhood’s been cut off; they were fighting for control over it in the fall, but then stopped a while back. When the city was getting shelled, the people here were already patching up their roofs and putting up new fences. Fences are an absolute must, obviously. The LAZ continues down the main street, reaches the end—apparently this mining town’s historic district—and pulls up to the bus stop. Pasha’s frozen fingers open the doors; he and the kid spill out like two paratroopers with one parachute between them. Stiff bodies, numb feet, damp clothes, heavy heads. Ten a.m. It’s a nice January morning.
Pasha immediately notices what’s changed over the past thirty years, since he was here last. Nothing. A new church was built. And a supermarket. That’s it. The old town council building doesn’t have a flag on it—apparently, they tore down the previous one, the national flag, but haven’t had time to put the new one up. The old cultural center—showing no signs of life. The nearby school is empty, too; rain hovers over the soccer field. Stores stretch along the street: the white brick, darkened by time, the blue paint of the window frames, the Coca-Cola ads taped to the doors. And a crowd, black, taciturn, tracking them tensely, suspiciously. Just watch—the crowd’ll charge and rip ’em to shreds. The women begin disembarking, tossing their bags and pillows out the windows, step out into the rain, mill around near Pasha, continuing to view him as the guy in charge, staying near him, assigning responsibility to him for whatever happens to them. As everyone’s disembarking, the driver eyes the crowd that’s been standing by the store. Then he shifts to Pasha, who’s now getting soaked along with his expeditionary force, flashes a crooked smile, starts up the bus, and puts it in reverse. And the two groups are standing opposite each other—two packs of fierce wet passengers at the empty bus stop, and just a hundred yards of thick damp January air separates them. They stand there, not knowing what to expect from each other, what to say to each other. Pasha doesn’t know what to say either; he stands there, surveying the crowd opposite him, discerns several older men in black jackets and a woman in a raspberry down coat and two girls about ten years old, standing by themselves, no adults nearby, backpacks slung over their shoulders. He can’t make out anyone else—just blurs of faces under headscarves and warm hats, deep cavities of eyes, makeup smeared by rain, strands of hair that poke out from under hoods, hastily applied lipstick. Women, mostly women. Harsh expressions. It’s as if they can tell something bad is brewing. Nobody’s smiling. Pasha remembers the driver’s crooked grin, remembers that guy who recognized him but didn’t say anything, smiling at the checkpoint, and suddenly he remembers everything.
A year before the war, a previous life. Pasha’s been tutoring a happy-go-lucky sixteen-year-old kid all spring, prepping him for his entrance exams. The kid’s dad is a highly regarded and quite disagreeable businessman—sells coal. He wants to send his son to the capital. And then he’s planning on moving there himself. He finds Pasha. Have to know Ukrainian, for the future. Pasha’s a good, affordable teacher. And he hardly ever talks. He doesn’t talk more than he should, that is. He only speaks Ukrainian during their lessons. It’s as if the language consists solely of medical terms that simply have no practical application in everyday life. The kid knows his future is riding on this. And he wants to move to the capital. What could he even do in this town? Sell coal? His dad’s the one who sells the coal. So he has to study. The only problem is that he hates all this: Pasha, coal, his dad. His dad more than anything. And he isn’t Pasha’s biggest fan either. He doesn’t even bother hiding that. So twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, Pasha takes the train to the city and walks the fifteen minutes from the station. The kid lives in his own apartment. Two rooms, not very big. Prefab building, last floor. Ninth floor. Every lesson ends with a fight. With the kid throwing a fit, actually. Pasha just sits there, hears him out. He considers dropping the kid several times—calls his dad, who insists that Pasha continue the lessons. He even starts paying him more. Not much more, but still. One time, in May, probably—warm days, clear, high-hanging sky—the dad shows up unannounced, right in the middle of a lesson, decides to pay his son a visit, which throws him off for some reason. He flat-out ignores Pasha, gets all riled up, starts yelling; his dad stops playing nice, too. Turgenev’s fathers and sons, basically. Pasha tries to mediate, calm them both down, but first the kid tells him to go screw himself and then the dad does, too. When the kid, swept up in the moment, tells his dad to go screw himself, he cuts loose and nails his son right in the head. The kid falls back into a chair but springs right back up, saliva dribbling out of his mouth, wipes the tears away, grinds his teeth helplessly, wildly, and runs out of the apartment. His dad follows him; Pasha, sensing that something’s up, also runs after him. He even catches a glimpse of the kid scrambling up the metal stairs, to the roof, his dad laboriously following him, and them disappearing through a hatch, one after the other. Pasha stays down below, looks up, at the bright blue square of May sky, and keeps repeating to himself: “Just don’t jump, just don’t jump.”
Summer passes. The kid doesn’t get in anywhere. He fails his entrance exams. Passes Ukrainian, though. Pasha’s still all worried, beating himself up; he thinks that he’s partially at fault, too. He’s worried the kid’s dad is going to give him trouble. But nobody hassles Pasha. He never sees the kid again and he quickly forgets about him. Now this has made him remember. “Man,” Pasha thinks, surveying the dark crowd in front of him. “How’d that happen? My students fighting against me—how did I not notice that? How’d I miss that? Well, not really against me.” He tries to reassure himself. “Not against me. Why bring me into this? Yeah, fine, they aren’t fighting against you.” Then he immediately disagrees with himself. “But they are against you, directly against you. Against everything that has anything to do with you. But what has anything to do with you?” Pasha asks himself, confused. “All of it,” he answers himself. “Your subject, your school, the flag outside. They’re fighting for that. Against it, actually. Why didn’t he turn me in?” Pasha thinks. “Why’d he let me go? He could’ve turned me in. He had reason to, after all. Then what would’ve happened to the kid?”
And Pasha gets scared again. Very scared. And very cold.
This is how they take the dead to the cemetery. They’re walking down the street at a leisurely pace, in no rush whatsoever, carrying the coffin, passing the last houses, reaching the end of town. It’s like they’re discarding useless things. Away from prying eyes, away from their homes. Just like now. The group sprawls down the street like a fire hose, stretching through the rain toward the city limits, away from downtown. The people out front are now lost behind a sheet of rain; those in the back are milling around here, by the stores, arguing, deliberating.
The two groups just came together. Everyone was asking each
other where they’ve come from, where they’re going. Several well-informed individuals emerged right away and started talking. They’re definitely going to try and take the town back in the evening. Convoys kept arriving at the Station all night, coming from somewhere by Kharkiv, and they’re all going to head this way today, to take the town back. But why try and take it back? An exhaustive answer followed that question. First off, there are mines and coal here, second, it’s a straight shot to the city from here, and third, nobody wanted them to come in the first place. Those guys who rolled in yesterday—they’re all in the city, none of them are in the town. So just come on by and hang the national flag on the town council building. The men held meaningful pauses, letting the women interrupt them, and they unabashedly interrupted the women, too, saying that nobody would come anywhere near here, that the Station, along with all the military equipment there, got hit yesterday, but that staying here still wasn’t an option. There’d be a battle to retake the city and those new guys, the ones who rolled in yesterday, would probably retreat through the town, so not a stone would be left standing. The women yelled in protest, referencing relatives they’d spoken to just yesterday who’d talked to some people in the know who said that nobody would be retreating, that the new authorities would be here awhile, so it was time to flee, no matter what. The men sneered in response. Yeah, yeah, they’ll be here awhile. Sure . . . They’ll cut a deal, the new guys’ll leave the city, the other guys’ll come back, but still, we really ought to get the hell out of here. Needing to get the hell out of here—that’s what everyone is talking about. Some voices are sharp and resolute, others quiet and confused. Nobody wants to stick around. Pasha tries to make sense of where they’re all planning on going, how they’re going to escape, what route they’ll take. He calls for order, asks for permission to speak. But nobody’s listening to him anymore; they aren’t paying attention to him anymore. They merely look at him mistrustfully when he approaches, talk in hushed voices so he can’t hear them, turn their backs on him, hiding something important from him. Eventually, the kid can’t take it anymore.
“What are you even talking to them for?” he asks. “Let them go wherever they want. Leave ’em alone.”
Pasha suddenly notices the kid. He’s been kind of quiet since morning, not saying anything, not smoking, not hassling anyone. Hands tucked in his pockets, back turned to the rain. “Is he all right?” Pasha thinks, worried. “Last thing we need is another attack.”
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“Are you?” the kid answers. He really does want to hear the answer, just like Pasha.
“So.” Pasha sits down on a wet step and tries to speak calmly, yet with conviction. “So, we gotta get out of here. Can’t stay here.”
“But where should we go?” the kid asks him.
“Home.”
“Through the fields?”
“We’ll go with everyone else,” Pasha says, after a moment’s thought. “They’re looking to leave the city by the railroad crossing. They say the checkpoint’s empty over there. Our guys left yesterday, but those other guys haven’t come yet.”
“Your guys?” the kid scoffs.
“All right, don’t start with me,” Pasha says angrily. “Basically, there’s no front line over there. We can just cross on over, go someplace, and call a taxi. We’ll be home tonight. That’s if they haven’t blown everything up by now.”
“How long are we gonna have to walk?” the kid asks. “To get to the railroad crossing,” he adds.
“Five or six miles,” Pasha says. “And then it’s another five or six from the railroad crossing to the closest village.”
“Man.” The kid’s surprised. “How’re we gonna swing that?”
“We’ll swing it,” Pasha says. “If we want to.”
“What if they actually did blow everything up?” the kid asks quietly.
“There’s no way,” Pasha reassures the kid. “Nobody blew anything up. Don’t worry.”
“You don’t worry,” the kid replies. “All right, nobody blew anything up. Get up,” he says, setting off after the group. Pasha gets up, surveys the city. In the north, behind streaks of rain, the air trembles now and again, as if someone’s using power tools behind thick curtains.
The street’s empty. The sky looks like a mountain of sheets piled outside the train stewardess’s compartment by passengers in the morning—heavy clusters of clouds all the way out to the horizon, scattered and twisted inside out. The procession sprawls down the street. They walk as if they truly are accompanying a body to its final, sorrowful resting place. The women carry their bundles, sidestepping potholes filled with water, but that doesn’t help much. Water, cold wintry water, is everywhere. “For three days now, I’ve been trying to escape,” Pasha thinks. “For three days now, I’ve been running around in circles, like a circus bear. And there’s no end in sight. For three days now, I’ve been walking with some people I don’t even know. Like some metal spring in the air is pushing me forward, goading me along, not letting me stop. Just like them,” Pasha thinks, looking around. “Something’s goading them, too, pushing them farther away from their homes. Half of them have no homes. No relatives. So they’re wandering along the edge of town, with no chance of escaping. They’re walking in circles, walking around their city. And I’m walking with them, for some reason. And I’m dragging the kid along with me, too.” Pasha’s most concerned about the kid—his shoes aren’t made for this weather, and they’re soaked—have been for a while. Just how are they going to make it? Pasha could turn to one of the locals, ask for a ride, but there simply aren’t any locals around. It’s like a ghost town, and they’re the last ones left. They’re walking down a long, empty street, their wet shoes kneading a gruel made of snow, mud, and sand, moving in a dark stream past other people’s yards.
Steppe begins beyond the last fence. The snow is almost blue from all the moisture, with black melted spots on higher ground. There’s a row of prickly, barely visible trees on the horizon. Up to its belly in snow, an old ambulance sits by the side of the road. The driver’s side door is gone and its insides have been ripped out; they lie nearby in a snowbank. The back doors stick up. Empty inside. Dirty rags, camo jacket, spare tire. The group walks by, examining the abandoned vehicle fearfully. Several women cross themselves. It looks as if they’re crossing themselves because they’re passing the red cross on the ambulance. Pasha walks, his hand resting on the kid’s shoulder, which is probably weighing him down, but he keeps it there—it’s warmer that way. “Really should dry his feet,” Pasha thinks uneasily. “Change his socks. He might not make it otherwise. I’d have to carry him.” That wouldn’t be easy—he realizes that right away. Just beyond the town, the road starts going uphill. They’re moving at a decent clip at first, trying to pass each other or keep pace, at the very least, but just a mile or two later, in the middle of a field, the women stop, sit down on their bundles along the side of the road, to rest, catch their breath. They’re trying to stay warm in the rain—fine, invisible, implacable. One of the women—headscarf concealing her face, yellow winter coat, high boots—is sitting on an upside-down bucket, hanging her head, looking at her feet, not moving. Pasha can’t help but go over, try to do something. The woman lifts her head abruptly—abscesses, bloody, cracked lips. Pasha takes a step back, involuntarily averts his eyes. Eventually, he works up the nerve.
“Everything all right?” he asks. “Need any help?”
The woman looks at him, not understanding anything. And not saying anything, obviously. Pasha stands there, hunching over her and trying not to look her in the eye. The kid timidly peers out from behind him.
“Do you need any help?” Pasha asks again.
The woman thrusts her hand forward—no. She has abscesses all over her hand, too. Pasha grips the kid’s shoulder, nudges him forward.
“What could you do to help?” says an irritated voice behind him.
Pasha turns around. Some teenager, about fifteen or
so, not very tall, though, only about a head taller than the kid, black Adidas hat, spring jacket—isn’t keeping him warm at all—wet sneakers that sink into the snowy mush. Frozen to the core, hands tucked in his pockets, carrying an old, sun-faded hiking backpack. He gives Pasha a contentious look, sniffles. Where’d he come from? Who knows.
“Do you know her or something?”
“What’s there to know?” the teenager asks, surprised. “She lives here, everyone around here knows her.”