The Orphanage

by Serhiy Zhadan; Reilly Costigan-Humes; Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler

  “Where’s he going?” Pasha inquires.

  “Who the hell knows,” the kid replies. “Maybe he’s running away.”

  “What about his car?”

  “He’s so afraid of you, he’d think nothing of just leaving his car here,” the kid says, laughing.

  Suddenly, in the surrounding blackness, the moon—big, bright yellow—comes into view. It’s been hanging over them the whole time. They just couldn’t see it behind the clouds. But now the clouds have parted, and it’s spilled out, right at them, and suddenly everything’s translucent, so close. It’s like somebody’s switched on the light in a child’s bedroom to ward off their fears and make sure there weren’t any monsters under the bed. Pasha and the kid start paying attention to the driver; he’s flustered, stopped on the main road and looking in every direction. Emptiness all around, nobody’s going anywhere, nobody has anywhere to go. There’s just the bent sign reminding them that the former border isn’t that far from here. A one-hour drive and you’re there. But what can you even do there? The driver comes back, plops heavily into his seat, sighs and moans, trying to elicit sympathy. But he can’t. So he pulls out onto the main road and turns right. Then he turns on his headlights and pushes his Model Three to the limit, seemingly afraid he won’t make it on time. He goads the car forward, squeezing the last bit out of it and paying no mind to the potholes. Shortly thereafter, out of the darkness drifts a spoil pile.

  Pasha recognizes this area. The mine they’re passing now hasn’t been shut down, so there’s still some life here. The Station is close by—about twenty miles if you take the main road. It’s longer if you stick to the back roads, naturally. They pass the spoil pile, empty dachas. Five-story apartment blocks emerge up ahead. The driver stops.

  “That’s as far as I go,” he says.

  “You can’t be for real!” Pasha says cajolingly.

  “There are soldiers over there.” The driver shakes his head. “That’s it.”

  “I’ll talk to them,” Pasha says. He’s full of it, though. “Don’t be afraid, those are my guys over there.”

  “Nah.” The driver shakes his head resolutely. “You’re gonna have to walk from here.”

  “Just leave him alone,” the kid suddenly interjects. “He still has to make it back. Let him go.”

  The driver jerks to say something in reply but can’t muster anything—he just tucks his head into his shoulders, patiently waits in silence. Pasha suddenly loosens up. “Yeah,” he thinks. “What am I hassling him for? What do I even know about him? He could’ve taken us right to the commandant’s office. But he didn’t, he didn’t hang us out to dry. Why’m I getting into it with him?”

  “All right,” Pasha says to the driver. “No need to get all bent out of shape. Things happen.”

  The driver nods. Uh-huh, yeah, they do. Get out already.

  “Here.” Pasha produces his cans, holds them out to the driver.

  He grabs one with his big hands. He doesn’t know what it is, but he grabs it anyway.

  “What for?” He’s perplexed. “You don’t have to.”

  “Take it,” Pasha insists. “We’ll settle up after the war ends. If we make it . . . ,” he adds.

  The kid reaches into his pocket, takes out his chocolate bar, and hands it to the driver.

  “Here,” he says condescendingly. “Don’t get bent out of shape.”

  The driver is unexpectedly flooded with emotion. His eyes even become moist. Deeply moved, he shakes the bags under his eyes and tries to smile, but nothing comes of that.

  “Good luck with everything,” he says to Pasha and the kid.

  “Same to you,” Pasha answers. “Same to you.”

  The kid gets out of the car. Pasha follows him, shuts the door. Once they’ve taken a few steps, they hear tires screeching behind them. The driver turns around sharply and steps on the gas.

  “Why didn’t you eat the chocolate?” Pasha asks.

  “I wanted to share with you,” the kid answers.

  “He’s kidding,” Pasha surmises. “Or maybe he isn’t.”

  They pass the first apartment block. And then a school, and then the black cube of a mall. They squat, frightened, when an APC, packed with people and things, pops out behind the mall. But the APC disappears around the next apartment block, like it was never here in the first place. Now what should they do? They don’t know. They have to head toward the bus station, follow the APC. Or stay here, in the middle of the street. They don’t want to stay in the middle of the street, so they turn behind the apartment block and stop, stunned.

  The street’s packed. Cars dark with dirt, frozen armor, multifarious military vehicles—there’s no end to the column, the cars are parked next to each other in two rows, so you can’t walk between them, can’t squeeze your way through. The APC they just saw is now off to the side; soldiers hop out of it, splashing into puddles, and trudge along the street, shoving through a crowd of soldiers just like them who are standing around, not knowing where to go from here. They’re standing in groups—some large, some small—building fires, warming up, standing by some buildings, sitting or lying on benches, hiding in the darkness. The buildings are dark, devoid of life, but if you look a little closer, behind the curtains and the blankets hung up instead of drapes, you can spot some apprehensive gazes, some faces that immediately recede into the depths of their apartments as soon as they sense another gaze from outside. Pasha and the kid stand at the beginning of the street, and they realize that they’ll have to pass through this frigid crowd, and that it’s best to stick close to the soldiers instead of continuing to wander through the black empty city on their own. “What could they even do to us?” Pasha reassures himself. “After all, I have the same flag in my passport that they have on their tanks. I’m a teacher, after all. I could be their kids’ teacher. Yeah, their kids’ teacher,” he thinks and moves forward. Sasha is at his side.

  “You haven’t lost your passport, have you?” he asks. “And what if they want to check your address?”

  “You think that’ll help?” Pasha follows with a question of his own.

  “It might,” he says tentatively. “Or it might not,” he adds calmly.

  Pasha notices that the kid’s voice has changed over the past few days—he speaks calmly, unhurriedly. Like he actually trusts Pasha. “Now I just have to get him home,” Pasha thinks, as he peers at the soldiers through the darkness. The soldiers aren’t paying any attention to them; they’re talking among themselves, asking questions, offering explanations. Occasionally yelling out each other’s call signs and then quickly going quiet, as if they don’t want to talk about that anymore. Occasionally arguing, getting all riled up, debating in hoarse voices. Then they grab their riled-up buddies by the shoulders, take them aside, grasp their heads, look into their eyes, say some soothing words. And everyone—the ones doing the soothing and the ones being soothed—is speaking loudly, shouting, like they’re at a soccer match. “Why are they shouting?” Pasha thinks, confused. “What for? Maybe they want to sound more convincing, so they’re shouting over each other? That’s what kids always do to get everyone’s attention, to force people to listen to them—they start shouting, blotting everything else out with their own voices. These guys, they’re like kids,” Pasha thinks, his eyes sliding over their faces, dried out by the cold, their unshaven cheeks, their uncombed hair. And suddenly he spots a dried strip of blood under one of the soldiers’ ears—very young, about eighteen, holding a metal mug filled with something hot, warming his hands on the heated metal, not actually drinking much. And he’s shouting, too, shouting into his mug. “Kid’s ears don’t bleed,” Pasha thinks, and then he figures out what’s going on. They’ve come under heavy artillery fire and they’ve all gone deaf. That’s why they’re shouting, like kids listening to loud music with headphones who don’t realize that nobody else can hear it. Yep, they’ve just come from the battlefield, they’re trying to figure out what’s happened, what’s next, trying to call
whoever they have to call. “Oh, yeah,” Pasha remembers. “I have service here. Have to call dad, tell him where we are, put him at ease.” He takes out his phone. It’s slowly nearing its demise, but it’s still glowing faintly. One bar appears, then another. Gotta try it. Pasha calls his old man. Waits awhile. Calls again. The kid’s standing there, patiently anticipating, knowing full well who Pasha’s trying to get hold of. His old man picks up, unexpectedly. He’s barely coming through. Moreover, everyone around Pasha is screaming and making so much noise. All this ruckus could make his old man very anxious. But he cuts out right away, before he can hear anything. Pasha tucks his phone away and clears a path, cautiously, so as not to attract any attention, moving from group to group and catching movements and colors out of the corner of his eye. Mud on combat boots, blood under nails, unwashed camo, voices chilled by the wind, stubble on faces—it’s immediately obvious that they’ve spent the past several days outside in the rain, and they still don’t have anywhere to hide from the rain that’s encroaching upon the high-hanging January sky. Someone adjusts a stick in a fire, sparks soar, soldiers stick their hands very close to the flame. Everything smells of smoke and sweat, worn clothing, and diesel fuel. Somewhere beyond the city, in the darkness, there’s a rhythmic series of blasts; the soldiers automatically turn toward them, listen tensely, yet quickly lose interest. They return to the flame, to their screaming. Clouds drift, the rain lets up again, for the nth time today, and a round moon materializes above a long row of apartment blocks, a golden glint gushing onto the metal of the cars. Women in down coats mill around outside one of the apartment buildings. They’ve brought pots filled with something edible, and they’re ladling the warm, thick stew into disposable bowls, handing them to the soldiers, crying. The soldiers, slightly mistrustful, surround them, accept the hot plastic bowls, unfazed by the temperature, offer some words of appreciation, soothe the women. They eat quickly, seemingly afraid they’ll soon have to drop everything and run. They swallow their hot meals whole. There’s an old minibus—riddled with bullets, smashed windows, busted doors—in the middle of the sidewalk. They have to squeeze against the building to get past. The door of the bus is busted, and an elderly soldier is sitting inside. Below him on the ground a small fire is burning. He’s warming himself up on the little steps without getting out of the minibus, extending his combat boots right up to the flame. He spots Pasha and the kid.

  “Hey,” he says, waving. “Come over here.”

  Pasha pretends he doesn’t hear him. He pulls the kid along, wanting to slip between the minibus and the building. I just didn’t hear you, there are so many people all around making such a racket, I’ll be on my way, leave me alone. You can’t even hear your own footsteps or the disgusting squelching of wet boots in cold puddles over all this racket. The soldier seems to think otherwise, though. He thinks very differently.

  “Hey, brother,” he shouts hoarsely, like he’s calling to an old friend.

  Pasha stops, probes. Whadaya want? The soldier waves again. Come on over here. Pasha and the kid exchange glances, then walk over.

  “All right then, brother,” the soldier yells. “Got any smokes?”

  Wrinkles—looks like someone’s been kneading his face. Hair—gray and so short that it seems like his skull is metallic gray, made of cold iron. Appears to be about sixty, sagging camo, gut propped up by his belt. Fur coat on his shoulders. He stares at Pasha and the kid blankly. It’s as though he’s looking at them but seeing something only he can see. And he’s yelling, his voice raspy, strained.

  “Got any smokes?” he asks again.

  “I don’t smoke,” Pasha answers.

  “What?” Metal Head doesn’t understand him. “I can’t hear anything, brother. The shelling . . .” He’s speaking a mix of Russian and Ukrainian, hopping back and forth between the languages. “Just slow down,” he says. “I’ll lip-read.”

  “I don’t smoke,” Pasha says. “I do not sm-o-ke.”

  “You don’t smoke?” the soldier surmises.

  Pasha shakes his head.

  “Why’s that?” the soldier asks, disappointed.

  “It is bad for you,” Pasha answers slowly.

  “Bad for you?” the soldier surmises. “Sure is. What about you?” he asks the kid.

  “What about me?”

  “You smoke?”

  The kid hesitates for a moment, glances at Pasha, then takes a step forward, pulls out his cigarettes, and proffers them to the soldier, who takes one, thinks for a second, and then another.

  “Just take the whole pack,” the kid yells. “I quit.”

  “You quit?” Metal Head surmises. “Good work. What do you do for a living, brother?” The soldier lights a cigarette from the fire and shifts his attention to Pasha.

  Pasha looks at the fire, at the cigarette in his black, somewhat metallic fingers, at the kid who’s warming his hands over the flame, and he feels warm, calm.

  “I’m a teacher,” he says to the soldier. Then he repeats slowly. “A tea-cher.”

  Metal Head freezes. The cigarette’s sticking out of the side of his mouth, releasing smoke, shedding ashes. His eyes narrow, as if he’s looking at a bright light. His gaze hardens. Pasha gets the chills. “What’s wrong?” he thinks. “Was it something I said?”

  “I’m a teacher,” he repeats. “We’re on winter break.”

  But the soldier doesn’t appear to be listening to him anymore. He gets up, hops down into a puddle, adjusts the fur coat on his shoulders.

  “C’mon, Teach,” he says. “Come on in.”

  “What for?” Pasha’s confused.

  “Just come on in,” Metal Head repeats.

  Pasha hesitates, glances at the kid. He seems oblivious, though, crouching there by the warm fire. Well, Pasha doesn’t have anything to be afraid of. He goes around the fire, grabs the handle, puts his foot on the step. The soldier gives him a gentle push from behind, follows him into the bus.

  It smells like wet wool, as though there are sheep in there, huddling together, trying to get warm. Actually, there’s just a heap of clothing on the shabby seats: fur coats, sheepskin coats, down jackets. “Are they selling them or something?” Pasha thinks in surprise, keeps going. Farther back are some crates filled with ammunition, several scorched AKs, and entrenching tools on the floor. They’re all piled up, right in the middle of the aisle. They have to step over them. And they have to watch their step—there’s no knowing what else could be in that pile. The soldier follows him, warily peering out the smashed windows. He isn’t saying anything. Pasha just can’t get himself to climb over all that prickly, burnt metal; he takes a metal container off a seat, plops down. The soldier hovers darkly over him, giving off that faint smell of wet wool. Pasha finds himself thinking that this smell has been stalking him for the past few days. It’s as if wet, famished dogs are stalking him, trying to catch his scent, lurking in the darkness, moving in on him, refusing to retreat. And heaps of household items have been accompanying him for the past few days, too. Clothes, dishes, wrecked furniture, wet books that look like fallen birds left out in the rain. Other people’s domestic lives just lying there, completely exposed, like someone’s ripped off the decorative tiles, torn off the wallpaper, and laid the old walls bare, and now every vein, every fissure and crack has become visible. And their domestic lives look so sad, so hopeless: the clothing—worn and washed; the books—yellowed by time and unread; the dishes—cheap, unsightly, the kind of dishes made for burned or undercooked food. In their warm homes—off-limits to strangers—all of this might have had a nice, domestic feel to it, something you can call your own, something you’ve grown used to. But now, removed from their usual setting, tossed out into the rain, sprinkled with ashes, all these household items have immediately lost their value, and the clothes smell of poverty and disorder, and the dishes, coated with grease, glisten in the headlights, and the furniture looks like bones dug out of the wet January earth. And this smell pervades everything—there’s no wa
shing it off, no scrubbing it off.

  “So, you’re a teacher?” the soldier asks, for some reason.

  Pasha nods wordlessly. “What’s the point of talking if he can’t hear anything anyway?” he thinks.

  “Where’s your school?” the soldier asks, bowing in Pasha’s direction, like he wants to ram him with his metal forehead.

  “At the St-a-tion,” Pasha says in a singsong voice.

  “We held the Station. The Station’s ours,” the soldier replies, his eyes still fixed on Pasha.

  “Yeah,” Pasha agrees. “It’s ours, of course.”

  The soldier isn’t saying anything more, though. He’s just looking straight ahead, which makes Pasha feel uneasy, once again, like he’s just said something he shouldn’t have, once again. They sit there in silence for a bit. Pasha cracks first, obviously.

  “It’s ours,” he says loudly, looking the soldier right in the eye. “The Station is ours!”

  “Yep,” the soldier replies, and his eyes instantly go out of focus. It’s as though he’s remembered something unsettling yet very important.

  He takes the metal containers off a seat, tosses them onto the pile of metal, and sits down across from Pasha.

  “So you’re a local guy?” he asks.

  Pasha nods.

  “You know our mine’s over there?” the soldier asks, pointing out the window.

  “Yeah.”

  “I used to work there,” Metal Head explains. “Before the war,” he adds. “Ten years,” he continues. “I came here ten years ago,” he says, but he doesn’t say where he came from.

  “Where’d you come from?” Pasha asks him.

  The soldier answers with an amiable smile. He can’t hear Pasha. Or he’s pretending he can’t.

  “I see,” Pasha replies.

  Well, what else could he say?

  “Have you been back home?” Pasha inquires.

  “What?” the soldier asks apprehensively.

  “Ha-ve you been back ho-me? Seen your fam-i-ly?” Pasha asks slowly.