Red Winter

29

The night was bitter and black. The cold had rooted itself deep in the earth, and the frost had thickened. The first few flakes of snow were in the air, small and light and almost nothing, but they lay where they fell.

No breeze stirred in the forest, and the air was silent.

I was the first to step out of the warmth, Anna at my side as always. Tuzik must have jumped to his feet as soon as he heard the door open, because he was trotting over before I had even crossed the threshold. He was almost invisible in the darkness and came without sound, a creature of the night, nuzzling into my hand to take the morsel of food I had promised. As he snapped it down, I felt a wetness in my palm, and when I turned to look at it in the weak light from the lamp Sergei was holding, I saw the blood of a fresh kill.

‘Looks like he’s already eaten,’ I said to Sergei. ‘You have one less rabbit to eat your crops.’

Sergei took us to the front door of the empty izba next door and stood aside so that Tanya and Lyudmila could go in first. Sergei didn’t object when I let Tuzik enter, but when I stepped up to go in, he put his hand on my chest and stopped me.

‘Are you sure you want to stay?’ he asked. ‘The woods make for good shelter if you know how to build a fire.’

‘Have we taken advantage of your kindness?’ I asked.

‘No, it’s not that…’

‘You have no reason to be afraid of us,’ I told him.

‘I know. It’s just… you seem like good people.’ He looked down at Anna and put out his hand to put it on her head, but he stopped himself, closing his fingers and letting his arm fall to his side.

‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘What’s the matter?’

Sergei paused with his mouth open as if the words had caught in his throat, then he shook his head. ‘Sleep well,’ he said, handing me the lamp. ‘And God protect you.’

When he was gone, I bolted the door and turned to Tanya and Lyudmila, who were standing by the table in the cold room. It was dark and dusty, as if no one had been here for a long time, but there was a pile of old blankets on the table just as the old woman had said.

‘What do you think?’ Tanya said. ‘Did anyone else feel uncomfortable in there?’

‘They’re hiding something,’ Lyudmila said.

‘Everyone’s hiding something,’ I told her. ‘These people are ashamed of stealing from the dead.’ I put the lamp on the table and looked around the room, seeing my breath form in clouds. There wasn’t much in there to speak of. The table was bare, apart from the blankets, and the shelves were all empty. True to the old woman’s word, there was a man-sized hole in the far corner of the roof, just to the right of the pich, which explained the temperature in the house, and from time to time a snowflake found its way through and dropped to the floor. It would have been easy enough for a young man to fix if he had the right tools and supplies, but for a man Sergei’s age, it would be too much.

‘Great,’ Tanya said. ‘It’s snowing inside.’

When I went to the pich and looked in, it was clear of ashes. No fire had been burned in there for some time, but there was a pile of logs and kindling, ready to be used.

‘You think they were expecting us?’ Lyudmila ran her hand along the top blanket. ‘Or someone else?’

‘You know how to light this?’ I asked Anna.

‘Yes.’

‘Good girl. See if you can give us some heat.’ I handed her my small bundle of matches. ‘And try to use only one of these. I don’t have many left.’

‘Not like them,’ Tanya said. ‘You see how many matches the old woman had?’

‘What about everything else?’ Lyudmila pulled out a chair and sat at the table. ‘All that food in the cupboard. And these blankets are more like what you’d expect in their house, not those nice clean ones they had.’

‘They swapped their old for new,’ Tanya said. ‘I suppose it can happen, but…’

‘They’ve been looting dead men,’ I reminded her. ‘They admitted that.’

‘Or, at least, it’s what they told us.’ Lyudmila took out her pistol and put it on the table. ‘But they didn’t get all that food from dead men.’

‘It’s possible,’ Tanya said. ‘Look at the supplies we have with us.’

‘We don’t have soft shoes with us,’ Lyudmila said.

Anna went to the pich and found a small square of cloth, which she tore into pieces using her teeth before bunching them together and arranging them inside the oven.

‘No, they’re hiding something.’ Lyudmila put her rifle across her knee. ‘I’m sure of it. Did you see how they reacted when you mentioned Chekists?’

‘Most people would get nervous if you mentioned Chekists,’ I told her. ‘Some people won’t even say the word for fear of what will happen to them. Maybe that’s what it is – they’re afraid we’ll report them.’

‘To who?’ Lyudmila asked.

‘That’s what we’ve come to? People afraid to say words?’ Tanya sighed. ‘Afraid, maybe, to even think them.’

‘Or maybe they’re planning on cooking us in that oven and eating us,’ Anna said, as she layered small pieces of kindling over the cloth, preparing the fire. ‘She looked like a witch.’

‘This is no joke.’ Lyudmila’s words were clipped and sharp. ‘And there’s more to it than them just being scared.’ She checked the bolt on her rifle, sliding it back and pushing it forward with the heel of her hand. A cartridge ejected from the breech and she caught it in her left hand. There wasn’t much light from the lamp, but I suspect she would have caught the cartridge if there had been no light at all in there. ‘We should leave,’ she said again.

‘Where did you learn to handle a weapon so well?’ I asked, making her look up and stare at me. ‘You’re more comfortable with that than a lot of soldiers I’ve seen.’

‘I always liked shooting.’

‘People? You always liked shooting people?’

‘Animals,’ she said. ‘Hunting. Our father taught us. He said girls were better at shooting than boys. That they were calmer and more patient.’

I was searching the single room as we spoke, checking the cupboards and drawers, looking through the windows, while Tuzik made his own inspection, but now I stopped and looked at Lyudmila. It was the most information she had ever offered about herself, and her voice had taken on a hint of warmth when she mentioned her father. It made her seem more human.

‘Where is he now?’ I asked.

She was still hunched over the rifle, checking and cleaning. ‘Gone. And now I just hunt men.’

‘What happened to—’

‘Enough questions,’ she said, glancing up at me with dark eyes before returning to what she was doing.

I knew it was pointless to press her further, so I went back to my search.

The dog’s claws ticked on the wooden floor as he poked his nose into every corner, but it didn’t take us long to check the room. The izba next door, where Sergei lived with his family, was bigger, and I had seen a door into a second room, much like my own home in Belev, but this was smaller even than the one Lev and Anna had made theirs at the farm. Here, there was just the pich, a pair of sleeping berths along each sidewall, scattered with old straw, and a small wooden chest that contained only dust and stale air. In the far corner, a dented samovar that looked as if it hadn’t been used in a long time. The room was barely big enough for the four of us.

Lyudmila remained at the table, checking her weapons, and Tanya sat beside her, both of them facing the door. Anna managed to get a fire going, feeding it with more kindling, encouraging the flames higher.

‘You notice they said Oksana was their daughter –’ I went to the front door and tested the bolts once more ‘– but they said her husband was their son?’ I held back the curtain across the window by the door and peered out, seeing nothing but black, spotted with the white of the light flakes that fell like they were a hallucination. ‘Which do you think is actually their child? Oksana, or her husband?’

‘Does it matter?’ Lyudmila asked.

‘Probably not.’ I looked back at her, thinking I knew almost nothing about her. Even less than I knew about Tanya. We were four strangers thrown together by circumstance. People who, in another time, would never have even known of the others’ existence.

Lyudmila picked up Tanya’s rifle and started checking it. ‘We shouldn’t be staying here. We should leave now. I’ve got a feeling…’ She shook her head.

‘I agree there’s something strange,’ I said, ‘but I don’t know about leaving. Where would we go?’

‘We could go into the forest.’ Lyudmila looked up. ‘Keep moving, stop when we’re tired. It’s always been good enough before.’

‘You wanted to come down here,’ I said. ‘You agreed.’

‘That was before.’

‘We can’t go anywhere tonight,’ Tanya said. ‘The clouds are too thick for the moon, and it’s starting to snow.’

‘It’s snowing in here,’ Lyudmila said.

‘And Anna’s got the fire going.’

‘We can light a fire out there.’

‘You have to admit, though, the idea of a blanket and a bed is tempting. When was the last time you slept in a bed?’ Tanya asked her.

‘Right now, it feels as if I never slept in a bed, but I’ll survive. And remember –’ Lyudmila inclined her head in my direction ‘– he’s being followed.’

‘Not in the dark,’ I said, but I couldn’t help wondering if Lyudmila was right. Something was telling me it might be better to move on. If it hadn’t been for Anna, I might have done just that, but she needed the warmth and shelter of the house, not the cold damp of the forest. There might have been a hole in the roof, but with the fire burning, it would soon warm up.

‘So what do we do?’ Tanya asked.

‘We leave,’ Lyudmila said.

‘I think we should stay,’ Tanya replied. ‘We need to rest, and the horses do too.’ She looked at Anna, who was coming back from the pich, great yellow flames roaring behind her. Already the heat was flooding the room. ‘And we have to think about you, don’t we?’ She smiled at Anna. ‘The forest at night is no place for you.’

‘Don’t go soft,’ Lyudmila warned her. ‘Don’t let the child make you forget who you are.’

‘I’ve already forgotten,’ Tanya said. ‘That’s what Krukov did. Anna can only help me remember.’

Lyudmila shook her head and went back to checking their weapons.

‘You don’t have to stay here because of me,’ Anna said, watching Lyudmila. ‘If you think we should go…’

‘We all need to rest,’ I told her. ‘Don’t listen to what Lyudmila says. Don’t be scared of her.’

‘I’m not scared of her. I just don’t want us all to stay because of me. If it’s not safe.’

‘It’s safe enough,’ Tanya said. ‘What can an old man and woman do? We’ll take turns to stay awake,’ Tanya said. ‘Leave as soon as it’s light. The dog will let us know if there’s anything out there.’

‘Tuzik,’ Anna said, making the dog look up. ‘His name is Tuzik.’

‘Well, that makes it all right.’ Lyudmila’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. ‘We’ll be safe for sure, cooped up in this house with those people next door, not knowing what’s outside, because Tuzik is here. The wild dog that doesn’t belong to anyone.’

‘Of course he belongs to someone,’ Anna said. ‘He’s mine and Kolya’s dog. Any idiot can see that.’

Lyudmila’s head snapped up, her face a picture of surprise and indignation.

Anna took a step back, one hand going to her mouth as if her thoughts had betrayed her and the words were never meant to have been spoken. ‘I’m sorry.’

Lyudmila took a deep breath and shook her head. ‘It’s all right. Don’t worry.’ And for a moment the briefest smile touched her lips and the hardness in her eyes softened. Then she cleared her throat as if to shake the weakness away, and her sullen expression returned.

‘We stay, then,’ I said. ‘But we keep the door bolted and we take turns to keep watch.’

Lyudmila made a face and looked at Tanya. ‘It’s the wrong decision, for the wrong reasons.’

‘We should get some sleep,’ I suggested.

Lyudmila stood and stretched her back. ‘I’ll take first watch.’