Red Winter

46

It felt strange to be on the open road with a small company of men behind me. For so long I had kept to the forests, stealing across the country as a fugitive, but now I was a soldier again. There was no reason not to keep to the roads now, and our progress was swift as we moved from road to field, heading towards Nagai, our horses scattering the thin layer of snow and ice underfoot.

Anna rode beside me, more resilient than I could have imagined, but her manner both uplifted and saddened me. She was tough, and that would serve her well; she would not be a burden to me or the other men, but she was a child. A twelve-year-old girl who should have been playing with her friends, arguing with her mother and twisting her father round her little finger. She shouldn’t have been riding with a company of armed men.

Yet I was as proud of her as it was possible to be. I would protect her as I would protect my own child, and I was glad she had not stayed behind with Oksana and the old woman. Anna and I had been together a few days that had lasted a lifetime, and the prospect of never seeing her pale face again was one that haunted me when I allowed my mind to linger on it.

Krukov rode on the other side of me, stiff-backed in the saddle, gaunt and bearded as if I was crossing the country with Koschei the Deathless himself. But Koschei was a fairy tale. A myth. He didn’t exist; at least not in that sense.

Ryzhkov was close to the truth when he said that we were all Koschei because we were all capable of terrible things, but he had tried to take the name for himself and was now turning to ash in a nameless field. There had been nothing arcane about finding the key to his death. Ryzhkov had died like any man dies. Just as Koschei always died in the skazkas.

We stopped by a river at midday to eat and to rest the horses. My wife and sons were almost within reach now, but the horses were tired, and Anna was beginning to look as if she might fall asleep in the saddle.

The steppe was open in all directions, dull now that the sun was lost behind another wall of grey cloud, which threatened to bring more snow. Grass grew thick and long around the riverbank, but the ground was at a gentle slope and the water was shallow, so we led our horses to drink. It was the first time we had dismounted since meeting Krukov, and Anna positioned herself so she and I were side by side, sandwiched between our horses, and she could take the chance to speak to me alone.

‘I don’t trust them,’ she whispered. ‘And that man Krukov is more frightening than the old woman at the farm.’

‘I don’t think they mean us any harm.’ I stopped at the edge of the river and watched the current swirl and eddy. ‘They would have done something already if they were going to.’ I felt as if I was trying to persuade myself.

‘So we’re staying with them?’

‘I’ve known these men a long time – we’ve been through a lot together.’ Two of them had been at Grivino with Alek and me. Krukov and Bukharin had stood by my side.

She made a face and released her horse’s reins so it could dip its head to drink. ‘Well, it makes my back tingle, having them behind us.’

I smiled. ‘I know what you mean.’

‘So can’t we ride at the back?’

As Kashtan drank, I scanned the steppe behind for any sign of Tuzik. He had kept pace with us for a while, but he didn’t have the strength or stamina of a horse so he had soon fallen behind.

‘He’ll catch up,’ Anna told me. ‘He always does.’

I nodded. ‘You’re right.’ I squatted and dipped my hands into the icy river, downstream from the spot where the horses were drinking. I scooped the water and splashed it onto my face, rubbing away the dry blood and letting the cold numb my nose and mouth.

‘How do I look?’ I turned my face towards Anna.

‘Not good. Your lip’s fat, and you have a black eye. Your nose is bruised too.’

‘It feels worse,’ I said, standing and taking a cloth from the saddlebag to dry my face. If I left it, the water would most probably freeze.

‘So can we?’ she asked.

‘Hmm?’

‘Ride at the back? It would be safer for us to be behind them.’

‘The thing is, Anna…’ I looked about. Krukov was no more than a couple of metres away on the other side of Kashtan, so I lowered my voice further. ‘I’m their commander. They expect me to lead from the front.’

‘But are you, or are they lying?’

‘Well, I don’t think they’re lying. I’ve known these men a long time.’

‘But they might be. And if you’re the commander, you can do what you want.’

‘If only that were true. No, if I ride behind them, they’ll think I don’t trust them and so they won’t trust me. It’s… complicated.’

‘Well, I don’t like it.’

‘Then we need to remain alert and keep watching. And stay close to me. Don’t ever leave my sight. Here.’ I took Tanya’s folding knife from my satchel and held it out to her. ‘Put this somewhere handy. Just in case.’

I didn’t anticipate that she would ever need it, but it would make her feel safer, and soon, there might come a time when I would have to leave her alone with some of these men.

Anna took it without hesitation, turning it over in her hands and slipping it into her pocket.

‘You know what I was, don’t you?’ I said.

‘You mean a soldier?’

‘But you know what kind of soldier.’

‘Yes.’

‘But I’m not a bad person. I don’t want you to think I’m a bad person. I’ve done—’

‘I know what you are,’ Anna said. ‘You’re not a bad man. Papa liked you.’

‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘I liked him too. Very much. And thank you.’

‘For what?’

‘For what you did in the izba.’

‘I don’t want to talk about that,’ she said.

‘All right. I understand.’

The men had few supplies, so when we rejoined them, Anna and I shared what we had. They took the opportunity to speak with me, shaking my hand, patting me on the back and saying how good it was to have me as their commander once again.

‘But you’ve been hunting me all this time,’ I said.

‘You were in no danger,’ Bukharin said. ‘Not from us.’ He was one of the men I had known the longest – a subordinate, but with as much experience as I had. Bukharin fought in the war before the revolution, joined the people’s army rather than be conscripted. He was more a soldier than anyone I knew, but had always shown more loyalty to his unit than to Moscow. He had been a good man to have with me at Grivino.

‘You could have just let me go. Gone back to Ryzhkov to tell him I was dead.’

‘He wanted you alive,’ said Manarov. ‘Or proof that you were dead.’

‘What kind of proof?’

The men looked around at each other.

‘Your head.’

Then I understood how truly afraid my men had been of Koschei. Now there was an air of relief about them, as if a burden had been lifted from their shoulders, and I imagined them pursuing me, all the time wondering what they would do if they caught me.

‘Did you let me get ahead?’ I asked. ‘You let me escape you?’

‘Not really,’ Manarov said with a shrug. ‘Sometimes you were clumsy, but mostly you were almost impossible to follow. In the forest, you were like a ghost.’

I smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You’re too kind.’

The men tried to talk to Anna, showing a kindness I had hardly known in them, reminding me that they were also brothers and father and sons. As a unit, we had taken our job seriously and had gathered conscripts and punished deserters just as we were supposed to, but we had not been animals. I had become caught up in my duty, as these men had, but I had woken to the horror of what was being done across our country and I wondered if these men’s eyes had been opened too. Perhaps they had seen enough to instil in them a little compassion. Or perhaps they were just loyal men taking care of their commander’s ward.

Even so, Anna did not speak to any of them. Not a single word.

They put down a tarpaulin for her to sit on, but she refused to leave my side, sitting only when I did. When they made a fire to boil tea, she drank only when I did. One of the men, Nevsky, even brought a medical bag, offering to check her over, but she refused, staring at him and narrowing her eyes in distrust.

Krukov sat beside me, the breeze ruffling his fox-fur hat, and watched her without expression. ‘She’s the child from the farm?’ he asked.

‘That’s right.’

‘We thought she was a boy. What happened to the man who was there?’

I shook my head.

Krukov adjusted his hat. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I didn’t leave because I’m a coward,’ I said. ‘I’m not a coward.’

‘I know that.’

‘I shouldn’t have gone, though. If I hadn’t, none of this would have happened.’

‘Or perhaps it would have happened in a different way,’ Krukov said. He removed his gloves and tore a chunk of bread in two, offering one of the pieces to me.

I took it and stared at the river. It was beautiful, the sun reflecting from its surface, the water still chasing through the wide channel. A few more weeks and the worsening weather would freeze it right down to the bed. The cold would halt all nature but man.

‘Why did Ryzhkov send you after me?’ I asked, still watching the water. ‘Why not come himself?’

‘He did.’ Krukov took a bite of the bread and reached for a piece of salo. ‘At first, anyway.’

‘You told him I was still alive?’

‘It was my duty.’

I took my eyes off the river and looked at Krukov sitting beside me. His sunken cheeks were corpse-like, tight around angular cheekbones. His eyes were almost too large for their sockets, bulging, and his lips were thin. If any one had told me this man was Koschei, I would have believed it. He had the look, the cold disposition, the literal interpretation of orders. For a moment I felt uneasy in his presence, wondering if I had been fooled. It wouldn’t be the first time I discovered that someone wasn’t who they said they were. Perhaps Ryzhkov had lied. Perhaps he had been protecting Krukov’s true identity. Perhaps it was he who was afraid of Koschei.

My mind spun as it tried to follow the endless strands woven into the blanket of deceit that smothered us. I felt as if I would never be certain of anything again. Everything was a lie. Everything was shrouded in dishonesty. Everyone was hiding something.

‘Are you all right?’ Krukov asked.

‘Of course.’ It was a ridiculous notion. If Krukov was Koschei, he would have killed me by now, and the deception would be too elaborate. I couldn’t let go of it, though. Everyone was someone else. It almost hurt to think about it. All I wanted was to be alone with my family, to put the world behind me and find a place where a man is just a man. A friend is a friend.

‘I had to tell him,’ Krukov said. ‘Without you, he was my superior.’

‘I understand.’ Disobeying orders was a capital offence. Ryzhkov had been commander of his unit before it was attached to mine, so when I was no longer there, leadership fell to him. The Red Army had done away with rank and title, but it could not do away with leaders. Without leaders, an army was just a rabble.

Krukov studied the bread in his hand as if he were thinking hard about something, and when he looked back up at me, his expression had softened.

‘All my life I followed orders,’ he said. ‘I was never in command…’

‘You’re a good soldier.’

‘Let me finish.’ Krukov reached into his pocket and took out a flask, which he opened and raised to me. ‘Alek,’ he said. Then he put it to his lips and drank. He grimaced and offered it to me. ‘Vodka.’

‘Alek,’ I toasted, and drank. It stung the cuts and swellings in my mouth, burned as it went down, but it spread a good warmth in my chest. I passed it back and bit into the black bread as Krukov returned the flask to his pocket.

‘I always followed orders,’ he said, ‘always trusted my senior officer, so when I realised it wasn’t you in that ditch in Ulyanov, it was like you’d betrayed me. I was angry, so I reported it to my new commander, Ryzhkov, and we came after you right away. Ryzhkov was… His behaviour was strange. He was like a man whose wife has cheated on him. I had never seen anything like it. I think he admired you.’

I remembered what Ryzhkov had said to me in the izba last night. It felt like it was a long time ago, but it was only a matter of hours since he had told me how I had disappointed him.

‘We received orders to crush the local peasants,’ Krukov said. ‘There had been resistance to grain and animal requisitions, and the Bolsheviks were afraid the uprising was spreading.’ He took a deep breath. ‘So we went into the first village we came to.’ Once more he reached into his pocket for the flask and I noticed his hand was shaking when he drank from it and offered it to me.

‘That’s when we saw what kind of man Ryzhkov was; what kind of unit he was leading.’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ I said. ‘You didn’t know.’

‘We should have stopped him.’

I realised that the other men had grown silent and were listening to Krukov. When I glanced around at them, none of them would meet my gaze. The river, the open steppe and the road cutting through it had become fascinating to them.

‘They took the boys and some of the women. Others they…’ He looked at Anna, then lowered his voice and leaned closer to me. ‘They raped them. Shot the men, hanged them… Ryzhkov himself flayed an old man’s hand. And there was that brand. The star that—’

‘I’ve seen the things they did,’ I told him.

‘But you didn’t see their faces when they did it. You didn’t hear them laugh. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, couldn’t believe that my commander would… He was like an animal. Like the devil. Like—’

‘Koschei,’ I said.

Krukov shook his head. ‘He was worse than that.’

He held his hands out in front of him, fingers outstretched, as if he had just noticed they were shaking, then he clenched them into fists and held them tight to his thighs. ‘When we left the village, I told him it was wrong, so he went ahead to the next village and sent me to find you alone.’

‘You’re lucky he didn’t try to kill you.’ I kept my tone flat, so he didn’t hear the question in it. If Krukov had disagreed with a man like Ryzhkov, I was surprised he had just let him go.

‘I think he wanted to. I saw him kill one of his own men for disobeying an order to…’ He noticed Anna watching him. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter.’

‘So what stopped him?’ I asked. ‘From trying to kill you?’

Krukov looked at the others sitting with us. ‘Loyal men, I suppose. He knew these men might support me, and he didn’t want to fight soldiers – that wasn’t his style.’

‘But he sent a couple of his men to watch you?’

‘Yes.’

‘He should have sent more.’

Krukov allowed a wry smile to show, the first sign of emotion, but it was gone in a second. ‘Some of the men were taken in by him and stayed. Dotsenko—’

‘I saw him. After the farm, there was a train in the forest.’

‘We saw it too. All those wounded men. How was Stas?’

‘Dead.’

Krukov sighed. ‘It was as if Ryzhkov had put a spell on them, convinced them they were doing revolutionary work.’

‘But not you?’ I asked. ‘He didn’t convince you?’

Krukov shook his head. ‘Not me.’ He looked around. ‘Not us.’

I hoped he was right. All it would take was for one of them to share his twisted idea of patriotism, for one of them to turn his weapon on me.

‘I never had any intention of executing you as a deserter,’ he said.

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘Maybe at first. It was a crime. I thought you were a coward, but then… the more we saw…’ He shook his head. ‘You’re a better man than he ever was. You’re the commander of this unit, and now you’re back where you belong.’

It took a moment for his words to sink in.

‘You want me to take command of this unit again?’ I couldn’t quite believe what he was saying. I couldn’t let everything turn in a circle; all that death and nothing gained.

‘Of course. If you come back now, no one need ever know you left. Ryzhkov and the others are dead now.’

I swallowed my words. This was not the best time to tell Krukov I had no intention of commanding this unit again. I wanted a life of peace; to forget the things I had done, to atone for them by taking care of my family as a father and a husband. I wanted to leave the soldier behind, but I didn’t know how Krukov would react. He was giving me a chance to come back, but if I refused, perhaps he would turn on me as Ryzhkov had done.

My trial wasn’t over. I wasn’t done with the soldier just yet, and it was likely there was more blood to be spilled.

‘Maybe we should go,’ I said, standing up.

Krukov stood too, coming to attention. ‘It’s time to put on your uniform,’ he said.