Russian Roulette

НОЧЬ – NIGHT

We couldn’t stay where we were. I was afraid that the soldiers would see the entrance to the pipeline and realize how we had managed to slip past them – in which case they would double back and find us. We had to put more distance between us and them while we still had the strength. But at the same time I saw that Leo couldn’t go much further. He had a headache and he was finding it difficult to breathe. Was it too much to hope that he had simply caught a cold, that he was in shock? It didn’t have to be contamination by the chemicals from the factory. I tried to convince myself that, like me, he was exhausted and if he could just get a night’s rest he would be well again.

Even so, I knew I had to find him somewhere warm to shelter. He needed food. Somehow I had to dry his clothes. As I looked around me, at the spindly trees that rose up into an ever darkening sky, I felt a sense of complete helplessness. How could I possibly manage on my own? I wanted my parents and I had to remind myself that they weren’t going to come, that I was never going to see them again. I was sick with grief – but something inside me told me that I couldn’t give in. Leo and I hadn’t escaped from Estrov simply to die out here, a few miles away, in the middle of a forest.

We walked together for another hour, still following the road. They’d been able to afford asphalt for this section, which at least made it easier to find our way in the dark. I knew it was dangerous, that we had more chance of being spotted, but I didn’t dare lose myself among the trees.

And in the end it was the right decision. We stumbled upon it quite by chance, a wooden hut which must have been built for the construction team and abandoned only recently. The door was padlocked but I managed to kick it in, and once we were inside I was surprised to find two bunks, a table, cupboards and even an iron stove. I checked the cupboards. There was no food or medicine but the almost empty shelves did offer me a few rewards. Using my torch, I found some old newspapers, saucepans, tin mugs and a fork. I was glad now that I had thought to take a box of matches from my kitchen and that my waterproof clothes had managed to keep them dry. There was no coal or firewood so I tore off some of the cupboard doors and smashed them up with my foot, and ten minutes later I had a good fire blazing. I wasn’t worried about the smoke being seen. It was too dark and I kept the door and the shutters closed to stop the light escaping.

I helped Leo out of his wet clothes and laid them on the floor to dry. He stretched himself out on the nearest bunk and I covered him with newspaper and a rug from the floor. It might not have been too clean but at least it would help to keep him warm. I had the food that I had brought from my home and I took it out. Leo and I had drunk all our water but that wasn’t a problem. I carried a saucepan outside and filled it from the gutter that ran round the side of the building. After the rain, it was full to overflowing and boiling the water in the flames would get rid of any germs. I added the tea and the sugar, and balanced the pan on the stove. I broke the chocolate bars into pieces and examined the tins. There were three of them and they all contained herring but, fool that I was, I had forgotten to bring a tin opener.

While Leo drifted in and out of sleep, I spent the next half-hour desperately trying to open the tins. In a way, it did me good to have to focus on a problem that was so small and so stupid. Forget the fact that you are alone, in hiding, that there are soldiers who want to kill you, that your best friend is ill, that everything has been taken from you. Open the tin! In the end, I managed it with the fork that I had found, hammering at it with a heavy stone and piercing the lid so many times that eventually I was able to peel it away. The herring was grey and oily. I’m not sure that anyone eats it any more, but it had always been a special treat when I was growing up. My mother would serve it with slabs of dry black bread or sometimes potatoes. When I smelt the fish, I thought of her and I felt all the pain welling up once more, even though I was doing everything I could to block out what had happened.

I tried to feed some to Leo but, after all my efforts, he was too tired to eat and it was all I could manage to force him to sip some tea. I was suddenly very hungry myself and gobbled down one of the tins, leaving the other two for him. I was still hopeful that he would be feeling better in the morning. It seemed to me that now that he was resting, he was breathing a little easier. Maybe all the rain would have washed away the anthrax spores. His clothes were still drying in front of the fire. Sitting there, watching his chest rise and fall beneath the covers, I tried to persuade myself that everything would be all right.

It was the beginning of the longest night of my life. I took off my outer clothes and lay down on the second bunk but I couldn’t sleep. I was frightened that the fire would go out. I was frightened that the soldiers would find the hut and burst in. Actually, I was so filled with fears of one sort or another that I didn’t need to define them. For hours I listened to the crackle of the flames and the rasp of Leo’s breath in his throat. From time to time, I drifted into a state where I was floating, although still fully conscious. Several times, I got up and fed more of the furniture into the stove, doing my best to break the wood without making too much noise. Once, I went outside to urinate. It was no longer raining but a few drops of water were still falling from the trees. I could hear them but I couldn’t see them. The sky was totally black. As I stood there, I heard the howl of a wolf. I had been holding the torch but at that moment I almost dropped it into the undergrowth. So the wolves weren’t just a bit of village gossip! This one could have been far away, but it seemed to be right next to me, the sound starting impossibly low then rising higher and higher as if the creature had somehow flown into the air. I buttoned myself up and ran back inside, determined that nothing would get me out again until it was light.

My own clothes were still damp. I took them off and knelt in front of the fire. If anything got me through that night it was that stove. It kept me warm and without its glow I wouldn’t have been able to see, which would have made all my imaginings even worse. I took out the roll of ten-ruble notes that had been in the tin and at the same time I found the little black bag my mother had given me. I opened it. Inside, there was a pair of earrings, a necklace and a ring. I had never seen them before and wondered where she had got them from. Were they valuable? I made an oath to myself that whatever happened, I would never sell them. They were the only remains of my past life. They were all I had left. I wrapped them up again and climbed onto the other bunk. Almost naked and lying uncomfortably on the hard mattress, I dozed off again. When I next opened my eyes, the fire was almost out and when I pulled back the shutters, the very first streaks of pink were visible outside.

The sun seemed to take for ever to rise. They call them the small hours, that time from four o’clock onwards, and I know from experience that they are always the most miserable of the day. That is when you feel most vulnerable and alone. Leo was sound asleep. The hut was even more desolate than before – I had fed almost anything that was made of wood into the fire. The world outside was wet, cold and threatening. As I got dressed again, I remembered that in a few hours I should have been going to school.

Wake up, Yasha. Come on! Get your things together…

I had to force my mother’s voice out of my head. She wasn’t there for me any more. Nobody was. From now on, if I was to survive, I had to look after myself.

The two remaining tins of fish were still waiting, uneaten, on a shelf beside the fire. I was tempted to wolf them down myself, as I was really hungry, but I was keeping them for Leo. I made some more tea and ate a little chocolate, then I went back outside. The sky was now a dirty off-white, and the trees were more skeletal than ever. But at least there was nobody around. The soldiers hadn’t come back. Walking around, I came across a shrub of bright red lingonberries. They were past their best but I knew they would be edible. We used to make them into a dish called kissel, a sort of jelly, and I stuffed some of them into my mouth. They were slightly sour but I thought they would keep me going and I placed several more in my pockets.

“Yasha…?”

As I returned to the hut, I heard Leo call my name. He had woken up. I was delighted to hear his voice and hurried over to him. “How are you feeling, Leo?” I asked.

“Where are we?”

“We found a shed. After the tunnel. Don’t you remember?”

“I’m very cold, Yasha.”

He looked terrible. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t pretend otherwise. There was no colour at all in his face, and his eyes were burning, out of focus. I didn’t know why he was cold. The one thing I had managed to do was to keep the hut reasonably warm and I had put plenty of makeshift covers on the bed.

“Maybe you should eat something,” I said.

I brought the open tin of herring over but he recoiled at the smell. “I don’t want it,” he said. His voice rattled in his chest. He sounded like an old man.

“All right. But you must have some tea.”

I took the mug over and forced him to sip from it. As he strained his neck towards me, I noticed a red mark under his chin and, very slowly, trying not to let him know what I was doing, I folded back the covers to see what was going on. I was shocked by what I saw. The whole of Leo’s neck and chest was covered in dreadful, diamond-shaped sores. His skin looked as if it had been burned in a fire. I could easily imagine that his whole body was like this and I didn’t want to see any more. His face was the only part of him that had been spared. Underneath the covers he was a rotting corpse.

I knew that if it hadn’t been for my parents, I would be exactly the same as Leo. They had injected me with something that protected me from the biochemical weapon that they had helped to build. They had said it acted quickly and here was the living – or perhaps the dying – proof. No wonder the authorities had been so quick to quarantine the area. If the anthrax had managed to do this to Leo in just a few hours, imagine what it would do to the rest of Russia as it spread.

“I’m sorry, Yasha,” Leo whispered.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” I said. I was casting about me, trying to find something to do. The fire, untended, had almost gone out. But there was no more wood to put in it anyway.

“I can’t come with you,” Leo said.

“Yes, you can. We’re just going to have to wait. That’s all. You’ll feel better when the sun comes up.”

He shook his head. He knew I was lying for his sake. “I don’t mind. I’m glad you looked after me. I always liked being with you, Yasha.”

He rested his head back. Despite the marks on his body, he didn’t seem to be in pain. I sat beside him, and after a few minutes he began to mutter something. I leant closer. He wasn’t saying anything. He was singing. I recognized the words. “Close the door after me… I’m going.” Everyone at school would have known the song. It was by a rock singer called Viktor Tsoi and it had been the rage throughout the summer.

Perhaps Leo didn’t even want to live – not without his family, not without the village. He got to the end of the line and he died. And the truth is that, apart from the silence, there wasn’t a great deal of difference between Leo alive and Leo dead. He simply stopped. I closed his eyes. I drew the covers over his face. And then I began to cry. Is it shocking that I felt Leo’s death even more than that of my own parents? Maybe it was because they had been snatched from me so suddenly. I hadn’t even been given a chance to react. But it had taken Leo the whole of that long night to die and I was sitting with him even now, remembering everything he had been to me. I had been close to my parents but much closer to Leo. And he was so young… the same age as me.

In a way, I think I am writing this for Leo.

I have decided to keep a record of my life because I suspect my life will be short. I do not particularly want to be remembered. Being unknown has been essential to my work. But I sometimes think of him and I would like him to understand what it was that made me what I am. After all, living as a boy of fourteen in a Russian village, it had never been my intention to become a contract killer.

Leo’s death may have been one step on my journey. It was not a major step. It did not change me. That happened much later.

I set fire to the hut with Leo still inside it. I remembered the helicopters and knew that the flames might attract their attention, but it was the only way I could think of to prevent the disease spreading. And if the soldiers were drawn here, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing. They had their gas masks and protective suits. They would know how to decontaminate the area.

But that didn’t mean I was going to hang around waiting for them to come. With the smoke billowing behind me, carrying Leo out of this world, I hurried away, along the road to Kirsk.