Dan Smith - Red Winter

‘I don’t know. Is it important? Is it where you’re from?’ he asked.

I shook my head. ‘Somewhere I passed through. Did you see the bodies before or after the deserted village?’

‘Before.’

So perhaps Koschei didn’t take prisoners until Belev. It was possible, and I was willing to cling to any hope.

‘Are you all right?’ Lev asked.

‘Hmm?’

‘You look…’ He didn’t finish, and when I turned to look at him, our eyes met.

‘Have you heard of Koschei?’ I asked.

He was confused. ‘The Deathless? It’s a story, isn’t it? Wasn’t he in a place called Buyan? The island of Buyan, or… No, that’s where his soul was… Why d’you—’

‘But you haven’t heard of a man by that name?’

‘A man?’ Lev paused as he watched me and a long silence passed before he broke the spell and said, ‘No.’ He ran the rasp once more round Kashtan’s hoof, then set it down. ‘Good as new. Have a look.’

I went forward to inspect it, nodding at the cleanness of his work. ‘It’s good,’ I said in a flat tone. ‘The best I’ve seen in a long time. Thank you.’

‘I’ll do the others if you want.’ He looked at me. ‘And thank you .’

‘For what?’

‘For not killing me,’ he said.

And his words confirmed for me what a terrible country this had become, where a man thanked another for letting him live.

With Kashtan reshod, Anna put half a bucket of oats into a raised wooden trough for each horse and we closed the barn, leaving them stabled for the night. Lev led the way back to the house, Anna sticking close by him, the dog running ahead in expectation. Anna held the lamp from the barn to light the way.

‘Turn it off,’ I told her. ‘We can see well enough until we get inside.’

She waited for her father to nod in agreement, then did as I asked, saying nothing as she stepped up and pushed open the door. The dog slinked in first, eager to be in the warmth. Once Anna and her father were inside, I stood on the threshold and looked out at the night. Towards the brooding forest, there was nothing to see but darkness, but above us, the sky was so cold and clear it glittered with countless stars.

‘We’ll cover the windows,’ I said, ‘ then we’ll light the lamp.’

‘Is someone following you?’ Lev asked.

‘Hmm?’

‘In the barn, you kept looking out. And again now. Are you expecting someone?’

I didn’t reply. I just stepped in and closed the door.

The farmhouse was small, with bare wooden walls and a modest pich at the far end. To the right of it, primitive wooden platforms, one above the other, provided sleeping berths, each one scattered with straw for comfort. To the left, the krasny ugol – the beautiful corner – had been arranged with a collection of modest icons and a small wooden cross. This was a traditional way for peasants to show their faith, but most had removed their icons for fear of being reported to the authorities. Religion was not part of the new way, and Chekists were already rounding up the priests. Bolshevism was the new religion, with Lenin as its god and the persecution of counter-revolutionaries as its ceremony.

There was a dilapidated table in the centre of the room, and benches fixed around the walls. A cabinet was the only other piece of furniture, an old garmoshka lying on top of it, the decorative paint faded and chipped. Seeing the instrument brought a mixture of sadness and warmth as I pictured my brother playing it and remembered his insistence that Irina had loved him for his music.

The pich was topped with a chimney, which poked through a hole cut in the thatched roof, but the interior of the izba still carried a smoky smell, as if the place had been cured with years of burning straw and wood and dung. Despite the heavy odour, there was a homely feel to the place. It was warm and dry, and I was blessed with being out of the forest at least for one night. Looking at Lev and Anna, I knew I would be glad for the company. Though Lev might have been hiding something, I didn’t think he was dangerous. He struck me as a good man, and his daughter was spirited and strong. Being with them here in the warmth reminded me of being with my own family.

As soon as he was inside, Lev bowed once to the krasny ugol and made the sign of the cross over his body with his right hand.

‘You think He sees you?’ I asked, propping Lev’s shotgun by the door.

Lev looked over his shoulder and shrugged. ‘What does it hurt?’

I smiled and followed his lead, thinking that if God was looking down on us, it wouldn’t hurt to have Him on my side, but the irony wasn’t lost on me. I had tied the chotki round my wrist, I carried the family icon in my satchel, and now I was crossing myself at the krasny ugol and thought I might have even whispered a prayer when I was stumbling about in the forest. Yet I was a revolutionary and I had done unspeakable things in the name of strengthening the crop.

My belief had been that to make the motherland stronger, it was vital to remove the disease that threatened to decay the new vision. I wasn’t supposed to believe in God. God was part of the disease, one of the things that stopped the common man from being free from his restraints. And yet here I was, carrying Him in my pocket and round my wrist, finding comfort in His totems while I had purged myself of all the symbols of the revolution. There wasn’t a red star anywhere about my person and I didn’t feel the worse for it. And right there, in front of the krasny ugol , my changing beliefs were only reinforced. It wasn’t God who had taken my children. He hadn’t tortured those people in the forest. Men had done that. And I was certain those men would have been wearing red stars on their caps.

There were no blankets in the izba , no sheets or cloth of any kind, so I unrolled my blankets and tarpaulin, fixing them over the two small windows before telling Anna to relight the lamp. When the interior was filled with a cosy orange glow, I circled the table, checking the floor and pressing hard on any floorboards that felt loose.

The dog found a good spot close to the pich , while Lev and Anna stood with confused expressions as I banged my heel down on an area that sounded hollow. I got to my knees and studied the boards.

‘You’d be surprised,’ I said.

Lev shook his head and took off his coat, throwing it across one of the benches along the wall. Underneath, he wore a dark jacket, which matched his trousers and might have once been smart but was now faded and dirty. He went to the pich and used a wooden paddle to take a clay pot from inside.

I went to the cabinet and put my fingers to the garmoshka , running them along the concertinaed mid-section.

‘You play?’ Lev asked. ‘It would be good to hear a tune.’

‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘My brother, Alek, used to play, but not very well.’ I smiled as a thought came to me. ‘My wife fancied she could sing, but the pair of them were as bad as each other. Sometimes he’d play and she’d sing and the only thing that made it bearable was a lot of vodka.’

Lev smiled and banged the wooden paddle on the side of the pot. ‘Hungry?’ he asked. ‘It’s not much, but there should be enough.’

He set it on the table and removed the lid, letting the steam rise above it.

‘The best thing I’ve smelled in a long time,’ I said, leaning my rifle against the end of the table and hanging my satchel over a chair before taking off my jacket. I sat so I was facing the door and waited for Anna to bring three wooden bowls and a heel of black bread. She pulled her chair round so she was close to her father.