Dan Smith - Red Winter

Anna stifled another yawn.

‘Tired?’ I asked.

‘Maybe you can hear the rest another time.’ Lev started to stand.

‘Please,’ she begged.

‘Maybe the short version,’ Lev suggested.

‘All right. The short version.’ I took the last drag of the cigarette and put it out in my empty bowl. ‘In the short version, Ivan discovers that Koschei’s horse is from Baba Yaga’s herd.’

‘Baba Yaga.’ Anna pretended to shiver. ‘I know her. She’s the witch with the house that has legs like a chicken. She eats children.’

‘Hmm. But only juicy ones, eh?’ I licked my lips at her. ‘Now, on the way to her hut, across the fiery river, Ivan grows very hungry, but every time he finds an animal to eat, the animal begs him not to eat it, and when he eventually finds Baba Yaga and asks her for a horse, she says she will give him one only if he can perform an almost impossible task – which he manages to do because the animals help him in return for his mercy.’

‘Like Koschei gave him mercy?’

‘I suppose,’ I agreed. ‘But Baba Yaga tries to betray Ivan anyway, so he tricks her and gets away with a horse, and this time when he steals Marya Morevna away, Koschei finds it hard to catch him.’

‘So he gets away?’

‘Not quite. You see, Prince Ivan and Marya Morevna stop to rest, and that’s when Koschei catches up with them and he takes out his sword to chop them into pieces.’ I pretended to draw a sword from my belt and brandish it.

‘So that’s when the prince kills him?’

‘Well, the prince’s horse kicks Koschei in the head and then Ivan finishes him off with a club before building a pyre and burning his terrible body. And that’s the end of him.’

‘So why do they call him “the Deathless”?’ she asked. ‘He isn’t deathless, is he?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘He isn’t.’

‘And why are you looking for him? Is there a real Koschei?’

‘In a way,’ I said.

‘A man?’ She waited for a reply, watching me intently.

‘I think so.’

Anna nodded as if she had just come to a long-awaited conclusion to something that had puzzled her for a long time. ‘Papa always said there were no monsters, but there are, aren’t there?’

I wanted to tell her she was wrong, but I couldn’t. There really were monsters, but they didn’t hide in lakes and graveyards and under beds. Instead they hid in uniforms.

‘Come on.’ Lev eased Anna from his lap. ‘Time to sleep.’

With tired reluctance, Anna headed to the sleeping berth above the pich and Lev helped her up. He kissed her and I saw the love they shared and I remembered kissing my sons goodnight; how I used to make them giggle by rubbing my whiskers on their cheeks.

I stood and went to them, giving Lev one of the blankets I had brought from home. ‘To keep her warm,’ I said.

‘Thank you.’

‘You didn’t say why you’re looking for Koschei,’ Anna said before she climbed up to bed.

‘Because he took my sons,’ I told her. ‘And my wife.’

‘Like he took Marya Morevna?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re Prince Ivan?’

‘I’m no prince.’

‘But your horse is fast?’

‘Kashtan? She’s as fast as the wind.’

‘And when you find him, are you going to kill him?’

‘That’s not something for you to be—’

‘ Are you?’ she asked again, and I saw that she needed to hear the answer.

‘When I’ve found my wife and sons…’ I said, ‘…yes. Yes, I am.’

When Lev came back to the table, he poured us another drink.

‘To your daughter,’ I said, raising my cup. ‘You’re a lucky man.’

‘And to your sons.’ He raised his own and drank with me.

I drained the vodka and put my hands on the table to look at them, seeing bloodstains that were no longer there. I was reminded of the wicked things I had made these hands do, in days when I had been blinded by what I thought was the righteousness of my actions. Now there were other things to fill my thoughts, things that crammed into my mind, pushing everything else aside. Never had I felt such fear. Not in fighting a hundred battles or witnessing countless deaths had I felt anything close to the dread and apprehension in not knowing what had happened to my wife and sons, not knowing where they really were. Perhaps they were even dead already.

He likes to drown the women.

Except I could not allow that idea to poison my thoughts. They were dark enough already without that to cloud them further.

‘What’s your story, Kolya?’ He spoke quietly so as not to disturb his daughter. ‘You seem like a good man to me.’

I looked up at him and forced a smile. ‘No one is ever quite what they seem.’

‘Well… a good man is a good man.’

I liked his sentiment but wasn’t sure if I agreed. ‘There’s good and bad in all of us.’ I ran a hand across my face as if to wash away the day’s events. It felt as if I had been awake for weeks. ‘It’s finding the right balance that’s hard.’

‘You look tired,’ he said. ‘How long have you been travelling?’

‘Longer than I want to think about. How about you?’

‘The same. We’ve been here a few days, though. It’s a good place to stay.’

‘But you haven’t seen anyone?’

‘No one.’

The dog grunted beside me and scratched himself.

‘How about two women on horseback?’ I asked. ‘Have you seen them?’

He shook his head. ‘No one at all. The road is further east; we can’t see much of anything from here.’

‘Which means no one can see this farm from the road.’

‘It works well for us,’ he said.

Perhaps Tanya and Lyudmila had passed along that road, and Koschei before them, but for now they were out of sight, out of reach, and might as well have been across the sea in some country where the revolution was just words in a newspaper.

‘So how did you find it?’ I asked.

Lev pulled an empty chair towards him and put his feet on it. ‘We were lucky, I suppose. We kept away from the roads, spotted this in the distance and came closer to see what was here. We were hungry and cold, so it was worth taking the risk.’ It was his turn to look down at his hands now, making me wonder what he had made them do.

‘And it was empty?’ My words caused him to glance up at me, but he didn’t hold my gaze. His eyes shifted to look at the pich where Anna was sleeping, then back to his hands again.

His mouth tightened and he swallowed. ‘Yes. Empty.’ He took the bottle and poured again, splashing a few drops on the table. ‘Who knows what happened to whoever lived here, but they hadn’t been here for a while – months, I’d say. Maybe a husband fighting, a wife who couldn’t look after a farm alone.’ He shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

‘Who knows?’ I agreed, lifting the cup to my lips. ‘To our children,’ I said, knocking it back and feeling it burn my throat.

‘Our children.’ Lev drank it and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand without putting the cup on the table. He stared into the bottom of it.

‘And the horse?’ I asked.

‘The horse is mine.’ This time he looked me right in the eye and I knew it was the truth.

‘But you’re not a blacksmith.’

He placed the cup on the table and picked dirt from under his fingernail. ‘No, not a blacksmith, but we always had horses. My father always had them.’

‘So you’re… ?’

‘I’m a teacher,’ he said. ‘At least, I was a teacher. Mathematics. You think I always looked like this? Like a beggar?’ He swept a hand towards his chest in a false flourish, but when he noticed them shaking, he clasped them together to make them stop. ‘I was always so smart, so tidy. I wore a good suit and—’ He stopped himself as if he were suddenly aware of our differences. A teacher telling a revolutionary how well dressed he used to be. ‘I don’t know what I am anymore.’ He hung his head. ‘The things I’ve had to do to take care of Anna.’