Dan Smith - Red Winter

I let go of her hand and went to Anna.

‘I want you to stay where you are,’ I told her. ‘Don’t come out unless I or Tanya tell you to. Do you understand?’

She nodded and I began to turn, but stopped.

I crouched down and brushed a stray hair from her face. ‘I’m going to do something not very nice, but whatever happens, I don’t want you think badly of me. I’m doing this for us. To get us out of here. Can you understand that?’

‘The men outside,’ she said. ‘They’ll kill us, won’t they? If you let the family go, they’ll kill us.’

‘Yes.’

Anna threw herself forwards as if unable to control herself. She wrapped her arms around me and pressed her face into my chest. The movement took me by surprise and I raised my hands to either side, keeping the revolver away from her. When she didn’t let go, I placed the weapon on the floor by my knee and returned the embrace, putting one hand on the top of her head.

If there had been any doubt in my mind about what I was going to do, this swept it all away. I had to look after Anna. I had to get her away from here. Oksana and her family had betrayed us. They had displayed their intent and now I had to display mine.

I broke away from Anna, holding her at arm’s length and forcing a smile. ‘Stay here.’

‘Be careful,’ she said.

I leaned forward and kissed the top of her head, then collected my revolver and got to my feet. I cast one more glance down at Anna, then I hardened my resolve and turned towards Oksana, raising the weapon.

Oksana was on her feet before I reached her. Sergei and the old woman were slower, their muscles weaker and their bones more frail, so they managed little more than to sit up straighter before I reached them.

‘Please,’ Oksana said, backing against the short ladder up to the sleeping berth above the pich . ‘Please.’

But I had hold of her arm, harder than necessary so she knew I was determined.

‘Mama.’

I looked up to see the faces of her children peering over the side of the pich , frightened faces that I had to ignore. I could not allow myself to be swayed by their pleas. I had no desire to harm them or their mother, but I had to make them believe I did. ‘Get back,’ I snapped. ‘I don’t want to see you.’

‘Papa will come.’ The boy tried to look brave. ‘He’ll kill you and—’

‘Get back now!’

‘Leave them alone.’ The old woman tried to get up, but I pushed her back down with little more than a slight shove.

‘Sergei, do something,’ she said, knowing she was too weak to resist me.

The old man looked up at me, began to rise from his chair, so I shook my head at him and he hesitated, half sitting, half standing. I aimed the revolver at his face and waited for him to make his decision.

‘There’s nothing you can do to stop me,’ I told him. ‘Nothing.’

Above the pich , the children’s faces had withdrawn, but their crying was loud and they continued to call to their mother while she called back, telling them everything would be all right.

‘You coward,’ the old woman hissed in the chaos. ‘ Coward .’

Who she was talking to, I don’t know, but Sergei looked at her with disdain and said, ‘You should have let me send them away.’

‘Coward. Do something.’

‘The only thing he can do is sit there,’ I said.

Sergei eased himself back into his seat and hung his head once more, putting his hands over his ears as if he might be able to block out the world and all the horrors it held.

‘You devil!’ The old woman tried to stand again, reaching out with her gnarled hands to grab at me. Her nails raked along the sleeve of my coat, rasping as the rough edges scraped through the weave of the heavy wool.

She was like a possessed hag, One-Eyed Likho screaming and cursing as she clawed at me, but she was no fairy-tale witch. She was just an old woman, and although she broke my grip on Oksana, one shove was all it took to send her sprawling, knocking away the chair. She fell sideways, twisting, awkward as she hit the floor, and her shrieking became howling as the pain coursed through her brittle bones.

I grabbed Oksana’s arm once more as the old woman tried to sit up, saying, ‘What are you doing? What are you going to do to her?’

At the window, Lyudmila and Tanya alternated between looking out and watching the chaos unfolding inside, neither of them making any attempt to help me. I was terrorising an old woman, frightening a mother and her children. They wanted no part of it.

Behind the table, Anna sat hugging her legs, just as she had done that night we spent in the forest, and her fear was palpable, but when my eyes met hers, I knew that her trust in me was implicit. She believed I was doing this to make her safe.

‘I have to know,’ I said to her as much to the old woman or to Oksana. Or perhaps it was for my own benefit, just to voice my thoughts, to persuade myself that what I was doing was the only thing left for me. ‘I have to know how far this can go.’

‘What… ?’ Oksana tried to break my grip on her, but I jerked her towards me and jammed the barrel of the pistol under her chin.

‘And you all have to know I will do whatever it takes.’

If I were to have squeezed the trigger, the bullet would have passed through her head from bottom to top and the two children above the pich would be motherless. A fraction of a second, nine grammes of lead, and a pinch of gunpowder was all it would take.

‘You asked me a question before,’ I said to Tanya as I brought Oksana forward. ‘You wanted to know if they would let us go just because we have them.’ I pushed Oksana forward, making her move towards the front door. ‘Well, now it’s time to find out.’

‘You know this makes you just like him?’ she said. ‘Like Koschei. You’re no better than him now.’

‘I’ll do anything. I told you that.’

‘You’re mad,’ Tanya said. ‘You can’t just go out there.’

‘Can’t I?’ Still holding Oksana, I forced her across the room and stood a pace away from the front door. ‘Open it,’ I said to Tanya.

‘At least take the old woman instead. Don’t take her .’ Tanya saw herself in Oksana, just as I saw Marianna. A mother with children, desperate and afraid, but that was what made her more valuable, more emotive. Who would care about an old woman already ancient and close to death?

‘Open the door.’

‘I won’t do it,’ Tanya refused.

‘Just open it.’

‘What if they—’

‘Open it!’

It was Lyudmila who drew back the bolts. She gave Tanya a brief glance, then stood and pulled them back.

‘It’s the only way to know,’ she said, as she threw the door open.

I pressed the revolver tighter against Oksana’s skin, and we stepped out into the night.

The atmosphere in the house was thick with emotion and tension. There was a smell of fear in there that I almost didn’t notice, because I had become so accustomed to it, but when I took the first breath of the fresh winter air, I wondered how I could have allowed it to become so familiar. I felt a jab of disgust with myself that it had passed me by. I should never be able to ignore it, and yet here I was, spreading that fear, amplifying it. I had come so far and sunk so low that I had become numb to the terrible feelings in that house. My mind had learned to ignore such things and I hated myself for that. I had been away from home for too long. I needed to be back with Marianna.

I took a long, deep breath of air that was so cold it hurt when it touched my lungs. It made my chest ache, and I reminded myself I had to be tough. I didn’t have time to hate myself or what I was doing. I had one purpose. Nothing else mattered. Everything else was just a distraction.