Dan Smith - Red Winter

I went to her, crouching beside her so that I was facing into the room. I didn’t want to display too much affection or she might be seen as my weakness, so I resisted the urge to put my arm around her, just as I had resisted the urge to hurry to her when I entered the house. With my back to the others, though, my left hand was out of sight, and I let it brush against hers in an act of reassurance.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked, whispering so the Chekists would not hear my concern.

‘Yes.’ Anna responded to my attempt to comfort her by pinching my fingertips in her own. She held them lightly, as if she understood that I wanted to conceal it, and turned her face to look up at me. ‘Are you ?’

I was warmed by seeing her face. Looking into her eyes like that made me feel less cruel. More justified.

‘I’m fine,’ I told her, feeling a vague smile cross my lips. It was such a simple thing, for her to ask me if I was all right, but it meant so much. No one had asked me that in a long time and it made me feel good. ‘Thank you for asking.’

She smiled back, but it was not a natural smile – it was an expression of support and communication, and I couldn’t help but reach out and put my hand on the back of her head. It was instinctive and felt right, but as soon as I realised I had done it, that I was about to take off her cap and kiss the top of her head, I took my hand away and glanced at the soldiers sitting at the table.

Ryzhkov was facing us, watching us like a snake, and he nodded once in acknowledgement.

‘No one hurt you or said anything to you?’ I asked, eyes still on Ryzhkov.

Anna shook her head.

‘Did you see what happened outside?’

‘No.’

‘And did you hear anything we said?’

‘Not really. Some. Who are those men?’

‘Soldiers.’

‘I can see that.’

Again, I felt myself smile and I looked down at her. ‘I think they might be able to help me find my family.’

‘Marianna,’ she said. ‘That’s good.’ Then her face fell as though she was thinking about something serious.

‘What is it?’

‘When you find them… will you still… ? What will happen to me? Will you still want me?’

I felt a fist tighten round my heart for this poor, lonely child. ‘Of course I will. There’s no question about that. You’re my daughter now.’

Anna turned her eyes to the floor and nodded to herself as if arranging her thoughts. She was tough, but she was young and saw the world in a different way. She didn’t understand the conflicts of adults. She knew right from wrong, good from bad, but the shades of the many colours that lay between were difficult for her to fathom. Experience told her that adults could lie; that they could do awful things.

‘I’m telling you the truth, you know that, right?’

‘Yes. I know,’ she said.

There was movement by the pich and I glanced up, seeing the children’s faces still at the edge of the berth. Just below them, Oksana was looking in my direction, watching Anna and me. Her expression had changed now; it was no longer laced with hatred. There was something else there instead, but I wasn’t sure what it was. It might have been pity or even sadness, but there was also a trace of what looked like guilt. The same expression that had been on Sergei’s face.

There was still something I was missing. Something was happening here that I hadn’t understood.

‘Why is he staring like that?’ Anna whispered.

‘Hmm? Who?’

‘That man,’ she said, leaning in to me. ‘The soldier.’

I turned my attention to the main part of the room and saw right away what she was talking about.

The men at the table said nothing. They sat with their hands on the surface, as Tanya had instructed, and they each had their faces turned to Ryzhkov. They waited for him.

But he was watching us.

When our eyes met, he nodded as he had done before, but there was something different about him now. Perhaps it was a trick of the flickering lamplight, but there was a hint of malevolence in his face and an intensity to his stare. Something about the unblinking way he watched us reminded me of Tuzik when he had caught the scent of new prey.

He was alert but relaxed. Confident. There was an air of superiority about him that I hadn’t seen before, and there was a hint of a smile on his lips.

‘I suppose he’s curious about us,’ I said. ‘About me.’

‘Are you going to hurt him?’

‘I don’t think so, but don’t you worry about that.’ I started to get up. ‘You just stay here and keep out of trouble.’ I touched the tip of her nose. ‘Can you do that?’

She put a hand to her head and saluted, saying, ‘Yes, Commander,’ and I felt a stab of panic. She told me she hadn’t heard what we said outside, that she hadn’t seen what happened.

‘Why did you say that?’ I asked. ‘Why did you salute?’

‘I don’t know. I just… Should I not do it?’

‘No.’ I relaxed. It was just a childish action, nothing to do with who I was. ‘No, it’s fine. Just stay where you are. Keep safe.’

She showed me that smile again before I left her.

The men at the table had the quality of battle-hardened soldiers. Outside, they had been concealed in darkness, but now, in the light, they couldn’t hide themselves. Their tunics were ingrained with the blood and dirt of war, but their faces were wiped clean and scrubbed hard, as if they’d recently had the opportunity to wash themselves. Their beards were scraped away, leaving pale patches around their cheeks and chins where they had been protected first from the sun and then from the bitter winds of early winter. But despite their cleanliness, they carried the look of men who had seen fighting. Not as the ordinary soldier might have seen it, but something much more sinister. It might have been because I already knew that they had followed Krukov and because I had witnessed what they had done, but they had the distant, uncaring and arrogant look of men who had known the worst humanity had to offer. I had witnessed the same bearing in small units that had committed some of the basest atrocities. Inhuman men who had lost any notion of right and wrong. Men on the verge of insanity.

These men here were the men who had flayed skin from flesh, crucified and tortured. These were the men who had pressed the branding iron bearing the red star, and it had all been done under Krukov’s orders.

I wondered which of them had been in Belev, which of them had branded the people I knew, and how it must have been for them to follow a man like Krukov, to obey his orders for fear of the most terrible punishment, to kill until they became numb and uncaring. Perhaps even until they came to enjoy it. I could not trust these men, would never be able to trust them. They were Krukov’s; bound to him by their actions, and nothing I could do would break that bond.

And now they sat and awaited their fate, all eyes on Ryzhkov, the man who had assumed leadership of this part of the unit while they waited for their commander to return.

‘So what’s your plan?’ Ryzhkov asked as I approached. His voice was even, and still he watched me with that hungry look. I hadn’t noticed it outside, where the light was sparse, but now I wondered how I could have missed the intensity of those fierce eyes. There was a sense that he was brooding beneath the surface; that his compliance with me was only temporary and that he would strike as soon as he saw an opportunity. ‘You must have a plan, Commander.’

Tanya stood by the door to the room where the weapons were stored, watching me with a disappointed look in her eyes.

‘What would you do?’ I asked him, trying not to be distracted by the way Tanya now felt about me.