Gerald Seymour - Beyond Recall

Timofey, now bored, as if the light had been extinguished on the mission, said that Natacha would walk ahead of him, and he should follow her, and speak to no one. He would go back to his apartment and dump his father and get more of the drink down his throat.

Natacha pulled a face, straightened her hair, and started off down the hill. The Fiat accelerated past them. He turned once and saw the two goons by their car and saw an upper window where a ceiling bulb burned. He imagined the target with a camp bed, the echo of bare floors and perhaps a small TV as company for the evening… and remembered what he had seen, what was expected of him, what had been done at the village.

Delta Alpha Sierra, the tenth hour

Might not have thought it possible. Might not have reckoned, before the dawn of that day, that it was possible to watch the enactment of an atrocity and have reached a plateau of shocked horror. Not thought it possible that an accumulation of cruelty could become boring. Boring because it was repetitive, had become routine.

He held her, would not let go of her. The rapes had started… Some women and some of the older men had been able by weight of numbers to break clear of the corral and they ran or hobbled as fast as elderly legs would take them… . Some needed to be distracted from the ritual killings of kneeling men and women and children, and they could take one of the women, sometimes young, very young, and sometimes an ugly toothless old harridan.

Two of the runners Gaz could not scrape from his memory. A woman had broken out, she had long legs and could manage a decent stride within her flowing clothing, and she might have been fun for the soldiers to watch and be allowed to run a few more paces before being dropped, but the first shooter missed with three or four rounds. A militiaman with a telescopic sight on his rifle brought her down and others hurried to finish her with bayonets. He watched, felt it was owed to the woman. Watched also the scurrying movement of an older woman, who could not manage speed but went forward bent low, not running towards the perimeter line of the IRGC men, but making for the football pitch, the broken crossbar. He heard, against the patter of the rain and the bluster of the wind, a chorus of laughter from the militia boys. Gaz understood. She went to where her son was, or could have been her grandson. She found him. Just a flattened heap of clothing, dead and sodden, and she gathered him in her arms. Perhaps a dozen rifles covered her as she struggled to stand upright and still carry the boy. She had found a new strength and staggered towards the commander and the officer. She carried the body to them and Gaz reckoned the officer was starting to slink back and might have been about to manoeuvre himself behind the commander. A small woman, bearing the burden of a bloody corpse, taking it to his murderers, laying it in front of them, by their boots. But, no great gesture, no ultimate act of defiance, she was shot a few paces from the commander, died with the kid in her arms.

These were the highlight moments. Many of the killings were now functionary, and without clemency. Gaz stayed in a scrape in the ground, hidden by the girl, by her dogs, by the goats, and continued to watch.

Held her tight. If she had broken and run, he would have had the Bergen strap on his shoulder and would have set out in as quick and as crabbed a zigzag run as he was capable of. He stayed, clutching his rifle. Three women had been raped. Pinned down, surrounded by standing men, one groping at his belt and pushing others aside and disappearing from Gaz’s sight. No screaming. He thought that a woman who fought would not have avoided her fate, and might just have lost some of her dignity – if any remained. Gaz was certain that the officer could have intervened, could have stood his ground and yelled at the commander that the killing should stop.

Had Gaz spoken to her, had she addressed him, had they found a common language of signs and words, had they spoken, then she might have said, ‘That was my grandmother who they killed a quarter of an hour ago, and it was my aunt who was shot a half an hour ago. The next one, who they will take out is my mother. See that one on the right of the tall woman, she is our schoolteacher. The father of our imam, he is the old man that the women hold upright because it would be lacking in grace for him to sit in the mud and filth.’

Each time that a rape was finished, there would be a moment when the watchers parted or drifted back and he would see the flash of skin, of upper legs and then would come the single shot… all done with an inevitability that had led, almost, to the boredom of witnessing a massacre.

He let go of her arm. He cocked the rifle. Left the lever on safety. Took back her arm. Gaz did not know why it was appropriate for him to make it apparent that he was arming the weapon. By now the vehicles of the Hereford mob would be near the rendezvous. They would be travelling slowly across the shifting dirt, but they would be coming. A matter of pride that the Herefords reached the meeting point if the Chinook could not get there, Arnie and Sam waiting, their lights smearing into the mist… and he had saved her.

The officer walked purposefully around the village, his pistol in his fist, and Gaz saw when a body might have been in death spasms and was rewarded with a final shot between the eyes or into the back of the skull. He could not have given a good answer as to why he had cocked his rifle… Time slipped and the light had faded, and the officer smoked a cigarette. The commander lit it for him, and the flash of flame brightened on his cheek where the blood was now caked in an erratic line.

The goats had started to bleat, fearful, and the dogs snarled and their teeth were bared. She did not fight him, stayed still, and he did not know what he could do for her other than remain as a witness.

His phone beeped.

Half undressed, Lavrenti checked the text. Did he want food? Was he going out again that evening? Leave for the airport at 06.00, agreed? Might have been Mikki and might have been Boris, both idiots and disrespectful. He wanted nothing, would stay in the emptied apartment, and agreed the departure time.

Another text. His father… What time was his flight due to land at Sheremetyevo? If possible he should accompany his father to a lunch at the past senior officers’ FSB club. Had he renewed contact with the entrepreneur who needed a roof? Another fight with his father was beyond him, he had not the strength for it. He replied with the time he’d be on the ground and requested a car meet him and take him direct to the venue – and he would, soonest , be chasing the Jew for a further meeting.

He closed his eyes. Again the bleep… his mother. Two pictures included in her message. She had enjoyed a tea party with a longstanding friend who had moved back to Moscow after her husband’s service had concluded in St Petersburg. The pictures were of the friend’s daughters – big fucking deal – one was twenty-nine and the other was thirty-two, and both grinned at the camera, and both were on the shelf and anxious to fall off it quick, and their father was still influential in the upper tiers of FSB. He deleted the message. Lavrenti might have reflected that there was a time in his life when the best of times ahead could have been coming home in the early evening to a pretty partner and her kissing his cheek, or mouth, and him offering chocolates or flowers, and some giggling and fingers going towards belts and straps, and elastic stretched, and tongues massaging each other, and then… then… always then … and now unattainable. Might have happened before the posting to Syria, before going to the village. Would not happen now.

He flicked the light switch. The half-darkness settled round him. He turned away from the window and faced a bare wall. Against it was his rucksack with his clothes, and at the bottom of it was his service pistol. It was frowned on in FSB to take a weapon home unless the officer had a pressing need for personal protection. He did not have that, only a sense of self-preservation that competed with inescapable guilt.