Nicolai Lilin - Free Fall

We followed. Nosov threw a hand grenade inside the house, then I threw one and Shoe another, each of us shooting at the same time we burst in. Someone responded to the fire; I could hear the bullets very close. Nosov jumped in between us and fired a long blast; Shoe and I covered him, shooting, while he reloaded the magazine.

Room by room, we went on our way; all shouting to identify ourselves so we didn’t kill one other. When everyone had stopped shooting, silence fell: we had got rid of them all.

Our men went to help the wounded. One of the Cossacks called for a tank on the radio to take away one soldier who was more seriously hurt than the others. I checked the halls. One explorer was on the ground with injuries to his face, another was the enormous sergeant who had killed the girl. He was lying down, motionless; both of his legs were bloody. Someone from his unit was opening a medi-kit to treat him.

We went into the main room, a sort of parlour with big windows overlooking the courtyard.

The silence was absolute – it was as if I had entered a church. In the middle of the room there was a table covered with open cans, pieces of fried meat, a few overturned glasses and two big bottles of vodka. There was also some fresh bread, wide, crisp and thin, which was delicious, especially with wine. On one of the chairs at the table sat a dead young Arab, his head bent down unnaturally, his chin almost touching the gaping hole in the middle of his chest. A wide dark red stain spread from the hole down to his trousers, pooling on the seat, then slowly dripping onto the floor, forming a puddle as thick as honey. Under the table there was the corpse of a dog. It was an animal with a large head, a Caucasian shepherd. The fur on his belly and neck was drenched in blood, the tongue that dangled from his open mouth was so long it looked fake.

Past the table there was a sofa; on it sat three corpses. One of them was a boy, no older than fourteen. He was wearing a shirt with American cartoon characters on it, Mickey Mouse and some others; it was bloodied, except for the sleeves, which were white, spotless. He was full of holes at the heart and the belly. He had a wide cut on his neck, like a tear – he must have been hit by several bullets there. His face displayed an expression of slight surprise, like a little boy about to burst into tears. Next to him was a young man. His chest was one gaping wound. His hands lay at his sides, as if he were sleeping; his legs were clenched together. On his right cheekbone he had a large hole; his face had become completely deformed – it was swollen, his eye bulged from its orbit, ready to pop out. A little blood was still trickling out of his open mouth, thick and black. On the floor in front of them, on his belly, was a man who looked about fifty years old. On his back you could see a series of holes; the bullets had pierced through him from one side to the other. From the position he was in, you could tell that he had been sitting next to the others. Before dying, he had tried to crawl on his hands and knees; there was a long trail of blood that went from his body to the sofa and on the floor were the marks of the bloody handprints he had left trying to drag himself along. Not even a centimetre of the tapestry behind the sofa was left intact; the whole thing had been punched out by bullets. The tapestry had caught fire in some spots; the black burn marks made it look like a work of abstract art…

At the head of the table was a chair with worn armrests and a high back. Sitting there was a man with a white beard. His eyes were closed, his head was turned to the side and his arms dangled at his sides. Next to him, leaning against the table, was a Kalashnikov. On a saucer in front of him there lay a half-smoked cigarette, still burning; a wisp of smoke wafted upwards. The man’s chest was so soaked with blood you couldn’t see the bullet holes.

Shoe went over to the table and began to eat ravenously. His jaws made a very loud noise, as if they were about to snap. He chewed on the meat and tried to shove a thick slice of bread in his mouth at the same time. Moscow went after him; he pounced on the table and took a piece of bread too, chomping on it violently, almost as if more than eating it he needed to kill it. He turned to me with his mouth full, gave me a smile, and grabbing a piece of meat off the table threw it across the room to me. I felt as if I was drunk, without my reflexes, and I didn’t put my hands up in time – the piece of meat hit my face and fell to the floor. I took a deep breath and freed myself from the straps of my bulletproof vest.

Just then the corpse sitting in the chair jolted, and then from his mouth came something that would have been a yell, but it drowned in the blood he had in his throat. The man spluttered blood on the floor and the table, started to cough, and then opened his eyes. Moscow, who was closest to him, pulled his gun out of his pocket and fired a round right in his head, without stopping eating. Then he put his gun back in place and grabbing a bottle of vodka said, his mouth full of meat:

‘Get a load of this Arab arsehole… He won’t even let me eat in peace…’

Shoe started laughing and looked out the window. Another unit of ours was approaching quickly. He leaned out and signalled to them.

I didn’t feel well. My head was exploding. I knew what I needed to do: clear a place where I could rest. I went past the table to the sofa and grabbed the two corpses sitting there by the legs. I pulled them until they fell to the floor. The body of the boy made a dull sound when it landed on the wooden floorboards, like wood against wood. The other dead man fell on top; his forehead hit the ground, making a sound like bones breaking. I examined the sofa; there was a huge bloodstain in the middle. I looked around. On the floor by a window, there was a small rug. I picked it up; it was covered in fur and stank of wet dog. I threw it on the sofa and lay on top.

The pleasure of reclining on a sofa was enormous. I knew I couldn’t stay for long, but I wanted my body to remember how it felt to lie down on a soft, comfortable bed, at least for a few minutes. It immediately gives you the impression of just having come out of a nice hot bath, being under clean, sweet-smelling sheets… I yawned savagely and tears sprang to my eyes. For a moment even the ringing in my ears went away. I felt a light tingle go through my fingertips, which then spread to my spine. My body responded with a long groan; relaxing, the muscles rebelled, it was almost like I was paralysed. I was wrecked; all I wanted to do was sleep…

But I knew I couldn’t keep my eyes closed; I kept looking at the corpses that were by the window, right in front of me. There were two Arabs and a Chechen, well armed, with two Kalashnikovs and a machine gun, some American vests and a load of other valuable stuff. So far nobody had touched anything, but I was sure that as soon as Moscow and Shoe finished eating they would pillage them…

Suddenly Nosov arrived, and threw a pair of shoes at me.

‘Here, take these. Yours are rotten…’ he said, sitting down at the table with my comrades.

It was a pair of trainers, practically new, with barely a few drops of blood. Without getting up off the sofa I took the old ones off, which were filthy, and put on the new ones. My feet felt nice and comfortable; I was content.

‘So, how are they?’ Nosov was eating some meat and had a glass of vodka in his hand.

‘Thank you, Captain, they’re perfect.’

‘Well then, don’t forget how generous I am…’

The others broke out into laughter.

The siege on the village was over. Our assistance was no longer needed, and in two light tanks we headed for our positions.

The tanks went along, shaking, shooting black smoke into the air, and we shook too, from the pounding of the tracks. We passed by the burned-out cars and the bodies of the fallen, moving down the streets where a moment earlier we were about to die.