Simon Montefiore - Red Sky at Noon

‘They let me join the penal battalions so I might live again, and I’m not sure I’ll get another opportunity.’

Fabiana smiled at him, her face very close to his. ‘Well, wasn’t it luck that your horse stood over you on the ground, waiting for you to be picked up? And then finding me to sew you up?’

‘And give me wine. But then that horse is my dearest friend, and perhaps you are the only other friend I have in the world at this moment. So I want to enjoy this. It’s as simple as that. I have no plan beyond this field of sunflowers, this stale wine, and my conversation with my Venetian nurse.’

‘What were you sentenced to death for?’

‘Do I seem like a murderer? Or a bank robber?’ He paused. ‘No, I was a writer. I fell out of favour – and I still don’t know exactly why. But I ended up as a Political prisoner working in – have you heard of Kolyma?’

She shook her head.

‘Well, the prison gold mines of the far east.’

‘I didn’t think of you as a miner.’

‘It wasn’t my chosen vocation.’

‘I know that – but of course you’re a writer. It’s obvious.’ Above them in the shimmering sky with a few white contrails, a flight of German planes flew in formation towards Stalingrad. She got up. ‘We have to go back,’ she said, staggering a little, and as she did so, the atoms between them rearranged themselves: she saw that clearly. Something altered inside them too. But that can mean nothing, she told herself quickly. A beautiful view did that too – one remembered it but the moment passed quickly.

She brushed herself down and glared at him: ‘After all you’ve been through, you have the energy to waste on trying to flirt with a nurse, stupido ?’

‘If it was the last iota of life I possessed,’ he replied. ‘How could I use it better?’ He took a breath and his voice changed tone. ‘You know, Fabiana, I’ll remember this, somehow forever.’

‘Me too,’ she said. ‘Somehow forever.’ And as she said this, she held up her right hand, fingers open towards the sky, and he laughed, imitating her.

‘You’re laughing at me again?’ she said gravely.

‘No, celebrating you. Somehow forever!’ and they both made the gesture.

Then he turned and started to walk back.

‘Benya,’ she said.

He looked back. He wanted to kiss her, but he felt suddenly depleted, suddenly hopeless, and red sparks whirlpooled behind his eyes. He almost fell, and she put her arms around him, and held him up.

‘You must go to your bed. I’ll say I don’t know who you are.’

‘Better to say…’

‘…that you wore Italian uniform, because you’re one of our Russian auxiliaries?’

‘If you could say that, it would win me time.’

‘Benya Golden, it’s a Jewish name, isn’t it?’

Benya nodded, leaning on her strong shoulders. ‘I have nothing left to tell you. My life is yours now.’

When he awoke, night had fallen. He was back in the tent, and Fabiana sat beside the bed. ‘I was dreaming of our conversation in…’ he whispered.

‘…the Secret Kingdom of Sunflowers.’

‘It did happen, didn’t it?’

She nodded, gazing at him, her finger touching her lips. He wondered what she was thinking about.

‘I doubt we’ll see each other again,’ he said. ‘Probably not. But I just wanted to say that for me those were truly the happiest hours of this war – no, of the last few years of my life.’

Oh, these words, she thought, she who had learned poetry. She wanted to hear them again, and ran them around her mouth greedily, savouring them, devouring them.

‘For me too,’ she said, raising one hand, fingers open. ‘Somehow forever!’

He nodded; yes, she did remember.

‘Listen, I don’t want you to take any risks on my behalf,’ he said. ‘Promise me you won’t.’

‘I promise. But I want to help you… if I can.’

‘Just tell me. Where are the horses?’

‘The stables are right beside this tent. But watch out for the camels.’

‘Is my horse still here? She’s a chestnut Budyonny mare with a white blaze on her forehead and white socks.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Are they guarded?’

‘Not at night.’

‘I need a weapon before I can go.’

‘A gun?’ She looked worried. ‘Montefalcone keeps all captured weapons in our arsenal, in the cottage next to the stables, but…’

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. Forget about the guns, please… But I must go in a few hours’ time.’

‘Can’t you stay one more day?’

‘I can’t risk that. I go tonight.’ He put his hand in hers. ‘Somehow forever.’

Darling Lioness,

I just want to kiss you again. On your lips, your neck, your shoulders. I want to smell your hair. You delight me…

True darkness in high summer does not come until very late, and Benya waited until it was well after midnight. He listened to his own heart ticking like a fuse and to the sounds of the village. Cats fighting, the camels nuzzing, scattered shots, planes overhead, Italians singing, horses whinnying – then just a hiss outside the tent. ‘Benya!’

He opened the flap and there was the white blaze of Silver Socks with Fabiana leading him. Socks searched for him, and Benya stroked her muzzle and kissed her neck.

‘ Grazie mille, ’ he said to Fabiana, ‘ grazie mille. ’ And Fabiana, now wearing light green Italian uniform with a bustina at a raffish angle on the back of her head, said the same thing to him and then he kissed her cheeks, three times Russian-style, and he could feel her, so warm and close to him, and he kissed her mouth, and she kissed him back and whispered:

‘Benya, you must strike me so…’

‘That’s not easy for me.’

‘Just hurry.’

He slapped her hard across the face and she flinched, and touched her lip.

‘OK.’ There was blood on her fingertip. ‘There’s food in the saddlebags. Go then. Go!’

Silver Socks skittered as he mounted, and he calmed her with a touch on the withers. He meant to say poetical things to Fabiana, to say ‘Somehow forever’, but he was too afraid to think of such things. Instead, without looking back, he kicked Socks into a canter and rode away, knowing that she would wait a while and then cry out: ‘Help!’ They’d agreed that she would say ‘the prisoner’ had knocked her over and escaped into the night. And would the Italians bother chasing one wounded Russian prisoner on the run? Unlikely.

He rode out across the rye fields, staying close to the hedges. In the dark, he could see the heads of a thousand sunflowers, lowered to the dark ground, waiting for the sun to rouse them, and beyond them, the steppes all the way to the Don. As he rode, he realized he had no weapon, not even a penknife to defend himself – just my fingernails, he thought, smiling grimly. He pulled Socks to a halt. Should he go back and steal a weapon – at least a sidearm so he could shoot himself rather than fall into the hands of Mandryka’s men? Indecision overcame him and he rubbed his forehead. He was not very good at this, not good at all. He had no idea where to go, or what to do.

He heard the thud of hooves coming across the fields. His heart scudded – they were chasing him already. He dismounted and stood in the shadows, listening, shaking. It sounded as though just one rider was following him. Was it Malamore? Or one of Mandryka’s Hiwis?