Kate Furnivall - Under a Blood Red Sky

He was within touching distance of the soldier now, could see the beads of sweat on the young man’s upper lip. The rifle was still pointing at him.

‘Here,’ he said and from his trouser pocket he withdrew a packet of cigarettes along with a lighter and his identity papers, at the same time nodding casually towards Sofia as if she were nothing. ‘The girl’s husband works for me, so I’d appreciate it very much if you’d just leave her out of this.’ He gave a shrug. ‘You’re a man of the world, comrade, you understand how these things work. She amuses me today but her husband is a valued engineer and I couldn’t afford to lose him just because he got wind of my… well, let’s call it a dalliance with his wife.’ He laughed and offered a cigarette.

The soldier took one and accepted a light. ‘I see,’ he said, removing another cigarette, which he slipped behind his ear. He twisted his mouth into a leer at Sofia and shook his head dismissively. ‘Not to my taste,’ he said with a sneer, exhaling smoke. ‘Not enough flesh on her and breasts like peas. I like something I can grab by the handful.’

You can grab my fist by the handful in your bloody mouth, you bastard.

But Mikhail kept his fist at his side and handed over his papers instead. He drew on his cigarette and glanced across at Sofia who looked poised to run. He gave a small shake of his head. He saw the soldier’s eyes glint greedily as he opened the documents and found a hundred rouble note inside.

‘I think we understand each other,’ Mikhail said.

‘Of course we do, Comrade Direktor . Girl, piss off and sell your skinny cunt elsewhere today.’

Sofia hesitated, eyes focused on the soldier’s weapon as though she had other ideas.

‘Go,’ Mikhail said.

She gave him a long look, then turned and raced away with loose-limbed strides. Mikhail remained with the soldier leaning against the wagon, keeping him talking and smoking until he was sure Sofia was safe, then he walked briskly back to the factory. In his office the glass she’d used was still on his desk and he lifted it up, touching his lips to the spot where hers had drunk from it.

Davinsky Camp July 1933

Hundreds of skeletal figures in ragged clothes stood in rows in front of the shabby wooden huts, waiting. The women’s patience stretched beyond endurance. It had been a hard day out in the Work Zone and an exhausting march back to camp, but now they were being made to stand in the compound. They stared at the ground, slapping at the marsh flies and mosquitoes.

Two hours they’d waited for the roll-call to begin under grey evening skies, no talking and hands behind backs. Around them the barbed-wire fences and well-guarded watchtowers breathed out a menace that the prisoners had learned to deflect with their own private rituals: a memory here, a snatch of a song there. Or even a shifting of weight from one foot to the other in a secret internal rhythm inside their lapti , their birch-bark shoes.

The door to the building finally opened. The Commandant emerged and all eyes turned to admire his smooth plump cheeks, the way you admire a pig’s fat flank before slitting its throat. He strutted, swished a long lead-tipped cane, ordered the start of evening roll-call, but his speech was slurred, his tongue slow and laboured. He strode through the rows while the numbers were called out, disgusted by the fleshless bodies and the bloodless lips, but his cane enjoyed its daily dance on fragile bones and tender skin.

‘You.’ He rapped a shoulder. ‘Name?’

‘Prisoner 1498.’ Eyes on his leather-clad feet. ‘Fedorina, Anna.’

‘Crime?’

‘Convicted under Article 58, section-’

The lead tip of the cane slipped under her chin and raised her head, silencing her. She looked straight at the Commandant, at his soft loose lips and his greedy unfocused eyes, and coughed. A slender thread of blood and sputum flew from her lips to his. He lashed out with his cane on her cheek and scrubbed his mouth with his sleeve, but turned and lurched drunkenly away from her.

She managed not to smile. But the faintest of chuckles issued from Nina at her side and Anna was aware that the whole row of women experienced a surge of fresh energy.

An idea came to Anna when she was drenched in sweat, labouring on the road construction, mashing up rocks into gravel with a hammer she could barely lift, and she wondered why on earth she hadn’t thought of it before. There was something she had to ask Nina, but today the big Ukrainian was working in a different brigade, so Anna had to bide her time.

She spent the day trying to focus her mind on something neutral, such as how fast a single tree could repopulate its small patch of forest when its companions were hacked down, given the savage Siberian winters and the small mammals and cross-bills that nibbled the seeds from the fallen cones. Or whether the stars existed before our own sun in the vast arch of the northern sky, or the other way round. But as soon as the women were herded into their crocodile formation for the return trek, she couldn’t stop herself whispering her question to Nina.

‘Nina, there’s a civilian worker in the office, isn’t there? The tall dark-haired one.’

Her big-boned companion nodded her head, like a horse chasing flies. ‘Yes. She lives in the civilian quarters and deals with the paperwork.’

‘You talk with her sometimes, I’ve seen you.’

Nina laughed softly. ‘I think she fancies me.’

Anna smiled. ‘Would she know about any escapees and what happened to them? Surely there must be a record in the office.’

It wasn’t much to go on. Just a flicker of Nina’s eyes to one side, before she shrugged her broad shoulders and said, ‘Knowing how drunk our beloved Commandant is most of the time, I don’t think there’s much chance of an efficient filing system in his office, do you?’

But the flicker of the eyes was enough for Anna.

‘Nina,’ she muttered, ‘you’re lying to me.’

‘No, I-’

‘Please, Nina.’ Anna brushed her arm against the other woman’s sleeve. ‘Tell me.’

They shuffled along in silence for a few steps, the sky drained of colour as the sun slid away from them. Around them nothing but the vast pine forest listened to the sighs of the hundreds of women.

‘What have you heard?’ Anna pressed.

Nina spoke quickly. ‘An unnamed female escapee from this camp was reported found at the railway station in Kazan.’ She hesitated, then added. ‘Found dead, shot in the head.’

Anna’s feet stumbled, blind and boneless. White noise, the sound of pain, filled her head. Nina was still speaking but Anna couldn’t hear her words.

‘No,’ she choked, ‘it’s not her.’

Her lungs closed up completely and she couldn’t breathe. She stumbled, bent double, fighting to drag in air, and the crocodile behind her shuffled to a halt.

‘Move yourself, suka , you bitch!’ The nearest guard raised his rifle butt and brought it down with impatience on the small of her back.

She crunched to her knees on the dusty pine needles, but the shock of the blow jerked her lungs back into action. Nina yanked her on to her feet and into some kind of forward motion before the guard could strike again.

‘That bastard needs his rifle butt shoved up his arse,’ Tasha muttered from behind.

‘It won’t be her,’ Anna whispered. ‘It won’t be Sofia.’

Beside her Nina nodded but she said nothing more.

After that, Anna had no ability to control what went on in her head. It took all her strength just to keep her feet and lungs working long enough to prevent a repetition of the rifle-whipping. Sweat gathered in sticky pools in the hollow of her throat and her thoughts seemed to slide into them and drown.