Andrea Bennett - Two Cousins of Azov

‘Albina, move away from the door. I must get out.’ The girl’s reply was to lean her hip even more heavily against it. There was nothing else for it: Gor pushed with all his might, an ‘akkhh!’ croaking from his throat as he did so, the veins standing out on his forehead. She squealed as he heaved, but after regaining her balance, simply pushed back, effortlessly. The situation called for more than brute force. He rolled down the window a couple of centimetres.

‘Albina, I have to go and help your mother. I cannot sit here and watch a catastrophe unfolding.’

‘No way! Mama told me to make sure you stayed here, and that’s what I’m going to do. But if you want to fight about it…’ She shifted her weight away from the door and stood back, flicking the pigtails out of her eyes and pushing up her sleeves. ‘Karate: do you think you stand a chance?’ She drew back on her tiptoes, hands raised, face perfectly serious.

Gor regarded her for a moment and rubbed a hand over his eyes. He opened the window further, so that he could lean out.

‘Albina, I’m not going to fight you. I’m an old man, and you’re a girl. But listen to me. You have a choice: either way, you must be brave, and make the right decision. I have to go into that building, and I think you know that. Your mother has not returned. I have to make sure the fire brigade has been called, and your mother is safe. You can either stay here at the car, which is the safest option, or…’ he took a breath ‘… you can come with me, and help. Just promise to stay by my side. And do what you’re told.’

The girl looked hard into Gor’s eyes, and turned to examine the building. She nodded. ‘Let’s rescue the people. And Mama.’ Gor rolled up the window and unfolded himself from the car.

‘Come!’ he said, taking her hand, and her pigtails bounced as they hopped up the battered stairs into the smoking building.

‘We will tell your mother I overpowered you: that you could not make me stay in the car,’ said Gor as they headed for the empty reception desk.

‘She won’t believe you.’

Gor nodded.

At the desk the administrator, in the process of oiling the alarm bell, sulkily confirmed that she had called the fire service. When Gor inquired about Sveta, she waved him away with an impatient flap of the hand. ‘She went off down the corridor before I could stop her! I told her not to! I told her it was dangerous! It’s Communal Sitting Room No. 2 that’s on fire,’ she added, as Gor and Albina made for the corridor, ‘right at the end.’

‘You stay here,’ said Gor.

‘No!’ Albina gazed up at him, eyes fierce. ‘She’s my mother!’ She sprang through the door, Gor scrabbling behind her.

‘Breathe through your sleeve!’ he shouted as they stumbled along, eyes scanning the floor and doorways for obstructions or casualties. ‘Check all the doors, just in case!’ he added. There was no noise, and no heat, but the smoke reeked with a chemical intensity that turned Gor’s stomach and made Albina cough. He grabbed her hand and they crouched low. The way towards Communal Sitting Room No. 2 was a dark, sooty clot.

Gor closed his eyes for a second against the sting of the smoke. His mind filled with the impression of a village in Siberia, dark pine trees swaying in the air above a straggle of warped wooden houses. It was night-time, the sky a deep blue, and the frost was crackling under his felt boots as he hurried up a track. Orange sparks were shooting and snapping into the air above a roof. Dogs were barking, frenzied in their yards and kennels, as ashen-faced villagers fell from their doorways, pulling on boots and coats over their night-clothes. They were running up the track to the edge of the village. He was running, the cold biting his lungs, stealing his breath. He was crying. Before he even saw the fire, he knew. He knew whose house it was. He knew they were too late. And he knew it was his fault.

He opened his eyes and tugged hard on Albina’s hand. ‘Let’s hurry!’

He saw the door when they were a dozen steps away. He fumbled for the metal handle, and sagged with relief when its coldness struck his palm. He listened, and sensed the vibration of voices. Someone had got there before them.

Sveta stood amid a scene of dripping, blackened chaos, directing a pair of smut-stained orderlies who were damping down what had once been a wing-backed armchair. They sloshed water from dented buckets as steam rose off it, hissing with a dangerous pungency that brought to mind a nest of freshly singed rodents. Above the chair, flames had reached fingers to the ceiling, melting the polystyrene tiles and sending them dripping back onto a nearby table, the telephone, another armchair and the lino-covered floor. Small patches of burnt plastic still smoked. The windows had been smashed open but the air was thick and sharp. Gor placed his handkerchief over his nose and mouth and stepped hesitantly forward.

‘Sveta? Are you all right?’

Sveta tutted and shook her head. ‘It looks like a seat for the devil himself, doesn’t it? It’s a miracle no one was harmed!’ She was talking to herself.

‘Mama! What are you doing? Come out of there!’ Albina pushed past Gor and leapt forward, arms outstretched. She stopped when she saw the odd way her mama was holding herself. ‘What have you done?’

Sveta smiled at her daughter with puzzled eyes, and looked down at her hands, which she was holding in front of her, as if she had Kopek cupped there. The hands were shaking, shiny and swollen under a layer of soot.

‘I don’t know, baby-kins. What have I done?’

‘She has burnt her hands,’ a voice cut in from the opposite doorway. Vlad strode forward, wet sponge in hand, his eyes darting from Sveta to the new arrivals. ‘And suffered some smoke inhalation. But it’s OK. I’m here.’ He towered over Sveta, jutting his chin towards her as he took her hands and gently dabbed at the soot. She winced.

‘I thought someone was in the chair!’ she said, eyeing its twisted remains once more and smiling apologetically. ‘Ooch, that hurts!’

‘No one was in the chair, dearest Sveta,’ said Vlad, concentrating on her hands. ‘Everything was under control. You gave me a fright, rushing in like that…’ he tutted and surveyed her swollen palms. ‘You’re lucky we were here.’

‘Sveta?’ said Gor.

‘I… I can’t remember what happened. I ran in… I was getting scared; it was very smoky. I saw the flames, and heard a cry. I tried to put it out… with my hat. There was someone here…’ Sveta swayed and smiled up at Vlad, her eyes glazed. Gor and Albina frowned to each other.

‘It was staff, doing their jobs,’ he said quietly, holding her hands and the sponge in one of his, and wiping his brow with the other. ‘It’s a good thing there are no guests on that corridor, the one you came through. They might have been…’ He looked away, through the window into the grey morning.

‘How did it start?’ asked Gor gruffly.

Vlad shrugged. ‘I don’t know… these things happen so often, you see it on the news every month: a spark from a plug, a short circuit, something over-heating, a stray cigarette…’ He held Sveta’s hands up to the light, his eyes flicking across them.

‘Why no alarms?’ Gor persisted.

‘Maybe they’re broken. More likely they were faulty and someone disconnected them: you know how people are. No one thinks a fire might happen to them.’ His tone was matter-of-fact, but his face was grim.

‘Sveta could have been killed!’

‘Oh, no! I am fine,’ said Sveta, her face stiff.

Albina looped her arm through her mother’s and rested her head on her shoulder. Sveta was gazing at the charred armchair, chewing her bottom lip. ‘I wouldn’t have come in, if I’d known it was empty. It was all on fire.’