Andrea Bennett: Two Cousins of Azov

For a handful of heartbeats there was nothing but darkness and the noise of the wind chasing through the sky and the trees. Then he saw something move near the well. He strained forward, feet nearly touching the floor as he pivoted. He watched the rectangle of black, holding his breath. Nothing materialised into a shape. He slowly breathed out and sat back down to slug the last mouthful of broth. It was good, salty and hot, and he felt cosy with the mug in his hands. He observed his own reflection in the bottom, all fat nose and tiny bug eyes. He chuckled: Tolya the monster, RARRRRR ! King of the forest! He roared and nearly choked, coughing broth back into the mug and spluttering barley grain down his chin. He wiped his face on his sleeve. As he turned his head to do so, again he saw a movement in the corner of his eye, far off in the yard: a fluttering, maybe at ground level, maybe in the arms of the pine trees reaching out like giants when the wind blew. It had not been a figure, but a flicker. A flapping wing, perhaps. He shivered, and swung his legs under the table to keep himself brave.

‘We are marching… we are marching… and we march to vic-tor-y!’ he sang in a wobbly, high-pitched, keeping-his-spirits-up voice, determined to sit it out until Baba’s return. He would keep watch, and not be scared. Although being scared was one of his favourite thrills. Just not too scared.

‘Where’s she got to, eh boy? Don’t be scared: there’s nothing to be scared of.’ He addressed Lev the dog in comforting tones. Lev wasn’t scared: Lev was never scared. He was stretched out under the table resting his bones, dreaming of rabbits. Tolya rubbed his ears. ‘She’ll be back in a moment. Or Papa. And he’ll bring some sausage. I’m sure he will. And cheese. And maybe a drawing pad, like he said he would. Hmmm… We are marching, we are marching, and we march to—’

The singing ended in a squeak. A thump had rattled the window. He’d been lying belly-down on the bench, stroking the dog under the table, and had forgotten to keep a look out. Now he dared not look up, dared not move. There was something monstrous in the yard. His heart thudded. There it was again! A tapping on the window, faint but insistent, as if hard, icy fingers were reaching out, piercing the glass, and if he sat up…

‘Lev… Lev!’ His voice squeezed between taut vocal cords, his body stiff like washing left in the frost. ‘Lev… come here, boy!’ The dog looked up drowsily, puzzled by the child. He licked the empty hand proffered to him and flopped back down with a groan.

‘Lev! listen! There’s something outside. I can hear it. It wants to get in!’ Still Tolya bent under the table, now pushing his head and shoulders down and tipping himself off the bench to the floor. He lay alongside the dog. ‘It’s coming for us… we must be brave… we must shut our eyes, and cross our fingers. That’s the drill. The boys at school told me. Cousin told me. And we must ask Comrade Stalin—’

Tolya’s head cracked the underside of the table as the door opened and cold air washed into the cottage. He cowered. Lev thumped his tail.

‘Tolya!’ A voice like a pistol shot. ‘Come help me, son! I’ve got a lot to carry. Come on now, pet, help Baba!’

Lev heaved his tired bones from the floor and ambled towards the owner of the voice, tongue lolling as she cuffed his ear with a large, reddened hand.

‘Lev, you old rascal, what do you want with me, eh? And what have you done with my grandson?’

‘Baba, I’m here,’ Tolya scrambled out from under the table, pulling hair and dirt from his baggy grey trousers as he did so. His hands shook. ‘We heard a scary sound. It was the moth boy, fluttering in the trees. He tapped on the window! I was… I was petrified!’ The boy looked up from his trousers and a single tear escaped each of his bright green eyes as he blinked.

Baba’s hands stopped still on the dog’s nose and she regarded the boy. ‘You heard the moth boy, you say? And what did he sound like, eh? Like wind in the trees, or like me walking in the yard?’ She raised an eyebrow and waited for Tolya to reply, but the boy avoided her gaze, and instead fiddled with the buttons on his jerkin, running his fingers over their smooth surface again and again. ‘Did Lev hear the moth boy?’

Tolya shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, Baba.’

‘You’ve been scaring yourself instead of doing your jobs. Hiding under the table with the dog – you should have been drawing water from the well, or clearing ash from the stove. You’re a rascal, young Tolya, and Papa will have to be told!’

She put down her bag and handed him a solid brick of black bread. ‘Food in our stomachs, son, that’s what you need to worry about. The real – the here! You’ve scared yourself, and now no one will sleep.’

‘But I’ll sleep with you, Baba, and with Lev here, and I’ll sleep well. No matter what the moth boy does.’

‘Ha, maybe you’ll sleep well with some food inside you, we’ll see. But you mustn’t get between me and my sleep, I’ve a lot to do tomorrow. Now, help me get the dinner ready. We won’t wait for Papa, he’s going to be late.’

‘He’s got a quota,’ said Tolya in a serious, grown-up tone.

‘He’s got a quota,’ echoed Baba, nodding her head.

The pair washed their hands in the bucket by the stove and began preparations for the evening meal.

‘No sausage tonight, Baba?’ Tolya searched through her bag.

‘Ha! Sausage? No sausage tonight. I’ve forgotten what it looks like. They say things will get better but… but there, we will wait and see. I haven’t forgotten the taste!’

‘Ah, the glorious taste!’

‘Pure heaven,’ grinned Baba.

‘Like eating sunshine,’ said Tolya.

‘You know, we could always try making sausage out of Lev. What do you reckon?’ Baba’s worn cheeks glowed red as she chuckled.

‘Baba! That’s not funny!’

‘No,’ she agreed wryly, after a short pause, ‘it’s not. You’re my sunshine, boy. You are my joy. Don’t ever change.’ She hugged him close, bread knife in hand, and breathed in the familiar, warm smell of his hair, his neck, his young life.

They set about their tasks, and swapped stories of the day’s events.

‘Did you draw me anything today, young Tolya, eh?’

‘No, Baba. I need a new piece of chalk. That one’s all worn away, I can’t hold onto it.’

‘Akh, again? Well, we’ll see what I can do. Maybe up at the school house we’ll be able to beg a piece of chalk. We’ll keep trying. I love your pictures. You’ve got a gift there, son. Much good it’ll do you.’

The well bucket clanked as the wind whipped out of the trees and across the yard. The boy dropped his spoon. ‘So, Tolya,’ said Baba slowly, ‘now you’ve told me about school, what’s this talk of the moth boy? Where’s this coming from? Old stories, boy… not good Communism.’ She observed him from the corner of her eye as she began to cut the black loaf into slices. Tolya stirred the buckwheat porridge with an inexpert hand.

‘We were talking after school, Baba. Pavlik has seen him. And Gosha. He came to their windows, in the night. He was tapping for the candles. And cousin Go—’

‘He should know better!’ Baba tutted, and shook her head.

‘It’s true though! He said the moth boy wants to get into their houses, to get near the light, and lay eggs in their ears. They’ve all seen him! All of them! He waits at the windows! Maybe he wants to eat them! Suck out their brains—’

‘Enough! On with your jobs!’ Baba scowled over the bread. ‘Those boys with their stories! I’m going to have a word with that cousin of yours!’

Tolya pretended to get on with his jobs, but his eyes strayed back to the window. In his head, he could really see moth boy: his moon-washed face, pale as the northern summer night, pale as milk, luminous as ice; his huge eyes, round, bulbous, staring from his shrunken skull like twin planets, empty and dead; his stomach, round and furry, grossly blown up and dissected into two pieces – thorax and abdomen, both parts moving and throbbing; worst of all, his wings, fluttering, green and brown and blue, vibrating, shimmering, huge and furry: inhuman. He could see him flitting amongst the trees, shivering, diving, a puff of moth-dust from his vibrating wings, projecting himself, aching to cross from the trees into the village, from the dark to the light, fluttering over chimneys and into window frames, knocking on the panes, reaching out with limbs that were withered and ice-cold, frond-like… were they wing-tips, or antennae?