Liza Alexandrova-Zorina - The Little Man

«We're like bedbugs living in a sofa!» he heard once and, spinning around to find who had uttered something so like his own thoughts, he suddenly realized he'd said it himself.

At that time, he was too embarrassed to talk to himself aloud because people might think he'd gone crazy but now, as he made his way through the dank swamp of the forest, he gesticulated freely, debating with himself as he would with an old friend. As he remembered his old life, he cursed himself and tried to explain himself to himself.

On public holidays, a stage was rigged up in the central square in front of the statue of Lenin. Mayor Krotov was first to speak, the wooden boards bending under his weight until it seemed the stage would snap. He was followed by local government officials who all looked alike and Savage, shifting from one foot to the other, imagined hurling a stone or a rotten egg at one of them.

«Why did I even go?» he wondered, shrugging his shoulders as he scrambled through the fragrant fir trees.

«It's as lonely as the grave within your own four walls!» he told himself by way of justification.

«And being in the square's like being in a common grave, is it?» he asked, scoffing.

«If only…» Savage sighed. «Everything used to be held in common — life and death. Now, everyone even breathes their own air…»

On the town's holiday, its residents gathered as usual in the square, swapping gossip that did the rounds before coming full circle, turned completely inside out. The mayor, puffing out his cheeks, shouted into a microphone that whistled when he put it too close to his mouth. Savage held his bag to his chest. There were four eggs inside, neatly placed in a box, and he listened to the official speeches that droned in his head like mosquitoes. He had tangled his sheets up all night long as he imagined hurling an egg into Krotov's face. People said of the mayor that he ate for five and stole for ten. Savage imagined his wife's eyebrows rising and his colleagues clapping him on the shoulder approvingly, saying: «What a guy! Well done, that man!» Savage nearly dropped one of the eggs as he carefully placed it in his pocket. He began awkwardly pushing through the cluster of people around the stage and in the end he crushed the fragile shell and his pocket was covered in runny egg. He couldn't quite bring himself to take the other eggs out of his bag so he just stood in front of the stage for the whole event, listening to the mayor and his aides and some visiting bureaucrats from the regional centre. Then at home, he spent ages washing his coat which bore the memory of that day forever after in the dirty marks on the pocket.

«I did know a chap who was always bothered about what other people were thinking. Even in his coffin, he was embarrassed by his cheap suit.»

«Have you just made that up?»

«Your whole life's like a broken egg that's left dirty marks…»

«Stop it, will you? People will remember me for ages, now!» he said, spitting out the bitter recollections.

At that time, Savely Savage had been one of the living dead. Now, though, he had been reborn. He could feel the world around him through his skin and single out millions of smells, colours and sensations. He wasn't living out thousands of other people's life in a day. He was living his own.

The nondescript grey house, surrounded by a fence, didn't stand out from the other buildings at all. Looking up, there were identical white tee-shirts and darned and faded uniforms drying on the stretched-out washing lines. The military unit was billeted near the town market and on Sunday afternoons the soldiers lined up along the fence, begging food from the women going home with their shopping.

The unit commander was tall and broad-shouldered, with a spring in his step and big hands that easily encompassed government property. Initially, he sold decommissioned weapons to Coffin and then just anything assigned to the unit. In the end, the gang even took the training rifles. The sight of them was enough to make the police recoil. The gang flaunted the AKs slung over their shoulders and gave the training rifles to the kids at the children's home making the town look like a fortress under siege until Trebenko begged them to hide the weapons away.

«Who's this penguin we've got here?» said the commanding officer looking at the pale, gaunt boys lined up in the yard. The soldiers snickered and the tubby little runt he'd spotted shrank back, afraid. «I order you to reduce weight and grow half a metre taller by the time you're demobbed,» barked the commander and the soldier saluted, pulling in his chest.

«Yes, sir!»

The soldiers were always pleased when they were sent to work in town, painting fences or clearing snow. Crafty Krotov even came up with the idea of equipping the soldiers to lay asphalt but the next day the road they built buckled and dimpled so that little plan had to be abandoned. Then all the town caretakers were sacked and, in the mornings, the conscripts donned their orange jackets and flourished their brooms, begging change and cigarettes off passers-by hurrying to work.

The commander personally picked out five soldiers to build a dacha for his daughter, feeling their muscles and patting their cheeks as if it was a slave market.

«Take the penguin too. That'll be fun!» he urged the lads he'd chosen, nodding at the runt.

Winter in the North lasts half a year and spring comes at the end of April. Like a party girl running late, applying her lipstick and pulling on her shoes when she's already running down the stairs, the Polar spring hurries to melt the snow and put out leaves. There were already dandelions flowering in town but the lakes in the forest were still covered in ice so that the soldiers left the town in spring time only to arrive in a winter forest. They were put out of the lorry and, huddling up close, looked around at the snowdrifts.

«I'll be back with food in a week,» yelled the sergeant, lowering a box of canned meat onto the snow. «And the fence had better be up!»

Crestfallen, the soldiers set about nailing boards of wood together as they gazed around at the taiga they were going to have to live in. There was a rusty metal trailer on a piece of waste ground. It was colder inside than outside. There were grubby sleeping bags on the floor and the boys climbed inside and curled up, cursing the unit commander.

«At least, we'll get a good sleep,» drawled the Penguin and was immediately pushed outside.

The thought that the fatso was freezing in the forest made the others warmer and they fell asleep. In the morning, they rolled up their sleeves and got down to work. When the sergeant arrived a week later, the fence had been thrown up, their supplies eaten and one soldier was in the sleeping bag in a fever of delirium. The sergeant unloaded the food and equipment, gathered up the soldier with the cold and promised to send back-up.

«The Penguin's lost weight,» he winked as he left.

A month later and the foundations were in place, the walls had gone up and, straddling the walls, the soldiers had cobbled together a roof, counting the days to their discharge. Once a week, the sergeant arrived, inspected the house, brought them food, gave them a swig from his water-bottle and jollied them along by talking about how soon their military service would be at an end.

«I'm due to go home next week,» shouted a boy who was sitting on the roof.

«You finish building, then you go home,» the sergeant said, dismissively.

«What do you mean?» he asked in surprise.

«You finish building, then you go home,» the sergeant said with emphasis.

The unit commander descended to take delivery of the work. He inspected the house from all sides, banged the walls and examined it inside.

«Well done, lads. What a team!»