Darragh McKeon - All That Is Solid Melts into Air

She puts the handset down and walks hurriedly away. The pace is probably unnecessary; they can easily find her if they are in fact looking. She should go home and pack a bag, get a train somewhere, try to mitigate the risks for Alina and Zhenya. She can be out of the city in an hour or two.

Everything goes dark.

Maria stops in terror. Her long-held fear has come to pass: blindness has come upon her. She used to wake in the middle of the night and wonder if she had lost her sight. The fear is still so present that she insists on keeping the hall light on, so when she wakes in this state she can look at the glowing seam under the door and reassure herself. She never thought it would happen while she was still awake.

But no, there are shapes, a moon, cars cresting the hill. Her panic releases. The power is out. She starts to run. Alina will be in a state. If she had managed to stave off fearing the worst, she will no longer be able to do so. Her child is out there, in the black. Her worst fears will be unleashed.

Maria runs for a few minutes, then stops; she has no idea where to turn off for home. She crosses the road and then crosses back. All the shadows the same, all the buildings indistinguishable without their surface features visible She needs to find the school, a different building from the rest. She can navigate her way from there.

She slows and passes two men and sees their attention fixed on a point behind her, hands held in the air bearing witness, and so she turns, looks where they are looking. Fireworks blossom over the city, umbrellas of bright blue sparks burst open, distributing delight, a gasp of wonder from unseen figures nearby.

She walks steadily now, her heart rate returning to normal, and she finds the school and turns and traces her way home by instinct. She moves in the opposite direction to everyone else, people emerging from the buildings to stand in the road and stare, people coming together to stand and gaze and murmur speculation with strangers and friends alike. They yearn for surprise, a moment of wonder, which they’ll chew over and savour and return to in the months ahead.

Maria finds the multilayered voices calming. Her childhood fear has abated now. Lights will return—already she feels certain of this—bringing Zhenya with them. She’ll pack a bag and be gone from their lives before morning. The unknown holds no fear for her; she’s spent enough years swaddled in ignorance. At this very moment, on the other side of her country, the sun is rising. So much out there for her. She sees the horizon pushing out like an old carpet being unrolled.

She cups her hands to her cheeks to warm them and realizes she is sweating, despite the cold. She turns in to the courtyard. Flat, grey shapes all around. Anyone who has felt the urge to do so has left home already, so she is alone down here, figures bobbing on balconies above her. Alina is one of them, no doubt.

She finds her building and traces her hand across the number on the porch just to make sure. She yanks open the door and can feel the concrete under her feet, markedly different from the snow and gravel. The crimson tip of a cigarette whirls in the air at waist level. Someone is sitting there.

“Hello?” A man’s voice, vulnerable, unsure.

She pauses.

“Hello. Is there someone there, please?”

She should walk on. This is not a place to speak to an unknown man, unprotected. But there’s something in the voice. She stops.

“What do you want?”

She can hear a shuffling, the crimson tip rises, he is standing; the flare of a match, a jawline, is revealed for a fleeting moment. The light compresses and the flame is drawn nearer a face, a nose, an eye. His eye.

“Grigory?”

His upper lip stretches into a smile, a row of teeth.

“Maria? Is it you?”

She replies breathlessly, “Yes. Is it you?”

“Yes.”

The cigarette is discarded, the match goes out. He lights another one, closer to his face this time, leaner than she has known, shadow-sculpted, hollowed-out eyes. An aged face. He steps closer, brings the match to her. She can feel the lick of its heat. He reaches out in the dark, finding her, both of them trembling from the cold of the night, from the warmth of their touch.

THEY’VE BEEN WALKING for five minutes. The fireworks still flare, but there are longer pauses between them now. Rubbish bins are being set alight. Yevgeni sees bursts of fire whenever they emerge from the alleyways to cross a main street. He’s stopped believing there’s a car, but what is he to do? He can’t just run off, wander alone through the streets. He has no idea where he is, for one. His toes are cold though, his shoes too flimsy. He should have bought boots instead of running shoes. A pair of boots and his mother wouldn’t have asked questions, just accepted whatever he said, so relieved that he had a new pair.

He tells Iakov his feet are cold, careful to keep his tone steady; he doesn’t want to moan. Iakov keeps walking but looks at him, punches him on the shoulder, and hands over a small bottle that he takes from his jacket pocket, telling him to drink.

Yevgeni has never dared to taste vodka till now, but Iakov is looking at him, measuring him up, and there is no choice involved in this: he is here with these men, under their protection. He can’t risk being abandoned.

The bottle isn’t much bigger than his hand and has a curved body that fits snugly in the palm, and Yevgeni takes a deep breath and downs a mouthful, and coughs as the liquid sears the inside of his throat. Iakov laughs, and the three men in front look back and laugh too. Yevgeni can feel a surge of vomit reach the back of his tongue, but he manages to quell it. He takes another breath and lets the sensation subside. The men don’t wait for him, and he has to run to catch up, their strides are so long, eating up the ground in front of them.

A figure walks down the alleyway in the opposite direction, a rectangular shape crossing his chest and, as they near, Yevgeni can make out that the shape is a TV. The group of four, Iakov included, stop in front, blocking the man’s way. Yevgeni hangs back a few paces, wary.

“You moving house?”

The man looks from side to side and considers turning around, but there are four of them and one of him and, besides, he’s carrying a TV. Really, how far can he run?

“Something like that.”

“It’s a good idea. No traffic at this time. No one to bother you.”

“Except of course you ran into us. Are we bothering you?”

The man stays admirably nonchalant in the circumstances. “No. No bother.”

Yevgeni can make out that the rabbit ears for the TV are slung around the man’s neck and rest on his chest, the two metal prongs sticking out, making it look as if his chest has been pierced from behind by an archer.

The oldest of the men, the one who was winning at cards, is the one who leads the exchange. Iakov and the others take their cues from him.

“It’s better at night, you know, because if people see you, they can get the wrong idea.”

The guy with the TV grins dumbly, no idea how to stack the odds in his favour.

The oldest guy looks to Iakov, who is standing to his right, then back to their temporary prisoner.

“Drop the TV,” says Iakov.

“What?”

Iakov takes a step forward and punches him on the head, a hard, short hit on the temple as the man tries to duck. The TV bounces to the ground, its screen imploding with the impact.

The older guy takes the cord for the rabbit ears and wraps it around the man’s neck, and they plant punches on his face, his head bobbling from side to side, at the mercy of their blows.

The sound of effort, heavy breathing, pleasure mixed in, delight, thrill. The men are enjoying their work. Yevgeni can hear a strangled noise coming from the man’s mouth and can see blood and saliva dripping, and he takes another swing of vodka to numb the shock, and Iakov approaches him and grabs him and pushes him in front of the man, who is kneeling on the ground by now, beside the shattered TV, arms covering his head.