Zakhar Prilepin - Sin

The Sergeant took out the binoculars and looked at the now visible road.

Our jeep probably drove past not long ago…

Now, if we can get to that left turn , the Sergeant realized — then we will be able to see the base. We can see everything lying on the bank. But if someone drives past on the road… That will be stupid. There’s nowhere to run.

Two of us will go, the Sergeant decided. With Sluggish? I’d take Ridge, but he has the grenade launcher. He’ll be able to blow up any car from here… And Sluggish will instantly throw himself into an attack… I can’t take Ginger. And I won’t take Vitka either. And Samara is too young.

“Let’s go, Sluggish,” he said. “Guys, cover us if necessary… Ridge, you’re in charge. If you see a car with bearded guys stopping near us — shoot immediately. Aim well. Your shot will save us. If you hit them… And the rest can support you.”

They could have crawled to the road, but this seemed completely humiliating.

So they ran, bending and grabbing the air with their clutching hands.

What idiocy, the Sergeant thought. We’re running like… Like idiots… We’ll get to the road, and those bastards… will come to meet us… in their car… ‘What’s the hurry, soldiers?’ they’ll ask. And we’ll turn around and run back…

They made their way over the stones and ruts, almost breaking their legs… They ran across the road that they had driven along just yesterday, so free and calm, with their elbows out the window, and their sweaty faces grinning… There was the track from the wheels, dusty…

They slid down the bank on their backsides. They crawled to the turn.

Well then, base… How are you, base?… the Sergeant thought, listening. We’ll take a look, and see a black flag hanging there…

What’s going on in my country, he thought fleetingly. Why am I crawling across it… not walking…

There was the base. It stood at an angle to them. Two gloomy floors, and sacks over the windows. Nothing could be seen. No one was storming it, at least. There weren’t any ladders against the building, no one was climbing in.

The Sergeant looked for a long time, squinting, and stupidly hoping that he would see someone’s arm waving from the gun slit, or even a face, and everything would immediately become clear.

Then he took the binoculars, and pressed his face into them.

The base was impenetrable.

“What’s going on there?” Sluggish said, unable to wait.

“Nothing,” the Sergeant replied, and gave the binoculars to Sluggish: he wouldn’t have believed anyway that there was nothing there.

Sluggish looked for a long time, and the Sergeant began to get tired of this: they should be returning to the wood, and thinking what to do next.

He felt thirsty.

He took out his flask and had a gulp.

Sluggish crawled off somewhere. The Sergeant looked after him sullenly, not calling out.

Pouring dust over his black beret, Sluggish raised himself up high, but did not look at the base, but somewhere to the side.

Again, the angry firing began — they were shooting from another side of the base that they could not see. From this side, there was nothing to shoot at anyway, apart from the road and the trees. From the base to the woodland there were three hundred meters of empty land and sand, and this was all in the line of fire.

But from the other side of the base, there were hills and some abandoned buildings, stables or cattle sheds. There were places where the bearded men could hide.

“I can see the jeep,” Sluggish said, returning: his face was dirty, but dry, not sweaty — the Sergeant was surprised by this.

“Where?”

“Sticking out behind those buildings. They must have taken a detour to get here. Around the base. They didn’t take this road. So our guys wouldn’t shoot at them.”

On the one hand, we need the jeep: it has a radio, the Sergeant thought. On the other hand, the bearded men already have our walkie-talkies… And they know the wavelength. After all, they disarmed the guys who were coming to relieve us… Or killed them already… Let’s not think about that, no need. No one was killed. Everyone’s alive… What was I thinking about?

“Sluggish, why do we need that jeep?” the Sergeant asked aloud, to avoid thinking.

“You don’t need any fucking thing at all,” Sluggish replied, licking white dust off his lips.

“I don’t. You do. That’s why I’m asking you: why?”

“It has the radio.”

“I’ve already thought of that. The Chechens are probably using it already, on our wavelength. What are we going to say to that radio: hello, brothers, we’re in the woods ? Someone come and get us !”

“Is it better to sit here in the dust?” Sluggish asked. “Without any food?”

The Sergeant was silent briefly.

“Let’s go into the wood,” he said. “And in the evening, we’ll go to the buildings. When it gets dark.”

The Sergeant lay on the grass.

His whole body languished and ached from the inescapable feeling that there were other human animals in this forest, and that they could come here.

But there was nowhere to hide.

And nothing to think about.

Because any thought led to the fact that they could be killed today…

This was all so… stupid. As it turned out, that was the only way everything looked — stupid: at a time when something was reaching out for his very throat.

The Sergeant remembered how he had called his mother when he came here. His mother didn’t even know that he was here: he didn’t tell her when he left, he deceived her. And here he heard her voice in the receiver:

“I’ll kill you, son, what are you doing!” she said.

The Sergeant even smiled: her words sounded so foolish, so good-natured, and therefore even more pitiful.

His mother herself was scared by her own I’ll kill you : it was quite a common word at home, that was often uttered in a fit of temper, when as a child he broke something, or got up to mischief. But now this word took on a new meaning, terrifying to his mother.

I won’t kill, don’t kill, don’t kill! she probably wanted to shout into the phone.

But there was no reason for this shout: on the second day after the unit arrived, they had their first and last normal shoot-out with the other side. Some bastards fired a few clips at the post and crawled back to their holes.

And that was all… Until today nothing serious has happened, mother.

You’re still thinking about your mother, the Sergeant caught himself out.

I’m not thinking, I’m not thinking, I don’t remember anyone, I don’t remember my nearest and dearest, he waved aside these thoughts, realizing that if he remembered his other blood, poured into the world in the two pink, small, boyish, chick-like bodies, then he would go mad immediately.

I don’t want to remember, I don’t want to suffer, I want to eat rocks, I want to spin my stupid nerves into bundles, and I don’t want to have to dream anything. I want to dream of stones, animals, primitive things…

Before Christ — what was before Christ: that’s what I need. When there was no pity and fear. And no love. And no humiliation…

The Sergeant looked for something to lean on, but couldn’t find anything: everything was weak and dragged you with itself to die, everything was full of soul, warmth and such tenderness that is intolerable for existence.

From somewhere, a sullen face summoned by his entire being came drifting along, it was stern, distinct and alien to everything that flowed inside. The Sergeant felt with his skull this inhuman, soul-strengthening glance…