The Red Scarf

by Kate Furnivall

  “I’m not counting.”

  “You are. Your lips are moving.”

  “I’m praying for you.”

  “Don’t lie.”

  “I’ll count if I want. Like you’ll escape if you want.”

  They stared at each other, then looked away and said no more.

  THEY planned it carefully. Sofia would follow the railway track, travel by night and hide up in the forest by day. It was safer that way and meant she wouldn’t suffer from the cold overnight because she’d be walking. It was March now and the temperatures were rising each day, the snow and ice melting, the floor of the pine forests turning into a soft damp carpet of needles. She should travel fast.

  “You must head for the River Ob,” Anna urged her, “and once you’ve found it, follow it south. But even on foot and in the dark, traveling will be hard without identity papers.”

  “I’ll manage.”

  Anna said nothing more. The likelihood of Sofia getting even as far as the River Ob was almost nil. Nevertheless they continued with their preparations and took to stealing, not only from the guards, but also from other prisoners. They stole matches and string and pins for fishhooks and a pair of extra leggings. They wanted a knife, but nothing went right for it despite several attempts. By the eve of the day planned for the escape, they still had no blade for Sofia, but Anna made one last foray.

  “Look,” she said as she came into the barrack hut, her scarf wound tight over her mouth.

  She hunched down beside Sofia in their usual place on the wooden floor, backs to the wall near the door where the air was cleaner, to avoid the kerosene fumes that always set off Anna’s coughing spasms. From under a protective fold of her jacket she drew her final haul: a sharp-edged skinning knife, a small tin of tushonka, stewed beef, two thick slices of black bread, and a pair of half-decent canvas gloves.

  Sofia’s eyes widened.

  “I stole them,” Anna said. “From the toolshed and the kitchens, so don’t worry, I paid nothing for them.”

  They both knew what she meant.

  “Anna, you shouldn’t. If a guard had caught you, you’d be shot, and I don’t want you dead.”

  “I don’t want you dead either.”

  Both spoke coolly, an edge to their voices. That was how it was between them now, cool and practical. Sofia took the items from Anna’s cold hands and tucked them away in the secret pocket they had stitched inside her padded jacket.

  “Spasibo.”

  For a while they didn’t speak because there was nothing left to say that hadn’t been said. Anna coughed into her scarf, wiped her mouth, leaned her head back against the wall, and concentrated on the spot where their shoulders touched. It was the only place of warmth between them now and she cherished it.

  “I’m fearful for you, Sofia.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “Fear is a filthy stain rotting the heart out of this country, like it’s rotting my lungs.” Anna struggled for breath. For a while they said nothing more, but the silences hurt, so Anna asked, “Where will you go?”

  “I’ll do as you say and follow the River Ob, then head west to Sverdlovsk and the Ural Mountains. To Tivil.”

  That came as a shock. “Why Tivil?”

  “Because Vasily is there.”

  The blood drained from Anna’s brain, and she felt the sick hand of jealousy squeeze her guts.

  “Are you all right, Anna?”

  Sofia’s blue eyes were gazing at her with concern, and that was when the red haze hit. It made her want to strike out, to shout and scream Nyet into that sweetly anxious face. How dare Sofia go to Tivil? She thrust her hands tight between her knees and clamped them there.

  “Vasily?”

  “Yes, I want to find him.”

  “Is he the reason you’re escaping?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  But she did. Anna saw only too well. Sofia wanted Vasily for herself.

  Sofia looked at Anna intently and then sighed. “Listen to me, you idiot. You said that your governess, Maria, told you about Svetlana Dyuzheyeva’s jewelry.”

  Anna frowned. “Yes. Vasily’s mother possessed beautiful jewels.”

  “Maria told you,” Sofia continued slowly as though speaking to a child, “that Vasily said that his father had buried some of the jewels in their garden at the start of nineteen seventeen for fear of what might happen.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that after the civil war, Vasily went back for them and later hid them in the church in Tivil.”

  “So it’s just the jewels you’re going for.”

  “No, not just the jewels.”

  “Vasily too?”

  “Yes, for Vasily too.”

  Anna shuddered. She couldn’t stop it, a cold spiky tremor that crept through her bones, and again she said, “I see.”

  Sofia’s shoulder gave a little shove that took Anna by surprise and started her coughing again. She hunched over her scarf, pressing it to her mouth, and fought for breath, but when it was over, she looked flat-eyed at Sofia.

  “Take good care of him,” she whispered.

  Sofia tilted her head to one side. For a while she said nothing, and then she reached out and pulled back the scarf from Anna’s mouth. In silence they both studied the blood stains on the cloth, and then Sofia spoke very clearly and deliberately.

  “There’s only one reason I’m leaving here. Using the jewels and with Vasily’s help, I will come back.”

  “Why in God’s name would you want to return to this stink-hole? ”

  “To fetch you.”

  Three words, only three. But they changed Anna’s world.

  “You won’t survive another winter here,” Sofia said quietly. “You know you won’t, but you’re too weak to walk hundreds of miles through this bloody taiga, even if you could escape. If I don’t go to fetch help for you, you’ll die.”

  Anna couldn’t look at Sofia. She turned her head away and fought the onrush of tears. She felt the sickening weight of fear and knew it would be there inside her for every second that Sofia was gone.

  “Sofia,” she said in a voice that she barely recognized, “don’t get yourself eaten by a wolf.”

  Sofia laughed. “A wolf wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  FIVE

  The Ural Mountains

  July 1933

  THE dog. That was what Sofia heard first. The dog.

  Then the men.

  The sound of them carried to her through the quivering breath of the forest as the hound’s paws splashed through a gully and scrabbled up the other side. Coming closer, too close, with belly-deep whines, teeth bared, and tongue loose, thirsting for the taste of blood. It set Sofia’s own hackles rising into sharp spikes of fury. Her hand reached out, her scarred fingertips clutching at the air in front of her, as if for one last second she could capture its placid warmth and cradle it to her chest.

  But how could she be angry with a dog? The animal was only doing what it did best, what it was bred to do. Tracking its prey.

  And she was its prey. So they’d come for her at last. She shivered.

  Had they come by accident? Or design?

  It didn’t matter. She was prepared.

  SOFIA had been watching the evening sun slide away from her along the curving line of the trees, transforming the greens to amber and then to a fierce painful red. A komar landed on her bare arm. She didn’t move, but watched the insect’s tiny body turn into a ruby tear as it drank its fill of her blood, and it made her think of the way the labor camp had tried to suck the lifeblood out of her. She struck hard and the mosquito was transformed into no more than a pink smear on her skin.

  She was standing in the doorway of a cabin. She’d found it in a small clearing that was hidden way up on the northern slope of the forest, deep in the Ural Mountains, except it wasn’t really a clearing, more a ragged scar where lightning had decapitated a tall birch, which had brought dow
n a handful of young pine trees as it fell. The cabin was skillfully built to withstand the merciless Ural winters, but now it was old and patched with moss, with a tilt to the right like an old man with cramp.

  The cabin looked as if its bones ached just the way hers did. It had taken four never-ending, hard, grinding months as a fugitive to reach this point. She’d scuttled and scrambled and fought her way halfway across Russia, traveling always southwest by the stars, and the odd thing was that it had taken her a long time—far too long—to get used to being on her own. That had startled her.

  The nights were the worst. So big and empty. Five years of sleeping packed five to a bedboard and you’d think she’d relish the sudden relief of solitary living, but no. She could hardly bear to be on her own at first because the space around her was too huge and she found sleep hard, but gradually her mind and her body adapted. Then she traveled faster.

  THE actual escape from Davinsky had proved even more dangerous than she’d expected. It was a dull, damp day in March with a lingering mist that swirled among the trees like ghosts drifting from trunk to trunk. Visibility was poor. A perfect day to join the ghosts.

  She and Anna had planned it carefully.

  They waited until the perekur, the smoke break, which gave her five minutes, that was all. Sofia stood in a huddle with the other women from her brigade and saw Anna watching her, taking in every last detail, saying nothing. The idea of leaving Anna behind felt absurdly like treachery, but she had no choice, and even alone her own chances of survival were . . . She stopped her thoughts right there. Minute by minute, that was how she would survive. Adrenaline was pumping through her veins and her throat felt dry each time she swallowed.

  She stepped closer to Anna and said quietly, “I promise I’ll come back for you. Anna, wait for me.”

  Anna nodded to her. That was all. Just a nod and a look they gave each other. A moment frozen in time with no beginning and no end. A nod. A look. Then Anna left the huddle of women and hurried over to where four guards were standing around a brazier and smoking, stamping their feet and laughing at each other’s crude jokes. One guard was holding a dog on a chain, a German shepherd that lay like a black shadow on a patch of icy grass and its eyes were narrow slits. Anna skirted it warily.

  She was to create the distraction, so with a shriek of alarm she started to make a fuss, waving her arms about to draw attention.

  “Look!” she shouted loudly, and heads turned toward her. “Look there!” she shouted again, and this time pointed urgently at the line of pine trees behind the guards.

  A ribbon of space had been hacked out of the forest itself for the new road they were building, but beyond that lay a dense and gloomy world where little light penetrated and power was wielded by claws and teeth instead of guns.

  “What?”

  All four guards jumped uneasily and swung around, raising their rifles.

  “Wolves!” she warned.

  “Fuck.”

  “How many?”

  “Tri. Three. I saw three,” Anna lied. “It could have been more.”

  “Where?”

  “I can’t spot any.”

  “There’s one,” Anna screamed. “Over there. See that pale shape behind—” Her voice was rising in panic. “No, it’s moved, but I saw it, I swear I did.”

  A rifle shot rang out. Just in case. The dog and its handler were running closer to the trees. The prisoners all watched nervously. Sofia seized that moment, when everyone’s attention was focused on the forest to the north of the road, to turn and move in the opposite direction to the south. The trees were fifteen meters away. Her heart was hammering in her chest. Don’t hurry, walk slowly. She cursed the ice that crunched noisily under her boots. Ten meters now, and she could see the tall slender trunks coming closer.

  “There,” Sofia heard Anna cry out again. “Quick, off to your right, look, one of the wolves is over that way.”

  The guard dog whined as it strained at its leash, but the handler uttered a single word of command and the animal dropped to the ground in silence. The hairs on the back of Sofia’s neck rose and she didn’t dare breathe. Six meters between her and the beckoning darkness of the forest, that was all. So close she could taste it. She made herself keep to a steady walk and resisted the urge to look behind her.

  A rifle shot rang out in the still air and Sofia instinctively ducked, but it wasn’t aimed at her. It was followed by a string of bullets that ripped through the undergrowth on the north side of the road, but no howls lifted into the mist.

  “That’ll scare the shit out of the creatures,” one guard declared with satisfaction, and he lit himself a cigarette.

  “Okay, davay, back to work, you lazy scum.”

  There was a murmur of voices, and quickly Sofia lengthened her stride. Three more steps and . . .

  “Stop right there.”

  Sofia stopped.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re sneaking off to?”

  Sofia turned. Thank God it wasn’t one of the guards. It was the leader of one of the other brigades, a woman with hard eyes and harder fists. Sofia breathed again.

  “I’m just going to the latrine pit, Olga.”

  “Get back to your work or I’ll call a guard.”

  “Leave it, Olga, I’m desperate to—”

  “Don’t fuck around, we both know the nearest latrine is in the opposite direction.”

  “That one’s overflowing, too disgusting to use, so I—”

  “Did a guard give you permission?”

  Sofia sighed. “Are you blind, Olga? Of course not, they’re all busy watching out for the wolves.”

  “You know the rules. You can’t leave your work post without permission from a guard.” The woman’s mouth clamped shut with an audible snap of her false teeth.

  “What’s it to you, anyway?”

  “I am a brigade leader. I make sure the rules are obeyed. That,” she said with smug satisfaction, “is why I have bigger food rations and a better bed than you do. So—”

  “Look, I really am desperate, so please just this once—”

  “Guard!”

  “Olga, no.”

  "Guard! This prisoner is running away.”

  THE ground was still packed tight with the last of the winter ice. Every thrust of the spade made Sofia’s bones crunch against each other and she muttered under her breath at the guard who stood watching her with a rifle draped over his arm and a grin let loose on his face.

  She had been ordered to dig out a new latrine pit as punishment and it was like digging into iron, so it took her the rest of that day. It could have been worse, she kept telling herself. It could have been much worse. This punishment was for not requesting permission before stepping away from the road, because, thankfully, none of the guards believed the brigade leader’s story that she was trying to escape. The punishment for an escape attempt? A bullet in the brain.

  Damn it, though. Sofia cursed her luck for running into Olga. She’d been so close. She’d snatched a brief glimpse of the freedom that crouched out there in the deepening shadows of the forest, and now kept casting glances into its depths as she hacked at the frozen earth. She tried to draw into her mind some of its stubborn strength.

  The latrine, which had to be three meters long and one meter deep, was set no more than two paces beyond the edge of the trees, where the pines were sparse and offered only token privacy. Near the end of the day when the mists were stealing the branches from the trees, a young dark-haired girl was made to come and help her as punishment for swearing at a guard. As they worked side by side in silence, except for the metal ring of spades, Sofia attempted to catch sight of Anna on the road, but already her brigade had moved on, so she was left alone with the girl and the guard.

  Oddly, she didn’t feel sick with disappointment at her failure, even though she knew she had let both Anna and herself down badly. It was as if she knew in that strange clear space inside her head that her brush with freedom was not yet ov
er. So when the actual moment came, she was expecting it and didn’t hesitate. The sky was beginning to darken and the rustlings on the forest floor were growing louder, when the girl suddenly pulled down her underpants, straddled the new latrine pit they’d dug, and promptly christened it. The guard’s grin widened, and he ambled over to watch the steam rise from the yellow trickle between her legs.

  That was the moment. Sofia knew it as clearly as she knew her own name. She stepped up behind him in the gloom, raised her spade, and with all the strength that remained in her exhausted limbs she slammed its metal blade onto the back of his head.

  There was no going back now.

  With no more than a muffled grunt, he folded neatly to the ground and slumped with his head and one arm hanging down into the pit. She didn’t wait to find out if he was alive or dead. Before the girl had pulled up her underpants and screamed out in alarm, Sofia was gone.

  THEY came after her with dogs, of course. She knew they would. So she’d stuck to the marshes, where at this time of year the land was waterlogged and it was harder for the hounds to track down her scent. She raced through the boggy wastes with long bounding strides, water spraying out behind her, heart pounding and skin prickling with fear.

  Time and again she heard the dogs come close and threw herself down on her back in the stagnant water with her eyes closed tight and only her nose and mouth above the surface. She lay immobile like that for hours in the slime while the guards searched, telling herself it was better to be eaten alive by biting insects than by dogs.

  At first she had the stash of food scraps in her secret pockets that Anna had sewn inside her jacket but it didn’t last long. After that she’d existed on worms and tree bark and thin air. Once she was lucky. She stumbled on an emaciated moose dying from a broken jaw. She’d used her knife to finish off the poor creature, and for two whole days she’d remained beside the carcass filling her belly with meat, until a wolf drove her to abandon it.

  As she traveled farther through the taiga, mile after mile over brittle brown pine needles, seeking out the railway track that would lead her south, at times the loneliness was so bad that she shouted out at the top of her lungs, great whooping yells of sound, just to hear a human voice in the vast wilderness of pine trees. Nothing much lived there, barely any animals other than the occasional lumbering moose or solitary wolf, because there was almost nothing for them to eat. But in some odd kind of way the yelling and the shouting just made her feel worse because it left a hole in the world that she couldn’t fill.