by T. M. Parris
Yesterday when he found this place he locked the door and piled furniture up to stop anybody coming in. He slept for hours in a warm bed. He washed and scrubbed every inch of his body. He sat at a table and had breakfast. Pastries and jam and coffee. This place could be his home, his and Tatiana’s. She would want him to clear away the breakfast things, wash and dry the plates and cups, pick up any crumbs off the carpet. She would want him to put all the crockery back where it belonged and wipe down the table with a cloth and replace the vase with the plastic flowers in the centre of the table.
So he got up from the sofa to do all those things. But then the bombing started.
A screaming howl above, like a frenzied devil. A tearing blast that wiped away all his thoughts. He threw himself to the ground. The sound travelled through him, pulled skin from his body, reached into his brain and kneaded it. The windows shattered. Pieces of glass rained down on him and all over the carpet. Outside a siren went off and he heard wailing, shouts for help. He covered his ears. He couldn’t move. He lay there trying not to listen to the chaos outside. Another squeal and crash, further away. He mustn’t cry, he mustn’t cry. The carpet was covered in shards of glass and twisted metal pieces. He reached out and picked one up. It was hot. Shrapnel. The back of his hand was bleeding.
Oh, Tatiana, where are you? Why aren’t you here with me, holding me, telling me it will be okay? I would stroke your shiny dark hair and kiss your soft white skin, feel the warmth of your body. But it wasn’t warm. It was cold now, the air from outside coming through the windows. He heard crackling, angry rattling like on the bridge. He crawled over the broken glass and the hot shrapnel. At the door he stood. The cups on the breakfast table were broken. The sounds would never stop. He had to make them stop. In the kitchen was a vodka bottle. He returned with it and pulled the sofa right back away from the window. He sat again. Looking at the mountains through broken glass, he opened the bottle and took a swig. Its fiery taste filled his mouth and throat.
When he was a little boy, his mother said, he would run and hide at anything: a sudden knock at the door, the bark of the neighbour’s dog. He was still a little boy even now. He thought the army would give him courage. But here he was, still running, still hiding.
He drank. The vodka made his head buzz. He swilled the bottle in his hand. He shouldn’t drink it so quickly. Tatiana wouldn’t like it. She would put her hand on his arm and look at him with her large brown eyes and implore him to drink less, so that they could both live long lives together. She would say that she didn’t want to be alone again, that she wanted them both to grow old together, that she loved him, and her eyes would well up with tears.
Boris would do things to please her and make her happy. He would clear all this mess up. He would wash the floors with the mop that was in the cupboard in the hall. He would think about what to make them for dinner. Perhaps some meat out of a tin, made into a stew or soup. Perhaps some borscht from the cabbage that was in the larder with the other vegetables. That’s what he would think about, all day. And he imagined Tatiana returning in the evening, when she would smile and kiss him on the cheek and say how lucky she was to be with someone who took such care over things. He was going to do all that. But he needed another swig from the vodka bottle first. He just needed one more swig and then he would start.
He lifted the bottle to his lips.
44
Fairchild wasn’t concentrating properly, when he wandered into the village. He was stretching himself too far. It was three nights since the Russian incursion began. From occasional text exchanges, he knew the Lali siege was continuing, with constant bombardment and entrenched positions on both sides. The Russians wanted the river crossing; the Georgians weren’t giving up. No word from Rose. So Fairchild was rushing, walking for hours when he should be sleeping, risking exposed short cuts when he should be staying unseen. He had no plan for when he got there. Just get there, was all that was in his mind, driving him onwards.
He’d used up his supplies and needed to bargain for some more, or steal some. So when he came over the brow of a hill and saw a rough track leading to run-down farm buildings; when he surveyed the whole village from the hill and saw nothing unusual; when he wandered out into the road after an hour of watching, too impatient to wait until after dark, that was when it went wrong.
The man in the distance was leaning against a wall smoking a cigarette. His uniform was Russian army. Fairchild turned and ran, but he’d been seen. Before the soldier started to shout Fairchild was half way back up the grassy hillock to the trees beyond. But it was too late. More soldiers surged up in front and behind, cutting him off. They screamed and pointed guns at him. They led him back to the village and forced him face down in the middle of the road.
“Who are you?” asked a man who carried himself with authority. A captain, maybe. “What’s your business here?” The men emptied out his pockets then tipped his backpack out on the roadside and went through the contents.
“Where’s your ID?” barked the captain.
“I don’t have any.” Fairchild answered quietly in Russian, turning his face to the side to free his mouth from the grit of the road. The captain bent over him.
“What’s your nationality?”
Nationality, why was it always about that? Why did it matter so much where you were born, where your parents were born, things that nobody could help? And yet it determined whether someone would kill you or let you live.
The captain kicked him in the thigh. “I asked you a question!”
“I’m Estonian. My name is Ivan.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Looking for a friend.”
“A friend?” Laughter all round. There were half a dozen of them. “Don’t you know there’s a war going on?”
Fairchild tried to look up and make eye contact, but the captain was standing upright now, arms folded.
“I don’t care about the war. I’m not Russian or Georgian and neither is my friend. We’re just caught up in it. We just want to get out of the place.”
“And where is your friend?”
“Lali.”
“Lali?” More laughter. “You’re just going to walk into Lali, are you? In front of the tanks and past all the snipers? ‘Excuse me, I’m looking for my friend’?” He kicked him twice in the side. “You are a spy! Who are you working for, eh?”
Fairchild tensed for the next kick. But one of the soldiers cried out. He held up a plastic wallet: Fairchild’s stash of US dollars.
“American? You’re American! You’re spying for the USA!” The captain spat. The globule landed on Fairchild’s cheek and dribbled down his neck.
“I’m not spying for anyone.” He kept his voice low. He glanced at the formation around him. Even from lying down, he’d have a chance against one or two. But not this many. And they were armed. The captain was looking down at him with a new curiosity.
“How did you get here?”
“From the north. Over the mountains. I crossed the border.”
“The border’s closed. You can’t cross there.”
“Well, I did,” said Fairchild. “I can show you where, on a map. If you let me go. You can have the dollars, too.”
The captain raised his eyes skywards, as if thinking about it. He drew a gun and pointed it at Fairchild’s head. “Or I could kill you! And take the dollars too!” He grinned. His hand tensed on the trigger.
“Wait!” said Fairchild. “Okay, you were right. I am a spy. I’m spying for the Americans. They don’t like what you’re doing. They have plans. I’ll tell you about their plans. I’ll tell you everything they know. But not to you. To a military intelligence officer. A big guy. Not you.”
A smile spread. The gun stayed pointing at him. “You think I’m stupid?”
“And what will they think when they find out you could have got all this intelligence but shot me dead before I could speak? They’ll think you’re the stupid one.”
The smile disa
ppeared. Fairchild had a few seconds, no more, to persuade him.
“You’ve got nothing to lose. All you have to do is keep me here. Lock me up and summon your superiors. If they think I’m a fraud they can shoot me anyway. But I’m telling the truth. The information I have could win Russia the war. You could be a hero.”
The men were standing, listening. All eyes were on the captain. Time passed.
“You,” he said finally, “are a lying dog.”
He squeezed the trigger.
45
They were still in the flat days later. A cellar would have been safer, but with the influx of people into the citadel, cellars were crammed solid. Once, they took sleeping gear and talked themselves into one. Inside was gloomy and airless, people staring at them from rows of mats that filled every inch of the floor. There was no space for the children to pitch down together with Marta. Katya started screaming and wouldn’t stop until they were out of there. So they took their chances in the flat.
The barrage was constant. One morning a mortar hit the block opposite and smashed all their windows in a deafening, splintering crash. Anyone standing near them would have been blasted with shrapnel. After that they spent all their time in the kitchen, as far from the windows as possible. They slept there too, Marta, Ilya and Katya curled up together on mattresses. Rose made a nest out of sofa cushions, but she often went out at night. It was the best time for scavenging.
No windows, no gas, no electricity: it was cold even after the snow had melted. Rose slunk through the streets in the dark and came back with planks and boards, nails and fixings to hammer the boards across the window frames and cover with blankets and curtains. Marta’s husband came by several times; pale and quiet, his manner didn’t bode well for the state of events up at the fort. They would all sit together, the family unit, in a shared embrace, saying very little, until he had to go again. Rose would make herself scarce as best she could. One time he brought a stove and a gas canister. The stove became the central point, the only source of heat for themselves, for cooking, and for heating water to wash. When the taps stopped working, a medical centre became a base for distributing boiled river water. Ilya and Marta would take turns, laden with buckets and plastic bottles. By day the snipers ruled the streets; they could shoot you in the eye, the rumours said, from a mile away. Don’t stand still, hug walls and buildings. If you have to cross an exposed area, run. If you can see the river, they can see you.
The area around the medical centre became an informal market for swaps. Marta was by default in charge of all food arrangements and had raided the cupboards and taken luxury biscuits, tinned artichoke hearts and stuffed vine leaves, coming back with larger quantities of dried beans and flour and powdered milk. No electricity, no refrigeration, no freezers. In the cold, some food had kept for a while, but then the snow melted and the weather grew warmer, in an unwelcome twist of climatic timing. But this was where Rose could help.
She went out like a hunter-gatherer after nightfall, and came back with supplies from wherever she could, going further and further afield. The flat opposite had been barricaded shut right from that very first night, but she found other places: shops, bars, restaurants, hotels, other empty homes. Fresh food to start with, canned and dried as the days went by. Her advantage: she could climb further, crack a secure lock, help herself to the best before anyone else showed up. Meat and fish, vegetables, sweet things sometimes, chocolate for the children. Whatever they didn’t want, Marta could swap for something else. Rose would come back in the dark laden with tins and jars, and lie down silently while the family still slumbered. It was only fair; she needed them to find out what was going on, and this was her contribution. They ate well, compared with some out there relying on the dwindling army handouts. This was hell, for sure, but her little unit wasn’t starving at least.
Katya hated it when Marta went out, so Ilya stepped in. He became the scout, bringing news from the barracks and from friends he’d found. Some of them were acting as informal watchers, finding observation points along the riverside where they could see Russian positions, and reporting back to the fort. The boy was developing a quiet confidence; Marta watched him come and go with an expression of both pride and terror. Marta and Ilya going out at the same time was a no-no; Katya screamed herself hoarse the first time they tried it. Rose had an English-Russian language triangle going with Marta and Ilya, but Katya only spoke Georgian and still went to hide behind one of the others when Rose tried to say anything to her.
The sound was constant: an aerial whistling, a moment of silent dread, a booming thud. Any one of those could take them all out. They exchanged looks whenever they heard it: someone else’s tragedy this time, not ours. In the silence following the shells that fell close, the ones that rocked the building and echoed in their heads for hours afterwards, once or twice Rose thought she heard a man sobbing.
Every day brought death. Ilya reported the worst of it: an entire house flattened, killing everyone inside; people shot in the street in twos and threes; a mother felled by a single piece of shrapnel to the heart; a four-year-old caught in a blast staring out of a window. Sometimes a sharp crackle of machine gun fire and a scream carried on the air told an unknown story. The medical centre was the closest they had to a field hospital, that and whatever was at the barracks. Rose hadn’t yet discovered where they were taking the bodies.
No one had mobile signal. For news, there were radios, and rumours from the barracks. Tbilisi hadn’t fallen, although the bulk of the Russian army was encamped on its outskirts. Big words from foreign leaders. Ilya set great store by the threats of the NATO powers, the Americans, the Germans, the British. The EU, Georgia’s neighbour across the Black Sea, to whom they looked. Rose, privately, had her doubts.
For messages out, a few of the land lines worked, Ilya said, if you knew who to ask. The barracks had a satellite phone. Rose asked Ilya to request a message to the Embassy in Tbilisi. They should at least know she was still alive. She remembered Peter saying that he’d do what he could, but didn’t expect much. At a time like this, a sole stranded officer wasn’t going to be top priority. She was expected to look out for herself.
During her nightly prowls she used a number of viewpoints to observe the Russians herself, wondering if she could slip past them. Getting out of the town was possible. She was convinced from what Marta brought back from the market that food was getting in. Who during peacetime would have a crate load of powdered milk lying about? And they weren’t army rations. So getting a person out could be done. But what about the miles of occupied territory beyond the town? For something like this, officers like her would normally have military support. Should she go it alone and risk being caught, or was it better to stay here, behind at least some layer of defence? This was constantly on her mind. Meanwhile she could make herself useful getting supplies for the family. She could do that much at least.
One night she returned lugging huge catering cans of tomato paste and olives. A man in uniform was there. Marta’s husband, Rose assumed, until he turned and she saw that it wasn’t. Marta’s face was blotchy. Katya lay head down on her lap, silently shaking. Ilya was pale, thin-lipped, staring at nothing.
Rose put down her gear. “Your husband?” she asked softly. Marta’s look of pain confirmed the worst.
Ilya jumped up. “Ilya!” said his mother. “Please, stay!”
But he left, slamming the door. The soldier stayed and lit a cigarette. Marta stroked Katya’s hair while tears rolled down her face. Rose expressed her sympathies as best she could and went to sit in the bedroom. She’d never felt more alone.
46
Yuri was the best of the bunch. Yuri was the only one who told Fairchild his name. It was Yuri who stepped out and stopped the captain from firing that day. What if he’s right, Yuri had muttered to his superior. How does a guy just show up like this? On his own? He’s not just some ordinary bloke, is he? A couple of others grunted agreement. The captain gave up in bad faith, swore at h
is men, stowed his gun and stomped off. Since then, Fairchild had been locked in a windowless inner room that smelled of shit. Not animal shit: human shit. Stuck in a shithouse for the best part of a week. Wasted, wasted time! And all because of his own utter stupidity.
But they brought him rations and water, and Yuri stayed to chat. He would roll his eyes and his droopy jowls would work while he wondered at why the big guys from the front were taking so long: they’re tied up down there, lots going on! This whole thing’s more difficult than they thought. And we’re stuck here with only one vehicle and the stores getting thin. Maintain territory gains, they say! That’s why we’re in these forsaken villages. There’s no one here! All the villagers ran away before we got here. Guarding a bale of hay and some chickens. What’s it all for, anyway? Why are we even here? We’ve got chickens back in Russia, don’t we? I mean we’re all just people, all the same really, wanting to make a living, look after our own. I’d be more use back in Omsk with my wife and son, only two years old but so smart already. Still, we’re soldiers. We do as we’re told.
And he’d talk about the captain and his instability. He’s getting impatient now, Ivan. You be careful with him, Ivan. As if Fairchild had some means of avoiding him. Then the captain came to see him. There was only space for one other person in this tiny shithole of a room. So the others waited outside and the captain squatted in a false show of camaraderie on the dirt floor. Fairchild sat, back against the wall, saying nothing.
“You see my problem,” the rat-faced officer was saying. “They won’t send anybody. Too busy. They don’t believe us, maybe. They can’t spare anyone. So they’re saying to me, get him to talk to you. He can tell you what he knows, can’t he? Maybe if I could give them something. A little snippet, something to show you are who you say you are?”
