No Safe Place

by Deborah Ellis

  “What are these marks on his head?”

  Cheslav still had scars from things landing on him in the closet.

  “Playground injuries,” the housemother said. “You know how boys are.”

  The uniformed man was all sharp corners and straight lines, all shiny brass buttons and dangling medals. He bent at the waist to look at Cheslav more closely.

  “Cheslav, is it? I’m the dean of the junior school at the Siberian Military Academy. Step forward, boy. Let’s see how strong you are.”

  Cheslav didn’t like being stared at, but the man made him hold out his arms and keep his head high.

  “Nice straight back,” the man said. “Parents?” he asked the housemother.

  “Father dead in a mining accident just after Cheslav was born. His mother found herself an Australian husband and left the country.”

  “She’s coming back for me,” Cheslav said.

  “I’m sure she is,” the man said. “And when she does, she’ll be proud to see her little boy standing tall like a man, all smart and polished in a cadet uniform. What do you say? Would you like to come to my academy?”

  The man was smiling. He looked right at Cheslav as if Cheslav’s opinion mattered very much.

  “My mother won’t be able to find me if I leave.”

  “We’ll leave your new address with the housemother here. You don’t want to stay at the Baby House forever.” The man raised himself up to speak with the housemother.

  “We’ll take him right away,” he said. “Best not to give him too much time to think about it.”

  Cheslav was bundled into the dean’s car that very morning, his few belongings packed into an old Aeroflot shoulder bag.

  “You be nice to everybody,” the housemother said as she waved goodbye. “Then everybody will be nice to you.”

  The academy was a few hours’ drive from the Baby House, on the outskirts of Irkutsk.

  “You look like a brave boy,” the dean said to Cheslav as they pulled into the grounds of the Siberian Military Academy. “You probably don’t cry much. Am I right about that?”

  Cheslav nodded. He cried at night sometimes, but the man probably couldn’t know that.

  “Good for you. Here’s a piece of advice. Don’t let the other boys see you cry. Ever. They will make fun of you, and I want you to enjoy your time at my academy. I was a student here, and they were the best years of my life. Do you think you can do that? Enjoy yourself and learn?”

  “My mother will be able to find me?”

  The dean sighed. “She’ll find you.”

  “Then I will learn.”

  Inside the academy, Cheslav was handed over to his dormitory master, a boy named Gregor from the ninth form. Gregor took him to his dormitory.

  “This is where you will sleep,” he said.

  They stood in the doorway of a long, narrow room. Cheslav stared at the row of bunk beds lined up so close to each other that there was just a narrow space to walk between them. The walls were white. The blankets on the beds were gray.

  Gregor took Cheslav down the row of beds until they came to one with a bare mattress. The sheets and blanket were in a folded pile at one end.

  “Looks like you’re stuck with a bottom bunk,” Gregor said. “But that means it will be easier to make up your bed.”

  He started to unfold the first sheet. Cheslav stood back, watching.

  “Do I look like a housemother?” Gregor asked. “You have to make your own bed and keep your space clean. Everyone does. I’ll show you this time, but you’d better pay attention because if you do it wrong, you’ll be in trouble.”

  Cheslav didn’t want trouble, so he watched and helped and tried to learn.

  Against the other wall were small cupboards.

  “Keep your clothes in here,” Gregor said. “Keep them folded. You’re in the army now, and we keep things tidy in the army.”

  Cheslav put the Aeroflot bag in the cupboard.

  “Unpack it,” ordered Gregor. “Then hand over the bag. You won’t need it again. You’re not going anywhere.”

  Cheslav’s personal belongings were few. He had an old pipe that had belonged to his father, which Gregor took away because pipes were not allowed. He had an old biscuit tin that held odd rocks, plastic animals, a few marbles and a tiny metal car. And he had a glossy magazine.

  “You’re a little young for this,” Gregor said, snatching it away. “Whoa — look at them!”

  The magazine was full of photographs of beautiful women dressed in nice clothes.

  “There’s only one thing to do with women like this,” Gregor said, and he made kissing noises at the photographs.

  “That’s mine!” Cheslav tried to snatch it back. “My mother is in there!”

  Gregor looked at the magazine’s cover.

  “Russian Brides for Elite Gentlemen. Your mother is one of these women? Show me.” He handed the magazine back to Cheslav.

  Cheslav knew the spot. He found the photo easily but he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from crying at the sight of his mother’s face smiling out at him.

  “‘Ivana Petrovka, 29, MA in Pharmacy Studies, likes to sew, cook and dance. Her ideal man likes fun, adventure and a happy home.’” Gregor laughed as he read the caption under the photo. “Your mother is a mail-order bride. Did she land a rich German?”

  “Australian. And she’s coming back for me.”

  “You’d better study hard in English class, then.”

  Gregor put the magazine in Cheslav’s cupboard and closed the door. He took Cheslav to the quartermaster and left him there to be kitted out in his new uniform.

  After getting dressed in his navy trousers, white shirt and navy jacket, it was time for lunch.

  In the Baby House, he’d had his special seat at one of the low tables in the playroom. The housemother or one of her helpers would bring him his food on a tray. When he was done they’d take the tray away and wipe his face and hands with a wet cloth.

  The academy had a dining room. No one had a special seat.

  At his first meal, Cheslav got in line with the other boys, all looking alike in their dark blue uniforms but all different in size. There was a lot of pushing and butting in.

  “Don’t just stand there — pick up a tray!” Cheslav was told when he found himself in front of a stack of trays.

  He had to push the tray along a counter he couldn’t see over. A series of ladies in hairnets put things on it — a plate of stew, a piece of bread, a slice of cake, a glass of milk.

  From the food line it was a short walk into the large dining room. It was hard for Cheslav to carry his tray, watch that nothing spilled and keep an eye out for an empty space at a table.

  “New boy.”

  Cheslav saw a blue uniform step in front of him. He stopped and looked up.

  It was a much older boy, from the senior school.

  “New boy, can I have your piece of cake?” the older boy asked.

  Cheslav remembered what his housemother had told him, to be nice.

  “Okay,” he said. The older boy took his cake.

  “New boy.” Another boy spoke up. “Can I have your glass of milk?”

  The boys around them started to laugh.

  “Okay,” said Cheslav. The milk was taken, drunk, and the empty glass replaced on the tray.

  Cheslav took a few more steps.

  “New boy! Can I have your bread?” This one didn’t wait for an answer. He just took the bread.

  By now the whole dining room was quiet and watching.

  “Oh, new boy,” came another voice in a sing-song, mocking tone. “Can I have your stew?”

  Cheslav looked up at the smirk on the older boy’s face and the meanness in his eyes. The boy was twice his height and had a thick neck below a large head.
/>   He nodded. A hand reached out and took the plate of stew.

  The boys in the dining room started to laugh. Then a chant rose from the tables.

  “Cry! Cry! Cry! Cry!”

  It went on.

  Somehow, Cheslav managed to carry his tray to an empty spot at a table. Gregor was there.

  “You didn’t cry,” Gregor said. “That’s something. Do you want some of my lunch?”

  Cheslav wasn’t hungry. “Will they do this again?”

  “They don’t usually stop until you cry.”

  It happened again at supper. And it happened the next day at breakfast. Cheslav did not cry when he saw his food disappearing, but he was growing very hungry.

  At lunch the second day, he got to the dining room in time to see the older boys reduce one of the other new boys to a crying heap on the floor.

  The chant changed from “Cry! Cry! Cry!” to “Baby! Baby! Baby!”

  Cheslav got in line, picked up his tray, got his portion of noodle casserole and sliced fruit, then began to walk into the dining room.

  “Ah, here he is, and just in time, too. I’m extra hungry today!”

  The older boy stood in Cheslav’s way. “I’m tired of doing this bit by bit, new boy. Today, I want all your lunch.”

  Cheslav was seven, and small. The tray was a little bit heavy for him, and awkward to carry.

  It wasn’t something he’d thought about before this moment, but somehow his hands knew what to do. They knew how to keep the tray balanced while they changed position. And they knew how to lift it up, turn it, and in one quick, fluid motion, smash it into the other boy’s belly.

  Afterwards, he didn’t run away. He stood still as the tray clattered to the linoleum and watched the noodle casserole fall off the older boy’s uniform.

  There was silence in the dining hall.

  Then the older boy, soaked with food, picked up Cheslav by an arm and a leg and, with a guttural roar, flung him across the room.

  Boys ducked and fled as Cheslav flew through the air. He landed on a table-top and bounced onto the floor.

  “Are you hurt?” Gregor asked as he helped him to his feet.

  Cheslav kept his mouth shut. He concentrated on the pain in his knees and back. By thinking about it really hard, he kept himself from crying.

  When supper time came, Cheslav got his tray. It was stew again, chicken this time, with dumplings. His body was bruised and aching and he shook as he carried his food.

  The older boy stepped in his way again.

  “You think you’ve won the war, don’t you?” He bent down to look Cheslav in the eye. “You haven’t even been to a battle yet. Yeah, I’ll leave you alone. There are easier kids to pick on. But there are people like me everywhere. You got that? Everywhere.”

  “Hey, you want to wear the new boy’s dinner again?” the older boy’s friends laughed.

  The older boy moved in closer and whispered in Cheslav’s ear.

  “You’ll never be safe from us.”

  Gregor steered Cheslav to a table far away from the pack of older boys.

  “I don’t want to stay here,” Cheslav said.

  “Where else are you going to go?” asked Gregor.

  “Australia.”

  “Forget about your mother,” Gregor said. “This is a good school. You’ll learn all about how to be a soldier.”

  “What if I don’t want to be a soldier?”

  “Everybody wants to be a soldier,” Gregor said. “Go ahead. Eat. I’ll watch your back.”

  Cheslav stopped shaking. He looked down at the food on his tray, then started to eat. He ate everything on his plate. He was very hungry.

  / / / / / / / /

  His life settled into a routine. At the academy, everyone was kept busy all day long. They did a lot of military things, even Cheslav’s young class. They marched around the yard with pieces of wood shaped like rifles angled smartly at their shoulders. They stood at attention when the Russian flag was raised. Some of the boys in the class had trouble standing still or sorting out their left foot from their right. Cheslav didn’t. He watched what the older kids did and he did the same. It made him feel grown-up.

  The students were assigned jobs according to their age. Cheslav’s class had to dust all the baseboards in the hallways every day. One of the senior boys lined them up in two rows, spread them down the length of the hall and got them to work. The organizing took longer than the dusting.

  Cheslav didn’t mind the chore, but he did mind how some of the older students would walk down the hall, see the little kids on their hands and knees and shove them to the floor by stepping on their backs. The older students called this “playing dominoes.”

  It happened three times to Cheslav.

  The fourth time he heard the older kids start to flatten his classmates, he waited, head down, until it was almost his turn.

  Then he wrapped his arms around the bigger kid’s legs and brought him crashing to the floor. Blood from the older student’s nose spattered onto the linoleum.

  Cheslav heard a lot of yelling and felt himself being kicked like a football from one side of the hall to the other. He smashed hard into the walls. His head buzzed with the impact.

  Strong arms lifted him up by his ankles and he was carried upside down out of the school building. He was dumped face first into the pile of snow on the edge of the assembly yard.

  Cheslav heard his tormentors go back inside the school. He raised him himself up, brushed the snow off his uniform and face and started walking across the frozen field toward the woods.

  He almost made it there before the headmaster looked up from his paperwork, saw him through the window and sent someone running after him.

  Cheslav spent a week in the infirmary recovering from the cough he got after being out in the cold.

  He didn’t tell the headmaster who had given him the bruises. He sat in silence and refused to answer any questions.

  There were no more games of dominoes. And when the older boys saw Cheslav in the hall or in the exercise yard, they would say, “Stay away from him. That one is crazy.”

  Having the others think he was crazy meant that no one picked on him anymore. It also meant that no one wanted to be his friend. When he moved up to form two, and tried to warn the new group of seven-year-olds about the thugs in the dining hall, they seemed more afraid of him than of the older boys.

  It didn’t help that he showed up at every weekly mail call looking for a letter from his mother, each time walking away empty handed. Others would get cards from family and even parcels full of treats. Once a boy took pity on Cheslav and gave him a bar of chocolate his aunt had sent. Cheslav flew into a rage and threw the chocolate into his face. The boy got a black eye. Cheslav spent an afternoon in the Brig, a bare room with a door that locked.

  No one shared their parcels with him after that.

  “Cheslav is a problem,” he overheard one day while he was sitting in the reception room outside the headmaster’s office. He was nearly eleven. Soon it would be time for him to move from the junior school to the more serious senior school. “He has a bad temper. We are here to train officers. We cannot have officers who cannot control themselves.”

  “He’s a smart boy,” said another man. Cheslav recognized the voice of his form four teacher.

  “Based on what? His academic scores are only average. He can drill but he shows no potential for leadership.”

  “He’s had a rough start,” the fourth form teacher said. “But his arithmetic scores are not bad. And he tries hard in English-language class.”

  “That’s the only class he tries hard in,” said the physical training master. “He has no team spirit. Doesn’t care whether his team wins or not. He’s fine on the individual challenges — swimming and the obstacle course. He’s small for his age but well-coordin
ated. But the other boys don’t like him. No one wants to partner with him for judo and he’s always the last to be chosen for any team. They think he’s crazy.”

  “Will he do any better in any other school?” the form four teacher asked. “The Russian army is big. He will find a place in it.”

  Soon after, Cheslav was called in. He saluted and stood at attention before the headmaster’s desk.

  “You have been moved up to the senior school,” was all that was said, but just as Cheslav was leaving the office, his fourth form teacher whispered, “Congratulations.”

  Marching became more serious in the senior school. They did close-order drill for an hour each day, in double rows of ten, carrying real rifles. They learned to make sharp corners and execute commands in an instant.

  “You could be sloppy as children,” the drill instructor said. “We expect a higher standard from you now that you will soon be men.”

  They shot at targets with real ammunition, did war games in the forest and were drilled in basic first-aid.

  Cheslav stopped showing up at mail call. He was too old to be waiting for his mother to write to him. And when another student went into his cupboard and stole the catalogue with her picture in it, he didn’t complain. She was a stranger to him now.

  Then, in the second month of his first term at the senior school, he was told to report to the music room.

  “Your form four teacher says you’re smart,” the music master said to Cheslav. “I could use a smart student in the band. Pick out an instrument and let’s see what you can do.”

  Cheslav walked slowly down the row of instruments. The saxophone had all those holes and knobs, as did the clarinet and the flute. They looked too complicated.

  The fourth instrument in the row was a trumpet. It had only three buttons.

  Only three, thought Cheslav. He picked it up. It felt right in his hand.

  “Playing the trumpet is as much about vibration as it is about notes,” the teacher said, showing him how to place his fingers, how to shape his mouth.

  The first sounds were terrible.

  “Take it into a booth,” the teacher suggested. “Try it out.”