No Safe Place (9 page)

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-coordinated. 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.”

The music room had five small soundproofed booths. Cheslav went into one and closed the door. He tried again to make a sound, and again it was awful.

He started to despair.

Finally he turned his back to the door, stood right in the back corner, squished his eyes shut and put the trumpet to his mouth once more.

The sound that came out was sweet and clear.

Startled, he almost dropped the instrument. Then he tried again.

It worked better when his eyes were closed, when he could block out the world around him and just feel the music as it came out.

He played around with notes, with pressure, and with breath. He played at the mouthpiece with his tongue, changing the pitch almost just by thinking about it.

He stood with his eyes closed, playing with these new sounds, until he felt a soft tap on his shoulder.

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes.

The music was gone, and he was back in the gray practice room.

“The dinner bell has gone,” the teacher said. “Come back again tomorrow.”

Cheslav handed over the trumpet without a word and floated to the mess hall. He didn't notice until later that evening how much his facial muscles hurt. The ache made him smile.

“I've got a trumpet face,” he said to his dorm-mates.

“You've got an ugly face,” they said back, and looked relieved when he just smiled.

He went back to the music room the next day, skipping breakfast. He played in the practice booth with his eyes shut until he felt the tap on his shoulder.

“You'd better learn how to read music,” the teacher said.

Cheslav worked hard at it. The first time he followed the notes and out came a recognizable tune, he felt so happy he was sure he could float right up over the academy.

They put him in the marching band, and that was okay, because he could march and he could play, but his trumpet sounded better when his eyes were closed. They put him on stage with the senior band to play for Founders' Day and graduation.

When Cheslav was thirteen, the Founders' Day ceremony was attended by important men in the Russian military. A new missile factory was opening in their area, and a general stopped at the school after inspecting the factory.

“We live in a time of Russian strength,” the general said in his speech to the students. “I envy all of you being young and coming into the army at this great time in our history.” He talked for a long time, but Cheslav, sitting with the band, was not listening. His eyes were closed, and he was listening to how his first solo in front of the school would sound.

Finally the general stopped talking and Cheslav took his spot in the center of the stage. He waited until the music teacher nodded, then raised the trumpet and closed his eyes.

He played a piece by Tchaikovsky, a piece usually played by a whole orchestra, but he played it all with just his trumpet. With his eyes closed, he could see the notes, feel the crescendos and inhabit the music as it inhabited his trumpet.

The applause was jarring to him. He would have preferred silence so that the music could fade slowly away, but he took his bow as he'd been trained and went back to his seat with the band.

Later that day, he was summoned to the headmaster's office. He sat in the reception room and listened to the voices coming from the inner office.

“A talent like that can't be stuck in this backwater.”

“Irkutsk is a vital part of the nation.”

“I have already made the calls. You act like this is an injustice.”

“He's happy here.”

“The decision's been made.”

Cheslav was called in. He made a salute and stood at attention before the headmaster's desk.

“You've been given a great opportunity,” the headmaster said. “You are being transferred to the Army Cadet Music School in Moscow.”

“There are fine musicians there like yourself, and you will learn from them and be a credit to Russia,” the general said.

“Can't it wait until the boy is sixteen?” the music teacher asked. “Sixteen is the age for cadets.”

“Special circumstances,” the general said. “Have him ready to go first thing tomorrow morning. He'll fly back to Moscow with me. The defense minister is attending our next company assembly. I'll present the boy then.”

Cheslav was dismissed. He skipped the evening snack and sat on his bunk. He didn't know how to feel.

In the morning he was bundled along with the general and staff into a military plane. The general let him have a window seat. He slept most of the way and missed seeing Russia from the air.

The academy of music was in a large building of yellow stone, part of a complex of military buildings on an army base a little way from the center of the city.

Cheslav was the youngest student and the smallest.

“We'll need a doll uniform for you,” the cadet in charge of the clothing supply said. “You got any dolly uniforms back there?” he called to his assistant.

The smallest uniform was handed to Cheslav, and even then he had to turn up the cuffs.

“We'll have that,” the head boy in his dorm said, sweeping away the dark blue uniform of Cheslav's old school. “If you run away, we'll want to know what color to tell the police to look for. It's army green now for you, dolly.”

The barracks at the music academy was much like the dormitory at his old academy in Irkutsk, although he now had a foot locker instead of a cupboard. The sounds that came from the boys were louder and deeper. The sounds of men, backed up by the muscles of men. Muscles that shoved Cheslav away from the sinks in the lavatory and slammed him into the gravel of the exercise yard.

“We worked hard to get here, dolly,” he was told again and again. “What have you done?” and, “This is an army for men, dolly, not little girls.”

It didn't help that he'd joined the school months into the new term. And it didn't help that the older cadet assigned to show him the ropes was embarrassed to have Cheslav in his company and lied to get out of his duty. Cheslav was forever getting lost, arriving late and breaking rules he didn't know existed.

The first company assembly was held a week after he arrived. The general was there to introduce his discovery to the school and to the honored guest, the minister of defense.

The whole academy was assembled in the Great Hall. On stage was the First Tier Band — the band that was reserved for the most talented senior students. Cheslav was backstage, running through some scales to warm up.