Under a Blood Red Sky (57 page)

‘This is my home,’ Mikhail said, polite but unwelcoming. He hung the axe from one hand and stood with legs wide and a thumb tucked into his belt.

‘And who are you?’

‘Mikhail Pashin.’

‘The others?’

‘My father-in-law and my wife. Why the interest in us?’

‘We’re searching for the killers who murdered a patrol.’

‘We’ve seen no strangers here.’

‘No one?’

‘No, but when I was out hunting a day or two back, I caught sight of a couple of men in soft hats and carrying rifles. Too far away to see anything more.’

‘Where?’

‘About twenty versts west of here in the forest. Near the river bend.’

From where she stood beside the barn Sofia held her breath. Mikhail looked and sounded so convincing. The way his hand gripped the axe with familiar ease, his muscular frame containing just the right hint of territorial challenge, the manner in which his eyes returned a direct stare. Surely the soldiers would go and leave them in peace. Surely.

A brush of fur on her leg made her look down. The yellow hound was pushing its shoulder against her knee, a faint whine in its throat. What was the matter with it?

‘Look what I’ve found.’

The words came from one of the soldiers, a short, well-built man with a neck almost too thick for his shirt collar. He was leading the three horses into the yard and grinning broadly.

‘They were down by the river and there’s another old wheezer in the barn, but he’s not worth bothering with.’

‘Four horses,’ the officer said sourly. ‘That makes you a rich
kulak
.’

Sofia’s throat closed.

Mikhail laughed easily. ‘No, comrade, I’m no
kulak
.’ He waved a dismissive hand around the primitive home and barn. ‘Do I look like one of the wealthy bourgeoisie?’

Sofia’s fingers found the white pebble and drew it from her pocket. In her head she pictured the officer’s thoughts as grains of sand, then she left the barn and the hoe, and stepped forward. Immediately came the metallic ring of the axe as Mikhail barked it against a log in warning, but still she fixed her eyes on the officer.

‘Comrade, my husband is no kulak.’

‘We shoot
kulaks
.’

‘So there is no reason to shoot my husband.’

She kept moving closer till she was only two paces from the officer, where he was leaning forward in the saddle. Tightening her grip on the pebble, she took a breath, reached out her hand and touched his boot in the stirrup. She shifted the sand.

‘No reason at all, is there?’ she asked in a soft, persuasive voice.

His eyelids quivered, thick and greasy, then settled. ‘No,’ he muttered. ‘I’m not here to hunt out kulaks anyway, but the horses will come in useful. We need them to replace the ones that were stolen.’

‘Not this one.’ Sofia entwined her hand in the grey’s thick mane.
Without a horse
, Anna cannot travel.

‘Get your hand off it.’

‘No.’

The soldier leading the horses raised his rifle. ‘You heard. Let go.’

From nowhere a fist slammed into the side of Sofia’s face, sending her sprawling to the ground.

‘How many times have I told you to do as you’re told?’

It was Mikhail’s voice. He was standing over her, silhouetted against the pale sky. For a moment she couldn’t believe Mikhail had hit her and she stared up at him in dismay, but his eyes remained harsh. Abruptly the heat drained from the day.

‘Mikhail…’ she whispered.

‘Get in the house.’

She gave a moan, and a soft warm tongue licked her cheek. She shivered, struggled to her knees and on to her feet, her head stinging. As she touched the dog’s coat, she had an odd sense of Rafik being at her side. She thought she heard his voice whispering in the clearing.

‘Don’t die for nothing, Sofia. You are needed.’

She hesitated.

You are needed.

The grey horse was moving away, its tail twitching.

The word pounded in her mind.

Anna needs me.
Anna needs the horse.

She reached out and seized the tail. The horse reared, the metal edge of its front hoof clipping the soldier’s shoulder. He cursed fiercely. Without hesitation the officer aimed his rifle straight at Sofia and fired.

Davinsky Camp August 1933

Anna’s lungs were worse today. She breathed carefully and coughed carefully, and made a point of swinging her hand axe carefully, but still the blade bit into the green wood and stuck.

‘You’re useless.’

It was a guard, the older one with curly grey hair that was thinning on his scalp but thickening in his ears. Anna nodded agreement, she had no intention of wasting precious breath on words. She tugged at the axe but this time she couldn’t release it.

Sofia, where are you?

A hand reached over and yanked it out of the wood for her with ease. It was Lara, the young fair-haired girl who was working the next felled tree. She put the haft back in Anna’s hand, just as the morning smoke break was called. ‘
Spasibo
,’ Anna whispered, crumpling to her knees on the bark-strewn earth without the energy to join the others. She leaned against the rough russet trunk for support and scanned the tree line of the forest.

‘She won’t come,’ Lara said.

‘She will.’

Lara shrugged and walked off to find a light for her
makhorka
, but Anna was glad to be left alone. A hollow feeling crept up on her as she sat amongst the flakes of bark, a sense of something going wrong. At first she thought it might be the beginning of death creeping up on her, but now that Lara had gone and she could examine the emptiness of the feeling, she thought otherwise. It was the beginning of someone else’s death. How she knew this, she had no idea. It was all too strange and set cold fingers trailing up her spine and into her skull.

‘What are you crying for?’ It was the guard.

‘I’m not.’

‘So stop making those whining noises.’

Whining noises? Was she whining? She put a hand over her mouth and became aware of the sounds now trapped in her head. Shrill whines, like a dog. Her heart started to quiver.

Who was dead?

Vasily?

Sofia?

The workday was finally over. The grate of saw and the bite of axes ceased, backs were flexed and muscles coaxed back into life as daylight trickled away behind the trees. It was at that time of day that the forest began to change, its black depths wreathed in mist and edging closer, its earthy breath more rank and menacing. Prisoners averted their eyes and guards didn’t turn their backs on it – it made them nervous. That was when the rifle shots shattered the silence of the Work Zone and two guards dropped dead among the wood chippings.

The crack of another shot rang out, then three more in quick succession. Another uniformed body crumpled and a brigade of women prisoners started to scream. Panic flared. No one knew where the shots were coming from and people started to flee for cover in all directions. Guards fired wildly into the trees but four more grew scarlet flowers on their chests. Voices shrieked orders, heads ducked, arms flailed.

Anna stood and stared into the forest. Using all her strength she started to shuffle towards it.

‘You!’

Anna took no notice and pushed herself through the trees.

‘You!’ The voice came again. ‘Stop!’

Only death would make her stop. All around her prisoners were taking advantage of the chaos and seizing their chance at freedom, their skeletal figures flitting into the forest like fleeing ghosts into the grey mist that enveloped it. She caught sight of Nina and Tasha disappearing far ahead of her and she envied them their speed. A hand yanked her almost off her feet and she lashed out, but her blows were weak. Her captor was the grey-haired guard, his face a mixture of fury and terror, his mouth working in an effort at control. Without hesitation Anna pointed a finger at the sinister depths of the forest and screamed.

‘He’s there!’

That’s all it took, one brief second. The guard turned his head and she swung the hand axe that was still in her grasp. The flat of the blade connected with his skull. His fingers slid from her arm and she hurried on into the mist.

Anna had no idea how he found her when there were so many fleeing women in rags. So little visibility among the trees and so much panic. She could barely breathe and in her haste she had stumbled and fallen. She was forcing herself to stand when he called her name.

‘Anna Fedorina?’

She peered through the dank curtain of mist and a tall man in dark clothes rose out of it. His long-fingered hand was extended towards her and she saw a white stone balanced on its palm. It was Death drawing her into its embrace.

‘Anna Fedorina? I’ve been shouting for you. Someone told me you were back here.’

‘Yes. I’m Anna Fedorina.’

‘Come with me.’

‘No.’

‘Sofia sent me.’

Anna started to shake. ‘Sofia! ’ she shouted.

She looked frantically among the shadowy trunks. Was Sofia dead? Had she sent Death’s Messenger to fetch her too?

‘Come quickly,’ Death’s Messenger whispered in her ear.

Without knowing how, she found herself on his broad back being transported at speed through the shadows. She rested her head on the Messenger’s damp head and it occurred to her how like a human’s was the hair of an angel.

Sofia was waiting for her. She was so beautiful. Anna didn’t remember her being so bewitchingly beautiful. She was propped up against a small grey horse, a pistol in her hand to defend the animal against all would-be thieves and on her face a look of grim determination. Anna felt a fierce eruption of joy flood through her body at the realisation that Sofia wasn’t dead.
Thank God, she isn’t dead
. Sofia opened her arms and Anna fell into them.

Neither spoke. They clung together. Inhaling each other’s breath and letting their hearts hammer against each other’s. Dimly Anna was aware of voices shouting in the distance but she took no notice, just held Sofia tight and felt tears hot on her skin.

‘You’re free now,’ Sofia whispered.

The familiar sound of her voice gave Anna a sudden surge of strength that cleared her mind. She lifted her head and, without releasing her hold on Sofia, asked desperately, ‘Where’s Vasily?’

Death’s Messenger was called Mikhail. Even so, Anna would always think of him as Death’s Messenger in her own mind because he’d killed her father. Mikhail confessed that fact to her himself at their first stop for rest in the forest, and she wanted to tear out his heart there and then. To slice it into forty-one ragged pieces, one for each year of Papa’s life, but she couldn’t. It was clear he’d given that heart to Sofia and Anna would steal nothing from her friend.

‘Thank you for rescuing me, Mikhail,’ she said with cool politeness. ‘The debt is repaid. A life for a life.’

But she was glad to see the Messenger’s grey eyes remain tormented, and pleased that he felt the need to ask, ‘How many guards were killed back there?’

‘A handful compared to the number of prisoners you released.’

‘Still too many.’

‘No, Anna’s right,’ Sofia said, brushing her hand against his in a gesture of comfort. ‘You’ve given those women a chance at life.’

‘If they make it to freedom.’

‘Some will, some won’t. We will.’

Mikhail nodded stiffly. He lifted both women on to the grey horse’s back once more and set off with a long loping stride.

‘What does Vasily look like?’

They were lying on a blanket together, but Anna couldn’t sleep. Her thoughts wouldn’t stop. The moon was a giant disc in the sky, bigger than any moon she’d ever seen in the camp, the night breeze was full of secrets instead of stale and fetid, and the fresh smell of forest creatures made her giddy. It swamped her senses. She muffled her cough in her scarf and kept her eyes wide open. To miss even a single minute of her freedom would be a sin. They had travelled all night and hidden unseen among the trees by day under a green canopy of branches. They heard tracker dogs in the distance but none came near.

‘Is he still as I described to you?’ Anna asked.

‘He’s tall,’ Sofia said gently. ‘He stands very upright and swings his shoulders when he walks as if he knows exactly where he’s going. You feel he’s in control. Not just of the kolkhoz but of himself.’

‘Is he still handsome?’

‘Yes, he’s still handsome.’

‘Tell me more.’

‘Well.’ Sofia smiled and Anna could hear her picking her words carefully as she gazed up at the stars. ‘His eyes are the kind of grey that changes shade with his mood and they are always observant. He’s watching and thinking all the time.’ Sofia laughed softly and something in the laugh made Anna wonder if it was Vasily she was talking about. ‘He can be quite unnerving sometimes. But he gleams, Anna.’

‘Gleams?’

‘With belief. His certainty of the future he’s building gleams like gold.’

‘Tell me again what he said.’

‘Oh, Anna.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Why? It only hurts. Just remember that he gave the jewels for me to use to help you.’

‘I want to hear it again, what he said.’

‘He said Vasily is dead and gone… We must put aside personal loyalties… This is the way forward, the only way forward.’

Anna closed her eyes. ‘He’s right. You know he is.’

‘Anna,’ Mikhail spoke in a low voice so as not to wake Sofia, ‘she is not as strong as she pretends.’

‘You mean the wound in her stomach.’

‘Yes.’

‘She won’t tell me how it happened.’

Mikhail sighed. ‘It was a group of soldiers. They were taking our horses and she… tried to stop them.’