Part 28 - Ivan: Wolf at the Door

I watch the men with torches. Like fireflies, they flit in the dark. A crack from an old Kalashnikov shatters the night. I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand tall.

Angelina’s whimpers play a somber melody. She wears the yellow dress father gave her in spring. She won’t take it off no matter the holes, she says. Petyr’s voice is already a deep growl, like father’s, his words playing in harmony, soft, soothing tones to ease her fears. He’s not yet twelve, but he shows courage. His face is square and pock-marked. He will be a giant someday.

I stoke the fire, but my eyes are fixed on the window, where the fireflies play.

A wolf’s howl echoes across the steppe. Another takes up the call in the distance. My eyes dart to Father’s Kalash. He’s taken the Mosin he brags about when he’s drinking vodka. He uses it to bring down the moose and bring meat to our family, our neighbors. Last time, they drug the beast for three days through the black woods. Cut it into portions and meted out the bounty.

A feast for our village. A trail of blood that brings wolves.

The blind fish I do not mind. I stir the pot and add the vegetables if Angelina is too weak. I break the ice when Petyr’s strength gives out. I sit over the hole and play out the line while they huddle in the house and feed the fire. Frost bites my fingers. I cannot feel my face. Snot hangs frozen in the arctic air. I dare not touch it. I wait and I fish and I chop the wood. I patch the roof and I feed the fire and I barter with the тсыгане for tools, a book, a single potato.

I wait for Father to return.

Father always returns with meat, but the days without him are cold and bleak and empty. I wait and I cook and I finger the Kalash. One day he will take me, and I will kill, too.

The woman with no husband will take what we don’t need, what we can’t eat. She waits for Father, too, but she lays a blanket before the fire for me on cold nights. Her body is warm and heavy where I place my hands. She is eager for my bounty. I see it in her eyes. She is father’s whore when he is home; mine when he is gone. Does he know? I think he would not care if he did.

The door crashes open. Blinding snow follows. Father takes two steps in, his massive frame filling the doorway before he falls. His Mosin clatters to the stone floor, and all I see is blood. The men behind him are silent, their eyes flitting over me, then Petyr and Angelina, before they disappear into the night with their torches. I grab the Kalash, reseat the clip, like Father taught me, and check the action. Somewhere behind me Angelina is screaming.

Fireflies flit in front of the window one way, then another. Snowflakes in my eyes. More gunfire. And then silence. Nothing but the fire’s snap and sizzle, the smell of the thin stew, muffled crying behind me. A low growl in the darkness.

The wolf crashes through the window. Its growl turns me, and I see the figure standing, etched against the darkness on two legs. Screams all around. Gunfire. I reach for the Kalash, but all I find is the silken arm of an angel, her cries drowning out the world we are leaving behind. I catch her wrist and twist, propelling her forward, away from the wolf. Away from the fireflies. The raging thing in the cage howls. The giant roars.

A foot of snow covers the ground in the courtyard. I see smoke swirling from the tower, a blackened monolith rising into a frozen sky. The blood in the courtyard is fresh. A body twitches at my feet as Petyr appears. He bursts through the doors and shoves a man in front of him. He wears his face like a mask, nothing like the face of the man that sprawls in the snow before me.

Petyr’s eyes are cold and dead, like Father’s. The warden’s eyes are ripe with pleading and hope. His mouth is full of blood. His words are spouts of gushing red, staining the snow. One eye swollen shut, he cowers as Petyr’s shadow engulfs him. What can he say to survive? What can he offer for his life? He has everything I desire, he has said. He can open every door, offer every indulgence. шлюхы. The one from the village he’s kept for himself. She sits in a cell and waits for his touch.

I remember her, her softness, her eyes, warm and wet and full of life. She survived on hope and sacrifice.

The warden goes on, but I cannot hear him. The snow crunches around him as my men bring out more guards, naked, their hands bound with wire and cruelly twisted around their яйца. Muffled cries fill the air, then the sound of the Kalash, and the courtyard goes still.

It begins to snow again.

The warden pleads still. Angelina. He knows where she is. I shake my head and see the hope go out in his eyes. There is no hope, I tell him, and you will do well without that burden. Petyr’s great boot crushes the man’s spine before he can pull himself to his knees. Before he speaks another word about sweet Angelina. Lies. I buried her myself. Deep under the snow so the wolves will not find her.

Angelina is dead. Father is dead. Our village is dead. Petyr will be dead tomorrow at the hands of another’s Kalash, and I will crawl through the sewers while the prison tears itself apart.

I saw the man’s hope, but I do not share it. A fool’s errand. There is no future. There is only now. If you cannot make your future, if you cannot bend it to your will, you have no future.

The golden angel shrinks into the night, leaving her winged sandals. I close my eyes and inhale her. The scent of her пизда. A lingering cloud of fear, like spoiled meat. Like the woman from the village, offering her пизда for any man who would protect her. She will be back when the time comes. She will lay a blanket for me by the fire. Eager for my bounty.

Soon.

The Tatianas have the wolf surrounded now, its back to the beast in the cage. The fireflies flit in and out of its reach. Its fur sizzles when the fireflies touch. It howls, raging against their trap. Did it not know we were waiting? Did it not see the Giant watching, lurking, hulking in the dark corner, waiting to strike the first blow, to take away its bite? Now it stands there, a dark, wet silhouette gleaming in the firelight, snarling and gnashing its teeth.

This one won’t go in the cage. I will wear its pelt as a trophy, just as I did that night when Father died. My first kill with the Kalash as it gnawed on Father’s broken body. It lay in the snow for hours before we dragged it inside. We had meat for weeks after that night.