“How do you explain the lipstick then?” I ask with a smirk.
This is the chance for Maxim to become a someone in our little community. “It’s true,” I say. “They stopped here, a car full of movie stars and rich businessmen, and one of the women came into the woods and took a piss. She gave Maxim a cigarette, and then she kissed him on the cheek and told him he was very handsome.”
I embellish the tale somewhat.
Igor’s piggy eyes grow round, and he stares at the perfect lipstick mark on Maxim’s cheek.
“I need to go home,” Maxim says, his eyes alight. “I’m going to draw her.”
Maxim’s talented at drawing. He uses pencils and sketches people and animals. They’re amazing, but he doesn’t show many people.
“Draw her without any clothes, and I’ll get a bottle of vodka for you,” Alek says.
Maxim pauses, then nods once. “Okay.”
He races off in the direction of his home.
“Fuck it, I can’t be bothered to play stupid war games. Shall we drink the vodka?” Alek flashes the bottle, and Igor grabs it from him, opening it and taking a swig.
“Yes, we’ll drink vodka, and tomorrow I want to see this alleged movie star for myself, when Maxim draws her.”
By the time I get home, the light is fading, and I sneak into the house hoping Father is still at work because if he smells vodka on me, I’ll get the belt.
He’s not here. Thank God.
I creep upstairs and brush my teeth, and then I go to my room. I’m laid on my bed thinking about the woman and what she said. She said she was basically a spoil of war. The man owned her, she said. It’s the first time I’ve realized that money means you can own more than things. You can own people.
Soft sobs drift to me through the wall from the room next door, and my stomach dips. Oh, no, Mama is crying, which means she’s been beaten.
I get up and go to her door, knocking before I go in.
Mama is curled up on the bed, her legs tucked as far in as she can get them with her belly in the way, and she’s crying into the pillow.
“Did Father hit you?” I ask, not bothering to pretend I don’t know what he does sometimes. She’s heavily pregnant, and it could be dangerous for the baby if he did.
Mama lifts her face to me, and it’s red and blotchy with a bruise on her cheekbone that can only have come from that bastard. “Your father is gone,” she says.
Her words don’t make sense. Gone? Where? Why?
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“He’s gone,” she screams at me. “Gone, and left his useless, senile mother here. Now I have three mouths to feed once the baby comes and no money to do so. We’re all going to starve.”
She begins to cry loudly, and I think I’m going to be sick.
My father has gone? Left us. Not only his wife, but his child, his unborn child, and his mother. What sort of man does that? What sort of man walks out on his family knowing they can’t provide for themselves without him?
A pathetic, weak man that’s who. I stare at my mother, and a hatred so deep it’s corrosive wells up inside me. I’ll never be like him; he sickens me. No matter what I do in my life, I’ll never be so weak I leave my children to fend for themselves.
Mama lifts her face to me again. “Come here, Konstantin. Come here.”
I go to her, and she looks deep into my eyes, her own red and puffy. “You have to look after us. You’re the man of the house now.”
My childhood ended at thirteen-years-old. It ended in that room as I held my mother and swore to myself I wouldn’t let her down.
Chapter Two
The Soldier
Chechnya
During the second Chechnyan campaign.
This stinking trench has been my home for two days. Fucking damp, cold, and full of piss and shit at one end. We have no choice but to stay; we move, we’re dead.
I look to Semyon to my right, and he’s half asleep, head lolling, before he jerks awake, only to nod back to sleep again.
To my left is Andrius. He’s fast asleep. Fucker can get shut-eye in the most extreme situations.
You don’t get much more extreme than this.
Mortar, rockets, and ordnance re-exploding all over the place. We’ve been trapped here for so long, I can’t feel my legs.
The last we heard before we had to kill the radio for fear of being discovered, a small group of special forces were headed our way. We aren’t meant to be here, officially. This isn’t a full-scale war anymore, and most of the fighting for our side is done by local pro-Russian troops. There are still plenty of special forces sent from Russia to infiltrate the worst terrorist cells and carry out assassinations.
This one went wrong, and now the three of us are bunkered down in a stinking trench, waiting for help that might never come.
“Konstantin,” Semyon whispers. “How much water do you have left?”
I check my flask and grimace. “Not enough.”
“They don’t get here soon, we’ll have to make a decision. Either we run for it, or we fight, but we can’t stay in this fucking hole for much longer.”
“They’ll be here,” Andrius says with a sleepy yawn.
“And if not?” I’m not going to die in this trench like an animal, surrounded by my own piss, dehydrated and frozen.
“They will, but if not, we have two options, as Semyon says.” Andrius yawns again.
Andrius is cold. On the surface. He’s not underneath, though. Fucker has a moral code. It’s why we work well together. I’ve seen my fellow soldiers kill unarmed women and children, and I’ve seen the other side do the same. War is a dirty business. Somehow, despite being able to put a bullet right between the enemy’s eyes and not flinch, Andrius has maintained a certain moral rigidity. There are lines he will never cross. Me either; although, my lines are a little more blurred than those rigid moral codes of Andrius’.
Semyon, I’m not sure about.
He's not been with us all that long, and he’s a bit of a hothead. I’m surprised he’s managed to stay hidden and quiet so far.
If we run, we risk being shot to pieces in the open field beyond this mud-drenched channel we’re hiding in. Even at night, there’s a high risk due to the floodlights sweeping over the field regularly and the snipers on the buildings. In the day, we’d have less chance.
Then there’s the mines to think about. IEDs, and even bear and fox traps.
If we fight, we go over the top, into the town in front of us, and will probably be blown to pieces before we get more than thirty steps from this hole we’re quite literally in.
“I say we fight if they don’t come,” Semyon says. “Take some of those fuckers out with us.”
“Normally, I’d agree,” Andrius answers. “But the place is crawling with women and children, and they will likely be collateral damage if we take that option.”
“We are Spetsnaz,” Semyon spits. “We do not run away.”
“We do what it takes to stay alive and keep civilian casualties as low as possible.” Andrius sighs and shakes his head. “It’s always the new ones who are so blood thirsty,” he says to me.
Semyon grunts and ignores us for a few minutes.