Andriy Karamazov

“Is that Grishka?” – Olga grabbed Misha’s forearm. – “Look, look, over there, by the broken flower bed.” – She gazed in the distance, then turned to Misha:  “Grishka… Him, for sure!” 

Misha dropped his backpack on the cracked concrete tiles of the platform and looked across the square in front of the train station. The space between the first rail tracks and the station building teemed with people. “How many… All of us…”. At the very entry to the square, under the blossoming chestnut trees Grishka towered over the heads. With his mouth half opened and an old plastic bag in his right hand, he kept turning to the tracks and then back to the town. Nobody paid any attention to him.

“Yes. Grishka.” – Misha answered in a plain voice. – “That old woman with the trolley… That’s his mother.”

“Oh really? You know her?”

“She cooked in our school canteen. Yes. Retired when we were in the 10th grade”. 

Misha turned away. His gaze followed the tracks to the place where they left the station and hid somewhere between the trees. The May sun was rather low over the horizon, its warm light bathing the Izovo train station in the quiet orange tones. It was sweltering. Misha inhaled through his nose. The familiar blend of creosote, scorching gravel and the musty, old station filled his lungs. “The smell of the long trip. ” Misha felt his heart running faster. “As a kid… How much I longed for it.” He glanced over the rows of the soldiers fencing off the premises. Some of them smoked. “Now I would give so much to stay here though…” There were more soldiers coming out of the yellow building of the station. Its walls were dirty and crumbling, the swallows’ nests lined the eaves. The massive arch windows carried a thick layer of dust and missed a piece of glass here and there. A big white sign “IZOVO” in black letters hung in the middle between the porch and the spiky roof of the station. 

“Olia, let’s move closer to the station, ok? Over there, under the chestnuts and lilacs. It’s shade over there”. 

“But they say the train is already standing at the 12th kilometer.”

“Are we in a hurry?” – Misha gave her somewhat reproachful look. – “They’ll make sure they evacuate all of us, don’t worry.”

They walked over the rotten wooden railtrack crossing, then made their way through the crowd and across the square to the shade. The old, cracked asphalt crunched underfoot. At some point the smell of creosote gave way to cheap perfumes and the lilac blossom. Misha felt his sweat-soaked t-shirt stuck to his back. He moved his backpack to one arm and pulled the t-shirt with the other. Then he looked up again and found Grishka. “How old he looks now…” 

“Did he finish school at all?”

“Who?” – Misha zoned out and now Olga’s question took him aback. 

“Who! Who! Grishka! Who else?”

“Mmm. Yes. They kept him till the end. Because his mother worked so many years in the school canteen.” – Misha’s attention wandered off again for a moment. – “He used to sell newspapers and sunglasses when he was done with school. By the way, right here, in front of the station. On the other side, facing the street”.

“Oh, did he?”

They reached the shade. Misha pulled out a water bottle from his backpack, then lit a Marlboro. Almost every morning, on his way to work, Misha saw Grishka pulling all of his newspapers and sunglasses on a cart to the station. Slow, usually silent, in a faded and worn-through Necrodeath t-shirt “I’ll Take My Hate to the Grave”, Grishka would shuffle down the street with a twisted face. 

“I’ll take my hate to the grave…” – Misha whispered, exhaling a cloud of thick smoke. 

“What’s that?”

“Ah? Nothing”. 

“It’s too loud here!”

“Nevermind.”

Misha followed a couple of swallows with his eyes. 

“We treated him ok” – Misha said.

“What?”

“You know that he was mentally challenged from birth, right?” – Misha paused and looked at Olia.

“No, I had no idea. I thought he got…” – Olga sounded agitated but Misha interrupted her.

“… But his condition deteriorated after his father died in a car crash while driving drunk. Grishka slipped. His face got that deformed then; he could only moan when anxious or under shock.“

Olia did not say anything and just looked over in the direction where they saw Grishka with his mother earlier. 

“He was not bullied. Grishka.” – Misha looked at Olia. – “He had no friends either. Sometimes the kids teased him ‘Grishka-debil’ when he could not keep up. Mostly it was fine though” – Misha took a drag on Marlboro. “He once brought a puppy to school. So cute. He smiled… well… Everybody wanted to pet a puppy and came to Grishka. Never ever saw him happier than on that Tuesday in September.”

“It’s difficult to be…” – Olga paused -”… different. And when you cannot explain yourself… If you don’t fit, children can be very cruel. They don’t get it yet.”

“I guess. Yeah…” – Misha tossed the cigarette butt to the ground and stepped on it.

It was almost evening. The station got even fuller. Misha heard children playing hide-n-seek in the crowd and laughing. A baby cried. Near one of the benches he saw Father Sava, the Orthodox priest from a local Izovo church. Sava folded his arms on his belly and talked to a girl, occasionally whispering something to her almost in the ear. The girl smiled and tried not to look at him directly. Misha’s eyes wandered around. At another bench, under an old chestnut tree, he saw Ded Ivanych. The old man sat with his legs crossed, smiled to himself and smoked Prima. Ivanych drank samogon daily and always smiled; Misha wondered if he was already drunk. 

“Misha?” – Olga touched his hand and looked him in the eyes. – “Do you think… Do you think we will…” – the question froze on her lips. Misha took a moment, then squeezed Olga’s hand and looked at the black poles of the traffic light at the end of the station. All of them lit green. He stepped closer to her. 

“Da, Olia. My obiazatelno verniomsia. Obiazatelno.”

“How do you know?”

”Just know.” – Misha turned away and swallowed. 

Far in the distance a train announced its arrival. Olia jumped and let her water bottle fall. Almost everyone in front of the station reached down to their belongings. Misha heard a loud moan from across the square and spun around. Grishka’s twisted face floated above the crowd. At first it grinned, then an expression of silent horror froze on it. Grishka squeezed his plastic bag and pressed it to the body. His mother tried to put her hands around his neck and said something incomprehensible to him. Moments later a dark-brown diesel train crawled onto the second track, its siren drowning Grishka’s loud shouts. The row of soldiers lined up along it, making corridors in front of the doors. Then a Jeep painted with Kerzhovian Armed Forces insignia rolled out onto the second platform. Holding a megaphone in one of his hands and a Kalashnikov in another, a young sergeant climbed on top of it and shouted:

”The inhabitants of Izovo! We are starting the evacuation! This is a temporary measure for your own safety!” Pause. “You will return to your homes as soon as our Kerzhovian government declares the Institute and the Area around it safe again!” Pause. “Take only the necessary things! Proceed to board the train – slowly and peacefully!”

”Misha, poidiom!”

”Don’t rush it, Olia. Please. Just one more minute…”. 

The train spat out the dark clouds of burned diesel. It stank. The human mass moved. Soon the narrow columns formed between the station square and the doors of the train. It reminded Misha of the ant lines when he used to observe them from above as a kid in the yard. 

“Grisha, Grishenka, poidiom, rodnoy. Poidiom, synok” – Grishka’s mother dragged a trolley in one hand and tried to help her son with the other. 

Grishka’s body trembled, a loud cry rolled above the tracks. His mother hugged him, then put one of her hands on his cheek and another on her lips. Ivanych dropped his Prima and left his line. Still smiling, he took a trolley from Grishka’s mother and together they pulled her son to the train. Grishka walked backwards, his eyes were glued to the station. His mouth was moving, but everything Misha could hear was a series of grunts and moans. 

The last meters before the door. Grishka froze and moaned. Misha saw his face glowing wet in the rays of the evening sun. 

“Grishenka, liubimyi, poidiom, synok. Vsio budget horosho!”

”Mmmmhhhh! Mmmhhhmaaa!”

Grishka shouted and burst into shaking. His eyes got wide open. Grishka made a wide swing with his arms as if trying to swim back to the station through the crowd and accidentally hit the nearby soldier. The young private staggered. 

“Da ty chto, suka?!” – the soldier turned red and kicked Grishka in the stomach. He fell on the concrete tiles in front of the train door and moaned. The next moment four other soldiers jumped in and started kicking Grishka with their boots in the head and torso. 

“Debil, bliat!”

”Na te, suka!” 

“Mmmmmaaaa!!” – Grishka’s cry tore through the evening. 

“Misha, what are they doing?!”

“Grishenka! Synok! Wait, please stop! Please, stop! I beg you!! He did not want it! He is slow! A bit slow! Please, stop! He does not understand!” – Grishka’s mother tried to step in between the soldiers and fall on her son to cover him. One of the soldiers caught her by the hand and tossed to the side, then swung his Kalashnikov and hit her in the right temple. Like a wheat grain cut with a scythe, the old woman fell down, hitting her head against the concrete edge of the platform. 

“Ubil! Killed her! Misha?! Misha, do something!” 

Misha felt Olia’s fingers tearing into his arm. He shuddered from a sudden cold shot crippling his body. A wide red stream covered the face of Grishka’s mother. The soldiers were still kicking her already unconscious son. 

Misha ran.