The Orphanage Read online

  “Perfect.” The machine gunner chuckles. “The only good poet’s a dead poet.”

  He carefully opens the window as though he wants to air out the room and deploys his weapon on the sill. Pasha gathers his students’ assignments and tosses them into his briefcase. As he’s about to leave, his eye is drawn to one of the wounded men who’s been placed by the recently painted radiator—two fuzzy blankets with crusty bloodstains, an old tattered sleeping bag, head facing the wall, only his greasy hair and unshaven face visible, the torn sleeve of his army jacket lying right there, patches of dirty skin marked with little cuts between bandages, left hand poking out of the sleeping bag, exposed; just like when a passenger in a sleeper car stretches his hand out from under the blanket that encases his motionless body. That blanket re-creates the protrusion of his knees and the indentation of his stomach like the Epitaphios re-creates Christ’s body. The nakedness of this battered male body stands out among the bundles and warm clothing tossed on the desks nearby.

  “Here and now,” Pasha thinks. His skinny, pale hand, dotted with sparse hairs, looks so out of place against the classroom floor with its new coat of paint from the summer, against the desks and the blackboard, clinging to the sleeping bag, too afraid to release it, as though that sleeping bag is the last thing linking him to life. Pasha can’t look away from the long, black fingers—all cut up and roughed up and tinted a gasoline blue. Then a brisk, wintry breeze rushes inside, shaking the window frame, but the machine gunner holds it open. Pasha remembers where he is and quickly steps out into the hallway, straight into the principal’s embrace.

  “Pasha, Pasha,” she cries, grabbing him by the arm. “How could this be? Tell them to go.”

  It hits Pasha that even her tears are fake. “She doesn’t know how to cry,” he thinks. “She just doesn’t know how it’s done. Well, she doesn’t know how to laugh either.”

  “Tell them to leave, you have to tell them to leave,” she’s using the formal “you,” as though she’s addressing a tram conductor.

  “Yes, yes,” Pasha assures her. “I’ll tell them. I’ll tell them right now.”

  He walks the principal back to her office, helps her get settled, leaves, shuts the door, stands there for a bit, and hears her sniffle, then instantly regain her composure, take out her cellphone, dial, and start making a stink.

  “Take care of this one without me,” Pasha says in a whisper, and heads for the door. There are soldiers standing on the front steps, smoking. They fastidiously wipe their dirty boots with a clean rag whenever they come inside. Blood doesn’t come off all that easily, but it does come off.

  In the damp wind, you perceive smells more distinctly. The heavy smell of wet clothes fills the air immediately. People coming from the south give off a burnt smell, like they’ve been sitting by a campfire. They keep coming, most continuing on foot, toward the Station, while one group piles into a jeep, and another helps a guy into the back of a truck. There isn’t enough room up front. A soldier walks by, his bulletproof vest grazing Pasha, who cringes, takes a step back toward the side of the road, then another, his high boot crunching in snow mixed with yellow clay, then another step, and then one more.

  “I wouldn’t go over there if I were you,” someone says.

  Pasha turns toward the voice—man standing nearby, dark Wolfskin jacket, hiking boots, laptop bag, meticulously groomed facial hair. His expression is condescending, even disparaging. He carries himself well, but if you look a little closer, his chin, too small for the rest of his face, and the finicky wrinkles around his mouth make you think he’s letting his beard grow out to seem tougher than he is. He looks about fifty, and he sizes Pasha up like he’s his commanding officer. The same way a passenger who got on at the first stop views someone who’s gotten on later—yes, both of them have tickets, but the few extra hours spent in the train compartment give him an odd kind of authority. His name is Peter. That’s how he introduces himself, in passable Russian, making no apparent effort to conceal his accent.

  “You shouldn’t go over there,” he says, nodding toward the roadside ditch. “You’ll get your legs blown off. Let’s get out of here—pretty soon they’re gonna get all riled up and start shooting each other.”

  He turns around, starts making his way through the crowd. Pasha glances back, sees a thick heap of mushy snow down below, and runs after Peter.

  They shove through the thinning crowd, away from the checkpoint. Peter cautiously circumvents a group of soldiers engaged in a heated argument and steps over some wounded guys placed smack-dab in the middle of the road on some blankets and old civilian coats. Pasha sticks close to him, trying not to make eye contact with the soldiers. That’s how he’d walk by stray dogs as a kid—just don’t look them in the eye; if you do, they’ll sense that you don’t belong here. Pasha just couldn’t get used to all the soldiers around, even though it’d already been a few months; he’d always avoid them. Whenever they stopped him by the station, he’d answer their questions flatly, looking past them the whole time. There are so many of them here, and there’s this odd smell—dirt and metal, tobacco and gunpowder. Pasha skirts past another group apprehensively, sees the soldiers’ mistrustful eyes, and hurries to catch up to Peter, who’s approaching an old blue Ford encircled by soldiers. They have spread out a hand-drawn map with trails marked and slopes outlined in red pencil. Soaked by the rain, the map looks like a tablecloth doused with wine at a train station restaurant. Peter squeezes through the group of soldiers, pats one of them on the back, shakes another guy’s hand without taking his eyes off the map, and immediately starts arguing with them, running a pink, neatly cut fingernail along the disintegrating paper, yelling and working himself into a frenzy. The soldiers are yelling, too, running their own fingers—black and frozen—along the map, disagreeing with Peter. Eventually, one of them, apparently the guy in charge, a short, stocky man with a gray crewcut, spits, pulls a black ski hat over his large skull, slings an assault rifle over his shoulder, and orders everyone to pile into the car. A tall old soldier, frail and hunched up, scoops up the map and sits in the driver’s seat. The gray-haired man in the ski hat takes a seat next to him. The rest of them cram in. Peter manages to stuff himself inside, though nobody seemed to invite him. He even tries to shut the door, but then he suddenly realizes he’s forgotten something. He leans out of the car and yells to Pasha:

  “Well, are ya coming or what? We aren’t going to wait around all day! Get over here!”

  Pasha’s taken aback at first, but then he runs over to the Ford. There are already about four soldiers sitting in the back. They all seem absolutely massive in their bulletproof vests. Well, and Peter’s taking up some room, too. Just how on earth did they all fit back there? Pasha’s shifting around tentatively outside, but Peter’s not letting up.

  “Come on, let’s go,” he yells, patting the black denim over his skinny thigh invitingly.

  So they set off—the hunched-up driver and the commander who’s doggedly trying to find something among the remaining clumps of map are up front, the armored soldiers, Peter, and Pasha on his lap are in the back. Pasha’s uncomfortable. He’s never sat on anyone’s lap before, except when he was a kid. The soldiers are uncomfortable too, on his behalf. Silence sets in—nothing but the sound of vests knocking together dully.

  The Ford glides down the highway slowly, passing an endless chain of soldiers making their way toward the Station. The soldiers look back hopefully, but upon seeing how many passengers are in the car they turn their heads back, clearly disappointed. The trip isn’t all that long. The driver veers right once they get to the settlement, steps on the gas–the tires skid and make deep incisions in the yellow snow—and pulls into a motel parking lot. Pasha’s shoved clear first, and then the rest of the passengers pile out into the damp air.

  Two-story building, a sign with the word Paradise spelled out in Cyrillic letters hanging over the front entrance. Café to the right, carwash to the left, reception desk in the middle. T
he shockwave of an explosion has knocked out the windows on the second floor, so the owners have put plastic over them. Up on the roof, a satellite dish pierced by shrapnel looks like a sunflower in the morning, facing east toward the sun.

  The parking lot’s packed with military equipment and cars—heavy special-purpose vehicles, sedans with Polish license plates (the drivers clearly haven’t paid any customs duties on them), and a bunch of beat-up shabby junkers—no windshields, slashed-up doors, missing hoods. A tank, still intact, buried under all sorts of colorful things, is parked off to the side. Blankets, sleeping bags, sacks, and hiking backpacks have been tied to the armor with ropes; somebody has even slapped a pull-out bed to the side of the tank. A pack of soldiers stands by the café, smoking, yelling, arguing. The guys Pasha arrived with head toward the group by the entrance. Peter considers the sign skeptically.

  “Paradise,” he says, smiling. “More like the first circle of hell. Well, are ya coming?” He nods at Pasha and walks over to the group.

  Pasha can’t think of anything better than tagging along. “Why am I following him?” he thinks, continuing to follow him. “What am I listening to him for?” he asks himself, trying not to lose Peter’s assiduously unkempt hair in the crowd. He pushes past some soldiers, steps into the café.

  A few tables, a bar with the spoils of a hunting trip—a stuffed pheasant, deer horns, and something’s severed head (Pasha figures it must have belonged to a dog, but he could be mistaken)—hanging over it. Restroom door off to one side, a plasma TV on the opposite wall. No empty seats; soldiers are sitting around and looking at themselves in the screen. A woman is bartending; she looks at the customers scornfully, though her scorn is kind of listless. She’s kind of frumpy and not all that well put together; blond hair sprouts out of her black roots like fresh blades of grass through a field that was burned last year. A bottle of Coke and heaps of chocolates lie on the shelves behind her. Dried fish looms on the counter in front of her. The woman pulls out the most important stuff from deep down, underneath a heavy hatch from a compartment loaded with more fish, and pours a round. Everyone’s talking at the same time, hardly listening and constantly interrupting each other, and the fish odor is so strong you’d think this was a wake that had dragged on for three days.

  Peter strides up to the bar and nods at the woman, who feigns a smile and keeps pouring. Peter asks a question. The woman nods in response, still not concealing her scorn, still carefully scanning the room. Peter opens the side door, and Pasha slides into the next room after him. There are tables here, too, it’s packed with soldiers, too, and there’s the same chaos of voices fusing into a menacing din. There’s a little table on the far side of the room by a staircase, and Peter heads that way, giving a soldier—black from smoke and alcohol—an offhand greeting. The guy waves back at Peter without looking in his direction, says something, continues talking, and nods; it’s as though he’s having a conversation with an invisible person. Peter has already crossed the room and plopped down in a plastic chair. Pasha takes a seat next to him. Fish and alcohol in plastic cups instantly materialize. Peter grabs his disposable cup, toasts carelessly with someone at the next table, lifts it to his mouth, and disposes of the alcohol. Or appears to . . . the cup in his buoyant hand is still full. He dumps its contents out under the table, onto the cold stone floor, with one inconspicuous movement, then produces a small brown leather flask from an inconspicuous pocket, unscrews the cap, and pours himself a drink more to his liking, without bothering to offer Pasha any. Pasha bends forward to grab a cup with his lips, empties bitter, burning fluid into his body, and then coughs violently; somebody basically shoves a piece of fish in his mouth, and he starts chomping on it to cover up the taste of local knock-off booze with the deathly smell of fish. Peter looks at all this with tenacious, attentive disgust, although it’s unclear what disgusts him, Pasha or the fish. Nevertheless, Peter soon regains his composure, smiles, yells something into the crowd, answers somebody’s question, comments on a conversation going on at the next table, sips his drink, and starts grilling Pasha.

  “What do you do?” he asks.

  Pasha hesitates, unsure of what language to use. Eventually, he answers in Russian.

  “I’m a teacher.”

  “Gotcha,” Peter says with a chuckle.

  He reaches into his pocket, takes out two packs of cigarettes in succession, the first unopened (the cheap, strong ones), the second already going (the light ones with almost no nicotine in them). He puts the cheap ones back in his pocket, takes out two lights, and offers one to Pasha, who turns him down, so he assiduously tucks the extra back into the open pack, sticks the other one offhandedly in his mouth, takes a brand-new Zippo out of an inconspicuous pocket, flicks it smoothly with his thumb, places it back in his pocket, and takes a drag. He winces painfully, as if he’s smoking homegrown tobacco.

  “So where are your students?” Peter asks, blowing smoke, which makes his voice sound hoarse and confidential.

  “On break,” Pasha answers.

  Peter nods eagerly.

  “Gotcha,” he says again. “On break . . . People only go to school so they can go on break. I’d always go fishing with my old man.”

  “In a river?” Pasha asks.

  “Nah, in the ocean.”

  “What ocean?”

  “The Pacific.”

  Pasha isn’t sure what to say next.

  “Where were you planning on going?” Peter asks.

  “Into the city.” Pasha squirms in his chair. Peter’s tone is so friendly that you immediately start to distrust him.

  “Gotcha. Got things to do?”

  “Yep,” Pasha replies after a moment’s thought. “My nephew’s staying at the orphanage. I want to take him home . . . for his week off.”

  “Seems you have every day off around here.”

  Pasha doesn’t care to respond to that.

  “Guess I’ll pick him up some other time,” he says after a short pause.

  “Gotcha. That’ll be about two months from now.”

  “Huh? Two months?”

  “Well, they’ll have to establish a new front line and set up new checkpoints, that’ll be about two months. Why didn’t you pick him up earlier, right at the beginning of break? Don’t you read the news?”

  “I don’t,” Pasha admits.

  “I don’t either. I write it,” he adds, takes an artificially short pause, chuckles, and blows tobacco smoke all over the place.

  “What should I do?” Pasha clearly has no idea. “He has some health problems. I’m scared something’ll happen to him.”

  “Go pick him up now,” Peter suggests, still smiling. “It’ll take them a few days to move on out.” He points at the soldiers around them. “You’ll be the least of their concerns. The city’s changing hands. Who knows what’ll happen to the orphanage. The new government,” he nods in the direction from which he supposes the new government is coming, “won’t be messing around with orphanages. After your boys pull out, they’re gonna clean house.”

  “Your boys” rubs Pasha the wrong way, but he refrains from getting into it with Peter.

  “There’s shelling over there, yeah?” Pasha conjectures.

  “There sure is! I wouldn’t want to spend my break getting shelled.”

  Pasha’s mind is racing feverishly. He can’t come up with anything better than calling his old man. He produces his cheap Nokia, starts dialing.

  “Two months. Then you’ll have service again,” Peter comments. “That’s if your government gets on it.” Once again, he emphasizes the word your. “They haven’t been trying all that hard so far.”

  Pasha looks at his screen—no bars. Everything was fine last night, though.

  “They’ve got jammers, you know? So your boys,” Peter motions to the area around him, “won’t know what’s going on. Nobody knows anything and nobody trusts anybody. We’re back in the Middle Ages,” he adds, and fastidiously stubs out his half-smoked cigarette in a make
shift beer-can ashtray. “Do you teach history?” He scrutinizes Pasha.

  “Nah,” Pasha answers.

  “That’s a good thing,” Peter says, praising him for some reason. “Teaching history in your country is like going fishin’, you never know what you’re gonna pull out. I appreciate the way you love history in these parts, though,” Peter says, taking out another cigarette, flicking the lighter, and blowing some more smoke up at the ceiling. “Keep picking, keep digging around. Good work. Keep it up. You know what advice I’d like to give you?” Peter continues, kicking back in his chair and clamping his cigarette between two fingers. As he’s listening to him, Pasha spots four soldiers barging into the room—their faces particularly dark, their movements heavy and anxious. Their eyes, red with anger and smoke, scan the room with exacting precision and unerringly pick out the two civilians. They head in their direction, weaving through the tables. Their relentless movement is felt throughout the room, and the conversations hush; everyone’s eyes follow the four men moving toward their table. Everyone’s tense and dead still. Everyone except Peter, so consumed with his pontificating that he’s completely oblivious, sitting with his back to the room, considering Pasha through strands of smoke, and inserting such serious pauses that you’d think he was listening raptly to his own voice. “I’d encourage you to be careful about your history. You know, history’s one of those things . . .” He goes quiet for a second, seemingly groping for some fresh insight. Suddenly, he takes note of the silence now prevailing in the room and stares at Pasha, transfixed—Pasha can’t seem to figure out why. Suddenly, it dawns on him that Peter’s looking into his glasses, seeing the reflection of those four bearing down on him. Panic scampers across his face. The corner of his mouth jerks up, and his spasmodic desire to turn around makes a vein in his neck twitch, but he composes himself and takes another drag—it’s a nervous drag, though—releases a neat puff of smoke, and finishes his thought: “. . . one of those things nobody has the right to take away from you!”