Mortal Happiness: Chapter Fourteen

From his position behind the water cistern Jones watched Krasin step out of the shadows and block the way between the woman and the door. For a few seconds there was silence, then she screamed, ‘Russian! Russian!’

Who was she calling ‘Russian’ Jones wondered? As the sound choked off, a babushka filled the doorway blocking light and shrieking, shrieking, shrieking at Krasin, who threw the younger one to the men who had joined him in the yard. With three steps he was on the old one, hitting her around the head with his weapon until there was a crunching sound.

Breathing hard into the sudden silence Krasin said, ‘Gligorov keep watch. The rest of you, do what you want with that one …’ pointing, Jones thought, to the younger woman. ‘I’m looking around.’

Jones shrank further behind the cistern as Krasin headed for the outbuildings and on round to what Jones guessed was the front of the house. From this position it was too dark to see more than shapes moving around the young woman, except at the points where they caught the light from the house and became men again. He moved closer without leaving the shadow of the water tank and turned on the night-sight, action suddenly clear and sharp on the camera’s tiny screen. His finger moved automatically over the button but didn’t press it. The old woman lay silent and motionless. The other one had stopped screaming and made low sounds now, like an injured animal.

Someone said, ‘She says she’s Russian, but she doesn’t smell Russian … more like a stinking Svan. Can’t you smell goat?

Someone else laughed at that and Jones watched as the speaker put his hand up under the woman’s skirt. ‘She’s pissed herself. Filthy sow!’

Never, recognisable by the way his shoulders hunched, said, ‘Leave the woman alone. That’s an order!’

Another voice, maybe Gligorov’s, said, ‘We’ve already had our orders, Sir. We’re doing just like the Sergeant said.’

Never retreated and walked to the edge of the trees on the opposite side of the yard to Jones.

Jones lowered the camera and rubbed his eyes. He rested his head against the cold metal of the tank; tiny splashes resounded in its dim, separate world. He felt tired and sick and the urge to lie down was suddenly very strong. He wondered vaguely if there were only women in this place.

Then he heard a new sound, slight but clear. Expecting Krasin he looked around cautiously, seeing nothing, though the sound grew louder. He moved quietly, dodging branches until he had a clear view beyond the sheds to the other side of the house. Five metres away, on the edge of the trees, the ground moved and pale tentacles rose out of the dirt. Fascinated, he turned on the camera’s infra-red vision and watched the ground lift, scattering fallen leaves and pine needles.

For a moment he was paralysed with fear, his whole body trembling as years of hauntings, filled with the lipless, bloodless living dead, swept towards him. His mouth opened and he covered it with his hands to stop the scream that was almost out. Then white hands and a head of long, dark hair appeared, followed by a woman’s slender, upper body and a very large gun. He almost wept with relief; the dead didn’t need guns to commit their crimes. Then he grinned. Krasin hadn’t planned for this.

The woman moved slowly and carefully around the side of the building until she was in the yard. The shattering roar of the gun was followed by a man’s screams. Transfixed, Jones watched through the lens as the woman swiftly reloaded, then spoke. No one responded.

‘Do it!’ she shouted in Russian, her voice echoing and he watched the men back slowly away leaving their guns on the ground.

He felt a strange sense of elation, similar he realised to the feeling he’d had as a child watching a gazelle escape the clutches of lion or a crocodile on TV. Then he remembered that his own position was not only humiliating, pathetic even, but dangerous. He saw himself stepping out from behind the water tank, hands raised, confessing, ‘Don’t shoot me I was only watching’, and had to stifle an hysterical laugh.

She moved again, levelling the gun. If he blinked, she might vanish as strangely as she’d appeared.

‘Now!’ she yelled, louder this time, and he saw them drag Gligorov, who looked dead and the other one who was still groaning, away from the woman lying on the ground. They were backing out of the yard, hovering at the tree-line almost at the edge of his field of vision. They weren’t running away as the woman with the gun seemed to expect. Jones guessed they were waiting for Krasin to produce a magic trick out of the darkness.

She walked forward and touched the woman lying in the middle of the yard, legs splayed and twisted. Intent on what was happening through the lens Jones didn’t see Krasin until the man was almost close enough to touch. With his back to the water tank the Sergeant surveyed the scene in the yard then moved forward following the woman’s footsteps.

‘Go’, she said to the men, ‘Go, or I will kill you.’ Then she approached the other woman – her mother maybe? By the light from the open door he watched her free hand move rapidly and with assurance over the old one’s head and neck. Krasin was now only four paces away from her.

Mouth dry, Jones continued to stare at the screen. Break a twig, he willed Krasin; kick a stone, trip. For the second time in just a few minutes he was overwhelmed with the desire to call out, to warn this woman as he’d wanted to warn the other. He wanted to shout ‘Behind You!’, but watching the scene play out on the tiny square of light in his hands he felt paralysed by unreality, immobile as the cistern beside him.

She turned too late. Krasin hit her, a sharp, single blow between the shoulder blades then he grabbed her head and started to wind the long hair around her neck.

Jones lowered the camera, his face and arms stiff with tension. Without the little screen the night seemed darker and more obscure. He felt as if he had wandered into a monstrous pantomime where reality had ceased to exist, except that it was happening right now, in front of him. The nausea returned and his legs felt boneless. He knew he should go forward get a better view and take some shots, but he couldn’t move.

Someone said, ‘Gligorov is dead, Sergeant.’ Jones pictured a tall, thin man laughing beside the fire back at camp. The same man, he told himself who just attacked two defenceless women.

For the second time a tableau formed in the yard, with a struggling woman at the heart of it. There was a sudden, violent movement and Krasin grunted and rolled backwards out of the knot of bodies. He got up, cursing and Jones heard the sound of flesh struck repeatedly. On the far said of the yard Never was looking around as if listening for something, as if not seeing what his comrades were doing, not even when the woman writhed and screamed with a sound so gut wrenching that Jones had to stop himself from screaming in return.

Krasin said, ‘Hold her legs up,’ and the screaming intensified until it reached an inhuman howl that cut off abruptly.

Jones’ hands moved involuntarily to the camera but he couldn’t lift it. Tears ran down his face and into his open mouth. He hardly noticed the first gunshots. Only when the knot of men split apart in panic did he realise that they, that he, was under attack. Then Never grabbed his arm, hissing, ‘We’ll cut around back to the gorge. Move!’ and they were edging along wooden walls, away from the gunfire echoing beyond the building. Krasin’s voice rose above the confusion yelling orders.

Jones ran blindly after Never who was near invisible in the darkness. Reaching his side he whispered, ‘What about the others?’

‘What others?’ Never said, grasping Jones’ wrist and pulling him quickly towards the safety of the trees.