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(A scene from Grismara)
Tenement blocks rose up into the grey evening sky, their facades a repetition of windows and balconies broken up only by clothes lines and curtains. Vadim knew the way each room smelled (of mildew and sweet mold and cabbage and the tang of sewage pipes that leaked but never really broke). He knew how each one felt inside over the winter when the air was sharply cold in the morning and then humid and heavy as the day progressed and bodies awoke and the stove was left on. He could remember the sounds in each tiny box, the muffled cries of infants and the muffled shouts of men and women arguing or making love mingled into a constant low roar interrupted occasionally by the drone of the elevated rail overhead. The hallways smelled of smoke from pipes and cigarettes and the rich smell of tobacco mingled with the acrid scent of Vacorre which was made in gallon jugs from antifreeze and the insides of small batteries and sometimes exploded violently on the aspirant chemist.
A light snow had begun to fall and it disguised the scraggling grass that grew around rusting playground equipment. For a few sweet hours the snow would hide everything and it would sparkle under the lights of the streetlamps with their curious blue glow. It was snowing back on the military base too, it had begun when Vadim had started his leave and would continue (he suspected) until he went back to his medicâs training.Â
Standing in front of this building he could see himself as a child walking out into the snowfall. There was a blessed time just before dawn where the night time denizens of the courtyard had either left or fallen asleep in alcoves and gutters but before the working men rose in time to get to their construction sites and kitchens. The lights in the tenement windows were out and the world was asleep. There in that silent world a little boy with dark hair and gloves and boots too big for his skinny frame marched into the snow and dreamt of a quiet place and the peacefulness of a countryside he had seen in books and films and once, distant, beyond the edge of the Enclave Wall from a seat on an elevated rail.Â
That same snow would reach the parks in the Enclaveâs centre, falling over fountains and lush grass but it wouldnât cover them. The heating and the lights in those parks kept them safe from winter and made them open greenhouses where it was always springtime. But here by the tenements it was winter and winter was quiet.
âOi fugite, what are you doing around here?â came a boyâs voice. In the next few hours the boys would cede the courtyards to the older men but now they reigned supreme. A pack of five of them in coats that were far too thin for the weather tramped along in a little knot. One held a bottle Vadim recognised as cider, the cheap stuff he had drunk at their age when you only needed a little sip to approach drunkeness and the calm of incipient oblivion.Â
âWhat do you think your friends are going to do, Volodya, kick me to death?â Vadim asked, squinting behind his glasses at the boy in front. He hitched his shoulder up and the rifle on his back clinked audibly against his backpack. Some of the younger boys shied back. The rifle wasnât loaded, it was (in fact) never loaded, but it was just the same to be cautious.
âSure, maybe they will! Thatâs what we do to fugitea isnât it lads?â Volodya (who went by Vladimir with his little friends but never at home) asked. The boys gave a mixed reaction as Volodya was not quite the public speaker he dreamed he was. Violence was a part of life but these boys were too young to dish it out just yet. Vadim tucked his hands in his pockets.Â
âSuit yourselves,â Vadim said and started to walk toward the building.Â
âHey wait! You canât go in there!â Volodya said, running away from the boys and coming up beside Vadim. He was tall enough to reach Vadimâs shoulder now, and Vadim expected his brother might outgrow him someday soon. âPare says youâre not allowed back. He says heâll knock your teeth out if he sees you around.â
âDoes he?â Vadim asked, stopping now.Â
âYeah, because youâre militsiya youâre not one of us anymore,â Volodya said. Vadim felt a sudden pang of guilt for leaving, after all heâd abandoned Volodya to the wolves (or the Big Bad Wolf in this case). Like all of the other boys drinking that bottle of cider Volodya would quit school as soon as he was allowed to work for The Family. He would lay roofs or plaster walls and do a shoddy job of either and then come home to a family heâd started when he was too young to know any better with the first girl heâd ever spoken a full sentence too who wasnât blood related.Â
âI suppose not, but I thought Iâd stop by to see Mare anyway. Then Iâll go and Pare never needs to know I was here. Unless you tell him, but why should you?â Vadim reasoned. They were under the overhang now and there was no snow falling here. âWhat are you? Pareâs little baby? Little Volodya doing whatever Pare tells him to? I thought you were tougher than that.âÂ
âI⌠I guess maybeâŚâÂ
âGo on, stand up straight if youâre going to fight me. You might as well get a few knocks in before I break your nose in front of your boys. Or you tell them you made me give you all the money in my wallet and you buy them some dinner because youâre in charge here, arenât you? Youâre running the courtyard today and you made a call and got something out of it.â Vadim turned slightly, blocking his view from the boys in the courtyard and slipped a few coins out of his pocket. He held them out to Volodya. âWhat if Pare finds out youâve been here?â Volodya asked. He was already taking the coins and pocketing them. âThen you take your knocks if he knocks you,â Vadim said with a shrug. Being here in the doorway made him feel callous and hard. He didnât like it. He was not himself anymore and he wondered which of those selves he even was. âIf heâs in a mood heâll find something just the same.â âSure, alright,â Volodya said. He held out a hand to shake Vadimâs. Vadim took it. âGood to see you, granfrè.â
âGood to see you too, tifrè,â Vadim answered.Â
He went into the hallways and navigated the narrow stairwells where his people huddled in corners and shuddered at the sound of footsteps. He had grown up on stories of travelling Kometya, wanderers and poets and musicians and traders who went freely about the world in luminous wagons and brightly painted ships. Now they were relegated to these concrete blocks and forgotten but they had not forgotten the open road and dreamed of it.
And as Vadim Avinoff opened the door to his motherâs little flat he dreamed of it too.













