***
An hour later, wisely clean shaven, Simonov rapped hard on the door of Suslov’s quarters, such as they were: just an alcove in what had once been an office. There was room enough for his cot and some shelves, enough empty floor space to stretch out, and a door for privacy.
Suslov lay on his cot, trying to read, occasionally adjusting the purring cat who kept him from reading, and pondering how Olivia had impacted his schedule. He had small groups all over Chechnya, plus Dagestan and Ingushetia. He had noticed that he tended, whenever possible, to coordinate his visits to any given location with Doctor Tolchinskaya. He liked her presence. She was calm. His men were safer for her, and that made her very comforting for him to be around. Now, in addition to her audio/infrared sensors, Doctor Tolchinskaya had begun to develop aerial drones capable of quick-response, small-scale photo reconnaissance. It was crude, still more of what she called a line of thought than any proper research and development effort, but so very much better than what they had. The men had come to think of her as a miracle worker and Suslov had to remind them and himself that some miracles took longer than others.
He liked, whenever he could, to watch Olivia and Malinovsky sparring. An odd sensation, seeing two people for whom he cared very much, hit each other in serious play. Wistfully, not jealously, he envied them the ferocious clarity of their relationship. His own feelings for the woman had become both very simple and, given the present impossibility of any decent way of discovering if she might return them, complex. So he simply enjoyed her presence as he could.
He’d had a long day, most of it taken up by arguing about pay with a higher-echelon finance officer, finally shaking loose some back pay for the men. Food was not such a problem. The brigade usually had it and the men could sell it. This was normally a very bad idea in any unit Suslov commanded. But he understood why it sometimes had to happen. In any event, it wasn’t like what the higher-ups did with the brigade’s pay: putting it out at interest while inflation soared, making private fortunes, then releasing it to the men after it had lost much of its value. And then the bosses wondered why the soldiers wouldn’t fight, as if sane men fought for those who held them in such low regard while profiteering off their misery.
At least I’m not married, he thought. At least I don’t have children to worry about. He’d never thought there would come a day when he’d be grateful to be divorced and childless, but that day had come. It was a day due not to American military might, but to American economic advice and to the thuggish Russian understanding of private enterprise. He’d been indoctrinated as a Communist and had been proud to call himself one. He had also been extremely aware of the shortcomings of Communism and like most Airborne officers felt quite free to express his opinions in ways that would have horrified any member of the intelligentsia, conformist or dissident. But he’d come to the conclusion that capitalism, at least as Americans preached for Russians to adopt it, was just another way to impoverish and humiliate his country. What he could not understand was why Russians were participating in it. Especially Russians with more money than they would ever need. Doing so at the expense of Russians struggling to stay alive.
“Kombrig?”
He abandoned his thought, tossed aside the novel and, more gently, the cat. Mashka, a grey and brown tabby female, was a goodly cat. She slept on his pillow when he was gone, and usually beside but sometimes on top of him when he was there. More than once he had woken in the night to hear her purring away, watching him protectively and affectionately. Lately, she had taken to bringing him gifts that he did not eat.
“Good evening, Konstantin Eduardovich.”
“Sir.” He paused.
Suslov looked at his warrant officer closely. “What troubles you, son?”
“Our American.” He paused. “She knows, she has some idea what is being done to the prisoner and it distresses her.”
“How do you know this?”
“We were walking back to our quarters when the screams began.”
“Has she said anything?”
“Not a word. She has no authority and she knows it. But it is obvious.”
“How is it obvious?”
“I escorted her to her room. The screaming was quite audible. I sensed her distress…. Kombrig…we drove through an ambush this morning. She killed a man. Her first. She is still coming to terms with that. This is not helping her.”
Now that he paid attention, Suslov could hear the man screaming in the cellar beneath them. How it could be, he wondered with a wonderment that had begun in Afghanistan and would never end, that the really horrible thing about combat was not what you did. Survival was survival and he’d never had much use for the high moral standards of those who risked nothing. The true horror was what you became inured to, and what that coarsening made possible. He’d made his peace with that long ago. Indifference to the sufferings of others could be dealt with by a combination of discipline and pride in themselves and their officers…and by having such as Kristinich available. What the men felt was their own affair. What they did was his affair. But he had no such authority over Olivia. All he had to help her over this moment was himself.
“Thank you, Warrant Officer Simonov. I commend you and your men for protecting Doctor Tolchinskaya.”
“She protects us, Kombrig.”
“Yes. She does. I will tend to her now.”
Ten minutes later, Suslov knocked on the door to Olivia’s quarters, a room even smaller than his own that at least afforded her some degree of privacy. The woman who opened the door was drawn, her eyes haunted, and he realized that her privacy had been a mistake. It had imposed upon her a degree of isolation no man in the brigade had to endure. At the beginning, it had been necessary. But no longer.
“I can hear quite clearly,” she said at last. “I have been listening for some time.”
“I know. Warrant Officer Simonov told me that you are in some distress tonight from recent events as well as,” he shrugged. “The present situation.”
“It was kind of him to do so.”
“He did so because he cares about you,” Suslov answered sharply. “Do not blame him. Also, please do not blame me for invading your privacy.” Privacy was an American concept that he nevertheless understood. “Under ordinary circumstances, I would ask you if you wished me to leave. But these are not ordinary circumstances, things that can be put off until another day.”
“I can hear that.”
“Yes. Now you must also see it. Doctor Tolchinskaya, I would like you to witness this interrogation.”
“Why?”
The word was a challenge, not a calm and simple question. Suslov suddenly found it hard to speak to her. He was furious with himself for condemning her to isolation, furious with himself for not realizing that all this would inevitably catch up with her and furious with himself for making this plan to deal with it. But none of the words he’d ever used with his soldiers now seemed to avail. He examined her face and eyes closely for defiance. There was none. It was an honest question. But it was still a challenge. “So you know that as bad it is, it is not as bad as you think. You’ve already learned that lesson once today. I am sorry that you must learn it again so soon. But we do not always have the luxury of setting our own schedules in these matters.”
“I do not really have a choice, do I?”
“No. Out of respect for you, I am speaking courteously, but this is actually an order. Please follow me.” He did not look back. Underneath the screams, he could hear the faint awkwardness of her stride. They descended into the cellar. It was predictably dank and hideous. She felt as if she were in some awful movie whose awfulness was based on a deliberately inept combination of banality and evil. The banality of evil. She’d encountered that phrase before. Where? Oh, yes. A book she’d read in college. No time to remember the title now. Time to live it.
They walked. Outside another doorway, he halted and turned to her. “You must be silent until we leave.” His voice was absolu
tely level. Out of a sense of mercy, he took her arm just above her elbow in a firm grip. He felt her flinch from his touch, but she did not resist.
They went in quietly and were not noticed. She didn’t know what she’d expected. Kristinich, burning holes in people. Kristinich, cutting off the prisoner’s fingers one at a time. Last winter, such behavior by the Chechens had been unheard of. But that was no longer the case. She’d personally seen the body of one Russian they’d practiced on. Often, the Russians repaid the debt in full. Any captive would do. Heating bayonets until they glowed, then cutting people open, seemed to be a favorite in the nearby motorized rifle regiment. This, by contrast, was almost decent.
Olivia looked. Across the cellar from them, one man was bound securely to a heavy wooden chair, wired up to an old hand-cranked field telephone, specially adapted for the purpose by the addition of a small transformer. The Chechen was struggling not to scream, then screaming. The conscript medic, whose job it was to work the field telephone while not doing any damage, seemed in almost as much anguish as the prisoner he was condemned to torment, then patch up. Major Malinovsky—Brother Vladimir—was pacing, his skin and uniform barely containing a physical rage that was a terrifying contrast to his meditative peace in the boxing ring. At a nearby desk with a tape recorder, notepad, and reference files, under a bulb rigged to expose the prisoner’s face while shadowing the rest of the cellar room, Kristinich slouched in what seemed to be the FSB’s uniform of jeans, black sweater, and black leather jacket. After a few seconds, Malinovsky lifted his hand, a signal Kristinich dared not disregard. There was silence, except for the prisoner’s panting. In the silence, the same voice Olivia knew from sparring with Malinovsky, the clear, even tenor telling her how to move and how and when to hit, said to the prisoner: “You are very brave and I salute you. But you have no choice. You will not be permitted to die or even lose consciousness.”
No answer.
“Major Malinovsky needs to discuss your contacts, money, arms, and weapons caches,” Kristinich said from the desk. The Chechen said nothing. “I need to discuss certain political matters.”
No answer.
“Increase the voltage, Private.”
“Sir, that much voltage and he may tear muscles or break bones.”
“Good.” A soft, leisurely word.
Instinctively, the young private turned to Malinovsky.
“Danger of a heart attack, Medic?”
“No, Comrade Major,” the conscript said angrily. “Not even close.”
Electricity was relatively clean. If you were halfway competent, there was little risk of doing serious harm. And when it was over, it was over, which gave the source an enormous incentive to cooperate. Increasing the voltage so that the Chechen actually broke bones against his bonds and the chair—Malinovsky now understood why Kristinich had been so particular about how the man was secured—negated both those advantages.
“Inspect him now.”
The medic complied. “No broken bones. No torn muscles.”
“Then take him close to it, Private,” Kristinich said sharply.
After a few seconds, Malinovsky nodded.
Lack of viciousness did not mean mercy, Medic Tarasov belatedly understood.
It began again. Hideous, Malinovsky thought. Kristinich sensed his disgust and decided to play with it. “We are both majors. Not enough rank to draw too much attention, but enough to have some fun. He will be killed anyway, so what does it matter how he gets there?” A sardonic, seductive voice with its own diseased logic.
Malinovsky was trapped. He had his colonel’s orders to keep it from degenerating into pure sadism. He had Kristinich before him, using the Chechen’s torment to manipulate and humiliate him. And there was the Chechen in the chair, who had been too pious a Muslim to commit suicide. Russians did that, not Chechens. Any reasonable person would have, but when had anyone ever been able to describe the Chechens as reasonable?
Malinovsky decided to act. He walked to Kristinich, stood behind him, then sank his fingers into Kristinich’s shoulder, driving them hard to bone. Kristinich became aware of the pressure, then the pain. Still watching the Chechen, he squirmed in Malinovsky’s grip but dared not tell him to stop or turn to confront him. From his breathing, Malinovsky knew he was hurting him without coming anywhere close to tearing skin and muscle. Good. A small taste of what you like to watch.
“Pretend you are a professional,” Kristinich sneered, “even if you are a…”
“A Jew?” Malinovsky now began to manipulate the bones. “Indeed I am, Major Kristinich. That is why I am doing this. It’s my way of letting you know when you become unprofessional.” He relaxed his grasp a moment. Kristinich sagged. “So, Major,” Malinovsky went on. “Every time you turn on the voltage, my Jew fingers will dig into your bones. Every time you increase the voltage, my Jew fingers will increase the pressure. If any of the Chechen’s bones are broken, well, as the God of the Jews, who is also the God of the Christians, commands us, ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth…bone for bone.’”
Kristinich shuddered, nauseous from the pain Malinovsky was inflicting. The screaming continued. Malinovsky went on. “Now, Major, should you wish to remove my inconvenience to your activities, you may either confront me physically or you may terminate the electrocution long enough to permit me to ask some questions.”
Kristinich signaled to the medic to stop. The Chechen sagged, exhausted and limp in his bonds, breathing hoarsely. Malinovsky released Kristinich and went to the prisoner. “I’m going to give you a minute to rest. Then I’m going to ask you one question. If you answer well, I will ask others. If you do not answer, or answer poorly, this will continue. The choice is yours. We will repeat the procedure, fifteen seconds of electricity, one minute to rest, one question, until we reach whatever ending we reach. You do understand that the rest intervals will simply make the next shocks worse. My first question is simple. What is your name?”
No answer. Malinovsky returned to stand behind Kristinich and placed one hand on his shoulder. “When I squeeze down on your shoulder, Major, you may order the medic to begin. When I release, you may order the medic to stop. The pressure will not be great, unless we find ourselves in some sort of disagreement.”
Kristinich nodded. It began. Malinovsky moved a bit to one side so that he could see Kristinich’s face. What he saw on it, he had seen before, and Malinovsky wished he could dismiss it as sexual. But it wasn’t. It was the emptiness of watching another’s suffering, of causing another’s sufferings, and feeling nothing oneself, and taking pleasure in that. It was more than impotence taking pleasure in degradation. It was emptiness exalting itself. And Malinovsky understood what a rabbi had once told him. The Jewish Gehenna wasn’t the Christian Hell of everlasting physical torment. It was the total absence of God. Malinovsky had no use for a God, any god, who would permit these things to happen, even encourage and demand them. But he’d understood about Gehenna as being thrown into an emptiness that tormented humanity by proclaiming, For you, there is nothing else. Perhaps the god who’d created Gehenna, or who gave Jews to understand that such a place might exist…perhaps that god was some sort of Kristinich himself. Who enjoyed watching.
Malinovsky banished the thought and released his grip. Kristinich signaled the medic to stop, then inspect the prisoner. Then Malinovsky walked to the Chechen.
“Aslambek Baisultanov, you are a bomb maker and a very good one. You have been in and out of Chechnya. Major Kristinich will now recite your recent itinerary.”
Kristinich read off a series of names, dates and places. Kizlyar and Makhachkala in bordering Dagestan were frequently mentioned, but so also were Sochi on the Black Sea, Rostov, Novorossiysk and Volgograd, or Stalingrad, all in Russia proper. The Chechen mafia network, linked into Russian organized crime, Malinovsky could guess: a great deal of effort, of real work, had gone into obtaining that information, he knew. “I would like to know more about your caches and contacts.”
; Silence once more. And once more, it began. Baisultanov shrieked. The medic operated his equipment in a trance. Malinovsky guessed the lad had shut his mind down to the absolute minimum. So had the man he was ordered to torture. As the interval ended, Malinovsky took a cup of tea, crouched down before the Chechen, held the mug to his bloody, bitten lips, let him drink. “I have said before, you are very brave. I say this, one fighting man to another. But courage here is worth nothing but pain.”
The Chechen drank. “We would do worse to you, Jew, and much worse to that Russian dog.” A whisper now, the defiance almost gone.
“Insha’Allah, I learned in Afghanistan not to be taken prisoner. Give him what he wants and we can end this horror.”
“So, will you now discuss caches and contacts with me?” Kristinich’s intelligent, interested voice, a voice Malinovsky knew would be in his nightmares until he died, nightmares he knew would make him miss his old, violent dreams from Afghanistan.
Involuntarily, the Chechen looked to Malinovsky’s battered boxer’s face. Malinovsky nodded. “Yes.” A whisper. Then, “Thank you. Jew.”
Malinovsky nodded, then stepped away. He heard Kristinich, now all professional, say to the Chechen, “It is important to be accurate and honest.”
In the shadows, Suslov could feel Olivia shaking in his grip. Malinovsky and Kristinich noticed their presence. Malinovsky felt an accession of shame. Kristinich observed them for a moment, then turned away, pleased. Olivia trembled with the knowledge that, what he was doing to the Chechen so indifferently, he would have no problem doing to her. The greatest evil, the one that makes the others possible…she put the thought aside. Then it returned to her, unbidden. The evil that makes the others possible is the unendurable knowledge of one’s own emptiness, and of the fact that others were not. She wondered briefly whether what was said of greatness was also true of emptiness. Some are born that way. Others aspire to it. Others have emptiness thrust upon them.
Silently, Suslov took Olivia back to his own quarters. He wanted to say something kind to her, to touch her gently. He dared not. He knew that if he now offered her anything remotely romantic, she would never forgive him. She would regard it as an unspeakable betrayal of the thing that was between them, whatever that was, and she would be right.
He poured them both a measure of vodka. Officially, conscripts in the Russian Army were not allowed to drink alcohol. Unofficially, there was endless alcohol. If you were wise, you used it to disinfect yourself internally and ease psychological distress while understanding there was not enough alcohol in the world to numb you out, and that alcohol and weapons were not generally a good combination. “Drink this.” She did as she was told, coughing hard as the unaccustomed liquor went down. “You are free to speak.”
She shook her head, opened her mouth to speak. She shook her head again, and he realized she was struggling for coherence.
He poured her a second measure of vodka. “Drink this, too.”
She took a deep swallow. “Colonel, how can you allow this?” Then she stopped. The vodka was having a mercifully numbing effect.
“Before I answer you, I must ask you a question.”
“What is it?”
“What do you think of the actions of Major Malinovsky?”
Carefully, she backed up to a wall and let herself slide down it until she ended up sitting on the floor. She did not, however, spill a drop of what remained in her glass. “I…I honestly do not know what to think. I know all the proper words that some people…I mean the kind who get their moral stature berating others…I mean…I don’t know what I mean.”
Suslov folded himself up neatly and gracefully to sit on the floor beside her, looked at her out of the corner of his eye, sidelong and wise as a stallion. “I do not want prisoners taken unless they are needed for interrogation. When that is over, we shoot them. I will tell you why.” He did not pour a second measure for himself. He needed to be sober as he ticked off the points on his fingers.
“One. I am committed to winning this war. This is why I did not tender my resignation a year ago. Many officers did, including some of my friends. The commander and the entire senior staff of the Northern Caucasus military district were sacked for their opposition to this war, and many officers left quietly on their own. I honestly sympathized with them and respected their choices because this is a filthy war that is already worse, but they were wrong. They abandoned their troops rather than fight a necessary war that Russia has to win. We need the resources, the water access, and the land routes over the Caucasus and into the Middle East under reliable, which is to say Russian, control. And frankly, the Caucasus is Russia, has been for centuries. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I’ve heard the similar things from officers who stayed in the American Army during Vietnam, though they knew how wrong the war was. I believe they deluded themselves.”
“They did. If Vietnam had been one of your states, it would not have been a delusion. This is where we live. We have nowhere else to go. We cannot afford to delude ourselves. My second point. I control how prisoners are treated only while I have physical custody of them. Prisoners are a pain in the ass to handle, but if I knew they would be treated with mercy and dignity after we turned them over, we would take many more than we do. The worst thing you can do for enemy morale is to make sure the enemy knows that they may expect humane and dignified treatment if captured. I see no point in evacuating prisoners to be tortured and raped, and then killed slowly for amusement, or released for money, so they can spend the rest of their lives avenging what was done to them. I certainly will not risk the lives of my soldiers for such an end. Of course, the Russians who are allowed to do such things to other human beings will take their memories home, where they will relieve their distress not on their commanders, who betrayed them by refusing to demand humane and disciplined conduct, but on people who are blameless. So you see, it prevents some very serious problems to simply refuse to take many prisoners, and to quickly kill those we do take when we are done.”
Olivia nodded, unwillingly.
“Three. I am responsible for providing accurate, timely information to our main force units. I have the normal responsibilities of any commander to my own soldiers and their families, but I am also responsible to the soldiers and the families of the commanders I support. And to Chechen civilians. If I fail in my responsibilities, innocent people die needlessly. I have no control over Major Kristinich and I find him an abomination, but he has his own mission and his own organization. I can limit him to prisoners who will not talk to my officers or me, even with the assistance of the methods I am willing to apply, although he really does not care whom he tortures. I would probably make him as happy as any Chechen. You certainly would. His real value is in encouraging other prisoners to cooperate. He also provides a splendid warning to my men as to what they’ll turn into if they indulge his habits.”
The vodka had hit Olivia full force on an empty stomach, taking the anger and the disgust out of her, along with most of what remained of her strength. What was left was simply sorrow and a shaking fear. “Is what I saw really necessary?”
Suslov answered her gently. “I was told you were badly hurt in an airplane crash caused by a student who chose a final approach to give you a demonstration of his epilepsy, which he had not bothered to mention before. Nevertheless, you evacuated him because you did not want him to burn to death. In the process, you did yourself further serious damage. This is correct?” She nodded. “A lifetime of pain, your pain, was the value you assigned to the life of one not particularly good human being. Now, you have been in and out of this brigade for half a year. You owe your life many times over to Warrant Officer Simonov and your security team, and I think no one has insulted or abused you.”
“No, I have been treated with nothing but courtesy and even kindness.”
“So now let us assume I am a Chechen intelligence officer and you are my prisoner. Are you going to tell me what I want to know, what I need t
o know to keep my people alive? And if you refuse, the worst I do is shoot you in the head?”
Silent, Olivia finished her vodka. It was rough but it did what it was supposed to. “Did you learn this in Afghanistan?”
He turned directly to her and she met his eyes. Their faces were centimeters apart. He made no attempt to close the gap, mercifully gave no sign of wanting to. She could see the intricate network of fine lines around his eyes, even the pinpoint scars from the stitches where his face had been sewn back together after one of his wounds. She could also see the human pain behind the professional distance. “My younger brother was killed in Afghanistan. He was not certain he wanted to make a career in the Army. He was a fine soldier, but he also loved biology and geology, and he thought he might want to be a scientist, perhaps a geologist, perhaps a naturalist. He was sorting through those ideas when he was captured alive. The grenade he had saved for himself was defective. His captors first flayed him alive, then disemboweled him. I escorted the remains back in a sealed coffin. After I saw his body, I was glad they were required to seal it.”
Suslov could not say why, exactly, he had told her about Alexander. It certainly wasn’t the vodka talking. He might not drink the way so many Russians did, but he could still drink. Then he realized that in some faint and delicate way, she reminded him of Alexander. He pursued that thought with great care. When Alexander had written of his interests and his ideas, Suslov felt his younger brother could lead him straight into the heart of the world. Doctor Tolchinskaya made him think that he could follow her straight into the workings of the universe. It was no worse a reason—and a far more interesting one—than a large, firm bosom to find a woman intriguing.
Olivia watched him compose himself, regain his distance, and look away. As quickly as it had come, the personal moment was gone and she was grateful.
“Many techniques are actually taught to Spetsnaz. I would think your Army’s Special Forces and Rangers, the recon elements of the Marines, teach the same or similar techniques. How much they actually use them…” He shrugged. “We studied your tactics in Vietnam very closely. Individual atrocities were far from the worst of it. You turned your ally of South Vietnam into a single immense field of unexploded ordnance. Ninety percent of all your bombs and nearly all your artillery were used on South Vietnamese soil. Would you have been so generous with your ordnance if you’d been fighting in California?”
“I doubt it. But that is not the issue here.”
“What is the issue?”
“The issue is Kristinich and those who accept him. Kristinich’s crime,” Olivia said through the vodka, “is that he tortures not because he needs to but because he likes to. Your tragedy is that you believe that if you can limit torture to what you or Major Malinovsky define as professional methods to a moral end, you see nothing wrong with it.”
“And what do you think of what Major Malinovsky did tonight?”
“I think,” she said, suddenly intense, “that if torture could be measured by the kilo, tonight you used only two instead of twenty.”
Suslov realized that he had been exceptionally foolish not to have a second measure of vodka, hesitated, then poured for himself. “Tell me, with so many lives at stake, what else would you have me do, Doctor Tolchinskaya? This is not two knightly armies meeting on an empty field. This is trying to separate people who want to kill us from people who do not—and who look and speak and dress identically. While we wear uniforms. The only apparent difference is that the bad Chechens aim weapons at us while the good ones do not. The good and the not so good, amongst whom the bad ones hide, some of whom are hostages and some of whom are quite willing shields and supporters—how are we to know? Chechen clan structure is very difficult for Russians to penetrate and exploit, or even sometimes understand. Sorting this out is not so simple as learning American divisional patches and branch insignia. Yes, for us torture has been for centuries just a way of life, a means to control people, enforce compliance, and impose terror. But I also know of no other tool, professionally used, so effective at producing information within close time constraints if you know what to look for, when you are dealing with tough prisoners who know something and are motivated not to cooperate. It works. Often enough.”
“Comrade Colonel, I am an engineer, not a philosopher. And I know I am disturbing you.”
He inhaled sharply as if he had taken a hard body blow. “It would take one call to have you on a plane back to Moscow.”
“Probably. To do my job to the standards of others, I do not have to be here. Perhaps some of them would even prefer that I not be here.”
“Indeed. The sons and daughters of the generals and the politicians who think this war is a good idea are not here. They let other people’s children die, doing their duty to Mother Russia. So that leaves the professionals, like myself, the conscripts who refuse to dodge the draft, sadists who expect to be paid for their cruelty, and people who think they can actually do something decent here. You are one of them.”
“Perhaps. Would you prefer that I not be here?”
“No.” Spoken as softly and quietly as a weary breath. He wondered what was showing in his eyes. Longing, perhaps. Or something that might be called desire. Love, if love between men and women was not hopelessly confused with sex. Friendship, if you were able to so think of it. Suslov turned to look at her again. Watching his eyes, Olivia realized that he was very remote and detached, and yet also entirely present. He could have told her that that was how she lived: remote and detached, too much of herself buried far down, out of reach of the weak, the petty, the trivial. Now he knew she was returning to life, but in this awful way, in this awful place. “I would rather be blinded than fight in this city without you. But I also do not want you hating yourself for coming to terms with what I do and what you will be helping exploit.” He looked away from her, closed his eyes, listened to her breathing, out of respect for her refusing to want anything from her.
“Then I will go on as I have.”
“Thank you, my friend.” His eyes still closed, he reached out, meaning to touch her lightly where he had gripped her so hard, then let his hand fall to the cement. “How long since you have really slept?”
“As long as I have been here.”
“Tell your medic that you have had a hundred grams of vodka—the daily ration for front line troops during the Great Patriotic War, incidentally. He can adjust sedative dosage so you don’t wake up dead. If at all possible, you should get about twelve hours’ sleep. Tomorrow, you move in with the brigade staff. It was a mistake to separate you like I did. I have been cruel to expect you to go through this alone, rather than with your brothers.”
“Thank you.”
“One final question, if I might.”
“Yes, please.”
“Once again. What do you think of what your boxing instructor did tonight?”
“I think that…I think that he is my brother.”