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Svetlana Petrovich frowned as she gazed out of the window. She was standing at the top of the stairs, looking out across the expanse of growing crops that dominated a wide valley. Below her the road between the wheat fields was no more than a dirt path, and the wheels of the advancing horse drawn cart skidded along well excavated ruts. "He's here now. I can see him sitting with the driver. I wonder if he's changed much." Turning away from the window she glanced at her younger sister for a moment. "Will he remember us? What will he think of Mama's house? His family are so rich, not just kulaks like we are."
"We shouldn't have to worry about what he thinks." Katerina told her. "He'll have to take us as he finds us. He should be grateful Mama is taking him in."
Svetlana agreed. "It made me think how lucky we are, things don't affect us here as they do in the cities. Poor cousin Konstantin's life is ruined." She turned to the stairs. "Let's go and meet him. I do hope he keeps his temper when he discovers what Mama has decided." Katerina looked instantly contrite. More gently than previously, she said. "He must agree. It's sensible and could save his life."
Downstairs at the front of the house Madam Petrovich stood in her navy wool dress, her hair hard and severely fastened back. She always dressed as if she were going to church. She never wore a pinafore or even an old skirt. But then of course she never did any work. She watched as the gnarled old carrier-cart driver came in with two suitcases, one in each hand, standing in his way and fussing to make sure he didn't scrape them against the walls. It was a big thing she had taken on. To protect her sister's son.
Behind the carter, Konstantin Golovina, a pale faced, slim boy, stood rooted to the spot in the doorway as he surveyed the aunt he hadn't laid eyes on for the past five years. The woman's face glowed affection. "Konni darling, welcome to Sarocherkassk and welcome to my home. How you've grown. So different from when I last saw you. You will be thirteen or fourteen now."
"I'm fourteen, aunt. And you seem not to have changed at all." he replied with just a hint of haughtiness. Svetlana and Katerina arrived bright-eyed and smiling, stunning raven-haired girls, two cousins whose ages ranged around his own. The younger one was smiling, a pretty face with a small nose, a full mouth, and eyes as black as cherries. Her sister was the exact opposite. Her beauty was cool, not warm. Dark hair, dark eyes and pale skin. Just as attractive in her own way, but with a straight nose and a rather serious expression. They were said to have had a Tartar grandfather.
"Some things have changed though," the older girl assured him, "Mama has some grey hairs now if you look close, and of course dear Papa never returned from the war. He lays buried in the land to the west with two million others."
While Madam Petrovich was paying off the carrier she turned to the woman behind her who was as big as a barrel and whose well established double-chin gave her an amphibious look. "Put the raisin cake and lemonade in the parlour, Lyuba."
It was a surprise, because the parlour was a seldom-used facility. "But it's all laid out in the kitchen where you usually eat." protested the woman loudly.
"Then you must move it. We'll take supper in the kitchen, but I want the raisin cake in the parlour." insisted Madam Petrovich.
"Suit y'self." mumbled Lyuba grudgingly. The big woman waddled away, which allowed the new arrival to lean towards Svetlana. "Who is that hippopotamus? Is she a servant?"
The girl laughed. "That's Lyuba Ocheretka, mothers cook and do-all. She's only been with us three years, so you won't have seen her before. Just an empty-headed peasant with a taste for plum brandy really, but she bakes good raisin cake and when she's sober she churns out excellent kisel and rather magnificent pies with rhubarb or liver. Unfortunately she as little reverence for anyone. Mama only keeps her on out of kindness."
She led the way into a small parlour where a handsome plush couch and a potted plant were the enviable main furnishings.
Madam Petrovich invited everyone to sit, but she herself went over to the mantelpiece. On top of it below the traditional religious icon on the wall stood a large framed studio photograph, now turned sepia; a family group, Madam Petrovich and her husband, their parents and various brothers and sisters, and Svetlana, Katerina and Konstantin when they were much younger. She stared at it. What had everyone been thinking when it was taken? Had any of them guessed the misery that lay so close ahead? Everyone was posed quite rigid and formal. It had been the last time they had all been together, five years earlier in 1914, just before the whole of Europe had gone mad and entered into a crazy war. The European War had ended sometime ago, but the killing hadn't ceased. In Russia there was now Civil War.
"You are lucky Konstantin, to be a member of a large strategically placed family that is well disposed to looking after its own. Your mother, God Bless her soul, will never know the misery and turmoil of life today, but your father does, and he is determined to remain on his estates and preserve them from any Bolshevik gangsters that show a wish to ruin things. It is a dangerous business he undertakes and he believes, correctly I think, that you will be safer with us here."
"Is that why I was pulled out of school so quickly and stuffed onto a train without any explanation?" enquired the new arrival.
She nodded slowly. "Kharkov is too near the fighting to be deemed safe, and it was important to ensure no one knew where you were going. Even good friends can be tricked into divulging secrets. Your father is a boyar, a wealthy land owner, and too many people these days believe that to have wealth is a crime. There are dark forces at work that would wish to track you down and punish you for just being his son."
"I thought things were getting back to normal"
"Far from it, that school you attended as shielded you too keenly. Peace was negotiated with the Germans two years ago, but Russians have been fighting each other ever since. You must have heard of the Whites and the Reds."
"Yes, of course. It always sounds like a tabletop game to me."
"It's not a game, and the situation is often fluid. Mercifully, here we live in a district dominated by the Whites, and they seem content to allow us to carry on as we've always done, but things could change and I believe some subterfuge is called for."
"I'm very grateful for all the trouble you're taking, and of course I'll oblige in any way I can."
Two spots of pink appeared on the cheeks of Madam Petrovich, but she had thought long and hard about the best solution. The community in the valley of Sarocherkassk was close knit and gossip moved fast, and there were certain to be Bolshevik agents in the town awaiting the right time to denounce people. She could count on the claws of a chicken's foot the number of people she could trust, and it wasn't enough, so she had to begin immediately. "No one else knows you're here yet, Konni."
"The carrier who brought me here from the railway station, he knows."
"Old Rubin is illiterate and he had his tongue cut out by the Bulgars years ago, so people don't waste time asking him questions. It's important that no one knows about you being here, because - well, the plan I have is to camouflage your true identity by dressing you as a girl."
"Aunt Nastasya, I protest. Such a thing isn't dignified. Everyone will laugh at me."
She smiled encouragement. "Don't be upset, Konni. Nothing lasts forever in this chaotic world, and no one in this house will laugh at you. And no one outside is going to know."
Later Konni carried an oil lamp up the creaking stairs to the room allotted to him. The home of Madam Petrovich was a two storey dacha of riven timber beneath a big green roof. It was tucked into the bottom of a small hill, L-shaped with a paved yard behind where a water pump stood. The room that he had been given had no bedside table or even a bedspread. A small neat iron bed with a shabby well-washed coverlet had just one lumpy pillow. One of the girls must have vacated the room for him, because on a chest of drawers lay a jumble of necklaces and earrings, coloured stones, dry roses and black and white picture postcards of Odessa, a town on the Black Sea coast. There was a narrow, poky cupboard and a jug and basin as old as the hills, but they were bound to prove useful because there was no running water in the house.
His new home was small and simple -- nicely decorated in an unsophisticated rural fashion, but his real home, his father's home was that of a minor nobleman, a villa with a tower topped by a copula, dating from an ornate agricultural past and steeped in tradition, so it was hardly a fair exchange. He winced with embarrassment. His aunt and his cousins were full of good intentions, but how provincial and old fashioned they were compared with people in the city. He had nothing in common with any of them. Still, he thought as he glanced around, his accommodation was really little different to the shared room he had been given at the residential school he'd recently left behind, and at least it was dry and wind-proof.
Blowing out the lamp he settled slowly back on the pillow. He couldn't judge the merits of what his aunt was asking him to do, or the assumptions she was making, but he was aware of the increasing hostility in some quarters to people born to privilege. School life had insulated him from much of what was happening in the world, but he had heard of the Bolshevik scourge and the danger it presented.
In the morning he found a fresh set of clothes draped over a chair by his bed. They were female clothes. He sighed and let himself flop back onto the pillow behind him, his lower arm over his eyes. Oh why had he allowed himself to be persuaded to participate in this ridiculous farce of dressing up like a girl? What he had agreed to out of politeness the evening before was anathema to him in the light of day. His father was a proud man and would go wild if he knew about it.
Reluctantly he dressed. First the underwear, a camisole and a pair of long draws that reached halfway to his knees and which almost met the black woollen stockings pulled up over his legs. The white blouse was fine, it wasn't too different from a shirt, but then came the biggest dislike; the voluminous petticoats and the long black skirt that swished about the calves of his legs. He sighed in dismay, but finishing by slipping his feet into a pair of box-calf leather boots with pointed toes that needed to be laboriously fastened with buttons.
He went down to breakfast in the kitchen only when he knew the others were awake, and he went with great trepidation. There he was at once greeted by Katerina's criticism. "The skirt is on back to front."
Konni brushed past and gave her a look of haughty superiority. "I prefer it this way round." he replied defiantly.
Katerina cranked up her voice. "BUT IT'S BACK TO FRONT." Her mother was also there, and the girl gazed at her in helplessness. "Mama, do tell him."
Nastasya Petrovich smiled. "There is a small handkerchief pocket in the front, Konni dear. People will notice the oddity if it clings to your backside. Best if you swivel everything round."
Konni felt annoyed as well as embarrassed now, but when Svetlana entered the room she came towards him with a broad smile. "Incredible! she exclaimed. "What an astonishing metamorphosis. No one will ever challenge the fact that..."
"I don't intend to stay dressed like this forever. It's just temporary until...until..." Konni snapped back without waiting for her to finish.
The girl assumed a detached tone. "We all understand that," she replied, "Unfortunately, none of us can know how long temporary may be."
Lyuba, the big bodied servant, grumbled about people getting in the way whilst she was trying to prepare food, but everyone ignored her. "Your hair," put in Svetlana, "Sit on a chair and let me see what I can do with it." Konni was still not in the best of moods. "Do I have to?"
"You didn't mind me doing things with your hair when you last came here." she said.
Irritation sparked in her cousin's eyes. "I was young and foolish then."
"And you're old and smart now, eh?"
"What I am is nothing to do with you." the boy quipped petulantly.
"No?" When she reached out and cupped his face with her hands he was too surprised to react. "Do you want to grow up? Mama is trying her best to preserve you, you silly thing, but she can't do it without your co-operation."
He capitulated, and once he was seated Svetlana stroked his scalp, deliberating for a moment before drawing her fingers through his neatly combed locks. Her fingers held firm and she glared at him until he settled, then raked his hair with a brush of stiff bristles. "You have plenty of hair, but it will be ages before it grows long enough to be adventurous with style."
Katerina's eyes sparkled suddenly. "I have an idea," she said, "When you chopped off your plaits at Christmas Mama cried and then kept them in her dresser. Konni has your colour, so we could pin them up under his own hair."
Soon it was done, the girls congratulating themselves on the skill they'd shown in being able to make everything seem so genuine. Konni smiled nervously, his dark eyes tensely drawn, but when they offered up a hand mirror and he looked to the side, he showed the perfect profile of a young girl framed with two plaits of hair the colour of jet, tied-off with scarlet bows of ribbon.
"You look fine, Konni," Svetlana appraised, "But there is more to being convincing than mere appearance. There's attitude." She took hold of his chin. "Repeat after me...say, `I'm a girl.'"
Konni spluttered. "I'll never agree to say that."
"Don't be so stuffy. This is important. You must get over blushing and grinding your teeth at such things or it will never work. Say it. Say, `my name is Konstantina and I'm a girl.'"
"No."
Svetlana threw up her hands and studied her mother. "This idea is doomed."
"School!" he cried, stricken. His aunt had told Konni of her plan on his second day in her house.
"Of course." she replied, "After some difficulty during the past year Madam Kormilov as started classes again. Only three days in the week to start with, but attending will give the girls and yourself some occupation in the day time. It will also be of benefit for you to mix with others."
He pulled himself together. "I can't go into town dressed like this, wearing a skirt."
The woman clearly had more faith in his transformation than either of her daughters. "That's a foolish notion. You need to be seen in the town in order to be accepted without suspicion. But don't worry, you look so gorgeous no one will ever suspect you're actually a boy." His aunt's words were presented as a dictat not a request, and Konni felt he had run out of options as well as energy.
After they had breakfasted and while the day was still young Konni and his two cousins set off as a group along the track that led towards the small community of Sarocherkassk three miles away. The path was narrow, little more than the width of a cart. It tilted down for a while before burrowing horizontally through the crops of wheat. His father had told him of the immense steppes of land further to the east that stretched from horizon to horizon, and for a little money a man could own large amounts of it. But the soil there was poor, he'd said; mud in wet weather and dust in the dry seasons, good for growing only coarse grass. The soil of the Ukraine was the very best. The Ukraine was renowned as the bread basket of Russia.
The morning had burst gloriously, filled with birdsong and the aroma of ripened wheat on the breeze, and that day the field's glowed golden under on each side beneath a shimmering sky. The day was awash with sunlight, and the heavens seemed high flung, like an upturned bowl of powder blue. "August and September are the best growing times." Svetlana said as they trod the path. "We've had lots of sunshine lately, which as made up for all the rain we had earlier in the year. The wheat is ripe now, perfect for harvesting."
I t was harvest time, and in the fields along the valley scores of people, arms and faces blackened by the sun, were involved in reaping. While the menfolk cut, a task still done with long handled scythes, the women followed behind to gather and tie the felled wheat into sheaves, while behind them the young children carried the sheaves to carts waiting to take a cargo to the threshing sheds. Some youngsters would be employed in the sheds to rake out the chaff and bag it up, a dirty and tiresome task. Everything about harvest involved backbreaking labour that went on relentlessly from dawn until sunset every day until the crops were gathered in, and in a place such as Sarocherkassk it could take a fortnight.
As the son of an affluent landowner who had never been involved with manual labour himself Konni still perceived it as an element of rural living that was traditional and picturesque. "Ah, the peasant-people toiling in the sunshine. They're the backbone of Russia, what a charming picture they make. They remind me of my father's home, he employs scores of them."
Svetlana raised her eyebrows. "Dearest Konni, you've spent so much time in that stuffy school in Kharkov that you've become blinkered to the social structure your father tries so hard to maintain. In the countryside almost everyone is a peasant. Isn't it the same everywhere?"
He smiled. "You're Mama once had the name of Golovina and only lost her status by marrying your Papa. But you and Katerina aren't peasants. You don't work in the fields."
The girl tossed her head. "Fancy that. All your expensive learning and yet you know so little of real life. There are three types of peasant. Poor, middle and kulak. The poor have the minds of docile cattle and own nothing. They have to work for others in order to fill their bellies. Middle class peasants own some land and produce enough for their own needs, but no more, while kulaks like ourselves have plenty and can afford to employ others to do work."
The people who owned houses in the small town were closely bound to the rural structure around them, and at harvest time, hay and husks of grain blown from the fields lay everywhere in the streets. Peasants and townspeople traded goods in an odd kind of classless harmony. Cattle and lumber found their buyers and the craftsmen and shopowners of Sarocherkassk found their customers in the peasants. The schoolroom was in a building on the edge of the town square, directly opposite to the Orthodox church with its onion-shaped cupolas. There was no classroom as such, the pupils merely sat on a row of chairs in front of Madam Kormilov and her chalkboard.
Madam Kormilov, the schoolmistress was a stiffly corseted, anorexic-looking individual of undoubted discernment, taste and talent, but one who rarely smiled or displayed a sense of humour in public. She was around fifty with a thin, elegant face and dark hair trimmed severely at the neck. She had probably done it herself. She was obviously strong and self-reliant as a widow-woman needed to be. Originally the school, a place of education for the children of local families who could afford the fees, had been run by her husband Nikolai, but he had died during the October Revolution two years previously. To her credit she showed a talent for organisation and ran things as well as her husband had ever done, but his sad fate had coloured her view on many things not connected with teaching the young. "We have a new face among us. Stand up and introduce yourself, girl."
On her bidding Konni pushed himself to his feet while rapidly going through the agreed details of his cover story in his head. "My name is Konstantina Petrovich and I come from Nepropetrovsk on the Dnieper. I am cousin to Svetlana and Katerina, and I'm lodging at their home for a while." The ordeal over, he swiftly seated himself with his skirts elegantly spread.
"Hoorah!" shouted a boy further along the row of seats. Madam Kormilov shot him a poisonous look. "Silence, Dmitri Ranchev. If you continue to call out without being asked you'll spend the rest of the morning sitting on the doorstep."
There were no books, pens or pencils in Madam Kormilov's class. All schoolwork was done on slates with a piece of chalk, so there was no way of keeping a record of what each pupil had done. More to the point for Konni, who was academically quite sound, was the fact that everything he did that morning he'd already covered long ago at his school in Kharkov.
Throughout the morning Madam Kormilov's voice droned like a contented harvest bumble-bee. The room was warm and full of harvest smells, and during periods when the schoolmistress left them alone Konni was relieved to find that the girls saw him as convincing in his feminine masquerade. They took him into their company immediately to share in their girlish secrets, so many of which centred on the desirability of the boys there. The boys enjoyed his company too, and he found it strangely thrilling to have them fussing over him and gazing at him with the kind of goofy expressions they are sometimes prone to when trying to impress girls. As a result he couldn't resist the temptation to swish around and offer a coy smile rather more than he'd first intended to do.
A distraction brewed up towards midday with the sound of horse's hooves trampling the road outside, and despite Madam Kormilov's fury there was a general stampede to look out of the windows. "Bozhe moi! Cossack's. A whole troop." exclaimed Dmitri Ranchev when he noted the big fur caps worn by the riders. Konni was surprised. Everyone had told him that soldiers rarely bothered to come to the valley. Sarocherkassk was an unimportant town of no military value that sat astride a dust road that led to nowhere in particular. Important places were best reached by taking other routes. The horsemen were a wild looking bunch clothed in dun-coloured Circassian coats slung across with bandoliers of cartridges. They had clearly been misdirected and had now come to recognise the fact, but even Madam Kormilov seemed uneasy. Those outside were White troops, 'friendlies' in her mind, but it was not unheard of for soldiers to shoot their officers and change sides.
There was a certain tension in the town too, everyone felt it, and it showed on the anxious expressions of the people cagily looking on. Soldiers were always an unknown quantity no matter who they served. Both sides in this latest vicious conflict were incapable of supplying their troops in the field, and it was customary to allow them to subsist by acts of pillage on the civilian population. A few minutes passed, then in an act of appeasement several men and women went out to offer them platters of bread. Better to go hungry themselves that day than tempt the visitors into raiding their houses. The men took the food with cheerful relish, but they must have been part of some kind of urgent movement, for they dallied no longer than to water their horses before mounting up and riding back the way they had come.
Madam Kormilov stood back, arms folded tightly across her bony chest. "Russia is a land that covers one sixth of the world's surface, but it is a land of great sorrow, children. First we had the terrible conflict with other nations in Europe, the Germans and Austrians, and now we have the even sadder business of a Civil War in which Russians fight brother Russians. We are living through turbulent times, but thankfully the end is in sight. The vile Red Army that supports the so-called All-Russia Communist Party is in disarray and contained on all sides by the valiant forces of White Russia. As we speak a great host of military might is being assembled in the east to crush them completely, and within weeks the reactionary Bolshevik rats will go running for their holes. All that will remain then will be the need to dig them out and hit them with a spade."
Konni could see a look of desperation in her eyes, a haunted look as if a tragedy that had once overtaken her was about to catch up with her again -- her husband... "Why can't everyone just come to an understanding?"
"It would be easier to gain an understanding with the devil." the woman seethed, "We cannot make peace with the soviets. It's impossible. They must be annihilated."
School finished in mid-afternoon, and the three cousins left the town and began their journey home. The sun was hot at that time of day, and the air was warm and resinous. As they walked Svetlana offered out her advice. "A little tip about school, Konni. Try not to be the only one to answer all Madam Kormilov's questions. I know you're educated and smart, but answering everything just makes you appear smug. It would be better not to draw attention to yourself. Concentrate on being a nice girl, nice being the exact word. Pretty, respectable and without any outstanding traits."
"Humph! Being a duffer goes against my instincts." he told her. "And anyway, I'm not really a girl."
They had but gone a mile along the dirt road when Katerina glanced behind and then uttered a giggle for the benefit of her sister. "We're being followed."
Svetlana refused to turn her head, but the corners of her mouth turned up and displayed a tiny smile. "Who is it?"
"Dmitri Ranchev and two others." beamed Katerina. "That Mikhail is a sort of nice looking boy." Svetlana grinned rather fiercely. "And Grigory Makhno is one to die for. Let's pause at the bridge and see what they do."
At that point on their journey home there was a small stone bridge spanning a narrow meandering stream, the bridge had a low wall at each side, crumbling now, held together by moss, ivy and good fortune, and the two girls compelled Konni to pull up with them and peer over into the water. In less than a minute the three boys drew up beside them.
"Nice day for a walk, isn't it girls?" the one called Mikhail remarked. Konni couldn't understand what Katerina saw in him. He had a mild case of acne and straggly fair hair that came down over the greasy collar of his jacket.
"You'd think different if you had to walk it every day." said Katerina in a purposely aloof way. "You all live in the other direction, what are you coming this way for?"
"It's a free country."
"Some people would disagree with that."
Grigory Makhno, as thin as a tree frog, moved up beside Svetlana and peered over the bridge. "I say, have you seen the trout in the water down there?"
Svetlana scoffed lightly. "Trout? There are no trout in this stream. My mother's farm workers try for fish here every Sunday after church. They'd tell me if there were trout."
"I was here yesterday and I saw two big brown trout swimming in the shade. Come with me down the bank and I'll show you where." With a laugh of flirtatious amusement Katerina and Svetlana skipped around the end of the bridge and went down to the stream, blissfully towing Mikhail and Grigory behind them.
Konni found himself standing alone with the third boy. Dmitri Ranchev had longish brown hair and a broad face, and he was so self-confident he was certainly conceited. Konni decided that if his head got any bigger he'd need to wear lead boots on a hot day to keep from floating away. The last thing Konstantin Golovina needed these days was a male admirer, he thought, and the very last thing he needed was one who was full of his own self-importance. All the same, when he'd sneaked a look at him earlier in the classroom he was a kind of attractive boy, his eyes were smoky grey, highly quizzical, and quite magnetic.
"Don't you want to see the fish?" Dmitri asked him.
"Yes, of course." He made to follow the others, but the boy took hold of his arm and tugged the other way. "There's no room for everyone in the same place. You and I would be more comfortable going down the other side of the bridge.
When they went down to the stream Konni frowned. "I don't see any fish. I can't see anything beneath all that muddy water."
His companion remained unperturbed. "One needs to be patient when looking for fish, but I understand. I guess it's not the kind of thing pretty girls have much interest in."
Konni's heart jolted. He hadn't expected him to pursue the issue of his girlish appearance, but that's just what he did. "I like your outfit." he said. He moved forward and inspected Konni's oval face, the naked pink of his lips and the warm velvet brown of his eyes. So convinced was he that he was confronting a girl he at once attempted a caress. His knuckles brushed across his neckline, and Konni swallowed hard. A pounding heart rushed the heat of shame into his face. He'd barely been touched, yet his nipples became tight and tingly. He needed his head examined for responding to such cynical abuse.
He drew himself up to his full height. "I don't understand your attitude, and I'm not prepared for... for..." He searched around but couldn't find a suitable description. Instead he took a deep breath. "I won't put up with you pawing me like a puppy dog." He stepped away meaning to leave, but the boy must have moved sideways because they ended up toe-to-toe and he was studying him purposefully. "What are you - don't - don't you dare." He took a quick shallow breath. "You can't -- you can't kiss me.
Dimitri grinned. "Why not?" he asked, skimming a finger across his cheek.
"Because -- because -- you mustn't."
Nevertheless, despite his protest the other boy's mouth descended onto his own, making him swallow anything else he had to say and all his complaints. It skidded over his lips, clamped down and sucked vigorously. Konni felt helpless, his protests fled and he couldn't even remember what they were. Some dim recess registered the soft thump of his shoes on the dusty earth, the rough strength of Dmitri's hands on his shoulders, the brush of his unbuttoned jacket against his belly and the accelerating thud of his own heartbeat. For a moment he managed to concentrate on the taste of frustrated anger - and then he needed to breathe. With his nose hard up against the Dmitri's cheek, he inhaled the scent of his skin, the elemental male smell of a boy. Feeling helpless he uncurled his fingers from the tight fists crushed between their bodies and gripped the youth's jacket, anchoring himself against a sudden weakness in his knees.
His mouth eased it dominant pressure, and for a fleeting moment he savoured a gentled caress, the merest brush of his thumbs on his neck, the fullness of his lips on his own. And then those lips retreated as quickly as they had advanced, leaving him feeling swamped by conflicting emotions. Shocked confusion registered in his eyes as he released the grip on the boys lapels but he deliberately coaxed his mouth into a facsimile of a smile, determined to maintain his pretence as a girl, and one feisty enough to be in control. "If that's a sample of what you can do, I count myself lucky." he drawled.
Dmitri's eyes glinted dangerously, and the grip on his shoulders tightened. "You want something else I suppose?"
"N-no. Just leave me alone."
"Hello below." A man's voice up on the bridge suddenly bellowed. "You people down there, come up onto the road at once." It was Yanek Skoropadski, the village priest, sitting astride a donkey. He was a relatively small man who by dint of the bustling, busy force of his character made almost everyone feel they were no taller than he. The hair beneath his tall cleric's cap was brindled, grey and thinning, but an immense scraggy beard made up for deficiencies elsewhere. His words had also been directed at Konni's cousins and their admirers and he stared hard at each of them in turn once they had climbed up the slope. His eyes were bright and people generally called his gaze piercing since they were capable of showing malice when he was upset and in a temper.
Yanek had just completed a regular tradition that day. In the years of a good harvest he entered the homes of all his parishioners to bless the icons they cherished, and it was then the custom to offer him a small tot of vodka together with a piece of cheesecake. How the holy gentleman survived such a large circuit of hospitality was a mystery. "What were you all doing down there?"
"We -- we were looking for fish, sir." replied Dmitri with innocent respect.
The priest's eyes narrowed. "Rubbish. I know very well what you were up to. Indiscretions. Kissing! Lust of the flesh, that's what it was about." Turning to the boys he snarled. "You scoundrels get to your homes before I think to tell your fathers to put a strap to your backs."
Swaying slightly from his perch on the donkey he then set his fierce eyes upon Konni and his cousins. "You girls should know better. Your conduct today is disgraceful, but I'll hold back from returning to pain your mother with an account of your coarseness. Get to the dear woman's side this instant and never let me catch you in such circumstances again."
When they were out of the old mans earshot Katrina grinned, quite unmoved by their recent berating. "I let Mikhail kiss me. It was heavenly." she admitted.
"Grigory Makhno needs no lessons in kissing either." her sister replied. In amused collusion they both glanced sideways at Konni. "Did Dmitri kiss you, Konni?"
The boys face reddened like a radish. "Don't be absurd... of course not...I-I..." Unwilling to endure their mockery he strode out in front of them and collided with a farm boy coming out from a field. The young peasant wore patched breeches and a sweat stained shirt, and he had straw in his hair. Konni reeled back in surprise like he'd just made contact with a leper. "Get out of my way, you smelly ignoramus." he snapped harshly, and then broke into a run.
His aunt presided over supper, so the girls made no attempt to ridicule him while they were all eating. Afterwards, wanting to avoid them, Konni found a magazine in a cupboard and took it upstairs to his room, only to find he was too alert to settle for reading and too restless to go to sleep. For ages he tossed and turned while his arms flailed semaphore signals.
Try as he might he couldn't get the image of Dmitri Ranchev out of his mind. He kept thinking of the boy's knee pressing onto the front of his skirt, his fingers gripping his jacket, and the way his own lips became soft and yielding upon his assault. Why had he allowed that oaf to kiss him?
A blush bloomed on his cheeks. That boy's hands had felt so warm and tingly when they touched him. And Heavens! His kiss had been something incredible. Being held in his arms. Wonderful! Awful! His senses had reeled from the experience. Closing his eyes, he drew in a slow, calming breath and decided a strip wash in cold water would settle him down.
He swung his feet onto the bedside rug, trying to tread the edge of it flat. The humidity of the summer had made it curl. When he stood in front of the washstand wearing just his pantaloons he could resist doing a half turn, but he was frustrated by there being insufficient mirror to view his whole profile. He ran his hands over his bottom, pressing the fabric onto his skin. It felt rather good. Looking a girl wasn't difficult. He decided he hadn't been thinking earlier; he'd been reacting. Reacting to being abruptly wrenched out from a school life to which he had become accustomed and thrust hundreds of miles into the raw countryside to live with girls and be a girl. He'd reacted in tune with memories that haunted his dreams and stole his sleep, of times when his life was full of just boys who appreciated each other, admired each other and had learnt how to please each other.
A gentle tapping on his bedroom door disturbed his thoughts, and Svetlana added her voice. "Will you let us in?"
Caution at first, hesitant behind the closed door of his room, he barked a harsh reply. "I don't want to see you if you're going to make fun of me."
"I promise. Open the door."
Both Svetlana and Katerina were standing outside when he unlocked the door. There was something unusual about them. Something new. Their mouths looked extraordinarily red and juicy, and in a rush he realised why. "You're both wearing lip rouge!" he said in a tone of censure. "My tutors in Kharkov say only disreputable painted girls use that sort of thing."
"And showgirls at the Moulin Rouge in Paris." giggled Katerina with a swing of her hips. She was plainly finding delight in behaving disgracefully. "The uncle of Elizaveta Alexandrov bought it for her while on his travels, but her mother won't let her keep it."
"Would you like to try some?" Svetlana asked, "Mama is at a cartel meeting with other kulaks from the valley, and Lubya Ocheretko is drunk and asleep over the kitchen table. No one will know."
Konni scowled. "Put on lip rouge? Certainly not."
"Don't be such a stick in the mud. Try it for the adventure. All girls like to try it."
"I'm not a girl." Konni sniped, but for some reason his hands flew up to cover his bare chest.
Svetlana raised her eyebrows and smirked. "Don't do that. You look like you're drawing attention to things. Dear Konni, you're such a prude. You must learn to relax about such things and enjoy being a girl. Despite my own doubts you made a good impression with everyone at school, especially with Dimitri Ranchev, but to keep it up you must relax."
"I hated what Dimitri did."
"I expect you did. Just wearing a skirt doesn't mean you can instantly forget all the social rules that have been drummed into you. Kissing with a girl would have been easier. "Tell you what. We can practise. If you swoon in my arms a little bit and tell me you want to be a girl, I'll kiss you."
Katerina snickered, but Konni ignored her as his cheeks turned pink.
Svetlana smiled warmly. "You'd like me to kiss you, wouldn't you?"
Konni nodded shyly. Had she noticed his hands shaking? Or how difficult it was for him to breathe? Worse of all -- did she know he'd always nursed a fantasy for kissing her. No, he doubted that neither she nor her sister had noticed that. He'd learned long ago how to hide his feelings.
With some gesturing and whispering and hushing of each other, the two girls led Konni towards the bed and Svetlana positioned herself at his side. "Sit down next to me. You must agree to wear lip rouge if I'm to kiss you. That's part of the deal."
He dragged his hands down over his face, then looked up placidly. "I suppose..."
The girls smiled and looked at each other. Katerina held the bedside oil-lamp nearer while her elder sister dealt with the smearing on and blotting of lipstick, and when it was done she brought across the mirror and held it in front of him. "Turn your head slightly and take a sideways look at yourself. Pout a little and dip your eyelashes. You've got heavenly lashes."
Konni took a reluctant sideways peep into the mirror and caught his breath. For the first time he had an inkling of the way others saw him. It was startling. He made rather a lovely looking girl.
"There! You do look gorgeous, don't you?" Svetlana enthused.
"I wouldn't dare to wear rouge outside."
"None of us will be allowed to do that," said Katerina, "but it makes a fine amusement, doesn't it? And don't worry. You have the looks to pass as a girl without it."
"It makes you appear very kissable." added her sister.
Konni dipped his eyes. "It's easy to say that."
Katerina wafted her own eyelashes mischievously. "Come on, be fair. Haven't we made you look wonderful? Look at yourself in the mirror again. Don't you look terrific? You know you do. You know you look petite and colourful. "What's wrong? What don't you like?"
"My chest."
"Not that again."
"I'm afraid what people will think."
"If the boys ever get a peep at your nipples they'll be thrilled. They'll think you're gorgeous."
"No, not just boys. Other people."
"What other people?"
"Whoever's there."
"Don't be stupid." Svetlana's eyes blazed with heat as she settled down beside him and pressed her mouth onto the hollow of his throat. "Now I will fulfil our bargain. But first you must say that thing I've always wanted you to say."
"You mean..."
"I mean that thing you refused to say on your first morning here."
The nearness of her, the touch of her mouth, the scent she exuded, all played havoc with Konni's senses. As if in a dream he leaned against her. "My name was once Konstantin, but I'm now Konstantina. I'm a boy, but I want to be a girl."
With a faint smile of triumph Svetlana embraced him, took him by the chin, turned his face up and kissed him. She began slowly and tenderly, and then putting a hand behind his head, drew him forward and kissed harder. Their teeth met with a click, his mouth was open and a tantalising sweep of her tongue brought forth a trembling response, the scarlet lip rouge on each of their mouths melding together with a sticky kind of adhesion. It was the first time a girl had kissed him like that, on the mouth and with passion. In the monastery-like institution of school in Kharkov he had kissed boys, but there had never been the sweet aroma of flowers there. A complexity of emotions tumbled through him as he tasted her smile. It was not like the kiss he'd shared with Dmitri, hot with anger and desire, yet her mouth seemed familiar and absolutely perfect as it smeared lip rouge against his own.
When Svetlana eased away her lips remaining half open, wet with saliva. She drew a ragged breath, and then slid her hand across Konni's chest, her fingers tracing a velvet path along the ridge of his collarbone until her palms cupped his chest and began to caress, gently kneading while her thumbs fluttered over each taut nipple. With a gasp Konni realised the areolas were more swollen than he had ever known them and his teats had risen up like spikes.
"Feels good?"
"I...ummm."
Her mouth quivered against his earlobe and he felt her teeth nip lightly. "I'll take that to mean yes."
Gauging the mood calmly Katerina put her hand on his knee and carefully caressed his leg and upper thigh before reaching out. The warmth of her cousin's limbs were softer and finer than she'd anticipated. She unbuttoned the waist of his pantaloons whilst he still had no presence of mind to protest, and pulled them down beneath the delicate dip of his belly. Drawing them beyond the silky curve of his thighs, then reached for his penis. He had a beautiful penis, she thought, impeccably shaped and already semi-erect, standing sentinel over a delightful looking scrotum. Her fingers flexed around the half-risen flesh as she leaned over his groin; moving his penis in her hand and making it nod. They both stiffened, Konni and his penis.
He belatedly tried to sit up, but Katerina pushed him back. "Don't be a baby." she scolded. She was like a tigress at that moment and he rocked into Svetlana's arms. Unbidden, his heat and hardness pressing boldly forward as the girl's hand squeezing out little sobs and tortuous plea-choked whimpers from his throat.
He gazed at them with alarm in his big brown eyes. "Svetlana, Katerina... s...stop. I'm...I...can't.
"Its okay, Konni." Svetlana's soft, sweet breath fanned against his ear.
"We want it to happen. We want to see." explained Katerina, marvelling as she detected he swollen sturdy core beneath the pliant silk-like foreskin. She had not done it often before, but she was not a novice. She continued to wrinkle the skin up and down until it rose up as solid as a bone in a velvet envelope.
Eventually Konni's eyelids drooped and fluttered as his mouth eased out a low groan, part relief and all necessary aching need. The girl picked up the pace, hauling energetically enough to expose the pink, epithelial surface of the plum-shaped tip. A moment later the boy climaxed on a ragged sob, heart banging, and breathe clogging his throat as he poured out a rivulet of warm cream over her fingers.
In the days that followed the paved yard at the rear of the house became Konni's favoured haunt. Around it stood a clutch of trees, birch, bird cherry and larch, the foliage of their branches interlacing over his head to provide a delightfully natural parasol. There also was where in the summer Lyuba did much of her food preparation. She chopped onions, made bread, peeled potatoes and prepared sausage, always bearing in mind the need to stock up stores of food for the winter. His cousins set the table for meals and scrubbed the little outhouse that Lyuba cleaned in the evenings but which she never cleaned properly, and also tended the vegetable garden where so much of their food was grown.
There was no such toil for Konni. His aunt had said while smiling sweetly. "Your father was adamant about only one thing. Your true place is with the privileged classes, therefore your time with us will be on a special basis. You will never be asked to perform any menial tasks." He liked his aunt. He'd always liked her. He didn't know whether it was her easy smile, or the bruised look she couldn't quite hide which let her humanity shine through, but he liked her a lot.
He fell into the routine of sitting outside with a book, as poised and gracious in his seat as any well brought up teenage girl. When he walked he even tried to emulate a dainty tripping gait, and the wearing of skirts, once so obnoxious, slowly became preferable to anything else. Inexorably it seemed he was beginning to enjoy being a young lady.
His impersonation of a girl was impeccable it seemed. No one ever questioned the fact. Not even Dmitri Ranchev. The girls tittered and joked that he was Dmitri's sweetheart, and although he raged against the suggestion, when he had time to think about it he decided he probably was. He often thought about the boy. It was wicked to think of him as gorgeous, but that was the word that constantly sprang to his mind. Dmitri filled his thoughts and his senses. It wasn't love, he assured himself. It was more of an odd sort of admiration. Nevertheless, when they could snatch a moment together during school the boy would put an arm around his slender waist and nuzzle the side of his neck with his lips, which made him feel extremely girlish and caused excitement to dance through his body like sparks shooting along a wire.
One fine evening his aunt found him sitting in the yard holding out his hands and admiring the elegance of his fingers. He looked gorgeous in his white blouse and long black skirt - and the flash of young legs in dark knitted stockings together with the cloud of dark hair that formed a halo around his face. Sometimes she could hardly believe what a beauty he had become. Everyone admired him.
Konni jumped up to greet her. "Auntie would it be awful if I was to ask for a loan of money, like to get some material for a skirt?"
She gave him a mildly sceptical glance. "Svetlana and Katerina have skirts that fit you."
"Yes I know, but I want something of my own for special times."
"What material do you have in mind?"
"I don't know. Something rich. I saw something in one of your old magazines. It was worn by a large woman and looked like tapestry.
"Tapestry?" His aunt sounded doubtful.
"Maybe not that. Tapestry may make me look like a piece of furniture."
Madam Petrovich became suddenly inspired. "Do you mean brocade? I have a lovely brocade skirt, better than anything you can buy in the town. You can have it."
"It wouldn't fit me, aunt."
"I could have it shortened and taken in, and then we could sew on a top of black velvet with some brocade to trim it. What do you think?"
"Cut up your lovely skirt?"
His aunt stroked his hand with affection. Konni was simply spectacular to look at, with his cool, polished, ivory skin and warm brown eyes, and his neatly braided dark hair that made him look fresh, young and rather beguiling. "Pah! What use have I for such things these days? If you're invited to a dance I want you to be the belle of the ball."
A slight flush of guilt coloured his cheeks. "Yes. Well, I'm not really a girl, auntie, but while I keep up this pretence I think I should attempt to appear genuine."
Later that week he went out alone in the evening wearing his new skirt and took the path to the little stone bridge where he'd previously agreed to meet Dmitri Ranchev. He felt no guilt. He was an imposter, someone who wasn't real, and to accommodate his role he'd been dressed like a girl and encouraged to act like a girl, so it should have surprised no one if sometimes he wanted to be a girl. And it wasn't unnatural for girls to have boyfriends.
Even so, his heart thumped when he saw him. There was a hint of arrogance about the postmaster's son and a certain tilt of his head - he'd noticed it from their first meeting. It told him he was clever and strong and not to be taken lightly, but there was humour in him too, and it proved a heady mix. Dmitri's gaze moving up and down Konni's gentle curves. "I don't know if I like seeing you like that?" he said.
Shocked and disappointed Konni pouted. "Oh, why is that?"
"Because every boy in town is going to see what I already know."
"What?" He felt alarmed and a hot flush rose in his cheeks. Had the boy seen through his careful disguise? Did he know his secret?
"Yes, really. Unless they're all blind and numb they'll see the prettiest girl ever put on the Earth." Konni recovered quickly, dipped his eyes demurely, feeling extraordinarily flattered.
"Stunning! That's the word." exclaimed Dmitri admiringly, "Very elegant." Konni's eyes twinkled and he beamed pleasure. He could never be a porcelain princess. He was made of flesh and bone and had emotions. "I always thought I was rather gangly."
"Never that." protested the boy, taking him by the hand, "Slim, yes. Scrawny, never."
Holding hands and exchanging eloquent sighs they followed the course of the meandering stream below the bridge until it widened into a fen full of reeds and willow that broke the monotony of the wheat fields. A white stork had taken residence there and was pacing carefully through the water, its orange bill jerking left and right as it sought a meal from around its feet.
Dmitri leaned over, his mouth near Konni's ear. "I look at you and see you like I did the first day you came to the school. Damp and hot. Panting." Konni felt his heart miss a couple of beats, and from the way Dimitri moved he suspected his groin was responding to him. Despite that, he smiled, trying one of the sexy mischievous smiles perfected by his cousins.
Dmitri fixed his gaze on him, eyelids at half mast. "Kissy, kissy!" he murmured, putting out his arms. Konni giggled, putting his hand in front of his face like a genuine schoolgirl.
"Well, maybe the kiss can wait." The boy's gaze dropped to Konni's chest and he busied one fingertip, suggestively circling a button on his blouse.
Konni scowled. "Dmitri Ranchev, you're wicked."
The other boy's lips turned up in a grin. "Bad to the bone. Better not forget it. Take off your blouse for me."
Konni's legs wobbled and disturbing sense of anticipation washed through his body as, without even protesting, his hands slid up and started to unbutton the front of his blouse. Shamelessly he worked his fingers inside the garment, hauled up the camisole beneath and revealed bare skin. The intimacy of the exposure stimulated him in an unusual way. His pert, almost non-existent breasts pointed out, and it felt wonderful to show them to Dimitri.
The boy moved towards him and he felt Dmitri's mouth his neck, then lifting to press kisses beneath his ears and down to the base of his throat where a rapid pulse was hammering. Hands spanned his waist, fingers nearly touching. "You're so small," the boy whispered against his skin, "fragile..."
"I'm not fragile." Konni gasped and stood shell-shocked as the villainous, firm hands moved up onto his chest and gently began kneading the small mounds of his chest. His breasts felt odd as he unconsciously thrust them forward. "I'm... I'm... Ohhh... Oh, don't - please -" his mouth opened and then slammed shut, and he gritted his teeth to stop any sound - like a sigh of delight - escaping his mouth as unpredicted sensations assailed his captured flesh.
Dmitri carefully pulled and pushed, the thumbs carefully stroking over pouting nipples. "You still need to grow a bit, but I can tell you're going to have a nice pair eventually." Suddenly his face went down and his lips locked around a hardened pink nipple. He sucked hard and Konni held him there. Fire pulsed through him, spreading under his skin, and he tipped his head and gave a small twist of a smile. "Ohhh! Oh, Dmitri."
When Dmitri raised his head Konni pushed his hair back from his forehead, smiling as it fell right back over his eyes. "You look like a little boy, Dimitri Ranchev. Except for your eyes..." Suddenly he arched against him and he blushed like a rose. "...and some other things."
Konni sighed, hanging onto his shoulders for support. He had no backbone, no means of help for his wobbly legs. And when a languorous warmth stole up from his toes, past his knees and into his thighs, he groaned into Dimitri's mouth, for the effect went straight to his groin. Rarely had he turned so hard so quickly.
Dmitri kissed him deeply, his thumbs constantly strumming over spiking nipples. Konni forgot about talking and about rules and control. He forgot about everything except surrendering into his arms. He couldn't stop Dimitri touching him any more than he could stop breathing. His chest pushed full against his palm, bare and ripe, and he allowed himself to be squeezed and caressed without even thinking about it. Pleasure was accompanied by anxiety because he knew that someone like Dimitri wouldn't be content with just fondling the top half, and allowing him under his skirts would undo all his aunts well intentioned scheming. He would be exposed as a boy in skirts. A mere bourgeois in hiding.
His hand dipped down and discovered the boy's arousal, already firm and ready. He slid his fingers into his open pants and found the hot tower of heat inside, a blind grope amid hot passion, but he could feel the thick shape when he moved the slick skin back and forth. He was good at pleasing boys and the joy of Dmitri's moans gave him joy too, encouraging him to go on and on, skimming with his fingers faster and more fervently until the other boy sort of hiccupped and let out a long sigh and sent a surge of warm wetness into his hand.
They sat together in the grass afterwards. The sky glowed red with streaks of yellow from the still-visible dipping sun and the light caught the edge of Konni's cheek, outlining it in a colour like that of red gold, making his hair glossy radiant with highlights like spun ruby.
A glorious sunset, don't you think, Konni? Red sunsets promise a bright tomorrow."
"I hope so. When I was small my old nurse would tell me it may be a warning that the sky is about to fall on our heads." Dmitri gave him a sideways glance of curiosity. It was a thoughtless reminiscence and a dangerous one, for only wealthy families employed nurses for their children.
He crept into the house later. His aunt and Svetlana were in the kitchen with Lyuba, but Katerina saw him arrive and leapt at him like a frog. "Where have you been?"
"Just for a walk. It's a lovely evening."
"Have you been with Dmitri Ranchev?"
He looked straight into her eyes, trying to manage a sort of blameless indignation. "Not necessarily." he replied sheepishly.
"Yes you have, I know it, and he's probably made you all excited."
"Really Katerina, that's..."
His cousin smiled sweetly, like an angel testing sin. "Shush. Go upstairs and take off your pants. I'll come up and see you as soon as I think it safe."
It was humiliating to follow her instructions like a yard-dog, but he knew it wouldn't be long before she was perched on the edge of the bed next to him urging him to roll up the front of his skirt. But his body did have an urgent need for some attention, and Katerina's delicate hands had already proved they were very adept at providing it on several occasions. She enjoyed his little moans and grimaces just like he had enjoyed Dimtri's earlier, although she sometimes gagged him with a handkerchief if she thought he was being too noisy. But she enjoyed doing it. She even caught a heady breath herself when a result suddenly leapt up to cover her fingers.
The last weeks of summer at his aunt's dacha had gripped Konni. It soon it passed into autumn but the sun shone in October as if it had forgotten what time of year it was. There were glowing landscapes and glorious golden days that were mild and windless, and warm enough to abandon coats to the house when walking out. But then came November with the chill of the coming winter and a shiver of approaching danger.
His aunt returned from the town looking distraught and, without taking off her hat or even unbuttoning her coat, immediately went into a huddle with her daughters. She then called Konni to her side and led him into the drawing room where an oil-lamp burned above the table. "It's all finished." she remarked.
"Why do you say that? You seem anxious and unhappy. Is something happening?"
"I've been to the town and the news is bad -- the worse. The White Russians have suffered a serious reverse and are abandoning the district we live in. Within a few days the Red Army will be amongst us."
He sat solemnly and listened while his aunt told him of her distress. "We are to be governed by the Bolshevik's, political adventurers who are prepared to experiment with the lives of 130 million people. The Communists detest we kulaks and insist everyone should live a life as low as the floor. When they arrive here their nakaz committees will confiscate everything of value we own. The State will be the new religion. Everyone will be made to conform and behave like mechanical dolls. There will be no room for diverse opinion."
Her lyrical voice had a suggestion of tears, and a wave of melancholy swept around her as she spoke. "It's a sad end to a way of life we hold dear, but enviable. The girls and I have discussed the matter and have no desire to flee Sarocherkassk. There is no question of us leaving. This place is our blood and our life and we are reconciled to our fate. Co-operation may at least ensure we survive. You on the other hand are a different matter. As the son of a boyar you will be in peril."
"Will it come to that? A struggle to survive?" When his aunt didn't reply he gave the answer himself. "Yes, I suppose I will. It puts an end to all this playacting in skirts. I may as well go and stand by my father on his estates."
"No. I've put off telling you until now in an attempt to spare your feelings for as long as possible, but your father was arrested weeks ago. If he's not already been shot he'll have been put to work in a forced labour battalion, which only means he's as good as dead anyway."
"Arrested? Arrested for what?"
"For the crime of being a wealthy man. The Communists seem need no other reason than that."
It was a shock to hear about his father and he waited for some kind of emotion to rise up, but he felt nothing. He'd felt sadness and loss when his mother had died of her disease. She had been a big warm cushion full of comfort and love and yielding softness to him, but in the case of his father there was a void in his heart. He could only remember him as a bearded angry man with fire in his eyes, a man whose greatest love was the land he owned, and who ignored his own son when he went home on holidays from school. "In that case I must stay here with you."
She could see anguish in his eyes and, awkward with her own transparency, she turned away. But she went on talking. "You can't do that either. You can't live your whole life as a masquerade. With the Bolshevik soldiers will come their political commissars and the Checka, the secret police whose purpose is to root out counter-revolutionaries. They will scrutinise every soul in the valley. They'll pay special attention to those who have recently come here, and I suspect it won't take long for them to discover who you really are."
"What else can I do?"
"You've lost your father and your inheritance, but you still have your life. It would be best if you leave all this mess behind. I told you when you first arrived here that you were lucky to be part of a well disposed extended family, and now we have a need to test the matter. I have been corresponding with your Uncle Sergei in Odessa over the past months. He is an important official in the Port Authority there, and he swears he can get you out of Russia and over into Greece where his brother settled years ago. The country towards the coast is still in the hands of the White Russians, but it will be dangerous to delay. Things are changing quickly."
"Greece!" murmured Konni."
"Yes. Some things will be different there of course. A similar religion, but different language and different customs. It will be hard for a while, but you will be safe."
That night Konni prepared for his journey, although there was really little to prepare other than his mind. He didn't wish to leave. His aunt's dacha was the best place he'd ever lived, and he'd stayed in some very grand houses. There had been times -- when he'd been at the school in Kharkov -- when he'd allowed no time for consideration of houses less fine than his father's. It was only recently that he'd come to realise that a house was only as good as the people who lived in it. Since he was going to make a journey it occurred to him he should pack a bag. But then it struck him that his father's estate had been confiscated, and he was now a penniless orphan. He possessed nothing. He didn't even own the clothes he stood in, but he had become so attached to them that he would insist that he be allowed to travel in the guise of a girl. He didn't find the idea of going to Greece at all distasteful. After all it was the land of Aristotle, Plato, Homer and Pythagoras, and the source of countless colourful myths and legends. It had been a crucible of art and cultured civilisation a thousand years before the Vikings and Slavs combined to form the hybrid Rus and give a name to Russia and the Russians.
In some ways Sarocherkassk seemed much the same as usual the following day. The shops in the town square were open and the church doors invited worship, but the school was closed and Madam Kormilov had disappeared. Overnight red posters had appeared and were now on every street corner on every wall. Directives telling everyone how to behave when their Communist saviours arrived. The new regime seemed imminent and some people had put on red arm-bands to display their compliance even before it became installed. He saw Dmitri, active beside his father the postmaster, daubing a slogan on a wall with whitewash. WELCOME TO THE HEROIC SOLDIERS OF THE GREAT SOCIALSIST REVOLUTION. When he saw Konni walking towards the station he came over, filling his head with doubt about whether he wanted to leave at all.
"So, m'lady, you're running away. That can only mean you're a supporter of the White Russian scum." Dimitri said stonily. "I suspected you as a bourgeois capitalist when you mentioned you'd once had a nursery nurse. Just as well we didn't become too involved with each other. You'd never make a good comrade. Good riddance I say." Without waiting for a reply he made an abrupt about face and walked away.
Konni stood, head bowed, feeling dejected and misunderstood until his aunt put an arm around him. "Ah, the friendships of youth are so fragile. But being young means there is always time for striking up new friendships."
The railway was his introduction to the misery of refugees fleeing the Bolshevik advance. The tiny, insignificant station at Sarocherkassk swarmed with people from the surrounding countryside, most of who had been rich with large houses, but were now desperate just to gain a place in a fourth-class railway carriage. He noticed that the women, many of them reared in luxury, faced their hopeless future with fortitude. It was the men who were much more given to self-pity. His aunt handed him two tickets. "We are lucky. This train will probably be the last one to leave before the Communists arrive." Svetlana and Katerina each gave him the silver teaspoon that had been bought to mark their birth, and his aunt gave him a fob-watch that had belonged to her husband. All were family treasures, but to hold onto them would risk them being stolen or confiscated in the following days. His aunt also pressed into his hand several white one-rouble notes to assist with incidentals along the way.
The farewells were sad, but once they were done Konni had to contend with the company of Lyuba, an imposition he resented. But his aunt had explained that the communists would be vindictive towards anyone who employed a house servant, and since his uncle was in urgent need of a cook the old woman would be better off in Odessa. And also, his aunt had said, since he had decided to maintain his deception and travel in the guise of a young girl it made sense to have a mature female companion. Respectable girls didn't travel long distances alone. They were fortunate enough to be allotted places in a terplusshka, a boxcar fitted with double wooden bunks and a small stove called a burzhuika which had been designed to burn anything, coal, timber, books, rags. People would have to scavenge for fuel whenever the train stopped, but if kept stoked up it could keep them reasonably warm and heat water for tea.
Outside it was a drizzly November day. The weather was terrible, and everyone knew the rain could be followed by the first winter snow and the kind of temperatures that made everything freeze solid. For half a day they rumbled along at eight to ten miles an hour, the monotony often punctured by stops at small wayside halts where more people would clamour to climb aboard. Soon the boxcar they were in, built to accommodate sixteen people, was holding twice that number.
Inevitably there were other unscheduled stops and delays; to take on water or fix a faulty coupling, or to cool a hot axle-box, but on the second day of their journey the whole train was mysteriously shunted into a siding to leave the main line clear. After a while a railway official came along and explained there was only a single rail track for the next hundred miles, and a military train going in the opposite direction had been given priority for its use. Their own train would have to wait until it had passed through.
For a while a group of people in the boxcar stood at the door looking out. In the distance could be heard the rumble of heavy artillery, and it was clear that the Whites were suffering much more than just a local setback. They were being pressed into retreat, and everyone on the train began to fear the Communists would overtake them before they moved again. The flat landscape allowed them all to see for miles and an orange-red glow lit the skyline some distance to the west. A house was burning on the horizon. They had been passing through a comparatively peaceful region, but the country had already gone very Red and Bolshevik sympathisers were known to be raiding vulnerable places.
The woman next to Konni had a face the colour of candle-grease. She was wearing a heavy fox-fur coat, and a fox-fur hat, but in spite of the clothes she was trembling so much that the fur tail on her hat bobbed about as if it belonged to a live animal. In contrast a fat little anxious man wearing riding breeches was sweating. It transpired he was a merchant from the neighbouring province of Belarus, the place known as White Russia that had given a name to all the forces opposed to the communists. Due to the conflict he had lost his home and his livelihood. "The Whites are having a difficult time at the moment." he remarked, using a handkerchief to wipe his mouth. His bearded face had a raw, red flush and his eyes were bloodshot and bulging. "Worse than that. Their resistance is melting like snow in spring sunshine and they're allowing the Reds to swarm south. My life will be in danger if the Bolsheviks catch me. I must get away. I'm a vendor of fine wine and champagne, you see. Unfortunately I've done a lot of business with White Russian officers. The communists hate anything that whiffs of luxury, and the people who deal in it. Envious bastards!"
"I know only too well how cruel they can be." Konni murmured.
The man smiled, letting his eyes linger on Konni's face, then trail down his body like he wanted to sniff his legs. "These are unpredictable times we are living through." he said, as he slid an arm loosely around his waist and clamped a hand on his hip. "But there can be comfort in shared adversity." He moved closer and leaned down to whisper secretively in his ear. "Adversity is one thing, but there is no need for an angel like you to experience discomfort. If you feel cold in the night you can come under a blanket with me." The woman with the fox-fur turned and gave a piercing look. "Thank you," Konni replied, "But I'm well supplied with warm clothing."
On the second day the sky lay over them like a scratchy grey woollen blanket, and it snowed. The snow lacked commitment and didn't lie deep, but powdery deposits floated from the roof swirled into the boxcar when anyone slid open the door to get a gasp of fresh air. It made the landscape outside looked bleak and desolate; miles and miles of bare country, small stunted trees with almost no undergrowth at all.
There was no news of when they might continue their journey and the train stood idle that night and all the following day. People passed the time talking and telling each other sad stories, or they played cards or sat in private contemplation. Konni slept much of the time since that was a good way to forget about food, of which their supply was limited. He knew there would be a temptation to nibble at it out of boredom if he lay awake, and there was no way of knowing how long the train would remain stationary. When he awoke in the late afternoon he felt real hunger. With an ache in his stomach he glanced at the watch in his pocket. At his aunt's home everyone would be sitting down to supper at this time. "We'll eat something now." he told Lyuba.
They had been provided with a wheel of bread, a large raisin cake and some dry tea and sugar to last the couple of days it would take them to reach their destination., but when he looked in the bundle in which it had been wrapped he discovered the raisin cake and the bread both gone. Not even a crumb remaining. He glared at Lyuba with deep suspicion. "Where are they?"
A guilty look stole over the woman's face, but it didn't burden her for more than a few seconds. "Madam didn't give us enough food to last the journey."
"You've eaten it, you greedy pig. You've swallowed everything all in one fat session while I was sleeping."
"Hardly filled a hole. Anyway, there's a khutor -- a village just across the field outside, and your aunt gave you some money for buying extra stuff. Give the money to me and I'll go and get some more bread."
"No, you'll just feed your own face and spend what's left on booze."
With a sour expression Lyuba sank back in her seat. "Cheeky bitch, talking to an old woman like that. I should give you a slap. No one would blame me."
"If you hit me I'll tell everyone on the train you're a Red spy. They'll drag you outside and beat you to death."
He put on a long, fleece-lined jacket and a shapka, the kind of fur hat so beloved by Russians. Climbing down to the trackside he stamped his feet and pulled on gloves, trying to warm himself. The sky was blue after the snow, but the afternoon was cold. Enterprising people had scrambled from the train to light little fires alongside the track, and with small pots they carried with them they were cooking scratch meals.
Squinting against the brightness of the snow he set off. "I'm coming with you." said Lyuba falling into a waddling gait beside him as he started out for the village. On their way they passed a group of dishevelled looking soldiers who were slumped down at the side of a dilapidated hut. "Hey, woman." called out one of them. "Are you coming here hoping to rent out your daughter?"
Lyuba scoffed contemptuously at them. "If I was I'd know better than come near you ragamuffins. Not one of you will have two kopecks to rub together."
"Pretty girl," another said, looking at Konni. "I don't have any money, but I have vodka, Bele-Golovka, the best kind, and I'm willing to give you a nip just for a feel of her tits."
"No one likes the taste of vodka. They only drink it to get drunk." Lyuba said scornfully.
"I'll give you a half-bottle of good slivovitz for a quick-time with her in the hut." offered a third one.
Konni suddenly had an awful feeling that the degenerate woman was beginning to feel tempted into some kind of disgusting agreement by the offer of plum brandy, so he spoke up himself. "We just want bread."
"Tough!" snarled the man. "All the bread in town was sold by midmorning today. You'll have to come back tomorrow and get in the queues early."
Five paces further on Lyuba drew to a halt. "There's no point in going into the town if there's no bread."
Hunger gnawed in the pit of Konni's stomach. "There must be something we can buy to eat. You go back to the train, I'll go on my own." The cold, moist air was brittle and freezing. Konni braced himself against the gusting breeze and walked on. When he reached it he found the town was actually more like a large village. A few stone structures gave it a centre, but most of the buildings were of timber stanchions and drab grey clapboard, all scattered around without any definite street plan. It was bursting at its seams with people; Poles, Czechs and multitudes of confused peasantry from the countryside. In a wayside field a large number of small fires were flickering -- refugees fleeing from the Reds, old and young, several hundred of them, most with nothing for protection against the weather but the clothes they wore. They looked destitute and many of them already seemed ill.
Dispirited White Army soldiers were everywhere too, standing around or squatting disconsolately. One of them explained that their unit had completed a weeks hard fighting at the front and had been pulled back to reorganise. Konni didn't think they looked much organised at all. Numbers of them were drunk, sitting at the side of the road as if on holiday, waving bottles. Others were in the trading places and houses, filled with arrogance and indifference as they scrounged, scavenged and looted, shoving loaded fists into their packs. No one with authority was there to interrupt any of it.
He hurried through them, making eye contact with no one, almost forgetting why he was there and what he was doing, but he faltered and stood as paralysed as Buridan's legendry ass when a big, rough hand gripped his arm. "Got you, you guttersnipe."
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Force of Nature