Escaping Kherson, a novella - 3. Day Three

Denys lies on his back in the early hours of the new day’s light.

Covered, with his hands tucked sedately by his sides, his head rests on a pillow looking straight up.

Little by little, he begins to piece together a moving mosaic of shadows. Some golden and reflective; others dull and peace-bearing. They fuse effortlessly to form a familiar image hovering over his face, brushing her soft, auburn hair aside with a single hand to behind a single ear. She would often wake Denys up in this exact manner, rising first to see about coffee for her men.

Denys smiles as he drinks in her pleasing, radiant presence. Every aspect of Nadiya seems the same to him; all is as Denys remembers.

When he attempts to speak, her finger comes down to seal his lips, her own raising to reveal the dimples of her cheeks. “I know what you want to say. But we are never separated, my love. Not you or I; not Fedir to either of us but both as one.”

Denys becomes emotional. He nearly cracks on a sob, trying to get out, “It’s all my fault! If not for me—”

Nadiya hushes him as gently as if he were a child. “Do you recall, Denys, that first spring we were together, how we went on a picnic to the sand dunes on the other side of the Dnipro River? How glorious a day we had?”

Stunned, Denys nods. How could he forget? It was the first day in which he couldn’t imagine another day in his life without Nadiya. “I remember.”

“And we hiked and found a little, out of the way spot.”

“And we made love, and my back got scratched by the thicket, but I didn’t care. I’d never been so happy.”

“Yes, Denys. That’s right. And that’s the way I want you to always think of me. Remember the warm days and the time we had when time was no issue at all.”

“Oh, Nadiya”—the man grows upset once more—“you won’t let me remember the—”

“No, Denys. If I had the power, I’d wave a hand and disappear all the needless self-blame you lay at your own feet. Because, it’s not healthy, Denys.”

“You are kind to not openly blame me, Nadiya. But I’m afraid . . . you ask too much of me if you expect me to excuse my responsibility for your deaths.” He whispers harshly, “You don’t understand how difficult it’s been to go on, Nadiya.”

She begins stroking his forehead. “It is hard, I know, Denys, but the more difficult part is with us, for we’d like to make our thoughts known to those we love; to occasionally quit our time with the Dearest and converse alone, one on one. Seldom are conditions right, so now you must listen to me, Denys.”

He tries to extract his hand from beneath the covers – to take hers – but he cannot move. “What have you to say, Nadiya, darling?”

“Only this – refute your self-destructive course. Denys, deny the fatalistic outlook – the one you have adopted as your own – the power to govern your actions.”

“But, Nadiya—”

“My time is short, dear love. Just know the reasons to accept you have much to live for are already within your grasp.”

Denys’ protests grow feebler; sleepier. “But, Nadiya . . . sweet—”

She touches his lips with her departing hand. “Do not stay in Kherson until it’s too late . . . too late . . . . ”

The man blinks, confused, doubting his ability to comprehend her plain-spoken words. But within that arbitrary moment of sightlessness he’d imposed upon himself, his eyes reopen to nothingness.

The shadows of his ordinary bedroom ceiling greet him while he feels amazement break the bindings of his gilded sleep.

Hands free to move now, he lifts his arms to stifle his nascent tears from flowing. This effort’s made more challenging for the simple fact of Nadiya’s sweet scent lingering all around him. It enwreathes his senses like the bellow of a blast, or the reverberation of a funeral bell.

Seemingly out of nowhere, light motion suddenly ripples across the surface of the mattress. Denys rotates his attention to his left, and is surprised to see the boy in bed with him. Theo’s turned away, his head snuggled on the pillow next to the man’s, and the young person’s legs are drawn up into a slight fetal position under the covers.

Denys sits up in bed, and Theo rouses. The teenboy’s form straightens and stiffens, and as his hands stretch out above his head, he rolls around to grin at Denys.

He too joins the man and sits up in bed next to him. Then Theo crosses his upper arms and signs something with a shivering motion before pointing out the door. ‘Chilly’ was the reason the youth had slipped into Denys’ bed in the middle of the night.

The boy looks so sweet and innocent, all Denys can do is stretch himself and yawn.

“Okay,” he says. “But first a pee, and then – coffee!”

Left alone in a bed that strikes him as cold all of a sudden, Theo’s wistful eyes follow the retreating man’s figure as it exits the bedroom. He can trace Denys’ shadow a bit more through the living room before it disappears down the hallway.

Fighting off what he knows instantly to be an irrational fear of abandonment – again – he waits until he hears the bathroom door click.

In utter silence then, but still wondering if he’d get ‘caught’ doing what he’s restraining hard to resist, the teenboy slowly lifts his arm.

The jersey he has on is one Denys gave him to wear at night; one from his own, personal wardrobe.

Eyes trained on the door, heartrate increasing as if he were about to do something forbidden, he inhales deeply at the inside sleeve where it bends for the elbow. Theo picks up the man’s scent clear as day, with it blending somewhat into the boy’s own.

Fearing time’s not on his side, Theo lies down again, rolling his face onto his host’s pillow. Here he can smell the essence of Denys in all of his unalloyed manliness.

It pleases and terrifies the teenboy, deep and in ways he can readily admit are profoundly alluring.

Assuring himself he’s still undetected, he uses both hands to bury himself in the man’s fragrance.

v v v v

Later in the afternoon, the pair could be found again filming Denys’ daily update.

From a bit of high ground in the southwest quarter of the city, the journalist stands with the Antonivs’kyy Bridge in the background – its white ribbon of steel and concrete sailing high over the Dnipro River. Once more, Theo’s stationed behind the camera lens. He gives Denys the thumbs up when rolling.

“Greetings, all, from Kherson. It’s day 245 of Russia’s warring on the Ukrainian people.

“Today I thought I’d bring you up here to see the bridge. The weather’s not shit, and you can see why it’s a major symbol of modern Ukraine. But who knows how much longer it will stand if the Russians pull the trigger on their scorched-earth designs for the Kherson region. Bombs, shells, flooding – or, all of the above?

“It’s sure they would like to see a second Mariupol’ happen here, where not one stone is left standing upon another.”

At this point, Theo has to bite down hard and control his focus; the phone threatens to shake violently if he doesn’t.

Denys continues, unaware of the boy’s reactions to his words.

“And so today, here with the bridge behind me, I’m thinking about war’s timeless powers of destruction. A soldier-poet from the Napoleonic era may have captured those powers’ sweeping misery the best. In 1809, Heinrich von Kleist warned us in his Final Number:

“For like a torrent,

The streams swell and unlock

Annihilation sweeping

And surrounding,

Howling out of its banks

As the doom sees fit

To wash over all

Trying to withstand it.

The gray structures of the

Once-splendid old states

Fall in, washed away

Within roaring thunder

Like the worm's nest

On the boggy heath gestates

Till a boy comes and

Digs its life asunder.

“As for what the Orcs and the Occupation Police have been up to, right now, in the center of the region, within sight of the Antonivs’kyy Bridge, the invaders have turned Kherson’s main ferry terminal into a holding pen for thousands of my fellow city residents. Some of them have been locked in there for days, without food, without proper washrooms – all waiting to be herded onto riverboats already loaded down with the Orc’s tanks and troops. And why? to serve as human shields.

“These ferries are running at full capacity, carting away Kherson citizens as forced deportees to captivity in Russia. But who in the world is here to help these people? Who is here to stop Orc concentration camps in the 21st Century? Who? Seventy thousand have already been interned for God knows how long.

“Fortunately, traffic on the bridge itself has been completely halted for a month, thanks to Ukrainian HIMARS punching enough holes in the roadway to make traffic risky. Word is, a few nights ago, Russian army corps engineers were up there – past martial law curfew – to see if they could make it safe to evacuate their tanks. And at 12 am, the Ukrainian Forces killed the Orcs up there with new missile strikes. You see, patriotic Kherson resistance cells keep watch at all times and tell Kyiv when and where the invaders do something exposed.

“The team up there that night was made to pay with their invader lives. But that is only fitting since they elected to put their bodies in harm’s way by being in Ukraine in the first place.”

Denys gestures over his shoulder.

“Will this bridge, the former symbol of Kherson itself, survive the ultimate fate the Kremlin chooses? Only time will tell.

“So, what do you think of the poem and Antonivs'kyy Bridge situation, dear viewers? Leave your thoughts and opinions down below.

“Zhadan signing off until tomorrow, if there is to be a tomorrow.”

v v v v

Concerning the nature of how human perception can best value the warmth of human contact, a wise author once observed that for true heat to be appreciated, a part of the body must still be in the cold.

This author had put his newly united couple – a pair of young men – in bed together to grow ever safer in one another’s arms. The world outside the demesne of their generous counterpane may have been hostile to their relationship, but that very inhuman coldness made their protecting embrace all that more secure.

Yes, for a person to truly appreciate warmth, one part of them must still be in the cold.

And later, their chores done for the night, Denys and Theo climb into bed – by candlelight alone – to sleep without any fuss or ceremony.

Sitting upright against the headboard, with the sheets and blankets pulled high to keep the autumnal chill in the air at bay, both man and boy show phone-lit faces. Denys, busy uploading the day’s bridge video, glances over to see what Theo is writing. Perhaps part of the young man’s war journal is also on his mobile.

As soon as Denys finishes his task, drowsiness creeps into the void left by an active mind setting its devices aside. To his surprise, Theo knocks the man’s elbow with his own and passes him his phone.

Using the ‘Notes’ application, Theo had composed a lengthy message to Denys. But after reading only the initial words of “I have a confession to make,” Denys turns to the teenboy and asks, “Are you sure? You know, you don’t owe me any explanations—”

Theo’s features slacken in a slight way able to convey to his bedfellow that he’s touched. But his lips purse in determination then, and his finger taps the side of the phone to indicate Denys should go on.

A bit concerned, the reporter executes a little frown and continues reading:

“I have a confession to make. When I told you my parents were killed in the opening days of the invasion, that was a lie, and I’m sorry.

“The truth is, my folks fled with my younger sister to Romania a few days before the start of the war. They wanted me to come too, or so they said, and packed my clothes. But. I ran away, refusing to leave Ukraine because it would be like me abandoning Rudi.

“Anyway, after my parents left, and I had been living on the streets for a couple of days, I showed up on the doorstep of my mother’s older sister. So that part where I said I lived with my aunt and her husband is true.”

Denys lowers the phone. “Well, I assumed somebody had taken care of you. It was a long time from the start of the conflict until the Occupation Police started rounding up people. Your aunt and uncle did evacuate, didn’t they?”

Theo nods, wriggling fingers to get his device back. The boy quickly types and lets Denys see. “Yes, that part is true.”

Then the young man concentrates on a longer message.

A short time later, Denys reads: “But don’t think they were good people just because they took me in. Just like my parents, my aunt and her husband are embarrassed by me. Just like my folks, they really want nothing to do with me.”

After Denys reads this, he tries to reassure Theo. “I understand how it feels to believe you’re an outsider, but perhaps when you’re older – maybe when you have kids of your own – you’ll think back to these days and consider you have judged your family too harshly.”

Contrary to offering the solace Denys had hoped, his words seem to drive Theo into deeper sorrow. Holding the reporter’s inspection, the boy signs and mouths: “Have you?”

“Have I forgiven my parents . . . ?” Denys is compelled to intensely contemplate the matter. He cracks a grin, replying, “Well, it’s a work in progress, isn’t it. Perhaps we’re all meant to feel like outsiders until we find our way in the world. There’s nothing wrong with admitting the sources of our shit resentments and anger. I suppose, in fact, it’s healthy to do so.”

The man aches for the teenboy; adolescence is a rough time of life. – But then, all of a sudden, he wonders out loud, “Who is Rudi?”

At this, the kid’s features brighten considerably. His blue eyes lighten as he spins through multiple images on his phone. In another moment, Theo hands his device over.

Somehow his bedmate’s mood had turned reverential, so Denys takes the phone with care and is soon looking into the gaze of a strapping young man. Eighteen or nineteen years old, the trim soldier is dressed in the uniform of the Ukrainian Marines.

“Handsome, but who—”

Theo retrieves his phone and types a note below the photograph.

Denys is shattered with emotion a moment later when he reads: “Rudi Kovalevich Boiko, my boyfriend. He’s dead now. Killed in Mariupol’.”

“Oh, God,” Denys cries out, holding the deep eyes of the boy by his side. “So awful for you to lose— I’m so, so sorry.”

Theo blinks a few sad times. Then he knits his brows in sympathy and types: “You’ve lost people; I’ve lost; but we Ukrainians, we are not lost. We will beat back the invaders and win in the end.”

Denys almost starts to lose control of his feelings. There is global optimism in the young man’s words, but the journalist knows there’s still a potential minefield of truths and half-truths lying in the path of he and Theo’s interpersonal navigations.

In the meantime, Theo had sensed Denys’ mood teetering and quickly taps out: “Here, let’s watch this.”

In another moment, the pair are huddled close together in bed – shoulder to shoulder – to watch a video on the young man’s phone.

Recorded by a soldier’s helmet-cam in real time, it shows Ukrainian troops liberating a town under former Russian control in the Kharkiv region. They set themselves up in the street in front of a looted house with an open garage door. After a while, a German Shepherd shows up in the garage, and the dog sits like a good girl and watches the men. The men befriend her with water and snacks.

The soldier taking the video assumes the dog got lost when the family of this particular home had to flee.

So he makes a call to the cellular company and gets a number registered to the address.

The video cuts to later, after dark, the same night. The troops take the dog to her people, and she’s beside herself with joy, rolling on the ground and wagging her tail to be reunited with her family.

What heart could fail to be touched by such a pure display of love?

As the video ends, man and boy feel more relaxed; more reconnected to their human side.

Denys chuckles all at once. “Well, I’m glad to learn about Rudi, because I thought you didn’t like Gay people, or Bi people. You know, you were a homophobe.”

Theo throws his shoulders back while scowling. The motions form a clear question of “Why?”

“I’m kind of embarrassed about it now, but I’ll admit I got a strange, intense vibe from you every time I talked about Fedir. That’s all.”

While Denys’ smile tries to make amends, Theo debates within himself if he should tell Denys why he reacted as he did gaining insight into the men’s relationship.

Theo quickly decides now is not the right time to own up to it, but his reaction had been based on the extent of envy he felt for Denys’ shared love and partnership with the older, more mature man. In point of fact, Theo wishes he had the same guiding-hand principle as a force in his life.

Into this protracted, silent debate occurring within the young man, Denys gradually inserts a yawn. At the same time, he lifts his arms into a stretch above his head.

Theo is confused then, for Denys grins slightly, says “Good night,” and simultaneously rolls away from him to blow out the candle. Then the man scrunches down under the covers, and Theo has to listen to Denys start snoring lightly a few seconds later.

Feeling remotely rejected once more, Theo rolls over himself to blow out the final light in the room. He then tries to get some sleep, hoping Rudi will come to him in his dreams.

_