Escaping Kherson, a novella - 5. Day Five

The window blinds morbidly attempt to divide the onset of morning light by splitting it a thousand times. These crawl in insane slowness across the floor, but have little effect in brightening the general gloom of the overall space.

Within it, Denys watches the interplay of illumination and shade coalesce into a shadow rising beyond the foot of the bed. Far from frightening though, commingled sensations of joy and sadness exist within the sight of Fedir.

This man’s confident, humane stride leads him to Denys’ flank. He sits on the edge of the bed next to his partner.

Almost instantly, the clash of divergent emotions begins to upset Denys. Relieved to see his man returned to him, as fit and alluring as Denys had ever regarded him, terrible guilt accompanies any positive feelings. “I’m sorry” slips from his lips. Denys repeats it. “I’m sorry; sorry; so sorry.”

“Give me your hand, Denys.”

The men link up, left palm to left palm.

“You couldn’t know what would happen to us that day at the protest, kokhana. You must let it go.”

Denys nearly swoons to hear Fedir calling him his belovèd once more. Yet it only has the effect of increasing his grief. He calls out in his self-recriminating pain, “I’m so sorry. So sorry—”

“Denys, listen to me now. This is important, boy. Listen, all right?”

Fedir gets Denys to calm down by brushing the hair out of the younger man’s eyes. Denys grows attentive.

“Let go of the guilt. Let go of the grief. Remember instead what was sheltering; what was good. Recall how one home protected us. Remember with gratitude that you, Nadiya and I built a life together where one table fed us, and one bed received us at the end of each day in mutual love.

“Be content to think, dear boy, that in time one common grave may accept us as well. That at some point in the future, our ashes may intermingle in one urn, as in the time of Hercules and Ioläus, in the time of Orestes and Pylades: in The Age of Heroes.”

The appellation of ‘hero’ to mortal men only causes Denys to ponder upon the Ukrainian patriots trying to free their homeland of the ruthless invaders who would smash it. Hearing Fedir, of all people, mention the term, brings Denys to the brink of madness.

“Surely, you and Nadiya have earned the right to be called heroes; but not I. However, I pledge to you, Pan Fedir Tokar, my belovèd, that if I survive, I shall uncover your woodland graves and see to it the Russians pay for their shit crimes. If I live, and if the world outside Kherson still cares.”

“But don’t you see, Denys? Such an oath is self-absolving, for it’s more than what’s due a brother, partner or spouse. Therefore, know that your duty’s already done.”

Far from comforting, Fedir’s words draw Denys into deeper, darker upset. “But I can be no less hard on my potential than your ever-sage counsel had been with me in life, Fedir. Every situation that arises I test in my mind with the simple question of ‘What would my Fedir have me do?’”

“Be resolved, Denys, to let your heart’s counsel be the thing that guides you from now on. Listen to it and reconsider how the blind acceptance of your mind’s determination to carry through, no matter what, may harm you needlessly. Reject unhealthy, morbid notions that may be nothing more than abstract concepts hollow of meaning. Instead, embrace that which has substance and may be already squarely in front of you. Do you follow me, Denys?”

Fedir’s question had a growing ring of urgency to it – as if time runs short – so the man nods. Although, truthfully, Denys is not so sure he can comprehend his partner’s intent.

Fedir continues in a tone kinder than ever. “I ask that you be critical of decisions generated merely as a means to close down all consideration of emotions. Emotions you should accept and let guide you in my absence; but do so in my memory. Do you understand, sonechko?”

Denys is hesitant. With childlike honesty, he shakes his head.

“Do not worry, my boy. The words of Nadiya and I will make sense to you soon enough – when they have to. For now, merely trust in us as you always have.”

“I do, belovèd. I do.”

Fedir rises. He moves off a little into the room, telling Denys, “Now, come and embrace me, and do not be unhappy, rabbit. You have reason enough to think of the future and relegate thoughts of me to a fitting, melancholy joy.”

Denys draws back the covers and stands. He stumbles, like the kid he feels inside, into the warm, strong arms of his man. Rocked and simply held, he allows the reassuring comfort of Fedir surround him from the other side. It overwhelms him, and he’s content.

Such peace-of-heart is a sensation he’d not permitted himself to feel for months; months of war-torn anger blent with hate aimlessly seeking retribution from both within and outside of Denys. And yet here, of a gloriously unexpected sudden, he’d granted himself some ability to forget and let negativity be subsumed beneath the far-more potent love of Nadiya and Fedir in his life.

However, like a soap bubble in the mild air of a summer breeze keeping it too long afloat above the grassy earth, it burst.

Denys wakes in the center of his room, his arms grasping nothing, his bare feet suddenly cold.

Fighting to retain Fedir’s radiant presence and manly scent, Denys lifts his hands to the ceiling of his bedroom – their bedroom – pensive on what these ‘dreams’ could possibly mean.

Then, distracted unpleasantly by an intruding presentiment of the worst kind, Denys turns to find the bed empty. The boy is not there, with only the crumpled sheets retaining the outline of where Theo’s form had lain.

Stunned and dreading confirmation of emptiness, Denys shuffles through the open door to the living area.

Surprisingly, he’s greeted by pleasant sounds of the young man bustling about the kitchen; he’s preparing Denys’ morning coffee for him.

“Theo,” he cries out from the center of the space, “come here.”

Half-grinning, expecting a joke of some kind, the teenboy approaches, but in a moment, Denys wraps him in a tender hug.

Theo returns it, but after several seconds, with Denys’ refusing to let go, the boy manages to separate them far enough for Denys to see the questioning expression on Theo’s face.

Denys explains in heart-shattering honesty, “I thought you’d gone.”

v v v v

“Greetings, all, from Kherson. It’s day 247 of Putin’s warring against the Ukrainian people.”

Once again, Theo mans the journalist’s phone while Denys moves freely about his chosen filming location; a spot more central than usual because the message Denys has to deliver is even more ponderous than normal, Saint Catherine’s Cathedral. The pair stand on a side street where the imposing-but-plain columns of the church’s Palladian architecture abut the sidewalk with no fencing or wall. The four columns are each at least two meters round.

They’re on a de-peopled road that’s not particularly wide, but across from the holy sanctuary is a grassy margin in which a stately row of mature trees are rooted. Behind these run the pedestrian walkway and an iron fence to demarcate the parkland beyond.

Distracted by a screech in the air, Theo looks up to see a morning seagull flying out towards the coast.

Denys’ calm voice refocuses the teenboy in his filming.

“The tragedy of Kherson,” the man says, “has yet to be written, dear viewers.

“I’ve come to Saint Catherine’s Cathedral to talk about serious things; behind me is weighty history, Ukrainian history of the type our enemies wish to destroy.

“We know how they operate. When a Ukrainian missile knocked the Orc’s Kerch Bridge into the waters to reduce their supplies to the invading army, they responded by bombing apartment buildings and shopping centers. For our legitimate military strike, they commit war crimes to slaughter innocents. This is how they work.”

Denys pauses, gesturing up.

Theo follows to capture some of the impressive building before returning to Denys’ face.

“Perhaps,” the reporter suggests, “this church too will be one of the blameless victims of Russian revenge.

“I’ve spoken before about the possible scorched-earth tactics the invaders may inflict upon this city, but none of us know if the Russians are planning our death by fire – from nuclear or radioactive contamination – or ice, from floods they know will freeze hard over the face of the land in only a few weeks from now.

“We don’t know how, but we can feel it coming – and, as I’ve assured you, I’ll stay until the lachrymal end to record it all—”

Suddenly, Denys blinks, realizing Theo has moved to the side of the blogger’s phone to hold his eye. There the man sees only sadness.

Denys clears his throat, regrouping his thoughts. He repeats for effect “We feel it coming, for why else would they steal city monuments. To scrap them for the bronze? Or maybe they have a warped idea they are ‘liberating’ the Russians in these memorials to repatriate them to their disgraced homeland?

“No one knows, but they’ve taken all the city buses too. Why?

“And starting a couple of days ago, they began taking all of Kherson’s firetrucks and ambulances; drove them onto barges to tow across the river to safer-for-Russia territory. How could they do such things? To them, is a firetruck the same as a soldier-pilfered washing machine? A paramedic’s van equal to a family’s refrigerator? A hook and ladder the same as a kid’s iPhone? They’re all mercenary goods to be looted and profited from – liquidated as war booty in the invader’s black market economy?

“No one knows, but the consequences of their actions are clear. Because of what they’ve done, if the Orcs begin to shell apartment towers, there will be no firefighters to put out the blazes. There will be no paramedics to treat the injured. And there will be no search-and-rescue teams to dig out the survivors. The Russians want the land to burn and the people to shiver.

“They steal our Ukrainian patrimony. They try to kill our culture, our language, and ultimately, all Ukrainians. Extermination is the only thing they have on their mind for us.”

After a deep inhalation of breath that is anything but cleansing, Denys wraps it up. “So, what do you think will happen, dear viewers? As always, I encourage you to leave your thoughts and opinions down below.

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

Theo clicks the record button off and hands the reporter’s phone back to him.

Taking it, Denys suddenly shudders. “Come on, let’s get out of here. There’s a chill in the air, and I don’t like it.” Denys glances around – up and down the vacant thoroughfare – but is distracted.

Theo’s dashing, light on his feet, and whipping out his own device. He motions for Denys to stay put.

Before the man can protest, the teenboy’s across the street. Theo halts at a spot on the grass next to the curb, indicating he wants to take Denys’ picture with the imposing architecture behind the man.

And then several things happen at once. For, as Theo lifts his camera phone to his eyes, a black van squeals around the corner to Denys’ left. As it speeds – on the wrong side of the road – to where the boy is, the journalist instinctively ducks behind one of the massive columns.

Peering out, he watches the vehicle haul up past Theo’s position. As the kid, no doubt in shock, steps back to make a run for it, the back doors of the van swing open, and Occupation Police swarm around the boy with raised AK-74s.

“Shit . . . ” Denys mumbles numbly.

Shouting follows: men demanding Theo’s papers; his identity; his address; age, et cetera. And the whole time, the young man raises his hands and tries to motion that he can’t speak.

In the next instant, the youth’s slammed against the side of the van and frisked. One soldier-cop finds Theo’s name / non-verbal communicator notepad and says to the others, “He’s no good. Can’t put dummies in the Territorial Army to fight for Russia.”

Then, in another minute, they are shoving the panic-stricken kid into the back of the vehicle with words about forcible deportation.

The doors close, and the menacing van speeds away to continue its hunting of Kherson citizens for the Orc’s frontlines of slaughter.

Frozen, Denys waits until all signs of movement evaporate. Then, biting down the quickly rising fear in his own throat, he heads back to the relative safety of his home.

Arriving there about noon, he jams the chair under the doorknob and thinks what to do. All of his texts to Theo’s phone have gone unanswered; Denys needs to know first and foremost where the authorities have taken him.

Pacing the floor, contemplating getting down on his knees and praying to the last vestiges of what he might believe in as a God – or imploring Fedir and Nadiya to tell him what to do – he knows he cannot lose Theo. For if lost, Denys would be entirely lost as well.

Suddenly, his phone lights up with an incoming message. Denys kisses the screen.

Theo has texted: “They’ve taken me to a second deportation center, which they’ve converted from the soccer field at the base of the bridge.”

In a moment, a second message appears. “Denys, I’m scared.”

The man types back: “It’s all right. Just stay calm and let me think what to do.”

“Okay, but what can you do?”

Resuming his pacing, Denys’ mind can now focus on a particular problem. Before he had only unknowns to ruminate upon, but now—

Inspiration strikes him. Letting out a deep breath he’s been holding, Denys wonders if his scheme can work. But, with flinty resolve, he knows he must try. For Theo, he’ll risk and lose everything if it means he can protect the young man.

Denys texts: “I have a plan. Just stay put, and I will come to get you.”

“Really?! Oh, please let it be true.”

“It is true, rabbit. Just hold tight, and whatever you do, don’t get on that boat!”

v v v v

If Denys had any spare mental capacity to think how frightening the prospect of having Theo taken from him had become, and allowed it to strike his heart, he may have mused upon the little-acknowledged love of Leonardo DaVinci’s life. Denys may have seen parallels if he had permitted himself to reminisce on Vinci and Salai – Andrea Salaino – his boy; his steadfast partner who came into the grown-man’s life at the street-toughened age of fifteen and gave the artist focus. Salai pulled him together in a very tangible, hands-on way, and thereby gave posterity the much-beloved Renaissance Man as we know him.

And for the ‘proof’ of Leonardo’s love – that beyond the three-plus decades they never left one another’s side again – there is his boy’s portrait known as Vitruvian Man.

Salai’s perfect body is turned into Vinci’s protraction of Classical architectural principles made flesh. It’s an illustration of incorruptibility, deathless human love. Man to boy; artist to the world, forever.

But Denys had no capacity to contemplate abstract matters. He needed Theo back, and therefore, a couple hours later, with midafternoon beating down and lengthening shadows, Denys’ appearance is transformed. His hair’s slicked back, and he’s donned slacks and a conservative suitcoat.

Now, as he approaches the checkpoint to enter the Occupation Authority’s overflow evacuation fields, he’s stunned. There are literally thousands of people snaking in crowd-control lines around the football pitch. From this vantage of higher ground close to the roadway, he’s able to gauge the terminus of the queue’s tail is at the water’s edge. There, ferryboats wait to take on passengers for the river crossing to permanent captivity in Russia.

As the reporter propels a lanyard around his neck, Denys notes the Antonivs’kyy Bridge just off to the left, soaring high above the waterline, but quiet and devoid of all traffic except periodic Russian patrols.

Gritting his teeth, he makes sure the laminated RTV badge – from the Russian state television channel – is facing forward on his chest.

He strides up to one of the guards manning the gate to the compound.

Pinching the ID just right, so he knows he’s covering the 2021 ‘valid until’ date, he holds it up for the soldier’s inspection. “Denys Zhdanovich Melnyk here, reporter for RTV News. I’ve been dispatched to conduct human-interest interviews for broadcast back home. You know, people forced to flee because of Nazi Ukrop aggression, and the like.”

The guard, bombarded with a constant screed of shouts and whines from trapped people on the other side of the chain link enclosure – “There must be some mistake”; “I have to go home”; “I can’t go to Siberia” – looks closely at the press credential. Satisfied the man holding it and the man whose picture is on the ID match, he waves for his comrade-guard to let Denys pass.

Inside now, worming his way through the misery of hopeless throngs like Gustave Doré imagining himself amidst those in Limbo, Denys does not know where to look for the young man.

He pulls out his phone. “I’m here, Theo. Where are you?”

Soon a frantic reply appears. “Hurry! I’m almost at the ferry!”

Denys starts to run forward, craning his neck above and around people to see down to the dock. He perseveres several minutes, apologizing profusely as he roughs people’s shoulders and knocks any number of bags to the ground.

Eventually he makes it to the flat area before people are finally escorted onto the water. Denys sees his boy near the front of the line.

The journalist goes up to one of two guards herding people across this final no-man’s-land and onto the ramp of the ferry dock. He says, “RTV News, doing interviews with these poor people fleeing Ukrainian atrocities. I’d like to speak to that young man there; the one in the brown hoodie.”

The soldier sees who Denys means and nods.

Denys grabs the teenboy’s arm just as he’s about to be ushered across to the boat ramp.

The pair move off to the side, with the second guard catching Denys’ eye for a half-second.

Standing, with the flow of people continuing to surge forward by their flank, Denys says calmly, “I’m pretending to interview you, so keep cool.” He holds up his phone between them as if he’s recording the conversation.

Theo pulls out a pad and writes: “Thank God! You’re my hero, man.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I’m not sure how we can—” He purposefully steps a pace farther away from the moving line of humanity to see if anyone’s watching. “—Get away from these soldiers. They seem pretty paranoid.”

Theo writes: “They are. In the van, they were talking about Kherson resistance fighters getting bolder by the day. They worry about attacks—”

All at once, man and boy appear to forget everything else in the warmth of the other’s gaze. The fear of separation had been acute in both, and the relief of reunion so great, all other circumstances beat a hasty retreat.

And then—

Then the second guard strides up to them, a pissed-off sneer souring his expression. “What the fuck do you think you are doing!”

As the question had been hurtled at Denys, that man replies. “It’s all right. I’m a reporter for Russian State Television.” He holds up his phone. “I’m doing human-interest interviews with the refugees.”

“Oh, yeah?” The Russian pulls his handgun. “And how the fuck you gonna ‘do an interview’ with a stupid dope like this who can’t even talk a word.”

In the stillness of Denys’ mind formulating a reply – to attempt to keep the ‘rescue’ on at all costs – an odd flash appears. It happens almost in slow-motion, over the left shoulder of the guard, originating somewhere along the high, grassy embankment of the river about two hundred meters away.

Instantly, that flash resolves itself into a corkscrewing trail of smoke behind an advancing pressure wave.

Then the sound catches up as a shrill whistling, piercing the air right over their heads.

An unaccountable moment of silence follows, but is ripped apart by an explosion and rain of fire trails spreading out in several directions. All hell has broken loose behind and above Denys and Theo’s position, on the roadway of the bridge.

A roar seems to turn the air incendiary, and for the briefest of instants, a second sun erupts dangerously close to them: the missile’s payload of explosives detonates.

There is instant panic in the crowd. The whistling-induced instinct to duck is quickly converted to running for cover, of which there is none.

Everything is repeated as the bridge is struck by a second shoulder-fired missile.

People heave away from the Antonivs’kyy Bridge, leaving their belongings behind as stumbling blocks for others, and either climb the temporary fencing around them or dash wildly into the low vegetation of the marshland to the far side of the soccer field.

The first guard calls back to his associate still at the reporter and boy’s location. “Ivan, come on! We can still catch those rebel bastards!”

The second guard leaves Denys and Theo where they stand and heads with his comrade towards the position from which the missiles were launched.

Man and teenboy, glancing quietly to one another, slink off unnoticed into the undergrowth and freedom.

v v v v

Later, having run several blocks through the light industrial neighborhood on the Kherson side of the Antonivs’kyy Bridge, the pair find an abandoned warehouse. They duck through an opening with a rolldown door, immediately lowering and locking it once Denys and Theo get inside.

Now, stooped with hands flat on knees, collecting their wits and breaths, a slow dawning comes over both. Quietly at first, laughter arises from the journalist. It’s the contagious kind and has no trouble causing Theo to grin and join in with his nearly silent way.

Denys rights himself, and stiff-legged walks over to the kid’s winded position. “Shit! We did it, zirochka.”

Theo looks up at the man through his curls. He rights himself as well, pulling out his phone.

In another minute, Denys is reading: “And now I’m your little star, am I?”

Choking down emotion, Denys types back on the boy’s phone: “Yes. Yes, you are.”

When Theo glances up from the message, Denys adds, “I thought I had lost you. I was so, not ready to lose you, Theodor Antinovich Orlova—”

Theo launches himself into Denys’ embrace. He takes the man’s cheeks between his palms and kisses him.

Kissed back more passionately than he’d ever experienced in his young life, Theo perceives Denys’ hands unzip his sweatshirt. The young man helps, and then returns the favor by shucking the reporter’s suit jacket.

Momentarily parted to help one another remove and toss aside shirts and tees, the lovers rejoin to kiss more tenderly, eyes opening to watch as lips separate from time to time. The slow-down intensifies heartrates and makes breaths more precious as they become primarily snatched from the mouth of the other.

The teenboy’s hands work over the slick fabric of Denys’ trousers, undoing belt clasp and easing the zipper.

When Theo pushes the fabric down, and goes to lower himself to his knees, Denys commandingly lifts him again. Sensually – from behind – he turns his boy and unfastens the kid’s jeans. While they’re still up, Denys walks Theo forward. In fact, he walks him from behind all the way to the concrete wall.

The young man understands and places his palms flat upon it, his back arching a little as the older man pulls the kid’s garments down to his ankles.

Without uttering a word, Denys moistens his erection and the boy’s trembling portal with spit from Theo’s mouth.

Close to the boy’s ear with his mouth, he eases in. The kid’s back arches even more, driving the man in far deeper than he’d intended to start with. The motion catches Denys by surprise and raises a guttural groan from deep below Denys’ diaphragm. Going directly into Theo’s ear – the one who’d caused such signs of pleasure to be born – the boy stands on tiptoe to alter the angle of entry, driving the man even farther in.

Denys latches onto the kid’s naked shoulders and pummels him good. A rhythm established, he knows exactly how deep Theo likes it by the feel of the teenboy’s contractions on his member, and how far to come on the upstroke; only a centimeter from withdrawing completely.

Shutting his eyes, Denys has to admit to himself how incredibly good Theo feels; the place where the boy embraces him is cosmically firm and circular, but relenting with each deeper insistence Denys offers in penetration.

He hadn’t topped many guys in his life – preferring to take and receive the manly gifts from Fedir’s own insistent yet tender lovemaking – but here, now with Theo, Denys understands what joy-filled contentment his older partner felt every time he entered him; every time Denys’ perseverance would eventually, internally, receive the older man’s sacred anointings.

Theo feels so incredibly good. The young man positively embraces him and reminds him what it means to be held by someone you deeply care for; what it means to be human.

But the man’s climax is in jeopardy of arriving too soon, so Denys turns the teenboy to face him. He guides the young man to rest his upper back against the wall, and supports Theo with the kid’s legs in the crook of his arms.

Clothes on the floor now, forgotten, they’re locked eye to eye as Denys reenters him.

The man lets out a sigh, relishing how Theo’s curls bob as he goes deeper than he could before. And as he withdraws, he again relishes the enraptured flicker he watches in the boy’s partially closed baby-blues. Neither dark and morose, nor light and carefree, Theo’s vision appears settled on Denys with something new. What emotion it may convey, Denys knows to be chary in the naming, lest saying it out loud frighten the boy into its denial. But the sight of the young man’s eyes, plus the way Theo’s youthful, strong hands grip the man’s biceps, force Denys’ breaths to hitch in his throat; causing him to edge ever closer to the brink of climax.

“I . . . I,” he moans, “can’t keep from . . . cumming—”

Theo’s hands move deftly to the back of his lover’s neck. His eyes open more fully, and he nods.

“Are you sure?”

The teenboy responds by drawing the pair into a kiss. His backside consequently sinks farther along Denys’ shaft.

All the way in now, Denys pants wildly upon the boy’s lips. In the next instant, he starts to pulsate. The joy of connectedness is almost a pain, as only true lovers know.

Senses already reeling, he begins to feel Theo contract around him, and this tightness branches out into a series of rhythmic clasping and letting go – the young man’s orgasming too, handsfree, slicking his load between where their abdomens embrace.

Denys had experienced this with Fedir as well, and it seems the final component to elevate his mind; shot out into space, the boy’s grip on his arms is Denys’ only tether to Earth.

Eventually, spent in all ways imaginable, he helps the boy stand on his feet again, and Denys uses his tee-shirt to help facilitate a quick clean up. But Theo needs to lean on him for support.

Drunk on living for the moment, Denys forgets the one thing he’d only just chided himself not to reveal. “I love you, Theo” slips haplessly out.

Degree by degree, he feels the young man in his arms tense up. A moment later, Theo’s awkwardly freeing himself from Denys’ grasp entirely, and then looking for and pulling on his shorts and Levi’s.

Denys does the same with his own clothes, fearing the damage he may have done to a chance of building a “them.”

But seeing the misery writ all across Denys’ complete body, Theo relents, signing two words at the man in total honesty and acceptance: Ty osoblyvyy.

Denys does not understand, as the boy assumes he won’t, but Theo wants to tell Denys directly how important he is. Drawing close to the man, he stands before him defenselessly, and in a replay of the moment they first met, Theo motions to indicate his ears may be okay, but instead of moving down to his lips, he keeps going, drawing a slow ‘X’ over his heart.

The teenboy mouths a pair of words. “I’m broken,” he says, making them rough and barely audible.

Denys rushes him into an embrace. “No,” he slowly replies, repeating, “no; no, Theo. Shit, don’t you see? You are less broken than the rest of us.”

Theo nods softly like it’s a question.

“Yes, zirochka. Yes.”

Theo pulls out his phone, typing: “I love you, Denys, but please, swear you won’t break my heart.”

“I swear it to you, by all that I ever held dear in this life, I will always protect you.”

Theo types, then holds up his phone a little shakily. “You miss my point. Don’t worry about me. But please, just keep yourself alive.”

“Oh, Theo—”

The boy taps out: “I can’t take losing you too. Get it?”

Denys draws him into a gentle hug. “Yes, Theo, I get it. A million times, I get it, my love; my boy.”

_