Escaping Kherson, a novella - 1. Day One

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Day One

24 October 2022 pik

 

 

He finds his phone a tad shaky this afternoon, but Denys steadies it so he can hit the record button.

“Greetings, all, from Kherson. It’s day 243 of Russia’s warring on the Ukrainian people, and I have to be careful. The Occupation Police are out in force. Their goal? To kidnap fit young men and impress them unwillingly into the Russian Army.”

The camera slips down a touch. While the background had previously shown snippets of an ordinary residential street, with boarded up shops across the way, the new angle reveals Denys stands upon a series of gray steps. They are broad and shallow, like the kind many high-rises front to passersby.

“So that means I won’t stray far from home today.” The man pans with his phone. “As you can see, businesses are shuttered and the streets are abandoned. Besides the impressment thugs roaming the city, Russian soldiers are also rounding up kids, their mothers and grandparents for deportation out of Kherson. Consequently, people lock themselves in and only venture out when they must for food or fuel.”

He realigns the camera to be squarely on his face again. Denys’ soulful brown eyes turn sad.

“Others are getting out while they can to safer territory, but as you know, dear viewers, I’ve vowed to stay until the bitter end. As a reporter, I feel it’s my duty.”

The man’s anxious glance takes in the vault of gunmetal sky to his right. A weightless breeze from this same cardinal direction stirs up the sickly sweet presence of death around him.

“Winter will be here soon. Maybe by then Kherson will be a second Mariupol’. If so, my one remaining mission in life will be to document Russian atrocities here. Until then, I’m just taking one day at a time, posting videos, to spread the word of what the Orcs and their Kapos are doing to my adopted city – If, that is, the outside world still gives a shit anymore.”

The journalist offers a steely glint into his selfie lens.

“They’ve already taken everything I love, so I’m staying put. I’m either here to see Kherson liberated, or Kherson destroyed, no matter what.”

The camera shakes again; Denys stabilizes it once more.

“Like I said, I can’t spend too much time on today’s video, but I thought I’d end it with a poem that came to me last night in a dream. I apologize beforehand, for I know it’s shit poetry, but if you think about the words, it somehow conveys what being in Kherson is like right now. It starts:

 

“Through ghoulish music’s merry sound

The horses skitter up and down.

The carousel twists round-n-round,

Driven by demented forces.

Like beasts whipped to run through the town,

The lion chases the horses.”

 

Denys chuckles darkly.

“Warned you it wasn’t much . . . but, think about the words.

“Anyway, thanks for watching. As always, leave your thoughts and opinions down below.

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

Denys reaches up to press the video off button. The second after he does so, a shadow of movement is reflected in the jet-black screen of his phone.

He knows it’s behind him, so he cautiously rotates the upper third of his body; he wants to make no sudden motions. Someone across the street is slinking quietly along, oblivious to the stationary reporter. It’s not a soldier; it’s not a policeman. In fact, the hooded figure best resembles some fleet-footed teenager, but with their dark brown cowl up as it is, Denys can’t make out any details.

Suddenly, the figure stops and then ducks through a gap in the plywood that boards up a Russian-looted convenience store.

Was it any of Denys Melnyk’s business? No. And yet, whomever he’d just seen had given the journalist a sense of needing help.

Perhaps the impression’s caused by nothing more than the kid’s scent of desperation, which, of course, the logical side of Denys recognized only too well. But any person’s desperation can also be a dangerous thing for others who approach too closely.

So even though it might be against his best self-interest, Denys stows his phone away, jogs down his building’s imposing steps and dashes across the thoroughfare.

After he passes through the loose barricade, Denys becomes conscious of the sound his boots make stepping on the rubble of the store’s broken glass, which tempered, had shattered into a thousand chunks of gravel.

He pauses, listening. Denys thinks he can hear rustling over to his right. As he approaches it, the man notes how much darker this area of the store is, removed as it is from the dusty shards of daylight forcing their way in near the entrance.

When he gets to the third aisle over, he sees a silhouette move from beyond the other end. It seems someone is busying themselves with whatever is on display between the rows in back.

Denys heads down the passageway, letting instincts tell him he’s making a good decision, but crouching low nevertheless.

Gradually nearing the end, passing empty shelf upon empty shelf, and careful not to step on any of the merchandise-debris the uniformed vandals left strewn all over the floor, Denys straightens to a fully upright posture and boldly strides into the rear aisle.

He sees the young person he’d watched slink in here earlier sitting on their haunches, gathering something fiddly to their chest.

Perhaps owing to the fact that their hood was still up, this person does not notice they’re being observed.

Denys clears his throat. “You shouldn’t be here alone—”

Tumbling over in surprise, away from the man, the teen sends pens and stationery skittering across the floor.

The man sees the fright he raised in the other’s eyes and immediately thrusts out open palms in an ‘I’m harmless’ gesture. He also hunkers down again in reassurance, saying, “The Occupation Police are everywhere, and you shouldn’t be alone. That’s all I meant, honestly. I’m surprised you’re not here for food—”

Denys ceases his explanations.

The other had risen and now uses both hands to shove the hood off of his head.

It’s a young man.

The teenboy inhales deeply, apparently trying to regulate his startled heartbeat. He uses an open palm to brush his collar-length hair back. It appears to be light-brown and has a loose, natural curl to it.

To the journalist’s cursory inspection, the wiry frame of the youth stands out first. Only a few centimeters shorter than himself, the boy is nonetheless several kilograms lighter than Denys.

Having regained his breath and equilibrium, the young man begins furiously signing at Denys, who replies, “I’m sorry. I don’t speak sign language, and I didn’t know you were deaf.”

Clearly incensed now, the youth makes a pointed gesture to his ears, followed by an okay. Then he runs a stiff index finger atop his lips with an ‘X’ motion.

Swallowing, the reporter shrugs.

The boy sighs. Out of his pockets come several well-worn notepads. He selects one, the grottiest, oldest-looking example, and holds it up for Denys’ inspection. Scrawled across the back – in red letters – it reads: “Non-verbal communicator (mute). Can hear, but can’t talk.”

“Oh. Now I see.”

In the awkward moment of silence that follows, with both attempting to navigate the other and assess threat level, the mid-twenties man tries a smile. “Denys, here”—he pats his chest—“what’s yours . . . your name?”

The kid searches for and selects another pad. Its cover has “THEO” elegantly drawn in purple ink.

More awkwardness follows, but this ends abruptly with the sound of air raid sirens. At first, they’re far away, but as the seconds tick – with man and boy freezing their attention on one another – the public alert blasts come closer and closer to their part of town.

Theo drops to his knees, scrambling to collect the broadcast pens and notepads.

But, a moment later, Deny is pulling the kid up again by the collar. “Now is not the time. Come on! I know a place to shelter.”

The young man reluctantly leaves behind the lion’s share of what he came to the store to procure, but clutches a few pens and pads, which he stuffs down his jeans as he and Denys jog for the exit.

Out on the street, the alarms grow frantic, screeching from every direction now.

Denys takes the young man by the wrist; he won’t let go. “Across the street!”

They run, ducking around the building’s front steps, from which Denys had caught first sight of Theo, and into a ground floor service bay.

Inside, they round a corner and take steps two at a time, going down a couple of flights to hide in the basement.

 

v v v v

 

 

There are those who regard autumn as an abomination. For them, the season noses its way in like a crooked politician arrived johnny-on-the-spot to pilfer summer’s warmth and divert its light and contentment over to winter’s corrupt corpulence.

For others, of an arguably firmer mindset, autumn is a time to lay in store what the onrushing months of dark privations demand. For them, the season is a time to collect happy memories, one by one, like a squirrel with an acorn. For, one by one, these are to be cached for winter usage; a nugget of warmth to be extracted and held close when bleakness otherwise threatens to freeze out a human heart.

Although the winter of 2022/23 was yet in the offing, the people still remaining in Kherson had two ways to regard the autumn expanding around them.

However, for two in a high-rise residential building, they’re only concerned about taking it one day at a time.

Therefore, hours later, the coast clear, Denys opens his fifth-floor apartment door and lets Theodor Antinovich Orlova – whose full name he’d learned in the interim – follow him in.

Lights come on. It’s not yet dark outside, but Denys immediately goes to draw all the curtains tightly shut. The journalist takes a moment to peek out. It’s even quieter now, in early evening, than it had been before. Everyone remaining in the city’s battening down for the night. He’s glad he used his time in the basement to edit and upload his video for the day. At least that’s off his mind.

Finished closing the drapes, Denys turns around to find his visitor about to sit on the wooden chair next to the door. “Uh-oh, not that one, if you don’t mind.”

The young man stands aside and watches his host barricade the front door with it, angling the chair’s top rail firmly under the door lever.

Denys lets the scrap of a chuckle escape. “Not to keep you in, but the Orcs out.”

Theo scowls, lucidly expressing “I know.”

The video blogger heads cheerfully off towards the kitchen. “You hungry?”

Theo nods with gusto when the man scans back to him.

Half an hour later, the two sit down to a kitchen meal of jarred pickles, hot vegetable soup and crusty bread. Denys has a little sour cream left, so he puts that out as well.

After they’d been going at it for a short while, Denys consciously slows his pace, noting with a pang of guilt how Theo’s devouring his food like he hasn’t had anything in his stomach for a couple of days. “Eat up,” he tells the kid. “There’s enough for seconds or thirds, if you want it.”

And there is, too, because Denys only pecks at the single bowl he serves himself. He leaves all of the bread and cream for the boy.

“How old are you, Theo?”

The youth scarcely pauses, writing the number upside down on the table for Denys: eighteen.

Before he resumes eating, the youth bobs his chin and raises momentary eyebrows in Denys’ direction like a question.

“Me?” the man inquires. “My age? I’m twenty-seven . . . going on seventy-seven.”

The kid doesn’t find this particularly funny.

Denys defends himself. “Not a fan of ‘old man humor’? – Dad jokes, as they call them.”

Theo smiles a bit; just a whiff of one while he nods his head. It’s the first time Denys can see the young man’s eyes are of a variable blue – dark, when sad or pensive; and lighter, like now, when something’s tickled his fancy.

Later on, after table-clearing and dish-doing, the teenboy accepted the offer to get cleaned up himself in the shower. He had, and now dressed in some of Denys’ clean clothes, wanders the living area, listening to the water run in the other room while his host performs his own ablutions.

The teenboy runs his finger over titles of volumes he’s never heard of in the low bookcase along one wall. A lengthy shelf here is devoted to photography monographs, and it’s now he notices a few 35mm cameras on display around the apartment too.

One’s resting on a shelf close to hand, but it’s what’s sitting next to it that catches Theo’s attention; a snapshot in a hardwood frame. In it, a slightly younger looking Denys is with a young woman and mature man. The second guy is nowhere old enough to be father to either of the others in the photograph, so Theo wonders who they could be to one another.

He walks over to the sofa and finds a couple more pictures on an end table – each with the same grouping of three; each snapshot showing the trio relaxed and giving off a ‘family’ impression.

The water shuts off in the other room, so Theo puts the frames back as they had been.

Soon, Denys emerges from the hallway wearing sweats and rubbing his damp hair with a towel. “Time to kill the lights,” the man says.

He starts striking matches for canning jars with a white substance in them, motioning for Theo to help. The wicks catch, and Denys explains, “Shortening candles – they’ll burn clean for a hundred hours or more.”

After eight are going and throwing out a fair amount of illumination to the main living space, Denys switches off the lights.

He plops down on the sofa, tossing his towel aside. “Bright apartments lead the invaders to kidnap and ‘disappear’ the inhabitants.”

Theo nods, sitting in the chair across from Denys.

His host continues, “Unlike most of Ukraine these days, Kherson still has power, but that’s only because the Russians haven’t blown up the hydroelectric dam – yet.”

The gallows humor goes over with the boy like a lead balloon.

“Sorry,” Denys adds, “more of my dad jokes.”

Theo pulls out one of his notepads and writes a question on it. He hands it across the void to Denys.

“What do I do? For a living?”

Theo nods.

“I’m a journalist, or, I used to be. I worked as the international editor for the Kherson Zvistka, when it was allowed to operate. So, not anymore.”

The young man recognizes the name of one of the city’s largest newspapers. Theo gestures for his pad back. He writes: “Are you the photographer then?”

Denys lights up. He shakes his head. “That was Fedir – that was his passion.”

Theo indicates the snapshots on the end table with exaggeratedly shrugged shoulders.

Denys holds the kid’s glance on him for confirmation, asking, “You want to know if that’s Fedir in the photograph? Yes, that’s him.”

Somewhat flustered, the young man wriggles his fingers. Denys passes the pad back, and Theo spells it out for the man. “Who are they? Who are they to you?”

Denys replies slowly, “Their names are Nadiya Zubko and Fedir Tokar. We were, in . . . in a relationship together.” He returns the notebook across the intervening space without prompting.

The young man seems to hesitate and compose his next query with more deliberation.

When Theo hands it back, Denys reads: “In a relationship with the man too?”

“Yes. Polyamorous, they call it. The three of us were a couple.”

The boy nods with a difficult-to-read cast about his features. Does the teenager not get the concept; or does he, and disapprove? Denys can’t tell which.

Tired of passing the notepad back and forth, Theo sits next to the man on the sofa. The other can read as he writes: “What happened? Did you break up?”

The openness now evident on the young man’s face causes Denys to feel sorry for what he’s about to say. “They’re dead.”

The boy mouths the word “How?”

“Not long after the Russians rolled in, there was a protest in the central square, in front of the Kherson region’s administration building; people gathered to curse at the tanks. Perhaps you remember it happening, or saw the famous video.”

Theo nods, slowly.

“Well, the footage cuts off right before the Orcs open fire. I was there and saw Fedir and Nadiya swept up into a van. They didn’t come home, and an informant of mine in the Occupation Administration later told me they were tortured, murdered and dumped in the woods.” Denys glances to the ceiling. “I have the GPS coordinates of their particular mass grave on my phone. In case I make it through the liberation of Kherson alive, I can give it to the proper authorities.”

Theo, having been through a lot himself, nevertheless feels shocked to hear Denys relay these horrors so matter-of-factly. A part of his brain clicks it might have something to do with the man being a reporter, but still—

He fishes out a different pen and carefully draws in red ink: “I’m sorry.”

Now Denys launches into his own most-pressing question. “But, Theo, tell me – why are you all alone on the streets?”

In perfect eighteen-year-old attitude, the young man shrugs.

“I mean, where are your parents?”

Theo scowls, changes to blue ink and writes: “Dead. Too.”

“How?”

The teenboy jots quickly but clearly, as if speaking a little too fast to be entirely believable: “Rounded up and murdered, by the Russians, the day the Orcs first marched into town.”

Though nursing a suspicion of doubt, Denys does not press for details concerning their demise. “And how did you survive after that? It’s been months and months.”

“Aunt and her husband,” the teenboy measuredly prints. “I’ve been living with them, but when they said they were volunteering last week to be evacuated to Russia, I ran away.”

Denys affirms the young man’s instincts. “Orcs are putting Ukrainians in shit concentration camps – filtration centers, they are calling them now.”

Theo forms the word “Why?” with his lips.

“They want as many civilian hostages as possible to negotiate the release of Russian POWs. Innocent souls for the hides of uniformed criminals – that’s how the invaders operate.”

“Anyway,” Theo writes in a hasty scrawl, “my aunt appeared more interested in the safety of her Shih Tzu dog than me. They probably never even missed me!”

“I’m sure,” Denys replies, “that’s not true. They must be very worried about you. I’ll call them if you want me—”

“NO!” Theo mouths, producing a small sound and punctuating the sentiment with over-the-top hand gestures.

“Well”—Denys relents, possibly seeing fear in the kid’s eyes—“maybe later. I’m sure they’d want to know you’re all right.”

The boy’s tense muscles settle a bit; he seems placated for the moment.

After a quiet minute or two, with the pair merely watching the flickering flames of the jar-candle on the table in front of them, Theo flips the page on his pad and writes slowly, deliberately, “Perhaps, if you’re cool with it and all, I’d better stay the night.”

Denys is hesitant. The kid gives the impression of being decent, but what, if any, nefarious interests the teenboy may have in mind worry him. Could it be robbery? Could it be something worse . . . ?

Appearing to sense these questions, Theo hastily adds: “Curfew. It will be dangerous to be out past curfew, you know.”

Nine o’clock at present, and a full two hours before the start of the official no-go time, the man remains confused. But then, glancing up and into the young man’s wide-open, expectant gaze, Denys realizes all at once that Theo probably just needs a place to bunk down for the night that is safe and warm.

“Okay, sure.” Denys adds a reassuring grin to his face, rising up and standing by the boy. “But – you will sleep in my bed, alone, and I will camp out here on the sofa. Deal?”

After the kid’s blushing nod, Denys goes off to change the sheets on his bed, wondering to himself if the youth’s expression on hearing the news of the sleeping arrangements signaled relief or disappointment.

Perhaps, Denys thinks, the enigmatic cast to Theo’s eyes betray a little of both.

 

 

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