I won’t kill, don’t kill, don’t kill! she probably wanted to shout into the phone.
But there was no reason for this shout: on the second day after the unit arrived, they had their first and last normal shoot-out with the other side. Some bastards fired a few clips at the post and crawled back to their holes.
And that was all… Until today nothing serious has happened, mother.
You’re still thinking about your mother, the Sergeant caught himself out.
I’m not thinking, I’m not thinking, I don’t remember anyone, I don’t remember my nearest and dearest, he waved aside these thoughts, realizing that if he remembered his other blood, poured into the world in the two pink, small, boyish, chick-like bodies, then he would go mad immediately.
I don’t want to remember, I don’t want to suffer, I want to eat rocks, I want to spin my stupid nerves into bundles, and I don’t want to have to dream anything. I want to dream of stones, animals, primitive things…
Before Christ — what was before Christ: that’s what I need. When there was no pity and fear. And no love. And no humiliation…
The Sergeant looked for something to lean on, but couldn’t find anything: everything was weak and dragged you with itself to die, everything was full of soul, warmth and such tenderness that is intolerable for existence.
From somewhere, a sullen face summoned by his entire being came drifting along, it was stern, distinct and alien to everything that flowed inside. The Sergeant felt with his skull this inhuman, soul-strengthening glance…
He shuddered, and realized that he had fallen asleep for a second. Perhaps for even less than a second. And he had had a dream.
He squatted, looking into the semi-darkness.
“What did you see?” Samara asked.
“Stalin,” the Sergeant replied hoarsely, thinking his own thoughts.
“Sergeant!” Samara exclaimed.
“Mmm.”
“What’s with you?”
“Everything’s fine. Gather the posts. Let’s go hunting.”
They walked in the darkness, hardly concealing themselves.
The Sergeant said nothing to anyone. So as not to persuade them. And in any case he didn’t want to talk anymore.
This is a foreign land, the Sergeant repeated, as if in a delirium. A foreign land. Why does it want me so much?
I used to be light… I felt light… I knew how to live lighter than snow… Why has it oppressed me so?
The land is breaking up. The crazy and trampled East. Apparitions, and the flickering remains of the West. And magma that will swallow everything.
…And there’s nothing to hold on to..
“Where are you leading us?” Ginger asked.
The Sergeant kept silent, not at all comprehending what these words meant.
“I am leading you,” he replied with difficulty.
“I don’t get it, Sergeant,” Ginger answered rudely. “I don’t believe you, Sergeant. Where are you going?”
I also love my Homeland, the Sergeant thought, looking into the darkness and stumbling. I love my land terribly. I love it horribly and immorally, not regretting anything… Humiliating myself and others… But what is spreading out under my feet — is that my land? My Homeland? What have you done with it, you…
The Sergeant took out his flask, and drank the last gulp of water.
“Sergeant, why aren’t you saying anything?” Samara asked, and his voice trembled.
And Vitka snorted nearby, looking the Sergeant in the face.
Only Ridge stood at a distance, confident and firm.
“What are you driveling about, everything’s OK,” Sluggish replied.
“Everything’s OK,” the Sergeant repeated loudly.
“You do remember where to go?” Sluggish asked him.
“Yes.”
He remembered, and took his men through the darkness right to the buildings: one hundred meters from them, the soldiers squatted down.
Shots came from the base from time to time. Occasional flares cut through the darkness and hit the roofs and walls of the buildings.
A volley of automatic gunfire responded from somewhere nearby, and the soldiers thought that they were being shot at, they all immediately fell down into the sand, with their hands, bellies and faces… but the shots were being fired in a different direction.
“The jeep is parked there,” the Sergeant said. “We’re going to take it now.”
“What for?” Ginger asked.
“We’re going home,” the Sergeant replied. “I’ll take you home, Ginger,” the Sergeant repeated angrily.
They crawled, stopping and listening from time to time.
The Sergeant licked salt off a stone and ran the crunchy grains of sand over his tongue and lips.
He did not have a single thought in his head.
“…there’s no key there…if…there’s no key?” the words reached him: Sluggish was whispering.
“I’ll start it,” the Sergeant replied. “I’ll take off the hood… cables… I can do it… Shit.”
Twenty meters away they lay down and stayed there for a few minutes, without moving.
Someone laughed inside the buildings.
And it was quiet again.
“Ridge,” the Sergeant called. “Everyone will get into the car, and you get in the back, in the box.”
The “box” was what they called the section behind the seats in the jeep.
“When I start moving, shoot from the grenade launcher… at them.”
Ridge nodded.
“Wait,” the Sergeant said to everyone and crawled ahead.
Slowly, slower than a blossoming flower, he crawled the last meters to the car. He lay by the wheel, stroking the tyre, as if the iron jeep was an animal that could be scared.
The Sergeant got up, and bending over, trying to tread quietly, walked around the car.
He searched for the handle… there it was, ice-cold… He raised his head and looked in the window, expecting to see crazy eyes stuck to the glass from the other side. There was no one there, no eyes.
He pushed the handle down and pulled the door towards him.
He stuck his head inside, and smelled rather than looked. It didn’t smell of a living, sleeping person.
It smelt of the strangers who had left, dirt, sweat and gunpowder.
The Sergeant put his leg in, and then moved his entire body into the car. He stretched out on the seat and even shut his eyes for a second.
Don’t think, he begged himself.
He felt in the dark car with his blind hand and shuddered: it seemed to be the key.
He bent over: yes, the key. In the ignition. They hadn’t taken it.
Why the hell should they take the key, who would steal the car here…
And the radio… Where’s the radio? There it is.
There was laughter in the buildings again: ridiculous, foolish laughter.
The Sergeant listened, and suddenly thought quickly: They’re out of it… That’s how people laugh when they’re out of it… They probably looted the pharmacy in the village…
He felt light, light and clear, and everything fell into its place.
He touched the steering wheel, the gear stick, the pedals, adjusting to the car, so that he wouldn’t get anything wrong.
And no one’s storming the base, he thought, not hurrying himself. They blocked it. They’re waiting for their own guys, I suppose. Reinforcements. Our guys are probably all fine. There wasn’t any assault on the base. Good. Look alive, men. The planes will be here soon. And those bastards will get it… they will…