A sharp breeze rustled the branches of the trees in Vingis Park. The sudden noise startled Kolya and he turned quickly on his heel, his hand reaching beneath his jacket. The moon had disappeared, covered by another thick layer of cloud blowing in from the coast. The only light came from the lamps on the bridge, just visible through the trees.
I pushed up the sleeve of my jacket and unbuttoned my shirt. My fingers trembled so that it took a while. It was so dark that it was hard to make out the crinkled pink skin. The scars. I felt the skin’s odd hairlessness, its wrinkles. Tentatively Kolya reached out and placed his fingers on my arm. They were cold and trembling too.
I felt again the weight of the fragile child’s body in my arms, recalling how I had stumbled down the hill, the branches of the trees lashing my face, my arms numb with pain. How I fell, headlong, tossing the child aside. Crawled through the undergrowth, picked her up and staggered on. And fell and gathered her and stumbled on.
‘We’re pulling out,’ a voice shouted close to my ear.
Vassily was perspiring, his face black with dirt, glistening with large beads of sweat. He loomed over me, blocking out the light. His hand reached down and brushed my cheek. I tried to turn my head, but it would not move.
His hands gripped the front of my flak jacket. He pulled the child from my arms. I struggled to hold on to the small body, pulling it close to my chest. Crushing it against me. Another set of hands pulled at my arms. The pain seared through my body, vibrating in my head. It was as if somebody were pushing hot iron against my flesh, tearing the skin away from my bone.
‘He’s badly burnt,’ somebody said.
‘Come on, let’s move,’ Vassily said, his voice tight with fear. ‘They may come back and we’re totally fucked. Zhuralev has taken a bullet, and the radio operator is dead.’
I tried to struggle to my feet, but Vassily pushed me back down.
‘Just roll over,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you on to the stretcher.’
Hands reached out and tugged at me. Pulled and pushed. Lifted and dropped. Sick with exhaustion, I lay still as they hoisted me up. They ran, jolting me so my teeth rattled. I heard the splash of water as they forded the stream and their heavy breathing and curses as they stumbled down the line. My head throbbed and my arms burnt.
‘Zena,’ I murmured, my voice hoarse, barely audible above the noise of the engines of the armoured vehicles.
There was a strong wind blowing. The sand was whipped up from the track and swirled in dark, choking clouds around the stationary vehicles. The wind was accompanied by a heavy throb, a clattering pulse. My stretcher was lifted and slid along the floor of a helicopter.
A medic looked down at me, gently pushing my head to one side, digging strong fingers into the side of my neck, eliciting a pain so sharp it brought tears to my eyes and a cry to my lips. A look of wearied annoyance crossed the medic’s face and he pushed my head roughly back into place. He turned and extracted a syringe from his bag, took a small glass vial and snapped off its nipple. Inserting the needle, he sucked the morphine up into the syringe. The tip was white from where it had been boiled. Its rubber looked dark and perished. He injected me and turned immediately to deal with another casualty.
Sitting above me, on one of the metal seats along the side of the chopper, was the medic with the spectacles.
‘Zena,’ I said.
He glanced down at me. His spectacles were cracked and a yellowing bandage had been wound tightly around his head. Blood had begun to seep through it, a dark stain.
A rush of warmth flooded my senses, entirely at odds with the desperate darkness of my thoughts. I fought it. My eyelids flickered. When they slid closed, I opened them again, lifting the skin with deliberate effort. The metal beneath me lurched suddenly and somebody cursed. Somebody else was crying. My eyelids fell heavily and I could not lift them, though I tried.
‘Zena.’ The helicopter dipped as it turned so that my stretcher slid across the metal floor, coming to rest against the legs of the seats. Darkness enfolded me.
‘Let’s go now,’ Kolya said softly.
I nodded and pulled down the sleeves of my shirt and jacket. We turned in the direction of the bridge and trudged along the dark path in silence, feet crunching on the gravel. On the back of my neck I felt a drop of rain. Glancing up, I saw the dark shape of an owl swoop down across the sky and settle at the top of a tree. From the far side of the bridge it was possible to hear the dog barking still, disturbed by some other nocturnal soul. On the bank of the river, by the end of the bridge, work was being done to create a new path through the centre of the woods to the auditorium. The earth-working equipment cast weird shapes in the darkness. Kolya shivered and hurried on towards the light of the lamp on the footbridge.