TWENTY
ARSENY
It is only the second day, and Sergei has already made the same mistake three times, which would almost be impressive if it weren’t so irritating.
He keeps rushing the drill as if speed will somehow cover the fact that half of what he is doing is sloppy.
He cuts corners where he thinks no one will catch him, shortens the transition, skimps on his breathing, and then tries to throw enough force at the rest of it to make the whole thing look deliberate.
I let it pass once. The second time, I stop the line and wait until he works out why. By the third, I am finished being patient. “This again?” I ask.
He glances at me, then away, which is the first sensible thing he’s done all morning.
The rest of them stand in a crooked line, pretending not to listen, but of course they are. They always are when someone else is being corrected. I let the silence sit for a moment longer because it does more than shouting ever does. Then I tell them to reset.
They do it, rifles up, and feet still wrong. The timing is slightly better, but not enough to matter. I step in, shift Sergei’s stance, push another man’s shoulder down, tap his foot into place with mine, and then step back. “Again.”
This lot isn’t hopeless, which is unfortunate, because hopeless men usually break quickly and save everyone time.
This group are merely irritating enough to think they can get away with things.
Small things. Fast things. Lazy things. Men always think small mistakes don’t matter until winter decides otherwise, and then suddenly everyone becomes very interested in the details.
Under normal circumstances, I would have less patience with them than this. The only reason Sergei is still standing where he is instead of being humiliated properly in front of the others is that I have been in a better mood this week than he deserves.
That’s Caiden’s fault.
I’ve spent years getting very good at not building my life around other people, but he has managed to become an exception to that rule in ways I find both inconvenient and also impossible to regret.
So Sergei gets one more chance than he usually would, and the others get corrected without me making an example of anybody.
They should all be grateful Caiden got to me first.
By the end of the morning, the drills improve, not because they’ve suddenly become smarter, but because I have removed the idea that I might let anything else slide. Men are easier to manage once they understand where the line is and how much it will cost them to cross it.
Sergei avoids looking at me after lunch, which is wise. I don’t pursue it because there’s no pleasure in chasing something once it’s already broken.
By the end of the first week, the exercise has settled into the usual rhythm.
Drills, corrections, rinse and repeat. Men are getting tired enough to stop arguing with reality.
Access to the outside tightens, as it always does once the routine beds in.
Calls get cut unless they matter. Messages slow down.
Personal mail turns up in lumps whenever somebody remembers it exists.
I notice the lack of Caiden in stupid little ways.
Something one of the men says that would have made him laugh.
A look I would have thrown at him across a room if he were here.
A private comment with nowhere useful to put it.
It’s not tragic. I’m not wandering around in the snow yearning like an idiot or anything.
I work, I sleep, and I keep the exercise moving.
But I miss him enough to find it annoying, which is new and therefore unhelpful.
Amsterdam keeps coming back as well, though not the city itself.
I don’t care about canals or narrow streets or any of that.
What stays with me is him, half asleep and impossible to move once he has decided I belong where I am.
The warmth of his skin, the smug little look he gets when he thinks he’s worked me out, and the way he talks about the future as if it is already sitting there waiting for us and all we have to do is turn up and take it.
I’ve never thought that way.
The future, as far as I have ever been concerned, is usually just the next thing that needs doing. The next job. The next movement. The next place. Caiden looks at it like it can be built, and worse, somewhere between Russia and Amsterdam, I started letting him infect me with that.
I think about the trip we’re meant to take later in the year — maybe France at Christmas this time — and feel something dangerously close to contentment.
That feeling alone should probably worry me more than it does.
When I get back to my tent at the end of the seventh day, there’s a pile of forwarded mail on the folding table inside.
Official envelopes, mainly supply notices and the usual stale administrative rubbish.
A few personal letters have been dropped on top in a batch, held back until somebody decided they could no longer be ignored.
I don’t expect anything for me, but then I see my name. I know the handwriting instantly before I pick it up.
Niko.
I don’t open it straight away. Instead, I hang my coat and put the kettle on. There’s no point in lunging at bad news, which I know it is. He wouldn’t have written otherwise. The water heats, and I pour it. Then I open the envelope and read the letter standing up.
The letter is short.
Cassie is dead.
For a second, my brain refuses to accept the sentence in front of me, as if I have misread it or Niko has written the wrong words in the wrong order, and another scan will sort them into something that makes sense.
It doesn’t.
Cassie is dead.
I read the rest, which doesn’t take long.
There’s almost nothing there. There’s no long explanation or attempt to soften the blow.
No words that might make this easier to swallow.
Just the fact of it and a few bare details around it.
That, more than anything, tells me how bad it is.
Niko has stripped it down to the basics because he couldn’t stand to write more.
I go over the page again anyway, looking for something useful. A date. A place. Some practical details I can act on from here.
But there’s nothing.
I think about the last time I saw her. Cassie with Vladimir on one hip and an opinion already half out of her mouth before anyone had asked for it.
Her laughing too loudly in a room too small for that much noise.
And then her looking at me as if she knew exactly when I was being an asshole and had decided, generously, not to say it aloud.
Dead.
I fold the letter once. Then again.
I put the letter back in the envelope and sit on the edge of the cot because there is nowhere else to go. The tea sits on the table untouched. Outside, the camp goes on as if nothing has happened, which of course it would. The world remains offensively willing to keep moving.
But then I think about Niko in that flat, then about Vladimir, too young to understand anything properly and old enough for it to matter anyway.
Then, because timing has always enjoyed being cruel, I think about Caiden.
Not because this has anything to do with him.
But because five minutes ago I was thinking about Amsterdam.
About him asleep beside me, the trip we are meant to take later this year, and all the stupid private things I’ve started letting myself want.
Then this letter arrives and reminds me, very efficiently, that life doesn’t care what I’ve allowed myself to want.
That’s the part that gets under my skin.
I had been happy. Really happy, in my own quiet, idiotic way.
I was happy enough that the men annoyed me less than usual and missing Caiden had started to feel more inconvenient than painful.
Happy enough that I had stopped flinching from the thought of later.
Then this arrives, and suddenly all of that feels na?ve.
I drag a hand down my face and force myself up. Sitting here doing nothing won’t help Niko. It won’t bring Cassie back, and it definitely won’t make this easier to understand.
I know that I need to answer him, so I take out some paper and write at the table.
I’m sorry. I’m thinking of you. I’ll come back as soon as I can.
Then I stop there. I don’t ask questions or offer any advice.
There’s no nonsense about strength, endurance or any of the other things people say when they don’t know what else to do with grief.
Niko doesn’t need any of that from me. He needs the truth and as few words as possible.
When I’m done, I fold the page, seal it, and leave it with the outgoing mail for the morning. Then I go back outside.
There’s still work to do. Men to correct, routes to confirm, and reports to finish.
I do all of it. I speak when I need to and I don’t when I don’t. No one notices anything off because I don’t let them.
The exercise will run for another few weeks, and the men will improve because they have no choice. I’ll keep making notes, keep handing out corrections, and keep adjusting expectations. Everything will stay moving because I’ll keep it that way.