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Written and Illustrated
by Tete DePunk
(Twitter: @punk_tete
Instagram: @tete.depunk)
"He burned the fear out of me until
all was left was desire"
-Ru Freeman
“As soon as the sun sets, we’ll go out for an evening walk. It will do us both some good. It will be safe, I promise!” She insisted and left before I voiced one word of protest!
Damn her! Put my neck on the blade’s edge, eh? And yours, too, stupid woman!
Now I paced in mind and body in the apartment until darkness settled in the city.
So Shammat finally taught Enkidu how to eat bread and drink wine!
I came to the conclusion that Tatusya was one of those people who courted danger like a boy chases after a pretty girl during summer promenades.
Why else would she pull this mad-cap stunt?
Go out! With no papers!
Truth be told, she once had a set of papers, but once the Reds took over, it was no good.
To get her new papers, she’d have to go to their reformeries, “be educated” (in what? Machinery? A fine woman like that?
Like some coarse beast of a man? Ah, that’s suited for a beast like me, not the likes of her! Jam a flower in an engine, will you?) and get a new job.
We know what this means. She’d be on the same path as her poor Polya, I wager. She had no friends, save Kirka and Evseii Ivanovich, to get her into something better, a secretary, maybe.
But what are the chances of that?
Still, sometimes I questioned, as brilliant and educated as Tatusya was, maybe the Reds would see it, and place her in something better.
Even these godless pricks can appreciate a woman brimming with beauty and brains!
Or perhaps they don’t.
They simply like ugly things.
“Useful” is how they call it.
Huh!
But as I said, both of us had no papers. Hell, just to get outside, you needed papers!
Especially if you were a strange face, and mine, so altered from war and prison (and good thing), was strange to the beloved capital I knew as the stronghold for the Don.
Ah, Tatusya, damn you and your infernal risk-taking, woman! Insufferable minx, courting death!
Sunset came. It grew darker. Much darker. Dusk turned into that odd sliver of time when evening settles into night, yet it’s still warm from the sun of day.
She dons on her little coat, a nice little thing, old-fashioned, fur at the cuffs and collars. A bit bourgeoise, as the Reds denounced such fashion, but go to hell. Let a woman wear charming things!
Tilts her little hat, old-fashioned, too, fur-trimmed.
Damn, she looks lovely. Ah, damn her, she’s smacked her thin yet shapely lips in a handsome shade of red. Not a garish red, but a rose-like one that temps a man with their softness and shape.
Awkward me, I’ve got a decent, au-current coat, civilian, subdued. It’s got modest fur-trim, some herring-bone on the new fashion of thinner lapels.
I wear the cap, too, matching in its grey and herring-bone.
Surprised the coat fit, too.
This Tonchenka is an oddball, might as well be twins with such bodies like modern-day Goliaths.
She clicks her purse. Ironically, her purse is a newer one, the fashionable kind you get from France. Apparently, a gift from a client.
“Well, Dusya? Are you ready?” She asked me.
Glancing over her shoulder, she gives me a look that feigns a sort of reproach, but I see a layer of soft concern bleed into her eyes.
As though she sensed my fear.
I am petrified. A lion whipped to jump into the hoop of fire at the circus suffered less than me at this moment.
I nodded. My throat went dry, and my legs went heavy like lead.
Cracking open the door, she pokes her head out, made certain the hall was clear of noisy neighbors loitering in the stairwells. They’re good informants, you know. Love thy neighbor, they say!
She tiptoes out, quiet as a gazelle on supple limbs and dainty hooves. Turning around, she bids me to follow her. I am stuck, shoes nailed on the threshold.
“Dusya!” She hissed. Her voice is kept to a hushed tone, but I hear her spite at my unmoving self.
With all my might, I tried to put one foot infront of the other.
Damn!
No good. A terror paralyzed me, right on the threshold. As though some barrier protected me from a sudden onslaught of informants and militsya.
They were, in my mind, of darkest imaginings, all waiting in the darkened corners, aimed to pounce like beasts on prey.
Without thinking, and acting on sheer terror, like a reflex, I grabbed hold of the door jambs, fingers and nails dug in the splintery wood like a mad asylum’s patient’s.
A frantic beast might have more composure than I.
"Damn you, Dusya!” hissed Tatusya again- she seized hold of my coat belt and yanked. She yanked again, trying to pry me from my deathgrip on her jambs.
You WILL get us caught, making this commotion, you fool! Let go and let’s go! Damn fool!” She whispered vehemently, as though her tongue became a knife which she thought she could cut the cords that held me back.
Somehow, my knees buckled, and legs limped out, like failing in water. I found myself clambering and tripping as she dragged me over the threshold.
Finally, we were out. Quickly, to block my escape, she shut the door, softly, with a click, locked with her key. Dropping her key in her fashionable purse, she clicked it shut and darted an accusative glare at me.
“Keep doing this, and they will be after us, you fool! Be quiet and follow my lead! I know what I’m doing!” Tatusya insisted as she led the way down the stairwell.
With no choice, I obeyed and followed her. I dreaded every step. Each footfall on the hard stair-step felt like a thundering echo in the deafening silence of the winding stairwell.
Every door, I locked sight, watching like a guard, lest some intrusive bastard stuck his or her head and caught sight of us.
Was I too paranoid? Ah, but can you blame me?
Betrayal and prison do things to a man and his mind, brother!
Finally, we merged outside.
Can you believe it was nearly 3 months I had been outside? 3 months ago, I had just been released from prison.
3 months ago, I took the train to the Capital with Kirka and the Kompolka.
I loved it like a monk loves his holy cell, cot, icon, and stand for his Gospel.
Now outside, the open air felt heavy, yet light. Almost liberating. Why does liberty feel so heavy? Because of danger.
The city seemed so different. Foreign. Yet familiar. Like the altered face of a lover, so marred by something cruel, yet their lover still loves their face, scars and all.
Even the way the soles of my shoes clacked over the cobbles sounded different. Hollow. Empty. Joyless, almost. I was not a cadet anymore, and nor was the Capital, and this avenue, the same, either.
Across from Platovsky Avenue laid the old Park, Aleskandr Garden. It was a handsome park.
It felt like a magnet, yearning for sweet memories of youth, drew me urgently to the old Park. I even outstepped Tatusya for a few moments.
“Ah, you’re in a rush, Dusya…” Tatusya held onto her hat- apparently, I nearly dragged her running across the avenue as we reached the Park.
“Sorry, Tatushenka- this Park holds too many memories for me. I’ve missed it, like an old friend.” I confessed.
I felt unguarded, letting my softness emerge before this odd woman.
See me as I am, a tender-hearted boy, fresh from the academy!
Or rather, see me as I was, Tatushenka.
Tatusya remained glued to my side, resting her head on my upper arm like a prop.
“Old memories, hmm? I have memories of this place, too. Concerts. Outings. Charming days of spring when families came out and sprawled on the green grass or walked amongst the lime trees. Here is where I met my Polya. Or should I say, where she found me.” reminiscenced Tatusya.
Her voice trailed off in an airy whisper, as though the joy of her memories, like mine, too faded away like wisps of smoke in the early morning.
We went past the arched entrance, battered, pitiful thing now. I knew the Counterrevolution took its toll with our shells and the Reds’.
We reached the rows of lime trees, still there, if you can believe it!
My eyes, so accustomed to night missions, took in sight pretty well. It was here, as much as it pained me, I saw the view of the Steppe.
In the black of night, I made the outline of the Steppe, emblazoned on my mind and eyes like a hallmark stamped in steel.
The moon casted the faintest glow over the rippling blades of grass, all dried and withered from the winter’s frost. Reeds broken at their tops from the relentless winds.
The dip and roll of the hills that sloped gently.
How many days had I spent in my youth, racing my horses there?
How many days did I spend on the dear Steppe, part of myself like blood and heart?
I took a deep breath.
I wonder if Enkidu, whenever he saw the expanse of wilderness as he ventured into Uruk, ever yearned for its wideness, if he ever missed his herds that welcomed him once, but now turned their backs on him? Did he too feel this pang?
“I miss it.”
“Miss what?”
“The Steppe. Silly, I know. It’s still here. But then again, it is gone. The way I knew it.” I observed, almost bitterly, but too pained to be bitter even.
I didn’t realize, but I had let go of her, and leaned, hands on the railing, almost leaning out.
She took my arm again, and drew back on the pathway of the arbor. She pressed her cheek against my arm and drooped against me. In her funny little way, she comforted me like this, making me feel useful as a distraction.
She muffled her voice into my coat sleeve, “Everything is gone, in a way. Even if the remnants remain, it’s changed so much.
How strange it is, to find yourself in a place you’ve lived so long… and most it remains.
But all of it is changed. Altered… so much, it feels a foreign place. You feel like a foreigner in your own home.
Perhaps that’s the worst lost. It’s not a complete loss. But it’s the truest of loss. How do you regain something like this back? You can’t.” Tatusya observed. Her voice hung heavy in its own loss, too.
She lost much, too. Her world was smaller than mine, but she had it all taken from her, too. Even her Polya, whom I surmised, was all she had for family, when she came to the Capital.
I let my eyes dwell on her for a very long moment. I observed her face, and hung onto her words, silently agreeing word for word what she said.
“Yes.” I finally spoke.
With my free hand, I brushed my fingers over her gloved knuckles for a prolonged moment, out of an instinct. “Yes, that’s worst of it. We can never regain all that back. And I wonder… if you, or I, can belong in this new place? We’re in a foreign land, and we’re foreigners. Will this new land accept us? Can we accept it?” I confided into her, letting my fears spill out, or rather my sorrows.
How can I fear this now? I’m too tired to be frightened of this new world now. I had more things of this new world to be terrified of.
She paused for a moment before she replied.
“Maybe not. Or maybe we can accept it, in our own way. We shall see. You will have to accept the world on a greater scale than me, when next week comes, Dusya. I’ll remain behind, little Tatusya in her safe, little tomb.” She sunk her face into her coat collar, muffling her voice and hiding half her face. She then turned to me and locked her eyes with me.
“But this world, even the Steppe, can be yours again, as strange and alien as it all is now. You’ve got that much to gain back.” She concluded with a decision of finality.
“Can I really, though?” I asked, uncertainty still hounding me.
“It’s up to you.” She said simply and firmly. In her eyes, I caught that flint-hard glint, that proud hardness, that dignified quiet ferocity that could launch the most dejected soul into battle.
(Interval: Andrei and Tatusya enjoy most of the evening, in Aleksandr Park in the city... until they are caught by a Militsiya on guard...)
About The Author:
Teté is an unconventional writer, artist and podcaster, whose passions run gamut from comics to Soviet-Era Literature, to Shakespeare to Scrapbooking.
She is currently working on a novel series, "70 Fierce Years", and several subsequent novel series.
You can read a preview version of her novel, "70 Fierce Years" on Tapas!
Teté also co-hosts/contributes to "The Nuts and Bolts of Writing Podcast".
You can find Teté through:
Twitter: @ Punk_Tete
Instagram: @ Tete.DePunk