The injured building disappeared around a bend. They were soon heading out of the city, along the leafy street of a dormitory neighbourhood, a place where war seemed all the more inconceivable.
Country roads. Tarmac to begin with, and then rough tracks again. The people and cars thinned out. K. glanced at his watch. Four hours had passed. Lush greenery, plantations, fields of sunflowers, hills and ponds flashed past. Cows and goats grazed in the meadows. The scenery was peaceful. Still Kostya’s fidgeting worsened as he looked around with exhilaration. K. nudged him.
“What’s up with you?”
“Oh, you know . . . familiar sights.”
“You should be happy they’re familiar.”
“Not really. You remember that guy in the jacket, the one who said we should say we were with a construction crew. When I came out for the first time, in April, he was our escort. They stopped us at a checkpoint. Somewhere around here. Guys in camouflage. Our guys, their guys—no way of telling. Off to the right and on the left, up in the hills, there were firing positions, they had us in their sights. They drag him out, start questioning him. He begins reciting his script about the construction crew. And it would have been fine, except that he had had a beer before we left. And the commander smells it on him. ‘Oh, I’ve got you fucker,’ he says. ‘Everybody knows we’ve got a dry law in Slovyansk. Ukrop piece of shit.’ He didn’t even have time to say anything. Got smacked straight in the head. Well, these were clearly our guys. But how to explain that we were on the same side? They took us out, lined us up, aimed their rifles at us and asked again who we were, where we were going, and that if we didn’t tell them, they’d shoot. We didn’t know what to say. We just stood and said nothing. Some cried, some thought of their families and prayed.”
A hill topped by a TV tower appeared to the left and vanished behind the woods.
“Here we go, here’s the base. We’re approaching. The ambush might come any second now. You see how it’s overgrown. Robin Hoods creeping all over the place.”
“So what happened at the checkpoint?”
“What? Oh, yeah, so they start firing, at our feet, above our heads. I was just about shitting myself.”
“Literally?”
“Oh, yeah, my guts just turned to liquid.”
“What happened then?”
“That was it. They let us go.”
“What are you worried about then?”
“Doc, you don’t get it. Nobody here ever knows what side you’re on. They’ll just shoot you and bury you in the ground.”
The country road led to an empty, sleepy village—no people, no cars, only barking dogs chased the bus. K. watched the animals’ maws open and shut, but the sound was drowned out by the clattering of the engine and wheels. The bus pulled up at a concrete bus stop beyond the last few houses.