“I have two dead babies in my belly. What have I done?” Her tears and snot had left wet patches on the sheet.

Andrei stepped back. And suddenly he saw something he had not seen before, something he had only sensed subconsciously: she too was at war.

“I love her. God, how I love her.”

Maria turned her tear-stained face to him and her gaze passed through him like a bullet. Tykhon stood somewhere there at the end of the corridor, in the darkness. His neck tilted unnaturally, his eyes light and grey like frozen lakes. The corridor was dark and she couldn’t make out what was happening. She rushed to him, but the walls and floor turned inward. No matter how much she ran, she got no closer.

“My baby, my baby,” she wheezed. She was out of breath: “I haven’t forgotten about you.”

Andrei struck her. A slap with the back of his hand. He had heard somewhere, or was it a film he had seen, that if you strike a woman while she’s having a fit, that’ll calm her down. Cowardly soldiers get the same treatment in the movies.

“Call an ambulance,” she said in a feeble voice, nursing her cheek.

“What ambulance? What fucking ambulance?! I don’t know what I’m going to do with you now!”

“Tell them I lost my baby.”

“What are you talking about? Can you even hear what you’re saying? What have you lost? Where did you lose it?”

“In the toilet. I flushed it down the toilet. I had a miscarriage, Andrei. Call an ambulance, call an ambulance, Andrei. I can’t stop the bleeding, can’t you see?”

Then Andrei saw. A slick black and red patch on the sheet. She was covering it with her body like a bird sheltering her chicks.

The flat fell silent. She went back to the bathroom and locked herself in.

An ambulance arrived ten minutes later and took her to hospital. The same one where they were married six months before and where she had lost their first child.

Chapter 13

“I have this dream. I see my village and home. It looks like the place we’re living in now. In the dream, I’m confused. Where is the war happening? Here or at home? I’m on my own in the APC, there’s no driver, and I can’t move anywhere, I’m just firing. The gun keeps jamming. The turret too. It’s rusty and I’m getting all worked up because I’ve got to give my wife a ride to the bus stop, so she’s not late for work. But I can’t leave my post. How can I abandon the post? Doc, you know about dreams. What do you think that means? Hey, hey, are you sleeping?”

K. opened his eyes.

“What?”

Kostya looked annoyed. His hands trembled. When he spoke, he kept rubbing his lip with his forefinger and ring finger. Like when they first met. But something was different.

“You what? Did you nod off?”