Suddenly, the patient spotted one of the soldiers with his weapon pointed at the village and rushed at him screaming.

“Shoot this one!” he shouted, grabbing the barrel of the rifle and trying to turn it toward K. The soldier struck him in the head, sending him reeling to the ground with a howl of pain. Crawling away, the patient surveyed everybody around him with a look of hate. He pointed his fist at K. and thrust out a forefinger as though holding a camera and pressing an imaginary button.

“Click!”

“INCOMING!!” shouted the soldier, before throwing himself to the ground.

And then there was a sound of three short thuds—doof, doof, doof: outgoing shells. Automatic rifles joined the orchestra. The nurses crouched. The angular-faced patient leapt to his feet and rushed toward the gate. Nobody tried to stop him. Patients remained rooted to the spot like a herd of cows. Keeping his head down, K. pressed them forward to the entrance of the basement about twenty metres away. Lena ran out to meet them.

“Oh, Lord, I beg you, don’t let them fire on us now. Where is that blasted bus, for God’s sake? It should have been here ages ago.”

But there were no more explosions. The short burst of automatic gunfire melted into the twilight. Only the unbearably loud chatter of cicadas remained. Patients slowly entered the basement.

“What about the involuntary commitment wards?” asked K. pointing at the barred windows.

The windows had gone dark and the faces were no longer visible. Lena ignored the question and went down to the basement. The hospital was gradually becoming enveloped in darkness. A handful of vacant wheelchairs stood outside the kitchen outhouse.

K. sat down by a soldier lying on the ground with his gun aimed towards the village.

“Are you okay? I’m Doc.” K. held out his hand. The soldier shook it.

“Yeah, of course I’m ok. I’m Tolyan. Sorry, I mean Torrent. I will never get used to these aliases. You see that?” He turned in the direction of the hospital and pointed upward approvingly.

K. made out two figures silhouetted above the roofline.

“That’s Motorola, fixing his aim. Good on you Motor! Brilliant!” Tolyan punched his fist into the ground in a gesture of admiration.

“I heard about him earlier today.”

“Of course. Everybody’s talking about him. He worked in a carwash, he was some guy, just like us. And now he’s a commander. People are coming from all over Russia to join him. If they’re with him, they’re not scared to fight.”

“And you, aren’t you afraid to die?” K. scrutinised the animated expressions of Tolyan’s rough face—a complex range of emotions fleeted across it.

“No way, damn it. I’m here because of him. There I was at home in Chelyabinsk, stewing on the sofa, watching the news, and hearing all about him. So I hitchhiked to Rostov, then across the border to Alchevsk, and now I’m here. I managed to get into his unit from the start. But they kicked me out—my shot’s no good. But you should have seen how we counterattacked during the first assault. We’re just guys, you know? It was the girls in Alchevsk who taught me how to disassemble a rifle. ‘Bunch of Somalis for fuck’s sake,’ that’s what Motor said when he saw us. ‘Running around, firing their guns every which way, screaming.’ Get it? That’s why they called our battalion the Somalis. So, when the assault comes, bullets flying, I’m standing there shooting. I could feel him looking at me. I peeked and it was true, he was looking at me, smiling, all crooked like. And I stand up at full height. Bullets were flying, I kept firing, no fear, because the commander was watching. We didn’t have much ammo at the time. I would have fought hand to hand if he had asked me to. I’d go anywhere for him. He came to us straight from God.”