New Decameron Nineteen: Amber Lough (Patreon)

OPEN FIRE

by Amber Lough

an excerpt

Part One Recruit

1

February 23, 1917 

Petrograd, Russia 

The explosive powder slid into the grenade after a light, quick tap. I dipped the scoop back into the jar, leveled it, and filled the next one on the tray, wriggling my nose to get rid of an itch that had been hovering there for the past seven grenades. The TNT had dyed my fingers a bright canary yellow, and I didn’t want them anywhere near my face. I had to forget about my nose. 

To distract myself, I mentally recited the characteristics of the grenades while I filled them. M1914 stick grenade. Weight: 580 grams. Length: 235 mm. Filling: 320 grams of TNT. Timing delay: 3.5-4 seconds. Effective range: 15 meters. 

Tap, tap, and I filled the scoop with another 320 grams of TNT. 

In comparison to the rest of my life, the constant filling of grenades was soothing and predictable, and I rather liked my job. I met my quotas, made sure everyone on my line was safe, and took home a decent paycheck for a seventeen-year-old girl who’d dropped out of university halfway through her first year. Most important, my grenades went to the front and helped Russia fight off the invaders—the Germans and Austrians. 

“Pavlova,” hissed Darya, the girl to my left. She held her scoop poised over the canister of TNT, but her eyes were on me. “Did you hear about the march?” 

I nodded, careful not to move my wrist and scatter the explosive on the table. Everyone in Petrograd had heard about the march. The Tsar had put out a ration on bread, and since the city was already strained by three years of war and a bitter winter, the women were taking to the streets. I didn’t blame them, given that the last loaf I’d bought had been gray, not white, and I’d had to wait in line for nearly an hour to get it. 

Socialists would probably be there too, calling for rights for workers and the removal of the Tsar. The loudest group of socialists, the Bolsheviks, wanted a revolution. But every time someone tried that, they found themselves either in Siberia or on the end of a rope. 

Just the other day, though, I’d found an issue of Pravda, the Bolsheviks’ illegal newspaper, in one of the bathroom stalls here. Even though I knew it was wrong, I couldn’t resist reading it. I’d gobbled each word like it was bitter chocolate. 

“Some of us are going after our shift,” Darya said, keeping her voice low so as not to distract the other girls on the line. 

“To protest the bread rations?” I asked.
She nodded. “My babushka spent all night stitching up a banner. Even she will be there.” I wanted to laugh at the image of an old grandmother sewing letters onto a canvas 

banner, bickering about the Tsar by the light of a candle. If she was anything like my grandmother, she’d curse the Tsar in one breath and bless him in the next. But Babushka had been gone for six months now, so she’d missed her chance to march in the streets. 

I shrugged off the ache her absence always brought. That was easier to do when I wasn’t at home, where her tears still streaked the pane of glass covering her favorite icon. Saint Georgi, of course. “It might be over before we’re done here,” I said to Darya, “but I’m sure your babushka will tell you all about it.” 

“It will just be starting when our shift ends. Don’t you want to go?” 

I hesitated. My father had always supported the Tsar. He had been at the front fighting in the Imperial Army since the war began. And somehow he still found time to write editorial letters to Petrograd’s conservative newspapers, defending the Tsar’s policies. Although I didn’t always agree with my father, I had never stood against him . . . or the Tsar. 

“I don’t know,” I said, keenly aware that it was a coward’s answer. 

Darya squeezed her scoop till her knuckles bled white. “Each week everything costs more and more but our wages stay the same. If we don’t do something about the rations, none of us will have anything to eat by the end of the month. All we can do is protest.” 

I tapped my scoop hard against the grenade in front of me. I worked because I wanted to help with the war, not just because I needed the money, but I understood her frustration. “We can argue about bread and wages, but our soldiers are dying trying to protect us. We need to stay focused. Make our quotas.” 

That shut her up. 

For the rest of my shift, talk of the women’s march slithered along the grenade line, but we didn’t slow our pace. Despite the frizzling energy coming off the line, we met all our quotas. 

***

After my shift ended, I went to the washroom, where Masha—my best friend for the past ten years—always waited for me. She would pretend to fix her hair while I scrubbed a layer of skin off my knuckles. The golden tint of the TNT never faded, no matter how much soap I used. It was becoming a routine I strangely appreciated. But today, instead of styling her hair, Masha was waving a rolled-up sheet of paper at me like a baton. The words Resist the Rations! blurred before my eyes. 

“We have to march, Katya,” she said. Her thick, dark braid was pulled over a shoulder and tied with a remnant of war ribbon, frayed at the ends. Despite the worn-out ribbon, Masha glowed with the sort of health that had become increasingly rare as the war raged on. She stood half a head taller than me, as strong and golden-skinned as the fabled Amazons. 

“I’m going home,” I said, batting the paper out of my face and switching on the faucet. 

The water stung like an army of little bees in the cracks and folds of my skin. I grabbed a cake of soap and a yellowed brush and started scrubbing the poison and the cold off the backs of my hands. 

Masha tapped the paper on the tip of my nose, right where it’d been itching all afternoon, and I flicked some water at her face. She laughed for a moment before straightening her mouth again. 

“Come with me to Nevsky.” Nevsky Prospekt, Petrograd’s main street, was where everything important happened. If the rumors were true, it would be full of women today, packed in like herring in a tin. “Just for a few minutes, at least. If it’s only a handful of college students and a granny or two, we’ll pretend we were going shopping. But I want to see it for myself. I don’t want to wait for tomorrow’s newspapers.” 

“Mmm.” I dried my hands on the sides of my skirt, always the cleanest spot. It was hard to tell if Masha was excited about the women’s march itself, or if she was only excited about having something different to talk about. 

“Which side are you on?” I asked, taking off my hair kerchief.
“That’s not a fair question, and you know it. I’m on the side of not starving to death.” “We’ll hardly starve,” I pointed out. Her family had enough tinned food to last until Masha 

had grandchildren. And because my father was an army colonel, my brother and I had access to food stores not publicly available. Besides, we were used to living simply. As children, we’d spent most of our holidays with our father’s regiment, mimicking how the soldiers marched, trained, and lived. We would survive this food shortage . . . provided I managed to pay off Maxim’s gambling debts soon. 

Masha leaned against the sink basin, her gaze roaming across the bathroom to the other girls scrubbing and primping. She didn’t have to say anything for me to know she hadn’t meant us. She meant them. 

“Idealist,” I sighed as I untied my factory apron. 

While my father had fed me loyalty and duty with every slice of bread, Masha’s parents had buttered theirs with compassion for the common worker. 

Masha knew as well as I did that if the bread wasn’t rationed, there would be no grain for the men at the front. Her father was fighting too, though he wasn’t a career soldier like mine. I massaged the pang in my chest that flared up whenever I thought of my father. I would eat gray bread all winter if it meant they would live. 

On the other hand, I knew others were more desperate. It didn’t seem fair for the Tsar to tell people to cinch their belts this late in winter, while his own table was as well appointed as ever. 

“All right,” I said. “Nevsky it is.” 

We walked arm in arm out of the factory, each of us swinging a lunch pail in a mitten- covered hand. The road to the tram stop was more ice than snow, but we didn’t care. Work was done for the day. We were a line of over fifty women, and a song filtered through us, building and growing as it wove its way along. The melody was haunting and sad, and I sang nearly as loudly as Masha, letting the music take with it some of the loneliness I never seemed to shake. Large white fluffs of snow drifted through the air like fairies, and my heart felt warm for the first time in months. 

The war would end soon, and my father would come home. It would end in a volley of grenades that I had built. I could feel it in my tingling fingers, no matter what the newspapers claimed. 

Once we reached the tram stop, we all split into smaller groups, heading in different directions, and when our tram arrived, Masha and I climbed up and grabbed a handhold by the front. The car was already full of workers who’d gotten in line before us, but we pushed through and found a place to stand. Once we were all aboard, it took off, rattling down the rails to the bridge that would take us over the Neva River and into the center of Petrograd. The car smelled of oiled wood and sweat, and the windows were shut tight against the cold, trapping the scents within. Everyone was talking about the bread rations and the women’s march, their sharp voices weaving over and under the benches. 

Masha swung on the handle loop like a schoolgirl. “We are definitely going to see this. I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight if I just went on home and pretended nothing was happening.” 

“It’s going to be dark soon,” I said, “so I can’t stay for long.”
She rolled her eyes at me and I let myself swing on my handle, bumping into her. “Ekaterina Viktorovna Pavlova, are you afraid of the dark?” she gasped in feigned shock, 

clutching at the glass buttons on her blouse.

“When it’s as cold as the Snow Maiden’s brittle heart? Yes.” 

***
The tram didn’t make it all the way to Nevsky Prospekt because the road was flooded with

women in long, dark coats. There were men, too, but not nearly as many. It seemed that all the women standing in the long lines at the bakeries had decided to meet in this single spot. 

Masha and I climbed out of the tram and made our way in the general direction of Nevsky, holding hands so as not to get separated. A few other factory girls stuck close to us, forming a little pack of lean wolves, skirting the edges of the city’s largest flock of woolen coats. 

There were placards and banners, chants and songs. I could feel everyone’s sense of injustice. The Tsar might be the Father of Russia, but he had been too stern, people chanted. He lived in his glittering palace, with its feasts and parties, and told us to tighten our belts, to buckle down and send more brothers to die in his war. 

Some of the women looked as though they’d had to tighten their belts years ago. Their eyes were shadowed by grief for their dead husbands and the long winter of war. The Tsar’s cold shoulder had rubbed their pain raw, and they would no longer wait patiently for the comfort of spring. They would drag it out of war’s torpid slush by sheer force of will. 

I couldn’t help but feel the power of so many women, fighting for what they believed in, together. Excitement thrummed in my veins, and although I didn’t join them in their chanting, I wanted to be a part of them, to be full of their righteousness. 

“I didn’t think it would be so big,” Masha yelled in my ear.
“Me either!” I shouted back.
“Do you think the Tsar will listen to them?” she asked. Before I could think of an answer, 

I tripped over a hard ball of slush and lurched sideways into a man.
He caught my elbow, helped me balance, and then grinned in recognition. “Ekaterina 

Viktorovna?” he asked, and then I knew it wasn’t a man, but a student only a year or two older than I. Sergei Grigorev. 

We’d had a chemistry class together last year, when I was still studying at the university. We’d shared notes once or twice but hadn’t spoken much outside of the class. He’d gotten taller, taller even than Masha, but his hair was the same reddish blonde in a short, clean cut. 

“Who’s this?” shouted Masha. Her eyes were twinkling, which made me feel oddly nervous. 

“Sergei Fyodorovich! You’re marching with the women?” I asked. Standing between him and Masha, I felt like a child. I wasn’t particularly short, but I wasn’t from the same giant stock these two were. 

“Of course.” He tapped at his shoulder and I noticed the red ribbon tied to his upper arm. “This is the start of a revolution. Don’t you feel it?” His eyes were on fire with something I could barely comprehend. I picked up my pace. 

“You’re friends with a Bolshevik?” screeched Masha, but she sounded more gleeful than upset. “But you said—” 

“We were at university together,” I told her, hoping she would hush. 

Sergei brushed my sleeve, but his eyes were on the crowd before us. “I was about to head down another street and get to the front. Do you want to come with me?” 

I glanced at Masha and the other factory girls, casting about for a polite way to decline. 

“Go ahead,” Masha said. “I’ve got my paper girls here to keep me warm.” She reached out and put her arm around the shoulders of one of the girls she worked with, and I realized all the girls we’d come with were her friends, not mine. 

“You’ll get to be a part of the revolution,” Sergei said to me, grinning.
“I’m not a Bolshevik,” I said, sounding less firm than I meant to.
“Even if you’re loyal to the Tsar, you’re in favor of letting people eat, right?” “Of course.” 

“Then come. See what we’re all about.” He took my mittened hand and pulled me down an alley full of muddy slush and trash. 

I ran to keep pace with him, a mix of anticipation and nervousness pumping in my veins. We made a few turns on some smaller streets until we reached the start of the protest on Nevsky. The crowd marched twenty abreast, forcing onlookers to back up onto the sidewalks and against storefronts, knocking elbows and peering over shoulders. 

Nevsky Prospekt was awash in color. The white of fresh snow, the black and navy blue of late-winter coats, the kaleidoscope of scarves, and the bright, bright red of hundreds of armbands and banners. I drank it in, feeling the city’s heartbeat thawing in the icy street. 

Sergei’s cheeks were pinked by the cold. “It’s happening. It’s actually happening.” 

Socialists walked alongside grandmothers, mothers, and schoolgirls, carrying banners and signs all in red. The crowd was chanting, “Free the people! Free the workers! Free the bread!” 

Sergei chanted with the crowd. With a quick prayer that my father would never know, I joined him. My throat was soon raw from shouting. Everyone around us was cheering, smiling, and so very sure that a revolution was underway. We were alive with it. 

Then the street began to rumble beneath our feet. Something was coming, and we barely had time to look before a regiment of Cossacks on horseback burst from the intersecting road. They pulled their horses to a halt and filled the street, blocking our way. The horses’ coats steamed as they jangled harnesses and stomped their hooves. 

Cossacks, with their stiff wool cloaks and gray furry hats, were the fiercest riders in the Imperial Army, riding across the Steppes before they could walk. At the sight of them, the chanting died to a low hum. The heated breath of thousands of protesters rose wispy and white in the February air. 

“End this march and go home!” the Cossack leader shouted to the crowd. “The Tsar won’t let anyone starve!” 

“Tell that to my boy at the front!” someone jeered.
“The Tsar’s been starving us for years,” another voice cried out.
The Cossack raised an open hand at us, his fingers rigid. “You have no right to protest 

here! If you do not leave, I will break this march apart through force.”
When no one moved, he shook his head as though disappointed. Then he lowered his 

hand, slid his saber free of the scabbard, and pointed it at the front of the crowd. “Ready!”
Forty or so rifle barrels pointed at us and the crowd shifted like a school of fish sensing a 

predator. 

“Aim!” Click, click, click. Rippling down the line, the Cossacks pulled back the bolts and filled their chambers. 

Some people scurried away, falling upon one another in the grimy slush. But many of us stood still, our feet rooted in the snow. This couldn’t be happening. Surely the soldiers wouldn’t shoot these people. They were only women asking the Tsar for bread. 

The soldiers were aiming at the crowd. At Sergei. At me. 

My heart was beating its way into my throat, and all I could hear was the pulsing of blood in my ears. I could not move. I couldn’t even twitch. This wasn’t my march, but I was here. I had shouted with the others because I believed in what they were asking for. 

Sergei squeezed my mitten and whispered, “They won’t shoot with so many women here.” 

There was a pause—a holding of breath—as everyone prayed the Cossacks would not shoot. 

The commander’s nostrils flared, and my entire body froze in fear. I was afraid that if I breathed, I’d shatter the world. 

“Go back to the Steppes, you Romanov hounds!” A rock whooshed over my head and hit the commander in the shoulder. It tumbled to the ground, the sound muted by the snow. 

“Fire!” 

An explosive sound tore through the air. Bodies slammed onto the street, while other people stumbled back and slid to their knees. Shrieks of fear, pain, and disbelief ricocheted off the rifles. 

Sergei pulled me to his side. For a moment my muscles gave way and I fell into him. I wanted to run, I wanted to disappear, I wanted to go home. But I was not hit. I pulled myself up straight. 

The Cossack leader pulled a glove off his hand and wiped at his forehead before shouting a word I could not hear. 

The men lowered their rifles, spun their horses around, and urged them into a trot. Moments later, they were gone. 

A man barely five meters away was lying in a bright circle of blood that matched the red ribbon pinned to his lapel. Like a soul released, steam rose from the blood surrounding him. 

There was a patch of dark stubble on the dead man’s cheek. Maybe he’d been excited about the protest that morning and his hands had shaken as he shaved. Now he sprawled out on Nevsky Prospekt, never to shave again. 

“They retreated!” Sergei said. “They shot at us, but we won.” 

We didn’t win, I wanted to say to him. They shot at us, fellow Russians, and we fell. 

********************************************************

"The Russian Revolution," Maya says. "I don't know much about it. But it seems like this would be really interesting."

"But still no food," he moans. "Bread lines! Rioting because they're starving!"

"We could eat more cookies," Maya suggests, then giggles. "Let them eat cake!"

"We've got a story here from Usman Makik. There was wonderful food in The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Djinn. Let's see what he's got for us in The Well That Never Ended."

"Great title," Maya says.

And they read.