To Russia, With Love

By Sana Sood

Sana’s character, Alexi, returns home from the war, only to find an uprising led by Lenin taking over his country. In this deeply felt historical story, Sana captures the internal silence of a soldier, fighting for breath amidst the clamour of war. (Editor’s note: All participants were given the same beginning and ending paragraphs.)

The shackles of pain around my heart were breaking. I could breathe again. Smell the earth again. Feel the mists of time clear away. And I felt something solid beginning to take shape in the palms of my hands.

There was a document. They gave us a document. All the breaths I had held for the past few months rushed out of me as I held the crumpled piece of paper in my hand. We could go home now. The army was being sent back home.

As I entered the house, memories overwhelmed me. My mother was immediately surrounded by the three men who had been away at war. I cannot remember how long we stood there in an embrace, crying, laughing, being.

To celebrate the homecoming of the soldiers, all the families on the street came together for dinner. The Zubatovs did not join us — their son had not come home. I stayed in my house as well — I couldn’t take any more loud noises and sweaty people cramped together in a room. I sat in silence, rejoicing within that I was home and free. Snippets of conversation caught my ear from the gathering below. The men were talking about the reason we were sent back. My mother had written us letters, telling us about the revolts, the fighting, and the deaths. But no matter how much they protested, it seemed like it wasn’t enough to bring us back home. I decided to sign up for the war the day after the Tsar killed all those people in 1905. I realised that I would rather die for my countrymen than at the hands of my countrymen. But the war was indescribable. So many people died. One day, we returned to our barracks with only a quarter of the people who had left. And the next day, the fallen soldiers were simply replaced with fresh, new young men, as if they were just wilted flowers that required a change, not a loss of life to be mourned. For an entire month, the whole contingent had no food. We shared a single potato between thirty-two men every day. Many soldiers went without food. But a month after that, we ran out of ammunition. We were told to use our guns to defend ourselves, but we had no bullets. Many fought bare-handed, but none of our efforts were to any avail. The French were in trenches on the west bank — and we, on the eastern bank, were facing more deaths. We destroyed so many farmhouses, so many buildings. That was when I realised — I had signed up to stop the fighting between my fellow countrymen, but here I was, destroying their homes. The soldiers were suffering. None of us wanted to do this — to ruin the lives of our brothers and sisters, simply because the Tsar told us to. The situation was no better for my mother back home — the kingdom was running out of food. Nearly every day, a group of refugees would pass through the neighbourhood. If they saw a house that seemed like it had food or wealth, they would walk up to it and demand money, or something even rarer — a loaf of bread.

I spent the rest of the night alone with these thoughts, at the table with my head in my hands. Would I be able to go back to living a normal life? Or would the Tsar swoop in and command his pawns to ravage our country once more?

My brother and I sat at the table in silence. Even though we had been in this house together for months now, we simply did not know what to say to each other. How can you console someone and tell them they will be alright, when you have been through the very same experience and you have not healed? The silence became overwhelming; it clamped down on my mouth and pushed into my lungs until I couldn’t take it anymore. Then suddenly, our fuming neighbour burst into the house, raving about Bolsheviks and demanding to see my father. The two men joined us at the table, and even though we received many pointed looks, my brother and I remained where we were as they discussed politics. They were talking about the rise of a new socialist party. The entire conversation was a shock to me — when I had left home, political parties had been illegal. How could they speak of this so openly? But I soon learned that Vladimir Lenin, the one who had started all those revolts, was the reason we had come home. He was leading a group of people who called themselves the Bolsheviks. They wanted the Tsar’s rule to end and wanted a new government, one where everyone was equal. As my father continued describing these radical ideas, I was enthralled. His words were swirling, swooping, forming a net around my mind.

The country was in an uproar. It was 1917, three years since I had returned from the war, and yet I could feel its memory coursing through my every cell. It seemed to be happening again, but within our country — Lenin had returned from exile and he was stirring up trouble. The people knew — destruction was coming. In October, the real problems began. People were protesting, often violently. My brother and I were at nearly all the protests. One morning, near the Winter Palace, when we were at yet another protest, and the Bolsheviks and the Tsar’s troops were beginning to get violent and had begun to shoot, a sudden explosion shook the earth. I felt myself thrown backwards and there was a ringing in my ears that didn’t seem to go away until I smashed into the rocky ground. Once I felt strong enough and sat up, the first thing I saw was the Palace, engulfed in flames. I looked around for my brother — he was a few feet away and thankfully uninjured. We limped home, using the wood from someone’s protest sign as support. Our parents were so grateful to see us alive — the sound of the explosion had been heard throughout the area. That night, I went to bed tired, my eyes drooping, begging for sleep. As soon as my eyes closed I began to dream. I dreamt of a free Russia, a nation lead by socialists. But when I looked down at my clothes, I was not in red, the Bolshevik colour, I was in green. In green! I woke up, startled and panicked. I sat there in silence. I pondered what the dream meant and reconsidered my loyalty to the Bolsheviks. Why was I dreaming of the anti-Bolsheviks? No. Surely, my family was right. The Bolsheviks were the right people to follow. I lay back down in bed, surrounded by my thoughts, in the kind of silence that was not overwhelming but calming.

There was nothing else left to do. It seemed like the clouds of the future, thick and pregnant with rain in the sky, were static for the moment. And, perhaps, I simply had to wait for the storm to arrive.

Sana Sood is 13 years old and a writer based in Bengaluru, India. Read her other story from the ‘Wordy Tales’ workshop here: https://medium.com/wordy-tales/aerin-and-cindy-31448d423794