Page 33 of White Wolf

Oh.

“I’m hungry,” Ivan announced, stepping away, dropping onto the stacked mattresses with a relieved-sounding sigh.

“What else is new?” Kolya said, kicking his boots as he stepped past him. “It’s Feliks’s turn to cook.”

Feliks groaned.

“There’sbychki,” Nikita said. “Bread. Maybe some eggs left. And kielbasa.”

“Bychki,” Feliks said, reverently, and hurried to hang up his coat and hat and go into the kitchen.

Sasha shrugged out of his own outerwear when Kolya reached to take it from him, toeing off his boots as he watched his things go up on the wall hooks beside the other men’s.

Monsieur Philippe, he noticed, hung up his hat, but kept his fur coat pulled tightly around him as he walked deeper into the room. “What a lovely home,” he said, smiling, as always.

Ivan snorted. “Yeah. Lovely.”

“Pyotr, show our guests where they’ll sleep,” Nikita said.

“Right.”

Pyotr seemed even smaller and younger out of his coat, gangly like Sasha, but with narrower shoulders and smaller hands, a slight twist in his spine somewhere that caused him to hunch forward just a little as he walked. His clothes seemed too big for him, shirt baggy at the waist, the cuffs folded over. Hand-me-downs.

Little brother, the others had called him. He must be wearing his brother’s clothes.

“This way,” he said, motioning for Sasha and Philippe to follow him down the short hallway and through a door on the left into a bedroom. It was small, the walls painted a dirty white, two twin beds shoved into opposite corners. Between them, a night table topped with a brass lamp and an empty ashtray. Another book, its pages yellow and tattered.

“I sleep there,” Pyotr said, pointing to the bed on the left. “Kolya sleeps there. We make Ivan sleep out in the living room because he snores.” A soft smile touched his mouth, there and then gone again. “Feliks sleeps on the sofa. They let me have a real bed because of my back.” He twisted his hands together self-consciously. “But you can, um–”

“We won’t steal your bed, dear boy,” Philippe said. “Don’t you worry about that.”

Pyotr’s eyes widened. “But–”

“You can bunk with me,” Nikita said from the threshold, and they all turned to look at him. He stood half in shadow, his face concealed.

Pyotr swallowed audibly. “That’s…that’s Dima’s bed.”

“And now it’s yours. Get your things,bratishka.”

“Yes, sir.” Pyotr got to his knees and pulled a battered suitcase from beneath the bed. Grabbed the book off the nightstand and opened the drawer to pull out three more.

“So you’re the bookworm,” Philippe said. Every observation the old man made came out full of affection and approval. “How are you enjoyingAnna Karenina?”

Pyotr blushed as he stood, balancing the books in an awkward, one-armed hold, shoulders pulled askew by the weight of the suitcase. “Very much.”

Philippe nodded. “I think it’s every Russian’s duty to read Tolstoy.” He turned to Sasha. “Perhaps he’ll let you borrow it, Sasha. A wonderful novel.” His eyes were bright and multi-faceted as tiny gemstones.

“It’s very good. I think you’d like it,” Pyotr told Sasha, then blushed again. Said, “Um, okay,” and left them room in an awkward, embarrassed shuffle.

Philippe sighed when he was gone. “I fear that one’s not hard enough for this war. Men like that don’t normally fare well in battle.”

“But you think I will? I’m not a soldier, Monsieur Philippe.”

He gave Sasha a level – for once unsmiling – look, and said, “Not yet, you mean.”

~*~

Supper wasbychkion stale black bread, topped with a fried egg apiece. It was salty, and hearty, and hit Sasha’s belly like a rock – in a good way; he didn’t realize he was hungry until he took his first bite. Nikita and Kolya sat at the table, while the rest of them sat on the sofa or cross-legged on the floor. Pyotr was at Sasha’s elbow, on the floor, and Sasha could smell faint traces of the other boy’s sour sweat. He was nervous.

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