Free The Brodsky Affair: Murder is a Dying Art by Ken Fry Page A

going on about…” The rest of Lev’s remark was drowned out by a loud, muffled womp, as a huge explosion in the distance sent up a thick, toxic plume of dark acrid smoke. Katya kicked out her legs and shook her head with a panicky flick. All three ducked down and stayed that way for several seconds before slowly standing back up.
    “I’m not coming.”
    “What are you going on about?”
    “I’ll join you later. There are things here I need to finish. Believe me, if you don’t go, you’ll be captured, and will end up dead.”
    “And so will you. We’re not going without you.”
    “Are you both ready to go?”
    “We are… and so are you!”
    Mikhail’s body shook with a violent outbreak of coughing. He wiped his mouth with his handkerchief, revealing bloodstained phlegm and managed to splutter. “Follow our secret, old school track to the caves. Nobody knows of it, and you’ll escape, alive. I’ll join you in a day or two. You know where to hide. If I don’t, then you’ll have to carry on.”
    Lev looked again at Sofia, who had begun to cry and was holding out her hands toward Mikhail. “Please, Mikhail, please.”
    “No. I’ll meet you later. I have my motorbike. Okay?”
    The distant sounds of shelling continued and Mikhail realised it could only be a matter of a days, unless the Red Army held out, before they would be overrun by Nazis. A droning buzz from above caused him to look to the sky. Visible, dark and menacing, he saw the unmistakeable outline of a squadron of Stuka dive-bombers. Putting his hand above his eyes, he squinted into the watery sunlight and watched as they banked steeply to the left, heading to a target beyond the horizon. He knew it could only be the railway station and sidings thirty-five kilometres away. From where he stood, he could make out the faint banshee wail of their terrifying sirens as they commenced a swooping dive onto a target.
    His mind was set. Both Lev and Sofia stood in the cart and Lev held the reins in his hands.
    “Mikhail!” Lev’s voice roared across the courtyard.
    Mikhail looked at him and shook his head. “I’ve got the motorbike.” He didn’t say more, and just bellowed, “Go! Go for fuck’s sake, go!” He raised his arm and brought a thick broom handle down hard on Katya’s rump. She bucked hard, snorted and broke into a crazy gallop out of the yard. Lev tottered and for a moment dropped the reins, unable to stop her desperate sprint. Sofia went upside down into the goods stacked at the back.
    “Keep going. I’ll meet you in two or three days. Wait for me!”
    The rattle of the cart, the flying dust, and the protesting grumble of the large wooden wheels soon faded, and Mikhail stood alone for the first time in three years. A shaft of sadness made its way through him. He pushed it away… Let it go , there’ll another time for that. He turned and walked back to the cabin. The wind had picked up, sending leaves and dust into small twisting spirals across the courtyard.
    Rising from the izba’s, his brother and sister’s log cabin, protruded abrick chimney, smoke rose from it like a black oily rope caught in the breeze. On top of the stack he’d built, complete with a decorative ironwork canopy, was the Soviet hammer and sickle insignia. He looked up at it, knowing there would be little chance of it surviving once the Germans arrived. He heaved on the brass handle skewered into the heavy timbered door of the Ukrainian khata leading tohis separatequarters, and walked into his fire-warmed studio, which smelled of burning pine logs and covered in a fine mantle of ash. He’d built and loved the entire house. It had been his passion. Not only was it where he lived, it had become a place of sanctuary. In its knotty walls were buried his entire life’s dreams. He knew its final hours were written even in the smoke that wafted up the chimney. He had calculated that, at most, he had about two days before the Nazis reached the village.
    It was