Free The Road of Bones by Anne Fine Page B

by
man
?’
    Before her husband could frown her out of saying it, the old woman spat her answer. ‘Yes, when whole villages are stripped of all they grow!’
    She’d gone too far. The old man covered his ears with crippled old hands as if he hoped there might still be some chance that I’d go back and tell the commissar, ‘That good man Igor refused to listen to his wife’s treachery.’
    I had to seize the moment – while she was sitting rubbing her swollen legs and couldn’t care. Leaning forward, I whispered, ‘There must be some reason things have gone this way.’
    She gave me a look of contempt. ‘The day those bullies of yours start bothering with reasons, be sure to let us know.’
    I wanted to tell her right there and then that they weren’t
my
bullies. No, not mine at all. But all I dared say was, ‘All this misery can’t stem from
nothing.
The villagers must surely have—’
    â€˜What?’ Behind their sagging hoods, her old eyes flashed. ‘Showed the commissar their starveling children? Reminded him that you need land and seed to fill a wheat quota? Told him that when a machine is starved of oil, it’ll stop working quite as reliably as if “wreckers” have been at it.’ She spat. ‘In short, been desperate enough to speak up against the new rules!’
    I spread my hands. ‘How does it
happen
? How do they
let
it happen? How can whole villages full of people allow themselves be tormented by so
few
?’
    She stared at me as if I must have stepped off the moon to know so little. ‘You’re young,’ she said at last. ‘You’re green and stupid.’
    She dropped her head until I could no longer see the scorn in her eyes. She rubbed her legs again. It was a while before my sharp ears caught the last few words she muttered:
    â€˜And you have yet to learn that, when he goes stalking, it never troubles the wolf how many the sheep may be.’
    That night I dreamed of Nikolai. I saw him standing on the barricades, his cap perched jauntily on the side of his head, holding his flag high and taunting the men in uniform standing in ranks fifty paces in front of him, waiting for the order to charge.
    â€˜Join us!’ he bellowed. ‘You know you’re on the wrong side. Weren’t you all workers and peasants before you were forced to be soldiers? The future lies with us! With justice and fair shares and liberty for all. Break ranks and join us!’
    I woke, my heart bursting with pride. This was my friend! I could still feel the bite of the spring windon my cheeks and taste the smoke of the street fires.
    And then it struck me. The street in my dream came from the history book in school. That was the Gortov bridge. There were the tramlines. The cap Nikolai wore was the sort we had worn all our lives in school parades and off at Pioneer camp. The banner he waved was our old banner.
    In my head, Nikolai stood for those with courage enough to try to shake off this brute who’d seized the seat of power and set about throttling our country. Yellow and black. But in my dream he had been waving the flag of those we’d learned to praise: those first few brave young leaders who’d had the strength and vision to overthrow Grandmother’s old Czar and start the Glorious Revolution my mother once truly believed would rid the world of corruption and start things afresh.
    With justice and fair shares and liberty for all!
    So there it was. The years roll by. Governments come and go. Everything changes. And everything stays the same.
    So Grandmother had been right each time she said it, after all. ‘Only a fool cheers when the new prince rises.’

C HAPTER T EN
    â€˜ TELL ME ABOUT Pavel,’ I begged next day, when Igor and I were dragging the last of the birch trees back to the clearing.
    Perhaps he thought his wife had spoken her mind. Why hide things now? Maybe the fact