Without Anatole, Moscow was a nightmare. The kind of gray, endless, unchanging nightmare that blended day into night, week into week. The city's scruffiness had once felt endearing, the way a crooked tooth added character to a handsome man's face. Now, Moscow seemed to be falling apart in front of Fedya's eyes. He drifted from day to day, without occupation, without purpose. The friends that had once seemed so important now felt dull, hollow, masks of their former selves.
He tried his best not to think of Anatole in Petersburg. He knew Hélène received letters from her brother every other week, but had never been able to work up the nerve to ask her what they said. After their fight in prison, not knowing seemed like what he deserved.
The news from the war turned darker as winter turned to spring, and by summer disaster seemed to hang on the air. The French had pushed east, driving the Russian forces back mile after mile, week after week. It was rumored that by October, Napoleon's forces might reach Moscow. The capital did its best to ignore the threat, going about its business as if the war were worlds away. But Fedya caught the worry in the curious silences between conversations, in the way windows went dark at sundown, in the nervous glances he received in the street when he wore his uniform. The war was not a threat so much as a haunting, and that ghost was difficult to shake.
Seven months later, in September, orders came at last from Major Denisov that Fedya and his regiment were to deploy the following week. A mass order had been sent out across the country, to call soldiers back to the front and enlist any other men who could still be spared. The newly swelled army would join General Kutuzov and the bulk of Russia's remaining forces at Borodino, where Napoleon and his forces were predicted to swarm on their way to Moscow.
The haunting in the capital turned to outright fear. But for Fedya, the order was almost a relief. He was not built for peace, not anymore.
In war, he would not have to think.
In war, Anatole's eyes in that prison cell would stop haunting him.
The train left Friday morning, carrying Fedya and his men to the front. He sat in a compartment surrounded by militiamen, yet wholly and utterly alone. He spent the entire six-hour journey field-stripping his pistol. Taking it apart, piece by piece. Laying the mechanics out on the seat beside him, polishing it with grease and a soft cloth until the chamber gleamed. Reassembling it with flawless precision. Taking it apart again. Outside, the train belched thick smoke across the countryside, melding seamlessly with the steel gray of the sky.
The front, when they arrived, had not changed in the months since Fedya had left it. It was like walking into the set of his own dreams, seeing the phantoms in his mind given three dimensions, a ghost made tactile. The same tents, drab olive and poorly pitched, sagging under the fresh fall of snow. The same fires dotting the camp, more smoke than heat, around which wraiths of men warmed their gloved hands. The same sky, pressing too low overhead, a gray blanket swathed around Fedya's head and choking his breath.
The same smell, of smoke and gunpowder and shit and blood and rotting corpses from graves that were not nearly far away or deep enough, and had been dug upwind.
Fedya walked the camp, unwilling to enter his tent. It was late, and stars glittered overhead, the slim crescent of a moon lending little light and less comfort. Anyone would have forgiven him for sleeping early that night. It had been a lengthy journey, and with Napoleon and his French troops so close to the Russian camp, general wisdom held that the Tsarist forces would have little enough sleep in the coming days. If the attack did not come tomorrow, it would be the next day. The French had nothing to gain by waiting. He should have rested, to gather his strength for the morning. But Fedya could not sit still. This nightmare-made-flesh unnerved him so badly he could not consider sleep. He needed to outrun the memories, as best he could.
A few other soldiers had gotten the same idea, it seemed, though the bulk of the camp was asleep. Although most of them tried to drown their fear in something more potent than walking. Fedya saw a few privates drinking near one of the fires, a corporal smoking what must surely have been the last cigar in the entire camp.
And from behind a tent some twenty yards away from where Fedya stood, he heard two men's voices, rising high with the venom of an argument.
"You wretch," said one. "You villain."
Fedya paused, listening. At least someone was having a worse night than he was.
"You devil," continued the first man—and might have gone on continuing forever, if no one interrupted him. "I ought to kill you now."
"Don't waste your bullets, mon cher," said a second voice. "Let the French take care of that. It won't be long."
Fedya stared in the direction of the voices.
"Fuck," he said, at full volume.
He could have identified that voice anywhere. A light tenor, mid-range and musical, with the disdainful sophistication of a Petersburg accent. That sneering French interjection, poised to enchant or insult, as the occasion called for.
All Fedya wanted was to leave that part of his life behind. Pretend none of it had happened. Let the ghost fade into the mist. And then that voice came again, drifting across the Russian camp outside Borodino. That voice wouldn't even let him die in peace.
"How dare you," said the first man, as Fedya—despite his better judgment—began to approach them. The sound of the voices grew clearer as he neared, their loathing even more legible than before. "I understood her," said the first man. "I understood her soul. It was her soul I loved. All you saw was a pretty young girl you could have your way with and cast aside, and—"
"I love her," the second man said. His voice was light, but that verb tense had been chosen to kill. "I would have stayed with her forever, no matter what she did." The unspoken remainder of the sentence was icy and clear: unlike you, who left her, twice.
Fedya turned a corner, and saw the pair of men standing near a low-simmering fire. One, a dark-haired man, wore the epaulettes and three-starred bars of a first lieutenant. He was handsome, with the strong chest and square jaw that came with good breeding in the Russian countryside. His head looked as if it would be better suited to life as a bust than on his shoulders. His gray eyes seemed unfamiliar with the concept of smiling. Fedya knew him well enough. Lieutenant Andrey Bolkonsky, twenty-eighth regiment. They'd fought together before. Not at Austerlitz, Andrey had been with the cavalry back then, but a handful of skirmishes in the Caucasus. Fedya couldn't say he was fond of the man, but Andrey was passable with a pistol and better with a bayonet, which in war was enough reason to put up with someone.
Gray eyes flashing, Andrey tore off his left glove and flung it down into the snow. Fedya watched it raptly. Easier to look at a glove than at the man standing opposite Andrey. That tall man with the proud spike of white-blonde hair, standing with his back to Fedya. It could be anyone, he reminded himself. An army of thousands. The odds were against it.
"I challenge you," said Andrey, somewhat unnecessarily at this point.
The tall man laughed. "Don't be stupid," he said. "This is war, eh? What's the point?"
Andrey opened his mouth to respond. Then he shut it again, catching sight of Fedya, standing alone and staring at them. Andrey knew him well enough to understand that Captain Fyodor Dolokhov was not a man to stand around staring in the middle of camp without reason, not so soon before a battle. He raised his eyebrows, inviting Fedya to state his business.
The tall man's posture shifted. Fedya knew why. Three seconds ago Andrey had prepared to blow his brains out, and now the lieutenant wouldn't even look at him straight on. The man turned, following Andrey's eyes.
And Fedya, who had known from the first what was happening, but who had hoped against all reason and against all belief that he was wrong, and had clung to that belief until the very last moment, found himself face to face again with Anatole Kuragin.
The past seven months had not been kind to Anatole. Always lean, he ran toward gaunt now, and shadows Fedya did not remember ringed his handsome eyes. The drab uniform of the Tsar's army did not suit him. But even worn and faded as he was, Anatole's presence tightened the screws in Fedya's chest. Ethereal. Otherworldly. Still, even now, the most beautiful man Fedya had ever seen, would ever see.
"Captain Dolokhov?" Andrey prompted.
Andrey expected Fedya to have come with orders.
Anatole knew better.
Anatole looked between them. At the man who wanted to shoot him and the man who had thrown him in a Moscow cell. He looked at Andrey, then at Fedya, then back to Andrey, then back to Fedya.
Then he threw back his head and laughed.
The sound carried more than a hint of madness. Fedya wanted to hold Anatole while he raged. Wanted to strip off that foul uniform and make love to him right in front of Andrey, and hang the consequences. Wanted to put a bullet between his crazy, laughing eyes.
"God, I hate war," Anatole said at last, and to no one in particular. "You run into everybody."
"Lieutenant Bolkonsky," Fedya said with a sharp salute.
Andrey returned it. He was from a better family than Fedya, and in civilian life wouldn't have deigned to smile at him in the street. But Fedya outranked Andrey, and he was a better shot, and so there was no choice for Bolkonsky but to mirror his salute. Fedya tried not to enjoy that too much.
"I need a word with Corporal Kuragin," Fedya said. "You'll have plenty of time to shoot him later," he added, as Andrey began to protest.
Andrey scowled, then stooped to pick up his glove. Jerking it back onto his hand, he gave Anatole one final, poisonous look before stalking off, spurs clinking in irritation as he went.
Anatole looked at Fedya with his brows raised and his arms folded. How many times had Fedya seen him in just that pose? Hundreds. Every time Anatole thought Fedya was being an idiot. Twenty times a day, even when they'd been at their best. When Fedya accepted Pierre Bezukhov's challenge, like an ass, as if anyone could have taken the idea of him seducing Hélène seriously. When he'd broken the nose of an Austrian hussar for coming up six kopeks short on a tavern bill. When he watched Anatole climb out of bed naked and glorious, staring shamelessly as he dressed, and then said something like Are you all right or You can talk to me or I want to know what you're thinking—something that meant I love you, but wasn't quite that.
"Do you think I have anything to say to you, Captain?" Anatole asked.
Fedya sighed. "I hoped you might," he said.
He sat down on the edge of a stone ring encircling the now-dead fire. After a moment, Anatole sat beside him, though he did so with an ironic expression, as if he couldn't quite explain why he was doing it.
Fedya took back what he'd thought about the dull military green not suiting Anatole. Everything suited him. Tailored to every half-angle of his body, how could it not? The uniform brought out something in Anatole, a hardness Fedya did not remember seeing before. The old Anatole would have looked like a child playing pretend in a corporal's uniform. This new Anatole made Fedya believe it.
"You like that you outrank me, don't you," Anatole said.
Fedya shrugged. "I can't say I mind," he said. "I'm surprised your father didn't get you another post behind a desk. Adjutant to an adjutant."
Anatole laughed. "I disgraced the family," he said. "Well, more than usual. He's through spending effort on me."
"That bastard," Fedya said, with feeling.
"Don't you worry about me," Anatole said. "I'm not you, but I'm a good shot."
Yes, Fedya thought. From forty paces, Anatole never missed. He doubted Napoleon would do him the courtesy of counting them off.
But men had surprised their commanders in war before. Besides, Anatole was stupid, but he wasn't helpless. He'd been to the front in Poland, however briefly. And he was better with a pistol than any other idiot Fedya had met in Moscow. That much was true. Given three seconds to aim, Anatole could take care of himself.
Fedya repeated these facts to himself, silently. It irritated him, that he felt the need to. He was a captain. He had men to lead. There was a war on. It shouldn't have mattered what happened to Anatole, a junior corporal, one soldier among thousands.
Except it did matter.
"How are you?" Fedya asked.
Anatole tilted his head to the side and stared at Fedya. It appeared he had never heard a stupider question in his life. "How do you think?" he said.
It was not supposed to go this way. Fedya didn't know the right thing to say, to make this all right. He had to find it. There had to be one.
The pit of his stomach turned sour. Of course, he knew what the right thing to say was. The simplest thing in the world to say. But the thought of forming the words was sickening. Not now. Not with the way Anatole was watching him, with the expression of a man looking at vomit.
Don't be a coward, he told himself.
I love you. Say that.
"I…the night before I left Moscow," Fedya said, like a coward. "I dined with Pierre and Hélène."
Anatole's eyes narrowed. "Really," he said. "And how is dear Pierre?"
"The same," Fedya said. "Hélène barely spoke to me, of course. And I think she spat in my soup."
Anatole smiled at that. "Bless her, sweet sister."
"And." Damn. In avoiding one impossible sentence, Fedya found himself facing another. He swallowed, then forced out the words. "And Natasha was there too."
Anatole went very still. He turned his head to look at Fedya, but said nothing. His eyes revealed nothing. The only sign that Fedya's words had not turned Anatole to stone was the faint twitch in his jaw, as if he would say something, but didn't know what the words were.
"Pierre's been helping," Fedya said, "since. Well. After. Reintroducing her to society. Building new connections. He seems fond of her."
"I'm sure he is," Anatole said, in a strained voice. He seemed to understand something more than Fedya meant by this. "Very fond of her."
Anatole closed his eyes, his head lowering for a moment. Fedya saw his breath hang in his chest, a slight hitch around the ribs. He wanted to put a hand on Anatole's shoulder, and grasped his own left hand with his right instead.
"How did she look?" Anatole asked.
Haunted, Fedya thought. Just like Anatole did now. That same shadow beneath the eyes, that same shudder in their breath. Speaking with ghosts no one else could see.
"Beautiful," Fedya said. "She smiled all night. Laughed when Hélène teased Pierre. She seemed better."
None of this was a lie. None of this was quite the truth.
Anatole pushed both hands back through his hair. Hands folded behind his head, he looked up, toward the night sky, toward the stars. "And she never spoke of me?" he asked.
She didn't have to, Fedya thought.
"No," he said. "Or of Bolkonsky."
Anatole nodded. He breathed in, then let it out in a soft wave that was not quite a sigh. Fedya had never seen Anatole like this before. Thoughtful. Quiet. It made him want to cry, knowing that Anatole hurt, and didn't believe he could trust Fedya with the knowledge of that pain.
Of course, Fedya had done nothing to earn that trust.
Of course, that pain was all Fedya's fault.
Finally, Anatole stood. Fedya rose with him, the desiccated remains of the fire still smoldering at their backs.
"Is there anything else?" Anatole asked.
And Fedya still could not say it. Napoleon and the French half a mile away and still the words would not come. I love you, he thought. Only a coward couldn't say it.
Fedya shouldn't have said what he did, but he felt the words spilling from his mouth anyway. They hung there between him and Anatole, a thin mist against the cold, before blowing away into the dark.
"Come to my tent tonight?" Fedya said. "I…I've missed you."
Anatole regarded Fedya with his head at a slight, mocking angle. "And who do we blame for that?" he asked.
Fedya said nothing. Who did they blame for any of this?
Anatole smiled. A cruel smile that seemed to hurt him as much as it hurt Fedya. "Permission to retire, Captain Dolokhov?"
Fedya's face burned. "Get out," he said, and turned away.
He did not see Anatole's salute. But he heard it, the click of his spurs, the sharpness and precision of his silence. Then, Anatole turned and walked away from Fedya, back into the camp. He left a set of uniform footprints in the snow, identical to those around them.