Bulletproof Jewels Chapter 23: Oleg, an anastasia fanfic

Perm. August 1st, 1918.

Oleg Ivanovich Shchedrin.

The Grand Duchesses are screaming again.

"No, no, no!" One or two of them shout.

Oh. "No, no, no" tonight, it seems. It was "Mama!" "Papa!" or both for five nights consecutively. I almost tell this to Anton.

I am not even bothered by their screams. I get it. I do dread Igorʼs annoying and inevitable reaction to them though.

"Shut up!" My friend yells at the ceiling. There it is. He puts a pillow over his head.

We sleep on the lower floors. All of the guards from the evening shift do. This particular room used to belong to one of my fatherʼs many servants.

We have to be awake and guard at different hours. Our turn will start soon, which is probably why Igor is so upset. His few hours of sleep have been interrupted.

The room has two beds now, opposing each other. It was only one before.

The walls used to be decorated by our butlerʼs butterfly collection, but the dissected butterflies disappeared along with him when the reds took this house. One can still see the nails where they were hanged back then.

My brother Anton and I loved coming down here when we were children. We even had names for each and every one of the butterflies.

It was so fun for my twin brother and me to confuse our butler, but he enjoyed trying to tell us apart. Only my father and Yuri could do so every time, without fail. Even my grandmother had her slips, but she never became mad whenever we tricked her on purpose. My twin brother and I were known to do much worse. Now that I think about it, my sweet grandmother barely ever got mad. Even her scolding was, and still is, tender.

What do I have left if not my grandmother? Who do I love if not her?

The main question is, what am I doing alive when he is gone? Every day starts with me looking over my shoulder to see if Anton will be there any time soon as he used to be. It was not simply the loss of a brother. We were not like everyone else. Those conversations people claim to have with themselves… I used to have those with Anton.

Most people know what it is like to be one, to be alone.

"No, no, no!" I can tell only one of the girls is screaming now.

Their screams can be heard even down here. They can be heard all over the house, which is a decent size. It is quite depressing.

They are members of the fairer sex, so of course I have a soft spot for them. I canʼt say I am exceedingly upset though. I grew used to hearing people scream at night a long time ago, and cries of pain are always worse. Sounds of artillery explosions followed immediately by panicked screams of horror coming from men about to discover their days, hours… minutes are numbered, or that they no longer have arms or legs. Or neither.

Screams of agony coming from grown men transformed into whimpers, into silence. Those sounds do haunt me.

"Shut up!" Igor screams back.

"What is wrong with you, comrade?" I ask him. "What do you want them to do? They are having nightmares!"

"And I am having headaches every morning due to a chronic lack of sleep", he replies.

"What do you want me to do?" My tone of voice is sarcastic. "Go upstairs and scare the shit out of them in order to tell them to shut up? Oh, wait, maybe that will only make things worse the following night…"

Igor doesnʼt answer, he just puts the pillow back over his head and grunts.

Eventually, their screams stop. They are probably awake right now, realizing it was just a nightmare. Maybe discussing what their dreams were about or trying to get back to sleep. I can relate to that, but I wouldn't know for certain. At least my friend will finally shut up now.

My brothers and I have known Igor since we were children. We used to play together back when my brother Andrei had a soul. Igorʼs mother worked in our house for quite some time, although he never lived here but in one of the less well-to-do parts of town. It is weird knowing Igor is only two years older than me and yet has a wife and three children already.

I guess Anton and I were a bit slow when it came to accepting we were already adults, something my brother Andrei couldnʼt stand about us, or Yuri. And now that Anton is gone, I have lost any capacity for looking forward to the next stage in my life, whatever that may be. I am stuck in the past. It is all I want, all I crave.

Igor has such a good reason for living. His family is lucky he survived the war. I think Yuri should have been the one to survive. Not me or even Anton, as much as I still love him. Yuri had a fiancée, and he didnʼt have any twin brothers to leave behind searching for a new way to exist.

Igor should be happy about the way things are in the country right now. Unlike my grandmother and I, he belongs to the class Bolsheviks are supposed to represent, but Igor doesnʼt talk about that much. He just appreciates being able to spend more time with his family. Maybe he is hopeful for a better life as well, glad there is no longer a Tsar, and as a result, no more imperialist wars or repression of the common people. He is clearly naïve on that last one, but I wouldnʼt dare destroy his hope.

I think Nicholas deserved to die… well, maybe not. I donʼt know. I was just a boy the day thousands of workers were shot outside his palace on 1905. My family was indeed shocked, but we werenʼt there, and thus, we canʼt know for sure how responsible Nicholas was for the tragedy. I donʼt know if he played an important part. And yet, this is what everyone is saying, that he deserved to die, and usually, I simply go along with what most people say, especially considering how many people he has managed to get killed in this long, useless war that conveniently neither he nor his fellow royal cousins have had to fight.

In spite of this, knowing he and his wife were shot in front of their children makes me feel genuinely outraged, and I barely feel anything anymore. It makes most of the guards feel outraged, including Igor.

There was no reason to make those four girls or that child witness the execution, nothing useful about it. I have thought plenty of times about what happened and still canʼt find any reason as to why they would do that other than plain sadism.

The alarm clock goes off, as always, at 12. After dressing up, Igor and I leave our room for the change of shift. Fifteen guards will be going to bed now if they donʼt head home instead.

Having taken our rifles, seven fellow guards and I start patrolling the lower floors, the living room, and the kitchen in turns. The remaining eight are stationed outside, protecting all of the entrances.

The rest of the night goes on as usual. The guards who stay the night, like Igor and I, are free in the morning. Igor usually leaves at 6 and doesnʼt come back until late in the evening, although he sometimes returns earlier to goof around with me and his morning friends, claiming I need to be cheered up. I would also go home in the morning if I had any other home. I donʼt want any other home.

In this mansion, Yuri, Anton, and I would celebrate balls or parties for our college friends, who would travel hours to attend, only for us. We were, quite simply, good hosts. Lots of drinks, as this was fortunately before the prohibition.

The giant ballroom next to the living room was our perfect place. Sometimes, my friends went out to the garden as well. We would often play tug of war.

The white piano Grand Duchess Tatiana played during our birthday stands between the living room and the ballroom. We used to have a gramophone and dance to the latest music styles as well, but I am guessing it was stolen along with some of the furniture.

The new couches are too big, coincidentally red, and in my humble opinion, ugly. The old ones were painted gold, but the cushions were a shade of pale pink that combined perfectly well with the carved white ceiling and the dark wood of the walls.

My father, an architect, designed everything, although he claims my motherʼs tastes influenced him. I wouldnʼt know, for I never met my mother. She died giving birth to me fifteen minutes after Anton was born. My father always wanted us to remember her though. He tried to make us love her by talking about her all the time, but there was little that Yuri, Anton, and I could do other than love the pictures that came along with the idea of a woman we never met.

I think my father was like me in a way. Maybe the only thing he could truly look forward to every day was gone. He was mostly kind, unless we misbehaved, but I donʼt think I ever saw him happy. He was not the type of father to play with his children.

Still, my already sick father was genuinely tolerant of our parties. He just wanted us to have fun and tell him everything that happened. My religious fanatic brother Andrei was not as tolerant. He used to go as far as claiming that we didnʼt care for fatherʼs heart condition, as if Andrei did anything for him other than stress him out with blatant exaggerations of our escapades to the western cities. Andrei is, or was, so different from us.

Yuri, Anton, and I lived for the day, but Andrei took everything in life seriously. I donʼt know much about his private life and yet I am sure his wife was the first woman he ever touched. Perhaps the reason for this is that he was the only one of us who got to know mother for a decent amount of time. He was five when she died. Andrei remembers her, and so, mourns her. My oldest brother had fatherʼs melancholy even before the war, but at least he also had a playful side when we were children. I even used to prefer him to Yuri.

Everything changed when Andrei got married and started pestering us about doing the same, or going to church more often, or taking our grades more seriously, and by that meaning not failing wasnʼt enough. He wanted us to enjoy life less, basically.

We didnʼt even invite that many women to our parties back then. The ones who came were students themselves and often just friends. Yuri was the greatest flirt, not Anton nor me. Our love for women came about during the war. Most of the soldiers of our regiment hired prostitutes. Being at the front and knowing any day could be the last was so unbearably stressful that many of us did this out of fear of missing out.

Those women would look as tired as the most battle-hardened soldiers, and they still had a smile on their lips at all times, smiles that didnʼt always reach their eyes. This made me feel so guilty on one occasion that I paid the girl and left without even letting her touch me. Those women were like saints, but try telling that to Andrei.

Lately though, not even visiting women works. The permanent sadness doesnʼt go away for too long, so I have stopped. I donʼt feel or enjoy anything.

The morning comes, and soon enough Igor is gone. I always miss him in the mornings, in a truly pathetic way. Some part of me just wants my friend to replace Anton, which I know is not going to happen.

The 30 guards from the morning shift arrive, and most of us leave. After taking a shower and leaving my rifle, I usually spend the free portion of my day outside in the garden, just remembering my childhood. Sometimes I go back to bed in order to recover a few hours of sleep.

I always go to the kitchen first.

"Good morning", I say to my grandmother, who is already up and working to feed everyone in the house. The guards will eat in turns before the prisoners are up.

"Good morning, darling", she replies with her usual kindness. Everything about her, to the last wrinkle, expresses kindness. I kiss both her cheeks.

"Is the commander up yet?" She asks.

"No, not yet, but in any minute," I reply. "He would probably prefer to be up before the girls are."

At the beginning, Commander Pavel had planned for an established hour to wake the prisoners up, but then it became clear that the sunlight entering their windows through the thin curtains would be enough to do the trick every morning.

I remember those curtains. Anton and I would put sheets over them on Saturdays so that we could sleep longer.

The Grand Duchesses are usually up by 9, if not earlier. I can sometimes hear them sobbing in the mornings. Even that can be heard.

Either way, a young teenage boy called Denis, from the morning shift, always knocks on their door at 9 to make sure they are still there. That boy usually leaves early, but lately, he seems to think he is merely having a playdate with his friends and not working to support his mother and younger siblings. If it werenʼt for Igor, who feels protective for the kid and defended his behavior before Commander Ignat recently, Denis would have probably been fired already.

Speaking of Denis, he is heading straight towards the lower quarters. Denis knows Ignat isnʼt awake yet, because he ignores the door close to the main entrance that leads to the commanderʼs office. Instead, he walks down the stairs leading to the guardsʼ rooms, which are located just in front of the living room. I hope Ignat is in a good mood for whatever is happening. He should be up by now anyway.

"Do you want tea, my son?" My grandmother asks. I nod, and then I sit down at the small table inside the kitchen. I canʼt drink coffee in the mornings as most guards do. I wouldnʼt be able to sleep.

I talk to my grandmother for a while as I drink with some of the morning guards, who are having coffee and something to eat before quickly going back to their posts. Some of them simply take the bread, stuff it with whatever my grandmother has managed to cook today out of our modest rations, and leave after thanking her without even taking a plate.

I love my grandmother, but it is not often that we speak. What can I say to her that wonʼt demoralize her? She wants me to find another place, to settle down and marry, but I wonʼt do that. I donʼt have the energy to make anyone happy. I would drain the unlucky chosen one of her own happiness. I tell my grandmother that I simply donʼt want marriage, but I fail to appear as if I knew what I did want. I donʼt want another home or another life.

I miss the days we had more to talk about, the days Galina was simply our mother figure, taking care of us. The one we showed everything we had drawn. The one we told whatever we had done.

"Why donʼt you go out today to find a real job, Oleg?" She asks me as another man enters the kitchen for some bread. "This place is not good for you, it is eating you alive. Yesterday, on my way back from the market, I saw a construction site. They may need engineers, go ask."

"This is a real job, Babushka", I roll my eyes. "And I am doing an important task for the future of our country by protecting the revolution from reactionaries."

The guard who had entered the kitchen laughs out loud at that. I canʼt help but smile.

"Shut up, Gregory!" I exclaim, concealing my amusement with a death stare.

Gregory is one of the guards who danced with Maria during our birthday party... I still think about our party in plural. A depressing affair, poor girl. The young guard leaves, not before grinning at my grandmother, who is now laughing as well.

I know for a fact I am not doing anything remarkable. I couldnʼt give less of a damn about the revolution. I am just worried that my grandmother is going to be caught up in a mess by working here if I donʼt keep an eye on her.

It is not even that my grandmother is against the new government. She is the least political person in the world, and that is the problem. She is a simple, naïve, and religious woman, who still, albeit mistakenly, calls the former grand duchesses the pretty "princesses." When something bothers her, she says so out loud.

She fought tooth and nail to stay here when the Bolsheviks took the house, arguing that it rightfully belonged to my brother Andrei now, and not to everyone, "as young people like to say nowadays." I had to tell the commissars that she was a crazy old bourgeois woman who hadnʼt even realized what year it was, and that being taught a lesson would serve her well.

"Have her clean and wash dishes for once in her life", I said, knowing my grandmother had actually helped the servants many times before. "Maybe even at her former house as a way to rub salt into the wound." And so, I helped her stay here.

When that poor orphan was taken away from his sisters, my grandmother tried to argue with the Chekists against this cruel act as if she were the customer and they were the shop owners. As if she had any say in it.

Any slip of her tongue and my grandmother could be dead. It may sound like an exaggeration, something I myself believed at first, for I was one of those soldiers who cheered the success of the October revolution out loud only to go with the flow, but just last week, a successful shop owner we had known our entire lives was arrested when he asserted that the reds had no right to expropriate his property. I later heard that he had been shot, and even though this is just a rumor, it is not the first rumor of the sort I have listened to.

I would rather take precautions. No stranger is ever going to know just how ambivalent I am to this entire situation. So I never act ambivalent. I donʼt care about sounding ridiculous if it means driving away suspicions.

I intend to go back to bed now that I am done with my breakfast. On the way to my room, I see Commander Ignat and some of the other guards carrying bandages, wool of many different colors, brushes, paint, and pieces of paper. They lay all of this on the big table of the dining room and then go back to their posts.

Commander Ignat stays and examines each of the materials carefully, as he has done recently with everything and everyone entering or leaving the house. He then goes back to his office.

The Grand Duchesses are probably going to have a nice time today. I havenʼt heard them sobbing, and they will have something interesting to do once they are downstairs. I wonder what the bandages are for though.

As usual, I eat in the kitchen once I am up from my nap.

Two of the remaining Grand Duchesses are sitting in the living room, knitting. The little dog is lying on the sofa next to Tatiana. Anastasia is lying on the ground beneath them, painting something with a brush and some watercolors.

At some point, Denis leaves his post near the dining room for what I suspect is not the first time and asks Anastasia what she is painting, as if he were a toddler. I would bet, literally bet, as in risking my life savings, that if this government stays in power, that kid is ending up dead in a ditch somewhere.

I love seeing the prisoners that way, content enough. They donʼt look exactly happy, but they seem even more distraught most of the time, even when they talk to me in a cheerful way, pretending everything is fine. Especially when they pretend everything is fine.

I don't have to work again until 5 o´clock, so after lunch, I decide to go downstairs to read a book or something.

I always try to walk past the prisoners unnoticed despite wanting more than anything to talk to them… to Maria. She is another problem.

If I ever come to sympathize with them any more than I do now, I will only end up caring for them, and I already know how this will end. They will end up in a ditch somewhere as well. I can feel it in my bones. I can feel it in Commander Ignat's coldness. Even his gifts appear to be some sort of consolation prize for something sinister he is planning for them.

I canʼt let myself care for anything, not so soon after Anton… maybe not ever. I wonʼt be strong enough for my grandmother.

It is not me who happens upon Maria whenever she and her sisters are outside. It is Maria who looks for me. I have already caught sight of her. She is moving her head and eyes in search of something.

I avoid her gaze, turn my back on her, and try to make myself invisible among the morning guards.

"Oh, hi Oleg!" She exclaims. This is usually when I act surprised, as if I hadnʼt noticed her before.

I donʼt want her to think I have something against her and thus embitter her days, days that could very well be some of her last. My life would be easier if she believed me to be mad at her though.

"Hello, Maria", I reply, allowing myself to admire her beauty for a second.

The size of her lips was distracting the first time I saw her, but the rest of her features are so lovely that I eventually warmed up to her as a whole. They are all big, they are all distracting. Her beauty itself is big. Those huge, kind, gray-blue eyes contrasting with her dark hair, those full cheeks and the way they easily blush. You wouldnʼt think a girl as simple as Maria would be this beautiful.

I didnʼt care much for the fact we would be guarding the Grand Duchesses at first. Just four papered girls to take care of. I wasnʼt in the mood for anything, let alone that.

I had seen them in pictures and thought they were indeed very beautiful, but not enough to lose my mind over. I thought they were going to be snobbish and unapproachable anyways, so I had nothing to look forward to.

They were just so much better looking face to face, in color, even young Anastasia, who I still see as a child more than anything. As soon as I got a better glimpse of them, my jaw dropped almost idiotically.

The girl who left with her brother, the fair one, was modestly beautiful, but the way she moved and acted was so delicate and in some ways vulnerable… there was something intriguing and inherently attractive about it.

I thought Tatiana was the prettiest at first. She is a tall girl with fine features, dark almond-shaped gray eyes, and auburn hair. Both her looks and her mannerisms are exceedingly elegant.

Anastasia is a short, slightly chubby girl with dark strawberry blonde hair. She is nice to look at, and even while distraught, incredibly energetic. Her eyes are blue, as are her sistersʼ, and her features are perhaps finer, prettier, and more delicate than Tatianaʼs, but her face is long and thin, and her eyes lack the uniqueness of either Tatiana or Mariaʼs eyes. Especially Mariaʼs eyes.

Those four girls were not at all what I had expected they would be. They displayed humility, thankfulness, and friendliness despite looking frightened, confused, and tearful at all times. Even the former heir seemed like a nice and intelligent kid with a decent amount of military knowledge, at least for his age.

By the time I began to notice their positive qualities, they had already become acquainted with my somewhat rough manners. Andrei would have eaten me alive.

Still, these grown women are not Grand Duchesses anymore. It would be silly to watch my mouth, be careful, or give them some sort of special treatment they are unlikely to receive again anytime soon. I havenʼt given them an apology, and I donʼt plan to.

If Andrei were here, he would be risking his neck by using their titles. He would be treating the four of them as if they were children and goddesses at the same time, a strange but accurate combination that would only continue giving them the wrong idea of how the world really works.

Right now, Maria is talking to me about the materials they requested yesterday, and how Ignat agreed to provide them with everything they needed. They made the inquiry through me. Tatiana asked me to. She said Commander Ignat seemed unfriendly enough to awaken her occasional shyness. I couldn't agree more.

"There is no way we are getting bored this week", Maria gushes.

"What are the bandages for?" I canʼt help but ask. "Are any of you hurt?"

"Oh, Anastasia", she answers. "Anastasia and her blistered feet. The shoes they gave her are just too small."

I frown. "Didnʼt you once say that your shoes are the only belongings you were allowed to take with you?"

"Oh, yea! They were given to her by our parents, wrong size," she quickly explains. "It is unfortunate that those are precisely the shoes she was wearing when… you know."

I canʼt believe her eyes didnʼt fill with tears when she mentioned that night. There is something different about Maria today. There is no lump in her throat, no overcompensating by acting excessively cheerful.

Her mood seems… genuine. It usually doesnʼt. Her daily signs of vulnerability are one of the reasons I restrained myself.

The same day I met Maria, I decided I would seduce her. Another one of my hopeless attempts to feel something, I guess.

There is a secret passage in the lower quarters, the origin of which I am unaware of. It might have been the drainage of the old house that was demolished to build this one on the same spot. It could also be an abandoned wine cellar, but I doubt this theory. The tunnel is far too long.

The entrance is blocked by cement now though. My father was responsible for that. He wanted to keep Anton and I from sneaking out of the house to visit our school friends. We would do this so often that our grades had started dropping.

On one occasion, Anton and I used the tunnel to go to the circus that was passing through the city, something we had been forbidden to do because we were grounded. We intended to pay with some rubles we had stolen from our father. Not fully acquainted with the value of money yet, Anton and I discovered that we had not brought enough coins for the tickets only after our arrival at the circus. In the end, we had to tiptoe in without paying. I smile at the memory.

I must admit that the plan to sneak Maria out of the house would have definitely failed. And that is if I even managed to seduce her, for she seems to be incredibly religious. And how the hell would I have re-opened the passage? How would I have managed to convince a decent high-born girl to do something as dangerous and stupid for a flight of fancy? And how would I have closed the entrance again after our escapade? I never planned out the details, and had I managed to succeed, I would have probably not gotten away with stealing away the prisoner.

One of the stupidest things that ever occurred to me, but the fact is, it was still on my mind, and it was more than just hypothetical. I was trying to figure out how to do it, the logistics.

She was such a beautiful girl, and soon I would find out, more susceptible to forming friendships than her sisters. Beautiful and old enough to know about such matters.

Then those two men from Moscow came, and I became aware of my own selfishness. Four girls, completely at our mercy. Everything was taken from them in the blink of an eye. No friends nor family around. Then I swipe in. Had she decided to go along with the adventure, how could I have possibly known the real reason behind her compliance? Desire or fear? Fear of what I would do to her if she refused. Fear of the lies I would tell my superiors. That she had tried to escape or was hiding a weapon or something. I would have never done or even threatened to do that, but she was a prisoner who had no way of knowing this.

Maybe even fear of missing out, the same fear I had while I was in the army. Those girls have witnessed their probable fates unravel before them. I know for sure that they have little hope for their futures.

I don't even consider myself a chivalrous man, but I give myself credit when credit is due. It was the fear of not knowing her true feelings about me and not the absolute idiocy of my plan that made me change my mind.

After her little brother was taken, I firmly decided that I would be just a friendly acquaintance, maybe a full friend if she ever needed that from me, but nothing more. Not in this situation. I have taken my acquaintance role seriously, although she made things a bit hard at first by always wanting to talk.

As I got to know Maria better, my chosen role became a bit easier. The girl is not at all stupid or even naive, but she does have the innocence of a child. I find her too adorable to think of as a woman anymore. Admiring her beauty has become similar to admiring a work of art. Hearing her screams at night only makes my position solid.

I am beginning to interact with Tatiana as well. It is harder for her to hide her tears, and she looks upset more often than Maria, but she is becoming friendlier. Anastasia, on the other hand, is always either too excited or too angry. There is no in between. Sometimes she has sudden sobbing outbursts. I don't know how to interact with her.

The problem is, losing these women I am beginning to consider friends will hurt just as much as losing a lover would, so I canʼt help but try to keep my distance if I can. I can't do so now though. Maria is asking me about my daily routine and that of the other guards. She seems surprised that there are 60 of us in total, including the morning and evening men. She thought there were fewer.

"Are you a morning or evening guard?" She asks.

"Evening", I reply.

"Really? But we saw you working on the first and second days! And you guarded us during breakfast the morning of the third!"

"We hadnʼt figured out how things were going to work yet", I explain. "I didn't have a proper schedule then, but now I work only during the evenings. That boy, Denis, was an evening guard at first, did you know?"

She shakes her head, looking way too interested in what I consider a boring subject.

"His mother was worried about him being somewhere else at night, so his shift was moved", I elaborate.

"I can imagine", she says. "So what do you guards do for fun around here?"

I chuckle without meaning to. What kind of question is that? The poor girl must be so bored, bored out of her mind even now that she has more things to do with all of those gifts the commander brought.

"Not much… talking? Telling each other jokes?" I laugh. "We are always in our posts or changing them."

"There is nowhere in the house where you meet or play games?" She asks.

"There are not many parts of the house you haven't seen yet", I smile. "Downstairs, there are only more rooms and bathrooms, upstairs, as you know, your rooms, the bathroom, as well as other empty chambers with no furniture left. We really have nothing going on, but I wish. You should attempt an escape or something, because it gets boring at times."

We both laugh. I think I have succeeded at telling a good joke for the first time in ages. She continues laughing for a long time as if I had just said the funniest thing in the world. Even the sound of her laughter is beautiful, beautiful and contagious.

We continue talking about the house for a while, about the way it was before, the way the soldiers live. I incorporate some of my childhood memories, and she tells me some of hers.

"So, who did our room belong to before?" Maria asks.

"I am surprised you have never asked about this!" I exclaim. "It belonged to Yuri. The room next door, the one your brother…"

I pause for a second as soon as I mention her brother to make sure she won't become upset, as she has before. Her expression doesn't change today though. She keeps looking at me with those same wide and curious eyes. Those huge, beautiful, blue eyes.

"The other room", I continue, trying to sound calm, "belonged to my grandmother."

"She seems to have loved board and card games", She observes. "We found lots of them. Why didn't she take them to her new room?"

"Oh, no!" I smile. "Those games weren't hers." My mind fills with good memories. "She kept them in her room because Anton, Yuri, and I would have stayed up all night playing if she didn't."

Maria smiles. For the first time today, her smile is sad. The way it has always been since I met her.

The sound of arguing interrupts our pleasant conversation.

"But why?!" Anastasia sounds scared. She and Tatiana, who is carrying the dog, are being pushed into the back entrance of the house by two morning guards whose names I don't know.

"Orders", one of them replies.

I see Gregory approaching me and Maria. He better explain what is happening.

Commander Ignat has implemented new rules on the time the prisoners will be allowed outside. He talked to them in the living room, and I couldn't help but listen as I stood on the corner. From now on, they will only be allowed out once a day, for an hour before dinner.

I feel very sorry for the girls, especially Maria. I saw them crying for the first time today. They looked terrified as well, and I don't think their evident fears are unfounded. After a sad and tearful dinner before which my shift began, the three of them went back to their rooms.

Igor is back. Carrying rifles over our shoulders, he and I patrol the small garden in front of the house, which is connected to the bigger one on the back.

"So, no more limitless time to walk outside?" Igor remarks after minutes of chatting about his family's health. I told him about what happened earlier.

"No, not anymore", I sigh. "At least they have more stuff to do now."

"Shame, not as much flirting then I guess."

I punch him on the shoulder in response. He pushes me back.

"Alright, alright", I chuckle.

Roughly an hour later, Igor and I start patrolling the big garden at the back of the house. It is getting dark, and it is sad not seeing the girls around, but fortunately, Igor and some of his friends are still here to distract me with their endless, and most often than not, nonsensical chatter.

My fellow guards walk in groups of two or three, watching different parts of the huge garden. They love to say hello to each other whenever their paths cross, acting as if they hadn't seen each other in months or years.

"Igor! Nice to see you again!" One of them exclaims. "How are you doing? How has life treated you?"

"It has been rough at times", Igor answers. "How is your boy? The last time I saw him he was three years, five months, four days, 23 hours, and 20 minutes old."

"He turned three years, five months, four days, 23 hours, and 30 minutes very recently", the other guard replies.

They laugh out loud, seemingly finding this hilarious, but jokes get old for me way too soon.

Igor and I stop walking when we see the commander approaching us.

"Oleg", he says. "I need to talk to you in my office."

My heart stops, what did my grandmother do? What did Andrei do? Do they know about him? Do they suspect me of having a monarchist for a brother? He and his family don't live in the city anymore, but still…

I leave Igor, and Ignat escorts me to his office, where I find my grandmother. She is sitting in front of Ignatʼs desk, shaking.

"What the hell happened?" My tone is accusing.

"She says she wants to go outside, but she won't tell me why", Ignat answers for her.

"I said I was going to the market, I forgot to buy something", my grandmother defends herself with great dignity. "Is leaving one's house illegal now for you people?"

My heart skips a beat yet again. I give her a stern look that the commander seems to notice.

"The market? It isn't there at this hour!" He spits at her. "Do you believe me so stupid as to not know my way around this neighborhood?" Ignat turns to me. "This is why I called you, Oleg. You are one of the few who seem honest and sympathetic to our cause. I am hoping you will talk some sense into her and make her tell me what she really planned to do. She is just an old woman, and I wouldn't enjoy having to arrest her. I suspect those… predatory people, have finally managed to get her to work for them."

Commander Ignat probably meant the spies, but he may not want to give away too much of what he is investigating. That cannot be. My grandmother is naïve, but she wouldn't be so stupid. I warned her.

I smile and roll my eyes. Then I look down at my grandmother, playfully shaking my head in a disapproving manner. I am fuming inside, but the commander has to see that I am not too worried. That I donʼt take this situation seriously.

I turn to Ignat. "Can I talk to my grandmother in private? Not here, in my room", I try to sound as calm as possible. "She is not going anywhere, and of that, you can be sure. I just think she will tell me more if we are alone, but you are right, she might have been manipulated."

"Well yes, go ahead", Commander Ignat nods, and I let out a huge breath I didnʼt realize I was holding. I hope he didnʼt notice.

I close the door behind me as soon as I enter my room, where my grandmother is already sitting on the bed, looking quite nervous. She lowers her head. No. She looks guilty. I go straight to the point: "I am only going to ask this once. What is going on?"