Death of the Red Rider by Yulia Yakovleva

Author:Yulia Yakovleva [Yakovleva, Yulia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Zoya looked perfectly calm, even rosy as she sat at the table, peering over the tea cups at Zaitsev, then Tatyana Grigoryevna.

That was how she had introduced herself: Tatyana Grigoryevna.

Tatyana Grigoryevna didn’t seem particularly alarmed. Concerned, yes. But in a perfunctory way. Zaitsev noticed that she had sat them where they couldn’t be seen from the window. She had also drawn the thick lace curtains.

She laid the table with saucers and on each one she placed a cup, upside down. She put out a bowl of sushki.

“Army rations. Can’t complain.”

She poured some soured milk into a small jug from a large krinka, a clay pot. She brought bread in a napkin, and put out some jam. And then, with the same simple gesture as though it were any household item, she pulled a rifle out from under the bed and placed it on the bedspread.

The bedspread was white and lacey, matching the curtains. There was no doubt that both were crafted by the same hands, by the lady of the house. And these same hands had risen from the blued steel barrel of her rifle and were gesturing hospitably towards the table.

“Help yourselves. The tea is Astrakhan. The soured milk is local. We don’t keep a cow ourselves. Not yet. Although I’d prefer a goat. But my husband doesn’t like the smell of the milk: he says it smells of goat. The jam is ours—last year’s, I’m afraid. The sugar’s crusted on top—just push that bit aside if it’s not to your taste.”

Zaitsev couldn’t even think about food.

“It’s perfect,” replied Zoya. “Thank you.”

The landlady’s hand rested again on the rifle. Zaitsev had no doubt that Tatyana Grigoryevna could lift it in an instant, aim and shoot.

And hit her target.

He immediately recognized when someone used their hands skilfully—whether it was the hands of a dental technician or a forensics expert. Or a woman with a firearm.

He pulled back the curtain a little with his finger. Not a soul in the yard. Except for a colourful turkey with such an absurdly shaped head that Zaitsev couldn’t help staring.

“Do you often have… um… mischief like that?” he asked at last. She had put it that way herself: “a bit of mischief”.

He didn’t really need to ask. Tatyana Grigoryevna’s rifle was a perfectly concise and eloquent reply.

“Now and then,” she said calmly. As if the conversation were about the weather.

The suspicion that it was inclement weather that they had brought with them left a bitter taste in his mouth. But did someone really know we were coming?

“The locals don’t like us,” Tatyana Grigoryevna added.

“You, too?”

“And you. ‘Rossiitsy’, as they call us here.”

On the chest of drawers, on a lace doily, a small relative of the curtains and bedspread, sat a framed photograph: Tatyana Grigoryevna with a Red Army man. Shoulder to shoulder, their heads slightly bowed to each other, as much affection as they could allow themselves. Both had serious faces. Her husband. Who didn’t like goat’s milk.

Tatyana Grigoryevna’s accent wasn’t local; she had a standard Russian accent.

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