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Against All Odds

By Anna Mikhalevskaya

Translated by Elvira Rizaeva

 

Time is slipping away drop by drop, along with sweat on deceptively calm faces. He runs through the shafts of stairs, through abandoned tunnels. Seeps through the ceilings into echoing hangars, stumbles upon crooked figures, shakes oilcloth curtains, rolls empty mugs, beats metal on metal, guts backpacks stuffed to the top with yesterday — a small find! — and rushes on. A rat’s tail flickers around the corner; Time snaps his teeth in vain, losing his prey.

His paw catches a stuffed animal, a knitted bunny with one button eye. Time greedily opens the funnel of his mouth where ages have perished more than once, and immediately snaps it shut. He cannot swallow the toy. The bunny has an owner.

A lantern’s firefly dances in the darkness. Time, estranged of light, squints. Now darkness is everywhere even during the day, even in the cities still intact. It’s even darker here under the factory shop floors and tunnels, under ground trembling from explosions. Charcoal blast furnaces and chimneys are ironed out by bombs. Bombs crush gauge tracks and trolleys, smash the memory of the past. They even out the light that contains everything with the darkness that contains nothing. That’s why Time is here. This is his domain.

“Here you are, Vanya.” The flickering light gets closer. The girl with a disheveled dark braid picks up the toy.

She’s about seven years old, decides Time, checking her out with a trained eye and retreating. He has a troubled relationship with children. They keep getting in his way, interfering with his work. Time wistfully recalls Mount Olympus; back then he could simply swallow children. Not without consequences, true, but still. Now in the age of tolerance you have to wait until they grow and wise up. Or rather get dumb. Sometimes he gets his share from his Sister. War indulges herself and gets way more than him.

The girl peers into the darkness as if she sees him. It is impossible, though.

How did she end up here, Time wonders. Women and children hide upstairs.

“Let’s go, Vanya,” she says, as if to the stuffed bunny, but she certainly looks Time right in the eyes.

How long can you sit here stranded, reasons Time, sneaking behind the child. The girl confidently takes a turn at the fork; she knows her way. The dim reflection of the lantern rushes along the walls.

“Don’t you run away,” she whispers in the knitted bunny’s ear and pulls the door.

It smells like prey. Time rubs his paws.

---

The entire gigantic space of the production facility built for machines is permeated with human despair.

There are soldiers behind polyethylene screens; some cradle the stumps of their arms, some smoke, leaning on a crutch, some lie on the rags, turning their backs to the wall. There are others whose bodies remain intact but their eyes cannot focus on anything. They look through the oilcloth, through their comrades and the darkness of the bunker, through its walls and through the ruins of the city, where until recently they rocked their children and loved their women, through the sea from which dolphins beach themselves. They watch until their gaze rests on the back of their head, turning into a cold muzzle. Sister took care of them; she touched everyone here. If she were a human, she would become a mad surgeon, since amputating is her favorite pastime. She takes away hands, feet, future.

“You are not allowed here! Where are your parents?”

A sharp look, a bushy beard, a machine gun at his side — an ursine combatant blocks the girl’s path.

Like the rest of the servicemen he is a prisoner of the production facility turned into a bunker but he does not look like one.

The girl casts a sharp glance at the combatant; even her braid bristles, and the hair is sticking out of it more than ever. She tightens her grip on the knitted bunny.

“No parents,” she says. “I have to see Misha.”

“No can do. You will be taken to the rest of the women and kids.”

“I have to see Misha,” she repeats softly.

“Let her through, Captain. Misha asked about her when he came round. Maya, I bet. Are you Maya?” The pale soldier leans on a crutch. A dirty, empty pant leg is wrapped around his amputated limb.

The girl nods readily.

The captain’s eyes pierce these two. Something definitely clicks in his head and he barks, “Go.”

Misha is beyond any help, thinks the captain. Time agrees. Misha is one of those who looks himself in the back of his head and is ready to pull the trigger.

“The girl is all alone,” explains the pale soldier in a hushed voice. “Her house got shelled when she was playing outside. Blew to smithereens. She grew up without her mom, and her dad is at the front. The neighbor who took care of her brought her to this hiding place at the factory. But the little one is feisty. Misbehaves.”

“I see,” scoffs the Captain, though he sees nothing.

Maya confidently walks through labyrinths of oilcloth and cardboard, iron benches and rags piled in a heap. Time wants to turn back; there is lots of other prey in this area. But he doesn’t want to lose sight of Maya.

The girl kneels near the pile of blankets and uniforms; she finally looses her grip on her bunny and puts it next to her.

“I missed you,” says Maya. The pile of rugs moves, uncovering an arm thin and weak as if it belongs to a bedridden old man.

“Go away. You are not supposed to be here,” says a man with a raspy voice.

“How are you?”

“Could be better,” chuckles he.

“Hey, cheer up!” says Maya. “I have an idea!” She’s not waiting for his questions and spills the tea. “Dad promised to return. But there’s no place for him to return, you know what happened to our house. He won’t be able to find me. That means I have to find him! There’s no phone signal and grown-ups tell me nothing. So you can help me!”

Maya puts her stuffed bunny into Misha’s open hand.

The young man crawls out of the blanket. The pain contorts his face. The feverish roses are blooming on his cheeks.

“I can help no one,” croaks Misha.

Time nods. The guy’s septic since his wounds haven’t been treated properly. He has days left, a week at best.

“If everyone talks like that what will happen to us?”

Misha knows the answer but he’s not going to discuss it with Maya. He notices the bunny in his hand and tries to sit up.

“Tell me about your Dad, how else will I find him?” The young man leans against the wall, but even sitting takes too much effort so he closes his eyes.

Maya brightens up.

“My Dad . . . you will recognize him immediately. He is tall, taller than your captain. Pretty strict when he wants to discipline me. But most of the time he is fun to be around; we kayaked together and explored the caves, and even played soccer. He took me everywhere with him. What’s his name? Nikolai Bondar. There are a lot of people with that name, I Googled. But Dad is one and only. He also loves fishing and reading books. And me, of course. When you meet him, tell him — don’t you forget! — I love him too . . . very, very much.”

Misha forces himself to smile.

The captain and the doctor on duty, standing behind a fragile wall of polyethylene and cardboard, exchange glances.

Why Misha? Wonder they.

Time shares their astonishment. Out of all the wounded warriors, the girl chose the weakest one.

---

“Where were you?” yells a woman with faded eyes. Her lips quiver.

“She hates me,” says Maya to a dark-haired soldier who the captain sent to escort her here.

Maya tried to escape from him; all the way she dragged behind, told him she need to go to the bathroom, sneaked to the side tunnels. Now he sees why.

“Who cares? Love or hate — it’s a war! You could die. And here at least you get food and water.”

“Aunt Tanya, give me my phone back!” Maya gets angry. The bunny is left in the hospital ward; restless Maya’s hands unravel her unkempt braid.

Tanya, her neighbor, looks helplessly at the dark-haired soldier, then turns to Maya and says softly, “You can’t turn it on anyway.”

Everyone knows that she’s lying.

“Go. The soldiers brought us crackers. I left some for you.” Tanya sends the girl away and Maya reluctantly walks through the compartment with linen hanging on the lines to the tables assembled from crates and boxes. Maya does not look around; she does not pay attention to other children.

“I can’t give her the phone,” the neighbor quickly whispers to the dark-haired soldier. “Maya’s father is badly wounded. Somewhere near Kharkiv. The message came when we had the signal. If Maya finds out she will run away. I can’t handle her. The girl will perish.”

Time shifts his feet at the half-open door, eavesdropping. She will run away . . . Time estimates the probabilities and decides that is totally possible.

The dark-haired soldier scratches the back of his head. Originally wanting to help the girl, he’s no longer happy that he volunteered. He knows how to use a gun, but responsibility for the life of someone’s child is not for him.

Weaklings, thinks Time. People give up too soon. Only Maya stands up all alone against all adults.

They do not see, but the girl has pieced it all together. As only kids can, they unmistakably understand all, while simultaneously not realizing they’re doing it. That’s why she chose Misha. The man and her father will pass away soon. People think that there is some kind of room on the other side where all their friends and acquaintances are crowding. And one can give the message to another. Is it true? He shrugs. Time has been feeding on people and their ideas about the world for way too long, so he couldn’t know something they don’t.

The dark-haired soldier didn’t come up with any solution and decided to return to the rest of his mates. Time follows him through the tunnels, listens to the drops of leaky pipes, and grunts, suddenly remembering how old he is.

He has to intervene.

As people say, only time will tell.

---

The smell of despair is still present but Time has lost his appetite.

“That’s how it goes, Captain,” reported the dark-haired one. “The girl might become an orphan. They don’t tell her since they’re afraid she might go AWOL.”

The captain has other things to worry about. Really, he is in charge of the hangar full of injured and unscathed soldiers with indefinite futures. He has difficult negotiations to run and an order that must be carried out at any cost. They have been hiding underground for two months now; their weapons, food, and patience are running thin. And here’s a girl. Perhaps her father will die, perhaps he will live. They all just discharge their duty.

Now! Time unwinds the tape of events, and the captain remembers his five-year-old son. He receives short messages from his wife; every day his kid is fixing to go to war, to help his father. He hasn’t run away from home yet, but who knows.

Good, very good. Time is content. He’s got a grip on the man. And now fast forward!

The captain suddenly remembers that he needs to go upstairs, try to catch a signal — thanks, Elon! — and send messages. Even talk if possible. Time seeps after him through all the ceilings to level zero. He can hear the cannonade from here. His Sister puts up her best licks, no kidding.

Time waits for the captain to finish his conversation and helpfully pulls him back to a couple of hours in the past by tugging on the sleeve of his uniform jacket.

The captain recalls the name, Nikolai Bondar. Right. He writes a message to the boys from his unit. His request will probably surprise them but they surely do everything for him, possible and even impossible.

Time takes off again. The skeletons of blast furnaces, the broken backbone of the railway, the broken vents of the pipes are far below him now.

He rushes to Kharkiv in order to convince the combatants, to find a hospital, the right medicine and doctors, to sort out all probabilities, strengthening the one where the circumstances will work out as they should.

When everything is ready, it turns out that nothing is ready. The whole Creation, one might say, is reshaped but Nikolai can hardly breathe. His lung with a gunshot wound fails him. The second one is eaten away with pneumonia. Time zips around from the doctor to the wounded soldier and back, but the patient’s condition rapidly declines.

And then Time thinks of his Sister.

---

She slowly walks through the ruined halls of the Assumption Cathedral. She picks up the icons gently, but they crumble to dust in her hands. The dust covers the shards of glass and metal fragments of icon covers. She goes straight to the altar. A lonely leaf of carved door creaks softly. The second one is torn off; it lies at the feet of Time’s Sister.

“Give him to me,” Time says hoarsely.

He has not taken care of people for far too long; it takes too much of his energy.

“I gave you the factory. Isn’t it enough?”

War bluffs. The whole colossus of the plant from the smoke in the pipes of its furnaces to the woodlice lurking at the bottom of the deepest tunnel belongs to her. She just shared with him and not very generously, letting Time eat just human memories.

“Give him to me,” Time repeats. He doesn’t want to justify himself or complain about injustice on her part.

“I’ve been waiting for this too long.” War grins, crushing with her heels the carved door leaf thrown off by the explosion. The wood cracks but does not give in. “What do you offer in return?”

Time is ready for this question.

“Wanna bet?”

It’s a risky deal. The Sister is reckless, and almost always wins. That’s why Time doesn’t like to save people, though he is able. This guy is lucky while the others will go to Tartaros.

War tears down the remaining door leaf and watches it turn to dust.

“Okay,” says the Sister. “Let’s do it.”

---

“Where’s Misha?” Once again Maya ran away from the non-combatants compound, and Time had to look after her so that she wouldn’t fall into some shaft.

The captain does not flinch under the girl’s stare, nor does he look away. Time knows how hard it is for him. The servicemen found Maya’s father. They practically moved heaven and earth and got needed medicine. But in the last message they wrote: “Bondar will not last long, he can hardly breathe.” And now the captain must tell her the truth about Misha.

“Mikhail is gone.” The captain takes a knitted bunny without an eye out of the box that contained all of the young man’s life belongings — his backpack and crumpled things —and hands it to Maya. “Misha asked me to tell you this: he memorized everything and he will find your dad for sure.”

Maya stares at the ground, not paying attention to the toy.

“Did it hurt?” she asks finally.

“No,” assures the captain. “It was just . . . unusual.”

“Will my Dad die too?”

Today the captain has already answered many difficult questions asked by officials who decide the fate of countries. But this one is perhaps the most difficult. He could have said to Maya, “I hope that doesn’t happen.” Or “Let’s hope for the best.” Or, “Yes, most likely he will die.” But this is all wrong. The captain knows the war and its mechanics all too well. It’s grinding the future of this kid right now. No therapist will be able to put it together. There is a small back door, though. If he takes a risk and takes Maya through it he can pull her out. Or it will break her completely. Shooting from a trench is much easier than putting people’s lives back together. And he is surrounded by people, his people.

“He’ll survive,” says the captain, though he doesn’t believe himself.

Maya doesn’t believe him either but her eyes are not as keen as before.

Time breathes a sigh of relief.

As usual Maya gets escorted again but she doesn’t try to run away this time. She lets a guy grab her hand and tries to keep up with his long soldier’s stride.

Time tails a procession carrying a bunny that he is sick and tired of now. The people forgot about a toy, but Maya might still need it.

---

Sitting in a burnt-through control room, Time watches the last of the combatants leave the factory. Children, women, injured soldiers on stretchers — it’s all happened before and will happen again someday.

Yesterday Maya and her neighbor Tanya boarded the bus. While they were passing checkpoints, Time went over several hundred years to wander around Domakha, the Cossack fortress. And among the trophies he found an eye suitable for a stuffed animal. Now the bunny looks at the world with a golden button that fell off the sleeve of a Tatar dress.

Checkpoints and checking procedures continue for hours; Time almost loses his patience when he hears the phone ringing in Tanya’s pocket. Maya, not waiting for her neighbor’s permission, grabs the mobile and starts chatting.

“Dad, Misha did it, Misha found you!”

Time sees Tanya bursting into tears; it’s all stress, nerves etcetera, think the people around her. But the childless neighbor weeps because she wanted to adopt Maya, even if the girl runs away five times a day; she weeps out of joy for the kid since the girl doesn’t need her now.

Time touches Maya on the shoulder, trying hard not to put too many years on her by accident. The girl turns around and picks up a bunny with a glistening new eye from the seat next to her.

“Vanya!” Maya smiles.

She will remember a shiny button that was not there before. And will remember that Dad called her that day. And will believe that everything is possible.

Time also tries to smile back, although he doesn’t quite understand how to do it.

War is sneaky but she sees people mostly when they are already dead. Time knows them alive.

They had a bet. If the captain got out of the bunker, if he brought out the wounded ones, the women, the children, and the combatants, then his Sister will release everyone, including Maya’s father. War sowed the seed; it was supposed to sprout, and people were supposed to die of despair and terrible losses, surrendering to their fears before they were captured by the enemy. Time put his bet on people — even though they don’t realize it, it’s inherent in human nature to survive against all odds.

The Sister got angry; she’s hated to lose since childhood, that’s why she departed from the seashore to the east to admire the night sky colored with flashes of fire. Brother Plague will soon come here to feast on the ruins. He is not a pettish one.

Time stays to observe the exodus of humans. The line of people keeps stretching and stretching, like the blood flowing out of an open wound.

Raindrops drum on the wreckage of factory floors. Perhaps they will be overgrown with ever-present grass for a long time. Perhaps something new and grandiose will be built in this place, something that even Time cannot imagine. For he knows the past.

And as for the future . . . only people can define that.

 

 

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Host Commentary

…aaaaand welcome back. That was “Against All Odds” by Anna Mikhalevskaya, translated by Elvira Rizaeva. If you enjoyed that, Anna had a story in Future SF earlier this year, Emil’s Labyrinth as translated by Alex Shvartsman, that’s free to read online with a quick search.

Anna sent us these notes on Against All Odds: Anybody who lives in a war seeks ways to overcome it. When I was watching videos from Azovstal, when I was looking in the eyes of soldiers left there, I felt that I needed to do something. At least write a story that would suggest new ways to cope with the war. That would suggest new views. And new escape. Time and love – maybe that will help. I hope that will.

Thank you, Anna, for the story and the thoughts. There is very little I can say to follow that, frankly, certainly not from my safe and privileged position, protected from war and all its suffering. It’s nearly 2½ years now since Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine—and over 10 years since this war actually began, with the illegal annexation of Crimea. There is no justification to this, of course, and no purpose except to shore up the fragile ego of a world leader terrified of being seen for his weakness. I don’t know why some in this world value other people’s lives and suffering so cheaply, and I don’t know why these people keep getting into such positions of power, and I don’t know how to stop any of that. I don’t know how to change the world.

But I do know that people make the effort to be kind to each other, even under the most difficult circumstances, and that there is always hope so long as there are others around you, and I know that even if these things do not change the world, they make the world better, and sometimes that is enough, and sometimes it is all there is, and we should try to be that kindness in the world all the time—not because it will change the world, not because it will be rewarded, but simply because it is the right thing to do in a world where we need each other.