Siberian Red

dream into the handkerchief of his long-dead mother, took another step back and growled at him again, jowls quivering above its teeth.
    The other wolves stepped nervously from side to side, whining as they waited to see what would happen next.
    Sedov knew he did not have the strength to fight them off. He doubted he could even stand. All he could manage was to raise one hand and feebly shoo them away.
    No sooner had Sedov’s hand flopped back into his lap than the wolves turned and fled into the forest. In a matter of seconds, they had vanished in amongst the trees.
    Sedov had not expected such a good result and, in spite of his predicament, allowed himself a moment of self-congratulation. It was then that he heard the creak of footsteps in the snow. Looking up, he glimpsed what appeared to be a snowman dressed in rags, struggling towards him with a rifle slung across its back.
    The man stopped in the clearing. His gaze wandered from the ruins of Pekkala’s cabin, to the hoof marks of the reindeer, to the canary-yellow patches in the snow where men and animals had relieved themselves.
    When he finally noticed Sedov, the man let out a cry. As he struggled to remove his rifle, he tripped and tumbled over backwards. Instead of scrambling to his feet again, he just lay there, panting clouds of vapour, overcome with exhaustion.
    ‘Gramotin?’ croaked Sedov.
    Gramotin lifted his head. Frozen breath had turned his hair into a mane of frost. ‘Sedov? Is that you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Where are the others?’
    ‘Gone.’
    Gramotin clambered up until he was resting on his knees. ‘And they left you?’
    ‘I am wounded,’ explained Sedov.
    From the trees above, water dripped from melting icicles, sprinkling like diamonds upon Gramotin’s head.
    ‘They shouldn’t have left you.’ Gramotin’s voice rose with indignation. He limped over to Sedov and flopped down beside him.
    ‘A wolf licked my face,’ remarked Sedov. ‘I thought it was a dream.’
    ‘A wolf?’ Gramotin looked around nervously.
    ‘Where are the other guards?’
    Gramotin leaned over and spat. ‘There are no others. Only me. The rest all ran away.’
    ‘Cowards,’ muttered Sedov.
    ‘Looks like we’ve both been let down.’ Although Gramotin would never have admitted it, he was glad to have run into Sedov, as opposed to any of the others. Tarnowski would either have killed him by now or would have died trying and Lavrenov would be wheedling some deal to save his life. Pekkala, being a Finn, would probably have vanished like a ghost. But Sedov was not like those men. There had always been a certain gentleness about him, which Gramotin could not help admiring, even as he despised this fatal weakness in Sedov’s character. Men like Sedov did not usually last more than a few months in the camp. The ones who tended to live longest were men more like himself, who showed a minimum of compassion for those around them, and who lied and cheated and stole. If they did not arrive at Borodok that way, they soon learned how to behave that way if they wanted to survive. Sedov had been the exception. Not only had Sedov endured, but he had never lost that fundamental goodness which he brought with him to the camp. It was not in Gramotin’s nature to tolerate goodness. At Borodok, it represented a useless appendage, like that of an animal doomed to extinction, and it was in Gramotin’s nature to attempt to beat it out of Sedov, year after year, with a relentless cruelty that astonished even himself.
    Sitting there beside this wounded man, who neither grovelled for his life, nor used up his last breath to kill another human being, Gramotin experienced remorse. This had never happened to him before and it immediately plunged him into a state of great confusion. He felt an overwhelming urge to perform some act of kindness, however small, to atone for all the suffering he had caused.
    Gramotin considered apologising to Sedov, but the idea struck him as absurd. Then he toyed with the notion of abandoning his search for Pekkala and carrying Sedov back to the camp hospital. But this idea Gramotin also cast aside, knowing that even if Sedov did recover from his injury, which looked doubtful, he would be shot for attempting to escape.
    As Gramotin pondered this, he pulled a loaf of paika bread from his pocket, broke off a piece and pressed it into Sedov’s mouth. Then he bit off a slab for himself.
    For a while, there was no sound except the two men chewing on the