The Lost Souls of Angelkov by Linda Holeman

prayed, but Grisha refused to pray. When his partner on the crosscut saw, his fingers numb from the cold, lost his grip for only a moment, the sharp, angled teeth bit deeply into his thigh. Grisha watched, helpless, as the man bled to death in the snow, and knew he no longer believed.
    Prayers wouldn’t bring bread, or another blanket or warm boots or safety from the teeth of the saw. He believed that the others were wasting their time praying for comfort. As he learned to survive in the camp, he knew he was also learning to survive outside of it. He would work for or steal what he needed, depending only on himself.
    As spring approached, he made a plan with two other men, both a few years older than him. He’d been in the campnine months, and knew if he didn’t make his escape soon he’d be too weak. The three men waited for the perfect conditions: a moonless, balmy night, the guards outside their hut drunk and arguing. They killed first one guard and then the second and ran through the darkness into the thick forest. Which of them drew the knife, made from a broken saw blade, across the men’s stubbled throats remained their secret: they were all guilty. They separated once they were three days from the camp, not wanting to be reminded by each other of what they had become.
    Grisha made his way west, his small sack strapped on his back. He crossed the rest of Siberia by walking and begging rides in carts. Through that spring and summer he stole what he could from gardens, living for days on the first tiny spring onions and bulbs of garlic. He stole from the backs of rough carts delivering grains and from horses’ feed bags. He stole clothing hung to dry; he once stole boots from the feet of a sleeping drunk. Some of what he stole he sold for a few kopecks in the next village. He fought senseless arguments with his fists after too much vodka.
    The one thing he would never allow himself to do, the one thing that he knew would be the last step to truly make him the animal he felt he was becoming, was to take a woman against her will. When he wanted a woman but didn’t have enough to pay for her, he shrugged and walked away.
    As the cold weather once again descended, he passed the marker that stood on the border between Siberia and western Russia. He thought of his father as he stared at the rough cylindrical stone symbol, taller than him by a head. Although Aleksandr Kasakov had never spoken to his son of his brutal time in the mines, he did say that when he and the cartloadof chained prisoners passed that marker, on the way into Siberia and away from everyone and everything they knew and loved, many of the men—strong and dignified—put their faces into their hands and wept.
    Unlike his father and those wretched men, Grisha was travelling west, not east. As he looked over his shoulder, he allowed himself one final goodbye to his mother and his lost brother. He swore that he would not live with guilt, guilt for what he had done to them, and to the prison guards, and to all the people he had wronged in order to survive. It was the only way he could live his new life.
    He put his hand on the cold stone marker, resisting the old urge to cross himself, and then stepped into European Russia.

D r. Molov arrives at Angelkov a few hours after Antonina left Grisha in the kitchen. She is in Konstantin’s room when he is shown in, and stands beside him as he listens to Konstantin’s heart and then slowly moves a candle back and forth in front of his eyes. Konstantin allows the doctor to do as he wishes.
    “Countess Mitlovskiya,” the doctor says, setting down the candle and facing her. “I’m very sorry for the tragedy that has come upon your home. It’s spoken of throughout the villages and on the neighbouring estates.”
    Antonina nods.
    “The fever,” Dr. Molov says, “when did it begin?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe yesterday,” Antonina says, swallowing at the strong smell of garlic on the man’s breath. “His