“They broke me,” Gavriil said, staring sightless at his memories. “Go on home, Yefim. I stay here”
Gavriil said we should wear the dress uniforms.
I said maybe we should wear the regular ones instead — come humble. But he said it’s not a time for being humble, it’s an occasion, and occasions must be honored. It’s only right, he said, after all the years they waited, to show that we’ve been waiting, too.
Corporal Turgenev, he solved it for us in the end. When he called us for discharge, he got his smile on. A chillingly beautiful smile: chalk-white teeth, oiled mustache. I felt cold to my bones, and I feared straight away there was a problem with our papers, or they’d found out my real age — I’m confused what it is myself, but it’s younger than it’s supposed to be — and they wouldn’t let us go.
But this time I was wrong. “You’ve served your duties to the Czar,” Turgenev said, “but no more than that. So you can go now — but no more than that either. Your uniforms and weapons stay here.”
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