chapter three

THE Complex is a group of three buildings that form a U around a courtyard. Gloria and I have a room on the second floor.

I can take six steps from one wall to another, going around the wood-burning stove. The wallpaper is coming loose, and behind it the paint is chipping. When I scratch the plaster with my nail, the bricks appear. The Complex is full of cracks—totally eaten away by the dampness that seeps up from the ground because it’s built near a river. It’s so rotten that it was supposed to be demolished, but the war stopped the bulldozers; now it’s our refuge, a good hiding place that protects us from the wind and the militia.

I’m very familiar with the wind: it blows down from the mountains as fast as an avalanche and rushes under doors to freeze you to the bone. But I have no idea what the militia is. All I know is that it scares me even more than Sergei’s upturned eye, and that everybody here has some reason to be wary of it. That’s why we’ve set up rotating shifts of people who keep watch: night after night, teams of four take turns watching the entrance to the Complex. Kids can hang around only if the grown-ups allow them to.

I was told that if I see men wearing boots, if I see their leather jackets and their clubs, I’m supposed to rush into the courtyard and pull hard on the bell that’s suspended under the canopy.

There are three other times when we’re supposed to ring the bell with all our might:

Except under these circumstances, no one is to touch the bell. If you do, you’ll be immediately expelled from the Complex.

When I ask Gloria what the militia would do if it were to catch us, her face hardens and I regret my question.

“A seven-year-old boy doesn’t need to know everything,” she tells me. “Just be satisfied following the rules, Koumaïl.”

I nod and go off to play with the others in the stairwell. Depending on our mood, the staircase becomes our fortress or our warship.

My playmates are Emil, Baksa, Rebeka, Tasmin, and Faïna. They are thin and lice-ridden, as supple as eels. Some speak Russian like me, others not, but children don’t need words to understand each other. We run until we’re out of breath. We sprint up and down the stairs. We hide in the toilets, or behind the sheets that are drying on the roof, all the better to scare old Mrs. Hanska. Our laughter echoes throughout the Complex, from top to bottom, faster than any draft.

Gloria says that she likes to hear me laugh, that laughter is the most important thing in the world.

I like to hear Gloria laughing too. But Gloria also coughs, which I don’t like to hear. Coughing makes her turn purple, and she loses her breath; I have the impression that a great big dog is barking inside her chest. I’m no doctor, but it’s not hard to guess that her cough sounds deadly. What would happen if Gloria were to die? I worry.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk!” she says, and laughs when her coughing fit ends. “Don’t look so gloomy. You’re not burying me yet, Monsieur Blaise! You know very well that I’m as sturdy as the trees. Now come on, Koumaïl! Go and fetch us some water if you want to eat tonight!”

I hurry with the bucket to the hose in the courtyard. I’m always ready to help or to do somebody a favor because I’m in a rush to grow up. I sense that the world in which we live is hostile to children. I dream of the day when my legs will be long enough that I can run very fast, and when I will be strong enough to carry the khaki canvas bag that Gloria calls our “gear.”

Ever since we’ve lived in the Complex, the gear has been put away on a shelf just above the door. For the time being, it contains only the tin box where Gloria hides her secrets, and I am not allowed to open it.

Everything else we have is scattered in the room—our clothes, my green atlas, the blankets, the basic cooking utensils, the stringless violin, the radio, and Vassili’s samovar to make tea. If I ever hear the bell ring, I know what to do: climb on a chair, grab the gear, and stuff it with our belongings as fast as I can. Sometimes I train mentally for this emergency—the chair, the gear, the belongings—and I imagine how the Complex will empty itself of its occupants as quickly as a draining bathtub. I ask Gloria what we would do next.

She shrugs. “Exactly what we’ve done so far, Koumaïl,” she says. “We will walk straight in front of us toward a new horizon.”

“OK.”

In the Complex everybody has a story to tell. Whether it’s about earthquakes, collapsed mines, jail terms, poker games in shady ports, childbirths, separations, or reunions. Even Old Max will tell you how he lost three of his fingers when he worked in a slaughterhouse. Everything is new to me; I ask endless questions and I learn fast, but no story fascinates me more than my own, especially when Gloria whispers it in my ear before I go to sleep at night.

“Again?” she asks while putting a log in the stove.

“Yes, again! Don’t leave anything out!” I say.

She sits on the bed. Her face moves in the flickering light of the stove. She pulls the lambskin blanket up to my nose.

“It was the end of summer, and I lived with my father, old Vassili, in his home,” she begins.

“The one who gave you the samovar?”

“Yes, Koumaïl. At that time Vassili owned the most beautiful orchard in all of the Caucasus. You should have seen the apple trees, pear trees, apricot trees—acres upon acres covered with trees! With the river on one side and the railroad track on the other.”

“That’s where you used to walk with Zemzem!”

A fire lights up in Gloria’s eyes. “Hold on, you’re going too fast. I always tell things properly, in the right order, you know that.”

I take hold of one of her hands and keep quiet. I listen to my story. In the right order.