Section #1

1.

October 16th 1936 Yablochnoye, Ukraine

Yvette Chikatilo was screaming, blood pouring down her legs, her voice carrying throughout the small hut and into the village; where interested and revolted passerby’s stuck their heads out to catch a glimpse of whatever was making such a disturbing ruckus. She screamed with the fury of a thousand angry gods, beating her hands upon the taut covers of the small bed. The bulge of her stomach was just barely visible from underneath the mess of wrinkled blankets and twisted pillows. She shrieked until she felt herself growing hoarse, and then sunk her teeth into a knot of cloth until the midwife came with a cold jug of ice water, letting Yvette drink until she could find her voice, wherein she went forth screaming again with great vigor.

Yvette; her sweaty, sticky, sodden mess of a robe attached to her body like a second skin, was ready for this child. She had been ready since the day the doctor had patted her lightly on her shoulder and informed her in grave tones that, yes, she was in fact pregnant, and if there was anything he could do to lessen the news. It wasn’t that she wanted the child—no, she knew she would never go so far as to do that. Rather, she wanted the whole ordeal to be over with and done for. Her husband, the moronic, lethargic, dim-witted sloth that he was, couldn’t even be bothered to ask about the growing lump in her stomach—except to mention, quite arbitrarily, that perhaps she should relinquish the bag of bonbons he suspected her of keeping.

And her eldest son, although a strapping, quick, light-footed young man—he was certainly his father’s son.

It was almost winter now in Yablochnoye, and although it was already quite noon, the sky was an ashen grey. The earth was frozen solid, making the villagers drop their spades and leaving patterns of shovels and carts lying, uselessly abandoned, all around the crusted ground. Trees were scarce, green inexistent; and the trees that did still stand, irate, waving in the icy breeze, were stripped of their leaves and color—extending branches like bony arms of some skeleton overlord.

The impending war was evident everywhere one looked; in the faces of the villagers, in the tone of the people’s voices, in the air and the rhythm of the earth. It was on everybody’s lips—the first thing wives whispered about were rumors of their husbands abandoning family and work for the USSR, the only thing on the young men’s minds was the idea of a draft or the dream of becoming a hero—whether or not either were realistic. It was also what Aleksandr Chikatilo was discussing with his son, the weary-eyed thirteen year old Sasha, while his wife kept the entire country alert with her fury.

“When will the war be over?” Sasha asked loudly over the racket.

“It’ll be over when it ends,” Aleksandr bellowed in reply.

“How long do you expect the fighting to last?” Sasha wailed, “It could be ages before you return, if at all!”

“That it could, my boy, that it could.” agreed his father, vociferously. “Take good care of your mother and that baby of hers, and before you know it, I might be home.”

Sasha frowned, a look hard to decipher as both of them were startled by a particularly piercing screech. “What about the food shortage? They say Stalin’s collectivization will be the death of us.”

“They say a great many things, whoever they are,” Aleksandr observed, yelling in a pleasant manner. “Now, let us check on the woman.”

Yvette had stopped screaming, but her voice still echoed over Yablochnoye with an annoying tremor, so that even as she sat, silent, her husband and son still yelled good-naturedly at the top of their lungs. They came through the small frame of door, the midwife sitting aside the bed and dabbing at Yvette’s forehead with a moist bit of cloth and holding a bundle in her arms.

“And how is it coming along?” Aleksandr brayed, a cheerful smile playing at his purplish lips.

Yvette’s dark tendrils of hair were strewn across the pillow and around her flushed face, so as to make her seem an imitation of medusa and her companions. She stared up at them with a slight annoyance, her dim oval eyes squinting in irritation.“By it, I suppose you mean our son,” she snapped.

“Yes, yes, that’s the one I mean,” Aleksandr said calmly.

“He’s just fine, thank you,” she sniffed, gesturing at the midwife’s bundle. The midwife nodded distractedly, holding out the bundle as an offer to Aleksandr, who refused politely.

“That’s odd,” Aleksandr commented, “I don’t believe I heard him cry.”

“He didn’t,” Yvette responded, turning in her bed and closing her eyes. “He wasn’t the one in pain.”

“I suppose we should name him,” Aleksandr said mildly, brushing a speck of dust from his shoulder.

“Andrea,” Sasha mused, bounding into the room with a fierce energy.

“I thought it was a boy?” Aleksandr replied, confusedly.

“Fine.” Sasha said, eagerly, “Andrei.”

“Andrei it is,” Aleksandr replied, happily, and tickled Andrei under the chin with one finger. The baby snorted in its sleep.