After the Revolution

by Indigo

Chapter 1

Content Warnings

In 1918, Yuri Alkaev noticed a small, slender Russian woman doing laundry and cooking for the soldiers of the encampment with a level of incompetence that Yuri would only attribute to a member of the bourgeois imperial nobility. A member of the 'secret' police had been eyeing her as well, and Yuri (in a fit of unfortunate heroism) had decided to intervene before the woman was dragged off to be interrogated, raped, and killed by the police.

You need to be careful, and perhaps find somewhere else to go, he finished as he explained all of this to her. The woman's eyes were as hard and dark as river pebbles. Her bearing reminded him of a cornered pit viper, and Yuri couldn't claim that he found her attractive—he could certainly call her beautiful, yes, because that was the undeniable truth, but there was also something unsettling about the way she sized him up as he spoke. So, when the officer of the police entered the laundry room where they were talking, he wasn't happy when the woman wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her rosebud mouth against his.

Fortunately, the officer shouted, and Yuri was able to wrench his head away. The woman's arms slid down his uniform tunic to cinch around his lower back, and she clung to his chest like a wrecked sailor to a piece of wood in a storm-tossed sea. Yuri put an arm around her shoulders automatically.

What's going on here? the officer demanded.

Nothing! the woman yipped. Her voice was shrill and surprised, but the hand out of the officer's view was drifting towards Yuri's holstered sidearm. He grabbed it to stop the motion. We… we were just enjoying a private moment, sir.

The officer scowled. What are your names?

Yuri Yegorovich Alkaev, Yuri said, and rattled off his rank and unit as well. He was only a second lieutenant, and probably wouldn't progress much higher thanks to the bias against non-Russian officers in the newly formed Red Army.

Oksana Sergeyvna Novikova, the woman said. Is something the matter, sir?

The officer's scowl deepened. He looked at Yuri. How do you know this woman, comrade?

Yuri hesitated. If he told the truth, Oksana—if that was even her real name—would almost certainly be killed. If he lied… The woman's arms tightened around him—in panic, perhaps? He could feel her trembling.

She is my… sweetheart, Yuri managed. He could only hope it sounded convincing. We've been together since she ran away from being a maidservant in a bourgeoisie household in—

Leningrad, Oksana supplied, cutting him off. We met in Leningrad after I ran away from my service.

The military police officer nodded slowly. Fine, he said, his gaze darting between Yuri and Oksana. Fine, then. Enjoy your 'moment' together, you lovebirds. And you— His eyes fastened on Oksana. Your laundering skills are shit and your cooking is worse. Don't poison your man. He already stinks badly enough of reindeer meat, or whatever they eat in Siberia.

Yuri said nothing, and didn't really hear what Oksana said to assure the officer of her dedication to 'her man' and the Revolution he was fighting to preserve. The officer left the room soon after that, and he disentangled himself from the woman.

Thank you, she said.

Yuri folded his arms over his chest. Is your name really Oksana?

The woman blinked at him. Her expression shifted from timid to closed-off and calculating. Yes, she said, it really is. I do owe you my thanks, though, Yura. What would you like?

Yuri grimaced. He knew what she was expecting him to ask for; deals such as those weren't uncommon in this age of mass famine and war and desperate people. He looked down at his boots, then back up at Oksana.

Nothing, he said at last. Just stay out of trouble, alright?

She didn't, of course, and word got around that Yuri's woman was the worst laundress and cook in the encampment. Suddenly, it was expected that he would get his clothes cleaned by her, and that he would eat meals with her when his duties permitted him to step away from the junior officers' mess hall. He could have ignored her, or said that the relationship had come to an end for whatever reason, but Yuri knew that if he did that then other men might come sniffing around in search of a pretty lone woman without a protector.

Are you happy? he asked her one evening in his tent, in between determinedly spooning the worst borscht that he had ever tasted into his mouth.

Oksana looked up at him from clumsily darning one of his socks. Her expression quickly settled into one of fond bemusement, but there had been a quarter-second of something else, something precise and measuring…

I think so, she said, smiling. I'm happier than I was before I met you, anyway. It was a clever, sweet smile that suggested she knew more than he did and that she was going to tease him about it soon. Ordinarily Yuri liked his partners playful, but with Oksana he never knew what was genuine and what wasn't.

That's… good, he managed. He gave up and set the bowl of borscht aside. I'd like to discuss something with you.

Oksana cocked her head at that, birdlike. She mirrored him and set her needle and the sock down in her lap, then turned in the rickety folding chair to face him fully. What's on your mind?

I know we aren't in love, Oksana, Yuri said.

Her expression instantly shuttered itself, her eyes hardening… with dislike, perhaps, or else with fear. Yuri could only hope it wasn't the former; he felt guilty enough with just the latter. He took a breath and doggedly continued:

We've been play-acting domesticity and romance for a few months now. It seems to be working well enough for us both—you help me and I help you. If you aren't opposed, I'd like to marry you. I need to be more Russian to get another promotion, and having a Russian wife would help me. In exchange, I can offer you an apartment in Moscow to live in and some security in relation to your cover story as a runaway maid. What do you say?

For several moments, silence ruled in Yuri's tent. The small flame of the oil lamp flickered gently on the folding table between them. A horse neighed outside, followed by the sound of a truck backfiring nearby. Oksana laid her hands on the scarred tabletop and looked down at them, then up at Yuri.

What makes you say I'm not a runaway maid? she demanded.

Yuri shrugged. A peasant girl would know how to cook, mend clothes, and do laundry. She might not be as good at those things as someone who worked in the Winter Palace, but she'd be better at them than you.

Oksana narrowed her eyes. Are you accusing me of—

Yuri held up his empty hands to forestall her. No, he said. You're a woman who needs help, and I want to give you a safer and better life.

In exchange for my help with your military career.

Yes, Yuri admitted. I'm too Sakha, and I look it. He gestured at the epicanthic folds at the corners of his eyes.

Oksana hesitated, then spoke: And at night? Do you want me to share your bed too?

No, Yuri said quickly. You don't have to do that. I won't ask that of you. If marriage isn't what you want, then I can help you get to Moscow and find a job as well as a womens' boarding house to live in. I don't want to coerce you into staying with me.

Oksana paused for several moments, turning the offer over in her mind. Her brown eyes bored into him like gimlets as she thought.If we marry, she pointed out eventually, then children will be expected sooner or later. What then?

There are always orphans in need of adoption after wars and revolutions. You don't need to sleep with me if you'd rather not.

I don't want to look after a child.

Yuri shrugged again. Then we just tell whoever asks that we're trying for a baby but nothing has, ah, kindled so far. I'm sure everyone will accept that story.

…Fine, Oksana said, I accept. Do you have a ring?

Not yet. I don't know your size or if you'd say yes.

The inside diameter of any ring for me should be sixteen and a half millimeters, Oksana said. And now you know my answer.

Yuri couldn't help smiling at that, and Oksana looked at him with a pair of sharp, inquisitive eyes. She always seemed so suspicious…

What's funny? she demanded.

A peasant girl wouldn't know her ring size, Yuri pointed out, still smiling.

Damn you, Oksana hissed. Yuri chuckled.

Oksana glared at him, her brown eyes alight—but their fury quickly dimmed with the seeming return of her relentless curiosity. She changed the subject then, either to avoid deepening her blunder or else to uncover more about him for whatever plans she had for the future: Yura, why do you want to marry someone you don't love? Of the two of us, you are the more… romantic, I suppose you could say.

Well, that's certainly true, Yuri said, his good mood snuffed out like a candle-flame in a thunderstorm. The world is an awful place and most likely won't get any better. The only thing I can control is myself, so I try not to make anything worse than it already is. I like to think that that actually accomplishes something, so… He shrugged.

Oksana arched an eyebrow in response. The slight, politely attentive upward curve of her mouth contained a well-bred disdain that made Yuri understand something of the October revolutionaries. A charming philosophy, she said, but you didn't answer my question.

Yuri's own mouth twisted into something that resembled a lopsided, half-embarrassed smile. It wasn't a pleasant expression. I don't believe in love anymore, he admitted. I think all of my efforts to do good are met with the silent indifference of an uncaring Almighty. But I can't stop, because then what separates me from every other soldier who steals and rapes and murders for a bit of pleasure and comfort in this ugly world? I'm holding fast to an empty, pointless code of honor because if I let go then I think I'll go mad, and I truly believe that abandoning you to the wolves would speed up the demise of whatever is left of my soul. Does that answer your question, Oksana Sergeyvna?

Oksana sat quietly for several moments, regarding him with an unreadable expression. Eventually, she shrugged and looked away. It does, she answered simply. When should I expect that ring?

Yuri sighed, and his directionless anger left with the air in his lungs. When he took his next breath, his patience and self-control had returned. I'll get you a ring by the end of the week, and a transfer to Moscow by the end of the year. How does that sound?

“It sounds good,” Oksana said. She picked up her needle and the sock again. Yuri watched the faint tremor in her hands as she worked, and steeled himself to finish the bowl of borscht. When they parted ways that night, Yuri kissed her forehead and wondered if this was the right choice. Did she stay with him because that was what she truly wanted, or would she rather be held more firmly in the clutches of a Devil she knew rather than brave the dangerous unknown of this newborn country?