Finally, Some Retribution

The noise was incredible.  Even back in the last car they could hear shouting and some fighting in the rest of the train.  Passenger cars were filled with men going west.  Drunks and failures, they had signed contracts to fight in Ukraine.  They had been paid some money as an advance.  It sounded like it was all going for vodka.

The women of the last car never went near the men.  Food was brought to them.  But food also brought attention.  Drunk and bored, men followed the food carts.  The two matrons kept them out of the car, but they could see a car full of women.  Young women.  Women in orange.  Ukrainian women being moved to some city.

It was only a matter of time.  Catherine and Tatiana moved the women and babies around the car, farther from the door.  And they made a barrier of suitcases and diaper bags near the women.  The two matrons were armed.  They stayed near the door.  So did Catherine and Tatiana.  Kaliningrad was over four thousand kilometers away.  Three days in the train – if there were no interruptions for military trains also headed west.  Given the noises the men were making, there seemed no way the men would not attempt to take the women.  Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, but they would try.

Two men seemed particularly persistent.  They stood between the cars and banged on the door of the final car.  And they made noises.  Animal noises, really.  Some words, all obscenities, then more noises and gestures visible through the glass.  The women were frightened.  Babies sensed something was wrong, and they began to cry.  Soon it seemed the car was filled with tears and fears.

Catherine asked Tatiana if she wanted to take on one of the men.  She agreed.  That ended the planning.  She told the matrons to shoot onlyif absolutely necessary.  Their job was to open the door, let the two men in, and then lock the door behind them.  The four women looked at each other, nodded agreement, and waited.

The matrons made it look good.  They opened the door and shouted that the men were disturbing the babies.  The men just shoved past them.  They went straight for the two women in orange.

“You look old, but you’ll do for starters.”

“Try me.”

Catherine took a step back from the door but moved slowly.  The drunk grabbed her.  Catherine eased down to the floor.  The man was instantly on top of her, already pulling his pants down.  Catherine pushed a thumb into a nerve bundle on one side of his neck.  When he jerked his head to that side, she took the other side of his neck in her mouth.  He thought he was getting a love bite.  She clamped down.  She didn’t break the skin.  But she tightened her jaws around his carotid.  Her free hand kept his hands down for the moment or two it took for him to lose consciousness.  She felt him collapse on her.  She waited.  He lay motionless for a moment, then spasmed.  Her decision.  Life or death.  She chose death.  She tightened her jaws until all movement ceased.

Tatiana chose a different approach.  She wrapped her arms around her man’s neck, a smile on her face.  Then she grabbed his chin and threw herself over his shoulder, bringing his chin around a hundred and eighty degrees.  She felt his neck snap.

Tatiana let her man drop to the ground.  Catherine rolled her man off her and stood.  The babies continued to cry, but the women were silent.  Catherine and Tatiana caught their breath and looked down at the two bodies.

“Out the back?”

“Yes.  Out the back.”  Tatiana bent over the men.  “But we take their wallets.  They were robbed and killed by the other drunks.”

Tatiana pulled the wallets from their pockets, then laid the men out so they could be pulled by their arms.

“Ladies, we could use some help.”

The women immediately took down the suitcase barricade and came forward.  They hesitated a moment, then grabbed the arms of the first man.  Tatiana took the legs.  They dragged the man the length of the car, all the women watching.  Catherine followed behind with the second man.  Both men were pushed off the back of the train.

Women went back to caring for the babies.  Catherine went back to Lana.

“I thought he was going to hurt you.”

Catherine sat next to her and pulled her tight.

“He was a bad man.  I know how to fight bad men.”

Lana put her head on Catherine’s shoulder.  She did what children do with fear and stress.  She closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep. 

Several hours passed, and then there was banging on the door again.  Catherine looked around the room.  The Ukraine women had armed themselves with kitchen utensils.  Butter knives mostly, but a few with an edge.  One woman held up a serving fork.  They settled the babies into blankets.  No suitcase barrier was created this time.  The matrons looked through the glass and raised five fingers.

Catherine and Tatiana moved to the door.  They stood on each side.  Tatiana pointed at the matrons’ guns and whispered, “only if necessary.”

The men were staggering drunk, but large.  They were already pushing on the door and shouting obscenities.  The matrons shouted back, telling them the babies were sleeping, they should go away.  The men just kept shouting.

Catherine looked around the room.  The women were ready.  She looked each woman in the eye and nodded.  Approved.  Catherine told the matrons to open the door.

The fight was much different this time.  No effort at surprise.  Catherine met the first man with a roundhouse kick to the face, then pulled him to one side and broke his neck.  Tatiana took the second man to the other side of the door and punched him in the throat.  While he choked, she slammed his head against the wall.

Three men charged past, too drunk to know or care what was happening to their friends.  They saw orange dresses.  Young women.  Waiting.  Three drunks, eight women.  The women went for their throats.  Knives, the big fork, stabbing over and over.  The men swung fists and connected.  One woman was knocked back over a seat.  As her attacker rushed after her, two other women slashed at his throat.  One woman stabbed straight into his neck and left her knife there.  The other woman missed several times, but finally got a knife point home.  The man dropped to his knees as he tried to pull the knives from his throat.

Catherine and Tatiana approached the men from behind.  Kicks to the kidneys or spine would have taken the men down.  They waited.  The Ukraine women were all over the men.  If anything, they got in each other’s way.  But all of them stabbed and slashed and screamed.  It was the screams Catherine always remembered.  Deafening.  Shocking. Visceral.  Past terrors and anger erupting from the depths of their bodies.  Screams repeated with every stab.  Eight women fighting with the men, and then fighting with each other to get yet another knife into yet another body.

The men went down.  The women jumped on top, knives in fists pounding the men again and again, long after they had stopped moving.  Screaming as they did it.  Screaming names.  Screaming places.  Just screaming.

When they stopped, there was absolute silence in the car.  Babies did what they always do with loud noises.  They shut down and slept.  The women panted for a while, then slowly stood.  They finished their business.  Wallets pulled from bloody pants.  Men dragged one by one and pushed off the train.

The women cried while they cleaned the blood off themselves, and continued to cry as they cleaned the floor.  But it was an odd sound, coming as women gasped for breath, and as they inserted obscenities.  Angry, they tore off bloody orange dresses.  They cleaned themselves, then wrapped themselves in blankets.  Tears continued, but the obscenities increased.  Several times they joined together: “Fuck Russia.  Fuck every single Russian.  Fuck them for all eternity.”

They said it in Ukrainian, but Catherine didn’t need a translator.