The Winter Stray

Chapter 2

The sound of the laughter, boisterous and loud, felt foreign to the officer. He couldn't remember the last time he heard people laugh. "What could they possibly be laughing about?", he thought.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed the bartender returning to the bar, still chuckling. He walked to the back of the bar, to a door with a padlock on it. He reached over to a ring of keys on a hook next to the door, and unlocked it, revealing a staircase descending into a dark cellar. The bartender went down, and disappeared into the darkness, only to reemerge five minutes later with a plate of sliced black bread, and dried fish in his left hand, and a tray of two small bowls of soup in his right.

He swiftly, and masterfully placed the food on the Red soldier's table.

"My god, you bestow such a feast on a pair of peasant soldiers?" The older Red soldier said.

"No god nor deity involved son. I bestow this food to a pair of soldiers of the people. " The bartender replied. The bartender swooped back into the bar and provided them with a pair of glasses, and the same bottle of Vodka he gave the officer. "To help wash it down". The bartender said as he poured.

"Much obliged sir." Said the Red soldier. Greedily looking at the meal he and his counterpart were about to devour. A meal of this caliber at a time when the nation was in shambles, was sure to be a rarity, and he for one was going to make sure to savour it.

"Enjoy lads". The bartender said gracefully leaving them to eat in peace, before disappearing back down into the cellar.

The Red soldiers began to eat the meal ravenously, their heads low as they slurped the soup, intermittently biting down on the black bread and dried fish. As his stomach began to grumble, the officer couldn't help but envy them. Trying to escape his Red pursuers, he had been reduced to scrounging for food, at best eating once per day. It seemed strange that his pursuers sat right there, over at the next table.

"Oy!", the older Red soldier called out.

The officer jolted by the sound, wondered for a second if that was addressed to him. He turned to the Red soldiers.

"Would you care to join us?"

"Thank you, but I'm alright."

"Come on now. You're going to tell me you'd turn down a meal like this in times like these?" The Red soldier then called out to the bartender, who was just then walking back up from the cellar. "Oy, Barkeep! Let's get another chair for our comrade here!"

The bartender looked annoyed, but nodded, and descended back down, this time emerging with a chair.

"Come on now, have a seat." The older Red soldier beckoned. The officer did as he was told. He noticed the bartender giving him a nervous look. He understood why. If the Red soldiers were to realize that he was a White, both he and the bartender would be shot on the spot. Him for being a so-called monarchist, and the bartender for harboring an enemy of the soviet people.

"Let's get our comrade here a bowl of soup as well, and another round of black bread and dried fish."

"I'm afraid that was the last of my soup."

"Then make that two rounds of bread and fish. I'm sure that will do then."

"Right away." The bartender said as he hurried to get the food. It couldn't have been more than three minutes that he returned with a tray filled with sliced black bread, and dry fish. He had returned so fast, that he caught the soldiers still sizing one another up.

"Here you go".

He placed the officer's glass that he left back at the bar before him, and poured the vodka.