Child Thief Page 5

  ‘He’s dying,’ I said. ‘He’s not a risk to anyone.’

  ‘Then let him die,’ Dimitri said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Let him die. Leave him out in the cold and let him die.’

  ‘Hold your tongue, Dimitri Petrovich,’ Josif snapped at him. ‘And calm yourself.’ He put a hand on my arm and took me to one side, walking away from the others, speaking quietly so they wouldn’t hear.

  ‘What are you hiding?’ he asked as we walked.

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘Come on, Luka. We’ve known each other long enough to be honest with one another. You may think you’re a closed book, but some of us have learned to read you better than you think. There’s something you’re not telling me.’

  We stopped at the place where the wall formed a corner. There was a large oak there, its roots bulging beneath the bricks, pushing them up and out.

  ‘You have always been honest with me,’ Josif said. ‘Please don’t stop now.’

  ‘There’s a wound on the girl’s leg,’ I sighed. ‘I didn’t want anybody to see it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it looks like she’s been cut and I thought people would react exactly the way Dimitri is reacting now. They’d want to murder the man before they even knew what’s happened. People are scared, they’re afraid of outsiders.’

  ‘With good reason.’

  ‘The man in my house is a soldier, Josif. The things he has with him tell me that. And I mean an imperial soldier, not a communist soldier. I don’t think he means any harm.’

  Josif stared at me, his eyes dark beneath the brim of his fur hat, and I knew what he was thinking. To Josif there was no difference. The tsarists or the communists – they had all tried to crush him and his kind. The pogroms against the Jews were no different from the drive to wipe out the kulaks.

  ‘He could have stolen them,’ Josif said.

  ‘Maybe. But … I don’t know; I have a feeling. He’s a veteran, I’m sure of it. A brother.’

  ‘A brother? And what if you’re wrong? What if he’s red and a whole unit follows behind him?’

  ‘That’s not very likely, Josif, and you know it. That man was alone.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘He said, “Thank God.”’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘That’s all. Look, this is why I wanted to keep it quiet. To avoid people like Dimitri getting riled up and doing something stupid.’

  ‘Dimitri’s an idiot,’ Josif said. ‘But you could have come to me.’

  ‘What for? What would that have done? I thought it best to cover her up and bury them.’

  ‘And leave us not knowing? You’re not our protector, Luka.’ Josif looked me in the eye. ‘Perhaps we should see the child for ourselves.’

  ‘Can’t you just take my word for it? She has a wound on her leg, right down to the bone. It looks as if she’s been carved.’

  ‘Carved?’

  ‘As if she were an animal. It looks as if someone has taken some of her flesh.’

  Josif made a fist and put it to his mouth. He tapped it against his chin as he thought, then he nodded. ‘Perhaps you’re right, my friend. I have no desire to see the child’s mutilation, and Dimitri doesn’t need to see any more than he already has. As you say, we don’t want to get people excited. They’re frightened enough already. I—’

  But he stopped when we sensed movement and heard Viktor’s protest. Josif and I both turned together to see what was happening over by the sled, and we could only stare at what we saw.

  Dimitri was standing back, knife in one hand, the other held to his mouth in horror. The girl’s trouser leg was cut from cuff to waistband.

  The sun was weak, but it gave enough warmth to melt the crust of the snow and the smallest icicles just as it could thaw blood. And so it had done. The blood at the outer edges of the girl’s wound had softened as we talked and, once liquid again, had soaked into the trousers and blossomed in a butterfly pattern across the well-worn material.

  Josif and I had been too busy to see it, but Dimitri had spotted it, watched its ethereal resurrection blooming on the material. He had pushed Viktor aside to put his blade into the cuff and split the trousers lengthways, and now he gaped, looking around at the others until his eyes settled on me and narrowed.

  ‘You,’ he said. ‘You.’ The accusation was thick in that single word. ‘You brought this man into our lives. And you give him shelter in your home. This man who does … this … to children.’ Dimitri shook his head. ‘You have children of your own.’

  ‘It doesn’t change anything. We don’t know he did this,’ I said, beginning to doubt my reasons for protecting the man lying by the fire in my home. I wanted to do what was right, but perhaps Dimitri spoke the truth. Perhaps I was a fool.

  ‘Of course he did this,’ Dimitri said, spitting on the ground. ‘Who else? You?’

  ‘That’s enough.’ Josif pointed at Dimitri. ‘That’s enough from you. I don’t want to hear any more.’

  ‘So he told you?’ Dimitri asked. ‘He told you about this, did he?’

  ‘Not until just now.’

  ‘Then he kept it from us all.’

  I glanced at Viktor standing silent by the sled. He was watching Dimitri, and I could see the distaste on his face. His hands were clenching and unclenching, fists that turned his knuckles white. Dimitri had pushed past him, forced him aside to get to the girl, and it had angered him. He didn’t like to be beaten in anything, and he didn’t like to be treated as an inferior. Viktor was seventeen and considered himself to be a man. He expected Dimitri to treat him with the same respect he would have given to any of the others, but instead he had pushed him aside as if he were a child.

  Petro, on the other hand, had taken a step back. He had removed himself from the potential flashpoint and was watching as if he were a spectator at this event.

  ‘Why would he do that?’ Dimitri went on, directing his words at Josif and the others, then turning on me once again. ‘Why keep it hidden, Luka?’

  ‘So people like you wouldn’t get so excited,’ Josif told him.

  ‘I’m not excited, I’m angry. Angry that he brought a killer into our village. A man who kills children and eats their flesh.’

  ‘No one brought a killer anywhere,’ Josif said. ‘Luka did the right thing.’

  I looked at Josif, glad to hear him coming to my defence.

  ‘I agree.’ Leonid Andreyevich stepped forward, shaking his head. ‘Something like this could cause a lot of trouble.’

  ‘You’re right about that,’ Dimitri said. ‘That’s why we need to get rid of him.’

  ‘No,’ Leonid said. ‘That’s not what I meant. I meant we should keep this to ourselves.’ Leonid was a taciturn man who might have seemed timid to an outsider, but he was a man who listened and spoke only when necessary. He was younger than Ivan and Josif and, like me, he had fought in and survived the civil war. But, unlike me, he was a native of Vyriv, and that, coupled with his reputation, earned him the respect of the others in the village.

  He spoke quietly now, his eyes averted from what was on the sled. ‘Bury these poor children and be done with it.’

  ‘Be done with it?’ Dimitri raised his voice. ‘What the hell does that mean? What about the man in Luka’s house? What about him?’

  ‘We watch him,’ Leonid said. ‘As soon as he’s well enough, we talk to him. Find out what happened.’

  ‘He’ll deny it.’

  ‘Of course he will,’ Josif said. ‘But we’ll have to decide for ourselves if he’s lying.’

  ‘A trial?’ Ivan was using the heel of his palm to bang the used tobacco from his pipe. ‘Interesting. Like one of the communist troikas?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Josif said. ‘But fairer. We have to give him a chance. We don’t know anything about him.’ He turned to look at me. ‘He had belongings? Something that might tell us who he was?’

  ‘Or maybe we should just let him go whe
n he’s well enough. Make him leave,’ Leonid offered.

  ‘So he can kill again?’ Dimitri said, looking around at us. ‘What are you talking about? Have you lost your minds? This man kills children and you’re talking about making him better and setting him free.’

  ‘What would you do?’ I asked.

  ‘I’d string him up.’

  ‘I bet you would,’ I said.

  ‘Damn right.’

  ‘I vote we keep it to ourselves for now.’ Ivan held up his hand, the stem of his pipe pointing to the sky. ‘Bury them and don’t speak of it until we’ve decided what’s for the best.’

  I put up my hand in agreement. Leonid and Josif did the same.

  ‘This is bullshit.’ Dimitri spat his words. ‘Bullshit.’

  Now they all looked to Viktor and Petro.

  ‘Since when do they get a vote?’ Dimitri asked.

  ‘They’re men now,’ Ivan answered. ‘And they’re here. That gives them a vote.’

  ‘Men?’ Dimitri scoffed. ‘Boys who are seventeen. One of them a brute like his father, and the other … I don’t even know what the other is.’

  Petro raised his hand. Viktor looked at me.

  ‘Don’t look at him,’ Josif said. ‘This is your decision now.’

  But Viktor wasn’t asking for my direction regarding the vote. He wanted to punish Dimitri for his actions and his words, and he wanted me to sanction it, but the look in my eyes told him this was not the place for it.

  Viktor nodded and slowly raised his hand.

  ‘Then it’s settled,’ Ivan said.

  ‘It’s bullshit, that’s what it is.’ Dimitri turned to walk away. ‘There’s nothing settled here at all.’

  I took the back of Dimitri’s coat in my fist and stopped him. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Home,’ he said, looking me in the eye, pushing my hand away. For a moment we stood close, faces level, searching one another’s thoughts. I could feel Dimitri’s breath on my skin, see the air whiten and cloud between us, sense the heightened tension in my brother-in-law.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Dimitri said. ‘Hit me?’

  I considered it. I thought about doing what Viktor had wanted to do, and I fought the urge to ball my fist and slam it into Dimitri’s nose. Instead, I held up my hands. ‘Go home, Dimitri. Go home and annoy your poor wife.’

  The six of us watched him leave, and then finished burying the children.

  6

  We walked in silence, coming back from the cemetery. The crunching of our boots in the snow, and our heavy breathing, and the cackle of the magpies. Leaving the church behind, though, I could hear raised voices from the heart of the village, and I shared glances with the others as we quickened our pace.

  We all suspected. We all knew. As soon as we heard the commotion, we knew what it was, and when we came within sight of the centre of the community, we saw it for ourselves.

  There was a group of people there, close to the oak that stood within its low circular wall. A dense nucleus of fifteen or twenty people, with as many again standing around the edges, undecided if they were a part of what was happening or if they were just spectators. Those in the centre were nodding their heads, gesticulating, raising their hands in the air. They were shouting agreement, being whipped up by the man at the centre of it. Dimitri.

  ‘What the hell does he think he’s doing?’ I said to no one in particular, catching sight of Natalia coming in our direction. She was without her coat, as if she’d come in a hurry.

  ‘He’s been knocking on doors,’ she said. ‘Shouting and ranting about our children not being safe. Is it true? Are they not safe?’

  I stopped to speak with her, Viktor and Petro staying with me. The other men went to where the villagers were standing.

  ‘Where’s Lara?’ I asked.

  ‘She went out after she helped me with the chickens. Said she was going to play with Dariya.’

  ‘Dimitri’s forbidden her from coming to our house.’

  ‘That’s what Dariya said. But she told me that if they play outside, they won’t be in our house. And who am I to argue with such a sly girl?’

  ‘You don’t know where they are now?’

  ‘In the field, rolling snowballs. Are they in danger?’

  ‘No. She’s probably better off not being here.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘Has something happened?’

  I could see the crowd was growing as more people joined Dimitri, arms raised, voices raised, tensions raised.

  ‘Petro,’ I said, ‘go find your sister.’

  ‘Why me? Why not send Viktor?’

  ‘Because I might need Viktor here. Find your sister and bring her home. Keep her inside.’

  ‘Papa—’

  ‘Don’t argue with me, Petro Lukovich.’

  Petro shook his head and stayed where he was, deciding whether or not to defy my wishes. But the hesitation was short and he rolled his eyes, moving away. I watched him go, disappearing around the rear of our home, before I looked back at the crowd.

  ‘Has something happened?’ Natalia asked again. ‘Why is he saying our children aren’t safe?’

  ‘Because he’s an idiot,’ I said. ‘Nothing has happened.’

  Dimitri was drawing more people in now, addressing those who had gathered round him, telling them they were unsafe, that a child-killer had come among them. Ivan, who had been at the burial, had gone to intervene, but he was not a strong man and he pleaded quietly, his voice lost in the growing cacophony. He was respected, but he had no voice in this confusion. He had no control over a mob like this. Josif and Leonid too tried to reason with the people, but when Dimitri pointed towards me, raising his voice, directing the stares of the other villagers, I could see how this was going to turn out.

  ‘Natalia, you need to go inside.’ I stepped back and took her arm, drawing her with me through the gate, pushing open the front door with my foot. ‘Into the back.’

  Viktor followed us inside and shut the door. Together we pushed the bolts across and closed the wooden shutters over the windows.

  ‘Papa? What’s going on?’

  I went straight to the shelf and took up the revolver Natalia had found among the stranger’s belongings. ‘Here.’ I pressed it into Viktor’s hands before grabbing the pistol that had been on the sled, dropping the wooden holster onto the table.

  ‘Papa?’

  ‘Viktor, I’ve seen crowds before. I’ve seen what they can do.’

  He held up the revolver. ‘I don’t even know what to do with this.’

  ‘You won’t need to. As long as they see it, it should be enough.’

  Viktor nodded, a grim expression on his face. He was scared but he knew how to push it down inside him and hide it. His mother though, Natalia, I could hear her breathing. Heavy. Panic was tight in her throat. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked, the words constricted.

  I pulled her close and told her it would be all right. ‘Go into the back room. Stay there.’

  Outside there was shouting. It might have been Dimitri but it was hard to tell. There were other voices too. A sea of voices that grew with tension. More and more of them, building, the crowd becoming a mob of fearful peasants who needed something to strike at.

  ‘Listen to them,’ Natalia said. ‘What are they going to do?’ She looked down at the bundle lying by the hearth, where the flames had weakened. The man was still asleep, oblivious to the trouble he had caused.

  ‘Nothing,’ I told her. ‘They’re not going to do anything. Please – go into the back room.’

  She looked up at me, a kind of understanding dawning on her, and I knew what she was thinking.

  ‘Lara,’ she said. ‘Lara and Petro.’

  ‘They’ll be fine,’ I reassured her. ‘I haven’t forgotten them. Petro will see what’s happening; he’ll keep her away.’

  ‘No, we have to find them. Make them saf
e.’

  I saw the fear in her eyes. We lived in fear. Always there was fear, but never had it been so close to the surface. Never had it been so threatening. I looked at the man on the floor, then at my son, the revolver in his hand.

  ‘I’ll find them,’ said Viktor, but even as he spoke, the sound of the mob outside increased. There was shouting, the heavy fall of many footsteps, then the front door rattled in its frame and the crowd bayed before their noise abated and fell into a lull.

  ‘Bring him out, Luka.’ It was as if Dimitri was alone outside our door.

  Natalia gripped me closer.

  Again, banging.

  ‘Luka! Bring him out.’

  I could feel Natalia tremble. She looked up at me and whispered. ‘Let them have him, Luka. For God’s sake—’

  ‘We don’t know he’s done anything wrong.’

  ‘We don’t know he hasn’t. I’m scared, Luka. Let them have him.’

  ‘He can’t even protect himself.’

  ‘Luka!’ Dimitri again. ‘Open the door or we’ll come in and take him.’

  ‘You’ll break down my door, Dimitri?’

  ‘If we have to.’

  ‘Natalia’s front door?’

  ‘We’ll do what we have to. She’s not safe with him in there.’ His reply was spoken with determination and followed by a murmur of consensus as the crowd grew restless.

  ‘Please,’ Natalia begged me. ‘Just—’

  ‘I’ll speak to them,’ I said, breaking away from her. ‘I’ll make this right. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Luka …’

  I ignored her and glanced at my son, nodding at the revolver in his hand, then I took a step towards the door and drew back the heavy bolts.

  Dimitri was standing with his chest out and his fists on his hips. Behind him there were at least thirty men and women with red faces and fearful eyes.

  ‘Go back to your homes,’ I said, scanning the crowd, trying to look each of them in the eye. ‘Go home and think about what you’re doing. I understand your concerns. I know your concerns, but I don’t share your wishes. Please. Don’t bring shame on us. Don’t bring shame on your children.’