Child Thief Page 8

  ‘Lara might know where she is,’ Petro said, looking at me and shrugging. ‘They were playing together when I found her. Maybe she knows where she was going.’

  I didn’t want Svetlana in the house. After what she and her husband had participated in only a few hours earlier, I wanted to turn her around and push her through the door, and the only things stopping me were Natalia and a small vein of sympathy just below the surface of my anger. She was worried about her daughter, just as any mother would be, and I had to tell myself it was Dimitri who had instigated the hanging, not Svetlana.

  I put the heavy revolver on the table and pushed it away before waving a hand. ‘Ask her.’

  Natalia called to her, and when Lara came from the other room, she was still wearing the medal around her neck. The orange stripes in the ribbon stood out against the black of her dress, and the colours depicting the slaying of the dragon were vibrant. ‘What is it, Mama?’

  ‘Do you know where Dariya is?’

  Lara thought about it for a second, pursing her lips. ‘No.’ She shook her head.

  ‘You sure?’ I asked. ‘There isn’t somewhere she goes?’

  Again she shook her head.

  ‘If there’s something, you must tell us,’ Natalia pressed her. ‘Whatever you can think of. Your aunt is worried about her.’

  ‘Anything.’ Sevetlana’s eyes pleaded. ‘Anything at all, Larissa.’ She was willing her to know where Dariya was.

  Lara tightened her lips and shook her head.

  ‘Where did you go with her this morning?’ I put out a hand and brought Lara to me. I lifted her to sit on my knee and I put my face against the back of her head, above the place where her hair was gathered into a bun. I could see the pale skin of her scalp in the parting and I breathed the scent of her hair and rubbed my hands on her shoulders.

  ‘Just at the back,’ she said.

  ‘In the field?’

  ‘Yes. Where Petro came.’

  ‘And when Petro came, what then? What did Dariya do then?’

  ‘She stayed.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I looked up at Svetlana and opened my hands to her. ‘She doesn’t know.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Natalia.

  Svetlana watched us as if she thought we might be hiding something from her, then she nodded and turned to the door.

  As soon as Svetlana was gone, Lara jumped down from my knee and went to the other room without looking at any of us.

  ‘Is there something she’s not telling us?’ Natalia said in a quiet voice. ‘Do you think she knows where Dariya is?’

  ‘No, why wouldn’t she tell us?’ I said. ‘She can see how upset your sister is.’

  ‘Because she’s nine years old?’ Natalia said. ‘And because children sometimes have secrets.’

  ‘She’s probably just worried about her cousin.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I’ll talk to her,’ Petro stood up. ‘Sometimes she talks to me.’

  I looked at him. ‘Really? About what?’

  Petro shrugged and there was the trace of a smile in his eyes. A small victory for him. A moment of subdued pride. ‘Nothing much,’ he said. ‘Sometimes we talk, that’s all.’

  ‘Fine. Talk to her.’

  Outside I could hear voices.

  ‘It’s Dimitri,’ Natalia said, going to the window. ‘He’s with some of the other men.’

  ‘Coming here?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  Viktor went to stand beside his mother, but I remained where I was, wondering what else could happen today.

  ‘No,’ Viktor said. ‘They’re going round the back. Where Lara said they were playing.’ He looked at me. ‘Maybe we should help.’

  The sound of voices outside grew quiet again as the group of searchers moved away.

  ‘They’ll find her,’ I said. ‘They don’t need us.’

  ‘You mean they don’t deserve your help?’ Natalia said. ‘That’s what you mean, isn’t it?’

  I picked up the photograph on the table and studied the family burned onto it. A trick of light that captured an image and stored it as if it would exist for ever. A family that had no inkling of what the future held for it. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s exactly what I mean.’

  ‘She’s your niece.’

  I could feel their eyes on me as I stared at the photograph. ‘They don’t need my help.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Natalia said. ‘There are enough of them.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And they’re good men.’

  ‘Are they?’

  ‘Mostly, yes, I think they are, Luka. You’ve said yourself that they’re afraid, and people do bad things when they’re afraid. Rash things.’

  ‘We didn’t.’ I looked at her.

  ‘No, but I know you too well, Luka Mikhailovich. I know what’s in your heart, even when you try to hide it from me.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I can see it,’ she said. ‘You think you should’ve done more to stop them. You feel like it’s your fault too.’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. And that’s what makes you even more angry – they put you in that position.’

  I opened my mouth to reply, but caught my words when Petro came out from the other room, holding the door wide. ‘I think they’ve found something.’

  ‘Found what?’ Natalia asked after a moment of silence. ‘What have they found?’

  ‘Come and look.’

  Standing at the back window, my knees against the bed, I could see much of the area behind the house. To the left, the side of our barn. There was a small yard, the snow trampled and kicked into furrows and tracks that came from everywhere and went nowhere. So many times had the ground outside been trodden over the past two days. The sled, the animals, the mob that had lynched a man from a naked tree, and now this.

  The group of men, I counted seven of them, had gone through the yard, looking for the place where Lara and Dariya had been playing. Beyond, there was an open field, white, glistening in the orange light from the falling sun. There was a patch of disturbed snow just on the other side of the fence where Lara must have been because I could see how the snow had been built up into balls, and I knew she and Dariya liked to roll the snow.

  But the men had moved beyond that and were now hiking away, seven dark stains on the glorious white. They were heading up the back of the shallow valley towards a line of poplar trees that stood on the crest like a regiment of well trained soldiers. Tall and straight they stood; their branches reaching upwards, their narrow bodies proud. In the summer they would be a soft green against the pale blue sky, and the field would be filled with red winter wheat moving in waves. The gold and green would ripple as the breeze moved through it. And just below the window, around the base of the fence, flowers would spring with colourful life.

  ‘Where are they going?’ Lara asked.

  ‘They must have found something,’ Viktor said. ‘A trail maybe.’

  I turned to look at Lara, but she wasn’t watching the figures advancing on the poplars. She was sitting with her back to the window, scrutinising the medal. Or at least that’s what she wanted us to think, because as I watched her, she dared a sideways glance at me and I saw the secret in her eyes.

  She quickly looked away, creasing her brow, inspecting the medal.

  ‘What is it, Lara?’ I asked her. ‘What’s the matter?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘I want you to tell me,’ I said, going to sit beside her. ‘I know there’s something.’

  Again the sideways glance.

  ‘Larissa, if there’s something you know, I want you to tell me right now.’ And I sensed something move in to replace my anger at Dimitri and Svetlana and the others. I felt my own urgency before I realised it was there. An unease crept in, like cold fingers slipping around the back of my neck. Seeing those figures moving up the valley, and with the impres
sion that Lara was hiding something, I began to wonder if there was more to this. Something was wrong.

  ‘Lara.’ I softened my voice.

  She looked at me. She was deciding, struggling with her thoughts.

  ‘You’re not in any trouble,’ Natalia said. ‘Do you know where Dariya is? Her mama and papa are worried about her. Something might have happened to her.’

  A glistening redness washed over her dark eyes. She tightened her lips, her chin rising a touch.

  I ran a hand over her head. ‘You’re not in trouble, my angel, I promise, but you must tell me—’

  And with the compassionate tone from both mother and father, the tears came as they inevitably would. And to accompany them, the words of confession to a crime that was no crime at all.

  ‘We sometimes go up to the trees,’ she said. ‘We have a place where we play.’

  And I didn’t need to ask why she hadn’t told us. She wasn’t allowed there, that was all. She had been forbidden to go that far from the village.

  ‘And you think that’s where she may have gone?’

  Lara nodded.

  ‘Why do you think that?’ Natalia asked, sitting beside us. ‘Did she say she was going?’

  She shook her head. ‘I saw.’

  ‘You saw?’

  ‘I saw her go. After Petro brought me back and you made me come inside, I was sitting here and I saw her run around the house. She ran around and went straight up. I watched her all the way to the trees.’

  ‘Where those men are now?’ I pointed at the window and the dark smudges on the snow beyond.

  Lara nodded.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Good girl.’

  ‘Am I in trouble?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ll talk about that later.’

  I took Natalia’s elbow and beckoned her through to the front room. ‘Do you think Dariya saw what they did? What her father did?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Why else would she run away like that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Dimitri’s such an idiot. What he did. Trying to do it to make his child safe, and now he’s damaged her for ever. Imagine if you saw your father do a thing like that. String a man up from a tree and—’

  ‘That’s enough.’ She glanced over my shoulder at the bedroom door. ‘We have to live with these people. They’re our friends, Luka. Svetlana’s my sister. And Dariya is safe.’

  ‘If she hasn’t frozen to death up there, have you thought about that?’

  ‘Luka.’

  ‘You imagine how that idiot will feel if he’s driven his daughter away to freeze to death on the rise. Hanging a man to make her safe, while frightening her away to die.’

  ‘Luka!’ her voice harsh but quiet. The words hissed. And her eyes were over my shoulder again.

  I turned to see Lara behind me. Fresh tears in her eyes. ‘It’s my fault,’ she said. ‘I killed Dariya.’ She ran to her mother and threw her arms around her.

  ‘No, angel, she’ll be fine. You’ll see. The men will find Dariya.’ Natalia narrowed her eyes at me and stroked our daughter’s hair, running her hardened fingers over her head.

  ‘Will you go?’ Lara turned to look at me. ‘You’ll find her.’

  I forced a smile. ‘If Dariya is there, your Uncle Dimitri will find her. They don’t need me.’

  ‘Please,’ she said.

  ‘Lara, it’s not your fault.’

  ‘It is my fault, Papa. I should have told you I saw her, but I was afraid I’d get into trouble.’

  ‘You’re not in any trouble.’ Natalia held her tighter.

  ‘Please, Papa. Please find Dariya.’

  ‘Of course he will, won’t you, Papa?’ Natalia glared at me.

  I sighed and nodded. ‘OK, angel, if it’s what you want. I’ll help them look.’

  To my daughter I was still a hero. I was still a figure of strength and adult wisdom. She had not yet grown to understand that even fathers are fallible. That even fathers make mistakes, just as everyone else does. And even fathers cannot beat all the odds.

  ‘Thank you, Papa.’

  I sat on a chair and pulled on my boots before taking my coat from the hook by the door. I stood for a moment and looked at my daughter. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘We’ll find Dariya.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Yes, my angel. I promise.’

  9

  Adding my own footsteps to the many stale ones which now littered my land, I went round the house and climbed over the fence, starting up the gentle slope towards the line of poplars and the dark smudges that lay within. In the field beneath my feet, winter wheat seedlings lay in the stubble of the last harvest, buried beneath the snow.

  To the west, the sun was low on the horizon, spreading a muddled amber glow across the steppe. A beautiful sight for eyes that had never seen it, the sign of approaching darkness to those that had witnessed it countless times. It would drop within the hour, orange turning to red, like blood spilling across the snow, then it would bow its head and be gone from our world for another night. And the most bitter cold would sweep in to replace it.

  The snow was deep here but I tried to move quickly as I crossed the field I would harvest and re-sow next year. At least, that’s what I had done in past years, but I knew this year might be different. By then the land might not be mine any longer. It might belong to the state and I would be forced to work on it for nothing or be sent away to Kazakhstan, Siberia, somewhere they could wring the sweat from my body and make me work until my heart refused to beat any longer.

  I followed to one side of the mess of tracks, while the men before me had walked directly in Dariya’s footsteps. The poplars cast shadows that fell long and dark across the snow-covered steppe, and I headed towards them, wondering what the men had found. Maybe Dimitri was scolding his daughter right now, telling her she shouldn’t have run away, bearing accusing looks from eyes that had witnessed her father’s cruelty. Or, worse, they might have found only her cold body, her blood frozen in her veins, her eyes hardened. But the truth was worse than that.

  As I came closer, I could hear voices and see the shapes of men among the trees.

  Here there were tufts of long grass which protruded from the carpet, their stalks heavy with the weight of ice. The line of poplars with their long, naked legs, evenly spaced and regimented as if planted by men. Behind them, a wooded area of stark black trunks and branches. Trees that would only come to life when the snow was gone and the air began to warm. Dark branches harsh against the white of the snow, icicles hanging from them like wild and strange fruit. And the ground was laced with the shadows of those wretched limbs.

  ‘Dimitri,’ I called, and the voices ahead of me stopped. Only the sound of my boots in the snow. A soft crunch and squeak. ‘Dimitri.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ came the reply, and I saw the shadows moving. Shapes coming towards me in the darkening day. The blood now seeping from the sun, the final strength of that light shining as if to burn out the very last of its energy before falling from the earth.

  I didn’t reply. I didn’t shout my name. I continued on until I could see the men, and Dimitri came forward and, for a moment, we stood like that. Them on one side and me on the other.

  ‘Have you found her?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s not here,’ Dimitri said.

  ‘Any sign?’

  ‘There are tracks,’ he said. ‘All the way up to here. We followed them into the woods.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  Dimitri looked at me and I held his stare. Our breath reached out, merging around us. The other men stayed behind Dimitri, not speaking, and when I looked over at them, none of them met my eye. They knew their shame.

  ‘You walked over the tracks,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You followed Dariya’s tracks up here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you walked over them. I could see your boot
marks all the way up here. All of you.’

  Dimitri stared.

  ‘You ruined her tracks; they’re no good any more.’

  ‘Why didn’t she tell us?’ Dimitri took a step towards me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lara. Why didn’t she tell us where Dariya had gone?’

  ‘You’re trying to blame Lara? Why the hell do you think she didn’t tell you? She was afraid.’

  ‘Afraid of what?’

  ‘Of what? I can’t believe you even need to ask after what happened today. She’s afraid of you, Dimitri. Of them.’ I waved a hand at the men behind him. ‘Afraid of what was happening in our village. She was afraid of the same things your own daughter was afraid of; the men and women who were shouting like animals.’

  ‘He was the animal. What he did to those children. If that man did—’

  ‘That man didn’t do anything to those children. They were his own children, Dimitri. His own. That man you murdered did nothing more than serve his country. He fought for us. For you.’ I could feel my anger rising again, my breath coming heavier now as Dimitri tried to shuck the weight of blame from his shoulders. ‘And you strung him up from a tree.’

  Dimitri stared. ‘I … she … she should’ve told us.’

  ‘This is not Lara’s fault. Don’t blame her.’

  ‘She should’ve told us.’

  I struck out with a gloved hand and hit Dimitri hard in the face. My limbs were stiff with cold and heavy with the weight of my coat, but I hit him hard and Dimitri had to step back to stay on his feet. The cold would have numbed Dimitri’s pain, but his nose was bleeding when he came back at me, trying to rush me in the deep snow. I had no time to move away and the farmer struck me, knocking me from my feet, taking us both to the ground.