Siberia

by Ann Halam

  “Up again! Retreat!” shouted the boy.

  “We can’t!” I yelled. “The gulls will pick us off! Forward! Charge!”

  Gulls and rats had no fear of humans. They had learned to regard us as just a nuisance, unless we were carrying guns; or maybe prey. But we three stuck together, pelting them with any rubbish that came to hand: mud, metal, festering old rags. The gulls couldn’t dive-bomb us once we were in the fissure, and the rats gave way before our onslaught.

  Then suddenly, the enemy vanished.

  “That was close!” said the boy. He flopped down on a pile of old bricks: taking off his red cap and wiping gull dirt from his face with a blue handkerchief. “That was close! The Little Father was right, we shouldn’t have come scavenging unarmed.”

  “Would they have eaten us?” asked the pretty girl.

  “Yes they would,” I said, “I’ve heard of that happening.” I looked down, and saw why the vermin had given up. I had found the bandit road. A swathe of ruts cut through the white plain, curving round the waste tips and heading for the horizon. There were six trucks parked together below us, and people moving around, men and women with rifles; and children too, all dressed in bright, flamboyant clothes, the kind of clothes you’d never see in a Prison Settlement.

  “Where’s your family parked?” asked the girl.

  I shook my head. I wrapped Storm’s filthy, ragged coat around my filthy, mud-colored shirt, hugging the comforting outline of the magic nutshell, and walked away. I kept on walking, round the base of the cones, until I was back where I’d left my sled. At least it was still there. I sat on my smelly bundles, and put my head in my hands. “I’m lucky to be alive,” I whispered. “I know I am. You were right, I shouldn’t have gone dump-hunting. But we’re finished, kits. I can’t ask for a lift. I can’t.”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  The two fancy children had followed me. It was the girl who’d spoken.

  “To myself,” I said. “You do that, when you’re traveling alone.”

  “Where are you from?” asked the boy.

  I shrugged. “Nowhere, really.”

  “We’re with the caravan,” said the girl. “But you’re not one of us. We’d know you. Where are you going? There isn’t anywhere. It’s all empty land around here.”

  “I’m heading north.”

  “D’you want a ride?” said the boy. “My name’s Satin.”

  “I’m Emerald,” said the girl. “We’re heading north too. We’ve got trucks.”

  “Sloe,” I said. “I saw the trucks.” I swallowed my pride. “Yes, I need a ride. But I haven’t any money and I don’t have anything to trade.”

  They smiled. “You don’t need money,” Satin assured me. “You’d better come and meet Little Father.”

  “Your father?” I said, doubtfully. I knew how disgusting I looked, and I imagined these children must have a father like a king.

  “Come on,” said Emerald. “He’ll pretend he doesn’t want you, and say we’ve no room: but don’t worry, we’ll persuade him.”

  “Little Father” was a big man, with thick dark hair curling to his shoulders, and a thick dark beard. Among the brightly dressed people he was drab, because he wore an overcoat made of sacking and tied with rope round the middle. But there was richer clothing under the dirty outer layer, and his hair was sleekly cut and combed. When we children came up he was sitting with some other men at a folding table, by a very big long truck. The table had been picnic furniture for a stylish city patio once; it looked strange in the snow. I saw the gold rings on his big fingers, as he listened to Satin’s story and stroked his beard. I knew he was a bandit, but he looked kingly. He came to have a look at me: and quickly backed off, pulling out a handkerchief.

  “Faugh. She smells like rancid meat.”

  “Please,” coaxed Emerald. “She saved our lives, truly, and she’s healthy.”

  Little Father went back to the table, and fetched a cup of hot water from the teakettle. He sopped his handkerchief in it and rubbed at my cheek. I stood there, feeling terribly embarrassed, desperate to be accepted.

  “Oh, hohoho,” said the big man, smiling with a flash of teeth in the dark of his beard. “How long has this princess been lying on the midden, eh? Peel off the crust and she’s a little white loaf, with eyes like black cherries.”

  “She’s strong and hearty,” promised Satin. “And she has spirit.”

  I didn’t like being described as if I couldn’t speak for myself, but I kept my mouth shut. Emerald and Satin seemed to know what they were doing.

  “Hm,” said Little Father. “Walk about, my dear. Just walk about a little.”

  Then I knew he’d seen my limp. I walked about, the men and women of the caravan gathering, watching me. I tried to move as normally as possible.

  “What a shame. That’s permanent, I can tell. It spoils her.”

  “Oh please,” cried Emerald, clasping her hands under her chin, and batting her eyelashes shamelessly, as if she were about three years old. “For your baby Emmy?”

  Little Father laughed, and cuffed her gently around the head. “You’ll have me taking in every stray in the north. Augh, go on, have Baba heat some water, see if she can peel off that stinking crust. Oh, and burn her clothes. We have plenty.”

  Emerald took me to the back of the truck. The tailgate was open. Inside, it was like a treasure cave of colors: curtains and bright blankets hanging on the walls, rugs on the floor. There was a stove with a chimney, and an old woman sat beside it, knitting. She made a big fuss, but she did what Little Father wanted; shutting the tailgate to give me privacy. I had to sit in a cut-down barrel of hot water, while the old lady scoured me with a scrubbing brush, and washed the grease and fur farm muck out of my hair. It took three changes of water, but the water was hot and she used real, sweet soap. I hadn’t been so clean since I was a baby. She tuttutted at the cut on my cheek I’d got in our fight with the gulls. She put ointment on it and fitted the edges together, very carefully, with two clean paper-plasters.

  I was given underwear and clothes, several layers of skirts, leggings to go underneath, a new jacket, and felted boots. Baba even tried to put a ribbon in my hair, but it was still New-Dawn short, so she had to give up that idea.

  My top skirt was red, with sprigs of flowers. I loved it.

  Satin and Emerald had been guarding my sledge from the other children. When I came out, wearing my new clothes and with my face and hands pale as milk, Satin cheered and tossed his red cap in the air.

  “Now we’ll have a bonfire!” said Emerald.

  I felt a pang when I saw my New Dawn uniform go. A lot of my life went up in those smoky, greasy flames. Not just the part that held Rain and Rose, and so many bad memories, but the schoolroom hut in the Settlement, and Mr. Snory. The pride of getting good marks, the thrill of thinking I had won a chance in life. And I would miss Storm’s jacket. Emerald and Satin had wanted to put my filthy knapsack on the bonfire too, but I’d refused. Baba had washed it instead. The kits were safe. I’d managed to slip them into the nail box, along with my map and the compass, when the knapsack was emptied. I’d told Baba it was where I kept clean cloths for when I got my period: she understood how a girl would cling to that.

  But I wondered how long I’d be able to keep any of my secrets.

  “How do I pay for my ride?” I asked. “Is there work I can do?”

  “Little Father’s rich,” said Satin. “He’s generous, he likes giving.”

  “We work around the camp,” explained Emerald, because she could see I wasn’t happy about being a beggar. “It’s not hard, but there’s plenty to do.”

  When the bonfire had died down it was dark. The truck where I’d been bathed was Little Father’s own. He lived in a room at the front, behind the driving cab. Emerald and Satin lived in the back, with Baba to look after them, and that was where I would travel. The other children drifted off, the old woman called us indoors. She served us bowls of hot kasha porr
idge, with syrup and cream trailed over the top, which we ate sitting by the stove on a silky warm rug. Then we talked, and played (Emerald and Satin had a box of toys and puzzles) until Baba said we must go to sleep. She’d made up a bed for me, in one of the bunks that were hidden by the curtains that hung around the walls.

  I waited till the truck was quiet, except for the old woman’s rhythmic snores. The big tailgate was fastened up, but there was a little door in it, covered by a felt curtain, that was only bolted, not locked. . . . I slipped down, barefoot, wrapped in a blanket, into the freezing night, and went to my sledge. It was still standing where we’d left it, by the embers of the bonfire, but all my bundles were gone. Anything of use had been taken into the general stores, and the rest thrown away. When I’d planned to hitch a ride, I hadn’t imagined anything like this. I had thought I would still be in charge of my own destiny. Now my clothes weren’t even my own. I felt very strange.

  “Do you want to keep it?” said a soft voice beside me.

  Satin had followed me. He sat down on the sledge.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said. “You people are too generous.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Don’t worry,” said the boy, at last. “We understand, Emerald and me. We’ll keep your sled, Little Father won’t notice. Then you’ll know you can get away.” He touched my shoulder, shyly. “It’s good to promise yourself that. Even if it isn’t true.”

  The day after I joined the caravan the weather broke up. The clouds had been thick and angry when we started off, but nobody had cared. When the storm broke, the trucks drove straight through it. We got up onto the upper tier of bunks, and sat there safe and warm, while a blinding, whirling whiteness scoured the double-glass windows in the side of our speeding haven.

  “If we were out there,” said Emerald, grimly, “we’d be dead.”

  I didn’t think of the weather. I thought about hiding in plain sight, like the wild animal I had called my prince of peace. To survive without a home, in the wilderness, you must be able to take shelter on the open ground. . . . I decided that falling in with Emerald and Satin was the best thing that could have happened to me. I wasn’t dressed like Sloe, I didn’t behave like Sloe. I was part of Little Father’s family. No one could mistake me for a lone fugitive with a secret!

  I didn’t have any trouble hiding the kits, or keeping my nail box safe. Little Father never came poking around in the back of the truck, it was our territory. And old Baba was half blind, while Emerald and Satin never tried to pry. I kept my knapsack in my bunk, but whenever we stopped to do business, or to camp, I would carry the nutshell with me. Sometimes—not every day, but often—I would manage to slip away, between sunset and dusk, when the camp was at its busiest. I would walk off into the snow, and then I’d be able to open the shell and talk to them.

  And be Sloe again, for a short while, alone in the cold immensity.

  Emerald and Satin didn’t like me doing this. They were afraid Little Father would notice my “wandering” and he’d be angry. They seemed to love and fear their dadda about equally (I supposed their mother was dead or taken away: I never asked about her). But they sympathized, especially Satin, so they protected my strange ways.

  Our trucks kept to the ice-rutted road, but whenever we were moving, there were outriders patrolling the waste, on powerful heavy-duty motor sleds. Nomadic life was supposed to be illegal, because it counted as unauthorized travel, but of course these scouts were watching out for rival bandits, not the law. The Settlements Commission (Mama had told me this) didn’t really care what happened in the wilderness, as long as the people didn’t try to get into the cities. Emerald and Satin and I, and the kids from the other trucks, would hang around when the scouts came in at dusk, to report to Little Father. We were fascinated by the motor sleds, and the swaggering young men with their long rifles and tall boots.

  One night, they brought in Yagin.

  I had been accepted easily by the other kids, though I couldn’t even talk to some of them: they spoke a different language in some of the trucks, an old bandit language. We were all playing football in the dark, when we heard the scouts’ sleds. We’d stuck rag-and-oil torches into the snow, and were running around our shadows, yelling and squealing, and losing the ball. . . . We abandoned the game and gathered near Little Father’s picnic table. One of the scouts was riding a motor sled that we hadn’t seen before, and there was a stranger walking with them, between two of our young men. The grown-ups had gathered too. An actual stranger was rare—bandits all seemed to know each other. Whoever we met, someone in our caravan was a cousin, or knew a connection. I saw that the man was Yagin, and this time I wasn’t even shocked. I just felt doomed. Of course he had found me again. He would always find me.

  Things looked bad. He was walking free, chatting confidently to the young men. They had guns trained on him, but that meant nothing, it was normal bandit manners. I didn’t know if I should just run for it, or stay and try to look innocent. I didn’t look like Sloe! He might not recognize me.

  I needn’t have bothered with the “looking innocent.” I watched him take off his cap, in respect for the bandit king. I watched him being invited to sit down at the table, like an honored guest . . . and soon I heard him telling Little Father that he was looking for a girl. A ward of the state, who had run away from the New Dawn College. Black eyes, dark hair, white skin, rather tall: about so high (he measured me, setting his hand in the air); a tendency to limp with the right leg. There was a generous reward for her safe return, and he would share it with anyone who could give him information.

  “So you’re a bounty hunter,” rumbled Little Father, stroking his beard. “What crime has she committed, the little snow bunting?”

  “Serious crimes,” declared my so-called guardian angel. “Sedition, subversion, and poisoning the minds of her fellow students. It is a dangerous offense against the Settlements Commission to give her any assistance.”

  “Well, that’s very bad,” said Little Father. “And how much is she worth?”

  I saw Yagin bring out a black purse: I saw the rough-made gold coins of the wilderness spilling onto the tabletop. He was a bold man! Didn’t he know that the bandit king could just have him killed, and keep the lot? But something in the way Little Father looked at Yagin, and in the feeling of the crowd, told me that wasn’t going to happen. My guardian angel seemed to have put a spell on them.

  I walked slowly backward, out of the gaggle of children. I knew where my sledge was. It traveled hooked up on the side of the truck, with other equipment: skis and sticks, shovels and brooms. I thought I could get it down alone. I had the nutshell with me. I would have to sneak into the back of the truck to get my knapsack, and maybe get some food. . . . I crept past old Baba, who was dozing by the stove, and collected the knapsack. I was quietly, quietly opening a food locker, when I heard Emerald’s voice right behind me, and jumped a mile.

  “Sloe?” She stroked my cheek, and squeezed my hand.

  “It’s all right, Sloe. Little Father’s sending him away.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I croaked.

  “Come up and see.”

  We climbed the ladder to the second tier, the row of bunks that nobody slept in, and peered out through the double-glass windows. Yagin was still there. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but I saw Little Father shake the gold back into the black purse, and toss it across the table. My mouth dropped open. Yagin started arguing, Little Father laughed. Yagin got angry. He waved his arms. The crowd stirred ominously, the scouts raised their long rifles. But Little Father did not give the order.

  Yagin took his purse, and left on his sled, pursued by warning volleys.

  “They won’t shoot him,” said Emerald, in a matter-of-fact tone. “He wasn’t in uniform, but he’s the police. You can always tell. But he’d better not come back.”

  I didn’t often get close to Little Father. When Emerald and Satin spent time with their dadda I staye
d discreetly out of the way. Instinct made me afraid of someone who had so much power over my fate. But after the Yagin incident I went to him, first chance I got. “Thank you,” I said, and I curtseyed and kissed his hand, the way I’d seen his own people do when Little Father had granted them a special favor.

  His big hand smelled of herbal soap, it was soft and strong, with hairs growing over the knuckles. He laughed, and raised me up: smoothed his big thumb over the place where my cheek had been cut, and nodded in satisfaction.

  It was mending well, I wouldn’t have a scar.

  “Little snow bunting,” he rumbled. “You’re a good girl.”

  Sometimes we thundered along at a terrific pace. Sometimes we camped for days, for no good reason. I wasn’t worried. There were months and months of winter ahead. We were heading north, with all the halts, much faster than I could have managed on my own. We three helped Baba with the chores, we played together; and sometimes played with the children from the other trucks. I found out that Emerald and Satin weren’t Little Father’s own children. Quite a few of the kids with the caravan were strays like me, that the bandits had taken in along the road. I thought this was very kind. I told Satin I wished more people in the Settlements knew that the bandits could be kind as well as ruthless. He shrugged, and said coolly, “I suppose they are as kind as most people in the world.” I wondered why he wasn’t more grateful.

  We were friends, but Emerald and Satin often puzzled me. Of course I didn’t tell them my secrets, and they never talked about what had happened to their families. That seemed all right. It was best to live in the present. But there was something empty about them. They had no purpose in life, no dreams beyond keeping warm and having nice food: and secretly I pitied them, although they were so rich.

  The bandit tribes agreed with my mama: winter is the time for travel. We were heading for a great meeting, the winter fair: where there would be feasting and trading and a big exchange of news. My map stayed in my knapsack with my compass. I didn’t want anyone to know I had things like that. But I had a good idea where this fair would take place, and I’d decided that was where I would leave the caravan. It would be time for me to start heading west, to reach the narrowest point of the narrow sea. I wished I could pay Little Father something. But the back of our truck, behind the curtains and under the hangings, was stuffed with bales and boxes, and I had seen his contempt for a purse of Settlements Commission gold. I had nothing except the map and compass, and my Lindquists. I just hoped that one day I would find my mama again, and we would trace Little Father, and make some return for all his kindness.