Gingerbread

by Robert Dinsdale

  The trees are too far! cried the man who had once been a boy.

  And at once their companions were there. And there were five where there had once been eight, and the five had faces of scarlet and black and hands webbed in red. And Aabel said: I see you have not stopped at Lom.

  No, said their leader, and we will not stop there! Do you not know that man eats man was the law of that great frozen city called Gulag? We are men and we obey the first law.

  ‘Papa, is it true?’

  At once, the man who had once been a boy begged the trees. And though the trees were far away, the trees answered his call. And into the night rose the howling of a hundred wolves. And a blizzard stirred up and out of the blizzard brawled those wolves. And the monsters saw the wolves and cried: what dark magic is this? And the man who had once been a boy cried: it is no magic, for the wolf calls out to its own, and he who is afraid of the wolf should not enter the forest …

  Well, the wolves set upon the men, all but for Aabel and the man who had once been a boy. And Aabel and the man who had once been a boy ran into the blizzard, and the blizzard cupped them in its hand and kept them safe until the trees could succour them once more.

  The old man’s arms close tight over the boy. Each word is punctuated by a swift, sharp constriction.

  So ends our tale of the men who ran away.

  The boy is silent. He shakes.

  ‘Are you bringing me that little girl, boy?’

  ‘I’m trying to, papa.’

  The boy squirms back, meaning to slope into the gingerbread house and wait until morning, the next morning, five mornings hence, but the old man’s eyes are locked like a cage of roots and there is no gap to squirm through. He falls, instead, into the corrupted lap, listens to the hammering of an uneven heart.

  Try, the old man breathes, harder.

  On the day he judges to be Friday, he leaves his papa to his roaming and takes a long trail down to the cattail pond, eyes darting in search of his papa’s trail along the way. There, he crawls into the den and lays down a hunk of ash hacked from the forest walls. In one hand he holds a stone with a point like the head of a spear, or an arrow without its shaft. He turns the wood against the stone’s point and, in that way, carves down another layer, letting the shavings fall to the floor. Soon, a thin column emerges at each corner of the wood, legs with little bulbs at their bottom to make hoofs. Next, he gouges down so that a tail stands proudly from the rear. He stands it up, this thing without a face, and places next to it the little Russian horse. This new creature is like the Russian horse’s bastard brother, uglier and unloved. Holding the stone closer to its nib, he scores a face, a mane, a pattern in its hide.

  Hours, and more hours still, and scratch by scratch: a new little friend.

  By the time he is done, the darkening has begun. This, he knows, is the start of the weekend. He knows it has a special power because sometimes he watches Elenya coming home, and on these nights there is a different spring in her step – because she, like him, sits out the inexorable weeks. In his head, she cannot wait to come back to see him in the forest.

  Elenya’s return is heralded by headlights over the rooftop. He waits in mama’s tree until he can hear the engine of the truck; then the voices of Elenya and her father, bickering as they clamber out. This time, it seems, Elenya has answered back. Whatever this means, her father is sick of it. He doesn’t want to know. School can wait, he says – but if she dares answer back to her mother tonight, Christmas will be cancelled.

  Christmas. The word, so unreal, pummels into him like those other remembered words: Friday; weekend.

  He does not have to wait for long. Mishka’s barking tells him that Elenya has gone into the house – and, soon after, she appears fleetingly in the bedroom window, tearing off old clothes and wriggling into new ones. She presses her face to the glass, wiping away the fog with the end of her sleeve, looks down – and her face breaks into the wildest grin.

  Elenya disappears and emerges, moments later, from the door at the back of the house. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Elenya!’

  At the edge of the garden, she finds him in the trees. ‘I can’t stay long,’ she begins. ‘They’ll come looking …’

  ‘I thought …’

  ‘Not tonight, little wolf! Tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ whispers the boy. It seems another aeon away. He does not want to sleep in the gingerbread house. He does not want another story from his papa. He wants …

  Elenya is staring at him with withering eyes. She mouths, ‘I know who you are.’

  The boy is about to offer her the new wooden horse when her words fell him.

  ‘Who I am?’

  ‘You’re that lost little boy …’

  ‘What do you …’

  ‘There’s a boy in class, some simple little thing. He doesn’t have any friends, so he has to make them up. And there he was, just wandering on the edge of the schoolyard, playing with those imaginary things, so some of us went to see him and he said it wasn’t imaginary at all, you used to be his friend and then you disappeared.’

  ‘Yuri,’ whispers the boy.

  Elenya lifts a hand, presses it to his chest, propels him away. The boy, unsuspecting, stumbles back. Though he catches himself on the groping arm of mama’s tree, the new toy horse slips from his grasp.

  ‘It is true!’

  The boy crawls back. One hand over another, and his fingers find the wooden horse.

  ‘I made it for you,’ he says, offering it up.

  ‘I thought it was just another one of his games, but I asked Navitski and …’

  She looms above him, with only the chipped wooden horse in between. He thinks he is going to push it into her hand, force her to see how much he wants to go through those doors, meet her mama and papa, perhaps even be a part of her Christmas – Christmas, such a terrible thing – but the word lodges in his head and slowly his arms fall. Navitski.

  ‘Elenya,’ he says. ‘You didn’t …’

  ‘Didn’t what?’

  ‘… tell?’

  ‘They were looking for you. Navitski said. There were police. There were posters. And …’ She holds her breath before going on; the boy holds his as well, for this must be the most terrible thing of all. ‘I know your name. I’m your friend and you never told, but I know your name.’

  Somehow he is back on his feet. He leaves the wooden horse where it has fallen, rolled over in the dirt. Even its eyes are accusing. He stumbles over roots, vaults a rotting log.

  ‘Alek!’ she calls. ‘Alek, come back!’

  But he will not, and he knows that, even if she were to follow, he could lose her in only a few simple strides. That, he admits through breathy tears, is because he is a wild thing, like the foxes, the ravens, the deer who lurk in these trees and barely ever get seen – and Elenya, she is of the world.

  At the gingerbread house, the fire is dead – but he cannot see his papa’s trench in the forest mulch, so there is time enough before he comes into camp, draped with the day’s killings. He heaps up kindling, builds a pyramid and whispers to the embers to come back to life. Tonight, the resurrection will not take place as easily as on nights past.

  Probably it is because his heart is hammering, his hands will not still, his breath will not stop coming in ragged fits. Alek. He has not heard it in so long, and now it is not right; using that name would be like putting on clothes, or sitting in a bathtub with soap suds dripping from his hair. It would be like potato chips and cushions and sherbet and birthdays. All of those things that used to exist.

  Something compels him to dive into the gingerbread house, where Elenya’s scarlet coat lies like a bedroll. He drags it to the pathetic fire his trembling hands have conjured and begins to feed it with a sleeve. The fabric is long in catching light, but when the flames take hold they do so with incandescent rage. He watches as the threads turn to fiery snakes. They race up the sleeves, devouring, taking shoulders and hood.

  If
she were to tell, they would come looking. If they caught him, they would take him away. And then – then his papa would be alone, out here in the forests. He would live like the wild thing he is, and then he would die – be it this winter, next winter, or in a hundred winters’ time – and then the trees would drink him up, turn him into branches more brittle than the man who stalks between them. And then, for all of time, the boy would know: my promise was broken. And if mama’s still here, somewhere in the trees, waiting for summer, she’ll know.

  The smoke of the scarlet wool billows up. It has a strong, acrid aroma, more bitter than burning wood. Enveloped by that smoke, he thinks: but if she told, they would be here now. If she really told, they’d have come and taken me away.

  Perhaps … she meant what she said. She’s his friend. His friend. Another thing from that long-ago time, but if Alek and Christmas and Fridays can come back, perhaps this can too.

  Elenya’s coat has gone and the fire is in deep retreat when he hears the familiar thump and pull. Birds roosting in the branches scatter, and then his Grandfather’s shape resolves out of the darkness.

  ‘You let her die.’

  ‘The ice got in the wood, papa.’

  ‘You should have smoked it dry.’

  ‘I know …’

  ‘Let me.’

  The old man levers himself down. One incantation, and then another, and the flames rise. Once, his papa told him there was no sorcery in fire. Tonight, the boy might believe he has been lied to all along.

  Across the fire: ‘You’ve been to the girl.’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘I can smell it on you.’

  His mind scrambles. He thinks: papa, she knows; he thinks: papa, they remember me. Yuri and Mr Navitski. All the rest.

  He opens his lips. Words find a way. He says, ‘I thought they might leave out scraps.’

  ‘You don’t take their scraps. We’re wolves, not foxes.’

  ‘Yes, papa.’

  ‘So, did you ask her?’

  ‘Ask her …’

  ‘To come.’

  The boy shakes his head. ‘It’s too soon, papa.’

  The old man returns the words, through his broken crusted mouth: ‘It’s too soon, papa.’

  ‘She’s afraid of the forest.’

  ‘Take her by the hand. Bring her to me. I’ll make her afraid, so afraid she’ll never breathe a thing.’

  ‘She’s a nice girl, papa. She …’

  ‘Pretty girls tell tales.’

  It boils out of him. ‘They don’t, papa! She won’t! She’s a sad little girl, papa. She doesn’t say it, but she is. All she wants is a friend. I can tell.’

  They drag the pot into the flames, and in goes the day’s deaths, innards and all.

  ‘Papa,’ the boy ventures, ‘did you know it’s Christmas?’

  ‘Christmas, is it?’

  He trembles. ‘What will we do for Christmas?’

  But all through the long night, his papa won’t breathe a word in reply.

  He is awake before dawn, and his papa still sleeping. There have been foxes in the clearing, a vixen and a cub of late summer, and the pot has been upturned in the dead fire. Perhaps his papa did not wake, or perhaps he woke and simply watched. Whichever, the foxes were not afraid; to them, he is as much of the forest as the snow and ice.

  He stokes the fire before he goes because, no matter what dark stories his papa now dreams, he is still his papa, and there is still his promise.

  The faint light of dawn is threatening through the snow clouds when he reaches Elenya’s house. Once there, he gazes up. It is not long before Elenya is gazing back down.

  Moments later, she is at the backdoor, beckoning him across the garden.

  ‘Elenya,’ he begins. ‘I’m sorry. I should have told you. Everything, Elenya.’

  She does not seem interested in his apologies. She whispers, ‘We have to get you scrubbed first.’

  ‘Scrubbed?’

  ‘They’ll never think you’re a boy from school, when you look like you’ve been eating dirt.’

  ‘But – how?’

  Elenya explains that they could scrub him in snow, which is a way of bathing she’s seen on the television, but soap would do just as well. To get him soaped up, though, she must smuggle him into the house. Such a thing is possible, for it is a Saturday morning and this means her mama and papa lie in bed until late, and she is forbidden from hammering on their door, no matter what manner of strange sounds come from the other side.

  Before they pass through the kitchen, Elenya reaches into the tin sink and produces a washcloth. Though she wrings it dry, it is still damp when she presses it to his face. She kneads, more fiercely than she might, and the boy reels back. Only Elenya’s admonishing glare makes him behave. She scrubs again and brings back the washcloth, smeared in browns, yellows and blacks.

  ‘See?’ she says, presenting the dirt like evidence in a trial. ‘You’d clean up to be a nice little thing, Alek, if you had a mother to look after you.’

  The boy doesn’t mean his lip to tremble; she is trying to be kind, but does not know what is kind and what is not.

  ‘Oh,’ she stalls as realization dawns. ‘I didn’t mean it, Alek. You must have had a nice mama.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘She wouldn’t want you living in the wilds with that old man, would she?’

  ‘That’s her papa.’

  Elenya’s face is flushed red, as if she does not know what route this conversation ought to take. Conversations, the boy decides, are like the trees of the forest: they can throw up walls of thorns and direct you along channels you would rather not climb.

  At last, Elenya says, ‘I’m running a bath. Then you’ll be scrubbed up, and we’ll say your papa dropped you off to play.’

  ‘Will they be cross?’

  ‘They’ll be delighted. They think having a friend will keep me out of trouble.’

  She leads him along the kitchen and to the foot of the stairs.

  ‘Have you been in very much trouble, Elenya?’

  She beams. ‘That’s my story, but you’re not hearing that until I hear yours.’

  Upstairs, steam rises from the tub. There is a shower. A toilet. He remembers: you sit on the rim and make a mess of the bowl, and after you don’t need to ruck up dead leaves or forest mulch, just draw on a chain and let the water take it away.

  She tells him to take off his clothes and get in the tub. He shakes his head. The bathroom walls are shiny and white, and beads of steam gather in the lines between the tiles. Soon, the steam obscures half of the room.

  ‘Come on, Alek. It isn’t that hard. You’ve had a bath before, haven’t you?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Wasn’t there even a bathtub here when this was your house?’

  ‘You saw it,’ he begins, peering into the mountains of foam. ‘When you came with your mama and papa to look at it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was last winter. I saw you, Elenya. You were in the woods with your mama and papa. Me and my papa were out a-hunting …’

  ‘You little spy!’ she shrills, with a mixture of horror and delight.

  ‘There wasn’t a bathtub at all.’

  ‘Alek, there was hardly a house. When my papa said we had to live there, I didn’t think there was a way anybody could live there.’

  ‘We’d been there all winter. You found our camp. You …’ He stops, wary of upsetting her. ‘… said it was disgusting.’

  She steps back, studies him. ‘You’re not disgusting, Alek. It’s that wild old man.’

  She takes his hand, teasing him across the room. The water is soapy, hidden by a mountain range of bubbles, dreamy as snow clouds. ‘Come on. It’s good for you.’

  Taking off his rabbit-skin pelts, the rags of his vest, is much harder he had thought. For too long they have been a part of him. When they are pooled around his feet, he feels like that same skinned rabbit, his pelt flayed off for all to see.


  ‘Well, go on! Do I have to lift you in as well?’

  He does not go until she manhandles him. Then, he lifts his foot. It hovers on the top of the bubbles and he bravely forces it down.

  The water attacks him, more fierce than fire. He recoils from the heat, and the only thing to stop him from falling is Elenya at his back.

  ‘Alek, you have to! Otherwise, you’re as wild as your papa.’

  Those words are a greater spur than any command. He puts his foot back, and this time pokes it slowly into the water. In an instant, the bubbles around his calf fade away, turning to brown scum on top of the water. His sole finds the bottom of the bath, and he levers his other leg in. Now he stands there, at the centre of a spreading dark tide. Elenya glares. It is a command to sit down.

  Slowly, the boy lowers himself.

  He is boiling. Burning. Only slowly does the sensation fade. He does not know what to do, so he simply sits there. A tiny rubber duck, as ridiculous as the fairybook door knocker, stares at him from the edge of the bath.

  When she sees him returning the stare, Elenya lifts it down, sets it to bobbing on the dark tide. ‘We’ll have to do your face and arms as well.’

  The boy barely hears her. Everything is so distant, seen through a veil of steam.

  ‘I’ll do it for you, then,’ Elenya sighs.

  It is as it was with mama. She lifts each arm to draw the sponge under it, tousles his hair, drips down soap suds that tear up his eyes. Then there is a measuring jug; she fills it with fresh water and pours it over him. All down his body run rivers of brown. At last, she pulls the plug and he watches as the silt of the forest washes away.

  ‘Come on, quick! I don’t know how I’ll explain if they catch you in the bath …’

  First, there is the matter of clothes. In her bedroom, she sits him at the foot of her bed, where a nest has been made of eiderdown and pillows. There, he faces the big bay window. From the glass, there peers the reflection of a boy he does not know, a boy with cheeks scrubbed pink; with wet hair hanging in tangles that nevertheless gleam from shampoo; with a towel to hide his pure white skin, and a strange patchwork of rabbit skins hanging over his shoulder.

  ‘What is it? Haven’t you ever seen a reflection before?’