Gingerbread

by Robert Dinsdale

  The children flock at Mr Navitski’s back, but he pushes them back with a half-turn over his shoulder. In that same second, they fall silent.

  ‘Where is home, Alek?’

  ‘I live at the tenement.’

  ‘I’ve been to the tenement, Alek. It’s been boarded up for more than a year.’

  Now the boy knows: this is a trap, quite as subtle as the trap that sucked his papa down into the earth and spewed him up different, changed, touched by the forest.

  So he says nothing. Shakes his head.

  ‘Mr Navitski?’ comes a tiny voice. ‘What’s that dirty little thing doing in the class?’

  Mr Navitski turns, as if to shield the boy from the herd of children behind. ‘Back into the corridor,’ he says.

  ‘But Mr Navitski …’

  ‘Now!’ Mr Navitski barks. ‘It’s library time. Everybody into the library.’

  A voice pipes up, ‘You said the corridor.’

  ‘Well, now I’m saying the library. Everybody. Now.’

  As one, the children move sluggishly back through the door. Among them, there stands Elenya. She resists the pull of the tide, even though her friends are crying after her. Her eyes lock with the boy’s. She has no words, but the boy knows what her eyes are asking. He nods, tells her he is all right; he has come to make things better. Yet, as she turns to follow the rest, something lurches inside him. He wants her, needs her, to stay.

  ‘Elenya!’

  In the doorway she stops. ‘Mr Navitski, there’s something I’ve got to …’

  ‘No!’ yells the boy. He doesn’t know how to say it without telling Navitski too. ‘No,’ he repeats, his words fading to a whisper. ‘I’m here. I’m here now.’

  Mr Navtiski’s eyes are cold. They fall on her. ‘I said the library, Elenya.’

  ‘But look at him, he’s just a sorry little boy …’

  Something softens in Mr Navitski’s eyes. ‘I’m not angry with Alek, Elenya. We need to help him. So, if you could give us just a few moments …’ Mr Navitski pauses. ‘You too, Yuri.’

  The boy looks around. Somehow, unnoticed, Yuri has crept into the classroom and taken his seat beside the boy. He has a pencil in one chubby fist, a notebook open, and he is patiently copying down the sums from the board.

  ‘Elenya,’ Mr Navitski concedes. ‘Stay here with Yuri.’

  He looks at the boy, his back still pressed hard against the window. ‘Alek, I’m sorry, but I’m going to come over to you now. Do you understand?’

  Of course he understands. Mr Navitski seems to think that a few months living wild has robbed him of all words, all thought. He is about to cry out, tell him it isn’t so, when he remembers his papa, keening in that hole in the ground. The forests drained the words out of him. The forests drained his thinking too. He feels the dirt and foliage still tangled in his hair and wonders if it’s been doing the same to him all along.

  He nods, but even so he doesn’t take a step until he feels Mr Navitski’s hand gently touching his shoulder.

  An hour later, he sits beyond the forbidden staffroom doors, where none but the naughtiest or sickest child has ever come. Stripped to the waist, he stands on the tiles of a little kitchenette with a bowl of soapy water at his feet and another steaming on the counter. Mr Navitski lifts one of his arms and rubs at his ribs. Water as dirty as any stagnant pond dribbles down Mr Navitski’s arms, soiling his own shirt and polluting the bowl so that, every few minutes, it has to be changed.

  From the corner of the kitchenette, the headmistress watches keenly. Her hands are wrapped around a mug of some hot drink. The boy has one too, coffee spooned full of sugar, but its taste is far too strange and he leaves it unsipped on the counter.

  ‘Nikolai, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it myself.’

  Mr Navitski does not look up at the headmistress’s words. He simply carries on sponging the boy’s mottled skin.

  ‘How long has it been, now?’

  ‘Longer than a year since you were last in a lesson, isn’t it, Alek?’

  The boy nods, but cautiously so, careful not to betray any secret.

  ‘And there he was, just sitting in class?’

  ‘I wasn’t sitting!’

  Mr Navitski stops.

  ‘I hadn’t sat down yet. I didn’t know if it was still my seat.’

  Mr Navitski’s face erupts in the most wonderful smile the boy thinks he has ever seen.

  ‘It’s still your seat, Alek.’

  As Mr Navitski continues to scrub him, finally returning to the dreaded task of untangling his hair, the headmistress comes and goes. Each time she returns, she leads Mr Navitski out of the kitchenette to share whispers on the other side of the staffroom. Once, another teacher wanders in, peeks her head around the door, and then retreats, shaking her head in a strange mingling of sadness and wonder.

  Mr Navitski puts down the soapy rag and drapes a towel around the boy’s shoulders. ‘There you are. Good as new.’

  ‘Isn’t it time for lessons?’

  ‘Soon, Alek.’

  Mr Navitski stands. ‘Alek, I’m going to leave you here now. I’ll be back very soon. Do you understand?’

  There it is again: now, it isn’t enough to say a thing; you have to ask if it’s understood as well.

  Mr Navitski pushes him gently into the staffroom proper, where big armchairs are lined around the walls, and a table in the middle is piled up with magazines. There is a fresh towel on a chair. There are shoes too, battered brown slipper things that get handed out if a boy’s been kicking and has to have his own boots taken away. Mr Navitski helps him to climb into them.

  ‘You can read any of the books while I’m gone. But why don’t you just have a rest?’

  There is a big blanket, and the boy sinks into it. Though it hugs him close, it has a scratching texture, not like the needles of a pine or an eiderdown thick with dirt.

  Mr Navitski returns to the kitchenette, gathers up the pile of clothes he used to wear and winces as he ties them in a bag. Then he strides across the staffroom, flicking a smile over his shoulder as he reaches the door. ‘Be good,’ he grins.

  He disappears. The boy’s keen ears pick out the scrape of a key in the lock. He hurries over, tries the handle. It is locked fast and, when he presses his eye to the keyhole, all he sees is Mr Navitski striding away.

  For a fleeting moment, panic holds him. There is still a chance Elenya could tell it all. He hurtles to the window, if only to catch a glimpse of the outside, but condensation fogs the glass and all he sees are sweeping blacks and greys, the schoolyard and the street beyond. Traffic hums. He searches for a way to force the window open, but no sooner has he found the latch than the panic leaves him. He can feel the heat throbbing out of an old oil radiator, still smell the dregs of the coffee. He sinks down into the big woollen blanket.

  ‘Just like mama’s shawl,’ he mumbles. He wonders what happened to it. Maybe his papa still has it tied around his leg, the skin healing over it to fuse one to the other. He remembers what Mr Navitski said: the tenement is still there, boarded up. Waiting, he thinks. The tenement is waiting for me. There’ll still be mama’s picture in the frame. There’ll still be mama’s hair on the pillow.

  Some of his warmth has bled into the blanket now. It hugs him tight. These new clothes feel as peculiar as a new skin might, but the longer he wears them, the softer they feel. They are, he decides, just like the wilderness itself. You get used to anything in the end.

  He puts his head down, only for a second, and closes his eyes.

  ‘Wake up.’

  Some derelict city street, shop-fronts boarded up and walls caved in. Between every stone sprouts a sapling. In places, roots cascade out of a crack, or burst up like a rupturing volcano. Ivies cling to the brickwork, the blacktops.

  In this wild city he stands alone. He has been running. He clings to a trunk, but the trunk is too slight to hide him and, instead, he has to spread his arms and legs into a mockery o
f branches, a foolish trick that will not last long. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees shadows darting.

  ‘Wake up! Please, boy, wake up and …’

  The voice halloos him from far above. He gazes up, along the edges of towers rimed in dark moss, but sees only a pale grey sky.

  ‘Here!’

  This time the voice drags his eyes to the face of a ruptured building, four storeys up. It seems that trees have been growing inside, for where the brickwork has collapsed there is the face of a thicket. Inside are open floorboards, around which roots cling like coiled rope. Trees have grown high into the ceiling and through into the rooms above, and others have exploded, opening clear gashes in the tower’s face.

  In that gash, half-shrouded in falling leaves, stands his mama.

  ‘Little one!’

  He is about to break cover and run to her when her hands flail at him, driving him back.

  ‘Mama?’

  ‘Stay where you are,’ she says, her voice a whisper even though it reaches him across the divide. ‘Keep your head down.’

  ‘Mama, I want to …’

  ‘No, little one!’

  ‘I want to come to you, mama.’

  He takes flight. It doesn’t matter what she says, doesn’t matter what she wants. It’s been too long. He breaks free from the tree that hides him and, as he pounds across the reclaimed street, he sees the shadow dart after him. With one final effort, he flings himself at the face of the building, scrambles through a door and hurls it shut behind him. Slumped against it, he feels somebody crashing into the wood. It shudders, bucks against him, but somehow he holds it fast.

  When he is certain the figure has gone, he stands and looks around. The innards of this building are as corrupted as the street. From the floorboards a carpet of briars has risen. Along the briars grow roses. Fronds of bracken grow from the rails of a ruined staircase. Nettles and thistles abound.

  The boy picks his way through the brambles, parting the curtain of ferns to climb the stair. The steps, here, are not as crumbled as he imagines, and soon he is bold enough to take three at a time. He emerges into another storey, where the floor has been eaten away and a lattice of roots grows between the floorboards. He goes up, and up, and up again.

  At last, he reaches the storey with the ruptured face, so far up that he can see across the city: down into streets reclaimed by wild; the schoolyard, a pasture of cattails and reeds. In the heart of the misshapen grove, there stands mama. It must be cold, for she is holding herself. Gusts of wind set ripples flowing across the nightdress she wears.

  He crosses briar and rose to find her.

  She gathers him up. Her face touches his. Her lips on his cheek.

  ‘What is it, mama? What’s wrong?’

  ‘You shouldn’t have come. You should have stayed where you were. You should have woken up already.’

  ‘Mama, this looks like the tenement.’

  ‘I know, little one.’

  ‘How did the woods get in the tenement?’

  Mama’s voice, immeasurably sad: ‘Little one, you brought them with you …’

  Down in the street below, there is a strange keening.

  ‘Papa hasn’t been looking after me at all, has he, mama?’

  Mama has a look about her, at once sad and admonishing. She whispers, ‘And you haven’t been looking after him.’

  The boy draws back, but not far enough to tumble out of mama’s arms. ‘Mama?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but you haven’t. You made a promise. That you were to love him and care for him, for all of his days …’

  ‘He turned wild, and I didn’t know how …’

  ‘He needed you, like you needed him.’

  ‘It was the trees, mama. First, they wouldn’t let him leave the woods. Then they drank him all up.’

  ‘Come with me, little one.’

  She bears him, still in her arms, to the precipice, where wind plays on the ruined walls. With her face pressed against his, they lean into the rushing air. It is a long way down. Even the tops of the trees are far, far away. The boy feels them, lurching in and out of focus.

  Between those trees there moves a thing of shadow.

  ‘Look at him.’

  ‘What is he, mama?’

  ‘It’s your papa.’

  ‘And, mama, what’s he doing …’

  ‘He wants to come into the building. I’ve been keeping him out, but I can’t do it anymore. You see, he doesn’t need the trees, not now. He brings the forest with him.’

  She stops, swallows a sob. ‘Little one, you have to wake up. Wake up and run. Out of the school, as far as you can …’

  ‘Why, mama?’

  ‘Well, because he’s …’

  The boy feels himself torn from mama’s arms. He whirls through the air, crashes back down. His eyes snap open and he finds himself staring into the face of Mr Navitski. The headmistress hovers behind.

  He scrambles up, realizes he is entangled in the blanket. He wants to fight it off, squirm out of it like smothering arms, but Mr Navitski is holding him. His face is creased in deep consternation.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘You were sleeping. Alek, you were babbling …’

  The boy calms.

  ‘Alek, can you hear me?’

  The boy nods.

  ‘I’m thirsty.’

  Mr Navitski nods at the headmistress, who disappears inside the kitchenette. Moments later, she reappears with a beaker full of water.

  Mr Navitski presses it to the boy’s lips. ‘Is that better?’

  It dribbles down his chin, but it soothes his throat all the same.

  ‘Alek, you were dreaming. Thrashing around. Do you remember?’

  He could not forget. He takes another pull at the water, softly nods.

  ‘Well, Alek,’ Mr Navitski begins. ‘What did it mean?’

  ‘What did what mean?’

  ‘You were saying it, over and over. Shouting it, Alek.’

  The water has cut a cold channel all the way down his throat; now it chills all of his insides.

  ‘What did I say, Mr Navitski?’

  Mr Navitski stands. ‘It was the strangest thing. You were … rolling, and your fingers were grasping, your legs were kicking … And you kept saying it, over and over.’ Mr Navitski’s eyes drift to the watching headmistress, and then back to find the boy. ‘He’s coming out of the woods, Alek. You kept saying: he’s coming out of the woods.’

  The woods. The trail. A car long ago abandoned, marked by an axe.

  He drags himself beneath the oaks, scoring a trench into the frozen earth.

  Then: a ribbon of black road, curling into the winter dark.

  A lone motorcar gutters past, its driver bawling incomprehensible words out of the window, fist pumping to threaten the old man.

  The wild man bawls something back. Famished rooks in the trees, and the glaring eyes of some road-killed lynx.

  One foot, and one foot trailing useless behind. He puts forward his staff and starts to walk.

  When the bell rings for midday, the boy is still in the staffroom. In the schoolyard the snow falls with dogged persistence, too blinding for boys and girls to be dispatched outside for games. Instead, they must lounge in classrooms, in assembly halls, in libraries and whatever other nooks and crannies they can find. In the staffroom, the teachers complain as bitterly as the children.

  When the room has almost emptied, Mr Navitski crouches by his side. ‘Alek, there’s somebody who’ll come and see you this afternoon.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘It’s a man from … the police. Missing people.’

  ‘But I’m not missing,’ the boy whispers. ‘I’m right here.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Alek. It was me who reported you missing. After you stopped coming to school, I …’

  ‘I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘I didn’t know what else to do, Alek. They’ll only want to ask you some questions. They’ll want to know what happened to you and your papa. I
s he still alive, Alek?’

  When the boy will not reply, Mr Navitski goes on. ‘I’ve asked if you can stay with me for the night.’

  The boy twists away, feeling suddenly treacherous in his new clothes. He did not mean to come to the city forever. He meant only to come, stop Elenya, and scuttle back into thorn. In the wilderness, there is a fire that will need building. There is an old man who lies down in the snow, who needs the pine branches and eiderdown piling on top so that the forests do not take him during the night.

  Mr Navitski tries to take his hand, but to the boy it seems some kind of betrayal, so he curls his fist and climbs to his feet without needing to be told.

  In the classroom, the children are rebellious, waiting for Mr Navitski to return. When he appears, they quit their games of upturned chairs and balled-up paper. Mr Navitski guides the boy to his seat at the back, where Yuri considers him with bewildered eyes. When the boy finally sits, Yuri delicately picks up a pencil from the corner of the table and slides it over. The boy takes it in a fist, uncertain how to handle it.

  Yuri directs him with a nod, his face opening in a beatific smile. ‘Are you coming to play after school?’ he asks, as if a whole year hasn’t vanished between them.

  At the front of the class, Mr Navitski begins. This afternoon: not stories, nor sums, but a problem instead. He draws on the blackboard, explaining about mountaineers trapped on a mountain and the time it takes to reach them, but the boy feels lost, in a haze. His eyes pick out the faces of the other children. At last, they settle on Elenya, on the far side of the classroom. Intermittently, she rocks back on the legs of her chair, balances there and beams. A fountain pen dangles out of the corner of her mouth. More than once, it drops and skitters across the ground, only to be recovered by some other boy whose eyes dote on her.

  ‘Elenya!’ Mr Navitski calls out. ‘What do you think?’

  The chair almost slips from underneath her. ‘About what, sir?’

  ‘Were you listening at all, Elenya?’

  ‘Sir, I was …’

  Mr Navitski’s sigh is a perfect imitation of her father. ‘Pay attention next time …’

  As Mr Navitski moves on to the next problem, summoning answers from all the other children, Elenya returns to her rocking. This time she takes the game too far; the back legs slide out, and she crashes down in a cacophony of arms and legs. Around her, the other children shriek. Down on the ground, Elenya too is beaming. It is her trick, it seems, to be the centre of attention.