Child Thief

by Dan Smith

  ‘Hardly enough,’ Viktor said.

  ‘Maybe.’ Petro nodded. ‘But it survived. It’s well hidden.’

  ‘It’s different now,’ Aleksandra said. ‘The communists are different. They want everything.’

  ‘But if they can’t find it …’

  ‘You think they won’t find it?’ Aleksandra said. ‘You think someone won’t tell them?’

  ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘Why would a woman denounce her own husband?’

  ‘What?’

  Aleksandra shook her head at Petro’s naivety. ‘A woman in Uroz gave up her own husband because they threatened her children. So she gave him up. Denounced him like a criminal. And you know what they did? They arrested them all. Him they executed. She was taken away with the children.’

  ‘Taken where?’

  ‘Who knows?’

  ‘Siberia maybe,’ Viktor said. ‘Or the White Sea. Papa said there are prisons up there.’

  ‘Labour camps,’ I told him. ‘They don’t call them prisons.’ I spoke to Petro: ‘They will find it – Aleksandra is right. Perhaps they’re in our village now, as we sit here.’

  Petro looked at me with alarm. ‘Now?’ And he saw our dilemma. While we were scouring the countryside for Dariya, his own mother and sister had been left to fend for themselves in the shadow of an approaching danger.

  ‘We have to get back,’ he said.

  ‘Get back?’ Aleksandra looked confused.

  ‘We will, as soon as we can,’ I said. ‘We need to find Dariya and we need to get home.’

  ‘And then? What can we do?’ Petro asked.

  ‘You mean about the communists taking our belongings?’ I said. ‘Nothing. There’s nothing we can do. In the end they’ll take what they want.’

  ‘Who’s Dariya?’ asked Aleksandra. ‘What’s going on here? Why are you talking about going back? I thought you were running away. I thought you were afraid and trying to escape the communists.’ She looked around at each one of us, not understanding. ‘But you’re looking for someone?’

  Petro turned to me and I thought for a moment before nodding. ‘All right. Tell her.’

  ‘A girl was kidnapped from Vyriv,’ Petro said. ‘My cousin. We’ve been following the trail since yesterday.’

  ‘Kidnapped?’

  ‘There have been others too,’ Viktor said. ‘Two dead children brought into the village. One of them butchered as if—’

  ‘Enough,’ I stopped him.

  ‘—to eat her.’

  ‘That’s enough.’

  ‘I want her to know. I want her to know why I killed that man.’

  ‘Not because you thought he was a communist?’ Aleksandra asked.

  ‘No.’ Viktor rubbed a hand across his mouth. ‘I was afraid he was the one we’ve been following. This man, he’s … he’s like a ghost.’

  ‘A ghost?’

  ‘He’s there and then he isn’t,’ Viktor said. ‘Shooting at us from the shadows, watching us at night.’

  ‘He’s just a man,’ I said.

  ‘A man who eats people.’

  ‘Maybe that’s not what he does.’ I watched Aleksandra for a reaction, wondering what she would make of this. ‘Maybe he cuts them for another reason.’

  ‘But people have done it before,’ Aleksandra said. ‘I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘We don’t know it for sure,’ I told her. ‘And it doesn’t make any difference. He’s just a man who’s taken my niece. We’ll find her and we’ll bring her back.’

  ‘You really think we can, Papa?’

  ‘Of course we can, Viktor.’

  ‘And you thought Roman was this man?’ Aleksandra asked.

  ‘I was … I thought …’ Viktor looked at the ground. ‘I made a mistake.’

  ‘You weren’t to know,’ I told him. ‘You saw a man; it could have been any man. I would have done the same thing.’

  We fell silent, all of us staring into the flames of the small fire.

  ‘Roman was old,’ Aleksandra said. ‘I think he may be better off now anyway.’

  We crossed the steppe like wild animals, scanning, watching for movement, stopping to listen. For a while we saw nothing but trees and shadow. The sky had darkened again and the snow began to fall in thick wet flakes, obstructing our vision and filling the tracks we followed. We increased our pace as much as we could, trying to keep up with the trail before it was swept away, but we were wary of what lay before us, and we were able to see only a few metres ahead.

  ‘We’ll lose the tracks,’ Viktor said.

  ‘We’ll keep going,’ I told him.

  And then I saw the child thief’s second gift and I wondered about the man who’d been hanged in our village – about him not being alone when he first set out to find his children. Perhaps the child thief had taken them one by one, taunting them, tempting them, murdering them. I imagined others lying out there in the ice, their lives gone.

  The first gift had been a bloodstain on the land. A violent streak of crimson that might have been drained from Dariya’s small body or from the carcass of a trapped animal. It had been both a gift and a trick, a means to draw us into his sights so he could kill the first of us.

  The second gift was much worse. It was so much more than a stain on the snow. There was no doubt what kind of animal this trophy had come from.

  The child thief knew we would be following his tracks. He had made it easy for us, so he knew we’d come this way, passing through this part of the forest, and he had chosen the perfect place for his display.

  We came to a stretch which formed a natural path among the barren trees. An open space of perhaps fifty metres, like a scar in the forest, where nothing grew. The disappearing tracks led directly through this area, along the centre of it, the two sets of prints which I was certain belonged to our quarry and, I hoped, to Dariya.

  Towards the end of the scar, where the trees closed ranks once more, a single branch stretched across the natural pathway at head height. And, from the centre of the branch, something hung. A dark shape that may have been a fallen nest, its broken pieces dangling like tendrils from the nucleus of the construction. Or perhaps it was a bird, its body caught on the branch, its wings dropping, the feathers splayed out.

  I stopped.

  ‘What is it?’ Petro looked up. He had been walking with his head down for a while now, too tired to lift it.

  ‘Get into the trees.’ I hurried them into cover, moving so there were thick trunks between us and the object. From there we looked again.

  ‘Is it an animal?’ Viktor asked.

  I shook my head and slipped my rifle from my shoulder.

  I pulled the stock tight to me and looked through the scope at the dark shape, but still couldn’t be sure what I was looking at. The light was all wrong. The object was in shadow and I could see nothing more than its shape.

  ‘It’s hard to tell,’ I said. ‘Could be animal fur. A bird. Maybe just twigs and leaves. I’ll have to get closer.’

  Petro put his hand on my arm.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘You and Viktor watch carefully.’ I glanced at Viktor. ‘You’re all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Petro released my arm and unslung his rifle.

  Viktor did the same, and the vacant look that had been in his eyes had disappeared. He had something concrete to occupy his thoughts now. Something to take his mind from what he had done. ‘I’ll go,’ he said.

  ‘I need you to watch. From that side.’ I pointed. ‘Aleksandra, stay with him.’

  ‘Let me go. You watch,’ Viktor said.

  ‘You’re not ready.’

  Viktor closed his eyes tight, knowing there was no point in arguing, then he sighed and went to the place I had indicated, crouching and steadying his rifle.

  ‘You on this side,’ I told Petro. ‘And don’t take your eyes off the forest. This might be another trap.’

  When they were in position, I made my way towards the o
bject, scanning the forest ahead, looking for anything out of the ordinary. If the child thief was out there, he would be stationary. He would have chosen the perfect place and he would be prepared, so I stayed in cover, kept to the shadow, and moved to a protected spot beside the tree with the protruding branch.

  From there I could see blood on the ground directly beneath the hanging object. There was a great deal of it, and I was sure it had been spilled right there. It had been warm when it touched the crust of the snow, had sunk into it, the body heat melting the surface ice. Much of the snow here was flattened, something we hadn’t noticed from where we were standing before, and I could see that while two sets of tracks led to this spot – a man’s and a child’s – only one set led away from it. Only one person had walked away from this carnage.

  I was almost afraid to look up at the branch, but I forced myself to raise my eyes from the blood and see the horrible tangle that drooped from this naked tree.

  And now, from this close, I knew exactly what it was. The matted hair, clumped together with frozen blood, the underside of the skin glistening as if still wet. I turned away from the child’s scalp and put my back against the ragged tree, sliding down it until I was sitting in the snow. I put my hands over my face and blamed myself for being too slow. I had failed in my promise to Lara. I had taken too long. I was too late. I was no longer looking to rescue a child. Now I was searching only for justice and revenge.

  18

  ‘Maybe it’s not Dariya,’ Petro said. ‘Maybe it’s …’

  ‘Who else would it be?’ I asked. The others had joined me as soon as they saw me fall back against the tree. They knew right away something was wrong and they came across, keeping in the cover of the trees.

  They had each stared at the clump of hair and flesh that hung from the twisted branch, but now all their heads were turned away.

  Petro’s face was pale. He was scared and concerned in equal measure. He was wondering, once again, if there was something he could have done to stop this from happening.

  ‘Could anybody survive a thing like that?’ Aleksandra asked.

  ‘It’s possible,’ I said. ‘It’s just skin and hair.’ It sounded dismissive – as if I was suggesting that scalping a child was nothing. An irritation. ‘But all that blood.’ I put a hand to my mouth and saw Dariya’s face in my mind. I saw her small round face, her dark eyes and her white skin. I saw her standing at my door, looking up at me, smiling, asking if Lara was allowed to come out, and I heard myself teasing her, telling her Lara still had work to do – there were chickens to feed, a harvest to take in – and Lara was behind me, calling me Papa, telling me not to joke.

  I went to the tracks leading away and took off a glove, putting my finger into one of the prints. ‘He was carrying her when he walked away,’ I said.

  ‘Alive?’ Petro asked.

  ‘There’s no way of knowing.’

  ‘So what are you going to do now?’ Aleksandra asked.

  I took one of the two last cigarettes from the packet and put it between my lips. I lit it with a match and sucked the smoke deep. ‘Keep going,’ I said, looking at the boys. ‘I’m going to find this man and I’m going to kill him.’ And I knew I wanted it more than ever now. Never had I wanted to take a life as much as I wanted it now. Until this moment I had been intent on finding Dariya, and the fate of the child thief was always secondary, but now I wanted him dead. I wanted to see his life fade. I wanted him to look into my eyes as his own glazed over and became dry.

  ‘Maybe it’s time to go back,’ Petro said. ‘Maybe it’s time to go back to Mama and Lara. I want to find Dariya, but I’m worried about Mama. And if Dariya’s already …’ He took a deep breath. ‘Maybe we should go back to them.’

  ‘They’re fine,’ I told him. ‘They’re strong.’

  ‘The Bolsheviks might be there already. In our village. Taking our—’

  ‘They won’t do anything to your mother or Lara. It’s the men they want. It’s our belongings and it’s the men.’

  Petro looked at Aleksandra, who stared at him for a moment and then turned away. Her mouth was tight, her lips pressed together, her hair falling about her face. She knew different. We all did.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Petro said. ‘I just can’t help feeling we should go back. I want to keep looking but …’

  A part of me wanted to listen to him. I wanted to go back and be with my family, to protect them from the oncoming storm, but the truth was that there was little I could do to protect them from the Bolsheviks. When the party officials and the OGPU and the Red Army were upon Vyriv, there would be nothing anyone could do other than cooperate with them. They could have our chickens and they could have our field and they could have our grain and what few potatoes were left in the cellar. Natalia and Lara were no threat to them, but they might think I was. A veteran of the Imperial Army. A former Red Army soldier who defected because he grew to despise an army that treated its soldiers with disdain, executed young soldiers who were afraid to fight, dragged men from their homes to fill their ranks. If they came to Vyriv and they found out who I was, they would take me out in the night and they would shoot me. They would murder my family as counter-revolutionaries.

  ‘Maybe we should go back,’ Petro said again. ‘There’s no point if she’s already gone.’

  ‘No. We should follow him.’ Viktor spoke now, and I could see myself in my son’s eyes. He felt what I felt. He felt the rage and violent necessity for retribution. For Viktor this was a direction for his feelings, something to obliterate what he’d done back on the road. It was his nature to deal with it this way. ‘Papa’s right. Mama and Lara will be fine.’

  ‘And if someone denounces them?’ Petro said. ‘What then?’

  Standing out there in the wilderness and the cold, my heart faltered and it was my turn to look at Aleksandra. I knew Petro was right. There was nothing to stop one of the other villagers from denouncing them in order to make themselves look more loyal. Aleksandra had already made that clear. In their delusion, they would try to deflect the horror onto others rather than accept it upon themselves. The truth was that we would all suffer, and in the years to come millions would lie dead in the streets with their bones pushing through paper-thin flesh and their eyes bulging in their skulls. But human instinct is to survive, and if someone in our village saw a way of making their own situation less severe, there was a strong chance they would use my history to save themselves.

  I looked back at the way we had come. Then I looked forward at the single track leading away. Ahead, the child thief was increasing his lead. Behind, there might be soldiers already following our trail, searching for Aleksandra. And, further back, our village hid in the dip of the valley, trembling at the approaching terror. I could see no right decision. There were too many possibilities and too few certainties.

  Viktor and Petro waited, but I didn’t know what to say. For the first time since we had left, I didn’t know what was the best thing to do. I had made a promise to Lara that I would return with her cousin, but the blood and the scalp suggested I had failed in that already.

  It was Aleksandra who gave me the answer. ‘You said she could survive this.’

  I tried not to look at the scalp. ‘I said it’s possible, but …’ I blew my breath out, puffing my cheeks and shaking my head.

  ‘Then maybe you should give her a chance,’ Aleksandra said. ‘You have friends in your village?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And your wife is with your daughter.’

  I could see what she was saying. She was weighing the options, trying to find who needed me most right now.

  ‘But this girl … she has no one. She is just a girl, alone. With a killer.’

  I took the last drag of the cigarette and dropped it into the snow.

  ‘Maybe we should separate,’ said Petro. ‘I’ll go back to—’

  ‘No. That’s the thing we should not do,’ I said. ‘Not now. You’d never get back alone.’

/>   I could see Petro was about to protest. I’d seen the expression enough times to know what was in his head. ‘I trust you, Petro. It’s not that. I know you’re strong and I know you’re capable. You’ve proved that. You can hunt, build a shelter, keep warm, but it’s a mistake to go alone. We should stay together.’ I gestured at the forest behind us. ‘There might be soldiers out there searching for Aleksandra. Or maybe this man we’re hunting wants us to split up, so he can pick us off alone.’ I looked my son in the eye. ‘If we separate, we can’t take care of each other.’ I felt as if we were being led, drawn into the child thief’s trap, but I saw no alternative other than to press on. And it troubled me that, while we discussed our options, the child thief had left his trail, knowing before we knew ourselves that we would follow. There was no choice.

  ‘I’m afraid for Mama,’ Petro said.

  ‘So am I. But I’m afraid for Dariya too. If she’s still alive, then she’s alone and afraid and hurt. We have to keep after her until we know for sure.’

  ‘For how long?’ There was relief in his expression. He had voiced his concern, but the decision was out of his hands. I had chosen to go on and I had told him to follow. He wanted to find Dariya, appease his guilt for what had happened to her, and he had spoken aloud his worries about his mother. I had made the difficult choice for them, and the decision had been prompted by Aleksandra, the only one of us who had any objectivity.

  ‘We’ll keep going until nightfall,’ I said. ‘After that, we’ll rethink if necessary.’

  So we walked in silence again. Petro to my left, the faint remainder of the child thief’s lonely tracks to my right. And behind, Viktor and Aleksandra kept up, all of us forging through the snow until we came to the edge of the forest, opening onto another clear area. But this was not like the fields we had come across before. Here the ground was rocky and undulating. And unlike the flat fields of fertile black soil where Dimitri had been shot, this area was on a steeper incline.