Among You Secret Children

by Jeff Kamen

  What else could pull the tracks away, but the beast itself …?

  ‘Can’t move it,’ Karl cries exhaustedly, and Jakub says to her, ‘Fuck’s sake it’s going to be here in a minute. What’s the plan? Are we leaving? What about the girls?’

  ‘Come,’ she says, beckoning. ‘All of you. I want you to listen.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said come here!’

  They climb down to her. Wiping her face, she says, ‘We can’t do it by hand. We can’t do it.’

  ‘Jaala,’ Laszló pleads, ‘it’s coming.’

  ‘Shut up! Just listen. I’ve had an idea. But you have to be careful. I’m going to climb onto the vehicle and take its chains. I’m going to throw them down to you.’

  ‘What the fuck you talkin about?’

  ‘LISTEN TO ME! It always slows before it crosses the gap. I’m going to climb onto the front. I’ll drop down some chains and I want you to secure them however you can. Like you would ropes. Do it while it’s going over, make sure they can’t get away.’

  ‘So what? Why d’you want to do that?’

  ‘Karl. Shut it.’

  ‘When it’s across, I want you to go. Forget the pulleys, just go. It ought to stop moving straight away. When it does, I’ll get to the fuel while it’s vulnerable. Get a message to Pétar somehow and tell him to fire the oil down on the vehicle, not the guards. Trust me, we can still get them. Just secure the chains as it passes, then get away. Do you understand?’

  She searches them with eyes like the blackest of fires, and they nod at her. Moments later she is collecting her weapons. She climbs swiftly along the underbed to speak with Radjík and Tanya. Strange visions are colliding in her head, the noise of the falls feeling like an advancing wall of fire. Far below, she sees the long black river venting clouds of steam. She climbs and swings and the noise from the tunnel as she approaches it is a vortex of shrieks and cries and the sounds of people dying and the clatter of weapons. Without hesitating, she cuts across and reaches Tanya on the southern side. She bellows up at her. Tanya turns in surprise and looks down, her solid features distorted with emotion. She takes between her teeth the arrow she’s just strung and climbs down, telling Jaala she’s running out of ammunition. Jaala tears off a hanging bundle and hands it to her as they meet. She tells Tanya the plan. She makes sure she understands it, then says, ‘I told you to use a rope. Where is it?’

  ‘If I fall, I fall, what good’s a rope?’

  ‘Just jump well clear,’ she says, and leaving Tanya to climb up again, she turns with her spear and crosses to the waterfall side. Here she leans out and sees Radjík near the top, ducking down as a rain of sparks explode off the unhinged railings. Radjík is about to climb away when she roars at her, and Radjík turns, startled. Her face is flushed and her eyes are glittering and wild. Above her, strung across the railings, are four corpses hanging in a row like charred scarecrows. The punishment to all for the wretched few’s escaping. There is a deep cut across Radjík’s cheek and the blood is trickling down as she yells back, ‘What? What d’you want?’

  Jaala climbs up and repeats her instructions, telling her that she and Tanya are to provide covering fire only until she reaches the vehicle. ‘After that you go,’ she says. ‘Got that? You don’t hang around.’

  Radjík says nothing, just nods.

  She looks into the girl’s face a moment, then leaves her.

  Chapter 51 — Cora

  He could hear her outside, through the open shutters. She was feeding the pigs again. The animals were moving around in the little orchard and she was cooing to them softly, lovingly, like a woman calling down birds.

  He lay there listening, his eyes wandering in fever, trying to lose himself in what he could hear: the swishing leaves, the squeals and grunts, anything to cope with the whitehot pain in his tubes. He tried to make out her words but she was speaking in her own language, and soon his mind began to crumble. He was fading fast when a thin scratchy voice called to his tormentor from the front. ‘Ah! Cora!’ the cracked voice said, and his eyes hatched open. Cora. Now he had a name. He raised himself from the pillows to find out more.

  The shutters were stiff and heavy. He unhooked them and pushed one out a little further and stretched to look for her, finding his captor talking to an old woman in a battered overcoat, both standing in the orchard.

  The visitor was speaking quickly and in such a state of excitement that Cora kept asking her to slow down, to repeat what she’d said. The old woman apologised, taking a small clay pipe from her mouth, but then immediately gabbled on again, shaking her head as she tried to explain herself, at times using violent thumping hand gestures to convey what he could only imagine to be terrible, atrocious deeds. As her voice rose he stood concentrating like a bloodhound, not liking one bit what he’d caught so far: soldats; reisen; a big ship on wheels. Judging by the way her scrawny hand was jabbing southwards, she was warning of coming danger. From what he could tell, the Ostgrenzers had somehow managed to install themselves in the nearby hills, and were preying on local people in search of human labour.

  He cursed the news, then cursed the woman who had cured him and yet would not listen to his pleas. Now, thanks to her, the Ostgrenzers were probably much stronger, a deathly presence growing like a chancre in the hills just a few short miles away. He remained listening, but heard little else he could make use of before the old woman called auf wiedersehen and stomped away, leaving the front gate to rattle in its posts. Before Cora could spot him, he drew the shutters together and dropped to the bed.

  He was scratching a mark on the wall with a nub of charcoal he’d found when he heard her coming. He hid the charcoal and the three shaky scratches he’d made and lay back with an innocent expression that he managed to maintain as she peered around the door. ‘Crossboy wakes,’ she said with a touch of suspicion, and entered. She went to the sidetable, where out of the corner of his eye he saw her inspecting the spitting bowl before surveying him, surveying the room. ‘Less blood,’ she said, nodding at the lightly speckled sheets, and he lay motionless, waiting to see what was coming.

  ‘I say less blood.’

  He nodded. She watched him. ‘It hurt, or not?’

  He inhaled gassily and held it, then nodded again.

  ‘More gljiva,’ she said, to which he responded with a furious shaking of the head. ‘No,’ he croaked, ‘please. No more today. It … it’s a little better.’

  She noted this with a dry little smile, then collected the tray and left the room, leaving the door open so that only a part of the chair in the corner was visible. She’d slung his goggles over the arm, his sole remaining possession as far as he knew. He thought about this, about the fact that she refused to discuss the matter. What was she planning for him? And why bother to mend his body if she despised him so much? She returned a minute later and went to the foot of the bed and parted his feet with rough slaps and unlocked him. As the cuff bit, he grimaced. She smiled. He thought she’d notice the scratches on the padlock where he’d tried to force it open, but she kept her eyes fixed on him all the while she was gathering up the chain. Then she motioned him to rise. He sat up coughing, pulling the sheets round himself to hide his nakedness. When he stood, he could see a few pinkish blots on the bed where she’d plucked out the pellets with tweezers, a sight he dwelt upon significantly before moving aside so that evidence of her cruelty was there for all to see; yet she seemed unmoved by it. All she said in acknowledgment was, ‘You back. You have little face there, no?’

  He snorted. ‘Face? What are you talking about?’

  ‘This mark. Red.’

  ‘I don’t have any mark. It-it was you. Your gun, remember?’

  ‘You eat in the kitchen,’ she said, ignoring him, ‘no more food in here,’ and prompted him to the door.

  For all his outrage it was hard not to enter the kitchen without feeling guilty, horribly so, and he found himself looking away as she sat him at the table. She positioned him with his
back to the fireplace, and he sat there coughing at the smoke, watching from beneath persecuted lids as she reconnected his chain and wound it round a table leg before locking it off. Then she went to the scullery and clanged about for a minute or two before returning with bowls of a thin gruel and a pot of tea. She set his bowl before him, his cup, then took a seat at the head of the table. On saying, ‘Eat,’ she tucked into her own portion heartily.

  It was like eating smouldering woodchips, but he knew he had to keep his strength up, and he forced it down. When his tea had cooled he forced this down too. After a while she pushed her bowl away and sat wiping the table with flicks of her apron. ‘You eat, yes?’ she said.

  He looked up, spoon in mouth. The obvious response was buzzing on his lips, but he knew better than that. Instead, he attempted a smile. Play it safe, he thought, get to know her weaknesses — then run. ‘Yes,’ he whispered.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now you work.’

  ‘Ah ... work?’

  ‘Yes. Work.’

  ‘But … but you know I can’t. You know it. I’m sick.’ He tried to smile again, winningly, painfully. ‘Look,’ he said, and wheezed so she could hear his chest complain. ‘Look what you did to me.’

  At this her mood altered. He saw a gleam in her eyes that he didn’t like, and was about to amend his words when she hissed, ‘You come here, no? What, you steal from my house.’

  ‘No, wait. Wait, it wasn’t like —’

  ‘Yes, steal. Steal from my house. What, I clean you. I do gljiva, now you breathe. You live, no?’

  ‘Yes, b-but it was you that shot me.’

  ‘You hit me, so I shoot you. This is normal.’

  ‘But ... but it was just a little food. I-I didn’t deserve —’

  ‘I say you work!’ she cried, bringing her fist down so hard the dishes clattered. There was a silence. Behind him the fire popped and hissed malevolently.

  ‘You work,’ she said, then rose and cleared the table.

  He watched her, wrapping his sheets about him. ‘What about my clothes?’ he croaked. ‘I can’t do anything without clothes.’

  ‘Wait,’ she muttered, and after washing the dishes she went upstairs, the floorboards creaking dully. She came down with a bundle of thick-looking woollen gear and slung it over her chair and motioned him to stand. When he was up, she unlocked him and handed him the bundle and told him to change in his room, warning that she’d soon be checking on him, ready or not. ‘You go out this window,’ she added, ‘see what happen.’

  ~O~

  The clothes felt hairy and rough on him but at least were warm, and didn’t seem to be a bad fit. ‘I’ve finished,’ he said, just before the door opened, and in looking down at his trousers, hands in pockets, he missed the momentary widening of her eyes as she assessed him.

  ‘Ah, are these okay?’ he said.

  She looked around the room as if something was missing. ‘You need shoe,’ she said abruptly, then bustled him out into the kitchen and locked him to the table while she went back upstairs. When she returned, he looked up accusingly from his chair. An unpleasant thought had struck him.

  ‘Whose clothes are they?’ he said, his voice cracking again. ‘Who wore them?’

  She came and stood before him, a thick hide shoe in each hand.

  ‘Are they from another one? Another prisoner? I-I have a right to know.’

  ‘Prisoner?’

  ‘Yes. A prisoner. Did … did you kill him?’

  She dropped the shoes at his feet. ‘He is dead, yes. Maybe you think about this. Think how you work for me.’

  So it was out in the open. He swallowed, looking down at the dead man’s shoes, well worn but equally well preserved. ‘Why?’ he croaked. ‘Why do you want to kill me? You saved me, remember?’

  ‘I save you to work, no?’

  ‘Is ... is that why?’

  ‘Maybe I kill you, maybe no. We see.’

  ‘I-I knew it. I knew you were like this.’

  ‘Pick them up.’

  He picked them up.

  ‘Remember, you thief, not prisoner,’ she added, and stood over him until he’d put them on.

  She outlined his tasks for him while he tied his laces: the pigs needed feeding at various times of day, the quantities dependent on what food was available. She explained that they rarely went out when it was raining, and that when they did, they ate the windfalls around the trees, thereby lessening the need for kitchen slops, or for the grain kept in the room adjacent to his own. Feigning ignorance of the storeroom, he nodded blankly. There was wood to chop: she would show him how to avoid cutting himself or blistering his hands. She went on, folding a coarse bag on which was written ČAJ in bold handwriting. There was gardening to do, weeding, pruning, hoeing; also, beneath the wall where the waste from the latrine and from the pens drained away, there was a pit that needed dredging. The latrine in the back garden needed scrubbing out, as did the pighouse. Water was to be fetched from the barrel in the orchard, where the runoff from the roof guttering was stored ...

  As she droned on, he sat listening with deepening unease. Whilst dressing, he’d begun to resign himself to his punishment, thinking that perhaps a day or two of hard labour might not be so bad for him, and would be a fair punishment for what he’d done; but now he saw before him a daily ritual of chores that had no end. He coughed feebly, noticing her gaze upon him. It seemed she’d finished. ‘That, ah, seems a lot,’ he said. ‘Is ... is there anything else?’

  ‘Da.’

  Sweeping crumbs into her hand, she went to the front door and opened it and flung the bits out into the garden. Outside it was grey, a few spits of rain coming down. She left the door open as she turned to face him. ‘Crvi,’ she said, as a few dead leaves gusted inside.

  ‘Crv…?’

  ‘Crvi,’ she repeated, then added uncertainly, ‘mers ... mer ... merm.’

  ‘Mer … merm? What’s that?’

  She searched for the word, wriggling a finger, her eyes engaging his with a clear warning to prevent her from having to continue.

  He stared at her. ‘I-I don’t understand.’

  ‘Merm,’ she said, sighing in frustration. ‘This little things.’

  ‘Little … merm?’

  Her gaze hardened.

  ‘But ... I don’t know,’ he croaked. ‘Is it ... is it a worm?’

  ‘Da,’ she said, nodding, ‘worm, yes. In the garden. The back there.’

  ‘Worms? What about them?’

  ‘You see,’ she said, and indicated it was time to go outside.

  ~O~

  The first thing she did was chain him to a ringbolt in the front wall. Then she went to the chopping block, pointing to where he was to stand and wait. She went inside the house, then returned shortly afterwards, carrying an axe with the head resting on her shoulder, wearing a dry, curious expression that disturbed him deeply.

  She stood at his side and wiped the heavy blade with a cloth before inviting him to take the haft. He saw her dead, headless, a shuddering bleeding wreckage. He began trembling, and as he wrapped his fingers around the wood he felt it become immovable, and realised she was still gripping it; that she was looking into his eyes. Searching him, asking terrible questions of him that he was not able to truthfully answer. The wind blew the wispy hair from her brow and she narrowed her eyes against the rain. On meeting her gaze he felt himself weakening, acquiescing, then he looked down wretchedly. ‘If you don’t trust me,’ he whispered, ‘then … don’t give it to me.’

  She continued to look at him, unsure, retaining her grip. Then she pulled the axe away. ‘You do these pig,’ she said, and he nodded in shame.

  He was the first one into the orchard, and on entering it he looked around hesitantly until she ushered him on again, prompting him past a pile of logs stacked beneath a dirty canvas sheet. He’d seen the pigs enough times by now to consider them somewhat harmless, but as soon as their squealing began, a cold fear worked in him that slowed him to a halt.
He hung back under the orchard trees, feigning a cough, telling her he thought he could feel blood in his lungs. She stopped too, but instead of offering to nurse him, bring him a drink, she simply crossed her arms, informing him that the exercise he’d get that day was just what he needed to clear his chest. Nodding as if in agreement, he thought he’d try one more ploy before she lost patience.

  ‘Ah ... Cora?’ he said, and forced a smile.

  ‘You know my name? How?’

  ‘Oh, I ... I just heard it. It’s a nice name. It, ah, it suits you.’

  She regarded him stormily.

  ‘Look, I ... I don’t know what you want, but I’m not lying. About what I said. There’s lives at risk. Thousands. And, ah ... these people, the Ostgrenzers ... they won’t stop, not for anything. You see, I ... I cut off their fuel. Their water. If I’m captured, they won’t think twice before murdering me, so ... so if you want me dead, just keep me here. Ah, like this.’

  ‘You listen Eva,’ she said, turning to study his window as if she’d not taken in a word he’d said. ‘Maybe I do something, no? Maybe put you upstair. Maybe ...’ She looked down at his feet. ‘Yes, maybe no more shoe. No clothes. No food. You want this?’

  ‘No, of course I don’t, I want you to —’

  ‘You want?’

  ‘No,’ he wheezed, ‘no, I don’t.’

  ‘Good,’ she said, and prompted him on again.

  As they passed through the second gate, entering the rear garden, she appeared to be trying to calm herself, and speaking with less of an edge in her voice, she explained that at certain times of year the pigs were allowed to roam freely around the back area, although not when she had new plants growing out the front, since they tended to run round and eat them.

  They came before the outhouse, where hoofmarks studded the ground, Cora gesturing here and there as she spoke. Deciding it was better to keep her in this mood, he asked a few polite questions about the creatures, then with more genuine interest asked how long the orchard had been there, about the fruit she grew. She seemed happy to answer him at first, going into detail about several matters, but as his questions multiplied, so her manner altered again, until finally, with her glances towards him cooling rapidly, she broke off by pointing to the wooden latrine, and sent him off to use it while she waited.