Among You Secret Children

by Jeff Kamen

  Upon his return, his face pale and his mouth set in an apprehensive line, she held up a pair of birch switches. He looked despondently from her to the low slate-roofed pighouse, from whose slitted windows there came a barbaric array of smells and noises. ‘I-I don’t understand,’ he said, taking one of the sticks from her. ‘Ah, if you had a run here, you wouldn’t need to do this.’

  ‘Run?’

  ‘You know, a fence.’ He made a side to side motion, indicating a barrier from the back wall to the corner of the house. ‘Right across here. Ah, to stop them running off.’

  She smiled gratefully. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You make this fence.’

  He stood with his mouth gripped tightly shut as she explained that she had enough to do already, that her daughter had her own life to lead now, and couldn’t take the time to help. Looking away, she added that she didn’t think a great deal of the husband, but what could she do? She shrugged. ‘But they are happy,’ she said, and with a bleak smile indicated they should make a start.

  The stick she’d given him was solid but very flexible and he could just imagine the sting of its lash. As the squealing mounted to a frenzy, he swished it a couple of times, dreading the task ahead of him. He looked with a kind of crazed hope along the top of the wall, thinking of the long drop to the other side and wondering if it might yet be worth the risk. He thought if he could run without injury, it might not matter if she came after him with the blunderbuss, then as he turned back to her, all such thoughts dissolved as he noticed the cautious expression returning.

  She seemed to have been following his thoughts well, for with a cold smile she said, ‘You run, you lungs hurting, no? Maybe you fast. Maybe faster than me.’

  ‘What?’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes, very fast, then slow. So slow. You have no gljiva. Then blood in you mouth, only blood. Remember this.’

  With that, still smiling, she took up his chain and pulled him across to a ringbolt in the back wall of the house and attached him to it. A small rush of anger went to his cheeks. She seemed to be mocking him, taunting him for his inferior strength, and his anger soon turned to words as she tugged at him again, then shooed him towards the pighouse.

  ‘You can’t do this,’ he said, ‘y-you can’t treat me like this,’ and he tugged the chain back from her, edging away as she raised her stick and came striding towards him. He retreated hastily, swishing his own stick left and right to protect himself, but she was ready for him. With a sudden lunge she snatched it from his hands, and as he strove to snatch it back he slipped, and had to back away skating in the mud before steadying himself, wheezing, his fists raised and ready. For a minute they were locked in a standoff, glaring at each other, then his eyes lowered and he stood before her coughing pitifully, saddened more than enraged at realising he was too weak to take her on. He wondered whether the substance she was using as a cure was also being used to poison him — some foul brew she’d made with the purpose of keeping him permanently imprisoned there, trapped in the backlands of the world while both his people and her own were rounded up and slain.

  When he looked up he was surprised to find the stick being offered back to him.

  ‘Why?’ he said.

  ‘You hit me,’ she said. ‘I hit you. Is fair, no?’

  In silence, he took it from her, then stood listening in a stupor as she explained that she was the one who’d be marshalling the pigs into the orchard, whilst he’d be stopping them escaping. She showed him the appropriate way to use the stick and the best place to stand when herding them. When she’d finished he nodded miserably, taking up a position with his arms spread like some sacrificial offering, ready to receive the animals the moment she opened the pighouse door.

  He thought he’d manage somehow, but as she went to undo the latch, he felt himself tensing with such discomfort that he stepped back a little, then a little more, until with a curse she told him not to keep dancing around like a child. ‘Be a man,’ she said. ‘Man is still.’

  ‘I-I am a man,’ he said, quivering indignantly. ‘So ... so shut up. And anyway … it’s going to rain. You said they don’t go out then.’

  He spat a crimson drool on the ground and was rewarded with a cold, quiet stare.

  ‘Well, that’s what you said,’ he snapped, hating her, and was shocked by the force of his hatred.

  ‘Crossboy,’ she said, goading him with her eyes.

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  She held him in her gaze a few seconds more, then glanced up at the sky as if in doubt, but what she said was, ‘It rain later. So be still. We do these pig now.’

  ~O~

  She roused him early again the following day, and without feeding him, without a word, she marched him out at blunderbuss-point to the patch of woods he’d come through when he’d first sighted the property, his chain wrapped round her fist, the rain falling in a soulless grey drizzle.

  Coming to a small clearing in the beeches, she chained him to a tree and carved a line in the mud with her heel and instructed him to dig. When he protested, questioned what it was for, she explained with exaggerated patience that into it by the barrowload was to go the entire contents of the waste trench beneath the rear wall. He would dig until the job was done. He looked at her with eyes filled with rage and pity as she handed him the shovel.

  ‘Please,’ he croaked. ‘I did everything you wanted. Wh-what about the other jobs?’

  ‘This your job.’

  ‘But I ... I helped you with the pigs didn’t I? I did what you asked.’

  ‘You hit them.’

  ‘Me? Me? But you ... you’re the one that hit them, I saw you.’

  ‘Not hit, I help them.’

  ‘But you told me to. You told me to use the stick like that.’

  ‘Not their face.’

  ‘But I-I wasn’t trying to hurt them. I wasn’t, I promise you.’

  ‘You make mess on the floor.’

  He stared at her. ‘But I was clearing the mess up. That’s all I did. I spent all afternoon doing it. Didn’t you see me? Didn’t you see me trying? Didn’t you see the blood on me?’

  ‘Začepi! You dig this hole.’

  ‘But what have I done? Just tell me that.’

  ‘You work.’

  ‘Cora, please, I —’

  ‘Stop! Stop this name! You work now.’

  He let out a huge wheezy breath, swinging his head in despair. Hours he’d worked for her, depleting himself, coughing himself raw, suffering injuries, and all of it to earn more punishment. ‘But it ... it’s raining,’ he croaked. ‘I-I can’t stay out here. I can’t, it’s not right.’

  ‘I come back later. You dig well, you eat. You slow, you eat nothing.’

  ‘Please, Cora. Please. Don’t leave me here. Not like th—’

  ‘DIG!’ she yelled, then lifted the screaming brass mouth of her weapon and motioned as if to use it. He looked morbidly into the depths of the barrel, then away. As her face hardened, he raised the shovel and thrust it at the ground. It hit the mud with a squelch, barely penetrating the surface. ‘More,’ she said. He drove the shovel down again, with the same result.

  ‘See?’

  ‘More. Use this foot.’

  Cursing, he trod hard on the shovel neck and used his weight to drive it in further. He managed to prise up a few inches of watery dirt, which he hurled wretchedly away from him, then he drove the shovel down once again. She supervised his work a few minutes longer, then walked uphill towards the house. As she reached the gate he paused to watch her, and as soon as she was out of sight he turned to the chain and struck it with the shovel. It resisted with a dull clink. He struck again, savagely. Then he kicked it over. The metal seemed untouched. He struck it twice, three times more, then gave up on it and stood panting. Then he looked away. Through the smooth muscular branches he could see the land dip down towards the stream he’d followed so innocently that day. He stared towards it with a kind of frozen longing.

  She returned around lunc
htime to find him bailing out a shallow bath of clay-coloured water. He was soaked through, his wet hair hanging down and his collar up. At her approach he stopped working, eyeing her with cold contempt as she surveyed the small fruit of his labour.

  ‘What you do here?’ she said.

  He coughed. ‘What do you think I’m doing?’

  ‘You slow. No food for you.’

  ‘What? I’m not slow, it’s the ... the conditions here.’

  She indicated the clouded pool. ‘This slow. Slow mean no food.’

  ‘You can’t … but it’s impossible. You can’t do it here. Not in the rain. There’s clay here — clay, you understand? That’s exactly why you chose this area. It holds the water.’

  ‘I say you slow. You don’t listen me.’

  Flushed, he took a threatening step forward, then stopped as she raised the blunderbuss, saying, ‘You hear me? This not good work.’

  With a scowl he raised the shovel. He brought it splashing down and down again to show how the water kept returning. ‘Look! Look at it! You see this? You see? It’s impossible!’

  She watched impassively, standing back a little as the milky water splashed at her feet. ‘You work harder. I want you finish today.’

  ‘But I can’t! Look! Look at it! Don’t you ever listen?’

  ‘And I say dig! Dig, not complain.’

  He stared at her in disbelief. ‘But why?’ he wheezed, ‘after all I’ve done, why are you doing this? What have I —’

  ‘ZAČEPI!’ she yelled, throwing up her hands, and for a moment, in spite of her wrath, he thought he saw in her a hint of sadness. Then she turned aside, her features concealed by her headscarf, the tails of which seemed to flutter down her back like the feathers of an exotic bird. ‘You stole,’ she added, then set off through the rain without another word.

  ~O~

  Scratches in the dark, a heavy creaking; rough slaps of his feet to get him up, then a cold hard wooden chair. Breakfast was served early, a sky of slate beyond the door. She brought him a box with a thin fibrous brush in it and some powder and told him to clean his teeth at the sink.

  ‘Is ... is this salt?’ he said, spitting into the sink disgustedly, but she did not reply. He thought better of saying any more, pleased to have at last some means of cleaning himself. After that, she took him outside, and once more marched him to the clearing.

  He waited until she’d been gone several minutes before attacking the chain again. He went to where it was looped around the trunk and hacked away with the shovel. He battered and chipped at it until the bark was torn to shreds and a wet scar was exposed, stopping only when his hands were too sore to continue.

  Damp with sweat, breathing painfully, he staggered towards the flooded hole and was close to venting his anger on the bucket she’d left when he spotted movement on the northern valley slopes. He could just make out a party of local people, travelling in a small convoy of trailers and packanimals. They were threading away in the direction of the foggy uplands. He walked out as far as his chain would allow, wiping his face dry. They seemed a rambling bunch even from that distance, with their shapeless possessions piled recklessly high and a woman with a babe in arms riding sidesaddle and others going on foot alongside the swaying panniers. He saw children trekking along hand in hand and all raggedlooking and forlorn and by the look of them amazed to find a figure across the valley standing with a shovel.

  An old man leading a donkey gestured to him, waving his stick as if to warn that he should not be there. A few others motioned likewise. Their voices travelled faintly across the rain-misted slopes. They were calling for him to leave, to get out of the area while he was still alive. Warning that the killers were on their way. Helpless, he lifted his chain so they could see his predicament, but they seemed not to understand. He tried calling back to them but his voice would not hold, and when a coughing fit overtook him he was forced to stop altogether, going to his knees, spitting tiny red fires at the ground. By the time he was upright they’d moved on, soon to be lost amidst the climbing rocks and widowed trees, their calls fading softly to silence. As they disappeared, he kicked the shovel away and would have done far worse had he not looked up from caution to find her watching from the gate.

  ‘You see them?’ he cried, pointing to where they’d gone. ‘You see them?’

  ‘Yes,’ she called. ‘I see them.’

  ‘I-I meant, did you hear them? Did you hear what they were saying?’

  She seemed to find something of interest in the turbulent sky.

  He took a breath and screamed hoarsely, ‘But what do you think? Shouldn’t we be leaving?’

  She cupped her mouth and yelled something back at him.

  ‘What?’ he cried. ‘I can’t hear you!’

  ‘I think we get wet!’ she called, pointing upwards, then turned from him and was not seen until midday.

  ~O~

  She’d brought a threadbare tarp with her and some whittled pegs — to cover the hole with, she explained, motioning for him to continue.

  He stood back as she surveyed his work, the blunderbuss tucked under her arm. He’d cleared the water out as well as he could, and although she seemed to think the pit could be a lot deeper, she relented when she saw his blistered hands, and helped fit the tarp over the hole while he drove in the stakes.

  Once the cover was in place, he said, ‘I need to eat.’

  She rose, eyeing him measuredly. ‘Crossboy,’ she said.

  He spat at the ground. Her eyes flickered in response. She went to the tree and unlocked him, then on snatching up the chain began to unwind it briskly from the trunk. He thought perhaps she’d spotted the damage he’d caused to the tree but she said nothing, merely tugged at his ankle. From pure irritation, he tugged back at her. She tugged again sharply and he yelped in pain, then yanked back all the harder, making her almost lose her footing. In retaliation she raised the blunderbuss, at which he kicked and snarled. They both pulled at the chain and then she tore it angrily from his hands and moments later was dragging him up the slope like an injured cur, howling and whining in outrage.

  Twice as they ate he tried to bring up the subject of the evacuees, and twice she growled at him, a harsh glitter in her eyes as she crushed the conversation. When eventually she spoke, it was to remind him that work on his next task was overdue.

  ‘The trench?’ he said dubiously.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Today? In the rain? But I ... I need to rest.’

  ‘Rest?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sick, remember? I’ve only just finished the hole.’

  ‘You work here. Remember?’

  His cheeks darkened. ‘I-I know that, I just want to know wh—’

  ‘You work well, you eat. You do nothing, no food for you. Simple, no?’

  ~O~

  She did feed him that evening: fuelling her slave, he thought, stuffing himself with boiled cabbage. After the meal she led him into his room and told him to prepare for his treatment, to be followed by a bath.

  When he asked what she meant by that, she said, ‘Crossboy smell, no?’ and without further reply went off to prepare his medication.

  Later, sitting in the dark with his head under a towel, he heard her pouring water from the cauldron, and shortly afterwards from buckets. Then he heard soft splashing sounds as she washed herself. The thought of her sitting naked in the water just yards away through the wall made him feel tired and uncomfortable, and he tried to concentrate on other, more serious matters, picturing the vehicle drilling towards his friends — towards the place he’d been raised and where once long ago he’d been loved. He was deep into a scenario involving a gas attack when he heard her creaking about upstairs, and found himself distracted by the sound right up to the moment she came down again. She trod quietly into his room and stood in the light of the lamp she was carrying. She was scrubbed and fresh-faced, clad in a heavy dark dress with a shawl draped around her shoulders, a few wet droplets glistening in her hair like errant
sparks. ‘You bath now,’ she said, beckoning, and he got up and followed a trail of silver footprints.

  The bath was an old tin tub she’d placed by the fireside. While he washed himself she sat drinking at the table, occasionally picking at the food on her plate, noisily crunching at a bone. Anxious at this arrangement, the more so with her sitting behind him, he kept checking over his shoulder to see if she was acting in any way out of the ordinary; but each time he looked, she was gazing towards the shutters over the bowl of wine she was sipping. It seemed to eclipse her face like a huge lipless mouth without depth or end. Like a long black tunnel. He’d not realised how much she’d drunk until she addressed him a while later. He was reaching for his towel, determined to preserve his dignity as he stood to dry himself, when she seemed to noticed him moving and turned her head. ‘Empty this water,’ she said tonelessly. She nodded towards the side garden. ‘Bath stay out there.’

  With that, she returned to her bowl, staring over the rim as if far into the distance. She seemed unaware of his presence as he dressed, but soon afterwards snapped out of her reverie when he set about dragging the bath towards the door, making a hideous scraping noise over the brickwork that he hated as much as she seemed to herself, for she stood up flinging both hands in the air in a gesture that was alien to him, crying, ‘Budala! Začepi! Stop!’

  He stopped. For a moment he saw another woman there: dark, serious, passionate, determined, angry in a fiery way which bore no malice towards him; and in that same instant he was no longer looking up in guilty fear, but was staring at her, transfixed. A moment later, the mysterious woman disappeared as she ordered him to keep still. She came to him tutting, all signs of sluggishness gone as she bustled him out of the way and opened the door. They took one end of the tub each and between them carried it outdoors and into the rainy night. They tipped the foul water into a border near to where she’d shot him, and when he’d wiped it out, she motioned for him to go inside while she propped it against the wall.