by Smith, Dan
‘If that’s agreeable with you,’ Tanya said.
The man’s craggy face broke into a smile that displayed blackened teeth. He put back his head and laughed, emitting a croaky, rasping sound more like a death rattle than a laugh.
Tanya took another step back and glanced across at me.
I made an encouraging gesture with my hands, prompting her to speak again, but before she could say anything, the old man stopped laughing as suddenly as he had started and stared down at her with watery eyes.
‘Three of you, armed, deserters most likely, with a . . . What is that? A wolf?’
‘A dog,’ Tanya said.
‘A bad-tempered dog, then, and you’re asking if it’s agreeable with me?’ He took a step forward so he was looking right down at Tanya. ‘Of course it’s not agreeable with me, but since when did anyone care about that?’
‘Sir,’ I said, coming forward, ‘we have food we can share in return for shelter and warmth. We mean you no harm. We’re not deserters.’
‘Then why are you armed?’
‘We’re searching for someone.’
‘Searching for someone?’ The old man scratched the back of his head and furrowed his brow as he looked around me. ‘That doesn’t mean anything. Who are you? What . . .’ As soon as he saw Anna standing with the horses, he stopped scratching. ‘You have a child with you.’
‘Yes.’
He dropped his hand to his side and puffed his cheeks as he blew out a long breath. For a moment I thought he was going to welcome us in. I thought perhaps the sight of a child had softened his heart, but then his face hardened and his next words were spoken with venom. ‘There’s nothing for you here. Go away. You should—’
Just then the door to the izba opened once more, making him look back in surprise.
‘Who’s out there?’ said a voice, and an old woman came out onto the step, dressed in black and with a shawl draped around her shoulders. She shuffled in an unsettling way, like Galina had done. Like I imagined a witch would.
‘It’s no one,’ said the old man. ‘Go back inside.’
‘I want to see who it is,’ she said. Her voice was coarse and hard and unsympathetic.
‘It’s no one.’
‘Well, it has to be someone, you old fool. Who is it?’
The old man sighed and shook his head. ‘They say they’re looking for someone.’
‘Who? Who’re they looking for?’
‘Chekists,’ Tanya said.
It was more than I thought she should have given away, but there was something in the old man’s eyes when she said it; some sort of recognition, or perhaps it was just sympathy.
‘Well, bring them in, Sergei, bring them in.’ The old woman’s tone changed, but it still sounded unfriendly. It was as if she were hiding her true nature, like One-Eyed Likho settling the tailor before cutting his throat. ‘You can’t leave them standing in the cold.’
‘Maybe we should let them move on,’ he said. ‘We can’t spare any—’
‘Don’t be such a miser,’ she told him. ‘Bring them in, bring them in.’ She stepped back and beckoned with gnarled hands.
Sergei rolled his eyes and grumbled.
‘We should move on,’ Lyudmila said under her breath, and I knew why she said it. We weren’t welcome here – the old man made that clear enough – and his wife reminded me too much of Galina and the skazka witches. But it was getting colder by the minute and I had to think about Anna. She needed warmth, food and a good night’s sleep.
‘Look,’ I said, taking the piece of salo from my satchel and showing it to him as I unwrapped it. ‘We can share what we have.’
‘They have food?’ the old woman said. ‘Even better. What are you waiting for? Bring them in.’
The old man studied the piece of salo, small as it was, moving his mouth as though he were eating the greasy fat already. He came down the step, making Tanya move out of his way, and he reached out to take my arm and bring the salo closer. He looked it over, then leaned in to smell it.
When he had done that, he released me and fixed his eyes on mine. ‘Red, White, I don’t care who you are. Are you an honest man?’ he asked. ‘That’s what matters.’
‘Yes.’
‘A man of your word?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you give me your word you mean no harm here?’
‘I swear it.’
He thought for a moment before taking a deep breath and holding out his hand, but he didn’t look me in the eye as Lev had done when he offered me his olive branch. His was not a warm greeting, as Lev’s had been, and I felt my friend’s absence with some pain.
I removed my glove and took the old man’s hand in mine, feeling the coarseness of his skin. His fingers were strong, his grip tight, despite his age. And in that moment I felt pity for him. Winter was close, and the war had brought food shortages. The old were vulnerable and exposed. Many would not see the spring.
‘There’s hay in the barn for your horses,’ he said, ‘and the dog stays outside. Bring some logs with you when you come in. We light the oven at night.’
The old man stood by the pich, pointing to the place where he expected us to pile the logs. The izba still held the remnants of warmth from last night’s fire, the pich having kept its heat well. A good oven was always the heart of any home, and a good pichniki was one of the most valuable tradesmen. It took great skill to build a stove with enough passages to channel the smoke and hot air through the bricks to build a good heat. If the old man only lit his oven at night, then the pichniki had done a good job – the bricks still gave off enough heat to make it warmer inside than it was outside. The iron door was open to reveal an oven large enough to keep even Baba Yaga or One-Eyed Likho happy – either witch could accommodate a whole adult in there, if need be.
The pich was well placed in the room, and there was a good space between its top and the ceiling above it. The corner of a blanket hanging down gave the impression that more were bundled on top of it, and I knew it would be a warm place to sleep.
‘You have a good pich,’ I said, piling dry birch logs on the floor beside it. I couldn’t stop myself from leaning to one side to inspect the interior of the oven, as if to reassure myself there weren’t any children roasting in its coals. When I saw it was empty, I told myself to stop being so foolish. I’d listened to so many skazkas they were starting to affect me the way they were supposed to frighten the children.
I turned to see the old man watching me. His black hair was streaked with grey, bushy around his ears but thinning on top, and his face was almost covered by a thick beard. His eyes were hooded with heavy lids beneath unruly eyebrows, and his nose was bent at an odd angle as if it had once been broken. His clothes looked clean and in half-decent repair.
‘The pichniki must have been very skilled,’ I said.
The old man grunted and spat into the open oven, the gob of saliva arcing into last night’s ashes. It was a gesture used to ward off bad luck if a compliment is given.
‘He built it himself,’ the old woman said from the far corner of the room, ‘though he doesn’t like to admit it.’
We gathered more logs from the pile outside and returned to the izba, Tanya and Lyudmila entering first. Tuzik tried to follow Anna and me up the step, but I pushed him away with my leg, trying to be gentle.
‘He would enjoy the pich,’ I said to Anna, ‘but we have to honour the old man’s request.’
‘Why won’t they let him come in?’ she whispered.
‘Maybe they’re scared of dogs.’
‘He’s not as scary as they are. That woman is so ugly.’
‘Sh.’ I put a finger to my lips. ‘She’s just old. Tuzik doesn’t seem bothered anyway,’ I said. ‘Look at him – he doesn’t care.’
‘Because he can see how scary she is. She looks like a witch.’
I couldn’t help smiling. ‘I think he wants to stand guard. Maybe even go hunting.’ I put the logs inside the door and squatte
d to let Tuzik bury his head into my armpit. ‘Guard us well, my friend,’ I told him, as I rubbed his back. ‘I’ll bring you something to eat later, I promise.’
Tuzik moved back into the yard and watched us go into the house, but he made no more attempt to follow.
‘I don’t blame him,’ Anna said. ‘This place is creepy.’
We dumped the logs on the pile, and the old woman stepped out of the shadow as if she’d been lying in wait for us. She came to the table, put a candle in a holder and lit it with a match before putting a glass storm shield round it. The flame flickered for a moment and then grew, lighting the surface of the table and the chairs round it.
The old woman was stooped a little, bent at the waist, and hunched; thin and bony beneath her black dress and woollen shawl. She wore a tight black headscarf to match the dress, and it covered her hair, making it look as if she might be bald beneath it. All I could see were her wrinkled forehead, her watery eyes and veined nose. She had soft shoes on her feet, and when she shuffled over to greet us, her hag-like manner made my skin crawl.
‘Pretty girl,’ she said, reaching out to pinch Anna’s cheek between her hardened thumb and the gnarled knuckle of her first finger.
She smiled, revealing more gum than tooth, and I felt Anna recoil.
The old woman’s breath was rancid, like sour milk. She was as repellent to my eyes as she was to Anna’s and I kept thinking of Galina with her putrid eye and her unsettling insanity. And the way she touched Anna, it was as if she was testing her tenderness, sizing her up for the pot.
I had to laugh at myself and try to dismiss my unease.
‘Very pretty,’ she repeated, nodding to herself, and the tip of her tongue slipped out to wet her lips. ‘Her name?’
‘Anna.’ I introduced all of us, giving them our first names, but the old woman only had eyes for Anna right now.
‘Your daughter?’ she asked.
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘In a manner of speaking?’ She craned her neck to stare at me. ‘Either she is or she isn’t. Which one is it, my dear?’
‘She is now,’ I said.
‘An orphan of the war?’
‘I’m right here, you know.’ Anna pulled away from her.
‘She doesn’t like to be reminded,’ I said.
‘Hmm.’ The old woman peered at Anna. ‘Well . . . sit, sit. Let me see what else you’ve brought us.’
While Sergei lit the pich, the rest of us sat at the table and spread our supplies across its surface. We had left most of our belongings in our saddlebags in the outbuilding, which was just as well because the old woman had hungry eyes and a hungrier stomach. By the time we had unpacked what we’d brought in with us, there was the piece of salo, some strips of dried meat, three chunks of sausage and a slab of kovbyk. Lyudmila had been reluctant to hand it over, but the old woman hadn’t given us much choice. She had taken our satchels and rummaged through them, pushing the ammunition to one side and handing us the knives to hold while she searched for food. It was bad luck to leave a knife on the table and these were superstitious country people.
‘We’ll sup well tonight,’ she said, smiling at Anna for longer than necessary before handing back our satchels.
‘There’s enough food there for us to eat well for two days,’ Lyudmila said to Tanya. ‘We need that.’
‘We can find more,’ Tanya replied.
‘Where? Where do we find more?’
‘The forest is full of things to eat, and we’re close now. We can spare it.’
‘But—’
‘We can spare it,’ Tanya said again.
The old woman watched closely as they spoke, as if she was hanging on every word they said, waiting to learn the outcome. And when they had finished speaking, she put out a crooked and liver-spotted hand to touch Tanya’s. She patted it once and smiled her near-toothless smile. ‘You said there’s enough for you for two days.’ She looked at Lyudmila. ‘Then perhaps there will be enough for nine to eat just one good meal.’
Lyudmila stared back at her as if about to challenge the old woman to explain herself, but I understood what she meant. She and Sergei were not alone on the farm. There were others here too.
The old woman shifted and turned to Sergei, who had finished lighting the oven and was watching from a distance. ‘Tell them to come down,’ she said.
Sergei hesitated.
‘Go on. Go.’ She waved a leathery hand. ‘It’s safe. Kolya won’t hurt us.’
I dropped my hand beneath the table and slipped it into my coat pocket. The pistol was still cold when I wrapped my fingers round it.
Sergei looked at the floor as if his feet had become interesting, but his wife snapped his name, making him jump. ‘Sergei.’
He looked up.
The old woman sneered at him. ‘It’s all right, you old fool. Tell them to come down.’
Sergei went into the darkness at the far end of the room and lifted a ladder from its place against the wall. He put it up to the side of the pich, placing it carefully.
‘You can come down,’ he said, but as he spoke, he cast a look in our direction. He wasn’t as convinced as his wife that we were harmless.
The first feet to step onto the ladder protruded from the hem of a dark skirt and the woman came into view as she climbed down. For a moment I was taken aback, as I saw my own wife, Marianna, descending those rungs and I had to close my eyes and shake some sense into my head. When I opened them again, the woman was looking at me. She wasn’t Marianna, but there was a resemblance. She had hair like Marianna’s, and it was tied back in the style that Marianna wore it, loose at the front so that it fell across her forehead. She had a similar build, with a waist that had once been full and healthy but had narrowed as times became harder. She was pale like Marianna too, but not as pretty, and when she stepped into the light, I saw she had dull green eyes, while Marianna’s were blue.
‘Our daughter, Oksana,’ said the old woman, and as she spoke, the first set of children’s feet touched the ladder and Oksana stretched up to help the girl down.
‘Natasha,’ said the old woman with a smile.
The girl, perhaps five or six years old, clung to her mother’s skirt as the second child descended the ladder; a boy who looked to be at least ten years old. Both children were pale and thin like Anna, their cheeks almost hollow, dark circles under their eyes.
‘And this is Nikolai,’ she said, looking at me. ‘Your namesake.’
The three of them stood huddled like refugees at the bottom of the ladder, holding each other close, and I imagined Marianna might have looked the same when she tried to protect our sons from Krukov. Except for them, it would have been different, because Marianna would have only been able to hold them for a few seconds before snatching up their coats and ushering them out and across the footbridge to seek the false safety of the forest. I could only imagine how she must have felt, seeing them go, having to return home to wait for the devils, only to be dragged across the road and into the trees, forced to witness the murder of Galina’s husband and then . . .
He likes to drown the women.
When Oksana came closer, I took my hand from my pocket and acknowledged her with nod and by speaking my name but little else.
Oksana and the old woman made soup, while the children stayed close to them at the pich and the rest of us waited at the table. Sergei sat with his hands on the coarse surface, fingers laced together as if in prayer, eyes fixed on the tabletop. He only looked up from time to time, catching my eye and then looking away again.
‘It’s good of you to take us in,’ I said, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
Sergei shrugged.
Behind him, the old woman opened a cupboard to retrieve a bowl of salt and I noticed the cupboard was not as empty as I might have expected it to be. There were bottles lined against the back of it, jars of what looked like pickles, and bundles of cloth like the ones Marianna used to keep dried fish and meat.
; ‘The war hasn’t been too unkind to you?’ I said, making Sergei raise his eyes and follow my gaze.
‘Oh. No. Not too unkind.’ He nodded and looked away, embarrassed.
I glanced sideways at Tanya and saw that she had spotted it too. I could almost hear what she was thinking – that these people would take our food when they had plenty of their own – but I gave a small shake of my head, warning her to keep quiet. This was a family trying to stay alive, and they had offered us shelter.
Now that I had seen the well-stocked cupboard, though, I began to notice other things inside the izba, such as the boots by the door. I paid them no attention when we came in, but beside the rifles Tanya and Lyudmila had propped against the wall, there were two pairs of good boots that looked hardly used. The woven mat on the floor still had its colours – bold reds and blues and clean whites – and there was another hanging on the wall at the back of the room. There was a shotgun on nails close to the door. The blankets above the pich were plentiful. The soft shoes on the old woman’s feet were clean and still held their shape, and the clothes they wore were in better condition than I might have expected.
This was the home of poor peasants, so it would have been a surprise they owned so much and lived so comfortably at any time, but especially in these years of confiscation and requisition. Yet they did not have the appearance of people who lived well. Their skin had the waxy pallor of those who have had little nourishment. The children had the sunken and hollow faces of those who were growing close to starvation. Their demeanour didn’t match their possessions and their well-stocked cupboards. The acquisition of this food had come recently.
Perhaps they had found this place, like Lev and Anna had found the farm where I met them. Or perhaps there was another reason. Something darker.
When the meal was ready, Oksana brought it to the table and the old woman served it and we sat together round the table to eat, as if we were a family. The hot broth was good and went well with the cold meat, but nothing about that meal made me feel the security I ever felt at home, or the inclusion I had felt with Lev and Anna when they took me in.