Children of the Cave

by Virve Sammalkorpi

  To get rid of my strange thoughts I went for a walk. I inhaled the powerful smells of the thawing ground and admired the merry babbling of a brook emerging from under crumbling ice. It rained continuously. (And still it rains, as I write this. At this rate, the last vestiges of the snow will rapidly thaw.)

  When I got back, I noted how wretched our camp looks. The tents sag, waterlogged, no longer keeping out the rain. But as the days get longer, the conditions become more tolerable. I shudder to recall the long, harsh days of winter, when the morning darkness became evening darkness without a properly light period in between, just twilight at best. Writing these notes has offered me an unexpected lifeline.

  APRIL 25TH IN THE YEAR 1821

  – I pondered over Anna’s responsibility for the children – how does she possess the strength – has she – She does not utter a single word of complaint about the fate faced by her and the others.

  There is a separate piece of paper between the notes. The text it bears is not in Agolasky’s handwriting. It was probably written by Anna, because the script is shaky and the unpractised hand has caused the ink to spread.

  To dear Julia,

  This is dedicated to my sister Julia. Not my real sister, but the one I shared my life with here. The one who spoke like my aunt and I. The one who croaked more than I ever did. Whose nose was made of a hard, bone-like stuff, whose eyes were black and round and whose cheeks were covered with short, fine down. And who was so big-hearted and wise, who comforted me and listened to me. She had one dream: to fly away from this place, which she called a cage. ‘Where would you go?’ I asked. And she said she would fly into the sky, higher and higher. And then she would be filled with emptiness and lightness, and nothing on earth would mean anything any more. She would be happy. That is why I did not grieve when she finally flew away. I knew she would be happier wherever she had gone.

  APRIL 29TH IN THE YEAR 1821

  I have been thinking about how I might help the children of the cave. Who would be interested in these life stories? Would anyone? Would they be treated as freaks, or works of the Devil, or subjected to scientific research? I feel inadequate, I, an insignificant assistant to a great explorer!

  When I raised the issue with Moltique he lanced me with his mocking expression. He said there was no helping the children. At the same time, he revealed his new theory about the metamorphosis. He had studied the children’s backgrounds in the light of what I had told him about them and had come to the conclusion that not a single one of them came from a normal, healthy family. I tried to protest, but he silenced me. ‘Metamorphosis is nature’s attempt to either finish off non-viable, imbecile families or change them into animals.’ I asked why the phenomenon was present only in Russia and he laughed out loud. ‘You’re in Russia, idiot! Go to China, look diligently enough, and you will find a similar cave. Go to Italy, seek and you will find. Go –’

  I raised my hand. I had understood. But then, after a while, I asked, ‘What about France?’ Moltique looked disgruntled. ‘France,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Our country is civilized, but… Who knows, maybe there’s a similar cave there, too.’

  He urged me to forget my dreams of rescue. I might as well plan to rescue the fish the men caught for our meals.

  APRIL 30TH IN THE YEAR 1821

  I asked Anna what she dreams of. She looked at me tenderly and answered that she wished to be an ordinary girl. And that she would have liked to say goodbye to her aunt.

  MAY – IN THE YEAR 1821

  May – at last! I suddenly remember a day in Paris, and what the air smelt like by the Seine, and how wonderfully green the trees were. I was in love. No, that is too big a word. I was infatuated, I was mad, marvellously crazy, about a girl who sold fabric in a small shop in the Marais. In the end, I was bold enough to ask her out, and I took her for a picnic in the park. We chatted for hours on end – about what, I don’t remember, but I do remember the scent of her breath and the sound of her laughter, which told me that she did not laugh often. Adèle, that was her name. It was not love, for the sentiment vanished when she moved away from Paris and I no longer saw her. I went to visit her once. We went to a park, as before; we laughed and chatted, but something had changed. When we parted, I knew I would not come again. Adèle seemed to know it, too, but she did not appear any unhappier than before. I never got to know her well; I did not learn her secret.

  – Moltique asked me to take notes while he thought aloud. He opened and closed his theory of metamorphosis from its different angles, as if folding a piece of paper. I wanted to say that we did not know enough about the children’s families to draw conclusions about their imbecility, but I knew to remain silent. To tell the truth, I was impressed by the certainty with which the scientist I admired pursued the theory he desired. I could not help wondering what the truth was about the yeti and his other achievements.

  – mad.

  MAY 8TH IN THE YEAR 1821

  – Moltique frightens me. I did not feel terror like this even when he ordered the men to take me into the forest to be flogged. I knew he needed me, his right hand. He leafs through his papers with a dissatisfied air, accusing me of inefficiency –

  MAY 9TH IN THE YEAR 1821

  I was on my way to empty my bladder when I heard a few men discussing the cave and its occupants. Fist was the most vociferous, but the others also had their say. They appeared to detest those animal-like humans. I heard Fist say that he did not believe the children could speak, that he thought I had invented the whole thing. And then he accused me of something that I cannot repeat even here. The thought uppermost in my mind was that Anna did not deserve such treatment. When I tried to continue on my way without making a sound, a branch snapped under my foot. I barely had time to hide behind a big rock before Fist emerged from beyond the tents to see where the noise had come from.

  MAY 15TH IN THE YEAR 1821

  Anna asked if they were in danger. I lied and said they had nothing to worry about.

  MAY 16TH IN THE YEAR 1821

  We have used up the liquor we brought with us from France and Moltique has moved on to spirits we have made ourselves. It is the rule rather than the exception that, come evening, he is in an advanced state of inebriation. Drunkenness makes him both more open and more unpleasant. He loves embarrassing me by analysing me. What a wretch I am in his eyes!

  Home-made liquor is also distributed to the men more generously than the drink we brought from France, so the men are more often drunk these days as well. I do not really like –

  Notes are missing from parts of May and June. The next set leads us to believe that in May the rebels among Moltique’s men attacked some of the children, killing them cruelly. Either Agolasky was too shaken to write about the incident or time has destroyed the records.

  JUNE 9TH IN THE YEAR 1821

  Anna agreed to speak to me today. She did not say much and would not look me in the eye; I cannot blame her, given what has happened. I am not worthy of her trust. Still, she has recovered more quickly than I feared, but then she is obviously used to worse things than I.

  On my way back from the cave to the camp, I made a detour to the children’s graves. I was the only one who demanded that the children should be buried and the graves marked with their names. Even Anna did not support the idea. ‘Why? Who misses them?’ she asked flatly. I did not see her shed a single tear as we carried the bodies into the forest. She left me to bury the children alone in the holes and cover the bodies with earth.

  I sat by the graves today, looking at the roughly carved names in the pieces of wood I had put up as gravestones: Petia, Miska, Sonja, Pekka. We did not mark the graves of the men who killed them. They could become soil, moss, trees and shrubs, and their memory could fade like the memory of plants and animals before and after them. Moltique agreed with me, though his anger sprang from different motives. ‘You are wasting research material,’ he thundered, but I could only stare at the blood on their stupidly grinning faces. I did not even he
ar Moltique sentencing them to death. And I did not hear them shouting in fear – or swearing – or being silenced by death. I was absent from this world until the next day, when I was woken up by Pierre Rufin dripping liquor down my throat.

  Why do I write this, again? To help. How? To clarify my thoughts? I cannot think clearly. My world has shrunk to this corner of this Russian forest, home of the cave and the children.

  JUNE 11TH IN THE YEAR 1821

  Today, outside the cave, I saw Maksim and Boris. They were crouching, gathering leaves and grubs. They look almost like ordinary boys, though both have unusually large ears. I am not sure which animal’s these resemble, but I have decided that one’s are like a hare’s, the other’s like a mouse’s. They took fright when they heard me approaching and fled quickly into the depths of the cave. The cave is labyrinthine and its walls have dark cavities where a small person can curl up and hide. I called the boys, but they did not reappear. It was quiet in the cave otherwise and no one turned up while I was there. I am sad I have lost the children’s trust because of the men’s cruelty. They are more than research subjects to me and the grief goes deeper that I believed possible. In my tent, I took out my notes about Maksim and Boris, surprised at how recently I had drawn them up.

  MAKSIM

  Sex: male

  Age: around 7

  Animal trait: hare-like ears

  Narrator: Maksim

  Recorder of the story: Iax Agolasky (me)

  ‘I remember both of my parents well, because I’ve only been in the cave for a few winters. We had a small cottage in the middle of a forest, far from the nearest village. It was just us, on our own, and we had few visitors. We had a cow, a pig and a hen, and Father hunted animals for food, but only birds, no hares – not since he skinned a hare and I sat and cried by the carcass for a whole day, evening and night. My parents ate meat and eggs; I never did. That was the only thing about me that caused them to wonder. But because I grew well and was strong and healthy, they let things be. Because of my ears, Mother told me to pull on a cap if anyone came to our cottage.

  One day, when they were busy doing jobs, a strange man came by. He had bizarre objects in his cart. He went inside and I hid behind the cart, because my parents had brought me up to be wary of strangers. The man was in our house for a long time, so I got a good look at the things he had with him. I identified the paws of various animals, horse hair, a cockerel’s neck and a bag of feathers. Of the different things preserved in liquid, I could pick out a mouse embryo, a snake and eyeballs of various sizes, but there were also many items I did not recognize. The smell was unpleasant. I saw the man come out, peering about searchingly. For some reason, I was sure he was looking for me. When he set out towards his cart, I ran off as fast as my legs could carry me, but he had spotted me. I heard him coaxing me to come to him. But he didn’t run after me, so I fled into the forest and hid there. I stayed there for several days, until one day I saw my father out on a hunting trip. He burst into tears upon seeing me, because he and Mother had thought the stranger had taken me: the man had come the next day to ask Mother and Father where their son was. My parents had lied and said they were childless.

  I went home with Father. Mother bathed me and stuffed me with fresh bread and kept cuddling me. Finally, we all went to bed. We had been asleep a good while when we heard noises at the front door; someone was trying to open the latch. Father pushed me out through the waste hatch and I started running back into the forest. This time I heard the man setting off in pursuit of me. He was faster than I had thought and I became fearful that he would catch me, but then I heard him fall and I managed to slip into the darkness of the forest.

  I did not dare go home this time. I lived in the woods for a few weeks, where Father brought me food and clothes. Then one day he came and said that he had heard of this place, a cave, where children who are different can live in peace. And so he brought me to the edge of the forest and took his leave. Neither of us cried then. I only cried when I found the crack in the rock and knew I’d vanish from my parents’ world for good.’

  I asked Maksim if he knew who the stranger was. He shook his head.

  ‘But I’m sure he would have liked to kill me and chop me up, to cure some of the pieces and preserve others in jars. Just as you do in your camp.’

  I thought of the man Maksim had told me about and pondered over the things that were permissible in the name of science or greed. I also wondered if Moltique would recognize the man if I gave him a description.

  BORIS

  Sex: male

  Age:13

  Animal trait: mouse-like ears, unusually small, pink hands

  Narrator: Boris

  Recorder of the story: Iax Agolasky (me)

  A man with a cart arrived at Boris’s village, too. The cart had a canopy bearing the legend ‘Popov Cures’. The man was thin with rotten teeth. He smelt bad, as well, but his wagon attracted a lot of visitors. He sold potions and powders with incredible powers.

  ‘The women bought stuff to rub on their husbands’ equipment,’ Boris said, chuckling. ‘Then they’d say the magic words Dr Popov had given them, and the man would get a terrible itch and either lose his whole tool or finally produce a male child. But Popov had other concoctions, too, that would fell an ox-necked smith, killing him dead, or make a gabby woman dumb as a goose. One nasty master was paralysed from the neck down, so he couldn’t beat anyone up any more. The servants fed him his own shit, saying it was fresh bread.’

  Boris was bursting with merriment, recalling all the events that would begin to occur in the village upon Dr Popov’s arrival. He was still laughing as he told how his own mother had bought magic lotion that was supposed to make Boris’s ears fall off his head, his pink protruding ears with the fur behind them.

  ‘The lotion stung and felt ever so hot. It brought out blisters on my earlobes and made my eyes water – but my ears stayed put, redder than ever, only swollen now, too. Mother was disappointed. She’d spent most of her meagre savings on a miracle cure that didn’t work. So she dragged me along to Dr Popov. She bustled through the village whirling up a sandstorm, skirts flapping like sails in the wind. We reached Popov’s wagon but the man was nowhere to be seen. Mother called out for him, furious. Then she slapped the back of my head and told me to look in the tent that had been set up close to the wagon and, if Popov was in there, show him my ears. I was annoyed by the whole thing. I’d rather have been out fishing with Sergei and the others, but I did as I was told. I went over to the tent, stuck my head in… and surprised Dr Popov in the arms of a certain Nina Maslova. I may have giggled, because Popov pulled himself off her and nearly fell onto the floor. Then I saw something very strange. Nina Maslova had an udder! Just like a cow. The udder was at the level where a woman usually has hair, and with her parted lips and sleepy eyes she looked like a cow that had stepped out of her skirt. Oh, how I laughed. I didn’t stop even when Mother pulled me out by the scruff of my neck and boxed my ears. They stung already but I couldn’t get Popov and Maslova out of my mind.

  ‘Not long after, Maslova vanished without a trace. Just like that. And you can be sure she was a woman you’d notice. That’s what Mother said. No one knew where she had gone, not even her own mother! One day, not long after her disappearance, I saw Dr Popov over the road. I thought he was cross with me because I’d seen Maslova and him at it, and I stayed safely indoors so he wouldn’t get it into his head to come and lecture me. But the man just stood, looking towards our house. I got nervous. I couldn’t think what Popov might want from me, but even so I was afraid. He lit a cigarette, spat onto the street and bit his nails – but he never once stopped staring at our house. Finally, I saw Mother bustling home. She hurried over to Popov – to demand her money back, I guessed. She shook her fist, and Popov made lewd signs with his hands, which confused me, knowing his popularity among the village women as I did: if he wasn’t being referred to as Dr Popov, then he was Saviour Popov. Well, the scrap ended with Mother gath
ering her skirts and marching home. That was that, for the time being.’

  As the story progressed, Boris was less and less inclined to laughter.

  ‘Just a few days later, as I was coming back from fishing, Popov leapt out onto the path in front of me. I just caught a glimpse of him beckoning to someone behind my back – after that, I remember nothing… Until the moment I woke up here. In this cave. I remember Anna bending over me, saying there was no need to be afraid, I was safe. He, the man and others, had intended to make magic potions out of me. They had already cut off my little fingers – look! – and removed skin from several places. Do you see the scars? Do you? I remember nothing about it!’

  Not remembering seemed worse to Boris than the actual danger he had faced. Terror shone from his eyes, as a forest fire lights up the horizon.

  ‘But somebody somewhere rescues us: me and Nina Maslova – and everyone who is like these children. Can you guess who it is? It’s The Spider, the canniest and most artful of us all. He’ll come and get us. He’ll take us from this cave to a place where there are no ordinary humans, only extraordinary ones. It’s dangerous to be different where everyone else is alike. Have you noticed?’