Dan Smith - The Child Thief

I pushed up, ignoring the pain, and stretched the discomfort away before beginning to gather the things I’d need.

‘You’re leaving now?’ Viktor asked.

‘No, not in the dark. Not now. I’ll go at first light. Dimitri will be waiting, if he isn’t stupid enough to try going now.’

‘But you don’t think he will?’ Petro said.

‘No.’ I shook my head as I tipped an assortment of cartridges onto the wooden table. The brass and lead rolled together, forming patterns. ‘He knows it’s no use. He’d never find her in the dark.’ I looked up at my sons. ‘You want to help; sort these out.’

‘You’re going to need all these?’

‘Who knows what I’m going to need.’

I took the two handguns that had been among the hanged man’s belongings and placed them on the table along with other things I intended to take.

‘You don’t think she’s just lost then?’ Petro asked as he began to sort the cartridges, standing them upright on the table.

‘No. Dariya’s not lost. Someone has taken her.’

‘Taken her?’ Petro looked up from what he was doing. ‘Why do you think that?’

‘There were tracks.’ I sat down and put my elbows on the table, but my hands were in fists and they pushed down on the wooden surface.

‘But who would take her?’ Petro asked. ‘Who would want to take Dariya?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Someone from the village?’

‘No.’

Natalia came out from the bedroom and closed the door behind her. ‘Speak quietly,’ she said. ‘Lara’s not sleeping.’

‘I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t sleep at all tonight,’ I replied.

Natalia went to the pich and put a pot of water on to boil. She made black tea, weak to preserve what we had left.

‘Tell me what happened,’ she asked as she put four cups on the table, clicking her tongue at the mess I’d made. ‘And move some of these things away.’

I told her about the fight with Dimitri at the edge of the forest and I described the tracks I’d found.

Natalia listened in silence, her hands wrapped around her cup. Not once did she sip her tea.

‘You’re sure about this?’ she asked.

‘Of course I’m sure. There’s no doubt at all. Dariya’s been taken.’

‘And you think it’s the same person who did that to those poor children you found yesterday.’ It wasn’t a question. It was what we were all thinking, but Natalia was the only one with the courage to say it aloud. And then she voiced the second thing we all had on our mind: ‘Do you think she’s still alive?’

‘I hope so, but…’ I put my face in my hands and rubbed hard before speaking again. ‘I’m afraid for her.’ I stared at the tabletop. ‘I’m afraid that when I find her she might already be dead.’

‘Then why wait until morning to go after her?’ Natalia asked. ‘Why not straight away?’

‘Don’t you think I’d have gone straight away if I could?’

‘It’s just a question, Luka, not an accusation.’

I sighed. ‘The tracks I found were at least a few hours old, but we had less than half an hour of daylight left and you can’t track with lamps. If we’d gone unprepared, we’d have ruined the trail and been lost and cold within two hours. We’d probably be dead by morning. It wasn’t an easy decision to make.’

Natalia reached across the table and put her hand on mine. She held my fingers in hers. Two hands that had been apart for so much of the time they should have been together.

Viktor and Petro stayed quiet, watching us.

‘Every time I think of Dariya, I see those two children.’ I took a deep breath. ‘But beneath it all, a part of me is glad.’

I looked around the table and saw confusion in Viktor’s eyes, but in Petro and Natalia’s I saw only understanding.

Natalia nodded, her face softening. ‘You mean you’re glad it isn’t Lara.’

‘Yes.’

I went back to gathering what I’d need tomorrow while Natalia remained in her seat, drinking her tea and watching me prepare. She didn’t touch anything, and she didn’t protest again at the mess I was making of her table. She lifted her cup to make room for me and when I’d put everything on the table, I stood back to look at it all.

‘So much to carry, Papa,’ Viktor said. ‘One man couldn’t carry all that for long in the snow.’

‘Two men,’ I said.

My sons both looked at me, but my eyes were on Viktor. ‘I want you to come with us.’

Viktor nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘But not me?’ Petro asked.

‘I want you to stay here. You need to look after Mama and your sister.’

Petro shook his head, clenching his jaw, the muscles bulging and relaxing.

‘Why not both of them?’ Natalia said. ‘Three are stronger than two, and Petro’s a strong boy.’

‘That’s why I want him to stay with you,’ I said. ‘If they both come, who’s going to take care of you and Lara?’

‘We can take care of ourselves,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t be gone more than a day or two, and there’s not too much for us to do.’ She stared at me as if she were looking right inside me, trying to see what gave me my thoughts. ‘We can manage on our own for a while.’

Petro looked hopeful, his eyes meeting mine.

‘No. Petro stays.’

Petro turned away, going to the bedroom, closing the door behind him. The three of us stood in silence for a moment before I spoke again. ‘You should sleep too, Viktor. It’ll be a long day tomorrow.’

When Natalia and I were alone, I asked her to put out some food for me to take, so she gathered bread and sausage, a small piece of salo , wrapping each in a square of clean cloth. The salo was from our own pig, which I’d slaughtered in the summer. Nothing had been wasted. I’d cut the fatback myself, smoked and salted it, and Natalia had made kovbyk with the flesh from the beast’s head. That single animal had fed us for some time and the smoked salo had lasted well, but there was very little of it left.

She put the wrapped packages on the table with the other things and looked at the neat rows and piles I had laid out.

She spoke to me in a whisper. ‘So much to take. More than enough for just one day.’

‘It might take longer. I have to be ready for that.’

‘But I’ve given you only enough food for just one day. Hardly even that. I could give you more—’

‘No. Keep it. We haven’t enough, and, God knows, if the Bolsheviks make it here, there’ll be even less. I can hunt if I need to. I’ll find something.’

‘You should take Petro with you.’

I snatched a box of papirosa cigarettes from the shelf and sat down, taking one out and pinching the wide filter. I lit it with a match and leaned so my forearms were on the table, letting the smoke drift around my head.

In front of me, the photograph I’d found in the man’s tin. I picked it up and held it out so I could see it in the light of the candle. The family posing for the picture. All of them so serious. The children captured in that instant as if they would live for as long as the photograph remained.

‘This man lost everything,’ I said, tapping his face in the photograph, covering it over and rubbing my finger across his features. ‘Everything that made him who he was.’ I took a drag on the cigarette. ‘I think he was following the person who murdered his children.’

‘Why do you think that?’

‘It’s what I’d do if someone did that to my children. I’d want to find him and kill him. And you saw how weak he was. Shot. Starving. What else could make a man in that condition keep going? What else would make him drag that sled and keep on?’

I looked up at my wife and remembered the nights I’d woken her with my shouting; how she’d held me, repeating my name over and over, telling me where I was. Even in the winter, when there was ice on the inside of the window, I’d sweat in my sleep and she’d have to fetch water to cool me. I didn’t speak much of the things I’d seen or the things I’d done, but when I first returned from the fighting in the Crimea, she said she hardly recognised me. I was thin and hard and seemed barely alive. There had been a darkness in me, and I felt that same darkness now.