Dan Smith - The Child Thief

For now the oak stood silent, refusing to give up its secrets, and as I passed it a thin memory of the summer came to me. A bayan accordion and a violin playing together, music drifting in the warm air. The women in their best dresses, singing to the breeze.

Close to the centre of the village, my home stood with open wooden gates hinged to a broken fence erected to define ownership in a past that allowed it. In more recent times it had become something to fall into disrepair or else it might denote the presence of a kulak.

As we made our way through the gate, dragging the sled, we saw shutters opening and cracks appearing in doorways as curious eyes looked out into the oncoming night.

We went to the front of the house and I unhitched myself and banged hard on the front door. ‘It’s us.’

Bolts were drawn back, and the door opened.

Natalia’s cheeks were red and her dark eyes were worried. ‘What’s going on? Are you all right? Where’s Viktor?’ Petro was standing behind her, holding a knife. My daughter Lara was by the table, her cousin Dariya beside her. Both girls looked excited and afraid at the same time.

‘Everything’s fine,’ I said, pulling down my scarf. ‘There’s a man, though; he needs our help.’

‘A man?’

‘We need to get him inside.’ I looked over Natalia’s shoulder at my daughter and her cousin. ‘What’s Dariya doing here? She should be at home.’ Dariya was a year younger than Lara, just eight years old, but she was bold and inquisitive, not afraid to speak her mind.

‘And miss this?’ Dariya said, coming forward. ‘It’s the most exciting thing to happen in years. Everything’s so boring.’ She was a little taller than Lara, despite being younger, and her manner was more confident. She had dark hair braided on either side, the plaits reaching her shoulders. She wore them so they fell across her chest.

‘Boring is how we like it,’ Natalia told her. ‘Boring is good.’

‘Boring is boring,’ Lara said.

‘You’ve been listening to your cousin too much.’ Natalia nodded to me and beckoned with her hands, telling me to bring the man into the house.

So Viktor and I lifted him between us and carried him to the door while Natalia snatched up some blankets and cushions and put them by the fire.

‘Put him here,’ she said. ‘It’s the warmest place. There’s a little food; you think he’ll eat?’

‘I don’t think he’ll do much of anything.’ We put him down and watched Natalia cover him with blankets.

‘Who is he?’ Dariya asked, squatting beside the man and peering into what she could see of his face. She put out a finger and poked him, but Natalia caught her hand and pulled her away.

‘Did you bring meat?’ she asked. ‘We have some mushroom soup, a little milk and oats, but, like this, a man needs meat.’

We set our rifles by the door and Viktor went for the rabbit we’d snared, coming back and handing it to his mother, holding it up by the ears.

‘This is it? A small rabbit? I send my husband and twin sons to find meat and they bring me one small rabbit and another mouth to feed?’ She took it in her fist and held it up to inspect it. ‘How do I feed a family with one rabbit?’

‘We have potatoes,’ I said. ‘A few beets.’

‘And not much else.’

‘Be thankful. The activists come here, we’ll have nothing.’

‘One rabbit.’ She shook her head and turned her attention back to the man.

‘Petro, stay with your mother.’ I touched Viktor’s shoulder, indicating he should come with me.

‘I can help you, Papa.’ Petro came forward but I shook my head.

‘I said stay with your mother.’ I looked at Petro for a moment, softening my expression, but my son tightened his jaw and turned away. I sighed and stepped outside, pulling the door closed.

There were one or two men standing by their homes now, armed with pitchforks and sticks, and I knew they’d be worried about Petro’s warning, wondering if men had finally come to take their belongings. Sticks and farm implements would be no match for the rifles of a Red Army unit, but some of the men would fight with their bare hands if they had to.

I told Viktor to let them know everything was safe. ‘But don’t mention what’s under there.’ I glanced back at the sled. ‘Don’t tell them what else we found.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t want to scare them. They’re scared enough already.’

Viktor nodded, and when the men saw him approach, they began to wander out to meet him. I waited until there was a group of them, clustered in the twilight, then I went back into the house and closed the door behind me.

The room was small but it was large enough for one family. There was a table and a pich – the clay oven where Natalia did her cooking. There was a woven mat in front of the fire, a couple of chairs to soak the heat, and above the fire an obraz hung on the clay wall. The icon was unremarkable, just paint and wood, an image of the Virgin embracing her child. It had been in Natalia’s family for as long as she remembered, and the last time it had been taken from its position was when her mother lay dying, outliving her husband by just a few weeks, and she had held it in her fingers while she breathed her last.

The rushnyk draped over the top of the icon had also been in its place for many years because we’d had no reason to take it down. Before the revolution, the rushnyk was always on the table, put out to welcome guests. The colour of the embroidered flowers on the towel was a rich and deep red, and the family would display it with pride and put out bread and salt as an offering for visitors. But now it gathered dust and the flowers had faded. No one visited any more. No one trusted anyone now.

Already, Natalia had discarded the man’s scarf, opening his jacket and removing the clothing that would become damp now he was inside where it was warm. What I could see of his face was bright red, the blood resurrecting in his veins, but his cheeks and his chin were covered with a thick matting of beard that hid his mouth from view. The hair was clotted together in places, twisted and clumped.

‘I’ll have to take everything off him,’ Natalia said, looking up when I came in. Petro was standing beside her, still holding his knife, reluctant to let it go. Lara was sitting in one of the comfortable chairs, squeezed beside her cousin Dariya, both of them watching the man with curiosity. Lara jumped down and came over to me, putting her arms around my waist and holding herself tight against me. I leaned down to kiss her hair.

‘Who is he, Papa?’ she asked.

‘Is he one of them ?’ Dariya said. ‘A twenty-five-thousander?’

Natalia and I shared a glance over the top of Lara’s head.

‘Where have you heard that?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. Someone was talking,’ Dariya said. ‘Some of the men.’

‘And you were listening in? There’s a word for children like that,’ Natalia told her.

‘They said they’re coming to take our land, is that right?’ Dariya asked.

Word had reached the village about the party activists. Twenty-five thousand young communists dispatched by Stalin, bringing with them the ranks of the Red Army and the political police, spreading out across the country, searching for anything of value, anything that could sustain life. Already there had been word of other villages garrisoned and occupied, families broken.

‘That’s not for you to worry about,’ I said. ‘You let the adults think about that.’

‘But when are they coming?’

‘Perhaps they won’t come at all,’ Natalia told her. But we knew they would reach Vyriv eventually. It was inevitable that some time soon the soldiers would look down into the shallow valley and see the smallholdings, and the purge would come.