Dan Smith - The Child Thief

‘A girl came into the village this afternoon.’ Like the others, his throat was dry, his voice tight in his throat. He sounded as if he had resigned himself to his fate, sitting in that dark room.

‘A girl?’ I asked, sitting up straight. ‘Did you see her? Was she all right?’

‘She came and she stood, waiting for someone to see her, to say something, but no one dared go to her.’

‘Was she hurt ?’ I asked, feeling my anxiety rise, but it was as if he didn’t hear me.

‘No one… no one dares to even come out of their home for fear of being brought to the church, or their husband being taken away in the night. Or their children. But I saw her from my window, so I went out. My wife tried to stop me, but I went anyway. You see, we had a daughter and—’

‘Was she hurt?’ I asked him again, wanting to reach over and grab him, shake the answer out of him. ‘The girl who came into the village. Was she hurt ? It’s important you remember.’

‘When I got to her, she just stood there, saying nothing. She didn’t even look at me.’

‘I need you to tell me how she was,’ I said, trying to stay calm. ‘Please.’

When he spoke again, there was a low grumble behind his voice. ‘I’m sorry. She had a lot of blood on her. On her face and on her hands and her clothes. In her hair.’

‘Her hair?’ I tried not to think of the scalp we’d seen hanging from the tree. ‘What about her hair?’

‘Beautiful,’ he said. ‘But there was blood.’

‘She had her hair?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course, but she was…’ His voice trailed away. He was either remembering or he was reluctant to go on, but my attention had slipped for a moment. All I could think was that the scalp wasn’t Dariya’s. I almost hadn’t dared to believe it before. But now, with Dima’s words, it seemed even more real. That terrible obscenity had not been hers.

‘Tell me what happened,’ I said. ‘Tell me about Dariya.’

‘That’s her name? Dariya?’

‘Yes.’

‘I tried to talk to her, but one of the soldiers came over and shouted at her, asking where the blood was from. She said nothing so he shook her like she was going to fall to pieces. It was like she was switched off. She made no sound at all. No reaction. Nothing. He shook her and shook her, asking who she was, and she stayed silent, her body moving like she was a pile of rags. She just stared ahead of her. Staring and staring like she’d seen something terrible and it was still fixed right in front of her. I wanted to tell him to stop shaking her but I was afraid he would punish me. I was a coward.’

‘No,’ Kostya said. ‘Not a coward.’

‘But then he hit her, slapped her so hard he knocked back her head, and when he raised his hand to slap her again, I felt like my blood was going to boil. Before I knew it, I grabbed his hand and when I realised what I’d done, I begged him not to hit her again. I got to my knees and begged him. So he hit me. He hit me over and over, shouting how could I question a soldier of the state, and when I fell, he started kicking me. He kicked me so hard I don’t remember them bringing me in here.’

‘And Dariya?’

‘I don’t know,’ Dima said. ‘I wish I could tell you.’

‘I have to get out of here.’ I turned back to the door, pulling at the handle, raking my fingernails over its solid surface. ‘I have to find her.’

‘There’s no getting out of here,’ said Kostya. ‘Not until they come to take us out.’

‘I have to,’ I said, trying to find purchase on the door, a way of opening it. Then I turned my fists on the wood, beating it as if with two hammers, venting the frustration and rage that had grown these last few days.

The other men left me to my madness as I rattled the door in its secure frame, and when my energy abandoned me, I stopped, putting my forehead against the cold wood. ‘I made a promise,’ I said. ‘I made a promise.’

‘Sit down.’ Yuri put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Save your energy for later.’

‘Later?’

And there was a silence in the room. I sensed the men turning to each other in the darkness, something unspoken passing among them. But I knew. I’d seen things that would make these men cry out in their sleep, and I knew what was coming later. I understood at least a part of what was going to happen to me.

I reached up and put my own hand on Yuri’s. I patted it and then took it from my shoulder. ‘You’re right,’ I said, turning, sitting once again. ‘You’re right.’

I sat on the stone floor once more, leaning my head back to rest on the wall, my mouth falling open. I thought about poor Dariya and everything she’d had to endure. She’d seen her father raise a rabble to hang a man from the old tree in the centre of the village. She’d become dependent on the man who had stolen her from her family, and she’d eventually murdered him in a most horrible manner. It was little surprise she was silent when she came into Sushne, thinking she had found safety.

‘Thank you, Dima. Thank you for trying to protect Dariya.’

Dimitri Markovich said nothing.

‘And is she really your daughter?’ Yuri asked.

‘Of course. Why would you ask that?’

‘It’s just… you didn’t say why you’re here. Perhaps the soldiers thought you did something to harm her, make her like that.’

‘Harm her? No. I was carrying a rifle; they asked where it came from.’

‘You’re a soldier?’

‘I was a soldier. But I have no allegiance other than to our leader.’ The words tasted sour but I had to say them. I didn’t know these men and I didn’t know what they might say or do to try to improve their own situation.

‘What kind of soldier were you?’ Yuri asked.

‘I was on the front against the Austro-Hungarians and the Germans—’

‘Which army?’

‘What difference does it make?’

‘Yuri was there too,’ said Evgeni. ‘In Galicia. There are people here who think he was a war hero.’

‘You were there in June?’ I asked. ‘For the offensive under General Brusilov?’

‘Eighth Army. But it was July as I remember it. Are you testing me, Luka?’

I stayed quiet.

‘Many soldiers died,’ Yuri said.

‘But not you.’

‘No. Not me. After the fall of Tarnopol we pulled back, making a stand east of Czernowitz, but we were tired and people began to desert.’

‘Did you ?’

‘I waited until the very end, Luka.’

‘I waited too.’

‘And then?’

‘I joined the first revolutionary army,’ I said.

‘Ah,’ Yuri laughed. ‘A good communist.’ There was sarcasm in his words.

‘Yes. A good communist.’

‘So they arrest their own now?’

‘Probably. But I’m not with them now.’ I didn’t tell him I abandoned the Red Army during the Crimean mutinies and went to fight with Nestor Makhno.

‘Imperialist and revolutionary?’ Yuri said. ‘One would be forgiven for thinking you don’t know your loyalties.’

I had said too much. It was a mistake for me to have told them anything; any one of them might have been a planted informer. My truth was that I had lost my way. I had fought for one army after another because it was what I had in my blood. I had changed my allegiance only for vague ideals. I had believed the communists offered a better life, but it became clear that what they offered was not freedom. I had defected because Makhno offered self-government protected by a people’s army, but I saw the truth of it now. They had all wanted the same thing. Whether they were Red or White or Black or Green, they had all fought to gain power over the common man. To take what they had, and to keep on taking until there was nothing left but the brittle bones in their bodies. I saw now that only one thing was important, irrespective of colour or ideal, and that was to protect my family.