Dan Smith - The Child Thief

‘Why didn’t you say so before?’

‘All I want is to find my daughter.’

‘Maybe we should talk about her for a moment. Your daughter. What did you say her name was?’

‘Dariya.’

‘And you lost her in the woods, is that right?’

‘Yes. She came here. To this village.’

‘And she was well?’

‘What?’

‘She was well when you last saw her?’

‘Yes.’

Behind Lermentov the church door opened and he turned to look.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘How convenient. We speak about her and she arrives. As if by magic.’ He smiled a wide grin, but his eyes held something other than laughter, something other than the bored look of an official performing yet another interrogation. Now there was dark hatred in his eyes. ‘Bring her in, Anatoly.’ I noticed he had dropped the formal usage of his comrade’s name.

Anatoly came forward with Dariya at his side.

She looked pale and small, but she was alive. And she was, more or less, unharmed from what I could see. My deductions from the scene at the hut and my fellow prisoner Dimitri’s account had been accurate – the scalp that the child thief had left for us had not belonged to Dariya – and seeing her standing there was overwhelming both because I was relieved and pleased but also because I had wished to find her under different circumstances. I’d hoped to rescue her and take her home, but that outcome now looked unlikely. My chest heaved at seeing her, and I had to control my emotions. I had been searching only for two days but it felt as if I had been on Dariya’s trail for weeks. All the time I had been looking for her I had closed everything away, locked my feelings behind the strong door I kept in my mind and in my heart. I had kept those feelings so well contained that I hadn’t known how afraid I was for her, but now that door threatened to burst open. I took a deep breath and hardened myself. Now was not the time for weakness.

Dariya’s eyes were ringed red and her hair was tangled about her small face. Her sheepskin coat hung open, and beneath it she wore the same dress she had been wearing when I last saw her, but now it was dirty and torn in more than one place. There were rusty patches where the child thief’s blood had dried on the material, and when the snow fell away from her woollen boots, I could see dark stains there too. She stared ahead of her as if she saw nothing. Like a blind child being led into the room.

Anatoly did not hold her hand; instead he had one hand on the top of her head as if to make her move in the right direction, but that was all. He brought her close to the table and I started to stand, but Lermentov prodded me with the crucifix once more and I stayed where I was.

‘So this is your daughter?’

‘Yes. Let me go to her.’

Lermentov turned to Dariya standing at his side. She looked so small and empty, and it filled me with despair. ‘Is this your father?’

Dariya offered no response. Nothing. She didn’t move her lips. She only blinked, but it was not in response to his question.

The policeman shook his head. ‘She doesn’t recognise you.’

‘What have you done to her?’

‘What have we done to her? We don’t harm people, we protect them. She was like this when she arrived. Well. Not quite like this. She had blood on her hands and face, but one of the women has washed it away. At first I thought maybe it was her blood, but she seemed unharmed.’

‘Thank God.’

‘There is no God.’

‘Of course. I just meant… I’m glad she’s unharmed.’

‘She isn’t. I thought she was, but when we looked further…’ He leaned to one side and lifted the hem of Dariya’s dress.

She remained still as he drew it up her leg so I could see a rough bandage wrapped around her right thigh. Lermentov took one end of it between his fingers and pulled it away to reveal the wound where a piece of flesh had been cut away from her leg. It was an area about the size of a cigarette packet, dry and well tended. It looked as if it had been treated as soon as it had been done. Cauterised, perhaps, with something hot, but done so perfectly and so completely that in only a few places did it look raw, and there was almost no weeping of blood or fluid from the wound.

I turned away, remembering the screams I’d heard in the night. I didn’t know if the child thief had mutilated Dariya like this for his amusement, his hunger or just to frighten his pursuers with her terrible screams. I was sorry for her in ways I could barely understand.

When the policeman spoke again, his words were slow and considered, and with those words came an awful understanding.

‘Why did you do this to her?’ he asked.

I turned to meet his stare. Thoughts and feelings confused themselves into a terrible jumble as I realised what Lermentov was saying. ‘What? No. I…’ But I didn’t know what to say. Nothing would convince the policeman.

‘She’s not your daughter, is she?’ Lermentov almost curled his lip. The interrogation about the missing prisoners was just a lead into this. Before it had been routine, mundane, but something in Lermentov’s expression and intonation felt personal. As if Dariya’s condition meant something to him.

I looked at the man across the table and wondered what I could tell him. I had lied about Dariya being my daughter because I thought it would make them more sympathetic, make them hand her over. But now they thought I’d done something to harm her. The only people who could confirm who I was were the people from Vyriv, but I couldn’t risk exposing them. Perhaps it was time to change my story. Give them more of the truth. Let them think they had beaten it out of me.

‘She wasn’t lost.’ I hung my head. ‘She was taken from me. That’s why I had my rifle. I was hunting for the man who took her.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

‘Would you have believed me?’

‘No.’ Lermentov carefully reset the bandage and dropped the hem of Dariya’s dress, letting the cloth fall over the wound. ‘And I don’t believe you now, either. You’re lying.’

‘No.’

‘You’re lying to me again. This girl isn’t your daughter any more than she’s mine. You did this to her. You hurt her like this. You’re an animal.’

‘No. Please. She is my daughter.’ I looked at Dariya, my eyes filling with tears, my nose streaming. ‘Tell him, Dariya. Tell him who I am.’

But Dariya just stood and stared ahead of her as if none of us was even there. The man standing beside her, with the farmer’s clothes and the hands of a man who worked the fields, looked away at the far wall of the church.

The policeman pulled my satchel towards him, dragging it across the surface of the table. I had forgotten about it. I had barely even looked at it since my interrogation had begun, but now I stared at it as Lermentov opened the fastening and put his hand inside.

A couple of cartridges rolled out when he removed the aluminium water bottle, and he took out the bottle I had brought from the cabin where Dariya had killed the child thief.

‘This yours?’ Lermentov asked, placing the bottle upright on the table.

‘Yes.’

He considered the clear, unlabelled bottle for a moment, then looked across at one of the soldiers. ‘Open it.’

The soldier came round to Lermentov’s side of the table and took the bottle, biting on the cork and pulling hard. After a few seconds the cork eased from the bottle with a quiet pop and the soldier put it on the table, pushing it towards the policeman, who nodded once. The soldier returned to his post behind me.

The OGPU man sniffed at the open bottle and looked at me. ‘Vodka?’

‘ Horilka .’

He nodded and raised the bottle, saying, ‘Your health.’ He took a sip, tasting, before smiling and taking a deeper drink. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. ‘It’s good.’ He took another drink and put the bottle aside.