Dan Smith - The Child Thief

‘They’ve already done it, Viktor. They’ve already won.’

‘No. They’ve only won when the last of us gives up fighting them. I killed one bastard soldier today; put another ten in front of me and I’ll kill all of them too.’

‘The fighting is over. Now it’s up to us to survive. That’s all we must do. Survive.’

‘After what they’ve done to us? They take everything we own. They beat us, kill us, deport us.’

‘People are tired now, Viktor. Weak and tired.’

‘And you? You’re too tired to fight?’

‘I’m tired, yes, but too tired?’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. But I’ve seen enough to know when to fight and when to get away. Now I just want to find some peace.’

‘Then we have to fight for it.’

‘No. I told you, there’s no fight we can win. What we have to do now is take care of your mother and your sister. Of Dariya over there. We have to find somewhere safe for us.’

Viktor turned to look at Dariya. ‘Why won’t she speak? She just stares and says nothing. If I have to look at her too long, I think it might drive me mad.’

‘Have some sympathy,’ I said. ‘We can’t imagine how she feels… what he must’ve done to her.’

‘I wish I’d killed him. Doing something like that to children. Cutting them and… He was a monster. I would’ve—’

‘I’ve had enough talk of killing. He’s gone now. Let’s concentrate on living.’

Viktor took a deep breath and nodded. He clenched his teeth hard, the muscles of his jaw working, and I could feel the tension in him. All the hatred.

I put my hand on him but said nothing. There are times when no words can convey feelings. Sometimes a gesture is all that can be made, a gesture that overpowers the weakness of empty words.

Viktor sniffed hard and turned away, pressing the palm of his hand against his right eye. ‘I’m sorry, Papa. I’m sorry for not coming sooner. For letting them hurt you.’

‘You didn’t let them do anything, Viktor. You did exactly what you had to do. What I would have done. You waited until you could win your battle, then you struck. And now I’m free, and Dariya is safe.’ I looked back at the forest. ‘All those others too. They owe you their lives.’

Viktor wiped his hand across his nose and tipped his head back to look at the treetops. He stayed like that for a while before he spoke again. ‘There’s some meat,’ he said. ‘I shot a deer yesterday and we ate well. You should have some before we leave.’

I watched him, standing silent beside me, and I wished there was something I could say to make my son feel better.

When I went to sit with them, Petro handed me a tin mug of tea, black and steaming. It was without sugar and tasted bitter, but it was good to feel its heat. It burned its way into my stomach when I swallowed and my throat stung, but it was a good sensation.

There was venison too, the thin strips of meat smoked over the fire until they were almost black. They were hard to bite into, but the flavour was unlike anything I had tasted in a long time, and I immediately felt the benefit of something good to eat. My worries about not being able to continue once I had allowed myself to rest began to subside, and I stretched my feet close to the stones surrounding the fire so the heat could dry my boots. With the hot food and the tea and the warmth, my pains were all but forgotten, and I was glad to have my sons. They had relieved some of my burden of responsibility.

‘Viktor shot the deer yesterday morning,’ Petro said. ‘He saw it through the trees and I told him to leave it, that someone in the village might hear the shot, but he was right to ignore me. He tracked it for most of the morning; let it move away before he killed it. Took what meat he could carry and brought it back.

Aleksandra and I prepared it while Viktor went back to watch the village.’

Dariya sat between Aleksandra’s legs, chewing on a strip of venison, her eyes still distant. I looked at the piece of meat she held in her small fingers and tried not to see the flesh Lermentov had unwrapped on the altar table in the church. I’d hardly even had the chance to think about the wound on her leg, I was so caught up in having found her, in keeping her with me during the march, in looking for an escape and in the arrival of my sons.

Now I came forward and lifted the hem of her dress, Aleksandra and Petro watching me with concern.

Dariya’s thin legs were pale and dirty, her boots oversized and out of place. Her right thigh was still bandaged, and the bindings were clean.

‘What’s that?’ Petro asked, coming closer.

‘He cut her,’ I said, almost a whisper. Dariya continued to stare ahead as if none of us was there. She took another bite of the venison and chewed slowly. ‘The one who took her. The child thief.’

Petro was staring at the bandages, his eyes wide.

I pulled Dariya’s dress down, straightening it.

‘Like we saw on the other?’ Petro continued to look at the place where Dariya had been cut. ‘Is she going to be all right?’

I didn’t know how to answer that question. Although the child thief had left her alive, it was as if he had reached into her and torn out her soul. He had removed everything that made her the little girl she had been, the child who was my daughter’s best friend and cousin. Now, she was nothing more than a shell. Staring and eating, not speaking. Just the movement of her jaws, the blinking of her eyes. She was all instinctive function, and nothing else. I wondered what could bring her back. What could reunite her body with her soul.

I sat back against the fallen tree and said nothing. I loosened one of the buttons on my coat and slipped a hand inside to take out the young soldier’s cigarettes. I lit one with a match and drew the smoke into my lungs as if it would give me the strength to overcome what lay ahead and what lay behind.

‘How did you know where I was?’ I asked.

‘By the time we got to the road, you were gone,’ Viktor said. ‘We looked at your tracks, seeing there’d been horses, and we followed the road until we saw the village. There were soldiers close to the entrance, so we moved back into the trees and found a place to watch.’

‘We saw you go into the church,’ Aleksandra added, ‘and we knew there was nothing we could do. We were beginning to think we should go back to Vyriv.’

‘No,’ Petro said. ‘We would never have left you.’

‘You should have,’ I told them. ‘You should’ve left me, but I’m glad you didn’t.’

Dariya raised her head and looked at me. She didn’t speak and her expression barely changed, but there was something in her eyes. Something new.

‘We were waiting for the right moment,’ Petro said. ‘We trekked all around the village, looking for the best way to come in, but there were too many soldiers. There was just no way, so we had to wait.’

Aleksandra ran a hand over Dariya’s head, brushing back her hair and putting her fingers through it. ‘I told them they should go. But neither of them would listen. I made them promise they would stay only one more day, but I don’t think they’d have kept their promise.’

I passed the cigarette to Viktor and lifted the tin cup to my mouth, the tea steaming in the cold, and I saw my hands were still shaking. The dark liquid swelled and threatened to spill from the cup, so I bit the rim to keep it steady and let the steam roll around my cheeks.

‘We should go now,’ I said after a moment.

‘Another minute,’ Petro said, coming forward with another cup of water. He held a rag in his other hand, and he dipped it into the water and crouched to wipe the blood from my face.

I took his wrist and stayed his hand.