The Child Thief

16

It didn’t take long to find the trail he had left for us, two sets of prints, one large one small. For the most part it looked as if Dariya was walking well. There were places where she seemed to have fallen, perhaps been dragged, but they were brief.

‘She’s strong,’ I said aloud. ‘To be walking like that. He must be feeding her, keeping her well.’ And even as I said it, I saw a meaning I hadn’t intended. Like the Baba Yaga fattening up children before they were ready to be eaten.

‘I still don’t understand how he left no tracks,’ Viktor said. ‘We’re following tracks right now, aren’t we? So why has he left these but didn’t leave any last night?’

‘He wants us to find these ones,’ Petro said. ‘He wants us to follow. He didn’t want us to follow last night so he covered his tracks.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he had a camp,’ Petro said. ‘Somewhere he was keeping Dariya.’

‘Right,’ I agreed. ‘He wanted us to know he’d been there, but not to follow him. Nothing else makes any sense. I should’ve gone to look. Last night. I should have investigated what I thought I saw. We might be going home with Dariya right now.’

‘If we’d caught him, though,’ Viktor asked, ‘you think he would’ve told us where Dariya was?’

‘Yes.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘There are ways to make men tell you what you want to know.’

Both boys were quiet.

‘He must’ve used the trees,’ I said. ‘I’ve been thinking about how he could have done it and it’s the only way. He must’ve climbed across the low branches and that’s why there were no tracks.’

‘You sure he didn’t fly?’ Viktor asked.

I smiled that his thoughts had followed the same pattern as my own. ‘I’m sure. He’s just a man.’

‘Who comes and goes as he pleases,’ Viktor said. ‘Like he’s playing a game.’

‘He is playing a game,’ I said. ‘That’s why we have to be vigilant if we want to win. I’ve let us down once; I won’t do it again.’

We followed the tracks for another hour or so, veering close to the edge of the woods, passing the houses of another village.

‘That looks like Uroz,’ I said. ‘Which means we’ve come almost fifty kilometres. We’re still going east.’

‘Maybe we can go down there,’ Viktor suggested. ‘Maybe they’ll have something for us to eat.’

‘And maybe they won’t,’ I said. ‘Maybe the place will be under the control of the OGPU. No, we have to keep going while we still have daylight.’ I thought about the screams during the night. ‘We have to keep going.’ And I thought about Dimitri, that first night, wanting to go after Dariya straight away. I wondered if maybe the child thief had been watching us then, ready to shoot the first person to follow him.

‘Papa.’ Petro stopped and grabbed at my coat, disturbing my thoughts, making me look up. ‘Something there. Someone.’

Immediately I crouched, dropping my rifle from my shoulder. Viktor and Petro did the same, but I damned myself for daydreaming, for not being as observant as I needed to be. Not much more than an hour ago I had told myself how vigilant I needed to be, and already I was failing. My instincts and senses were dulled by the cold and the hunger, and by age. I was growing old, and each day was taking a little more of my steel. I should have seen the shape through the trees before either of my sons saw it. It was my duty.

I looked to where Petro was pointing his rifle and lifted my own weapon, pulling the stock against my shoulder, wrapping the sling around my left hand to steady it. We were just past Uroz now, half a kilometre maybe, the houses behind and out of sight. A single figure was standing close to the trees, facing our direction. It was lighter out there, so he was only a silhouette, and to him we would be shrouded in the murk of the forest, but he was stationary and he was staring in our direction.

I put my eye to the scope, bringing the man into focus. It was hard to make out his features. His demeanour was that of an old man, though. He stood hunched, his shoulders slumped, his back bent, his head low.

‘Did he see us?’ I whispered.

‘I don’t know,’ Petro answered. ‘I just saw him there and stopped.’

‘You didn’t see him do anything?’ I asked as the man moved. He shuffled to one side, leaning forward as if looking into the forest.

‘No.’

‘Viktor? What about you?’

‘No.’

I tried to get beyond my anger at not having seen him. I was a soldier, a hunter. I was accustomed to seeing the slightest movement, always watching for signs of life. But tiredness blunted me, and now there was anger to distract me. I couldn’t allow any of those things to prevent me from finding Dariya. I had to be without exhaustion, without emotion; I had to lock those things away. There was only one purpose and I had to let it drive me. If I faltered from that, even for a moment, it could mean a child’s death.

‘Is it him?’ Petro asked.

I continued to watch through the scope. ‘I can’t be sure.’ But I couldn’t help thinking that if it were him, if he had allowed us to come this close to him, then his game was over and we’d all be dead. If he had concealed himself, he could have shot each of us three times over before we could have worked out where he was.

‘Shoot,’ Viktor said. ‘It’s him.’

‘And if it isn’t?’

‘It is, Papa, it’s him. Trying to sneak up on us like he did last night.’

I continued to watch the man peering into the trees as if looking for us. ‘It doesn’t feel right. If it’s him, why is he out there?’

‘Who else would it be?’ Viktor said. ‘We have to shoot him before he shoots us.’

‘No, Viktor, it’s not him.’

‘Isn’t that what you thought last night?’

‘But why would he wait here and not far ahead? Remember how he shot Dimitri.’ I whispered my thoughts, reasoning aloud why this was not our child thief. I wanted Viktor and Petro to see the logic in his thinking, to understand that the man we were following would not present himself in this way. But that wasn’t the effect of mentioning Dimitri’s name. Instead, the word was like a hot knife to Viktor, bringing back memories of blood and death. The sounds Dimitri had made as he struggled with his life out on the steppe.

And while those thoughts cascaded through Viktor’s consciousness, they brought with them a powerful instinct to survive. In his mind he saw Dimitri dying, and he responded in a way that was only human. He knew he did not want it to happen to him. His reaction was all instinct. The instinct to survive.

So when the man took a step forward and raised his hand, Viktor fired his rifle.

The man at the line of the trees stopped mid-movement and his head snapped back. His body relaxed as if a hand had come from the sky, taken hold of his soul and ripped it out of him in one movement. He simply ceased to be. In an instant his life was gone, his body now vacated, and the empty vessel collapsed into the snow.

‘No.’ I lowered my weapon and looked at Viktor and Petro, both of them with their weapons still aimed, their expressions of surprise. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘He was going to shoot at us,’ said Viktor. ‘You saw it. He was going to shoot.’

But I saw doubt in my son’s eyes, and when I looked across at Petro, I knew he saw it too.

‘What?’ Viktor said. ‘Why are you looking at me like that? I’m telling you, he was going to shoot.’

‘All right.’ I looked back at the dark shape in the snow as I put my hand on the warm barrel of Viktor’s rifle and lowered it to point at the ground. ‘All right.’

For a few moments nothing happened. No sounds. Nothing. Then I rose to my feet and slung my rifle. I took the revolver from my pocket and glanced at Petro and Viktor.

‘Wait here,’ I said. ‘No more shooting.’

‘He was going to shoot,’ Viktor said. ‘He was.’

‘Stay with him,’ I told Petro, and he nodded, glancing at me briefly before looking at his brother again.

Viktor could only stare at the shape lying in the snow.

I made my way to the edge of the wood, keeping close to the tree trunks, trying to give myself as much cover as possible. I kept the revolver pointed ahead and I hunched low. As I came closer, so the body became clearer, and when I reached the last trees I could see we had reached the road between Uroz and Sushne. The narrow track that ran alongside the forest was covered with snow, just as everything else was, but it had been used some time since the storm yesterday. There were hoof prints, two sets from first glance, and ice had formed in the bottom of the prints so I guessed they had been made either last thing yesterday or first thing this morning. Someone had ridden this way on horseback.

At the side of the track the man was lying face up with his arms by his sides, like a child playing dead. His head was twisted sideways so his cheek rested in the snow. Viktor’s shot had been a good one: the man had died instantly. The bullet had struck him in the face, just above his mouth, and had torn up through the back of his head, releasing his life. There was a large stain around his head, and the track behind him was sprayed with blood and brain.

And I could see, straight away, the man had not been alone. A few metres further along a second person was crouching at the side of the track, looking around in fear, hands raised to shoulder level.

I stepped from the woods and pointed the revolver at her.

‘Please,’ she mumbled. ‘Please don’t shoot me. Please.’

She was young. Not much older than my boys, maybe nineteen or twenty, and she wasn’t clothed for winter weather. She wore no coat, no hat. Her dress was dirty and there were red marks on her face that could have been first-stage bruises or might have been caused by the cold biting at her skin. Her hair was long, but not tied back as I would have expected. It was loose around her shoulders, tangled and wild. Like a young Baba Yaga, but her features were too soft for her to be mistaken for a witch. She had pale skin which heightened the flushed patches on her sharp cheekbones, and she had dark eyes.

When I told her to stand up, she shifted in the snow and I could see her feet were bare. And when I glanced down at the dead man I saw that he too had nothing on his feet. He was wearing a shirt and jacket but no winter coat.

‘Who are you?’ I asked, staying where I was, keeping the revolver levelled at her. I looked past her at the road, seeing nothing in the distance, risked a quick look into the trees to make sure Viktor and Petro were hidden.

‘Who are you?’ I asked again.

‘Aleksandra.’

‘And him?’

She didn’t look down at the body. ‘Roman.’

‘You knew him?’

She nodded.

‘Where are you from?’

‘Uroz.’

‘And what are you doing here? Like that – no shoes, no coat.’

‘They made me,’ she said.

‘Who?’

But she just stared.

‘Who made you?’

The shock was leaving her now. It was lifting from her like a dark shadow that had fallen over her but was now snatched by the wind and blown away into the trees. I saw the change in her face, saw the difference in her eyes, and then there were tears on her cheeks.

I lowered the revolver and went to her, putting an arm around her and leading her to the side of the track. She walked like she was just learning, her steps awkward and hesitant.

‘How long have you been out here?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Can you feel your feet?’ I asked her.

‘No.’

‘They look all right, but we need to get them warm. If they get too cold, there’s a strong chance of frostbite. You know what that is?’

‘Of course.’

Taking her into the trees, I called to Viktor and Petro, and spread Dimitri’s coat on the ground for her to stand on. I wrapped it around her feet.

‘Stay with her,’ I told Petro. ‘See if you can rub some warmth into her feet. And when they’re warm, make sure she puts these on.’ I put Dimitri’s boots and socks on the ground beside Aleksandra. ‘Viktor, you come with me.’

‘Is it him?’ he asked. ‘Did I get him?’

‘No, it isn’t him.’

Viktor looked at me. ‘It must be. He was going to—’

‘It isn’t him.’

‘But he’s armed.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘He was going to shoot.’

‘No, Viktor.’ My son had been afraid and his mind had showed him what he expected to see. But the man he had shot was unarmed. I sighed and shook my head. ‘Come on. We have to move him before someone comes. Before someone sees.’ I began walking back to the place where the man lay by the road, but Viktor stayed where he was, staring.

‘Come on,’ I said to him. ‘Now.’

But Viktor just stood and stared. As if something was keeping him from moving his feet. He wanted to follow, he wanted to help, but something wouldn’t let him. He was still processing my words. He had killed a man, but it was the wrong man.

‘You have to try,’ I said. ‘You have to—’

‘I can’t.’

‘Go and help the girl, then. Her name is Aleksandra.’ I looked back at where she was standing beside a tree, her body turned away as if she were trying to disappear into the cracks in the bark. She hung her head, her hair falling across her face. ‘Petro, you come with me.’

While Viktor went to stand with Aleksandra, neither of them speaking, Petro and I dragged the man away from the road. We each took an arm and pulled him into the trees, leaving a flattened mark in the snow, and a wide streak of blood. I could see how it turned Petro’s stomach, handling the body like that, but he didn’t complain. He averted his eyes from the man’s face and did what was necessary, and when we had dragged the corpse far enough, Petro let go of the man’s arm, leaving it to flop across his chest and slide away.

‘What Viktor did—’

‘He was scared,’ I told Petro. ‘We all are. He thought this man was going to shoot us. Kill you, maybe. Me.’

‘I know. I understand.’

‘Good. So he needs to accept it and get on.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Just like that.’

‘Is that what you do? Pretend it hasn’t happened?’

‘If that’s what it takes, yes.’

‘How do you do that?’

‘I don’t know. I lock it away.’

Now Petro looked down at the body. He put all his effort into forcing himself to see.

‘I think if Viktor hadn’t shot first, I would’ve killed this man,’ he said. ‘I was going to shoot him.’ There was fear and revulsion in his eyes as he connected with his brother’s emotions. He almost knew what his brother was feeling, because he was almost the one who had murdered this man. But there would also be a kind of relief that it hadn’t been him.

‘When people are scared,’ I said, ‘they’ll do almost anything to survive. Like what happened in Vyriv… He’ll be all right,’ I told Petro. ‘Give him some time.’ I looked across at Viktor and Aleksandra. Like two more trees in the forest.

‘She needs clothes,’ I said, bending down to remove the man’s jacket.

‘Will she be all right?’ Petro asked.

‘Of course she will. We don’t breed weak women. And our men can turn their hearts to stone, so your brother will be fine too. Now, help me with this.’

Petro swallowed hard and helped with the other arm, pulling it from the sleeve of the jacket, keeping his eyes away from Roman’s face, not wanting to see the trauma inflicted by Viktor’s bullet.

We stripped the man naked, taking every scrap of clothing he had, and went to Aleksandra, giving her the shirt and trousers. ‘Your feet warm enough now?’ I asked, and when she nodded, I told her the socks and boots were for her. ‘They’ll be too big, but they’re better than walking barefoot in the snow. And you can keep the coat.’

As she was dressing, I took my entrenching tool back to the road, shovelling away the bloody snow, throwing a fresh covering across it while Petro brushed it smooth with a branch broken from a tree.

Coming back to Aleksandra, she refused to make eye contact. She kept her head down, her hair falling over her face, keeping it hidden. Close by, Viktor remained silent, staring into the woods.

‘We don’t have time to feel sorry for ourselves,’ I said. ‘I need to know why you were out here dressed like that.’

She said nothing, so I went to her, took her shoulders and shook her until she looked up at me. ‘Why are you here?’

She stared at me, her eyes widening, then her muscles tensed and she raised her arms, trying to break my grip and push me away. I held her tight as she struggled, and when she began to weaken, I let go and stepped back.

‘Well, good luck,’ I said, collecting my pack, slinging it over my back. I picked up my rifle and nodded to Petro. ‘Come on. Let’s get your brother. We don’t have time for this. The longer we wait, the further away they’ll be.’

‘They came a week ago.’ Her voice was hoarse.

I stopped and turned to look at Aleksandra. ‘OGPU?’

She shook her head, creased her brow like she didn’t understand.

‘Soldiers?’ I said. ‘Chekists.’

‘Yes.’

‘And they made you come out here like this?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did they… did they do anything else to you?’

‘It isn’t enough they took my father? That they took our food?’ There was anger in her eyes now, in her voice too, as if she was letting out something she’d kept inside. She saw we meant her no harm, and that had released the pressure inside her, but when she mentioned her father, her voice cracked and she squeezed her eyes tight.

‘How many men?’ I asked her.

Aleksandra shook her head and I gave her a moment to settle her feelings. ‘Four or five, I don’t know. They came on horses, went to every house and searched them. Took everything. Lermentov.’ She spat the word out like it tasted bad in her mouth.

‘Lermentov?’

‘The leader. That was his name.’

I looked at my sons. Petro was listening to what the girl was saying, but he had one eye on his brother, who was leaning against a tree with his head bowed. Viktor was still disturbed by what he’d done, turning inwards now, keeping his thoughts to himself. I knew he needed something to take his mind from it. Keeping him busy wouldn’t erase what had happened, but it would make him less numb. He needed to get back on the trail as soon as possible. The longer we waited, the further away Dariya would be, and the more Viktor would retreat into himself if he had nothing to occupy him. And with soldiers already in Uroz, it was only a matter of time before they discovered Vyriv. I had to find her and return home.

‘Communists,’ I said, turning back to Aleksandra. ‘There’ll be more of them somewhere. This man Lermentov, he’ll be the party man, or the police. The others will be Red Army. Were they armed?’

Aleksandra nodded.

‘And what did they do?’

‘There were meetings. My father went to them. He said they wanted to take our land and our cow. For the glory of the collective, he said, but he refused.’

‘And where’s your father now?’

Aleksandra looked away. She hung her head in the same way that Viktor was doing, and I couldn’t help feeling impatient. I didn’t need this. I wanted only to be on the trail, closing the gap between me and the man who had taken Dariya. I didn’t want to be dealing with disturbed girls and a boy who couldn’t face the fact that he’d killed a man. Viktor’s reaction was disappointing, and I needed to bury that too.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The longer this took, the further away Dariya would be. But I had to know everything before we could go on. If someone was looking for Aleksandra, following her as we were following Dariya, we may need to leave her behind.

I put a hand on her chin and lifted her face to look at me. ‘I need to know where your father is.’ The bruises were more obvious now, whether from the light or from their further development. Purple-red, angry marks on her right cheekbone and just below her eyes.

She pushed my hand away. ‘What do you care? Who are you anyway?’

‘No one.’

‘And what are you doing out here, shooting at people? How can I trust you?’

‘How can we trust you? How do we know you’re who you say you are?’

‘Look at me.’

‘Look at us. We’re just like you. And you have to trust us -what choice do you have?’

She sighed and looked away.

‘What happened to your father?’

‘I don’t know. They used Pavlo Kostyshn’s house as a prison, took my father there and beat him with sticks and revolvers until he was swollen and blue before they released him. Then they demanded grain we didn’t have, so they took him away again. They came in the night when we were asleep and… I tried to stop them, but they hit me.’

‘When?’

‘Three, no, four nights ago.’

I felt no guilt at being firm with her, but I knew she would never see her father again. He was either dead or had been loaded onto a cattle truck and shipped to a labour camp.

‘They took others too,’ she said. ‘And when I asked where he was, what they had done with him, they just pushed me away. And they came to our houses and took everything we had. They took the food from our cellars and our cupboards and loaded it onto carts. Left me with nothing but a spoon and a saucer.’

‘You have anyone else?’ I asked her. ‘Family?’

‘No one.’

‘And when did you last eat?’

She shook her head. ‘Yesterday, I think.’

‘You think?’ Petro spoke now, coming closer, looking at Aleksandra and then giving me a questioning glance. ‘You don’t know when you last ate?’

‘They kept me in the dark,’ she said. ‘I don’t know for how long. And they hit me.’

‘Why?’

‘They think I know who slaughtered the animals.’

‘Your animals were slaughtered?’

She nodded. ‘And many things were burned. Food, seed grain. People from the village did it to stop the soldiers from taking them. They said if they couldn’t keep their own animals, they would rather cut their throats. And the soldiers thought I knew who did it.’

‘Did you?’

‘Of course. Everyone knew. I think they even knew it themselves, but they wanted to shame us, make an example. But I wouldn’t tell them, so now they make me walk to the next village. In the snow. Without shoes or a coat.’

‘What about Roman? What did he do?’

‘Hid food.’

I thought about the horse tracks on the road. ‘And they’ve gone ahead to wait for you,’ I said. ‘Two men on horseback. They’re expecting you.’

‘Yes. So they can ask me more questions. But I don’t think they want any answers. I think they just want me to die.’

‘How far away is your village from here? Two kilometres?’

She nodded.

‘And to the next one?’

She shrugged.

‘Four or five kilometres?’

‘About that,’ she said.

‘That gives us a while before they’re expecting you,’ I thought aloud.

Petro shifted. ‘And when she doesn’t arrive, Papa? Will they think she died on the road?’

‘Maybe. Or maybe they’ll come looking for her.’

I walked away and fumbled a cigarette from the packet, only three left, and lit it with a match. The phosphorus smell was tangy, but it lasted only a second or two before the tobacco smoke smothered it. I stood for a while, just looking at the trees, seeing the snow, letting my eyes drift out of focus so all I could see was white.

‘What is it?’ Petro spoke from just behind me.

I took a long drag on the cigarette, long enough for me to have to stifle a cough, and blew the smoke out, letting it mingle with the heat of my breath.

‘We should leave,’ Petro said. ‘Go after Dariya; get away from here in case those men come looking. We can take Aleksandra with us.’

‘Or we could leave her here.’

‘What?’

‘If they come looking for her, maybe we should make sure they find her.’

Petro opened his mouth to speak, but he had no words.

‘We could put her back on the road and let her walk.’

‘And if she tells them about us?’ Petro finally found his voice. ‘If they ask about the coat and boots? And when the old man doesn’t show up?’

I offered Petro the cigarette and he looked at it for a second before shaking his head.

‘We could take the clothes from her,’ I shrugged. ‘Let her walk barefoot—’

‘No.’

‘Or we could kill her.’

‘What?’

‘Just possibilities, Petro, that’s all.’

‘That’s not an option. I couldn’t… we couldn’t do that.’ He looked at me, probably persuading himself I would never do that – murder someone to cover my tracks – but at the same time he doubted his own thoughts. ‘It would be so wrong.’

‘Would it?’ I hadn’t given much thought to killing Aleksandra – I had spoken the words aloud as they came to mind – but now I was asking myself if I would do it. And it made me feel sick to realise I would. If I thought it would help our situation, I really would consider it.

‘Of course it would be wrong. How can you even think—’

‘Don’t worry; we’ll take her with us. We’ll just have to hope no one follows.’

Petro shifted where he stood, moving from one foot to the other, breaking the stillness. ‘I don’t know what it’s like,’ he said.

‘Hm?’

‘To be like you. To fight like you have. I can’t imagine what you must have done, how you must have felt.’

‘Where’s this coming from?’

‘I think you pretend it hasn’t happened.’

‘What?’

‘You harden yourself and pretend it hasn’t happened, and that’s how you live with it. And that’s what you expect from Viktor, isn’t it?’

‘We should go.’

‘Am I right?’

I stood where I was, cigarette in hand.

‘Am I right, Papa? Is that how you live with it? Is that what Viktor must do?’

‘Viktor must do whatever he can.’

‘And you? You do things and then make yourself believe they haven’t happened? Is that how you could leave Aleksandra behind?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it now.’

‘When?’

‘Come on, let’s get moving. We can’t waste any more time.’ I went back to Viktor, sensing Petro’s eyes on my back. Petro knew I’d been thinking about what I was going to do, and he knew that if I thought we had to leave Aleksandra behind, I would do it.

‘You all right?’ I asked Viktor.

He nodded.

‘I need you to say it.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Good. One more thing to do and then we’re leaving. Come and help me with this.’ I went to the body of the old man and took his arms, starting to drag him deeper into the woods. ‘Help me, Viktor. I can’t do it on my own.’

But Viktor remained where he was, looking away.

‘Viktor,’ I called again. ‘Help me.’

Still he remained.

I felt my impatience rise. I was disappointed by my son’s reaction. I thought him stronger. I called him once more, louder this time, but again he didn’t move. Instead, Aleksandra turned towards me. She seemed to harden herself as she took a step forward, only to be stopped by Petro.

‘I’ll do it,’ he said, putting a hand on her arm, holding her back. ‘It’s all right.’

So Petro helped me drag the old man further into the trees, and together we piled snow over him.

Once the body was hidden, I took Petro back to the road, casting a glance at Viktor. I told Petro to take off his boots and socks.

‘Why?’

‘We need to make more tracks,’ I said, crouching to remove my own boots, looking across once more at Viktor.

‘He’ll be all right,’ Petro said. ‘He just needs a moment.’

‘He’s had a moment. We don’t have many more left.’

‘He’ll be fine.’

‘Right.’ I took off my boots, blocking out the pain when I put my naked feet in the snow. ‘When Aleksandra and…’

‘… Roman.’

‘Mm. When Aleksandra and Roman don’t arrive in Sushne, they’ll come to look for them, and we don’t want them to find a body. If they find tracks ending here, they’ll go into the trees, maybe find where we buried him.’

‘So we make more tracks,’ Petro said. ‘Further down the road.’

‘Exactly.’

Petro nodded and removed his boots, wincing when his bare feet touched the snow. ‘It hurts,’ he said.

‘Let’s do it quickly then.’

With our boots in our hands, we walked barefoot, trying to continue from the place where Aleksandra and Roman had been walking. At first the cold was painful, then it began to feel more like burning, as if we were walking over hot coals.

‘Some people can do this for a long time,’ I said, trying to keep my mind off the feeling in my feet.

‘How long?’ There was tension in Petro’s voice.

‘Half an hour, maybe.’

‘Half an hour? What about frostbite?’

I clenched my teeth. ‘We’ll stop soon. Walk faster.’

‘Will we get frostbite?’

‘No. If your toes go white, we’ll stop and rub them. As long as they’re pink you’re fine.’

‘That’s the rule?’

I shrugged and looked at Petro. ‘I don’t know.’

Petro had pulled his scarf away from his face and I could see the redness of his cheeks, the mud smeared beneath his dark eyes. His features were contorted with pain and determination. Like some kind of twisted clown. And, despite our situation, I felt myself smile.

‘What?’ Petro asked.

‘If someone could see us now, they’d think…’ I began to laugh.

‘What?’ Petro started to smile, his expression turning to one of confusion. ‘They’d think what?’

‘That we’re mad,’ I said, laughing out loud.

Petro began to laugh with me as we hurried along the road, barefoot, like two insane vagabonds, and when I finally signalled to Petro to stop, we rubbed warmth back into our feet and put on our socks and boots.

We left the road, heading back into the trees, covering our tracks as we went, then doubled back to where Viktor and Aleksandra were waiting.

‘You think it’ll be enough?’ Petro asked.

‘We’ll have to hope so,’ I told him. ‘A fresh fall would help cover it better.’

‘But then we’d have no way of following Dariya.’

‘I think we’ll be able to follow her whatever happens. It’s part of his game.’

‘You really think this is a game to him?’

I nodded. ‘Take a child, provoke a hunting party and turn the tables on them. I’d bet the stranger who came into Vyriv wasn’t alone when he started out to rescue his children. I’d bet this man killed them one by one, just like he wants to do with us.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s exciting? Maybe he enjoys it.’ I looked at my son. ‘But this time it’s different. This time it’s me who’s after him – and he won’t get away.’

Coming to where the others were waiting, I took up my pack and handed Viktor’s to him, saying it was time to be strong again. Beside him, Aleksandra was swamped by the coat we had given her, the warmth bringing colour to her face and hardening the intent in her eyes. She no longer looked cold and afraid, but had the air of a woman who was watching closely, assessing her options, deciding what she had to do to survive. There was something almost animal-like in the intensity of her expressions. I had told Petro that we did not breed weak women, and the look in Aleksandra’s eyes proved it to me.

Viktor took the pack from me and put it over his back. He hesitated when he was about to pick up the rifle, but he grasped it tight, fighting his guilt as he slung it over his shoulder.

‘I would have done the same thing,’ I said, glancing at Aleksandra, looking for a reaction.

Viktor turned to look at me.

‘I would have shot him the way you did.’ I gave him my full attention now. Aleksandra had not reacted to my comment, but she was watching us closely.

‘But you didn’t.’

‘No.’

‘So you wouldn’t have.’

‘I just hesitated a little longer than you, that’s all. It’s experience.’ I shrugged. ‘Or maybe it’s age, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just slower than I used to be.’

Viktor said nothing.

‘It’s no small thing, killing a man. Taking a life. Taking away everything someone is.’

‘It’s not that,’ Viktor said.

‘What then?’

‘It’s taking the wrong life. If it had been him, if I had been right, I would be pleased.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘I’m certain.’

I nodded. ‘Good. Then I need you to take care of Aleksandra. She’s your responsibility now.’

‘I’m not anybody’s responsibility,’ Aleksandra said. ‘If you take me with you, I won’t slow you down. I’m strong.’

I looked her up and down, seeing how much her demeanour had changed since we first saw her. ‘Yes, you are. But back there you were afraid.’

‘Of course.’

‘There will be more of that,’ I said. ‘Are you sure you want to come with us? You don’t even know where we’re going.’

‘What choice do I have?’

‘You could stay here. Try to go home.’ I shrugged. ‘It’s up to you now.’

‘You’d just let me go?’

‘If it’s what you want.’

‘But you know I’m going to come with you. That’s why you hid Roman. That’s why you made the tracks. What else can I do?’

I looked directly at her and saw that she knew her father was gone. She had accepted it as a fact because it was the only way she could move on and survive. Aleksandra had nothing to go back to; she had already told us she had no other family. The only thing waiting for her in Uroz was death or exile. Perhaps both. We were the only hope she had now.

I reached out and put a hand on her arm. I said nothing, but I let her see what was in my face, in my eyes. We were together now. She was with us now.

Aleksandra nodded gently. ‘I won’t be a burden.’

‘I’ know.’

And with that we began walking again.