The Child Thief

25

When Kostya was taken, he took with him the hope of the other incarcerated men. Before, they had hardly spoken, but now they said nothing at all.

I tried to move about, find a comfortable position. If I stayed as I was for too long, pains developed. I tried sitting with my legs crossed, stretched out, with my back against the wall, or leaning forward. I tried standing, but my bare feet hurt, and I tried lying, but the floor was too hard. There was no comfort to be found in that room, and I understood it had been well chosen as a prison.

After some time Dimitri Markovich offered his lap as a pillow, and I realised that in their silence the men had been following an order of lying on each other, taking turns, looking for the briefest moment of sleep. So I accepted, and I put my head on Dimitri, snatching the slightest respite before he tapped me on the head and told me it was his turn.

But Dimitri was denied his sleep because once again the door opened and the soldiers came in. This time they had come for me.

They dragged me to the table and pushed me down into the chair. The crucifix was still there, but my satchel and the parcel of flesh were gone. Instead, there was a garmoshka and the bottle of horilka, now almost empty.

Sergei Artemevich Lermentov sat opposite, his eyes red and tired.

‘Where’s Dariya?’ I asked.

Lermentov didn’t reply.

‘Where is she? And where’s Kostya? How long have I been here?’

‘I ask the questions.’ His words were lazy and much of his officious manner had relaxed.

‘Of course, comrade.’

Lermentov looked over my shoulder and watched the guards standing behind me. ‘You’re not my comrade. You’re my prisoner. An enemy of the state. You have no comrades. You have no right to call anyone comrade.’

‘I’m not an enemy of the state.’

‘Conspirator, counter-revolutionary, criminal – what does it matter? You belong to the state now. You’re white coal. That’s what the guards will call you.’

‘And Dariya? My daughter?’

‘She’s got work in her,’ he said, looking away with a regretful expression. ‘Not much, I don’t think, but some. She’ll be sent to work.’

‘I thought you people call it re-education.’

‘No one talks about that any more.’ Lermentov continued to stare at nothing, as if his mind was elsewhere. ‘Now it’s just labour.’

I bit my lip, trying to compose myself. ‘Please,’ I said. ‘You have to believe I didn’t harm her.’

‘Who knows what to believe?’ Lermentov said quietly so that only I could hear it. He had seen my face when he showed me what had happened to Dariya. He had seen the shock in my eyes, and I hoped it was a look that was plaguing him. He’d been sure that I was responsible for what had happened to Dariya but now, perhaps, there was doubt.

‘If you have to send me away, then do it, but keep her here. Someone must be able to look after her.’

‘Nothing I can do for her.’ Lermentov sniffed hard and shook his head. ‘She can work so that’s what she has to do.’ He reached out for the bottle and pulled it towards him. ‘There’s enough for everybody.’ His words were slurred, his eyes distant. ‘We’re all workers now, and there are quotas to fill. “We need more workers,” they say, and in the north they dig and they cut and they build.’ He took a long drink from the bottle and banged it down on the table. ‘And when they say they need more workers, we send them more workers. This great country will be even greater because we have so many workers. Endless workers.’

‘But not children.’ I watched the inebriated policeman, seeing something other than hard coldness in him.

‘Everyone,’ Lermentov said. ‘We’re lucky to have so many people who will give their hands and feet to the glory of the revolution.’ He leaned back. ‘And even children must work.’ He took another drink and slouched in his chair, waving a hand as if nothing mattered.

‘But Dariya is so young.’

Lermentov looked up again and saw the guards watching him. Everyone was always watching each other. He sat upright, as if remembering what he was here for, the role he had to play. There was no crime other than against the state. The fate of one small girl meant nothing in the great scheme of things. ‘Have you remembered what happened to my prisoners yet?’

‘Please,’ I said again. ‘She’s just a girl.’

He faltered, looking at the guards once more before speaking. ‘Where are my prisoners?’

‘She’s only eight years old.’

He hardened his gaze, remembering his purpose and position. ‘Where are my prisoners?’

I sighed and shook my head and spoke as an automaton. ‘I saw tracks in the forest. I didn’t follow them. I was following my daughter. She came here and—’

‘Enough.’ Lermentov waved a hand.

I didn’t know what this man wanted from me. Even Lermentov didn’t know what he wanted from me. I was there simply because I’d been in the wrong place and because I owned a weapon. And Lermentov was there because he’d been sent. Neither of us wanted to be there. We were just two men who had lost control of their own circumstances, their own lives. Men who had been sucked into a great machine which pushed and pulled them in random directions that meant nothing to either of them.

‘Let me go,’ I said. ‘Let me take my daughter and go.’

‘I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to,’ he said. ‘It’s too late for that. Too late for all of us.’ Lermentov had probably never released a prisoner. He would never have been able to show any weakness or disobedience; never given anyone a reason to report him as a conspirator or an enemy of the state. ‘Anyway, you’re lying – trying to fool me into letting you take her away. She’s not your daughter, is she? I mean, what kind of man would cut his own child into pieces?’

‘I didn’t do that to her, and you know it. If you really think I did, I wouldn’t be here now. You’d have taken me into the forest and shot me.’

‘We don’t shoot workers.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘And if you didn’t do it, then who did?’

‘Someone else.’

‘Who?’

‘Another man. He stole her and he cut her. Please. Go to my hut and you’ll see. It’s close to where your soldiers found me. The man who did that to her is dead.’

Lermentov put his elbows on the surface of the table and looked me right in the eye. ‘You killed a man?’

‘No. I didn’t kill him.’

‘Then who?’

‘I…’ I dropped my gaze and thought about what Dariya had done. ‘Yes. I killed him.’

‘So you’re a murderer and a mutilator?’

‘No. I—’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ He leaned back again, drinking the last of the horilka but keeping the bottle in his hands, looking at it for a moment as if lamenting its emptiness. ‘You could be the Devil and it would be none of my concern. I’m not here to investigate your crimes. I’m here to make sure the peasants join the kolkhoz and that the kulaks are dealt with. As an officer of the OGPU, I don’t care what you’ve done; I’m not that kind of policeman. You could have cut a hundred children and it would be none of my business. My job is to feed the camps and to make you damn Ukrainians do as you’re told.’

‘I’ m Russian. Like you.’

‘I don’t care. As a policeman, I don’t care. But as a man…’ Now he stared right into me. ‘As a man, I care what you’ve done. If there’s even the slightest chance you did that to that little girl—’

‘So how do you justify how many children you’ve deported?’

Lermentov stared at me for a second, then told me the lie he must have told himself every night. ‘They’re all in good health when they leave me.’

‘And their fathers?’

‘This is different.’

‘Different how? You destroy their lives. Don’t try to justify it by saying it’s your job; that you send them away in good health. You know what’s going to happen to them. Their families too.’

‘Yes.’ Lermentov clenched his hands into fists. He glanced at the guards before leaning forward and lowering his voice. ‘And I barely sleep at night. I do my job and I drink and I try to sleep and I hope that when this is finished I can go home to my—’ He stopped and glanced away.

‘Family,’ I said. ‘That’s what you were going to say. Family. You have a wife. And a child?’

The policeman snapped his head round, setting his jaw tight.

It had been a guess, but I knew from Lermentov’s reaction that I was right. And with that turn of the head – that telling change in the policeman’s expression – came a strengthening of my resolve. Lermentov had a weakness that I could exploit. He was drunk and he had an Achilles heel. There was something that made this man human.

The policeman stared.

‘You do, don’t you? A son? A daughter?’

He looked away.

‘A daughter. What’s her name? How old is she?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘No, but it’s why you want to punish me. Because you think there’s a chance I hurt Dariya. It gives you an excuse. But I didn’t hurt her. You’re punishing her by taking her away, don’t you see that? By separating us, you’re making her suffer.’

‘I do my job.’ Lermentov held the bottle by its neck, his fist so tight his knuckles were white.

‘And you’re punishing me because you hate that your job demands you send children to labour camps.’

‘I’m punishing you for what you did to her.’

‘And Dariya? Why punish her? Let her stay here. You know what happens to people on those trains. In those camps. Don’t send her away. She’ll die and you know it.’

‘Shut up.’

‘Please,’ I said. ‘If you must punish me, then do it, but not Dariya. You have a daughter; I can see it in your eyes.’

‘Shut up.’

‘You know this is wrong.’ I leaned forward, putting my fingers together as if in prayer. ‘You know that what you’re doing is wrong. Would you do it to your own child?’

‘You know nothing of my own child. You, a man who cuts the flesh from little girls.’

‘I would never do that.’

‘Lies.’ Lermentov spoke through his teeth. ‘No one tells the truth any more.’

‘Please,’ I said. ‘Let her stay here. Think of your own daughter.’ I stood, raising my hands, almost unable to control myself.

‘Sit down.’

I tried to reach out to Lermentov, not to hurt him but to plead with him. I wanted to put my hands on his tunic and pull him towards me, and for a moment I almost managed it. ‘Let her stay here. Let someone take care of her. Think of your own—’

But my words were cut short as Lermentov struck out with the bottle he was holding. He swung it hard against my head, the same place where he had hit me with the crucifix, and for a while I saw nothing. I heard nothing. My world was nothing.

The cold bit so hard that it hurt. There was a throbbing ache in my back that lived at the base of my spine and pulsated along its length. My fingers and toes were numb, and I couldn’t feel my face. I opened my eyes and discovered a harsh pain in my head.

‘Luka?’

I took a deep breath of cold air that gripped my lungs and made me cough hard.

‘Luka?’

I tried to sit up, but my arms and legs wouldn’t move and I felt a slow ease of panic creep into my consciousness. I fought to keep it away and concentrated on moving.

‘Luka?’

I ignored the voice and focused on my arms, but they refused to do as I wanted.

‘Luka, they tied you.’

That explained why I couldn’t move. I wasn’t paralysed, I was bound. My hands were tied together behind my back, and my feet were fastened with the same binding. I was roped like a pig that’s to be slaughtered. I was also naked. Dehumanised. Made less than nothing.

I moved my head, hardly feeling my cheek scraping across the cold wooden floor, but the voice was coming from behind me, so I couldn’t see who was speaking. I took another deep breath and rolled over. The hard wood was cruel against my spine, my shoulders, my elbows. Arms and legs pulled against each other in their bindings and it was a struggle to turn so that I flopped without grace onto my other side and found myself staring at Konstantin Petrovich. Both of us naked but for our beards.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked him.

‘Cold.’

‘Where are we?’ I tried to look around, but my vision was restricted. By my head there was a wall and by my feet a construction that had once supported a bell. We were in the belfry. I had seen the bell when I first came to the village, broken and abandoned by the church steps, a symbol of the casting out of religion. The wall that ran around this part of the bell tower was low, probably waist height if I were to stand, and I could just about see over it to the sky beyond. It was night. There was a pitched roof over us, and in its beams old cobwebs shifted in the wind.

‘How long have I been here?’

‘A few minutes.’ Kostya’s voice was weak.

I tried to remember how long it had been between Kostya leaving the prison room and Lermentov coming to interrogate me. It wasn’t long, but it was long enough for a man to be close to death. Beaten and left to freeze in the bell tower.

‘You married?’ I asked Kostya.

‘No.’

‘My wife… she doesn’t know where I am.’ I looked at Kostya and saw he was crying. There were tears on his cheeks and frozen patches in his beard. There was blood on his face too, places on his body where he had been beaten. Some of the bruises were old – they had spread the width of his thighs, covered his upper arms and shoulders. There were other marks on his chest, almost a perfect match for the base of the same crucifix Lermentov had used to beat me.

‘I don’t want to die,’ Kostya said.

‘You won’t,’ I told him.

‘It’s so cold.’

‘But we’re sheltered.’ It was difficult to speak, my teeth chattered so much. My whole body shook with the cold, and I still couldn’t feel my fingers and toes. ‘And they’ll come for us. We’re precious workers; they won’t let us die.’

‘It’ll be too late.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘We’ll be fine.’

Kostya closed his eyes, squeezing them tight. This close to him, and with just enough light from the stars and the moon, I saw how his wrinkles were exaggerated by the expression, lines spreading from the corners of his eyes and reaching into his hairline. They were not lines that had grown from years of laughter; they were the marks of a hard life. A man who had aged before his time.

‘Kostya.’

‘Hm?’

‘Stay awake.’

‘Mm.’

‘Stay awake. They’ll come for us soon. Take us back to the warm room. We’re no good to them dead. If we’re dead we can’t work.’

The look in Kostya’s eyes was distant, as if he wasn’t seeing anything at all. His face contorted now into something that looked like a smile.

‘What?’ I asked. ‘What is it?’ My teeth hammered together as he spoke.

‘I don’t want them to come for me,’ he said, closing his eyes. ‘Not now. Don’t let them take me.’ His voice was slow and thick.

‘What are you talking about?’ Speaking aloud brought pain to my head. The place where Lermentov had struck me with the bottle. I could feel where the blood had dried or frozen on my skin.

‘I think I’ll go now. Find somewhere warm. In the field in summertime.’

‘What?’

‘Summertime. It’s so beautiful. I’ll go into the field.’

‘Kostya, stay here. Look at me and stay here.’

He had stopped shivering. His breathing was slow and heavy.

‘Kostya, you need to focus.’ I shuffled close so our bodies were touching. Kostya still had some warmth left in him, but his skin was as cold as the floor we were lying on. ‘We need to keep warm.’ For some men hypothermia took longer than for others, but once the cold found its way in, it was almost impossible to get warm again.

‘I am warm.’

‘What? Please,’ I said. ‘Look at me.’

Kostya opened his eyes again, our faces so close that I could feel his weak and sporadic breaths.

‘Tell me about your family,’ I said.

‘This is easier.’

‘What about your brother?’

‘Hm?’

‘Evgeni. Your brother.’

‘He’ll be fine. The harvest will be fine.’

‘Kostya.’

‘Let me sleep now. It’s easier. So easy.’ His eyelids drifted down and his eyes rolled as if he were falling into a drunken sleep.

I nudged against him, trying to wake him, saying his name. ‘Kostya. Wake up. Kostya.’

But Kostya did not open his eyes again.

I continued to say his name, feeling the weakness in my own voice, sensing the drowsiness descending over my own mind. I pulled myself as close to Kostya as possible, taking the last of his warmth, listening for his breathing as my own eyes began to close and I struggled to remember where I was and how I had come to be here. So I told Kostya about my family. About my sons and my daughter. About my wife Natalia, waiting at home, baking fresh bread, preparing hot soup. It was warm in the kitchen and our children were sitting at the table. Outside, spring had come and the steppe was green and lush.

And when the soldiers came to get me, just a few minutes later, Kostya was no longer breathing.