The Child Thief

7

With death came a stiff silence. Their mania was now in a trough; their madness fallen into a hush of contemplation and realisation. It was done. The intoxication had passed and reality had slipped back into their world.

They stood and watched as if they were one. Heads inclined upwards to gape at what they had done, breath tangible in the air around them. They huddled close to one another, feeling the weight of their actions, before their humanity returned to them, wanting to distance them from this and from each other. The first of them to step back was a woman at the edge, Akalena Vernadsky. She crossed herself and turned to walk along the road from the place where she had sung traditional songs last summer. She looked at the ground and trudged the frozen mud.

Then others began to peel away from the pack. Like a serpent shedding its skin, the layers stripped back as the villagers woke from their trance and edged away in silence.

They left their agitator until only Dimitri was left before the tree, looking up at the naked body twisting on the rope. A gentle rotation. The man’s head tipped to one side, his eyes bulging, revolving until his back was visible, his narrow torso, the spine clear under thin skin, his emaciated buttocks, the red marks where he’d been kicked. Then he swung round to show his face again, the ragged beard covering most of his neck and face. More marks on his chest and legs. His genitals exposed. No dignity. No mercy. No pity.

I left Josif to wonder at what his people had done and I stepped away from the door. There was no sound but for the breeze that brushed the surface of the snow and skimmed the gentle valley. The sun still shone low in the sky, a faded orange arc made ill defined by a thin layer of cloud. The world was still a beautiful crisp blue and white. My boots made hardly a sound as I stepped in the prints of those who had come to my door that morning. I walked in their footsteps without being one of them, and I went to the place where they had brought dishonour and humiliation upon themselves.

At Dimitri’s side I looked up at the hanged man, at peace on the end of a rope. I considered cutting him down, taking him to the cemetery and putting him in the ground – the stranger deserved some dignity at least – but I chose not to. The man’s body had another purpose now: to act as a reminder to the people who had done this. I knew as well as anyone that people are capable of terrible things but must recognise the things they have done. Without that recognition, they are nothing more than animals, empty of any feeling.

‘Shame on you,’ I said. My voice was hoarse and my words were quiet. ‘Shame on you, Dimitri Spektor. Shame on your family. Shame on this whole damn village.’

Dimitri continued to stare up at the hanged man.

‘Is this what you wanted?’ I asked him. ‘Is it?’

Dimitri opened his mouth, but whatever words he intended to say were caught in his throat. They stuck there and refused to come out.

‘Does this make our children safe?’ I asked him.

He stared as if no thought could pass through his mind, then he blinked, shook himself and refocused. ‘I didn’t do this.’

‘You were part of it. You led it. You caused it.’

‘Don’t be so damn self-righteous. I didn’t want this. I—’

‘What did you want? What did you think was going to happen? You knew what you were doing, Dimitri; don’t pretend this was an accident.’

He swallowed hard. ‘What now?’

‘Now? Now you have to live with it.’

I left Dimitri standing alone and went back to my family. Viktor and Petro were at the window, their faces at the glass as I approached.

When I went into the house, Viktor was still holding the revolver. Lara was clinging to Natalia.

‘What the hell is happening to them?’ I said.

‘People are afraid of what’s coming,’ she told me. ‘And who can blame them?’

‘It’s no excuse.’

Natalia looked down at our daughter, but Lara showed no sign of understanding.

‘Close the shutters,’ I told my sons. ‘I don’t want Lara to see what Uncle Dimitri has done.’

‘But… all those people,’ Petro said. ‘How could they do that?’ He was even paler than usual. His brow creased so tight in bewilderment that the bridge of his nose wrinkled. He looked as if he’d woken in the night and forgotten where he was.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I said.

‘To do that to another man. They just—’

‘Not now.’

‘But, Papa…’

‘I said I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Shouldn’t we cut him down or something?’

‘Petro!’ I turned on him. ‘I don’t want to hear about it.’

‘He’s only asking,’ Natalia said. ‘He’s—’

I slammed my fist hard on the table and raised my voice so it filled the small room. ‘Don’t talk about it. I don’t want to hear it. Don’t talk about it any more.’

Natalia pulled Lara closer, placing her arms so they covered the child’s ears.

‘Please.’ I lowered my voice. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ I held up a hand and bowed my head. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I looked back at my wife, I nodded an apology before glancing at my children, each in turn. Then I went to the door. I hesitated, took hold of the old iron handle and pulled it open.

I stepped out into the cold and glanced at the hanged man as I yanked the door shut. I let my gaze linger on the body for a moment, then I turned and headed round the back of the house.

Entering the barn, the chickens complained at my intrusion but soon settled. The ones which had ventured out from the coop scurried back inside to the warmth.

I went to the pile of belongings from the man’s sled and took up a milking stool to sit down before them. A small collection of essentials and a few items that meant nothing.

The fact that he had the weapons though told me something important. There had been so much gun registration and confiscation – the last being just a year ago – that few farmers were armed. Unauthorised possession of a gun was punishable by hard labour. It was a way of pulling the peasants’ teeth – take away his weapons and you remove his ability to fight. It made life easier for the authorities when they came to enforce collectivisation if the farmers had no means of striking back. But this man, like me, had kept his weapons, and that confirmed my belief that he was a soldier. Because whichever army the man had fought for, our recent history was so filled with war and violence that no man who had ever been a soldier would willingly give up his arms.

Searching the rest of his belongings, I felt even more kinship with this unknown man. An aluminium water bottle, heavy and hard with its frozen contents. It was the same as the one I owned, issued to those of us who fought in the Imperial Army. A trenching shovel still in its leather sheath. Just like the one I owned. A black spike bayonet. And a leather satchel almost identical to the one I used to carry ammunition for my own rifles. There were other things too, essentials for a man who intended to live away from civilisation, but it was the satchel which took my eye.

I leaned down and lifted it to my knees, where I let it rest for a moment, feeling the cold of it against my legs. Putting my hands on top of it and turning my face to the ceiling of the barn, I paused to give a thought for the dead man, then I nodded to myself and opened the satchel.

Inside there was a handful of ammunition for the weapons he’d been carrying, the brass casings loose in the bag. There was a flat tin bound with a black and orange striped ribbon. When I turned the tin in my hands, I saw that in the place where the ribbon was knotted, a medal hung from the material. I had never seen one like it, but I knew what it was and what it meant. If the man with the sled was the owner of this medal – if he had earned it – then this man had not been my brother. He had not been my kin. He would most probably have been an officer.

I had fought on the front with many different officers during the Great War before the revolution. Men who’d been bred for self-sacrifice and honour. Men who’d had those things so thoroughly ingrained in their personalities they were unable to turn and walk away when they saw death coming for them. I had stood in bloody water up to my knees with them, lain in the mud among the bodies of my comrades, thrown myself at enemy lines for them. They were men who became outraged at the growth of battlefield committees and were confused by soldiers who refused to fight without committee agreement. The words and status of the officers was useless against the growing feelings of inequality among their men, and many of them were lynched by revolutionary squads refusing to fight.

I had been a supporter of the changes and I had embraced the revolution when it came. I had even seen the failings of the officers who drove us into a futile war, but I had never condoned their slaughter at the hands of revolutionaries, and I still maintained my respect for any man who was prepared to fight for his beliefs. A hundred men like Dimitri turning on officers who gave their lives to their country and had earned the honour of dying in battle was not my view of justice. I felt both anger and sadness conflict in me when I thought this stranger in our village had come away from that nightmare, survived the sweep of the revolution and the civil war that followed only to be hanged by Dimitri and his cruel pack. I wondered if I had tried hard enough to stop them; if there was anything else I could have done to stop Dimitri.

Outside, I went back round the barn, dragging the sled upon which the children had been lying. The old black oak came into view, its naked arms reaching for the heavens, presenting its grotesque decoration still twisting and swaying. I had left him there to shame the people who had done this, I didn’t want to spare them their guilt, but now I knew I had to take him down. Such indignity was no end for a man who had once fought for his country. And whether he’d been tsarist or communist or anarchist it made no difference. They were just names that meant nothing.

Natalia was sitting at the table with the children when I pushed open the door. They all looked up at me, but I barely acknowledged them. I put down the items I’d brought from the barn, laid them with the man’s rifle, then collected one of the blankets Natalia had used to cover him. There was a fresh fire in the hearth now, the flames just beginning to pick up, and the blanket was tinged with its warmth.

Natalia watched me, unspeaking, but when I went back to the door, she stood. ‘Where are you going?’

I stopped with my fingers on the handle and spoke without turning round. ‘To cut him down.’

‘And then what?’

‘I’m going to bury him.’

‘The blanket…’

‘We can spare it.’

A chair scraped the floor behind me. ‘I’ll come with you,’ Petro said.

‘No. Viktor can help.’

‘I can do it, Papa.’

‘I said, Viktor can help.’ I pulled open the door.

I took the sled to the centre of the village, where the tree stood unmoved by the death in its fingers. I pushed the tarpaulin to the end of the sled and moved the shovels and pick. I had a pocket knife which I handed to Viktor before stepping up onto the wall and wrapping my arms around the naked man’s legs.

Viktor didn’t need any instruction. As soon as he saw I had hold of the man, he went to the place where the rope had been secured, and began sawing at it with the knife. The rope was thick, but the knife was sharp, and within a few passes it was cut.

I took the weight of the body and struggled for a moment before Viktor came to help lift him down and onto the sled. With that done, I put the blanket over him. It was a good blanket, but this man deserved some respect in death.

‘Petro could have helped,’ Viktor said. ‘It would be easier with three.’

‘This isn’t for him. He’s not as strong as you.’

‘You might be surprised.’

‘I think I know my own son.’

Viktor opened his mouth as if he were about to speak. Perhaps he was thinking of telling me that no one knew Petro like he did. They were different, but they were twins and they had spent their lives together. In those terms, I was a relative stranger. But if those were the words on his lips, he kept them for another time.

Instead he just sighed, so I took up the reins. ‘Come on. Let’s get this done.’

I pulled the sled along the street towards the small church. Many feet had been on the road and the snow was trampled through to the hard mud beneath. The runners dragged on the dirt. I sensed a few faces at windows, and I swept my gaze around, letting each one of them see my eyes.

‘Look at them,’ I said. ‘Hiding away like frightened animals. Afraid of what they’ve done.’

‘You think it’s what they wanted to do? Do you think they meant to kill him?’

‘Who knows what they meant to do. But when people come together like that, it’s hard to control them. It’s hard for them to control themselves.’

‘They were so angry, Papa. It was frightening. I’ve never seen people like that. And when Dimitri came to the house, I thought…’

‘What, Viktor? What did you think?’

‘I thought you were going to shoot him.’

‘Maybe I should have.’

‘Could you?’

I looked at Viktor, the two of us walking side by side.

‘Maybe,’ I said. But I knew I could have. Were it not for Lara and for Natalia standing close by, I would have fired a bullet straight through Dimitri’s heart. I had no love or respect for my brother-in-law, and I had taken enough lives for one more to make little difference. The first time it had been as if someone had shaved away a tiny piece of my soul, but so many pieces had gone now that I sometimes lay awake at night and wondered if there was any of it left.

Viktor continued to watch me. When he spoke, his breath washed around his face and drifted back behind us. ‘You fought in the army.’

‘I fought in many armies.’

‘You don’t talk about it. How old were you?’

‘The same as everyone else,’ I said. ‘I was conscripted when I was twenty.’

And it was as a new soldier in Moscow that I met Natalia. So young and beautiful and full of hope. And she’d given me two sons before I was marched to war for the first time.

‘You must have seen some things.’

‘I’ve seen many things, Viktor. Many bad things. Soldiers can do terrible things, but this? Today?’ I shook my head. ‘Today is the worst I’ve seen. Proud people falling into shame.’

‘I think I understand why they did it though. Why they were afraid.’

I took a deep breath and looked at him. ‘Me too.’ And that made it so much worse.

The digging was harder the second time. The ground was a little softer, but we were tired from the work that morning, and we were drained by what had happened. The grave was shallower than it should have been, but we laid the corpse with its bulging glassy eyes and we put the blanket over his face before piling the cold dirt onto him. The pitiless thump of shovels full of earth fell heavy on him.

No one else came. No words were said.

We settled the soil, flattening it with the backs of our shovels, and we threw the tools onto the sled before dragging it home.

We were exhausted when we finally sat at the table and Natalia put hot food in front of us. Soup made from beets and what was left of the meat from yesterday’s rabbit. It felt good and warm.

When we had eaten, I asked Lara to bring the satchel from the corner of the room, and I opened the flap, taking out the contents and laying them on the rough surface of the table. I unwrapped the medal from around the flat tin and held it up for them to look at. I pinched the end of the ribbon between finger and thumb, letting the cross twist and turn until it reminded me of the hanging body, then I laid it down on the table. The orange and black ribbon was striking against the dark wood of the table. The white cross was edged with gold and the colourful depiction in the circle at the centre of it was still vibrant.

‘What is it, Papa? It’s pretty.’ Lara leaned across the table for a better look.

I pushed it towards her so she could touch it. She picked it up and hung it around her neck, letting the medal hang down her chest. She stood so we could see how it looked on her.

‘It’s the Order of St George,’ I said. ‘Awarded only to officers, and only for exceptional bravery.’

‘And what’s the picture?’ Lara turned the enamelled white cross, twisting the ribbon to see it better. The colourful representation in the centre of the medal was of a man sitting on the back of a white horse, driving a lance down into a dragon that cowered at the feet of his mount.

‘It’s St George,’ I said. ‘Killing a dragon.’

‘There’s an icon in the church,’ she said. ‘It looks like this but the horse is black.’

‘St George is one of the martyrs. He was a brave man who died for what he believed in.’

Lara turned the medal this way and that, seeing the way the light from the window caught on the colours.

‘But it means something else too, Lara. It’s not just a man killing a dragon. The icon reminds us of our struggle with ourselves. With the evil inside and around us.’

‘Luka.’

I looked at Natalia. ‘What?’

‘She doesn’t need to hear about that.’

‘It’s what the priest would tell her if he were here.’

‘Well he isn’t here.’ She turned to our daughter. ‘Take it off, Lara. It’s not for you to play with.’

‘Can’t I keep it?’

‘No.’

‘Just wear it then? Please, Mama, just for a—’

‘No.’

‘Let her wear it for a while,’ I said. ‘What harm is there?’

Natalia looked at me, deciding. When it came to Lara, it was Natalia’s decision that was final. She sighed and nodded.

‘Thank you, Mama.’ She hugged her mother. ‘Can I go and show Dariya?’

‘Not now,’ Natalia said. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

‘Tomorrow then?’

‘Maybe not tomorrow either.’

Lara’s demeanour changed, her shoulders dropping. She sulked and left the room, going into the bedroom to look at her prize; cherish it while she still had it.

I smiled as I watched her go. ‘She’s like you, Natalia. So much like you.’

Natalia shook her head and reached across the table to touch my hand. ‘Perhaps as I used to be.’

‘What about the tin?’ Petro asked. ‘Have you looked inside?’

‘Not yet.’ I contemplated the tarnished tin lying on the table. I touched it with the tips of my fingers and pushed it from side to side looking up at my wife.

‘Open it,’ Viktor said.

‘It feels wrong,’ I replied. ‘Rifling through his belongings.’

‘There might be something in there that tells us who he is,’ Petro said.

Or perhaps it would confirm something else: that this man was indeed a killer of children. That these things did not belong to him. That Dimitri and his mob had rightfully hanged him from the boughs of their tree.

I pinched the lid of the tin, pulled it open, and looked at a piece of paper inside. There was nothing on it but a date, written in slanted script. The date was eight years ago, 1922, after the end of the civil war, around the time I came home to be with my family for good. I knew straight away that I was looking at the back of a photograph. I owned none of my own, but I had seen others.

I took it out of the tin and placed it face up on the table to see the image of a young woman, seated, with two children. The woman was neither beautiful nor ugly. She was plain. In her arms she cradled a baby. A second child, maybe two years old and dressed as an adult, stood beside the chair.

I took the other photographs from the tin and put them on the table.

‘They might not be his,’ Natalia said.

I nodded and began to spread the photographs out. There were more pictures of the same woman – some alone and others with the two children. There were also single portraits of the children. There were as many as ten photographs, some creased as if they’d been kept in a pocket, or damaged as if something had been spilled on them before they had been placed in the tin for safe keeping.

I stopped and stared.

This photograph was small, no larger than a packet of cigarettes. It was not a good picture, but it was more recent than the others, not faded or damaged at all, and the faces of the people in the sepia tones were clear enough. It looked to have been taken in some sort of garden, for there was a tree out of focus in the background. There were two people seated. A patriarchal man, wearing a dark suit that contrasted with his heavy white beard and moustache. His left elbow was resting on a table covered with white lace. On the other side of the table, a woman, similar in age, wearing a heavy dress. Her head was covered with a light-coloured headscarf. Standing behind them, a younger couple. This woman was the one from the other photographs. She wore a plain black dress and her dark hair was drawn back on her head.

The man beside her had been in our home just a few hours ago. He stood straight, as if a plank of wood had been inserted into the back of his double-breasted jacket. The high white collar of his shirt was tight beneath his closely bearded chin. He looked fuller in the face, and far healthier than the man who was now buried in the cemetery behind our church, but there was no doubt it was the same man.

And on the floor, at the feet of the seated grandparents, two children. A boy and a girl, just a year or two between them. Their features were more developed than the children in the other photos, but I was certain they were the same two.

‘He was their father,’ I whispered.

Natalia took a deep breath. ‘We don’t know that, Luka. This doesn’t mean…’ Her words trailed away.

‘It’s enough for me,’ I said. ‘This man was no child-killer.’ I tapped my finger on the picture. ‘He was a soldier. A decorated officer. And he was a father. No father could do that to his own children.’

‘All you have is a photograph, Luka. You don’t know anything. He could be, I don’t know, an uncle.’

‘Look at the similarities,’ I said. ‘The man and woman in the photograph. These children have their features. They look like them. And they’re the same two we buried this morning. Look at them, Natalia. Dimitri and the others murdered an innocent man.’

I laid the picture down and said nothing more, understanding that she wanted there to be some doubt; she wanted there to be a chance the others had done the right thing.

I reached over and squeezed her hand, then returned the photographs to the tin, but even as I pushed the lid tight, I heard footsteps outside, heavy boots approaching the front door, followed by a rapid banging.

‘What now?’ Natalia started to stand, but I stopped her.

I took the revolver and went to the window, looking out to see Dimitri’s wife, Svetlana Ivanovna, standing on our doorstep.

‘The coward has sent your sister,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you should speak to her.’

‘What will I say?’

I drew the bolts and stepped back to let Natalia answer the door. ‘I don’t know; she’s your sister.’

I put the revolver behind my back, so as not to frighten Svetlana, and stood behind Natalia.

‘What is it, Sveta?’ Natalia asked when she opened the door.

‘Have you come to see who else you can drag from his house?’ I said. ‘Or have you come to express your shame? Your husband has sent you to hang your head for him?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘We can’t find Dariya.’