Child Thief (31 page)

But I couldn't hold the image in my head. I was cold. I was tired and hungry. And for all my strength – for all the things I had seen and done – I was afraid.

When the main church door opened, I could see it was night. I saw no stars or moon, just the darkness.

Two men entered and closed the door behind them. The first was younger than me, maybe in his early thirties, and he was
clean shaven. Light blue eyes as cold as the night outside, and thin lips that were dry and broken by the weather. He wore a heavy coat and a small-peaked wide-crowned cap pulled tight on his head. His knee-length leather boots were polished to a proud shine. In his left hand he carried my satchel, and in his right he held my rifle.

The second man was closer to me in age and was dressed in the same way as Kostya, except that he wore an ill-fitting coat and had a cap on his head. His trousers were bagging around the knees because the bottoms were tucked into his boots. The boots looked new. He was bearded and dark and I thought he might be from the village, perhaps a loyal communist who was now part of a newly formed local soviet. Whether he was a true communist or just someone trying to save his own life and that of his family was irrelevant. He did what was expected of him.

They came along the aisle between the discarded and broken pews, and they stopped in front of the table. The young man looked down at me. He stood for a while, not speaking, then made a satisfied sound, low in his throat. He nodded and placed the satchel and rifle on the table, out of my reach, before removing his hat and laying it down so the red star was facing me. The hat looked as if it might be new; the royal-blue crown was still neat and clean, the red band not yet marked with mud and grime, the Soviet star pristine.

It was cold in the church, but the young man took off his coat and draped it over the back of one of the chairs, standing before me so I could see his uniform. The dark kitel tunic with the red collar tabs and gleaming black buttons. He was showing me who he was, and though I was unfamiliar with his uniform, I guessed the man was OGPU, perhaps the head of a provincial department. We used to call them Chekists, but the name made no difference. Whatever you called them, political police were renowned for their power and their brutality.

The young policeman sat down and folded his hands, resting them on the table. He looked me directly in the eye. The man beside him placed his hands in his lap and looked at the tabletop.

I met the policeman's stare only for a few seconds before I deferred to him, looking down. The policeman responded by taking the glass of water in one hand and drinking its contents in a few long gulps. He refilled it from the jug, then wiped his lips with his fingers before folding his hands again.

‘What's your name?' He spoke in Russian.

I opened my mouth to reply but my tongue was dry.

‘Name?' He asked a second time without taking his eyes off me.

‘Luka Mikhailovich Sidorov.'

He nodded. ‘Russian.'

‘Yes.'

‘Good. Then this should be a civilised conversation. My name is Sergei Artemevich Lermentov and I am the head of the provincial OGPU department.' I remembered the name: Lermentov. The man who'd been in Uroz – the village Aleksandra came from.

He sat back and crossed his arms, still staring. ‘Can you tell me what you're doing here, Luka?'

‘Your soldiers brought me here.'

‘That's not what I meant.'

He removed a packet of
papirosa
cigarettes from his pocket and took one out. He left the packet on the table and crimped the tube of the cigarette before putting it into his mouth. Then he produced a match and scraped it across the surface of the table that had once been an altar and he touched it to the tobacco. He drew in a deep drag and blew it out without leaning away. The smoke came at me in a stream, tinged with the smell of alcohol.

‘Why are you in this shit hole? Ukraine, I mean. Why would any Russian want to be here?'

‘I fought here,' I said. ‘And when we were demobilised I stayed.'

‘Red Army?'

‘Yes.'

‘So you fought the anarchists, you crushed their resistance and then you stayed?'

‘Yes.'

‘Interesting.' He dragged on the cigarette again, raising his eyes as if he were mulling over what I'd just told him.

‘And before that?' Lermentov asked. ‘Before the Red Army?'

‘Before that I fought for the Imperial Army.'

‘A war hero, no doubt.'

‘Just a soldier.'

‘Is that where you got this?' He reached across and took up my rifle. He drew back the bolt as if to show that it wasn't loaded, then he pulled it to his shoulder and sighted across the church using the scope.

‘Yes.'

‘Of course, we have better rifles now. Better marksmen.' The policeman held the rifle out for one of the soldiers to take, then he waved him away with one hand. ‘Get rid of it.'

Lermentov looked down at his hands and used a fingernail to scrape something from beneath his right thumbnail. Perhaps some oil from the rifle.

‘Are you a tsarist?' he asked.

‘No. I joined the revolutionary army.'

‘But you didn't stay.'

‘No.'

‘A counter-revolutionary, then.'

‘No.'

‘You're sure? I can find out. It's easy enough to make you admit to it.'

‘I think you can make me admit to almost anything.'

He nodded. ‘And now? Where do you live? What village?'

‘No village,' I said. ‘I live by the hills. I grow a few potatoes, I hunt—'

‘With your illegal guns.'

I bowed my head. ‘I'm a soldier.'

‘I understand,' he said, reaching down and unbuttoning the holster at his side. He drew out his pistol and put it on the table in front of him. ‘I feel naked without my weapon. Like you, I'm a soldier.'

‘Please' I said. ‘I' m looking for my daughter.'

‘We'll get to that. What village are you from?'

‘I already told you, I live not far from here, in the hills.'

‘Hm.' He took the pistol and sat back again, turning it over in his hand. The cigarette in the corner of his mouth burned with grey smoke that filled the space above us. He lifted a hand to take it between two fingers. ‘Something about you isn't right.'

I didn't reply.

‘Do you know why I'm here?'

‘No.'

‘They brought me from my nice life in Moscow to this shit hole because these peasants won't do as they're told. Did you know that the people in this village murdered the party activist who came here? They burned him alive just a few weeks ago.' He shook his head. ‘And because these peasants want to keep everything for themselves, because they don't want to be a part of the great plan, people like me – good communists, loyal to their leader – have to come down here and make sure they do what they're told. And it makes me angry. It makes me …' Again he shook his head, lips pursed tight. He dropped his cigarette to the floor and ground it with his boot heel before leaning forward again and staring right at me. ‘This morning two enemies of the state were sent from Uroz. Agitators. They were – they
are
– withholding vital information for the furtherance of the collective, so they were to walk here for interrogation, but they didn't arrive. Do you know anything about that?'

‘No.'

‘I think you're lying.'

‘No.'

His hand shot out, still holding the pistol, and struck me across the left side of the face. The violence of the blow twisted my neck, knocked me sideways from the chair. It had come with such speed and such ferocity that I had hardly even registered the movement before I found myself on the stone floor of the church, lying on my side, staring under the table at the policeman's boots.

The floor was cold against my cheek, and I put my palms flat
on the stone to push myself up, shaking my head, seeing brightness in my eyes.

‘Help him up,' the policeman said with a hint of boredom, and there were hands on my clothes, dragging me up and pushing me back into the chair.

I rubbed the side of my face and raised my eyes to look at the man who had struck me. He was staring right back at me, leaning forward, his pistol on the table, one hand placed over it. Beside him, the bearded one refused to meet my eyes.

Lermentov continued to look at me for a while before he smiled. ‘I know. You hate me now and you'd like to kill me.'

‘No.'

‘Liar.' He struck out again, but this time I saw him move and I leaned back, the blow missing me by the breadth of a blade of grass. The muzzle of the pistol hissed past the end of my nose, almost brushing it, and the policeman's hand swung into nothing but air. I saw the strength he had used, because the man unbalanced himself, lurching sideways in his chair.

When he had composed himself, he spoke to the soldier behind me. ‘Hold him.'

And then hands were on me again and I was held tight.

The policeman stood and came to me, pulling the table away, making his bearded companion shift quickly.

‘Fast,' the younger man said, raising the pistol and pressing it against my eye, pushing hard enough for light to explode in my vision. ‘But not fast enough.' He removed the pistol, slipped it back into the holster before taking up the crucifix from the table. He smiled at me again and swung the crucifix against the side of my head, darkening my world.

When I opened my eyes, I was on the floor once more. Hands were on me, dragging me, but I was a deadweight. My face was numb and my feet were numb and everything refused to work. For a moment I wanted to be left alone on the cold stone. I wanted to curl into a ball and close my eyes and not wake up. But then I thought of all the things that were waiting for me and I forced my mind to work; forced my body to work.

I willed resolve into my muscles and I climbed back to the chair, seeing that the table had been straightened and the two men were sitting opposite me once more. I wiped a hand across my face and looked at the blood smeared on my fingers.

‘I think now we understand each other,' the man said. ‘Am I right?'

‘Yes.'

‘I'm in charge here and you will accept my authority.'

‘Yes.'

‘And you will stop lying to me.'

‘Yes.'

‘Good.' He smiled. ‘Now let's talk about my missing agitators. Where are they?'

‘I don't know.'

He reached out and slapped me across the cheek, bloodying his hand. ‘Where are they?'

‘I don't know.'

He slapped me again. ‘You killed them.'

‘No.'

He struck me again, turning my head, opening the cut on my cheek, spraying blood onto the table.

‘Admit to it.'

‘No.'

He hit me once more and the bearded man opposite flinched, looking away, pushing back his chair to avoid the blood.

The policeman turned to look at him with distaste. ‘If this is too much for you, Anatoly Ivanovich, then maybe you should leave.'

Anatoly Ivanovich swallowed and nodded. ‘There are things I should do. I—'

‘Just go.'

The peasant nodded and stood, scraping his chair on the stone as he pushed it back. He glanced at Lermentov before turning and walking away. He had almost reached the door when the OGPU man called out to him, his eyes still on mine.

Anatoly Ivanovich stopped and waited for Lermentov to leave
the table and go to him. They spoke for a moment in the darkness at the far end of the church and then the bearded man left and the policeman returned to the table.

‘So, you were just saying that you killed my agitators.'

‘No.'

Lermentov rolled his eyes and sighed. ‘Am I going to have to keep hitting you, Luka? You're a soldier; you know how this works. It's my job. It's what I was sent here to do, whether I like it or not, and I'll do it properly. So I'll keep hitting you and then I'll put you back in that room to bleed. And before you can get any sleep, I'll bring you back out here and I'll hit you again. And it will go on and on. And when I finally get bored, I'll have you shot.'

I stared at him.

‘Unless I get a confession.'

I looked away.

‘Where did you leave their bodies? It doesn't matter that you killed them, they were enemies of the state, but I want to know where the bodies are.'

‘I didn't—'

Lermentov picked up the crucifix and poked it at the hollow of my throat, the same place where Dariya had stabbed the child thief. I coughed loudly, doubling over.

‘All right,' I said, straightening up, rubbing my neck. ‘All right. I saw tracks in the forest, but I didn't see anybody. I was following other tracks, trying to find my daughter.'

‘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.