Child Thief (6 page)

We had put our coats back on now we were still, but the day was growing to be a good one. The sun had risen in Dimitri's absence and burned away the low-hanging cloud, to give us a light blue sky that was as clear as any I had seen. The brightness was reflected from the snow and the gravestones glistened with encrusted ice which had begun to thaw at its outer edges. I could even hear a gentle drip from the branches of the trees.

I squinted as I watched the men approach.

‘There,' Dimitri pointed when he reached us. ‘Under there.'

We greeted each other with short nods and grim faces.

‘What's going on, Luka?' Ivan Sergeyevich stepped forward, holding out a hand for me to shake.

Ivan Sergeyevich Antoniv was well into his sixties, but he was strong and healthy. I knew him as a man who believed in fairness. We had spoken many times about the revolution and what we had expected of it, and I knew our views were similar. Both of us
were disillusioned by what we had thought would be a better way for us all. He was a sensible man, and I knew he would see this the right way, so I shook his hand with some relief.

‘Why didn't we know about this last night?' Ivan said, and I remembered he'd been one of the men in the square when we had returned from the hillside. ‘Viktor told us you'd found a man. There was nothing about bodies. Nothing about children.' He put a pipe to his mouth, clamping it between yellowed teeth and sucking hard.

Behind him, Dimitri shuffled, glancing at the other two men he'd brought with him. Josif Abramovich Fomenko and Leonid Andreyevich Tatlin. All of them men who had grown together and survived together. I was an outsider here, but they were men I respected. Men who worked hard and took care of their families. And they didn't look at me the way Dimitri did. They didn't see my history the way Dimitri saw it.

‘I thought it would scare people,' I said, looking at Dimitri.

‘They're already scared.' Ivan let the smoke fall from his mouth rather than blowing it away. It shrouded him, hanging in the air. ‘Someone said OGPU—'

‘Who said that?' I asked. ‘Why would they say that?'

‘I doesn't matter,' Ivan told me. ‘You know how rumours start. What matters is now people think he's either running from them or that he's one of them. And whichever way they look at it, they think activists are coming to murder their husbands or take their wives and children from them.'

‘I didn't want people to think the wrong thing.'

‘They already do.'

‘Maybe we should have a look,' Josif said. ‘Would you mind?'

Josif Abramovich had been the first man to come to our door when I arrived in Vyriv after the war. He had welcomed me before any other, bringing bread and Ukrainian vodka –
horilka
. Natalia had laid the
rushnyk
on the table and we'd drunk the whole bottle together. Josif drank himself into a good mood and told me he had been disheartened when Natalia's parents
died, but was glad for her and our children now our family was together again.

It's not a good thing to see,' I told him. ‘Are you sure you want to look?'

‘I've seen bad things before.'

‘Maybe not like this.'

‘You'd be surprised.'

‘All right.' I nodded to Viktor and my son pulled back the tarpaulin to expose the bodies once more.

Josif studied them for a few moments, his breath audible as he crunched around the sled, his boots crushing the snow. He beckoned the other two men, who came over and looked. They seemed immune to the death right before them. As if they saw not the bodies of children, but an object to confirm or otherwise the theory of an irate man.

Ivan and Leonid shook their heads almost in unison.

‘You see?' Dimitri said. ‘The man's a killer.'

‘Or perhaps it was the cold?' Josif suggested.

Ivan looked closer. ‘These marks here.' He pointed close to the girl's face. ‘You see these around her nose and mouth? Maybe she was suffocated.'

‘What does it matter how he did it?' Dimitri said. ‘The man's a killer.'

‘We don't know that,' I said. ‘Not for sure.'

‘We should do something about it,' Dimitri went on.

‘Like what?' I asked. ‘Think about what you're saying, Dimitri.'

‘I
am
thinking.' He looked round at each of us. ‘I'm the
only
one thinking. That man is too much of a risk to our own children.'

‘He's dying,' I said. ‘He's not a risk to anyone.'

‘Then let him die,' Dimitri said.

‘What?'

‘Let him die. Leave him out in the cold and let him die.'

‘Hold your tongue, Dimitri Petrovich,' Josif snapped at him. ‘And calm yourself.' He put a hand on my arm and took me to
one side, walking away from the others, speaking quietly so they wouldn't hear.

‘What are you hiding?' he asked as we walked.

‘Hm?'

‘Come on, Luka. We've known each other long enough to be honest with one another. You may think you're a closed book, but some of us have learned to read you better than you think. There's something you're not telling me.'

We stopped at the place where the wall formed a corner. There was a large oak there, its roots bulging beneath the bricks, pushing them up and out.

‘You have always been honest with me,' Josif said. ‘Please don't stop now.'

‘There's a wound on the girl's leg,' I sighed. ‘I didn't want anybody to see it.'

‘Why?'

‘Because it looks like she's been cut and I thought people would react exactly the way Dimitri is reacting now. They'd want to murder the man before they even knew what's happened. People are scared, they're afraid of outsiders.'

‘With good reason.'

‘The man in my house is a soldier, Josif. The things he has with him tell me that. And I mean an imperial soldier, not a communist soldier. I don't think he means any harm.'

Josif stared at me, his eyes dark beneath the brim of his fur hat, and I knew what he was thinking. To Josif there was no difference. The tsarists or the communists – they had all tried to crush him and his kind. The pogroms against the Jews were no different from the drive to wipe out the kulaks.

‘He could have stolen them,' Josif said.

‘Maybe. But … I don't know; I have a feeling. He's a veteran, I'm sure of it. A brother.'

‘A brother? And what if you're wrong? What if he's red and a whole unit follows behind him?'

‘That's not very likely, Josif, and you know it. That man was alone.'

‘Did he say anything?'

‘He said, “Thank God.”'

‘That's all?'

‘That's all. Look, this is why I wanted to keep it quiet. To avoid people like Dimitri getting riled up and doing something stupid.'

‘Dimitri's an idiot,' Josif said. ‘But you could have come to me.'

‘What for? What would that have done? I thought it best to cover her up and bury them.'

‘And leave us not knowing? You're not our protector, Luka.' Josif looked me in the eye. ‘Perhaps we should see the child for ourselves.'

‘Can't you just take my word for it? She has a wound on her leg, right down to the bone. It looks as if she's been carved.'

‘Carved?'

‘As if she were an animal. It looks as if someone has taken some of her flesh.'

Josif made a fist and put it to his mouth. He tapped it against his chin as he thought, then he nodded. ‘Perhaps you're right, my friend. I have no desire to see the child's mutilation, and Dimitri doesn't need to see any more than he already has. As you say, we don't want to get people excited. They're frightened enough already. I—'

But he stopped when we sensed movement and heard Viktor's protest. Josif and I both turned together to see what was happening over by the sled, and we could only stare at what we saw.

Dimitri was standing back, knife in one hand, the other held to his mouth in horror. The girl's trouser leg was cut from cuff to waistband.

The sun was weak, but it gave enough warmth to melt the crust of the snow and the smallest icicles just as it could thaw blood. And so it had done. The blood at the outer edges of the girl's wound had softened as we talked and, once liquid again, had
soaked into the trousers and blossomed in a butterfly pattern across the well-worn material.

Josif and I had been too busy to see it, but Dimitri had spotted it, watched its ethereal resurrection blooming on the material. He had pushed Viktor aside to put his blade into the cuff and split the trousers lengthways, and now he gaped, looking around at the others until his eyes settled on me and narrowed.

‘You,' he said. ‘
You
.' The accusation was thick in that single word. ‘You brought this man into our lives. And you give him shelter in your home. This man who does …
this
… to children.' Dimitri shook his head. ‘You have children of your own.'

‘It doesn't change anything. We don't know he did this,' I said, beginning to doubt my reasons for protecting the man lying by the fire in my home. I wanted to do what was right, but perhaps Dimitri spoke the truth. Perhaps I was a fool.

‘Of course he did this,' Dimitri said, spitting on the ground. ‘Who else?
You
?'

‘That's enough.' Josif pointed at Dimitri. ‘That's enough from you. I don't want to hear any more.'

‘So he told you?' Dimitri asked. ‘He told you about this, did he?'

‘Not until just now.'

‘Then he kept it from us all.'

I glanced at Viktor standing silent by the sled. He was watching Dimitri, and I could see the distaste on his face. His hands were clenching and unclenching, fists that turned his knuckles white. Dimitri had pushed past him, forced him aside to get to the girl, and it had angered him. He didn't like to be beaten in anything, and he didn't like to be treated as an inferior. Viktor was seventeen and considered himself to be a man. He expected Dimitri to treat him with the same respect he would have given to any of the others, but instead he had pushed him aside as if he were a child.

Petro, on the other hand, had taken a step back. He had removed himself from the potential flashpoint and was watching as if he were a spectator at this event.

‘Why would he do that?' Dimitri went on, directing his words at Josif and the others, then turning on me once again. ‘Why keep it hidden, Luka?'

‘So people like you wouldn't get so excited,' Josif told him.

‘I'm not excited, I'm angry. Angry that he brought a killer into our village. A man who kills children and eats their flesh.'

‘No one brought a killer anywhere,' Josif said. ‘Luka did the right thing.'

I looked at Josif, glad to hear him coming to my defence.

‘I agree.' Leonid Andreyevich stepped forward, shaking his head. ‘Something like this could cause a lot of trouble.'

‘You're right about that,' Dimitri said. ‘That's why we need to get rid of him.'

‘No,' Leonid said. ‘That's not what I meant. I meant we should keep this to ourselves.' Leonid was a taciturn man who might have seemed timid to an outsider, but he was a man who listened and spoke only when necessary. He was younger than Ivan and Josif and, like me, he had fought in and survived the civil war. But, unlike me, he was a native of Vyriv, and that, coupled with his reputation, earned him the respect of the others in the village.

He spoke quietly now, his eyes averted from what was on the sled. ‘Bury these poor children and be done with it.'

‘Be done with it?' Dimitri raised his voice. ‘What the hell does that mean? What about the man in Luka's house? What about
him
?'

‘We watch him,' Leonid said. ‘As soon as he's well enough, we talk to him. Find out what happened.'

‘He'll deny it.'

‘Of course he will,' Josif said. ‘But we'll have to decide for ourselves if he's lying.'

‘A trial?' Ivan was using the heel of his palm to bang the used tobacco from his pipe. ‘Interesting. Like one of the communist
troikas
?'

‘Something like that,' Josif said. ‘But fairer. We have to give him a chance. We don't know anything about him.' He turned to
look at me. ‘He had belongings? Something that might tell us who he was?'

‘Or maybe we should just let him go when he's well enough. Make him leave,' Leonid offered.

‘So he can kill again?' Dimitri said, looking around at us. ‘What are you talking about? Have you lost your minds? This man kills children and you're talking about making him better and setting him free.'

‘What would you do?' I asked.

‘I'd string him up.'

‘I bet you would,' I said.

‘Damn right.'

‘I vote we keep it to ourselves for now.' Ivan held up his hand, the stem of his pipe pointing to the sky. ‘Bury them and don't speak of it until we've decided what's for the best.'

I put up my hand in agreement. Leonid and Josif did the same.

‘This is bullshit.' Dimitri spat his words. ‘Bullshit.'

Now they all looked to Viktor and Petro.

‘Since when do they get a vote?' Dimitri asked.

‘They're men now,' Ivan answered. ‘And they're here. That gives them a vote.'

‘Men?' Dimitri scoffed. ‘Boys who are seventeen. One of them a brute like his father, and the other … I don't even know what the other is.'

Petro raised his hand. Viktor looked at me.

‘Don't look at him,' Josif said. ‘This is your decision now.'

But Viktor wasn't asking for my direction regarding the vote. He wanted to punish Dimitri for his actions and his words, and he wanted me to sanction it, but the look in my eyes told him this was not the place for it.

Viktor nodded and slowly raised his hand.