She turns to stride off, deeper into the forest, but the boy hangs behind, fixed by Mishka’s eyes.
‘A fire?’
‘Oh, I wasn’t anywhere near, but nobody would listen!’
The boy hurries to rescue his cattail roots and roasted weasel and plunges after Elenya. This girl cannot know about partisans, or soldiers, or the murder grounds between the trees, because she barely cares to stop and look at the branches. Fear doesn’t touch her at all. Even when she reaches the murder tree, with its dead face glowering down, she doesn’t flinch.
The boy flails after. ‘Here,’ he says, as the demon in the murder tree fixes him with its gaze. ‘You can have this.’
She looks at the cattail root, but will not touch it. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s for eating.’
‘You’re playing a trick.’
He brings up the toasted weasel, unrecognizable save for its blackened head. ‘You could have this too.’
This time, the girl shrieks – not in shock, but in a shrill kind of glee. ‘You’ve butchered that little thing!’
‘It’s cooked through.’
‘It’s hardly fit for Mishka!’
Mishka disagrees. As soon as Elenya says her name, she leaps up and takes the toasted carcass between snapping jaws. In seconds, she is hurtling into the undergrowth to devour it alone.
‘Well, go on then. You can make a fire here.’
The boy’s eyes drift up to the murder tree. ‘I don’t know …’
Elenya balks, ‘You dragged me out here …’
‘I didn’t drag. I followed you. I …’
‘Can you show me fires or not?’ She stops, as if a thought has only just occurred. ‘And where do you get those clothes?’
This is a burrow the boy would rather not follow – so, before she can ask him where he lives, where he comes from, why he’s out here in the woods at all, he begins to craft a fire. First, he will show her how to pile the kindling up. Then, he will show her how to press and twirl the stick so that smoke flurries out. Last, he will show her how to make the special whisperings to invoke sparks.
The sparks are showering down when he hears a certain noise reverberating in the air trapped under the trees. It comes with a precise rhythm: a sharp click, followed by a soft pull. He stops, cocks his head. It is only as the sound comes into stronger definition that he realizes what he is hearing. He hears dark breaths, and darker words. He looks at Elenya. ‘Maybe we can make a fire somewhere else.’
‘I think you’ve got a perfectly good one here. Make it dance.’
The boy’s eyes dart into the spaces between the trees. He sees a shadow lunge and haul itself forth, lunge and haul itself forth again. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘This way …’
He flattens his pyramid of sticks beneath his rabbit-hide moccasin and scrambles into the same thicket of brambles from which he once hid from the girl and her family. When it is plain that she will not follow, he darts out, grabs her by the arm and pulls.
‘Just what do you think you’re doing?’ The girl must see the panic stained on his face. ‘What is it?’
‘He’s coming out of the woods …’
In a daze, the girl allows herself to be drawn into the brambles. The thorns close around them, obscuring the clearing and the murder tree above. ‘If it’s hide-and-seek, only one of us should be hiding.’
The boy closes a hand over his mouth, as if to direct Elenya to do the same. Her face contorts into the deepest scowl, her eyes blazing with the fury of being told what to do, but she is silent all the same. Only after the moments linger too long does she dare a whisper. ‘You know, you haven’t even told me your name. If we’re going to be friends, I’d expect you might tell me your name.’
Through thorns, the boy sees his papa emerge from the forest and drag himself through the roots of the murder tree. He has a dead pheasant dangling from his shoulder and the face of some other creature peeps from his greatcoat pocket. His breathing comes in fits, and between those fits his head is thrown back, peering into the snowscape above.
The boy strains to hear.
This isn’t the tale, are the words hidden in those breaths. This isn’t the tale but this isn’t the tale.
‘What is he?’ grins Elenya, parting the brambles with a mittened hand.
The boy is on a precipice, about to say: he’s my papa. Yet, he will not say it; he does not know how this girl will react – and, above all else, he likes this girl.
In the clearing, the old man circles the murder tree. For a moment he disappears around the trunk, leaving only the face of the demon to watch them. Then he reappears – and with him come more words.
… when we did not exist … earth in front of the sky … seven versts aside …
‘That old tramp’s telling a fairy story!’ breathes Elenya, her finger jabbing the boy in the ribs. ‘I know those words!’
… we will escape, back through the jaws of the great frozen city called Gulag, and though we will find ourselves in Perpetual Winter, we are a brave company and will help each other through. There are eight of us friends, and the ninth is Aabel, and the tenth is Aabel’s companion, and though we know him not, if Aabel says his heart is true, he will come with us and us be richer for his coming.
What will you do, said the leader of the band, to help us in our escape?
I will do whatever it takes, said the man who was once a boy, for I am sworn to get back to my babe in the woods, and would move mountains and wage unwinnable wars to get there.
How far is it until home?
It is all the way until summer, where the trees have leaves.
The old man drives his staff forward. Some flicker of movement must catch his attention, for suddenly his head cocks. The boy gets ready to bustle Elenya back through the thorns – but his papa directs his gaze to the snow dark beyond the murder tree. He hauls himself around – and there, gleaming in the perpetual twilight beneath the branches, the boy sees two other eyes, and the silhouette of a frozen deer.
‘Do you see it?’ whispers Elenya.
The old man takes off. At the direction of his staff, the deer turns and bolts, showing only the white flash of its tail as it careens through the beeches. The old man’s jackboot clicks as it rides the roots of the murder tree, and his dead leg bounces ungainly as he drags it through.
‘Let’s follow!’ beams Elenya.
‘Follow?’
‘What, are you scared?’
‘Not scared.’
‘Then what?’
‘I don’t want to follow,’ says the boy, grappling with her arm. ‘We can … play here.’
‘Play, with sticks and stones and dirty yellow snow? No, let’s track him. He probably lives in a tree …’
‘He doesn’t live in a tree.’
‘How would you know?’ Her gaze is withering. ‘You know, you still haven’t told me where you live …’
The boy feels himself in a different kind of snare, scrabbling at the nettle strings to get away. There is only one way to chew through this particular snare, so he pushes through the brambles, skitters into the roots of the murder tree, and makes as if to go after his papa.
‘Well, come on!’
‘I’ll lead. What would a little boy like you know about spy games?’
As soon as they have gone beyond the murder tree, it is obvious that she doesn’t know a thing about tracking. The boy can see the furrow that his papa’s dead leg has churned up, but Elenya hardly seems to notice it at all. She heads in a different direction, allowing herself to be directed by fallen logs and branches. In this way, the forest would twist her up and take her far from home – but the boy is content to follow, let her think she is leading the way, when in truth his papa has roamed into deeper parts of the forest.
They have cut a circle, come almost to the cattail pond itself, when they climb over the stump of a rotten birch to see the same deep furrow in the ground. Though Elenya tumbles over, the boy stops. Something, it seem
s, has brought his papa back this way. The boy searches the ground for clues and sees, scored over by his papa’s trail, the hoofprints of the fleeing deer. His papa is after it, and the poor beast hardly knows.
By fortune or not, Elenya follows the trail. This girl seems oblivious to the ghosts in the trees. She strides on, in ignorant bliss.
Then: his papa’s voice, curdling up through the branches … white and white and white, and only white forever more. That was the world of Perpetual Winter …
Elenya stops. ‘Did you hear that?’
The boy shakes his head.
‘It’s that old tramp, still telling his story. Who’s he telling it to, do you think?’
‘I think …’ whispers the boy. ‘I think he’s telling it to the trees.’
Elenya snorts, ‘Well, they’re hardly bound to listen!’
The voice could be coming from any one of a hundred directions. It ripples along branches rimed in hoarfrost, along briars lying dead in the roots.
… for we are beyond cold and cannot understand that there is still life in our veins. We have come five weeks since escaping that great frozen city called Gulag, but we can go no further. Our stomachs are empty as this vast white world, and our insides devour themselves to keep us alive.
And Aabel said: I have never been so hungry.
And the leader of the company said: I have never been so cold.
And the man who had once been a boy said: yet we cannot give up, for we must get back to summer, and my babe in the woods …
Elenya seems to be surveying the woodland. The voice flurries up around them, but at last she scents a direction. She takes a stride, banks left through the oaks. Here, a gentle escarpment drops away. She begins to descend – and, to the boy’s terror, he sees his papa’s trail doing the same, punctuated again by the prints of the deer.
In Perpetual Winter the nights last longer than the days, and so it was that the company of fugitives plunged through the blackness. And, ho, but the leader said: do you see that light in the distance?
It is nothing but a mirage, said another, for the snow is too thick to see even a campfire.
No, said the leader, it is a candle in a window, for we have stumbled upon the house of some forester or trapper.
Then we must not go near. The forests are filled with magickers and spies, and a trapper might lure us in with beds for the night, and then send word to Gulag that we are here. Then we would wake with the wise men, and be sent back to that frozen city.
We must take a chance in there, or starve to death out there. What say you?
And one after another, the companions said: yay.
And when it was Aabel’s turn, he held to his knapsack and he said: yay.
And when it was the man who had once been a boy’s turn, he too said: yay.
Then let us descend, and see what this trapper has in his larder.
Elenya reaches the bottom of the escarpment. Here, the trees grow more densely, but beyond there lies a clearing. The boy reaches her side, stops her before she goes through the trees.
‘He’s in there!’ she whispers. ‘Can you hear?’
The boy can: no clicking of heels, no driving of his staff, but he hears the soft whoosh of the axe, the keening of the blade, the wet sounds of flesh being torn apart.
‘I think you should go home,’ he whispers.
‘Me?’ demands Elenya. ‘What about us?’
‘Please …’
‘Where do you live?’
The boy says, ‘Not so very far away, on the earth in front of the sky, on a plain place like on a wether …’
‘Oh, shut up with stories! I want to see what he’s up to through there.’
Before the boy can stop her, she squirms through two elms and hunkers down in the roots on the other side. He can do nothing but join her.
In the roots they are barely concealed, with only more roots to hide them. It does not matter, for in the clearing his papa has disappeared inside his greatcoat and is facing into deeper reaches of woodland. His head is bowed low, the axe bites the earth at his side and spread out before him is the deer. Steam billows up from some unseen quarter of its belly and its cloud churns around the old man’s head. His hands must be buried deep in the carcass. The sling lies at his side and he wonders: could such a little stone really take down such a beast?
Well, the way was long and the way was frozen cold, but the promise of warmth and fodder kept the runaways from crumbling. And, when they reached the house, they saw that it was no mirage. It had four walls of timber and the light in the window was a lantern calling them on.
‘What’s he saying?’ whispers Elenya.
But the boy only hears the sounds of the deer being butchered and does not reply.
Well, they knocked at the door but the door made no sound. And they knocked at the windows, but the house said: nobody’s home. And the leader said: well, if nobody’s home, it means we can go in, and we must take what we can, because without it we will starve.
Well, the door caved in, but the house was barren. All that was left was the little lamp on the ledge, and the leader said: they left it as a taunt. They have run away too, because in Perpetual Winter there is nothing to grow and nothing to hunt. We would have been better to stay in that great frozen city called Gulag.
Soon, despair took the runaways, for though there was warmth in the lantern, and though the walls kept out winter’s bitter shriek, their stomachs were still shrunken and filled with hate. In the night, there were cramps. One man cried for his mother. And the man who had once been a boy sat long into the night, clinging to his friend Aabel, and shivered with the fever of starvation.
In the clearing, the old man rears up from the deer. His hand gropes out to take the axe. When he lifts it aloft, the boy sees that his fingers are covered in gore.
Elenya gasps, the sound stifled only by the boy’s hand.
Well, deep in the night, the leader came to where Aabel and the man who had once been a boy sat and said: it comes to this. We are all of us friends, and all of us have suffered, but some must suffer more than most, if we are ever to make it back to Summer.
Of what do you speak? asked the man who had once been a boy.
One of our number is near to death. His name is Lom and he is a Cossack. Lom should die so that we may live.
Well, the man who had once been a boy and his companion Aabel did not comprehend.
We have come to this house, said the leader, in search of good meat.
Yet, there is none.
No, said the leader – and, here, the old man brings down the axe to sever a haunch of the deer – for this house is full of meat. It is a larder rich with flesh. And we might dine on that flesh this very night. Do you see where Lom lies?
And the man who had once been a boy peered across the dark cottage, and saw Lom breathing ragged in the range.
I will club him while he sleeps, and in that way spare him his torment, and in that way spare us ours …
Well, Aabel stood, and the man who had once been a boy stood.
You are a monster! said the man who had once been a boy. Man must not dine on the flesh of man!
And the leader flashed a smile: man needs meat!
The axe bites through the leg of the deer. Shreds of flesh shower up. Now his papa’s words ebb away – and into the void come only his ragged breaths. He stands, hauling the haunch onto his shoulder, and turns.
In the roots, the boy turns to force Elenya down – but she is not there. He wheels back, sees her scrambling up the escarpment and away.
He is about to turn and follow her, when he hears his papa’s voice, no longer the strange feathery one with which he tells his tales.
‘Boy?’
‘Papa,’ the boy breathes, watching the final flash of Elenya’s scarlet coat in the trees. His papa is looking at him with eyes of vivid blue; they sparkle with such life that, at once, the boy forgets the fable, forgets Perpetual Winter, forgets the flashing smile and m
an needs meat. In the clearing, his papa is draped in dinner enough to see them through the fiercest cold.
‘I wondered where you were,’ says the boy. ‘I … came looking.’
‘I found us the meat we need,’ the old man replies, with genuine wonder in his tone. ‘Will you help me carve her, boy? We shouldn’t leave her to the wolves.’
The boy wants only to hurry after Elenya, but his papa’s voice compels him to stay. He ventures across the clearing, looks down at what is left of the steaming deer. Entrails curl up in the nest of its open side. Its neck is thrown back, as if to invite the teeth of some woodland monster. For a reason he cannot fathom, he is surprised that there are not teeth marks there, scored into fur and flesh.
‘Papa, why were you telling it a story?’
The old man lifts the axe, thinking to sever another haunch, but the heft is warm and slippery and he lets it drop through his fingers. ‘Well,’ says his papa, as if uncertain of the words. ‘Some stories just … need to be told.’
He takes the axe and opens a great cleft in the other back leg, deep enough so that the boy can tear the rest free, to a grisly sight of gleaming white and red.
‘I thought … you’d stopped telling those stories, papa.’
‘I thought,’ snipes the old man, ‘that you were old enough not to believe in tales.’
He drags himself around, picking a path back to the gingerbread house.
Scrutinized by the deer’s lifeless eyes, the boy follows. ‘How does it end, papa? That tale?’
‘It ends like all of them end.’
The boy is silent. Then, he remembers. ‘Is it true?’
Oh, says his papa, I know it is true, for …
When he stops, the boy thinks he must have forgotten the words. ‘One was there who told me of it?’ he offers.
But the old man slopes on, into silence and snow.
At the gingerbread house, where the deer smokes on the cookfire, the boy studies the old man in the firelight and tries to match him with the old man he first met in the tenement hall. What is happening behind those dark eyes that were once so blue? What wood still lives behind bark grown dead and rimed in ice? When hoarfrost hangs from a human skin, can that skin still hold a heart?
Gingerbread Page 21
