‘To tell you I was coming …’
‘To tell him as well!’ the boy cries. ‘I told you not to come into the forest!’
‘I had to find you, Alek.’
‘Stop calling me that.’
‘Stop calling you your name?’
‘I don’t like it.’
‘Alek, I had to come …’
‘You didn’t have to do anything. You’re the one who can stay. You’re the one who has a bed and a mama and a papa. You’re the one who goes to school and …’
Elenya ventures a hand, and rests it on his shoulder. ‘Alek, it’s all right.’
‘No it isn’t,’ he whispers. ‘It hasn’t been, not since my mama.’
‘Where is he, Alek?’
‘There’s a place he’s been going,’ says the boy. ‘It’s the place where he fell. He keeps roaming back there, like he wants to cross over again. I don’t know how long he’s been … The fire was dead when I woke. It means he went in the night.’
‘Good,’ spits Elenya. ‘After what he did.’
He whispers, ‘I’m … sorry, Elenya.’
‘Sorry? What should you be sorry for?’
‘You didn’t have to see.’
‘See what that monster did to you? Alek, he’s meant to be your papa.’
‘He is my papa.’
‘My papa never bathed me in dirt, Alek. He yells but he never lifts his hand. Is he always like that?’
The boy turns over his shoulder, shifting the pines to keep out a finger of wind.
‘He wasn’t. He was my papa and he lived in a tenement, and when we went to live with him he was kind. He made hot milk. He told tales, but not bad tales, only tales like Baba Yaga and Dimian the peasant. And he didn’t want to come to the forest, but I made him come to the forest, and now … I think it’s because of the trees. They did terrible things, the trees. They got into him. Drank up whatever was good and left the rest behind. Now he can’t leave.’
‘He can’t leave, but you can.’
The boy shakes his head. ‘I made a promise, to my mama. To look after him. Only, now he’s wild. And I don’t know what to do.’
Elenya leans forward, folding a hand over his. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘I want it back the way it used to be. I want to live in the tenement, with my papa the way he was. And … I want my mama.’
Elenya says, ‘It can’t be that way.’
‘I know it.’
‘Then what do you want now?’
‘I … don’t know.’
‘I know one thing,’ says Elenya.
‘What?’
‘I know it’s Christmas soon.’
The boy nods.
‘And I know Ded Moroz won’t be bringing you any presents, so … maybe I’ll have to.’
She shifts, to reveal that corner of the gingerbread house she has been hiding. There, he sees a package of shining red paper. Awkwardly, she passes it to him.
‘For me?’
‘For you, Alek.’
He presses his ear to the paper. He runs a finger along the lines where the present has been taped up, prods it, pokes it, lifts it up and shakes. At last, he leaps on the package, as fiercely as a lynx upon its kill. He tears back the paper, and as he does the present itself seems to grow larger, opening like one of the blossoms of springtime. The red paper has been holding it in, but in the middle lies an eiderdown.
He sits back, unable to touch it. It must have been packed tight, for it relaxes, stretches out. It is warm, as thick as any eiderdown he has ever touched. He breathes in, and though it is not his mama’s scent it is something similar: vanilla, and dust, the scents of a house where a family might live.
‘Thank you, Elenya,’ he whispers.
‘Alek, there’s something else.’
At first, he is too buried in the new eiderdown to listen. Only when she repeats it does he look up.
‘What?’
‘It’s those stories he tells.’
‘You said they weren’t real stories.’
‘Alek, I asked my papa. I know what Gulag is.’
The boy says, ‘The great frozen city …’
‘It was prison, Alek. Big prison camps, from Russia.’
‘No,’ says the boy, shaking his head. ‘It’s Perpetual Winter. That’s what my papa says.’
‘It’s real, Alek.’
‘Baba Yaga isn’t real.’
‘But partisans and soldiers in the pushcha? What about babes in the wood?’
The boy tries to hold the words back, yet they spill out nevertheless: ‘I think it was my baba.’
‘And if that was your baba …’
The boy does not want to reply. The stories fracture and begin to unfurl in his head. The wars of winter, real; the Old Man of the Forest, some creature out of legend. The partisans and wicked soldiers, real; the Winter King’s wise men, plucked straight from the heart of a fable. He cannot tease one from the other.
Even Mr Navitski said the Winter King was real. He had a real name, and that name was Josef.
Elenya ducks her way to the edge of the gingerbread house, prepares to go through the pines.
‘Alek, I want you to come back with me. We’ll make it right. I don’t know how, but we’ll …’
Click, and soft thump. Click, and soft thump.
The boy claws out, taking her wrist that he might make her stay. ‘Elenya, wait.’
She lifts her wrist, if only to show that she could leave if she wanted. ‘Why, is he going to bathe me in dirt too?’
In that moment, the boy believes she will defy him, stride out into the camp and spit bile at his papa. Then his papa would take her up and bear her into the trees, and if she came back she would be a wild thing like him or she would not come back at all. He opens his eyes, begs her to remain. Perhaps it is only the thought of seeing him upset that stays her. She softens. She sidles back around the boy, to slump into the eiderdown nest and lift up the little Russian horse.
‘It isn’t right, Alek. He isn’t right. He isn’t your papa, not anymore.’
The boy turns into the pine-needle doors. When they part, he can see the back of his papa, bent over the fire. Around his feet are strewn the dead things of the forest: a brace of birds and more; furred creatures he has not seen before, dragged feet first from their winter burrows.
‘Papa,’ he says, venturing near. ‘There you are …’
‘Where else, boy?’
‘Have you been to the marshes?’
‘How did you know?’
As the old man’s head turns, the fire spits and crackles.
‘Were you thinking of going across, papa?’
‘It’s wilder there. Deeper. Those trees don’t know men, not anymore.’
‘Not since …’ The boy hesitates before going on, because perhaps the question is better not asked. ‘… the wars of winter?’
‘Yes, boy, they knew men then.’
The boy thinks to stop there, but his eyes dart at the gingerbread house and he fancies he can see a dull shape moving on the ice-bound walls: the shape of Elenya, shifting on the other side. No, he thinks. I have to – want to – know.
‘Why are you looking at me like that, boy?’
He stutters, trying to find the right words. ‘I was … thinking of your fable, papa. About the man who escaped from winter.’
The old man takes the axe and carves up the cadaver at his feet. This he dangles down, a bloody worm for the boy to suckle up.
‘Did he make it home, that man?’
‘You already know he made it home. He found the Old Man of the Forest.’
‘And the Winter King didn’t catch him again?’
‘Oh, the Winter King died, boy. He choked to death in his Winter Palace, and all his wise men were around, but they were too afraid to save him.’
‘So that man,’ the boy whispers. ‘He had a happy ever after?’
The old man makes a broken sound.
‘And he foun
d his babe in the wood. Well, didn’t he?’
At last, his papa says, ‘Yes, boy. He found her.’
‘And had a little baby of their own, in the house near the forests …’
The old man turns his back on the boy.
‘Well?’
The old man breathes, ‘Well?’
‘And that baby, that was mama. Wasn’t it, papa? Well, wasn’t it?’
This isn’t the tale, utters the old man, but an opening.
‘Oh, papa …’
The old man’s eyes are gone again, as empty of life as the trees around them. The boy wants to reach out, towards the gingerbread house, but he fancies he can hear Elenya inside, breath held in her throat, and to move towards her would betray her.
The tale, the old man rasps, comes tomorrow, after the … man needs MEAT!
Man needs meat, said Aabel.
And: man needs meat, said the man who had once been a boy.
And: man needs meat, mocked the trees and the mountains and the snow in the sky.
But Aabel and the man who had once been a boy had walked seven days and seven nights, through pine forests dark and over open heaths of white. And sometimes they heard the wolf pack in full cry, and sometimes they heard the runaways howling their names, and sometimes they could not tell who were the runaways and who were the wolves, for Aabel said: they are all of them monsters now, and all of them will feast on our flesh if they find us. So they must not find us.
Well, that night Aabel and the man who had once been a boy made camp in a forest gully, and in that forest gully the man who had once been a boy conjured up fire. And Aabel said: I have never known a man to conjure such fires. And the man who had once been a boy said: I know how to whisper to fires, for there were once ghosts in the forests where I grew up, and I would follow them and learn of their magicks.
We have a fire, said Aabel, but what will we eat?
We will not eat, said the man who had once been a boy, but keep on until our hearts give out.
In front of the fire, the boy thinks he sees the corners of his papa’s lips twitch, as if daring a smile. Perhaps it is just an illusion cast by the spitting fire, for the rest of his face is implacable as those faces in the murderous trees.
Well, sleep did not come to the man who had once been a boy, and he was sore aggrieved, for without sleep he could not dream of his babe in the woods. And when morning came, he watched Aabel pull back on his jackboots and put his knapsack over his shoulder and say: the company is near, and they are running with wolves. We must make haste.
Well, the way was steep and the way was narrow, and the way was dark beneath the pines. And Aabel said: we must chew on this bark, so that we will not starve. But chewing on bark just taunted their stomachs, and soon the hunger gnawed more and more and … man needs meat.
Man needs meat.
Man needs meat.
The old man moans it, again and again.
Well, night returned – and of the runaways there was no sign. The man who had once been a boy took them to a camp beneath a stone ridge, a place the wind could not claw, and fell to making fire. But hunger is a terrible thing, for it starts in the stomach but ends in the fingers, and now his fingers would not obey. He tempted up smoke but he could tempt no fire, for no longer was there any fire inside him.
And he and Aabel lay together and Aabel said: we have run and we can run no more. And the man who had once been a boy said: I am glad to die beyond the walls of that great frozen city called Gulag, for though I die I am a free man.
Then came endless sleep.
The boy rears up. ‘But papa!’ he cries. ‘They didn’t die! They didn’t die, did they?’ He pitches across the fire, heedless of the raging heat. ‘He made it back, papa.’ He crawls into the old man’s arms, all fear evaporated. ‘He made it back for his babe in the woods, and he had a little girl and she had a little boy, and that little boy’s me, and I’m still here … I promised, papa! I promised to look after you …’
The old man’s branches fold around him, locking like warped wood.
Well, now dreams came. And in the dreams he saw his babe in the woods, and she was but a babe on the doorstep where he left her. And in the dreams he saw her grow up and grow beautiful as the forest. And in the dreams he saw her take his hand, and he saw her kiss his lips, and he saw … Boy, he saw that she was good and just, and he saw that she was beautiful and fair. And he saw that nothing else mattered, not wars of winter, not the Winter King, not the Iron wall or the King in the West, not Perpetual Winter and that great frozen city called Gulag.
And he opened his eyes. And there, at his side, Aabel still slept, his heart beating ragged in his breast, for the hunger and the cold had not claimed him yet. And the man who had once been a boy said: I will go home to my babe in the woods. I will go home to my babe in the woods, no matter what it takes.
And he stroked Aabel’s hair from his brow, and brought back Aabel’s head to show a throat red raw and mottled in beard.
And into that throat he sank his teeth.
‘No, papa. Please, papa …’
Well, Aabel woke, and Aabel thrashed, and Aabel choked up blood and screamed: why!? But the man who had once been a boy bit harder, and the man who had once been a boy tasted iron and salt. And the man who had once been a boy drank back, and chewed and spat and chewed and spat. For now there was fire in him again, and now his fingers would work. Now, he summoned up fire, and now he baked flesh. All to get home to his babe in the woods …
And now, now, now, now, he feasted on the flesh of a Finnish man.
At once, his papa’s arms release him. They pitch him, propel him back over the fire. The boy lands awkwardly, one leg still trailing in the flames. He whips it back, thankful for the bitterness of the snow in which he lies.
And now I was strong, moans his papa. Now I was warm. And I took his axe and I carved his flesh. And I took his knapsack, and filled it with flesh. And I took his jackboots and I walked in his step. And I ran and I ran and I ran …
Is it true? He barks the question at himself, as if there are two men inside him, one desperate to get out.
Oh, I know it is true, for I was there!
Scrabbling back, the boy looks at his papa. The old man’s whiskered face is etched with the same patterns of ice as the boy; through the telling of his tale, his tears have been falling.
Without another word, he picks himself up, pushes through the pine branches and into the gingerbread house.
In the eiderdown nest, Elenya is waiting.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she says, a trembling in her tone.
‘You can’t,’ the boy replies. ‘He’ll know you’re here …’
‘I heard him, Alek. I heard him …’
‘It was only his tale.’
‘It wasn’t a tale, and you know it!’
At the last, her voice climbs into a shriek. Outside, the boy hears his papa shifting. He thinks: he’s coming into the gingerbread house; he’s coming now. But then he hears the familiar sound of new boughs being piled into the fire, the click of the jackboot heel as his papa shifts around.
‘That was him, Alek. He did that. He …’
‘He didn’t,’ says the boy, though he can see pictures of his papa, his face buried in the man named Aabel’s throat, seared onto the backs of his eyes. ‘It was a story, like Baba Yaga.’
‘Baba Yaga ate little boys,’ says Elenya. ‘Little girls too …’
But the boy shakes his head. ‘He’s my papa,’ he whispers. ‘He wouldn’t …’
‘I’ve got to go,’ Elenya sobs.
The boy throws himself between her and the gingerbread doors. ‘Just a little longer,’ he begs. ‘Until he’s …’
‘Get out of my way, Alek!’
The boy tries to grapple her back, but his moccasin is caught in tangled root, he cannot catch his balance, and he plunges down. In seconds, Elenya clambers over him, clawing at the pine-needle doors. He reaches out, fingers flail for her ankl
e, but she kicks back – and then she is gone.
When the boy follows, he thinks he will see his papa, bearing down. He thinks he will see him with his bough-like arms closed around her, but instead there is only the fire. Elenya is on the other side of it, making for the forest.
He sees the trail his papa has left behind, snaking off under other branches.
‘Elenya!’ He vaults the fire to reach her. ‘I’ll take you home.’
In the snow dark she clings to his arm.
‘Come with me,’ she finally says. ‘My mama will look after you. You shouldn’t be out here. You should be inside, with a bed and a blanket and …’
She stops, as if something so simple has just occurred to her. ‘It isn’t a game anymore. He’s a monster, and it isn’t a game. Someone has to know.’ She teases her arm out of his grasp, takes three steps into birches heavy with ice.
‘I … can’t,’ says the boy.
‘Why can’t you?’
With a breath like winter, ‘Because I made a promise, Elenya. I promised mama I wouldn’t leave him, no matter what.’
‘Did she know what he was?’
The boy listens to the soft tread of her footfalls, as her scarlet coat fades to grey. ‘She knew he’s my papa,’ he whispers, and watches her go.
After she has faded, he tramps back across the clearing. There is a smell in the air. It is a smell of closeness, of clarity, of lucid dreams. He wishes it wasn’t so, but he could not go with her. He can never go. Girls like Elenya can get on and grow up, but boys of the forest can do none of those things. They stay little boys, all because of a promise they made, and promises can’t be broken. Monster or not, the wild man will always be his papa.
He has turned to go into the gingerbread house when he sees the new trail on the edge of the clearing. Tracking it round, he sees his papa reappear with yet more pine branches.
‘Papa?’
The old man drops, his body curled around the fire like a cauldron’s edge. Moments later, the boy knows he is asleep. In his dreams, he thunders through these forests on legs that still work, a young man desperate to get home.
He is about to pile up the pine branches, when a sudden thought strikes. Throwing the pines onto the fire, he takes the eiderdown and lays it over the old man. He tucks him in so that only the tip of his head is open to the night. In this way, he looks like any old man from the city.
Gingerbread Page 28
