Gingerbread

by Robert Dinsdale

  Defiantly, the boy springs up. In a second, he has weaved between the desks. At the front, Mr Navitski calls for silence – but the sudden flight of the new boy seems to have stirred the class to acts of greater hilarity. Navitski begins to stride over, but already the boy is helping Elenya to her feet.

  ‘Did it hurt you?’

  ‘I practise doing it all the time.’

  The boy cups a hand, presses it to Elenya’s ear. ‘Did you tell, Elenya?’

  ‘Alek …’

  ‘Did you? Did you tell?’

  She wants to use his shoulder to lever herself up, but the boy will not let her, not until she has replied.

  ‘I didn’t tell, Alek. But you have to. They have to know what he …’

  With Navitski halfway across the room, Elenya finally uses the boy’s shoulder to hoist herself up. The boy ducks to lift up the chair, and when he rises again, Elenya is facing the window. He nudges her, trying to put the chair back at the desk, but she does not move.

  ‘Alek, back to your seat, please.’

  The boy turns to go, but Elenya is holding him by the cuff of his over-long sleeve. He strains, but she pulls him back.

  The window is broad as the wall, but the outside is obscured by a veil of grey. Elenya has used her other hand to rub a porthole in the condensation, and through it she peers across the playground. The porthole is slowly closing as the greyness steals back, but she shuffles sideways so that the boy, too, can look out. To do so, he must stand on his tiptoes.

  ‘Do you see?’ whispers Elenya. For the first time, there is uncertainty in her voice. Those three simple words tremble.

  Outside, the playground is a perfect blanket of snow. Snow drives over the building, but does not plaster itself across the window, collecting instead in drifts on the farthest bounds of the yard.

  He might be forgiven for thinking the world a virgin white, but across the playground snakes a single deep trail. It comes out of the whiteness, with a churned-up bank at either side, weaving in a great arc around the schoolhouse itself.

  ‘It isn’t, is it?’ Elenya breathes.

  The boy lifts a sleeve, rubs fiercely at the glass to scour it of more condensation. The trench swings close to the building, only yards away from the window to which his face is pressed, before swinging away again, around the corner of the assembly hall and out of sight. He is hurrying along the wall, dragging his sleeve to expose more through the glass, when he feels the hand clamp upon his shoulder. Thinking it his papa, he lets out a gasp, whirls around; Mr Navitski’s face looks down.

  ‘Why don’t we sit down and get on with our lesson? I promise it won’t be long. Then we’ll have this mess all sorted out.’

  How to say: there is no mess? How to say: I have to leave? How to say: these are the sounds that herald my papa’s approach – a breath full of winter, the click of one heel, the long slow scrape of death dragged behind …

  A hand in the small of his back, he finds himself steered back across the room. All eyes are on him now, but only Elenya understands. When he drops back into his seat, Yuri offers up another pencil, this one chewed so diligently that it looks like a twig.

  The boy wheels around. Behind him, there is another window. This one gazes out at the back of the school, the playing field where, in summer, boys can go for races – but the glass is so thick with fog that he cannot see even an inch beyond. There might be a face lurking there, pressed to the glass, and still he would not see.

  His eyes hunt out Elenya’s own. They plead with her. They beg. Even though Navitski is watching, she reaches over her shoulder to clear the glass and look through. When she turns back to the boy, it is with an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

  At the front of the classroom, Mr Navitski throws out questions. One after another, answers rain down. They come with metronomic rhythm, but that is not the only rhythm the boy can hear.

  From the glass behind his head: the click of one jackboot heel.

  The boy throws his hand up. It is only as it dangles there that he wonders: why? It is instinct that has driven him to do it, but it seems to work.

  Mr Navitski looks up from his desk. ‘What is it, Alek?’

  ‘I need to go.’

  ‘Go?’

  He nods. ‘I can take you in one minute, Alek.’

  As he drops his hand, he realizes: he thinks I mean the toilet. But I don’t use toilets. I use holes in the earth and snow for paper.

  ‘No,’ he whispers. ‘I have to go …’

  He is about to continue, but a knock at the door silences him. In his seat, the boy’s skin blanches white as winter. Elenya kicks her chair back, as if ready to run.

  The door opens. There, in the crack, hangs the bulbous face of the caretaker.

  ‘What is it?’ Mr Navitski asks, his voice almost a snap.

  ‘Phone,’ grunts the caretaker. ‘In the staffroom.’

  ‘The telephone?’

  ‘For one of your lot. Some girl called Elenya.’

  ‘Elenya’s in class,’ Mr Navitski says, stressing the last word as if it is something the caretaker might not understand.

  ‘Suit yourself. Says it’s urgent, though. It’s her mother.’

  Elenya rises, to a clatter of chairs. ‘Can I, Mr Navitski?’

  Besieged on both sides, Navitski gives a wearied nod. A wave of his hand sends Elenya halfway across the class. As she reaches the door, she looks back, with eyes meant only for the boy.

  No words are exchanged. Elenya disappears, and now – in a room full of people – the boy is truly alone.

  He stands, heedless of Yuri’s sudden cry, and scrubs at the window pane. Outside, the playing field is barren. Yet the trench has been carved only a yard from the window, punctuated by strange circles of scuffed-up snow where his papa has paused, twisted as if to change direction, and then lurched on. In the trench, he sees shreds of pine branch, a blade of thick cattail grass. His papa leaves a trail like the forest itself.

  ‘Alek, what are you doing?’

  ‘I have to go,’ he says, turning from the window.

  ‘I said I’d take you in a minute …’

  The boy bares his teeth, scrambles bodily over table and chair. ‘I said now!’ he cries. ‘I have to go now!’

  Across the classroom: gasps, titters.

  In a breath, Mr Navitski is through the tables. His big hand closes over the boy’s wrist. ‘Okay, Alek,’ he says, soft and yet firm. ‘We’ll go now.’

  At the door, the boy thrashes, pulls back. ‘Not to the toilet! Not there! I have to go back, I have to go back to the wild!’

  With Navitski’s hand still wrapped around him, they come through the door. On his left, the doors to the assembly hall are sealed. Directly in front, the toilet door flutters, ajar. Somebody must have left a window open inside, for the cold is suddenly unutterable. A breath of winter has stolen through. It rushes up the passageway, clawing at the books in the library cranny. A scrap of screwed-up paper, caught by that wind, flutters like snow.

  Navitski tugs him in the direction of the toilet, but he throws his roots down, into the cold linoleum floor, and resists. For he knows, now, that the cold does not come from those bathroom stalls. He turns to look up the corridor. The wind rampages down it, howling to escape through windows, walls, the rafters in the roof.

  The smell is like the forest at dawn. It comes, borne on that wind.

  The sounds, sharp and soft: click, and thump; click, and thump. Click. Click. Click. Click.

  A darkness rounds the corner, bringing those sounds, those smells, into clearer definition. It is tall as a man, and it walks on three legs.

  Mr Navitski’s fingers tighten around the boy.

  With each step the darkness unfolds. This darkness has arms. This darkness is crowned in white, its strands stained at their tips, matted and bound.

  ‘Alek, get back in the classroom.’

  The boy can hear another sound now: the sound of malformed words and a tongue cleaved i
n two.

  ‘Who is it, Alek?’

  He finds his strength, rips his hand from Navitski’s grasp. ‘It’s my papa,’ he sobs, seeing the jagged slashes of dark through the crook of Navitski’s arm. ‘Oh please, but it’s my papa …’

  All that is behind him is the classroom, the assembly hall, the toilet itself. Dead ends, each and every one. Mr Navitski thrusts him back into the classroom. Crashing past the door, he tumbles in front of the desks. Somebody cheers. Somebody cries out. Somebody, more prescient than the rest, stands and skitters back.

  Mr Navitski stands in the open doorway. ‘Stay there, Alek.’

  Too late, the boy stands. Mr Navitski slams the door shut, trapping himself in the corridor. And, all the while, the click and soft thump, click and soft thump.

  ‘Can I help?’ Mr Navitski begins. Then, bolder: ‘I said, can I help?’

  The boy goes to the door, grapples on the handle. He pulls, forces the door open a crack – but Mr Navitski’s hand is closed around the handle on the other side, and he heaves it shut.

  ‘You don’t understand!’ the boy wails. ‘Open up! Oh please, but open up!’

  The door gives again. This time, only the thinnest of slivers. Enough to see Mr Navitski, standing firm. Enough to see a slashing of black as a single jackboot appears.

  ‘Papa, please! Don’t, papa, don’t …’

  He sees a wizened hand disappear in a greatcoat. He sees it come out, with a slice of silver in its grasp. Then, all is black. Mr Navitski’s hand slackens on the door.

  Through wood and wall, the boy hears a crash. Mr Navitski cries out, the words stunted in his throat.

  ‘Where?’

  That voice, the voice of his papa, so indistinct it might be any bestial roar.

  ‘He isn’t here,’ utters Mr Navitski.

  Breathing, long and laboured.

  The boy’s hands, still curled around the handle. He looks over his shoulder. Some of the children are standing. Beyond them all, Yuri sits low in his chair, head balanced as if decapitated on the edge of his desk.

  ‘I haven’t seen him,’ Navitski goes on, his breath returning.

  ‘Here?’ a wild man rasps.

  ‘No …’

  Beneath the boy’s fingers, the handle rattles.

  ‘It’s just a classroom. Just children. Don’t you …’

  The door strains. Instinctively, the boy presses himself against it. He slumps to the floor, tries to brace himself against the wood – but he can find scant purchase, keeps slipping forward.

  ‘Boy?’

  The boy whispers, ‘Yes …’

  ‘Boy?’

  The boy whispers, ‘No, papa …’

  The door flies open, propelling him across the classroom floor. As he picks himself up, the screaming begins. Tables, chairs, clatter, as the children fly back, forming huddles on the furthest edges of the room. Only Yuri remains at his desk, holding himself, head buried.

  In the doorway hangs a branch of gnarled, weather-beaten wood. Beside it, the black jackboot webbed in lines of white. Above them both, a creature in whom he cannot believe. Only half of it is his papa. The rest is ash and oak, earth bound together by roots. Only one eye turns behind hair like hanging ice, a sunken ball of black.

  Out comes the staff. It grinds to the ground. Next comes the jackbooted foot. A screeching click as it lands, dragging the body behind. Last through the door comes his trailing leg. A flash of marbled green flesh, under the ice.

  ‘Papa, what are you doing here?’

  Against the ground, the boy crawls backwards. Very quickly, he can go no further. His head crashes into the leg of Mr Navitski’s desk, sending papers tumbling.

  In the classroom, the screaming has stopped. All is silent as a winter wood. One girl makes as if to dart for the doorway, but the wild man still hangs there, with only a sliver of light behind. The girl stops, careens against a table.

  The old man halts. His head revolves, breath erupting in plumes of phlegm and fog.

  ‘The windows! Open the windows!’ Mr Navitski’s voice, on the other side of the wild man. It brings the children back to life. Tiny fingers grapple at a window latch.

  ‘It won’t open!’

  The boy sees Mr Navitski’s shape rising behind his papa. ‘Smash it!’ Navitski yells.

  Somebody lifts a chair. They swing it hard at the window glass, but the chair simply bounces away. Somebody else lifts a foot, a broom handle, a broken table leg.

  ‘Alek!’ Mr Navitski calls – but, before he can call any further, the screaming returns.

  It takes a moment for the boy to understand why. Then he sees it: the axe, hanging in his papa’s hands. The wild man drags himself forward, axe reflecting the buzzing electric light. For the first time, he reveals the door behind him.

  Mr Navitski strides through – but when he, too, sees the axe, he stalls. ‘There’s no need. There isn’t any …’

  His papa is on top of him now. He stares up. ‘Papa, please …’

  ‘Papa,’ the wild man groans, ‘please.’

  ‘I only came to school. It was to help. It was to stop Elenya telling …’

  The wild man casts his staff aside. An ugly assortment of limbs bend down, a hunched back out of shape. Old hands, one maligned beyond measure, find the boy. He wants to resist, but the hands grasp him. Knuckles and fingers and bulbous bones where there should only be flesh. The knots in a dead branch meant only for the fire. He feels the old man’s breath, rank as the dinners they have been eating, and then he is aloft, borne into the air to the tune of his papa’s laboured breaths.

  The arms close underneath him. One hand still clings to the axe, the flat of its blade in the small of his back.

  The wild man turns, dead foot sending the staff halfway across the room. How his papa can walk without it, the boy does not know. One foot shuffles, and when his weight is on the other his body must quake to find balance.

  In the doorway stands Mr Navitski. ‘Put him down.’

  The wild man takes another step. Mr Navitski does not move.

  ‘Please,’ whispers the boy.

  ‘Alek?’

  Navitski does not know it, but it is to him that the boy is pleading.

  He tries again. ‘Please, Mr Navitski …’

  There is movement behind, a change in the air. A roar, strangely diminutive, and the air sliced apart. Something catches the wild man, and he staggers out, away from the blackboard, into the desks.

  In the corner of his eye, the boy sees his papa’s staff come down in an enormous arc. On the other end of it, his tiny hands clasping its bulb, stands Yuri. The bedraggled boy has his feet planted squarely. His cheeks are ruddy with effort. He gulps for air, straining to lift the staff again. ‘Put him down!’ Yuri squeals.

  The boy feels his papa sinking beneath him. He hears the clatter of feet as Mr Navitski comes forward, but all the world has slowed, his teacher is wading through snow as high as his waist, and will not reach him in time. The wild man’s arms come apart, and through them the boy crashes back to the ground.

  By the time he has caught his breath, all he can see is the scissoring of the old man’s greatcoat. Without the boy in his arms, he catches himself on a desk, knuckles his way backward – and, with taloned hand, plucks the staff out of the air.

  Yuri clings to the other end. His fat fingers strain white.

  At last, Yuri can hold on no longer. The wild man rips back the staff, whips it up. The bulbous end catches Yuri beneath the chin, driving him back into the desk where he should have stayed hidden. His head snaps back, exposing the pale pink of his throat. He crumples, catching the corner of the desk as he falls. There he lies, with a thin rivulet of red cutting a course from the top of his brow.

  The boy feels hands around him: real hands of flesh, blood, bone. Mr Navitski has hold of him. He takes him by the chin, forces him to see. ‘Run,’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Run, Alek!’

  Hands rush him
to the door. He hangs there, staring back at his papa, at Yuri bloody beneath. Mr Navitski propels him on. He flails into the winter cold of the corridor. Along its length, other teachers, other children hang out of their classroom doors.

  ‘Stay inside!’ Mr Navitski thunders, waving a fist to drive them back. ‘Run, Alek! Do what I say and run! I’ll hold him here …’

  The boy takes a step, takes another, and soon his little legs are pounding. He falls, scrambles back to his feet. Up the corridor, past the library cranny. With every breath, he palms off the walls, drives himself on.

  He is almost at the end of the corridor. So consumed is he that he does not notice the figure rounding the corner ahead. Too late, he barrels straight into it and crashes to the ground. He is lying there, thinking his papa must have woven some sorcery to leap in front, when he hears a familiar voice.

  ‘Alek, just what are you doing?’

  Elenya holds out her hand, helps him to his feet. He says not a word, but he doesn’t have to. ‘It’s him, isn’t it?’

  The boy nods.

  ‘It was my mother, on the phone. Your papa went to the house. He thought we’d caught you. Alek, he …’

  Elenya’s face darkens. Her eyes are fixed on something beyond the boy. He does not have to turn, wills himself not to, but something in him will not obey. From the classroom at the end of the corridor comes a strangled cry – and then, darkness visible, darkness rising, his papa appears from the door.

  ‘He axed my mother, Alek. She called as soon as she woke …’

  The boy takes Elenya’s hand, drags her up the hall.

  ‘Alek, he killed Mishka.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dropped her dead …’

  They hurry on. At the corridor’s head, the path diverges, right towards the classrooms where little ones gather, left towards the front of the schoolhouse, the offices and staffroom beyond.

  ‘Where’s Navitski?’

  The boy heaves her left. ‘I think my papa …’