The Apex Book of World SF Volume 3

by Lavie Tidhar

  §

  The three little children had just turned the corner of the street when a hand grabbed Leïla’s shoulder.

  “Just a minute, if you please,” a woman’s voice said.

  You’ve never been inside a police station, my dears, and I’ll spare you the details. What you need to know is that the policewoman, Mina, the one with the black leather trousers, was waging a personal war against the blue–haired man and his gang. She knew that the children worked for him and had observed their discussion with Karine before hauling them in. You know, Ivan, cops don’t always tell the truth. I realise that shocks you because you told me you wanted to be a policeman yourself when you grow up, but you have to understand that the police aren’t always nice. There are some who are thieves and dealers, and even those who beat up and kill people. Mina wasn’t one of them, fortunately, but she knew how to lie and threaten when she needed to. And that’s what she did on this particular evening. She wanted information about the blue–haired man, about the gang, about Karine and about the way they operated.

  She had the advantage because of her age, because of her skill with words, because of the place they were in, and above all, because of fear. After all, she was only dealing with three terrified little children. When she accompanied them back home, four hours later, they’d told her everything they knew.

  Tant sont allés, tant son venus

  Que sur le soir se sont pendus.

  (So many went, so many came

  That by evening time were hanging.)

  played over and over on a lonely radio somewhere behind closed shutters. Or did the words simply go round and round inside Leïla’s head?

  It was now one o’clock in the morning and Mina followed the three kids as they trotted along the dark street. Mina was a hard sort of girl, who knew the score, but something stirred in her heart as she watched them scurry ahead of her, quiet, scared and sad. And something shivered within her when she saw them halt, terrified, in front of the building where their father lived, as if the house stared at them with… well, a bitter mouth and dreary, violent eyes.

  Mina realised what awaited them on the fourth floor and she understood why they didn’t want to go up there.

  At the foot of the building was the shop belonging to the seller of almonds, pistachios, dried apricots and prunes. His shop contained other things as well, of course. There were fruit, vegetables, cheese and all sorts of grocery items, along with a refrigerated section loaded with fresh meat and ham at the back. The shopkeeper was just tidying up his shelves for the night before lowering the iron shutters at the front entrance. He stayed open very late, later even than the law permitted, but the police had other things on their minds.

  “Good evening, children,” he said. “Good evening, mademoiselle Wilhelmina. What are all you good people doing out at such an hour?”

  The voice was full of laughter, but not the eyes. The shopkeeper took in the downcast faces of the children with steely pupils.

  “Nothing serious,” answered Mina in a bland tone. “How’s business?”

  “Fine, thank you,” said the man, still staring at the children.

  The three little children were at the threshold of the door to the building when Yassine turned back to Mina.

  “If you come up, our father will know what we’ve done, and then…”

  His “and then…” conjured up visions of broken bottles, spilled alcohol, hard blows and bruises on Leïla’s face.

  “All right,” said Mina after a moment’s hesitation. “Go on up on your own.”

  She watched them enter the stairwell one by one, each of them throwing a last glace backwards at the street. Then she left.

  §

  The wind murmured all the following day; the shadows sighed all through the night.

  “Three little children have gone missing,” rumour said, passing from mouth to mouth and ear to ear.

  “Three little children have gone missing,” breathed the voices behind the windows, along the hallways, up the stairs and back down again.

  “Three little children have gone missing,” whispered the night creatures, behind the dirty frontages of red–light bars and gambling dens.

  “I heard a cry,” said a little red–headed girl to her ginger cat, in a building next door to the one where the three little children lived. “Just one squeaky cry, like that of a scared little girl.”

  But the rumour did not reach Mina’s ears until the second morning. She had to check out the story, go and see the father, who was sunk in a drunken stupor, then visit the school, the neighbours and the child welfare officer before she could confirm that the children had really disappeared

  Saint Nicolas, au bout d’sept ans,

  Vint à passer dedans ce champ;

  Il s’en alla chez le boucher:

  «Boucher, voudrais–tu me loger?»

  «Entrez, entrez, saint Nicolas,

  De la place, il n’en manque pas.»

  (Saint Nicholas, seven years on,

  Passed by this very same field;

  And he went to see the butcher:

  “Butcher, can I stay here overnight?”

  “Come in, come in, Saint Nicholas,

  Of course there is a place for you!”)

  It was cold, damp and black outside. The walls of the ogre’s cave oozed dark liquids; the air was heavy with the fetid odours of rotten flesh and fizzy orangeade gone flat and stale. In the centre, between piles of crates, stacked tins and cases of canned drinks, was the chopping block stained with dried blood. One of the cleavers had fallen on the dank floor.

  Above their heads, the ogre walked back and forth.

  Chunks of salted meat swung from the ceiling at each of his steps. Yassine thought he saw them bleed and scream, scream with the voices of his brother and sister, and he had to shake his head before his ears would stop ringing with the sound of it and return to reality.

  Above their heads, the ogre walked back and forth. He dealt with customers, laughed and joked while filling their string bags with leeks, potatoes, beans and semolina. The ogre was saying, “And how is your wife feeling today?” while sticking in a few extra clementines. “There you are, two hundred grams more, my treat, for the family.” Yassine heard the sound of cases of bottles being moved and his throat was gripped by a special little monster, created just to torment him further: thirst.

  How long had they been here?

  There was no way of knowing. The sun and the moon were not visible from within the ogre’s cave. He had given them nothing to eat or drink and it had been hours since Leïla’s eyes had gone blank — she’d fallen into some kind of frightening torpor from which she woke at intervals with a start and dry sobbing. For the first few hours, Yassine had sung songs to reassure the other two. All the songs he knew, and he knew lots: that was his gift, singing. There was only one song he carefully avoided, although he knew that it was the only song running through Leïla’s and Giamill’s minds now.

  Il n’était pas sitôt entré

  Qu’il a demandé à souper.

  On lui apporte du jambon,

  Il n’en veut pas, il n’est pas bon.

  On lui apporte du rôti,

  Il n’en veut pas, il n’est pas cuit.

  «De ce salé je veux avoir,

  Qu’il y a sept ans qu’est dans l’saloir.»

  Quand le boucher entendit ça,

  Hors de la porte il s’enfuya

  «Boucher, boucher, ne t’enfuis pas;

  Repens–toi, Dieu t’pardonnera.»

  Saint Nicolas pose trois doigts

  Dessus le bord de ce saloir:

  «Petits enfants qui dormez là,

  Je suis le grand saint Nicolas.»

  Et le grand saint étend trois doigts.

  Les p’tits se lèvent tous les trois.

  (Just as soon as he stepped inside

  He asked what there might be to dine.

  A dish of ham was brought to him

  No good,
he said, he must decline

  A roast of lamb was offered him

  No good at all, meat sliced that fine.

  “It’s this salted pork that I want,

  Soaked seven years in the tub of brine.”

  When the butcher heard these words

  He was out the door, quick as that

  “Butcher, butcher, don’t run away;

  Repent your sins, and God will forgive”

  Saint Nicholas three fingers placed

  Upon the edge of this brine tub:

  “Little children who therein sleep,

  I am the old and great Saint Nick.”

  Three fingers spread the great Saint Nick.

  The little ones all three did wake.)

  No, Yassine could not have sung that; if he’d tried to, his voice would have broken on bitterness and false hopes.

  He was past the age of believing in Saint Nicholas.

  And yet, for a moment, there… It was a few hours after the ogre had captured them. The iron shutters had been raised — was it morning? Someone came into the shop. Above their heads, the ogre’s voice and the voice of the early customer were talking. And Yassine had seen, known, somehow felt that it was the organ grinder, recognising his gruff tones. But the customer left, and had taken brief hope with him.

  Then Yassine had sung, until he had no more strength to sing, and Leïla had fallen into her leaden sleep.

  The iron shutters were raised and lowered several times.

  Yassine, too, fell into a torpor, in rhythm with the steps and the words of the ogre, up above. Time passed; in his half–sleep, he heard the babble of shrill, sing–song voices. Behind his closed eyelids he saw four laughing fairies wearing green coats and red caps, who were dancing and playing with one another. They were right there in front of him.

  Yassine tried to call out to them for help, but his lips were so dry they couldn’t move any more and the fairies could not hear him.

  Time passed…

  So close and yet far away, the fairies passed before a small, round wooden door beside which a golden key was hanging.

  Giving a start, Yassine opened his eyes. He peered into the darkness, but the cave was empty. There were no fairies, just Leïla and Giamill, who also slept, lost in the tentacles of a black dream.

  He was about to close his eyes again when he glimpsed the round wooden door on the opposite side of the cave. If he hadn’t seen it before, it was because it was almost hidden by the crates and old cases of Coke in glass bottles…

  But there was no golden key hanging from a hook, and no fairies, and Yassine’s wrists hurt from straining against the chains. He thought of his mother, who had left a long time ago, when Giamill was still only a chubby baby. Of his father, who was probably floating in a pool of cheap red wine, and who couldn’t care less whether they came home or not.

  Nobody was looking for them and nobody would cry for them.

  Who cares about three lost little children?

  §

  It was the fourth day of their disappearance and Mina was preparing the raid. The specialist services would take care of looking for the kids, of course. They were on alert because of the two murders that had taken place in the sector, but Mina had the feeling that they didn’t really believe this was connected. The children had run away once before when their mother had left. The crime squad thought that they would eventually reappear and did not want to waste precious police time on a false lead.

  They had refused to listen to her. But Mina knew the truth. The three little children had fallen victim to her personal war against the gang of the man with blue hair.

  They’d known that she had gotten information out of the kids and taken revenge. Karine or somebody else must have seen her escorting them back home.

  And the blue–haired man had killed them, killed them and chopped them up the same way he’d killed and chopped up little Yanaèlle, who had thieved in the metro, and little Thomas, who had carried drugs for a rival gang.

  Mina had never felt so bad. Three little children were dead and it was all her fault because she had forced them to talk.

  On the evening of the fourth day, she and her colleagues raided the squat where the gang had its quarters. The raid was a success and, even though the blue–haired man managed to flee, Mina and the others arrested Karine and most of her friends.

  But they didn’t find any bodies and there was no trace of the three little children.

  §

  On the evening of the fifth day, the ogre killed Giamill.

  He tore him screaming from his chains and placed him on the chopping block. Then he held the child down firmly and lifted his cleaver. He struck a first blow across the neck, slicing the tracheal artery neatly and breaking the vertebrae. Giamill died from this first stroke, which did not prevent the ogre from roaring or the cleaver from landing again and again. The ogre bellowed insults, Leïla screamed wordlessly and Yassine yelled at her: “Close your eyes! Close your eyes!”

  When the ogre stopped chopping, there were only bloody pieces left, but Leïla had her eyes closed and her fists over her ears, while Yassine went on yelling, “Hold onto him in your eyes! He won’t die as long you hold onto him in your eyes!” And Leïla, occupied with crying and not losing the image of her brother behind her eyelids, did not hear the ogre speaking to Yassine.

  “You’re the guiltiest one,” the ogre said. “It’s you who taught your brother and sister to steal, so it’s you who will receive the worst punishment. I’ll kill the little girl tomorrow, and with each chop, just think about how it’s all your fault.”

  He gave him something to drink, no doubt to keep him alive, and then left. A little later, Yassine heard the fairies laughing and singing on the other side of the small wooden door, but despair had long since overwhelmed him and he sank down among the black stones.

  §

  On the morning of the sixth day, Mina and her colleagues managed to trap the blue–haired man by setting up a fake rendezvous. They nabbed him with over ten kilograms of cocaine in his Adidas bag and the police station resounded with applause and the sound of corks popping from bottles of bubbly. It was a tremendous boost to her career; yet Mina still had a nagging worm of doubt in her mind. Because throughout the whole day of interrogation, the team of investigators had been unable to make the blue–haired man confess to anything concerning little Yanaèlle, little Thomas, or the three little children.

  §

  On the sixth day, the ogre killed Leïla.

  Yassine could only yell, with a throat that had grown hoarse and painful. While the ogre attached her to the chopping block still damp from her brother’s blood, Leïla screamed, “Keep me behind your eyelids! Keep me behind your eyelids!” Then she went silent, and the ogre returned upstairs without saying anything this time to Yassine.

  §

  On the evening of the seventh day, Mina went for a walk by the building where the three little children lived, where she’d seen them for the last time. The father claimed they’d never come home that night. He’d been drunk during questioning, but Mina thought that he hadn’t been lying. The children had no doubt hidden themselves in the stairwell and waited for her to leave before going back out.

  The sun had set, while the stars remained invisible beyond the city’s layer of pollution. Mina raised her eyes to the third storey of the building and observed the windows in silence.

  She felt powerless and alone.

  The street was almost empty; it started to snow. A few metres away, the seller of almonds, pistachios, dried apricots and prunes was putting away his displays out front, rubbing his big hands, chapped by the cold, against one another. In front of the building next door, the one with the haberdasher’s shop, four kids wearing green parkas and red caps were getting their mittens dirty making snowballs.

  At the street corner, the old organ grinder appeared. He came slowly towards them, nose in the air, as if he smelt something.

  Mina shook her head. There
was a curious waiting feeling in the air. Perhaps it was only the snow, or the plane passing overhead, very high up in the sky.

  “Is everything all right, mademoiselle Wilhelmina?” asked the seller of almonds, pistachios, dried apricots and prunes.

  His voice was friendly, but Mina had the impression that he was looking elsewhere… as if his mind were fixed on some other place and he couldn’t drag his pupils away from there. One would have said that his hands were already making other gestures instead of hanging bunches of bananas on a string, as they should have been doing.

  The organ grinder stopped for a long while in front of the building where the children’s father lived, his eyes tracing lines that only he could see…