‘We can’t have him in our house. We have to get him out.’
‘Right now he’s harmless.’
‘So why are you watching him? And why do you have that?’
I smiled without humour and lifted the pistol. ‘To be safe.’
‘You should have left him,’ she said. ‘Out there.’
‘That’s what Viktor said.’
‘So maybe he was right.’
‘He would have died.’
Natalia shrugged.
‘Would you want that?’ I asked. ‘Would you want to go to bed each night, knowing your husband and son had left a man to die?’
‘You were a soldier,’ she said. ‘I manage to sleep knowing you’ve done the kind of things soldiers do.’
‘This is different. What kind of a person would I be if I didn’t do something to help? What kind of a human being would I be?’
She remained silent.
‘There are things on his sled,’ I told her. ‘Things he has with him that make me think he’s a veteran.’
‘Of what? Which war?’
I looked down at the pistol. ‘I’ve seen weapons like this before. Some of the German soldiers carried them. The Bolshevik commissars used something similar during the civil war, but this one came from a German. The number on the handle tells me that. This man might have fought the Germans, Natalia, and that means he was in the Imperial Army like me. It’s like he’s my brother.’
‘Unless he’s Red Army.’
‘We have to give him the benefit of the doubt. We have to let him speak for himself and then we can decide what he has and hasn’t done.’
Natalia folded her hands in her lap, pushing them between her knees. ‘And if he’s running from something?’ she asked. ‘Someone shot him, so they might be following him. What if he brings the communists?’
‘They’ll come eventually; we both know that.’
‘Later rather than sooner is the way I’d like it. What do you think they’ll do when they come here? They’ll take everything we have. Force us onto a collective if we’re lucky or send my children away to Siberia if I’m not. Take my husband out in the night and I’ll never see him again.’
I stared into the fire. ‘We should think about leaving,’ I said. ‘Soon. There are ways into Poland.’
‘We’ve talked about this. The borders are closed and we don’t have papers.’
‘We’ll find somewhere if we go across country – stay away from the roads.’
‘We can’t take Lara across country in this weather. No, all we can do is stay here, and when they come do whatever they ask of us. If we do that, we can stay together.’
‘I’m not so sure they’d allow it.’
We sat for a long time without speaking, both of us lost in our thoughts. We watched the fire weaken in the hearth, and I threw on another piece of wood when Natalia went to bed. And while she drew the blankets against the cold, I stayed in my chair, watching the stranger.
I barely closed my eyes all night. My whole being was alert to the sounds of the house, my ears strained for a rattling at the locked door. I considered Natalia’s concern that someone might have followed the stranger – that he might have been running from something – and I knew that when the activists first came, they always came at night. To take the men away.
5
It was still dark, but I guessed it was between four and five because I was roused from an ill doze by the lilt of a lonely blackbird’s song. It continued to sing, oblivious to my troubles, and I looked at the man still lying in front of the fire. The flames were long since dead and the room was cold, but the man was well covered.
I stood and rubbed my eyes. I arched my back, feeling the stiffness working out of my muscles.
The man had hardly moved. He was in more or less the same position he’d been in last night, his thin frame tucked beneath a pile of blankets and sheets. I could hear him breathing – a slow, heavy sound. Laboured and shallow breaths, each one accompanied by the rasping wheeze of a dying man. I waited, listening to the awkward drawing in of air, the weak exhalation, then I went through to the bedroom.
‘What’s the matter?’ Natalia whispered.
‘Nothing. Go back to sleep.’
‘I haven’t slept all night.’
‘I’m going to take Viktor up to the cemetery,’ I said. ‘Bury those children. You can take care of the animals?’
‘I can manage.’
‘Take Petro and Lara with you.’ They would make Natalia’s job easier and it would mean they were out of the house. I wanted to show our guest some care and hospitality, but I didn’t want to put my family at risk by leaving them alone with him.
Natalia pushed back the bedclothes and swung her legs out. Beside her, Lara stirred. In the other bed, Viktor and Petro, men now, not boys, too big to have to sleep together. Perhaps, when times were better, they could have their own places.
I shook Viktor awake. ‘Come on. I need your help.’
‘Is he still alive?’ Natalia asked.
‘Still alive.’ I nodded. ‘Still asleep. He must be exhausted. I wonder how far he’s come. What he’s been through.’
‘Or what he’s done.’
‘We’ll wake him when I come back. Give him something hot to eat, find out who he is. Then we’ll know what he’s done.’
‘Will we?’
I looked at my wife.
‘If he’s done something to those children, do you really think he’s going to tell us?’ she asked.
‘We’ll know if he’s lying.’
‘How? How will we know?’
‘He’ll be tired,’ I said. ‘Confused. Exhausted. He won’t be able to think straight.’
‘Then maybe we should talk to him before we feed him.’
‘Could you do that? Just let him starve?’
Natalia came close. ‘Yes. Maybe.’ She shook her head. ‘No. Oh, I don’t know. I just want him gone. Out of this house. He’s brought trouble with him; I can feel it in the air like I can feel it when winter’s coming.’
‘It’ll be all right. We’ll be all right.’
‘Can you really say that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Really?’
I sighed and turned away from her, telling Viktor to meet me outside. I went to the front door, Natalia coming from the bedroom as I put on my coat.
‘You should eat something before you go,’ she said as I pulled on my boots. ‘I’ll make porridge.’
I shoved my foot hard into my boot and straightened up, putting a hand on my belly. ‘I can’t eat before this,’ I said.
‘You’ll need your strength.’
‘I’ll regain it afterwards.’
‘Please,’ she said, unfastening my coat. ‘It won’t take a minute.’
I slumped my shoulders and thought about it before nodding.
‘And Viktor will need something,’ she went on. ‘Think of your son if not of yourself.’
‘OK,’ I sighed. ‘But not too much.’
I sat while she prepared something for us, Viktor and Petro coming out of the other room. Petro was carrying Lara, dressed but still sleepy.
‘You said you’d wake us,’ Petro said. ‘You watched him yourself all night?’
‘I slept a little.’
‘So now what?’
‘So now we see to one or two things. Viktor and me. Outside.’
‘You want me to help?’ Petro asked, putting his sister down and coming to sit in his usual place, opposite me.
‘You can help your mother.’
Petro mumbled something under his breath.
‘What did you say?’
He looked at me. ‘I said “woman’s work”. You always give me the woman’s work.’
‘Woman’s work? Looking after the animals isn’t woman’s work. Taking care of your family is not woman’s work.’