2007 - Two Caravans Page 7

  I jumped.

  I fell. The ground was soft. I rolled, picked myself up, and I ran. Mamma, Pappa, help me, please. I am little Irinochka.

  I was thinking—the trees—I must get into the trees. I scrambled up the bank into the wood, dodging between low branches. Here I would have a chance. If I was lucky, the trees would stop the bullets. I braced myself for the shots as I ran, flinching, waiting for the bang that would tell me I was dead. There were no shots. All I could hear were footsteps, his and mine, crashing through the undergrowth and dead branches on the ground. Crash. Crash. No shots. Why no shots? Maybe I was dead already. It was so dark. Dark like the cupboard under the stairs. Dark like a grave. Before, there’d been a faint glimmer from the headlights, but now I was past that, running into pitch blackness. It was too dark to run. Too many obstacles, shadows that turned into trees, branches that hit you in the face, tree roots that grabbed at your legs, terrors invisible. No moonlight here. On one side, I thought I could see the edge of the wood, the grey gleam of sky through the trees.

  I veered right, slithered down the bank back onto the track and sprinted silently along the grass. I could still hear him behind me in the wood. Crash. Crash.

  Now there was a bend and the track climbed steeply uphill, with a jagged hedge on one side. Above the hedge I could see the sky, stars, breathless, skipping up and down as I ran. I stopped, panting for breath. My chest was exploding. Blood was pounding in my ears—boom boom boom boom—Keep going. Don’t stop now. You are younger and fitter. You can outrun him. I tripped on a tree root, fell, picked myself up, and ran on—boom boom boom. When I couldn’t run any longer, I stood still in the lee of a tree trunk and listened. My breath was coming in great gulps. I could still hear the crunch of footsteps in the wood, I couldn’t tell how far behind me. So he hadn’t given up yet. I ran again, wildly, stumbling and tripping. Slow down. Take care. If you fall, you are finished.

  This is how a hunted animal feels, I thought, gasping for breath, terror rushing in through all your senses, drowning in your own fear. I found a gap in the hedge and squeezed through, the thorns grabbing at my clothes. On the other side was starlight, a long ploughed field. I was breathing wildly, panting, choking. I tried to run, but the furrows were impossible, so I walked for a bit, breathing slow mouthfuls of air, stumbling in the ruts. Then I stopped, crouched, and listened. Silence. No footsteps. No gun. Nothing.

  A bit further up I cut back onto the track and ran again, more slowly now. My heart was banging about like a wild bird in a cage. Is it finished? Has he gone? How will you know? Last time, he waited until you thought he’d gone, then he came back.

  As I climbed the hill, the sky grew lighter. When I couldn’t run any more I carried on walking. I didn’t stop for a long time. At last I found a hollow where a big tree had been uprooted. I made a bed of dry leaves and pulled some branches over for shelter, so I would be invisible from the track. I lay there, keeping quite still, waiting for my heart to slow down—boom boom—watching the dawn breaking, pink and peachy, with little clouds like angels’ wings.

  Andriy is the first to wake, conscious of something warm and heavy on his legs. He thinks at first it is Emanuel who has rolled over onto him in the night. He gives him a gentle shove, and comes up against warm fur covering solid muscle. Holy whiskers!

  The creature is huge and hairy, and it snuffles in its sleep. He sits up and rubs his eyes. The dog sits up, too, and gazes at him with what he can only describe as adoration in its soft brown eyes. It is a big, handsome dog, short-haired and mainly black, with some white hairs around its muzzle and belly which give it a mature, distinguished air.

  “Woof!” it says, beating its sturdy tail against the side of the Land Rover.

  “Hey, Dog!” says Andriy, rubbing its ears. “What are you doing here?”

  “Woof!” says Dog.

  Emanuel wakes next, to the sound of the tail thumping rhythmically against the side of the Land Rover, and he seems less pleased to see the dog.

  “Is OK, Emanuel. Is good dog. No bite.”

  “In Chichewa we have a saying. Where the dog pisses, the grass dies.”

  “Woof,” says Dog. Andriy can see that despite himself Emanuel is quite taken with the enthusiastic tail-wagging and the tongue hanging out, wet and pink, between the sharp white teeth.

  But the most passionate meeting is between Tomasz and Dog—such a foot-nuzzling, face-licking, tail-beating, jumping-up, rolling-on-the-ground frenzy. Finally in a snuffling ecstasy Dog finds Tomasz’s trainers on the bonnet of the Land Rover, and though Tomasz tries to stop him he runs off with one in his jaws and chews it completely to pieces. Well, this is quite a splendid dog, thinks Andriy, for the sooner those trainers disappear the better. And a dog with such a good sense of smell may help you to find a missing person.

  I AM DOG I AM HAPPY DOG I RUN I PISS I SNIFF I HAVE MY MEN THEY GO TO> PISS IN THE WOOD MAN PISS HAS GOOD SMELL THIS MAN’S PISS SMELLS OF MOSS AND MEAT AND HERBS THIS IS GOOD I SNIFF THIS MAN’S PISS SMELLS OF SARLIC AND LOVE HORMONES THIS IS ALSO GOOD BUT LOVE HORMONES ARE TOO STRONG I SNIFF THIS MAN’S PISS SMELLS TOO SOUR BUT HIS FEET SMELL GOOD I SNIFF IN THIS WOOD ARE OTHER MAN SMELLS VOMIT MAN-SMOKE WHEELIE OIL I SNIFF NO DOG SMELLS I WILL MAKE MY DOG SMELL HERE I RUN I PISS I AM HAPPY DOG I AM DOG

  Yola feels the dog is showing far too much enthusiasm, sticking its nose up her skirt on any excuse, in a way that reminds her of…No. She is a mature and respectable woman, and there are some secrets she is not going to share with any nosy-poky book-readers.

  It also shows a great interest in urine. When the women wake up, about an hour after the men, it tries to accompany each of them in turn as she goes to urinate in the woods and has to be driven off. “Where is this dog from?” asks Yola. “It should go to its home.” But nobody seems to know. Then it looks at her with such tender appeal in its eyes that her heart melts instantly, for she is a soft-hearted woman, and she takes Irina’s orange ribbon and ties it under the dog’s chin in a charming bow.

  Marta observes that the dog’s paws are scratched and bleeding, as though it has run some distance, and she applies some excellent Polish antiseptic ointment. They even share some of their bread with it, which is all they have for breakfast, but this is unnecessary, as it disappears into the woods and comes back later with a rabbit in its mouth.

  After eating, it stretches itself out at Tomasz’s feet, its head resting on its paws and one ear cocked, to listen to their discussion. For now it seems they must engage in endless discussions about where to go, which is completely unnecessary, because Yola has already decided they are going to Dover.

  Doubtless they will even find the Ukrainian girl there. She wasn’t such a bad girl after all, but probably she brought this disappearance upon herself by too much indiscriminate smiling. Once these gangster types get an idea into their heads, what can you do? And the flowers were a nice gesture.

  As far as Yola is concerned, everything is clear. Andriy, who to his credit has apologised in a gentlemanly way for his outburst last night, got them into this jar of pickles from flirting with the farmer’s wife, and now he must get them out of it, quick quick, before police come.

  “When police is involved, one small thing may go on for ever. Everything unnecessarily tied up in paper.” She knows from experience just how bureaucratic a bureaucracy can be. She was married to a bureaucrat once. “Meanwhile poor Mirek is waiting for us in Zdroj. Mirek; Masurian goats; plums ripe in garden. Time to go home.” She wipes a dramatic tear from her eye.

  “Who is Mirek?” whines the hippy-hair Tomasz, with a face like a belly ache.

  “Mirek is my beloved son.”

  “Beloved also of God,” adds Marta, rolling her eyes heavenwards. “One of God’s special ones.”

  Why does Marta always keep on about the poor boy’s difficulty, unnecessarily broadcasting it to the whole world? She has already scared off at least two potential husbands with her pious mewlings. Yola gives her a discreet kick.
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br />   “And his father? Is his father also waiting?” Tomasz persists.

  “His father is gone.” Yola fixes Tomasz with her steely eye. “Why you asking so many questions, Mister Stinking Feet? You got enough problems of your own without sticking your nose into mine.”

  Now everybody wants to have their say.

  “We go London,” says one Chinese girl. “In London is plenty Chineses. Plenty money work for Chineses. Better than in strawberry.”

  “I have an address for a man in England. Wait, please, thank you.” Emanuel starts to shuffle through his papers. Shuffle shuffle. “Outstanding good man. His name is Toby Makenzi, and with his help I hope I will recover my sister’s wherebeing.”

  “Emanuel, why you not coming to Poland with us?” says Yola kindly. That boy needs a mother, not a sister, she is thinking. Maybe even a little brother. And Tomasz says, “Emanuel, if you come in Poland I will teach you to sing and play the guitar.”

  In Yola’s opinion, Emanuel is already a much better singer than Tomasz.

  “I wonder where Vitaly is,” Marta says. Yola noticed Marta earlier looking at Vitaly out of the corner of her eye, in a way that can only mean one thing, and she thinks it ironic, to say the least, that someone so religious should be attracted to someone with such an air of sin about him. But it is often the way.

  Then Tomasz starts up again, giving her that doggy eye.

  “I will go to Dover with you. From there to Poland. Boat, bus. We go all together. Maybe your boy needs a father? What you say, Yola?”

  Yola smiles noncommittally. “First you get new shoes.”

  Hair too long. Bad smell. Not her type.

  “Andriy? What is your plan now?” she asks.

  Andriy says nothing for a few minutes, and Yola is about to ask him again, when he says in a quiet voice, “I will first find Irina.”

  The others all fall silent. Marta starts to cry.

  I must have fallen asleep. I woke up when a beam of sunlight struck the hollow where I was curled up. My limbs were stiff from the cold damp ground. My whole body was aching. I stood up, stretched. Then I remembered. Vulk. The woods. Running. Was he still out there waiting for me? I crouched down again. It was too soon to celebrate, but I was alive, unharmed, and it was a new morning.

  The sun must have been up for a few hours. The air was still fresh and misty, that soft mistiness that promises a warm day to come. You know how some mornings you wake up, and you’re full of happiness just at being alive? I could hear birdsong and the bleating of sheep and another sound, further away, a sweet, joyful sound. Church bells. It must be Sunday. In Kiev on Sundays you hear bells ringing out like this all over the city, and you see all the country women coming in wearing their best clothes with their headscarves tied over their ears and their gold teeth flashing, and crossing themselves as they come out of church, and Mother makes curd cake with raisins, and even our cat Vaska gets cream for a treat, then he licks his paws and rubs them behind his ears—will you remember me when I get home, Vaska? Will I ever get home? Suddenly, my eyes were full of tears. Sniff. Snuffle. Stop it. You must keep a clear head and keep your eyes open. Make a plan.

  Below me, I could see the track between the field and the wood along which I had run last night. I remembered my terror. My thumping heart. The stars jumping above the jagged hedge. In daylight the path looked so nice and rustic as it wound its way innocently up the woody hill. In the other direction, it curved away below the contours of the land and disappeared from view. Where was I? How far did we come last night? How long did I black out for?

  I scanned the fields one by one; maybe from here I’d be able to see the strawberry field. I’d recognise it from the two caravans. The landscape seemed familiar, but I soon realised that all fields look much the same, like a pattern of brown and green handkerchiefs, sprinkled with parsley. Do they sprinkle handkerchiefs with parsley?

  Maybe not. There was a lane rising between tall hedges, a row of poplars. I counted them—one, two, three, four, five. Were they the same poplars? Not far away was a cluster of trees that could be the copse at the top of the strawberry field. But where was the caravan? Over in the west I saw a strange white field that gleamed like a lake. But the edges were too square. It looked more like a field covered in glass or plastic. Were there any such fields nearby? I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t see any houses at all, just a stubby church spire rising from a clump of trees over near the shining field. Maybe there was a village there, hidden by the fold of the land; maybe over there were church bells and people walking to Sunday worship.

  Down below, where the bottom of the track must reach the road, something was glinting—I could glimpse a flash of sunlight on metal through the leaves. It must be a parked car. My heart started up again—boom boom. My stomach twisted. Was he still down there waiting for me? Would he come looking for me? I lowered myself silently back into the hollow and pulled a branch down to cover me from view. This time, he wouldn’t get me. However long he waited, I would wait longer.

  If Andriy found driving forwards with the caravan difficult, reversing it is even worse. It seems to have ideas of its own. It is late morning by the time they are ready to leave. Emanuel stands watch, waving him on as he backs out of the woody picnic spot onto the lane. Yola, Marta and the Chinese girls are in the back of the Land Rover, with Dog at their feet. Tomasz is in the caravan, trying to catch up on his sleep.

  Once they are on the main road, the driving is easier. It is quite interesting to tow something so heavy, he thinks, you have to plan ahead to avoid sudden manoeuvres. He has started to get a feel for it by the time they get to the Canterbury bypass, when suddenly he spots a police car up ahead, and two officers checking the passing cars. Holy bones! Are they onto him already? He makes a sharp left turn, puts his foot down, and now finds himself heading on a one-way road into the city centre, the caravan swinging along behind, and the others all shouting different directions at him from the back. The shouting is pointless. It just distracts him. There is nowhere to go but straight ahead.

  He finds himself in a maze of narrow streets; cars parked all over the place; pedestrians wandering around without looking. What a nightmare! This left-side driving business is no joke. How can he get back on the ring road? He takes a right turn and squeezes the caravan through a narrow archway, which might have had a no-entry sign on it, but too late now, when suddenly Marta shouts, “Stop! Stop!”

  He slams the brakes on. The caravan bucks and jolts. Remember not to do that again, Palenko. Gentle pumping action next time. From the caravan, there is a crash and a shout, and a few moments later Tomasz stumbles out in his socks and underpants, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  “What’s happening? Why have we stopped?”

  “I don’t know,” says Andriy. “Why have we stopped?”

  “Look!” says Marta, pointing.

  He clambers out and stands on the pavement with the others. They are all gazing upwards. In front of them, a towering creamy mass of carved and weathered stone, arches upon arches of strange intricately patterned tracery, the stone as delicate as paper, soars higher and higher into the sky, and the solemn figures of long-dead saints gaze back down at them from their pedestals.

  He has seen the golden-domed cathedrals of Kiev, the sky-line miracle of the Lavra, but this is different—yes, this is quite something. No paint or gilt. The beauty is all in the stone. What would it have been like to work up here in the sky, chipping and carving away at this luminous stone with a hammer and chisel, instead of hammering at the coalface in the dark underground? Would he have become a different kind of man—closer to the angels?

  He bows his head and crosses himself in the Orthodox way, just in case. No one speaks. Marta closes her eyes and crosses herself too. Yola pulls down the hem of her skirt below her knees and crosses herself with both hands. Tomasz goes back into the caravan and puts his trousers on. The Chinese girls just stare.

  Emanuel whispers to Andriy, “What are these beasti
ngs and goblins? Why have they put symbols of witchcraft upon a Christian church?”

  “Don’t worry,” he whispers back. “It’s OK.”

  Dear sister,

  Today I was blessed with a visitation of Canterbury Cathedral which is an outstanding Ediface built completely of stone and miraculously carved with fearsome fiends and hobgoblins sitting outside gaping open-mouthed. But the inside is filled up with mysterious Peace for in this Cathedral are many wondrous window glasses such as I have never seen even in St George’s on Likomo Island that deepen sunlight into red and blue and stories of Our Lord and His Saints are told in colourful artistry.

  And a priest came upon us and asked if we would pray and I was afraid to partake of the protestant faith but the Catholic Martyr whispered that all such Cathedrals belonged formally to our Good Religion and were stolen from us by mindless protestants. So we went into a small prayersome chapel beauteous in stillness and light and we asked the Lord to deliver our sister Irina who was seized by the Spawn of Satan and nobody knows her wherebeing. And I also prayed for that godless fellow who has slipped through the fishing-net of Love. After the prayers everyone said Amen even the dog I wish you could see this dog it is outstanding in piety. For in this silent glimmery chapel I felt the Presence of the Lord standing close beside us listening for our prayers and I felt His breathing in the cool stony air.

  Then I heard Organ music and a choir was singing Sheep May Safely Graze which stirred me up for this Cathedral is named after Saint Augustine. Then good Father Augustine of Zomba knocked on my memory door and his kindly ways which watered my eyes with rememberances of home.

  Andriy feels better, more at peace, after their prayers in the cathedral. It isn’t until they are back at the caravan that he notices Emanuel is missing. He returns to the chapel to look for him, but he has disappeared. Somewhere in the cathedral, an organ is playing and a choir is singing. Drawn by the music, he follows the sound along a stone aisle where the ancient glass throws pools of coloured light on the floor. A service is in progress, and there in the front row of the congregation is Emanuel.