Nina took another look at Rina before she picked up her empty coffee mug and walked down to the coffee machine at the end of the hall. The machine hummed and sputtered and reluctantly sprayed the tepid coffee into the mug, and in the middle of a gurgling spray, she suddenly thought she heard something else. A low, flat bang, not a noise she recognized from the camp’s usual nighttime soundtrack.
0:06. She stood for a few seconds with the plastic mug in her hand and listened while she gazed down the deserted grey corridor.
Silence. Then a soft bump and a faint scraping against the floor behind one of the doors. Silence again.
She realized that she had been dumb enough to leave the alarm in Rina’s room. She swore softly, set the cup down and ran with silent steps toward the door to the room where the two policemen were sitting. She didn’t waste time knocking. If anyone was in Rina’s room, they needed to react instantly. Still, she was careful enough to let the door swing open without too much noise. A faint, sweet smell hit her.
The window was shattered. That was the first thing she saw. One officer was slumped across the table with his arms hanging heavily along his sides. She couldn’t see his face but knew at once that he was either dead or unconscious. The same went for his colleague, who lay in a sprawling heap on the floor behind the table.
The shock propelled her back into the corridor, and she registered almost instantly that she was so dizzy, she had to support herself against the wall with one hand.
Gas. It was gas she could smell.
Without waiting to regain her balance, she tumbled the few meters to Rina’s room. She didn’t turn on the light but found the attack alarm on the table and pressed the button. Then she half-pulled, half-lifted Rina out of bed.
Rina hung dazedly in her arms but woke quickly enough that she could stumble along on her own two feet after Nina hauled her out into the corridor. They headed toward the coffee machine and the barrack’s kitchen and dining hall. The dizziness was dissipating, but the walls were still trying to topple onto Nina, and the corridor stretched out ahead of her, elastic and unending, until she suddenly reached the door.
Behind them there was yet another hollow bang, and glass rained down over the linoleum floor. The big wall of windows in the lounge area had been shattered, and heavy feet stepped across the shards with a crunching sound. Nina jerked Rina along down the rows of tables and chairs and into the kitchen. She had seen the walk-in refrigerator clearly in her mind’s eye even as she yanked Rina from her bed. It was the size of a broom closet, but it was airtight.
The heavy steel door was locked. Naturally. There were things that could be stolen in there, and this was a refugee center. Even the canned tomatoes were heavily guarded here. Nina fumbled with her passkey in the pallid light. The heavy lock clicked just as the door to the cafeteria was slammed open, and a broad, dark figure stepped into the dining hall behind them.
Nina pulled Rina into the narrow room with such force that the child whimpered as she hit the shelves of milk and cheese and juice. Nina had no time for consolations right now. She slammed the heavy steel door and heard the lock click once more.
She didn’t know if he had had time to see them or to hear the slam and click from the lock. Her nausea closed in again; it was as if the gas’s sweetish smell had coated her mouth and throat so that it was impossible to spit it out or cough it up. Next to her she could hear Rina’s rapid, wheezing breaths in the dark. They stood so close together that they couldn’t avoid touching. She put both arms around Rina’s head, both to muffle the sound of that awful wheeze and also to remind Rina that she was still there.
Had he seen them? Did he know where they were? She strained her hearing to its utmost but couldn’t hear anything but Rina. At least not until something hit the door to the walk-in with such force that the glasses on the shelf behind her clinked against one another.
She spontaneously tightened her grip on the girl’s head, much too suddenly and tightly. But Rina didn’t react. Said nothing, didn’t gasp, didn’t even alter the rhythm in her breathing. Not even when the second blow fell.
Natasha didn’t even make it to the fence. A broad, dark figure came running toward her, and the camp behind him was no longer a sleepy and deserted landscape—there were shouts, lights, people standing in the snow in various stages of undress, from overcoats to pajamas to vests and jockey shorts.
None of it mattered if he had killed Katerina.
The thought alone made her black and dead inside. She stood still because it was all she could do. Just breathing seemed a near-impossible task.
He ran past her, maybe forty of fifty meters away. Much, much too slowly she turned around, got her arms and legs to function, moved forward, a stumbling step and then another, until she was finally running, running as fast as she could, after the man who had perhaps murdered her daughter.
It was as if he could see in the dark. He didn’t crash into the trees and branches as she did. And when an especially large branch hit her right in the throat, she collapsed and lay on her back gasping for a few seconds.
He stopped. Maybe he had heard her. He turned, and instead of a human face, she saw an insect-like creature with three protruding eyes that glinted faintly in the dark.
He can see me, she thought. Now he’ll kill me. And if Katerina is dead, we’ll meet in heaven. The thought did not offer any consolation.
From the camp there were more shouts and dogs barking, and just then a light blinked on right behind him. The Witch had opened the car door, and the interior light shone out onto the snow.
“Jurij?” she said. “Where is the child?”
“It didn’t work,” he said. “Some woman dragged her into a walk-in refrigerator.”
“A walk-in …”
“Mm-hmm. I couldn’t get the door open before the other guards showed up.”
There was more barking. Natasha wasn’t sure if it was from the handful of pets that lived in the camp or because the police had brought dog patrols. Possibly the man had similar doubts or else he hadn’t spotted her, after all. At any rate, he quickly slid into the driver’s seat and started the motor. The heavy car slid forward, headlights off, and within minutes the winter forest had swallowed car, man and evil Witch.
Natasha sat up. Katerina was alive. With those words everything existed again. An entire universe could be turned on or destroyed that quickly; that was how frail the world was.
THEY HAD BEEN living in Kiev for a few years when Natasha first discovered how easily everything could come apart. It began with a knocking on the door—loud, impatient raps, as if whoever was out there was irritated that the door hadn’t opened at the first knock. Katerina was in her high chair eating pierogi, which Natasha had cut into bite-sized pieces for her. She dropped one of them on the floor in fright. “Whooo?” she asked.
“I don’t know, sweetie. But now Mama will go look.”
On the landing stood an older man in a suit, a brown case under his arm. He smelled of licorice and had a yellow-black licorice stain at one corner of his mouth.
“What is this?” he asked, waving a piece of paper in her face aggressively.
“I don’t know,” said Natasha, confused.
“The rent,” he said. “You haven’t paid the new rent.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” she said. “My husband takes care of all that.”
“Then you can tell your husband that he has to pay the same rent as everyone else in this house. It’s been in effect since March. But he hasn’t paid!”
“That must … be a mistake,” she answered uncertainly. “I’ll tell him when he gets home. He’ll take care of it.”
“I certainly hope so, little lady. If I have to come back, I won’t be coming alone.”