It was only a few steps, but now she was leaning on his arm for steadiness rather than support. She felt almost weightless, as if she was made out of eggshells. The daylight brought tears, and not only because of its brightness.
They were in a village of perhaps a dozen houses and a white log church, out on a plain somewhere under a big, big sky; each building stood well apart from its neighbours with just open common land between them, and the grass on that common land was deep and uncut. It rippled in the light breeze like a sea.
Alina said, "I don't see anyone."
"No," Belov agreed. "Nobody lives here now."
"No one at all?"
"The entire community was resettled a long time ago. The place hasn't been used since then."
"But why?"
"Well, you know the military. We're not so far from the border. Maybe there's a radar station over in the woods, or maybe they want everyone to think there is."
They were making a slow circuit of the farmhouse and its barn, a lean-to of roughly dressed timber made dark and smooth with age. The roof was of shingle with planks nailed over.
Alina said, "What if we're found?" But it wasn't something that seemed to worry Belov.
"I've got permission for us to be here," he said. "As long as you stay around the village and the paths I'll show you tomorrow, you shouldn't have any problems."
"You said it wasn't a prison."
"No more so than anywhere else."
So, another tomorrow.
Alina woke to this one feeling sharp and dangerous and — within limits — ready to go. She found that Belov had laid out her own clothes as she slept; she'd lost weight, she noticed as she dressed, and she hadn't really had much to lose.
After a plain breakfast they went out again, still taking it slowly but this time with more of a distance in mind. Belov told her the name of the village. It meant nothing to her.
"I don't suppose it would," Belov said. "It's the kind of place that no one ever hears of, where nothing ever happens. Something happened here, though."
"And that's why you've brought me?"
"Let me tell you the story. Questions later."
They took a winding dirt alley that led through the back of the village between houses and outhouses. By the sides of the outhouses were stacks of trimmed poles and branches and brushwood, all grown over with moss. Alina had assumed that Belov was taking her to another of the buildings, but it seemed now that he was going to lead her out of the settlement altogether.
He said, "The farmhouse we're staying in, a small girl lived there. She slept in the room where you're sleeping now. She was bright, and she did very well at school. Most families in a village like this expect their children to work on the farm when they get older, but in this case it was different. She was an only child, and her parents wanted more for her. As soon as she was old enough, they were going to send her to stay with relatives in the city so that she could get a better education. They were tied to the land, but their daughter wouldn't be. With me so far?"
"Yes," Alina said, although in truth she was wondering what point he might be trying to make. As far as she could tell, they were completely alone in the village. Back at the farmhouse they had food supplies in a cardboard box, and Belov himself had taken the role of housekeeper as well as doctor. Today he was tousled, and even more in need of a shave; under his suit jacket, he now wore an old pullover.
They were passing the last of the houses now. Ahead lay marshy fields, neatly divided by a raised path consisting of two parallel rails of wood pegged into the ground.
Belov said, "This girl was small, and very fair. They say she looked like an angel." He waved his hand. "Now, see this house. The Markevitch family lived here, very big family, lots of sons. Not enough brains to go around, though, according to the neighbours, and the youngest boy was out of luck. He was born a simpleton. When he was seventeen years old, he was still playing with wooden blocks. But happy. His name was Viktor."
They moved on, out toward the fields, and Belov continued with the story.
"He followed the girl around all the time. He was like a puppy, completely devoted. She was only nine years old and she wasn't much of a size for that, but everybody knew that Viktor was harmless. A lot of the time she just seemed to forget that he was there, and he'd shamble along behind her just happy to stay close."
"How long ago was this?"
"Quite a few years. The girl's still alive, but Viktor was drowned. I'm going to show you where."
They came to a simple fence which was crossed by a stile, and here Alina rested for a couple of minutes before going on. The place that Belov had in mind was just a couple of hundred meters further, he told her. It was reedy marshland here, the grasses awash in several inches of diamond-clear water. The path zigzagged between dry rises in the land. On one of these, Belov stepped down from the wooden rails.
"A lot of this would have been different then," he explained. "The shape of the marsh has changed over the years, but we're somewhere close to the spot. They came out along the track we just followed, the very same one. Only the girl came back, and she was soaked and muddy and she could hardly speak. Two of Viktor's brothers came out, and found him."
"How could he drown?" Alina said. She was looking down at the water, which was only inches deep.
"Nobody knows. It could have been that someone forced him down, and held his face under. But that wouldn't have been easy. He wasn't bright, but he was big and he was very strong. He'd have struggled hard." Belov looked thoughtfully at the ground around them, as if he might still read signs that had long ago disappeared. "They called the doctor in from the nearest town, and the local militia chief questioned the girl. I've seen both of their reports — the file on the case has never been closed, in all this time. They asked her what had happened, and she said that a Rusalka from the lake had hurt Viktor. You know what the Rusalki are?"
Alina peered toward the lake, which was hardly more than a sliver on the horizon. She said nothing.
"They're an old superstition, lake spirits in female form. Very beautiful, very dangerous. Men can't resist them. They're supposed to bring a strange kind of ecstatic death by drowning — although it isn't really described as a death at all, more a passage from one world to another. There's something like it in the folklore of just about every culture. And no matter how many times they asked the girl, no matter how many different ways they approached it, her story was always the same."
"So nobody believed her."
"She was a child. She looked even younger than she was. What were they going to do, beat it out of her? Maybe they even tried that. They didn't put it in the records, if they did. But the harder they pressed her, the more confused she would have become. Children's fantasies are as real to them as anything else; but not many get thrown up against them so hard."
"What happened?"
"Officially, it became an accident. What else could they say? There was nobody else in the area, and there were no other tracks through the reeds. The girl became so ill that she had to be taken away. She stayed in the city and never came back. And that's all anyone knows… except for the girl herself."
Alina looked at him, but his face gave nothing away. He seemed open, empty of guile. She said, "I think you're trying to tell me that I should remember something of this."
"And do you?"
"No."
"Then I'm saying nothing of the kind."
They went back. The subject wasn't raised again.
That evening, Belov set the fire as Alina opened some canned stew. She was feeling as if she'd made a long, exhausting hike instead of just the kilometre or so that she'd actually walked, but it wasn't a bad feeling. Most of the food was of a kind that she'd never seen in the shops; there was no wine or beer, but Belov had a hip flask of vodka.