Yiza Read online

  Do you want to come with us? the big boy asked.

  She nodded.

  Then get dressed! But quietly. And don’t cough!

  She didn’t dare ask questions. Tentatively, she climbed out of bed and stood before the big boy in her knickers and t-shirt, barefoot. The big boy had already taken her clothes out of the cupboard. He helped her put them on. Two of everything. He told her to carry her shoes.

  Don’t say a word, the big boy said again, and don’t cough!

  They crept across the dormitory. The big boy was leading them not to the entrance door, but to one of the narrow doors in the opposite wall. Behind one door was the washroom, with the trough in the middle and the towels hanging on the walls, and the shelf above for tooth mugs and soap. This door was half open.

  The beds in the back part of the dormitory were not occupied. That was lucky for them.

  The other door was locked – but the big boy had a key. It wasn’t really a key; it was a piece of wire bent into shape. He fiddled with the lock, not very skilfully, and it made a noise and took some time before he had finally unlocked the door. She and the smaller boy stood close to the big boy and watched. They looked at each other, too. But they were wary of saying anything or coughing. She thought the little boy was just as scared as she was. Perhaps even more so.

  It was a storeroom for brooms and cleaning products. There was a small window just below the ceiling. It wasn’t barred. The big boy shut the door behind him and put the lock pick in his trouser pocket. You would have to be very thin to climb out of the window. It was cramped in the room, and dark.

  The big boy pulled a crate over to the wall, opened the window and lifted the child up.

  Legs first, he said softly, otherwise you’ll fall on your head. He pushed her legs through the window. He didn’t know what was on the other side. Just let yourself drop, he whispered in her ear.

  Nothing’s going to happen to you, he said. Don’t be scared. Tuck your chin in, put your hands over your head. Then move to one side and wait for us.

  She didn’t reply. She stiffened her whole body so it was easier for the big boy to push her through the window. When most of her was through, and her arms and head were the only things still sticking out into the room, where there was no light at all now, since she was blocking the whole window, she did get scared after all, and she whimpered. The big boy shushed her and gave her a shove.

  She fell.

  She fell into the bushes.

  The big boy pulled himself up on the window frame and stuck his head out.

  Is everything alright? he asked. Hey, kid, is everything alright? Are you okay?

  She nodded. A street lamp shed a thin light over her, and the big boy could see she was nodding.

  Then he helped his friend. His friend was scared and whimpered, too. When he was outside and had climbed out of the bushes, he looked around for the child and took her by the hand. They stood like that, waiting for the big boy. They waited a long time. There was no one there to help him. First he tried putting his legs out. But he couldn’t do it that way. Going head-first didn’t work, either, because then his arms got jammed in the window frame and he couldn’t use them to push himself forward. Arms first was his final attempt. The girl and his friend took his hands and pulled.

  They ran into the night, the boy’s friend and the girl behind the big boy. It wasn’t snowing any more, but a biting wind swept around the corners and down the alleyways, hitting their faces like needles. The sky was clear. If they’d looked up, they would have seen the stars. It was very cold. Lifting your head meant your neck would freeze. It was easy to slip and fall on the paving stones and they had to take care. It was still many hours until sunrise.

  There was bread and lemonade and bananas in his friend’s rucksack. His friend had stolen them, and he had stolen a blanket, too. The big boy explained all this to the girl. The big boy knew his way around. He led them to a metro station. He spoke to his friend in a language the girl didn’t understand. Then he spoke to the girl, and his friend didn’t understand.

  Stay close to me, he told the girl. If you want, you can hold onto me.

  He led the way down the steps into the station, walking quickly, scanning the walls and the ceiling for cameras. He stopped behind a pillar and pulled the others close to him.

  Breakfast, he said in his friend’s language.

  Breakfast, he said in the girl’s language.

  They ate and drank, and the big boy told the girl what he had already told his friend, about this house he knew of – okay, he’d never seen the house for himself, but he knew everything about it. They were on their way to this house, which was empty over the winter and had a freezer full of good things and automatic heating and a television and a computer and the internet. He spoke with his mouth full. The girl listened and believed him.

  They stuck close together on the platform. They were the only people there. The big boy kept looking around, he was restless, he explained that children who were on their own got picked up and taken away. He knew that was how it was, but he didn’t know why. Three children together, on the other hand, didn’t look so suspicious. People went after children who were on their own. Three children were like a family.

  They had eaten all the bread and drunk all the lemonade. The big boy had to say everything twice. It wasn’t good that they had eaten everything already, he said, first to his friend, then to the girl. Now he would have to think of something else. In two or three hours they would be hungry again. They should at least have left some lemonade. But he wasn’t cross – after all, he had eaten and drunk no less than his friend and the girl. The girl had crumbs in her hood, and her lips were sticky from the lemonade. The big boy had brought a packet of tissues. He tore a tissue in half, put one half back in the packet and spat on the other and rubbed the girl’s mouth and chin with it. The girl tilted her face up to him and squeezed her eyes shut. He brushed the crumbs out of her hood with his hand.

  Can you read? he asked the girl.

  She shook her head.

  The girl clung to the big boy’s sleeve. He put an arm round her shoulders. His friend was standing a short distance away. He pulled his hood even tighter around his face. Now you couldn’t see his eyebrows any more. He didn’t talk. He nodded or shook his head. He had a five Euro note. He showed the girl and grinned.

  The big boy grinned too. Then his friend came over to them and stood with them, one side touching the girl, and the other touching the big boy.

  That’s his, said the big boy, that’s his. He won’t give it away, it belongs to him.

  And he said the same in his friend’s language. His friend nodded. But all the same he put the note in the girl’s hand. To let her feel it. Then he took it back and put it away.

  The big boy put his other arm around his friend. The metro train pulled in. It pushed a wave of cold air along in front of it. Their hoods flapped. The big boy knew it looked more innocent if a fourteen-year-old had his arms round the shoulders of two younger children than if three children were standing there separately. But he didn’t know why that was.

  On the train the three of them sat in a row, the big boy in the middle. He put his arms round his friend and the girl again. At the next station two men got on. At the station after that it was a dozen people.

  Where are we going? the girl asked.

  It was the first thing she had said to the big boy. And she whispered it so quietly that the big boy didn’t hear.

  His friend said something in his language. Then the girl didn’t dare repeat what she wanted to know. A woman sat down opposite them. She didn’t have to do that. There were plenty of other seats. But the woman wanted to take a good look at the three of them. She was wearing a large fur hat. The boy’s friend turned to him and pressed his face against his upper arm.

  When I run, you run after me, said the big boy. In one language, and then in the other.

  At the next station a lot of people got on. They were wearing coa
ts and hats and gloves. The big boy bided his time. Just before the train door closed, he leapt up and ran out onto the platform, his friend close behind him.

  But the girl didn’t follow. She had been taken by surprise and forgot that she was supposed to run after the big boy. And by the time she slid off the seat it was too late. The door closed and the train moved off.

  The woman was still staring right at her. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t smile. She didn’t grin. She didn’t engage with her at all. She was tired.

  The girl was clever. The big boy had promised to look after her. There was no reason to doubt his promise. At the next station she got out. She pretended she was going with the other people, but she just walked in a circle and came back onto the platform. She waited there. She knew what a metro was, and she knew the next train would be along any minute. And she didn’t doubt that the big boy and his friend would be on the next train. She looked at the thimble, pulled it off her thumb, put it back on. And took it off again and tried it on all her other fingers. It was too big for them; it only fitted on her sore thumb, because of the plaster.

  The big boy and his friend were on the next train. The big boy was clever, too.

  She got on and sat down beside them, and everything was as it had been a few minutes ago, before she had lost them. The big boy put his arm around his friend and around the girl. But his eyes were restless again, and he kept turning his head in every direction. The girl fell asleep beside him, her cheek on his thigh.

  He didn’t wake her.

  They stayed on until the final stop. When they left the station, the sky was grey. And it was snowing again. They had reached the outskirts of the city. But it was still a long way to the woods.

  The big boy told her about the people who owned the empty house. His friend knew the story. He knew it so well that he nodded and laughed in the right places even though he didn’t understand the language the boy was speaking. They were walking through a suburb – the houses were low here and the street lamps were quite far apart. But their light was no longer needed, since the sky was now providing enough of its own.

  They passed a bakery, and the big boy interrupted his story.

  He said something to his friend. The girl watched the two of them, and she saw the big boy make an angry face. His friend reached into his pocket and gave the big boy the five Euro note.

  Wait here, said the big boy, and don’t talk to anyone.

  He went into the bakery.

  The girl saw the tears rolling from the smaller boy’s eyes. You had to look closely. You could only see them on his cheeks as they ran the short distance from his eyes to the lower edge of his hood. His mouth was hidden inside the hood. His arms hung at his sides, and he was holding his right glove in his left hand. He looked the girl in the eyes. She didn’t move. She stood exactly where the big boy had left her.

  After a while the big boy left the bakery. He strode past them, not looking at them, not looking around for them. Gave them no signal. Didn’t whisper anything to them. Pretended he was alone. And they were alone too, and had nothing to do with him. He was carrying two paper bags. They ran after him. And when they came to a side street, they had to run even faster: the big boy turned the corner, and now he wasn’t walking any more, but running, and now all three of them were running, and the girl was the slowest. The big boy and his friend didn’t wait for her. But she wasn’t frightened. She could see the two of them running ahead of her, and she saw them disappear down a driveway. Before they disappeared, the big boy waved to her. His hand told her to hurry.

  The big boy undid two buttons on his coat. He had two large loaves of bread hidden underneath. He had stolen them from the bakery. There were two sugared doughnuts in his coat pockets – he had stolen them too, and he gave one to the girl and one to his friend. They ate them at once. The big boy took a large bite of each doughnut and sucked out the jam. Icing sugar clung to their lips. The paper bags contained plastic bottles of lemonade. The big boy had paid for those with his friend’s five Euro note.

  They put the bread and the lemonade in the rucksack. They waited a while longer before setting off. Soon, they had reached the woods. When the buildings had disappeared from view behind them, the big boy carried on with the story of the empty house where they would live over the winter. They were walking slowly now, as if they were out for a stroll and had nothing to fear.

  This time they portioned out the food and drink. They passed a stream, there wasn’t much water flowing there, the edges were iced over, but the water was clear, and because the girl didn’t really like the sweet lemonade, the big boy poured the contents of her bottle into his and his friend’s, and filled the girl’s bottle with water.

  At first the track took them through sparse beech woods, snow lay between the trunks, and snow was falling from the sky, it fell in such thick flakes that they couldn’t see from one tree to the next, and the wind was even more biting here than in the city, they lowered their heads to stop the flakes blowing into their eyes. There wasn’t a single footprint, and it was silent, apart from the wind howling in their hoods. Their faces burned. They walked and didn’t speak. The big boy still hadn’t finished his story.

  Then they found themselves in a thick pine forest. The track led steeply upwards. They couldn’t see the sky any more. The pine branches joined together above the track to form a roof. It wasn’t really a track now, but a footpath. It was veined with exposed roots. From time to time the girl slipped and fell. The trees kept the wind out and the snow, too. And to the children, it felt warm in there. They had no sense of how long they had been walking. Only that they were hungry again.

  The boy’s friend asked something. Or said something. It could be that his voice always sounded like he was asking a question. He had a high voice. Then he started crying. They didn’t want to carry on while the boy’s friend was crying. So they sat down. But they quickly got up again, because the big boy said there were better places than this.

  If he has something to eat, the big boy said to the girl – as if it was his friend, not she who was the littlest one – if he has something to eat, he’ll feel better, you’ll see. As if the big boy was the father and the girl was the mother and his friend was the child.

  A few paces off into the woods, away from the path, there was a clump of young spruces. The saplings were slight, and so close together and so thick with branches that you couldn’t see through them. They crawled inside. The ground was dry and soft, the slender trunks sticky with sap. They huddled together. They bent some of the spiny branches down or plucked the needles off them. It smelled of sap and pine needles. And of the earth their shoes had churned up. The big boy shared out the bread. They ate and didn’t speak and drank from their bottles.

  His name’s Arian, said the big boy. He hugged his friend to him, and his friend laughed. What’s yours?

  She didn’t know her name. Yiza, she said. That’s what they had called her. She knew that Yiza wasn’t a name.

  That’s not a name, said the big boy.

  But from then on he called her Yiza.

  I’m Shamhan, he said.

  Shamhan, she said. Arian, she said.

  Then they went on eating and didn’t speak and drank from their bottles. Yiza tapped the trunk of a tree with the thimble. She tapped, she listened and laughed.

  They didn’t know what time it was. But they didn’t know what day of the week it was, either. The sun didn’t come out from behind the clouds, and if it had come out from behind the clouds, the children wouldn’t have seen it. They could hear the wind high above them. It made a rustling noise that sounded like they were sitting in a huge room, the ceiling of which had been designed for a giant or a god. Shamhan still hadn’t finished the story of the empty house. But Arian wasn’t crying any more, and that was good. They got the blanket Arian had stolen from the home out of the rucksack and wrapped it around themselves. Yiza lay between the boys and warmed them and was warmed by them. They fell asleep like tha
t.

  They woke in the middle of the night. Yiza was too hot, and Shamhan and Arian were cold. Then Arian lay in the middle, and an hour later they woke up again, and Shamhan lay in the middle. They could have stayed hidden there for a long, long time, and no one would have found them.

  Arian was the first to wake. He was lying on the outside. His back was cold, and his legs were cold. He crawled out from under the blanket. Shamhan had his arm round Yiza. Her head was under the blanket, pressed against Shamhan’s chest. Arian laid the blanket over her back and wrapped it round her legs. He pulled the drawstrings of his hood tight, knotted them under his chin, pushed the sleeves of his anorak down over his gloves. There wasn’t room to stand upright in the little copse. The branches began to grow from the trunks half a metre above the ground at most. You had to crawl. Arian tore off a piece of bread, drank some lemonade and crawled out of the copse.

  He could see a shimmer of light through the needle roof of the tall pine trees. It could have been the moon. Or the morning. Arian climbed up the slope, sometimes crawling on all fours because the slope was so steep and his shoes kept slipping. He turned round again and again. He didn’t want to lose sight of the little copse. And if Shamhan or Yiza called out to him, he wanted to hear them. He didn’t know what he was expecting to find up on the track. Perhaps he just wanted to make sure the track was still there. Even if it was just a footpath and not a proper track, people had still walked down it before him, and he wanted to make sure.

  He rested. He could feel his heart thumping in his throat. He couldn’t see very far in the darkness. He couldn’t see the little copse any more. But it was only a few metres away. He wouldn’t even have to shout. If he spoke in a normal voice, Shamhan and Yiza would hear him. And if he shouted to them, they would wake up.