Riding Icarus (9 page)

V
arious odd things had happened to Masha’s mother. She was smaller and much thinner than Masha remembered. Her long brown hair had been cut in a short bob and dyed bright red. Oddest of all was what on earth she was doing, in grubby old jeans and a T-shirt, tending a fire on an island in the middle of the river. There were so many questions, Masha didn’t know where to start.

Her mother hugged her again and again as the crows wheeled and flapped and gradually settled down again somewhere further off.

“Just look at you, so tall! And such dirty feet! Oh, how I’ve missed you, Mashenka.” She squashed Masha into another embrace.

“But, Mama, why are you here?” Masha asked as soon as she got her nose out of her mother’s shoulder. “Why didn’t you come back before? Are you living here?”

“Oh, Masha.” Her mother seemed unable to stop hugging and kissing her. “I wanted to come back such a long time ago.” She turned her head away and waved her hand to show she couldn’t say anything else. Masha realized it was better to hug than to ask questions just now.

At last her mother wiped her eyes and sat back on her heels. “How ever did you find me, you clever girl?” she asked anxiously.

“Nechipor brought me. He’s still by the river, catching a big fish for tea. I can call him—”

“No! Don’t do that,” Mama said with such terrified haste that Masha was startled. “Nechipor? What a funny old-fashioned name. Who is he? How do you know him?”

“He’s a Cossack, a real one, with a topknot and everything. I met him on the night—” Masha stopped. This was going to be hard to explain. “Somewhere along by the river,” she finished lamely. “I saw him dancing – it was brilliant.”

“A Cossack? How did he know I was here?”

“He didn’t know.
I
didn’t know. Why
are
you here?”

Mama spoke over her. “Is he a good friend?”

Masha considered. “I think so. He grows melons on an allotment. He brought me home when I got lost, and he helped call an ambulance to take Granny to hospital.”

“
To hospital?
What’s happened to her?”

“It was the night of the storm,” Masha explained. “She fell when… She’s in hospital but she says there’s nothing wrong with her except some witchcraft, and she wants to leave but they won’t let her.”

“So who’s looking after you?”

“I’m staying with Gena and Ira.”

“I can see I have a lot to catch up with,” Mama said rather dazedly. “Is Granny really all right?”

“She said so. Why haven’t you come to see me, Mama?”

Her mother took her hands and looked at her so seriously that Masha felt scared.

“Masha, it’s hard for me to explain but you must listen carefully. It’s a very big secret that I’m here. I so much wanted to come back to you but I couldn’t and I still can’t.” She gave Masha’s hands a tight squeeze. “I’m so sorry, but you must carry on living with Gena and Ira a little longer, and you must tell no one, absolutely
no one
, that I’m here. Not even Gena. Not even Granny.”

“Why not?” Masha couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It sounded like something out of an adventure story. “Is someone chasing you?”

After a pause, her mother sighed. “Yes.”

Masha stared. “Who? Someone from Turkey? Why are they after you?”

“Mashenka, I can’t tell you any more.”

Masha felt suddenly angry. “Why not?”

“Maybe later.”

“Later?” That sounded familiar. Tell you later, tell you when you’re older, that’s what grown-ups always said. “Why won’t you tell me now? You thought I was old enough for you to go away to Turkey and leave me all on my own!” she shouted. “That’s not fair!” She started crying, and her mother, sniffing herself, enfolded her in another huge hug.

“I can’t tell anyone,” she said. “Not even the police. All I can tell you is that I’ve run away from Turkey, but very bad people in Ukraine are looking for me.”

A dreadful certainty possessed Masha’s mind. “Is Uncle Igor one of them?”

Masha’s mother put her hand over her mouth. “Yes, he is,” she said at last. “Has he asked you where I am?”

Masha nodded. “I won’t tell him anything, though. Not a thing. He’s horrible. He wants me to go and live with him, Mama,” she added. “But now you’re home I won’t have to, will I?”

“He wants…” Her mother looked stunned. “He can’t do that. He can’t take you away from me.”

“Of course he can’t.” Masha felt quite sanguine about Uncle Igor now that her mother was here, even if she was behaving so oddly.

“Does he want to use you against me?” Mama whispered. “Of course! He thinks if he’s got you then I can never tell the truth about what happened…”

“Mama?” Masha shook her knee. “Mama! What are you talking about?”

Her mother seemed to come out of a horrified daze. “Nothing. I’ve been on my own for so long, Masha, I’ve got into a silly habit of talking to myself. Don’t laugh at me.”

“I won’t.” Masha patted Mama’s shoulder consolingly, although it felt strange to be doing so, as if her mother was just a little girl too. “Mama, why did you let Uncle Igor send you to Turkey?”

“Because I was very silly and very … very hopeful,” said her mother sadly. “And now I’m in awful trouble.”

“Have you done something that’s not allowed? Against the law, I mean?” To Masha’s shock, her mother stared at her for a long moment: a lost, blank, unseeing stare. “You have?”

“Sort of. No, nothing. At least…” Her mother floundered. “No, Masha, I’ve done nothing wicked. But there are people in Turkey, and here, like Igor, who are doing things against the law, and they’re the ones who are chasing me now.”

Masha remembered the Cossack in his allotment, clapping his hand to his knife when she mentioned where her mother was. “Nechipor says Ukrainian girls and women are made slaves in Turkey,” she said. At the time, she’d thought he was being ridiculous. “He said his heart was burning to take revenge for it. You weren’t … you weren’t actually made a slave, were you?”

Her mother looked startled. “I suppose … sort of. But revenge isn’t so easy when it’s your own countrymen. When it’s someone you thought was your friend…”

Masha felt as if the whole conversation was sliding out of control, into some dark, unreal dream. She held her mother’s shoulder tightly, making sure she was solid, she was really there. “So you’re hiding now? How did you get here anyway? It’s an island.”

“I know. It was the strangest thing,” said her mother. “In fact, you’ll probably think I’ve gone a bit mad. I walked here.”

“You can’t have!”

“But I did.” Mama leant forward to poke at the cooking pot again. The mossy, freshwater smell of boiling fish rose out of it. “It was the night of the storm. Do you remember?”

Masha shivered excitedly. “Of course I remember.”

Mama settled herself back more comfortably on the ground, Masha in her lap.

“I’d just arrived in Kiev that day, at the end of a long, terrible journey all the way from Turkey. I was so tired! I walked right across the city to get here, as the sky got darker and darker, and I’d just reached the sand by the river when –
crash! bang!
– the storm started.”

“Go on.”

“I hadn’t decided what to do. I so much wanted to see you, my sweetheart.” A tight squeeze. “But the rain was pouring down, the thunder was crashing and the lightning flashing, and I got completely lost. I walked and walked and walked through the trees and allotments, and then I really think I must have been dreaming, because I thought I saw a trolleybus driving along.”

“And then what?”

“I started running after it. I was soaked and frozen and I just wanted some shelter. But it disappeared, and soon the storm eased off. I found a sheltered patch under some trees and I sat down, and I must have fallen asleep. When I woke it was already sunny, so I got up and walked around to find out where I was – and here I was, on the island!”

“And what about the trolleybus?”

Her mother laughed. “I think I must have been seeing things, don’t you?”

“I
know
you weren’t seeing things,” said Masha importantly. “Now I’m going to tell you what happened to
me
on the night of the storm.”

How on earth am I not going to tell anyone? Masha wondered as she walked back to Gena’s house. She felt so puzzled and excited and above all happy that her mother had come back, it was going to be very hard not to talk about it. But her mother had warned her again and again that she must keep quiet, so she hadn’t even told Nechipor as he rowed her back, although she was longing to ask what he’d meant when he’d talked about slaves and Turkey. Most of all, Masha wanted to stay on the island with Mama, to share the soup she was making from fish caught with an old hook and line she’d found. But her mother said she had to go back, otherwise people would become suspicious.

“You’ve got to pretend nothing has happened,” she said. “I’m so sorry, but you do understand it’s important, don’t you?”

Masha nodded. Even if she didn’t know exactly why people were chasing her mother, if Uncle Igor was involved she was sure it was serious. Many of the rich people in Ukraine, with big new houses and Mercedes cars, belonged to the mafia and had made their money from sinister and illegal business. This was common knowledge, but it had never seemed quite real to Masha before. Now she realized her mother had somehow got involved in Uncle Igor’s business, and she understood more of Aunt Anya’s words that she had overheard in the kitchen at Tsarskoe Selo.

I won’t tell Uncle Igor anything, however much he asks, she promised herself determinedly as she climbed the stairs to the flat. Nothing at all.

But there was very bad news waiting for her when she arrived.

“Your Uncle Igor called,” Ira told her. Masha suddenly felt cold all over. “He wants you to go and live with him until your granny comes out of hospital.”

“Oh no!” cried Masha. “Why? I don’t want to. Why can’t I stay here with you?”

“Of course you could stay here with us,” said Ira. “But he was really rather insistent. Why don’t you want to go? I’m sure they’d look after you very well.”

“But Mama said—” Masha stopped abruptly, realizing she’d almost let out the secret already. “I know Mama wouldn’t want me to go,” she said. “He’s horrible, he’s really horrible!”

“Masha, that’s a naughty thing to say,” Ira scolded in her schoolteacher voice. “Of course he’s not horrible. Anyway, he definitely wants you to live with him and I don’t think I can say no.”

“Why not?” Masha wailed. “Please don’t make me go!”

Ira looked troubled, and it suddenly occurred to Masha that she seemed afraid of Igor, just as her mother was. “Because… Because he’s supposed to be looking after you,” she said finally. “Really, Masha, you’re being silly. I’m sure you’ll be fine there, and you can come and play with Gena whenever you like. Anyway, it’s only as long as your grandmother’s in hospital.”

“You mean, if Granny comes back I won’t have to go?” asked Masha eagerly.

“I suppose so.”

Masha cornered Gena in his room, where he was lying on the bed reading comics.

“Gena,” she whispered urgently. “I need your help. We’ve got to think of a plan to get Granny out of hospital.”

O
utside the hospital ward the same nurse sat at her desk, reading a book and drinking tea. She looked up when she heard Gena and Masha approaching.

“Not you two again,” she said disapprovingly.

“Can we see my grandmother, please?”

“No.” The nurse returned to her book. It had a picture of a red-haired woman on the cover, her enormous bosom popping out of her dress, in the arms of a man with no shirt on.

“Didn’t I tell you to come back on Friday?” the nurse said at last, when they didn’t move. “The doctor’s busy and your grandmother’s to see no one.”

“We’ve brought her some more things,” said Masha. “To cheer her up. But we had to leave the bag at the front desk. The man there said it was too big, and we should come up here and tell someone to fetch it.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake. What are you expecting me to do about it? Your grandmother will just have to wait, or do without.”

“Please, can’t you come and collect it?” said Gena. “We’ll have to take it home again otherwise, and it’s got such nice things in it. Smoked fish, even some caviar.”

“Black caviar,” Masha added persuasively. “The best.”

The nurse heaved an exasperated sigh, but it did not hide the greed that sparked in her eyes. She closed the book and lumbered out of her chair. “Oh, all right then.” She waved the two children in front of her. “What are you standing there for?”

“We thought we’d wait here for you,” said Masha.

“Then think again. If it’s such a big parcel, you can certainly help me carry it. It’s not my job to lug things like that around.” She gave Masha a push down the corridor and marched behind them both like a guard.

The hospital entrance hall was deserted and stifling in the noonday heat. There appeared to be no one behind the high reception desk, but when the nurse peered over it, she fell back with a gasp of surprise.

“Who on earth are you?” she demanded.

The round bulk of Nechipor, resplendent in his embroidered shirt, his face pink and shiny, emerged enormously from behind the desk.