The Edge of Me (18 page)

Senka is looking at Kristina with absolute hatred. I try to go to Branko again but Goran holds me back, nearly tearing my arm from its socket.

‘Please?’ I say. ‘
Please
let me talk to him!
Please?
’

Suddenly, Branko pushes himself off the chair and onto his knees. I feel Goran loosen his grip, distracted. We rush towards Branko, he opens his arms and just for a moment, his hands are on my hair.

‘Take them!’ Kristina shouts. We’re wrenched apart and taken out, leaving my father struggling between the two men. My throat is cracked from screaming.

Outside, it’s pitch dark: the only light comes from the porch lamp where drowsy moths bat and whirl, their wide, patterned wings making strange shadows against the stone steps.

The car that brought me is gone. In its place is a pickup truck. Goran shunts us over and gestures to us to get in. We stumble up the step into the trailer and turn to face
him as he climbs up. He holds a length of coarse rope. Standing there in the back of the truck, looking down at the ground, I’m back in that dream. I can see it so clearly. It was in a truck like this that we’d been taken from our mother at the side of the road. I can see the woods behind her; I can see her agonised face, pleading, calling. I can see her as she falls.

Goran’s binding the whiskery rope around us. He’s pushing us down so we sit back to back tightly bound. A fury like I’ve never known rises up in me and I know if I can harness it, control it, I can beat this man. I’m determined not to go quietly.

When he’s satisfied with his job, he climbs in and starts the engine, and the headlights illuminate the forest around us. I see the brightness of a rabbit’s eyes caught for a moment in the glare. I stroke Senka’s hand as she sits stiffly at my back. I wonder what’s going on in her head. She’s hardly made a sound since he came for us.

The sharp sweet smell of pine surrounds us, and leaves dip and brush our heads as we pass. We’re on a narrow track taking us deep into the forest. An owl cries overhead and there’s the odd movement in the undergrowth as an animal runs for cover before us. In the cab up front, music is playing and I can just hear him tapping along to the refrain on the steering wheel. After a short while, we stop at a place where the trees have thinned out around a patch of scrubby ground. He gets out of the cab and pulls out a torch and a spade.

‘Shit!’ I breathe.

He comes around to the back of the truck and jumps up to face us. He sets the torch down pointing at us, and proceeds to untie me and bind up Senka again. She doesn’t utter a sound, her head still bowed, with its mad spikes of tawny hair shining in the torchlight.

He hands me the spade and goes to jump down, hauling me with him. ‘You dig. You are stronger.’

‘What for?’

‘Just do it!’ He turns the torch on me, and I set to work.

In spite of the cold, the ground is reasonably soft here, and I manage to clear away several clods before I hit compacted earth and rock. I get to my knees then, and start to pull up the rocks with my hands. I’m trying not to think about what I’m doing and why. I’m trying to think of what it would take to swing the spade and what damage I could do to his fat face.

I need to distract him – to bring him closer.

‘How deep?’

‘What?’

‘How deep has this got to be?’

He looks at me and says in a matter of fact voice, ‘Deep enough for two of you.’

I try again. ‘I can’t get this rock out. Can you help me?’

‘You not used to hard work? I should maybe get your sister.’

‘No! No. It’s OK. I can do it. Can you bring the torch closer?’

In answer, he simply points it into my face which makes things worse. It means I can’t see him.

I reach for the spade and dig on with him watching, and after what feels like hours, I have a reasonable hole, about six feet across and a foot deep. I get to my feet and brush myself down.

‘Good,’ he says, and he motions to me to climb down into it.

I keep looking at Senka, who sits motionless. He goes back to her, wrestles her bindings and lifts her unresisting body down.

He pushes her at me and I catch her as she stumbles in next to me.

Goran smiles. ‘Very touching. Twins. Twins with the strange eyes. I remember when they took you. I said it was a bad idea. I said they should shoot you like they shot your mother.’

‘You bastard!’

‘Bosniak animals. Filthy pigs. She had eyes like yours too. They shot her in the face.’

All around, the forest whistles and blows. And in the light from the torch, I watch a black beetle crawl out from under a leaf. I reach for Senka’s hand and I clutch it. Her fingers feel cold and dry and brittle.

She squeezes back and under her breath, she says my name: ‘Sanda.
Sestra
: sister.’

Now I know it doesn’t matter what happens. I have my sister, my family. And in my head, and on my skin, my father’s touch. His breath.

Goran pulls out his gun and takes aim. I close my eyes. I have no fear at this moment. I’ve come so far and I have
my sister. I cling to her and wait for death.

Nothing happens. Nothing happens.

Then a crash.

I open my eyes. First, I see the torch on the ground, its thin beam raking the dirt. Then I see him. He’s lying face down, bleeding from a deep wound in the back of his head. I reach for the torch and turn it on, the gloom of the forest behind him. And, standing there, I see someone I thought I’d never see again.

‘Andjela!’ She looks like some kind of woodland creature. She’s covered in bracken and mud, her clothes torn and threadbare but she’s smiling.

‘How did you find us …?’ I ask.

Slowly, she tells me: ‘After Joe was taken, I went back to Zbrisć.’ She looks up at me and then away into the forest. ‘I had nowhere else to go.’

‘Oh, Andjela,’ I say.

‘They said I hurt Mirko – he nearly died. They said I was to be punished. I was so frightened. They took me to the House but I escaped. I’ve been out here ever since.’ And in an echo of Senka’s words in the attic: ‘Everyone knows this house. Everyone is frightened to be sent there. That woman …’

‘I know,’ I say.

‘I saw the headlights, heard voices.’

I swallow, think of Mirko: the glass in my hand, the soft push of flesh and muscle, the dark arc of his blood.

‘They blamed you for Mirko. Andjela, I’m so sorry.’

She shrugs. ‘It’s OK. But you – you have your sister.
You’ve found each other. I’m happy for you.’

‘Thank you,’ I say.

Senka smiles.

‘But we’re wasting time,’ says Andjela. I clamber up onto level ground and help Senka out. Andjela’s already making for the truck.

Suddenly, I find I can’t move. It’s like the roots of the pines have wormed into me and I’m fixed to the ground. Andjela calls back urgently, ‘Come on!’

I wake up. We hurry to the truck and I climb into the driver’s seat and feel down for the keys as I’ve seen people do. They’re still in the ignition. From a few feet away, I hear a groan and shine the torch towards the noise. He’s lying at an odd angle in the dead leaves, his head a sticky mass of congealing blood, but on one hand the fingers are beginning to twitch and grope. Beyond him, I see the gun. No time to go back for it now. I turn the key and his lousy music booms out into the forest. I switch it off and after hammering several times at the pedals and gears, the truck leaps forward, then stalls and stops so abruptly that Senka bangs her head on the dashboard.

He’s on his feet now, swaying, blundering towards us like a zombie. He throws himself across the bonnet and bellows. Senka cowers in the front seat.

Andjela nudges me and says, ‘Come on Sanda.’

It’s down to me and I know it. I have one more chance to make this work. I switch the engine on again, shove my left foot at one of the pedals I’m guessing is the clutch, crank the gear stick, and eventually manage
to thrust the truck into gear. We lurch forward – enough to throw him off the bonnet – and after two or three starts and stops, I find the accelerator pedal. I figure the braking bit will just come to me later. Right now, we need to be moving. And we are, cutting back through the track in the forest.

I momentarily take my eye off the path ahead and we slam into a tree. The bonnet buckles and steam starts to cloud out into the cold air.

‘Shit!
Shit!
’

I try the key and nothing happens. What an idiot! As far as I can see at this point, we have two choices: we can either sit here in the dark with the doors locked, or get out and run like hell. We choose the latter. I open my door and we jump down.

We set off through the forest with the bracken clawing and winding at our legs. I look over my shoulder to see he’s gaining on us.

We have to face him. End him. End this. A little further on up ahead, the ground slopes away into a kind of trench. I make for it, frantically beckoning for them to follow. We tumble into the trench and into a slush of wet leaves and mulch in the bottom.

‘OK?’ I ask Senka.

‘Yes. Yes I’m OK.’

‘Andjela?’

She nods, looking back anxiously.

To myself more than anyone else, I say: ‘Ambush. We’re going to have to ambush him. We need a stick. A big stick.’

I look about. At the top of the trench, snaking towards us like a long arm is such a stick. I grab it and pull it but it won’t budge. On tiptoes, in freezing mush, I waggle it backwards and forwards until it begins to splinter from its mooring. It breaks away with a creaking sound, leaving the end sharp and jagged. Perfect.

I can hear him now, his heavy panting. We crouch low, and wait. And wait. When he’s nearly on top of us, I stand up brandishing the stick and shove it square into his face. He staggers back and I’m out of the trench in an instant. I hit him again and again. He sinks to his knees, covering his eyes, his face streaked with blood. And again I raise the stick: it’s like I can’t stop, I can’t feel anything any more but this.

‘That’s enough,’ Andjela says.

But I find I can’t let go of the stick. My fingers are clasped so tightly, they’re stuck, frozen around it. She tugs at the stick and reluctantly, I let it go.

We move on fast, leaving Goran’s unconscious body behind. Ahead, I can make out traces of headlights from the road below.

And what now? Where now?

I try to think. But thinking is hard because I’m shaking, from my fingertips through my whole body. And I can’t stop it and I can’t think straight. I can see his face slacken and cave as I bring down the stick.

When we get to the road, I have to stop. I’m still trembling, and I sit down at the side of the road and wait for Andjela and Senka to catch up. Andjela puts her hand
on my arm and squeezes it. I look up at her. She’s survived so much. She gives me hope that we’ll get through this too. And that’s enough for me.

I get to my feet. ‘I’m OK. We need to keep moving.’

We have to get to the inn, the Ship. We need help to go back for Branko.

I look about me. We’re at the edge of what looks like a small village. I can just make out the chop and curl of tiled roofs. And, here and there, bars of yellow light from the houses. The nights out here are so different from London. It’s like swimming underwater, a rich coal-black soup of dark that presses on my eyes and ears.

Headlights. We fall flat on the verge as a car passes us. The driver is listening to music, tapping out the beat on the wheel, his mouth frozen in an ‘O’ as he sings.

We sit back up. I look dubiously at Senka’s slippers. They’re torn and matted. Both girls look exhausted. But there’s nothing for it. We have to go on.

I try to remember Peter’s village. The road by the river, the cobble-stones on the bridge, the twin white churches; and then the inn, with the crooked balcony over the water.

It’s enough. It has to be. But can we get there before Kristina does? She must know I’ve got nowhere else to go. I need to get to a telephone. I need to warn them.

I get up. Andjela and Senka are still sitting together a little way off, leaning on each other. Senka is examining her feet, pulsing them between thumb and finger. I go over and take a look. In the faint light, I see a blue fan of bones. Her toenails are broken and the soles of her feet
are raw. I hold them and I see her thrill for a moment at the warmth from my hands. I have nothing to bind them with but I take off my socks and give them to her. Andjela collects a handful of grass and together we stuff the slippers to make them fit. We help her up and we set off.

We walk through the village, hugging the walls, staying out of the light. We see no one. A cat on a wall mews as we pass, and we leave the place as quietly as we came. We go on, with the forest on one side, reaching up to the mountains beyond, and fields on the other. And far away in the distance, there’s the silver-green cut of a river.

We carry on through the night, keeping close to the road until dawn breaks. Then we cut back into the forest where the land starts to climb over moss and roots and rocks like shoulders sticking out of the ground. I see a deer bending to eat higher up. It starts at our approach, its black nose dusted with moss, and disappears into the trees. Andjela stops and puts her finger to her lips. We all listen. Water.

‘Where?’ I say.

She smiles and points upwards. We climb towards the noise. A hunchback of grass and stone, and water pouring down from its head into a stream. There are icicles like meat hooks hanging further up, and beyond them is a kind of hollow.

Andjela scrabbles up to it and calls back, ‘Come on!’

I help Senka up. It’s a tiny cave, not more than a few feet wide, but big enough for us to rest for a while. We’ve been walking for at least nine hours without a break. I
look at Andjela: her face is freckled blue by early sun and shade. She’s tired, but she’s fired up. There’s a kind of defiance, fierceness about her, but I’m worried about my sister. Andjela finds a scoop of bark and we take it in turns to collect water from the falls to bathe her feet and her poor head. She seems feverish. I’m scared because I know how far we have to travel. The slippers are now shredded. I remove them carefully, put them on, and give her my shoes. We make a moss pillow for her, I stroke her head, and she’s asleep at once.