The Song of the Stork by Stephan Collishaw

Author:Stephan Collishaw [Collishaw, Stephan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785079184
Publisher: Legend Press
Published: 2017-02-28T18:30:00+00:00

21

Aleksei woke first. A thin grey light seeped through the curtains. A dog barked, but that was not what woke him. He shook Yael, who mumbled and turned over. Pushing her again, he took her shoulder and shook her fiercely.

“What is it?” she murmured, drawing herself up from a deep well of sleep. Aleksei indicated for her to listen. “It’s only a dog,” she said after a moment and collapsed back onto the old mattress, rolling in close against his side where it was warmer.

Aleksei swung his legs over the side of the bed and ran a hand through his hair. An engine was running somewhere, up on the road at the top of the path. Yael groaned and reached out a hand to restrain him.

“It’s too early.”

The bang on the door startled them both. Yael sat up sharply, her eyes widening, suddenly awake. Half standing, Aleksei seemed unsure which way to turn. At that moment, behind them, there was a sharp tap on the glass of the window. A small, soft shriek escaped Yael’s lips. She dropped back onto the mattress pulling the sheet across her.

Aleksei bent down and grabbed her arm. He pulled her up and out of the bed. Pushing aside the clothes in the wardrobe, he inched open the false partition and roughly pushed Yael through. The darkness enfolded her. She stood bolt upright, her heart pounding and her body shaking so much she feared the whole wardrobe would start rattling.

“Hey!” a voice called from the doorway.

Yael heard Aleksei’s feet slap across the floorboards, the struggled noises he made when afraid, attempts at speech. Boots clumped across the kitchen and into the bedroom. Their voices were so close, Yael felt she was stood among them. She heard the creak of the bed and someone’s voice, squeezed, as they bent double, checking beneath it. The door of the wardrobe clicked open and she heard the sound of heavy breathing, the swish of clothes on hangers, fingernails scratching against the thin plywood. A stream of light split the darkness of her compartment, falling upon her hand. Yael trembled, felt her skin dampen with a cold sweat. Her head spun dizzily. The fingers scraped against her compartment and she heard a muttering not more than a foot away.

“Nix!”

“Nothing at all?”

“Just old clothes.”

“And these books?”

“His books?”

“They’re all in Russian.”

There was a moment’s silence. Yael’s breathing came in shallow gulps. She closed her eyes, but nervously they sprang open again, fixed upon the dark wood no more than a few inches before her eyes. She tried to shift her feet but could not without making a noise. When she had been pressed into the space, she had not had time to arrange herself in a comfortable position and already she was finding it difficult to stand. Her legs had started to ache.

“You are a Bolshevik? A communist?” It was barked in German first, then, hesitantly in Polish with a strong accent. “Communist?”

She heard his muttering, the guttural gurgles, the coughs and throat clearing.

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