The Folveshch

3. The Folveshch

Viktor, after only four months since my father and Pyotr had found him, had morphed into some skeletal creature; something I barely recognised as human. The man had once been sturdily built, with a chest and arms as big as my father's, but no more. His brawn had withered away along with any hint of his friendly disposition. A cruel parody of Viktor Malenhov sat in a rocking chair by a low-burning fire, mouth agape, with blank eyes staring through the far-side wall.

"Privyet," I greeted, in case some small glimmer of Viktor's soul remained within him. He'd once been a picture of health, sound of mind, sociable, pious ... and yet there he sat across from me as a creature reduced to a life of sightless silence.

I tried to pretend he wasn't there during my daily visits, whistling tunelessly as I'd throw more logs into the stove and check their supplies. I recall on that particular day I'd brought a loaf of Mama's rye bread so that Aleksy could tear it up in the broth I'd set to stew for when he returned – "put in some ducks," he'd say. Some days I'd even leave a knob of salted butter or a jar of preserve for him so that the bread was not so bad when the morning turned it stale. On rarer occasions I'd set down some old clothes or toys that my mother came across, or even go over his homework and correct his sums. Aleksy was terrible at them.

That also happened to be the day I left an illustrated children's bible on his bed for him to study before he slept for the night. It had been my own copy, worn at the spine from a number of previous owners, though I'd decided Aleksy needed its guidance now more than I did.

As for the being in the rocking chair, the most I did for him was keep the fire going.

Not a soul in Renkassk would've told you that what happened to the Malenhovs wasn't heartbreaking, and I agree: neither of them deserved such incurable torment. But kind Viktor's fate was nothing more than the start of the ill wind that blew, and by the time winter came around again in 1923, news spread of its second victim.

Polio survivor Iakov Yakunin's father had found him face down in the forests a kilometre from his bed, hypothermic, blind and petrified. Pyotr likened the cripple's symptoms to Viktor's, and, worse, onset only three weeks after he'd proposed to the love of his life. My cousin told me of Iakov's hanging jaw, his wide cloudy eyes, his sudden inability to move or communicate ...

Pyotr, being a man of medicine, believed it was the same poliovirus to have claimed Iakov's right leg that had returned with a vengeance on the man's neural system ... Whatever that is. And yet Iakov and Viktor's cases were so similar in design that I'd already dismissed coincidence. As far as I knew, Viktor had not suffered from the same disease, at least not noticeably.

No ... Something felt deliberate. Orchestrated.

If it was God, what did it mean?

Though my father was not known for his sympathy, he took the news badly. He started showing bouts of anger towards his god whenever anyone raised the subject, believing that it was by His hand that his childhood peers were now entwined with a sinister fate. Few understood Pyotr's medical jargon either, and he was amongst them. Besides, whatever the root cause of their affliction, it didn't change anything.

"It's no life for good men," Papa blurted one day. He could not seem to let the subject rest. "Why Viktor, Stefan? Why Iakov? You'd find no two finer men than they this side of Russia, let me tell you, but look what happened to them regardless." He beat the snow from his boots after our day's work on the construction site for the choir hall in Darakyev. Though I was not strictly under employment there, I served my uses as my father's spare set of hands. He hung his scarf, coughing horribly as though hot tar bubbled in his lungs. "They'd be better off dead," he croaked, "the pair of them. I know I would, if it was me."

"Don't talk like that, Papa," I replied, hanging my scarf beside my father's. "Like I keep saying, perhaps there was something about them that we didn't know but God did. Something bad."

"Something bad, hm?" Papa paused and caught my eye. "I don't suppose you heard what Iakov's brother came out with yesterday, did you?"

"No, go on."

"Georgiy said he and Iakov saw the Folveshch."

At that, I scowled. "Are you being serious?"

"Well, I didn't dare dismiss it after what he's been through. He seemed serious enough, but then the boy's only eleven. He said they saw the Folveshch with such nonchalance you'd believe it an everyday occurrence."

"Did he say what it looks like?"

"No, he didn't –"

"That's convenient."

"That's how children cope. It's funny, I've not heard stories of the Folveshch since your grandpapa used to scare you with it like he did to me when I was a boy." He hunched over in imitation of his late father and said in his raspy voice, "Before the night, close the shutters tight, lest the Folveshch wander in."

I shook my head at him and picked up the newspaper on the arm of his usual chair. The front page divulged nothing new from last week's. "While we're on the topic of all that," I said as I plopped down into the armchair, "Aleksy Malenhov says he and Viktor saw it as well. He says it happened on Strangers' Pass."

"That's where the little Yakunin boy says it happened, too." He coughed and spluttered again into his hand, and wiped his lips with the back of it. His chest infection still hadn't subsided, even with Pyotr and Mama's long list of home remedies. "Tcha! It begs the question of why a crippled man was in the forest in the first place, Stefan. The man can barely walk more than fifty metres, even with his cane."

"Then why would we give this Folveshch any credit?" I replied.

"I know you're right, son," Papa sighed. He set about preparing us some well-deserved coffee. "Those two boys attend the same school; more than likely Aleksy's been telling stories."

But in the winter of 1924 it was Papa who collapsed, screaming his throat raw about the Folveshch.