I ignored him. “Come on, move it,” I said to Andriy, who was fumbling at the buttons of his coat.
Mykola sprang to his feet suddenly, shoving the rifle off his lap. “You’re not going. I’m going. Give me the uniform.”
“Not a chance.”
“I can move faster.”
“I know the tunnels. You don’t.”
“You’ve got to get to the tunnels, and anybody who sees you—”
“Is going to know I’ve been shot,” I said. “Yes, I know. I’m the one who needs to go to the hospital.”
29
We compromised. Lately, that seemed to be the best I could expect from arguing with him.
The Nachtigallen would probably be looking for Andriy, he pointed out. Somebody might have noticed a Nachtigall soldier coming in here from the street. Besides, he’d forced the lock, and we didn’t have any way to relock it—and anyway we still didn’t know for sure that we could trust him, so it would be better to take him along as a hostage, just in case.
Andriy didn’t raise any objections. I think he’d been fully expecting us to shoot him, so he was coming out ahead, comparatively speaking.
The end result was we all went together—just like old times, except I was in a Wehrmacht uniform and floating happily along on sixty milligrams of codeine, and Mykola was holding his pistol against the small of Andriy’s back.
The apartment block, it turned out, was on Krupiarska Street—barely a kilometer from the hospital, going by the sewers. The hospital’s oldest, lowest cellar, the old, vaulted brick one that looked like it had been a torture chamber at some point, opened right into the sewer tunnels. I knew that because I’d broken in before, back when Mama was still alive—back when this was still the General Hospital, not the properly Soviet-sounding State Medical Institute. They didn’t keep medicine down here, or anything plausibly sanitary like linens and blankets. I’d been disappointed at first, since that’s what I’d been after. But there was plenty of other stuff that went for good money on the black market—old electronics that could be stripped for parts, spare wall tiles and light bulbs, rubber tubing, tools—and there was a gold mine of filing cabinets full of musty old medical records, perfect for fuel. We probably burned through twenty years of General Hospital records that winter, 1935.
The cellar doors opened inward and were easy to kick in—easy for Mykola anyway, and he was gracious enough to spare me any gloating about how it was a good thing he’d come along after all. He and Andriy waited just inside while I found my way up the stairs and sidled casually into the corridor. We’d been living pretty much in constant darkness for the better part of a week, and I spent the first few seconds staggering like a drunk in the bright fluorescent lighting, blinking tears out of my eyes. I recovered just in time to slip into a custodial closet while some nurses went by with a cart.
I had no idea where the pediatrics ward was. There was a long corps de logis and two long wings, each three stories high: The hospital was shaped something like a letter pe, ∏, with the legs pointing north. I was in the west wing, ground floor. That was a miracle, honestly. Most of the main corps seemed to have been commandeered by a bunch of Germans—either as a hospital or just for billeting, I don’t know. I caught a smattering of German voices and a glimpse of steel-gray uniforms through a thick smoke fug when I peered cautiously around the corner into the corps.
I think I must have spent ten minutes skulking about the floor, flitting in and out of closets and empty examination rooms, before I grudgingly admitted to myself that I’d probably rouse less suspicion just limping down the corridor, looking wounded and German, than I would if somebody found me trying to hide among the brooms and ammonia bottles. There was a stairwell at the end of the wing. I decided to head upstairs.
It was after eleven o’clock, and the first-floor corridor was pretty empty. I spent another five full minutes wandering the length of the wing before somebody finally noticed me. A nurse came out of a room with an armful of linens, saw me, swallowed just perceptibly, smiled brilliantly, and asked if I was lost—this was the maternity ward. She spoke in Ukrainian, eyeing the blue-and-yellow Nachtigall band on my arm, but I could tell she was Polish.
“I’m looking for Renata Kijek,” I told her. Afraid that that had sounded a little too ominous, I added, “I’ve got a message for her.” That sounded ominous when it came out too, so I fell back on the old standby and just grinned at her charmingly, like an idiot.
She seemed too relieved to notice. “East wing,” she said, pointing down the corps. Her fake smile was suddenly a lot more genuine. Whatever my business was, it wasn’t hers.
Coward.
There didn’t seem to be any Germans up here. I didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. It meant I was less likely to be questioned by random passersby—or more likely to be believed if I was questioned anyway—but it also meant I was more conspicuous, and I was moving a lot more slowly than I had been. The codeine was starting to wear off. I ached all over. I was holding on to the wall by the time I reached the end of the corps and rounded the corner into the pediatrics ward. I wasn’t going to be able to run if it came to that, and the slower I went the more likely it would.
I found her office. She wasn’t in it. The door was closed and locked. I held on to the wall and limped the length of the wing, looking in through all the open doorways. There was a tall sash window at the northern end of the wing that looked down onto the street. I watched three Mercedes-Benz sedans pull into the drive, just below. There were pennants on the fenders—black triangles with two jagged white lightning bolts in the center.
SS.
I hobbled back up the corridor. A nurse had come out of a room just ahead and paused to write something on a clipboard, her back to me. I drew myself up straight.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I said—growled, more accurately. My teeth were clenched. “I’m looking for Renata—”
Her head whipped around. I stopped in midsentence, wincing reflexively. I should have recognized that sleek, dark plaited bun. Everything about her, in fact, was exactly the way I remembered—the lift of her chin, the stiffness of her shoulders, the sudden flush of fury in her cheeks.
She inspected me, helmeted head to booted foot, in much the same way I imagined she might inspect an especially disgusting burst boil. Then she turned without a word, bent her head to her clipboard, and walked away.
I hobbled after her.
“Listen—it’s urgent.”
“Get away from me.”
“Please.”
She spun on one heel, reaching under her apron. She brought out a pistol and pointed it at my face.
“I said get away.”
I held my hands up, palms out. “Please. I need to talk to Mrs. Kijek.”
“She’s not here.”
“The nurse in the maternity ward—”
She jerked her chin, her gun hand never wavering. “Out. Now.”
“Aleksey,” Mrs. Kijek said.
I don’t know where she’d come from. Somewhere behind me—one of the rooms, must have been. She looked tired. For a second, I just gaped at her. I’d been so singularly intent on finding her that I hadn’t really thought about having to explain why once I did.
What had Father Yosyp said, I wondered, when he told Mykola I was dead?
Mrs. Kijek filled the silence.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said levelly. “Where is Mykola?”
That jolted me back to my senses. Mykola—the tunnels. We needed to move.
“There’s an SS squad downstairs with a kill order for you,” I said. “I can get you out, but we need to go now.”
“He’s lying,” the dark-haired nurse, Anna, said sharply. “He’s with them.”
“We need to get to the cellar,” I said to Mrs. Kijek, pretending not to hear. Panic fluttered in my stomach. I felt a sudden rush of sympathy for Andriy—damn it, why wouldn’t anybody just listen? “We’re going to get cut off in this w
ing if we wait much longer.”
“He’s with them,” Anna repeated. “He’s Nachtigall. This has to be some kind of trick.”
Doors slammed down the hall. Another nurse, a lanky, athletic-looking girl with a boyishly short, sandy bob, had shut and bolted the doors to the corps.
“SS?” Mrs. Kijek asked her.
“Asking about you,” the bobbed nurse said.
“Go home,” Anna said to Mrs. Kijek. She was still holding the pistol on my face. “We’ll take care of this.”
“She can’t go home,” I said. “They’re probably watching the house.”
“And how do you know?” she snapped.
“Open the doors, Janina,” Mrs. Kijek said to the bobbed nurse. “Tell them I’ve gone out on a call if you need to. Cooperate as much as you can.” She pushed Anna’s pistol down and brushed past her. “Aleksey,” she said, over her shoulder.
Anna caught my sleeve. “If you’re lying, Aleksey Shevchuk, I swear I’ll kill you.”
“You’ll have to get in line, Anna Kostyshyn,” I said.
* * *
We took the service elevator at the back of the ward down to the cellar. It was one of those exciting last-century elevators—agonizingly slow, ominously creaky, and one snapped cable or rusted pulley away from delivering you to your destination a lot sooner than you’d anticipated.
Mrs. Kijek turned to face me in the half-light as we lurched slowly along.
“Where is Adrian?”
She wasn’t wasting time on stupid questions. She wasn’t going to suffer stupid answers.
“Your husband’s dead,” I said. “Shot. SS and Nachtigallen.”
She closed her eyes.
“They’ve got a list,” I said. “Your name’s on it too.”
There was an unbearably long silence. The elevator car cranked laboriously down the shaft. I leaned against the wall, trying my best not to whimper when the car jolted.
“They suspect our Resistance work?” Mrs. Kijek said at last, opening her eyes. Her voice was low and level.
“I don’t know. At least one of the Nachtigallen has been watching you for a couple days. Andriy—you met him. He was with us at the Brygidki. He’s the one I spilled your address to.”
“You think he knew we were hiding you.”
“I know he did. He came to the flat tonight and told us everything. He could have tipped them off. He swears he didn’t. Says they’re going after academics, not Resistance. Says he’s trying to help us.”
“Do you trust him?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “He told us about the list, and he told us you’d be here.”
The elevator groaned unsteadily to a stop.
Mrs. Kijek reached out a cool hand and laid it gently on the side of my face.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. What had Father Yosyp said to Mykola the night he told him I was dead in the Brygidki?
Mrs. Kijek opened the grating and the shaft door. Electric torchlight flashed in our faces.
Five Nachtigallen waited for us in a half circle at the cellar doors.
30
“You lying bastard,” I said to Andriy.
He flinched. He was sitting very still against the doors, his shoulders hunched. Mykola was in a heap beside him, facedown on the floor, gagged with a wad of dressing gauze and wrapped up like a mummy with electrical cord—hands tied behind his back, ankles lashed together. He squirmed furiously when he saw me, making incoherent noises behind his gag. One of the Nachtigallen jabbed him between the shoulder blades with a rifle muzzle.
“Take it easy, Aleksey.” One of them—the officer, judging by his collar tabs—had dragged over a chair from somewhere and was sitting with his legs stretched out, one booted foot propped on an upturned crate. “You’re not the only one who’s ever gone exploring down here. He didn’t rat on you—this time. Just made one or two fatal errors in judgment.” He leaned his head against the chair back and smiled at me.
Vitalik.
He tipped the chair lazily, then let it fall forward with a thump.
“He brought it on himself, in case you’re wondering,” he said, reaching with his foot and prodding Mykola roughly in the ribs. “He’s a tiger. It took every one of us to get the gun away from him, and he was still trying to bite.” He showed me the pistol in his lap—Mr. Kijek’s pistol. He lifted it to my face.
“Rifle,” he said.
I slid Andriy’s rifle off my shoulder and dropped it on the floor.
“Now the pistol,” Vitalik said. “Kick it over here.”
I’d been hoping he wouldn’t notice the bulge under my coat. I pushed my pistol to him across the floor. He caught it neatly under the toe of his boot. He jerked his chin at Mykola.
“Untie his feet. We’re going to take a walk.”
I limped over to Mykola. Vitalik’s pistol followed me. I sat down with my back to Vitalik, my legs folded up like a misshapen pretzel—dear God, they were hurting now. I unwound the tangle of cords from Mykola’s ankles unhurriedly, trying to think. None of their rifles were trained. I could yank the door open and shove Mykola out before anybody but Vitalik had time to react, and Vitalik wouldn’t shoot to kill—not at me anyway, since they wanted me alive, and I was between him and Mykola. It wasn’t much of a chance for Mrs. Kijek, but it would at least give her time to make a break for the stairs.
Mykola must have seen the look on my face. He shook his head just perceptibly, his eyes urgent—don’t.
“Hurry it up,” Vitalik said. “He’s extra baggage, at this point. That means I kill him if he’s slowing us down or if he’s getting on my nerves or if any of you aren’t cooperating or maybe just for the hell of it, because I can.”
I cleared the last of the cords away and lunged for the door.
Crack.
I froze at the sound of the shot, my muscles seizing up involuntarily at the memory of pain.
Crack, crack, crack—three more shots in quick succession, echoing deafeningly around the close brick walls.
Four Nachtigallen were sprawled over the floor before it occurred to me that Vitalik wasn’t trying to hit me.
I pulled myself up against the door. My heart was pounding.
“Whose side are you on, anyway?” I demanded.
Vitalik was up from the chair. He leaned on his left hand against the wall, keeping his weight off his leg. He nudged one of the bodies with the toe of his boot, eliciting a groan. He put a bullet in the man’s head.
“My own,” he said, “same as you.”
He picked up the rifle I’d dropped and slung it over to Andriy. He picked up my pistol and held both pistols out to me, grip first.
“Shoot me,” he said.
“What?”
“Shoot me and take the pistols. Get the hell out. Don’t go to Zarudce.”
I swallowed. “You know, there’s a solution here that doesn’t involve—”
He gestured impatiently. “I’m not asking you to shoot me in the head. And nothing humiliating. Just something that doesn’t scream self-inflicted. These are SS, not thickheads like Marko. They’ll be able to tell.”
“Come with us,” I said.
He pretended not to hear. “Might be good if you lay me out too. Give me an excuse for not sounding an alarm.”
I pushed the pistols away. “Come with us.”
“Stop wasting time.”
“Vitalik—”
He shoved the pistols into my hands and stepped back.
“Come on,” he said. “The Fritzes will have heard those shots.”
V
TOLYA
Sunday, August 6–Sunday, August 13
1944
31
He’d been down there in that basement five days, it turned out.
It was Sunday, the sixth of August, the feast day of the Transfiguration, and Vitalik’s squad had found him on the stream bank on the morning of the thirty-first.
/>
He was on his stomach on the table in the kitchen, drowsy with codeine and comfortably warm in the crisp, early sunlight through the open kitchen door, watching through half-closed eyelids while they searched and stripped the dead out in the yard—UPA dead, NKVD dead. The NKVD had circled the house just before dawn, and this Polish Resistance patrol had heard the gunfire and come over and circled the NKVD.
Voices drifted over him.
“Can he be moved?”—a girl’s voice, familiar somehow. Tolya tried to lift his head to look. Somebody pushed his head back down. “We need to move,” the girl said. “They’ll be back.”
“He’s not walking out of here, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“So—look. We use the tabletop for a stretcher.” That was the one called Jerzy. His was the voice that had spoken in Tolya’s ear earlier. “Easy enough.”
“All right,” the girl said. “And take that radio too.”
They put him down on the floor while they broke off the table legs. Then they put him back on the board and carried him out to the yard. The house was a little thatched farmhouse of lime-washed clay, pock-marked with bullet holes. There was a wicker fence running around the yard. They put him down on the grass by the open gate while they sorted out the captured weapons, and he lay feeling the sunlight and the wind, listening to the bird songs, looking at Vitalik’s body across the yard.
He was sprawled on his stomach across the gate path, Vitalik, his head turned on his cheek, facing Tolya. His eyes were half-lidded and dark and empty, his pale lips rimmed with blood. His maimed hands were spread palm-down on the dirt, as though he’d tried to push himself up at the last, in defiance, but he didn’t look defiant in death. He looked thin and tired, so very tired—and who was there to pray rest for his soul?
One, at least. That was what Father Dmytro would say.
I can’t, Tolya would say, because he wouldn’t dare say what he really meant, which was I won’t.
Traitor Page 19
