The Story of Us

by Lana Kortchik

  ‘That’s what I want to know,’ bellowed Father.

  ‘It’s War and Peace, Papa, can’t you see that?’ piped in Lisa, hiding behind Natasha.

  ‘Not just any War and Peace. The first edition. Do you know how much it costs? And I found it under the table in the living room, collecting dust. Now you need to tell me where it came from and don’t pretend that you don’t know.’

  Lisa lowered her gaze. ‘It’s from the library, Papa. Before the Germans got here, everyone was taking books, so I thought Natasha would be pleased because it’s her favourite—’

  ‘You stole this? From our library?’ he asked, sounding incredulous. When Lisa didn’t answer, Father raised his voice a touch louder. ‘No daughter of mine is going to act like a thief, war or no war.’

  ‘You got it for me?’ Natasha was touched and thrilled to be in possession of the first edition. ‘Thank you.’ Reverently she examined the book. She wanted to hug her sister, but Father was glaring at her with anger, and she quickly returned the book to the table.

  Mother said, ‘Don’t be upset, Vasili. It’s socialist property. The Nazis could never appreciate it. We can keep it safe until the war is over. Besides, it’s only a book. Last week I saw one of the neighbours return home with three sacks of sugar and a sack of potatoes.’

  ‘That’s disgraceful.’

  ‘I thought so too but now I wish we took some food when we had the chance. It’s better that our people have it than the enemy.’ She straightened her back and looked at Father, as if daring him to argue. He didn’t.

  The potato peel didn’t go down well with the family. Lisa refused to eat them. Father complained through every mouthful. Only Nikolai finished his share and eagerly asked for more.

  Lisa said, ‘Natasha, are you okay? You haven’t said a word all evening.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Natasha muttered, balancing a potato peel on the tip of her fork.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’

  ‘The Germans,’ she lied, when all she could see was Mark’s face, all she could hear was his voice as he told her about his life. She couldn’t believe she was seeing him again tomorrow! Only twenty hours and thirty-five minutes to go. ‘Stanislav. You think he’s out there somewhere, giving the Nazis a hard time?’

  Mother sniffled. ‘At work people were talking… about the Battle of Kiev.’

  ‘What about it, Mama?’ asked Nikolai.

  ‘They said it was devastating for our army. Today we went to the hospital and looked through the lists of wounded soldiers but I didn’t find…’ She fell quiet. On the table in front of her was an old photo of Stanislav and Natasha, taken when they were still at school.

  Nikolai mumbled, his mouth full. ‘Letters can’t get through now that the Germans are here. That’s why we haven’t heard from Stanislav. I’m sure he’s fine, Mama.’

  ‘I bet when the Red Army kicks the Germans out, we’ll receive a hundred letters from Stanislav, all at once. You know how much he loves to write,’ said Lisa.

  Mother coughed and changed the subject. ‘Timofei Kuzenko is drinking obscenely. Yesterday he threatened Zina with an axe.’

  ‘Not with an axe?’ exclaimed Lisa, her eyes wide.

  ‘Can you imagine? She was so scared; she knocked on our door and asked me to hide five bottles of vodka in our apartment. And the axe.’

  Father, who didn’t approve of drinking, said, ‘I heard vodka’s a valuable commodity on the black market. We could get some fresh bread for it. Maybe even some meat.’

  ‘We can’t take Zina’s vodka, Vasili,’ said Mother, wiping her face. Her eyes were swimming in tears.

  Natasha looked at the photograph on the table, at her eight-year-old self, at her older brother. She squeezed her eyes shut, squeezed her fists, squeezed everything to stop herself from crying. Where was their brother, their grandson, their son? She had to know. How could she go on, not knowing? ‘Let’s go, Mama,’ she whispered. ‘Let’s go to Zina. She still has her radio. She might have some news from the front.’ Mother nodded, staring at the young Natasha in the picture, at the older Natasha in front of her.

  Together they crossed the narrow hall and knocked on Zina’s door. From the corridor they heard her husband Timofei. He was snoring raucously. When they walked in, they saw him sprawled on the couch, motionless and stiff.

  ‘Zina Andreevna,’ pleaded Natasha. ‘Do you still have your radio? Any news from the front? My Mama is desperate.’ I am desperate, she wanted to add.

  ‘What radio?’ screeched Zina, raising her head.

  ‘Don’t you have your radio anymore?’

  ‘Hungarian soldiers barged in earlier and took it. They took everything. Our food, our clothes, our cutlery, all of our money.’

  ‘Hungarian soldiers?’ exclaimed Natasha, stumbling.

  ‘They told us to move out of our apartment by tomorrow.’ Zina cried. ‘What are we going to do? Where are we going to go?’ All her earlier bravado, her hope for a better life, it was all gone.

  ‘Filthy pigs,’ muttered Timofei, trying to sit up in bed and failing.

  Natasha hugged Zina affectionately. ‘Come and stay with us. Is it okay, Mama?’

  ‘Thank you, dear,’ whispered Zina. ‘You have a kind heart.’

  That night, Natasha lay on her folding bed, holding her grandmother’s hand and listening to her laboured breathing. She wanted to cry but couldn’t. Only twelve more hours until she saw Mark’s breathtaking face. Would she be able to sleep? Her heart was threatening to break out of her rib cage. This unfamiliar feeling that had her in a vice ever since she’d set her eyes on him filled her with joy and excitement, but her joy was mixed with fear. He was a Hungarian soldier sent to Ukraine to support Hitler’s troops. And she was a Soviet girl, who was completely and irrevocably under his spell. What was she going to do?

  She tried not to think of Zina’s words about the Hungarian soldiers. Mark wasn’t like that. He was different.

  To take her mind off Mark — as if it was possible — she thought of her brother.

  *

  June 1941

  Mobilisation orders arrived at the end of June, the day after the Germans bombed Kiev for the first time. Men aged nineteen to twenty-two were already in the Red Army, and now that the war had started, men aged twenty-three to thirty-six were being drafted. The family walked Stanislav to the crowded train station. Everywhere, it seemed, there were young men in uniform; alone and surrounded by families, some of them were laughing and chatting, while others smoked solemnly, sipped cheap kvass, and chewed their hastily made sandwiches.

  ‘Seems like yesterday you walked me to school every day down this road,’ Natasha said to Stanislav. She had always thought she was the luckiest girl in the world to have an older brother. Her best friend Olga wasn’t so lucky. She was an only child.

  ‘I know,’ said Stanislav, smiling. ‘You always had a mob of young boys following you around. Remember when one of them left a love letter in our mailbox, and I read it aloud at dinner? You didn’t speak to me for a month. You were eight.’

  ‘A love letter and a chocolate that you ate. I’m still upset about that. You can be so annoying.’ She looked into her brother’s face, fighting her tears. She wasn’t going to cry in front of him. She was going to wait till later.

  ‘Annoying and protective.’

  ‘No, just annoying.’

  Natasha took Stanislav’s hand in hers. She didn’t want the walk to the station to end just yet, but it wasn’t far, and soon they were there.

  In the sea of weeping women and sombre men, Natasha hugged her brother and said, ‘Promise to write. And please, please, please, come back soon. I still need you to protect me.’

  Lisa hugged her brother and said, ‘I’m glad Alexei is only eighteen. He’s not enlisting yet.’

  Nikolai couldn’t say anything because he was struggling to hold back tears, so he hugged his brother in silence.

  Mother wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘It’s s
o unexpected. I wish we had some warning, more time to prepare.’

  ‘It’s okay, Mama,’ said Stanislav, putting his rucksack down on the pavement and embracing his mother. ‘It’s easier this way.’

  ‘On the train, eat the boiled eggs and bread I packed for you. Wear your jumper if it gets cold.’

  ‘A fine soldier I would make, wearing a jumper at the end of June.’ Seeing his mother’s stricken face, Stanislav added, ‘I love you, Mama. Please, don’t cry.’

  ‘When are we going to see you again? What are we going to do?’ Mother sobbed.

  ‘Soon, Mama, I promise. I’ll be back soon. This war won’t last long. A couple of months at most.’

  ‘Look after yourself, son,’ said Father. ‘We’ll see you when it’s all over.’

  In silence they watched Stanislav as he climbed into the carriage and turned around, a sad smile on his face. ‘Girls, look after your mother,’ he said, saluting them once more, and then the train was moving and the Smirnovs were running along the platform to catch one final glimpse of their firstborn son and older brother. Soon he was gone but still they stood, watching the train that carried Stanislav to the front, until the train, too, had disappeared. Then they went home, where they had dinner without their son and without their brother. As they chewed their meatballs and vegetable salad, the girls and their mother and even Nikolai cried quietly into their plates.

  Chapter 4 – The Bleak Despair

  September 1941

  After breakfast the next morning, Natasha read to her grandmother, a little bit from The Three Musketeers and a little bit from The Count of Monte Cristo. And as she read Mark’s favourite books, she imagined his smile. Only two hours to go till she saw him again. Finally, when Grandmother nodded off to sleep, Natasha closed the door to her bedroom, got dressed and brushed her hair.

  She wished she had some make-up, some perfume, anything to make her more attractive to him. She peered at her reflection in the mirror. Peered at her light-green eyes, at her pale skin, pale eyelashes, pale everything. She longed for some colour in her face, a shade of red for her lips, some pink for her cheeks. She rummaged in her sister’s drawer and found some lipstick and mascara.

  When she was ready, she locked the door behind her and practically ran downstairs. She was afraid that the sound of her beating heart would wake her grandmother and alert her father to the fact that something remarkable was happening on this unremarkable Monday morning.

  She was almost at the bottom of the stairs when she bumped into her sister. Lisa sang tonelessly as she walked through the front door of their building. If Natasha wasn’t in such a hurry, she would have recognised Lisa’s voice in time to hide behind a pillar. But as it was, she was moving with such a speed, she almost knocked her sister off her feet.

  Lisa stopped singing. ‘Ouch,’ she said. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Sorry, I was just leaving.’

  Lisa peered at Natasha suspiciously. ‘Going somewhere special?’

  ‘Not really. Just to see Olga.’

  Natasha made a move to get past her sister, but Lisa grabbed her by the arm, blinking and staring.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Natasha.

  Lisa said, ‘Come here for a moment. Under this window.’ After a second or two of incredulous observation, she exclaimed, ‘I knew it.’

  ‘What?’ Natasha wondered how long it would take to get around Lisa and to the front door, but her sister was clutching her arm so tightly, it was impossible to move. ‘Let go, you’re hurting me.’

  ‘What is going on?’ demanded Lisa.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Tell me right now where you’re going.’

  ‘I told you. To see Olga.’ What time was it? Natasha didn’t want Mark to wait for her. What if he thought she didn’t want to see him?

  ‘And what’s that on your face?’

  ‘Don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Do you wear make-up for Olga now? Natasha, I’ve known you all my life and never, not once, did I see you with mascara on. Just look at your eyelashes!’ Lisa examined Natasha’s face as if she had never seen it before.

  ‘I wear make-up sometimes. You just never noticed.’

  ‘Never noticed? You don’t even own make-up. You say mascara makes your eyes water. Hang on a second, is that my make-up you’re wearing? Did you take it out of my drawer without even asking?’ Lisa put her hands on her hips, letting go of Natasha.

  Once again Natasha tried to get past Lisa, but her sister was too fast. She blocked the way. ‘So what? Like you didn’t take that scarf without asking? It’s Mama’s favourite,’ said Natasha, pulling at the silky shawl that was skilfully arranged around Lisa’s neck.

  Lisa ignored her, sniffing the air around her. ‘And what’s that smell? Is it Mama’s perfume?’

  ‘Lisa, what do you want?’ Natasha wished she had left a minute earlier. Had she done that, she would have been halfway to Kreshchatyk by now.

  A neighbour walked past, glaring at the girls. The sisters fell quiet, waiting for him to pass. When he was gone, Lisa said, ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on or do I have to follow you?’

  ‘You’re going to have to follow me,’ said Natasha, shaking with impatience.

  ‘Fine. Keep your secret. Won’t be the first time,’ said Lisa, moving sideways and letting her sister go.

  Natasha breathed out in relief and opened the door. Only when she was outside did she realise that Lisa was close behind her. ‘What are you doing?’ asked Natasha.

  ‘What does it look like I’m doing? Going to see Olga, of course,’ said Lisa, sniggering.

  Natasha watched Lisa for a mute moment and then said, ‘You know what, Lisa? I don’t feel so good. Why don’t you go to Olga without me? Tell her I said hi.’

  Not waiting for her sister to reply, Natasha turned on her heels and disappeared through the front door of their building. She ran up one flight of stairs to the window, just in time to see Lisa vanish around the corner.

  *

  When Natasha thought it was safe, she emerged from her hiding place. Looking around cautiously, half expecting her sister to jump out from behind the next tree, she set off in the direction of Kreshchatyk. Her hands trembled in fear, in excitement. What if he wasn’t there? Or worse – what if he had given up on her and left? Although she didn’t own a watch, she knew she must be quite late.

  Natasha almost sprinted down the street, despite the shoes that were half a size too small and pinched her feet mercilessly. And there, on a bench under a golden-brown chestnut tree basking in timid autumn sunlight, was Mark.

  Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of him. And then it struck her: He’s not wearing civilian clothes today, he’s wearing his uniform. What would people think when they saw her strolling hand in hand with a Hungarian soldier? What if someone she knew recognised her? Would they tell her parents? Would they call her names and spread awful rumours? Would they think she was betraying her country, just like the women she’d seen welcoming the Nazis to Kiev? She shuddered.

  But he was here, waiting for her, and at that moment in time, it was the only thing that mattered.

  He stood up to greet her, and suddenly she didn’t know what to do. Did she hug him? Did she shake his hand? What was the acceptable protocol for a Soviet girl meeting a Hungarian soldier on the streets of occupied Kiev? He was so tall, she couldn’t raise her eyes high enough to see his face. She stared at the buttons of his tunic instead. ‘I’m so sorry I’m late,’ she blurted out. ‘My sister… She wouldn’t let me out of her sight. Have you been waiting long?’

  ‘Not too long. Do you want to walk to Taras Shevchenko Park?’ Natasha happily agreed. She knew there were only a handful of warm days left before winter arrived, bringing with it the icy cold and the gloomy skies. It was a beautiful sunny day and the park was bathed in autumn colours. The ground hid under a thick carpet of leaves, and Natasha enjoyed the soft feeling under her feet.

 
The trenches stood empty, their mocking mouths agape.

  They ambled side by side, not looking at each other. ‘I come here all the time when I’m off duty,’ said Mark. ‘I love the park.’

  Natasha wanted to tell him that she loved the park, too, but then she glanced at the spot where three days ago a German officer shot her grandmother. And she didn’t say anything.

  ‘I’m sorry about your grandmother,’ said Mark, as if he could read her mind. ‘Is she feeling any better?’

  ‘Not better. Not worse. Just… the same.’

  They walked in silence past the trenches, past the chestnuts clad in shades of red and brown, past the gigantic Taras Shevchenko monument, whose bronze eyes seemed to follow them in motionless curiosity. When they were level with the monument, Natasha took Mark’s hand. But then a Soviet couple strolled by, and the woman narrowed her disdainful eyes at Natasha. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself,’ she exclaimed. And Natasha let go of Mark’s hand. To hide how much the confrontation had upset her, she bent down and picked up a leaf of a particularly bright tint of gold.

  ‘Don’t worry about her,’ said Mark.

  ‘I’m not worried.’

  ‘She’s only saying that because she’s scared and upset. And who can blame her?’ When Natasha didn’t reply, he added, ‘Taras Shevchenko is my mother’s favourite poet. “And with my heart I rush forth to a dark tiny orchard – to Ukraine.”’ He recited the famous poem in Ukrainian with his eyes closed, as if in his thoughts he was far from Ukraine, from the occupied Kiev and from Natasha, in a small Hungarian village called Vacratot.

  ‘I know this one. We learnt it at school.’ Natasha was quiet for a moment, trying to remember. ‘“I think a thought, I ponder it, and it’s as though my heart is resting.”’ When she looked up, she saw he was staring at her with such intensity, she blushed and let go of the leaf she was still holding. In silence she watched as it hovered for a fraction of a second in the breeze, before slowly drifting downwards. ‘Your mother speaks Ukrainian?’ she asked at last.