‘I need to talk to you.’
‘What’s there to say? You made your feelings clear.’ His voice was cold but his eyes didn’t leave her face, as if he was trying to commit it to memory like a poem.
‘I’m sorry for all the terrible things I said. I didn’t mean any of them. I was upset—’ She fell quiet, suddenly overwhelmed and light-headed at the sight of him.
‘It’s alright. I deserved them.’
‘I shouldn’t have said… It’s not my place to tell you…’
‘Don’t worry. I understand.’
‘You do?’
‘Of course.’ He spoke to her as if she was a stranger. And who could blame him? ‘What are you doing here?’ he repeated.
‘I need your help. We’re in trouble, Mark.’ He waited for her to continue. She took a deep breath and said, ‘Here I am, asking for your help after all the things I said. I’ll understand if you want nothing to do with me.’
His face softened. ‘I’ll be happy to help. Just tell me what you need.’
‘My best friend Olga is Jewish,’ she blurted out, looking around first to make sure no one was around.
‘Ah,’ he said quietly. And in his eyes she saw the reflection of her own fear.
‘What are the Nazis going to do to them?’
‘I don’t know their exact plans. But I know Hitler swore to rid Europe of all the Jewish people. He’s talking of exterminating them wherever he goes.’
‘Exterminating them?’ she whispered in horror. ‘But why?’
He didn’t reply. She suspected he didn’t have the answer.
‘Can you help Olga, Mark? Take her away somewhere, hide her and her mother from the Nazis? If you do this, you will save their lives. I’ll be forever grateful to you.’ She felt tears running down her face and turned away from him, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
He pressed her hand reassuringly and smiled warmly. ‘I’ll do my best.’
*
Natasha practically flew up the four flights of stairs leading to Olga’s apartment, falling and hurting her leg. Ignoring the sharp pain in her left knee, she hopped up the remaining steps and knocked on the Kolenovs’ door, her face red with exertion, with fear. There was no answer, and for one dreadful minute she thought she was too late. Her hands trembled as she knocked and knocked, calling Olga’s name. When Olga’s mother finally opened the door, Natasha was so relieved, she was ready to kiss her.
‘Good timing,’ said Olga’s mother, smiling at Natasha. ‘We’re just about to leave.’
‘Please, don’t go, Oksana Nikolaevna. It’s too dangerous.’
Oksana didn’t reply but motioned Natasha in, closing the door behind her. Olga appeared in the corridor. Her hair was tied in a ponytail, her dress looked new, and not her usual grey but bright red. There was lipstick on her lips. ‘Good, you’re here. You can walk us there.’
Their bags were packed. They were ready. Natasha hesitated. To convince them to stay, she had to tell Olga’s mother about Mark. To save their lives, she had to trust them with hers. She watched Olga, her best friend in the whole world, whom she had known since kindergarten and had never been apart from for longer than two weeks. Olga’s face was grey from fear. The shadows under her eyes gave her a ghostly appearance. Natasha was prepared to reveal her secret if it meant her friend could live. It was worth it.
‘Oksana Nikolaevna, I know a Hungarian soldier who can help. His name is Mark. He saved my life, and now he can save yours.’ She fell quiet for a moment, her hands trembling.
‘What makes you think our lives are in danger?’ asked Oksana. ‘Why would they kill us? We haven’t done anything wrong. They need people to work in their factories, that’s all. We’ll have jobs and places to live. We’ll have food.’
‘Mark told me Hitler swore to exterminate all the Jewish people in Europe. I don’t think you’ll be transported to Germany. They are going to kill you. Grandfather thinks so too. You shouldn’t go.’
Oksana’s face darkened. ‘What choice do we have, child? The first Nazi patrol that checks our papers is going to take us away.’
Natasha lowered her voice, speaking very fast. ‘Mark and I have a plan. As soon as it gets dark, he’ll take you away from Kiev. He’ll be waiting for us at seven with a car.’
‘I’m too old to hide, child,’ said Oksana, shaking her head.
‘I would rather hide than walk straight into a Nazi trap, Mama,’ cried Olga, looking out the window at the procession of people moving towards the cemetery. Natasha followed her gaze. Most people dragged so many boxes and sheets filled with clothes behind them, they were bending under the weight. One woman brought a gramophone. One man held a Russian samovar. Natasha hoped Mark and her grandfather were wrong, and that wherever these people were going, they would need a gramophone and a samovar. Unfortunately, she couldn’t remember a single occasion when her grandfather had been wrong.
A crowd of spectators gathered, and some people followed the procession, eyeing it with curiosity. It was quiet in the room, and through the open window Natasha could hear the voices outside. A large, dishevelled-looking man shouted, ‘Where are you going, people? They are going to shoot you.’
An old woman replied, her voice trembling, ‘Shoot us? Look at us. Why would they waste their bullets?’ Men had been drafted into the army, and it was mostly women, children and old people marching to their unknown destiny.
Someone cried, ‘What are we going to do? What’s going to happen to us?’
And another voice replied, ‘I told you we shouldn’t go. You old fool, you never listen.’
Everywhere Natasha looked, she saw grief, tears and terror.
Olga said, ‘What if these people are right? What if they are going to kill us? Mama, I just turned nineteen. I don’t want to die.’She blinked, her eyes glistening. ‘Whenever I thought about my future, I always assumed I had many long years ahead of me. I’ve never been anywhere, never done anything. There’s so much I want to do. So much to see.’
‘Let Mark help you,’ Natasha pleaded, pulling Oksana by the sleeve.
‘Disobey the official order?’ exclaimed Oksana. ‘Punishment for that is death.’
‘You can trust Mark. He will save you.’
‘And he’s prepared to risk his life for us?’
‘He’s prepared to help.’
‘This could be our only chance, Mama,’ said Olga. Uncertainly Oksana nodded. Olga turned to Natasha. ‘Tell Mark we’ll be waiting for you both at seven.’
Relieved, Natasha hugged her friend close and whispered, ‘Thank God. I don’t know what I would do if I lost you, too.’
*
At home, Natasha sat next to her grandfather, watching the clock, wondering what Mark was doing, wondering what Olga and her mother were doing. A German officer barged in and demanded to see their passports. After he left, Grandfather said, ‘They’re searching for Jewish people. It’s the second inspection today.’
‘What will they do to them?’ Natasha whispered. Grandfather didn’t reply.
In the afternoon, a dishevelled Zina, who had been staying with a neighbour, knocked on the door. ‘You are not going to believe it,’ she said, her eyes wide. ‘My cousin lives not far from Babi Yar. They’ve been hearing gunshots all day. The Nazis are killing all those poor people. No one is leaving there alive, no one at all.’ She trembled, her earlier hope for a better life nothing but a distant memory.
Something exploded inside Natasha when she heard Zina’s story. She slid into her grandmother’s rocking chair, her legs no longer able to support her. Hugging her stomach, she rocked back and forth. Zina is mistaken, she repeated to herself. Her cousin is mistaken. He didn’t see anything. What Zina had just told them was impossible. No human society was capable of such pointless, unwarranted destruction. It was just a rumour, nothing else. Zina loved to gossip. It was in her nature to exaggerate.
Rumour or not, the condemned kept walking. The doomed procession was a terrifying sight. Poor los
t souls ambled past Natasha’s window, heads bent, eyes dull, feet dragging, with Nazi guns pointed at them. As she watched the horrific human river trickle towards Babi Yar – the human river that, far from diminishing, had grown to almost twice its original size – her every bone, her every vein was chilled.
‘Animals! What are you going to do to them?’ screamed Mother at the Nazis, who were having breakfast in the living room. Kurt wasn’t among them, or Natasha would have asked him what was happening. To Natasha’s surprise, the soldiers ignored them. Was it her imagination, or were the Germans themselves more subdued, as if shocked by what was happening? When Natasha met them in the corridor, they didn’t raise their eyes to her.
‘Poor Kiev. Our poor people. What cursed times we live in. What black times,’ repeated Grandfather, weeping softly.
‘Beasts!’ Mother wriggled her arms. ‘Can you believe that some Soviet women are sleeping with them? I see them all the time. Walking hand in hand, selling their souls and bodies for a piece of bread. What a disgrace!’
Natasha’s tea cup trembled and fell. Blinking fast, Natasha stared at the brown blotches, at the shreds of glass on the kitchen floor. What would her mother say if she knew about Mark? Would she turn away from her? Would her whole family turn away from her? Natasha didn’t care. She closed her eyes and thanked God for Mark, who had saved her life and was now about to save her best friend from a horror she couldn’t even begin to fathom, an evil the likes of which she couldn’t imagine.
*
As Natasha waited for Mark to pick her up in his truck, she noticed a few corpses neatly laid out on the corner of Tarasovskaya and Zhilyanskaya. She turned away, not wanting to see. She was becoming accustomed to the sight of death on the streets of Kiev. Death had become so commonplace that it no longer scared her. What it did was leave her cold inside, frozen and empty and confused, as if the first snowflakes were settling in her stomach and not on lifeless streets.
Once again, just like they did before the German occupation, loudspeakers had come alive with music and speeches. The only difference was that they were now broadcasting in German. Kiev had become a German city living on German time, an hour behind the Soviet Union.
Natasha wished she had a clock, so she would know what time it was. Every time she saw the headlights of a car approaching, she prayed it was him.
Finally, a truck pulled up and she saw Mark in the driver’s seat. She ran to him as fast as her legs would carry her, and when she got in, she asked, ‘Are we running late? They’ll wonder where we are.’
‘We are right on time.’
They set off. Faster-faster-faster, she repeated to herself, watching the familiar streets zooming past. But Mark was already driving as fast as he could without attracting the attention of a Nazi patrol.
Other than to ask for directions, he didn’t say a word to her. Natasha wasn’t used to his silence. She shuffled uncomfortably in her seat. ‘Are you alright? You seem…’ She searched for the right word. ‘Tired.’
‘One of my friends at the regiment, Greg, was shot today.’ She could see his hands gripping the wheel tightly. ‘He was sent to Babi Yar to supervise…’ His voice broke. Taking a deep breath, he continued, ‘He tried to help a young girl escape. Her grandmother and parents were killed in front of her. She was hysterical. He hid her in his truck but they were caught.’
Her heart pounding in terror in her chest, she reached for his face, touched his unshaven cheek. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she muttered. ‘Do you hear me, Mark? I’m so sorry.’
‘Greg was shot as a traitor for helping a child. And I need to write to his mother. I need to write to the woman who’s already lost her husband in this war and tell her what happened to her son. How will I find the right words?’
‘Tell her the truth. Tell her that her son died a hero.’
‘I wish I could. But our letters are monitored.’
Natasha looked into his tormented face. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she repeated.
He didn’t reply, his eyes on the road.
When they turned onto Olga’s street, she asked, ‘Where will you take them?’
‘East. They’ll be safe in unoccupied territories.’
‘How can I ever thank you?’
‘No thanks necessary.’
When they finally arrived, Natasha looked up at her friend’s windows. They were dark like every other window in the building. Natasha imagined Olga and her mother in a rush of last-minute preparations, glancing at the clock, waiting for the knock on the door.
In silence they walked up the stairs. The door opened before they even reached Olga’s apartment. Natasha expected to see her friend, but it was Olga’s grandfather Mikhail who met them. Natasha hadn’t seen him for a few weeks, and he looked older by years, stooped and grey in the light of Mark’s torch.
‘Are they ready?’ asked Natasha after she greeted Mikhail and introduced Mark. She looked past Mikhail into the dark corridor. It was deserted. ‘It’s past seven. We need to hurry.’
Mikhail didn’t reply at first. His eyes were swimming in tears. Natasha knew instantly something was wrong. ‘Where are they?’ she whispered, her voice that of a stranger, hoarse and breaking.
‘They came for them twenty minutes ago. The patrol. They took them away. I couldn’t stop them.’ The old man broke down in sobs in front of them. ‘I couldn’t stop them,’ he repeated over and over again.
Natasha, who was sobbing herself, held Mikhail in her arms as if he was a baby, stroking his back and telling him that his daughter and granddaughter were going to be just fine, that they would be sent to Germany for work, that they would be fed and clothed and safe. Another lie she wanted so desperately to believe.
*
When they were outside, Mark said, ‘I’m so sorry about your friend.’ His face was anguished.
Natasha couldn’t reply without breaking down. She clasped her fists, trying to stave off the pain, to delay it, to not let it anywhere near her. Blindly she followed Mark, barely knowing where they were going. He was taking her to the river, she realised. When they reached the snow-capped parapet, he put his arms around her. It felt so good, to be touching him again, to be touched by him. In a tiny voice she said, ‘We missed them by twenty minutes.’ And whimpered like a wounded animal in his arms.
He kissed her lips, kissed the tears off her face. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he repeated. ‘Do you hear me? I’m so sorry.’
Natasha felt something exploding inside her, in grief, in heartbreak. She hid her face in his uniformed shoulder.
Mark said, his gaze on her face, ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said to me. Remember you told me there’s always a choice? Well, I’m ready to make mine. Faced with the horror of it all, I can’t continue to do nothing. I can’t continue to turn a blind eye and pretend I am not responsible…’ He fell quiet.
‘It’s not your fault. You’re not responsible for what’s happening at Babi Yar.’
‘I keep telling myself that but…’ A German truck drove past. A German plane floated by, the noise of its engine reverberating long after it was gone. ‘Many Hungarian soldiers are deserting. The Ukrainians encourage us to do so all the time. They offer us clothes and places to hide. That’s all I can think about. If I deserted, I could look at myself in the mirror. I could live with a clear conscience.’
‘Yes, but for how long? What happens to the deserters who are caught? What happens to Hungarian soldiers who turn their back on Hitler?’
Mark shrugged. ‘One of the soldiers from our regiment was found in a cellar on the other side of Kiev. He was shot.’
‘You can’t risk your life like that. You can do more good if you stay alive. In your own small way, you can help people. Like you helped me and my babushka. Like you tried to help Olga.’ She trembled. ‘First Alexei, then Babushka, and now Olga,’ she said. ‘Please, don’t do anything reckless. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.’
‘Your babushka?’
She nodded.
He pulled her closer, whispering how sorry he was.
‘Is there any chance Olga could be alright? Any chance at all, Mark?’
She needed him to lie, so she could hope. But he shook his head and said, ‘Oh Natasha.’
His face looked grim in the dusk. She wanted to touch him, wanted the comfort of his lips on hers. ‘Once, when we were twelve, Olga and I had an argument. Over something silly, I don’t even remember what. We didn’t speak for a whole week. It was the only time we ever fought but, Mark, it was the longest week of my life.’
His arms around her hunched shoulders, his face in her hair. For a long time they were quiet. At last, he said, ‘I love you, Natasha.’
She thought she misheard, thought she imagined the words she had longed to hear. ‘What? What did you say?’
‘You heard me. I said…’ His lips were a mere millimetre away from her ear. ‘I love you.’
‘You do?’ She hid her face in his tunic.
‘I do’. He smiled expectantly, as if waiting for something.
She knew what he was waiting for. And she wanted to say it back. She had imagined saying it a thousand times through anxious days and sleepless nights. But now that she was actually facing him, she couldn’t do it. So much fear in her heart, so much doubt, and yet he was right. What she felt for him, what he felt for her, it was the only thing that was right.
‘Come on, say it,’ he murmured. ‘Natasha, I’ve never felt this way before.’
The snow had stopped, the sky a clear blue once more. She raised her eyes to him. ‘I love you, too,’ she whispered. Saying it made her heart a little lighter. She repeated, ‘I love you, Mark.’
Chapter 7 – The New Beginnings
October 1941
The first snow fell in Kiev, and its virginal quilt covered everything in sight. It hid the ground and the leafless trees, the withered grass and the empty trenches. But it couldn’t hide the skeletons of burnt-out buildings. And it couldn’t hide the procession of people walking to their deaths down Kreshchatyk, past Natasha, past their old lives, and past the city that they had called home.
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