The Story of Us

by Lana Kortchik

  ‘If you believe that, then you don’t know me at all. Isn’t it obvious? What if he had his way with you and left you in the Soviet Union while he returned home to his family? To his safe, happy Hungarian life.’

  If Natasha had the strength, she would have slapped her sister. But she didn’t have the strength. She didn’t know what to believe, didn’t know what was true and what was false. She wished she could trust her sister’s words. But trusting Lisa was like treading through the deepest swamp in the dark of night. At any step, at any moment, when you least expected it, the treacherous earth could swallow you up. ‘You are a liar,’ she cried.

  ‘I’m not the liar. You are. You built your whole life on lies. How many times did you grit your teeth and lie to your family? To me, to Mama and Papa? To Grandmother on her deathbed? Because of you and your half-truths, Alexei is dead.’

  Natasha recoiled from Lisa as if she’d been slapped.

  Lisa continued, her voice cracking, ‘You were lying to me from day one, protecting the person responsible for the murder in the park. Protecting Mark. What, you thought I didn’t know? I heard you, Natasha! You were bragging about it to Mama and Nikolai, like it was something to be proud of. Like Alexei didn’t matter. You could have saved his life but chose not to. You did what you had to do, and then you refused to go to the park with me to see his dead body. I tried to forgive you, Natasha. I tried to understand and go on as before. But it was impossible. Remember what you said to me on New Year’s Eve? Too much between us is broken.’

  There was so much to say, and yet, no words left. The room was too small for the two of them. There wasn’t enough oxygen for the heartbreak, the exasperation. All the bridges were in flames, all the ships.

  ‘You’d better be careful,’ said Lisa. ‘Don’t leave your babies alone for a minute. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to them.’

  Natasha stood up, her legs shaking. ‘What are you saying?’

  Lisa smirked. ‘I saw something terrible today. A young girl, your age, hid some butter she bought at the market in her baby’s clothes. A German officer searched her, then searched the baby, found the butter and got so angry, he threw the child on the ground. The little boy, three months old, just like your Costa, didn’t even make a sound. He died instantly. When the mother attacked the officer, he shot her.’

  ‘Is that a warning or a threat?’ Natasha felt her whole body shake. The lioness inside her stirred. The room swayed in front of her as if she was on a hot air balloon. Her fear was blinding her. She could no longer look at Lisa. Too many of her own feelings were mirrored in her sister’s humourless smile. ‘Lisa, I want you to leave. I want you to never come back here again. If you come near my babies, you won’t have to wait till Germany. I’ll kill you myself, here, in our house, in front of our family.’

  She held her babies close, facing the wall and not turning around until she heard the bedroom door close. Lisa shut it quietly, careful not to slam, but to Natasha it still sounded as if a high explosive went off in the room. She stared at the door for a long time, rocking Constantine and Larisa’s twisting bodies.

  *

  It was dark and all the noises subsided. There were no cars zooming past, no trams screeching their way through Podol, no intoxicated shouts. Natasha lay very still, measuring her heavy heartbeat on her babies’ tiny ones. Relaxed in her arms, they seemed so blissful, so serene. She felt herself drifting off. She was happiest at such moments, halfway between sleep and wakefulness, when she was as tranquil as the two little human beings beside her. She blinked and forced her eyes open, willing sleep away. To hold them close, to feel their small bodies heave with every breath, to know that they were all hers, what happiness. She didn’t want to miss anything, not a smile, not a breath, not for a second.

  She didn’t hear her mother come in but she felt the bed move and could sense her perched next to her. She stretched her left arm and touched her mother’s face.

  ‘Long day at the library?’ The sleepiness, the drowsiness, the tranquillity were gone. She sat up.

  ‘Not too long. Tiring. We moved all the remaining furniture today. There are tables to sit at again and chairs, aisles of them. Just like before.’ They spoke in hushed voices, not to disturb the twins. ‘Guess who came to help me with the furniture today?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your sister.’

  ‘I don’t have a sister.’

  Mother shifted on the bed, and Larisa babbled in her sleep. Natasha could almost feel her mother’s upset eyes watching her in the dark. ‘Don’t ever say that. Of course you have a sister. One who was very helpful today.’

  ‘Lisa volunteered to do actual work? I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘Don’t be flippant. It was just me at the library. I needed help.’

  ‘What happened to Katerina?’

  Mother shrugged. ‘She’s gone. Her grandson died and now her daughter.’

  ‘Her daughter? Didn’t she just come back from Germany?’

  ‘Yes, just in time to see her son buried. She came back with pneumonia but died of a broken heart.’

  Natasha didn’t reply. She couldn’t. Placing her hand on Costa’s chest, she counted seconds by the thumps of his rhythmic heart.

  ‘Now you understand? You see what mobilisation to Germany does to people? To families?’

  Natasha stared into darkness. She didn’t want to see, didn’t want to understand.

  ‘Lisa needs your help,’ said Mother.

  ‘She betrayed me, Mama. If she needs help, she’ll have to look elsewhere.’

  ‘She’s still family. You love her still. Don’t do something now you might regret later.’

  ‘That’s why I’m doing nothing. And I don’t love her, I hate her. It’s the opposite of love.’

  ‘The opposite of love is not hate. It’s indifference.’

  ‘Love is a funny thing, Mama. Even when you think it’s unconditional, it rarely is.’

  ‘It is when you’re a parent.’

  ‘Mama, no. I won’t help Lisa.’ Natasha hid her head under her pillow, shutting her mother out, shutting the world out, longing for the serenity of only ten minutes ago.

  It was quiet but for the cars outside, but for her mother’s screaming stare.

  ‘Mama, she destroyed me. If she killed me with her own two hands, if she suffocated me with a pillow while I was sleeping, it would have been more humane.’

  Mother’s voice was hoarse. It sounded out of place, as if it couldn’t possibly belong to the frail person on the bed. ‘I know what she did was wrong…’

  ‘Wrong? Is that what it was?’

  ‘I haven’t forgiven her yet, either.’

  ‘Really? Then why do you always take her side?’

  ‘Natasha, I’m begging you. You don’t have to forget, you don’t even have to forgive. Just be the good-hearted person you are.’

  ‘She ruined my life, Mama. My life, the life of someone I love and the lives of two innocent babies who don’t have a father. Because of her.’

  ‘Why can’t you be the bigger person? Why nurture all this hatred inside you? In Germany she will die. Your sister will die.’

  ‘My sister…’ Something was wrong with her. She couldn’t speak. She breathed in, out, counted down from ten to one. ‘She’ll be getting what she deserves.’

  Mother sat up in bed. Her long piano-playing fingers toyed with the blanket, the tea tray, the sleeves of her jumper. When she spoke, her voice was no longer trembling. ‘I didn’t sleep at all last night. All I could think of was you and Lisa. When you were babies like Costa and Larisa, when you were five, when you were ten. Always fighting but making up every time. Memories are all I have.’

  ‘You have your grandchildren. Your children. Me, Nikolai…’ Natasha couldn’t say Lisa’s name.

  ‘You know what Lisa said when Nikolai was born and we brought him home from the hospital, all wrapped up and only his pink face visible?’

  Natasha wasn’t sure she w
anted to know. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said, I hope it’s a girl. We don’t need another boy.’

  ‘That sounds like her.’

  ‘And when we unwrapped him and she found out that he was indeed a boy, she sighed and said, never mind, I already have a sister. Someone who can be my friend for life.’

  That didn’t sound like Lisa at all, thought Natasha.

  ‘Even at four, she knew that being sisters was forever.’

  Natasha dug her nails into the soft skin of her forearm. It didn’t hurt enough. ‘What a shame she forgot it at eighteen.’

  ‘What if your Papa comes back tomorrow only to find Lisa gone? What will you tell him if he asks what happened to his youngest daughter? Will you look him in the eye and say, I had the power to save her and didn’t?’ Mother’s eyes were two empty tea cups, staring, weeping, blinking. ‘Please, Natasha. I already said goodbye to Stanislav. Don’t make me say goodbye to another child.’

  Natasha’s resolve weakened faced with the sight of her mother’s heartbreak, with the thought of her father’s heartbreak. She didn’t have the strength to break her parents’ hearts.

  Mother continued, ‘You’re a mother now. You know that loving your children is like breathing. You never stop, not until you die. If your children are in danger, no matter what mistakes they’ve made, you’d give your life for theirs. You’d move heaven and earth to save them. And that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to move heaven and earth to save my child.’

  Natasha could feel heaven and earth move.

  The loudspeaker briefly came to life outside their icy window, breaking the eerie silence with a festive tune. ‘O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum!’ Natasha put her hands over her ears, her breathing heavy. She thought of her sister, who read War and Peace with Natasha, even though she had no interest in Tolstoy. Who played chess with her, even though chess gave her a headache. Who spent time with Olga, whom she was jealous of, just to be closer to her sister.

  ‘If you help her, you never have to see her or talk to her again. But please, save your only sister’s life. It won’t cost you anything. It’s just words from you,’ begged Mother.

  Wasn’t it just words from Lisa when she went to the Gestapo and shattered her only sister’s life? Natasha wanted to ask. She didn’t. There was no fight left in her. ‘If I help her, if I let her take Larisa and register her as her own, I won’t be doing it for my sister. I’ll be doing it for your daughter, for my father’s daughter. I’ll only be doing it because of you, Mama. I want Lisa to know that. I want her to know that the day she knocked on the Gestapo’s door was the day she lost me as her sister forever.’

  Mother’s fingers were no longer fidgeting. She was very still and only her lips moved in the dark. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, barely audible. It wasn’t a whisper, it was a sigh.

  *

  Natasha asked Nikolai to look after the twins. She didn’t have to ask twice. His eyes lit up at the thought of having them all to himself. Before she left, she begged him not to fall asleep, not to let the children out of his sight, to watch them as carefully as she watched them. Over and over she instructed until he had enough and said, ‘If I was old like Grandfather, you could worry. When was the last time I fell asleep in the middle of the day?’ Natasha kissed first her little daughter and then her son, her heart pumping trepidation through her blood.

  She met her mother outside the library, and together they walked six blocks to the building where Lisa had been staying. It was the first time Natasha had stepped outside after having her babies. Despite her mother’s supplications, despite lectures about fresh air and sunshine, Natasha had never taken them out of the apartment. It was too cold, she would say. When we have a warm day, I’ll take them for a walk. But they had many warm days in November, many more than last year, and yet she refused to leave the apartment. Maybe when the first snow comes, I will take them outside, she would say. But the snow fell, melted and fell again, finally settling, and still she wouldn’t go. Adamantly she remained in her bedroom day after day, week after week, hiding behind Grandfather’s stooped frame, behind Mother’s fragile shoulders, behind Nikolai’s perpetual optimism and Yuri’s quiet devotion. And now, as she made her slow way through the snow, a terrible image haunted her. It was the image of a young mother, screaming as her baby was wrestled away from her, as he was dashed on the frozen ground, mute, petrified and unable to cry, while crowds of curious onlookers watched in silence and did nothing to stop it.

  The icy air was like daggers on her skin. She inhaled like a prisoner released after a long confinement. The autumn with its golden leaves and subtle sunlight was long gone. The leaves were on the ground, covered with snow. It was piled up high, blocking the roads, obstructing the doors, making it hard to walk. It wasn’t the white, virginal snow that Natasha loved. It was slush and mud under her feet.

  The harsh northern wind was doing all in its power to knock Natasha and her mother off their feet. It was strong enough to bend trees but sounded pitiful, like a wounded animal. It threw dry leaves and wet snow in their faces. Natasha and her mother clung to each other, stepping gingerly on treacherous ice, struggling not to lose their balance.

  Lisa lived on the fifth floor of a drab Soviet building that had been damaged by a bomb at the start of the war. The first thing they noticed, even before they glimpsed the insides of the apartment, was the stench. ‘What is that smell?’ muttered Natasha. It smelt like unwashed bodies and cigarette smoke. ‘Are you sure this is the right place?’ She couldn’t imagine her tidy and fastidious sister living somewhere like this.

  Mother nodded and knocked. A second later, the door opened. The smell intensified. Natasha took a step back. A long-haired, sullen-faced youth stood in the doorway, his gaze unfocused. He was short and his shoulders were hunched, which made him look even shorter, almost like a child. A child with the eyes of an old man.

  ‘We’re looking for Lisa,’ said Mother. ‘Lisa Smirnova.’

  The youth waved in a vague direction and walked off on unsteady legs.

  ‘So she is here,’ said Natasha. There was such relief on Mother’s face, Natasha turned around and kissed her. ‘Don’t worry, Mama. We’ll find her.’

  ‘I bet they are in no hurry to send him to Germany. Did you see the state of him?’ whispered Mother, pointing at the young man.

  ‘Not so loud, Mama,’ whispered Natasha.

  They followed the youth inside. There were four teenagers in the room, two of them sleeping, one of them their acquaintance from the corridor, none of them Lisa.

  They approached a girl with greasy blonde hair and inquired about Lisa.

  ‘Lisa Smirnova? Are you her mother? You look just like her. But older,’ said the girl.

  Mother nodded. ‘I am her mother.’

  ‘And I’m her sister,’ said Natasha.

  ‘Her sister! I didn’t realise she had one.’

  ‘So where is she?’ Mother stretched her neck out, trying to spot Lisa.

  The girl gazed from Mother to Natasha, as if she had something to tell them but didn’t know where to begin. ‘You mean you haven’t heard yet? You don’t know?’ Her eyes glistened.

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘They came for her last night. She’s been sent to Germany.’

  Natasha felt her mother’s body soften, as if her legs had lost the ability to support her the instant the words left the girl’s lips. Natasha held Mother up with all the strength she had. She didn’t have much. She led her to a chair.

  ‘She’s halfway across Europe by now,’ added the girl.

  ‘Were you a friend of hers?’ asked Natasha, holding Mother’s limp hand in hers.

  ‘We were friendly. She used to tell me things.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  The girl’s thin, bony shoulders shrugged. ‘Personal things.’

  ‘But she never told you she had a sister?’ Another shrug from the girl. ‘Did she leave a message for us? Say anything befor
e she left? Maybe a note?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said the girl and, sensing Natasha’s disappointment, added, ‘It all happened very quickly.’

  ‘Why didn’t they take you? Why are you still here?’ asked Mother.

  ‘I’m married to him.’ The girl pointed towards the youth with stooped shoulders. Natasha widened her eyes. The two of them were the least likely couple she had ever seen. The girl added, ‘They aren’t taking married people. Not yet.’

  Natasha guided her crying mother through the snow, through the ice. Slowly, silently they walked. Natasha turned away from her mother and towards the alien streets, the passing German uniforms, white flags with black swastikas.

  A day! They had missed her by a day. Natasha wished she could turn back the clock, wished she could scream to her past self to see through her pride and her heartache to the sister she had once loved so much. Had she listened to her mother, Lisa would have been safe now. She wouldn’t be weighing on Natasha’s conscience, the way so many other things weighed on her conscience. For eighteen years, Lisa had been Natasha’s confidant and her dearest friend. So close in age, they were like twins, their lives and souls intertwined. Did this dark shadow of suspicion the war had cast between them outweigh a happy childhood of shared confidences and adventures, of shared everything? One thing Natasha knew for certain. Germany would break Lisa’s spirit. It would destroy her, physically and emotionally.

  *

  On the last day of December, Natasha took her two babies and walked to the registry office, where she got her passport stamped with their names. She couldn’t put it off any longer. Larisa and Costa wriggled and chuckled in her arms at the sight of the sun, at the feel of snow on their beaming faces.

  Just like the year before, they didn’t celebrate New Year’s Eve. ‘Next year,’ said Yuri. ‘Next year we’ll celebrate. Smolensk is about to break the blockade.’