The Girl from Junchow

by Kate Furnivall

  “Why didn’t you stop him, Alexei?”

  That’s all she asked. Before he could reply she was off and running, leaping with gazelle legs across the road and plunging back into the forest from which she’d appeared. How could she see in there?

  Why didn’t you stop him?

  Why?

  Because a father should choose his son. Not the other way around. Alexei had been standing there, waiting for his father to choose him, but Jens didn’t. Failed even to recognize him. That shouldn’t matter, but it did. For a long moment Alexei gazed one final time at the dead bodies, muttered a childhood prayer over them, then climbed into the NAMI-1 and started the engine. As a last thought he returned to the nearest corpse, a very young and very blond soldier who looked quietly asleep except for the hole in his chest, and lifted him up into the passenger seat. Then he climbed back into the driver’s seat and steered a path through the trees around the fallen pine. Once back on the road he headed north, toward the brick wall and the monster behind it.

  “GET OUT OF THE CAR!”

  The order was shouted at full volume. The sentry at the gate was jumpy. Alexei got out of the car.

  “Here, you fool, can’t you see who I am?”

  The sentry observed the elegantly cut uniform of a colonel in front of him and shrank nervously into his own ill-fitting coat.

  “Here.” Alexei thrust Dmitri’s papers under the soldier’s nose. “I am here with a message from Colonel Tursenov himself. But I stumbled on a massacre in the forest. What the hell is going on here? I brought one of the wounded back here for attention, so be quick, open up.”

  The soldier saluted and hoped he would not lose this month’s pay. “Yes, Colonel Malofeyev. Right away, Colonel.”

  He opened the gate.

  CHANG HAD LAID A CARPET OF BRANCHES OVER THE COIL OF razor wire at the base of the wall. The pine sap smelled fresh and tangy and brought the memory of her last Christmas with her mother crashing into Lydia’s head.

  “Why don’t you cut the wire?” she asked in a whisper.

  “It could be alarmed.”

  They were at the back of the compound, where the forest was at its closest and the searchlight beams farther apart. Chang was standing immobile, his eyes half-closed, focusing on the wall. Lydia watched him exhale deeply, drawing together his energy, but she didn’t kiss him good-bye. Or tell him she loved him. That would be to tell his gods she knew he wasn’t coming back, and she wasn’t willing to do that. Popkov clambered noisily on top of the branches, stomping down the wire, and stood with his back to the wall, his hands cupped together in front of him. Lydia was relieved that her Cossack was here, but frightened for him and for the hole in his side that Elena had sewn up.

  “Ready?” he grunted.

  Chang breathed out one last time, and she knew he was about to set off. Her heart was in her throat, but he surprised her by turning his head slowly and taking a long look at her. As if it might be his last.

  “Lydia,” he said softly, “remain here. Let me go to your father knowing you are safe.”

  She moved closer, but only one step. She didn’t touch him. If she touched him she wouldn’t be able to let go.

  “I am always safe with you.”

  “It is too dangerous in there.”

  “I can watch your back.”

  “And who will watch yours?”

  “I am quick. I can—”

  “No, Lydia. Remain here.”

  A wind rattled the pine needles, the chattering of the night spirits, and the darkness weighed heavier than a sheet of steel. Neither spoke, not with words. Lydia swayed toward him, leaned so close she could smell the clean male scent of his sweat mingled with the dank odor of earth on his shoes and pine sap on his clothes. She could hear the tension in his breath.

  “Please, my love,” she whispered, “don’t ask it of me.”

  He touched her hair and she rested her head against his hand. They stood like that for a long moment until Popkov growled again,

  “Ready?”

  Chang focused on the wall once more. “Ready.”

  CHANG AN LO MADE IT LOOK EASY. HE SEEMED TO FLY. HE waited for the searchlight to slide past, and then he took a leap onto Popkov’s cupped hands and up the wall, twisting, curling, landing on his feet like a cat, either side of the strand of vicious razor wire at the top. He uncoiled the rope that was slung over his shoulders and fastened the middle of it to the metal fixing that attached the wire to the wall. One end he tossed down to Popkov, the other he dropped to the ground inside. By the time the searchlight crawled over that stretch of wall again, he was gone and Lydia could breathe.

  She gave the Cossack an affectionate tug on his beard, scrambled up on his shoulders, and grabbed the rope. Hand over hand she hauled herself up, cursing her skirts. Clumsier than Chang, she felt the wire at the top slice a piece from her finger. But once up there, viewing the compound spread out before her in the semidarkness and the looming shape of the hangar so close, she felt an unexpected calm. The fear and the nerves and the trembling fell away. This was it. Her father was here.

  “Lydia.” It came from below. So soft it was barely a word.

  The searchlight was coming. The wind was biting her cheeks. With scarcely a sound she slid down the rope and crouched on the snow-scattered ground beside Chang. He seized her hand and together they ran.

  THE COMMOTION AT THE FRONT OF THE COMPOUND WAS frantic. A roar of vehicles and shouting soldiers, boots pounding the frozen earth, hounds on leashes whining with the scent of blood in their nostrils. They were getting ready to move out into the black forest, but no one expected intruders to be already inside. Chang skimmed along the small hangar that lay in deep shadow at the rear of the much larger one and felt that Lydia would be safe here while he scouted ahead. Safe? No, not safe. But in less danger.

  He whispered in her ear, “Wait,” and pointed to the spot she was standing on.

  She nodded and didn’t argue. She was making it easy for him. He slipped along the length of the small hangar until he reached the side of the massive wooden structure of the main hangar, but here he was exposed. The lights blazed. He crouched low and raced toward a small door near the front of it that stood open. A man was standing outside it, dressed in black, lean and wolfish in the set of his limbs, his back turned to Chang’s approach, the glowing tip of a cigarette hanging from his fingers. He was watching two dog handlers across the yard ordering their animals to leap into the back of a truck, but one dog was more intent on savaging his companion’s hind legs. Chang moved up fast.

  Two meters, that was all that lay between them when the man sensed something and turned. Their eyes met. The man wore spectacles and the lenses magnified his shock, but even so he reacted quickly to the threat. His hand jabbed toward the revolver on his hip, but too late. Chang had launched himself into the air, striking out with a kick that caught the man full in the throat. He clawed at his collar, knees buckling, and before he hit the ground a second kick thudded into his chest, breaking three ribs and stopping his heart.

  The body was heavier than it looked. While the attention of the soldiers was elsewhere, Chang dragged it quickly just inside the open door. He glanced with astonishment at the great silver leviathan floating serenely above him, tethered to a tall metal mast, and rapidly retraced his steps. Lydia was still where he’d left her, but now her ear was pressed tight to the wall of the small hangar, the whites of her eyes huge in the dim light.

  “Listen,” she urged.

  He listened. A dull roar filtered through the timbers.

  “It’s fire,” she warned.

  JENS HADN’T EXPECTED THIS. THIS BURNING PAIN OF REGRET IN his chest. He’d climbed up the long ladder into the gondola that was attached to the underbelly of the airship and immediately just the smell of its raw varnish and its faint odor of loneliness made him hesitate. Up here it was a solitary world. Different things mattered.

  The gondola was set out with mahogany tables bolted to th
e floor along each side, next to the windows. Up front was the pilot’s cabin, but Jens resisted the urge to enter the control cabin one last time. He reminded himself instead of all the military chiefs who would have been sitting at these tables in a couple of days, swilling champagne as they watched first one plane detach itself from under the bow of the airship and then the other from under the stern. The gas canisters packed with their deadly cargo and Surkov camp within spitting distance. Hundreds of fellow prisoners choking to death because of him.

  He unlocked the hatch to the body of the airship itself and pushed it open, pulled down the collapsible steps, and climbed up. The air instantly grew colder. A soft gray twilight rippled through the silver skin from the lamps outside in the hangar, and it felt eerily calm. The interior was huge, cavernous, like being in the belly of a whale, Olga always said, but to him, even though he’d engineered it himself, each time he stepped inside he could not rid himself of the sensation of being a tiny speck, a fly caught in a gigantic spider’s web of fine metal girders. He tipped his head back and gazed above him. It was beautiful, unutterably beautiful. He was proud of it.

  A sudden sound rose from below and set his heart racing. He dragged his mind back to what he was doing and rapidly made his way along the central planking to the nearest of the gas balloons. These were the great moons of hydrogen gas that kept the airship afloat, and it was the work of half a second to thrust a chisel through its pliable skin. He could hear the gas escaping, as angry as a cat’s hiss.

  “Prisoner Friis!”

  Jens spun round. It was one of the Black Widows. Just his head showed above the hatch. “What are you doing up here, Prisoner Friis?”

  “My job, comrade. Until my unfortunate companions join me once more.” Jens pocketed the chisel and walked back to the hatch so that he was looking down on his interrogator’s neat bald patch. Even the man’s spectacles looked irritated. “I’ve been inspecting the fastenings of the gas bags. Nothing must be overlooked for the coming test.”

  The man’s eyes registered suspicion, but there was nothing he could pick on, so he backed down the steps to allow Jens access to the gondola. The moment he was out of sight Jens removed his cigarette lighter from his pocket, flicked its flame into life, and stood it, still alight, on the walkway. He had seconds. No more. He slid down the steps and made straight for the gondola’s door. To his surprise the Black Widow was seated at one of the tables, gazing out the window and smoking a cigarette.

  “Aren’t you coming?” Jens asked quickly.

  “Not for a moment. I like it here, it’s peaceful.”

  Jens didn’t stop to argue. He opened the door and fell, rather than climbed, down the ladder. Before he hit the concrete ground, all hell’s fury exploded around him.

  Fifty-four

  THE ROAR OF FLAMES RIPPED THE DARKNESS apart. A blast of hot air scorched the skin on Lydia’s face and sucked the moisture from her eyeballs, so that it felt as though sand was jammed against her eyelids. She could barely lift them. Then the smell hit, stinging, acrid, suffocating.

  Only a moment before, Chang had started moving toward the open door again, little more than a flicker of shadow along the wall. He was intent on learning what was on fire in the small rear hangar, but when flames erupted twenty meters up into the predawn darkness, Lydia saw him turn abruptly and race back toward her. The explosion had torn a hole the size of a house in the side of the main hangar, and fire engulfed the interior in an orange-and-black inferno. Oh God, Jens is in there. She was certain.

  “No!” she screamed, and, before Chang could reach her, she ran into the burning building.

  The smoke came at her like an enemy in great waves of black, swallowing her. It clogged her lungs and choked her till she couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. She dragged off her coat and wrapped it around her head and shoulders. Showers of burning wood and debris descended on her like shrapnel, but she fought a way through them, her arm up protecting her face. She screamed her father’s name.

  “Jens! Jens!”

  In the smoke and the flames she couldn’t see anybody. It was a nightmare world. Her head felt as though a band of iron were being tightened around it. She was gulping in smoke and there was a hot pain in her chest, and then something hard and heavy struck her back, knocking her to the ground. She couldn’t focus her eyes any more and knew her brain was dying from lack of oxygen. With an effort of will she pushed herself off her knees and screamed.

  “Papa! Papa! Papa!”

  She could hear the sound of her own voice, but her lips felt nothing, unaware of making it, as if disconnected from the rest of her. She stumbled over something, a wooden panel that had collapsed onto the ground in flames, and it set fire to one of her boots. Frantically her gloved hands beat at it and she found herself staggering into a small empty space at the heart of all this chaos, a kind of clearing in a blazing forest. Flames leapt all around her but this small still spot was miraculously free of fire. Across it lay a ladder tangled up with metal girders and a large heavy section of polished wood that was blistering in the heat. Crushed under them lay her father. She saw his white hair. Only his head and one arm were visible and his hand was stretched out, his eyes fixed on her. They were smiling.

  “Lydia.”

  She didn’t hear the sound because of the roar in her ears, but she saw his lips make the word.

  “Papa!”

  She crouched down and clutched his hand. Their fingers entwined for a fleeting moment, the way they had in the snow so many years ago. She whispered, “My dear Papa,” before she pushed herself to her feet, seized the wood, and tried to yank it off his back. Her lack of strength shocked her. Her vision filled with bright stars and she had no idea whether they were the real night sky opening up above or whether they were inside her head. Jens touched her ankle and she knelt down quickly beside his head.

  “Lydia,” he said hoarsely, “get out of here. Now.” He pushed at her, but the gesture was so weak she barely felt it. “Don’t cry,” he murmured. “Just go.”

  She didn’t know she was crying. She kissed his white hair, and it stank of oil and smoke. Blood was oozing from his ear. “Papa,” she gasped, and tucked her leg under the edge of the slab that was crushing him, taking the weight of it. She forced herself to push upright with the other leg. The wood shifted a fraction, enough for Jens to drag out his other arm and attempt to crawl forward on his elbows. But he was caught, his legs pinned.

  “Leave, Lydia.”

  “Not without you.”

  “We’ll both die.”

  In response Lydia seized a fallen piece of timber, heedless of the flames devouring it, and jammed it instead of her leg under the polished slab. Then she bent down, gripped both of Jens’s hands, and pulled with all her strength until her lungs seemed to rip apart inside her. For a moment nothing happened except the fire leapt several paces closer, but suddenly something yielded. There was a loud crack and Jens started to slide forward. He made no sound. But Lydia could see in his green eyes what this was doing to her father, yet she didn’t stop until he was clear of the wood. Relief surged through her until she looked at his legs. Bones were sticking out in all directions through the flesh. Even in the billowing black air she couldn’t miss the white of the severed bones and the red of the blood. One knee-cap had been torn off.

  “Lydia, I beg you to go.” His face was robbed of all color, his lips ash gray. “Don’t let . . . me kill my daughter too.”

  Lydia crouched beside him, bent low, and draped one of his arms over her shoulder. “You did this? This fire?”

  He smiled, and she loved his smile.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  He struggled to release himself from her grip, but she refused to let him go. Instead she half-lifted herself, raising him with her, holding him on her bent back. Still he made no sound as his shattered legs dragged behind him, but he didn’t breathe either. A sudden furious squall of sparks and fiery debris showered on their heads and she felt something b
urning her ear and the back of her neck, but her father knocked whatever it was from her hair. She swayed, her lungs screaming for oxygen, and took one labored step forward. Both of them knew the only way out of this inferno was to run, but she couldn’t run. Not with her father on her back. She took another step.

  “Put me down, Lydia,” he ordered in her ear. “I love you for coming for me. Now put me down.”

  “Alexei came.” Another step. “He stopped the”—three more steps, but each one smaller than the last—“stopped the truck.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re”—she gasped, dragging in smoke—“his father.”

  A wall of flames rose before her. This was it. She had to walk through it. She twisted her head sideways. “Ready?”

  He kissed her cheek. “Lydia, I am not Alexei’s father. Your mother always believed that I was, but she was wrong. He is not my son.”

  CHANG WOULD NOT GIVE UP. HE’D FIND HER. OR DIE. THERE was no middle path. He called her name without ceasing, but the flames swallowed his words. The smoke suffocated life. He could feel it dying in his own lungs, and his fear for Lydia tore his heart into pieces.

  The gods had warned him. They’d sent him the omen, but he had refused to listen to any words but hers. He’d let her come over the wall with him and now he was paying for not heeding the murmur of the gods, for not keeping a balance of desires. He could live—or die—with that, but he could not bear that she should die for it too.

  He called out. He roared her name into the fire and the flames roared back at him, their laughter in every crackle and explosion that they spat in his face. He could see nothing beyond the inferno towering around him whichever direction he turned, and quite suddenly he realized he was looking with the wrong sense. Eyes could lie and confuse and panic. So he closed them. He stood totally still and exhaled the poisons from his lungs.