About the Author
Lana Kortchik grew up in two opposite corners of the Soviet Union – a snow-white Siberian town and the golden-domed Ukrainian capital. At the age of sixteen, she moved to Australia with her mother. Lana and her family live on the Central Coast of New South Wales, where it never snows and is always summer-warm. She loves books, martial arts, the ocean and Napoleonic history. Her short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, and she was the winner of the Historical Novel Society Autumn 2012 Short Fiction competition. In 2020 she became a USA Today bestseller with her debut historical novel, Sisters of War.
Also by Lana Kortchik
Sisters of War
Daughters of the Resistance
LANA KORTCHIK
HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2021
Copyright © Lana Kortchik
Lana Kortchik asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
E-book Edition © April 2021 ISBN: 9780008364885
Version: 2021-03-10
Table of Contents
Cover
About the Author
Also by Lana Kortchik
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
January 1943
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
February 1943
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
March 1943
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
April 1943
Chapter 13
May 1943
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
June 1943
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
August 1943
Chapter 21
October 1943
Chapter 22
November 1943
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Extract
Acknowledgements
Dear Reader …
Keep Reading …
About the Publisher
For my wonderful grandmother, whose memories of war, German occupation and partisan battalions inspired this book.
‘As the sun sets and hills grow dark,
as the birdsong ends and fields fall silent,
as the people laugh and take their rest,
I watch.
My heart hurries
to the twilit gardens of Ukraine.’
Taras Shevchenko
January 1943
Chapter 1
A hundred kilometres from occupied Kiev, lost in the snowdrifts and evergreen pines, a freight train crawled through the Ukrainian countryside, carrying Lisa Smirnova to a certain death. As she huddled in the corner, feet numb and hands trembling, she could feel other bodies pressing into her with every motion of the train, enveloping her in a putrid cloud of sweat, urine and worse. Her face damp with tears, she thought of her family, who would never know what had happened to her. She thought of her life before the war, of sunshine and happiness, gone without a trace. But most of all, she thought of a small sandwich she had left on the kitchen table of her communal apartment that morning. She had prepared the sandwich lovingly out of some stale bread and a smear of butter she’d managed to find at the market. Having forgotten what butter looked, smelt and tasted like after a year and a half of occupation, she had been more than happy to part with the silver bracelet her father had given to her for her eighteenth birthday just to hold the tiny white ball in her hands. To Lisa, it was more than dinner for one night. The butter was a sign. God had sent this miracle her way to tell her she no longer had anything to fear.
But, of course, there was plenty to fear and now the sandwich remained in the kitchen in plain sight of her neighbours. How long before someone noticed it and claimed it for their own? Not that it mattered, because Lisa wasn’t coming back. As she stared into darkness that was alive with sound – groans, sobs and occasional laughter – she berated herself for being so short-sighted. She should have devoured the butter right there, at the market, instead of taking it home and trying to pretend she was a regular girl living a regular life in a place that hadn’t been twisted and torn by Hitler’s Army Group South. At the very least, she should have hidden the sandwich in her pocket when she heard the hated Nazis knocking on the door of the apartment she shared with five other people, young and afraid, just like herself. Had she done that, she wouldn’t be so mind-numbingly hungry right now. Everything looked different on a full stomach. Maybe if she’d eaten the sandwich, the future wouldn’t appear so grim to Lisa.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, she repeated to herself to the chug-chug-chug of the train as it carried her away from home, from everything and everyone she loved; the streets of her childhood; the happy memories; her parents, brothers and sister.
Lisa had always thought she was meant for great things. Ever since she was a little girl, her father had told her she was his little princess, and she believed him. He told her she could do anything she wanted, be anything she wanted. And she believed him. And then, on the 22nd of June 1941, the day Hitler bombed Kiev for the first time, everything had changed.
War was the last thing she’d expected as she was finishing school and preparing for university and the rest of her life. In a matter of weeks, her grandmother, her best friend and her fiancé had been killed by the Nazis. Her beloved papa was gone, lost in a prison camp somewhere. And here she was, on a train of death, too scared to even think about what the rest of her life would look like.
Lisa closed her eyes, wishing she was as far away from here as possible. In her old bedroom, perhaps, eating an ice cream and reading a book. Not a serious book her older sister preferred, like War and Peace or The Count of Monte-Cristo, but a romance, light-hearted and hopeful, or her favourite poems by Pushkin and Lermontov that never failed to make her heart soar because there was hope and anguish and love in every line, in every word. She wished she was on the bank of the mighty Dnieper, swimming with her sister and brothers, splashing in the water with the careless abandon of a childhood barely gone.
The train had no windows and she couldn’t see the places they were passing, couldn’t see her old life as it faded away, perhaps forever. All she could do was imagine the majestic woods as they gave way to villages, burnt out and abandoned, the town squares and people haggling for food. Exhausted, she wanted to sit down but there was no space, with
people packed like wood into the narrow carriage. Instead, she was forced to stand in the dark, shivering in her threadbare coat and old woolly hat. What wouldn’t she give to feel warm! With the train moving and the wind howling outside, the icy air seeped through every nook and cranny, and the cold was almost as fierce as the hunger.
Snippets of conversations reached her. ‘They killed them all, shot them right in front of me … A tough winter for the Germans … Bloodbath at Stalingrad.’ Lisa squeezed her fists tight and put them over her ears but she could still hear. There was no relief. There was no sleep, either. Even when she managed to doze off standing up, the voices slithered their way into her nightmares.
Finally, some light. Someone lit a kerosene lamp. Now she could see the bodies closing in on her, like an inferno. She could see a bucket by the wall, a foul smell emanating from it. In the far corner of the carriage was a bit of hay where a young woman was sleeping soundly, covered by a thin blanket. Pushing people out of the way and giving the bucket a wide berth, Lisa made her way to the girl.
‘Hey, can you hear me?’ She shook her and the girl cried out, opening her eyes, her face white from fear. ‘Move over, let other people get some rest. My feet are killing me.’
The girl muttered something and rolled over. It was clear she was determined to go back to sleep. But Lisa was determined not to let her. She shoved the girl again, harder.
‘What’s your problem?’ the girl cried, no longer looking afraid but angry. ‘What do you want from me?’
‘You’ve been sleeping since we got on the train. Others are tired too. I’ve been standing for three hours.’
‘Leave her alone,’ someone shouted.
‘Just want things to be fair, that’s all. It’s selfish of her to have all this space to herself.’ She turned to the girl. ‘If you move a little, I could sit down too. Please!’
The girl’s expression softened and she shuffled into the corner with a sigh. In the dim light Lisa saw her face. It was covered in bruises. When she moved, she did so with great difficulty, as if every little bit of her hurt. ‘Be my guest,’ she said. Even her voice sounded bruised, hoarse and defeated. The girl was small and chubby, though maybe a few years older than Lisa. With her blonde hair and large freckles on the bridge of her nose, she looked as if she’d spent too much time in the sun. Lisa wondered where she’d found sun in the middle of Ukrainian winter when it perpetually rained, or snowed, or both.
The girl stared at Lisa, who was now sitting next to her. Then she turned away, reached inside her string bag and pulled out a small piece of dry bread, breaking it in half and handing the bigger piece to Lisa. ‘Want some?’
Eagerly, Lisa nodded, feeling a warmth spread through her, trying not to show how much the gesture touched her and how desperate she was for something to eat, even if it was the German bread that was hard like brick and crumbled under her fingertips, leaving a bitter aftertaste in her mouth. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, shoving the bread in her mouth. ‘I haven’t eaten since yesterday.’
‘You are welcome.’
‘What happened to you, anyway?’ asked Lisa through a mouthful of bread, appraising the girl and her blue and purple face and her bandaged leg.
‘What happened to all of us, I suppose. The war happened.’
‘They beat you? Why?’
‘Let’s just say, I wasn’t too enthusiastic about their all-expenses-paid holiday to Germany. Don’t worry, it looks worse than it is. I’m Masha, by the way.’
‘I’m Lisa.’
‘How much longer, do you think?’
‘On the train? Days. Germany is a long way away,’ Lisa replied dejectedly. She couldn’t imagine continuing like this for another minute, let alone days of crouching on the cold floor, of smelling the unwashed bodies, of the wheels thumping, taking her away from home towards her own personal hell.
‘Do you speak any German?’ asked Masha, appraising Lisa in turn.
‘A little bit. Enough to get by.’
‘That’s good. If they know you can speak their language, you might get a better job. I hope I get to work for a nice family. You know what happens to those who end up in factories or labour camps.’
Over the last few months in Kiev, Lisa had done her best not to hear the terrible rumours that reached her about the Eastern workers. As she sat on the floor of a moving train next to her new friend, still hungry after the bread she had eaten, her back sore, her feet aching, she imagined operating machinery at a factory all day, without ever seeing the blue skies. She imagined scrubbing someone’s toilet, washing their sheets and ironing their clothes. From dawn to dusk, day after miserable day. It didn’t bear thinking about. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever make it back to Kiev alive,’ she said, closing her eyes wearily.
‘I guess you’re a glass-half-empty type of person,’ replied Masha. ‘I try to see positives in every situation.’
‘What’s so positive about going to Germany as slave labour?’
‘At least they haven’t killed us.’
‘Yet,’ muttered Lisa.
The train came to a sudden stop. It didn’t slow down gradually but the brakes screeched and the clunky machine halted abruptly, as if hitting an invisible wall. Masha fell on Lisa, who was propelled to the floor, hitting the legs of a small boy who was napping while standing up with his head on his mother’s hip. Lisa cried out in pain, rubbing her sore ankle. ‘What’s happening?’ she exclaimed.
With no windows they had no way to see out of the cramped carriage. Lisa could hear a dog barking and angry German voices.
‘We must be at one of the villages,’ said an old woman wrapped in a woolly kerchief. ‘Finally, they will feed us and we can stretch our legs.’
‘Hell will freeze over before they feed us,’ grumbled an old man with bandages on his face.
‘They want us to work for them. We can’t work if we are hungry.’
‘The Nazis have ways to force you, hungry or not.’
The old woman said something in reply. Lisa saw her lips move but her voice was lost in a gunshot. Something exploded nearby, followed by machine-gun fire and many more gunshots. Lisa crawled into a corner, trying to make herself smaller, less conspicuous. With her hands over her eyes, she prayed. Dear God, please help me! I will never be bad again. I will never wear my sister’s shoes without asking. I will never tell lies. I will never be selfish or greedy or unkind. Lisa had never been inside a church before but, as she hugged her knees in fear, shuddering at every rifle shot and every explosion, she prayed as if her life depended on it.
Suddenly, all was quiet again, as if they had imagined the chaos of only moments ago. An expectant silence fell over the train. Two men tried to force the metal doors open but it was no use. They were locked in like animals inside their dirty, smelly cage. ‘Anyone there? What’s going on?’ they shouted, knocking loudly. Lisa wished they would stay quiet. She imagined the door opening slowly to reveal German machine guns pointed at them. She imagined the bullets raining down on the people gathered inside the carriage, with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
After five minutes of waiting for something to happen, Lisa was ready to faint. But a realisation made her open her eyes with hope. The voices she heard now were not German. Even though she couldn’t make out the words, Lisa could swear the people outside were speaking Russian.
Somewhere, a horse neighed. Lisa thought she was imagining it. Footsteps resounded through the narrow corridor that led to the compartment where two hundred people were huddled together in fear. Lisa rose to her feet and stretched her neck.
‘Can you see anything?’ demanded Masha, her eyes frantic.
Lisa shook her head. There were too many people in front of her. She stepped from foot to foot impatiently and bit her lip.
The metal door slid open with a screech and two men appeared, wearing uniforms Lisa hadn’t seen since before the occupation. The colour had faded and the threads were coming apart in places but there was no mistaking it –
they were Red Army uniforms. The taller of the two had two golden stars on his epaulettes. He had a commanding presence about him, and Lisa found that she couldn’t take her eyes off him. She wasn’t the only one. The man might have been wearing a threadbare uniform that was falling apart but he carried himself like a general. At his feet was a dog, a black wolf-like creature the size of a small bear. The other man was shorter, his eyes shifty, as if he was uncomfortable being the centre of attention. He seemed to fade into the background next to his taller, more imposing companion, who saluted the expectant crowd and said, ‘Comrades! This train is not going any further. You can all return home. Outside you will find trucks that will take you back to Kiev.’
The train that had been silent but a moment ago erupted. Everyone had a question for the two men. What happened? We heard gunshots outside. Is it safe to come out? Will we be transferred to a different train? You mean, we are free to go? What about the guards?
Trembling with anxiety, Lisa stood on tiptoes to see the taller man’s face.
‘You don’t have to worry about the guards. And yes, you are free to go,’ he replied.
‘Who are you?’ asked a man with a broken arm and tears of relief in his eyes.
‘We are the partisans.’
Lisa had heard of the partisans, a group of selfless warriors hiding in the woods and fighting till the last breath to rid the Soviet Union of the greatest evil it had ever encountered, even as the government and the army had given up. Her fist on her chest, she watched the two men. All around her, people scrambled to their feet. They didn’t wait to be asked twice but collected their meagre belongings and rushed towards the exit.
‘Did you hear that, Miss Negativity? We are free to go,’ Masha said to Lisa, leaning on her arm. The girls hobbled slowly towards the exit. Lisa jumped off the train, breathing a momentary sigh of relief, and helped Masha down. After the near-darkness of the carriage, the whiteness of the snow and the brightness of the pale winter sun blinded her. After the stench and the staleness, the fresh air made her light-headed and a little dizzy. There wasn’t a building or a man-made structure in sight. Nothing at all but snow-capped pine trees as far as the eye could see, stretching their branches towards the sky as if in prayer. In between the pine trees, a narrow unpaved road weaved its way away from the train tracks. She could see a dozen trucks parked on top of the hill and hundreds of people trickling from every carriage of the train of doom that now stood motionless and defeated in the middle of the forest. On the snow nearby, Lisa could see lifeless bodies in German uniforms. She shuddered and looked away.
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