He stood up and walked around the table, collecting the plates. Irina jumped to her feet to help him. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you play with Sonya? Just look at those chubby cheeks and that perfect smile. She’ll cheer you up in no time.’
‘Thank you,’ whispered Irina, her hands shaking. ‘Thank you for being so kind.’
Silently she watched Kirill as he rinsed the dishes in a bucket of water and dried them with a cloth. She could imagine Maxim looking just like this when he was older – his hair grey, his shoulders stooped a little but still tall and strong and larger than life. How lucky Zina and Kirill were to have what they had, a lifetime together, long years of joy and sadness, of children and grandchildren, of occasional disagreements and ever-lasting love. What Irina wouldn’t give to have all that with her husband.
Chapter 5
Lisa had barely slept, her empty stomach aching and rumbling through the night. Her first thought when she got out of bed was, breakfast! But Masha had other ideas – she had to check on Anton. Not to appear selfish, Lisa trudged to the hospital with her friend leaning on her arm. The snow had finally stopped and for the first time she could see clearly. Now, she could make out the meadow, the white-capped trees like wedding cake toppers shimmering in the sun, the barely visible dugouts like burrows of giant animals. The wind had quietened down and not a branch moved in the air. So peaceful it was and so serene, it was as if the outside world did not exist. Here in the tranquil woods, Lisa could almost forget that only a dozen kilometres away there were fighting, death and devastation. It was as if there was no war, no Kiev occupied by the enemy, no Soviet Union bathing in a river of blood spilled by Hitler, only unblemished snow as far as the eye could see.
Inside the hospital dugout, they found Anna asleep in a chair and Anton awake and squinting at a book under a small kerosene lamp.
‘You’ll ruin your eyesight,’ said Masha matter-of-factly as she examined his leg. ‘What are you reading?’
He lifted the book. It was Gallic Wars by Caesar. ‘I’m no warrior,’ he said. ‘I’m not even that brave and this, being a partisan, hasn’t been easy for me. So I read about other wars to remind myself others have done it before me.’
‘Does it help?’
‘Sometimes.’
Not looking up from the dressing she was changing, Masha said, ‘You stopped a train headed for Germany. You freed hundreds of people. Thousands more won’t be taken away from their families because the rail tracks have been destroyed – by you. You are not just brave. I think you’re a hero.’
‘Stop that,’ said Anna, opening her eyes and sitting up. ‘Find another partisan to flirt with. This one’s taken.’ She smiled and glanced at Anton with affection.
When Anna heard that the girls were thinking of staying at the battalion, she suggested they should go to see Azamat immediately. ‘Before you change your minds. Or before he leaves for the day.’ Beaming, she added, ‘It will be great to have two girls my age here. You can’t imagine how lonely I’ve been.’
‘What about Anton?’ asked Lisa.
‘What about him? It’s not like I can talk to him about anything important, like clothes or make-up.’ Anna laughed at her own joke, self-consciously straightening her trousers that were a few sizes too big, held together by a rope and sporting holes around the knees.
‘Will you come with us to speak to your papa?’ Lisa asked, suddenly nervous.
‘Sorry, girls. You’re on your own. I couldn’t leave him.’ Anna pointed at Anton, who was ear-deep in his book and didn’t notice. ‘I’m afraid the minute I leave, something bad will happen to him. And I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to him. I’ll just stay here and endure another five hours of discussion about Caesar, God help me.’
The two girls walked across the meadow towards a small dugout known as the headquarters. According to Anna, this was the heart of the battalion, where all the important strategic decisions were made. Lisa could hear her heart pounding. She could swear Masha could hear it too, because she kept asking if Lisa was all right. Yes, Lisa would nod, I’m fine. But it was a lie. The truth was, she was afraid for her life. She was afraid the partisans would realise she wasn’t good enough to be here and put her on the first truck back to the city. And at the same time, she was afraid they would let her stay here, at the heart of the battle for Kiev.
When they approached the headquarters, Lisa hesitated, hiding behind her friend. ‘Come on, scaredy-cat,’ said Masha, pulling on her sleeve. ‘If you can’t face Azamat, how will you fight the Germans?’
‘Who said anything about fighting the Germans?’
‘You want to be a partisan, don’t you?’
If Lisa could turn around and run, she would have. But there was nowhere to run.
Azamat was at his desk, leaning over a map of the area and marking something with a red pencil. He was a general planning his next campaign and here was Lisa, interrupting his important work with her silly request. She took a few shallow breaths, lost for words. Masha was braver. She had every reason to be brave, thought Lisa. She was a nurse. The partisans needed her. Before Azamat had a chance to look up from his map, Masha blurted out, ‘Sorry to bother you. We were wondering if it was all right if we … We would like to stay here, at the battalion.’
He studied them for a moment with a kind smile on his face. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’
The girls perched on a long wooden bench across the desk from Azamat. Lisa avoided looking at him, in case he could read the fear in her eyes.
‘How old are you, girls? You both look like you should be at school.’
‘I’m nineteen,’ said Lisa, fighting an impulse to raise her hand before she spoke, like she was at school.
‘And I’m twenty-one and married. My husband is fighting. I want to do something too.’
‘A partisan battalion is a tough place for young women. For anyone, really,’ Azamat said. ‘Are you sure this is what you want? It won’t be easy.’
‘You think living in occupied Kiev was easy? Or riding on that train? I’m a nurse,’ said Masha. ‘I want to make a difference. From what I’ve seen, you could do with my help.’
‘And from what I’ve heard, you’ve already helped. Anton was lucky to have you here. But I want you to think carefully about your decision. You’ve only been here one day …’
‘Two,’ corrected Masha.
‘Two. I’m sure you’ve noticed that we have no running water, no comforts, no protection from the elements. We are exposed to extreme weather and the enemy, who are desperate to kill us off. And when I say desperate, what I mean is, they will stop at nothing.’
‘It doesn’t bother us,’ said Masha. Lisa remained silent. Everything Azamat was saying bothered her a great deal but she wasn’t about to admit it.
‘It will. Sooner or later it bothers all of us and it’s only natural.’ He took off his glasses and wiped them on his handkerchief, finally replacing them on the tip of his nose. ‘At the start of the war, we had three times as many people here. Many wanted to hide in the woods, stay out of the enemy’s way and wait out the war. They didn’t last in the battalion. Soon they realised we don’t stay hidden for long. Our job is to make the Germans’ lives as difficult as possible. We go out looking for trouble. We take up weapons and fight. That’s what drives us, that’s our purpose.’
‘I have a purpose too – I want to help people,’ said Masha.
‘What about you?’ Azamat turned to Lisa. ‘Why do you want to stay here?’
With the attention now on her, Lisa froze. She wanted this kind man to be impressed with her, just like he was impressed with Masha. She wanted him to praise her, just like he had praised Masha. She racked her brain for something smart to say but all she could think of was, ‘I want to help too. I will learn how to shoot. I will go out with the partisans. I can be brave, I know I can. Please, let me stay. I have nowhere else to go. I’m good at sewing too. I sew all my own clothes. And you could do with so
me new ones.’ She pointed at his uniform that was falling apart and hoped Masha wouldn’t expose her lie, having seen her struggling with a needle as if she had never held one in her hand before. But Masha remained quiet, smiling at her friend.
‘That would be useful indeed, if only we had any fabric. But we don’t. Our shoes are falling apart too. We have a cobbler at the battalion but nothing to make the shoes from. But we could always use some help around here. Can you cook?’
‘Of course,’ said Lisa, who had never cooked and didn’t know how.
‘Come with me,’ said Azamat, putting his map in a metal safe and locking it. Obediently Lisa and Masha followed him in silence as he walked outside and across the meadow, shouting out greetings and waving to the other partisans.
The cafeteria dugout was warm from the bodies crowding the tiny space and from the clay stove burning in the kitchen. ‘I have a helper for you,’ said Azamat to Yulya, who had an apron around her large hips and a knife in her hands. He pushed the reluctant Lisa forward. Something sticky and unpleasant was bubbling in a large pot. The smell was suffocating and Lisa felt like the walls were closing in on her. Once again, she wanted to turn around and run. She loosened her scarf and opened her coat.
‘I don’t need any help,’ grumbled Yulya, shaking the flour off her hands.
‘And yet every mealtime you complain you don’t have enough hands to do everything. Well, here I am, bringing you an extra pair.’
Yulya looked Lisa up and down. She seemed doubtful, as if she could see straight through her and knew she had never set foot in a kitchen before, other than to eat. ‘Can she even cook?’
Lisa frowned. This woman was talking about her as if she wasn’t in the room. ‘I bet I can cook better than you.’
‘We’ll see about that. I don’t have a spare apron. But here is a knife and there are some potatoes that need peeling.’
‘You want me to start now?’
‘You have anything better to do?’
‘I would like to have breakfast first,’ mumbled Lisa, wondering what she had gotten herself into. It was all right for Masha. She was doing what she had always wanted to, while Lisa was stuck with a mountain of potatoes.
‘She would like to have breakfast,’ mimicked Yulya. ‘What would you like? Buttermilk pancakes with some strawberry jam perhaps, or a ham and cheese omelette?’ Lisa perked up but then saw the sarcastic expression on the woman’s face and realised Yulya was making fun of her. ‘I’m afraid you missed breakfast. The porridge is gone. Before you can eat, you have to make your food.’
‘Come on, Yulya, don’t be so hard on the girls. Find them something to eat. You know what Napoleon said. An army marches on its stomach,’ said Azamat, winking at Lisa. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Welcome to the partisan battalion, girls.’
He waved goodbye and walked away, lifting his body through the small opening with difficulty. Lisa wanted to run after him and ask him not to go. She didn’t want to be left alone with grouchy Yulya, who watched her through narrowed eyes and made her nervous. She regretted saying she knew how to cook.
Yulya found two small boiled carrots and the girls chewed them in silence. When the cook was out of earshot, Masha said, ‘She seems nice.’
‘Delightful,’ replied Lisa grimly.
‘It could have been worse. We could be in Germany right now.’
‘Easy for you to say. You don’t have to answer to a cranky witch who looks like she wants to put you in a pot and eat you.’
‘Yes, but did you hear what happened to the nurse before me? She was carrying a wounded partisan from under the enemy fire and got hit. The partisan survived. She didn’t.’
The girls were silent for a while, staring into their plates. ‘Is that what we signed up for? To come under enemy fire? Is that expected of us?’ whispered Lisa, shuddering. ‘Maybe we should do what Anna suggested and ask Maxim to teach us how to shoot.’
‘My job is to save lives. Not end them. I could never shoot anyone.’
‘Not even the Nazis?’
‘The Nazis are people just like everybody else.’
Lisa thought of her grandmother as she lay dying in their kitchen after a German officer shot her. She thought of her father, lost in a Nazi prison camp, and of her fiancé, hanged for a crime he didn’t commit. She thought of her friend Olga and thousands of other Jewish people, walking to their deaths through the streets of Kiev. ‘No, they are not. They are monsters.’
‘Perhaps. But I couldn’t kill one. I have a job to do and I want to get on with that job. God will protect me. I don’t need to know how to shoot.’
Secretly, Lisa was relieved her friend had said no to lessons with Maxim. She could see herself alone in the woods with him, just the two of them, his hand on hers as he steadied her rifle, his face close to her face, and felt a shiver of excitement just thinking about it.
Masha pushed her plate away and got up to her feet. ‘I’d better run. Anton is waiting for me.’
‘I have to get on too. A bag of potatoes is waiting for me.’ Lisa said it with a smile, although inside she felt like crying. But then she thought, The partisans have saved me from a certain death in Germany. The least I can do is peel some potatoes.
Instantly, she felt better.
*
In the meadow skirted by century-old oaks, with a hundred pairs of eyes on her, Lisa took off her kerchief and her hat and, in a trembling voice, swore to protect the people and the motherland, to stay faithful and true, to be brave and relentless in her fight against the oppressors, to be vigilant and guard the battalion against spies and traitors, to carry out her tasks to the best of her ability and to be not afraid of death. As she repeated the oath after Azamat, who stood in front of her, thin and frail but with his head held high, she wondered how one could not be afraid of death. The people in front of her risked their lives every day but had they never been afraid? And if they were afraid, did that make them any less brave?
Masha hadn’t hesitated when she took the oath earlier. She had made it look so easy. And why not? She didn’t have anything to prove. Everyone in the battalion already knew she was a hero.
As Lisa said the words, trying not to think too much about what they truly meant, the image of a young nurse sprang to her mind, selflessly dragging a man twice her size away from the battlefield, inching her way to safety only to get hit herself. Suddenly she found she couldn’t continue and stood mutely with her mouth open. This wasn’t a Young Pioneer camp, where Soviet boys and girls marched to the sound of military bands, learnt how to put up tents and build fire. This was a partisan battalion during the most brutal war the Soviet Union had ever known. It wasn’t pretend; it wasn’t make-believe. It was life and death.
She looked up, about to tell Azamat she couldn’t go through with it. It didn’t bother her that the whole battalion would know she was a coward. She was still so young. There was so much she hadn’t done. She had never even travelled outside of Kiev. She had never been married or had a child. She had never told her sister how sorry she was. What if she never saw her again?
But then she noticed Maxim in the crowd, smiling encouragingly at her. When their eyes met, he nodded with approval. You can do it, he seemed to say from across the clearing, and suddenly there was no one else around but the two of them. Maxim believed in her. More than anything, she wanted to prove him right. She might not care what the others thought but she cared what he thought. She took a deep breath, shut her eyes and finished the oath.
Azamat shook the girls’ hands and said, ‘With great joy we welcome our new sisters into our family. I can see that your hearts are true and you are going to be great assets to the battalion. Our fight is just. God is on our side!’
Hats flew up in the air and the battalion cheered. Despite her misgivings, a warmth spread through Lisa and for the first time in a long time she felt like she belonged, like she was no longer alone.
In the afternoon, Lisa’s excitement melted away a little when she ha
d to go back to the cafeteria and peel more old vegetables, stir the stew on the hot stove and scrub the tables and the floor. Somehow the knife was too blunt to cut potatoes but sharp enough to slice Lisa’s finger until it bled, while the heat from the stove made her head hurt. And Yulya never stopped complaining. Nothing was good enough for her. The stew was too watery, the potatoes too hard, the kitchen counter too dirty.
Grumbling to herself, her finger throbbing, Lisa picked up a bucket and stepped outside to fetch some snow to wash more potatoes. As she bent down, a sharp, cracking noise startled her. She thought she saw movement in the woods behind the cafeteria dugout. Placing her bucket down, she walked a dozen steps to take a better look. Under an evergreen pine tree, bare-chested and red in the face, Maxim was chopping wood. As she watched him raise his arms and bring the axe down on a piece of kindling, Lisa felt short of breath and a little giddy. She couldn’t take her eyes off his back and his bare shoulders.
‘Aren’t you cold?’ she asked, shivering and pulling her coat tighter around herself. ‘I’m cold just looking at you.’
He put his axe down and turned around. ‘I will be if I stop moving. The work keeps me warm.’
His stomach was flat, his arms huge. He looked very strong. Blushing, she glanced away, at the trees above his head, at the blue skies and the pale sun. He watched her expectantly and she desperately searched for something witty to say, a joke or a clever comment. But all she came up with was: ‘Anna told me you are good at shooting.’
He looked like he was struggling not to laugh, like she had just said the most amusing thing. ‘I suppose I am good at shooting.’
‘She mentioned you teach people sometimes.’
‘I do teach people sometimes.’
Lisa reddened. ‘I was wondering …’
‘Do you want me to teach you how to shoot?’
She nodded. ‘That would be wonderful. If it’s not too much trouble, of course. I would really appreciate it.’
‘Of course, it’s no trouble. How are you settling in?’
Daughters of the Resistance Page 9
