Danilo turned to the other partisans. ‘Something important has come up. We will continue this meeting tomorrow. I apologise for the interruption.’
Azamat and Danilo walked away, while Matvei was left unsupervised in the meadow. Irina picked up Sonya and went home to wait for Maxim. For the rest of the afternoon, she busied herself with cleaning and playing with her daughter. As the sun traversed the sky and disappeared behind the tallest trees, Irina scrubbed and polished and crawled on her knees and elbows, pretending to be horsey for her little girl.
Soon it was night time and the eerie light of the distant fires played on the walls and made Irina shiver with unexplained dread. All the chores had been done, their dwelling was sparkling clean and Sonya was asleep. Irina sat outside, her sewing untouched in her lap, a kerosene lamp beside her, and stared into the night.
There was no sign of Maxim.
*
As the months passed, Lisa went to a lot of trouble to avoid Alex, who refused to take no for an answer. She even started having her meals inside her hut and coming to work late, when most partisans had left for the day. But despite her best efforts, Alex always managed to find her. He hovered over her in the kitchen, followed her around like a love-sick puppy while she did her chores, offering his help only occasionally, and even asked if he could come inside her hut one day, so they could have some time alone together.
And now, as she leant on a tree with a book in her lap, he sat down next to her, saying, ‘I don’t think we are safe here. Everyone is behaving like the threat doesn’t exist. But the Nazis come here all the time, to collect wood for their hospitals. It’s only a matter of time before they stumble upon us.’
‘I don’t think they are behaving like the threat doesn’t exist. I think they know it exists and are ready for it.’
‘Like they were ready for it back in June? I’m telling you, we need to go deeper into the woods.’
‘You mean, hide?’ she asked with as much disdain as she could muster, even though Alex was only saying aloud what she had often been thinking to herself. The Nazis finding them again was one of her greatest fears. Although five months had passed since the attack, she still had nightmares about it.
‘It’s not hiding, it’s survival. With the Red Army so close, it’s only smart.’
‘The Nazis are more scared of us than we are of them,’ said a voice behind them. ‘Did you see the signs they put up on the roads around Buki?’
Lisa thought she recognised the voice. Turning around, she saw Matvei standing behind her smiling his sickening smile at her and Alex.
‘The signs that read: Careful, strong partisan presence. They avoid these roads because they are afraid.’
Why was Matvei talking to them like he was one of them? And even more perplexing, what was he doing, walking around the settlement unsupervised? Didn’t she just single-handedly bring him back under the muzzle of her rifle after he had tried to escape? She was about to ask these questions when out of the corner of her eye she saw a group of partisans walking slowly across the clearing. She recognised Danilo and Azamat, and in front of them walked a man with his shoulders stooped and his head held low. The sun was setting behind him, tinting the tops of the trees bright orange. Her eyes must have been playing tricks on her because she could swear the man was Maxim, and that there were handcuffs around his wrists.
Lisa rose to her feet to see better but the small group had disappeared behind the trees. Were they taking him to the prison hut that was until recently occupied by Matvei? ‘What is happening?’ she asked no one in particular, unsure what to do. A part of her wanted to run after them and find out everything she could. But she remained rooted to the spot by the sheer impossibility of the scenario she had just witnessed.
‘I believe they found the person responsible for the Nazi attack on the partisan battalions.’
‘What are you talking about, Matvei?’ asked Alex. ‘Maxim is not that person.’
Lisa remained mute.
‘It appears that he is indeed that person.’ Matvei seemed to be enjoying himself tremendously. His eyes twinkled in triumph at Lisa. ‘He is also the one who let me go.’
‘Maxim let you go? Why would he do that?’ asked Lisa, finding her voice.
‘All I know is, they have arrested him for treason and I am now a free man.’
Lisa turned away from Matvei in shock. She felt like Alice in Wonderland, falling down a rabbit hole and finding herself in a world where nothing made sense. Black was white and white was black. There must have been some mistake. The man who had taught her how to shoot, whose blind loyalty and commitment had inspired so many others, who had dedicated his life to fighting the Nazis and whom she had grown to love and respect simply could not do what Matvei was accusing him of.
*
Irina walked as if through a mist, moving her feet on the sandy soil with difficulty. The thunder overhead was deafening. The ear-shattering sound was amplified by the explosions roaring over Kiev and together they sang a ghastly duet, making the earth tremble. The rain was lashing her face and her boots filled with water, yet she didn’t notice any of it.
Earlier that day, Azamat had come to her hut and told her that her husband had been arrested for treason, punishable by death. Something about supplying the Nazis with classified information. She had stopped listening after the word death. Everything went dim, as if someone had turned the daylight off. And now she felt like she was wading through darkness, lost and unable to find her way.
There had been a misunderstanding. Of that she was sure. She repeated it over and over to Azamat, who nodded in agreement, his face grey, looking like he had aged ten years overnight. ‘We’ll get to the bottom of what happened,’ he had said to her. ‘Don’t worry.’
The makeshift prison was nothing but a hut made of straw and clay. A gust of wind could blow it away. Maybe they could escape together, go back to Kiev and hide until the end of the war. Misunderstanding or not, its consequences could be dire.
‘Make this meeting count, Comrade,’ came a voice from under the nearby tree. On the ground, his back resting against a tree trunk and a rifle between his legs, sat Danilo, sneering at her.
‘What?’ she asked, shuddering. ‘What did you say?’
‘Make this meeting count. It could be your last.’
She didn’t reply, not because she didn’t want to but because she couldn’t force the words out through her dry throat. On shaking legs, she walked past the man and into the tiny structure.
A candle was living out its last moments on the floor. In the light of the feeble flame Irina saw Maxim and her heart hurt. His hands were handcuffed, his legs bound. He lay on top of a pile of dirty straw. His eyes were open but he didn’t seem to see her.
‘Oh my God, Maxim! Look at you. How can they treat you like this?’ She was whispering in case the horrible man outside could hear her, her arms around her husband, her lips on his grimy face.
He stirred and sat up straight. ‘It’s fine, Irina. I’m fine.’
‘There’s a sentry outside. They are guarding you like a common criminal. Like you’ve done something wrong.’
‘I have done something wrong.’
‘The man outside … Danilo …’ She spat the name out like it was a curse. ‘He told me to make this meeting count. That it could be our last. Why would he say that?’
‘What do you think they are going to do to me?’
‘What can they possibly do to you? You haven’t done anything wrong.’
Maxim was silent for a long time. Irina could see in his face that he didn’t want to talk about it. She couldn’t blame him. She didn’t want to talk about it, either. All she wanted was to free him from the ropes and the cuffs and whisk him to safety, take him somewhere where they could live their happily ever after without fear.
He looked calm and detached, as if he was a thousand miles away and not in a tiny hut lying on dirty straw. She shook him slightly. ‘I don’t know why they think it wa
s you. Why don’t you tell them they’ve made a mistake?’
‘Because they haven’t made a mistake.’
‘What do you mean? Why would you of all people give the partisans up to the Nazis? It’s preposterous. They must be out of their minds to even suggest it.’
‘They told me they would let my parents go.’
‘They can’t possibly believe …’ She stopped. ‘What?’
In a broken voice he said, ‘After my parents were taken, I lost my mind. I forgot all about caution and went to Kiev to find them. I asked questions, approached the wrong people. Someone must have betrayed me to the Nazis. One day they stopped me on the street and ordered me to follow them.’
‘Oh no.’ Irina shuddered. A realisation chilled her. She was to blame for this too. Because of her best friend, Maxim’s parents had been taken by the Nazis. And now here they were, in a hut with an armed guard outside, Maxim handcuffed and guilty of an unspeakable crime. For a moment she was lost for words.
‘It happened just before you and Sonya came to the battalion,’ he whispered.
*
The round interrogation table was covered with papers. The officer sitting across from Maxim, clean-shaven, blue-eyed and wide-faced, never took his eyes off him. The light coming through the window bounced off the swastika on his armband. The man was small and fidgety. Maxim imagined putting his hands around his neck and pressing hard. Even though one of his hands was handcuffed to the radiator behind him, he could easily reach the Nazi pig with his other and kill him right here, right now.
Kill him and then what? Behind the half-open door, the corridors were teeming with German soldiers. He would never make it out of here alive. And if he did anything reckless, his parents would pay with their lives, or worse.
He could hear heavy boots resounding down the long corridor. The door flew open and his parents appeared, flanked by two German soldiers and a Ukrainian policeman. Maxim couldn’t help it, he gasped at the sight of them. They looked older by years, stooped, grey, their faces gaunt and bruised. Had the Nazis been torturing them? Maxim’s hands trembled and his teeth chattered.
‘Mama, Papa,’ he whispered as they rushed to him. With his one free arm around their withered bodies, he cried like he hadn’t cried since he was a child.
‘Maxim, darling, Maxim, my love, my dear little boy,’ repeated his mother. ‘I can’t believe I’m seeing you again. I can’t believe I lived long enough to see your beautiful face.’
His father placed his hand on Maxim’s shoulder. His eyes narrowed, as if he too couldn’t believe he was seeing him again. ‘What are you doing here, son? How did they find you?’
‘I came here to help you. Don’t worry about anything. I will sort it all out.’
‘Don’t trust a word they say. You can’t help us. We are beyond help,’ said his father, while his mother cried, wrapping her arms around Maxim’s head. ‘You should have stayed away. Forget about us. Why did you walk straight into their trap? It breaks my heart to see you here.’
‘Forget about you? Never.’
‘The only thing that got us through the day was knowing they would never find you,’ said the old man grimly.
In the corner, the policeman whispered something to the officer. ‘That’s enough,’ the officer barked, waving his hand in an imperious gesture. ‘Take them away.’
Helplessly Maxim watched as the two soldiers dragged his parents away. ‘Don’t tell them anything,’ shouted his father through the doorway. ‘Don’t let the bastards win. It’s not worth it.’
The butt of a German rifle came down hard on his elderly father’s head. Maxim rose to his feet and cried out but his voice was lost in an ear-splitting shriek. It was his mother, hands flailing, eyes wild. She screamed and screamed until the soldiers dragged her away.
Frantic, Maxim yanked his handcuffed arm away from the wall with all his might, wrenching the radiator out of its socket. He was like a rampant bull, furious and crazed, raging against his fate, against his parents’ fates. Then something heavy came down on his head and he tasted blood.
As he drifted in and out of consciousness, Maxim knew – no matter what it took, he was going to kill the flat-faced worm sitting in front of him with a sarcastic smirk on his face.
*
With gritted teeth and clenched fists, Maxim said, ‘But I didn’t kill him. Instead, they tortured me. Day after day they did everything they could to break me. And still I refused to tell them anything. Only when they brought my parents back and threatened to shoot them right in front of me, while waving a map in my face, I must have pointed at the location. I can barely remember, I was delirious with pain, hunger and lack of sleep.’ He dropped his head in his hands and his shoulders heaved.
‘I’m so sorry! Do you hear me, Maxim? I’m so sorry!’ murmured Irina, clasping him to her chest, her tears falling on his face. ‘It wasn’t your fault. Anyone would have crumbled under such pressure.’
‘For a split second, I was lost. And I will never forgive myself. I was coming back to talk to Azamat, to tell him our location has been compromised, that we had to move the battalion. But I was too late. The Germans were faster.’
‘The Nazis let you go?’
He nodded. ‘I was supposed to obtain more information for them. The locations of all the other battalions around Ukraine. They were so certain they had me exactly where they wanted me, they let me go.’
‘Wait, but how did Azamat and Danilo know it was you?’
Irina could swear she could hear Danilo’s breathing outside, heavy and threatening. She shivered. Seconds trickled by before Maxim replied, ‘I told them. I would have told them sooner but the thought of you and Sonya stopped me. But I couldn’t let them shoot Matvei for something he didn’t do. And I couldn’t live with myself after what happened. It was killing me. Those people were my friends. Because of me they are dead. I deserve the worst punishment there is.’
Irina sobbed, her face in his shoulder. ‘Why haven’t you told me? You were going through all this by yourself. Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘I didn’t want to burden you.’
Burden her? Was he serious? ‘We are in it together. For better or worse.’
‘I was afraid you would turn away from me. And I couldn’t bear it if you did that.’
‘I would never turn away from you. You and Sonya are my family. Nothing could ever change that. We’ll get through this together. They are not going to kill you. They will banish you, send you away.’ She clasped his hand, her eyes burning.
‘I’m a traitor, Irina. And I’m ready for what’s to come.’
‘But I’m not ready. I can’t live the rest of my life without my husband. Sonya can’t live the rest of her life without her father. Can’t you see what you’ve done to us?’
‘I’m sorry.’ There were tears in Maxim’s eyes.
They sat in silence, not touching, not looking at each other. ‘I don’t believe they’ll go through with it. The partisans are not murderers,’ Irina said.
‘But I am.’
‘They are our friends. You’ve lived with these people for over a year. You’ve known many of them your whole life.’
‘That only makes what I’ve done so much worse.’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No, no. What can we do? There must be something we can do.’
‘There’s nothing we can do but accept the inevitable.’
She remained with him in his little bed made of straw, crying and begging for a solution, for a way out. She knew she had to go back to her hut where a neighbour was watching Sonya but she couldn’t tear herself away from him. What if Danilo was right and this was the last time she was ever going to see him? The night with him was filled with heartbreak but it was a million times preferable to the agony of being in their empty bed without him. While she could still touch him, she had hope.
*
Soft voices reached Lisa from inside the prison hut where Maxim was held captive. She could barely h
ear them as she stood outside, uncertain what to do, whether she should wait or walk inside.
‘Please tell me it’s not true. Tell me there’s been some mistake.’ She recognised Azamat’s voice.
‘I wish I could tell you that, but I can’t.’ It was Maxim, sounding croaky, like he was recovering from a bad cold.
‘We’ll fight it together. We’ll prove you’re innocent. They’ll see they’ve got the wrong man.’
‘They haven’t got the wrong man.’
‘You are like a son to me, Maxim. I’ve known you since you were a boy. We’ve been through hell and back together. I know what you are capable of. And what you are incapable of. Why are you lying? Who are you trying to protect? To betray us to the enemy, to lead them here … That’s impossible.’
‘It is true, nonetheless.’
Lisa shifted from foot to foot, her face flushed. Did Maxim just admit that the accusations were true? Did he just admit to delivering the partisans to the Nazis, condemning them to death? Just like Azamat, she refused to believe it. In a barely audible whisper, Maxim added, ‘They had my parents.’
‘Ah.’
‘If I didn’t do what they wanted, they would have killed them.’
Lisa’s hand flew to her mouth as she listened to Maxim’s story. The cursed Nazis, it was all their doing and one day they would pay. Not only did they rob and kill and burn their country to the ground, but they put honest men before impossible choices. The blood of forty partisans was on their hands. But it was also on Maxim’s hands and she couldn’t comprehend it.
When Azamat spoke, he sounded sad and extremely weary. ‘I know you didn’t mean to give in to them, but you were bargaining with the devil, son.’
‘I know. And I’m sorry, for everything. Every night I close my eyes and all I can see is the faces of the people who died because of me. If only I could turn back time.’
‘Loyalty can be a virtue, or it can be quite the opposite. In your case, your devotion to your parents blinded you. I doubt the Nazis will let them go. They will demand more and more until there is nothing left. And look at you now. There is almost nothing left. Are your parents free? Unfortunately, your immense sacrifice was all for nothing. I want to save you, Maxim, and I’ll try my best. But they are crying for your blood, Danilo especially.’
Daughters of the Resistance Page 27
