Tin Sky

by Ben Pastor

  As God willed, they reached the house of Nitichenko’s mother. In front of the little single-floored building, a whitewashed shatka with blue shutters and a pitched straw roof, sheets hung out to dry flapped hard in the breeze. The priest wasn’t in but the ancient woman was, a servile little person who’d lived under the tsars until middle age. She bowed in front of Bora and went as far as addressing him as barin, Master, and Your High Nobility. On the other hand, the only words the Platonov women said were yes and no, listlessly. Even Avrora had tumbled back into silence. They’d only taken along a small canvas bag between them for the trip, and walked the few windy steps between the vehicle and the priest’s door holding their skirts close to their bodies. Selina limped slightly, but did not lean on her daughter’s arm.

  From now on, theoretically it ought to be all downhill for the day. Bora drove the short distance to the Kombinat, where he was to sign the receipt for the babushkas supplied by District Commissioner Stark. A queue of military men and civilians blocked the entrance to the building, and he only cut his waiting time by pulling rank. Inside, stacks of medical supplies marked with their Kharkov hospital destinations cluttered the hallway. Disinfectants, remedies against pinworms and lice, rolls of flypaper. Geko Stark sat at his desk, going over a document. He noticed Bora through the double doors, but didn’t invite him to enter immediately. “Just a moment, Major,” he said, and went on reading, spectacles across his forehead.

  The few minutes’ delay, spent staring at the chandelier’s etched-glass bulbs, actually gave Bora a chance to double-check his composure.

  “Sorry to have kept you waiting,” Stark was soon telling him. “Please come in.” And then, as if mistaking the reason for the officer’s presence here, he added half-seriously, “If you lack running water where you are, Major, I can’t help you much.”

  Bora had already said, “What do you mean?” before recalling that Stark had seen him dunk his head in the pail earlier that morning. It seemed like another world, another life since then. He surprised himself by thinking that even the erotic dream about his wife belonged to that world, not this one. For an impractical second Bora longed to be away from here, from his duty, from the war: to be in any world but this. At Stalingrad he’d nearly succeeded in escaping reality by imagining other things and other places; he’d kept sane by believing himself elsewhere, while countless others lost their reason and lives around him. He finally acknowledged the commissioner’s comment. “It’s just that I get a fever occasionally, and need to cool off.”

  “Interesting method. The letter Standartenführer Schallenberg left for you hasn’t yet arrived from Kiev, so you must be here for the babushkas. Do they satisfy?”

  “I haven’t seen them yet. I sent my orderly.”

  “They’re supposed to be a hardy lot. Sign here, and in case they don’t pan out, let me know and I’ll get you five more.”

  Bora read and signed a paper similar to those that certified receipt of animals or materiel.

  “Please sign this copy as well. A fever, you said? You do look under the weather.” Stark’s observation called for excuses Bora would rather not make, but once again chance gave him a reprieve. The telephone rang, and the district commissioner (“Yes. Good. Only if you confirm. Yes. Good.”) was tensely paying attention to the call for a moment. Headquarters communication, Bora knew, had a way of sucking one’s attention in. The interval, at any rate, allowed him to appear and sound indifferent a moment later when he said, “Thank you for the concern, Herr Gebietskommissar. I’m quite well.”

  Stark looked at him as though his mind were still on the phone call. But he must have been thinking of something else entirely, because he said, “Wait,” and stood up. He removed the belt and pistol holster all ranks habitually wore, and slipped it into a right-hand drawer. “Are you in a hurry to leave? If you aren’t, there’s something I’d like your opinion about.”

  It was hardly appropriate to say he needed to stop by Hospital 169 to make sure Platonov’s body had been moved there and to ask for it to be left in presentable shape for the family. Bora was non-committal; still, he didn’t actually say no.

  “It’ll only take a minute, Major. Follow me outside.”

  Behind the main house, a vast gravelled area separated the living quarters from the old factory. Ravaged by war, its walls had been picked clean of rubble and stood orderly and clean, the carcass of an unknown sea mammal. Other service buildings, however, storerooms and garages, were still in use. Russian forced labourers hauled sacks and bags down from army trucks; at the officers’ coming they stood at attention where they were and bowed their heads. “Keep going,” Stark barked at them in Russian. “No one told you to stop.” To Bora, “I’d like to think we’re here to civilize this crowd, but it’s more like herding cattle, believe me. The goad and the stick are all they ever understand; I know from my old managerial days at Derutra. This way, please.” He led Bora to a brick building that must once have housed tractors. “The first time we met I think you understood I know horses. I’m aware you’re looking to supply your regiment with worthwhile mounts, and wish you the best at this point. But if there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s to see the right horse go to the wrong rider.”

  “The wrong rider? I beg your pardon!”

  “No, no,” Stark hastened to add. “Sorry, I didn’t mean you or yours. Why, Major, I followed your exploits as a horseman before the war. As a former newspaperman and sports enthusiast, I was disappointed that you gave up on the Olympics on account of volunteering for Spain, although as a German patriot I approved.”

  “Some things are more important than others, District Commissioner.”

  “Aren’t they, though? Take a look inside.”

  Bora knew there was something exceptional in the building even before registering the soft stamping sound on the dirt floor. In a makeshift stall built against the long side of the large empty room stood a narrow-bodied, high-shouldered horse, chestnut in colour, with slender, strong legs and small hoofs, a concentrated image of lightness, power and speed.

  “A Karabakh?”

  “A Karabakh entire, Major, fresh from the farm. Caucasian, Armenian, Tajiki in equal measure, not for the faint-hearted. A beauty meant for a Marshal of the Soviet Union: they don’t come finer than this. Four years old, name’s Turian-Chai, beautifully broken and ready to go. What do you think?”

  Bora took a knowledgeable look at the horse’s small, sculptured head, tranquil and intelligent. “I heard the purebreds nearly went extinct some forty years ago, but he’s larger than the mixed race from the Don. He’s spectacular: croup and legs of a runner.”

  “Right you are: at the old Volkovoy farm near Taranovka they timed him at one kilometre per minute. I’d bet money he’s one of Alyetmez’s descendants, of the Tsar’s stud farm. Three of our general-rank officers have got pre-emption rights on him.”

  “I can see why.” Bora wouldn’t step over the threshold. He didn’t want to come close enough to appreciate the stallion fully and be tempted to long for it. The horse had noticed him, though, and widened its nostrils, sniffing calmly.

  Stark straddled the entrance with a horse-lover’s grin on his face. He had pink, compact, smooth skin; it made Bora think of the marzipan cakes they made in Lubeck. “In full daylight he shines like spun gold,” he bragged. “I rather think SS-Brigadeführer Reger-Saint Pierre will claim him, but there’s always a chance he won’t. The other two don’t know a gelding from a mare.”

  “It might not make a difference to him.” Bora nodded halfheartedly toward the horse.

  “Does to me. I feel strongly about it. So strongly that if the Brigadeführer turns him down, if the other two aren’t up to it (they aren’t) and I can’t find a worthy rider, I’d sooner make stew out of him. Don’t look at me that way; I’ve done it once before with a Turcoman colt.” Stark spoke looking at the horse and not at Bora, as though Bora were no more than an accessory to his plans. “So, Major. Are you interested? Yes or
no?”

  Bora, who even in Stalingrad would have starved to death before feeding on horseflesh, had to keep his exhilaration in check. “Day or night, let me know immediately if he becomes available, Herr Gebietskommissar.”

  “Please understand I’m not doing you a favour; it’s the horse I’m doing a favour to. If Reger-Saint Pierre says no, I’ve already made up my mind that it’s you or the cooking pot. Enough said.” Without waiting for Bora to walk back with him, Stark waved curtly and hastened toward the Kombinat. “Kindly be on your way; I’ve got a string of people waiting to talk to me before I can get a bite to eat.”

  Driving north to Kharkov and Hospital 169, Bora tried desperately to hide his feelings to make room for reflection. Out of sight went – or were supposed to go – dejection and residual anger at losing Platonov and a certain embarrassed shame at the way Selina Nikolayevna had tearfully watched him drive away from the priest’s doorstep. Given its remoteness, even the possibility of salvaging a fine horse from the butcher made him anxious rather than full of hope, and had to be dismissed. He needed all the clarity he could summon in preparation for reporting the Soviet general’s death to the Kiev Branch Office that evening.

  Some time in the past couple of hours, his wristwatch had stopped. Bora had forgotten to wind it the night before, and now he didn’t know what time it was exactly, save that it must be well past 11.30 a.m., if not close to noon. The hands on the face read 10.06, the time he’d left the station with the Platonov women. He had eaten nothing in twenty-four hours, but didn’t have the ghost of an appetite. Worse, the tightness in his stomach wouldn’t let up. Waiting for a freight train to grind slowly along the tracks from the Donbas, a constant headache, annoyed him more than usual. Why am I rushing? The old bastard is dead. I’m in a hurry for the sake of being in a hurry only because it gives me the illusion of achievement.

  A gale still carried shreds of harmless clouds across the sunny sky; but it was dying out closer to the ground, and it was warm. Once past the tracks, Bora found the boulevard leading to Kvitki Park and the Lopany Bridge blocked by a slow-moving convoy of army trucks, under the escort of armoured cars and anti-aircraft guns mounted on Opel three-tonners. He impatiently decided to go around the obstacle by taking the north–south route two streets down. It meant he would cross Mykolaivska near the special detention centre: not the place he’d like to see at the moment. But he preferred moving to lagging behind, so he cut across the district he’d come to know well, marked by mounds of rubble cleared from the pavement, some of it already overgrown, other fresh heaps replacing the houses that had once existed there.

  It was a regular grid of streets. Up came Svitlanivska, Olexandrivska. He’d begun to cross Mykolaivska, ready to go one more block to see if he’d overtaken the convoy. Catching a glimpse of military police vehicles across the pavement, right in front of the detention centre, somehow chilled him to the bone. The scene in itself was neutral, but normally the vehicles were not in sight; a Feldgendarmerie officer standing near a staff car belonged there even less. Bora’s mind stopped racing for a numb second; a swallow darting between buildings caught his attention and he was lost after its agile sweep for that moment, as if any object, any occupation were preferable to what he might discover next.

  The military police officer (a mature captain, rather agitated) told him, “It happened just after 09.00 hours, but I’d barely arrived here myself. We didn’t know where to reach you, Major – the men did their best.”

  Bora had a commanding officer’s antipathy for the expression “one’s best”, but he couldn’t find the will to voice a critique, or anything else. Followed by the captain, he rushed inside.

  Shots had been fired in the building; Bora smelt gunpowder before seeing the evidence. Behind a closed door, Mina barked ferociously: she had obviously been locked up to keep her from being felled or running away. The sergeant in charge stood at the foot of the stairs, whiter in the face than the wall behind him. “It was a raid, Herr Major, a regular raid. Headhunters, outranking us. They blocked both ends of the street. We thought they were after hidden Jews or locals, but instead they burst in. They fired into the lock when we wouldn’t turn in the key without signed orders just because they were asking for it. They broke his door down and forced him out, kicking and throwing punches —”

  Headhunters were SS police. Bora heard himself shouting, as if someone else in his place were furious, as if he didn’t know in any case that the SS had authorization to proceed. “Without signed orders? Do you mean they barged in without accountability to anyone? Who led them? What unit did they belong to?”

  “They wore Adolf Hitler cuffs, under an Untersturmführer. There was a staff car waiting below, which they pushed him into at gunpoint, and then they were gone.”

  Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, the 1st SS Panzer Division. Trying to find out more and collect himself at the same time was a challenge. “Where to, Sergeant? Out of town, into town? Did you follow them?”

  The military police captain intervened. “They’d have had to shoot their way through the road blocks, Major. One of the men just told me he raced to the attic, and from there he saw the car take a left on Beleshivska. That’s all.”

  An exasperated Bora ran up to the fourth floor, where Khan’s door had been smashed by rifle butts and the room showed evidence of a struggle. He was reasonably controlled when he came back down moments later. “Sergeant, what did the licence plate read? SS, Wehrmacht?”

  “It was an Opel Kadett with a civilian plate, Herr Major.”

  An Opel Kadett with a civilian plate. Bora already had an idea. He ordered the captain not to leave the premises until his return, and sped in the direction the car had reportedly taken. From Beleshivska Street one could, in theory, reach every location in downtown Kharkov, but once across the tracks he continued down Osnovinska, and travelled northwards the length of Seminary Boulevard to the great prison at the crossroads. He made no attempt to seek access there, and instead parked in the narrow side street by the boundary wall. On foot, he rounded the corner so that he could take a look at the vehicles parked along the sidewalk by the entrance of what had been the dreaded Soviet jail. Bora knew his Amt VI-Ausland Security Service Foreign Intelligence counterpart in Kharkov by sight, and had made it his business to know his licence plate as well. If his Opel was there, it more than suggested that he’d led the raid.

  The Opel sat parked across the street. Striving to keep calm, Bora walked past it. It was useless touching the hood to check for residual warmth from the motor; the day was sunny, and enough time had passed since Tibyetsky had been taken. Given the time of day, however…

  On the same side of the street and down a bit from the prison, on Kubitsky Alley, there was a small eatery where surviving cooks and waiters from the Krasnaya and Moskva hotels now served German officers. It had been a restaurant connected to the nearby central rail station. Spartan, best known for its use as a temporary army morgue after the first battle for Kharkov: its pea-green walls and linoleum floor hadn’t changed since. Bora went straight there, looked into the anteroom, and when a faded waitress approached to show him to a seat, he strode past her to reach a table where a young man in civilian clothes sat eating half a roast chicken.

  The man (more or less Bora’s age, very fair, with the sloping forehead of a badger) raised his eyes and continued to slice the meat on his plate. Bora did not salute, did not take a seat; he stood there less than five seconds before saying, “He defected to us; he is under Army guardianship.” His voice did not rise above conversation level; nothing in his appearance betrayed the rage he felt.

  The plain-clothes Gestapo officer finished chewing the morsel he had in his mouth. His hands, delicate and fastidiously manicured, had buffed fingernails. When the serrated knife he held went through the chicken breast, clear juice oozed from the tender meat. “He was under Abwehr guardianship, Major. We heard out Brigadier General Tibyetsky and are fully aware of his requests. But he can just as well wait f
or your Zossen superior while in our care.”

  “It’s unheard of. I demand to see him.”

  “No. He’s not yours.”

  “He’s not yours.”

  “Cool your heels. You’re not the only interrogator on the face of Russia, you know.”

  Those sitting at the other tables were connected with the prison one way or another; at the opposite end of the room, three Leibstandarte tank corps officers sipped beer and kept an eye in their direction. Bora only glanced at them. “Tibyetsky won’t eat or drink anything but his own provisions.”

  “Then he’ll starve. We’re not in the habit of treating Bolsheviks like nursery brats. Take your huff now and get out, Major Bora.”

  “It doesn’t end here.”

  “It does.”

  In his mind’s eye, a well-placed kick overturned the table and sent chicken and plate flying. Outwardly, Bora turned on his heel without apparent haste and left.

  Letting things settle, however, was the last thing he intended to do. He reached his vehicle and hightailed across town to the old Tschuguyev road, and, with just enough gasoline to get there, on to the Tractor Factory district and Jochen Scherer. After refuelling he headed south, mostly cutting across the open fields and at risk of driving over a mine, to Borovoye, where Lattmann walked with him to a safe distance from the radio shack to hear the news, and poured out a flood of obscenities as commentary.

  “How the fuck did they find out we had Tibyetsky? All communication was encrypted!”

  “They must have tapped our lines, know our new codes. Are we certain about our personnel?

  “I vouch for mine here, Martin, and that’s all.”

  “What about Kiev?”