Underground

by Antanas Sileika

  “Ignacas?”

  “That’s right.”

  The fat young man with whom Lukas had shared a room in Kaunas had melted away.

  “I thought you’d be in Siberia by now,” said Lukas.

  “I would have been, except Lozorius came for me.”

  Between spoonfuls of soup from the bowl that he refilled twice, Ignacas told them about how he had been in a holding cell at the train station in Pravieniskes when Lozorius led a band of partisans who shot the guards dead and blew out a whole wall to lead twenty men into the night. Lozorius had come for Ignacas in particular, and brought him to this partisan band when there was nowhere else for him to go. His own parents were already in prison. But Ignacas’s joy at freedom was short-lived.

  “Look at me,” said Ignacas. “I’m a shadow of my former self.”

  “You were an elephant when Lozorius brought you to us,” said Lakstingala, “and now you’re a deer. You’re healthier like this.”

  “But I’m cold all the time. I can’t get used to my new shape, the lack of insulation. No matter how much I wrap myself up, I’m still freezing. I wasn’t made for life in the woods.”

  “It’s warmer here than in Siberia,” said Lakstingala.

  “Oh, I’m grateful all right. Don’t get me wrong. The Americans had better hurry up and save us, though. I don’t know how I’ll make it through the winter.”

  Lukas and Vincentas swore their oaths later that day, promising to obey all orders scrupulously, not to desert, and to fight until the Reds had been chased out of the country. The entire band was brought together for the ceremony. One hundred and fifty men and two women stood to attention, saluted them, and then sang the national anthem as if they were living in a free state.

  That night, the various squads prepared for their missions. Two were going out to assassinate a Red activist in the village of Nedzinge, where the priest kept a hidey-hole under the altar, and six others to raid a government dairy for butter and cheese. Three squads of four went out to patrol as country rangers, looking for Red thieves who descended on the farms by night to steal food or other goods.

  Some of the rest sat around the bonfire, which had been set in a deep pit in the earth so the flames would not be visible from a distance. Here twenty men sat in a circle, talking and telling stories. Some of the men wrote poetry or songs in their free time, and they performed these pieces and then listened to the criticism of the others, who suggested changes in the lyrics or the rhymes.

  Vincentas fell asleep almost immediately with his arms crossed on his chest. Lukas sat and watched the others, humming along when he heard a tune he knew. He sensed that he was among people primarily of the country, like the people who lived around the farm where he grew up rather than those he had met in the city. Country people felt certain obligations that city people did not. They kept up good humour and joked with one another. They were generous, giving away the last of their cigarettes freely, but expecting the same in return. They drank a great deal and they could pray for hours at a time, feeling the hand of God close by. Flint forbade drinking altogether, to the disgruntlement of some, and his common prayers were very short, to the disgruntlement of others. The men were fatalistic, having placed their lives in the hands of God, and sometimes met bad ends because they refused to evade trouble but faced it straight on.

  Lukas wondered how he would fit in with these men. Never having been shot at, he was afraid he might be a coward. He also worried on behalf of Vincentas, sleeping at his side.

  The bonfire was made of pine logs, which burned intensely but for a very short time. Small explosions shot burning embers out among those at the fireside, occasionally landing on a shoe or a coat hem to leave singe marks before they were extinguished. But mostly the sparks flew up into the night sky in swirling eddies that quickly burned out and fell to earth as specks of soot.

  On the other side of the fire, Lukas watched as Ungurys came along with his sister and the two sat down to look into the flames and sing along with the others. Sometimes they talked to one another. He could see that the sister was asking questions, but Ungurys’s replies were short. After a while they stopped this talking and began to sing with the others. Lukas went over to them.

  “Do you mind if I join you?”

  Ungurys shrugged, but his sister patted the place beside her and Lukas sat down. It was very warm by the fire and she lifted off her Russian hat, shook out her curls and ran her fingers through her hair.

  “Do you have a cigarette?” she asked.

  “Tobacco and papers. You smoke?”

  “I never used to, but lately I need a cigarette sometimes.”

  Lukas was unaccustomed to women who smoked. They tended to be of two types, either tough market women or upper-class ladies. She didn’t seem to be either of these.

  “I’m the best roller of cigarettes in the whole camp,” said Ungurys. “Pass over the tobacco and papers and I’ll have three masterpieces ready in a minute.”

  “I don’t know your name,” said Lukas.

  “Elena.”

  “So you’re in the partisans too?”

  “I’m semi-legal.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m a courier for the partisans, but I have a job in the Ministry of Trade Associations in Marijampole. I’m not from there. If they knew my brother was in the partisans, they’d fire me at the very least, maybe even arrest me, so I have to be ready to go into the forest full-time if there’s too much pressure.”

  “You should work somewhere else.”

  “I get bits of information where I work. I can be useful.”

  “Yes, but it’s risky.”

  “Every place is risky. My sister lives in Marijampole, and the job is easy. I can get away like this for a few days to visit my brother. Sometimes I carry underground newspapers back to Marijampole.”

  “Behold,” said Ungurys. He held out three cigarettes on his palm, each perfectly uniform, looking as if they had come from a factory.

  “Where did you learn a skill like that?”

  “All it takes is time. When you’re in a tent or a bunker for days at a stretch, you can perfect silly little skills like this.”

  Each took a cigarette and Ungurys lit them, beginning with his sister’s. The tobacco burned at the back of Lukas’s throat. He did not really smoke much, and when the tobacco scratched his throat like this he wondered why he ever bothered.

  “Why did you join the partisans?” Lukas asked Ungurys.

  “They tried to put me in the army to fight the Germans, but as far as I’m concerned, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

  Lukas looked at Elena. “How do you find life in Marijampole?”

  “It wears on me. I feel unanchored with our parents gone. I was going to be a teacher, like my father, but I can’t get into teachers’ college anymore because they’ll be more careful about checking my background. All I have left is my little brother here and my sister. Sometimes I wish I could do something to strike back at them.”

  Her brother laughed.

  “Don’t think I couldn’t do it. I’m fierce, you know.”

  “I know, I know,” Ungurys said. “When I was little, she’d beat up all the bullies who tried to hit me or our sister. Half the boys in my class were terrified of her.”

  This description of Elena was hard to credit. Her curly hair made her face look soft. There was humour at the corners of her lips and a little of it in her eyes too. Whatever fierceness she had was well hidden. Lukas’s skepticism must have shown.

  “I’d do anything to defend my family, and anything to avenge it.”

  Lukas shrugged. They finished their cigarettes and threw the butts into the bonfire, whose centre had collapsed and was now burning less intensely. Elena asked Lukas many questions about his life on the farm, and he told her about it.

  “Why are you so interested in all this?” asked Lukas.

  “I’m sick of life in town. It’s so dreary there, and we have
all these party meetings and education sessions we have to go to. I’d prefer to be on a farm or in the forest.”

  “That’s the romanticism of city folk speaking,” said Lukas. “I knew people in the countryside who lived in houses without chimneys, just a hole in the roof, and they walked around barefoot most of the year. Life’s not so wonderful in the country.”

  “Don’t patronize me, Dumas. I’m capable of almost anything.”

  “It sounds funny to me to hear my code name. Call me Lukas.”

  “All right. Don’t patronize me, Lukas.”

  She had used his name, and it sounded good on her lips.

  They talked for a while longer, and then she stood up.

  “Leaving so soon?” asked Lukas.

  “I’m going back tonight. My brother is going to walk me partway.”

  “We’ve barely had a chance to meet.”

  “I come by every once in a while. Are you going to be stationed here, with this band?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then take care of my brother, will you?”

  “She says that to everyone,” said Ungurys. “It’s embarrassing.”

  The fireside felt empty after they left. The songs the men sang became melancholy as the evening wore on, and Lukas did not want to let himself fall into that mood. He roused his brother and they returned to their lean-to for the night, but Lukas could not fall asleep for a long time.

  FOUR

  FEBRUARY 1945

  LIKE BEARS in hibernation, many of the partisans hunkered down during the winter, moving as little as possible to keep their footprints off the snow. Vincentas and Lukas were moved to a bunker three kilometres away where the rotary press, typewriter and radio were kept. Here they studied English grammar and practised listening to the BBC, and finally typed up the underground broadsheets and printed them for distribution to the villages.

  Learning English was very difficult because the voice that came over the radio made noises that were barely comprehensible to someone who had only a grammar book to study from. Lukas and Vincentas began to take language lessons with the American farmer. This helped a little, but the American’s accent was vastly different from that of the BBC announcer. The American’s wife served them chicory coffee, black bread and butter, but her hospitality was grudging. She loved her children more than she loved her country, and if the partisans left tracks in the snow, the Cheka would ask questions.

  Even in winter, the partisans carried printed sheaves out to the villages and towns to pass on to the couriers. The men posted handbills in prominent places and ripped down Red proclamations. The couriers’ houses were also letterboxes through which personal messages could sometimes be sent. Lukas wrote to his parents to let them know he and his brother were alive and well.

  Lukas was used to hard work from his farm childhood, but he had never had to live out of doors for a long time. Even though he and Vincentas were privileged to work and live in a bunker that was heated by night, his fingertips never really warmed up and he hit the keys of the typewriter awkwardly.

  There was so much to write about the progress of the war farther west, to exhort the people not to collaborate with the Reds, to forbid the young men from joining the slayers.

  Slayers. Lukas found the Reds went straight to the point with their vocabulary. The word came from the Russian Istrebitel. It described Lithuanians who joined the Cheka as auxiliaries to hunt down “bandits” such as Lukas and Vincentas. In return, the slayers did not have to go into the army. Lukas could understand that a desperate man might become a slayer, but this understanding came without any sympathy. In order to preserve himself, the slayer had to hunt down his own people. Some of the slayers tried to play both sides of the game by acting incompetently, but their Red masters soon caught on to this. An incompetent could always be sent to the front. Ever the humane soul, Vincentas tried to moderate Lukas’s hatred of slayers, but without much success.

  Vincentas held prayer meetings because he was not ordained and could not say Mass. He listened to the confidences of troubled men, but he could not listen to confession, nor offer absolution. Those who were troubled or religious found their way to him and he offered them some comfort, even if his own comfort was in short supply. Like their friend Ignacas, Vincentas could not easily bear the cold. He was thin and developed a cough.

  “Put another couple of sticks in the stove,” said Lukas when he heard his brother’s chest heave yet again as they were working in the bunker one night.

  Lukas was typing up the stencil by oil lamp, and Vincentas was waiting to crank out the next issue of their “newspaper.” It was a flattering term for a mimeographed sheet.

  “Lukas,” said Vincentas, “are you busy?”

  Lukas glanced over at his brother. They were only a metre apart and both sitting at the small table where Lukas squinted at the stencil and typed slowly in order not to make any mistakes.

  “I’m typing.”

  “Have you ever thought about what it’s like to act ethically in war?”

  “Not really,” said Lukas. He spoke slowly between hitting the keys.

  “We discussed it in the seminary during the time the Germans occupied the country. We discussed how the normal rules of behaviour were lifted during war.”

  “Yes,” said Lukas, slightly impatiently. “People kill people in war.”

  “But not without cause. Even during a war, there is a system of values.” This was exactly the sort of talk that Vincentas was known for. He used to wonder about all sorts of abstract notions even as a boy on the farm. He had wanted to know if birds had afterlives, if it was immoral to eat meat, even on non-fast days, if women, since they were not permitted to be priests, had fully formed souls.

  “I think there is a system of values, yes,” said Lukas, listening with half an ear. “Even during a war.”

  “So are we at war?”

  “We fire at one another.”

  “But no one declared war between the Lithuanians and the Reds, did they?”

  “No, because it’s to the Reds’ advantage not to. They call us bandits.”

  “And how is a bandit to act ethically?”

  “But we’re not bandits. I’ve just said to you, we’re at war.”

  “I’m not sure I could ever kill anyone.”

  “With any luck, you won’t have to. But I hope that if somebody is threatening me or one of the others, you’ll defend us.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Lukas became slightly exasperated with his brother. “Think of the world we live in. Think of what we’ve seen already—our people killed by the retreating Reds in ’41, the Jews cut down, soldiers shot to pieces, children blown up under artillery fire. You’re talking as if you’ve never seen violence.”

  “I’ve never had to carry arms before. I’m really a pacifist, you know.”

  “The Reds will thank you for not defending yourself. Then they’ll shoot you dead or haul you away to Siberia.”

  “But I don’t think I could ever shoot anyone.”

  “So you won’t be covering my back?”

  Vincentas ignored the question.

  Lukas stopped trying to type. He turned to his brother, intending to give Vincentas a good talking-to, the kind their father used to give the boy when he was philosophizing too much on the farm. But Lukas held back. His brother was hugging himself for warmth even though the wood stove made the underground room quite comfortable. Lukas would have to speak to Flint about getting Vincentas out of the partisans. Perhaps there was some distant village where he could live semi-legally as a clerk.

  On a Sunday night in February, when the air was so cold the trees seemed to cry out in pain, Flint called the brothers up from their bunker. Outside, they found Ungurys and Lakstingala, both of them swaddled thickly against the cold and wearing knapsacks and carrying their weapons. Flint’s pipe was unlit, but his breath streamed like smoke in the air.

  “All right, you two,” he said, “you’ve been sitti
ng around too long. You’re going to get fat this way. Besides, it’s time for your baptism.”

  “Baptism?” Vincentas asked.

  “By fire. Don’t worry—nothing too exciting. Two of my best men will be with you.”

  “Let’s get moving,” said Ungurys through the scarf over his mouth. “If we stand still, we’ll freeze to the spot.”

  Vincentas and Lukas went with the other two and made their way to the market village an hour and a half away.

  Lukas was glad to be going out, to be doing something besides listening to the radio and typing up news, if only to stretch his muscles. The mission was like a night game of the kind he used to play with the other farm children, but instead of a staff he carried a rifle strapped to his back; instead of a pocketknife, a long blade in his boot; instead of a flashlight, a grenade at his side. Still, it felt a little like a game. The men carried proclamations as well as other materials in knapsacks on their backs. The four walked across frozen streams and woods until they came to a spot along the main road out of the town, about a kilometre from the centre.

  While Ungurys and Lakstingala kept watch from a hill alongside the road, Vincentas and Lukas nailed proclamations to each of three telegraph poles. They were posters depicting Stalin as a ghoul, consuming the country. Above each proclamation they nailed a warning sign forbidding passersby to remove the posters. At the third pole, the one farthest away from the town, Ungurys and Lakstingala took over, first wiring the poster to a device behind the pole and then setting up a primitive picket fence topped with barbed wire.

  “What’s that all about?” Vincentas asked.

  “You do your job, we do ours,” said Ungurys.

  Lakstingala tended to be talkative, but Ungurys had a slightly determined air, as if his missions were more important to him than they were to others. It was a form of seriousness that made him curt at times. Lukas liked him well enough, but not as much as his sister, who had been by once and come to look for Lukas to share a cup of tea with him. They didn’t really know each other well, and she had sat in the bunker with Lukas while Vincentas asked her questions about her spiritual life.