Underground Soldier

by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

  The barn doors scraped open and the entry to the loft became visible in the early dawn light. There were spaces in the floorboards, and they let in light too, so I burrowed farther into the dark corner, making myself small. I looked down through gaps between my feet. I was directly above the old man’s balding scalp.

  Could he smell me? I had a moment of panic, but then I realized that my own smell couldn’t possibly be stronger than this filthy barn.

  The man walked over to the horse’s stall and cooed something in German to her. I held my breath. If he looked up, surely he’d see me.

  I had an urge to sneeze as he untied her rope. Almost as if we were of one mind, the horse sneezed, spewing snot all over. The farmer chuckled. I looked down and saw that he had darted out of the way just in time. I guess he was used to it.

  He led the horse outside and set her loose, walked back into the barn and put a scoop of oats in Beela’s trough, then grabbed a pail from a hook on the wall and sat on a stool in her stall. I heard the rhythmic sound of milk drumming the inside of the metal pail. I needed that milk. Not just to soothe my hunger and thirst, but to help heal my festering wound.

  The farmer then led Beela outside. I watched through a slat as she ambled over to Kulia, and the two animals munched grass peacefully side by side. The farmer took the pail of milk back with him to the house and I was hoping that he’d be doing other chores somewhere else and wouldn’t notice me. The barn door was still wide open and sunlight shone through. That’s when I noticed the staff I’d used as a walking stick down by the cow’s trough. Had the farmer seen it?

  I waited until he had gone inside the house, then crept back down. I snatched my stick and scrambled back up the stairs.

  I had just settled back into my dark corner when the door of the house opened again. A thin woman stepped out. Was she his daughter? Wife?

  She walked to the caved-in outbuilding, yanked open a door and stepped inside. Some time later she came back out, a few chickens following after her. I had been right beside that bombed building and hadn’t realized there were live chickens inside!

  She now held her basket with both hands. It looked heavy with fresh eggs. My mouth was so dry that my tongue stuck to the roof of it. If I could get one of those eggs, I would crack it over my mouth and swallow it down whole.

  I stayed in my hiding spot for the entire day, watching the activity on the farm. When the man used the water pump, it screeched. So much for sneaking out later and getting water. That sound could wake the dead.

  The man hitched Kulia to a wagon and went into the muddy field, pulling up turnips and also beets, which I hadn’t noticed in the night. I wish I had, because raw beets are much better than turnip. Anything is better than turnip.

  It seemed odd that this large farm was being run by just one old man and a frail-looking woman. Where were all the farmhands, or the children? It didn’t add up.

  While the man harvested, the woman was in and out of the house and other buildings. She brought out a load of laundry and hung trousers and shirts and undergarments on the line. I looked down at my shredded hospital gown.

  When the wagon was full, the man led Kulia back to a small building — probably a cold cellar — close to the house. He and the woman unloaded the beets and turnips onto a wheelbarrow and took them inside.

  As I watched, my eyes grew heavy and I fell asleep.

  Chapter Four

  Snores

  I woke up with a jolt when a bomb hit close by and lit up the night sky. How long had I slept? There was the sound of wheezing directly below me. It was too dark to see, but I knew that Kulia was down there, back in her stall. Why hadn’t they done anything about her breathing problem? They only had one horse, after all. The entire situation seemed puzzling.

  I tried to stretch out, but my legs were so stiff they felt like they’d break. Gingerly, I felt the filthy stitches in my thigh. The wound was still tender to the touch and I knew it would only get worse if I couldn’t clean it. I felt the bottom of my foot where the gash was. The strip of cloth was still wound around it and it was crusty with mud and blood. It didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore and it didn’t hurt, but I knew it would take a long time to heal if I kept walking on it. Nothing I could do about that. I had to get away from here as quickly as I could. This farm wasn’t very far from the work camp. Someone might come looking for me.

  I listed the things I needed to do: clean the stitched-up wound in my thigh, find something to eat, get some clothing and shoes and get away undetected.

  I massaged my legs until I could straighten them. As I slowly climbed down the stairs, Kulia wheezed in greeting. I scratched her muzzle at arm’s length to avoid being sprayed with more snot.

  Through the darkness I saw the metal milk pail on a wall hook. I grabbed it and limped over to Beela. I had never milked a cow before, but when Dido still lived on the kolkhoz, I’d seen him do it. I lowered myself down on the wooden stool the farmer had used and placed the pail beneath her.

  I found the four teats and gently pulled on the two front ones.

  Nothing happened.

  Beela stomped a hoof on the floor.

  I rubbed my hands together to make sure they were warm, then reached out and gently wrapped my warmed fingers around two of the teats. With gentle pressure, I started at the top and pulled down.

  Still nothing.

  Then I remembered. The farmer had given Beela some oats before he milked her. I got up and scooped out a cup or so and placed them in her trough. Once she’d begun chewing on her first mouthful, I tried a third time.

  A thin trickle of milk hit the bottom of the pail. Slowly, carefully, I milked as Beela chomped on her nighttime snack. I managed to eke out a cup or so. I desperately wanted to grab the pail and tip the contents into my mouth, but I resisted. First I had to clean the wound on my thigh.

  I slipped off my filthy hospital gown and found a relatively clean bit of cloth. I dampened it with some of the fresh milk, then gently patted the dirty stitches. Once I’d cleaned it as best I could, I put my gown back on and lifted the pail to my lips. The milk felt like a salve on my parched tongue and throat as I swallowed down every last drop.

  “Thank you, Beela. You’ve saved my life.”

  With my hunger pangs quiet for the moment and my wounded thigh as clean as it could be, I had to get clothing and footwear and get away from here.

  I limped out of the barn and past the ruined chicken coop. Another bomb lit the sky for a flickering moment, giving me a clear flash of the entire house. To my annoyance, the laundry line was empty. I went up to one of the windows and tried to peer through the tarpaper, but couldn’t see anything at all. I had no idea whether the man and woman were awake or sleeping, but given the blackness of the night, it had to be close to midnight. No farmer stayed up that late.

  Placing my ear on the front door, I held my breath and listened. At first I heard nothing, but as I filtered away the outdoor sounds, I heard a faint rhythmic noise through the door — the snoring of one person.

  In our labour camp, the nights were filled with the sounds of many prisoners trying to sleep — snores, sniffles, weeping, muttering. But this solitary snore brought back memories of safety. Before Tato had been taken, our cozy apartment behind the pharmacy had been filled with a similar sound at night. Sometimes I had tossed and turned, kept awake by the sawing loudness of it.

  “How can you sleep in the same bed with Tato?” I ask Mama. “Don’t you get a headache?”

  But she just smiles. “I love the sound of your father’s snores, Luka. It makes me feel safe.”

  That first night after he is taken, we sleep on the streets, where the sounds are more terrifying than snores. But David’s mother finds us huddled beside the steps of the Grand Hotel on Kreshchatyk Street and takes us home to live with them.

  I expect her to take us to their small apartment at the back of the bakery, but I am shocked to see it boarded up. “Not safe there anymore,” she says, “what wi
th all the looting.”

  She takes us to where they are living now — a single room they share with the Widow Bilaniuk in a converted mansion.

  I fall asleep to the sound of the widow muttering to herself in her dreams, but wake when I hear the muffled weeping of Mama crying into her pillow. That’s when I understand about the comforting sound of one person snoring.

  I breathed in deeply, burying back the memory. If I could hear snoring through the door, that meant the people inside were asleep. If I could get the door open, I’d be able to quickly take some clothing and boots, and maybe even food if there was something handy. Then I would be on my way.

  I turned the doorknob. It was unlocked!

  I pushed the door open carefully, trying not to make a sound, but the rusty bolts screeched.

  I held my breath. The snoring continued.

  Just as I stepped inside the darkness, there was a click.

  “Hands over your head,” said a woman’s voice — in German-accented Ukrainian. “Or I’ll shoot.”

  * * *

  Glaring electric light. A vast sparse kitchen.

  Sitting in a carved wooden rocking chair was the woman I’d seen hanging up laundry and collecting eggs. She wore a red bandanna over two thick braids of greying brown hair. Her lips were a grim line of annoyance. She was older than I’d thought and she did not look frail anymore. Her shotgun was pointed at my head.

  I raised my hands but scrunched forward. My hospital gown was quite short, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself.

  Her gaze took in my appearance from head to toe. Her nose wrinkled. “You are a filthy thief.”

  Her accent reminded me of the wardens at the work camp. They spoke Ukrainian, Russian or Polish, but always with that heavy German sound to it. The snoring in the next room stopped.

  “Margarete, are you all right?” a man’s voice asked.

  “It’s under control, Helmut.”

  Moments later the old man came into the room, buttoning his red flannel shirt, his feet bare and his hair awry.

  “He’s a scrawny one,” Helmut said. “How old do you think he is? Twelve?” He must not have realized that I could understand him. Or maybe he just didn’t care. “Are you going to shoot him, or do you want me to?”

  “Please don’t shoot!” I said in German.

  The man seemed surprised that I could speak a bit of his language, and that made him hesitate for a minute. But then he said, “You may be just a child, but you tramp through my field, break into my barn and disrupt the animals — muddy footprints all over the place — and now you come into our house.”

  What would he have done in my place? Anger boiled up inside me but I forced myself to look calm. I hung my head in what I hoped looked like contrition. “I am sorry for the damage I’ve caused to your property.”

  The man snorted.

  “Why didn’t you just knock?” asked Margarete, again in Ukrainian. She’d lowered the shotgun, but her finger still touched the trigger and she had the gun vaguely directed towards my chest.

  Was she serious? An escapee from the local slave-labour camp should just saunter up to a German farmhouse and knock on the door, asking for help?

  “Would you have helped me if I had done that?”

  The woman shrugged. “Maybe. You’re not the first one to escape.”

  “But you might also have turned me in. Or shot me.”

  “So instead you become a thief,” Margarete muttered.

  “I am unarmed, injured and hungry,” I shot back. “Call me a thief if you wish. I was just going to take clothing and shoes, maybe something to eat.”

  “Does this farm look prosperous to you?”

  I didn’t reply.

  “Do you think we want to be in this godforsaken place? We were dumped here.”

  All at once, it made sense. No wonder they could speak Ukrainian. We had German neighbours in Kyiv before the war, but they disappeared in 1939. I had assumed they’d all ended up in Siberia or in the mass graves. Some of them had, I am sure. But during those first two years of the war when Hitler and Stalin were on the same side, a lot of people had to move.

  “The Nazis gave us this farm,” said Margarete. “But we have no help and almost no livestock. And our sons have been forced into the army.”

  I put on a sympathetic face for Margarete, but I couldn’t muster much compassion for her. It made me wonder who had lived at this farm before, and where they were right now.

  And I also had been taken from my home by the Nazis, but unlike this German couple, I hadn’t exactly been given a farm. Lida had been taken from her home too, and had lost her entire family. Like me, she was forced to work twelve hours a day for the Germans, surviving on nothing but a thin gruel of turnip soup. She wasn’t the only one. In my camp, there were thousands. How many slave-labour camps were there? How many of those workers would have thought they were in heaven to be at a farm like this? But I couldn’t say that to these people. They wouldn’t understand.

  “You are not starving,” was all I said.

  She looked over at her husband. It was as if they were having a silent conversation. He nodded slightly. She lowered the gun.

  “I don’t know if we can trust you,” said Margarete. “But we’ll hold off on shooting you until we decide. First, let’s get you cleaned up.”

  Chapter Five

  Eggs

  Perhaps the farm was not prosperous at the moment, but when Helmut led me to their bathroom, I was stunned. A huge porcelain tub on big clawed feet, a real flush toilet and a gleaming white pedestal sink. It was hard to believe that this fancy bathroom was for just a single family. The people who lived here before the war had certainly been well off.

  “That rag you’re wearing” — Helmut held out a wastebasket — “Throw it in.”

  As I stood there naked, embarrassed and cold, I watched him adjust the faucets until water came out of the shower head. He set a sponge and bar of soap on a wire shelf above the taps and pulled a thick curtain around the tub to keep the water from spraying about — that was something I had never seen before. He draped a towel over the sink for me and hung a nightshirt on the hook at the back of the door. Then he left.

  I climbed into the shower, my thigh protesting when I lifted it over the high edge of the tub. Warm water rained down through my hair and face and over my body. Black streaks swirled down the drain. As the layers of dirt came off, I began to feel more human. I thought of Lida, still in that horrible work camp and me powerless to help her. My mother, lost. And Tato too. But they were probably still alive. And then I thought of David. In the end, he was killed and I still lived. What kind of a friend was I?

  Whatever this couple was up to, my plan remained the same: get clothing, food, shoes, then leave. I had to survive this war, find my parents — Tato first — then get back to Lida and take her home with me. I couldn’t help David anymore, but I would not abandon Lida.

  I dried off, my skin pale without the grime. Now that my leg injury was clean, I could see that the milk wash had done its job. The stitches no longer strained and the skin was less swollen and red. I sat at the side of the tub to examine the wound on my foot. It had been a deep puncture, but it was beginning to heal. My makeshift first aid had helped.

  I got into the nightshirt. It was old, but the flannel was good quality. If I couldn’t find trousers to steal, this shirt would do.

  When I stepped out of the bathroom, Helmut was there, waiting for me. He blinked when he saw me. “For a moment there, you looked like Claus,” he said, pointing to the nightshirt.

  “Claus?”

  “My younger son.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “The Eastern Front,” he said grimly. “I pray that he doesn’t end up fighting in our old home village.”

  “I hope he doesn’t end up in Kyiv. That’s where I’m from,” I said. Did Helmut realize what his son might be up to on the Eastern Front? The nightshirt suddenly felt like it was going to strangle me
. I undid the top button and took a deep breath.

  “From Kyiv, are you?” he said. “A long way from here. What’s your name?”

  Should I tell him my real name, or make one up? They hadn’t shot me and they’d been kind so far, so I decided to return the courtesy and tell them the truth. “My name is Luka Barukovich.”

  Helmut took my hand and shook it firmly, then turned, motioning me to follow him. I limped behind him, back to the huge kitchen. “Sit,” he said, pointing to one of the kitchen chairs. “Show me your foot.”

  He sat on a low stool like the one he milked Beela with, set a pair of glasses on the end of his nose and examined the cut. “It’s not infected,” he said, looking over the lenses at me. “A surprise, considering how filthy you were.”

  He got up and rooted around in the cupboards, then sat back down on the stool, holding a bottle of iodine, plus scissors, tape and gauze. I didn’t flinch when he put a few stinging drops of the iodine into the wound. He wrapped the gauze around my foot.

  Next he examined the wound on my thigh. “This seems to be healing well,” he said. “How did you manage to keep it clean?”

  “Milk,” I said. “From your cow.”

  Helmut’s eyebrows raised slightly at this piece of information, but he didn’t respond.

  During all of this, I watched Margarete from the corner of my eye. She sat silently at her spot at the opposite end of the table. At first I thought she was watching me, but when I had a chance to turn and actually look, I realized that I was probably the last thing on her mind. She seemed utterly lost in thought. At least she’d put the shotgun away.

  “Why don’t you make the boy something to eat?” Helmut said as he stood up from the stool. “I’m going back to bed.”

  Margarete jerked as if she’d been woken from a deep sleep. She nodded to Helmut, then focused on me. “Eggs?”

  Eggs! How long had it been? “Thank you for your kindness,” I replied.