Dear Lord, she thinks, as the windows of a nearby building are blown out, showering the trio with splinters of glass. Please, dear Lord, save and protect us!
And then she sees it, only thirty meters away—the bunker that houses the radio. They have made it!
“Leave them!” she shouts, as she turns to see Katya heading towards a group of school children standing around a body, their teacher maybe. “There’s no time! Come on!”
With a reluctant glance at the children, Katya hurries back to follow Elena down into the bunker. At one end the earth wall has fallen in and three bodies lay nearby, bloody and broken.
“Over there!” says the sergeant, pointing with one hand while the other is pressed against a gash in his cheek to stem the flow of blood. “The radio. Do you know how to use it?”
Elena frowns at him. “Of course we do!”
“Thank you, God!” says Katya, pulling out the radio and opening the metal cover. “It’s not been damaged.”
Elena joins her, making sure not to step on the bodies, and snatches up the headphones. She pushes in the jack and flicks the power switch, which immediately fills her ears with the crackle and hiss of the radio. Who would have thought it? She thinks to herself as she begins to turn the dials. I’ve never been so pleased to hear the sound of static! Now to put all that training to use. Eventually, she finds the frequency she is looking for and leans down to the microphone.
“Come in, Eagle,” she says, shouting over the sound of the battle. “Come in, Eagle. This is Lynx. Do you read me? Over.”
The sergeant joins the two women, leaning close to Elena to try and hear the response. She brushes him away and presses the headphones to her ears. Why aren’t they replying? Why don’t they—
Suddenly, barely audible above the static and the shells, a voice answers her call. It is not clear and Elena can only pick out the words “Eagle” and “Go ahead”, but she knows she has made contact with the command center.
“Eagle, this is Lynx,” she repeats. “Smolensk is under fire from the south. Repeat, Smolensk is taking fire. Need—” But whatever she is about to request is cut off as a shell strikes nearby, blasting the roof from the bunker with a deafening explosion. Elena is sent flying across the bunker, landing heavily across the bodies of the men already lying there. She ends up on her back, the breath knocked out of her, blinking dust and earth out of her eyes as she gazes upwards into the haze. As she does so, trying to catch her breath, she sees a patch of sky appear through the smoke and dust. It is a calm, clear blue. Here and there small, white clouds float serenely, indifferent to the carnage below, which reminds her of the sky over her homeland in Arizona, so far away. She smiles at the thought as the darkness washes over her.
~
She was only twenty-two when the war began, fresh out of college and living on her parents’ farm in Buckeye, just outside Phoenix. Of course, she had heard about Hitler’s Nazi regime and his quest to create a worldwide Aryan race. She’d heard about his hatred of the Jews, which she couldn’t understand. After all, a number of her close friends were Jews and she always found them interesting and intelligent, great to study with as well as to hang out with. When she heard about Hitler’s plan to rid the earth of Jews, she was incensed, which is what led her to respond to a government ad in the Phoenix Gazette, looking for young American women who were fluent in Russian and German. This was her chance to help make a difference!
She had learned to speak Russian thanks to the fact that her grandma, who had immigrated to America with her husband the previous century, could only speak Russian and used to read her fairy tales from the homeland. Helen’s favorites were, “The Little Humpbacked Horse”, “The Frog Princess” and “The Snow Maiden”. They had a profound impression on the young Helen, and she enjoyed spending time imagining herself in these stories, whether the princess waiting to be swept off her feet by the dashing Tsarevitch Ivan, the frog who finds the prince’s arrow and is turned into a beautiful lady or even the Snow Maiden herself, bringing warmth and joy during the long winter months. Many nights, Helen would drift off to sleep with the sound of her grandma’s soothing voice telling her these fables. As she grew older, they still fired her imagination, and her love of the mysterious country of Russia grew too. She began to read other stories by Russian writers. Because her parents hated the rise of Communism in the Russian land, Helen continued to study her grandma’s language in secret, usually during the night, when she would lock her door and hide under her covers, reading with a small flashlight, a Russian-English dictionary always at hand. She enjoyed learning the spelling of the words, the way they sounded, how the sentences were constructed, and how the stories flowed. The language was so unlike English, and the stories were of people and places so different from those she had experienced, she couldn’t help but delight in her reading. From the fairytales of Pushkin, she moved on to the beautiful sadness of Yesenin’s poetry, the powerful, new age rhyme of Mayakovski, and the depth and majesty of Dostoyevsky. But above all these was War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, some parts of which she soon knew by heart.
As for German, this was the language she opted for at school due to her love of Johann Goethe. So good was her German, in fact, that she pursued it all the way to college and emerged as a professional linguist, specializing in this language. Many people assumed she actually was German, thanks to her blonde hair and blue eyes, inherited from her father’s Scandinavian roots. As such, when Helen responded to the advertisement and went for an interview, she ended up in a special branch of the U.S. military that was looking to train spies and scouts for missions in both Russia and Germany.
Over the next year and a half, Elena, or Helen as she was then known, underwent intensive military training, including skydiving, shooting, map reading, mine detection and clearance, facial recognition, memory skills and especially work with radio transceivers and cipher machines. In addition to this, she had to learn how to behave as a Russian or German officer—how to salute, march, give commands and the like. She proved to be an exemplary student and she was desperate to put her skills to work in the field.
“Sir?” said Helen, speaking with her instructor after class one morning. “I’ve heard rumors that Hitler may invade the Soviets. What are your thoughts on that?”
The instructor looked up from his desk, peering at her over his small glasses. “It seems highly likely, Helen. The Nazis and the Russians are hardly good bedfellows and it’s only a matter of time before there’s an invasion from one side or the other.”
“But Stalin and Hitler signed a non-aggression pact, I thought they were allies. Isn’t that, I don’t know, against the rules or something?”
“Rules?” he let out a bark of laughter. “The Nazis make their own rules. And break them as they see fit. And what with Stalin having shot most of the Soviet command a few years back, I wouldn’t be surprised if Hitler seizes his chance to attack the headless monster sooner rather than later.”
And sure enough, only a few months later, just after Helena’s twenty-fifth birthday, she heard the news that Hitler had launched an attack on Russia. There had been no warning, and the Soviets had been caught completely unprepared. Only three days after the attacks began, the Germans seized the city of Minsk. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers of the Red Army were captured. Finally, Helen’s time had come.
“We have to send an agent into Russia,” said her instructor, having gathered his students together the next day as soon as the news came in. “This will be a dangerous mission. This is a real, bloody war that has been started over there, and while we have the basics of a plan, this is still going to be very risky indeed. As such, we have decided to ask if there is any volunteer among you who is prepared to take on this mission.”
Helen’s response was immediate, stepping forward, her arm upraised. “I will go, sir,” she said, in perfect Russian. “I have been waiting for this opportunity! I understand the dangers and I am ready. Send me in, sir!”
Her pare
nts were not happy when an excited Helen came home and shared the news that she was being sent to serve in Russia.
“Helen, are you serious about wanting to go to this country infected by the virus of Communism? And at a time when they are at war?” asked her mother, tears welling up in her eyes.
“It’s no more dangerous than anywhere else out there, said Helen, disappointed at her parents’ reaction. “At least it’s not northern Africa. That’s the real danger zone at the moment.”
Her father, sitting in his armchair by the fire, his usual place when the day’s farming was over, cleared his throat. “So what is the army expecting you to do out there? What’s the plan exactly?”
“I…” Helen began, longing to share with them the exciting work of gathering intelligence behind enemy lines that she would be doing. But the mission was top secret. No one outside the military could know, and even there, it was for the eyes of only a handful of personnel. “I can’t tell you, dad, I’m sorry. You know how it is. But it’s important work. Trust me. I just want you to be pleased to know that I will be involved in vital work for the good of our country.”
“You want me to be pleased?” said her mother, her tears flowing freely now. “Pleased that my daughter is being sent off to war? Pleased that she is leaving and may never come back?”
Helen’s grandmother, sitting in her rocking chair on the other side of the fire, had been watching this exchange in silence. But now she leant forward and placed her wrinkled hand on Helen’s knee and whispered to her in Russian.
“There’s no greater thing than to serve, even to die, for your country.” The silence that followed these words echoed around the room, broken only by the sobs of Helen’s mother.
Barely a week later, Helen parachuted into Russia, a short distance from the city of Smolensk, under the guise of a Russian officer, who had escaped from the German invasion in the Minsk region. Her mission was to keep the United States military briefed with the strategic and tactical actions of both the Russians and the Germans. Although this was as dangerous a task as her instructor had said, Helen was thrilled to find herself in her grandma’s homeland and to have this opportunity to serve her own country.
Apart from the uniform, all she had was a Soviet gun, a compass, a three-day ration of stew and bread, and Russian papers with her new name: Elena Mikhailovna Smirnova from Minsk, lieutenant of communications. But most people call her Lena.
~
“Lena!” She opens her eyes, her ears ringing, to find herself still gazing up at the patch of blue sky. “Lena!” Turning her head she sees Katya crawling towards her across what is left of the bunker, her face covered with blood.
“Katya?” she says, her voice shaking and oddly distant. “Katya. Are you okay?”
Katya reaches up and wipes some of the blood from beneath her eyes. “Yes,” she says. “This isn’t mine. The sergeant was between me and the bomb, which shielded me from the worst of it.” A look of sadness flickered across her face. “This is his blood, Elena. He’s dead.”
Aching all over, Elena clambers slowly to her feet, still dazed from the shock of the blast. So strange, I’m still alive, she thinks as she glances across the bunker to the Sergeant’s remains. He was only a boy! And no doubt his mum is waiting for him to come home.
“Come on!” she says, putting an arm on Katya’s shoulder to steady herself. “There’s no point staying here and waiting for another bomb to land on our heads. The radio’s busted. Let’s just hope the message got through.”
Yartsevo, Russia. December 1941
Chapter Twenty-five
The message got through. It’s over! The Germans have abandoned their attack on Moscow.”
Throughout the morning, this news spreads across the town of Yartsevo like wildfire, and that evening, despite the devastation and the ruins around them, the people gather to celebrate.
“Can it really be over?” says Elena as she and Katya try to get themselves as ready as possible, considering the limited washing facilities. “It seems too good to be true.”
Katya looks up at her friend as she runs a broken comb through her hair. “Hardly that good, Elena! Don’t forget the hundreds of thousands of our people those Nazi bastards have butchered since June. I wish they’d left sooner!”
“True,” says Elena, continuing to brush her clothes. “It’s not like it was in the war with France, over a hundred years ago. Kutuzov was the Field Marshal back then and he decided to surrender Moscow to Napoleon to save the Russian army.”
Katya stares at her, openmouthed. “How do you know this stuff?”
“From War and Peace. The novel, by Tolstoy. Have you read it?”
“No way! It’s far too thick. And to be honest I hate the stories about the tsar and all those aristocrats.” Katya spits out the word in disgust.
Interesting, thinks Elena. Russian aristocrats, the cream of the nation, people with the best education, able to speak several languages, with the best traditions and inheritance… It’s only taken Stalin twenty years to brainwash these poor people in the Russian land. She doesn’t say anything to Katya, however. Instead she keeps the knowledge to herself. As long as she holds silent about such things, she is safe.
She thinks back over the five months since she arrived in the thick of the warfare. Both she and Katya have nearly been added to the numbers of the dead themselves several times, their near-miss in the radio bunker, their narrow escape from the German’s pincer movement around Smolensk and then almost being discovered as they hurried along the road to Yartsevo. But here I am, she thinks, a smile creeping across her face. Still alive and well, with my cuts and bruises nearly healed and my undercover status still intact! She stands up and begins to pull on her uniform. “But let’s try and forget about all that, just for tonight, at least. Let’s go and enjoy ourselves!”
When they arrive in the town square, a crowd of several hundred townsfolk and soldiers have gathered for the party. Everyone, from farmers to officials, from privates to officers, join together to celebrate and drink to the failure of the Wehrmacht invasion. There is not much fancy food, and what little there is is mostly root vegetables and stew, but from somewhere a large stash of home-made vodka has been produced and it is not long before the party starts to pick up, with plenty of singing and dancing from all involved.
At first, Elena hangs on the edge of the crowd, more a spectator than a participant. She sips at the drink she has been handed, the oily liquid burning its way down to her stomach, and goes to watch the people dancing.
Look at them, she thinks, gazing in wonder at the men squatting down and kicking out their legs in time with the music. How skillful they are! It’s just amazing! She begins to edge round to get a better view, and then she sees him. He is engaged in conversation with an older, grey-haired officer. Elena admires his Slavic profile from her vantage point a few meters away. His dark hair is cut short beneath an army issue cap, and on his shoulder the epaulets mark him as a captain.
Suddenly he turns his face towards her, and his brown eyes meet her own. Elena’s breath catches in her throat. He looks exactly as I imaged the wonderful Prince Bolkonsky. But Andrei Bolkonsky is not real. He’s just a character in War and Peace. This man, however, definitely does exist!
She glances down at his chest, where two great medals have been pinned. She recognizes one as the Star Hero of the Soviet Union and the other, a medal of Suvorov II degree. He’s not only a captain, but a hero too! Looking back up at his face, she notices him smiling at her and she decides to walk over. A few steps away, she stops, hoping that he will come to her and, he does so.
“Good evening,” he says, his voice a rich baritone. “I am Konstantin.”
Like the great Rokossovsky, she thinks. Could this guy be any more perfect? But aloud, she simply says, “I’m Elena.”
“May I have the pleasure of a dance?”
Although her heart is already pounding at the thought of being close to him, she pauses for a moment, as
if considering the offer, though in fact she is trying to control her breathing.
“Certainly,” she says at last, holding out a hand to him. He takes it, leading her into the center of the square, where other couples are already dancing as a small group of musicians from the town accompany them with a waltz. The captain draws Elena close to him as he begins to lead her in the dance, and she feels a shiver of thrill run through her body as they begin to move together.
As the music draws to a close, she pulls back slightly and looks at his face, lit by the flicker of the many fires that illuminate the square. Even in the tasteless dark-green military uniform, he really is handsome, his swarthy features striking, typical Slavic nose and mouth, thick, black eyelashes and brown eyes. He exudes confidence and calm and she finds herself being drawn in, sinking into those eyes.
It’s almost magical, she thinks, as the music starts again, and they draw closer together. I wonder if this is how Natasha felt when she first danced with Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. And tonight it is my love story, my world.
Later that night, as the celebrations subside, Elena and Konstantin walk together, leaving the dying fires and last revelers behind them. Away from the square, the town is silent, ghostlike, and the moonlight sparkles on the frost covered buildings.
“It’s not as cold as it has been the last few weeks,” says Konstantin, turning to look at Elena.
“Quite,” she says, watching her breath drift away on the air. “It feels almost like spring! Look here.” She stops, lifting up the lantern she is carrying to better see a tree a short distance from the path. “What a beautiful fir. “
“So peaceful and sturdy,” says Konstantin. “It’s hard to believe we’ve been at war for months.” He laughs and leaps off the path, down the slope towards the tree.
“Careful!” says Elena. “It looks pretty steep!”
Redemption: Supernatural Time-Traveling Romance with Sci-fi and Metaphysics Page 26
