Kyiv (Spoils of War)

by Graham Hurley

  This was a victory parade, thought Bella, an impromptu display of German vigour, German prowess. They’d doubtless taken hundreds of thousands of Soviet prisoners, sweeping all before them, making the Ukrainian steppe safe for National Socialism, and tonight, once they’d found and liberated the city’s stocks of vodka, they’d raise a celebratory glass or two before moving on to the next battle. Last night Glivenko had warned her that this would be a war like no other, unforgiving, pitiless, governed by the sheer size of a country too big even for German appetites. At the time, she’d believed him, but now – watching the open limousines packed with officers whisper by – she began to wonder. These people, with their immaculate uniforms and an occasional wave to the crowds, assume they’re born to conquer, and they’re probably right. Victory has become a habit, she told herself, and who on earth will ever stop them?

  She shook her head, thinking suddenly of Larissa, and then she felt a tap on the arm from Yuri. The crowd on the pavement had turned its attention to an approaching group of old men. At the head of the procession was their leader, slightly taller than the rest. He had a white cloth draped across his thin shoulders and he was carrying a tray. On the tray was a large, round Ukrainian loaf with a dish of salt beside it.

  Confused by the sheer numbers of incoming troops, he hesitated a moment at the kerbside, not quite sure what to do next with these traditional symbols of friendship. One of the open Mercedes limousines glided to a halt beside him. The car was white, highly polished, not a scratch, not a dent, not a trace of caked mud. The officers in the car gazed up at the old man, amused. The old man presented his gifts with a deep bow, and Bella watched the senior officer take the bread and toss it into the back seat as the crowd stood in silence before the limousine purred on.

  Then, from a neighbouring truck, came another cry. The soldier was young, fair-haired, his face burned red by the sun. ‘Brot,’ he shouted. ‘Und Butter.’ He stooped briefly, and then threw two wooden crates onto the tramlines. One of the crates burst, spilling black loaves across the cobblestones, and the crowd surged forward, already fighting for the bread. One man, squat, powerfully built, ripped the paper from a block of butter and began to cram it into his mouth, elbowing others away. Yuri, disgusted, watched him licking his fingers one by one, his lips glistening with the grease.

  Later that afternoon the city centre was gripped by an orgy of looting. People told each other that victorious armies always help themselves, and, with the Russians gone, and the Ukrainian police invisible, one shop after another was plundered. By now, most of the German troops were moving through the city street by street, requisitioning houses, reassuring residents, seizing livestock. Bella watched a Wehrmacht sergeant driving a pig across Khreshchatyk. The pig was on a length of rope and the way he gentled the animal along with the end of his rifle told Bella he knew what he was doing. Probably a farmer, she thought, from some backwoods Pomeranian smallholding, as delighted by this extravagant outbreak of street theatre as everyone else.

  At the next corner, a sizeable crowd – mainly women – were emptying a shoe shop, darting off with armfuls of boots and galoshes. One of them paused, stopped by a youth, and began to haggle a price for one of the pairs of boots. The youth had produced a grubby roll of notes but, when the woman was distracted for a moment, he grabbed the boots and ran. She shouted at him and shook her fist but, within seconds, he’d disappeared.

  Later, at Bella’s request, Yuri took her to the offices of the newspaper. Larissa had an office on the first floor, with a view over the Krillovskaya through her shattered window. It was early evening, and Larissa was gazing down at the street. Her arm had been plastered and was now in a sling. Her hair had been shaved at the front and a line of tiny black stitches had closed a sizeable wound on her forehead. Her face was drawn and pale and she was obviously in pain. Yuri muttered something to her in Ukrainian. She glanced at Bella and nodded.

  After Yuri had left, she beckoned Bella towards the window and drew her attention to the street below. Two German Army trucks had parked at the kerbside.

  ‘They’re going through the offices room by room,’ she said. ‘Soon, they’ll be interviewing everybody. It’s the same in every city they take. Always start with the newspapers and the radio station. These men have fought their way here. From the Polish border that’s six hundred kilometres,’ she nodded down at her watch. ‘Yet they never stop work for a moment.’

  ‘They’ll interview you?’

  ‘Of course. No one who works here will be allowed to leave the building.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘Yuri is waiting downstairs. You must leave at once. He’ll take you home.’

  Bella was still staring down at the street. Another of the Mercedes staff cars had appeared. It parked behind the trucks and an officer in a black uniform got out and stood on the pavement, feet apart, belted tunic, trousers tucked into gleaming boots, hands on his hips, staring up at the façade of the building. It was a gesture of ownership, Bella realised. Not just the newspaper, but the entire city.

  When Larissa asked whether he was SS, Bella nodded. She’d spent years behind an embassy desk in Berlin. She recognised this uniform only too well.

  ‘You know about these people?’ She glanced at Larissa.

  ‘I do. Talk to the Poles about them. The people here are children. They think bread and salt will solve everything.’ She shook her head, then her fingers lightly traced the shaved patch around her sutured wound. ‘So we have something else in common, chérie. Thanks to our new friends.’

  *

  That night, at Yuri’s insistence, Bella spent the night at Larissa’s apartment. He’d appointed her to be chauffeur, cook, dresser, and – in his own words – anything else Larissa badly needed. Bella was happy to say yes.

  From the moment they’d met at the hotel restaurant that first evening in Kyiv, she realised this woman had taken charge of her, the way a mother might. Bella had been flattered by her attentions, and surprised by what had followed, but the last three years had made her a great deal wiser about the trade-offs and accommodations that had come with her new life. In Moscow, you could get anything if you were prepared to barter a favour or two, and experience had taught her that sex with a powerful stranger, if it opened the right doors, could be strangely erotic. Here in Kyiv, Bella knew that her very survival might be at stake, but even so she felt a growing kinship with Larissa that had nothing to do with the striking of bargains and opening of doors. Her self-appointed protector now needed something more from her than sex, and Bella was only too happy to try and supply it.

  Bella watched over her for most of the night, sharing her bed, making sure she didn’t roll over and damage the plaster cast. At dawn, she inspected the kitchen cupboards, looking for something to eat. Apart from a jug of sour milk and the remains of a stale loaf, there was nothing. She must eat at work, Bella decided. Or maybe she relies on the restaurant meals that go with the many interviews she has to conduct.

  Back in the bedroom, Larissa was listening to the radio. The voice, she said, belonged to the regular newscaster at this time in the morning, a native Ukrainian by the name of Mikhail. Normally, he’d be reporting on the small print of city life – mainly accidents, especially fires – but today Kyiv’s new masters had written the script. Life, the newscaster announced, would be proceeding much as normal. Citizens who owned arms of any kind, especially shotguns and hunting rifles, were to hand them into designated depots by nightfall. The Kommandatura would soon be issuing new identity cards on surrender of the old Soviet document, and these Ausweisen would become obligatory by the end of the week. German currency, meanwhile, would shortly be introduced, at an exchange rate with the Ukrainian hryvnia to be determined.

  ‘Surprise, surprise,’ Larissa grunted. ‘They’ve come to rob us.’

  Bella helped her get dressed. She said the broken arm was more an irritation than anything else, but Bella knew that wasn’t true. She could see the pain in her eyes every tim
e her shoulder moved and when Bella offered to accompany her to the office, and maybe help out with a spot of typing, she shook her head.

  ‘They’ll never let you in,’ she said. ‘And neither will they let us out. From now on we stay at our desks and write what they tell us to write. They made it plain last night that everything must go through the propaganda people. They and the SS arrived on the heels of the soldiers. Even the Russians were more subtle than that.’

  Bella laughed. Subtle? Russians? Larissa asked for a glass of water. When Bella returned from the kitchen, she held it up against the daylight. Tiny particles were suspended in the murky liquid, prompting a shake of the head from Larissa.

  ‘A favour?’ she put the glass to one side.

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘We need people out on the streets, watching, making notes, maybe taking a photo or two. The occupation will be long, but it won’t last forever and there has to be a record. This is our country. Whatever happens next will be history.’

  ‘You want me out there? On the street?’

  ‘I do, chérie. Today will be chaos. That’s how occupations start. Be careful. Watch. Listen. You have good ID. It will fool any German. You also speak their language but don’t be too clever.’

  ‘Clever?’

  ‘Fluent. You’re Ukrainian. It says so on your ID. Your German will be like mine. Enough to get you a loaf of bread or a night in a hotel, but no more.’

  ‘And English?’

  ‘You know no English. Your Russian is excellent but your Ukrainian needs attention. Make the most of that. If you sense trouble, tell them you’ve been in Moscow for a while and now you’re so happy to be back. But nothing will happen, I guarantee it, not for a day or two. The Germans like to get their house in order. The fact that it belongs to us won’t worry them for a moment but even the Master Race will still need time to settle in.’

  Larissa had a spare camera but couldn’t find it, and on reflection she thought that was probably a good thing. The lower Bella’s profile on the street, the better.

  ‘No news on the Leica?’

  ‘It’s gone. Bastards. Listen, you’ll need money, take this—’ She dug in her bag and produced a roll of grubby notes. ‘Drive me to work. I’ll show where it’s safe to leave the car. I finish at six o’clock. All you have to do is be there.’

  She searched Bella’s face for a long moment. The voice on the radio had given way to classical music.

  ‘Beethoven,’ she offered her lips for a kiss, ‘not Wagner. Be grateful for small mercies.’

  *

  En route to the newspaper offices, their path took them down Khreshchatyk. Shop windows the length of the city’s main boulevard had been knocked in overnight, and a few families were still struggling home with rolls of carpet and armfuls of crockery. According to Larissa, the new term at school had just begun, and a shop catering to children’s educational needs in a street behind Khreshchatyk had also been emptied. Bella pulled in at the kerbside while Larissa questioned a mother with two young children. She was hunting for a couple of new satchels and had just been directed to an address in an area at the end of one of the tram lines, where a mountain of these items was now for sale.

  Mention of trams took them back to Khreshchatyk. Bella had noticed one of them outside the Grand Hotel, abandoned after the Russians had switched the current off before evacuating the city. She parked again, leaving Larissa in the passenger seat. The tram was surrounded by tiny steaming piles of horse manure, and when she clambered up and went inside, she noticed that someone had unscrewed all the light bulbs. They’d started on the windows, too, and a row of wooden seats behind the driver’s position had been unbolted from the floor and carted off. Back outside on the cobblestones, Bella paused to gaze at a German poster on the side of the tram that had already been pasted over a Soviet sketch of a crazed Hitler. The new poster showcased beaming Ukrainian women in peasant dress grazing their fat cattle while adoring children looked on.

  Back in the car, Larissa was shaking her head. She, too, had seen the poster.

  ‘Fairy tales,’ she muttered. ‘Stalin starved you to death. With us Germans, you can prosper again. You think anyone believes that shit?’

  The newspaper offices were five minutes away. Bella dropped Larissa and parked the car in a nearby side street before setting off on foot. The traffic was heavier now, and the pavements were beginning to fill with office workers. Of the Germans, there was so far no sign.

  One of the city’s theatres lay at the next intersection. At the kerbside, three men were wrangling over a wicker basket brimming with costumes. Bella watched them for a moment, wondering whether a uniform of the Imperial Guard was really worth what the seller was demanding, realising that the overnight looters had even been at work here. Taking advantage of the theatre’s open door, she ventured inside. According to a poster in the lobby, the next production was to be Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard.

  ‘You want a ticket?’

  Bella spun round. The man at her elbow was old. His smell had the sweetness of camphor balls, and he badly needed a shave. He was also drunk. He said he was the caretaker, the guardian of everything, and he beckoned her towards the door that led into the theatre itself. Only last week, he said, the set designer had rebuilt one of the lavish interiors demanded by the play. Now, every stick of furniture, every stage prop, every painting on the wall, had gone.

  ‘So what did they take?’

  ‘Everything. Even the grand piano. Even that bust of the fucking Tsar.’

  Bella was standing at the back of the theatre. A single shaft of daylight fell through what appeared to be a hole in the roof and when she asked about it, the caretaker shrugged.

  ‘Stukas,’ he said. ‘Lucky for us the bomb never went off.’

  Bella nodded. The effect, she thought, was appropriately dramatic. The rows of empty seats stretched away into the gloom and the stage looked bare, picked clean, ready for an audience with a rich imagination. Chekhov, she thought. With a little help from the Luftwaffe.

  ‘The curtains?’ she asked. ‘The drapes?’

  ‘Gone. You want a drink? Vodka? Come…’

  He led her towards the stage, feeling his way by instinct, his boots echoing on the bare wooden floor of the aisle because the carpet, too, had gone. A door beside the stage led to a tiny cubby hole which evidently served as the caretaker’s lair. Here, the tart smell of camphor was even stronger. The old man struck a match and lit a candle propped on a saucer. The bottle of vodka on the floor beside the single chair was nearly empty. He took a swig, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and offered the rest to Bella. She shook her head. She wanted to know why he hadn’t chased the looters away.

  ‘Asleep,’ he pillowed his head on his hands.

  ‘And that?’ Bella nodded down at a hessian sack on the floor.

  ‘Ah…’ A smile creased the thin face. He picked up the sack and emptied the contents onto the floor. Among the stage props, Bella recognised a faux-silver champagne bucket.

  ‘Yours?’

  ‘Theirs. They said it was a present.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Staying asleep,’ he offered Bella another gummy smile, and then held out the bottle again. ‘Finish it,’ he said. ‘Tovarish.’

  Bella hesitated and then did his bidding. The vodka, undoubtedly home-made, scorched the back of her throat. She managed to suppress a cough, her eyes already beginning to swim, and the old man put his hands together, a gesture of applause. Then he nodded at the downy fuzz of blonde hair on the bareness of her scalp.

  ‘You’re ill? Because I have more vodka.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ Bella shook her head. ‘But it’s a kind thought.’

  With some care, she made her way back to the street. Overnight, she thought, the city has fallen into the grasp of the free market. After years of going short to fill bellies in Moscow and Leningrad, the Ukrainians are reclaiming what they regard as rightfully theirs. For years, in Yuri’s
phrase, they’ve been milked by Mother Russia, and now – thanks to the Germans – they might just become their own masters again. Bella knew this was wildly optimistic, the triumph of vodka over common sense, but she couldn’t hide from herself the feeling that spring had come very late indeed this year, that Kyiv was turning its face to the sun and beginning to flower.

  A café across the boulevard from the theatre had just opened. Bella took a seat in the window, her belly warmed by the vodka, and ordered a second glass. Larissa had given her a pad and a couple of pencils and Bella spent the next hour trying to tease some order into her racing brain. At first she played the apprentice journalist, writing diligently about the theatre, about the caretaker, about the finger of dusty sunlight that revealed so little, and so much, but then she began to track backwards, taking tiny sips of vodka, tracing the whole of her journey into this madness, recasting it as a letter to Moncrieff.

  Dearest Tam, she wrote, this morning finds me under new ownership, a burned-out defector in a faraway city, half in love with a goddess journalist who makes me feel very good about myself. The Germans have made their usual entry, stage left, noisy, fierce, knocking over the furniture, pushing squillions of Russians onto the steppe. Imagine that. And then imagine the emptiness – all that space – they’ve left behind.

  Au moment, my lovely man, one half of this crazy city is robbing the rest. No one knows what money is worth anymore and so you do the sensible thing and barter your mother-in-law for an ounce or two of home-grown tobacco and maybe quarter shares in next door’s cow. It’s all wildly pleasant and picturesque and the Krauts are biding their time in the wings because someone’s mislaid the script and they’re reduced to behaving like human beings. That won’t last, of course, because everyone’s having far too fine a time, but this morning finds me contemplating a third glass of God’s little blessing, and probably another glass after that.