To earn my keep, dearest Tam, I’ve promised to play the journalist for my new mistress and her bloody newspaper but getting the right words in the right order isn’t as simple as you might think. Events are already getting out of hand, but life is full of surprises, some of them – to be frank – delightful, and my handsome friend has introduced me to a couple of variations on the usual theme. She has the hands of a man, and an appetite to go with it, and a heart-stopping profile in certain lights. A couple of days ago, the Luftwaffe did their best to blow both of us up, but I survived and most of her did, too.
You’d like my new friend. She’s noble. She has grace. And, like you, nothing seems to frighten her. I’ve also met a man who writes novels and wants to live in the eleventh century in caves full of monks with nice views of the river. This still strikes me as bizarre but it may – God only knows – turn out to be a wise decision because, as ever, no one has a clue what might happen next. Dearest Tam, you’re utterly wonderful on mountains and in a proper bed, and I miss both. Kiss Scotland for me. All of it.
Bella sat back, toying with the remains of the vodka. Proper bed? She loved the phrase, so idiotic, so un-Moncrieff, so childlike, and she was still thinking about Tam when a woman paused beside her table, and then nodded at the spare chair.
‘Please…’ Bella gestured for her to sit down.
The woman looked poor. There was dirt under her nails, and her blouse was missing a button, and Bella sensed at once that she was selling something.
‘You’re a writer?’ the woman asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Are you famous?’
‘Very. I expect you think I’m rich, too.’
‘And are you?’
‘Yes,’ Bella held her gaze. ‘In all kinds of ways.’
Bella tried to get to her feet and end the conversation, but then changed her mind. The woman behind the counter was watching her. Drunk by mid-morning? Unforgiveable. Semi-bald? Deeply suspicious.
‘You want another one?’ The woman was looking at her empty glass.
‘Yes, please,’ Bella frowned. ‘No, thank you.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘No.’
The woman turned towards the counter, gesturing at the glass. A bottle of vodka arrived on the table.
‘And you? You’re drinking, too?’
‘No.’
‘Just me, then?’
‘Yes. And then we’ll go.’
‘Where?’
The woman named a street Bella had never heard of.
‘You know this city?’
‘I’ve been away for a while.’
‘Where?’
‘Moscow.’
‘And is that why your Russian is so good?’
‘Da.’
‘But you’re Ukrainian?’
‘I might be. I’m a writer. Writers lie for a living. That’s why I’m so good at it. Tell me what you’re selling. Tell me about this street of yours.’
The woman was uneasy now, wrong-footed by the sudden twists and turns in the conversation. She sat back in the chair, slightly prim, a little offended, her hands in her lap.
‘Well?’ Bella asked. ‘What have you got for me?’
The woman shrugged. The street she’d mentioned was where all the new apartment blocks for the apparatchiki had been built. These people, of course, were Russians.
‘And they’ve gone? Packed their bags? Fled? Is that what you’re saying?’
She nodded. The apartments are big, she said. Five rooms, sometimes six, fully equipped, the best of everything.
‘So who owns them now?’
‘We do, all of us. My husband was the manager. Also there are watchmen, and plumbers, and lift attendants.’
‘Serfs.’
‘Exactly. But serfs no longer. We’ve moved in, chosen our own apartments, and emptied the rest. We can sell you anything. You want one of those new fridges? No problem. It’s yours. You want the Director’s fancy car? We have the key. Money is all we need. A writer like you? So rich? So famous. Just tell me yes,’ she reached for the bottle, still corked, ‘then we’ll go.’
Bella shook her head. She knew she needed to bring this conversation to an end. The guts of the story were there already, and she didn’t need to see the place because she could imagine the rest. Larissa, she thought, would be delighted with this little exchange.
Bella seized the bottle and headed for the counter. She was drunk now but the beautiful thing was that she didn’t much care. She folded the letter to Moncrieff and stored it in her bag, along with the vodka, watching the woman from the apparatchiki apartments leave the café to find someone else to buy her loot. At the counter she paid for the vodka and asked about the Besserabka market. Larissa had mentioned it this morning. If you want to understand Kyiv, she’d said, it’s the best place to start. The woman behind the counter agreed.
‘Down Khreshchatyk to the very end,’ she said. ‘It opened again this morning.’
*
Bella spent the rest of the day at the market, mostly asleep. It was warm in the afternoon sun, and she found a bench behind a stall selling pierogi with peas and potatoes, waking from time to time to watch the queue lengthen and contract as customers, mainly women, haggled with the beefy young cook. No one was bothering with money anymore and Bella tried to work out an exchange rate based on home-grown tobacco, bags of eggs, and – in one case – a live hedgehog.
Towards the end of the afternoon, she joined the queue herself, returning to the bench to demolish the pie, uncapping the bottle and washing it down with another mouthful of vodka. Watching the market beginning to empty, the bottle still in her hand, she realised with a little jolt of pleasure that she’d become part of the pulse of the place, an honorary resident, sun-kissed, full of vodka and hopelessly optimistic.
*
An hour and a half later, already waiting by the car, Larissa watched her weaving down the street.
‘I got lost,’ Bella put out a hand to steady herself. ‘My fault.’
‘You’re drunk,’ Larissa was smiling. ‘It suits you.’
‘You still want me to drive? You’re not frightened?’
‘Frightened? Never.’
Impressed by this act of faith, Bella slid behind the wheel, concentrating hard on every turn, every gear change, every stab on the brake. The streets were beginning to empty now. From time to time, Larissa warned of German patrols, soldiers in threes and fours, sauntering along like tourists, and Bella blew them kisses through the open window as the little car sped by. It seemed an altogether civilised way to start an occupation, and when they finally climbed the stairs to the apartment, she stopped Larissa on the top landing and tugged her closer.
‘I meant to buy you a pie,’ she said. ‘But all I’ve got is vodka.’
They finished the bottle, and afterwards Bella slept like a baby, her arms wrapped around Larissa, oblivious of the plaster cast. Next morning, badly hung-over again, she returned from taking Larissa to work and did her best to type up what she could remember from the previous day. The results, she knew only too well, were wooden, poorly written, and did scant justice to what she’d witnessed. She read it twice, then threw it in the bin and unfolded the letter she’d handwritten to Moncrieff. If it was truth that Larissa was after, she thought, then here it was. Dearest Tam. Proper bed.
For the next couple of days, the city continued to bask in the warm autumnal sunshine. The chestnut trees along the riverbank were turning to bronze and the blue and yellow striped flag of the Ukrainian nationalists flew beside the long scarlet banners hung by the Germans. Out of sheer curiosity, freed from any other obligation, Bella wandered up and down Khreshchatyk, paying special attention to the city’s new chieftains. Kyiv’s main boulevard – no longer the preserve of the Party – was now theirs for the taking, and Bella watched German commanders moving purposefully from building to building, checking on whether or not it met their needs.
The enormous Continental Hotel, fo
r example, had been quickly occupied by dozens of German staff officers, and more were appearing by the hour, accompanied by soldiers laden with boxes of paperwork. Wehrmacht High Command, meanwhile, had taken a fancy to the towering property on the corner of Proreznaya Street, with the popular Children’s World shop on the ground floor. The Germans, to her surprise, were still behaving themselves and the instalment of a seemingly benign military regime over a store selling toys and children’s winter clothing struck Bella as symbolic, richly promising for the weeks and months to come. If Kyiv’s luck holds, she thought, the city’s prospects might indeed be bright.
This thought was comforting but other questions remained. How long would the occupation last? Would the Germans be in Moscow by Christmas? Would Stalin sue for peace? And if this huge country ended up as a permanent part of the Reich, where would that leave a wayward defector with a taste for home-made vodka and a lingering faith in the blessings of Marxism?
Bella had no answers to any of these questions, but she knew that, if only for her own sanity, she had to find a role for herself. Becoming a journalist was a non-starter. Nor, so far, did there appear to be any kind of organised resistance to the Germans. So, for the time being, she’d become a babushka, a grandmotherly figure, fat and happy, devoted to Larissa’s care and welfare. She’d buy a headscarf, and a pair of felt slippers, and return to the market every morning to haggle for the best vegetables and perhaps a little meat. She’d buy peasant bread and have wholesome stews bubbling on the stove night and day, and while Larissa was still out at work she’d make the time to take a stab at learning the piano.
At Christmas, she thought, she’d find a chicken or a goose from somewhere and they’d invite Yuri over. There’d be snow at the window, and lots of vodka, and once they were drunk enough, they’d gather round the piano and sing carols. She’d have to play the tunes from memory, and she’d have to teach Larissa and Yuri the words, but that would be fine. Larissa was probably concert standard already, so they might end the evening with a little Rachmaninoff. Dear Tam, she thought. Maybe you should come, too.
*
That evening, she tabled the proposition but Larissa was in no mood to listen. The piano, she said, was there to be played. Help yourself. And as for proper meals, she simply shrugged. She seemed troubled, preoccupied, fretful. Bella tried to get to the bottom of whatever had gone wrong but got nowhere.
Mid-evening brought a knock on the door. They’d been listening to the radio again. Bella unbolted the door. It was Yuri. He pushed past her, embracing Larissa. She nodded at the radio and put a finger to her lips. There were yet more announcements from the Kommandatura, a long list of diktats, of dos and don’ts, of forms to be collected and filled out, of items to be surrendered, and of an imminent curfew. Then came a roll of drums, and yet more classical music.
‘Bruckner,’ Larissa was looking up at Yuri. ‘Well?’
Yuri said nothing, just nodded. Larissa turned the music down and went across to the window. She gazed out at the street, and beckoned Bella to join her. The street was deserted, as if the curfew had already begun. Larissa’s eyes were closed. Bella asked her again whether everything was OK, and again she refused to answer.
‘Tomorrow?’ she said. ‘You’ll take me to work?’
‘Of course.’
‘And afterwards?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then you must come back here.’ She tried to force a smile. ‘And teach yourself the piano.’
Bella stared at her. Then she realised what Larissa was really saying.
‘You don’t want me out on the street?’
‘No, chérie,’ she was nursing her arm. ‘I don’t.’
15
WEDNESDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 1941
Bella was on Khreshchatyk, walking back from the Besserabka market, when the first bomb went off.
First came a blinding flash, the colour of lightning, then the blast wave rolled down the boulevard, a giant bellow of anger, destroying everything in its path, blowing out windows, tossing cars aside, tearing off branches, uprooting smaller trees, leaving passers-by in pools of blood as panes of glass, falling from above, shattered around them. A huge dust cloud rose around the seat of the explosion, and as it slowly cleared, the scale of the damage became apparent. The entire front of a building towards the end of the street had been ripped off, exposing floor after floor of offices, and the air was still full of sheets of paper, dancing in the wind.
Bella had been thrown to the pavement by the blast wave. Now, she got to her feet and did her best to remove the fragments of glass from the light summer coat she’d borrowed from Larissa. A woman nearby was examining a cut on the back of her hand. Bella offered her a handkerchief she’d found in the pocket of her coat. The woman looked up, white-faced, gesturing down the street.
‘A gas explosion,’ she said. ‘It happens all the time.’
Bella didn’t answer. In her heart she knew this was no accident. She took a brief look at the woman’s wound, told her she’d be OK, and gave her the handkerchief. Potatoes had spilled from the bag Bella had filled at the market, but she ignored them. Columns of flame were erupting at the end of Khreshchatyk and she began to run towards the inferno. The closer she got, the name of the missing shopfront and the gaunt remains of the offices above began to dawn on her. Children’s World, she thought. Gone.
She was right. Badly out of breath, she had to stop. German soldiers, their uniforms grey with dust, some of them still in shock, were linking arms at the bellowed command of an officer, holding back a crowd of onlookers. Then a second squad of soldiers appeared, dragging dozens of civilians with them, heading away from the wreckage.
One of the prisoners, a tall, red-haired youth, tried to give them the slip. He managed to wriggle free but then a Wehrmacht sergeant caught him by the neck and threw him to his knees. The youth stared up, pleading for his life as a rifle butt from another soldier smashed into the side of his face. Inert on the cobblestones, he tried to protect himself, but they were kicking him now, heavy boots, blows to his head and chest. Finally, his face a mask of blood, he slumped unconscious. The sergeant wiped his hands on his uniform and rejoined the prisoners heading down the boulevard. They, too, had already taken a beating and the crowd parted as they stumbled onto the pavement.
Bella found herself beside an old man in a threadbare grey coat. The chaos around him appeared to come as no surprise.
‘They’ve been arrested?’ Bella was still looking at the soldiers pushing the prisoners through the open doors of a building fifty metres away. ‘And what’s that? Where are they going?’
‘It’s a cinema.’
‘A cinema? What will they do in a cinema?’
The old man shrugged, then drew a bony finger across his throat. At that same moment came the roar of a second explosion, and the terrifying punch of the blast. People turned away, crouching, kneeling, covering their ears, and when heads lifted again the remains of the Children’s World building was a pile of rubble.
Then, dizzyingly, a third explosion. Bella, already deafened, had a perfect view. By now she knew these attacks were deliberate, the work of saboteurs, and the target this time was the building across the boulevard from Children’s World. The upstairs offices had been requisitioned by the Germans but the café at street level had evidently been full of gas masks and now they were scattered in a huge circle across the glass-flecked cobblestones.
Bella stared at them. With their yellow Perspex eyes and rubber snouts they looked grotesque, severed heads from some alien planet. God help us, Bella thought, turning away. For the first time, she realised she was trembling. The sheer violence of the explosions, what they could do to bricks and mortar, to flesh and blood, was something new to her. The Stukas had been bad enough, but this was something far, far worse. Everything she’d taken for granted, like the permanence of these huge buildings, had turned out to be a lie and she’d been crazy to ever think otherwise. You’ve been foolish enough to ass
ume you were safe, she told herself. Wrong.
The old man was still beside her, as unmoved as ever. He was looking at the cinema. The doors were open again, and officers and soldiers were pouring out, followed by the prisoners. One of the officers had a pistol in his hand. He began to shoot upwards, attracting attention, shouting at the crowd. Bella couldn’t hear a word.
She turned to the old man. She wanted to know what the officer was saying.
‘He’s telling us to run. He says the Khreshchatyk’s going up.’ For the first time, the old man smiled. ‘All of it.’
*
Bella was arrested fifteen minutes later. She’d half walked, half run, back towards Larissa’s car, trying to avoid the drifts of broken glass, terrified of the next explosion, half expecting the boulevard to erupt around her. Then, quite suddenly, the pavement was blocked by a line of soldiers. There were at least a dozen of them. Their rifles were trained on the oncoming pedestrians. There was no way through.
An officer appeared. He had a gun in his hand. He shouted something in German that no one understood.
‘He’s telling us to stop,’ Bella told the woman beside her. ‘He’s telling us not to move.’
‘But why?’
‘I don’t know.’
The crowd had come to a halt. Some were trying to turn back, but more troops had appeared, forming another line, and suddenly they were surrounded. The officer had put his gun away. A truck had appeared at the kerbside and the officer was shouting orders to the driver. The driver got down from the cab and lowered the tailgate at the back.
‘That’s for us,’ Bella nodded at the truck.
She was right. The officer was moving through the crowd now, pausing to study each face. A brief nod to his sergeant was enough to bring a soldier to seize the man or woman and push them through the crowd to the waiting truck. Soon, the back of the truck was nearly full.
The officer came to Bella. This time, he paused for longer.
‘Your name?’
Kyiv (Spoils of War) Page 14
