The Forest of Souls

by Carla Banks

  He stirred restlessly against the pillow, and she went back to the bedside. His lips moved.

  She took his hand. ‘Grandpapa?’ she said.

  His head turned and he started muttering. She could catch the occasional word. ‘…at the gate…Eva…’

  Eva. ‘I found a photograph of Eva. In the desk.’

  His head turned from side to side, and his lips worked, but no sound emerged.

  ‘It’s over,’ she said. ‘It’s done. Rest. Please rest.’

  But his hand gripped hers, and his lips moved urgently as if he was trying to tell her something.

  ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Grandpapa?’

  The sky grew darker.

  Jake lit his tenth cigarette of the day and pressed ‘delete’. He was working on his book. He was trying to explain the complexity of motives that drove the people caught behind the German advance. He knew what he wanted, a cool and cerebral analysis of influences that led to both heroism and craven defeat. But the words wouldn’t come. This rarely happened to Jake. He stared at the blank screen, and the face of Sophia Yevanova–he could only think of her as Sophia Yevanova–looked back. You must understand that, for some of us, the fascists came as liberators, at first. And the crosses of Kurapaty, vanishing under the trees.

  He couldn’t hate her. She had lived with the reality of the Kurapaty killings for much of her life. You must understand that, for some of us, the fascists came as liberators, at first.

  Could he hate her for her betrayal of her cousin? Sophia had been brave. She had fought, and she had finally been brought down. She had survived the prison camp only to fall into the hands of the NKVD. Had Raina known, when she stole her cousin’s identity, that Sophia would pay the price for what she had done? Maybe she truly believed that the real Sophia had died in the camp to which Raina had consigned her.

  He had his book. He had all the information he needed, and more. Tiredness overwhelmed him. He just wanted to lie down and sleep, but he had to work. His notes scrolled down the screen in front of him, in a mockery of what he now knew. He couldn’t face it, not tonight.

  Jake didn’t know what to do with the evening. He didn’t want to go out. He couldn’t face even the anonymous crowd in a bar. He didn’t want to be among other people. He switched on the television and channel-hopped for a while, then switched off in disgust.

  Some stuff had come through on the fax earlier. He hadn’t bothered looking at it. He knew what it was. Adam had e-mailed him earlier: I have found your people. I have sent you what there is of the story. The papers were waiting for him. He’d have jumped on them a couple of days ago. Maybe Adam’s notes held the clue to Marek Lange’s secret, but Jake wasn’t sure he wanted it any more. From what he had seen, Lange’s secret had tormented him far more than Raina Yevanova’s secret had tormented her. Digging around in other people’s pasts had brought death and chaos in its wake. Whether it was Kurapaty, collaboration, or something else, the secret could die with him.

  But he didn’t have anything else to do. He took the papers out of the machine and began skimming them. The papers relating to the Lange family had largely been destroyed as the Nazis fled Minsk, razing the city as they went. Much of this was taken from the trials of the collaborators after the war, Adam had written. Jake flicked through the pages, skim-reading. He began to frown and turned back to the beginning. This time, he read the closely written pages intently. An hour later, he sat back in his chair and stared out of the window. The text had been disjointed, patched together from different sources, but the story it told had been vivid, and he needed to take himself away from the streets of wartime Minsk, away from the story he had just pieced together.

  Marek Lange’s secret.

  He thought about Lange’s arrival as a refugee towards the end of the war. He thought about the life Lange had tried to make for himself–the marriage that had failed, the daughter he apparently couldn’t love, the business that had been so successful because he had nothing else to fear and nothing else to lose. And finally his granddaughter had been born. Faith. Maybe the last years had been less tormented.

  There had been an end, of a kind. He had sold everything he had to sell, given his money away to the children and grandchildren of the survivors, had stayed in the cold, comfortless house, lovingly tended his garden and tried to ensure his granddaughter’s future.

  And now, it was nearly over.

  It wasn’t quite ten. He picked up his coat. He knew what Lange’s secret was, and he knew what he had to do.

  He just hoped he wasn’t going to be too late.

  Faith was weary. The monotonous hum of the ventilation system was playing tunes in her head, and her eyes were starting to droop. The clock continued its relentless march towards midnight. The doctor had told her that Grandpapa wasn’t responding to the antibiotics, and they didn’t expect him to survive the night. ‘Short of a miracle,’ the young man had said with a tired grimace.

  She’d phoned Katya at six. ‘Please come,’ she’d said.

  ‘As soon as I can.’ Katya had promised, but Faith knew she wouldn’t be there, not until she was sure that it was all over.

  Grandpapa woke and recommenced his restless search, his head shifting from side to side, his lips moving wordlessly. She took his hand. ‘I’m here,’ she said. He didn’t seem to hear her. He was going to die, and he was going to die with his desperate search unfulfilled. A search for what? Faith couldn’t help him because she didn’t know.

  ‘Grandpapa,’ she said again. ‘It’s all right. I’m here.’ She tried giving him some water, but it trickled down the side of his face and soaked into the collar of his pyjamas. She dabbed at it gently.

  Even now, even late at night, people were coming and going. It wasn’t a place of rest. She heard the clang of the lift doors, heard the echo of footsteps, heard the ward door sigh open and then creak shut. Someone was coming along the corridor now, moving quickly. She hoped it might be Katya, but Katya’s footsteps were always the sharp tap of high heels moving with urgent haste. This sounded like a man. The footsteps came to the door of Grandpapa’s section and then moved into the four-bed unit. She looked up.

  It was Jake Denbigh. He looked exhausted. His face was grey and his eyes were shadowed with lack of sleep. She stood up slowly. ‘Jake.’

  ‘I told them I was your brother. Faith, I had to come. I got it so wrong. How is he?’

  ‘He’s worse. Much worse. Something’s upsetting him. He won’t rest.’ Her throat was dry.

  ‘I know what it is,’ Jake said. ‘I think I can help him–I was afraid I might be too late. Will he be able to hear me?’

  What could anyone say that would help him now? It was over. But Jake’s urgency was as convincing as Grandpapa’s distress. ‘If there’s anything–please, do it.’

  He moved to the bed. Grandpapa turned his head restlessly on the pillow. ‘…the light…They are watching. Go. Now, Eva. Go…’

  Faith took his hand. ‘Grandpapa,’ she said.

  ‘Now…go…’

  Jake bent over the bed. ‘Mr Lange.’ Faith could hear his voice, low but clear and authoritative as he spoke to Grandpapa. ‘Mr Lange. There’s news from Minsk. Listen.’

  Minsk! She reached out her hand to silence him, when she saw that Grandpapa’s restless movement had stopped. His eyes flickered. Jake spoke again. ‘That night–they lied to you to make you talk. Eva escaped, Mr Lange. She got away from them. She escaped.’ He leaned closer, watching Grandpapa’s face. ‘Can you hear me? Do you understand?’

  Grandpapa’s eyes opened. His eyes focused on her and she could see…was it recognition on his face? A tear ran down on to the pillow. His mouth moved. She thought that maybe he had tried to smile. Then his eyes closed.

  They sat by the bed. Jake stayed with her as the night drew on. Grandpapa sank back into unconsciousness. His breathing was harsh, and his skin became hotter and hotter. The nurses came and turned him once. Faith cooled his face with a flannel. He didn’t st
ir.

  Shortly before one, his breath started to become uneven, with a catch in his throat. The gap between each breath became longer, catch…and breathe, catch…and breathe, slower and slower. His jaw slackened, and the laboured breathing grew fainter.

  And then everything was still.

  The Bear at the Gate

  And this is the story of how Eva died.

  They kept her in the cells in Minsk for seven days. They didn’t seem to care how much or how little she knew. They knew that she had gone to meet Marek. That was enough. They wouldn’t tell her what they had done with him–whether he was alive or dead. She wrote to her mother from the prison:

  Dear Mama

  Please don’t worry about me. I have not been badly treated. Please tell the director at the hospital what has happened. I don’t want to be without work when I leave here. Ask Larissa Moskoff in the apartment above if you need help. She has been very good to me.

  Eva

  It is not known if the tone in this letter reflects Eva’s true expectations about her fate, or if the information she gave her mother about her treatment was true.

  It was January 1943. The tide of the war was turning. In a little over a year, Minsk would be liberated. But time can form an unbridgeable gulf. A week after Eva had been taken into custody, she left the police building where the suspects were held.

  It is a grey day. It rained in the night, and the water lies in pools on the ground. Eva looks small and pale among the men who surround her. Her hands are tied behind her back with twine. It has been pulled tight and must dig into her flesh. Her eyes are fixed ahead.

  She wears a blue dress her mother made for her, and a grey cardigan that another prisoner has given her against the cold. It is buttoned up to the neck. The officer leading the death squad wears a long greatcoat. The peak of his cap points down towards his nose.

  They escort their captive through the streets to the entrance of the old distillery, to the gates with the arch of the dancing bear. The officer throws a rope over the crossbar and makes a loop. Someone brings a stool from inside the building. They lead Eva to the makeshift gallows.

  She can see over the heads of the watching soldiers as she is lifted on to the stool. Her face is very white. Her eyes are fixed on the street, on the alleyway that runs back into the shadows, the place where she last saw her brother.

  The officer puts the noose round her neck, frowning slightly in deliberation as he places it and runs the loop down the rope. Eva turns her face away, then looks back to the alley.

  The officer steps down. Eva’s eyelids flutter.

  She is in the woods, in the shadow of the trees on a summer’s day. The light seems to flicker as she hurries along the path, shade and light, shade and light. And on either side of the path, narrower paths twine away into the darkness, into the secret places of the forest. She doesn’t know why she is running, not at first. She looks behind her, but the way home has gone. To either side, there is nothing but trees and shadows. And ahead of her the path vanishes under an arch of leaves.

  But she can hear it now. Deep in the forest, under the darkness of the trees, she can hear it. The careful placing of a foot, and silence, and again, and silence, and again…closer and closer.

  Baba Yaga has found her.

  Time stops.

  Then the executioner kicks the stool away.

  27

  The memorial service for Helen was held in the church near the university, six weeks after her death. The chapel of rest was full. There must have been a hundred people there. Faith saw Trish in the crowd, neatly turned out in black, and Greg Fellows, looking uncomfortable in a jacket and tie, standing unobtrusively at the back as if he was afraid someone would come and eject him. Maybe he had more cause to mourn Helen than she knew.

  She looked round again and saw Jake coming down the aisle towards her. Their eyes met, and he came and stood beside her, touching her hand lightly. ‘Okay?’ His voice was low in her ear.

  She nodded.

  The morning after Grandpapa had died, he had taken her home. She’d fallen into bed and slept until the evening. When she woke, he was still there. He’d prepared food and bought wine. ‘There’s something I have to show you,’ he said.

  And later, towards midnight, he’d given her the papers he’d obtained from the archive at Hrodna where the story had lain untold since the end of the war.

  That is enough, little one…

  ‘He thought he’d led Eva to her death,’ Jake said, when she’d finished reading. ‘He was with the partisans after the Nazis invaded. He got cut off from his platoon–it happened to a lot of Red Army soldiers. He must have kept up some kind of contact with Eva and his mother–they were in Minsk during the occupation. She was doing some minor work for the resistance and someone informed on her. He tried to get her out and they were both arrested. The S.D.–that was the secret police in the area at the time–told him that they’d followed him, that they were after him, not Eva. That’s what they said, but in fact it was the other way round. They knew about Eva, and they were watching her. Getting him was a coup they didn’t expect. Her offences were fairly minor–she’d probably have been sent to one of the camps. But they’d arrested her with a known partisan. He knew what that meant.’

  ‘But he got out.’

  ‘He was lucky, if you want to call it that. They thought he was important. They sent him to the S.D. Headquarters where the real Gestapo could work on him. The partisans blew up the railway line and the train was derailed. He got away. There was no way he could get back, and by that time Eva was dead. All he could do was try to survive. He made his way across occupied Europe to join the Allies. It was an amazing escape. But of course, by the end of the war, there was nothing left.’

  ‘Did he know what had happened to her?’

  Jake nodded. ‘He must have done. The refugee organizations would have told him. But he probably never heard it from an official source, he never heard an eye-witness account. There was always that loophole for hope. And at the end, in the hospital–I think he was back there, I think he was reliving it.’

  Enough…

  It was almost time for the service to start. Faith looked round and then looked again as she saw Daniel take his place in one of the pews. Finn was with him, and he gave Faith a quick smile. He had promised her that his father would be here, and he had delivered. Daniel looked across at her, and after a moment, he gave her an abrupt nod. That was the only apology she was likely to get.

  Finn had told her the story, or as much of it as she needed to know. Daniel had been out the night Helen died, called out to do some emergency work at one of Lomas’s clubs, and had been an unwilling witness when the car involved in the shooting turned up. Lomas had made it clear that if Daniel brought the police to his club, then he and the children would be in trouble. Daniel, knowing that he would be the first person the police looked at, had been left to concoct the best alibi he could. He had been frightened for the children, and Faith could forgive him a lot for that.

  The minister stood at the lectern to greet them, and the service began. Faith let the words wash over her as she remembered Helen, the girl she had known at school, the friend through their university years, the woman who had started her life again, and lost it. She thought about Helen sitting on the rocks above Conies Dale, smiling, the light shining through her hair. She felt Jake’s hand touch hers.

  …for now, we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then I shall know completely, even as I have been known. But now there remains faith, hope and love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

  The colour bleached away and the bright image faded. The service was ending. Helen was gone.

  She didn’t see Antoni Yevanov until she was leaving the chapel. They came face to face in the aisle. ‘Faith,’ he said. He bowed his head in acknowledgement. His eyes flickered briefly over Jake, and she was immediately aware of the antagonism flaring up between the tw
o men.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ she said. He had been away since his mother’s death, working in Brussels. She had heard a rumour that he was planning to return there permanently, to end his connection with the Centre. She wanted to ask him about this, but now was not the time.

  She walked on with Jake, and they paused by a bench in the small churchyard. There were names carved on the flagstones, memorials to people who had died centuries before. They watched Helen’s friends and colleagues wander down the path in groups, then disperse into the city.

  ‘I still don’t know why he killed her,’ she said. Nicholas Garrick had pleaded guilty to the charge of murder, but had given no further account of his actions. The case would come to trial later in the year, pending psychiatric reports. ‘Do you think he was crazy?’

  Jake’s foot traced the lettering on one of the stones. ‘Yes, but I don’t think they’ll enter that as a plea. I don’t think he’ll let them.’

  ‘Do you feel sorry for him?’ She felt no compassion for the man who had killed Helen and left Finn and Hannah without a mother.

  He sighed. ‘I feel sorry for the whole bloody mess. Maybe now there’ll be an end to it.’

  The sky was clear and brilliant, and a March wind blew leaves across the ground. Spring was on its way, and soon the cherry would be flowering in Grandpapa’s garden. Soon, it would be time to scatter his ashes. She pushed back her hair where it had blown across her face and looked up at Jake.

  ‘It’s finished,’ she said. ‘It’s time to go.’

  The House in the Forest

  This is the story of an ending.

  After the war was over, only a few people came back. Many of them had vanished forever, and their stories would never be told.

  The house in the forest was abandoned. There was no one to return. The seasons passed, and the house began to decay. The floors sagged and the roof fell in. The low wall around the well began to crumble and to collapse into the ground. For a few seasons the trees blossomed, the fruit ripened, the cherries and the plums, but there was no one to harvest them and they dropped from the branches and rotted on the ground, or were torn down by the summer storms.