“Perhaps you are, with a little arrogance on the side.”
“Well, I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“Okay, let’s cut the bullshit. Just tell me why you killed my father.”
He glanced at the guard standing next to the door.
Diane did the same, then said to the guard, “Could you leave us alone please?”
The guard kept his head straight and looked down along his nose. “You must know I can’t do that, ma’am.”
“Why not?”
“Why can’t I leave you alone in a room with a man who’s confessed to murdering your father? Are you serious?”
“He’s seventy-eight. He has cuffs on. And we’re old fr—” She huffed. “We used to be old friends. Perhaps we aren’t anymore, but I still don’t think we’re likely to harm each other.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t just take your word for it.”
She turned away from the guard. “Well?”
He shook his head. “I can tell only you, Diane. Nobody else. I’m sorry, but there are certain things . . . things I promised your father I wouldn’t tell the authorities.”
“You promised him? Do you have any idea how empty that promise sounds now? You murdered him, and now you’re . . . somehow honoring him?”
He narrowed his eyes, looked at the guard and then at Diane. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then shook his head and lowered it. “I’m sorry, I just can’t.”
“Why not? This guy’s a guard, not a cop.”
“I’m sorry, Diane. This has to be just between you and me.”
She stared at him for a full ten seconds. “Right,” she said. “You’d better get your excuses good and ready, because I’m gonna sort something out here even if it gives me a nervous breakdown.” She stood up sharply, her legs knocking the chair away.
Chapter 12
Kiev, Ukraine, 1941
Mykhail’s papa had told him he had more things to worry about than letters from Asher. The words were becoming painfully true. The German blitzkrieg machine advanced with such speed that troops had to be rushed out to defend western Ukraine before they were fully trained. And it was to no avail.
Mykhail and Taras found themselves fighting in the same regiment, and together they witnessed their country being overrun with frightening ease. They dug into one line of defense, lived through days of blood and bullets, then were ordered to destroy anything that might be of use to the Germans—often razing whole villages to the ground—before retreating to the next line, where the cycle repeated itself. It was like a recurring nightmare, the smell of cordite and rotting flesh alternating with that of burning buildings.
By September, after months of unrelenting death and defeat, the Red Army had been pushed back to within a few days’ march of Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine.
There were many losses at that position. Taras and Mykhail had to help drag half a dozen corpses out of the small trench they were occupying. But by now they were accustomed to such tasks.
During a lull in the fighting, Mykhail lit a cigarette, took a long drag on it, and closed his eyes for a few moments. He felt a rush of ecstasy that, for that brief time, took him away from the bloody reality.
He crouched down next to Taras, who was sitting on the floor in the mud. He almost passed the cigarette to his friend, but took another dose of relief himself instead. He slowly exhaled before offering it over.
But Taras didn’t respond.
“Here.” Mykhail gave his friend’s face a tap with the back of his hand and placed the end of the cigarette against his lips. “Taras,” he said. “Take some of this. You’ll feel better.”
Still there was no movement. Mykhail grabbed his friend’s chin, pulling him to look. “Taras. Snap out of it. You have to.”
But Mykhail saw glazed eyes that looked through him.
“I can’t,” Taras said. “I’ve had enough.”
Mykhail grabbed his shoulder and gave it a shake. “Oh, come on. You’ve said that before.”
And then they both flinched as a rifle grenade exploded yards away from them. Gunfire and more grenades followed.
Mykhail poked his head out of the trench and fired his rifle indiscriminately, the cigarette still drooping from the corner of his mouth. He took a break to reload and looked down. Taras was still sitting there, staring into space.
“Taras! Stand up and—”
An explosion interrupted him. A few minutes of bombardment followed, and when Mykhail looked down again, Taras still hadn’t moved.
A bullet glanced off Mykhail’s helmet, making him stumble and drop down to his knees. He could hear Taras mumbling to himself. Mykhail pulled him close, forehead to forehead. “What is it?”
“I want to sow and harvest,” Taras said to him. “I’m not a fighter.”
Another rifle grenade exploded nearby. The blast forced Mykhail onto Taras’s body.
“Don’t say that, Taras! You’ll be shot for cowardice.” He grabbed him by the lapels. “Come on! Perhaps we can hold Kiev. But you have to fight!”
Then they heard a voice screeching out commands above the gunfire. It was the voice of their corporal and he was telling them to retreat.
Mykhail tightened his grip on Taras and tried to pull him to his feet. The two men fell into the mud.
“Leave me here,” Taras said breathlessly. “I can’t carry on.”
Mykhail tried pulling him to his feet again, but realized he was almost as weak and tired as Taras—low rations and precious little sleep had seen to that.
He tried once more, but was disturbed by that same assertive voice from behind him.
“Is he shot?” the corporal asked.
“Just weak and tired,” Mykhail replied, giving Taras’s arm another pull.
“Go!” the corporal said to Mykhail. “You go, and I’ll deal with this.”
“But . . .”
“It’s an order! Retreat!” He got his pistol out and waved it toward the city behind them.
Mykhail got to his feet, grabbed his rifle, and started scrambling up and out of the trench. Keeping on all fours, he crawled along a few yards. Then he glanced back to see the corporal pointing his pistol at Taras’s temple. Taras had his eyes closed. Despite the gunfire and shouting, his face looked to be at peace. Moments later, one shot rang out above the rest, and Mykhail felt nauseous.
The corporal crawled toward him and Mykhail lifted his rifle, for a second thinking the unthinkable. But the corporal shouted out, “Let’s move!” and Mykhail came to his senses, lowering the rifle.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said.
The corporal glanced back to Taras’s body. “He as good as killed himself. We couldn’t leave him for the Germans to capture and interrogate. We both know they would do far worse to him.”
The blast from another grenade made them both duck.
“We could have carried him,” Mykhail shouted, the noise of the grenade still ringing in his ears.
“We can’t carry people. Now move on, Petrenko. We need to move farther into the city and make defenses.”
The corporal crawled on. Mykhail yelped as he caught a bullet in his upper arm, then looked up to see the corporal turning back.
“Petrenko!” he shouted. “Do you need help?”
Mykhail shook his head and followed as best he could. As he scurried along, he kept repeating the words of his papa. Self-preservation. All that matters. Self-preservation. All that matters.
By the next day, the bullet had been removed from Mykhail’s arm and the wound had been dressed. The only anesthetic had been vodka and a rag to bite down on, but at least he’d slept well afterward.
Now it was back to reality. And for some, even talk was dangerous. “That’s it,” they would say. “If Kiev falls I’ll surrender.”
The sergeants and corporals threatened instant executions for any soldiers who did, and punishments for those who even spoke openly of it. So soldiers were more guarded in their words, although not c
ompletely silent.
Mykhail’s arm was deemed fit for him to fight, but over the next few days there was no fighting. Instead they retreated even further; they were running away like wounded dogs.
Eventually, as they reached the outskirts of the city, an ugly gray building dominated the view. It was surrounded by two layers of fencing, each topped with barbed wire.
“Anybody know what that is?” Mykhail heard one of the soldiers ask.
“We’re in Kiev,” someone else said. “I visited here many years ago. That’s the prison, where they keep all the insurgents, the dissidents, and the agitators.”
Mykhail turned to the man. “Are you serious?”
He nodded. “And the poets and nationalists—the dreamers.”
They marched past and settled about a hundred yards from it, at a deserted crossroads, where they started piling up abandoned carts and the debris from bombing raids into makeshift barricades.
Mykhail kept glancing over to the prison, wondering about Borys.
After the barricades were complete, Mykhail approached his corporal.
“Do you know about the prison?” he said.
“In what way?”
“Well, what happened to the inmates.”
The man looked puzzled. “They’re still in there.”
Mykhail looked around at the deserted streets and buildings.
“So we just leave them there?”
The man nodded casually before lighting a cigarette.
“I know someone who’s in there,” Mykhail said.
“And?”
“Could I look for him?”
A small cloud of smoke blew from the man’s mouth. He took another breath before shaking his head. He drew his forefinger slowly across his throat.
“I don’t understand,” Mykhail said.
He pointed. “Just watch.”
By the time the corporal had finished his cigarette, the prison door locks had been blown off and a few hundred soldiers had run inside.
“What’s happening?” Mykhail said. “Are they going to bring them out?”
The man laughed. “All of those enemies of the people? The insurgents, agitators, Ukrainian nationalists? What do you think?”
Then the gunfire started, and Mykhail started to tremble.
“But . . . I don’t understand. They can’t just kill them.”
“This is war, young Petrenko. People die. We can’t leave them in there, and we can hardly let them out.”
“Why not?”
“Are you mad? These prisoners are enemies of the people. If we leave them there the Germans will liberate them. Do you want to fight the Germans and those prisoners?”
Neither man spoke for a few minutes, and by the time Mykhail forced himself to turn and walk away, the flamethrowers had moved in and the whole building was ablaze.
His corporal followed him and patted his back.
“I’m sorry about your friend,” he said. “But these are orders from the top. We’re here to obey. And don’t forget, friends or not, these people are all troublemakers. They deserve to die.”
Mykhail stopped and threw the man’s hand off him. “What did you say?”
“Look. The Red Army has no time for these people, and you are a serving member of the Red Army, so neither should you. Did you know that many of the towns and villages in Ukraine have actually been welcoming the German forces? They see them as liberators. Can you believe that?”
Mykhail pushed the man aside and walked away.
Mykhail had seen the flames from the prison lick the clouds above, and was now watching the smoke swirl high above the charred remains.
And as the wreckage smoldered, so did his anger. Taras was gone; now Borys too. Both killed by Mykhail’s own side.
He was sitting on the ground, his back against a low wall, when another soldier approached and stood next to him.
“Petrenko,” the man said, “you’ll do yourself no good.”
Mykhail just looked up and scowled.
“I heard you arguing about the prison with the corporal.”
“And?”
“We all feel the same. Always on the back foot. Outnumbered, outgunned, and outmaneuvered. Then they do this.” He nodded to the burned-out shell. “It disgusts me too.”
“You knew people in there?”
“It doesn’t matter whether I did or not. The corporal is right. We are an army, and they are orders.”
“Well, I feel no allegiance to this army,” Mykhail said, the venom clear in his voice.
“Shh!” The man glanced around. “You want to see what they do to cowards?”
Mykhail stood up quickly and faced the man, eye to eye. “I’m no coward.”
The man was taller than Mykhail, but pulled his head back and took a step away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m only telling you how it is.”
Mykhail opened his mouth to reply, but the man’s expression switched instantly to one of shock, his eyes bulging, his head trembling. It took another second for the rattle of aircraft fire on concrete to register with Mykhail, and then the man slumped to the ground, blood seeping from his mouth.
Soldiers ran left and right, each searching for cover. Shouts were heard above the noise, which now included the screaming engines of the aircraft themselves.
Mykhail ran in a jagged path. The prison didn’t matter now; all that mattered was survival. He fell beneath the back end of a tank, praying that the thing wasn’t going to move.
The aerial bombardment continued long enough for Mykhail’s legs to go numb, and when the aircraft gave up and left, their armory spent, the ground was spattered red.
He crawled out from under the back of the tank, focusing on the prison again, trying to shake all thoughts of Borys and Taras from his head. Whatever had happened to them wasn’t important now. He’d survived yet another onslaught. That was important.
He lit a cigarette and once again took himself away from reality, closing his eyes and pointing his face toward the sun. Soon they would be retreating yet again, he thought, but there was no rush—not until the aircraft returned.
The tank fired up, the noise startling Mykhail. But the engine gave up as soon as it was started. It was cranked over once more, and grunted for a few seconds before stalling again.
A nearby corporal cursed. “What have you done to it?” he shouted up to the soldier’s head poking out of the driver’s hatch.
“I don’t understand,” the man replied. “But we can try again.” He did, and still it spluttered and gave up.
“Perhaps it needs refueling. Check the fuel level.”
“Fuel level is good.”
As they argued, Mykhail wandered over.
“You,” the corporal said. “Put that cigarette out. We’re about to refuel the tank.”
Mykhail took another drag. “It uses diesel, not gasoline.” He noticed the glare of the corporal, apologized, and put the cigarette out. “And it won’t be a fuel problem, because it’s turning over.” He walked around the tank. “My guess is it’s either the air intake or the exhaust.”
“You’re an engineer?”
He shook his head. “I know engines. I’ve worked on many.”
“Well, do you think you can help?” The corporal flicked a thumb at the tank. “We need every tank we can save.”
Mykhail approached the engine, just behind the turret, and took a few seconds to examine the air-intake grille. “Looks okay,” he said. Then he walked around to the exhaust.
“Ah,” he said, pointing at the underside of the pipe. “It’s damaged.”
The corporal walked over and stood next to him.
“You see? The opening is okay, but farther back something’s crushed the exhaust pipe, pinched it. Probably a chunk of concrete thrown up onto it.”
“So?”
Mykhail glanced around until he spotted a metal fence post—a sorry casualty of the aircraft’s bombs. He dragged it over. The corporal helped, and together they poked the po
st into the back end of the exhaust.
“Careful,” Mykhail said. “Just use it as a lever to open the pipe out, to get rid of that pinch point.”
A few minutes later, they’d just done that, and the exhaust pipe—although mangled—was now open.
“Try that,” Mykhail shouted up to the driver.
The tank fired up and revved, and a few seconds later it started moving.
“I’m impressed,” the corporal said. “You want to work more with tanks?”
Mykhail gave the man a sideways, wary glance, then nodded.
“You know it’s not a safe option, don’t you?”
“What is safe around here?”
The corporal nodded. “Good. Consider yourself part of the tank maintenance team.”
Mykhail spent most of the next few weeks looking after the tanks and other army vehicles. It wasn’t peaceful, and when he wasn’t being a mechanic, he was retreating, but it kept him away from the worst of the action. Tanks and engines were mechanical beasts. They showed no fear or anger, had no allies or enemies. They would not turn on you unexpectedly.
A little of that robotic attitude rubbed off on Mykhail. He was still sore over the killings of his friends, and the work helped him keep himself to himself and quell feelings of anger that, if given vent, would surely see him get punished.
He didn’t talk to other soldiers, but he did listen. The words were always spoken after a glance over each shoulder to make sure no corporals were within earshot.
“I never wanted to join this damn army in the first place.”
“Months of bloody retreat after bloody retreat. I’ve had enough.”
“I was conscripted against my will anyway.”
“Do the generals know what the hell they’re doing?”
“It’s humiliation week after week, losing battle after battle.”
And there was talk of what his fellow Red Army troops had done to captured German soldiers—things so horrible they made Mykhail feel more ill than he already was.
By now there was also talk of rebellion every day, but it came to nothing.
Ultimately the Wehrmacht and the rest of the enemy did the job for them. By the end of September 1941, the Nazi blitzkrieg machine had encircled the last remnants of the Red Army in the city. There was nowhere left for them to retreat to, and they were finally ground into submission.
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