“And?”
“We were to meet yesterday, but he did not show up.”
“Maybe he was denied his leave or just found another fiancée.” He cackled, showing his rotten teeth.
It must have been Ulya’s countenance that impressed him to approach the subject with more attention. He took a phone and, after waiting for some long moments, reported, “There is a girl. She’s inquiring about her fiancé.” His nose twitched as he listened, then turned his head to her. “What is his name?”
“Konstantin Petrov.”
“Konstantin Petrov,” the soldier repeated into the receiver then lowered it into its cradle.
“What did they say?”
“They’ll call back.”
“When?”
Most likely not inclined to chat, or it was prohibited while on guard duty, the soldier turned away and peered through the window. At the trilling of the phone, he startled, then grabbed the receiver and listened. “There is no cadet with this name here,” he said even before he replaced the receiver.
“It can’t be. I’m telling you he is a cadet in this school,” Ulya insisted.
The sentry gave her a disdainful look and stretched one arm to his rifle. “Citizen, leave the territory of the military base!”
She had no choice but to step back into the street. Where now? She had to find Konstantin and if not him, then the truth. “Where is the orphanage? The one near the school number one,” she asked the first passerby, an old man who pushed a cart filled with charcoal in front of him.
He stopped, slipped his ushanka—fur cap with earflaps—and swiped sweat from his face with its inside. “This is Vodopyanova Street. You go along. When you see a grand building on the left side, that’s the school number one. Right across from it, on the other side of the street, you’ll see a two-story building. It’s the orphanage.” And then, with only a slightest pause, he continued. “What, did you abandon your child? Now conscience got the better of you?” He looked her up and down without hiding his disgust and went on ranting. “You, young girls, have no shame nowadays.” To escape his condemnation, she quickened her steps and the last words she could hear were, “In our time . . .”
It took only about ten minutes till she found the shabby two-story wooden building and pushed the door open into a hall. A squat old woman with a bucket in one hand and a mop in the other regarded her with suspicion. “Are you looking for somebody?”
“I need to find out about one of your former fosterlings.”
“Who is that?”
“Konstantin Petrov. Do you know him?”
“Petrov you say?” Her face showed tension. “Konstantin you say?”
“Yes, Konstantin Petrov.”
“We had Pavlik Petrov, and Zhenya Petrova . . . Innokentiy Petrov . . . Ilyusha . . . but he was Petrovkin. No, we did not have any Konstantin Petrov. I’m telling you. I’ve worked here since the orphanage was founded.”
“It can’t be true. He told me himself. The orphanage opposite to the school number one.”
“Well, this is the one. But we have never had a fosterling by the name Konstantin Petrov. Now, leave the premises. I’m too busy to be occupied with idle chatter. Soon the children wake up after their afternoon sleep.” With an astounding determination, she grabbed her mop as though ready to use it against Ulya. “Get going, go.” She made an eloquent gesture toward the exit door.
All the way home, Ulya pondered about his lies. What did he need from me? Bedding, or something else? More surprised than frightened, she questioned if hints were there, but she hadn’t been paying attention to them or missed them? Or brushed them off because . . . Konstantin was her first date. Was she desperate to have a boyfriend? She couldn’t place the feeling, and with no regret, she put him or whoever he was out of her mind.
MEMORANDUM
The object of the surveillance, A-711, is not responsive to conferring sensitive themes; secretive. Unemotional.
The object is insistent in getting married.
A hand-written note: To remove agent Karl from the assignment. To continue surveillance.
8
Natasha
Spring 1939
Vitebsk
“Why do you stay home on Sundays?” Aunt Anna looked at Natasha, her eyebrows pulled into an affronted frown. “Enjoy your youth. It won’t last long.”
“I just don’t want to go anywhere, Aunty.”
“Still pining for that son of a bitch?” she groused.
Natasha winced. “Let me alone. I don’t pine for him.”
“Well, then go out! Meet somebody, a young and beautiful girl you are. You live like a recluse.”
Natasha shrugged and, to avoid her aunt’s homilies, escaped to the kitchen.
No such luck. Her aunt followed her. “You are like dead. Other girls—” She chuckled. “Listen to this. A week ago, a girl of twenty, her name Natasha like yours, was brought to our hospital by an ambulance. With a ruptured appendix. Well, with no delay, we operated on her. Oh, what drama it was for the whole week. She moaned, and complained, and cried, all this girl stuff. On Friday, she disappeared.”
“How is that?”
“Ha! Just climbed out the window into the street and off she went.”
Natasha turned away and continued washing the plates left from the meal of the day before.
“Want to know what happened to her?”
“Well, go on.”
With a smirk, Aunt Anna lowered her frame into the simple chair at the table. “She, the girl, your namesake, went to a club to dance and, imagine, the next day in the morning, an ambulance brought her back to the hospital with her sutures ripped open.”
“A willing horse needs no spur.”
“What I’m telling you is a girl’s youth is short. Natasha, dear, strike while the iron is hot.”
“Why have you not struck?”
Her aunt breathed a sigh. “But you are right, Niece. Some are stuck with their first love forever.” Silence ensued, disturbed only by the buzzing of a fly.
“What was the problem building a life with your love, Aunty?”
“Easy for you to ask. Moishe . . . my Misha . . .” Her voice trailed off as though the words jammed in her mouth.
Something stirred in Natasha’s chest. “By chance not our next-door neighbor? The one with six children?”
Her aunt inclined her head and stared at Natasha as though weighing something in her mind.
“But he is a Jew!”
“And what? We do live with them side by side. From the times no one remembers. Good people they are. And a heart does not select nationality. Anyway, mine did not.”
“But why did not you marry then?”
“His parents found him one of theirs. Golda is a decent woman. A good wife and mother. They made a good choice for him.”
“So, they do select nationality, do they?” Natasha wrapped her arm around her aunt’s shoulder. She thought her an old crow, but all of a sudden noticed how delicate her mouth was and the spark in her green-gray eyes made her look much younger than her forty-two years. For the time since she lived with her aunt, Natasha felt how dear this woman became to her, like a mother she had never had. She stretched her hand to her aunt’s head and pulled out two hair pins. A wave of black hair, scarcely touched with gray, cascaded to her shoulders. “Aunty Anna, you are so beautiful. What a fool your Moishe was.”
“Nonsense.” Her aunt grabbed the pins and in one twisting move restored her old-woman’s hairdo. “Ah, what’s the point in dwelling on that now. Let’s go digging vegetable patches.” She took two steps to the window and threw it open, letting the fresh air of the early spring swoosh through the kitchen. “The day’s like a gift for it.”
9
Ulya
Spring 1939
Saratov
“Hey, stir aside.” A familiar voice stopped Ulya at the moment she was putting the bullet into the training Mosin rifle gun barrel. A young man flopped onto the padded cover
beside her and carefully laid his rifle down on the sand-covered ground.
“Otto!” Ulya toggled the rifle’s safety to the on-position then shook his proffered hand. “What are you doing here?”
“The same as you, I suppose.”
“Are you talking or shooting?” The instructor’s voice interrupted their excitement at seeing each other.
“Now, now. What is my target?” Otto turned to the man and followed the wave of his hand with his eyes.
“Let’s compete,” Ulya said.
“Ten?”
She bobbed her head and, out of the corner of her eye, saw him stir in an attempt to find a comfortable position. A soft click of the safety sliding off. A shot. He reloaded and went on shooting in succession.
Resting her index finger on the metal curve of the trigger and aiming the rifle’s muzzle at the target, Ulya waited till he finished and, changing to her left hand after the fifth shot, performed the action in unstopping regular firing.
“We are done,” they shouted in unison and waited for the instructor to bring them the shooting targets. Otto got up to receive them.
The instructor lifted the paper targets against the light and tsked. “This one is incredible.” He pushed the one with a big hole in the center into Otto’s hand.
“You see? All my shots hit the mark. What would you say? Not bad for a former grunt who did not hold a firearm in his hands for several months.” His voice brimming with triumph, Otto stroked the rifle.
“That’s not yours. It’s hers.” The instructor motioned to Ulya with his head and gave Otto the second one with the holes around nine, two of them around seven.
Otto’s face slacked a bit, and it took two deep inhales and exhales before he composed himself. “Do you think I’m surprised? Not at all. Still remember how we targeted sparrows with slingshots. How old were you then?”
“Close to six, I suppose. Gleb and you were eight years old, Wolfy was nine. Arkashka five.”
“First, you were reluctant to shoot at the birds. Remember? Only after Arkashka called you a sissy, you snatched up the slingshot from his hand and got a sparrow on your first attempt.”
“I do remember my accomplishments.” Ulya smirked. “You guys were all slack-jawed. By the way, do you know about Arkashka?”
“What about him?”
“He and his family, including his younger brother, all disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” His expression grew hard and resentful, his eyes, unmoving, staring at the rifle. “Disappeared,” he repeated.
When the silent tension reached its limits, they exchanged a look of understanding.
10
Ulya
May 1939
Engels
From afar, Ulya noticed Gleb’s mother trudging along in front of her. Something stirred in Ulya’s heart as she noted she hadn’t seen the woman for several days and that a black scarf covered her head. She quickened her pace to catch up with her neighbor. “Good evening, Polina Abramovna. May I help you?” She reached to the canvas bag in her hand.
Polina Abramovna stopped and looked at Ulya still clutching her bag. “Ah, it’s you, Ulya.” As if in doubt where she was heading, she moved her head to the right then to the left.
Seeing that her legs were about to give out, Ulya took her by the arm. “What happened?”
“Happened?” Polina Abramovna let the bag go and took unsteady steps to her small house. She wrestled with the doorknob then stared for a long moment at the lock.
“Where do you have your key?” Ulya said.
“The key? Ah, the key.” She fished it out of her light overcoat pocket and gave it to Ulya.
Through the darkness of the corridor, Ulya followed her into the room. “Where do you want me to leave your purchases?” She hardly finished the sentence when Polina Abramovna sank to the floor. Ulya pulled her light body to the sofa then hastened to the kitchen for a glass of water and, returning, sprinkled it onto Polina Abramovna’s ashen pale face. She came to her senses and stared at the ceiling. “He is . . . He is . . .”
“Who?”
“My Gleb.” Tears rolled down her drooping cheeks, accumulating in the wrinkles. “They . . . like his father.” After she was silent for a while, she stretched out her arm in slow motion toward the table on which several pictures lay in a string: a young man in Budenovka, most likely Gleb’s father; Gleb at the age of five or so; on the next, her friend as a school boy with the Young Pioneer scarf around his childishly thin neck. The other one depicted Polina Abramovna sitting on a chair with Gleb in his tankman uniform standing to the right behind her, the photograph she was sure was taken at the time of his last visit. The last one in the row, the photo paper new and glossy, showed somebody in a casket with the head bandaged so thoroughly she could not say she recognized her friend. Only the folded hands on his chest were familiar. Gleb’s.
Ulya crouched beside Polina Abramovna, took her hand in hers, and stayed with her till she stopped twitching. Trying not to disturb her, Ulya positioned a pillow under her head and, leaving her on the sofa, closed the door behind her without making a sound.
That night, her mind kept turning to the last conversation with Gleb. He knew they’d come for him. But what did he do to provoke them? Was he involved in anti-governmental activity? Through the darkness, she stared at the ceiling until sleep overtook her.
11
Natasha
June 1939
Vitebsk
Natasha felt somebody peering at her back and knew who it was. She cursed him under her breath then squinted in his direction. “What do you want, Anton?”
“I want to be around if need be.”
“And what need could it be?” she snapped and went on walking.
“Well, if someone attacks you or . . . whatever.” He flashed his smirk.
“And who could that someone be?”
“Your Komsomol secretary, Sergey Vladimirovich, for instance.”
Natasha sneered to hide how his assumption pleased her. “Why is he mine?”
“See, you are blushing. So, he courts you, does he?”
I wish, Natasha thought. “And even if he did, why should it matter to you?”
“It matters.” He shot her a twisted smile. “Don’t you understand?”
“Are you in love with me?” She watched Anton pale and hoped he’d leave her alone. She didn’t expect him to utter, “I do love you. Like nobody will love you ever. I want to marry you, Natasha.”
Speechless, she stared at him then a small laugh escaped her lips. “How old are you, Antoshechka,” she addressed him mockingly-lovingly.
“Eighteen since yesterday. I could marry you by law.”
“And how old am I, do you think?”
“Twenty-four. And what? My mother was eight years older than my father, but he died ten years earlier than she.” His face darkened.
“Your mother . . .?”
“Yes, I have nobody left.”
With sudden sympathy for this guy, still a teenager, something unfamiliar, maybe motherly, stirred in her heart, and on a whim, she hugged him, right away stepping back and breaking contact. “Anton, let’s wait a bit, and in a year or two, please propose to me again.” She pivoted and headed to her house.
Leaning on the gate, her arms folded in front of her chest, her aunt was smiling. “Now, at long last, somebody you are interested in. Why didn’t you invite him to our house? Let me meet your admirer.”
“Ah, Aunty, what nonsense. It’s Anton, my co-worker. He said his mother died. I gave him a friendly hug.”
After heaving a sigh, her aunt shrugged and bent to continue pulling weeds from the vegetable bed.
12
Ulya
June-July 1939
Engels, Saratov
What a wonderful day it was. The sun flooded the room, its gleam on the gray-greenish cardboard cover of her diploma, thrilling proof she was now a higher education specialist. With the tip of her finger, she traced over the
letters Diploma then went to the window and peered to the end of the street for any sign of her Vati. Why was he late? But what wonder, as though it had never happened before? Perhaps a correspondent didn’t bring his article in time and her father had to write something in a hurry to fill the vacant space. Then the proof-reading would delay the printing. There could be any number of explanations. Yet of all the days, she wished nothing like that would occur.
At that very moment, “Schätzchen!—Darling!” sounded from the door.
“At last!” She ran to meet him. “What is it, Vati?” Ulya stared at the packages and carton boxes in his hands, his briefcase jammed under his armpit.
“Don’t we have a good reason to celebrate? Free me from these parcels. Let me see your diploma.” He dropped the purchases into her stretched hands and leaned over the table. “Great, daughter. You made me pleased. But why? Everything you do is worth of admiration. I’m proud of you.”
Ulya looked at her father, so fit, handsome, not a single gray streak in his great head of hair, blond like hers. And I am proud of you. You are the most important person in my life. The only one I love. But she did not say it aloud.
Eager to unwrap them, she unloaded the packages on the table and found a piece of smoked sturgeon, a salami stick, a bunch of reddish and green onions, canned crabs, a little carton box of cocoa, a wheat flour loaf, still warm. She brought it to her face and inhaled. “Ooh, as though just from the oven.” When she opened a small carton box, she couldn’t help but exclaim, “Vati! My favorite pastry!” She suppressed the urge to send the shortcake with custard and the little wild strawberries on top of it right into her mouth. “Where did you get all these delicacies from?”
The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII Page 66