Lisa’s gaze searched for the partisans who had come to their rescue, but they were nowhere to be seen.
Shielding her face from the sun, Masha pointed somewhere behind Lisa and said, ‘What is happening? The trucks are leaving.’
‘Wait here for me. I’ll see what’s going on,’ said Lisa.
Waving and shouting, she hurried in the direction of the trucks but it was too late. One after another they disappeared in a cloud of white dust. She ran as fast as she could but her foot lost its grip on the ice and she tripped. She would have fallen if a strong hand didn’t catch her. Turning around, she recognised the taller of the two partisans, who was now leaning over her, helping her up. ‘Careful,’ he said. ‘It’s treacherous today.’ Through a veil of snow, she watched his face. She had never seen eyes like that before. They were not just dark but black. Black like the night, like the winter sky at dusk. His dark hair, what she could see of it from under his fur hat, was longer than was conventional for a man. There was something unusual in his features, something exotic as if inside his veins ran Mongol blood. The blood of kings and conquerors. ‘Are you all right? You look a bit lost,’ the man added.
Lisa blinked and looked away, her cheeks burning. ‘I think we missed our truck.’ She wished she was dressed better, wished she wasn’t hidden under an unflattering kerchief. When he turned around to look at the trucks, she pulled it off her head, tidying her auburn hair with the tips of her fingers.
‘You might be right,’ he said, turning back to her. ‘Put your kerchief back on or you’ll catch a cold. It’s twenty below today.’
Reluctantly she put her kerchief back on, blushing at the familiar way this stranger told her what to do.
‘I’m Maxim and this is Anton,’ he said, pointing at the other partisan, who was holding two horses and pacing on the spot as if to keep warm.
‘I’m Lisa. My friend Masha is still by the train. She can’t walk by herself.’
Anton happily agreed to help Masha. When he was gone, Lisa asked, ‘How will we get back to Kiev now? The trucks are gone.’
‘They will come back eventually but you are going to have to come with us. It’s not safe for two girls alone in the woods. The German presence here is too high.’
‘Come back with you where?’
‘Our settlement is twenty minutes away.’
He smiled and despite her exhaustion, hunger and uncertainty, she smiled back. The dog approached Lisa with his tail wagging and sniffed her hands. She wanted to stroke it to impress its owner but didn’t dare. She had never seen an animal this big or this ferocious-looking. The dog suited Maxim. It looked like it belonged to a fearless warrior.
Anton reappeared, leading a limping Masha up the hill. ‘Your carriage awaits, my ladies,’ he said, bowing comically and pointing at the horses. He had a broad face with thin lips and a large nose. He wasn’t just shorter than Maxim, he was smaller, too. His shoulders were not as wide, his legs and arms thinner but his smile was kind. With the two partisans by her side, Lisa felt safe for the first time in months.
‘I’ve never been on a horse before,’ she said uncertainly. The animal was the size of a small mountain. Involuntarily she took a step away from it. ‘There’s no saddle. How do we hold on?’
‘Just hold on to me. You’ll be all right,’ said Maxim, suppressing a smile.
He lifted her up and Lisa sat straight on the chestnut giant’s bare back with her eyes shut tight. She was certain that the moment she opened her eyes and saw how high up she was, she would fall off the horse out of fear. Thankfully, the horse wasn’t moving. It was as if it could sense how nervous she was and decided to go easy on her. Anton struggled to help Masha, who with a broken leg couldn’t stay up on the horse. Finally, with the help of Maxim, he managed to sit her up and climbed behind her, supporting her with his left arm while holding the reins with his right. Maxim leapt up in front of Lisa as if he was born in a saddle, like a cowboy or a drover. Slowly they set off, with the wolf-dog running a few steps ahead.
The forest sounded like the sea during a storm. Lisa’s throat was parched from the icy air and the skin of her face felt raw. As they rode through the woods, she held on to Maxim. Underneath his uniform, he felt wiry and strong. He smelt of soap and smoke, like he’d been sitting near a campfire for too long.
The snow was a white whirlwind all around them. Lisa couldn’t make out anything, not even Anton’s horse only a few steps ahead. All she could see was the rider in front of her. The wind made it almost impossible to speak, but she was desperate to talk to him. ‘How do you know where to go in this weather?’ she shouted.
‘I don’t, but Bear does. I follow him.’
‘Bear?’
‘My dog. He’s my eyes, ears and nose. My best friend. He’s saved my life more times than I can remember. I couldn’t do what I do without him by my side.’
‘And what is it that you do?’
‘We oppose the Nazis every step of the way. Destroying their lines of communication. Laying ambuscades. Mining roads and bridges. Killing their high-ranking officers. Even stealing their food and cattle whenever we can.’
‘That’s incredible.’
‘This week alone we blew up two bridges, cut two hundred kilometres of telephone cable and took two villages from the Nazis. And today we stopped a train transporting people to Germany—’
‘Thank you for that.’
‘You’re welcome.’ He whistled to Bear, who had strayed away from the path, perhaps to follow an animal trail. Instantly, the dog’s ears sprang up and he leapt through the snow back to his owner.
‘How many of you are there?’ asked Lisa, leaning closer to hear him better and hoping he wouldn’t notice.
‘Six battalions around Kiev, two hundred people each. Over a thousand of us scattered around these woods.’
Lisa held her breath, her chest swelling in admiration. ‘How long have you been a partisan?’
‘Since the occupation. We’ve given them a hard time in the last year and a bit.’
‘So I’ve heard.’
Despite the snow and the piercing cold, she didn’t want the ride to end. Suddenly Maxim emitted a bird’s cry, startling her. A similar sound was heard in reply. If Lisa didn’t know better, she would have thought the birds were real.
‘We are here,’ said Maxim.
The trees had receded. In front of them was a wide meadow that looked deserted. Lisa could see small hills scattered here and there. Maxim got off his horse and helped Lisa down. She found herself knee-deep in snow, with his arms around her. In the light of the setting sun she examined the clearing. ‘Two hundred people live here? But I can’t see any buildings.’
‘That’s the whole idea. If you can’t see us, neither can the Nazis.’
She heard voices and saw Anton’s horse appear from behind the wall of snow. Masha looked pale, as if she was in great pain. If it wasn’t for Anton’s arm holding her tight, she would have slipped off the horse.
‘You two must be exhausted,’ said Maxim when Masha was safely on the ground, leaning on Lisa. ‘Let’s find you something to eat and a bed to sleep in.’
As they walked through the camp, Lisa saw men and women emerging from underground like bears from their caves. She realised the little hills were not hills at all but dwellings. The partisans smoked, laughed and exchanged greetings. A few men stared openly at the girls and Lisa shivered, moving closer to Maxim and wishing she was invisible.
Maxim and Anton took the girls to a dugout, hidden away under a metre of snow, with a small wooden door and an opening large enough for them to crawl through. Inside, the little lodging was made of wood – everything except for the little stove that was made of clay. A fire was burning and it was warm and humid. By the light of a candle Lisa could see half a dozen tables and a small bed in the corner. On this bed a round woman was sleeping, covered by a large cardigan with holes in it.
‘Yulya, wake up.’ Maxim shook her lightly. ‘We have guests.
Do you have any food for them?’
The woman stirred, rubbed her eyes, then sat up and glared first at Maxim, then at the newcomers. ‘More mouths to feed! Do I look like I have a magic tree that grows bread?’
‘Let’s be hospitable, shall we? The girls have been through a lot.’
‘Hospitable,’ grumbled Yulya, getting up slowly, as if her limbs were an old rusty mechanism in need of oil. ‘What is this, a luxury hotel?’ Still muttering, she walked outside and soon reappeared with two chunks of dark bread and two glasses of milk. Maxim and Anton said their goodbyes, promising the girls Yulya would look after them. Seeing the unfriendly face across the table, Lisa found it hard to believe.
After the girls finished their food, Yulya gave them more bread wrapped in a towel and took them to another dugout – a narrow room with five wooden beds covered with straw. Four of them looked untouched. The fifth had someone’s personal belongings all over it – books, clothes, even a dirty plate. It smelt damp and unclean but Lisa was too exhausted to care. Thanking Yulya, she fell into the nearest bed and closed her eyes, wishing she was in her childhood bed back home, under a warm blanket with her head on a soft pillow.
After Yulya left, telling the girls breakfast was promptly at six, Lisa sat up in her uncomfortable bed made of straw and whispered, ‘Masha, are you awake?’
‘I’m awake.’
‘I don’t want to go back to Kiev. No one is waiting for me back there.’ Lisa thought of her mother’s face as she told her to leave and not come back. She thought of her sister’s quiet resentment and of the cold and soulless apartment, overrun by rats and dirty dishes, that she called home because her family had turned their backs on her. If she could help it, she would never go back. Anything was better than the loneliness and fear of the past year.
‘What choice do we have?’
‘We could stay here.’
‘Stay in the partisan battalion? Are you out of your mind? Do you know what the Nazis do to the partisans and their families?’
‘The minute we get back to Kiev, they will pick us up again. I don’t want to end up back on that train. I’d rather die.’
‘I don’t like it here, Lisa. In the dugout, I mean.’ Masha sounded like a little girl, lost and afraid. ‘It’s so damp in here, and cold. I don’t like small spaces. I feel like I’m suffocating, like I can’t breathe. It feels like …’ She hesitated. ‘We are not dead yet but we are buried alive. Do you know what I mean?’
‘I feel safe here. Even I barely know where I am. How could the Nazis ever find me?’
In a small voice Masha said, ‘I don’t like the dark, either. When the candle burns out, it’s going to be so dark in here.’
‘We’ll light a new candle. And I’m right here. You don’t need to worry.’
‘Will you hold my hand till I fall asleep?’
‘Of course.’
Soon, the sound of Masha’s breathing from the bed next to her own became deeper, but Lisa continued to hold her hand while she lay on her back and watched the candlelight twirling on a small table in the corner. For the first time in months, hidden away in a burrow like a forest animal, among trees and snowdrifts, she didn’t feel afraid. Nothing bad could happen to her here, among the partisans – the giants of songs and fairy tales who would protect her from all evil.
Chapter 2
Ever since she was a little girl, Irina Antonova had loved painting. For others, memories were triggered by scents, tastes, places or perhaps old photographs. For Irina, it had always been colours. Marrying the love of her life was the golden hues of late-autumn trees, the golden wedding rings on their fingers and the golden specks in his twinkling eyes. The day her daughter was born was the green jungle of flowers in her room, her green hospital gown, the green pines stretching their arms to her window as if in greeting to the new life nestled in her lap. The first summer they had spent at their dacha as a family was the azure of the sky and the turquoise of the river. Capturing colour had always been a passion of hers. When she was younger, she never left the house without a sketchbook and some pencils. Dozens of those sketchbooks were stored away in a box under her bed, each hiding happy recollections of days long gone.
But since the Nazi soldiers had marched through Kiev, scorching, terrorising and killing wherever they went, Irina’s pencils had remained forgotten in a drawer somewhere because, as far as she was concerned, war had no colour. It was grey, just like the uniforms that seemingly overnight flooded her beloved city. Her artist’s fingers, so skilled at drawing flowers, fruit and seascapes, were incapable of rendering the faces of the condemned walking to Babi Yar – grim, lifeless and resigned. They were incapable of capturing the expression on old women’s faces as they were about to be shot for selling their produce at the market – in broad daylight, in front of dozens of passers-by who averted their eyes as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Her pencils couldn’t convey the distress of twelve-year-old children as they were wrestled from their mothers’ arms and put on trains bound for German factories, where they would be forced to work until they collapsed. They couldn’t capture the mothers’ soul-destroying anguish.
Although the horrors were not in Irina’s sketchbook, they were etched deep inside her mind and she was afraid that for as long as she lived, she would not forget.
The war had split Irina’s life in two. On one hand, there was her pre-war self: carefree and in love, certain that nothing bad could ever happen to her. On the other hand, there was her present self: haggard and hungry and afraid. She had become someone she didn’t recognise, and yet, she could barely remember herself before the war. The happiness of only two years past seemed like a lifetime ago.
But today everything seemed different. For the first time since the war had started, Irina noticed the bright orange of the sun at dawn and the fluorescent white of the snow. The pencil in her hand never stopped moving as she sketched cradles and dummies and tiny dolls, while her left hand remained on her stomach, where a new life was forming, as if in defiance to death all around her. This new life made Irina temporarily forget the nightmare of the occupation and notice the beauty that still remained, as if to spite the enemy who did their best to eradicate everything beautiful they came in contact with.
In her tiny office on Priorskaya Street, Irina was having lunch. The clock above the door was mocking her, playing games. All she wanted was for the hours to fly so she could go home, cuddle her daughter and read her a story. But the silver-plated arms refused to move and it felt to her that they had been stuck on midday for hours. She tried not to think of the queue outside her door that wound its way down the corridor and onto the street, the queue of people waiting to register the death of a loved one. People were dying at an unprecedented rate in Kiev. Young and old, death didn’t discriminate in times of war. There had been some births and marriages this week, like a brief ray of sunshine on a stormy day, but she could count them on one hand.
Her job was a parade of human suffering, never-ending and unabating. It was a showcase of what the Nazis had done to Kiev, to Ukraine, to all of the Soviet Union.
‘It’s my mother, she was walking home one day, then a building collapsed.’
‘My sister never came home one evening. We found her three days later, brutally murdered.’
‘I lost my whole family. My parents and brothers, all gone.’
Tears, anguish, twisted faces.
But today, she refused to think of death and darkness. With a smile on her face, she imagined walking hand in hand with her husband under an unblemished summer sky with not a Nazi aeroplane in sight. The sun on her face, his arm around her shoulders, his lips on hers. She thought of everything they hadn’t done but should have, if it wasn’t for the war, like buying her daughter her first ice cream or taking her sledging.
If she moved her chair slightly to the left, through the window she could see the old school building where she had worked as an art teacher before the war. As she wrote down the names of the d
ead in her register and dreamt of a better life, she often wondered what had happened to her pupils. She liked to tell herself that they had been evacuated and were safe, away from the front line and the Nazi atrocities. But one day she had come across a name she recognised in her list of doom. It was a girl she had taught three years previously, an eager little thing with pigtails and a wide grin. That night, Irina held her daughter close and cried until dawn. Since then, she went through the lists on autopilot, not pausing to think about the people behind the names.
Suddenly queasy, she pushed her boiled potato away and watched the thick wall of snow that hid the burnt-out school and a bomb crater in the middle of the street. The snow was white, shimmering, magical. It created an illusion of beauty, as if she had been transported to a different reality where there was no war and no fear. What wouldn’t she give to run through the snow with her daughter, build a snowman, throw snowballs and not feel afraid. Such little joys and yet, even that was denied them.
Irina poked the pitiful-looking potato with a fork, her hunger battling with her morning sickness. Finally, the hunger won. She placed a tiny morsel in her mouth and chewed slowly, fighting a wave of nausea. As she was finishing her tea, the door creaked. Irina was going to tell whoever it was to wait until one when the registry office would reopen but the large woman with a hard face standing in the doorway looked familiar. Her grey hair was braided like a little girl’s, giving her a peculiar look, like a jigsaw puzzle with a few pieces out of place. Her teeth, or what was left of them, were yellow. Her shoulders were large like a man’s. Irina recognised her neighbour, Katerina.
Daughters of the Resistance Page 2