Daughters of the Resistance

by Lana Kortchik

  ‘Don’t worry. I grew up playing in these woods. Besides, I have a map. We won’t get lost.’

  She wanted to tell him she wasn’t worried, that nothing would please her more than getting lost in the woods with him. But all too soon, the trees parted and they came to a wide open space. On the outskirts of a large meadow, partially hidden by trees and bushes, she could see huts made of straw and wood. ‘Where are we?’ she asked weakly. She wanted to close her eyes and sleep for a thousand years. More than anything she longed to forget.

  ‘Remember I told you there were other partisan battalions scattered around these woods? This is one of them. They have good facilities here. A hospital with real nurses and even a doctor. They will look after you.’

  As they neared the huts, Lisa spotted Azamat and Danilo, their faces grim and muddy. She saw wounded partisans on stretchers and new faces leaning over them, helping them up, offering them water, towels and something to eat. Those who could move did so as if in slow motion, shell-shocked and uncertain. Lisa recognised Alex and Sergei and her heart filled with a joy that surprised her. She had never thought she would be happy to see those two. But here they were, like old friends she thought she had lost forever, and it was as if a small part of her previous life was back. She couldn’t see Masha anywhere.

  Maxim carried her to a large hut that turned out to be a hospital, placed her on the bed and said goodbye, leaving her in the capable hands of a nurse called Alya. Lisa wanted desperately to ask him to stay. But she knew he was needed elsewhere.

  Alya never stopped shaking her head as she examined Lisa’s wrist, talking in a deep voice that seemed to belong to someone else, someone bigger and stockier and more substantial than the five-foot-four girl with braids. Just like Masha, she seemed kind and caring and genuinely in love with her job. ‘You poor people. My heart breaks for all of you and what you had to go through.’

  Lisa felt so tired. She barely had the energy to speak. ‘My friend was brought here a while ago. Her name is Masha,’ she said quietly, watching Alya’s face for clues.

  ‘The blonde girl with severe burns?’

  ‘Yes, that’s her.’ Severe? Lisa wanted to ask what Alya meant but was too afraid. What if she told her Masha wasn’t going to make it? ‘When can I see her?’

  ‘She’s still unconscious. When she wakes up, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Is she going to get better?’

  Just like Maxim, Alya hesitated before answering. ‘Only time will tell, dear. Can you move your wrist for me?’

  Wincing, Lisa moved her wrist. ‘It hurts.’

  ‘The good news is, I don’t think it’s fractured. If it was, you wouldn’t be able to move it at all. It looks like a bad sprain. You need to rest it for me. You think you can do that?’

  Lisa nodded while Alya bandaged her wrist. ‘What about my headache? My head feels so heavy. I’m all dizzy and confused.’

  ‘You said a branch fell on you? It’s probably a concussion. Were you unconscious for any period of time? We will keep you in hospital for a couple of days. Limit exposure to bright lights and loud sounds. Your body needs time to heal. No strenuous activity.’

  ‘We better tell the Nazis not to attack until I make a full recovery.’

  Alya laughed, but then added, ‘You also need to avoid unnecessary movements of your head and neck.’

  ‘Great! It gives me an excuse to lie in bed and do nothing.’

  ‘Drink plenty of water.’

  ‘Do you have anything stronger?’

  ‘If you have any difficulty talking, severe headaches, increased heart rate or double vision, let me know right away. You are one lucky girl. You’ll be back to normal in no time.’

  Thanks to Maxim, Lisa thought. I’m lucky because of him. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here at all. The thought that she could have died filled her with horror, but the memory of Maxim carrying her to safety made her feel warm inside, and a little less lonely.

  On beds all around her were other wounded partisans, some sleeping, others moaning in pain, but some were laughing or playing cards. Somewhere, a fight broke out over the only real pillow in the whole battalion. She heard a nurse telling the two men off. ‘This is a hospital. We don’t injure people here, we heal them. Shame on you. You do this again and I will take the pillow away.’ She spoke to grown men like they were children and they quietened down, apologising profusely.

  In the morning Lisa was still exhausted, having spent the night wide awake, her wrist aching, her heart aching, thinking about all those people who had died so senselessly, so unexpectedly. One minute they were enjoying a rest, the next running for their lives, while swarms of grey uniforms closed in on them. Before she had her breakfast, she asked Alya to take her to Masha. As she sat in a small wooden chair by her friend’s bed, the palm of her hand pressed to her chest, Lisa tried not to show the shock she felt at the sight of her. Masha’s face and most of her body had been bandaged. If it wasn’t for the blonde hair, she wouldn’t have recognised her. For a moment she thought it was some mistake and it wasn’t Masha in front of her at all but some other woman mangled by war. For a long time she sat by her friend’s side and held her hand, telling her how happy she was that she had met her on the train of death that fateful day in January, how lucky everyone at the battalion was to have her as their nurse, how everyone was waiting for her to get better, that she would get better soon, before she even knew it. If only she could believe her own words. But how did one recover from something like that? Not an inch on Masha’s skin was intact.

  ‘Will she recover?’ she asked the nurse, a plump girl with a permanent frown on her face, as she returned to her own bed.

  ‘If she does, it will be a miracle. Her injuries are very severe.’

  Lisa crept back to her bed, lay face down on her damp blanket and didn’t get up until lunchtime.

  The only thing that took her mind off Masha was Maxim. He had stood in front of enemy bullets and pulled her unconscious body from under a burning tree. He’d risked his life so that she would live. If this wasn’t proof of his feelings for her, she didn’t know what was. After having been in the woods with him, after looking into his eyes and seeing the affection there, Lisa no longer had any doubt. It wasn’t just her imagination. He felt for her.

  All day she waited impatiently for him to come and see her. She drove Alya crazy, asking her what time it was. Finally, the nurse had become so annoyed with Lisa, she gave her a watch. Eagerly Lisa stared at the little hands as they moved around the dial, wondering where Maxim was. She remembered him saying something about going back to the original settlement to take care of the bodies. The thought made her tremble with despair.

  He is probably back by now, she thought when it was four in the afternoon. He is having his dinner, she thought at six. Soon it was seven and then eight and still there was no sign of him. When the night fell, she knew he was unlikely to visit but she didn’t fall asleep until the little watch showed three in the morning.

  She woke up at nine, feeling groggy and exhausted.

  ‘Maxim came to see you. But you were asleep, so he left,’ said Alya.

  Lisa cursed herself. Why couldn’t she have stayed awake a little longer?

  Lisa spent the day sitting in silence next to Masha in her little chair, watching her friend’s face for any signs of life. In the afternoon, she asked Alya for a comb and some make-up. ‘Make-up! I don’t even remember what that is. Next you’ll be asking me for a cigarette!’ Alya laughed like Lisa was crazy but she did bring her a comb. Lisa washed in the common tub as best as she could with one hand, her wrist still bandaged and raw. She scrubbed her face and hair with soap, and then combed her hair. She didn’t touch her food.

  When Maxim finally appeared in the evening, looking tired and unshaven, Lisa’s heart soared. He had that effect on her, an ability to make her forget all her fears just by being there. ‘Look what I have for you,’ he said, watching her with a smile.

  In his h
ands Lisa saw a hunk of cheese. She felt her stomach rumbling. Unwrapping the cheese, grinning at him, she shoved it in her mouth and mumbled a thank you.

  ‘You are welcome. I was worried about you.’

  She felt a warmth spread through her. He had been worried about her. As she lay here thinking of him, he was thinking of her too. And he’d brought her a present. It meant so much. ‘Don’t worry. Alya says I’ll be good as new in no time.’

  It was dinnertime and those patients who could walk were in the hospital cafeteria in the hut next door. Only Masha in the far corner and a man with a broken leg and perforated lung remained in the room, sound asleep two beds down. On the small table next to her, a fat candle was burning, making Maxim’s eyes dance in the flickering light. ‘I’m glad to hear that. We need you back.’ Did he mean the partisan battalion needed her? Or that he needed her? ‘The losses are greater than we thought,’ he was saying. ‘Forty people are dead. Almost half of us.’ His voice broke.

  ‘I can’t get my head around it,’ she whispered. ‘How could Matvei do this? Betray us in such a way?’

  ‘We don’t know for sure if it was him.’

  ‘Of course it was him. Who else could it be?’

  He looked at the ground and shrugged. ‘How is Masha?’

  ‘Not so great. Still unconscious.’ Lisa was too sad to continue.

  ‘Come here,’ he said, hugging her. She sobbed, the long hours of fear and frustration, of hope and heartbreak and despair spilling out as she buried her face in his chest. She felt light-headed from sadness, from his body so close to hers, and suddenly she knew exactly what she had to do. Maxim needed to know how she felt about him. And she needed to know if he felt the same way. She couldn’t go on another day, not knowing. Taking a deep breath, she reached for his hand, brought it to her lips and kissed it. Their eyes met. She could hardly take the intensity of his gaze but didn’t look away. Her lips parted. She waited and waited and when nothing happened, she leant forward and kissed him. He didn’t return her kiss but took his hand from her and moved slightly away. ‘Lisa, what are you doing?’

  He didn’t sound angry or upset. Just sad and extremely tired. But it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Shocked and embarrassed, she looked at the straw of her bed, at the rocks and soil of the floor, at the man two beds down groaning in pain in his sleep. ‘I just wanted you to know how I feel about you,’ she muttered.

  He hesitated for a moment. ‘You’re a wonderful girl. You’ll make some man very happy one day. But I’m married. I have a wife and daughter whom I love dearly.’

  ‘I thought you had feelings for me too. Was I wrong?’

  ‘We are friends, that’s all. I love my family.’

  After months of dreaming of him, of imagining this exact moment, she couldn’t believe her ears. ‘You must feel what I feel. This thing between us. I didn’t imagine it, did I?’

  ‘I care for you very much, as a friend, as a younger sister, but that’s all. My wife and daughter are everything to me. Especially at a time like this.’

  Mortified, Lisa bit her lip, trying to draw blood, to obliterate the pain in her heart with another, more tolerable pain. She refused to look at his solemn face or think of his heartbreaking words until after he was gone. She didn’t want to cry in front of him.

  He added, ‘Had I known you had feelings for me, I would have told you this earlier. I would have made my position clear. I’m sorry I didn’t.’

  ‘Perhaps you did. I just didn’t want to see it.’ And even now, as she lay on her hospital bed, helpless in front of him, she didn’t want to see it. She expected him to turn around and say he was only joking. That it was her he wanted after all. Her cheeks were burning and she knew her face must have looked bright red.

  ‘No hard feelings?’ he asked, avoiding looking at her.

  Forcing a smile, she nodded. ‘No hard feelings.’

  No hard feelings, even though her heart was breaking.

  She turned to the wall, unable to watch him as he walked away. Exhausted, she cried quietly, wishing she could erase the last ten minutes from her memory and at the same time wanting to run after him and beg him to change his mind. But she didn’t move. She knew he wouldn’t change his mind. He had made his feelings clear.

  Chapter 20

  Outside the hospital, life went on as before for the surviving partisans. They woke up, put on their tattered uniforms and cooked their breakfast. Then they picked up their rifles and rode their horses and trucks into the scorching woods to fight evil and seek their revenge. When they returned, they had their dinner, melancholically strummed their guitars, smoked, sipped their tea and wished they had something stronger to numb their pain, to give them one cheerful moment, even if it was just an illusion. They slept, restless and afraid, only to do the same thing all over again the next day, and the next.

  But inside the hospital, time stood still. Having given the watch back to the nurse, Lisa didn’t know if it was morning or noon or night. There were no windows and the sunlight didn’t penetrate the heavy wooden structure. The only indication of the time of day was the nurses’ voices as they told Lisa to have her breakfast, lunch or dinner. It was as if the outside world did not exist. And if she followed the nurses’ directions and took her medicine, if she woke up in the morning and did as she was told until it was time to go to bed, she could lose herself in her daily routine and pretend that her heart wasn’t breaking.

  Two days after they had arrived at the Emilchino battalion, Anna came to see Lisa at the hospital. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been to visit you before. I had to go back home. Mama is beside herself.’

  ‘It’s fine, don’t worry about it,’ said Lisa, who was pleased to see a friendly face. After what had happened between them, Maxim hadn’t been to see her again. Masha was mostly sleeping. All Lisa did was stare into space and think of Maxim and think of the men and women she had spent the last few months with, forever gone. She had never felt more alone. ‘I’m glad you’re here. It’s nice to see you.’

  ‘I can’t stay long. I came to say goodbye.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Home. I want to stay but Mama won’t hear of it. My partisan days are over.’ Anna looked sad enough to cry. ‘But that’s all right. Anton is there too. I get to spend more time with him while he’s recovering.’

  ‘I wish I could go home,’ said Lisa, meaning it. She was done with this place. After the attack, everything seemed so hopeless and bleak. She couldn’t face Maxim. The partisans from her battalion moved around like ghosts, grim and despondent. She would never see Yulya again. And Masha was dying.

  Anna rubbed her eyes and attempted to smile. ‘We are the lucky ones. Our rope broke that day when our settlement was attacked.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s an expression my papa always uses. Once upon a time, under the Tzars, if a man was condemned to die by hanging and the rope broke, his life was spared.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, four days ago, our rope broke. We are lucky to be alive.’

  ‘But so many others aren’t,’ said Lisa, who didn’t feel lucky at all. Too much was broken inside her, too much was hurting.

  ‘How is Masha? I went to see her this morning but she was sleeping,’ said Anna.

  ‘That’s all she seems able to do these days.’ Masha hadn’t regained consciousness yet. Her fever wasn’t going down. Under her customary smile, Alya was pale with worry whenever she checked on Masha.

  ‘When she wakes up, give her my love. Tell her she can keep the hat I lent her. It’s the best thing I’ve ever owned but I want her to have it.’

  ‘She’ll be pleased.’

  Anna got up and hugged Lisa. ‘Stay in touch. And good luck!’ she said, placing a crumbled piece of paper in Lisa’s hand. ‘Here is my address. When all this is over, promise you’ll come to see me.’

  ‘I promise. Thank you for everything.’

  After Anna left, Lisa couldn’t sleep, so sh
e spent the night by Masha’s side, reading from an old tome of Lermontov’s poems under the twinkling light of the kerosene lamp.

  No, I’m not Byron, it’s my role to be an undiscovered wonder,

  Like him, a persecuted wand’rer, but furnished with a Russian soul.

  I started sooner, sooner ending, my mind will never reach so high.

  Within my soul, beyond the mending, my shattered aspirations lie.

  Her hands shaking, she repeated the lines in which the tragic poet had predicted his own death and thought, how did he know? How did he know he wouldn’t live to see thirty? Did he feel apathetic and afraid, unsure of his own destiny and place in the world, like a raft adrift in the ocean? Did he feel just like her?

  In silence she watched as Alya changed Masha’s bandages. Her friend’s beautiful face was a mess of raw burns. Every time she saw it, Lisa’s chest hurt.

  ‘Please, wake up,’ she whispered to Masha after Alya was gone. ‘I need you now more than ever.’

  She thought she heard something from Masha’s bed, a rustle of sheets, a small groan.

  ‘Masha, can you hear me?’ She squeezed her friend’s hand gently.

  Masha opened her eyes and looked at Lisa. ‘What’s going on?’ she whispered. ‘Why are you trying to pull my arm off?’

  ‘You slept for three days straight.’

  ‘I don’t feel so good,’ Masha said, her voice breaking, as if every word required a superhuman effort from her. She slowly touched her face and winced. ‘I feel like my whole body is on fire. And my face … Why does it hurt so much?’

  ‘You have a lot of healing to do. It will take time. But before you know it, you’ll get better and this will be nothing but a terrible memory.’

  ‘Can you tell me what I look like? Please.’ Her friend’s voice trembled.

  ‘You look beautiful, just like always.’ Lisa wanted to shower her friend with kisses but didn’t want to cause her any more pain. She kissed the tips of her fingers. At the sound of Masha’s voice, Alya came over, chatting to her cheerfully. She examined Masha and brought her some water and a piece of bread.