Daughters of the Resistance

by Lana Kortchik

  Masha took a sip of water but didn’t touch the food. ‘I don’t think I can chew it. My face is in too much pain.’

  ‘Here, I’ll help you.’ Lisa broke the bread into tiny pieces and fed it to her friend. Masha gulped it down but choked, coughing it all up. Lisa passed her a glass of water.

  ‘What is happening to me?’ she muttered when she could speak again. ‘Am I going to die?’

  ‘Of course you are not going to die,’ cried Lisa, horrified. ‘You are going to be just fine. You’ll make it, you’ll see.’

  ‘Yulya didn’t make it.’ The girls were silent for a moment. Then Masha said, ‘Danilo pulled me out of that tree, you know. And then he found Yulya and she was already gone. If it wasn’t for me, he would have got to her earlier and she might have lived. Because of me, Yulya is dead.’

  ‘Not because of you. What happened is not your fault.’

  ‘I bet Danilo disagrees. I bet he blames me.’

  ‘No one blames you, darling.’

  ‘What about you? You were in that tree when it collapsed. How did you survive?’

  Lisa hesitated before saying, ‘Maxim helped me. He carried me to safety. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be here.’

  Masha’s eyes dimmed. She blinked and looked straight at Lisa. ‘I don’t judge you, you know. For Maxim. I understand. We can’t help who we fall in love with. And I know what it’s like to love. It’s not something you can fight, not even when everything is against you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ whispered Lisa. She couldn’t tell her friend that she’d kissed Maxim and he’d rejected her. She couldn’t even think about it without cringing. To put it into words was impossible. ‘You’re like a sister to me. I wish my actual sister was more like you.’

  ‘You never talk about her.’

  ‘There’s not much to say.’

  ‘It’s war, Lisa. You have to forgive your family. Who knows how much time we have left.’

  Something in Masha’s voice caught Lisa’s attention. She sounded so resigned. ‘Don’t be silly. You have your whole life ahead of you. You are going to get better and then your husband will come back …’

  ‘I don’t want him to see me like this.’

  ‘Nonsense. He won’t care about a few burns on your face.’

  ‘Not just my face, Lisa. Look at me.’

  ‘You are beautiful and he loves you. You’ll start a family, just like you always wanted. Your mother will come back to Kiev.’

  ‘Why do I feel so tired? Like my body is giving out. Like it’s refusing to go on.’ Masha was breathing heavily, her eyes wide in her bandaged face.

  ‘You just need some rest. Sleep is the best medicine.’

  ‘Didn’t you just complain I slept for three days straight?’ Masha tried to smile and winced. ‘Write to my husband and tell him I love him. And write to my mother.’ Masha’s eyes closed. Her voices sounded so weak, Lisa had to make an effort to hear it. ‘Tell her not to wait for me anymore.’

  In the little chair by her friend’s side, grasping her hand desperately, Lisa drifted in and out of sleep, praying for Masha all the while. In the morning, Masha’s fingers in Lisa’s hand were cold. She was gone.

  *

  The next few days were a blur. Lisa left the hospital, moved in with the battalion’s two nurses, Alya and Luba, and was given some tasks around the camp – cleaning, doing laundry, mending uniforms. She waded through her days as if in a fog, and in the evenings she fell into bed, exhausted. For once in her life, she was thankful for the exhaustion. It left her with little energy to think.

  Three days after Masha died, Maxim came to see her as she was sewing outside her hut. ‘How are you holding up?’ he asked.

  ‘Not great,’ she replied and burst into tears. Seeing the perplexed expression on his face, she realised he must think she was crying because of him. She wiped her face and added, ‘Masha …’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘She died.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. I just got back. I had no idea.’ He was quiet for a moment. ‘I didn’t know her that well, but she was a wonderful person – selfless, caring and kind. The men adored her.’

  ‘She had become like a sister to me. Everyone who knew her adored her. Whoever was responsible for this … I want them to pay. Was it Matvei?’ When he shrugged, she added, ‘It was, wasn’t it? I told you he was not to be trusted. Are you looking for him?’ She shook with indignation at the thought of the man’s greasy face and his tiny eyes.

  ‘Whoever did this has to live with it for the rest of his life. Even if we never catch him, that’s punishment enough.’ Maxim looked away from her. He seemed uncomfortable and ill at ease. ‘About the other day,’ he said finally. ‘I hope you are not too upset. It was never my intention to hurt your feelings.’

  ‘I’m fine. And you didn’t.’ The fact that he had brought it up meant so much to her.

  ‘My wife and daughter are coming to the battalion. I wanted you to hear it from me.’

  Lisa took a sharp breath. ‘Thank you for letting me know,’ she said, forcing her voice to sound steady, while inside she felt like dying.

  August 1943

  Chapter 21

  Lisa stood knee-deep in the river, wringing someone’s dirty shirt with all her might, trying as hard as she could to scrub off the dark stains. At her feet was a basket of blood-soaked, sweat-soaked garments and as she rubbed the material on the ridged surface of the washboard, the throbbing in her wrist reminding her of her ordeal, she couldn’t help but feel that she no longer belonged here. She thought of her job in the kitchen with longing and daydreamed of Yulya’s cranky voice greeting her every morning, of the hot stove burning her fingers, of a pile of potato peels in the sink. How she had hated that job, and yet, now that she no longer had it, she felt lost.

  The whole battalion had come to say goodbye to Masha on the last day of June. Every person there had wept, Lisa most of all. After a month had passed, she was still weeping.

  Like ugly black spiders, the Nazi patrol aircrafts crawled through the sky, reminding Lisa that the peaceful murmur of the river and the unblemished green canopy of the leaves were nothing but an illusion, temporary and misleading; that at any moment the forest could erupt with gunfire and death. Putrid smoke rose from behind the trees and sometimes, on a windy day like today, she could smell fire. The Nazis were burning the bodies of tens of thousands of people executed at Babi Yar. As she inhaled the smell of human flesh, she wanted to scream in pain, to wail like a wounded animal because what was happening to their people and their country was something out of her worst nightmare, something she couldn’t have even imagined when she was growing up, happy and protected by her family. And yet, here it was, the terrifying reality.

  But occasionally, like a harbinger of better things to come, a Soviet plane would appear over their settlement. Moments later it would be gone, leaving something behind that was permanent and precious – hope.

  This morning Lisa was wearing a dress Anna had given her before she left. The dress was emerald green, like the trees around her, like the colour of her eyes. It barely covered her knees and when it got wet, like now in the river, it clung to her like a second skin. With the sun playing in her hair and the thin fabric hugging every curve of her body, Lisa knew she looked a vision. If only Maxim could see her.

  At the thought of Maxim, her hands started to shake. She let go of the shirt she was holding and cried. She cried for her friend Masha, whom she missed desperately. She cried for Maxim, who saved her life but couldn’t be with her because he belonged to someone else. She cried for all the people the war had taken from her: family and friends and those she barely knew but mourned nonetheless. She could allow herself a good cry here by the river, with not a soul around. Afterwards, she would go back to the settlement with her head held high, as if nothing had happened. And no one would be able to tell what was in her heart.

  Later that morning, having cooked a couple of tiny potatoes on top of t
he burning coals someone had left for her, Lisa sat under a large oak tree on top of a hill and placed her plate in her lap. It was her favourite spot because from here she could observe the hustle and bustle of the settlement without being seen. She had never felt at home here like she had at the other battalion. Because Masha and Anna were no longer with her? Because her hopes for Maxim had been dashed? Or because she was disillusioned and tired of it all? She didn’t know exactly why, but she felt like an outsider.

  The battalion was an anthill of activity this morning but she barely noticed any of it. Her gaze was firmly on Maxim’s hut. She didn’t mean to spy on him but sometimes she couldn’t help it. Something happened to her when she saw him. For a few minutes the sun seemed to shine a little brighter.

  A few times he had noticed her and waved but never approached her. This morning she was going to talk to him and she had a perfect excuse. She would tell him she was ready to join him and the other partisans on their missions. She had never forgotten the sense of camaraderie, of a common goal, the connection the two of them had shared in the past. She missed that. She missed their friendship.

  It was crowded under Lisa’s tree this morning. It seemed other partisans had discovered her secluded spot and were enjoying their breakfast under the canopy of heavy branches. An old man she had never met before was playing a guitar, while a couple of young people were nodding in time to music and humming a tune. Another man was reading a newspaper and shaking his head in disapproval. ‘What nonsense they write. One minute the Red Army has been destroyed, the next, it forces the Nazis to give up important cities and cede territory. It sounds like Orel was liberated.’

  The music fell quiet. All eyes were on the man with the newspaper. ‘The Red Army must be close,’ said the man with the guitar. ‘They are no longer taking people to Germany. They force them to dig trenches instead. The cursed Nazis are scared for their lives.’

  Lisa perked up. People were no longer being forced to Germany for work. That was good news indeed. And how far was Orel from Kiev?

  The man with the guitar continued, ‘You won’t believe what I saw yesterday. Trucks of paintings and furniture. Hundreds of cars and motorbikes, filled with valuables, leaving Kiev.’

  ‘The Nazis are evacuating?’ asked the man with the newspaper.

  ‘It seems that way.’

  Her heart in her throat at the thought of the Nazis leaving the Ukrainian capital, Lisa almost forgot all about Maxim. She thought of the feeling of dread, uncertainty and helplessness as she watched the hated grey uniforms march through the streets of her city for the first time. That day, she had been devastated at the loss of Kiev. And yet, she couldn’t have even begun to imagine what was to come. Nothing could have prepared her for the deaths of her loved ones and the life of fear she had led since. If only she could be there now to see the monsters leave.

  If the Nazis were evacuating, did that mean the Red Army was coming to Kiev? She was about to ask the man with the newspaper about it because he seemed to know everything, when she saw Maxim emerging from his hut. She rose to her feet and waved, trying to attract his attention. He waved back and she started walking in his direction when a young woman emerged from the hut, holding a child. She was wearing a light blouse and a pair of men’s trousers. Her arms were bare, her dark hair long and loose around her face, her eyes big and innocent. She looked fresh and young, like she didn’t belong in these war-torn woods. The little girl was all long curls and toothless smile, her face turned to her father.

  Lisa froze, wishing she was invisible. She wondered if she could go back to eating her breakfast but it was too late – she was only a few paces away, Maxim was watching her expectantly and so was his wife. She hesitated. ‘Maxim …’ She wanted to tell him she was ready to join him and the other partisans, that she wanted to do her bit for the motherland because she wanted him to be proud of her again. But his wife’s hand was in his, and when she looked at him, there was such unrestrained joy in her eyes, the words got stuck in Lisa’s throat. Was it Lisa’s imagination or did the woman watch her suspiciously, as if she knew her? Suddenly it all seemed so pointless. She coughed to hide her confusion and said, ‘I heard the Nazis are leaving. Is it true? Is it safe to return to the city?’

  ‘Some units are withdrawing. But the majority are still in Kiev. The front is moving closer every day but it’s going to take months.’

  ‘Still, it’s good news, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s the best news we’ve had in two years.’

  With a heavy heart Lisa watched Maxim and his little family join a group of partisans at the bottom of the hill. They laughed and joked, played with their daughter and shared their food. Every once in a while, their eyes would meet and they would smile at each other with such familiarity, such affection, Lisa couldn’t take it. She had to turn away, to the man with his newspaper, to the grey smoke that rose from Babi Yar and filled her soul with terror.

  *

  Everything filled Irina with joy that afternoon – the sun, the clear blue skies with not an aeroplane in sight and the birds chirping overhead, but most importantly, finally being with Maxim after a year and a half of separation. To fall asleep in his arms, to wake up in his arms, to see him play with his daughter, to be able to talk to him not once every few weeks but every day – no words could describe what it meant to her. She had to wait a couple of weeks until he took care of some business he refused to discuss with her but now they were finally together and Irina couldn’t be happier. She had dreamt of this for so long and now that it was real, she still had to pinch herself every now and then to make sure she was awake. She knew Maxim felt the same. His eyes lit up at the sight of his wife and daughter when he returned to the battalion every evening. Before he had left that morning, he hugged her and told her that having them there made this place feel like home.

  The hut she shared with Maxim and Sonya was small, with barely space for a bed and a table, but it was all theirs, the first place they could call their own. Irina was determined to make it cosy and clean. While her daughter was asleep on top of a small woolly blanket, Irina swept the floors, ran outside, borrowed some baking soda and a towel from a cranky old woman called Ramona and tried her best to scrub the dirt off every surface. There was only so much she could do in a dwelling made of soil and branches but after an hour of hard work the place looked more cheerful, even though it still smelt damp. Irina opened the wooden door and sat outside on the grass with her sewing. What happiness it was to wait for her husband, while cleaning his house, looking after his daughter, making his meals and mending his shirts. At last, they could be a real family.

  There was something magical about the stream of water swishing softly through the rocks nearby, the leaves whispering in the breeze and the sun reflecting in the river. Her breath caught and she paused to take it all in, absorb the beauty through her skin, forgetting for a moment that they were living in a country at war.

  It was already dark when Maxim returned. In silence he hugged her. His face seemed troubled. Fully clothed and still in his shoes, he perched on the bed and sat for a while without a word, while Irina chatted quietly, telling him all about her day. Outside, Bear was barking and someone’s guitar cried late into the night.

  Without acknowledging what she had said, he muttered, ‘It’s all my fault. Everything that happened is my fault.’

  At the note of desperation in his voice, she crawled across the bed to him and took his hand. ‘What are you talking about? What is your fault?’

  He startled as if she had woken him from a dream. She could see him clearly in the light of a candle burning on the table. His face looked distorted, his eyes dark. He didn’t say a word, only stared into the near-darkness.

  ‘You are still blaming yourself for your parents, aren’t you? It wasn’t your fault,’ said Irina.

  ‘Of course it was. The Nazis are not interested in my elderly parents. They are using them to get to me. I’ve never felt more helpless in my life.’<
br />
  ‘Once they realise they don’t know where you are, they’ll let them go.’

  ‘Do you really believe that?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ she lied.

  ‘They are my parents, Irina. I have to help them.’

  ‘What can we do, Maxim? Is there anything we can do?’

  His shoulders caved in and he didn’t reply. She held him in silence, the joy of the day dissipating, a sudden dread making her heart ache in its place.

  October 1943

  Chapter 22

  Partly to impress Maxim and partly to take her mind off missing Masha and her family, Lisa went out with Danilo’s group of partisans to mine a bridge on the Kiev–Korostenj train line. A week later, she went out again, to cut telephone cables near Spartak Station. Both were quiet, stealthy and well-planned operations that were put into practice quickly and without a hitch, leaving her with a sense of accomplishment she hadn’t experienced in all the months she’d spent in the kitchen.

  In the second week of October, the rain came down hard and looked like it was never going away. The summer was well and truly over. Just like before, Lisa could never get dry or warm. Her clothes, her bed, her hair were damp. There was mould growing inside her boots. As she shivered through the night under a woolly kerchief that wasn’t large enough to cover her legs, she wondered how much longer she would have to live like this. Like everyone in Kiev and the Soviet Union, she held her breath in anticipation and waited for the news of the Red Army. Every now and then, she would hear distant bombing and know the tide was turning. This barely perceptible change was apparent in the expression on everyone’s faces – the smiles were wider, the eyes twinkled with hope. The change was in the red star she sometimes glimpsed on a plane’s fuselage. It was in the desperate words she read in the Nazi-controlled newspaper.