Lisa cut the rope around his ankles with the knife she had brought with her. He rose to his feet with difficulty, stepping from foot to foot to restore circulation.
His wrists still handcuffed together, he stepped outside. The two women followed, Lisa clasping the rifle nervously. Together they walked past Alex, who was sprawled under a tree, his cards in disarray, a half-empty bottle of vodka next to him. A disturbing thought occurred to Lisa. If their mission was a success, Alex would pay for it. Would he pay with his life?
‘I wish I had a pen,’ she muttered.
‘There’s one in the hut,’ said Maxim.
As fast as she could she dashed back inside, found the pen on the table – the only piece of furniture inside the small dwelling – and scribbled a short note. ‘This is not Alex’s fault. The drink was drugged.’ Her hand trembling, she slipped the note into Alex’s pocket and followed Maxim.
It was a five-minute hike to the truck. If they hurried, they could make it in three. First they would have to go through a meadow, an empty space without the safety of trees to conceal them, while moonlight played on the damp grass and reflected off every leaf. A full moon, just their luck. On the night when they needed darkness the most, it was almost as bright as day.
They crawled through the tall grass, the women on their haunches, Irina carrying Sonya, Maxim on his belly like a snake, pulling himself on his elbows. Breaking the silence, he whistled like a bird, startling Lisa. A moment later Bear appeared, whining his greeting, his wet tongue in Maxim’s face. Lisa was pleased to see the dog. He would protect them and show them the way. With Bear by their side, they had nothing to fear. A small knot of anxiety dissolved inside her chest. It was as if the dog was a sign from God that everything was going to be fine.
They were almost at the truck when Lisa heard a gunshot. Freezing in the grass, she raised her head slowly, gripping her rifle and bringing it to her chest. Where did the shot come from? She glanced at Bear. He had his ears down to his head and was growling in the direction of the bushes on their left. Another shot and then another made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. In horror she saw Maxim roll forward with a groan, his hands clutching his chest. Bear was barking now, but all she could hear was the screaming inside her head.
She bit her lip to stop herself from crying out. Another shot, and the grass next to her shuddered, the bullet whistling past only a few centimetres away. Her breath almost left her body. She felt the air move when the bullet flew by. Panting, she looked up and saw a shadow gliding through the trees. Taking aim, she pulled the trigger. The shot was deafening in her ears. She couldn’t see anything anymore, nor could she hear any gunshots. There was no time to lose. She had to get to Maxim.
Lisa rolled out from behind the cover of grass like a bear, conspicuous and clumsy, towards his motionless body, expecting machine guns to sing as soon as she was in plain sight, expecting a sharp pain at any moment. Was it the Nazis? Had they discovered their hiding place again? And how many of them were there?
But thankfully, miraculously, all was quiet in the woods.
Maxim was breathing heavily. There was a red spot on his tunic just below his right shoulder. Lisa unbuttoned it, shook him as hard as she could and whispered his name. He groaned and opened his eyes. ‘Are you all right?’ she kept repeating, not recognising her own voice. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m all right but if you keep shaking me like this, I won’t be. Are you all right?’
‘Not really, no.’
Irina crawled over to them, her face white and her hand on her chest. At the sight of her husband covered with blood her mouth opened, and Lisa knew she was about to scream. ‘Don’t worry. He’s going to be fine,’ she said quickly, putting a finger to her mouth. ‘Let’s get him to the truck.’
‘What happened? I heard gunshots. What happened?’ repeated Irina like a woman possessed.
Lisa didn’t reply. It took all her strength to stop the tears from coming. At any moment, she was expecting more gunshots. Irina took the sleeping Sonya to the truck first and when she returned, they lifted Maxim and carried him with great difficulty, laying him on the floor in the back of the truck. ‘We need to get going,’ said Lisa. ‘I can clean his wound and bandage it while we are on the move. Once we get to Kiev, we can find a doctor.’
Lisa sat in the back next to Maxim, Sonya quiet in her arms. Irina turned on the ignition. The truck shook and lurched forward, uncertainly at first, then faster. When they were passing the trees where Lisa had seen the shadow, she asked Irina to stop. Jumping to the ground, she leapt through the bushes to where a body was laying facedown.
By the faded army tunic, by the shape of his neck, Lisa thought she recognised the man in front of her. When she turned him over, Danilo’s lifeless eyes stared back at her.
*
The truck navigated the forest trail slowly, as if afraid of what was hiding behind the next bend. All Lisa could see over the tarpaulin were the tops of the trees swaying in the wind. Somewhere behind these trees was the partisan battalion, sleeping peacefully, oblivious to the drama that had unfolded only moments ago in these woods. And somewhere behind these trees was Danilo, who would never see the perfect moon or the bursting waters of the Dnieper across the meadow or the sun as it painted the skies purple. It wasn’t the first time Lisa had killed a man. But it was the first time she had killed one of their own. She knew that for as long as she lived, she would not forget his face.
Why was Danilo in the woods, lying in wait for them with his gun? He was the one who had come up with the plan of their escape. He had thought of every little detail. And because of that, Lisa realised, he knew every little detail – every when and where and how. Had his unexpected kindness been an act? A realisation made Lisa groan out loud. Danilo was never going to let Maxim go. He wanted to be the one to kill him. That was his revenge.
A hand on her mouth, she listened to the silence of the forest. Had she known it was Danilo shooting at them, would she have been able to pull that trigger? No, she realised, she wouldn’t, not even if their lives and freedom depended on it. It was one thing to shoot a faceless enemy officer, and quite another to shoot someone she knew. What would Yulya say if she could see Lisa now?
‘Does the truck go any faster?’ she demanded, desperate to get away from the battalion and from Danilo’s haunting face. ‘My grandfather can walk quicker than this.’
‘I can’t see where I’m going,’ complained Irina.
‘Then turn your headlights on.’
‘And what if someone sees us? What if we are stopped?’
‘All the more reason to go faster.’ It wasn’t just the Nazis they had to worry about. It was the partisan sentry points, too. Irina knew their rough locations, having visited Maxim on sentry duty on a number of occasions, and she had told Lisa she would do her best to drive around them. Still, they couldn’t be too careful.
Sonya was curled up on Irina’s winter coat, the motion of the truck having rocked her back to sleep after the commotion briefly woke her. Maxim groaned every time the truck went over a bump in the road. Lisa cleaned his wound as best she could in the dark and put a bandage on, having watched Masha do it countless times. Then she rolled up some old army tunics she had found in the back and put them under his head like a pillow. It didn’t help. He was still bouncing around, so she crawled closer and slipped his head into her lap. His stubble was dark around his lips, his hair longer than she had ever seen it. She wanted to touch the skin on his face, his closed eyes, the tip of his nose. More than anything she wanted to kiss him, even though he didn’t love her, even though his wife was in the truck with them, driving them to safety.
Looking away from Maxim, she said quietly, almost to herself, ‘It was Danilo.’
‘What about Danilo?’ asked Irina from the driver’s seat, her eyes on the road.
‘Danilo was the one who shot Maxim.’
‘That doesn’t make sense. I thought he was helping us.’
‘Let me tell you something about Danilo,’ said Maxim, wheezing, stirring in her lap, not opening his eyes. ‘The only thing he believed in was vengeance. An eye for an eye. He lost his wife in the attack. He wanted me dead. And not just dead, but dead at his hands. He wanted a legitimate reason to kill me. An attempted escape was that reason. No one would fault him for shooting at an escaping prisoner.’
Irina said, ‘He was probably worried his prey was going to break free. Maxim had many friends at the battalion. People who would be happy to risk their lives to help him.’
Lisa said, ‘And I made it easy for him. He told me what I wanted to hear, and I was so desperate, I believed him.’
‘No harm done. You saved my life. I will always remember that,’ said Maxim.
‘Now we’re even.’ Lisa wanted to cry. This was the last time she was touching Maxim. Soon, they would reach Kiev. He would leave with his family to start a new life and she would never see him again.
After an hour on the road, the truck slowed down and almost stopped. Lisa could hear car horns blaring and people shouting. Somewhere, a baby was crying. A man with the hoarse voice of a lifetime smoker was playing a guitar and singing a popular Soviet war tune, a song Lisa recognised from her adolescence.
‘What is happening?’ asked Lisa.
‘We are entering the city,’ explained Irina. ‘Traffic is at a standstill.’
This was not what occupied Kiev had sounded like. It had always been quiet, as if petrified into silence by Hitler’s troops in their grey uniforms. How long had it been since Lisa had heard Russian singing on the streets of her city? The Kievans were too afraid to speak out loud, in case their voices attracted the attention of a Nazi patrol. Soviet war songs? Unheard of.
Lisa wished she could see with her own two eyes what was happening outside. But that would mean letting go of Maxim’s head in her lap and she didn’t want to do that just yet.
Irina cried, ‘Those are our soldiers! Ahead of us, it’s the Red Army!’ The truck lurched as she hit the brakes.
Lisa gently wriggled out from under Maxim and placed his head on the makeshift pillow she had prepared earlier. He had fallen asleep and didn’t seem to notice. Standing on tiptoes, she peered over the tarpaulin. As morning dawned, a few cars ahead of them she saw a truck with a red star on its back, filled with soldiers. They were wearing Red Army uniforms and waving to everyone around, smiles on their faces. From every direction crowds of passers-by ran towards the Red Army truck, showering the soldiers with flowers and offering them bread. One woman climbed on the side of the truck and gave the soldiers kisses. Another man ran after the truck and shook everyone’s hand. Before the truck turned the corner, the soldiers waved at Irina and Lisa.
‘Can you believe it?’ whispered Irina, tears of happiness streaming down her face.
‘I can’t believe it,’ replied Lisa as she thought of the Nazi soldiers marching through the same streets over two years earlier, of the dark times that followed, of the deaths of people she loved, the hunger and despair. Was it really over? It felt like a wonderful dream and Lisa was desperately afraid of waking up in her little hut in the woods, with explosions bursting overhead and German aeroplanes circling the night sky.
As they drove slowly through the streets of her childhood, Lisa was shocked at the destruction in Kiev. As far as she could see, there wasn’t a single building left standing. They had all been demolished by fire or shelling. The ruins peeked out of the ground, ugly and hollow, and the bare branches of the chestnut trees that lined the streets did nothing to hide them. Under the trees were pieces of broken furniture and suitcases, toys, old boxes of photographs and torn clothes, damp and covered with frost. The Nazis must have robbed every house before they were forced out, abandoning the items they didn’t want on the pavement. And there it all remained, as if a deadly hurricane had torn through the city.
Every road they passed had holes in the ground – the trenches the Nazis had forced the Kievans to dig to protect Kiev from the Red Army. The city was a ghost of its former self. But the trenches didn’t help Hitler. The Soviet prayers had been answered and the Red Army was here. Instead of the hated swastikas, every window sported a Soviet flag, most of them nothing more than a red shirt or towel or sheet, swaying in the breeze for the world to see.
‘What are you two whispering about?’ asked Maxim. He was trying to sit up.
‘You need to stay still,’ said Lisa, gently pushing him back. ‘At least till we find a doctor.’
‘Don’t be silly. I’m fine,’ he groaned. ‘What’s happening?’
‘The Red Army is in Kiev,’ said Irina. ‘I never thought I’d see the day.’
‘I never thought I’d live to see it,’ said Maxim.
Soviet aeroplanes hummed overhead. Round and round they circled, patrolling the city in case of a German attack. Lisa knew in her heart it was nothing but a precaution. The Nazis were gone, not temporarily but for good. What a feeling it was, to drive through Kiev and not be afraid. She wiped tears of joy off her face as the truck made its way through narrow alleyways and broad thoroughfares, passing Pechersk Lavra, the world-famous monastery and the symbol of Kiev. Uspenskii Cathedral, the most prominent church in all of Ukraine, had been destroyed by the Germans in 1941. It broke Lisa’s heart to see one thousand years of history and faith in ruin. But the rubble was surrounded by other cathedrals that over the centuries had survived earthquakes, fire, Mongol, Tartar and German invasions. Oppressors and natural disasters had come and gone but Pechersk Lavra remained, reaching for the sky in gratitude and defiance, the golden-domed eyewitness to the indominable Russian spirit that even 778 days of occupation couldn’t break.
They were 778 days of occupation that to Lisa felt like 778 long, miserable years.
When they turned onto Tarasovskaya Street, where she grew up, she could hardly believe her eyes. Most buildings on the street had been destroyed. She looked at the broken glass and the carcasses of burnt-out staircases, and cried. Even though the street was unrecognisable, if she closed her eyes, she could still see her sister sledging down the hill on fresh snow, their dog Mishka running behind her as fast as his little legs would allow, his ears like a pair of orange sails swaying in the wind. Blink and fast-forward a few years and she could see her brother bouncing up and down with excitement on this street corner because he had just delivered a hundred leaflets to raise the morale of the Kievan population and felt like a real partisan, a grown-up at fourteen. The war did that. It robbed children of their precious childhoods, forcing them to grow up too soon, to see and feel things that they shouldn’t.
As they drove further down the street, Lisa saw the building of her childhood. She breathed out in relief at the sight of it. It had been spared. She had been expecting the worst but here it was, standing tall and proud among the ruins. As Irina brought the truck to a halt, Lisa raised her head to their windows on the fourth floor but even with most of the glass missing, she couldn’t see anything. Was her mother inside, stirring her signature fried potatoes, her brown apron around her hips, hair hidden under a kerchief? Was her brother perched at the kitchen table, reading his favourite novel? Was her sister Natasha quietly sewing in the corner, while singing softly to herself?
As Irina stopped the truck outside the building, Lisa’s head began to spin and she would have lost her balance and fallen had she not been gripping the driver’s seat in front of her. And that was when she saw them. A beautiful young woman with her hair brushed away from her face in a tight bun was walking hand in hand with a tall, broad-shouldered man in a tattered Soviet uniform. The two of them held hands and looked at one another as if there was no one else around. Every few steps, they stopped and kissed in full view of the jubilant crowds, who flooded the street to celebrate the end of the occupation. And when they weren’t absorbed in each other, they wave
d at everyone who walked past, exchanging a few cheerful words, a hug or a handshake.
At the sight of her sister, Lisa murmured a quiet ‘Oh!’ and her hand flew to her mouth. Suddenly, it was as if the years had melted away. All she remembered was pushing her sister on the swing, while eight-year-old Natasha, all giggles, pigtails and dimples, shouted ‘Higher, higher!’ and dangled her feet in the air. And Lisa pushed higher and higher, even though all she wanted was to be on that swing herself. And she remembered six-year-old Natasha teaching her how to ride a bicycle faster than any boy. And Lisa pedalled as fast as she could, even though she was afraid for her life. As she watched the pretty girl and her companion disappear around the corner, she wanted to run after Natasha and press her to her heart, telling her how much she loved her. She wanted to tell her sister that whatever disagreements they had had in the past had long been forgotten because seeing her alive again, after having witnessed so much death and destruction, was a miracle.
All the colour must have left her face because Irina reached back and shook her by the arm and asked, ‘What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘I have seen a ghost,’ whispered Lisa, her gaze following her sister as she disappeared around the corner.
She trembled as she helped Irina lower Maxim out of the truck. And she trembled as they crossed the road, Maxim leaning on Irina, Sonya giggling in Lisa’s arms. But when she opened the front door to her building and stepped on the familiar staircase, she was no longer trembling. Here it was, the moment she had been dreaming of since the war had started. What she wanted more than anything was to run up the stairs two at a time, like she would often do as a child, knock on the door that hid so many happy childhood memories, burst into the apartment she was forced to vacate at the beginning of the occupation, leaving her heart behind, and hug her mother as tightly as she could, seeking comfort and joy in her embrace, shouting at the top of her voice that she was back, that she was home.
Daughters of the Resistance Page 30