Like a River from Its Course

by Kelli Stuart

  I push him away with shaking hands and stand up, my chair clattering to the floor. “You need to go,” I say. “Leave now, Ewald.”

  Ewald stands up and narrows his eyes. “I’ve done everything in my power, Maria, to take care of you. I’ve given and given, and you refuse to give in return.”

  He steps toward me as I back up. The look in his eyes is no longer kind. The patient façade has finally broken. He looks menacing and angry and … mean.

  “Please, Ewald,” I say, my voice louder than expected. “Please leave now. I cannot see you anymore.”

  In two strides, Ewald is upon me. He pushes me back against the wall, pinning me tight against the rough wood. “I will not leave until I’ve loved you the way I’ve wanted to love you for a long time now,” he whispers. His voice comes out in a hiss, snakelike and cold. I squirm, but cannot get out from under his grasp.

  “Please,” I cry. “You’re hurting me. Please don’t do this.”

  Ewald presses his mouth against mine. It’s not tender or gentle, but rough and painful. I turn my head to the side and let out a cry. “Ewald, no!” I yell. He presses his hand against my mouth.

  “I’ll tell you good-bye, but first …” he growls in my ear. His hand moves down my chin to my neck, then lowers to my chest. I sob as he gropes, the full weight of his body pressed against me.

  It happens quickly. I collapse to the floor as Ewald is yanked backward and thrown across the room. Gerhard steps in front of me, a long, iron tire bar gripped tightly in his hand.

  “Leave,” he says. His voice is surprisingly calm. I pull my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them, trying to stop the uncontrollable quaking of my body. Ewald stands up, brushing off his uniform jacket.

  “This is a bad idea, friend,” he says with a menacing sneer. “You shouldn’t have gotten involved.”

  Gerhard rolls the tire bar around in his hand. He’s a tall, broad man with thick hair and a full beard. He takes a step toward Ewald, swinging the bar slowly in front of him. “Let me tell you something, boy,” he says. His words are slow and measured as he takes another step forward. “I know a thing or two about men like you. I know that you aren’t used to hearing the word no, and that you expect to get what you want at all times. But tonight, you will not get what you want.”

  Ewald laughs and shakes his head. “Who cares,” he says. “Like I need to have a little whore like her.” He looks at me. “Untermensch.”

  Gerhard takes another step forward. “There’s something else you should know,” he says quietly. Ewald looks back at him, eyes dark. “You should know my brother is a commanding SS officer in Berlin. I will have no problem reporting back to him that you harbored and helped hide a Soviet slave.”

  Ewald laughs. “I’ll simply tell him that his own brother is a lover of the Soviets,” he spits. Gerhard cocks his head to the side with a curious stare.

  “And who do you think he’ll believe?” he asks. “His brother, or a foolish and stupid boy like yourself.”

  Ewald is quiet for a moment. He glances down at me, then looks back at Gerhard. With a frustrated growl, he grabs his coat and hat, and stomps down the stairs. We listen as he storms through the shop, sweeping items off the shelves. With each crash, I squeeze my eyes tighter. Finally, the front door opens and slams. Then all is silent.

  I lower my head down onto my knees and rest it there. Gerhard kneels down beside me, his hand warm and tender on the back of my head.

  “I’m sorry,” I sob. “You’ve been so good to me. I’m sorry I brought you this trouble.”

  “Shh …” he whispers. “My wife told me everything today. Maria? Maria, look at me.”

  I look up into his gentle eyes. In the four months that I’ve lived here, I’ve never spoken directly to him, though I’ve often felt him watching me throughout the day.

  “Lisolette and I had a daughter,” Gerhard says softly. “She and Greta were the best of friends. Our daughter died four years ago of a terrible fever.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

  “Having you here has healed a wound,” Gerhard says gently. “But now it’s time to get you home. It’s time for you to ease your own mother’s broken heart.”

  Lisolette appears in the doorway, her hair wild and eyes wide. “Well,” she says, looking around at the mess. “From the looks of things both downstairs and up here, I’d say your good-bye was a success.”

  I smile, and she chuckles, rushing forward to pull me in her arms. “Oh my darling,” she says. “We’re going to do everything in our power to get you home. I don’t know how, but we’ll figure it out.”

  PART THREE

  HOME

  LUDA

  June 21, 1944

  Today marks a full year since Sasha and I escaped the Nazi-occupied Soviet Union and came to make a life in Germany. I still think of the journey here every day, of the fear and heartache that came with leaving my country behind. I miss Alexei, Baba Mysa, and Katya so much that sometimes my heart physically aches. I long to write to them but know that it would be too dangerous.

  Crossing the border into Germany was easier than I had anticipated. The story that the partisans had developed for me was questioned only once at a checkpoint in Poland. It was the only time during the trip that I truly feared we wouldn’t make it out alive.

  As I waited for the Nazi soldiers to confirm the story of my transporting Sturmbannführer Brambott’s baby to Germany, I prepared myself for the worst. I held Sasha tight and swallowed hard against the fear of what they might do to my child, a bastard German baby. If I think about it too long, I still feel the bile rise up in my throat. It’s the single greatest fear I’ve ever felt, even beyond the day I was attacked.

  But by some miracle, the soldiers came back and waved us on. When I asked the man acting as my guide what had happened, he shrugged, seemingly as surprised as I was.

  “You just might be the luckiest woman alive, Luda,” he said that night. I smile now as I think of the irony of his words.

  Six days after leaving Vinnitsya, I met Hans’s sister, Sophia. She is, perhaps, the kindest and gentlest person I have ever known. She met us at the train station in the middle of the night, and in less than three minutes, Sasha and I went from the train to the back seat of her car, hovering under the veil of darkness.

  I didn’t get to say good-bye to the man who took me from Lvov to Poland. I never even found out his name. The entire journey seems almost surreal and … miraculous.

  Today, the tide of the war is shifting. Sophia fills me in on what’s happening frequently.

  “The Allies are fighting back,” she told me last night. Her voice is always hushed, despite the fact that we live deep in the country, far from any happenings of war. But Sophia is involved in many of the partisan groups, and she hears news before most of her fellow countrymen.

  “Germany has been defeated in Leningrad,” she told me just after the new year. When she brought me this news, my heart skipped. Though I know and understand little of war strategy, I heard enough conversations between Alexei and his friends to know that Leningrad was crucial. Germany’s defeat there was a big blow, and Sophia and I both knew it.

  “The winters were too cold for our people,” she told me. “We couldn’t withstand the freezing temperatures. Your army was much better prepared for such weather.” Sophia and I spoke of these things late last night as we huddled beneath a blanket. The small cottage that we live in is nestled at the base of the Bavarian Alps. Despite the warm summer days, at night the temperature dips, and we must cover up in thick blankets to stave off the cold.

  “Our country has become foolish in this war,” Sophia told me last night as we sipped our chai. “We’ve been defeated in Italy, and now we’re losing the Soviet Union. Hitler’s mission has outgrown his capabilities. It’s only a matter of time before his regime is taken down.”

  “And then what?” I asked her.

  “It’s hard to say,” Sophia answered. “It seems that
all the world is fighting against one another.”

  I stand at the small kitchen counter this morning cutting bread into small slices, then dropping it into the boiling milk as I prepare Sasha’s morning porridge. Sophia walks in, her light brown hair disheveled and hanging down over her shoulders.

  Sophia is tall and broad and has a love for the latest fashions. She’s older than Hans by eighteen months, but from the way she speaks of him, one might think she was his mother. She loves him dearly, but we don’t talk of him often because the fear of the unknown is too stifling.

  We haven’t heard from Hans since I arrived.

  “Guten Morgen,” Sophia says, and she rushes over to Sasha, who raises his hand to her. She scoops him up and dances around the room with him in her arms. I smile and feel the tears prick my eyes at the way she loves my boy. I haven’t yet told her that he’s not Hans’s son.

  “Sophia,” I ask as she places Sasha back in his chair, and turns to pour herself a cup of tea, “how did you and Hans come to be involved in the war the way that you are?”

  Sophia looks up at me in surprise. “I assumed Hans told you about our parents,” she says.

  “Well, he mentioned a little, but not much. How is it that Hans is in the Nazi army, but isn’t a Nazi? And how did you come to work with the partisans?”

  Sophia sits down at the table and bites into a piece of bread. “Our father was a scholar,” she begins. “He spent most nights sitting before the fire, reading to us from every book imaginable.” She smiles. “I used to hate it, but now that I think back on those days, I realize how much he prepared us for such a time as this.”

  “How?” I ask. I sit down next to her and blow on the steaming bowl of porridge as Sasha bangs impatiently on the table.

  “He opened our minds to the idea that there are many different ways to think. We weren’t prone to adopt the narrow view of Hitler’s regime because we were taught that all of life is a potential for learning and that mankind is more than the sum of one idea.”

  “But why did Hans join the Nazi army?” I ask.

  “When our parents got sick and died, Hans was only nineteen. He needed purpose and direction, so I encouraged him to pursue the army. It would be much easier for a boy his age to join than to resist.”

  “He didn’t agree with Nazi ideology, though, did he?” I ask. I scoop a heaping spoonful of porridge into Sasha’s bowl, then hand him a spoon. Sophia and I both laugh as much of his first bite runs down his chin and onto his fat belly.

  “No. Not completely. I don’t think he knew what to believe, but again, our father taught us to think for ourselves. Hans was much too grounded intellectually to fully accept all that he was taught in the army.”

  We’re silent for a while as I watch Sasha eat. After a few moments, Sophia puts her cup down and leans in close to me. “Luda,” she begins, and my heart drops. I set down the spoon and turn to face her.

  “Yes?”

  “Sasha isn’t Hans’s son, is he,” she says. It’s a statement, not a question. I nod my head. Sophia sighs and leans back. She studies me carefully, then offers a thin smile. “He doesn’t have to be for me to love him, you know,” she says quietly. My eyes fill with tears.

  For the next hour, I tell Sophia everything, from the day I was raped to the day I left Vinnitsya. As we speak, Sasha toddles around the room at our feet, chattering and laughing at everything and nothing. Sophia listens, her brows furrowed deep over her crystal blue eyes. When I finish, she pulls me into her arms and together we weep.

  “Do you think Hans will return?” I ask. Sophia sighs.

  “I don’t know, Luda. But you and I are family now. You and Sasha will always have a place here and someday—Luda, someday this war will end. The world will be at peace again.”

  I don’t know if I believe her, but as I push myself back and glance from her to Sasha, I realize that we’re going to be okay. No matter what happens, we’re all going to be okay.

  Two days later, Sophia comes home later than usual. Her face is white as she walks through the door. I’m carrying Sasha, who I’ve just bathed, to the bedroom to put him to bed. “What’s the matter?” I ask when I see the look of fear on her face. She shakes her head.

  “Put Sasha down. I’ll make some tea. You and I need to talk.”

  With trembling hands, I prepare my son for bed. I sit with him in the small wooden rocking chair by the window and rock slowly, tears streaming down my cheeks. I’ve waited daily for her to come in with some news of Hans. Today I fear the news will not be what I want to hear.

  Sasha drifts off quickly, the result of a long day without napping. My boy has grown energetic and fierce these last few months. Being his mother is exhausting, but every night as I lay him down, I trace the contours of his perfect pink mouth, his round, full cheeks, and I think how grateful I am to have him. He’s perfect and beautiful.

  I’m eighteen now, though I feel much older. My birthday was last week, and Sophia and I celebrated quietly with Sasha. “Perhaps next year you can celebrate this day with Hans,” she said as I blew out a candle on top of the small pound cake she bought in town.

  Now, as I make my way down the stairs, I wonder if that dream has been crushed forever.

  Sophia sits on the couch in the sitting room, her legs tucked up underneath her skirt. She looks up at me as I walk into the room. I stop and stare at her.

  “Has something happened to Hans?” I ask.

  Sophia’s eyes fill with tears. “I don’t know,” she answers, and she covers her face with her hands, breaking down in mournful sobs. I rush to her side.

  “What is it?” I ask. “What’s happened?”

  “There’s been another assassination attempt on Hitler’s life. It was unsuccessful again.”

  My heart grows cold, and the room begins to spin. “Was Hans involved?” I ask.

  Sophia shrugs. “I don’t know, Luda,” she cries. She pulls back and wipes her face. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if he had something to do with it.”

  “How did you hear this?” I ask.

  “One of my sources told me today. From what they’re hearing, no one knows who organized this plot, but they suspect Hitler will retaliate harshly.” She breaks down in a fresh batch of tears. “They think he’ll kill anyone even suspected of being part of the plot.”

  I hug Sophia close but for some reason, tears don’t come to my eyes. I’m numb and cold, but do not cry. Something inside me remains peaceful.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I whisper, and Sophia pushes back.

  “I don’t know if it is, Luda,” she cries. “I really don’t know if we’ll ever find out what happened to Hans.”

  I think of Sasha, sleeping soundly in the room above us. I remember all the moments when life could have fallen apart but didn’t, and for the first time I feel strong. For the first time, I realize that I can face anything that comes my way.

  “Sophia, I’m not afraid.” I look at her and despite the moment, I let out a laugh. “I’m not afraid,” I say again. “We’re going to make it through this—you, me, and Sasha.”

  Sophia sits back on the couch and wraps her arms around her waist. “I don’t share your peace, Luda,” she says softly. “But I’ll trust your instinct.”

  I smile and grab her hand. We lean close to each other, each supporting the other’s weight. I rest my head on her shoulder, she puts her head on top of mine, and together we remain, bonded to face whatever life may bring across our path.

  IVAN

  October 10, 1944

  Kiev has been liberated from German occupation since late last year. Before they left, the Germans launched a massive campaign to cover up all evidence of the horrors that occurred at their hands. For days we could see smoke billowing in the air above Babi Yar as they burned the thousands of bodies that lay there.

  My city, smoking and bloated with the stench of the dead, would not suffer occupation much longer. By the beginning of December, the Germans had retreated lik
e dogs with their tails between their legs.

  In the year since the Red Army took back the city, young men have marched onto our streets, and every day I stare at the face of each boy, hoping that maybe, by some miracle, Sergei will be among them.

  I know he won’t. I know that he’s gone, but still I go each morning to Kreshadik Street to sit on a bench and watch the boys walk by. Their faces are hardened, the effects of war etched into their skin like the brand on a sheep. I listen to them speak, and the tone of their conversations is so different than it should be. They’re still boys, all of them—boys who became old men in just a few years’ time.

  Today, one of them came to visit.

  The knock startles Tanya and me from our quiet occupation. The only one who has visited us in months is Father Konstantin, but he died last week, adding more weight to the burden of the last four years.

  I open the door, and he stares at me with hopeful eyes. The man wears a crisp Red Army uniform. He’s very tall, with thick dark hair cut close to his head. He looks young, perhaps the same age as my Sergei.

  “Hello,” he says.

  I pull the door open a little wider so Tanya can see past me. “Can we help you?”

  “Are you Ivan Kyrilovich Petrochenko?” the boy asks. I nod in surprise.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “My name is Maxim Pavlovich Yakovlev,” the boy says. “I was a friend and comrade of your son, Sergei.”

  My heart jumps. “Please come inside,” I say, gesturing him forward.

  When we’re all settled around the table, Maxim looks from my face to Tanya’s. “I know this must be a surprise,” he says. I nod.