by JV Love
He nodded yes and began to squeeze his hand tighter, but Katya stopped him. "Let it go," she urged. And Felix knew that he could do no harm under that gaze. As he opened his hand, the fly buzzed away, and Katya silently mouthed thank you to him.
Felix situated his head comfortably in Katya's lap, and she gently stroked her fingers through his dark, curly hair. He thought back to that day thirteen months ago when they had first met. Her, carrying her sunflower-sized portrait of Lenin, and him carrying his big sign that read "Glory to the Workers of the World." It was the first May Day parade where he hadn't been overcome with feelings of patriotism. His love for his country had been trounced by a different sensation altogether. Fuzzy little caterpillars had crawled in his stomach. He'd felt some strange connection to every person he saw, and everything had a dreamlike quality to it. Most of all, he couldn't take his eyes off the beautiful girl at the end of his row with her shoulder-length brown hair and her fluid, effortless way of moving through time and space. Three times along the parade route, he'd run into the plump peasant girl in front of him because he couldn't stop himself from gazing at the woman over his left shoulder.
All during the parade, he memorized the words and gestures he'd use to approach her after the parade. But when the time came, he walked up to her and promptly forgot everything, ending up staring at her with neither a grin nor a word to offer. "Hi," she said somewhat nervously and turned to try to rejoin her friends. He grabbed her by the arm and forced himself to say something - anything - so as not to lose the moment.
"You were great in the parade," he said and immediately felt embarrassed by such a stupid statement.
"Ummm, thanks," she said and then added quite seriously, "You've got a nice sign."
It took him a second to realize she was gently poking fun at him, and when he laughed, she laughed too. She had a secretive, restrained laugh, and much like her delicate smile, it conveyed a sense of vulnerability that intrigued Felix. He'd found himself wondering how anyone could say a harsh word to her with those downcast, rueful eyes looking back at them, looking through them.
He still felt the same now, even though it seemed like an eternity since that day. Katya tickled his cheek with the sprig of lilacs she'd picked on their hike earlier that day.
"Look, here's one with five petals," Felix said, pulling the tiny branch from her hand. "That means you have to make a wish."
Katya closed her eyes tightly, but only for a second, then said, "Ok."
"You have to eat the flower now," Felix said.
"What? No, you don't."
"Of course you do. If you don't eat the flower, your wish won't come true."
"I think you're making it up," she said but then plucked the tiny purple flower and put it in her mouth anyway.
"What did you wish for?" Felix asked.
"I'm not telling. If you say what your wish was, it won't come true."
He laughed and kissed the underside of her wrist. She put her hand on his thigh and gently squeezed in return. Felix felt his desire rise and wished they could be alone. She could turn him on so easily.
Their friends were busy doing what most everyone did these days - chattering endlessly about the possibilities of war with Germany.
". . . my brother is in the army, and he's on that border. He's on one side, and the Germans are on the other. He tells me he sees more German troops arriving every day. And he says he hears tanks and trucks moving at all hours of the night up and down the riverbank."
"Pipe down, you provocateur!" someone jested, and everyone laughed nervously. They all knew someone who had been arrested for "panic-mongering." The position of the government of the Soviet Union was unmistakable and unwavering - just eight days ago, the official news agency, Tass, printed a statement in the newspapers throughout the country denying rumors of impending war.
"There's no way the Germans will attack. They learned their lesson fifteen years ago. They can't fight and win a war on two fronts. They'll finish off Britain before they look our way."
"I heard that Britain warned Stalin that the Germans would attack tomorrow."
"You can't trust the British," Dima chimed in. "They want to drag us into the war because they're finished unless they get some help. They want the Germans to attack us to relieve the pressure on them. But it's ridiculous for us to speculate on whether or not the Germans will attack. The Party has said there won't be a war. Stalin made the pact with Hitler to guarantee peace."
"So how do you explain all the German troops massed on the border?"
"I don't have to explain," Dima replied defiantly. "The Party knows more than we do. That's why they make the decisions. I just have to have faith in the Party, and I do. I'm beginning to wonder how much faith the rest of you have in the Party." The challenge was implicit in his voice.
"Dima, calm down," Felix quickly intervened. "We all have faith in the Party - most of us are in the Komsomol. But there's no reason why we can't talk about things - that's what students do. That's what they teach us to do. Besides, we're all friends here."
"Yes, friends who don't trust in the wisdom of the Party and who gossip like peasants in a village!" Dima yelled and then stormed away to smoke a cigarette.
"Don't worry," Felix reassured everyone, "you know how he is. He'll calm down in a few minutes."
"Hey Felix," someone said, "what are you going to do if the Germans attack?"
"He'll run to the front and fight them off with his grandfather's sword!" someone else yelled, and everyone laughed.
"No," a girl said, "Katya wouldn't let him. She'd make him be a chauffeur for General Zhukov." Everyone laughed again. "Hitler himself couldn't keep those two apart," she said, and they all looked at Katya and Felix.
Felix's gleaming iron-grey eyes once again met Katya's, and he agreed with the girl. Nothing in the world could ever separate them. Their unbounded love could surely overcome anything the world had to throw at them.
* * *
Alfred Liskof's calloused, sweaty index finger was wrapped tightly around the trigger, and it began to squeeze. Perspiration gathered around the barrel of the gun where it met the soft white skin of his temple. But something wasn't right, and the finger could neither squeeze nor release.
"Why do you keep doing that?" Franz yelled in an exasperated tone. "It really irks me, you know." Franz was a dozen yards back but catching up quickly now that Alfred had stopped. Because of his meager size, Franz was constantly lagging behind. His short legs had to move nearly twice as quickly as Alfred's if he wanted to keep up. "I hate it when you put that pistol to your head. What kind of a sick game is that?" he continued as he took off his helmet and placed it under his left arm.
Alfred lowered the handgun from the side of his head and noticed a small deer and her fawn grazing at the bottom of the wooded hill. It was 7:30 p.m. and soft beams of sunlight squeezed through the young leaves of the trees, splashing the ground around them. Alfred's left eye began to irritate him. This strange sensation focused his attention, and then he felt it - something gathering and racing down the side of his cheek.
Franz approached Alfred. "Are you crying?" he asked incredulously.
Alfred scoffed at the ludicrous accusation. He never cried.
But then he felt it again - something rolling down his right cheek - and there could be no doubt. He watched a teardrop as it leapt off his face and fell to the forest floor. He didn't know what to think, so he simply tried to recall the last time he'd cried. Surely it hadn't been that day eleven years ago when he'd vowed to never again speak to his father? It couldn't have been that long, could it? He didn't know, didn't want to face the answer. All these endless questions and answers were pushing him toward insanity.
"What's the matter?" Franz asked.
"Nothing," Alfred said and put his Luger pistol back in its holster.
"Don't give me that," Franz said. "What the hell is your problem? Why are you always putting that damn gun to your head? It's the third time today. And now you're crying too.
"
"I'm not crying. Something got in my eye, that's all."
"In both of them?"
Alfred, at 32, was over a decade older than Franz, a foot taller, and at least fifty pounds heavier. He glared at Franz with his practiced stare, both eyebrows furled tightly toward the bridge of his nose and low over his eyes. "Yes," he said, "in both of them."
"Why do you even have a pistol?" Franz asked. "I thought only officers got them."
Alfred ignored the question and watched the two deer lazily rip grass from the ground while a squirrel chattered from somewhere in the treetops. The Polish forest they stood in was similar to the ones Alfred knew and loved in the Fatherland. Alfred grabbed his rifle and began marching once again. Franz hesitated a moment, then followed.
Alfred had so many unanswered questions today. They surrounded him, swirled about, taunted him. And even when the answers came, they defied any attempts Alfred made to match them with a question. Instead, they joined in on the fun. Some even mocked him.
"Is it about tomorrow?" Franz asked.
"Is what about tomorrow?"
"Whatever's bothering you."
"Yeah," Alfred answered, "and about the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that." He regretted answering already. He never should have told Franz what he'd overheard that morning - that they'd be attacking the Soviet Union tomorrow at sun up. He should have ended the conversation with Franz before it even started. He had learned, by repeated failure, that his fellow Germans - soldiers or not - weren't interested in hearing any contrary viewpoints.
"What's there to fear?" Franz asked rhetorically. "You see how poorly defended their borders are. The Poles put up a harder fight than the Russians will. We'll be in Moscow before the leaves turn color."
Alfred remembered when he was Franz's age and how he'd been just as arrogant.
"We were outnumbered in the last war," Franz continued, "and we still annihilated them. I just don't understand you. We have all of Europe now, and who wants that miserable little island? The Brits can keep it as far as I'm concerned."
Alfred knew history well, and he understood perfectly what had happened to the last army to conquer the whole of Europe and then forge on to Moscow. That army had been led by one of the greatest military leaders of all time, and yet Napoleon and his army had been devastated by their attempted conquest. They had been destroyed slowly and methodically, day in and out, by the cold, the hunger, and the shrapnel ripping through their backs as they desperately retreated.
"And besides," Franz said, "we need living space . . . and natural resources. That means going east."
Alfred remembered reading how in 1814, only two years after Napoleon had retreated, victorious Russian armies and their allies celebrated the fall of France by marching down the Champs-Elysées and through the Arc de Triomphe in the center of Paris.
"We'll be doing the world a favor, you know," Franz continued, "by taking Russia and slaughtering all the communists. They're not human."
"I suppose they think the same about us," Alfred said and stopped to look around.
"Well, they're wrong. And we'll prove it to them real soon." Franz looked at his watch. "In eight and a half hours to be exact."
Alfred studied his compass for several seconds, and Franz opened his canteen and took a drink of water, being careful not to spill a single drop.
"Are you sure we're not lost?" Franz asked. "Shouldn't we be close by now?"
"I know exactly where we are. We're right on schedule," Alfred replied and put his compass away.
The border to the Soviet Union was three miles ahead, Leningrad, more than700 miles to the north, and their native Germany, so very far behind them. When Alfred thought of Dresden and his beautiful brick home with its little garden out back, the despair and the helplessness once again threatened to overwhelm him.
"It's not like Russia is going to cease to be anytime soon," Franz said. "We'll never be safe with these monsters on our borders."
"You're right," Alfred said sarcastically. "The killing isn't going to cease anytime soon."
Franz studied Alfred's face for a moment before answering. "That's not what I said," he replied.
"We were promised peace," Alfred countered. But of course he knew better now. The wars would continue, and the Third Reich wouldn't stop until it brought about the destruction of everything that Alfred held dear.
"We don't need peace, we need oil," Franz said, stressing the last word.
"That argument is entirely illogical. First of all, there's . . .," Alfred stopped in mid-sentence, suddenly deciding that he'd had enough of arguing. There was no point to it. He wasn't going to convince Franz, or anyone else for that matter, of the error of their views.
Alfred wiped down his bald head with the green rag he always kept in his pocket and then placed his right hand firmly around the handle of his pistol. He thought how nice it would be to cry some more, if only his tears hadn't dried up already. It was time for him to make a decision: to continue living in a world of destruction, hatred, and fear, where death was waiting impatiently around every corner; or to put the gun to his head and end his suffering.
"What's today?" Alfred asked.
Franz eyed him nervously. "It's June twenty-first," he replied.
"Hmm, so it is. Have you ever seen the incredible palaces in Leningrad?"
"No, never," Franz said and stepped closer to the wide trunk of a neighboring tree.
"What a pity," Alfred said and pulled his handgun out of its holster. "They're works of art - very majestic."
* * *
It was a few minutes past 8:00 p.m., but the northern sun was still shining brightly. Misha Borisov focused his binoculars in on the lone German plane gliding lazily through the blue sky. The plane veered wide left for several minutes, then wide right for a few minutes, and then climbed straight toward the sun before diving back to its former altitude.
Misha set down the binoculars and lit one of his precious few cigarettes. His duty had only started five minutes ago, and he knew that having a cigarette so early meant he'd have to be extremely conservative to make the remaining three cigarettes last until the end of his shift.
He wondered if it was the same plane as two days ago. It probably was. That plane had done the same maneuvers - most likely out of boredom, Misha guessed. There wasn't anything new in this area that the Germans hadn't already seen.
It was the same routine every time: the German planes would cross the border into the Soviet Union (about 50 miles from the airbase where Misha was stationed), then fly over military installations, cities, rivers, lakes, roads, railroads, and whatever else they wanted to, and then return to their base on the other side of the border. Misha leaned back in his chair and concentrated on his cigarette. It was one of the few pleasures he had at his disposal while on duty. His job - from 8:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. - was to guard the 93 planes that lined the sides of the runway and to be on the lookout for any enemy planes. It was a boring job and one entirely unsuitable to a 19-year-old who knew exactly how things should and should not be in the world. The planes were chained to the ground to prevent anyone from stealing them, and Misha hadn't seen so much as a stray dog near any of the planes.
He ground out his cigarette. From the corner of his eye, he saw his commanding officer and another soldier coming his way. His commanding officer, a captain, was a tall, slender man who was inordinately quiet. His dark skin suggested he was from either the far North or the far South, but he spoke perfect Russian, with no trace of an accent. Misha didn't recognize the man walking next to the captain. He was wearing the same uniform Misha was, so he definitely wasn't an officer. He walked with an air of indifference that only came with connections or stupidity. He had no expression on his face, and for some strange reason, Misha found himself wondering how long it had been since the man had last smiled or frowned.
Misha rose to his feet, cursing himself for not reporting the plane sighting yet. It would be within eyesigh
t now, and as he quickly stole a glance in that direction, he saw that it was. He cleared his throat and prepared to inform the captain of the German plane sighting but saw the captain had already noticed it himself.
"Comrade Private, why haven't you reported that plane?"
"I was just about to, Comrade Captain. It's another German reconnaissance plane."
The plane descended abruptly and was suddenly less than 75 feet off the ground. The three men stood together and watched as it approached. The captain took out his pistol but did not aim it, and just before the plane roared over their heads, it tilted to the right, and the pilot waved at them. Misha waved back.
"What the hell was that? Do you want to get twenty-five years?" he yelled at Misha.
"But, Comrade Captain," Misha protested, "surely waving cannot be considered a provocation? We see German planes deep in our territory everyday. We're not allowed to shoot them. What else is there to do?"
"You're a lunatic. You're going to get yourself killed or sent to Siberia one day."
"Siberia? But Stalin loves me. He only sends provocateurs and kulaks and Trotskyites to Siberia. Not workers like me." The soldier next to the captain arched his eyebrows at this, though in amusement or consternation, Misha couldn't tell.
"Shut up, Borisov!" the captain yelled. His demeanor struck Misha as odd. He wasn't usually so quick to anger. Misha studied the captain's nose yet again. It was the flat, crooked nose of a brawler, and it didn't fit the captain's personality at all. No matter how many times Misha had asked him about it, though, he never got a straight answer.
"I've been patient with you because you're new," the captain explained. "You can consider yourself warned. Your insolent remarks won't be tolerated." He glared at Misha for several seconds, as if to emphasize the point.
Finally, he turned to the soldier who accompanied him and introduced him as Comrade Stepanovich. "I want you to show him the ropes," the captain explained. "You two will be working together from now on."