Underground

by Antanas Sileika

  The new rulers were barbers, who sat you down in the chair and promised a trim but kept on clipping and clipping all the way down to the scalp, and when it looked as if there was nothing left to cut, you saw them eyeing the straight razor and you shuddered to think what might be coming next.

  Regret kept the American awake while his family slept. His mind kept turning on the mystery of living in the place where he did, a place where history moved backward.

  The farmers would be forced into villages again, as they had been in the times of the czar. The state paid no wages at all on collective farms. It was like going back to 1860, before emancipation of the serfs. And these were the “liberators” who had saved them from the Germans. He felt as if he was living on the wrong side of a mirror. Why did the French have all the luck and get the Americans?

  This winter night on his farm, he was living in the silence he had missed while on the shop floor in Worcester, Massachusetts. Sitting by the oil lamp, he could fill the silence with his thoughts about how things might have been.

  On the edge of the American’s property, on the fringe of a forest, Lukas and Vincentas tried hard not to make noise as they followed the partisan guide in front of them. With each step forward, the crust of snow beneath their feet seemed to squeal like a guard dog whose tail had been stepped on.

  The men cut across three kilometres of forest, and then came upon an open field. Light snow began to fall, covering their footprints. They came to a river and waded through the shallowest part, managing to get wet no higher than their knees.

  At dawn they came to another forest. Their guide paused to draw a pistol from its holster and slip it up the sleeve of his sheepskin coat. He led them straight into a dense mass of pine branches, on the other side of which was a trail.

  The guide held up his hand and they stopped. From somewhere a voice said “Ashes” and the guide responded “Dust.” They followed the trail, and soon there was a widening of the path and a clearing, at the end of which they could see a large campsite, the first in a series of linked sites, where a few men were moving about.

  There were two long tables made of rough-hewn logs, an unlit bonfire was stacked in a deep pit, and the first clearing contained over a dozen lean-tos made of pine boughs with small fires of smokeless oak sticks burning at the ends.

  This was the main camp, but as Lukas looked more deeply into the forest he saw that there was a series of clearings and the camp he stood in was only the first of several which ran one after another as far as he could see. At the other camps, some of the men were up and sitting around campfires. There were dozens of men in each of the campsites and therefore hundreds in all. A small army of irregulars was living among the pine trees.

  He had never thought the Reds had undone so many. “Why all these camps?” Lukas asked.

  “If we let the men stay in one big camp, they start to talk and make jokes and carouse too loudly at night, and the sound carries,” said the guide.

  Just then Lukas heard a concertina begin to play quietly and some men started to sing.

  His guide laughed at Lukas’s astonishment. “Some of them sing a little in the mornings during the winter to keep their spirits up. We forbade it in the summer because the shepherds started to bring their flocks around here to listen to the music.”

  Between the second and third camps there was a crude corral with three cows in it. The Reds were driving cattle out of the defeated part of Germany along abandoned railway lines nearby, and the partisans went shopping for meat along this highway whenever they were short of food.

  In the camp where they stood, most of the men were sleeping in twos and threes in their lean-tos. They were dressed and shod. Many had no blankets beyond their wool coats. At their sides lay weapons, an assortment of Russian and German grenades, pistols and automatic rifles as well as light machine guns. A heavy machine gun stood at the edge of the clearing.

  The guide left them where they stood and went across the way to speak to a man with a beard.

  The air was cleaner here, and the quiet music in the distance was sweet. Most of the partisans in this first camp were still sleeping, as it was after dawn and partisans did their work by night, but three men in a knot where they’d been studying a map on the table looked up, and one of them nodded and saluted them informally by touching the brim of his hat with his finger. Lukas nodded back.

  It was going to be all right.

  The guide returned and led the brothers to a lean-to of their own and gave them a bundle of rags to wrap their feet in so their socks could dry by the fire as they slept. Neither of the young men had slept outside in the winter before, but they were so tired that they did so easily.

  Lukas awoke in the early afternoon to the smell of barley soup. His socks were dry on their sticks by the fire. Vincentas lay beside him on his back, his mouth slightly open. Lukas studied his brother, who had been so tired he had not even taken off his eyeglasses. They lay crookedly on his nose, steaming up slightly with every breath deflected from the scarf that Vincentas had tucked up over his lips.

  Since he was otherworldly, Vincentas had required care all his life. Tree roots seemed to search out his feet to trip him, doors swung shut suddenly behind him, clipping his heels, and rabid dogs had a way of finding him, hoping for salvation. Sometimes Lukas got tired of looking out for him, especially because Vincentas was not particularly grateful. His mind was on loftier matters.

  Even though he’d come here for the sake of his brother, Lukas was now happier than he’d been back on the uneasy streets of Kaunas. He did not need to pretend here, to force his feelings underground.

  The camp was beginning to stir. Men in old Lithuanian army uniforms, or in a mix of military and civilian clothes, were moving about, some stamping their boots to start circulation in their feet, others checking their weapons, some smoking and talking or heating water with which to shave.

  The guide came to them, roused Vincentas, and took them to meet the leader of their band, a bearded forty-year-old called Flint. He was the oldest man in the group, one of a few with military training, and he kept a pipe between his teeth much of the time. He looked them up and down like the captain of a ship eyeing new sailors.

  “Is Kaunas so crammed full of people that there’s no room for you there?” he asked.

  “That’s right,” said Lukas.

  “Are you sure? It would be better for you if you went back, and better for us to have a couple of young undercover men we could count on in town. This is no kind of life you’re choosing, and once you’re in, there’s no getting out.”

  “The Reds were starting to close in. They were going to come for us sooner or later.”

  Vincentas was letting Lukas take the lead, eyeing the camp and the other men.

  “Did either of you have military training?”

  “No.”

  “Know Morse code or how to use a radio?”

  “Just to listen to the news,” said Vincentas suddenly.

  A partisan within earshot laughed at this answer.

  “I’m glad you can turn a dial,” said Flint. “But now you tell me what good you two would be to me. What do you have to offer?”

  “I didn’t realize we had to offer anything,” said Vincentas. “I thought it was enough that we didn’t want to live like slaves.”

  “What do you think this is, some kind of study group? The Cheka is looking for us now, as we speak. Or looking for me, anyway. There’s a price on my head. Freedom doesn’t come cheap. So what do you have to offer, if not military expertise or radio communications, or a machine gun? Do you have some inside information on a food warehouse? Or I’d love to get my hands on a small tank. Can you help me there?”

  Vincentas shook his head. “I’ve had three years’ training in the seminary. I could be your chaplain.”

  To Lukas’s surprise, Flint nodded at this. It made some sense. They lived in a religious country where prayers were as common as sparrows, and everyone needed to tell his
troubles to someone.

  “What about you?”

  “Our parents were farmers. I was studying to be a teacher.”

  “Can you write well?”

  “Of course.”

  “I mean longer pieces, articles. News. Essays.”

  “That’s the sort of thing I did at school, yes.”

  “All right, this is better than I thought. I have a lot of men who can pull a trigger. These camps are full of farm boys, but there are damned few men who can handle a pen or a typewriter. Mind you, everyone needs to be able to fight. But I want you to be sure about what you’re doing. You could hide out with your parents, you know.”

  “We have another brother hiding out. Three of us would be too many.”

  “I only want men who have no other choice, you understand? No patriots, no hotheads.”

  “I’d rather be reading Maironis’s poetry in university if I could,” said Lukas. He looked around the camp. “And I wouldn’t sleep outside in the winter if I didn’t have to.”

  “You’ll be glad enough to sleep outside after you’ve spent some time in a bunker. Listen, we own the countryside around here. We killed 170 Reds in a pitched battle in the Varchiai forest. The Reds stick to the main roads unless they’re travelling in force. But it’s hard to feed so many men at once. It puts too much strain on local farmers. We’ll have to break into smaller groups eventually, and when the weather warms we’ll dig some more bunkers in the earth. Are you claustrophobic?”

  “No.”

  “Sure? You’ll be buried alive for weeks at a time.”

  “But you’re free here,” said Lukas.

  “Yes, that’s right. We’re free here.”

  “We want to be free too.”

  “There’s a price for it.”

  “My brother and I are willing to pay.”

  This seemed to satisfy Flint. He nodded and relit his pipe. “Either of you speak English? No? Then learn it. We need someone to listen to the BBC and type up the news. You’ll both work in writing newspapers along with other duties. Get something to eat, and then we’ll do your oath.”

  Lukas and Vincentas walked over to one of the long log tables where the men were gathering to eat. They were served by a woman in a greatcoat. She ladled the barley soup into wooden bowls. She wore a Russian hat with flaps over her ears, but curly brown hair spilled out over her forehead and at the side of her face.

  “Eat, men, eat. There’s plenty where this came from. I’ll be back to serve you seconds when you’re done.”

  “What kind of meat is in this soup?” a partisan asked.

  “Beef, of course.”

  “Again?”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll just run back to the kitchen and bring you pancakes and sour cream.”

  “I miss pork.”

  “Well, the Reds aren’t driving the pigs out of Germany, my friend, they’re driving cows. Think of yourself as an American cowboy.”

  “I’ll eat the beef if you promise it’s been cooked with love.”

  “You’ll eat the beef or go hungry. And if you make any more smart remarks I’ll knock your nose with my ladle.”

  Vincentas and Lukas sat themselves at the table and the woman served them as well. She smiled at them, but they were too shy to speak. For all her rough banter, Lukas saw that her hands were soft and the fingernails slightly long. This was no country cook.

  Other men settled around them.

  “Hello,” said the man who sat beside Lukas. He was compact, with a strand of hair that stuck out from under his stocking cap, and cheeks bright red from the combination of cold and steam from the soup. From a pocket inside his greatcoat he took out a hand-carved wooden spoon as big as a ladle.

  “That’s quite the spoon,” said Lukas.

  “Beauty, isn’t it? I carved it myself. And practical! It’s saved me from starvation more than once.”

  “How did it do that?”

  “Whenever we’re short of rations, I ask for just one spoonful of soup or porridge, and then bring this thing out. It’s the size of a bowl, see? My friend here, Ungurys, and I have both eaten from it more than once, tipping it from side to side. Of course, he has no trouble getting served now because his sister is visiting and she always gives him the best pieces of gristle.”

  The man he pointed to was thin and dark, with bushy eyebrows and a moustache and a quiet manner. He barely looked up when his friend said his name.

  “Don’t mind Ungurys. He has a good heart, but he doesn’t know how to show it. He’s the kind of man you can rely on in a pinch.”

  “He has an odd name,” said Lukas. Ungurys meant Eel in Lithuanian.

  “It’s a code name. We all have them and try to use them so we won’t know what our friends’ real names are, in case we’re ever taken alive. It doesn’t really work over any length of time, but we do it anyway. You’ll have to choose code names too. Mine is Lakstingala.” It meant Nightingale in Lithuanian.

  “That’s an unusual name,” said Lukas. “Why did you choose that?”

  “The other partisans call themselves Falcon, or Vampire, or Tiger, trying to sound frightening or manly. It’s embarrassing. Even Flint is only one of a dozen names of stones the others chose. Me, I just want to survive, so I’ve chosen a feminine name that will make the Cheka think I’m a woman, and a bird’s name to help me fly away if I need to.”

  “It’s an unlucky name,” said Ungurys. “I warned you.” He put his face back down into his soup.

  “He thinks all bird names are bad because birds sing.”

  “Meaning what?” asked Lukas.

  “That I’ll confess if I’m ever taken alive. He thinks if he calls himself Eel he’ll always be able to slip away. You’ll each need to choose names before the oath. Have you thought about them?”

  “I’ll take Salna,” said Vincentas. It meant Frost in Lithuanian.

  “And I’ll take Dumas.” The word meant Smoke, but Lukas pronounced it without the final s.

  “Both unlucky,” snapped Ungurys. “Both impermanent.”

  “Not mine,” said Lukas. “Mine is a joke. It refers to the French writer Alexandre Dumas, who wrote The Three Musketeers.”

  Vincentas laughed, but Lakstingala looked at them oddly and then turned to Ungurys for an explanation.

  “I don’t know what they’re talking about either,” said Ungurys. “They’re intellectuals. They can’t help it. I just hope they don’t blow our heads off when they’re learning to shoot.”

  “I actually shoot pretty well,” said Lukas.

  “Maybe,” said Ungurys, “when you’re aiming at a bird or rabbit. But those two don’t shoot back. We’ll see what kind of shot you are under pressure.”

  Lukas jutted his chin toward the woman who had been serving soup. “Are there many women among you?”

  “Some,” said Lakstingala. “They’re mostly cooks and nurses, but others carry machine guns and fight if they’re fierce enough. Flint doesn’t like to have them around much except as couriers. They’re more useful to us in the city. The cook is Ungurys’s sister. She comes down from Marijampole from time to time to visit her brother.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” asked Lukas.

  “I’m all she has left, except for our other sister,” said Ungurys.

  “What happened to your parents?”

  “They had a nice house we grew up in, but a Red Army shell killed my mother and destroyed the house. The Reds had already sent my father up to join the polar bears.”

  “So what’s she doing here?”

  “I had to go into the woods to avoid the draft.”

  “And he’s her little brother,” said Lakstingala. “She comes down to make sure he’s had enough to eat and brings him a clean handkerchief to blow his nose.”

  “What about Lozorius? I was hoping to see him around.”

  “Lozorius,” said Ungurys, permitting a shadow of a smile to flit across his sour face. “Good man.”

  Lakstingala nodded. “He�
�s the only one without a code name. He’s off somewhere, trying to unite all the partisan bands. It’s a tough job, and dangerous. There are thousands of us across this country. He’s bringing us under a combined leadership.”

  “Now, he’s the kind of man you can trust,” said Ungurys. “He’s been to Poland and then came back. You tell me who else would return here if he had a chance to escape. He woke up in a bunker once to find a Chekist bent over him, and strangled the man with his bare hands. If we had another thousand like him, the Reds would flee this country with their arses stinging.”

  “This must be some other man. The Lozorius I knew was a student with me in Kaunas. He was depressed for a while.”

  “Wide-set eyes, ears sticking out a bit?” asked Lakstingala.

  “That’s him.”

  “You knew him in the city, where he was just another student. We know him in the forest, where he’s a different man altogether. Listen, he broke twenty men out of prison. One of them is here somewhere.” Lakstingala looked about and then stood and walked over to another table, where he went to a man with his back to them and clapped him on the shoulder. They talked for a moment, and then the man took up his bowl and brought it over.

  The man was bundled up like no one else, wrapped in two coats and with a scarf both over his head and around his neck, the part beneath his chin wet with bits of barley on it. He scooped a couple more spoons of soup into his mouth before looking up. He was familiar, but Lukas could not place him.

  “Lukas, is that you?” he asked, and by his voice Lukas recognized him.