‘Help me lift him.’
Together they lifted the soldier into the wheelbarrow and hastened out of the village on a small dirt road that led into the forest.
Protected by the night’s veil, they travelled in darkness, the woman relying on her instinct and memory to reach the hut that had belonged to her grandmother. Close to a sandy swamp, the hut was surrounded by thick pine and beech trees. When they reached it, the woman was relieved to find it stood untouched by war. Here, they could spend the days undetected and in relative safety. Few people inhabited the area, which could only be reached by narrow, difficult roads.
Inside the hut, she lit a candle and, with the help of the boy, moved the soldier onto the bed in the corner of the room.
Even before she cut open his uniform, she smelt the infection. The flickering light from her candle threw distorted shadows across the blistered skin. Although she had seen infections before, the sight of the soldier’s wounds made her stomach twist. From a pile of logs in the corner, she made a fire and boiled water in a pot. Dried herbs hung in aromatic clusters above the window where the woman had suspended them during her last visit a month before. Taking a handful of chamomile leaves, she threw them in the pot to brew. Next, she grabbed the small jar of sea-buckthorn oil made from the shrubs growing behind the hut. As a young girl, she had collected the orange berries for her grandmother and stood by her side as she extracted the oil.
She ripped away the soldier’s uniform and smeared a generous amount of oil over his burns to reduce the inflammation and help close the wound.
The soldier moaned and called out.
She leant forward, placing one ear close to his lips.
‘Marie,’ he whispered.
‘I am Katya,’ she told him. ‘I will look after you.’
A small crease formed above the soldier’s brow. ‘Marie,’ he repeated. ‘Marie!’ He was growing agitated.
‘Shhhh, do not call out. I am here.’ What would it hurt to let the soldier think she was Marie? Katya reasoned.
Soaking strips of material in cooled chamomile tea, she laid them over the wounds. The uniform, now no more than a charred rag, she burnt in the fire, making the flames glow a little brighter and warming the room. The boy sat on a stool staring at the hearth, shivering with exhaustion and from a rush of adrenalin. Katya gave him a mug of hot tea sweetened with honey and a handful of the dried orange berries to strengthen his immune system. Then she folded some old blankets and arranged a bed for them.
‘It’s not much, I’m afraid,’ Katya said to the boy and, when he hesitated, added, ‘we don’t have any other blankets and once the fire dies it will get cold.’
The boy took off his boots and shyly laid next to her, curling his body into a foetal position.
Together they passed a fitful night: the soldier coughing and wheezing on the bed, Katya and the child huddled together.
Checking the soldier’s wounds in the morning, Katya was relieved to find they were not as bad as she had thought. The skin, pink and blistered, would heal. She applied more oil, then covered the wounds again with fresh strips of cloth soaked in cooled chamomile tea. Now they needed to eat. Katya stepped outside. She would forage for berries or find an animal to trap. She was surprised to find the boy at the edge of the forest standing over a grave, his eyes fixed on the headstone. He turned when he heard the sound of her boots approaching.
‘She was my grandmother.’ Katya placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘We are staying in her hut.’
The boy nodded and placed a hand over his chest.
‘Yes, I loved her very much. And I was very sad when she died. Since then, I come here regularly on my own. Each spring, I plant small flowers around her grave, sweep the cobwebs from her hut and tend to her small plot of herbs. In winter, I dry and bottle the herbs the way my grandmother taught me, and store them away.’ Inhaling deeply, Katya bent to clear the dead branches from the grave. ‘Still, I’m glad she’s not alive to see this miserable war. It would have broken her heart.’
The boy looked up at her with clear blue eyes and then, to her surprise, he slipped his fingers through hers. Never having had children of her own, she was unsure how to react.
‘Would you like to find some berries?’
The boy nodded and together they walked into the woods. Stopping to pull berries off branches, she collected them in her skirt. On the way back to the hut, the boy suddenly stopped and, grabbing a stick, wrote something in the dirt. Katya stared at the letters.
Having only had a few years of schooling, she sounded out the letters one at a time. ‘Fyodor,’ she read. She looked at the boy and he smiled back. ‘Is that your name?’
The boy nodded.
Katya crouched so her face was level with his. ‘Do you know where your parents are Fyodor?’
The boy shook his head. A tear snaked down his face.
A year after her grandmother’s death, Katya lost her parents to a plague that swept through the countryside like a storm. Her brother joined the army and was fighting somewhere in Galicia. She had hoped to join her sister in Warsaw when the war reached the village, trapping her.
‘I’ve lost my parents too,’ Katya said, her throat closing over the words. ‘Right now, you and the soldier are the only family I have.’
The boy looked up at Katya, his eyes brimming with tears. Impulsively she hugged him, pressing his thin frame against hers.
Ding.
They froze.
Ding.
The sound came from behind a stand of beech trees. Katya pulled Fyodor down to lie flat on the ground. Through the trees, she could make out a small movement. Scared it might be Germans, she motioned for the boy to follow and crawled behind the trunk of one of the old beech trees. Katya held her breath, afraid that the tiniest of movements might give away their hiding place.
Ding. Ding.
The sound moved closer to their left. Katya slowly looked around from behind the tree, then burst out laughing. The sound that had startled them had come from a bell around a goat’s neck.
‘It’s alright, Fyodor, it’s only a goat.’
Fyodor stepped out and smiled when he saw the goat. Half starved and exhausted, the goat put up no resistance when Katya approached with a handful of leaves then grabbed it by the collar to lead it back to the hut.
She tried hard to milk it, but it was too thin to give them any milk. In the end she had no choice but to kill it. Boiling some of the meat, she served it with potatoes she had stored in the hut and fed the soldier the broth.
Each day Katya and Fyodor went out into the forest, checking on the traps they had laid and picking berries. On their walks, she told him stories of her childhood, recalling her regular visits to her grandmother and her fond memories of the place. She told him of how she had learnt about the medicinal plants growing wild in the thicket, and described the healing properties of the herbs they gathered, showing him how to dry the leaves and extract the oil.
‘Some are for eating and some are for healing,’ she said, repeating the words of her grandmother.
Fyodor, still silent, helped her with the chores. In the mornings, he built the fire and fetched water. He helped her change the soldier’s bandages, washing them and leaving them by the fire to dry while she made breakfast.
Other than the few words he occasionally scratched in the dirt, Fyodor did not speak. Katya asked him questions, hoping he would reveal something of his past, but he simply stared at her with his clear blue eyes.
At night, she woke to the sound of his screams. ‘Mama! … Mama!’
She would draw him into her arms, stroking his face. ‘Shhh.’ She rocked his small frame, murmuring soothing words until he was calm again.
They lived quietly in her grandmother’s hut through autumn and winter, but spring brought the war closer. They heard bursts of gunfire and artillery in the distance. Katya decided they had no choice but to leave, and head east.
The wheels of the wagon sank in the mud. When
Katya had bartered some of her valuable herbal extract for the ox, she had hoped it would take them all the way to Warsaw. But now the beast, weak and old, had stopped in the middle of the road and was refusing to go any further.
‘Tso!’ She whipped the animal, bringing down the strap on its back. From behind them came curses and yells as other refugees urged them to get moving. Katya was about to bring down the strap again when Fyodor grabbed her hand. Jumping out of the wagon, he moved to stand in front of the ox and, fishing in his pocket, pulled out a piece of bread he had saved from breakfast. The ox took the whole piece in its mouth, his jaw working around it. Clucking his tongue, Fyodor pulled gently on the reins. The ox shook its head and flared its nostrils and Katya was sure it would refuse to move. The boy pulled more firmly, making the same clucking noise. This time the wagon jolted forward. Pleased, Katya smiled and held out her hand to help Fyodor back onto the wagon. Patting the ox on its rump, Fyodor shook his head and smiled back at her. The sweetness of his smile ignited a warm maternal glow in Katya that surprised and delighted her in equal measures.
Turning in her seat, she looked at the soldier lying on his back. His skin, though scarred and wrinkled, had started to heal. To strengthen his lungs, she had been giving him chamomile tea brewed with mint and daisies. Yet still his breath rattled obstinately in his chest. He had lost more weight, too, and his ribs protruded above a hollowed stomach.
He moaned and moved his lips but Katya could not hear the words. She suspected he was once more uttering his longing for the woman whose name he kept repeating. ‘Marie … Marie.’
They had only moved a few metres when the air was splintered with the sound of mortar shells exploding in the woods close by, shaking the ground. Women screamed and children wailed for their mothers. A second shell exploded, closer this time, igniting in a ball of fire. Shocked, Katya was slow to react. She looked to where Fyodor had stood only a moment ago, but he was no longer there.
‘Fyodor!’ she shouted, looking frantically about her.
She spotted him standing by the side of the road, his eyes glazed with shock. In front of them a man running for shelter cried in pain and dropped to the ground holding his knee. Blood ribboned from between his fingers. Fyodor stared at the injured man, his lips parted in a silent scream.
‘Fyodor!’
The boy looked up at her with a blank expression.
‘Fyodor, run to the trees!’
Fresh bursts of gunfire drowned Katya’s words.
As she leapt from the wagon, her ankle twisted under her weight and she fell hard on the ground. Pain shot up one side of her body like an arrow. Struggling to her feet, she again screamed at Fyodor to run to the trees. Still the boy stood frozen, staring blindly. Limping over to him, she grabbed his hand but he resisted, pointing to the wagon.
‘There’s no time.’ She hastened towards the woods, pulling him behind her. She could do nothing to help the wounded soldier. People pushed past them in a panic to reach safety. Forcing Fyodor behind a fallen tree, Katya threw herself on top of him, shielding him with her body. Around them, bullets thumped and ripped into the trees. Thump. Thump. Thump.
A woman fell on Katya, splattering the side of her face and her back with warm, sticky blood.
‘We are unarmed,’ a man shouted. ‘For the love of God, we have women and children with us.’
Under Katya, Fyodor’s body trembled. She buried her face in the back of his neck.
When at last the guns fell quiet, no one moved or spoke. Tentatively, a few emerged from their hiding places and walked back to the road. Katya pushed the dead weight off her back and the woman rolled away, her eyes fixed on the sky. Katya struggled to her feet, her ankle throbbing. Looking down, she could see it was starting to swell. She helped Fyodor to his feet, and wiped the mud and tears from his face with the hem of her skirt.
‘Are you hurt?’ she asked, searching him for any injury. He shook his head. Looking to where the wagon stood on the road, he pointed to it.
‘We’d better take a look,’ Katya agreed. She took a step, stumbled and nearly fell. Fyodor rushed to help her.
‘It’s only a sprain,’ Katya assured him. ‘I’ll be alright in a few days.’ Propping an arm under her shoulder, Fyodor helped her hobble back to the wagon. Climbing into the back, he turned his attention to the soldier. When he looked up, his face was deathly white.
‘What is it? How is he?’
Fyodor held up his palm. It was soaked red.
16
Mostovsky Mansion, Petrograd, March 1915
The rooms echoed with the sound of girlish laughter and Marie recognised her cousin Darya’s laugh pealing through the adjoining room. Marie sat close to the window on a plush couch, playing absent-mindedly with the fringes of the velvet-roped curtains.
Suddenly her cousin’s voice was close. ‘Look at you!’ she exclaimed, walking towards Marie with outstretched arms. ‘What a bore you’ve been lately, keeping to yourself.’ Darya leant forward and lightly kissed Marie on each cheek. ‘You look ghastly. Pas du tout jolie.’ She pinched Marie’s cheeks. ‘What you need is to add a little colour to that pale skin.’ Pulling a lipstick from her purse, Darya tried to dab a little red on Marie’s lips.
‘Darya, please. I’m not in the mood.’ Marie pulled her face away.
Darya sank onto a chair and edged it close to Marie.
‘Darling, you are not doing anyone any favours by looking and acting like a crow. When are you going to stop wearing these awful black clothes and join society?’ Leaning back in the chair, she proceeded to remove her gloves, one finger at a time. ‘Lord knows there are enough black-clad women these days without you adding to them.’
‘How can you be uncaring like this when so many families are mourning the loss of their sons?’ Marie demanded.
Darya’s green eyes grew serious. ‘Is that how you see me? As uncaring? There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think about Russia’s dead and missing. I’m not cold-hearted, Marie. I’m aware men are losing their lives and limbs in this horrid war.’ She looked at her cousin, lips pursed. ‘I know what you must be thinking: empty-headed rich girls with little interest other than filling up their social calendars with endless dinner parties and balls. Well let me tell you this …’ Darya straightened in her seat. ‘If I seem cheerful it is not because I am blind to what’s happening but because my heart can only stand a certain amount of pain before it is broken for good. If not for these gay gatherings, what do our men have to look forward to when they are on leave?’
Marie shook her head. ‘I’m not ready to rejoin society.’ She clutched at the small gold cross at her throat. ‘I feel I am betraying …’
‘Pyotr.’ Darya finished Marie’s sentence for her. She gave her hand a gentle squeeze. ‘Don’t lose heart, cherie, Pyotr might still come home.’ Checking her watch, Darya rose from her chair. ‘I must be going, I still have a million things to do before dinner tonight.’
‘You have guests tonight?’
‘Just a little gathering.’ Darya gathered her gloves. ‘I’ve invited Tamara Karsavina.’
‘The ballerina?’
‘Yes. I simply adore her. The Grand Duchess Vladimir will also be there. She has just come back from the front. Her dedication to the wounded soldiers is amazing.’ Marie made a move to rise from her seat. ‘No, don’t get up, cherie.’ Darya leant close and kissed Marie’s cheeks again. ‘I came to plead with you to join us. There will be an interesting crowd and you never know –’ she winked ‘– you might even enjoy yourself.’
Marie doubted that. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said.
Later that evening, having decided to attend the dinner, Marie stood nervously at the top of the stairs dressed in a blue silk dress that hugged her waist and hips. Over her shoulders, she wore a mink stole, a present from her parents. Her heels hardly made a sound as she stepped lightly down the stairs to the grand entrance. Usually punctual, she was running late after spending most of the afternoon
fretting over what to wear. In the end, she had settled on a dress with a modest neckline and sleeves that covered her arms.
The footman met her at the bottom of the stairs. ‘If Mademoiselle cares to follow me, the guests are having champagne in the parlour.’
Opening the double doors, the footman announced Marie.
Darya rushed to greet her. ‘Masha! I’m so glad you decided to come.’ Taking Marie’s hand, she led her to a group gathered around a proud elderly lady with a long narrow nose and a black feather fastened to her coiffure. Marie recognised her as the Grand Duchess Vladimir.
‘Your Highness, may I present Mademoiselle Marie Kulbas.’
Marie gave a low bow. ‘Your Highness.’
‘Marie is my dearest cousin and she’s staying with us while she studies law at the university,’ Darya told the group, adding proudly, ‘She also does volunteer work at the hospital.’
‘What a charming girl,’ the grand duchess said approvingly. ‘Tell me, Mademoiselle, how do you find the time to juggle studies with volunteering?’
‘I do my best, Your Highness.’
The grand duchess gave Marie an appraising look. ‘You know, I was the first to start a hospital train. It was during the war with Japan. Since then the Empress and her daughters have started a few of their own but I was the very first. I’m sure you have heard of it. It regularly brings casualties from the front. I have many students helping me when the trains pull in with the wounded. You should come down to Warsaw station. I could use a capable girl like you.’
‘Your Highness is extremely kind,’ Marie said, shyly.
During dinner, Marie sat between the famous prima ballerina and an English gentleman who spoke very little Russian but adequate French. Prince Dimitry, an officer on leave from the front, was describing the trenches.
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