Nevertell

by Katharine Orton

  It was strange, but every plant she touched seemed to grow a little bit quicker and hardier than everyone else’s. Was that why the commandant sometimes spoke kindly to her, why every now and then he let her eat the odd vegetable that she’d grown? Because of her skill?

  The wind grew in strength and bitterness every time it blew. This storm would be big. No doubts there. Its howls made her think of something living, like an invisible beast gathering its senses after sleep. Perhaps Old Gleb’s stories — about evil spirits, about ghost hounds — weren’t so crazy after all. Not that she could ever say so. Superstition like that was viewed as mental weakness in Soviet Russia. Even the most harmless fairy tales were banned from schools.

  Lina reached the greenhouse — a long plastic-and-wood structure the length of a small shower block — glanced around, and let herself in. She had the only other key besides the commandant’s: another reason for some of the others’ gossip about favoritism. Lina scowled just thinking about it. She shook the thought off and glanced around once more as she shut the door behind her. To be out after curfew like this was dangerous. If she was caught, she would be questioned. She could be shot. Just because a guard felt like it.

  Inside, she breathed the rich scent of earth. The familiar smell was usually calming, but this time, her heart kept pounding. This time was different. Soon, nothing would be the same again.

  Leaves rustled eerily from long, dark rows that stretched out into gloom. Drafts always found their way in, as long as the wind outside had enough force. Tonight, it banged and roared against the panes. Even so, it was warmer inside here than anywhere else in the camp. Commandant Zima had had extra wood-burning stoves brought in by train and installed for heat. Not for the prisoners — but for the plants.

  Lina took a grubby sack the size of a pillowcase from a stash by the door. She could always find uses for them — though she’d never expected it would be this. A painful twinge of guilt made her eyes sting when she thought of stealing Zima’s vegetables. The commandant was unkind. More than unkind. But he trusted her. Lina hated to break trust — no matter whose it was.

  There were also the rumors. The ones that he was her father.

  Lina had never asked him, and he’d never mentioned it. But there were times he’d shown patience while she was learning about the plants. He’d genuinely seemed to want to get to know her, asking which vegetables she liked the best and saving the weeding of those for her. But then he would seem to remember himself, and who he was, and the next time they met he’d be even nastier. Did that mean he wasn’t her father? Lina had no idea. She owed him nothing. And they’re all relying on me to do this, Lina thought. Vadim. Mama. Everyone. Lina set her jaw and shook out the sack, scanning the rows for the best place to start.

  The commandant had not allowed her grandfather to set foot in the greenhouse, despite his having once been a gardener renowned throughout Moscow. “Punishment.” For what? No doubt just to be cruel. Commandant Zima had sent him to work in the mine instead, where the dust had slowly choked his lungs. Lina hated that the commandant was sometimes kind to her when he was so ruthless with everyone else.

  It was too late to meet her grandfather — he had died before she was born. Not her grandmother, though. She was still free and living in Moscow, as far as they knew. She had been away when her husband, son, and daughter had been arrested, so she hadn’t been able to protect them. Apparently, the woman was both tiny and formidable. Lina doubted she was formidable enough to intimidate the secret police, but either way, her grandmother could easily still be somewhere in Moscow.

  But with no idea of how to get there, could Lina and Katya really make it? They didn’t even know exactly where in Siberia the camp was. Moscow could be hundreds of miles away — or several thousand — for all they knew.

  And they had to escape from the camp first. Would they even manage that? The others had to believe they could make it out, or they wouldn’t try — would they? She trusted her mother’s judgment. After all, Katya was famous in her poker circles for taking risks and still winning. Perhaps her luck, her “magic touch,” was all they needed.

  Lina brushed a tomato plant with her fingers and breathed in the pungent leaf smell. She felt the familiar, subtle tingling in her fingers — like pins and needles. When she looked down, she was sure some of the leaves had unfurled. It wasn’t the first time she’d noticed this, but Lina was still shocked. Things like that didn’t — couldn’t — happen. It had to have been a trick of the light, she told herself, as she always did.

  Or fear, confusing her senses. She did feel strange — it was probably nerves. She pulled her hand back into a fist.

  The wind howled and her stomach twisted each time as she reminded herself why she was there. What she had to do. Lina sighed. This was the only place she’d ever felt warmth, and now she was tearing it apart.

  She’d done this all wrong.

  Now Lina had a sack full of stolen vegetables and nowhere to hide them but beneath her flimsy overalls. The lump in her throat had gone, replaced by waves of sickness. From the nearby tower, she could hear the guards’ chatter carried on bursts of merciless wind. She eyed the assembly square, too frightened to cross.

  She ducked around the corner to her friend’s quarters instead.

  Bogdan slept by the window — a simple opening covered by whatever the prisoners could find: mostly planks of wood and rags. Lina heaved herself and the sack onto the sill and peered inside. “Hey, Bogey.”

  It was gloomy in there, but Lina could just make out a dozen or more people-size lumps under sackcloth, all pressed in tight together. It smelled awful. “Bogey!” she hissed again.

  Lina would’ve called him Bogdasha — a proper Russian nickname — but having survived a childhood in besieged Leningrad during the Second World War, and with a mother who was a Soviet diplomat and had Western connections, he’d rejected a classic Russian nickname. He said he liked Bogey best. “It’s what Western pilots call something unidentified,” he’d said mysteriously. “Could be a ‘friendly.’ But could be a missile . . .”

  There was also the bogeyman, which he’d relished telling her about. “A fearsome spirit who comes for people when they’re bad,” he’d explained, a light like fire flickering in his eyes. “Same kind of thing as Baba Yaga. Just not an old woman — and without the walking house.”

  She’d later discovered that bogey could mean a piece of snot, too. Bogdan just ignored that.

  He sat bolt upright when he heard his name. “Lina. That you?”

  “Who else?” She swung her legs over the sill, accidentally kicking a wooden plank.

  Someone groaned.

  “What you up to? You got beans?”

  “Yup.” Lina often swiped a few for Bogdan — the blighted ones that Zima wanted weeded out and composted. When Bogdan had arrived ten months ago — no family, no friends, no one — he’d been strong. Maybe that was the reason he’d ended up here instead of a children’s home — he’d looked a lot older then. Lina never met people her own age. Now, after all that time spent in the mine, Bogdan needed all the nourishment he could get.

  “Listen,” she said. “I’ve got more than usual today. You’ll need to string them out. This’ll be the last bunch for . . . a while.”

  Bogdan chuckled. “He-he. ‘String them out.’ That’s funny.” He coughed. It sounded like his lungs were churning gravel. When he spoke again, his tone had darkened. “Zima getting ready for his party, is he?”

  The officers’ banquet would be in a week or so. The commandant was providing all the vegetables, while another brought eggs — and another meat. One apparently knew where to get his hands on a calf’s brain, which they would eat broiled and buttered. A truly forbidden czarist feast.

  It was all Commandant Zima had talked about for weeks, and now, thanks to Lina stealing his best vegetables, he was going to lose face, badly. In front of everyone. Another wave of sickness rolled through Lina’s body. If he caught her after what she’
d done to his plants . . . Would the chance that she was his daughter make any difference? Lina doubted it.

  A swell of sadness tightened her chest. Shouldn’t a father care more about his child than his reputation? Did that mean he wasn’t . . . ? She shook her head and pushed the thoughts down, just like she always did. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on it.

  “Not quite,” she said, handing Bogdan some of the green beans. In a low whisper, she added, “There’s not going to be a party.”

  Bogdan took the beans and gnawed on one immediately. “What’re you going on about?” he said between bites.

  “Listen.” She wondered how she could phrase this without raising too much suspicion from anyone who might be eavesdropping. “I won’t be here tomorrow.”

  Bogdan knitted his eyebrows. “Go on.”

  “I . . .” She hesitated, lowering her voice even more. “I’m going beyond the wire. With Mama, Vadim, and some others —”

  “Vadim!” shrilled Bogdan. One of the sleeping bundles — an older boy named Keskil, it looked like — grumbled and turned over.

  Fear squeezed Lina’s throat. She’d said far too much already.

  “Lina, Vadim is no good. You can’t trust him.”

  Lina crossed her arms. “Yeah? Says who?” She knew Bogdan was right, though. There was no way she could trust Vadim.

  “Don’t do it, Lina. Please. It’s not worth it.” Bogdan stuffed the beans into his sock and began to lie down. “Can’t look out for you if you go, can I? You don’t see me running off with some criminal . . .” He wrung his hands for comfort.

  Lina’s heart ached to see her closest friend that way. When Bogdan had first arrived, Lina had stalked him for days, eager to be friends with the only other kid her age, but first trying to work out if he could be trusted. What she’d seen had baffled her.

  Bogdan had wandered through camp, every so often peering out from under his heavy black lashes, before pulling a slip of paper from a secret pocket, sketching on it with the stub of a pencil, and quickly hiding it away again. What was he doing? She had to know. She’d sneaked up on him while he was sketching and scared him half to death. He’d been mapping the camp.

  Lina had been stunned. She’d never seen a map before. Mapmaking was considered espionage. The guards would’ve shot him for it. She’d decided right then to be Bogdan’s somebody, to protect him. And he was her somebody too. “Somebodies” were important. She had seen people with nobody to look out for them get picked off — by the guards or by vultures like Vadim — and she didn’t want that to happen to Bogdan.

  The paper and pencil got stolen, of course — which was probably for the best.

  And now? Now she was deserting him.

  Before she knew what she was doing, she jumped down next to him and grabbed his face with such force that he tried to recoil but couldn’t. He stared up at her with near-black, startled eyes. “Bogey,” she said. “I’ll come back for you. If there’s any way . . .”

  Bogdan succeeded in pulling away this time. He frowned and closed his eyes. “You need to worry about yourself, out there with Vadim. Not me.”

  “Fine.” Lina turned. Her ribs felt crushed and her throat knotted up tight, but she wouldn’t let him see that she was smarting from his words. She never would’ve expected that they’d part this way. Not her and Bogey.

  She had one leg on the windowsill when she heard a rustle. She felt Bogdan’s thin arms coil around her shoulders to embrace her. She rested her head against his. When he uncoiled himself, he gave her a slap on the back. It would’ve been hearty, if he wasn’t so weak. “Take good care of yourself, my friend,” he said.

  Outside again, Lina blinked away her tears before they had a chance to freeze her eyelashes together. The wind raged. It beat itself against the walls of the prison complex, making an eerie animal wail through the holes in the wire fence.

  Lina cuddled the lumpy sack of vegetables. For the second time that night, she thought of Old Gleb’s stories of ghost hounds.

  There was no other choice. Now Lina had to brave the square.

  She stuffed the sack of vegetables under her overalls again. It was a pitiful hiding place. Anyone who saw her would know instantly that she was up to something. The vegetables made all kinds of misshapen lumps under her shirt, and they kept shifting around inside the sack so that they were impossible to hold on to.

  Barrages of savage wind stung her eyes and made her ears ache. It had started to sleet. The sky was dark, and buttery light flickered from the nearest guard tower. Shadows flitted about inside, stretching long, pale arms across the snow. Lina shuddered.

  She braced herself and marched across the square. She didn’t think, didn’t stop, didn’t look around, not once — not until she’d safely reached the door of her quarters. Snatches of voices ebbed on the air, and an oil lamp on its last dregs flickered and flashed from inside. Those who shared her quarters clearly hadn’t bedded down yet.

  She couldn’t take the sack inside if everyone was still awake. Lina glanced up and down the deserted path, squinting out into the darkness filled with sleet and ice pellets that stung when they struck her. In the end, she tucked her vegetable sack around the side of the building and covered it over as well as she could with old snow. It was the best she could do.

  Inside, Lina discovered why no one was in bed yet. An argument over sleeping space had started up. No change there. She slipped past sharp elbows and raised voices toward her mother’s spot. Lina just missed a poke in the eye by a misdirected finger belonging to a woman named Elena, then dodged a shoulder barge by Yulia, meant for Elena.

  Some of the women here were imprisoned because their husbands had been arrested — and vice versa. Whole families could be thrown into places like this on the back of one arrest — mostly for sabotage. Ultimately, sabotage could mean whatever the authorities wanted it to.

  It’s what had happened to Bogdan’s family. His parents had been sent to another camp, far away, and he’d come here. It’s what had happened to her own family, except they’d all been kept together, at least in the beginning. Katya had been only a few years older than Lina when she was arrested, along with her brother and their father — Lina’s grandfather — on some silly charge. Many hundreds had been sentenced to forced labor in the camps — maybe thousands. Maybe more. It was impossible for them to know the true number arrested in the purges of the “Great Leader,” Joseph Stalin.

  “Hey, Lina.” That was Zoya, who looked like a bag of sticks. “Do us all a favor and stay small, will you? None of this growing that children do. We’re running out of room here — the ladies are at each other’s throats.”

  Seeing Zoya so thin gave Lina a guilty lurch. She had a sack of vegetables stashed outside, after all. She hated how this place forced people to think only of their own daily survival, but what could she do? Those vegetables were for the escape.

  Soon she’d be out of here for good. Could she send back extra food, perhaps? Provisions, to keep them all going? No. Of course not. It would never make it past the guards.

  “Cut it out, Zoya,” said Lina, with a laugh that she hoped didn’t sound too nervous. Zoya wouldn’t have to worry as much about space after tonight. Not that Lina could tell her so.

  “Yes. Cut it out, Zoya.” Katya didn’t sound as amused. Zoya withered under her glare. Lina barely had a chance to pity Zoya before her mother grabbed her arm from behind and yanked her — firmly but not unkindly — into the corner.

  “Did you get them?” asked her mother in a whisper, looking Lina up and down. She must have meant the vegetables.

  Lina nodded. “They’re outside. Hidden.”

  “Good.” Her mother’s shoulders relaxed a little — but only a little. “There’s something for you under there,” she said, gesturing toward the sackcloth blankets where they usually slept. “Go and take a look. But make sure nobody sees.”

  Lina’s throat tightened as she knelt down next to the makeshift beds. She fumbled around under
the material. It scratched and pulled at the dry skin on her hands.

  Her fingers stumbled over something hard. What was it?

  Facing away from the rest of the room, Lina pulled back the covers. A warm winter jacket — just her size. And something else. A pair of boots.

  “How did you . . . ?” Lina stopped herself. It was best not to ask where contraband came from. Katya could’ve won them in a card game. Equally, a lot of things became ownerless at the camp hospital — when the owner stopped needing them, that is.

  “Don’t put them on yet. Wait until everyone settles down to sleep,” said her mother in a hushed tone. “But take a look inside the left boot now.”

  Lina reached deep inside the fur trim and found something lumpy and hard.

  What she pulled out looked like a beaded necklace with a pendant attached — except, instead of a pendant, it was some sort of gnarled old piece of wood or stone. It was rough, pockmarked, and warm. It shimmered in the dim light — like the snow did, sometimes, in moonlight. She’d never known a stone to do that before.

  “It was your grandfather’s,” said Katya over Lina’s shoulder. “I’ve kept it at the hospital since he died.”

  Lina turned the stone over in her palm and traced its little hollows with her finger. “Why at the hospital?” she said, still studying it.

  “It’s too precious to keep here. Someone would have taken it, and then I’d have had to get angry. Anyway, it’s served more people at the hospital through the years than it would’ve done as someone’s personal trinket.” Katya raised one eyebrow as she studied the room behind them, no doubt checking that no one was listening. The argument between Elena and Yulia had wound down, and now the tears flowed, bringing with them tight hugs and lots of hard back patting.

  All at once, Lina’s mother moved around her and drew her in, cupping the necklace inside Lina’s palms and squeezing hard. “Lina, whatever happens to me, you have to promise you’ll keep going until you find your grandmother. Do you still remember the address I taught you?”