The Witch of Stalingrad

by Justine Saracen

  She sat upright. They needed to talk.

  Drawing on her shirt, she crept past the bedrooms of Terry and Elinor to the living room. She knocked softly on the doorframe, and even in the dark, she could see the shape on the sofa suddenly sit up. “Alex?” it whispered.

  “Yes, it’s me.” Alex hurried to her side and embraced her tightly. “It’s all so strange, isn’t it? After so much time? For so long, I thought you were dead. The newspapers were full of reports of the crash. For weeks I walked around numb with grief.”

  Lilya caressed her face and lips with her fingertips. “How did you find out I wasn’t dead?”

  When the NKVD picked me up and threw me into Lubyanka prison. Believe it or not, it was Major Kazar who told me the body they found at the crash site wasn’t you.”

  Lilya drew back. “Wait. The NKVD arrested you? For what?”

  Alex drew her feet up and pulled Lilya’s blanket over her legs. “Because they rummaged through your things and found the letter you were writing to me.”

  “Oh, God. The letter. How stupid of me! And they arrested you for that. Oh, I’m so sorry! Did they hurt you terribly?”

  “No, they just slapped me around a little. But then I knew for sure you were alive, though the thought of you being in German hands was just as terrifying.”

  “Oh, my darling. What a horrible thing to go through, and because of me. How did you finally get out of there?”

  “Terry had some influence with people in charge of the Lend-Lease shipments. They threatened to stop them if a prominent American journalist was arrested. It was sheer bluff, of course, but it worked. The NKVD let me go on the condition that I leave Russia immediately. Which I did.”

  “Back to the US? Every day I wondered where you were. When I thought I could go home, I imagined you waiting for me in Moscow, but after the camp, I didn’t know what to hope.”

  “First I flew to Britain, and then, after the landing at Normandy, I came back with the Third Army. All that time, I assumed you were in a POW camp in the Ukraine. I tried to get a list of names from the Red Cross. Nothing came of it, of course, and nothing could have, with your name change. Why ever did you choose Aleksandra?”

  She stroked Alex’s cheek. “To keep you with me, my darling. Inside of me. Every time someone called to me, I heard your name.”

  “Hmm. Romantic, in a morbid kind of way.” Alex chuckled softly.

  Lilya took hold of Alex’s hand and pressed it to her cheek. “Now that I’ve found you, I’m afraid of losing you again. Do you still want to take me to New York?”

  “Is that where you want to go? What happened to ‘this is my land, my language, my people’?”

  “I still feel that way, but Russia has rejected me. I managed to close my eyes to the truth for so many years, but now I understand. It wasn’t my father who was an enemy of the people. It’s Stalin, and the Allied victory is also a victory for him and his secret police. I helped give him that, but I don’t want to go back to him. I want to go where you are, and where I don’t have to worry about arrest. Or that my mother will be arrested. There’s so much I want to tell her.”

  “Your mother. Yes, you could endanger her.”

  “Only if I went back. But from what I read in Red Star, the Kremlin is carrying on the myth of Lilya Drachenko’s heroic death. I guess they’ve decided to ignore the letter, at least publicly. As the mother of a hero, she’s safe. It just breaks my heart that she’s alone and thinks she’s lost me.”

  Alex stroked the unfamiliar dark hair, remembering it blond. Well, it would be easy enough to have it blond again. “Only for a while. Once you’re safe, I’ll contact a journalist friend of mine, Henry Shapiro, who’s still there. His wife is Russian, and through her, he can get word to your mother that you’re alive. I even know the message we can send that only she will understand. Remember the Pushkin quote? ‘Dearer to me than a host of base truths is the illusion that exalts.’ She’ll know that’s from you.”

  “Yes, she’ll know, and it’ll make her so happy.” She took Alex’s face in her hands and kissed her softly, their first tender kiss in two years. Alex felt a wave of excitement and had let her own hand stray to Lilya’s breast, when the sound of a door opening jerked them apart.

  A light went on in the bathroom. “Night pee,” Alex said, resigned. “Whoever it is, it’s a warning for me to leave you.”

  Lilya let her arms slide away from her and sighed. “Peeing in your own private toilet. What a luxury.”

  “I promise you’ll have that in New York. You’ll never have to pee on the ground again.”

  “Oh, I love it when you talk romantic like that.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “All right,” Elinor announced as Terry poured their coffee. “While you were sleeping, I made some calls.”

  “Good news, I hope.” Alex glanced back and forth between Elinor and Lilya, who crept in from the living room, looking lost. She took a seat at the table and, discovering the sugar, spooned an alarming amount into her coffee.

  “First of all, the good news,” Elinor said. “I contacted your friend Jo Knightly, who was very helpful. She said she was already drafting a non-specific order calling for ‘transport of all nonessential US personnel and property from Soviet-occupied Berlin in preparation for the anticipated sectorization.’ She simply brought the date forward to begin today. An hour later she called back to say Eisenhower had signed the order and it would go out this afternoon. She must have hinted to him that we were trying to smuggle someone out, because he remarked, ‘Just don’t get me in trouble with the Russians.’”

  Alex suppressed a smile. Good old Jo. This was even better than being “pals” with her. “So, now we just have to find transportation.”

  “Way ahead of you,” Terry said, joining them with a plate of toast. “Knightly put us on to Lucius Clay, Eisenhower’s deputy who handles Berlin affairs, and of course we knew him already. Clay said that Montgomery was about to land this morning for a day of meetings with him and Zhukov.”

  “How does that affect us?” Alex asked.

  “Eat your toast and listen.” Elinor covered her own with butter. “He’ll be arriving at Tempelhof in a British Mosquito. The pilot’s supposed to wait and then ferry him back to Wiesbaden tomorrow morning.”

  “Yes? Go on.”

  “The British pilot is a friend of Clay, and while the plane’s standing idle, he’s willing to fly Lilya to Wiesbaden and then return to Berlin. In Wiesbaden, they can put her up at the base until we work out what to do with her next.”

  “Is there any bad news?” Alex bit into her toast and noticed that the butter was real. Not the margarine she’d gotten used to.

  “Only that we have to move quickly. Montgomery shouldn’t know about it since it would compromise our negotiations with the Soviets, and he’s not happy about sharing his toys anyhow. Of course we also have to get her to Tempelhof and onto the plane. The airport is Soviet territory, at least until the negotiations next month, and in the Soviet view, we’re all here at their largesse. Alex got across the city two days ago without being stopped, so they seem to be very lax at night. But they might not be so casual in midday.”

  “Can we come up with forged papers on such short notice?” Alex asked.

  “If we have to,” Terry answered. “But they won’t be the best.”

  Elinor watched as Lilya heaped marmalade onto her toast and seemed faintly amused.

  “On the good-news side is the fact that it’s generally understood that the Soviets will hand over the airport to the Western allies in the coming weeks, so they probably won’t be so rigid about keeping us out. They primarily guard the main hall, where the flight traffic passes through.”

  “Can we get onto the tarmac without using the main hall?” Alex asked.

  “We think so. Templehof is built on an ellipse, and one of its wings was a factory where Germans built and serviced Stuka dive-bombers. I’m sure the Soviets are already cannibalizing what
’s left of the aircraft. If you look like workers, you can probably reach the Tempelhof runway through the factory wing.”

  “Do you have the materials we’ll need to look like workers? Tools, truck, that sort of thing?”

  “Yes, we do. Or can adapt them.”

  “So, assuming we can smuggle her out onto the field, will the plane be waiting for us?”

  “That’s the plan.” Terry spoke up again. “We drive up with our hammers and wrenches, and while we’re banging around on the old assembly lines, Lilya will march out to Montgomery’s plane, which will be ready for flight at eight thirty. The pilot will have shown his orders to the Tempelhof authorities, the ground crew will have fueled the plane, and everything will look normal. All she has to do is get in and they’ll take off.”

  “Sounds almost too good to be true. But what about me? Can’t I fly with her?”

  “Sorry, Alex, the Mosquito is a two-seater. Pilot and navigator. We’ll arrange for you to join her in a few days.”

  Alex grumbled assent. It did make sense. She glanced at Lilya, who’d been chewing toast throughout, though they were speaking Russian in order to include her. But she merely glanced back and forth as each person spoke, as if she were a package that had to be smuggled out. Of course she was, but her passivity was troubling.

  Elinor took charge again. “Both of you finish your coffee and go down to the basement with Terry. He’ll put together what you need for work clothes, tools, and so forth. It goes without saying that if either of you is arrested, the organization will disavow you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Alex said, “I’m familiar with that policy.” She thought, but didn’t say, that it bore significant resemblance to Josef Stalin’s policy of “We recognize no POWs.”

  *

  At eight in the evening they were on the road to Tempelhof Airport. The worst of the shell holes had been filled with broken brick so the road was rocky but serviceable. Terry took the wheel of the truck he’d miraculously procured. That it was an American Lend-Lease Studebaker might explain how he could acquire it, but the Soviet plates and identification stencils were a real coup. She’d have to ask him some day how he managed that.

  In the truck rear, Alex perched alongside Lilya on a box of tools. Hunched over in overalls and caps, they might pass for men, but only from a distance. Neither could their travel permit, a quickly executed counterfeit order signed with a scribble, stand up to scrutiny. They bore the stamp of Zhukov’s office, but that would only be convincing as long as neither she nor Terry spoke.

  Their luck held and they were stopped only once, as they reached the periphery of the airport. Once again, the fluidity and vagueness of the occupation rules allowed cigarettes to work their magic. Without a word, Terry handed over the slightly greasy travel pass to the sentry along with a full pack of American cigarettes. They were so valuable, the sentry was prepared to overlook the anomaly of them being in Russian hands.

  A second sentry peered into the back of the truck. But Alex, her face sooty, was enveloped in a cloud of cigarette smoke, and Lilya had an apparent need to blow her nose in a large handkerchief just then. Their identifications, with cloudy photos, could have belonged to anyone, but the pack of Chesterfields that lay on the truck bed within reach was more interesting anyhow.

  Without commentary, the guards waved them through and they continued around the curve. At terminal A the three of them leapt out with their toolboxes and tried the first door they reached. It opened to a vast hall that still housed a dozen aircraft frames in various stages of dismantling. The few men who worked at the far end of the hall paid no attention to them as they crossed the manufacturing floor to the side that looked out on the airfield.

  Terry took binoculars from the toolbox and surveyed the field. “Ah, I see it. The Mosquito’s over there toward the right, and the pilot’s just coming from the terminal. He’s climbing in now. So far so good. In a few minutes, he’ll taxi in this direction, so get ready to make a run for it at my signal.”

  Even without binoculars, Alex could see the Mosquito and watched as one propeller, then the other, began to whirl. Someone ran out to knock away the chocks from under the wheels, and slowly the plane taxied toward them, skirting the ellipse of terminals. She glanced toward Lilya, dreading to say good-bye, even for a few days. Too many things could still go wrong.

  But Alex detected something in Lilya’s demeanor she hadn’t seen earlier. Her face, which had been pale and impassive at breakfast, seemed to take on color at the sight of the plane. The docility was gone, and a steely intensity, or was it a hunger, was etched on her features. What was she thinking?

  “What the hell!”

  Terry’s outburst yanked her attention back to the field, where two security men had run out onto the tarmac and were signaling the pilot to halt the plane. After a few tense moments, he stopped the propellers and obeyed the order to climb out. He argued with the security men for several minutes, then followed them back to the terminal. Fueled but empty, the plane stood on the tarmac, tantalizing them.

  “Goddamn,” Terry snarled. “They’ve pulled the pilot off the plane. The guards didn’t draw their guns, so maybe Monty just found out about the plan and nixed it. I wouldn’t put it past him.” He grimaced. “It looks like a no-go.”

  “Terry, she has to go.” Alex said. “We may not get another chance like this.”

  He lowered his binoculars and dropped them into the toolbox. “Well, she can’t go without a pilot.”

  “I am a pilot,” Lilya said quietly.

  Terry stared at the ceiling, exasperated. “You were a pilot. Of a Russian plane. You can’t fly a Mosquito.”

  “I think I can.” She was staring out onto the field like a predator at its prey.

  “Jesus, Lilya. ‘Think so’ isn’t enough. Besides, you’ll still need a navigator to get to Wiesbaden.”

  “I can navigate,” Alex said matter-of-factly. “We both can read an aerial map and a compass, and we know how to use a radio.”

  Terry rubbed his forehead. “Christ, I’m going to catch hell for this.”

  “Come on, Terry. You’ve spent your whole career in high risk. Assuming we don’t crash the plane, I think this’ll work. And when it’s done, you’ll have carried off a major coup against the Soviets.”

  She turned to Lilya. “You’re sure you can fly one of those things, right?”

  Lilya didn’t reply and simply seized her by her upper arm and shoved her out of the terminal onto the field. Once on the tarmac, they began to run for the Mosquito. As they reached the fuselage they heard shouts, in Russian and English. Encouragingly, there were no gunshots.

  Ignoring the shouting, Lilya yanked open the hatch on the right side of the fuselage and climbed into the cockpit. Without looking back, Alex scrambled in after her.

  Inside, Alex recalled the two-man cockpit of the Grumman, though the dashboard was more complicated, with levers and switches that presumably controlled weaponry. She was frankly at a loss and fervently hoped Lilya wasn’t. Their pursuers had reached them now, both the Russian airport security and British soldiers. She snorted at the irony. It was probably the last time the two allies would work together. All five of the men were shouting.

  After a moment of groping around the control panel, Lilya found the switch that started the propellers, first one and then the other. The men stood in front of them now, waving their arms, but moved aside when the plane began to roll.

  No gunfire yet, Alex thought. So far so—

  “Bang! She flinched as a hole appeared in the windshield and a slug lodged in the metal panel over her head. “Crap, now they’re shooting at us.”

  “I know. Don’t you hate it when they do that?”

  The earphones that hung below the control panel crackled, and Alex slipped them over her head. The voice spoke Russian. “Abort takeoff and exit the plane. This is an order. We will shoot.”

  “The flight is authorized.” Alex spoke into the mouthpiece while Lilya accele
rated down the runway. “Repeat, we are authorized.”

  It was both true and not true. Who was to say? Authorized by the OSS and in a general sort of way by the Allied High Command. But not by the Soviets, who occupied the airport. And the whole question of who had authority over what was being hashed out that very day at the highest levels.

  She only hoped the confusion would buy them enough time to get off the ground.

  Another voice came on, speaking English. “This is Major John Henderson, General Montgomery’s aide-de-camp. What the hell are you doing in our airplane? Halt at once or we’ll shoot.”

  “Copy that, Major Henderson. No need to get upset. We repeat, this flight is approved by Allied Headquarters. You may contact General Eisenhower’s office for verification. General Montgomery will have his plane back tomorrow, fully fueled and unharmed, except for the hole in the windshield your goons just put there.”

  The propellers were now a blur and pulling them down the runway at high speed. Then with a sort of chortle, Lilya lifted them off the ground.

  The threats continued coming through the radio,

  “Who am I speaking to? Who is at the controls? You will be court-martialed.”

  “My name is Leica,” she said, smiling at her inventiveness. “Lieutenant Leica. The pilot is Captain Vedma.”

  Lilya giggled, certainly recognizing nothing in the English conversation but the Russian word for witch.

  Alex continued. “Go ahead and court-martial us, but stop shooting, for God’s sake. Your boss is about to start negotiations. Shooting down his plane at this sensitive time would expose him to ridicule and would certainly end your career. Over and out.” She broke radio contact and hung the headset back on its hook, where it continued to crackle. “Now let’s see if he calls our bluff.”

  She turned toward Lilya, expecting concern, but the expression she held was nothing less than glee, demonic glee.

  “We have the maps?” Lilya asked, without taking her eyes from the control dials.

  “Yes, they’re right here.” Alex pulled a map book from a side panel and found a bookmark already at the aerial map of middle Germany. She studied it for a moment.