Underground Soldier Read online

  I would miss Margarete and Helmut. “I am grateful for your many kindnesses.”

  Margarete flicked her whip lightly on Blitz’s rump.

  Blitz didn’t sneeze or wheeze, but she groaned as she leaned into the harness. As we slowly rode down the farm drive in the darkness of early morning, I watched the silhouette of the buildings that had saved my life. A bomb exploded in the distance and for one brief moment I saw Helmut standing there, his hand raised in a wave goodbye. I waved back.

  Margarete and I travelled many kilometres, bouncing up and down on the wooden bench. Sometimes I gripped with both hands to keep from falling off. Once, a front wheel plunged into a deep crater and we both lurched forward. Blitz grunted and pulled, but we were stuck. I got out and pushed on the wheel with my shoulder while Blitz strained forward. Finally the wheel moved. I climbed back onto the bench, dusting dirt from my hands and clothing.

  “I know you had to get the wagon going again,” said Margarete, dabbing some dirt from my cheek with a handkerchief. “But now you look like a boy in a skirt. Try to compose yourself. Knees together, elbows in, and let me get you clean.”

  The sun rose as we got closer to town and I gazed at the strip of mountains in the distance. Would I really be able to get to them? I had to try, no matter what.

  Once we turned off the main road, we stopped briefly for tea and buns.

  I took a swig of tea, then passed the flask to Margarete. As I bit into a cherry bun from my knapsack, my mind filled with the memory of David and the special breads his father would make. I chewed slowly, thinking of him.

  We rode together in silence for some time. We passed a wagon going in the opposite direction and Margarete nodded in greeting, but didn’t slow down. Once, a military truck sped past us, in a hurry to somewhere. It was broad daylight now and unseasonably warm. From where I sat on the wagon bench, I could see the area that surrounded us. Mostly farms, with fields and buildings pockmarked with damage from Allied attacks.

  Margarete turned south onto a smaller road and we travelled in silence through a small hamlet with half a dozen bombed-out houses in a cluster. There were no people here. Had they been evacuated before the bombs hit? She turned onto another road, this one heading east. We kept on going in silence, not meeting anyone at all, and not seeing any more houses.

  Just when I relaxed slightly, we encountered a German army truck idling at the side of the road. A soldier was sprawled across the hood, immersed in a book. A second soldier was in the open back, sound asleep.

  “Maybe we should go a different way,” I whispered to Margarete.

  “Be calm,” she said.

  When the reading soldier saw us, he set down the book and jumped into the middle of the road, straightening his uniform as he did so. He held up one hand.

  Margarete pulled on Blitz’s reins and the wagon stopped.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” the soldier asked Margarete.

  “I am taking my niece home,” said Margarete in a firm voice.

  “Papers.” The soldier held out his hand.

  I gulped.

  Margarete handed over her own identification, and I reached into my skirt to get the one that said Berta Pfaff.

  The soldier looked over both, then held mine up. I held my breath. “This is expired,” he said.

  “It is?” said Margarete, feigning surprise. She turned to me and said, “You’d better tell your father to get you a new one.”

  “We cannot let you pass with expired papers.”

  “Do you know who this girl’s father is?” asked Margarete. “Can’t you read Pfaff? Obersturmbannführer Pfaff is her father.”

  The soldier’s face paled. He handed back our papers.

  “What book is that?” she asked. “It doesn’t look very official. I’m sure Berta’s father would like to hear about the soldier who reads for pleasure while on duty.”

  The soldier ran his fingers through his hair. “Let’s forget the whole thing,” he said. “Have a safe journey.”

  He stepped off the roadway and waved us on. As we passed, I smiled and waved. The man in the back of the truck hadn’t woken up for the entire incident.

  When we had driven a kilometre from the soldiers, I asked, “Are you really related to Obersturmbannführer Pfaff?”

  Margarete smiled. “There is no such person.”

  “Then why did he let us pass?”

  “That rank alone,” said Margarete. “It is enough to terrify any soldier.”

  Soon the roads petered down to practically nothing — just bent grass in a field. We had been following the meandering river for some time, but now there was a thick line of trees up along the bank. Margaret pulled on Blitz’s reins and the wagon stopped. We both stared at the trees. I had been waiting for this time, but now that it was in front of me, I was scared.

  “This is where we should part company,” said Margarete. She pointed up ahead. “Just keep following the river south and east. The woody areas are in patches; sometimes they’re brush, then meadow, then swamp. There are houses too, now and then. Keep the river in sight and stay hidden. Avoid any well-used path.”

  I drew the identification papers out of my skirt and gave them back to Margarete. “Be well.”

  She gave me one last pat on the cheek and I jumped down to the ground, then shrugged on the heavy knapsack.

  “Leave the girl’s clothing on at least until you’re hidden,” she said. “Out here in the open, you’ll draw less attention as a girl. A boy is safer in the woods.”

  I walked up to Blitz and buried my face in her mane. “Goodbye, old friend,” I said.

  I held my hand up in a final farewell as Margarete gave Blitz a light tap with the whip and they were off.

  Chapter Ten

  Birch

  The knapsack pressed heavily against my back as I tried to walk quietly through the pine forest, but I felt like a thousand eyes were watching me. Each footstep made a loud crunch. How would I stay hidden if I couldn’t stay quiet? And wouldn’t stripping down and changing into men’s clothing bring even more attention to myself? All the advice Margarete had given me seemed useless.

  But if I was making this much noise, didn’t that mean anyone else would also be making noise? The thought reassured me. I stood still and held my breath.

  A low, insistent hum. But what made the sound? It was too late in the year for tree frogs or cicadas. The faint snap of a tiny twig. Was that a small animal scrambling away, or the sound of a person more used to hiding his movements in the forest than I was? I walked again, stopped suddenly and listened for footsteps. But there were none. I kept on walking for another hour or so. The pine trees became interspersed with birch and then the woods became mostly birch. I stopped for a moment, breathing in the changed air. The scent of resin had given way to a faintly earthy smell of fallen autumn leaves.

  I looked up into the sky and was awed by the stark beauty of the bare birch trees that surrounded me. All at once, it was as if I were standing in the middle of Bykivnia, the forest at the outskirts of Kyiv. How many times had I walked through the towering birch trees to visit my grandfather?

  Each spring, David and I would duck out of school and wander through the woods, picking wild berries. We eat our fill and bring some back to his father, who bakes them into tarts.

  Grandfather has a special place in his heart for David, and whenever the two of us visit, he has some small treat waiting for each of us — a figure carved in wood, or oddly shaped pebbles. Once, he proudly presents each of us with fabric belts that he has woven himself, meticulously working in a zigzag pattern of brown and black felt. The one Dido himself has worn for years is similar, but with green added to the brown and black. “I would have made you ones like mine,” he says, “but I can no longer get the green felt.”

  David and I love our handmade belts and wear them always.

  The last time we look for berries together is the summer before Kyiv falls to the Nazis — during those final fren
zied days when the Soviets are fleeing.

  As we are walking through the familiar woods, David stops. “What caused that?” he asks, pointing to dark, glistening streaks on the path.

  I bend down and touch it. Blood. “Maybe someone dragged a dead deer.”

  When we get to Dido’s house half an hour later, we find him sitting at the worn kitchen table, a distracted look on his face. He seems somehow smaller, almost shrunken within himself.

  He looks up at us with worried eyes. “Don’t come back here.”

  “But why?” asks David. “We love visiting you.”

  “I hear ghosts,” says Dido. “For two weeks now, their sighs have drifted through the woods, keeping me awake at night. This place is cursed.”

  He thrusts a bag of dried mushrooms into each of our hands and kisses us each on the cheek. “Go now.”

  On the walk home, we stand silently in the deepest part of the woods. David touches a finger to his lips. After a few minutes, I shake my head. I hear nothing. Only the wind sighing through the birch trees.

  When we get back to the city, a scent of gasoline is in the air.

  “This way,” says David, grabbing my sleeve and pulling me into a back alley.

  From the shadows we watch Soviet NKVD thugs strutting down the street, their bayonets nudging a cluster of handcuffed young men.

  “That’s Petro, isn’t it?” David whispers, pointing at one of the taller prisoners.

  I nod, then recognize Myron, Dmitri, Volodymyr, Myroslav, others — men who have been to our house before my father was taken. All were at the university until the Soviets kicked them out.

  We watch the NKVD police march them out of the city towards Bykivnia Forest.

  “Come on,” says David. “We’ve got to see what they’re doing.”

  “Wait, David. Both our fathers have already been taken. If you or I go missing, it would kill our mothers.”

  He sighs. “Sometimes you are so fearful.”

  “Sometimes you need to be more fearful.”

  How I wished now that David had been born with a bit of my caution.

  I tried to clear those images from my mind and focus on the present. These woods I walked in held a different set of dangers than Bykivnia Forest in the summer of 1941.

  I followed along the river even as it meandered, because it eventually would lead to the foothills of the mountains. There might have been a shorter way, but why risk getting lost? I walked for a few hours, still wearing the girls’ clothing, although I did slip the kerchief from my head and tie it around my neck. I ate half the bun. That made me think of David again, and the smell of his father’s bakery. I could not get him out of my mind. It was almost as if he were walking beside me, urging me to be a little bit more brave.

  But like Bykivnia, this forest had its own ghosts.

  It would have been smart to stop and change out of the girls’ clothing, but I felt like I was being watched. Once it was dark, I could change.

  I kept on walking, wanting to make as much headway as I could on my first day. It was irritating to have the skirt catch against my knees with every step. How did girls tolerate this? I could hardly wait until darkness fell and I could get out of these clothes.

  I came upon a shallow stream around mid-morning. I crouched down and scooped handfuls of the fresh, clear water and gulped it down. Sometime past midday, the forest gave way onto a huge burnt area. Charcoal shards and sharp black spikes pointed to the sky. My boots squeaked and my nose itched from the smell of old smoke. I was suddenly filled with such grief it was like a blow to the head. My knees crumpled and I fell into the charcoal.

  Memories from the summer of 1941 — when the Nazis suddenly switched sides and attacked their former ally — flooded my mind. The Soviets had been running scared.

  Stalin says that everything must burn in Kyiv. What won’t burn must be destroyed. When the Nazis come, they must find nothing but ashes.

  Throughout July and August, ashes fall like black snow and dark clouds of smoke hang over Kyiv. NKVD police storm the government buildings, churches and synagogues. They burn birth and death records, marriage certificates, journals, tax records. Ashes of history cling to my clothing. When I try to wipe them away, a powdery smear remains.

  As August turns to September we hear over the loudspeakers that the Nazis are at our gates. I am still cheering for our side, thinking that when the Nazis get here they’ll be in for a beating.

  But something strange happens.

  The city leaders leave: the Communist mayor and administrators, the fire department, the police. With them they take all the food that will fit into trucks and boxcars. They dismantle whole industries and take them too. And weapons. What they can’t take, they douse with gasoline.

  They leave behind the sick and poor, and old people who are of no use to them anymore.

  There are some who refuse to abandon Kyiv, but where have these brave souls got to? It’s as if they are ghosts.

  David and I go up the hill to our famous golden-domed Pecherska Lavra. Mama once said that it had been a Ukrainian Orthodox cathedral and monastery for a thousand years before the Soviets came. It has a network of tunnels underground. Some people say that the tunnels are hundreds of kilometres long, stretching all the way to Novgorod. When invaders came, Kyivans would escape through the tunnels. Now Pecherska Lavra is a Soviet museum. David and I like going there — running up and down the steps and walking around the ancient stone buildings. It’s a great place to play soldiers.

  But on this particular September day when we climb to the top level of Pecherska Lavra, he points towards my grandfather’s place. Bykivnia Forest billows with black smoke. “Why would they burn down the woods?” he asks.

  As I shade my eyes with one hand, I think of Dido’s agitation the last time we saw him. My stomach churns. “Do you think Dido is okay?”

  “Only one way to find out,” says David.

  We scramble down the steps and run through the cobblestone streets to the edge of town. When we get to the burning forest, NKVD soldiers block our way.

  One of the soldiers steps forward — Misha. He lived on my street and was a senior at Kyiv School #75 before the war. “It’s not safe here,” he says. “Go home.”

  “But my grandfather lives that way,” I say, starting forward.

  “I am sure he is fine,” says Misha, not looking sure at all. He nudges me with his bayonet. “Go.”

  We leave, but I feel uneasy. Just days after that, the Nazis arrive. David and I watch in shock from the top of Pecherska Lavra as waves of Red Army soldiers set down their arms and surrender. Others flee. No one fights.

  The Nazis remove the sandbags and the barbed wire that encircle Kyiv, then they march right in. They come with their clean uniforms, polished boots and freshly scrubbed faces. They set up offices in the same buildings that the Soviets have just abandoned. At first they seem friendly. It looks like they are trying to create order.

  Now that the NKVD no longer blocks the forest, I want to get through to see Dido again. As David and I head out towards the edge of the city, we meet up with others going the same way.

  In the blackest part of the burned forest we encounter a circle of people, their heads bent in grief. The sound of a woman’s muffled keening sends chills down my spine. With David right behind me, I force my way to the inner part of the circle.

  Clumps of freshly dug earth cling to stacks of corpses, most with ragged red holes in their necks or bayonet wounds in their chests. They are almost all young men, and I recognize Myroslav — one of those we saw being marched out into the woods by those NKVD thugs.

  A woman who stands beside me reaches down and gently pulls a bit of paper loose from a woman’s coat near the edge of the grave. As she unfolds it, I notice a spatter of blood and handwriting in a language I don’t know.

  “That’s in Polish,” says the woman. Her eyes fill with tears as she reads the words: My name is Elzbieta Slawsky and I live on Krucza Street in Warsa
w. Please give me a Catholic burial if you find me dead.

  Poland is so far away. Have the Soviets brought her all this way just to kill her? My fists clench.

  David grips my shoulder. He says, “Luka, I am so sorry.” That’s when I recognize a distinctive brown-black-green woven belt towards the middle of the mass grave. Even without seeing the face, I know it is Dido’s corpse. I lunge to get to him, but David holds me back. “We must get out of this cursed place,” he says.

  Chapter Eleven

  Not Kyiv

  That scene from two years ago was all too sharp in my mind. The blackened shards of this German forest brought my grief to the surface. How could I go on? I bowed my head in despair.

  A wet splat on the back of my neck.

  I reached back to feel for blood. It was warm, but too gritty for blood. I held my hand in front of me — it was covered with a grey smear of bird poo.

  For a moment I felt like shaking my fist at the bird, but I took a deep breath and gave thanks instead. I was not in Kyiv, and it was not 1941. It was two years later and I still had a chance to survive.

  As I stood up and wiped the mess off my neck, fear replaced sadness. This forest was ever changing, and this clearing I stood in was too much in the open. I ran towards the trees, my lungs aching as they filled with sooty air.

  Sweat streamed down me by the time I got out of the burnt area. Now I was in a section with young fir trees no taller than my hips. Even a nearsighted Nazi would have no trouble finding me here!

  I trekked down a hill through mud and brush to get close to the river and as far away from open view as I dared. The river changed as much as the forest, but here it was so wide that the other shore was not visible. The bank made for treacherous walking, and more than once I slipped, making my thigh throb. Once I stepped onto what looked like solid ground, only to have my boot sink down into mud. Just then a military barge stacked with wooden boxes passed by. I stood still, slowly sinking into the mud, and prayed that no one on the barge would notice me. When it had finally passed, I pulled myself out and crawled onto a big rock behind a bush, trembling with relief.