Daughters of the Night Sky, page 20
“The usual guff. The tide is about to turn. We’ll retake Leningrad and push the Germans back to Berlin . . . the same things they’ve said for the past year, none of it coming to pass.”
“Watch yourself,” I said, opening one eye. “Ears.”
“Right,” he said. “God, I hope Osin turns up quickly. If we don’t get our papers before my leave is up, it will complicate things.”
“How so?”
“They’ll have people looking for me. I’d prefer that didn’t happen until we’re out of the country.”
“Even if he manages to get papers for us, how are we going to get out of here?” I asked, tracing the words on Antonin’s wire with my index finger.
“I’ll buy a truck,” he said. “That should get us through to Turkey, and then we’ll rest and figure out what comes next. Portugal, if that’s what you want.”
“And you trust that Osin to help us?”
“He’d sell his own babushka for a price. And he’s never refused Father anything.”
“I don’t like this,” I said, keeping my voice even. “So many things could go wrong. And I don’t want to put our lives in the hands of a stranger.”
Vanya stilled my tracing with his hand. “You don’t trust him, but do you trust me?”
“With my life, on many occasions.”
“Then trust me with it once more. I will get us out of here.”
I nodded and concealed the grimace, laced with fear and uncertainty, that loomed at my lips.
Osin was two days in coming to us—much faster than we expected. I had expected a man with a weaselish face. The sort where his eyes never fully opened, always scheming, and where his nose came to such a sharp end it seemed he was always pointing an accusing finger at you. But as was typical of the world, he wasn’t given a face that betrayed his dubious business connections and shady politics. He’d been graced with a strong jaw, flashing blue eyes, and a convivial demeanor that encouraged openness.
“Young Comrade Solonev and his lovely bride,” he said, shaking Vanya’s hand and kissing my own with a flourish before taking a seat in the courtyard. We’d opted for an outdoor meeting so there would be less chance of us being overheard. “I admit I was surprised to hear from my old friend that his son was in need of my assistance. Of course, I am so happy to be of use to you in these difficult times.”
“Quite,” Vanya said, his face lined with a scowl. “I worry for my wife’s well-being, Comrade Osin. She was injured in service to the country, but I fear the doctors are treating her injuries too lightly.”
“You wish for me to procure some medicines, perhaps? An examination with one of Moscow’s finest physicians?” he asked, head cocked sideways. His business had a scope I hadn’t imagined.
“No, I don’t want to be a drain on resources when there are soldiers in need. I am hoping to get her more adequate treatment elsewhere. If one were to venture as far as, say, Turkey, and then on to a friendly country in the west, then she would be able to find better medical help without harming the war effort.”
“Spoken like a true patriot.”
Vanya narrowed his eyes at the insinuation. “My father always taught me that, especially in a society such as ours, those who come to privilege must do everything in their power to avoid taking from the bounty of others. I am pleased my family is in such a position to make this possible.” A reminder: Father has money. I squeezed Vanya’s knee. The cover was a brilliant one. I doubted Antonin had said any such thing. It was far closer to Vanya’s own philosophies than his father’s.
“So you wish for me to secure passage to Turkey for your wife, then. That should be easy enough. I’m sure her papers are in order.”
“Myself as well. Given the current situation, I cannot allow her to go alone. I’m sure you understand.”
“And your regiment has given you leave? That’s highly unusual.”
Vanya, his hands clasped on the table and gaze fixed on Osin, said nothing.
“Ah. Now my involvement makes more sense. This does complicate things. I am a man of connections, but I have limited influence when it comes to military affairs.”
“If you can secure the papers, I’ll attend to the rest,” Vanya said, taking his packet of cigarettes from his breast pocket and lighting one as it rested between his lips, his fingers tapping against the table once he stowed his lighter.
Don’t show your nerves. It will only play to his advantage.
“Very good. The less I know on that end, the better.”
“Agreed,” Vanya said, offering Osin his packet. Osin waved it away with a flash of remarkably even teeth.
“I’ll see what I can manage, my dear boy. It won’t be an easy task these days, but Antonin is a dear friend. I’ll do my best.”
“I’m sure Father admires your conscientiousness and will make his appreciation known.”
“I have no doubt. It’s been a pleasure. We’ll meet again as soon as I can arrange for it.”
We sat silently until Osin had disappeared from view. I put my hand on Vanya’s free one as he finished his cigarette, his eyes scanning the hedges as though they contained answers to great mysteries.
“I’ll owe Father ten years of indentured servitude if Osin comes through,” he said without humor. “Thankfully I won’t be in the country anytime soon for him to collect on it.”
Mama. I was leaving her to her own devices. Though she’d been in that situation for years now, I had always been within reach.
“When do you think we’ll be able to return home?” I asked, eyeing his packet of cigarettes, wondering what pleasure he found in them.
“After the war. When things calm down.” Vanya took a long drag of his cigarette and caressed my hand. “It may be some time, but so long as you’re safe, that’s all that matters.”
“I feel like a coward.”
“It will pass.” He kissed the back of my hand where Osin had pressed his lips minutes before, causing me to shudder. “We’ll find ways to help from a distance. There is plenty we can do.”
I freed my hand from his and took one of the skinny white cylinders from the packet Vanya had left on the courtyard table.
“Since when do you smoke?” he asked.
“Since now.”
With an arched brow and flick of his wrist, he lit my cigarette in one deft motion of his lighter. I felt nothing but jitters as the smoke entered my lungs, but it was easier to concentrate on the foreign sensation than the fear that lapped from within.
“You’re a miracle worker, Osin,” Vanya said three days later. He examined the travel documents with exacting scrutiny. “I wouldn’t have thought to procure official government orders to show at the border.”
“And that is why my services come so highly recommended, my boy. One does not gain a reputation such as I have by cutting the proverbial corners.”
“I expect not,” Vanya said. “An envoy from the Kremlin. Genius.”
“No one will question it. Because your father is such an old and dear friend, I have a gift for you and your lovely bride as well.” Osin produced a map from his breast pocket. It was a map of the western part of the country and the countries along our borders. My side throbbed as I angled to get a better look at the document. There was one dark-red line that sprawled from Russia into Turkey, circling around the coast of the Black Sea. There were little side routes outlined in a paler shade of red, making the whole map look like a series of blood vessels sprawling out from our present location.
“The main route is faster by days but is the most heavily patrolled. You can use it for a while, but the closer you get to Turkey, take detours onto the back roads. I’ve also taken the liberty of securing you a truck that is equal to the task. Wear civilian clothes for the journey. Uniforms will just raise more questions. Once you’re in Turkey, I would disavow any military involvement if I were you.”
“Understood. Comrade Osin, we owe you our lives.”
“I wish you both the best, and I hope the next time we meet it will be under pleasanter circumstances.”
Vanya extended a hand, and Osin returned to the streets outside the hospital.
“We’re to be Nicola and Andrei Lipov while en route. Traveling on a confidential errand from the office of Stalin. We cannot say too much, because we are kept in the dark about the exact nature of our mission until we reach our destination. It’s a good cover.”
“When do we leave?” I asked, trying to find a more comfortable position in the chair. “And should I wire the regiment to resign before we go?”
“God, no. If word got back to my regiment that you’d been discharged, they’d call me back immediately. We leave at dawn. I’d say tonight, but we’d be pulled over for breaking curfew.”
I wanted to question him, to be sure he knew what he was doing, but I succeeded in holding my tongue. “You’ll get us through it all right, Comrade Lipov,” I said, smiling as I took another cigarette from his packet.
We packed our meager belongings, Vanya covertly transferring them to the cab of the truck so we would make less noise as we departed in the morning. During the preceding days, Vanya had spent his time acquiring rations, blankets, and plain clothing for us, all of which had left us at risk every moment the supplies lingered under my hospital bed.
At the first sign of light, Vanya motioned to wake me, but I had never fully entered sleep. German tanks. Russian guns. None would be our friend now. As we walked over the gravel in the courtyard that had been our sanctuary these past days, I felt each crunch of our feet betray our location and scream our treachery. The truck was a hulking green thing that looked as though it would travel reasonably well through uncertain terrain. It had a canvas top that extended over the bed, which would be our shelter at night. Our home for days until we reached neutral ground.
Vanya had us on the road leading away from the outskirts of Stalingrad. He followed Osin’s suggestions, keeping to the main road as often as he could but diverting onto the side roads whenever we encountered large numbers of army vehicles or patrols that might examine our papers too closely or question our orders.
“Are you well?” Vanya asked hourly. The roads were cratered by constant bombardment over the past months. I smiled and assured him all was well, despite every bump and jostle having me clutching the door handle as pain radiated up and down my side like current down a wire.
Every kilometer we traveled was a kilometer away from duty. I pushed down my feelings of guilt and regret with only moderate success.
By the time night fell, the thin civilian blouse Vanya had procured for me was drenched in sweat from my efforts not to cry out as our wheels found every rock and crater on the ruined roadway. We parked off the road, moderately well protected by some obliging bushes and shrubbery. I stepped down out of the truck, grateful to be motionless. I leaned against the side of the vehicle and clutched my side as Vanya set about making the bed of the truck into a nest.
“Come have some dinner,” he called. I wiped the perspiration from my forehead with the back of my hand, glancing in one of the mirrors to see if I looked as wan as I felt. Still rosy cheeked. Nothing that would cause him alarm in his distracted state.
“It isn’t much; I’m sorry,” he said, handing me a chunk of hard bread the size of his fist and some tinned meat on a metal plate along with a cup of water. “I wasn’t able to get much from the authorities, even by dropping all the names I had in my possession.”
I looked down at the offering, neither offensive nor appetizing under most circumstances, and felt my stomach roll. “It’s more than enough for me tonight, dearest,” I said, taking a bite and chewing slowly, as I’d learned to do when rations were scarce.
“We’ll see if there are any camps along the route tomorrow. I can don my uniform and use my real papers to see what I can get for us.” He’d finished his meal, eating slowly, but the hunger hadn’t dissipated from his eyes. “This isn’t all bleak, though. Close your eyes—I have a treat for us.”
“Children, are we? Isn’t this when the class bully pelts the smart girl with a mud pie?”
“You sound as though you might have some experience with that. If I ever find the bastards who taunted you, I’ll thrash them until their mothers cry. Now close your eyes and open your mouth.”
I felt him drop a firm square onto my tongue. I kept my eyes shut as the chocolate dissolved into cream and sugar laced with earthy cocoa on my tongue.
“A lieutenant had a soft spot for an officer escorting his hero wife home,” Vanya explained as I emerged from my reverie.
“A blessing on his family,” I said.
“A whole host of them. There’s nothing that gives me as much pleasure as seeing you happy, my love.”
He lounged on the makeshift bed in the back of the truck and motioned for me to lie out beside him. The aching in my side subsided as I lay prostrate, relieving the pressure it had been under all day.
“You’re hurting,” Vanya said. “I should have had Osin smuggle us some morphine.”
“The last thing you need on your hands is me in a drug-addled stupor,” I said with more venom than I intended. I didn’t mention the thousands of other injured soldiers who needed the medicine more than I. With the thought of my sisters to the southwest, I knew I wasn’t deserving of any such escape from my pain.
With no chemical relief available, I did what I could to ease the ache by focusing my eyes on the stars that glinted, constant and true, through the dirt-splattered plastic window in the back of the canvas bedcover, and on the more immediate comfort of the sound of my husband’s steady heartbeat below my ear.
The drive from the outskirts of Stalingrad should have taken three days on good roads, but with the cratered roads near the city and the summer rains, Vanya was now counting on seven—three to go. Vanya’s leave would expire before we reached the border, but neither of us mentioned the danger that imposed on us. If the officials from the convalescent hospital had reported us missing, he was already in mortal danger.
“I can drive,” I offered for what had to have been the fifth time that day.
“I’m fine, Katyushka. Get some rest.” His reply was the same each time. He gripped the steering wheel like a life preserver, his eyes roving over the landscape for any sign of danger, leaving me with no occupation but to redouble his efforts as sentry and let my worry run rampant in time with the ineffective whish-whish-whish of the windshield wipers. Our vigilance seemed as pointless as our service revolvers would be in the face of real danger.
Ahead we saw a convoy of trucks, much like our own, headed north, back toward Stalingrad or one of the bases to the west. “Take a detour,” I suggested. “Going in the opposite direction will attract their notice.”
“Right,” Vanya agreed, glancing at the map. He took a hard left onto a road that looked more like a barely widened walking trail.
Vanya’s knuckles shone white as we jostled about on the road, mud splattering at the windows as we pitched from side to side. The road was nothing more than a glorified trench, with muddy walls on either side. We reached a section of road that had partially washed out, and Vanya tried to ease the wheels up over the pile of rock and mud on the right side of the path. Once the front wheels found purchase, the back lost contact with the ground and we pitched to the left and flipped all the way over, landing with the wheels up, like a hapless turtle stranded on its shell. We ended up in a jumble on the canvas ceiling of the truck and scrambled to exit before the flimsy metal framing bent under the weight of the vehicle, crushing us in the process.
“Goddammit,” Vanya swore, wiping mud off his face. “Are you hurt?”
“Just shaken. Can we right it and go back to the main road?”
“I doubt it,” he said, assessing the damage. Vanya smoothed his hair back with both hands, muttering a curse. “Even if we did, I’m not sure I can repair it without tools. We’ll have to find shelter and figure out another plan in the morning. Dammit.”
I stooped back into the truck, fetching my duffel and his without putting more than my arm in harm’s way.
“We’ll need these,” I said, handing Vanya his pack and gently easing mine over my shoulders. Vanya found the map, still mercifully dry and safe on the ceiling of the truck, before sliding his pack on as well.
The drizzle became more sincere, and I longed for the protection of my thick uniform jacket instead of the flimsy summer garments Vanya had procured for me in town. A thin lavender dress and lightweight jacket were fine for a stroll on the streets in Moscow in August but hardly suited a border crossing. I would have even been glad for the loathsome oversized boots I kept concealed in my pack instead of the low heels that now filled with sludge as we waded along the eroding side trail in the direction of the main road. I tried to ignore the persistent ache at my side, but it was growing more relentless with each step. Vanya would have to find medication when we stopped.
“There’s a village six kilometers west,” he said, orienting himself on the map, doing his best to protect the precious paper from the rainfall.
“Good,” I answered between labored breaths. An hour until I could rest. Anything was endurable for an hour. “Don’t slow down.”
We were both soaked though and caked in mud by the time the town came into view. Vanya inquired after an inn, and I followed him like a bedraggled dog. A bed. A hot bath, if there is any kindness left in the world—though how I’ll keep my wound dry is a mystery.
A fat woman with a sour expression showed us to a room the size of a generous broom closet. “The best I’ve got for the night. Washroom in the hall. The kitchen is open at six for supper—such as it is.” She turned her massive frame and wheezed her way back down the stairs.
“Charming old crone,” Vanya said, discarding his mud-caked shoes.
“One who didn’t ask questions,” I said. “We couldn’t ask for better.”
