Underground Soldier (3 page)

I breathed in deeply, burying back the memory. If I could hear snoring through the door, that meant the people inside were asleep. If I could get the door open, I’d be able to quickly take some clothing and boots, and maybe even food if there was something handy. Then I would be on my way.

I turned the doorknob. It was unlocked!

I pushed the door open carefully, trying not to make a sound, but the rusty bolts screeched.

I held my breath. The snoring continued.

Just as I stepped inside the darkness, there was a
click
.

“Hands over your head,” said a woman’s voice — in German-accented Ukrainian. “Or I’ll shoot.”

* * *

Glaring electric light. A vast sparse kitchen.

Sitting in a carved wooden rocking chair was the woman I’d seen hanging up laundry and collecting eggs. She wore a red bandanna over two thick braids of greying brown hair. Her lips were a grim line of annoyance. She was older than I’d thought and she did not look frail anymore. Her shotgun was pointed at my head.

I raised my hands but scrunched forward. My hospital gown was quite short, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself.

Her gaze took in my appearance from head to toe. Her nose wrinkled. “You are a filthy thief.”

Her accent reminded me of the wardens at the work camp. They spoke Ukrainian, Russian or Polish, but always with that heavy German sound to it. The snoring in the next room stopped.

“Margarete, are you all right?” a man’s voice asked.

“It’s under control, Helmut.”

Moments later the old man came into the room, buttoning his red flannel shirt, his feet bare and his hair awry.

“He’s a scrawny one,” Helmut said. “How old do you think he is? Twelve?” He must not have realized that I could understand him. Or maybe he just didn’t care. “Are you going to shoot him, or do you want me to?”

“Please don’t shoot!” I said in German.

The man seemed surprised that I could speak a bit of his language, and that made him hesitate for a minute. But then he said, “You may be just a child, but you tramp through my field, break into my barn and disrupt the animals — muddy footprints all over the place — and now you come into our
house.
”

What would he have done in my place? Anger boiled up inside me but I forced myself to look calm. I hung my head in what I hoped looked like contrition. “I am sorry for the damage I’ve caused to your property.”

The man snorted.

“Why didn’t you just knock?” asked Margarete, again in Ukrainian. She’d lowered the shotgun, but her finger still touched the trigger and she had the gun vaguely directed towards my chest.

Was she serious? An escapee from the local slave-labour camp should just saunter up to a German farmhouse and knock on the door, asking for help?

“Would you have helped me if I had done that?”

The woman shrugged. “Maybe. You’re not the first one to escape.”

“But you might also have turned me in. Or shot me.”

“So instead you become a thief,” Margarete muttered.

“I am unarmed, injured and hungry,” I shot back. “Call me a thief if you wish. I was just going to take clothing and shoes, maybe something to eat.”

“Does this farm look prosperous to you?”

I didn’t reply.

“Do you think we
want
to be in this godforsaken place? We were dumped here.”

All at once, it made sense. No wonder they could speak Ukrainian. We had German neighbours in Kyiv before the war, but they disappeared in 1939. I had assumed they’d all ended up in Siberia or in the mass graves. Some of them had, I am sure. But during those first two years of the war when Hitler and Stalin were on the same side, a lot of people had to move.

“The Nazis gave us this farm,” said Margarete. “But we have no help and almost no livestock. And our sons have been forced into the army.”

I put on a sympathetic face for Margarete, but I couldn’t muster much compassion for her. It made me wonder who had lived at this farm before, and where
they
were right now.

And I also had been taken from my home by the Nazis, but unlike this German couple, I hadn’t exactly been given a farm. Lida had been taken from her home too, and had lost her entire family. Like me, she was forced to work twelve hours a day for the Germans, surviving on nothing but a thin gruel of turnip soup. She wasn’t the only one. In my camp, there were thousands. How many slave-labour camps were there? How many of those workers would have thought they were in heaven to be at a farm like this? But I couldn’t say that to these people. They wouldn’t understand.

“You are not starving,” was all I said.

She looked over at her husband. It was as if they were having a silent conversation. He nodded slightly. She lowered the gun.

“I don’t know if we can trust you,” said Margarete. “But we’ll hold off on shooting you until we decide. First, let’s get you cleaned up.”

Chapter Five
Eggs

Perhaps the farm was not prosperous at the moment, but when Helmut led me to their bathroom, I was stunned. A huge porcelain tub on big clawed feet, a real flush toilet and a gleaming white pedestal sink. It was hard to believe that this fancy bathroom was for just a single family. The people who lived here before the war had certainly been well off.

“That rag you’re wearing” — Helmut held out a wastebasket — “Throw it in.”

As I stood there naked, embarrassed and cold, I watched him adjust the faucets until water came out of the shower head. He set a sponge and bar of soap on a wire shelf above the taps and pulled a thick curtain around the tub to keep the water from spraying about — that was something I had never seen before. He draped a towel over the sink for me and hung a nightshirt on the hook at the back of the door. Then he left.

I climbed into the shower, my thigh protesting when I lifted it over the high edge of the tub. Warm water rained down through my hair and face and over my body. Black streaks swirled down the drain. As the layers of dirt came off, I began to feel more human. I thought of Lida, still in that horrible work camp and me powerless to help her. My mother, lost. And Tato too. But they were probably still alive. And then I thought of David. In the end, he was killed and I still lived. What kind of a friend was I?

Whatever this couple was up to, my plan remained the same: get clothing, food, shoes, then leave. I had to survive this war, find my parents — Tato first — then get back to Lida and take her home with me. I couldn’t help David anymore, but I would not abandon Lida.

I dried off, my skin pale without the grime. Now that my leg injury was clean, I could see that the milk wash had done its job. The stitches no longer strained and the skin was less swollen and red. I sat at the side of the tub to examine the wound on my foot. It had been a deep puncture, but it was beginning to heal. My makeshift first aid had helped.

I got into the nightshirt. It was old, but the flannel was good quality. If I couldn’t find trousers to steal, this shirt would do.

When I stepped out of the bathroom, Helmut was there, waiting for me. He blinked when he saw me. “For a moment there, you looked like Claus,” he said, pointing to the nightshirt.

“Claus?”

“My younger son.”

“Where is he now?”

“The Eastern Front,” he said grimly. “I pray that he doesn’t end up fighting in our old home village.”

“I hope he doesn’t end up in Kyiv. That’s where I’m from,” I said. Did Helmut realize what his son might be up to on the Eastern Front? The nightshirt suddenly felt like it was going to strangle me. I undid the top button and took a deep breath.

“From Kyiv, are you?” he said. “A long way from here. What’s your name?”

Should I tell him my real name, or make one up? They hadn’t shot me and they’d been kind so far, so I decided to return the courtesy and tell them the truth. “My name is Luka Barukovich.”

Helmut took my hand and shook it firmly, then turned, motioning me to follow him. I limped behind him, back to the huge kitchen. “Sit,” he said, pointing to one of the kitchen chairs. “Show me your foot.”

He sat on a low stool like the one he milked Beela with, set a pair of glasses on the end of his nose and examined the cut. “It’s not infected,” he said, looking over the lenses at me. “A surprise, considering how filthy you were.”

He got up and rooted around in the cupboards, then sat back down on the stool, holding a bottle of iodine, plus scissors, tape and gauze. I didn’t flinch when he put a few stinging drops of the iodine into the wound. He wrapped the gauze around my foot.

Next he examined the wound on my thigh. “This seems to be healing well,” he said. “How did you manage to keep it clean?”

“Milk,” I said. “From your cow.”

Helmut’s eyebrows raised slightly at this piece of information, but he didn’t respond.

During all of this, I watched Margarete from the corner of my eye. She sat silently at her spot at the opposite end of the table. At first I thought she was watching me, but when I had a chance to turn and actually look, I realized that I was probably the last thing on her mind. She seemed utterly lost in thought. At least she’d put the shotgun away.

“Why don’t you make the boy something to eat?” Helmut said as he stood up from the stool. “I’m going back to bed.”

Margarete jerked as if she’d been woken from a deep sleep. She nodded to Helmut, then focused on me. “Eggs?”

Eggs! How long had it been? “Thank you for your kindness,” I replied.

She stood up and smoothed the front of her dress, then walked over to the gas range. Before the war, this kitchen must have fed an entire family and the field hands as well. Margarete took a giant skillet and cracked in two eggs. I licked my lips when she added a dollop of butter. When was the last time I had tasted butter?

As the scent of sizzling eggs filled the kitchen, she glanced at me over her shoulder. “You are probably thirsty,” she said. “Get yourself some milk from the icebox. Glasses are over there.” She indicated an oversized cupboard.

This woman was a puzzle. She’d just as soon feed me as shoot me.

In addition to the pitcher of milk, there was cheese and a sausage, some apples, two pears and a jar of strawberry preserves in the icebox. My fingers itched. I would steal some of this when I made my escape.

When Margarete put the scrambled eggs in front of me, I was so hungry I felt like shovelling them into my mouth, but I didn’t want to be rude. I filled my fork and took the first mouthful, loving the taste. But when I brought the second forkful to my lips, I paused. People that I knew and loved were starving. Others had already died. It seemed criminal to be enjoying a meal like this.

In my mind, I saw Lida sitting across from me, having her thin turnip soup and sawdust bread at the slave-labour camp. Her image dissolved and David’s appeared — mischievous smile and all. How often had we scoured the streets of Kyiv together in search of food? He would have loved this meal.

Margarete methodically wiped the long counter with a damp rag. “Is there something the matter with the eggs?”

“They are delicious,” I managed to say.

I took a deep breath and pushed the sadness to the back of my mind. I couldn’t bring David back to life, and Lida would want me to eat. Hadn’t I promised to find her after the war? I could only keep that promise if I stayed strong. I took another mouthful of egg. Soon Margarete would be asleep. I’d get food, find a pair of shoes, maybe some trousers, and be on my way.

But once I finished eating, Margarete took me down a long, dark hallway. It was surprising how big the house was, considering how plain it looked from the outside.

She opened a door and switched on an electric light. This room held a sturdy four-poster bed covered with a feather duvet, a bookshelf and a wardrobe.

“This was Martin’s room,” she said. “Have a good night.”

“You want me to sleep in this room?” I had assumed I’d be sleeping back in the barn or out with the chickens.

“You’ve got to sleep somewhere,” she said. Her voice was flat, emotionless.

I stepped into the bedroom and she walked out. As she closed the door, I heard a bolt click from the outside.

Chapter Six
Trapped

I stood there, at a loss. So much for my plan of a quick escape.

I walked to the window. There was no glass left in it at all. It was covered with a latticework of wood and tarpapered on the outside so no light could get through. I tried to open the window, but it was nailed closed. Had they locked others in this room before me? What did these people want?

I sat on the edge of the bed, but I was not tired. I needed to figure out how to escape. I went over to the shelf and sat on the rug so I could see the books. There was an oversized world atlas angled sideways on the bottom shelf. I took it out and opened it. The publishing date was 1935 — before the Nazi-Soviet alliance that carved up Eastern Europe.

I turned the pages until I found a map of what had been the Soviet Union back then. Kyiv was easy to find. I placed my finger over top of it and closed my eyes, wishing I were there. I tried to find a page that showed Kyiv and Germany on the same map so I could figure out how far away I was from home, but Germany was too big. I knew I had to be somewhere close to the Alps, which were attached to the Carpathians — but where? There was a city sign for Breslau on the road outside the camp, but I couldn’t find Breslau on this map. Maybe Helmut or Margarete would tell me where we were.

The middle shelf held books of various shapes and sizes. I pulled one out. On the cover was a painting of an American Indian holding a shotgun. He had a red bandanna around his brow and braids hanging down over his shoulders. For a moment I was reminded of Margarete. I slid the book back into its spot and pulled out another. This one showed a girl standing in front of a mountain range. She looked like a well-fed Lida.

The top shelf was crammed with books that looked like they had been read often, with spines bent and curling bookmarks sticking out from the pages. Each book had a swastika symbol stamped on the spine. I couldn’t read German well enough to figure out all of the titles, but one I had heard of before —
Mein Kampf
by Adolf Hitler. This was the book that made some people into Nazis — making them think they were a better kind of human than anyone else. The very look of it made me want to throw up.