Underground Soldier (12 page)

“Is your friend Czech?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “How did you know?”

“She was talking in her sleep a few hours ago, and I was fairly certain the language was Czech.”

“The Nazis burnt her village down,” I told Vera. “Most of the people were killed, but she was able to escape.”

Vera sat down and didn’t say anything for a minute or more, then she brushed a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.

“She’s a lucky one, then,” said Vera. “The Nazis have burned the Ukrainian and Polish villages around here as well. They usually take the young children as forced workers. It is a miracle your friend survived.”

“And we are fortunate to have you here,” Abraham added. “Thank you for your help.”

“My father was a pharmacist in Kyiv.”

“He’s taught you well,” said Abraham. Then he and Vera lifted Stefan off the operating table and carried him into the room where Martina and the German soldier still rested. I stayed in the surgery and put things in order.

“Come,” said Vera, poking her head back into the room. “I’ve got some soup heating.”

I followed her and Abraham down the dark corridor and through yet another doorway. Vera ladled meaty soup into three bowls and passed one of them to me.

“Wild sorrel and rabbit,” said Abraham, blowing on his spoon. “Much better than our usual bean, potato and sorrel soup.”

“What are your plans, once you leave here?” asked Vera, stirring her soup.

“I need to get to Kyiv,” I said. “That’s where I’m from.”

“You can’t get to Kyiv, Luka,” said Abraham.

I swallowed down a spoonful of soup in angry silence, wanting to shout at him that he was wrong. “My plan was to hide out in the mountains until the war was over,” I said. “I had no idea that the war would finds its way here.”

Vera chewed on a bit of meat, then said, “So you’re hoping the Soviets will win?”

The image of my grandfather in the mass grave at Bykivnia filled my mind. I thought of my father in a work camp in Siberia. Both were victims of the Soviets. But David and his mother were Nazi victims, killed at Babyn Yar. Me and Lida and Mama were all forced labourers — Ostarbeiters — thanks to the Nazis. No matter
who
won,
we
all lost. I set the spoon down with a clatter. How could I respond to
that
question?

There was a shuffling of footsteps in the corridor. Abraham hurried out the door. A few moments later he came back, the German soldier in tow. “Guess who’s woken up?”

The soldier seemed in awe of his surroundings. “What is this place?” he asked.

“You can tell your superiors that your life was saved by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army,” said Vera, replying to him in German so he could understand. “We shall be keeping your weapons, but you go free.”

She rooted around in her pocket, pulled out a pamphlet with German printing on it and shoved it into his hand. “You can share that with your fellow soldiers,” she said. “It explains who we are.” Then she took out a bandanna and a rope. “Sorry, but we’re going to have to restrain you and cover your eyes before we release you.”

The soldier’s eyebrows lifted. I was surprised as well.

She stood up and dangled the rope. The soldier shoved the pamphlet into a pocket and held out his hands. He did not protest as she tied his wrists together, then wrapped the cloth around his eyes and knotted it. She placed her hands on his shoulders and directed him towards the steps. While she was doing this, Abraham shrugged on a heavy coat and slipped his feet into winter boots.

I watched as the two of them got the soldier outside, then Vera came down alone. I stood with her at the foot of the stairs as she waited for Abraham to come back.

I wanted to ask her about this — their taking in a Nazi soldier, treating him, then releasing him — but her expression was so focused, I kept silent.

After long minutes of waiting, there was a faint rhythmic tapping from above. Vera took out her pistol and walked up the stairs. Moments later she came back down, Abraham two steps behind her, his cheeks red from cold. He kicked his boots off and hung up his coat. “Let’s finish our soup,” he said. “Who knows when the next patient will arrive.”

The soup had cooled, but it filled my stomach. “You can’t have taken him very far away,” I said to Abraham. “Aren’t you afraid that others will follow you here?”

“We work on a relay system,” said Abraham. “I only had to get him to the first perimeter of scouts. Even most of our own soldiers don’t know exactly where this hideout is.”

Vera looked over at me. “Just before we were interrupted, Luka, you said that you wanted to get back to Kyiv. Do you still have family there?”

“My mother and I were both taken to Germany as Ostarbeiters,” I said. “Before that, the Soviets shot my grandfather. But they took my father to Siberia and he could still be alive. If he is, he’ll go back to Kyiv, looking for me and Mama. If I don’t get back there, we’ll never be a family again.”

“The Germans were driven out of Kyiv a few days ago,” said Vera. “But our sources say that the fighting is still very heavy all around there. If you try to go to Kyiv, you will be killed.”

“I am not a coward who runs away from danger,” I said, setting my spoon down with a clatter. “I got all the way here without being caught. I’ll sneak into Kyiv.”

Vera didn’t answer. Instead she put a large spoonful of soup into her mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. I saw her exchange a glance with Abraham. After a long moment of silence, she looked at me and said, “I cannot stop you from killing yourself, but if you truly want to see your father some day, you cannot get to Kyiv right now.”

“And your father isn’t
in
Kyiv, Luka,” said Abraham in a gentle voice. “Do you really think Stalin would let prisoners out of Siberia in the middle of the war and send them back home? Think with your brain, boy, not with your heart.”

My fists clenched at his words. Was he calling me stupid? I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to make myself calm. I had been thinking clearly, hadn’t I? In my heart I knew that Tato was still alive. My brain knew it too. I had to get to him. We had to be a family again. We’d been separated too long as it was.

Family …

All at once, an overwhelming sadness washed over me. Much as I hated to admit it, what Vera and Abraham said had a ring of truth to it. All this time, I had placed my hopes on getting away from the war, getting to Kyiv. Finding my father. But how could I deny the facts that were in front of me? Now I had to admit that it was impossible to walk away from a war that was so huge. Getting to Tato would have to wait —
again
!

I felt utterly lost. Reaching my father looked impossible right now. I held my head in my hands. This was too much to take in all at once.

“What am I supposed to do then?” I said it out loud, as much to myself as to Abraham and Vera. “I’m not going to give up.”

“No one is suggesting that you give up, Luka,” said Vera. “You just have to wait until the time is right.”

I felt like a complete failure, powerless to help the people that I loved. I hadn’t stopped David from being killed, and I had left Lida at the camp … even if she had wanted me to escape. I should have stayed so I could protect her. I hadn’t rescued my mother. Now I couldn’t get back to my father.

I raised my head from my hands and looked at Vera. Her eyes were shadowed with fatigue and there was a line of worry on each side of her mouth. She wasn’t searching for her own family right now. She was helping a bigger family — fighting for the freedom of her country.

I glanced at Abraham. He too looked like he was about to collapse from the weight of the world. Yet the two of them kept on fighting — for freedom, for all the people who were being killed by the Soviets and the Nazis.

I couldn’t get to my father right now, and I couldn’t help Lida or my mother. But I
could
fight for freedom. That’s what Tato would do.

“I want to join your underground army.”

Abraham and Vera were silent, but as I watched them, it was like they were having a conversation with their eyes. Abraham nodded slightly, then Vera said, “It’s time for you to rest.”

Chapter Seventeen
Blindfold

When I got back to the recovery room, Martina’s eyes were open, but she didn’t look completely awake. I sat on the edge of her bed.

“Luka,” she said, her eyes focusing on my bandage. “Thank goodness you’re okay.”

“I’m doing better than you,” I said. “All I’ve got is a cut on my head, but you’ve got frostbitten toes and all those stitches on your cheek.”

Her hand flew up to her face and she gingerly felt the train track of stitches. “I don’t remember how I did that.” She looked at her bandaged feet, then wiggled her toes. “One big toe is achy, and the other toes feel tingly and hot, but I can
feel
all of them.”

What a relief. We had done everything we could to keep our feet from freezing these last weeks, but Martina’s
postoly
had made it almost impossible.

She propped herself up and looked at the cot that now held a sleeping Stefan. “He looks familiar,” she said.

“He’s the one who brought you here, wrapped up in his coat. A second soldier rescued me.”

“Are we under the
ground
?” Martina asked, looking around at the tall wooden walls and bits of sunlight filtering through the narrow slits high above.

“We are. This whole hospital is hidden underground.”

Vera stepped into the room just then and went over to Martina’s cot. In one hand was a bowl of soup, and in the other a pamphlet similar to the one that the German soldier had been given, but I could see that this one was in Ukrainian.

“I’m glad you’re awake,” she said. “Call me Vera. I’m a doctor with the Ukrainian Red Cross. And what should we call you?”

“My name is Martina.”

“It is good to meet you,” said Vera. “I’m sure you’re hungry.” She set the bowl and a spoon into Martina’s hands, then turned and gave me the paper. “Here’s something for you both to read. It’s about our army.”

As Martina ate the soup, I told her about the German soldier who had been treated and released, and what I had found out so far about the people who called themselves Vera and Abraham, and the army they were assisting. I opened the pamphlet and read silently.

“What does it say?” asked Martina.

“Give me a minute to read it through and then I’ll summarize.”

Martina nodded and ate more soup.

The sheet was entitled
What Is the Ukrainian Insurgent Army Fighting For?
It was dated August 1943.

I scanned the first page, then said, “The Ukrainian Insurgent Army — also called the UPA — is fighting against the Nazis
and
the Soviets.”

“But what are they fighting
for
?” asked Martina.

I flipped the page. “It says they want equality of all citizens, regardless of age, sex, religion or nationality.”

“And this hospital serves the UPA?” Martina asked.

I looked over at Vera. She nodded.

“Then I want to join,” Martina said. “My father was in the Czech underground when he was killed. They had ideas like this.”

“My father ended up in Siberia because of ideas like this,” I said.

Vera leaned forward on the edge of one of the empty cots. “Our groups protect children in villages from both Nazi and Soviet attacks, but many children help us,” she said. “Not in the army, but in the villages. You and Luka could be trained to help.”‘

“It would be better than running and hiding,” said Martina.

“As long as you’re willing to stand up to Stalin and Hitler, you can work with us,” Vera said. “Besides, if you survived in the forests for so long, you must have a number of skills.”

* * *

We stayed in the underground bunker just long enough to ensure that Martina’s feet would heal. She was not used to being idle, so she limped around doing small chores — making soups and herbal teas, keeping the kitchen spotless — while I assisted with medical help.

Once, after helping set a broken arm, I walked into the kitchen and saw Martina, lost in concentration as she stirred a pot of rabbit stew. A sudden image of Lida appeared in my mind, shoulders bent with fatigue and a bowl of watery turnip soup in front of her. Was she safe in the labour camp, or should I have tried against all odds to take her with me? Lida was strong and resourceful. I could only hope that she also had luck on her side.

Martina looked up at me and smiled. The image of Lida faded. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said.

I hope not,
I said to myself.

* * *

Over the weeks, a steady stream of injured soldiers was brought in to the hospital. They were always blindfolded, whether they were Red Army or Wehrmacht. Even most of the UPA soldiers were blindfolded.

“Why do you blindfold your own soldiers?” I asked Abraham one day as I helped him clean the surgical room after he’d put back together a Red Army soldier’s shredded hand. “You’re on the same side.”

Abraham wiped off the last splatter of blood from the operating table, then cleaned the whole thing down with disinfectant. “What if a UPA soldier were captured?” he asked. “He could be tortured into giving up this location. What they don’t know cannot be revealed.”

“Has that happened before?”

Abraham pointed up to the ceiling. “See those openings? Nazis and Soviets have destroyed underground hospitals by sending poison gas through those. Or by lobbing grenades through the hatch — you name it. It’s essential that our locations stay secret.”

Just then Vera’s head poked through the doorway. “I have a surprise for Martina,” she said, holding out a bundle.

Martina limped over and looked at it. “What do you have there?”

“Open it.”

Martina worked open the rope and pulled out the contents — a pair of sturdy leather boots that looked brand new, heavy wool socks, gloves, a hat. The leather bundle they had been wrapped in was a sheepskin-lined winter coat. As she held each item, I thought of Lida, who had no shoes, no socks, no warm coat. I was happy for Martina’s good fortune, but how I wished I could snatch those boots and somehow get them to Lida.