Loud German voices.
‘They told us we could have the kitchen. They are going to force us from our home soon. Just like they did the Kuzenkos. Filthy animals! They can’t do this to us!’ exclaimed Mother, shaking her fist.
‘They are the conquerors, Zoya. They can do anything they want,’ said Grandfather.
The Nazis in their house! For the last few days, Natasha had felt her heart sink every time she was about to leave her apartment and step onto the streets that were swarming with grey uniforms. But at home, she had almost felt safe. Now this safety, illusionary though it had been, was gone. There was nowhere for her to hide. Nowhere to turn.
Natasha cried as she told her family about Alexei.
‘I’ll go and find Lisa,’ said Mother, tears in her eyes. ‘She needs to come home.’
After she left, Natasha sat with her grandmother, cradling her head in her lap. ‘How are you feeling, Babushka?’ Grandmother groaned. ‘She’s not getting any better,’ Natasha whispered to her grandfather.
‘No, she isn’t.’ Grandfather’s face looked grey, as if all life had been sucked out of it.
Mother returned, dragging a hysterical Lisa with her. Natasha wanted to hug her sister, but something in Lisa’s eyes stopped her. She watched helplessly as Lisa curled up in the corner and didn’t move. She seemed oblivious to the Germans in their home and didn’t participate in conversation, nor did she have any of Mark’s potatoes that Mother fried together with the Hungarian canned meat. Her eyes remained vacant and staring.
What if Lisa meant what she had said in the park? What if she never talked to Natasha again? Could Natasha live with that? Could she live with her closest confidant, the one person she had always counted on, not being there for her? She didn’t think so.
And what if, despite what Natasha had been telling herself, it was all her fault? Was there anything she could have done differently? She wished she had told Lisa the truth and lived with the consequences. And yet, to betray Mark, to condemn him to a certain death, was impossible. But what about Alexei? Had she condemned him to a certain death? Was she condemning her sister to a life of heartbreak? She had never thought of herself as selfish before, but now she wasn’t so sure.
Natasha felt an unfamiliar despair pull at her chest, a bleak hopelessness she had never experienced before. A thousand lies she had spun, the truths she hid, the falsities she left out in the open, the deaths of so many innocent people, her sister’s heartbreak… it was all too much. If Mark was fighting on the German side, wasn’t he a part of the horror that was happening on the streets of Kiev? If she continued seeing him, would a little bit of that gruesome responsibility be hers, too?
She turned towards her family’s distraught faces, towards their grief and anxiety, towards a small plate of potatoes on the table. There was no comfort in the kitchen and no comfort inside Natasha, because at that moment she decided to tell Mark she couldn’t see him anymore. She owed that to Lisa. And to Alexei.
*
After breakfast the next morning, Natasha hurried out in search of Mark. Over and over she rehearsed the words she was going to say to him, but the points that seemed so solid the day before sounded like poor excuses now that she was about to face him.
She imagined his beautiful face, his dark eyes as they lit up with joy at the sight of her. She whispered his name to herself and her heart beat faster. If she told him she didn’t want to see him again, it would be the biggest lie of all. But she had to do it. If she continued seeing him after everything that happened, she would be turning her back on her sister and her family. She would be betraying everything she believed in.
Natasha reached the barracks at eleven and asked a sentry to find Mark. A part of her hoped he wouldn’t be there. But a few minutes later, Mark appeared. When he smiled, she felt her heart melt a little. Before she had a chance to change her mind, she muttered, ‘I need to speak with you.’
‘Let’s go around the corner,’ he said. ‘We can talk there.’
They found a bench and sat next to each other, their arms touching. He gave her a piece of bread and a bar of chocolate. She pushed them away but he insisted. She tasted a little bit of the bread. White on the inside and golden on the outside, it was so delicious; it melted in her mouth, just like the bread of her childhood.
He watched her eat in silence, and when she finished, he asked, ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’
She hesitated. How could she explain all her fears and all her doubts without hurting his feelings? Then again, she was determined to stop seeing him. His feelings were going to get hurt no matter what. Just like hers. ‘I can’t do this anymore. Meeting you like this. We need to stop…’ She couldn’t face him. Turning away from him, she watched half a dozen Nazi officers as they strolled briskly past.
‘You don’t want to see me anymore?’ he repeated as if he couldn’t believe what she was saying. She could hardly believe it herself.
‘What future can we possibly have together?’
‘I don’t know but I want to find out.’ He put his arms around her and turned her towards him, forcing her to look at him. ‘Natasha, I don’t think I could stop seeing you. I’m not that strong.’
He wasn’t making it any easier for her. She stared at him mutely, pleadingly.
‘If you are done with me, I’ll understand,’ he continued. ‘It will break my heart but I’ll respect it. But if you want to stop seeing me because of the circumstances we are in… I don’t know why, but I think it was meant to happen this way.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I was meant to walk through the park at the precise moment you needed help. It wasn’t just a coincidence.’
It was true, she owed him her life. But it didn’t change anything. ‘What about the war? The Germans? Everything is against us.’
‘The war won’t last forever. At this rate there will soon be no men left to fight it.’ He smiled gravely. ‘As long as we have each other, we’ll figure it all out. We’ll make it work.’
A couple of days ago she had believed it, too. But now everything was different. ‘Alexei is dead,’ she whispered. She moved away from him on the bench, wiping her face.
‘Alexei?’
‘My sister’s fiancé. She is heartbroken. They were going to get married…’ She couldn’t continue.
His face fell. ‘What happened?’
‘The Nazis killed two hundred Soviets for the murder of the officer in the park. Alexei was one of them. They died because of us, Mark. It’s all our fault.’
‘They killed two hundred innocent people? Why?’ On his face she saw disbelief, incomprehension and, finally, horror.
‘You tell me. You are one of them.’
‘I am not one of them.’ His shoulders stooped, as if her words were a weight pulling him down. ‘I’m so sorry, Natasha. I had no idea.’
‘What would you do if you knew? Would you come forward and tell them it was you?’
‘To save two hundred innocent lives? Yes, I would.’
‘I don’t believe you.’ She was shivering and couldn’t get warm. He shrugged and turned away from her. She added, ‘What we are doing