Lisa turned her back on her sister, her long red hair swinging out to whip Natasha across the face. ‘Alexei, are you coming?’ Her voice was too loud for the muted street, and several passers-by glared in her direction.
Alexei Antonov, a blond, broad-shouldered boy, had stopped at what seemed like the only market stall in Kiev that was still standing. The stall boasted a great selection of combat knives, and Alexei was in deep conversation with the owner.
‘Alexei!’ Lisa called again. Her voice quivered.
Alexei handed the stall owner some money and pocketed a knife. ‘Wait up!’ he cried, breaking into a run.
‘Dillydallying as always,’ said Lisa, her plump lips pursed together in a pout. ‘Keep this up, and we’ll leave you here.’
‘Nagging already? And we’re not even married yet.’ Pecking Lisa on the cheek, Alexei adjusted his glasses, his face a picture of mock suffering and distress.
‘Get used to it,’ said Lisa, pinching the soft skin above his elbow. He attempted a frown but failed, smiling into Lisa’s freckled face.
They paused in the middle of the road and kissed deeply. A van swerved around them. The two lovers didn’t move. They barely looked up.
‘And this is why I walk five metres behind you. It’s too embarrassing.’ Natasha stared at the ground, her face flaming. Wishing she could run home but not wanting to abandon Lisa and Alexei in the middle of the street, she was practically jogging on the spot. ‘You heard Papa this morning. Under no circumstances were we to leave the house.’
‘We had to leave the house,’ said Lisa. ‘You know we did. It was a question of life and death.’
Natasha raised her eyebrows. ‘A wedding dress fitting is a question of life and death?’
Lisa nodded. ‘Not just any fitting. The final fitting.’
‘The final fitting,’ mimicked Alexei, rolling his eyes. ‘I had to wait for you for an hour! An hour in the dark corridor.’
Lisa pulled away from him. ‘You know you can’t see me in my wedding dress before the wedding. It’s bad luck.’ She whispered the last two words as if the mere mention of bad luck was enough somehow to summon it.
‘It’s bad luck to be outside at a time like this,’ murmured Natasha.
Lisa said, ‘Don’t worry. The streets are perfectly safe. And Papa will understand.’
‘I doubt it. Just yesterday he said you were too young to marry.’
Lisa laughed as if it was the most preposterous thing she had ever heard. ‘And I reminded him that Mama was younger than me when they got married. And Grandma was only sixteen when she married Grandpa. When Mama was pregnant with Stanislav, she was the same age as you.’
Exasperated, Natasha shook her head.
Lisa continued, ‘Did you hear the dressmaker? Apparently, I have the perfect figure. Mind you, I still have time to lose a few pounds before the big day.’
Alexei ran his hands over her tiny frame. ‘Don’t lose a few pounds, Lisa. There won’t be any of you left to marry.’
His words were interrupted by a distant rumble. Half a city away, the horizon lit up in red and yellow.
An explosion followed.
And another.
And another.
For a few breathtaking seconds, the ground vibrated. Somewhere in the distance, machine guns barked and people shouted. And then, as if nothing had happened, all was quiet again. On the outskirts of town, fires smouldered and smoke rose in a gloomy mist.
‘Don’t be scared,’ said Alexei, pulling Lisa tightly to his side. ‘There won’t be much bombing today.’
‘How do you know?’ demanded Natasha.
‘Just something I’ve heard. The Nazis don’t want to destroy our city. They’re saving it.’
‘Saving it for what?’ Lisa wanted to know.
‘For themselves, silly,’ said Natasha.
Lisa gasped and didn’t reply. Natasha could tell her sister was scared because she no longer dawdled. Racing one another, they turned onto Taras Shevchenko Boulevard. It was sunny and warm, as if summer had decided to stay a little bit longer and wait – for what? The Nazis in the Soviet Union? The daily bombing? The sheer joy of nature in late bloom and its unrestrained abundance seemed out of place in the face of the German invasion. The blue skies, the whites and reds of the flowers, contrasted sharply with distant gunfire and burning buildings.
Posters adorned every wall, most of them depicting a comical figure of Hitler, his body twisted into a shape of a swastika. We will kick Hitler back all the way to Germany, the posters declared. On every corner, loudspeakers yelled out Soviet propaganda and occasional news from the front. Natasha wished the news were as optimistic as the posters, but it was rarely the case.
As she tried to keep up with her sister and Alexei, Natasha thought of the first time the bombs had fallen on Kiev, on Sunday 22nd June. She thought of the shock and the fear and the disbelief. Nearly three months on, they had become accustomed to the shelling, to the regular din of machine-gun fire, like a soundtrack to their daily lives. With dismay, she realised it had almost become normal. The realisation scared her more than the Nazi planes drifting overhead. She didn’t want to accept the unacceptable, to get used to the unthinkable. But she knew she wasn’t the only one feeling this way because there were more and more people on the streets during the bombings. Yes, they made an effort to walk closer to the buildings to avoid being hit, but they no longer slowed down, or sought shelter, or interrupted their quest for food. Even now, as explosions sounded, the queue outside the shop didn’t disperse. As if nothing was happening, people continued to wait for their bread and their sausages and their flour, for all the things they needed to survive and stave off the war. What was happening to their city now, what had happened three months ago when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, seemed like a nightmare that would never end. Natasha felt as if at any moment she would wake up only to find the streets of Kiev peaceful and quiet.
Since the day her city was first bombed in June, Natasha had waited impatiently to wake up.
In Taras Shevchenko Park, the ground was littered with shells that had once carried death but now lay peacefully at their feet. Natasha could feel their sharp edges through the soles of her boots. One of her favourite places in Kiev, the park was unrecognisable. Anywhere not covered by pavement was excavated. In the last three months, it had transformed into what seemed like the habitat of a giant mole, full of holes and burrows. All the trenches that the Kievans had dug, all the barricades they had built, enthusiastically at the end of June, habitually in July and sporadically in August, now stood empty and abandoned. How meaningless it all seemed, how futile.
Uncertainly Lisa muttered, ‘The Germans aren’t coming here. Haven’t you heard the radio?’ Like clockwork every few hours, the radio and the loudspeakers outside screeched, ‘Kiev was, is and will be Soviet.’
How ironic, thought Natasha. As if anyone believed it now.
‘The Red Army will soon push Hitler back,’ added Lisa.
‘What Red Army?’ muttered Natasha.
Suddenly, on the corner of Lva Tolstogo and Vladimirovskaya, Lisa came to an abrupt halt. Natasha, who was only a couple of steps behind, bumped straight into her sister. ‘What—’ she started saying and then stopped. Her mouth assumed the shape of an astonished ‘O’ but no sound escaped. All she could do was stare. From the direction of the river, hundreds of