“You see? All my shots hit the mark. What would you say? Not bad for a former grunt who did not hold a firearm in his hands for several months.” His voice brimming with triumph, Otto stroked the rifle.
“That’s not yours. It’s hers.” The instructor motioned to Ulya with his head and gave Otto the second one with the holes around nine, two of them around seven.
Otto’s face slacked a bit, and it took two deep inhales and exhales before he composed himself. “Do you think I’m surprised? Not at all. Still remember how we targeted sparrows with slingshots. How old were you then?”
“Close to six, I suppose. Gleb and you were eight years old, Wolfy was nine. Arkashka five.”
“First, you were reluctant to shoot at the birds. Remember? Only after Arkashka called you a sissy, you snatched up the slingshot from his hand and got a sparrow on your first attempt.”
“I do remember my accomplishments.” Ulya smirked. “You guys were all slack-jawed. By the way, do you know about Arkashka?”
“What about him?”
“He and his family, including his younger brother, all disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” His expression grew hard and resentful, his eyes, unmoving, staring at the rifle. “Disappeared,” he repeated.
When the silent tension reached its limits, they exchanged a look of understanding.
10
Ulya
May 1939
Engels
From afar, Ulya noticed Gleb’s mother trudging along in front of her. Something stirred in Ulya’s heart as she noted she hadn’t seen the woman for several days and that a black scarf covered her head. She quickened her pace to catch up with her neighbor. “Good evening, Polina Abramovna. May I help you?” She reached to the canvas bag in her hand.
Polina Abramovna stopped and looked at Ulya still clutching her bag. “Ah, it’s you, Ulya.” As if in doubt where she was heading, she moved her head to the right then to the left.
Seeing that her legs were about to give out, Ulya took her by the arm. “What happened?”
“Happened?” Polina Abramovna let the bag go and took unsteady steps to her small house. She wrestled with the doorknob then stared for a long moment at the lock.
“Where do you have your key?” Ulya said.
“The key? Ah, the key.” She fished it out of her light overcoat pocket and gave it to Ulya.
Through the darkness of the corridor, Ulya followed her into the room. “Where do you want me to leave your purchases?” She hardly finished the sentence when Polina Abramovna sank to the floor. Ulya pulled her light body to the sofa then hastened to the kitchen for a glass of water and, returning, sprinkled it onto Polina Abramovna’s ashen pale face. She came to her senses and stared at the ceiling. “He is . . . He is . . .”
“Who?”
“My Gleb.” Tears rolled down her drooping cheeks, accumulating in the wrinkles. “They . . . like his father.” After she was silent for a while, she stretched out her arm in slow motion toward the table on which several pictures lay in a string: a young man in Budenovka, most likely Gleb’s father; Gleb at the age of five or so; on the next, her friend as a school boy with the Young Pioneer scarf around his childishly thin neck. The other one depicted Polina Abramovna sitting on a chair with Gleb in his tankman uniform standing to the right behind her, the photograph she was sure was taken at the time of his last visit. The last one in the row, the photo paper new and glossy, showed somebody in a casket with the head bandaged so thoroughly she could not say she recognized her friend. Only the folded hands on his chest were familiar. Gleb’s.
Ulya crouched beside Polina Abramovna, took her hand in hers, and stayed with her till she stopped twitching. Trying not to disturb her, Ulya positioned a pillow under her head and, leaving her on the sofa, closed the door behind her without making a sound.
That night, her mind kept turning to the last conversation with Gleb. He knew they’d come for him. But what did he do to provoke them? Was he involved in anti-governmental activity? Through the darkness, she stared at the ceiling until sleep overtook her.
11
Natasha
June 1939
Vitebsk
Natasha felt somebody peering at her back and knew who it was. She cursed him under her breath then squinted in his direction. “What do you want, Anton?”
“I want to be around if need be.”
“And what need could it be?” she snapped and went on walking.
“Well, if someone attacks you or . . . whatever.” He flashed his smirk.
“And who could that someone be?”
“Your Komsomol secretary, Sergey Vladimirovich, for instance.”
Natasha sneered to hide how his assumption pleased her. “Why is he mine?”
“See, you are blushing. So, he courts you, does he?”
I wish, Natasha thought. “And even if he did, why should it matter to you?”
“It matters.” He shot her a twisted smile. “Don’t you understand?”
“Are you in love with me?” She watched Anton pale and hoped he’d leave her alone. She didn’t expect him to utter, “I do love you. Like nobody will love you ever. I want to marry you, Natasha.”
Speechless, she stared at him then a small laugh escaped her lips. “How old are you, Antoshechka,” she addressed him mockingly-lovingly.
“Eighteen since yesterday. I could marry you by law.”
“And how old am I, do you think?”
“Twenty-four. And what? My mother was eight years older than my father, but he died ten years earlier than she.” His face darkened.
“Your mother . . .?”
“Yes, I have nobody left.”
With sudden sympathy for this guy, still a teenager, something unfamiliar, maybe motherly, stirred in her heart, and on a whim, she hugged him, right away stepping back and breaking contact. “Anton, let’s wait a bit, and in a year or two, please propose to me again.” She pivoted and headed to her house.
Leaning
