“And what then?” Natasha eased into a smile while fingering a loose tendril of hair on her cheek.
Taking no notice at her attempt to flirt, he grounded the words out between his teeth. “Then you’ll get your new Ausweis—Passport and an assignment for work.”
“What about some ration cards?” her aunt interjected.
He looked at her as though she was a moron and proclaimed the well-known Soviet catchphrase: “You don’t work, you don’t eat.”
27
Ulya
End of July-August 1941
Days came and went. An unsettling feeling gnawed at Ulya’s gut. To wait? To take initiative into her hands? As a military person, she could not act without an order though. What about special circumstances? No, that would mean disobeying the Charter. Besides, Rita had told her she would be contacted.
The first Germans in flesh and blood appeared on Nikolskaya Street riding two black motorcycles with a mounted gun in the sidecar. From her observation post, she watched them move along the street on both sides, stopping at every house to paste what looked like a flyer to a door or a fence. At the end of the street, they turned around and after looking toward Ulya’s house, sent one of theirs to it on foot.
Ulya climbed down from the attic and waited for the courier on the porch. He approached with obvious caution, one hand on a submachine gun, the other he stretched to her with a sheet of paper. “Commissars? Communists? Jews?” He pointed at the house with his head.
“Keine Kommissaren. Keine Kommunisten. Keine Juden,” she responded.
A broad smile appeared on his young, rosy-cheeked face. “Bist Du Deutsch?—Are you German?”
“Wolgadeutsche—Volga German.”
“Ich bin aus Österreich—I am from Austria.” He shifted from foot to foot. “In case you know where they hole up or if somebody hides them, report to the Commandantur.” A motorcycle horn made him turn his head to his comrades then back to her. “This is for Russian soldiers if you happen to meet them.” He glanced at the flyer in her hand. “Goodbye.” And off he went.
The double-sided piece of paper with the text in Russian and in German read,
This permit is valid for an unlimited number of
commanding officers and soldiers of the Red
Army who are joining the German troops.
The bearer does not want the senseless bloodshed on behalf of Yids and commissars and leaves the defeated Red Army to join the German Armed Forces. German officers and soldiers will welcome this person, feed him and provide work.
She returned to the attic and watched the motorcycles stop at the first house on Nikolskaya Street. Indeed, they stopped to take—flowers? from Oksana’s hands while her parents bowed in a servile fashion to the gray-green clad soldiers.
A soft moon light flooded the room.
Ulya crossed the borderlines from sleep to vague wakefulness and back again when she thought she detected a slight noise from outside and then her eye caught a fleeting shadow behind the lacy curtains. Jumping from the bench and inching along the wall, she hid behind the oven with a good view of the entrance door.
A light creak and the next instant, a man halted in the doorway. Young. Of her height. Slightly built.
She threw herself on him and, putting an armlock on his throat, pushed him down.
“Too many wolves in the local woods,” he wheezed out.
“We can get them all quickly eliminated,” she said then released him.
“What a greeting. I wouldn’t want to come across you in a dark alley,” he breathed out and smartened his shirt while getting to his feet.
In the light from the moon, she noticed he wore belted light-colored cotton pants and a typical Byelorussian shirt with some embroidery at the collar.
He rubbed his face and stretched his hand for a shake. “Nathan.” A smile found its way through the grimace of pain she knew she’d inflicted on him. Two little dimples on his cheeks appeared, making him seriously handsome. He was soft faced, however, close up she detected a few hard lines in his countenance. His eyes seemed dark in the dimness of the room.
From inside his boot top, he plucked a slip of paper. “For you.”
In tiny handwriting, Your assignment is to infiltrate one of the offices (SS, SD, Gestapo, Police, or the civil administration subordinated to the occupying authorities) with the goal of obtaining information about the opponents. You are forbidden to carry out any killing operations or be involved in any other activity that could jeopardize your mission. The person who hands you this message is your liaison.
He took the paper back from her. “First, you need to register in the city council and apply for work. They need translators, so most likely they’ll place you in one of the German institutions. Don’t conceal the fact you are the daughter of an anti-Soviet activist.”
Ulya cringed at the remark.
“No one here except for me knows of your mission. Well, some people over there.” He made an indefinite gesture with his hand. “In case I can’t contact you, another comrade will. The safe word remains the same.”
She nodded, studying his well-defined, generous mouth. His voice was cultured and, again, she caught herself on the sensation it was pleasing to her ears.
“Exercise extreme caution. Avoid any confrontation with the locals. All the communication goes through a hiding place. Let’s step out, I’ll show it to you.” He limped, slightly favoring his left leg.
“Is it I who—?”
He followed her gaze. “No, not at all. As a teenager, I broke my knee.”
She exited with him into a cool night. A rainy wind blew fat white clouds rapidly across the sky, now and then revealing a large white moon.
He headed to the outhouse. “Luckily, this part is screened from all sides.”
She couldn’t agree more. However tiny, the shabby construction at which Nathan stopped protected a view of a fence section from the grove. He pulled a plank,
