She leaned even closer to him and whispered, “I will keep my eyes and ears open. May I go now?”
“Wait, Ivanova.” He fished a chocolate bar from his battered briefcase and after she took it, his eyes lit up. “You live on Kommunisticheskaya Street, right?”
“Right.”
“May I visit you with some more scrumptious stuff?”
“I live with my aunt, a dragon of a woman.” Natasha turned and made toward the exit. Slug. She spat on the concrete floor when she shut the door after herself.
33
Ulya
December 1941
The day before, snow had fallen upon the city, concealing the ugly heaps of wreck with the virgin white cover and blotching the sea of German decrees on the walls.
Despite the frigid temperatures, the first thing Ulya did as she stepped into the room was open the window. Well, the “window-radio” worked uninterrupted.
“Hah! The Soviets. They were brave before the war. And now the German troops are thirty kilometers from Moscow. Did you see their communique? They can see the Kremlin through their binoculars.” Voron’ko’s snort was audible.
By now, Ulya knew all the Polizei by face, their biography, and by voice. However, their ranks constantly thinned out, and in their place, others came. It looked like there was no shortage of willing men. The clients for the partisans, Ulya called them for herself.
Due to their whispering, she couldn’t hear their conversation until Ryabkov’s voice proclaimed, “My aunt said, last night some Soviet prowlers sneaked into her barn to steal eggs and took both of her hens as well. Rats!”
Ulya winced at the dirty swearing that concluded his statement.
“Did she report the robbery?”
“Yes. She won’t let anybody take a crumb from her table,” Ryabkov guffawed. “For her tip, she received twenty-five German Marks and two hundred grams of tobacco. Germans are fair.” There was respect in his voice.
“Were the robbers apprehended?” came from outside.
“But of course. So, they will rot in the lager. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
“In the lager? Most likely in a ditch,” Snopok retorted.
The screech of the door opening made Ulya stiffen and turn from the window.
“Taking time from work?” Klimko surveyed her with open accusation.
“I just wanted to air the room.” She closed the shaft.
“Translate this at once.” He put a piece of paper on her table.
“Yes, Herr Klimko.” Without waiting for him to exit, she started reading.
Bands of scattered Russian soldiers make constant foraging raids on the villages and subject them to callous looting and plundering. They subject you and your children to hunger and fear. Immediately report to the authorities any suspicious activity and your neighbors who assist the marauders.
She wound the paper and a carbon into the Bashkiria and started typing it in Russian.
As she finished, her mind reeled back to Ryabkov’s aunt. She’d find out her address.
Ulya learned to do her work without adding feelings to what she knew would be the outcome of her messages. In the six months since the start of the mission, thirty-seven Polizei shuffled off this mortal coil and, for herself, she claimed credit for it.
34
Natasha
January 1942
Natasha kept her eyes on the ground while feeling her way through the debris and piles of snow along Frunze Street. Something prompted her to glance up at the three lonely figures trotting some paces away in front of her. One of them limped a bit. He is here. In the city! She took a quick, sharp breath and picked up her pace.
In front of a gateway, he looked about him and, paying no attention to Natasha, disappeared in a half-bombed two-story house. She followed him, jagged glass scratching below her feet. Before she could even cry out, a hand clamped her mouth, arms yanked her inside through a breach in the wall. “Are you on my steps?” a whisper came and with that, the hand released her. She threw a wary glance around. They were alone in the damaged room sheltered by the half-collapsed walls. Windows missing. The wooden floor caved in.
“Sergey . . . Vladimirovich, I’m so happy to see you. I thought you—” But she didn’t finish the sentence.
The sound of hobnailed boots interrupted her. They stopped somewhere close, and a voice came with a slight Lithuanian accent, “Let’s check this wreck.”
“Shh, Polizei.” Sergey Vladimirovich jerked Natasha to himself, pinning her to the wall, covering her mouth with his.
She choked at his unexpected move and reacted with her tongue making its way between his teeth and not quite understanding why he clamped his lips closed in response.
The gravel crunching, the steps advanced toward them, then stopped. First, the smell of cigarette smoke came then the words, “These Untermenschen are fucking everywhere—war or no war. Like cockroaches.”
“Let them. That may be their last time,” another voice came in Byelorussian.
When the sound of boots faded away, Sergey Vladimirovich pulled back from her and mumbled, “Sorry, Comrade Ivanova.”
His obvious embarrassment made her cringe, bringing her down to earth, to this destroyed room with the missing ceiling in the corner. It took some time till she could mutter, “I understand. You have no Ausweis. Do you?”
He wagged his head. “You go now.”
“You may need me. Didn’t you get it just a minute ago?”
He looked at his watch. “I’m fine. I know ways to escape.”
“Where to? To the woods?”
“Nonsense. You go. And you did not meet me,” he said angrier now as he stole another glance at his watch.
“As you insist. I’d be glad to help with . . . you know what I mean.”
“Go!” he said in a cry-whisper.
Natasha turned around and, navigating between the piles of rubble, stepped through the doorway.
Among other emotions, a deep sense of shame felt like it strangled her. Shuddering at the comprehension of being rejected again, the memory of her last meeting with Stepan ripped through her, jagged and painful. Before turning the corner, she looked back. A shadow of a slim man in a long coat and a hat pulled down low over his forehead slipped
