With much care in taking it from her hand and putting into his chest pocket, he leaned closer to her ear. “Thank you, Ursula. You were the only sunny presence in my time here,” and then, “We should marry, darling.”
Quite flummoxed, she peered into his eyes, not wanting the sensation of this moment to end.
At the hiss of steam, they both startled. The first tug of the locomotive engine and, without any other warning, the train started moving.
“I love you.” And there it was. She had said it out loud. The sensation she’d kept so deeply buried within herself. “Ewald!”
His eyes laced with anguish, he dragged her to his chest.
The carriages floated by slowly with the clack-clack-clack of the wheels as the train picked up speed. He pulled away from her and ran. She saw him jump on the footstep and the smoke plume screened the back of the train from her eyes and she realized—a crazy idea that instantly shattered her—she should have gone with him.
Breaking the curtain of the thick smoke, a group of women in nurses’ uniforms appeared. All of a sudden, nauseated, unsteady, as if the ground beneath her had given way, Ulya leaned against the railing and felt she might retch. Had she eaten something rotten for her breakfast?
“Are you not well?” A female voice came from behind her and a hand touched her elbow. “Do you need help?”
Ulya turned her head to see a haggard woman in her forties whose face struck her as familiar. She cares for my girl. The thought itself that she called the girl “hers” in her mind shattered her. Despite her inclination, Ulya took the woman’s hand and squeezed it. “Thank you.”
“What for?” A glint of curiosity flashed in her amazing green-gray eyes and her soft full mouth froze in astonishment.
“For your care,” Ulya said and, after biding her time for her nausea to pass, hastened away.
Ulya was glad to see a bunch of papers on her desk the next day. For two hours, she was detached from the pain that gnawed at her like the press of an invisible presence and focused her mind on the task at hand.
Toward eleven thirty, a courier stepped in and after the “Heil Hitler!” handed Wulff a sealed thin parcel. “For Hauptsturmführer Hammerer.” Nothing unusual. But why, adding to her heartache, sudden fear twisted around her heart and lingered? She shrugged the sense of foreboding away and scanned the document she’d just finished for mistakes. It was an appeal from the President of Belarusian Central Rada Radaslav Astrovski announcing a military conscription into Belarusian Home Defense Force.
For the final eradication of the Bolshevik banditry which murders innocent people and robs their property under article II . . . I order . . . the draft of all men born in 1908—1924 . . . Anyone who does not report is considered a traitor and will be punished by a tribunal court . . . I am sure every Belarusian will fulfill his duty . . .
“Kriegshammer!” Hammerer’s voice.
She made her way to his door. As she stepped over the threshold, he was standing, an official-looking paper in his hand. “Read it!” She had never seen him avoiding eye contact.
Operative Report. Train Number S-123 was blown up by partisans. And something else, which tears obscured from her. A bitter wave rose, tightening her throat, making it impossible to speak.
He motioned her to leave the room and followed her to her desk. “For a public poster. Translate into Russian and type. One hundred persons are subject to execution in retaliation for the blowing up of the train with wounded Wehrmacht soldiers.”
And for an instant, it all—Ewald, their love for each other, their plans—seemed like an illusion, like a dream that had happened to someone else.
56
March-June 1944
She was with child.
Alone, in the darkness of the night, she would reopen the recent past and, returning to their first meeting and their rare comings together, thought she heard him calling her Schätzchen. Liebchen. My Herzchen. At any time of the day or night, all she needed to do to see his face, to hear his voice was to close her eyes. Ewald.
By March, owing to the presence of additional forces, it became obvious the German Command expected the Soviets to launch a major offensive. Hitler’s order to turn Vitebsk and the surrounding villages into strongholds was a clear sign of it.
The population—mostly old women and teenagers—were forced to dig ditches and sinkholes, preparing for the German soldiers and auxiliary forces to erect anti-tank barriers, reinforce firing positions for artillery and mortars on the approaches to the city. Five frontiers were erected; minefields laid. After the preparations were complete, the civilian population was forced from the city.
On June 26, smoke from the bombs, artillery fire, and unrelenting explosions were undeniable proof that the fighting had reached the city.
“Fräulein Kriegshammer, step in.” Hammerer offered her a chair, himself settling on the corner of his table, which was filled with boxes of documents. The metal safe now open gaped with its emptiness. Without any preliminaries, he stated, “You go with us. I promise you a brilliant future.” Perhaps seeing something in her face, he added, “And I even spare you contemplating your decision.” A lopsided smile appeared on Hammerer’s usually composed face then waned. “In any case, you have only one.”
“Which is?”
“You do go with us.”
“So, I don’t have any choice?
“Not really . . . To save your own skin there is no other way.”
“May I ask why?”
His eyebrow flickered a little. “It’s
