“Came to your senses?” A female voice was audible then a face came into focus. A cap of a medical sister. Dark eyes, red from lack of sleep. She touched Ulya’s forehead with light fingertips. “You suffered a mild concussion. How do you feel now?”
Ulya tried her limbs then got up and swayed. “I’m well.”
“Do you have somewhere to stay?”
“I do.”
The nurse lifted a piece of tarpaulin for Ulya to step out into the street. To her surprise, it was Zamkovaya, and soon she found her house, or what was left of it. The front facade was blown off, exposing her neighbor’s flat burnt out inside. The roof had caved burying what was her abode. Vati’s scarf! She clutched her throat with both her hands, choking back a cry about to escape her. So she stood there for who knew how long till a thought made its way through her clouded mind. She could go to Nikolskaya and hope the house survived, but first, she should report her existence to the authorities. NKVD that is.
Vitebsk was a desolate wasteland. Patches of smoldering rubble were everywhere, but the fire itself had extinguished. Streets were unrecognizable. From the houses that outlasted the bombings and destruction in 1941 broken spines of walls or shells remained. On her way, Ulya passed by a few make-shift barracks but mostly military tents.
There was not a civilian to be seen, only groups of Soviet soldiers sorting through the rubble. It looked like the population of the violated city hadn’t hurried to return after their forced expulsion in May.
Ulya stopped a soldier in an infantry uniform. “Where can I find a military intelligence office?” she asked, her voice husky from the parched sensation. He looked her up and down and motioned to a building at the end of what was once a beautiful street. “Ask for SMERSH.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll find out soon.” There was something in his expression she couldn’t read. Was it a ghost of a smile or a grimace of pain?
She thanked him and, brushing away a premonition, headed in the direction the soldier indicated.
The entrance of the partially destroyed two-story brick building was guarded by two submachine gun armed soldiers. One of them waved her in without a word. The blue-uniformed sentry inside asked to see her papers while holding his right hand ready on his holster.
“I’m an intelligence officer here to report to your superiors.”
“Your name?”
“Kriegshammer.”
“First name?” His face remained emotionless.
“Ursula.”
“Hm. Wait here.” He took a step to a wall and by telephone reported her name and her claim. She thought she recognized a smirk in his voice.
A minute passed before she distinguished heels clicking then saw the shining chrome leather high boots. An officer descended the stairs from the upper floor. Clean-shaven. Composed. Impersonal. Slim and smart in his well-tailored uniform—dark blue britches and a khaki shirt with red flashes on the collar and a red hatband around his peaked cap, The Order of the Red Star decorating his chest. He looked her over. “Come this way.”
She followed him up the staircase then along the corridor, the hardwood floors squealing under their feet. Some rustling of papers, the clicking of the typewriters, but no voices were distinguishable from behind the closed doors.
In front of one of them, her escort stopped and opened it for her, shifting out of the way to let her step in. She took the narrow-windowed room in: a middle-sized nondescript table with a small lamp and a phone, a pitcher of water, and a glass inkwell; two armchairs, one of them almost in the middle of what looked like a twelve by ten meter floor space, a metal safe pressed into the left corner, a simple dangling bulb. The portrait of the stern-faced Stalin dominated one of the otherwise bare walls.
He offered her the armchair facing his desk. “Kriegshammer, is it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Senior Lieutenant Zaitsev.” He took a bunch of papers from a drawer and, without looking up at her, started. “Name? Age? Date of birth? Parents’ names? Their occupation? Your occupation?” He asked her all the usual questions about herself and her family, studying her with detachment, motioning her to halt when he could not keep up with her answers.
Gradually, the questioning escalated to an interrogation, his voice and demeanor changing from disbelieving to aggressive. Then came other kinds of questions. “How did you get here? Why? What assignment? What were your tasks in the Civil Council? What were your responsibilities in SD?”
The interrogation lasted about two hours until Ulya couldn’t hold her urge to go to relieve herself anymore. “I need a break for—”
He nodded an ascent. His chair scraped against the wooden floor as he got up. “I’ll show you the way.”
The door didn’t bear any signs of whether it was for men or women, but the fact that a soldier just stepped out while buttoning his fly suggested it was the only one on the floor. She let herself in and locked the door. Her reflection in the mirror on the wall appalled her more than ever—a blank face, tangled, white-blonde hair covered in a chalky dust, pale skin and pale blue eyes—as though most of the color had been drained from her. Only a deep scratch on her forehead added a bit of shade to her haggard appearance.
There were no cubicles. She tugged at a dangling rope to flush the waste of the previous visitors, but there was not enough water for it. She squatted to relieve herself. The place was a windowless confinement. Her fleeting thought to escape proved ridiculous. And why? She’d risked her life to fight the Germans. She’d convince her colleagues of that. They’d check the facts and—all would
