The Last Secret, page 13
In weaker moments, she let herself hope that the NKVD officer had handled her teenaged son with care and left him under the supervision of a kind Russian couple. Taras would surely charm whoever held him captive.
“Taras will survive somehow and come back to you,” Ewa said, although she believed he was in the Red Army, perhaps even camped with his unit across the river. “He’s a strong boy.”
“And Maja will be returned to you after the war.” Always they traded these same platitudes in a bid to keep their missing children alive, if only in memory. Dreams perhaps, but comforting nevertheless.
“Maja will be seven years old now,” Ewa said distractedly.
Savka smiled. Whenever Ewa mentioned her daughter, it was always in the past tense. “How wonderful to hear you speak of her like this.”
Ewa awkwardly fussed with a tube of lipstick and Savka allowed her a private moment of grief, this generous woman who’d taken her in and become a best friend.
“They say Hitler hates red lipstick on a woman,” Ewa said with a secretive smile as she painted her lips crimson.
“You aren’t going anywhere near Nazis,” Savka said sharply. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Safer than what you’ve been up to,” Ewa shot back.
Savka colored. Since the Germans had invaded in ’39, the majority of Kraków’s sixty thousand Jews had been deported by the Nazis for extermination, leaving only a few thousand who were held outside the city in the notorious Płaszów work camp. Savka thought of Taras when she saw the pale, gaunt Jews with their Star of David armbands, being herded through the streets to slave twelve-hour days in armament factories or stone quarries. She, along with many Poles in the city, often left them food in hidden drop spots organized by a doctor she knew from the Podgórze clinic.
“Anyone might report you—even a neighbor.” Ewa carefully extinguished her half-smoked cigarette in a glass ashtray, so that she could relight it later. “You would be executed, and I’d lose this flat.”
Savka knew the risks, but if she couldn’t save Taras or her family, she would do one small thing to ease another’s suffering. The Nazis were panicking, desperate to hold the city, as the Soviet army waited like vultures only miles away, anticipating the arrival of Allied forces battling their way north on the Western front. “The SS is forcing the Płaszów Jews to dig up mass graves of their people—those murdered earlier in the war,” she said with a violent shudder. “The Nazis are burning all proof of their unthinkable crimes.”
“Let’s talk of more pleasant things, piękna,” Ewa said, taking Savka’s chin in hand. With a conciliatory smile, she glided the silky blunt end of the lipstick across Savka’s upper lip with slow, hypnotic strokes.
“It’s too late to go out.” Savka said, glancing at the alarm clock on a table beside their small bed. “Curfew is two hours away.”
But Ewa was already packing away the cosmetics. “I’ll be back by then.”
Savka could no longer ignore the elephant in the room. “Where are you going looking like a prostitute?”
Ewa studied her own face in a small handheld mirror. The pancake makeup was too dark for her complexion, yet she looked like a beautiful doll. “A woman paints her face, and you immediately think prostitute.” Savka slipped an arm around her friend’s shoulders and Ewa sagged against her for a moment. “You are thinking of your mother and sister,” she said, breathing against her neck before pulling away, taking with her that cigarette and perfume smell, so familiar. Family.
Four months after Mama had procured a doctor to take her eldest daughter to safety in the West, Savka’s nerves still pulsed with a profound unease. Had Marko managed to get Mama, Lilia, and Sofiy exit visas before the Reds invaded? Or had they been deported by the Soviets to a labor camp in Siberia? Baba’s korali necklace could not be the only thing she had left to remember her family.
Ewa had a strange, morose expression on her face, yet when she turned for a final glimpse in front of the mirrored wardrobe, that sad look was gone.
Savka tried again. “Where are you going, really?” But Ewa kept her head down, silently searching for her small handbag and keys. “You aren’t leaving for days, are you?” Savka hated herself for pleading, but the thought of being alone in that bed—especially at night—with her own private grief, terrified her.
Ewa sighed. “I promise I’m not leaving for days, but it’s best you don’t know, Savka.” She sashayed out of the bedroom, then through the apartment door as though she were heading to a dance. When she’d gone, so had all the light in the room.
* * *
It wasn’t difficult for Savka to remain hidden from view on a shop stoop, staring across Szpitalna Street at the unlikely sight of Ewa loitering in an alleyway. A few off-duty SS officers were going in and out of restaurants and cafes, feasting on Polish delicacies while Krakówians starved on mealy rations. Unlike Warsaw, Kraków hadn’t been destroyed by Allied bombing raids. The Renaissance and Baroque style buildings and churches remained virtually untouched.
When Ewa left the apartment ten minutes ago, Savka had grabbed her keys and quietly opened the door, listening as her friend’s shoes tapped down the stairs. She’d hurried after her, ignoring the voice inside, telling her to trust her friend, to stop being so obsessed with her and whatever secret life she was living. Why did Ewa leave for days? It couldn’t be to pass forged papers to a member of the Polish resistance. Savka had to see what she was up to for herself. Only then would she trust her.
Savka watched as her friend nervously glanced up and down the street. It seemed too dangerous to hand over false identification papers in such a public place, but Savka carefully examined each person who passed Ewa, waiting for one of them to veer into the alley.
A Nazi staff car turned into the street and passersby ducked their heads and scuttled away, as if a predator had slunk onto the stage. Everyone except Ewa, who, at that moment, ventured out of the alleyway with quick glances around her. The car came to a stop and the back door opened. Savka watched in disbelief as Ewa slipped willingly into the car.
Savka shrank back and watched it pull away. Had she really seen her best friend and confidante, a forger for the Polish resistance, get into a Nazi Mercedes? She thought of Ewa getting dressed up earlier, her stubborn secrecy over where she was going. There was only one reason a woman would willingly climb into a Nazi staff car painted like a prostitute.
Ewa was a collaborator.
Stunned, Savka turned in the direction of home. By the time she reached the flat, her shock had twisted itself into raw anger. In a craze, she tore through Ewa’s wardrobe, ripping dresses from their hangers and leaving them scattered on the floor. Then she ran to the kitchen and yanked out every box and container in the cupboards, running her fingers through buckwheat groats and split peas, not sure what she was looking for exactly, but knowing that Ewa had more secrets she was hiding in that flat. Moody, Ewa would say when Savka questioned her long, brooding silences. I am moody. But now Savka knew it was something more. Something much more.
She stormed back into the bedroom and turned to the dresser she shared with Ewa, pulling out drawers, and going through their meagre clothes. Frustrated, she lifted each drawer back into place and noticed the lowest one wouldn’t slide in as easily. Getting down on her knees, she saw that a thin board had been clumsily nailed to the underside of the drawer. A false bottom. Quickly she pried it off and a small pistol clattered to the floor. She sat back on her heels and stared down at the gun Kuzak had given her in the forest months ago, right before he demanded she kill her Russian handler. When Savka had asked about it after waking in the clinic, Ewa had pretended not to know what she was talking about.
Gun? Why would you have a gun?
When she’d hidden it away. Seething, Savka tucked the pistol into her skirt pocket, threw herself on the bed that she and Ewa shared and stared at the ceiling. I’ll wait all night, she thought darkly. I’ll wait to face you with this gun.
True to her word, Ewa showed up just before the curfew horn sounded in the streets. Savka sat up on the bed and listened as her friend put on the kettle in the kitchen. When Ewa eventually came into the bedroom with the kettle, Savka, unable to keep the scorn from her voice, said, “Did you open your legs for him?”
Ewa didn’t look at her as she poured boiling water into the basin on the dresser. “Of course I did.”
Savka flew off the bed. “You have no shame!”
“You think I fucked him for silk stockings?” Ewa’s voice was deadly cold. “I was getting information.” She poured cold water from a pitcher on the dresser into the steaming basin and dipped in a finger to test the temperature.
“What do you take me for?” Savka said, her throat burning with unshed tears. “You’re a Nazi collaborator.”
Ewa looked up at her. “Trust me, I’m not.”
Savka blinked back confusion. Could she trust this woman, who’d taken her gun and hidden it in a dresser drawer? “You lied to me—”
“We need submachine guns,” Ewa said, her face closed, secretive. “And grenades for the uprising.”
Savka took her by the shoulders. “What uprising?” She felt an icy chill of fear, as if Lieutenant Belyakov was already breathing on the back of her neck.
“To attack the Germans,” Ewa said in an eerily calm voice, before shaking Savka’s hands off and turning. “Why should only the Allies and Red Army get to kill Nazis, when Poles have suffered the bastards for so long?”
Savka felt like a heel for doubting her. Ewa wasn’t a collaborator or traitor to Poland. She was a hero of the Polish Home Army, the most powerful resistance in eastern Europe. Admirable work, dangerous work. And yet…Savka drew the pistol from the pocket of her skirt and held it out. “Why not use this?”
Ewa glanced back, her eyes on the gun. She stood rigid, gripping the washcloth she’d dipped in the steaming water. “You don’t understand…” she began, her eyes filling with tears. “I took it to protect you, Savka.”
“From whom?” Savka cried, her anger mounting.
“In the hospital,” Ewa shouted. “After, you were suicidal, heartbroken over losing Taras! You don’t remember—”
The pressure in Savka’s chest was unbearable, a silent scream, waiting to snake its way out. “I’m not suicidal now,” she said, suddenly hating Ewa for daring to remind her of those dark moments of despair when she had struggled with the finality of losing her son. “Why didn’t you give it back?”
Ewa dropped the washcloth and snatched up her cherished Hummel figurine on the dresser. “Because you’re still a grieving fucking mess,” she screeched, flinging it against the wall and smashing the delicate porcelain.
Savka jumped back, terrified, then collapsed on the bed, violent sobs racking her thin body. Ewa was right—she was a shattered woman, a pregnant, stateless Ukrainian in the middle of a war. She had no home, no husband or family, and she’d lost her son.
Ewa calmly picked up the washcloth, dipped and squeezed it again. She drew it up her arms and under them, then soaped and scrubbed her hands, as if she hadn’t just destroyed one of her treasured possessions, as if she hadn’t just cut Savka with her harsh words. “You’re jealous,” Ewa remarked, taking up a small towel to dry herself.
“I’m simply concerned.” Savka got off the bed with as much dignity as she could muster, wiping tears from her face.
“Concerned.” Ewa was suddenly behind her, trailing her hand over Savka’s shoulder, across her old wound. The same hand, Savka thought, you used only an hour ago to pleasure the SS officer. She imagined them in a sumptuous apartment sequestered by the Nazis for their top men, the officer rutting on top of her dear Ewa, gasping and finishing in the messy way men did. Had she gripped him with her legs, cried out?
“You still stink of him,” Savka said.
Her hand still on Savka’s shoulder, Ewa circled to stand in front of her, smiling. “I would rather smell of you, piękna.” She leaned in and Savka closed her eyes as she felt Ewa’s tongue flick over her upper lip, leisurely, maddeningly slow. Without an agenda.
Savka gasped and held her breath as her friend lifted her skirt and snaked a hand up her thigh. She trembled at Ewa’s touch and with a soft moan, grabbed the edge of the dresser to keep herself upright. Never again will I do this sinful thing, she’d promised herself what felt like a hundred times, but she couldn’t refuse Ewa, she craved her touch.
Ewa’s fingers had worked their way into her undergarments, into the slick wetness that Ewa knew, with confidence, she would find, smiling when Savka’s own fingers turned white gripping the dresser.
They fell onto the narrow bed, clawing their clothes off, breaths ignited, almost sobbing. Ewa’s kisses were urgent. Savka’s grief and despair disappeared in an instant and she felt herself suspended higher and higher until she tilted on the very edge. A sudden, shattering orgasm ran the course of her body, and she floated in blessed relief, but Ewa would not let her rest. She slid downward, lips trailing over her breasts, her stomach, before opening her, and tasting her with that glorious tongue. Savka clutched Ewa’s head, her friend’s hand slipping between her own legs, bringing herself to quick climax in a shout that she muffled against Savka’s thigh.
Afterwards, they turned away from each other in shame and bitter longing. Outside, dusk was falling and the shadows in the room lengthened.
“This has to stop,” Savka breathed against the pillow.
Ewa remained silent, her back radiating waves of frosty remoteness. Her inherent wariness disappeared only when they fell into each other at night beneath the blankets to satisfy not a need, but an agonized want. And Savka already wanted more, yearning for Ewa’s velvet tongue, those beautiful, terrible fingers gripping her, even the red marks and bruises on her buttocks and thighs that lingered for days after.
It had begun late in the night a few months ago when Savka woke from one of her nightmares beside a sleeping Ewa and sought her own comforting form of release. But Ewa had reached for Savka, her fingers not rough and inexperienced, as a man’s would be, but soft, almost aimless, skillfully bringing Savka to a shockingly intense orgasm.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered now, a slave to Ewa’s mood, desperate to bring her out of her brittle silence. She inched closer on the bed, placing a tentative hand on her back. “I only wish I had your courage,” she whispered into her friend’s hair.
But she was met by silence. Resigned, Savka drowsily closed her eyes, and she was back on the mountain, where Kuzak and Natalka had given her the pistol. She wondered what it must look like now with all the snow gone, wildflowers in the meadows. “I can almost see Natalka,” Savka muttered, drifting into sleep, “out checking her trapline for rabbits.”
Ewa had roused herself. “Who?”
Savka’s eyes snapped open. She hadn’t meant to speak aloud. Ewa turned to face her. “Natalka,” Savka said reluctantly. “A ruthless banderivka I once knew.”
Ewa’s eyes glittered in the murky shadows of the room. “You were lovers?”
Savka snorted. “Anything but.”
“How did you meet her?”
“I was in the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists,” she said, relief flooding her heart that she’d finally told Ewa one of her secrets.
Ewa stroked her cheek. “I would never have believed you were a warrior.”
Savka’s face burned hot with confusion. Was the pressure in her chest anger or hurt? She hadn’t been much of a warrior with the underground, but Ewa made it sound like it was all but impossible. “That’s how I lost Taras, on an assignment for my husband.” She wanted to tell Ewa more, but the truth was poison on her tongue. “An NKVD patrol found us—” A sob hitched in her throat and the dam finally broke. Ewa gathered her into her arms, and it poured out of Savka, the events of that day in the Carpathians that had been burned into her heart—how she’d been shot, the promises she’d made to Belyakov and the underground. How Taras had been stolen. When she finished, she was surprised to feel her heart had lifted in relief. Losing Taras was a burden too heavy to bear alone.
Ewa tenderly wiped Savka’s tears away and studied her face. “I understand. One of those soldiers is the father of your child.”
“Never.” Savka froze in Ewa’s arms, a chill running down her spine like ice water. She cupped her small pregnant belly protectively, as if to ward off her friend’s words. “This is Marko’s child.”
Ewa inched close and whispered in her ear. “When will you learn this simple truth, Savka? That’s what men do—to claim your soul. A woman gives life. Men take it.”
Savka pushed Ewa away. “I was not violated,” she insisted.
“They turned you by using your son,” Ewa said, rolling onto her back. “Despicable.”
“The Soviet officer tried, but I escaped him. I’m free of him.”
Ewa glared up at the ceiling. “I’m desperate for a cigarette, but I’m too lazy to get up. Keep my mind occupied by telling me more of these brave insurgents living in their bunker in the mountains.”
“I say bunker,” Savka began, grateful to change the subject, “but it was more of a hole in the earth. Two small rooms. Natalka told me there are seven of them living in there. How brave they are. Now that the front has moved past them, there will be many opportunities to fight Red Army and NKVD patrols.”
