The Last Secret, page 4
Unfortunately, I fully grasp her meaning. I’m ensnared like a fly in the web of a spider on our little island in the Pacific.
I cannot unhear Michael’s cold words, and I feel the hard kernel of rage—the anger that once kept me going, the rage at him for abandoning me to this life—turning inward on myself. Unmoored, I wonder if Pat has been right all along.
I am a monster.
3
SAVKA
Deremnytsia, Reichskommissariat Ukraine
february 25, 1944
stumbling up the riverbank, Savka glanced back at Lilia and Mama who clutched at each other as they watched her reluctantly follow Natalka. The banderivka struck off across the farmer’s field, her long dark hair unbound and streaming from beneath a leather aviator’s cap she’d most likely picked up from a downed Soviet aircraft. Puddles that had just refrozen shattered under their weight and echoed like gunshots in the air; ice water soaked Savka’s boots and her flannel-wrapped feet, already numb with cold.
Snow fell from the leaden sky, almost obliterating the thickly treed slopes of the mountain, its peak blanketed in clouds. Savka kept her head down, focusing on Natalka’s battered leather boots. Surely, the banderivka wouldn’t force her into that forest.
Natalka stopped to light a cigarette and snuffed out the burning match with her fingers. Savka caught up with her. “What happened?” she asked, out of breath.
“Two days ago, I was out tending my trapline when I ran across a band of Soviet partisans in the forest,” Natalka said, stashing the spent match in her pocket. “Kuzak turned out our entire bunker of seven to hunt them down. Hand-to-hand combat—and Bohdan got the worst of it when a partisan lunged at him with a knife. Kuzak called a retreat. Bohdan couldn’t walk, so I stayed behind. The bloody partisans surrounded us. But they left this morning in a hurry.” She laughed bitterly. “Probably new orders from Moscow.”
Savka stepped closer, eyeing Natalka’s holstered Korovin pistol, which had obviously been stolen from partisans. She knew it was prized, but for two entirely different reasons: use the gun to kill the bastards, but if they corner you—kill yourself to avoid capture. When Natalka let out an involuntary groan and clutched at her side, Savka reached for her medic bag. “Let me look at your wound first.”
Natalka motioned her away. “It’s nothing—just a scratch.” The banderivka’s hand drifted over the grip of her pistol, a vain attempt at resistance. It was hopeless, of course—as Hitler had come to learn after Stalin defeated him again and again on the front—the Soviet hammer and sickle threw long shadows.
“How badly is Bohdan wounded?” Savka asked.
“Bad enough.” Natalka straightened, pulled her cap lower over her forehead and struck out again, cigarette smoke trailing after her. They were heading for the forest and the thickly treed slopes of the mountain looming high above.
Duty drove Savka forward. Her breath came in shallow exhalations as she muttered a prayer to somehow become the brave medic Natalka believed her to be. Banderivtsi stayed in their bunkers in winter, but fought partisans in the summer, often bringing wounded insurgents for treatment at her kitchen table in the village. Savka had never been asked to go into the forest. Yet she’d heard that women who’d previously served the Ukrainian Nationalists in the villages by supplying food and clothing, or medical aid, were being asked to take on more dangerous roles as the front drew nearer and subsumed villages on its way. They were leaving the safety of their homes and families to courier battle plans between bunkers or to serve as medics in the mountains.
With Natalka’s arrival, Savka realized that women were also joining bunkers—once the domain of men—and learning to use guns stolen from the Soviets. Though the thought terrified her, she understood why females were being chosen for these treacherous jobs: What partisan would see a woman out for a forest walk and suspect that a coded missive of underground battle plans was stitched into the hem of her skirt? But Savka also knew these women were being captured by the NKVD, who then tortured and mutilated them. Some had even been burned alive—anything to break them and force them to give up enemy information or reveal bunker locations.
The ninth commandment in the OUN handbook had been drilled into her head: Neither pleading nor threats, torture or death will force you to reveal secrets… She was sure Natalka would stoically endure having her fingernails pulled out, and not scream when sprinkled with gasoline and set on fire. But me? Savka thought. I might manufacture a bunker location, just to avoid torture.
There was no way to tell how late it was in the afternoon—perhaps two or three o’clock. Dusk would come soon. And curfew. Natalka stopped at the edge of the forest. A cold fog had descended, blurring the smooth gray trunks, as though some dark thing had awoken and hung still and silent in the air around them. Savka looked to the east and thought of her husband trapped by partisans, fighting them elbow-to-elbow with the Germans.
Write to your wife, Marko, she prayed. Tell me you’ve not been killed or captured. She ventured a glance into the dark trees. Captured. A very real possibility if they entered this guerrilla war zone.
Natalka rampaged through a creeping row of Cossack junipers just inside the tree line. She thrashed through bush after bush like a mad witch, unleashing a string of bawdy Russian curses.
“What are you looking for?” Savka ventured, her voice small. Did she really want to know?
“We might run into Medvedev himself,” Natalka replied. “Stalin’s favorite partisan. They say Moscow air dropped a Hero of the Soviet Union medal into that bastard’s little stronghold. Along with more Tokarev TT-33’s…and good vodka.”
Savka clutched her medic satchel, fighting to get her panic under control. The sky seemed oppressively low, the air raw with the smell of pine sap and snow. Her eyes crept to the beech trees lined up like soldiers, expecting to see a flicker of brown or black at any moment, partisans dressed as Ukrainian farmers, skulking through the woods, eager to shoot underground insurgents and bothering any Wehrmacht unit that might be passing through on its way to the front.
“I can’t go in there,” she reluctantly admitted to Natalka. “It’s a war zone.” She felt her face turn red with shame.
Natalka straightened, frowning. “I’ve just come from that war zone. Risking my life in the struggle for an independent Ukraine.”
“I have a husband and son,” Savka stuttered, hoping to avoid another confrontation. “There’s more to lose.”
Natalka pointed at her medic bag. “Where did you get the kit?”
“A Nazi ambulance…but now they’re too well guarded to steal more.” Savka prayed that Bohdan’s wound wouldn’t exhaust her dwindling supplies.
“I thought you’d be brave,” the banderivka muttered, almost ripping another juniper from its roots. “Wife of the great Marko Ivanets, codename Roman,” she mocked. “Too important now to remember he was once Commander Major of the Military District of Lysonja.”
Savka looked away, embarrassed to be spoken to like a child afraid of her own shadow. “If you had a husband, a son, you would not be so eager to risk your life.”
“I would have had Roman, if you hadn’t taken him first.” Natalka beat at a bush. “Where is it?”
Savka bristled. “How dare you.” Perhaps this was a rough sort of humor, the manner in which men in the bunker might rib each other about women, but Natalka had nerve, thinking she could have a chance with Marko!
“Simmer down,” Natalka said with a laugh.
Savka made a concerted effort to calm her breathing. She wasn’t made for the insurgent’s life—the cruel jokes and struggle, the hardship, and the cold. “If partisans catch us, they’ll shoot us on the spot.”
“They won’t have a chance when I’m firing back with a PPSh-41.” Natalka pulled out a submachine gun she’d hidden in a bush, cupping the round drum magazine with affection. “Twelve hundred rounds per minute. Know what the Soviets call it?” She laughed. “Papasha.”
Savka’s stomach flipped to see the same kind of long-barreled weapon that Gerhard had taken off a dead Red Army soldier at the front. Laughing, he’d patiently explained to Taras in their kitchen, “The name of this gun in Russian translates to Daddy,” before showing her fascinated son how he meant to convert the weapon to use German ammunition. The irony was not lost on Savka. If the two women were overwhelmed by a platoon of Soviet partisans, Natalka wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Savka with a Russian gun before killing herself.
The banderivka took Savka by the arm, dragging her toward the trees. The forest cloaked them in twilight darkness, and they climbed in the silence of the woods, Natalka wildly aiming her Papasha into the shadows while the hair stood up on Savka’s head. The beech branches were frosted with ice, some of last autumn’s red leaves still visible among the sparse covering of snow on the ground. The trail the women were following was well-trodden. By whose feet? Savka wondered, imagining large groups of partisans moving in stealth through the woods. A flash of something in the corner of her eye, figures flitting from tree to tree. No, just the fog, breeding phantoms. Something touched her, like the tip of a claw, rousing the frightened bird inside her, its wings beating against the bones of her chest.
4
JEANIE
Salt Spring Island
december 4, 1972
i smell smoke.
Swimming out of a dead sleep, I lie petrified beneath the weight of blankets, a curious, charred smell assaulting my senses. Wayward thoughts leap out of me like sparks.
Is there a fire?
I need to get out.
Where am I?
I sit upright in bed and stare into the dark room. The familiar sound of rain on the roof convinces me that I’m safe in my house on Salt Spring. But it’s been years since I’ve awoken in the middle of the night, thanks to the drug cocktail Pat administers before bed. I’m normally comatose until she wakes me in the morning.
I rub my eyes and blink to clear my head. The phone is ringing downstairs. Suddenly, I hear Pat in the hallway, roused from her bear-like slumber, hand creeping along the wall and her careful tread on the stairs. She either trips or stubs her toe and swears under her breath, and I throw back the covers and limp to the door, chronic pain fizzing and igniting the network of scars across my body. Blinking to clear my head, I reach for the handle, but it fails to turn. I jiggle the knob, sure I’m hallucinating. She’s locked me in.
I stand motionless, pure, hot adrenaline coursing through my blood, but I force myself to take one long breath, trying to slow my heart rate so I don’t spiral into a meltdown. A candle. It must be a candle I smell. I forbid candle burning and Pat positively hates that “hippy dippy shit,” but she must’ve lit one tonight. Maybe to torture me, to punish me for the mysterious crime I’ve dared commit. She knows it’s the smell of death to me.
My first impulse is to pound on the door and scream at her to let me out. On the verge of tears, I clutch at my flannel nightgown, the perfect kindling for a flame that would surely race up my body, searing my flesh, setting alight the bedclothes, the macramé plant hangers, my frilled Priscilla curtains at the window.
I close my eyes against the image of my body transformed into a burning pyre and whisper reassurances to myself, “There is no fire…there is no fire.”
The phone is still ringing, but Pat finally snatches it up in the downstairs hall. “Whatthehell, it’s two in the morning.”
Slowing my frantic breath, I press my ear to the door and listen. Pat pauses, then annoyingly lowers her voice. “Who is this?” She’s no longer angry Pat or surprised Pat, jarred out of sleep by a telephone call in the middle of the night. Here is the Pat I know too well—eerily calculating and as shrewd as a used car salesman.
Her voice drifts up the stairs, louder again. “Is that right?” she taunts the caller. “What makes you think you can call this late?” She listens for a moment. “It’s not my job to wait by the phone all day for some stranger to call!”
I transfer my weight from one bare foot to the other, wishing I could project myself into the downstairs hall to hear every word. Who’s she talking to?
“Why?” Now Pat’s voice is suddenly sharp with disbelief, maybe even shock. “Never heard of him.” A familiar thumping noise tells me she’s struggling with the hall table drawer, possibly looking for paper and a pen. “Like I said, I’ve never heard of him,” she repeats, frustration lacing her voice. “What’s your name?” I can picture the look of outrage on Pat’s face as she wedges the receiver between her ear and shoulder. “Out of the question,” she blurts. “Jeanie suffers from debilitating pain. She’s fragile and can’t be bothered.” The sound of my name brings bile to my throat, and a blooming panic. What does this late-night call have to do with me?
She listens again. “I will not give you our address,” she says firmly. I dare to take a breath. Years ago, international newspaper men and curiosity seekers sometimes called at night, naively impervious to Pacific Standard time, but Pat put an end to that with an unlisted number, even though she felt it was “a rip off.” My mind races. Could it be someone related to Michael? If so, how did he find us and what does he want?
I’m so caught up in my thoughts that I don’t hear Pat climb the stairs. But suddenly a floorboard creaks in the hallway.
She’s breathing against the door. “Jeanie,” she says in a slow whisper. “Jeanie.”
A pulse throbs at my temples and I freeze in place. She must have heard me rattle my cage door.
Her voice vibrates low and threatening. “I don’t think you’d want anyone poking around, would you? Not after what you did.”
I hover for a bone-chilling moment, waiting until Pat finally moves away from the door and returns to her room. What did I do that was so terrible that even she finds it abhorrent? Tiptoeing silently toward the bed, my feet cold on the wood floor, I ease myself under the covers.
I’ve not had another memory of my wedding since my art show when I heard Michael’s words in my ear. If only you hadn’t been so fucking careless, Jeanie. Despite the time that’s passed since that night, despite the fact that I haven’t recalled another thing, I’m steeped in guilt. What if I was responsible for my accident and for what happened to my marriage?
My mind wanders back to the phone call. The person on the other end wanted to speak to me, wanted to come out here. What did this mystery caller want, exactly? I shake my head. It doesn’t matter, because Pat wouldn’t give him, or her, our address. I’ve buried the feeling until now, but is it possible that I’ve done something terribly wrong?
I fear that somehow, I have. Pat isn’t just my caregiver. I stare into the darkness, and a feeling of profound loneliness floods my heart. She’s my jailer.
Pat is here to protect me from myself.
5
SAVKA
Deremnytsia, Reichskommissariat Ukraine
february 25, 1944
“the wound has gone septic,” Savka said the moment she saw Bohdan. Natalka had left him hidden on the hillside, behind a group of ancient boulders that had been deposited when a glacier scoured the mountainside in the last ice age. There was more snow at this elevation, and when she knelt beside the patient, her bare legs felt numb with cold beneath her frozen flannel wrappings.
Bohdan turned his head in voiceless agony, gripping a hunting knife as Savka continued to monitor his pulse, his white knuckles betraying just how badly he was injured.
The sounds from the front were muted here, but suddenly a percussive boom of a big shell hitting its target floated over the trees and Natalka spun to face an invisible enemy, her breathing ragged, spooked. “Soon, the Red Army will be crawling like rats through these woods,” she muttered, brandishing her Papasha and glancing at Savka. “When will the great Roman desert the SS and bring us weapons and men to kill them—” Her last words were drowned out by a thunderclap of mortar fire from the front that shook the ground beneath their feet.
“I haven’t heard from him in months,” Savka admitted. Her hands trembled as she unbuckled Bohdan’s crude leather holster that held yet another Soviet-made pistol. It still made her flinch, hearing the words Marko and SS in the same sentence. Her husband had left the underground last year and joined the Fourteenth Division on orders of Mykola Lebed, de facto leader of the Ukrainian underground. After the German army was defeated in Stalingrad, Hitler, fearing the loss of more shining Aryan sons to Soviet tanks, had put aside his hatred of the Slavs and reluctantly formed a Waffen-SS division in Ukraine. Marko had entered officers’ training and was assigned a battalion, and his men were issued German submachine guns and Lugers. For the underground, it was a strategic choice: infiltrate the SS and, at the right time, take over the division with military training and weapons that would form the basis of a Ukrainian liberation army strong enough to prevent both Germans and Soviets from invading their beloved Ukraine ever again.
Savka cut into Bohdan’s rough woolen trousers at the thigh to expose his wound. As she sterilized a pair of tweezers with iodine, he barked a low, worrisome cough. Carefully, she picked dirt from the deep gash in his leg, and a freshet of blood oozed from his injury. Bohdan stifled a cry, his head flung back, as Savka sprinkled yellow sulfa powder over his wound. He was hot to the touch and delirious, wincing and tightening his hold on the knife. It was like treating a wild animal caught in a snare.
Natalka took out a pair of binoculars to scan the forest. As she lowered them, she sent Savka a dark look. “Do you have food?” Savka obediently turned out her pockets, and the water chestnut roots tumbled across the snow. Natalka looked down at them with an expression of disgust. “You billet a German officer and bring us these?” Glaring at Savka as if she were hoarding rock candy and chocolate, Natalka began gathering the roots, stashing them in her own coat pocket.
