The Last Secret, page 9
Guttural shouts in Russian floated behind them, demanding they stop. Savka hazarded a glance over her shoulder. The two soldiers were giving chase. Their officer, a small man wearing a long black leather coat, had paused to train a pair of binoculars on her and Taras. Her son stumbled and she grabbed his arm. “Stop.”
Taras went to his knees. “Hide. They might pass us by.”
“They’ve seen us,” she said, fear thundering through her.
They crouched awkwardly behind a juniper thicket, holding their breaths. One of the soldiers passed only meters away on the trail, his boots crunching on the snow as he moved away from their hiding place. Savka prayed the other would follow him. Natalka’s warning rose from her memory like a specter. Coward! Destroy the shtafeta! The end of Savka’s long braid lashed her face as she ripped at the hem of her coat and fumbled out the rolled paper with trembling fingers. Tearing it down the middle, she handed half to her son. As they began to stuff the message into their mouths, Natalka again whispered in her ear: A real insurgent would kill herself.
When the shtafeta had dissolved to a pulpy mess she swallowed it down. Taras scrambled up a knoll before she could stop him, and Savka ran again to catch up with him. As she climbed close behind her son, shots rang out and with a scream she fell forward, her face in the snow, winded and confused. What had happened? As if from very far away, she heard someone approach.
“Mama…”
Savka wanted to tell Taras to keep running, but she couldn’t get air. It felt as if someone had pulled a poker from a fire and stabbed her in the right side of her chest, and she couldn’t move. The snow felt so cold against her cheek. Her entire body was tingling, and yet numb, as though the muscles were going to sleep. She lifted her head a fraction to see Taras standing a few feet away, his face ashen with stunned bewilderment. She stared desperately into his eyes, as if they were a life raft that would float her back to the world.
The grind of boots on snow drifted down to her as the NKVD officer and his two soldiers appeared in her outer vision. One of the soldiers prodded her with his foot, turning her over onto her back, and a sudden throbbing heat blazed down the length of her arm. She could not feel her right hand and tried to lift it, crying out at the agonizing pain in her chest and shoulder.
The officer in the black leather coat regarded her with cold, dead eyes set too close together. He was unnaturally short for a man, and his pock-marked face was flushed with exertion. Snow had fallen on his cap, dusting his cheeks and nose. He brushed at his face with a few irritated swipes of his gloved hand. Savka’s vision swam, but she glimpsed two gold stars on his shoulder straps. Her eyes drifted to the treetops far above in stark relief against the chalk gray sky. They seemed to lean toward her, the way a mother would to an ill child.
“How clumsy of you, Comrade Ilyin,” the officer said in accented Russian. He collapsed into a coughing fit and straightened, wiping his mouth. “You have broken the wing of this pretty bird.”
Ilyin smirked. “Apologies, Comrade Lieutenant Belyakov.”
The force of the shot had pushed some flecks of the shtafeta up into her mouth, and she could feel them on her lip. Lieutenant Belyakov seized her coat collar and wrenched her to sitting, his fingers pushed back into her throat, trying to snag the chewed remnants of the message. Instinctively, she bit down hard, and he shouted, raising his booted foot to kick her backward.
Taras launched himself at the officer, the pocketknife in his hand. She tried to speak, to call to him, and she braced herself, waiting to hear another shot, but none came. Instead, one of the soldiers easily disarmed her son and sent him sprawling in the snow.
The initial shock of her injury was wearing off but now the pain was unbearable. If the bullet had caught her in the left chest instead of the right, she would be dead now. She began to shiver uncontrollably, and she thought of her Red Cross training: treat the shock, keep the patient warm, anesthetize the entry point, remove the bullet, stitch and prevent infection…
“Too many bandits crawling out of their holes,” one of the soldiers said.
“We are not with the bandits,” Taras insisted, speaking Russian.
There was a brief silence, marked by the rising fragrance of spruce and a high sound of wind in the trees. One of the soldiers had lighted a cigarette and the smell made Savka gag. She could not stop staring at Lieutenant Belyakov’s nose, the bridge crooked, as if it had been broken at some point in the past. Her eyes reluctantly traveled over the rest of his face. His mouth was small—to match his compact, almost elfin body—the lower lip oddly full and sensual but set now in a determined manner that made her think of interrogation rooms and torture. He’d wrapped his injured fingers in a handkerchief; she noticed blood seeping through—a small victory. The Lieutenant removed his cap and ran his other hand repeatedly over his dark hair. Savka fixated on a thick strand that had escaped from the carefully combed pompadour, slicked into Stalin’s own style—a ridiculous bouffant that had suffered under the weight of the lieutenant’s field cap. One of his men roughly searched her rucksack and coat pockets. He took their forged papers to his commander, who studied them for a moment, then looked from her to Taras.
“Who do we have here? Ah, Irina Bzovsky and her dear son Oleh out for an afternoon stroll in the forest.” Belyakov lowered his eyes again to the document. “This is an inspiring piece of subterfuge, my dear Savka.” At the sound of her name, her pulse spiked, but she fought to keep her expression impassive. When the officer opened his mouth to speak again, she caught the burnished gleam of a single gold tooth. “Did you think your husband’s visit to you a few days ago went unnoticed?”
Her neighbor had informed on them. Savka told herself to listen closely to what Belyakov was saying—her and Taras’s lives depended on it—but his voice seemed to come from all directions, the sky and trees, the very earth.
A nudge from his booted foot roused her. “What is the lovely wife of a rebel commander and SS officer doing out here with her son?” he asked with a scornful look on his face. “Does Marko Ivanets think we do not have agents in your village?” He cocked his head, waiting for her to speak, but when she said nothing, he continued in a loud, officious voice, as if he were on the stage addressing an audience. “How pleased we were to hear that Ivanets had come to see his wife and son. Marko Ivanets, the fabled underground leader, always slipping through our fingers. An SS officer now! Much more valuable to us than a lowly bandit.”
Belyakov glanced around at his men, one of whom restrained a now-subdued Taras, then looked back at Savka. “What high regard your husband has for you, sending his wife and son with a coded message to his bandit friends.” He stared down at her. “There is a bunker in the area. You will tell us where.”
Taras struggled against his captor’s grip. “The banderivtsi will murder you,” he shouted, “just as they did Vatutin.”
The officer smiled ruefully. “Why do you think we are here?” He squatted beside her. “To shoot and interrogate bandits who dared kill our esteemed comrade general.” She tried to tell him that she and Taras had nothing to do with Vatutin’s assassination, but was overcome with nausea. He placed the toe of his boot over the open wound in her chest, and she screamed. “Admit you’re Savka Ivanets. A nod will do.”
She squeezed her eyes shut to keep herself from hyperventilating or passing out. For Taras’s sake, she would remain conscious; for Taras she would sacrifice anything.
“What must we do to encourage you?” the lieutenant mused. “Bring him here,” he ordered. Savka’s eyes snapped open, and she watched the two men drag Taras forward. One of the soldiers was brutally handsome: Ilyin she thought his name was, his jet-black hair curled beneath the NKVD cap, dark eyes regarding her with scorn. Would they torture an innocent child? She was in no condition to resist them if they did.
“Yeleshev?” Lieutenant Belyakov nodded to the other soldier—taller, plain faced—who lunged at her across the snow, holding a pair of pliers he’d taken from his coat pocket. He grasped Savka’s right hand and held it still as she struggled weakly, struck by raw terror. When Yeleshev angled the pliers over her fingernails, she fixed her eyes on the sky, refusing to scream or cry in front of Taras. She choked as fear bristled and tightened like rope across her throat. They were going to torture her to get Taras to talk.
“Don’t touch her,” Taras sobbed. “It’s true—we’re Savka and Taras Ivanets.”
“No,” Savka cried. Yeleshev released her and stepped back, but not before closing one nostril with his thumb and blowing what was in his other nostril into the snow next to her. She let out the breath she’d been holding and tried not to think of her son’s shock at seeing her lying crumpled like a wounded deer, helpless in front of these brutes. “Now that you know who we are, let us go,” she pleaded.
The officer jerked his head, and his men took Taras a short distance away, out of earshot. Surely NKVD thugs would not shoot a child, yet they harbored ruthless hatred for Ukrainians, no matter how young. “If you hurt my son…”
The lieutenant laughed. “You will kill me?” He waved a gloved hand. “Look around you, Savka. Absolutely no one for miles.”
He knelt on one knee beside her and drew out his Korovin pistol. “Do you know who I am?” He waited for her answer, and when she shook her head weakly, he continued. “I’m high up in the NKVD. Very high. Once I had everything—a fine apartment in Moscow, the best vodka, Western luxuries.” He stared out and away from her, his eyes a dark, liquid brown, the irises almost as black as the pupils.
A cruel man, Savka thought, nothing better than a murderer.
He looked down at her again. “For years I have been made to slog through forests behind the front lines, into the dens of rats, with only two soldiers at my disposal. When I once had hundreds under my command,” he said, smiling. “Hundreds. Now I am kneeling on the snow in a Carpathian forest, wiping my ass with a whore and her mewling son.”
She glared at the lieutenant. She would resist him to her dying breath to save that son.
“And yet your husband?” Belyakov continued. “We know he’s one of Bandera and Lebed’s top men. What plans do they have for the Fourteenth Division? Hmm, Savka? You and I know Ivanets and the other Ukrainian men are not with the SS because they love speaking German.”
Savka watched those dark eyes cloud over with displeasure at her silence. “Your husband writes to you? Listen to me. You will encourage Marko’s responses and perceive what his unit is planning when they’re sent to the front.” She opened her mouth to protest, to say that writing letters was like pulling teeth for Marko, but before she could, the Russian lifted the edge of her coat and briefly examined her chest wound. “Listen, peasant—you’re bleeding out,” he said casually. “And we’re leaving you. Surely the underground heard our gunshot from their bunker. If you die before they find you—that is one less bandit for us to kill in the end. If they find you alive, tell them you panicked and ran.”
“What?” she choked in disbelief. “They’ll never believe such a lie.”
“They will. Tell them you were shot and lost consciousness. We captured your son and left, believing you mortally injured.” He shrugged. “If the underground can save you, they’ll interrogate you, but who knows if they’ll trust your story? If they let you go, Savka, you will be mine,” he said with a smile. “I will keep your son safe while you write letters to your husband and send me his responses.”
She struggled to understand. They wanted her to spy on her husband. And they were taking Taras? The thought of her precious son, her only child, in danger, and the idea of betraying Marko, made her sick. “My husband will not write secret information”—her voice a frantic whisper—“in a letter to me.”
“Encourage his honesty,” he said simply. “Use your whore ways.” He took a pewter flask from inside his coat and deftly unscrewed the top, drinking deeply.
Savka forced herself to look directly into this man’s lifeless eyes. “You would use the information to kill him.”
The lieutenant returned the flask to his pocket and smoothed his hair back with his good hand. “We will use that intelligence to protect him,” he said, with a disquieting smile. “The front commanders will be advised of Ivanets’s unit. When the Germans are surrounded, we’ll capture him alive. He will be returned safely to your village and become our star informant.”
“You lie. You’ll shoot him…or send him to Siberia.”
“What’s in your future?” The lieutenant asked her with another venomous smile. “Rape and murder for collaborating with the Huns? Or be deported to Siberia? I’ll save you from that. If you do what I say, Savka, you’ll see your son again. Do what I order, and I will give him back.” Lieutenant Belyakov stood and turned, his black coat flapping like the wings of a crow as he strode to catch up to his two soldiers, who’d taken Taras farther up the trail. Savka’s son looked back once before Ilyin cuffed him across the ear, and she wailed as they melted into the trees. “Tarasyku,” she sobbed weakly, fighting to commit her son to memory. What would happen to him? Would she ever see him again? And what would she tell Marko?
Savka howled into the profound silence, but no one came. Taras was gone. She stared up at the heavy, colorless sky. It was as though she were alone in another universe, detached from everything she’d ever known. Without her shawl, the cold bit into the exposed skin of her neck and ears. Her arm and shoulder were numb, and she didn’t know if it was shock or her body shutting down. At some point it had begun snowing and now an icy sleet stabbed at her face like tiny knives. She imagined the snow drifting around her until she became part of the forest, but it didn’t matter. Taras was gone and there was no reason for her to live.
A wisp of childhood memory hovered behind her eyelids. A day at the beach in Odessa, a merciless wind coming off the Black Sea, and Lilia scooping sand over her inert form; how she’d laughed, until she felt the relentless crush of it.
With a cry more animal than human, she eased onto her left side and drew her knees to her chest for warmth like a frightened child in a dark room. She felt herself floating in a haze, slipping away, and she sent a silent message to Natalka, to Kuzak. Come out. Find me. She struggled to stay awake; she had to live—who else would fight for Taras?
In the quiet of the trees, Savka heard her mother’s voice, telling her old stories.
The Tsar of the forest took the son away and they passed into the other world, the world beneath the earth…
11
JEANIE
Salt Spring Island
december 5, 1972
i’ve just finished painting a gleam on the claws of the demon dragging Pat down to hell when Jimmy Page’s guitar solo jerks to a halt. I turn to find that my subject has yanked out the power cord on the radio. The studio is so quiet, I can hear her wheezing. “I thought you went to town,” I say, voice shaking.
“I knew you were up to no good, so I turned around before I got to Southey Point Road. Someone has to watch you.” Pat clocks the canvas, recognizing herself. Her face turns purple with rage, and she bellows, “Who do you think you are?”
Tuna cowers in his bed. And I yearn to curl up next to him and hide. I must contain my rage. Little Jeanie suffers when she dares to face big Pat. “Perhaps I’m a renowned landscape artist who raises the bar on transcendence,” I say, feeling too much like a newborn lamb being stalked by a wolf. She storms past me to snatch the new canvas off its easel and breaks it over her knee.
“That might have been worth something,” I say, brandishing the invitation over my head. I wanted to play it cool, but with Pat steaming in front of me…hell no. She doesn’t get to be angry in this situation. If I don’t confront her now, I’ll never be able to live with myself.
Recognizing the fancy invite, her face crumples—in either shame or regret. “You…you…”
“You better fucking believe I know.” Choking on the words, but ah, it feels good now, almost weeping with rage. “Octavius Karbuz is my art dealer? And there’s going to be a bloody show at his gallery in Europe?” I stare at her, breath heaving. “Tell me, evil fiend, how many shows have there been? And how much do my paintings actually sell for?”
Pat’s eyes dart blindly around the room, clearly struggling to come up with another lie. She gives up and says, “You should be focusing on your work—”
“Really? That’s where you want to go right now?” My braid has come loose, and I tear hair out of my eyes, still waving the invitation. “This says a collection of new works—just how many are we talking about?” I flick the envelope at her like it’s a frisbee. “Tell me, Pat.”
She raises her chin in poorly misplaced defiance. “Fourteen.”
I’m stunned and, for a moment, speechless. “I want to see the books. Right now,” I finally manage.
“There are no books.”
