thought so too but now I wish we took some food when we had the chance. It’s better that our people have it than the enemy.’ She straightened her back and looked at Father, as if daring him to argue. He didn’t.
The potato peel didn’t go down well with the family. Lisa refused to eat them. Father complained through every mouthful. Only Nikolai finished his share and eagerly asked for more.
Lisa said, ‘Natasha, are you okay? You haven’t said a word all evening.’
‘I’m fine,’ Natasha muttered, balancing a potato peel on the tip of her fork.
‘What are you thinking about?’
‘The Germans,’ she lied, when all she could see was Mark’s face, all she could hear was his voice as he told her about his life. She couldn’t believe she was seeing him again tomorrow! Only twenty hours and thirty-five minutes to go. ‘Stanislav. You think he’s out there somewhere, giving the Nazis a hard time?’
Mother sniffled. ‘At work people were talking… about the Battle of Kiev.’
‘What about it, Mama?’ asked Nikolai.
‘They said it was devastating for our army. Today we went to the hospital and looked through the lists of wounded soldiers but I didn’t find…’ She fell quiet. On the table in front of her was an old photo of Stanislav and Natasha, taken when they were still at school.
Nikolai mumbled, his mouth full. ‘Letters can’t get through now that the Germans are here. That’s why we haven’t heard from Stanislav. I’m sure he’s fine, Mama.’
‘I bet when the Red Army kicks the Germans out, we’ll receive a hundred letters from Stanislav, all at once. You know how much he loves to write,’ said Lisa.
Mother coughed and changed the subject. ‘Timofei Kuzenko is drinking obscenely. Yesterday he threatened Zina with an axe.’
‘Not with an axe?’ exclaimed Lisa, her eyes wide.
‘Can you imagine? She was so scared; she knocked on our door and asked me to hide five bottles of vodka in our apartment. And the axe.’
Father, who didn’t approve of drinking, said, ‘I heard vodka’s a valuable commodity on the black market. We could get some fresh bread for it. Maybe even some meat.’
‘We can’t take Zina’s vodka, Vasili,’ said Mother, wiping her face. Her eyes were swimming in tears.
Natasha looked at the photograph on the table, at her eight-year-old self, at her older brother. She squeezed her eyes shut, squeezed her fists, squeezed everything to stop herself from crying. Where was their brother, their grandson, their son? She had to know. How could she go on, not knowing? ‘Let’s go, Mama,’ she whispered. ‘Let’s go to Zina. She still has her radio. She might have some news from the front.’ Mother nodded, staring at the young Natasha in the picture, at the older Natasha in front of her.
Together they crossed the narrow hall and knocked on Zina’s door. From the corridor they heard her husband Timofei. He was snoring raucously. When they walked in, they saw him sprawled on the couch, motionless and stiff.
‘Zina Andreevna,’ pleaded Natasha. ‘Do you still have your radio? Any news from the front? My Mama is desperate.’ I am desperate, she wanted to add.
‘What radio?’ screeched Zina, raising her head.
‘Don’t you have your radio anymore?’
‘Hungarian soldiers barged in earlier and took it. They took everything. Our food, our clothes, our cutlery, all of our money.’
‘Hungarian soldiers?’ exclaimed Natasha, stumbling.
‘They told us to move out of our apartment by tomorrow.’ Zina cried. ‘What are we going to do? Where are we going to go?’ All her earlier bravado, her hope for a better life, it was all gone.
‘Filthy pigs,’ muttered Timofei, trying to sit up in bed and failing.
Natasha hugged Zina affectionately. ‘Come and stay with us. Is it okay, Mama?’
‘Thank you, dear,’ whispered Zina. ‘You have a kind heart.’
That night, Natasha lay on her folding bed, holding her grandmother’s hand and listening to her laboured breathing. She wanted to cry but couldn’t. Only twelve more hours until she saw Mark’s breathtaking face. Would she be able to sleep? Her heart was threatening to break out of her rib cage. This unfamiliar feeling that had her in a vice ever since she’d set her eyes on him filled her with joy and excitement, but her joy was mixed with fear. He was a Hungarian soldier sent to Ukraine to support Hitler’s troops. And she was a Soviet girl, who was completely and irrevocably under his spell. What was she going to do?
She tried not to think of Zina’s words about the Hungarian soldiers. Mark wasn’t like that. He was different.
To take her mind off Mark — as if it was possible — she thought of her brother.
*
June 1941
Mobilisation orders arrived at the end of June, the day after the Germans bombed Kiev for the first time. Men aged nineteen to twenty-two were already in the Red Army, and now that the war had started, men aged twenty-three to thirty-six were being drafted. The family walked Stanislav to the crowded train station. Everywhere, it seemed, there were young men in uniform; alone and surrounded by families, some of them were laughing and chatting, while others smoked solemnly, sipped cheap kvass, and chewed their hastily made sandwiches.
‘Seems like yesterday you walked me to school every day down this road,’ Natasha said to Stanislav. She had always thought she was the luckiest girl in the world to have an older brother. Her best friend Olga wasn’t so lucky. She was an only child.
‘I know,’ said Stanislav, smiling. ‘You always had a mob of young boys following you around. Remember when one of them left a love letter in our mailbox, and I read it aloud at dinner? You didn’t speak to me for a month. You were eight.’
‘A love letter and a chocolate that you ate. I’m still upset about that. You can be so annoying.’
