been thinking and thinking about it.’ He paused.
‘Tell me.’
‘I might have to go away for a little while.’
He waited for Lisa to reply but she was silent. The clock chimed three in the morning.
‘I can’t stay here and do nothing, Lisa. It’s war. I need to do my bit for our country. I keep hearing rumours about the partisans. I’m going to find them, make my way east, join the Red Army. Before you and I can be together, we need to beat the Nazis. You do understand, don’t you?’
‘No, I don’t understand,’ Lisa sobbed. ‘I don’t understand why you’d want to leave me.’
‘I don’t want to leave you. It’s the last thing I want. But how can we be happy while Hitler is in the Soviet Union? First we fight and then we build a life together. A happy, married life with children and grandchildren.’
‘Grandchildren? Really?’
‘I’m just thinking ahead. I love you, Lisa. I want to grow old with you. I want everything with you. But first, we fight. We can’t take this lying down. We can’t turn the other cheek.’ Alexei’s voice grew louder in the dark. ‘Before we can start our lives together, we fight and we beat this,’ he repeated.
‘If you leave, you’ll never come back. I can feel it! I’ll never see you again.’
‘Of course I’ll come back. How could I stay away?’ said Alexei. ‘How could I stay away from you?’ he added.
‘Don’t go!’ Lisa pleaded. ‘I don’t want you to go. I can’t imagine living without you.’
‘It’s only for a little while.’
‘I can’t imagine living without you even for a little while.’
‘And I couldn’t live with myself if I stayed here and did nothing. Even you wouldn’t respect me if I did.’
‘I just want you here with me. I want you safe. I love you.’
‘And I want to be with you. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. But we can’t be selfish, Lisa. Boys as young as fourteen are running away to enlist. To fight, to make a difference. How will it look if I do nothing? Please, try to understand.’
‘You would walk away from me, say goodbye and leave me in Kiev?’
‘What choice do I have?’
Lisa sobbed and said nothing.
‘Will you wait for me?’ asked Alexei.
‘What choice do I have?’ she replied, and Natasha heard heartbreak in her voice.
‘You could forget about me and marry someone else.’
‘Not if you marry me first.’
‘I’d marry you tomorrow if I could.’
They were silent for a while. Then Lisa said, ‘Do you remember the day we first met?’
‘When you refused to dance with me and pretended you already had a sweetheart? How could I forget?’
‘When you told me I was the most beautiful girl you’d ever seen. And I did dance with you eventually.’
‘Not before you made me beg for it.’
‘See, that’s why I could never marry anyone else. Who would put up with me?’
For a few minutes all Natasha could hear was Lisa’s sobbing and Alexei’s ‘sh-sh-sh’, like he was comforting a child. Then the sheets rustled, and suddenly Lisa was no longer crying. Alexei whispered, ‘Lisa, what are you doing?’
‘What does it look like I’m doing?’
‘Are you sure about this?’
‘Positive.’
‘I thought you wanted to wait till our wedding night?’
‘That was before.’
‘Before what?’
‘Germans in Kiev.’
A minute passed, then another. ‘Are you sure?’ repeated Alexei.
‘We don’t know what will happen to us tomorrow. We don’t know if we have a tomorrow. I’m sure.’
Natasha squeezed her eyes shut and put a pillow over her head. Where was sleep when she needed it? If only she could summon it at will, then she wouldn’t have to think about the grey uniforms flooding the streets of her childhood and she wouldn’t have to hear her sister’s bed creaking-creaking-creaking.
Chapter 2 – The Barbaric Hordes
September 1941
Early the next morning, Natasha opened the bedroom window. Four storeys below, Kiev looked like it always had, with its lush chestnut trees embracing the nearly empty streets and the autumn sky an unblemished blue. Nothing indicated that something out of the ordinary had happened. She could almost believe that she had imagined the devastating event of the day before if it wasn’t for the occasional German soldier making his way down the street, if it wasn’t for the fear on the faces of the handful of Soviet citizens who dared venture outside.
Their fear was contagious. Natasha closed the window.
Lisa burst into the room, grabbing Natasha in a bear hug and attempting to dance with her around the room. ‘You’re never going to believe it!’
‘Let go of me,’ exclaimed Natasha, extricating herself from Lisa. ‘What’s gotten into you?’
Lisa brought her face as close to Natasha’s ear as she could and said in a theatrical whisper, ‘Alexei and I. Last night we finally did it.’
Natasha couldn’t help but smile. ‘Did what?’
‘Did what?’ Lisa mimicked. ‘Are you serious?’
Their younger brother Nikolai poked his head through the doorway, looked around to make sure their parents were nowhere to be seen and said, ‘They had sex, silly.’
‘Hey!’ Lisa shouted indignantly.
‘You’re fifteen. What do you know?’ exclaimed Natasha.
‘Clearly more than you.’ He poked his tongue out.
Lisa grabbed Nikolai’s collar with both hands. ‘Are you spying on us, you pest?’
Although shorter than his sister, Nikolai was stocky and well built. It didn’t take him long to break free from Lisa’s clutches and escape down the corridor.
