Some of the local Soviets were cooperative, but the initial cordiality was drying up as the days passed. And progress was painfully slow. Distances that should have taken hours were taking days. Anton had thought they’d be in France by the time his child was born, but at this rate, the baby would be born somewhere in the middle of Siberia.
They were stuck. Weak. And vulnerable.
Chapter Eleven
Filip dismissed his men after morning drills. They’d crossed from Europe into Asia, then gotten stuck in their current town for a week while the local Soviet wavered between wanting the legion out of the way as quickly as possible or delaying them for recruiting purposes. Morale was holding, but the men were frustrated. So was Filip.
Dalek and one of the other Czechs stayed on the field, leaping and flipping, much to the amusement of some local boys who’d come to watch. When the men finished and bowed for their audience of five- to ten-year-olds, Dalek came over to him.
“Part of the legion made it to Vladivostok.” Dalek ran a finger over his mustache, smoothing out the blond hairs.
“Good.” Filip was ready to celebrate, but something in Dalek’s manner held him back.
“There’s no shipping for them.”
“What?” How were they supposed to fight in France if there were no ships to take them there? “So they’re stuck there. And we’re stuck here.”
“The local Soviet said we could leave tomorrow.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
Dalek nodded. “Why let us go when they’re getting trained men from us?”
Filip crossed his arms and tried not to fume. Jakub Zeman had joined the Red Army and taken five members of the legion with him. Had Zeman told Orlov, their unwanted commissar, where Nadia was? If he had, Filip would have no qualms in tracking Zeman down and killing him. He might have hesitated to strike a fellow legionnaire, but now Zeman was a turncoat.
They were all turncoats, in a way. But turning against an oppressive empire was justified. Turning against his brother Czechs? Filip would never do that, and he couldn’t forgive anyone who would.
He said goodbye to Dalek and went to find his wife. He needed to see she was safe. And he wanted to see her. As their train had crawled eastward, he’d taught her how to wash clothes, how to make kasha, and how to build a fire. Something about peeling away layer after layer of her reticence and discovering little bits of her past was deeply satisfying. He still worried about the Bolsheviks disarming the legion and Orlov finding his wife, but time with Nadia had become the best part of his day.
He found her bent over an old wash tub he’d scrounged, washing clothes, some of hers and some of his. Several other women worked nearby, but not beside her. Were they distancing themselves from her, or was she distancing herself from them? He was never sure. He’d expected her to look down her nose at him or treat him like a servant, but that hadn’t been the case with him, and he doubted it was the case with the women who shared her boxcar.
They said their greetings, and Filip pointed to a smaller tub. “Are these washed?”
“Yes, but not wrung.”
Filip began squeezing the water from them.
“I don’t suppose there’s any news about our departure?” she asked.
“Someone said tomorrow.” Her face lit up, and he quickly corrected himself. “But I’ve heard that before.”
“So, I shouldn’t get my hopes up?”
“No.” Water squelched from the wool skirt he wrung.
“Any news of Orlov?”
“He’s more interested in recruiting for the Red Army and confiscating weapons than he is in tracking down former nobles.” Unless Zeman had stirred him up, but why make Nadia worry? Her posture was still impeccable, but she looked different wearing a kerchief over her hair and secondhand clothes that weren’t tailored to her body.
“I still see him when I sleep. I begged for mercy, but he shot them anyway.”
Her face was downcast, so he couldn’t see her eyes, but pain wove into her voice and showed in the set of her jaw.
She worked the cloth over the washboard. She was getting the hang of it; the clothes would be presentable when she finished. “How long have you been at war, Filip?” She pronounced his name slightly differently than others did, a bit more stress on the second syllable.
“Since 1914. I was part of the initial call-up. I’d finished my mandatory service but was still on reserve status.”
“Like my brothers.” She dipped his spare trousers in the suds and worked up a lather. “Have you seen things you wish you could forget? It’s not that I want to forget how they died; I just wish I could control the memory. Right now, it feels as if the memory controls me.”
Filip wrung one of Nadia’s blouses. “Yes. I’ve seen things I wish I could forget.” Men choking when they were gassed, bodies pierced by bullets or shredded by shrapnel. Death for his friends, death for the enemy, and vast destruction of farmland and villages. The memories didn’t control him, but he wished he could banish them completely, forget the entire war and go home. He couldn’t forget it yet though; he’d learned lessons that might keep him and his men alive when they next fought. But some day, the oblivion of forgetfulness would be a welcome balm. “It gets better with time.”
“Do you forget?”
“No. You just get better at pushing it aside.”
A pair of women who’d been chattering nonstop burst into soft giggles. Nadia, in contrast, was solemn today. She deserved solemn days. She was mourning her family and her former life. But her laughter had become Filip’s favorite sound. He wanted to hear it again.
“Sometimes it helps to remember the good.”
She glanced up from the wash.
“What’s a favorite memory of your brothers?” he asked.
She scrubbed a shirt while she thought. Then a hint of a smile creased her lips. “The Easter before the war. We decorated the most beautiful eggs. Alexander was in love, and Nikolai teased him mercilessly. She had a rather narrow chin, but Alexander thought she was beautiful. Nikolai drew her face on an egg and made it so pointy. Vera Vanina. Fortunately, she wasn’t there to see Nikolai’s caricature.”
“Did they marry?”
“No. The war got in the way. For them and for a lot of others.”
Veronika appeared from the side of a boxcar with her own tub, washboard, and laundry. She rushed over to them. “Orlov is with a group of Bolsheviks confiscating weapons only a few boxcars down.”
***
Anton barely held his temper as Jakub Zeman ransacked the boxcar in search of weapons. It was bad enough when the Soviets did it, but to have a former comrade seize their arms—it was scarcely tolerable. Anton believed in forgiveness, but Zeman was forcing a gap between Anton’s beliefs and his ability to live them.
The Soviet commissar, dressed in a long black jacket, stood watch as Zeman and another member of the red guard lifted mattresses and dug through the men’s meager belongings.
Maybe it was a blessing that Orlov was looking for weapons instead of for Filip’s wife. According to Veronika, Mrs. Sedláková had few useful skills, but she seemed willing to learn, and she showed gratitude. But a gracious demeanor would do her little good against a firing squad.
“You could join us, you know.” Zeman leaned against the wall hiding the weapons cache. “You’ve worked in factories. You know how awful it was for the workers.”
Anton grunted. Being a factory worker hadn’t been any harder than being a soldier, and no one had shot at him in Taganrog.
“Come on. I bet I can convince Orlov to let us serve together.”
If Zeman meant that to be an incentive, he couldn’t have been more wrong. “I want to go back to Slovakia. Russia can take care of itself.”