She smiled to let me know this was not an insult. Removing her hand, she bent and gathered up the shawl, draping it around her shoulders. ‘Well, I should start for home. Mama will be finished her shift soon and if I’m not there, she will worry. It’s her—’
The sound of sudden, wild screaming filled the air. Etti and I exchanged frightened looks.
‘Stay here.’ The bobbles on her shawl bounced as she crossed into the next room. I heard her inhale sharply, and I jumped up. Through the window, I could see purple dusk sifting down over the trees. Sounds filtered in: birds lifting from the trees, boots running on the pavement outside.
‘What’s happening?’
As if in answer, a man began to shout in Russian, his voice filling the street outside. ‘Get your hands off me!’
There was the sound of scuffling and then a grunt of pain.
Etti and I hurried to the window, where we saw a man behind the long iron bars of the fence. His arms were being held by a soldier in uniform. Beside him, a woman stood silently, hugging a small child to her chest.
Blood seeped from a wound on the man’s forehead, snaking down his face and into his eyes. A pair of cracked glasses were perched on his nose. He struggled against the iron grip of the soldier.
‘Let me go!’ Ripping one arm free, he staggered forward until his face was pressed against the fence.
‘Partorg Volkov! I know you are in there!’ The man’s voice was so loud it was as if he had stepped into the room with us.
Etti took an involuntary step backwards. I could not move. I was frozen in place, transfixed by the desperation in the man’s voice.
‘Captain Volkov! Please! They are dragging us out of our homes. My wife, my son; you have to help! I said let go,’ he snarled at the guard, shaking his arm in a useless effort. The woman behind him had begun to sob. ‘I used to work for you!’ The man was struggling now, his face straining against the bars. ‘I drove your car last year, you remember? Captain Volkov! Captain Volkov!’
His cries were cut short as the guard brought the butt of his pistol down on the man’s skull. Blood spurted from his head and he sagged, a lifeless ragdoll. If not for the guard clutching his arm, he would have tumbled to the pavement in a heap.
The soldier turned to the man’s wife, still struggling to quieten her son. ‘Shut that child up!’
The woman whimpered, hugging the shrieking boy so hard I thought he might suffocate. The guard began to drag the man towards a police wagon that waited on the other side of the street. The woman followed, holding her child. The guard thrust the man’s body into the wagon and pushed the woman and the boy in, too. The doors of the wagon banged shut and a moment later, the car was gone.
A figure dashed past the gate, no more than a grey blur, head bowed.
‘What was that?’ Olga appeared on the stairs, knotting a bathrobe around her waist. Her white hair was still damp, hanging loosely around her face. ‘I heard shouting.’
Neither Etti or I answered straightaway. Eventually Etti spoke. ‘I’ve seen this before, when the Soviets arrived last year.’ She hugged herself and drew in a ragged breath. ‘It’s a deportation. It’s begun.’
She sat down suddenly.
Lieutenant Lubov’s voice echoed in my head. Relocation of undesirables.
In the silence, I heard the distant rumble of approaching trucks.
Twig Pattern
Kati
Pine needles stung my face. Jakob’s breath was hot and loud in my ears.
We kept running until we reached the river, where the water rushed over the stones in a great roaring gasp. Moonlight glimmered on the trees, gilding them a soft silver and poking through the bristled firs to pattern the ground. Jakob’s head was bowed, his hands resting on his knees as he fought for breath.
Despite the heat pounding in my head and soaking my body, I felt cold. My legs seemed to be frozen, now that we had come to a stop, my feet rooted to the earth.
Mama. Papa.
‘We need to find Oskar,’ Jakob said.
The whip crack of gunshots. The stench of cordite. Mama’s body crumpling to the ground.
‘Kati.’ Jakob shook my arm.
I shrank away. ‘We have to go back!’
Jakob’s grip tightened, his fingers digging into my skin. ‘No, Kati.’
I tried to make out his features. ‘She might be dying,’ I said. ‘She needs help.’
Jakob cursed. For a moment, I felt his whole body tense and then he softened, his shoulders slumping. ‘Kati, they’re gone. Do you hear me?’ His voice cracked. ‘Both of them. They’re gone.’
His arms snaked around me. His cheek pressed against my neck. I saw the moon, a glimmering pearl in the watery sky, and scattered stars like tiny fish, silver and gold.
Everything looked the same as it had always been. How could it be possible that my parents were gone?
‘We need to find Oskar and tell him,’ Jakob said. ‘There might be a way to save others. And we can’t wander around all night in the forest, alone.’
Why not, I wanted to ask. I felt strangely detached. An image came to me of my wolf, Elina, padding softly through the undergrowth. My wolf, with her moon eyes and soft, grey pelt.
She was always alone.
I will send you a sign. You will know it’s me. I will wear the pelt of a wolf, my grandmother had told me.
Was she watching us now? Had she heard the gunshots and seen us running for our lives? Had her presence last night not been a coincidence, but a warning?
‘There’s a bunker.’ Jakob drew back but did not let go of me. ‘It’s not far from here. Downriver. I’ve left messages there before in an old tin. That’s where we’ll go. Oskar will be there. Can you walk?’
I heard his words, but they came from far away. I looked slowly towards him and realised he was waiting for an answer. I made my lips move. ‘Yes.’
‘Good.’
Drawing in a deep breath, he let go of me and moved away, weaving through the trees on the shoreline. His boots crunched on the leafy undergrowth.
As I followed him my thoughts continued to spin, drifting like the seeds of a dandelion blown helter skelter by the wind. All the plans my parents had made for the farm, for Jakob, for me – in the end, everything had been for nothing. Papa’s assistance to the Partorg and the new Soviet state had been worthless. It had cost him his life and Mama’s.
I heard Jakob call my name, softly, in the dark.
I swallowed. I needed to bury this pain. I could grieve for my parents later. But a slow burning anger was moving up my legs as I followed my brother’s steps. I saw the Partorg’s face the first time he had visited our farmhouse. I had listened from my bedroom as he spoke to Papa, assuring him that there would be enough food for us to last the year, that what we were doing would help everyone.
He had lied. He had fed us the illusion of freedom, all the while knowing we were animals trapped in a cage.
I knew in my heart that if I saw the Partorg again, I would not hesitate to plunge a knife into his heart or send a bullet into his soft flesh. I already hated him for the rumours they had spread about Oskar being a murderer. My hands trembled, imagining the suffering they would cause him. I stilled them by gripping the straps of my knapsack until the canvas bit into my palms.
I flung my thoughts out into the universe. I would not be afraid of fighting, like Papa. I would hold tightly to the possibility of revenge. If Papa and Mama could not come back, perhaps this was the thing that would keep me alive.
We followed the river for some time, until Jakob stopped abruptly near a clearing of tall birches just visible.