The guide shined the light. “The ladder is made out of gas pipes,” he said. “There are three of them. Each one is two meters long. So we will go down one at a time, about six meters deep. I will be last. I will close the cover.”
“Can’t you take the lead?” Marko said. “I’ll go last. I’ll close the entrance.”
“I can’t let you do that,” the guide said. “I need to know you’re both on solid ground before the cover is closed. If I go first, I can’t be above ground to help you in the unlikely event something goes wrong.”
Nadia lowered herself onto the first horizontal pipe and descended into the shaft. She hugged the ladder as she stepped down, her face almost kissing the dirt between the rungs. The Caves Monastery in Kyiv had a staircase. A year ago that staircase had felt like a portal into darkness. Now it seemed like a resort experience.
She focused on her breathing. Counted the rungs. Each pipe measured three meters. That was about three yards. Nine feet. Nine rungs per pipe. Three pipes. Twenty-seven steps down.
Marko’s voice echoed down the shaft. “You counting in English or Uke?”
Nadia stopped. Her heart thumped in her ears. “What’s the difference?”
“Numbers are a little longer in Uke. You’ll make it down faster if you count in English.”
The dialogue caused her to lose count. She swore under her breath. Took a deep breath and continued. When her right foot touched ground she lifted it and dropped it again. To make sure she wasn’t imagining the sensation.
She stepped forward into a passageway. The walls were wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side but the ceiling was only four feet high. She had to stoop.
“Done,” she said, looking up into the light.
“Move into the cave,” the guide said. “So nothing falls on you.”
So no one falls on her, Nadia thought.
Marko descended next. After he joined her in the cave, the guide closed the shaft behind him.
Darkness enveloped them. They took turns aiming their headlamps at each others’ knapsacks and removed their flashlights. The guide scurried down the ladder with frightening speed, sliding down the last pole without touching a rung.
“Our destination is the “Khatki,” he said.
“Khatki?” Nadia said. “The Ukrainian word for ‘little cottage.’ ”
The guide pulled out his flashlight. “That’s where the families lived.”
“What families?” Marko said.
“The ones that hid from the Nazis,” the guide said.
He took off before Nadia could ask questions. She and Marko followed. Shards of crystal hung from the ceiling. Gypsum crystal covered rocks. Water rolled down walls. Nadia brushed aside a sense of claustrophobia.
The cave’s height gradually increased until they could walk upright. They weaved their way a hundred yards through a labyrinth of passageways to an open area. It was the shape of a diamond and the size of a living room. Beyond it the floor of the cave pitched upward and the ceiling soared. The forward chamber’s soaring height created the illusion that the outdoors lay ahead.
“We’ll rest here for a moment,” the guide said. “Drink some water.”
They took off their packs, sat down on rocks, and drank from their bottles.
“People hid from the Nazis in here?” Nadia said.
“Three Jewish families,” the guide said. “Thirty-eight people. They spent three hundred and forty-four days under ground. They had three separate living chambers. A ventilated cooking chamber. They lit candles for only a few minutes a day so they wouldn’t be seen.”
“How did they get supplies?”
“They found a water supply in a chamber of the grotto on the east side. This cave is called ‘ozero’ for a reason. As for food, a Ukrainian farmer kept them alive.”
“A Ukrainian farmer? A gentile?”
“Yes. He brought food to designated places outside the cave at pre-arranged times. Weekly, for almost a year. Until one day when the men went out to get the food and there was none. Instead there was a piece of paper. On the paper was a message. The message read: ‘The Germans have gone.’ ”
“What happened to the families?” Nadia said.
“When they stepped into daylight for the first time, a four-year-old girl asked her mother to extinguish the candle. It was too bright for her eyes, she said. She was so young she’d forgotten daylight. The families ended up in displaced person camps in Germany. Then they went to Canada and America and started their lives all over again.”
Nadia enjoyed a rush of adrenaline. She sipped her water, replaced it in her knapsack, and stood.
“Let’s go,” she said. She held the map in her left hand and a flashlight in her right. “Which way?” she said to the guide.
There was only one direction to go. Nadia marched onward.
Marko and the guide sprang into action.
“Hey, Nancy Drew,” Marko said. “What the heck?”
The guide took the lead. Nadia and Marko followed him for another ten minutes.
The guide stopped in front of a cracked rock. The fissure was no more than six inches long.
“In other parts of the caves, the cracks are so wide they can swallow a person,” the guide said. “Always watch your step. The scientists have done studies on the cracks. They are as much as two and a half kilometers deep. You fall. You die.”
Nadia and Marko followed the guide deeper into the cave. They rounded a corner. Light came from an opening on the right side of the cave. Nadia heard a rustling noise. The sound of metal sliding against metal pierced the silence. It was the racking noise a semi-automatic pistol made when the sliding mechanism was pulled back and released to put the first bullet into the chamber.
Marko glanced at Nadia. She made a gun with her right hand. He nodded. She assumed he understood the signal meant someone had loaded the gun in the adjoining chamber. Instead, Marko reached down to his pant leg and removed his own pistol.
“Where did you get that?” Nadia mouthed.
In the glow of her headlamp, a glint shone in his eyes.
He had a gun. Somehow, her lunatic brother had procured a gun in Ukraine. Where? Kyiv? Lviv? Not Zarvanytsia, that’s for sure. And from whom? Not the concierges at their two fine hotels. Then she remembered. She’d left him alone at the café in Lviv after she’d lost the man with the pointed chin.
Her concerns about how he’d gotten the gun and the risk he’d assumed in getting it gave way to relief. Marko knew how to use a gun. They both did, courtesy of their training during summer camps.
The guide’s eyes widened when he saw the gun. Marko stepped in front of him and shut off his headlamp. He edged along the wall closest to the chamber. When he got near the entrance he squatted down to his knees. Took a deep breath. Nodded at Nadia to let her know he was going in. No discussion, no hesitation. He was going in. It was just like Marko, she thought. She wanted to help him. Pull him back. But toward what end? They had no choice. They needed to find Karel. And there was no way for her to share the risk. He was the one with the gun.
He pivoted into the doorway. The light illuminated him. Legs spread wide, both hands on the gun. He stretched forward and glanced in each of the near corners. No one there. He disappeared into the room.
The guide tapped Nadia on the shoulder. “Guns in the cave?” he said. “Not allowed. We must leave now.”
Nadia shook her head. Put her finger to her lips.
Marko came out of the chamber. “Clear,” he said. “I don’t know what we heard but it wasn’t from this room. It must have been an echo.”