“They brought in a couple of local farmers to identify him, but the farmers said he was just some berry picker and the Chekists became worried that they’d shot the wrong men. Flint died without saying anything and they buried him nearby, not far from the base where you and I first met. But one of the slayers must have mentioned that he had a French calendar, and the Cheka knew Flint spoke French. The Chekists figured it out. They dug up the body, identified him and then threw the body back out in the Merkine market square.”
“The town we held for a day.”
“Right. They have an idea of symmetry. His wife came to claim the body, and she and her children were sent to Irkutsk.”
Lukas had not even known Flint had a wife or children. He was saddened to hear of his leader’s death. “And what about you, my friend? How did you survive so long?”
Lukas looked deeply for the man who had taken him out on his first mission five years earlier, but could not see him. On the other hand, the young man whom Lakstingala had taken out was not there any longer either.
“I was lucky. I broke my leg not long after you left. I stepped in a posthole at night and snapped the bone just above my ankle. It took a very long time to knit properly. Death probably came looking for me then out in the fields, but I was lying in bed and couldn’t be found. Death’s been looking for me ever since.”
“It’ll find us all in good time.”
Lakstingala looked past Lukas, ever vigilant, watching for movement in the forest. “I don’t suppose you’re bringing good news in from the West, are you?” he asked.
“No. They’ve finally become interested in us, but no one is going to fight a war for us.”
“Then why did you come back? You could have saved yourself.”
“I came back for Elena.”
Lakstingala shook his head. “What makes you think she came back to life?”
Lukas told him about Lozorius and his message and the help from the British. Lakstingala had not seen Lozorius for years and did not know where he was, but he might be able to find him. As for Elena, he was less sure.
“The story stinks,” said Lakstingala. “For one thing, Flint never told me about it while he was alive. For another, I’ve heard of people I thought were alive being dead, but not the other way around. Not anymore. And anyway, what good did you think you’d do Elena if you did find her alive? If it’s true, you’ll open old wounds. By now she thinks you’re dead or she knows you got out and hopes to receive a Red Cross package someday. And if she’s not dead, she might be in Siberia.”
“Why are you so angry?”
“Because it irritates me that you’re throwing your life away. Most partisans are like men with cancer—we’re doomed. But you had a chance to escape.”
“Didn’t we all swear to follow orders? Didn’t we all swear to fight until the end?”
“Of course we did, but we’ve reached the end. We reached it some time ago. So many lives destroyed and now you have to throw yours away too.”
“I have no intention of throwing my life away. I intend to find Elena and to take her out of here.”
“How? Through Poland? All the Lithuanians who lived on that side have been moved away from the border. The Polish partisans have been wiped out and we don’t get any help from there anymore. The first Pole who sees you will turn you in or shoot you.”
“I can get out the way I came, by boat.”
“Maybe. I can’t say if that’s possible or not.”
“If worse comes to worst, I can get false papers and live legally.”
“How easy do you think that would be? If it were possible, a lot of others would have done the same thing.”
“Lakstingala, my friend, your song is as bad-tempered as ever. I have every intention of finding Lozorius to determine if my wife is alive. You can help me if you like or you can go back to your bunker and stew all winter long.”
“Oh, I’m coming along. I have a soft spot for love stories. But don’t expect any sympathy from me if it’s all a lie.”
TWENTY-TWO
THE WEATHER turned against them as Lukas and Lakstingala made their way south to search for Lozorius. It snowed by night and rained by day, and all across the country the roads and paths were full of Cheka cars and Cheka troops, as well as slayer units swarming like bees.
“Is it always like this?” asked Lukas when they had hidden among thin winter bushes yet again for a couple of hours while water dripped down their collars.
“Not usually quite this bad. They must know you’re here and they’re turning the country upside down.”
“I’m hundreds of kilometres away from where we landed.”
“Maybe your friends were caught. Maybe Lozorius gave you away somehow. You’re a bit of a legend and word of you must have got out.”
“Legend? I’d rather be invisible.”
“Well, a legend helps to raise the morale of the people, but it also raises the bounty on your head.”
The danger passed, and they came out from behind the bushes to walk through the rain, in one way better than the snow because they left no tracks, but in another way worse because the mud adhered to their boots and they had to stop every fifteen minutes to scrape it off.
Partisans had become like wolves whose pelts brought income to bounty hunters in a hungry country.
“Has the number of collaborators risen so high?” Lukas asked.
They were standing among the cows in a barn by night, hoping to borrow a little heat before moving on.
“Collaborators,” said Lakstingala ruefully. “What a funny word. We don’t use it anymore. You only call someone a collaborator if you’ve defeated him. If the Germans had won, there wouldn’t have been any German collaborators either—the very idea would have seemed odd. Now the Reds are winning, so there can be no Red collaborators. Anyway, as time goes by, more and more of our people have to find a way to survive.”
“I never thought you’d have sympathy for traitors.”
“I don’t, but I need to understand them if I hope to live on. When you were last here it was so much simpler. In those days they simply tried to kill partisans, but now they try to capture us and turn us and send us back to smite our former friends.”
“Smite? That’s an unusual word. It sounds medieval.”
“Coined by the Cheka. They call the turned partisans ‘smiters.’”
Lukas laughed. “Yet another way of getting us.”
“Partisans are the last free people, and it gives me some satisfaction to know we can still irritate the Reds even if we can’t defeat them. But every day we have to be more and more wary. They’ve become subtle in getting co-operation from the farmers. We don’t eat with the farmers much anymore, not unless we know them very well.”
“Why not?”
“Another one of the new tricks they brought in after you left the country. The Cheka handed out sleeping potions to farmers and told them it was their responsibility to trap us. If partisans came asking for food, the farmers were supposed to put the sleeping potion in it. Some of our people just disappeared that year because the farmers were afraid to make the potion too weak, so they made it too strong. Nineteen forty-eight was the year of sleep, and some of our partisans haven’t woken up to this day.”
“What farmer would do that?”
“You’d be surprised. One day I went out with a partisan called Anupras to get milk from a certain farmer. We needed to keep shifting around so we weren’t asking the same people for food all the time. We were being careful, so I waited for him in the forest when he went to the farmhouse, but he was taking a long time. I went looking and finally found him, wandering along the path, falling down and getting up and then falling again. He’d lost his firearm. I could tell by his eyes that he was drugged, and pretty soon he passed right out. We were on our own, and knowing the Cheka wouldn’t be far behind I dragged him off the path as far as I could.