Sisters of War

LANA KORTCHIK grew up in two opposite corners of the Soviet Union – a snow-white Siberian town and the golden-domed Ukrainian capital. At the age of sixteen, she moved to Australia with her mother. Lana and her family live on the Central Coast of New South Wales, where it never snows and is always summer-warm, even in winter. She loves books, martial arts, the ocean and Napoleonic history. Her short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies. She was the winner of the Historical Novel Society Autumn 2012 Short Fiction competition and the runner-up of the 2013 Defenestrationism Short Story Contest. Sisters of War is her first novel.

PRAISE FOR SISTERS OF WAR

‘A powerful and hard-hitting novel, it tackles the themes of loyalty and compassion, and emphasizes the hard choices that need to be made in wartime.’

Deborah Swift, author of The Lady’s Slipper

‘Its powerfully descriptive language pulls you into the bleakness of war, the longing for peace, and the exhilaration of profound, unconditional love.’

Marie Silk, author of Davenport House

‘I didn’t want this story to end. It’s one of those books you hold close to your heart and don’t want to let go … left me speechless and wanting more.’

Sharon Laker, author of The Railway Mice of Countesthorpe

‘I cried, smiled, gasped and laughed while reading this book. It will stay with me long after I’ve finished it.’

J.L. Leslie, author of Tame Me

Sisters of War

LANA KORTCHIK

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain as The Story of Us by HQ in 2018

Copyright © Lana Kortchik 2018

Lana Kortchik asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © December 2018 ISBN: 9780008314835

Version: 2019-17-12

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Praise

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part I – In Iron Shackles

Chapter 1 – Black Cloud Descending

Chapter 2 – The Barbaric Hordes

Chapter 3 – The Soldier

Chapter 4 – The Bleak Despair

Chapter 5 – A City Ablaze

Chapter 6 – The River of Death

Chapter 7 – The New Beginnings

Chapter 8 – The Snow and the Illusions

Chapter 9 – The Icy Fortress

Chapter 10 – At the Crossroads

Chapter 11 – The Impossible Choices

Chapter 12 – A Beacon of Happiness

Chapter 13 – Freedom’s Elusive Glare

Part II - The Everlasting Hope

Chapter 14 – Rays of Sunshine

Chapter 15 – The Utmost Chaos

Chapter 16 – Tentative Promises

Chapter 17 – A World Aflutter

Chapter 18 – Against All Odds

Chapter 19 – Waiting for a Miracle

Chapter 20 – The Battle of Kiev

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Dear Reader

Thank You for Reading!

Keep Reading…

About the Publisher

For my mum.

Thank you for always believing in me.

Chapter 1 – Black Cloud Descending

September 1941

It was a warm September afternoon and the streets of Kiev were crowded. Just like always, a stream of pedestrians engulfed the cobbled Kreshchatyk, effortlessly flowing in and out of the famous Besarabsky Market. But something felt different. No one smiled, no one called out greetings or paused for a leisurely conversation in the shade of chestnut trees that lined the renowned street. On every grim face, in every mute mouth, in the way they moved – a touch faster than usual – were anxiety and unease, as if nothing made sense to the Kievans anymore, not the bombings, nor the fires, nor living in constant fear.

Most stores were padlocked shut and abandoned, and only one remained open on the corner of Taras Shevchenko Boulevard and Vladimirovskaya Street. A queue gradually swelled with people, until they spilled over into the road, blocking the way of the oncoming cars that screeched to a stop, horns blaring and harsh words emanating from their windows. Soon, as is often the case in a line for groceries, a heated argument broke out near the entrance to the store.

‘I’ve been standing here since four this morning, I’m not letting you ahead!’ screamed a red-faced man with dull eyes. He looked angry enough to strike the intruder, a small woman holding an infant.

‘I have a baby. She hasn’t eaten since yesterday,’ the woman pleaded, lifting her little girl for everyone in the queue to see.

‘So what? You are not the only one with a mouth to feed,’ said the angry man.

The woman moved towards the end of the line, while her baby screamed at the top of her lungs.

‘Do we have to listen to this?’ were the parting words from the man.

‘Come over here, my dear,’ said an old woman dressed in a winter coat with a kerchief over her head, despite the mild weather. ‘You can go in front of me if you like.’

‘Why are you letting her ahead? We’ve been waiting for hours,’ complained a matronly lady behind the old woman.

‘And another two minutes won’t make a difference,’ replied the old woman in an I-won’t-hear-any-argument voice. And apart from a few belligerent looks, she didn’t get any.

As the mother thanked the old woman with tears in her eyes, two young girls and a boy approached the store from the direction of the Natural Sciences Museum. They didn’t try to jump the queue but stood quietly at the back, unsmiling and serious, as if they were attending a lecture at a prestigious university.

‘What are we queuing for?’ asked Natasha Smirnova, a tall, dark-haired waif of a girl.

‘Sausage,’ said the old woman.

‘Flour,’ said the woman with the baby.

‘Tomatoes,’ said the matronly lady. But no one seemed to know for a fact, and the line didn’t move, nor did anyone leave the store with bags of sausages, flour or tomatoes.

‘That’s good. Tomatoes will keep,’ said Natasha.

‘They won’t keep,’ replied her companion, a petite redhead with a ponytail and a sulky expression on her face. ‘We’ll have to eat them in a week.’

‘If we pickle them, we can have them all winter.’

‘Winter? This war won’t last till winter,’ said the young mother confidently.

‘You mean, we won’t last till winter,’ murmured the old woman. ‘Not if the Nazis come here.’

‘Haven’t you heard?’ said the old man directly in front of the woman with the baby. ‘Chernigov fell last week.’ The old man puffed his chest out, seemingly proud to be the bearer of such important news.

‘What are you talking about?’ exclaimed the old woman. ‘If Chernigov fell, we would have known about it. We would have heard on the radio.’ Others in line had interrupted their conversations and were now listening in, their faces aghast.

‘Believe me, comrades, Chernigov is in German hands,’ said the man, enjoying the attention. ‘I heard it from my cousin, a captain in the Red Army.’

‘My daughter is in Chernigov,’ cried the old woman, wrenching her arms.

The queue fell quiet. Chernigov was only a hundred kilometres from Kiev. If Chernigov fell, was Kiev next?

‘Let’s go home,’ said Natasha dejectedly. ‘We won’t get anything here. The queue is not even moving. Let’s just go home.’ She regretted stopping at the store and overhearing the conversation. Dread like liquid mercury spread inside her, heavy and paralysing.

The three of them made their way through the crowds towards Taras Shevchenko Park, wide-eyed at the commotion around them. Those who weren’t busy queuing for food occupied themselves by looting and robbing. The Red Army had retreated in July, and the government evacuated in August. In the absence of any form of authority, no shop, library, museum or warehouse was safe. Men, women, even children, moved from store to store, laden with sacks and boxes, searching for something valuable, preferably edible, to steal. Outside the entrance to the park, two men carried a piano and a woman struggled with a potted plant and a typewriter. Eventually, she placed the typewriter on the ground and took off with the plant. ‘It’s a palm tree,’ said Natasha, watching the woman with a bemused expression on her face. ‘I wonder what she’s going to do with it. I’d take the typewriter if I were her.’ When she didn’t receive an acknowledgement from the redhead, she added, ‘Lisa, will you look at that?’

‘Who knows what she’ll do?’ replied Lisa, shrugging. ‘Grow bananas? Barricade the door from the invading Germans?’ She chuckled but her eyes remained serious.

When the woman disappeared around the corner, Natasha turned to Lisa. ‘We should get going. If Papa realises we’ve left, we’ll be in so much trouble.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Lisa. ‘He’s too busy searching his newspapers for news from the front to think about us. He won’t even notice we’re not there.’

Pulling Lisa by the arm, Natasha replied, ‘He’ll notice all right, especially if you don’t get a move on.’ At nineteen, she was only a year older than her sister but she was always the serious one, the more responsible one. Sometimes she admired Lisa’s impulsive character, but not today. Not on the day when the Nazis were perilously close and their father was going to kill them.

Lisa turned her back on her sister, her long red hair swinging out to whip Natasha across the face. ‘Alexei, are you coming?’ Her voice was too loud for the muted street, and several passers-by glared in her direction.

Alexei Antonov, a blond, broad-shouldered boy, had stopped at what seemed like the only market stall in Kiev that was still standing. The stall boasted a great selection of combat knives, and Alexei was in deep conversation with the owner.

‘Alexei!’ Lisa called again. Her voice quivered.

Alexei handed the stall owner some money and pocketed a knife. ‘Wait up!’ he cried, breaking into a run.

‘Dillydallying as always,’ said Lisa, her plump lips pursed together in a pout. ‘Keep this up, and we’ll leave you here.’

‘Nagging already? And we’re not even married yet.’ Pecking Lisa on the cheek, Alexei adjusted his glasses, his face a picture of mock suffering and distress.

‘Get used to it,’ said Lisa, pinching the soft skin above his elbow. He attempted a frown but failed, smiling into Lisa’s freckled face.

They paused in the middle of the road and kissed deeply. A van swerved around them. The two lovers didn’t move. They barely looked up.

‘And this is why I walk five metres behind you. It’s too embarrassing.’ Natasha stared at the ground, her face flaming. Wishing she could run home but not wanting to abandon Lisa and Alexei in the middle of the street, she was practically jogging on the spot. ‘You heard Papa this morning. Under no circumstances were we to leave the house.’

‘We had to leave the house,’ said Lisa. ‘You know we did. It was a question of life and death.’

Natasha raised her eyebrows. ‘A wedding dress fitting is a question of life and death?’

Lisa nodded. ‘Not just any fitting. The final fitting.’

‘The final fitting,’ mimicked Alexei, rolling his eyes. ‘I had to wait for you for an hour! An hour in the dark corridor.’

Lisa pulled away from him. ‘You know you can’t see me in my wedding dress before the wedding. It’s bad luck.’ She whispered the last two words as if the mere mention of bad luck was enough somehow to summon it.

‘It’s bad luck to be outside at a time like this,’ murmured Natasha.

Lisa said, ‘Don’t worry. The streets are perfectly safe. And Papa will understand.’

‘I doubt it. Just yesterday he said you were too young to marry.’

Lisa laughed as if it was the most preposterous thing she had ever heard. ‘And I reminded him that Mama was younger than me when they got married. And Grandma was only sixteen when she married Grandpa. When Mama was pregnant with Stanislav, she was the same age as you.’

Exasperated, Natasha shook her head.

Lisa continued, ‘Did you hear the dressmaker? Apparently, I have the perfect figure. Mind you, I still have time to lose a few pounds before the big day.’

Alexei ran his hands over her tiny frame. ‘Don’t lose a few pounds, Lisa. There won’t be any of you left to marry.’

His words were interrupted by a distant rumble. Half a city away, the horizon lit up in red and yellow.

An explosion followed.

And another.

And another.

For a few breathtaking seconds, the ground vibrated. Somewhere in the distance, machine guns barked and people shouted. And then, as if nothing had happened, all was quiet again. On the outskirts of town, fires smouldered and smoke rose in a gloomy mist.

‘Don’t be scared,’ said Alexei, pulling Lisa tightly to his side. ‘There won’t be much bombing today.’

‘How do you know?’ demanded Natasha.

‘Just something I’ve heard. The Nazis don’t want to destroy our city. They’re saving it.’

‘Saving it for what?’ Lisa wanted to know.

‘For themselves, silly,’ said Natasha.

Lisa gasped and didn’t reply. Natasha could tell her sister was scared because she no longer dawdled. Racing one another, they turned onto Taras Shevchenko Boulevard. It was sunny and warm, as if summer had decided to stay a little bit longer and wait – for what? The Nazis in the Soviet Union? The daily bombing? The sheer joy of nature in late bloom and its unrestrained abundance seemed out of place in the face of the German invasion. The blue skies, the whites and reds of the flowers, contrasted sharply with distant gunfire and burning buildings.

Posters adorned every wall, most of them depicting a comical figure of Hitler, his body twisted into a shape of a swastika. We will kick Hitler back all the way to Germany, the posters declared. On every corner, loudspeakers yelled out Soviet propaganda and occasional news from the front. Natasha wished the news were as optimistic as the posters, but it was rarely the case.

As she tried to keep up with her sister and Alexei, Natasha thought of the first time the bombs had fallen on Kiev, on Sunday 22nd June. She thought of the shock and the fear and the disbelief. Nearly three months on, they had become accustomed to the shelling, to the regular din of machine-gun fire, like a soundtrack to their daily lives. With dismay, she realised it had almost become normal. The realisation scared her more than the Nazi planes drifting overhead. She didn’t want to accept the unacceptable, to get used to the unthinkable. But she knew she wasn’t the only one feeling this way because there were more and more people on the streets during the bombings. Yes, they made an effort to walk closer to the buildings to avoid being hit, but they no longer slowed down, or sought shelter, or interrupted their quest for food. Even now, as explosions sounded, the queue outside the shop didn’t disperse. As if nothing was happening, people continued to wait for their bread and their sausages and their flour, for all the things they needed to survive and stave off the war. What was happening to their city now, what had happened three months ago when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, seemed like a nightmare that would never end. Natasha felt as if at any moment she would wake up only to find the streets of Kiev peaceful and quiet.

Since the day her city was first bombed in June, Natasha had waited impatiently to wake up.

In Taras Shevchenko Park, the ground was littered with shells that had once carried death but now lay peacefully at their feet. Natasha could feel their sharp edges through the soles of her boots. One of her favourite places in Kiev, the park was unrecognisable. Anywhere not covered by pavement was excavated. In the last three months, it had transformed into what seemed like the habitat of a giant mole, full of holes and burrows. All the trenches that the Kievans had dug, all the barricades they had built, enthusiastically at the end of June, habitually in July and sporadically in August, now stood empty and abandoned. How meaningless it all seemed, how futile.

Uncertainly Lisa muttered, ‘The Germans aren’t coming here. Haven’t you heard the radio?’ Like clockwork every few hours, the radio and the loudspeakers outside screeched, ‘Kiev was, is and will be Soviet.’

How ironic, thought Natasha. As if anyone believed it now.

‘The Red Army will soon push Hitler back,’ added Lisa.

‘What Red Army?’ muttered Natasha.

Suddenly, on the corner of Lva Tolstogo and Vladimirovskaya, Lisa came to an abrupt halt. Natasha, who was only a couple of steps behind, bumped straight into her sister. ‘What—’ she started saying and then stopped. Her mouth assumed the shape of an astonished ‘O’ but no sound escaped. All she could do was stare. From the direction of the river, hundreds of soldiers in grey were marching towards them.

Wide-eyed, the sisters and Alexei backed into the park and hid behind its tall fence, watching in fear.

The wait was finally over. The enemy were no longer at the gates. Surrounded by crowds of confused men, women and children and accompanied by barking dogs, the enemy were right there, inside their city, their grey uniforms a perfect fit, their green helmets sparkling, their motorbikes roaring, their footsteps echoing in the tranquil autumn air.

*

When they thought it was safe, the girls and Alexei ventured cautiously from behind the fence. The streets that were busy only moments earlier were now deserted. The silence was tense, expectant. And only occasionally, as they walked down Tarasovskaya Street, did Natasha hear loud voices coming from Lva Tolstogo Boulevard. Natasha felt a chill run through her body because they were not Russian voices but German. The unfamiliar sounds spoken so assertively on the streets of Kiev seemed to defy the natural order of things.

At the entrance to their building, Alexei tried to say goodbye but Lisa grabbed his hand. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘Home,’ he said, making a half-hearted attempt to break free.

‘It’s too far. And too dangerous.’ Alexei lived three short tram stops away. Since the tram was no longer running, it was a twenty-minute walk.

‘I’d rather face the Nazis than your father.’

But Lisa was adamant. ‘Don’t go back to an empty house. Come home with us.’

Together the three of them climbed eight flights of stairs to the sisters’ apartment. Natasha dawdled on the stairs, taking forever to find her key. She realised she didn’t want to be the one to give the terrifying news to her family.

‘Girls, is that you? We’re in the kitchen.’ Mother’s voice sounded unusually shrill. Natasha took her time removing her shoes, hesitating before walking down the long corridor. Would Mother cry when she heard? And what would Father say when he realised that, despite his specific instructions, they were out when the Germans entered Kiev? A captain in the militia, he ruled the household just like he did his subordinates at work. He was strict, brusque, devoid of emotion, and everyone who came into contact with him was in awe of him. Everyone, that was, except her mother, who with a couple of well-chosen words could defuse even the biggest storm.

It was dim in the kitchen. The radio was playing Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Natasha’s favourite. The familiar chords never failed to make her smile, but today the music was accompanied by German shouts coming from the window, as platoon after platoon of soldiers in grey marched through the city. Lisa hid behind Natasha, all her earlier bravado forgotten. But Father barely glanced in their direction. His face ashen, he was bent over the table, every now and then barking short sentences into the telephone receiver that he cradled with his shoulder. ‘Heavy losses? Southwestern Front destroyed?’

Natasha shivered.

‘We saw—’ Lisa started saying, her eyes wide.

‘Have something to eat,’ said Mother. She looked as if she had just stepped out of bed. Her hands, her long musician’s fingers were fidgeting, picking up cups, wiping the table that was already clean. ‘Alexei, please, come in. Would you like some soup?’

‘We’re not hungry, Mama,’ said Lisa. ‘We saw German soldiers outside.’

Father rose to his feet and, still holding the telephone, started pacing from one wall to the other. It took him three strides to cover the distance between the two walls. His steps resonated ominously in the quietened kitchen. Finally, he reached for a cigarette, even though he already had one in his mouth, and put the phone down.

‘Bad news?’ asked Mother.

Father didn’t seem to hear. ‘They’re finally here. There are thousands of them in the city.’

Lisa nodded. Mother gasped. Alexei collapsed into a chair and said, ‘Thousands?’

‘I hope Stanislav is okay, wherever he is,’ exclaimed Mother. Natasha’s older brother Stanislav had been drafted into the Red Army in June. The family hadn’t heard from him since.

Natasha whispered, ‘What’s going to happen to us? Papa, what are we going to do?’

Father startled as if her words woke him from an unpleasant dream. He narrowed his eyes on Natasha and said, ‘It won’t be for long. We just need to sit tight and wait for the Red Army to come back.’ As usual, his stern voice allowed for no arguments. And only his hands were shaking.

Natasha didn’t know what to think. She didn’t know what to expect. German occupation, what did it mean? She turned to her mother, who was fidgeting in her chair and not looking at Natasha. She turned to her father, who was smoking grimly and not looking at Natasha. She turned to Lisa and Alexei, who were staring out the window in stunned disbelief. Natasha suspected that her sister, who thought she knew everything but knew nothing, and her mother, too afraid to think straight, and even her father, who ruled their family with an iron fist, didn’t have any answers.