Redemption: Supernatural Time-Traveling Romance with Sci-fi and Metaphysics (29 page)

Elena laughs, watching Konstantin
slip another record out of its sleeve and load it onto the plate. “Oh, I can
imagine it all too well! Still, nobody asked the bastards to come to Russia. If
they want to come to our country they’d better be prepared to put up with
having to listen to our music!” The music starts up again, and she recognizes
it immediately. “Kostya! This is
Wearied
Sun
, isn’t it? By Leonid Utyosov? Oh, it’s sublime. My favorite. How did
you know?”

“Well,” he says, slipping an arm
around her waist and pulling her close to him, “it’s a favorite of a lot of
Russians. Everyone loves Utyosov!”

Elena enjoys the feel of his body
against hers. That night in Yartsevo seems like a lifetime ago. “True,” she
says. “What’s not to love. Though his real name’s Lazar Vaysbeyn. He’s a Jew,
from Odessa on the other side of the Ukraine.”

“Oh really? And who gave you that
information, young lady?”

“One of my Jewish friends from
nearby. They’ve been in hiding since the Germans arrived, but we made sure they
had supplies until it was safe to come out again. Nice people.”

“Yeah. And some real talented
people among them too, like Utyosov or whatever his name really is, and plenty
of others. But of course, Hitler and his Nazis think they’re the great ‘Master
Race’ and dismiss the entire Jewish race as nothing but ‘Untermensch’
—
subhuman! The same goes for most of us, apparently!”

“And we are continuously proving
them wrong!”

A strange look clouds
Konstantin’s face and he turns away to peer out of the window. A short distance
away the crowds in the square are busy enjoying themselves and the sounds of
singing and laughter mingle on the chill evening air. “I saw this so-called ‘Master
Race’ in Stalingrad. Thousands upon thousands of them, filthy, stinking,
covered in lice and not one of them prepared for our Russian winter. Anything
they could find, scraps of cloth, dead animals, muddy paper, if they could wrap
it around themselves in their desperation to try to get warm, they would. I saw
men with noses and ears chewed off by the cold, fingers so frostbitten they had
no feeling left in them, and they weren’t even capable of undoing their pants
to piss in the snow. They just sat there, shivering, with urine spilling
unnoticed down their legs. So much for the Nazi dream, huh?”

Elena sighs, picturing the scene.
It was not as bad here in Kharkov, since the Germans were concentrated in
Stalingrad, but it wasn’t much better. The brutality of the Nazis filled her
thoughts. Their rotting enemies littered the streets and buildings. “Animals!”
she says, shaking her head to dispel the images. “They’re nothing but animals.”

“And yet I remember one guy,
after they’d all been captured and were waiting to be marched away, sharing a
joke with me and asking for a cigarette like any regular guy back at home. You
know we’re supposed to hate these people, and there’s much there to hate, but
strangely I just end up feeling pity for them. I gave him the cigarette; the
whole pack, in fact! I kind of liked the guy.”

“I guess, when it comes right
down to it, there’s no ‘Master Race’ or ‘Untermensch’. Just ordinary people.
And most of these Nazis are nothing more than puppets dancing on the strings of
Hitler’s ambitious plans. I heard that Field Marshal Paulus asked him for permission
to evacuate Stalingrad with the army while he still had the chance, but Hitler
ignored him. He didn’t even acknowledge the request! All he wanted was
Stalingrad, the city of his worst enemy, and he didn’t care how many soldiers’
lives it cost.”

She walks over and places a hand
on Konstantin’s shoulder. “Soon, we’ll win this war and there will be peace
again. Come on, Kostya, let’s drink to our victory!” He turns away from the
window and sits on the edge of his bed as she fills two chipped mugs with a
bottle from her pocket. “It’s not the best,” she says, handing him a mug. “But
it’s as good as it gets around here. To victory!”

“To victory!” he says, throwing
the vodka to the back of his throat and swallowing it. He coughs a few times
before he tries to speak. “Not bad. It’s got a kick like a wounded mule! Fill
them up and I’ll grab us something to eat.”

He soon returns with two metal
cans filled with boiled potatoes and stew together with half a loaf of rye
bread.

“Well,” says Elena, sitting down
and taking her share. “We’re dining like kings tonight, my love!”

“One king,” he corrects her. “And
his beautiful queen.”

She nods, acknowledging his
words. “I’m so happy to see you again.”

“You know, Lena, one of the
biggest reasons I survived the horrors of Stalingrad was my desire to see you.
It was like a beacon guiding me through even the darkest of times. That’s what
Stalingrad was really about
—
spiritual strength, rather than military might. The Germans were
fighting out of fear of their dictator’s wrath, while we were fighting for our
homes and the people we love.” He reaches out and holds her chin, looking deep
into her eyes. “Eat up!”

She blinks and turns her
attention to the dinner, skewing a potato on a slightly bent fork. They eat
together in silence for a while, enjoying the comfort of being in each other’s
presence.

“How old are you, Kostya?” she
asks, placing her empty tin down on a shelf.

He looks up from his own dinner. “I’ll
be twenty-seven in July.”

Born so far apart, yet we could be twins,
Elena thinks. “Where were you born?” she asks.

“Moscow”. He waves his fork
vaguely as if indicating the direction of the capital city. “But my parents
traveled a lot. My father was an officer in the Red Army so I ended up living in
many different places.”

So he’d have grown up through the horrors of Stalin’s repressions
and the execution of Soviet officers in the Thirties.
But she makes no comment.

“It was okay, though,” he
continues, “I just had to put up with a constant stream of different schools
and trying to make new friends.”

“Girlfriends?” Elena asks with a
slight blush.

“Not really. No one serious
anyway.”

“Really? A handsome guy like you?
Why on earth not?”

He laughs and puts down his tin
next to hers. “Too busy with studies, work and sports to have any time for that
sort of thing. But then I never met such a wonderful girl as you, Lena.” He
takes her hands in his and they sit together in silence, enjoying the moment.

Then Kostya gets up and slips
another record onto the gramophone.

“Beautiful!” she says, standing
up. “I have a little treat for you as well, Kostya.” He watches in silence as
she lifts her foot and places it on the edge of the bed before easing up her
skirt. “Have a feel.”

He reaches out a hand and places
it gently on her calf. His eyes widen in surprise and he runs his fingers
slowly up her leg to the top of the stocking.

“Wow! Is that real nylon? Where
did you get a luxury like this, Lena?”

“Oh, I have my sources,” she
says, thinking,
I can’t tell him I
brought them with me from America, but at least I can make sure he enjoys them!
“So how long have I got you for, soldier?”

He pauses, his hand resting on
the top of her thigh. “Only a couple of days, I’m afraid. This is just a rest
stop for me and my guys. We have to head north towards Kursk and meet up with
the tanks cutting cross-country.”

“Really?” Even now, in the heat
of passion, Elena is on the lookout for new intelligence to pass on to her U.S.
contacts. “What’s the plan?”

“Who knows? General Zhukov
doesn’t invite me into his war cabinet. I just get told where to go and who to
point the tanks at!”

“Fair enough,” she shrugs, but is
disappointed not to have more information to pass on. “Come on, let’s dance.”

As they turn around the small
room, the scent of
Red Moscow
,
perfume borrowed from Katya, mingling with the smell of their bodies as they
press close to each other, Elena finally feels at peace, as though she and
Konstantin are the only two people in the whole universe.

She looks up into his eyes. “I
just want to make you happy, Kostya.”

“I
am
happy, Lena,” he says, his face serious. “I am truly happy now
I’m with you, my little bluet.”

He bends down, kissing her deeply
before dancing her slowly towards the bed and gently lowering her onto it. As
he bends down to join her, she reaches up a hand to hold him back, to keep him
standing, watching. She can hear the excitement in his breathing, the pounding
of his heart against her palm. With almost painful slowness, she loosens the
hooks on her skirt to reveal the white lace-trimmed slip underneath, a luxury
she got for the price of a tin of stew from a woman who had lost her daughter.
Konstantin’s eyes widen in surprise and desire as he runs a hand down the lace
until it reaches her knee. She shivers with delight as his fingers begin to
slide beneath the slip and she pulls him down to her at last.

“Kostya,” she whispers, stroking
the hair in the nape of his neck. “I want to be with you tonight. I’ve longed
for this since the moment I saw you in Yartsevo.”

“Oh Lena.” He flicks open the buttons
of her top, and his breath catches in his throat as he sees the smooth pinkness
of her skin beneath. He bends down, kissing her eyes, her cheek, her neck,
lower and lower with each touch of his lips. “I wish I could be with you
forever.” He pauses, pulling back his head to look deep into her eyes. “I love
you, Lena.”

With a hand on each side of his
head, she pulls him into a kiss, and as his strong body pushes against hers all
the worries and horrors of the war begin to dissolve as the pleasure wipes out
everything else. This is what she has been dreaming about all her life
—
the delight of being with her prince, her Kostya.

~

In the morning, Elena wakes to
find Konstantin already up. He bustles into the room carrying mess tins and a
couple of chunks of bread.

“Breakfast!” he says, handing her
one of the tins and perching on the edge of the bed. She takes it and looks,
unimpressed, at yet another portion of stew.
That’s one thing I really miss about being back home,
she thinks.
A proper breakfast with pancakes, maple
syrup and bacon. God, I hate this war!

“Did you know,” she asks, setting
her tin to one side, “that the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Lenin,
stripped Russia of its riches? They took the great works of art and treasures
from our nation’s public buildings and palaces, even looting churches, to sell
what they took on the international market, all so they could fill their
coffers?”

He frowns, swallowing his food
quickly before speaking in a harsh whisper. “Lena, you shouldn’t talk like that.
I don’t know what you think you’ve heard, but if anything like that ever really
happened it was no doubt done for the good of the country, for the Party.”

“Really?” says Elena, feeling irritated
at this typical, close-minded way of thinking that seems so pervasive in this
country. She is desperate to tell him all the things she’s been thinking about,
all the concerns about the Soviet leader that have plagued her day and night. “So
what about the terrorist actions carried out by Stalin? Your beloved hero bombed
people to help finance the Bolsheviks, did you know that? His damaged right arm
is a reminder
—
proof
—
of his part in the Bolsheviks’ terrorism!”

Konstantin jumps to his feet, his
bread falling to the floor uneaten. “Lena, enough! Please do not talk about
Comrade Stalin in such a way! He is the Master, the Father of Russia. Anything
he did for our Party he did out of love for his people! Whatever it might have
been.”

“Oh Kostya!” says Elena, shaking
her head sadly. “I am sorry for you. Truly I am.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

W
ho are you, and what have you done with Elena?” Katya stands in the
doorway of the Kiev Restaurant, an amused smile on her face.

Elena looks up from the murky
tub, her hair dripping with inky water. “What do you think? Definitely my color,
wouldn’t you say?”

“Black? It’ll take me a while to
get used to it. What on earth made you want to dye your hair now? You do
realize the Germans are pushing us out of the city?”

“Of course I’m aware,” says
Elena, rubbing her hair dry with a dusty sheet. “That’s why I’m going black. I
need to fit in here when the Germans settle back in.”

Katya frowns, the smile quickly
fading. “I don’t understand. What do you mean ‘Fit in’? Don’t tell me you’re
staying here.”

Elena lets out a short, humorless
laugh. “Okay, I won’t tell you.”

“No! What’s going on, Elena?”

“It’s quite simple. I’ve been
asked if I will remain in Kharkov and report back to command on what the
Germans are up to here and any plans I can get hold of.”

“A spy?” Katya’s mouth, which was
already wide with disbelief, somehow manages to widen even more. “You’re going
to spy on the Germans?”

“Of course!” says Elena, thinking
back to the eagerness of her U.S. contacts when they heard that the Soviets had
come to her with this request. The Russians had clearly seen something in her
that the instructor back in the States had also seen
—
smartness,
courage, and, probably most important of all, a desire to make a real
difference. A shiver of excitement passes through her at the thought of what
she is doing.

“And where exactly are you going
to be doing your spying?”

“Right here,” she says, gesturing
to the restaurant. “The Petrenko family who own this place have already been
through one Nazi occupation and they’re keen to do anything they can to help
us. I’m going to work for them, posing as a waitress. Don’t you see? It’s
perfect! When the Nazi officers come in to dine together, loosening their
tongues with beer and vodka, I’ll be right next to them, listening to their
conversations.”

Katya shakes her head as though
trying to clear her thoughts. “But how will you get messages out to us? We’ll
be on the other side of the German defenses.”

“Come and see,” says Elena,
dumping the blackened, wet cloth on a table and heading towards the rear of the
restaurant. Together the two women enter the storeroom behind the kitchens,
where the elderly Missus Petrenko is busy gathering supplies for the evening,
and make their way down into the basement. As they do so, the sound of gunfire,
which has been slowly increasing in the main restaurant, becomes muffled and
distant. There, behind a stack of old crates, Elena pulls aside a pile of
canvas sacks.

Katya breathes in sharply in
surprise. “They gave you a cipher machine?”

“They sure did!” says Elena,
pulling off the top cover to reveal the series of rotors that would enable her
to send coded messages not only to the Russian command but also to her U.S.
contacts. “Look at it! All this complex machinery and yet it’s fully mobile, so
I can move it around the city to ensure the Germans can’t trace the signal.
It’s perfect.”

Without speaking, Katya peers
into the machine and runs a finger over the components inside. A look of
sadness mars her usually cheerful face and, for a moment, she seems lost in her
own thoughts. Suddenly she straightens up and takes a deep breath, turning to
look at Elena. “So you reckon you’ve got it all covered? You’re ready for life
in an occupied city?”

“Of course.”

“I’m not so sure.” Katya reaches
out a hand and lifts some of Elena’s blackened hair in her fingers, an
unimpressed look on her face.

“What?” Elena looks around,
wondering if there’s something she hasn’t thought of, some concern that hasn’t
already been thrashed out with her superiors. “What is it, Katya?”

“Your eyebrows. They’re still
blond!”

“Get out of here!” says Elena,
laughing at her friend. “Go on! Before the Germans get any closer and you end
up stuck here working as a scrubber in the kitchen!”

They both rush up the stairs and
Katya hugs her friend before she leaves. “Keep safe,” she says. “I’ll be
listening with interest to see what happens.”

“Don’t worry, Katya. I’ll be
fine. Just make sure you get out of the city alive.”

Katya turns to leave and, as she
pushes the restaurant door open, the sound of gunfire grows suddenly louder.
Elena listens, trying to judge the distance.
They’re close,
she thinks, her heart jumping excitedly at the
thought.
Barely a kilometer away by the
sound of it. Better black up my eyebrows and get ready!

~

The following morning, less than
one month after the Soviets reclaimed the city, the Germans force the last of the
remnants of the Red Army out of Kharkov and seize occupation once again. Missus
Petrenko receives this news with a stoic lack of concern.

“Forwards and backwards they go,”
she says with a shrug, pausing in the act of cutting up potatoes. “First it’s
the Germans, then it’s the Russians. Now it’s the Germans again… but no doubt
the Russians will be back. All this to-ing and fro-ing doesn’t make life any
easier, my dear, but then when has it ever been easy?”

With that she turns back to her
preparations for the day, putting together a stew for customers that may never
even appear. Elena watches her, amazed at the old woman’s attitude.

“So you don’t mind having Germans
in the city?” she asks.

“It’s not a case of whether I
mind or not,” says Missus Petrenko, waving her knife towards the front of the
restaurant. “It’s a case of making do. They might be evil bastards, but we’ve
got our fair share of them whether we’re at war or whether we ain’t. As long as
they like good, wholesome Ukrainian food and are happy to pay for it and not
trash the place, I don’t care who the hell they are.”

Elena watches the knife slicing
through the air, fascinated. “You think they’ll come here, then? As customers?”

“Don’t see why not,” the old
woman brought the knife down suddenly, slicing cleanly through a potato before
flinging the two halves into a large pot of water. “They did the last time they
were here and no doubt they will again.”

And she is right. Once the
Germans have settled into the city and set up their barracks in the many
deserted houses around the main square, the soldiers begin to arrive
—
the common soldiers during the day, officers in the evenings. For
most of them, the restaurant is a place to come and escape the pressures and
the reality of the war. As they sit together in twos and threes, enjoying Missus
Petrenko’s cooking, while knocking back their shots of home-made vodka or
downing glasses of beer, they chat about life back home and their plans for the
future. And all the while, the dark-haired waitress moves among them, always
listening, always smiling, always ready to serve. Everything of interest that
Elena hears, which might prove valuable, she relays not only to the Russians
camped behind their defenses beyond the city wall, but also to her U.S.
contacts. Despite the constant fear of discovery, she delights in her new role
as a double-agent.

This is what all those months of training were for,
she thinks, as she heads back from a table where two officers, the
beer loosening their tongues and raising their voices, are discussing news of
what they call “Operation Citadel”, clearly a reference to their plans for a
forthcoming attack on Kursk.
It may be
dangerous, and I may have to keep dying my hair with that horrible black mess,
but I’m really making a difference here. Serving my country and saving lives,
that’s what it’s all about!

Later one evening, a month or so
into the German occupation, Elena is busy wiping down the bar when she notices
one customer still slumped over a table in the back corner, his head resting on
the table. His hat lies nearby, its skull and crossbones clearly visible
—
the insignia of the Gestapo.

“I’m locking up in a minute, Herr
Officer,” says Elena, effortlessly slipping into German as she approaches the
table. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave now, please.”

There is no answer from the man
except for a slightly muffled snoring.

“Sir?” she says, giving his a
shoulder a gentle shake, her fingernail catching on his armband, bright red
emblazoned with a large, black swastika. “Time to leave!”

The man mumbles something in a
drunken slur, but Elena can’t make out any of the words. She returns to her
cleaning up, stacking the chairs and mopping the floor, occasionally glancing
back at the man, but he doesn’t show any signs of waking up.

Right
, she thinks, when her chores are
at last complete.
Guess I’d better help
get this guy back to his rooms.

With some difficulty, she manages
to rouse the man and get him to stumble, leaning against her, out of the
restaurant and to the restaurant’s delivery wagon, parked at the side of the
building. As she loads him into the passenger seat, an envelope falls from
inside his coat and she catches it, slipping it back into his pocket, but not
before she has read the name, Kriminalsekretär Hans Schmidt, written across it
in neat German script.

Kriminalsekretär
, she thinks.
I’m not very familiar with the ranks of the
secret police, but that’s a fairly senior role, isn’t it?

Once they are both in, Elena
drives him across the town to the where the German officers are housed. One of
the soldiers standing outside recognizes her and waves towards a building along
the street, where the Gestapo have stationed themselves.

“Here we are, Mein Herr,” says
Elena, opening the passenger door. “All home and safe.” Hans blinks up at her,
his eyes bleary from sleep.

“Ah,” he grunts, gathering
himself together slowly before wrenching his weary body out of the wagon.

Elena watches him straighten up,
getting a bearing on him. He looks like the German ideal: tall, blond and,
despite his current state, clearly very fit. She smiles. “Go and get some
sleep. It’s got to be more comfortable in your own bed than on that table!”

“Ah, yes,” he says, waking up
slightly and rubbing the red mark on his forehead from where it had rested on
the hard, wooden surface. “My apologies, fraulein.”

“Not at all! You’re welcome to
nod off in the restaurant any time.”

“You are too kind,” he says,
looking her up and down and slowly breaking into a smile. He hiccups suddenly
and breathes strong alcohol fumes at her. “Let me show you my appreciation. How
about I take you to the movies tomorrow afternoon? It’s my day off.”

Elena raises her dark eyebrows as
she considers this. The U.S. military want me to recruit a German spy, she
thinks. This is my opportunity for sure.

“Certainly,” she says. “Tomorrow
at the movies it is. For now, though, go and get some rest.”

“Until tomorrow,” Hans replies,
clicking his heels and delivering a crisp salute, only slightly spoiled by
knocking off his hat. He gropes for it drunkenly and shoves it back on his
head. “Good night, fraulein.” He turns on his heels and walks towards the
doorway, stumbling as he does so.

~

A sparse crowd of viewers files
out of the hall as the movie draws to a close, mostly a few lone officers and a
group of soldiers. This last group makes their way noisily along the road
towards the lights of a nearby restaurant. As Elena emerges into the street,
Hans offers her his arm.

“Come, Elena,” he says, pointing
in the opposite way to that taken by the soldiers. “I know a small café in the
east of the city. Will you join me for a cup of tea with cake?”

“Thank you,” says Elena, taking
his arm. “That sounds lovely.” They do not attract the attention of Germans.
Elena and Hans look like a couple; she a pretty, slim brunette and he a tall,
blonde officer in the striking black uniform of the Gestapo. “So tell me, Hans,
do you have any family back home?”

“My wife and our two children,
Heinrich and Karin.”

“Really? You must miss them
terribly.”

He nods and steers their course
down a narrow side street. “Of course. But it is better they are home in Berlin
rather than being here. They are safe there.”

“So tell me,” she says, watching
him out of the corner of her eyes. “Why do you drink so much?”

Hans stops and looks at her, his
eyebrows raised, and for a moment Elena worries she has offended him. But then
he sighs and starts walking again. “To help me sleep. I find it almost
impossible to settle at night and drift off unless I’m drunk.”

“How come?”

“No… it’s a long story.”

Elena laughs. “I’ve just sat
through a two-hour-long film about Frederick the Great. I reckon I can handle
any long story you’ve got after watching that!”

“Fair enough,” he says, but he
doesn’t share her laughter. Instead, his face takes on a haunted look. “I was
just a kid really when I joined the Nazi party, almost ten years ago. At the
time I believed we were doing what was right, both for our homeland and for our
people, making Germany great again! When an opening came up with the Gestapo I
leapt at the chance to serve my country, desperate to help in the fight against
partisans who were killing our men out here in the east. I was told Russia was a
land filled with foul smelling barbarians, thanks to their homemade vodka and
cheap tobacco, nothing more than animals that needed to be put down for their
own good.”