20
SAVKA
Kraków, Polish People’s Republic
august 1947
through the window of the flat, Savka stared down at the man on the sidewalk directly across the street from their building. Spotting her, he lifted his hand in an insolent wave, his black hair curling from beneath a wide-brimmed fedora. Comrade Ilyin. Over the past seven months, he’d taken turns with Yeleshev, Belyakov’s other man—who’d also been with him that fateful day in the Carpathians—to linger in doorways or pace at the corner, smoking and watching to ensure she didn’t escape Poland. After Belyakov had turned up at their apartment in January, he’d ordered her to wait until Marko and his division had been shipped to England, and as the months passed without further word from her handler, Savka often watched his men watching her like hawks.
Sweat was gathering under her arms, and she fanned herself with a newspaper, lifting damp hair off her neck. A heat wave had descended on Kraków, and even this early in the morning, the city was wreathed in a scorched haze, the sun blazing down and wilting those who dared wander the streets. If Ewa were home, she would come up behind Savka and whisper, “These beasts can’t stand out there forever.” Savka had resisted Ewa’s plan to flee Kraków for Berlin. Belyakov held Taras, and if he found out she’d escaped, Savka was certain she’d lose her son.
Until she’d received Marko’s first letter from Rimini.
After Belyakov’s visit, Savka had written to tell her husband how she’d escaped Ukraine and was hiding in Poland with their daughter. His reply had come within weeks, followed by others, and his letters and Ewa’s forged exit visas were in her purse on the kitchen table, along with the small gun Kuzak had given her.
She stuck her head into the bedroom to check on Zoya and Paweł, who were playing quietly with wooden blocks, then she glanced toward the door of the flat where two small suitcases stood, packed and ready for them to leave at any moment. Irritable and impatient in the growing humidity, she took out Marko’s most recent letter, unfolding it to read his hurried scrawl, and seeking reassurance that escape was her best option.
Savka—
I remain devastated that you lost Taras. Unforgivable. How could you survive while our son was taken by the NKVD?
Every moment I grieve his loss.
The British are committed to protecting our division from the Soviets. We are getting out of here soon. When I arrive in England, they will help me send a message to Kuzak. He will discover where Taras is being held and launch a rescue.
We will bring back our son.
Your husband,
Marko
A tear dropped on the page, blurring his words. “Soon you will know Kuzak is dead,” she whispered. “And that I killed him—”
The door to the flat flew open, and Ewa burst in, breathless from racing up the stairs. “That gorgeous beast isn’t there,” she shouted. “He’s not there.” Savka rushed to the window. The sidewalk was indeed empty, save for a few people walking along Mikołajska Street toward the market. She and Ewa mobilized, moving around the flat in a frenzy, stuffing slices of rye they’d toasted this morning, and a few more clothes into their suitcases. Once their bags were packed, they bolted with the children to the station, leaving behind their life in Kraków with nothing but a few furtive glances over their shoulders.
But on the train to Berlin, Savka could not let her guard down, nor shake a sense of foreboding, even as Ewa sucked at cigarette after cigarette and winked at her through a cloud of smoke that rose in ribbons to the ceiling of their third-class compartment. Paweł was occupied, playing a game of jacks on the floor of the carriage, but Zoya was tugging at her mother’s coat, wanting something to eat. “In a moment, darling,” Savka said, her eyes on Ewa and the new jaunty red felt beret that she wore angled down over one eye. Savka thought it looked expensive but would not begrudge her friend a luxury.
Savka had just handed Zoya a slice of toasted rye when the door slid open, and she jumped in her seat. “Papers!” A Soviet conductor glared down at the women, his hand out. She tried to smile, to act naturally, as she fished the exit visas out of her handbag. The conductor glanced at her photograph. “Savka Ivanets.” He looked up to study her and Zoya, who had slid to the floor to join Paweł in his game, the toast still clutched in her hand. “Your daughter?” Savka nodded without a word, holding her breath.
After the conductor reviewed Zoya’s visa, he turned to Ewa and examined hers and Paweł’s with a frown. Finally satisfied, he handed them back and left the carriage. Savka gratefully exhaled.
Ewa clasped her hand, stroking each of her fingers. “We did it, Savka,” she said, her eyes gleaming with excitement.
Savka looked out the window and allowed herself a sigh of relief. When Belyakov had shown up seven months ago, his order for her to spy on Marko in England sent her into a deep depression, but now her heart soared with quiet elation. With Ewa’s help, she and Zoya had escaped the clutches of her Russian controller. Every blast of the locomotive’s whistle brought her closer to freedom, closer to her husband. And perhaps to Taras.
But something still niggled. How had they escaped so easily?
“Bye-bye Belyakov.” Ewa zipped her hand in the air. “Bzzzt! You will see, soon he will be erased from your memory, Savka. Zoya will lead a normal life—and finally meet her father.” Ewa glanced at her. “Why the long face?”
“One of Belyakov’s men has been out there every day,” Savka fretted. “Why would Ilyin suddenly leave without Yeleshev taking his place?”
“Maybe he’s got a girlfriend,” Ewa said with a shrug. “Oh, Ilyin, Ilyin,” she cooed, her eyes closed, and a dreamy expression on her face.
Savka frowned. “What are you doing?” Sometimes Ewa’s joking irritated her.
“Kissing that magnificent creature,” she said with a naughty, schoolgirl’s grin. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t kiss him, given the chance.”
“Stop it.” Savka’s gut cramped. It was Ilyin who, on Belyakov’s orders, had shot her that day in the Carpathian Forest. She could never imagine kissing that monster.
Their train had just crossed the frontier between Poland and Germany. Savka had never been this far west. Leaving the Polish People’s Republic was exhilarating and distressing, for it meant leaving Ukraine behind forever. A Soviet exit visa was a one-way ticket. She watched German village after German village pass with a feeling of dread growing in her chest, and thought of her father and brother, working in this strange country during the war. What had become of them? She’d likely never know.
Ewa took her hand again, eyeing her impassively, and for a moment Savka felt dizzy under her friend’s gaze.
“You must breathe, Savka,” Ewa said, giddy amusement stealing around the corners of her mouth.
“I will breathe when we’re safe in Berlin.” Savka smiled reluctantly. The sun was high overhead, the heat oppressive even with the window down. She gazed at the miles of farmer’s fields flying by. Two years after the war had ended, eastern Europe was still struggling to recover, but the wheat would soon be ready for harvest.
The train approached a station and slowed, whistling to a stop, black smoke drifting past their window. Some passengers disembarked, others boarded. She and Ewa had been lucky to have the compartment to themselves, but with the train now at capacity an older woman opened the door, searching for a seat. Savka and Ewa lifted the children to their laps.
Zoya had been quieter than usual on the long trip, as if she knew that she and her mother were running for their lives, but as the train gained speed again, she turned and gazed up at her with those beautiful dark eyes. “Where are we going, Mama?”
Savka hugged her dear, small body close. “Somewhere safe, my love,” she said, “where you and Paweł can make friends and play.”
“What a lovely child,” the new passenger remarked, as Zoya shyly ducked her head. “She must look like her father.”
Her daughter resembled neither her nor Marko. Savka was certain that when her husband met Zoya for the first time, he’d sweep her into his arms and tell them stories of an aunt or great grandmother who had such dark, wavy hair.
Several hours later, the train rolled through the outskirts of Berlin. Inside the compartment, the air seemed to heat another few degrees. Savka held a now sleeping Zoya, even as a chill of anticipation ran over her skin like a rat. Berlin. How many times had she heard the name of this city drop from the mouths of Nazi soldiers in her village? Berlin, home to the Reichstag, to Hitler and his minions, who’d raged across Europe, leaving it in ashes.
Ewa lit another cigarette and smoked pensively, staring out the window. Savka noticed her friend’s hands were shaking. Approaching the birthplace of her rapists, how could they not? “Over three hundred Allied bombing runs,” Ewa smirked, “and not one of them managed to kill that bastard Hitler.” The new passenger, obviously a German, quickly looked away. As Ewa blundered on, relating how Germany had been carved up by the Allies—the Americans and British holding West Berlin, the Soviets occupying the eastern part of the city—Savka watched the destruction pass by their train window. Buildings were bombed to shadows of their former selves; they resembled drawings she’d seen of Roman ruins, ceilings blown out, insides reduced to rubble. Two years after the end of the war, only the outer brick structures remained standing.
The train slowed as it came into the station, and Savka closed her eyes with the conviction that here was one of the supreme moments of her life. Freedom at last. When she opened them, the German passenger had already left and Ewa was standing to take down her bag from the overhead compartment.
“We did it,” Savka whispered. “How can I ever thank you?”
Ewa leaned to kiss her cheek, then rubbed off the lipstick mark she’d left there, smiling. “Give me your little gun, piękna. Police will stop you at checkpoints. If they find it…” she trailed off.
Savka fumbled in her handbag for Kuzak’s pistol and handed it over to her friend. “What if you’re stopped…” But Ewa had already gathered up Paweł and turned, leaving the carriage so quickly, Savka had to scramble with Zoya to catch up.
it was early evening when they got off the train. Years later, Savka would often think of how she and Zoya descended the narrow steps to the platform, Savka—her dress sticking to her legs from the humidity—trying to keep her daughter from being crushed by the crowd on the platform as she searched for Ewa and young Paweł. She spotted the top of Ewa’s red hat bobbing toward the street and recalled Ewa saying that her friend would be waiting in a car to take them to the apartment. Savka followed, diving headlong into the tidal current of disembarking passengers, dragging Zoya behind her, the travel bag under her arm.
But other passengers streamed forward in a crush to board the train, and it seemed impossible to reach the street. Savka was consumed by a sudden, aching exhaustion after almost seven hours on the train. Years later, she would remember her pulse quickening, the smell of engine grease and coal steam, and the sweat of passengers being greeted by friends or family. She would remember the feeling of being watched, and the sudden crystal-clear directive from somewhere inside her:
Run.
Someone grasped her by the elbow and she turned to find a man dressed in an overcoat, his face shadowed by the wide brim of his hat. Terror gripped her and she tried to pull away, but another man had already snatched up Zoya and their suitcase, moving toward the street.
“No,” she screamed as they dragged her through the station. “Zoya!” Savka would rather die than lose her daughter the way she’d lost Taras. She scratched and fought like an animal, shouting into the crowd for help, but people silently passed her, tight-lipped and eyes down. What’s happening? Where the hell is Ewa?
Out on the street, a black car was waiting at the curb. Savka was thrown roughly into the back while a crying and frightened Zoya was deposited in the front passenger seat. One man climbed in next to Savka and the other got behind the wheel, steering the car onto the busy street.
“My papers are in order,” Savka said in stilted German, her voice shaking so much she could barely form the words. “You can’t detain me.” The man next to her finally turned to look at her, and her blood chilled. It was Yeleshev, the second of Belyakov’s deputies. Savka’s old wound burned hot with memory. She flicked her eyes to the driver next to her sobbing daughter. As he wove expertly through traffic, he turned his head to steer the car down a wide boulevard, and Savka took in his profile. Ilyin. They found me. Devastated, she looked out the window and stared with dumb incomprehension at the passing tableau. Most of the trees had been destroyed, leaving only a few leaning precariously, scorched black by fire or the heat of bomb blasts. Battered light standards hung over the bomb-damaged street like ghouls. Under a large banner of Stalin that flew from the top of a broken statue in the center of the boulevard, a work crew of women in a long assembly line moved a rubble pile, piece by piece, from the street.
Within a few minutes, their car crossed a short bridge. Now they seemed to be on an island in the middle of the city. The car slowed in front of a grand bombed-out relic, the towering limestone walls and columns pitted with shrapnel fragments from artillery fire. Savka imagined it might have once been an impressive museum. “Where is my friend and her son?” she cried.
Her captor opened the back door, and she was yanked out onto the sidewalk. She pounded her fists on the Russian’s chest and looked back at Zoya, her small palm flat against the car window, her face wet with tears. “Let her out!”
“She stays here,” Yeleshev said, his voice a surprisingly rich baritone.
Savka struggled as he led her up a series of wide steps into the building and down a warren of abandoned corridors. The air was thick with dust and the musty scent of ancient history. She tripped over rubble from the collapsed ceiling as they passed through an arched entrance to a massive gallery. Would she be reunited with Ewa and Paweł in a bombed and deserted museum?
Savka’s heart almost stopped at the sight of a figure in the middle of the gallery, his back to her. Belyakov waited next to a huge stone structure of time-worn bricks glazed a vivid lapis blue. Exotic animals stood out from the wall in bas relief—enameled tiles depicting lions, dragons, bulls. Boards lay on the ground, presumably pried away from the installation, the rest of which was covered by other boards and extensive scaffolding. Several NKVD border soldiers stood in the archway, smoking. The Germans had done what they could to protect this antiquity from Allied air raid damage, but there was no protection from the invading Soviets.
“Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon!” he thundered, without turning to look at her. “Isn’t it magnificent, Savka? The Ishtar Gate brought here stone by stone. What I would have given to be on that dig—fifteen years to unearth this beauty.”
She ignored his comment. At another time, she would have studied the gate with fascination, but this was the man she’d hoped never to see again, the same dark eyes under his cap, his immaculate khaki uniform, and burnished black boots, Lilliputian as ever. When he removed his cap, she saw that he’d pomaded his hair, slicking each hair so close, she could make out the disquieting shape of his skull.
He opened his arms and turned to the gallery. “We have all this glory to ourselves, Savka. See where it was walled in during the Allied air raids? If not for the meddling of American troops, we would have disassembled it and taken it to Moscow, like the Pergamon Altar.” A sour look. “Now it must be guarded day and night.” He gestured to the NKVD border soldiers. “They have taken off the cladding so we can see it. What a gift to stand before one of the Seven Wonders of the World—entrance to the ancient city of Babylon.”
Savka glanced up at the spectacle, hardly seeing it for worry over Zoya and barely listening as Belyakov prattled on about how German archaeologists had painstakingly reconstructed the gate in Berlin, any missing tiles replaced to show what the edifice must have looked like in its day, one hundred years before the birth of Christ. It was obvious that he expected her to show some kind of awe, but she refused to give him the satisfaction.
“If you hurt my daughter, I’ll kill you,” she said quietly, fixing Belyakov with a cold, dead stare.
“Did you hear that, Yeleshev?” Belyakov tilted his head back to look at the roof of the gallery, parts of which were open to the sky. “Do you see the destruction Hitler wreaked on Germany’s treasures?”
“They shouldn’t have stolen it in the first place,” she said.
“Savka, I had no idea you shared my love of archaeology.” Belyakov smiled broadly. He took out his pewter flask, slipped a small white pill into his mouth, and gulped it down without taking his eyes off her. “Did you know this gate was built to venerate Ishtar, the goddess of love and war?” He chuckled to himself. “One must appreciate a woman who forced gods and men to their knees.” Belyakov stole another drink from his flask before returning it to his pocket. Then, hands folded behind his back, he stepped closer to examine a golden dragon set within the bright blue tiles, its long tongue lashing as it prowled the netherworld.
Savka was sick of his games. “Where is Ewa?” she demanded.
“Safe.”
“What have you done with my friend?”
“If you wish to be a successful operative, you would do well to follow Ewa’s example.” Belyakov turned to face her, laughing at her obvious confusion. “You ignored the signs, my dear Savka. Did you not question why your friend took you in so readily?”
She blinked rapidly. He was trying to make her doubt Ewa, and she wasn’t going to let it happen. “Why would I question a woman so welcoming and giving of herself? Ewa is a true loving soul, who would give me the shirt off her back.”
Belyakov smiled. “And…did she?” he asked with a wink.
Stunned, Savka backed away from him but Yeleshev, who’d been leaning against the wall behind her, stepped out and pushed her forward. Her thoughts stuttered over Belyakov’s sly suggestion. As she tried to convince herself that he knew nothing of the relationship between her and Ewa, moments with her friend replayed in her mind like one of the war-time romance films they often went to see at the playhouse in Kraków: In bed with Ewa, her lovely fingers tracing a pattern on her naked back, taking her, sobbing, into her arms while Savka wailed Taras’s name into her shoulder. Ewa angry at the treatment of Jews on the day Savka had caught her getting dressed for her SS officer informant, yet warning her for trying to help them. Ewa handing Savka the exit visas, willing to leave her lovely flat and Poland forever. The film ended like so many of them did, with a close-up of the Hollywood starlet wearing a stylish new red hat, fingers trembling as she lighted a cigarette on the train. Savka’s heart turned over and a hot, hard lump formed in her throat. “Ewa…just took my gun to keep Berlin police from arresting me at checkpoints.”
“Dear Ewa,” Belyakov said, his eyes dancing with amusement. “Protecting innocent women from harm.”
Yes, Savka thought, with a low moan, she protected me…didn’t she? “Ewa loves me,” she murmured aloud, shivering as if she had a fever.
“Love?” he scoffed. “Ewa does not love.”
“She does,” Savka insisted. “She loves me. Ask her.”
“I would if she wasn’t leaving tomorrow for New York with her son Paweł and daughter Maja,” he said with a sick smile.
The shock of betrayal rose slowly, forcing Savka to examine the truth in utter devastation. Maja was alive? With shame and humiliation, she thought of every secret she’d told her friend. How had she been so stupid, so trusting? And how could Ewa have lied so easily? Paweł had become another son to Savka, and Ewa loved Zoya to distraction. It can’t be true. But she knew that it was.
“Ewa is one of your agents,” she said, her voice wretchedly toneless.
“Not mine,” Belyakov said conversationally. “A comrade turned her and two other Home Army operatives a few months before I turned you. You’d flown the coop and I’d written you off but imagine my delight to hear from my comrade that you had shown up at his agent’s clinic in Kraków.” He looked at her with hooded eyes, ignoring her tears. “It wasn’t personal, Savka. Ewa kept you safe until I needed you. She did what she had to do to get her daughter back.”
So Ewa had delivered her to Belyakov to save Maja. Savka knew she’d do the same to Ewa if it meant being reunited with Taras. Still, her hands formed into fists, tight against her sides. “You’re a monster,” she spat at the Soviet. “You used Maja the way you use my son.”
Belyakov merely shrugged. “Let Ewa inspire you, Savka. Do a good job and it’s possible to get your son back.”
The scene in their flat seven months prior came hurtling back at Savka: Ewa shouting at the Soviet agent, shoving him to protect Zoya; his hand darting out to slap her. It had all been a charade, a show they’d staged to convince her to trust Ewa completely. She trembled, thinking back to how cooly her friend had seduced her. The sex had been casual, meaningless—simply what she did to ensnare her victims, male or female. And that damned new red hat—undoubtedly purchased with money Ewa had earned double-crossing Savka and Zoya and delivering them to the NKVD.
Belyakov was watching her with a sober expression. “You will never escape me. Show me Marko’s letters from Rimini.”
She opened her handbag and blindly handed them over. As the Russian scanned each one, she glanced up at a figure of a striding lion on the Ishtar Gate, its savage eyes wide and fangs bared in the pursuit of ancient prey. How she yearned to become that lion, leap upon the Soviet agent, bite into his bony neck and bleed him to the ground.
Belyakov swore and threw the letters. They fluttered around her like lost doves. “He has said nothing of MI-6. You must ask him direct questions.”
It was Savka’s turn to scoff at him. “He would suspect me.”
The Russian practically pulsed with rage, his dark eyes resolute. “Do not waste my time,” he shouted. “Ewa’s forged exit visas got you here. Now you will go to Marko.” He suddenly stepped back and clapped with mock joy. “What a reunion it will be!”
“Why did you bother with this deception?” she asked, startled at how easily his moods shifted. “You could have given me the visas instead of making Ewa forge them.”
“Marko knows the Soviets would never issue you an exit visa. But if you tell him your good friend who’d once been in the Polish resistance helped you get papers, he will suspect nothing.”
Savka still didn’t understand. The Soviets had hunted Marko’s Waffen-SS division since its inception in 1943 and had been one step behind them as the division marched across eastern Europe, fighting partisans. But that didn’t explain the trouble Belyakov was taking with this case. “Why do you still want him so badly?”
His mouth twitched, as if he were suppressing a smile. “There was a camp muster list—a roll call. The British commander would not let me have it. But it was stolen by your husband before he left the POW camp. He somehow took the Rimini List from under Brigadier Block’s nose,” he added with reluctant admiration.
She stared numbly at him. “Why would Marko steal this list?”
Belyakov’s eyes danced. “To safeguard his men. Think of what that list means. The names and places of birth of every man in the Fourteenth Waffen-SS Division. Over eight thousand Soviet citizens—traitors who must answer for their collaboration with Germany.”
She allowed herself a merciless smile. It gave her joy that Marko had unwittingly made her Russian handler’s job difficult. “And he’s escaped your clutches yet again.” But there was an aura of smug satisfaction about Belyakov—as though he’d expected Marko to steal this list—that unsettled her.
Belyakov’s face was now an expressionless mask. “You will go to your husband in England. You will find the list.”
“Marko has surely burned it by now,” she said, staring him down.
“Your husband is an arrogant man. I wager he has kept it.”
“He’ll never just give me this list,” she said, but the thought of spying on her husband, of living a lie of that magnitude made her break into a cold sweat.
“Did you suspect Ewa of being a spy?” Belyakov smiled when she shook her head. “You will do it seamlessly, as effortlessly as she did with you. You’re Marko’s wife. You have your methods of persuasion—pillow talk can be illuminating.”
“I want news of my son.”
Belyakov reached into the breast pocket of his coat and held out a photograph, which Savka took, breathless with fear, and expecting to see Taras standing in a Russian field, perhaps embracing a horse that loved him. A scream died in her throat at the sight of a now sixteen-year-old Taras emaciated and drawn, his head shaved and wearing rough, felted clothes, the barren, snow-covered Siberian taiga behind him. Her son was not looking at the camera. He seemed lost, staring out somewhere she could not see, the whites of his eyes stark against the smudges on his face.
Savka wanted to lunge at Belyakov. “He’s in the Gulag?” she choked. “You said you would protect him. I thought—”
“I snapped this photograph myself,” he said proudly, reaching for it. She held it tight against her heart and he grinned, his gold tooth gleaming, dropping his hand as though he realized it was better for her to keep the photo, if only to remind her what was at stake. “The gold mines are infamously torturous.” He raised an eyebrow in affected concern. “Taras looks near to death, wouldn’t you say?”
“You agreed to keep him safe…,” she trailed off, her voice hoarse with emotion.
“Your memory, Savka! I agreed that you’d see him again if you did what we ordered. Your son was charged with counterrevolutionary activities, which carries a twenty-five-year term. Once in Siberia, it’s either the mining or the logging crews for political prisoners. Your husband writes of mobilizing bandits to find Taras. Impossible when he’s in a gulag. But now you’re in a position to help him.”
Her Taras, a political prisoner? She’d heard stories of the many camps within the Gulag, of the mines—long workdays in minus fifty-degree weather. Savka was suddenly furious at Marko, who’d escaped to safety while his son was being worked to death in Siberia. And now she must keep that terrible fact from her husband. Her chest was weighted with so many secrets, she feared she could no longer carry them. “You cannot punish the son for his father’s crimes,” she said finally.
“You will go to your husband and bring us the list.”
“No.”
“Do you want Zoya to grow up in your dark shadow? Do you want her to grow up knowing her mother was a traitor?”
Savka ground her teeth to stop herself from shouting. “You will move Taras to safe work, out of the cold.”
Belyakov blinked and nodded at Yeleshev, who strong-armed Savka back down the long hallways of the ruined museum. When they got to the car, she came to an abrupt stop. “My daughter,” she said, throwing off his hand, “will be in the back with me.”
The Russian reluctantly obliged her and opened the front passenger door.
Zoya leapt into Savka’s arms. “Mama?” the little girl whispered in her ear. “I thought you were gone forever.”
Savka clung to her daughter, devastated that she’d made her fear such a thing. “I’m here, my love,” she said before steering Zoya into the backseat.
As Ilyin silently navigated the car through the ruined streets of Berlin, Savka contemplated her situation. She held tight to Zoya, who buried her face in her mother’s dress collar. Only hours ago, she’d exulted in the certainty that she’d finally escaped Belyakov; now she felt his hands around her throat. Worse, she had learned that Taras was suffering in a gulag.
She thought of Ewa with Paweł and Maja, soon on their way to America, a place she’d always dreamed of going—to a clean, bright apartment supplied by Belyakov for a job well done. Does she feel guilty for her betrayal? What did Savka know for certain, except that she could trust no one? She hugged her daughter close, stifling a sob. Her beloved friend had delivered her like a hog to the butcher, and Savka would never forgive her.
But she was now bound for England, and soon she and Zoya would be reunited with Marko. For now, she was a bird set free from her cage—even if the master kept the door open in anticipation of her return—and she would spread her wings and fly. She would turn the tables on this ruthless Soviet and tell Marko everything.