November 10, 1941
Moscow
As soon as Stephen read Pravda that morning, he knew his time was up.
The front page glorified the exploits of General Ivan Boldin, who had been sent by Stalin to a place called Tula with the task of stalling Guderian’s southern strike at Moscow. According to Pravda, he had done more than merely stall the famous German; with the almost weaponless 50th Army and a rag tag worker’s “army” recruited from the city’s factories, he had succeeded in smashing Guderian’s tank attack on October 30. The German commander had been forced to bypass Tula, splitting his army, making it possible for Boldin to now hold him at bay indefinitely.
But it was the paper’s grandiose prediction that a massive counterattack engineered by General Zhukov would soon envelop and destroy the invaders that alerted Stephen.
Now’s the time—you’ve got to make up your mind once and for all.
He had spun every conceivable plan through his mind and finally concluded that all of them were hopeless. There was simply no way that he could travel across the entire Soviet Union to Tashkent without papers with the German army still threatening to overrun Moscow.
Even as he acknowledged the finality of his conclusion, he closed his eyes and took refuge in the past.
He was back home in Talsi with Lily, forever part of that last endless summer. She walked beside him, her breasts jutting out beneath her jersey. She ran her hand through her long black hair, twisting and pulling it back; with her olive skin, she was a dark exotic flower among posies. His gaze rolled down her hips to her tanned thighs and along the length of her lovely legs. She had suggested a swim in the lake near her mother’s summer cottage; to avoid the town, overrun with Russian soldiers, they took a roundabout route that kept them in the woods. At first the shade was delightful, but before long the insects were swarming over their sweaty bodies, and they began to run through the trees, laughing and swatting as they veered wildly along narrow paths, dodging brambles and avoiding rocks.
Finding the lake deserted, they stripped and plunged into the cool, clear water. They swam in zig-zags, briefly touching and flitting away, until they reached the diving deck. Stephen pulled himself onto the wooden platform.
“Going up?” Lily extended her hand, her face radiant in the shadow.
He took it and she rose up out of the lake, her nipples pointed, the water streaming down from her shining black hair onto her shoulders, into the long curve of her back and over her rounded hips. He pulled her down against him and they lay in the puddles on the hot deck, kissing.
She rolled beneath him and he entered her, seeking to escape the despair that was numbing his senses. Still, it pursued him, blocking his release.
“You bastard,” Lily gasped as she was jolted by pleasure. Seeing that he was in trouble, she added, “You considerate son of a bitch.”
“They make boys and girls pay for their fun,” he warned.
“It’s worth it.” She laughed, hoping he would relax and let himself go. But he began to thrust frantically in an effort to force himself to a climax. Failing, he stopped and began to cry. She held him while the sobs shock his body. He rolled away.
“I’ll come back for you next summer. Stephen. Look at me. Please.” After a long minute he turned and faced her. “You can desert,” she continued. “By then your parents and Rachel will have found a way out on their own. You can meet me in Riga. I’ll find a way to get you out.”
Her words cut through the mass of dread and frustration that blocked him. His life meant more to her than anything else on earth. Strength and hope flowed into him and he looked at her in amazement. He recognized that if he allowed himself to feel the same towards her, he would have no life without her. He reached out to her and she stroked him. He entered her. “Lily! Lily!” She engulfed him and he came.
He awakened to the reality of a war camp.
The tent city stirred. Somehow the unannounced fact that they were to depart for the front had spread throughout the ranks. Cavalrymen moved about in doleful silence, their footsteps muffled by dew. Horses shied and kicked, sensing their imminent destruction. Stephen had no friends among them; to the Russians he was invisible, a non-person linked to Kozlov in a way that was too dangerous for them to want to comprehend. All they knew was that he didn’t belong with them.
Forget the fantasy, he told himself. In a few hours you’ll be outside the city. Then what?
* * *
By midnight they had joined sixteen other divisions of cavalry at a staging area so close to the invading army’s artillery that Stephen’s ears hurt from the relentless blasts. Kozlov, busy with preparations for the attack, set for the morning after tomorrow, ignored him.
Stephen knew he could leave at any time. But where could he go? He had escaped the city; all he had to do was to walk away. But in which direction. A glimmer of an idea had come to him as they were riding out of the city, but he had dismissed it as insane. But it refused to die, flashing into his mind no matter how many times he rejected it. In geography class they had read about the Pripet Marshes, a vast swamp to the south—he could hide there for years beyond the reach of the Nazis or the Russians. If he could steal a horse, he could be safely lost in the marshes within days.
Walking away was one thing; stealing one of these magnificent horses was another. If they caught him, they’d shoot him on the spot.
You’ll never make it on foot, he told himself. The only way is on a horse. And they’re not going to give you one.
He couldn’t do it. It was one thing to turn his back on the war, to walk away from Stalin’s mad empire and from his death struggle with the Germans. But stealing one of their horses to do so would be a betrayal of Kozlov, the Russian who unaccountably had saved his life.
You can’t do that to him. He trusts you. That would be immoral.
He remained in place, waiting for the inevitable to come.
Two mornings later it came.
Before dawn, the regiments began to form themselves into columns. Stephen went to Kozlov’s tent. The Colonel had been drinking; Stephen could smell the stench of alcohol that emanated from his entire body.
“Ride with me,” Kozlov said, his word slurred. “I’ll show you where to wait. When the attack ends, you can take the horse. Don’t worry, there won’t be anyone left alive to stop you. I want to die knowing that you got away. Today’s my day. Someday yours will come. Nothing to fear. Just the way it is.”
Stephen couldn’t think of anything he could say in response. Any expression of gratitude would have sounded false—what words were there to thank this stranger for saving his life?
Once formed into a column, the regiment joined the columns formed by the other regiments. Stephen rode beside Kozlov, who had fallen deeper into his alcoholic haze. The Colonel was muttering incoherently, his eyes barely open. Stephen could smell the stench of alcohol that emanated from his body. He thought he heard Kozlov say “murderers . . . murderers” but he couldn’t be sure.
After moving forward a mile, the long column peeled off into a line. They formed and reformed in lines facing an open field and the German tanks that were less than a quarter-mile away.
Kozlov directed him to a copse of trees a quarter mile to the south. “Go,” he ordered him. “I want to see you ride away. No one will bother you.”
Stephen had no trouble reaching the vantage point recommended by Kozlov; once there, he waited in the trees. He was assailed by the notion that this wasn’t, couldn’t be real. All of these men wouldn’t ride into what was certain death simply because they had been ordered to by the lunatic in the Kremlin.
The columns of Russian cavalry stood like miniature figurines in the chill November air. The horses showed more emotion in their nervous antics than did the men. The only signs of life were the thousands of white puffs formed by their breathing the cold air.
The cavalrymen drew their sabers and shortened the reins. Their horses tensed as though at a starting gate. Stephen wanted to scream at them, to somehow wake them from their death trance before it was too late. Then, as if by unspoken agreement, the charge began.
Within seconds, the now familiar, yet terrible sound of exploding shells drowned out the pounding of the three thousand horses. He saw men and horses cartwheel through the air. His sense of unreality grew until it seemed to block out any other sensations. This couldn’t be happening. His connection to the real world was severed. He was no longer there; the only reality was inside his head. This dissolution was like a wound. It was so shocking that he began to sob out loud.
Then it was over. The field was a mass of dead and dying men and horses.
GO NOW! He shouted at himself.
He turned and rode south into the trees toward the Pripet Marshes.