Beyond the Shadow of Night(32)

“I want to sow and harvest,” Taras said to him. “I’m not a fighter.”

Another rifle grenade exploded nearby. The blast forced Mykhail onto Taras’s body.

“Don’t say that, Taras! You’ll be shot for cowardice.” He grabbed him by the lapels. “Come on! Perhaps we can hold Kiev. But you have to fight!”

Then they heard a voice screeching out commands above the gunfire. It was the voice of their corporal and he was telling them to retreat.

Mykhail tightened his grip on Taras and tried to pull him to his feet. The two men fell into the mud.

“Leave me here,” Taras said breathlessly. “I can’t carry on.”

Mykhail tried pulling him to his feet again, but realized he was almost as weak and tired as Taras—low rations and precious little sleep had seen to that.

He tried once more, but was disturbed by that same assertive voice from behind him.

“Is he shot?” the corporal asked.

“Just weak and tired,” Mykhail replied, giving Taras’s arm another pull.

“Go!” the corporal said to Mykhail. “You go, and I’ll deal with this.”

“But . . .”

“It’s an order! Retreat!” He got his pistol out and waved it toward the city behind them.

Mykhail got to his feet, grabbed his rifle, and started scrambling up and out of the trench. Keeping on all fours, he crawled along a few yards. Then he glanced back to see the corporal pointing his pistol at Taras’s temple. Taras had his eyes closed. Despite the gunfire and shouting, his face looked to be at peace. Moments later, one shot rang out above the rest, and Mykhail felt nauseous.

The corporal crawled toward him and Mykhail lifted his rifle, for a second thinking the unthinkable. But the corporal shouted out, “Let’s move!” and Mykhail came to his senses, lowering the rifle.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said.

The corporal glanced back to Taras’s body. “He as good as killed himself. We couldn’t leave him for the Germans to capture and interrogate. We both know they would do far worse to him.”

The blast from another grenade made them both duck.

“We could have carried him,” Mykhail shouted, the noise of the grenade still ringing in his ears.

“We can’t carry people. Now move on, Petrenko. We need to move farther into the city and make defenses.”

The corporal crawled on. Mykhail yelped as he caught a bullet in his upper arm, then looked up to see the corporal turning back.

“Petrenko!” he shouted. “Do you need help?”

Mykhail shook his head and followed as best he could. As he scurried along, he kept repeating the words of his papa. Self-preservation. All that matters. Self-preservation. All that matters.



By the next day, the bullet had been removed from Mykhail’s arm and the wound had been dressed. The only anesthetic had been vodka and a rag to bite down on, but at least he’d slept well afterward.

Now it was back to reality. And for some, even talk was dangerous. “That’s it,” they would say. “If Kiev falls I’ll surrender.”

The sergeants and corporals threatened instant executions for any soldiers who did, and punishments for those who even spoke openly of it. So soldiers were more guarded in their words, although not completely silent.

Mykhail’s arm was deemed fit for him to fight, but over the next few days there was no fighting. Instead they retreated even further; they were running away like wounded dogs.

Eventually, as they reached the outskirts of the city, an ugly gray building dominated the view. It was surrounded by two layers of fencing, each topped with barbed wire.

“Anybody know what that is?” Mykhail heard one of the soldiers ask.

“We’re in Kiev,” someone else said. “I visited here many years ago. That’s the prison, where they keep all the insurgents, the dissidents, and the agitators.”

Mykhail turned to the man. “Are you serious?”

He nodded. “And the poets and nationalists—the dreamers.”

They marched past and settled about a hundred yards from it, at a deserted crossroads, where they started piling up abandoned carts and the debris from bombing raids into makeshift barricades.

Mykhail kept glancing over to the prison, wondering about Borys.

After the barricades were complete, Mykhail approached his corporal.

“Do you know about the prison?” he said.

“In what way?”

“Well, what happened to the inmates.”

The man looked puzzled. “They’re still in there.”

Mykhail looked around at the deserted streets and buildings.

“So we just leave them there?”

The man nodded casually before lighting a cigarette.

“I know someone who’s in there,” Mykhail said.

“And?”

“Could I look for him?”

A small cloud of smoke blew from the man’s mouth. He took another breath before shaking his head. He drew his forefinger slowly across his throat.

“I don’t understand,” Mykhail said.

He pointed. “Just watch.”

By the time the corporal had finished his cigarette, the prison door locks had been blown off and a few hundred soldiers had run inside.