Beyond the Shadow of Night(85)

“It’ll come to you. Just start from when you were in the camp.”

Mykhail huffed a few times. “Oh . . . uh . . .” He stood up from the table. “Another coffee?”

“Playing for time?” Asher said, laughing. “Getting your story straight?”

Mykhail laughed too. “My friend, sometimes bringing buried memories back to the surface takes a little time.”

“Of course. I’m only joking. Take whatever time you need. And yes, I’ll have a coffee please.”

Mykhail made the coffee in silence, and they returned to the sunroom.

“So?” Asher said.

Mykhail blew across his hot coffee and took a tentative slurp. “Well,” he said, “there isn’t much I can say. It was such a horrid place. I don’t really know how I survived two winters in there. Luck, I guess. I only found out the scale of it much later. Do you know, there were about six million Red Army prisoners in all the camps combined, and about half of them perished there. That’s a lot of people. Anyhow, eventually the Red Army liberated us. I was still able-bodied, so after recovery I had to fight again with them. But I kept my head down and managed to stay away from the front line and out of trouble, which wasn’t too hard as the Germans were retreating by then.”

“So you saw no more active service?”

“Nothing to speak of. I went back to Dyovsta, but found my parents had perished in a German concentration camp. I guess I was a broken man. I’d seen so much horror that I didn’t want to stay in Ukraine—especially under Soviet rule. I wanted a better life for myself, and everybody said this country was the land of opportunity, so I aimed for New York.”

“When was that?”

“Oh, I can’t remember. It’s too long ago, but soon after the war. I remember getting to know a few people on the ship over who taught me a few words of English and told me more about America. They told me it was common for immigrants to change their names when coming here, to make them easier to spell and pronounce. It seemed obvious I should choose Michael Peterson.”

“And Pittsburgh?”

“Well, as they say, everybody’s gotta live someplace. I spent a year in New York, training as a car mechanic and learning English. I think I heard Pittsburgh was a steel town and figured there would be a lot of cars here. I had notions of opening my own place—nothing special or ambitious; just auto repairs and servicing—but it never happened, I just carried on being a grease monkey. But I married Jenny, who gave me a daughter and then divorced me. Then I, uh, carried on working. When I stopped doing that, I retired. And that’s where you come into the story, knocking on my door and surprising the hell out of me.” He let out a long sigh and lifted the coffee to his lips.

“You’re right,” Asher said.

Mykhail frowned as he swallowed. “About what?” he said.

“It is boring.”

Both men stared, stony-faced, at each other for a few seconds.

Then they burst out laughing.

“I think it’s a shame,” Asher said as their laughter subsided.

“You surprising the hell out of me?”

“No. It’s a shame when a marriage . . . I mean . . .” Asher shook his head.

“No, go on. What is it?”

“Well, if it’s not too personal a question . . . what the hell happened?”

Mykhail shrugged. “I guess we just grew apart.”

“I hear that a lot. What does it mean?”

“It’s no big deal,” Mykhail said, then waited, as though that was a complete answer. But Asher just stared, so he continued. “We started out okay. We were happy for a few years. Then in time we wanted different things, so we started to live different lives. She had her circle of friends and I had mine, and after a while there was nothing between us, so I guess we . . . we stopped caring about each other.”

Asher nodded slowly. “I see.”

“Good, because it’s the best explanation you’re gonna get. Anyhow, in the end it was quite amicable. Like I say, it’s no big deal.”

They drank their coffees, and the conversation turned to which sports they followed, what vacations they’d had, and what their dream cars over the years had been. Mykhail did most of the talking for all of those.

Eventually, Asher checked his watch and drew a sharp breath. “Look, my bus is due to leave in forty minutes. Are you absolutely sure I can stay here?”

“I said so, didn’t I? And we’ve still got lots of catching up to do.”

“Well, thank you again,” Asher said with a hint of a gracious bow. “You’re really being so hospitable.”

“Ah, it’s nothing. You’re an old buddy.”

“You know, Mykhail, I’m so glad I came across you again.”

“Me too.”

“And isn’t it good we can talk like this, about our love lives, when we’ve just met up again?”

“What else would you expect?” Mykhail said. “We’re brothers in all but blood.”





Chapter 28

Pittsburgh, August 2001

Diane had just spent her second day listening to Asher. He’d told her about the horrible events both he and her father had experienced during the wartime years, and everything she didn’t know leading up to the time they’d met again in 1997.