The Memory Keeper of Kyiv (26)

“Speak!” Her voice, now frantic with worry, cracked. “Tell us what happened!”

Kolya gulped. Sweat beaded on his forehead, despite the chill in the room. His breaths came short and fast.

“They… the activists and OGPU came…” He spoke haltingly, as if he had forgotten how to do it, but when he finally started talking, the words flowed as if he were purging himself of the violence he’d witnessed. “I was in the barn. I saw them coming down the road, but I stayed back.” He shook his head, as if disgusted with himself and repeated, “I stayed back.”

“Go on, then!” Katya ordered.

“My father and yours met them outside. They said someone turned my father in as an enemy of the people. When they tried to arrest him, he protested, and they shot him.” Kolya’s voice broke. “Another man threw your father to the ground and kept a rifle pressed to his back. I heard Pavlo yelling, so I ran around to the back of the house. I thought I could come in the kitchen window and help him, but it all happened so fast.”

“Did they shoot my father?” Katya fought to keep her voice steady. “What happened to Pavlo?”

Kolya stared at the ground as he went on, his face a pale, emotionless mask. “A man hit Pavlo in the back of his head with the butt of his rifle, then shot him. My mother screamed, and threw herself on him, and they shot her, too. They said it would be easier to just kill them all.”

The cold knot of fear that had formed when Katya first saw Kolya twisted in her belly. Slowly, it spread throughout her, turning her veins to ice, numbing everything. Her body went limp and her knees wobbled, but the ice kept her frozen, and standing.

“No!” Katya shook her head. “You’re wrong!”

Kolya gave a strangled sob. “I wish I was.”

“And what of my husband?” Mama was on her feet now, hands clasped in front of her chest.

“They arrested him.” He grabbed a chair and collapsed into it. “My family is dead,” he said. “My whole family is dead, and I hid like a coward while they were murdered.”

Mama choked back a sob and sat back in her chair, her fist in her mouth. Alina rushed toward Kolya and took him in her arms.

“I have to see him.” Katya went to the door and put on her coat. She could picture his smiling face clearly, laughing and telling her this was all a sick joke. Katya shook her head to clear it. She needed to stay focused. She needed to keep the ice running through her veins until this was done. “And we have to go to Tato. Right, Mama?”

Her words finally prompted Mama to action, but she moved slowly, as if uncertain of what to do. She pulled on her shawl and stood, her eyes glassy. “Yes. That’s right.”

Katya stared at her mother in surprise, waiting for the strong woman who always knew what to do to issue instructions, but her mother remained motionless at the door.

“Kolya and I will go to his farm, and you and Alina must go see about Tato,” Katya finally said. “He was only visiting. He shouldn’t be charged with anything.”

Mama nodded stiffly. “Yes, that’s a good plan.”

Katya followed Kolya to the door, the image of Mama dazed and speechless stuck in her head. While Mama froze, immobile with fear, Katya had stepped up and taken charge. The change of roles disconcerted her.

As they stepped into the snowy day, those thoughts faded away. Pavlo needed to be taken care of; Tato had to be saved. She had to focus on what must be done rather than to think of what had happened. Later, she would let herself sort through the confusion of the day.

I am ice. I feel nothing. Katya chanted this over and over to herself as she walked behind Kolya, stepping carefully into each snowy footprint he made. Her refrain and concentrating on where she stepped kept her feet dry and her mind occupied enough so that she could almost not think about what had happened. Almost.

Five minutes later, she followed Kolya through the front gate. Sorrow pervaded the atmosphere and the warm, welcoming mood she’d known her whole life was now tainted with fear and the metallic smell of blood.

Yosyp lay across the doorway, half inside, half outside, his body sprawled awkwardly with one leg tucked under the other and his torso twisted to the side. Fat snowflakes fell on him, dusting his dark hair and slowly covering his body. Congealed blood glared out from his chest. Her hand flew to her mouth as her stomach lurched. She closed her eyes and prayed it had been a quick death.

“I’ll bring him inside.” Kolya spoke at her shoulder, his voice hoarse. “You go in to Pavlo and my mother.”

The front door hung open, swaying gently in the wind. She stepped over Yosyp’s body and into the house. It took her eyes a second to adjust to the dim room from the glaring white snow, but as the scene came into focus, she wished the snow had left her blind forever.

Blood splattered the walls. Chairs lay turned on their sides; linens were strewn all over the floor. Despite the chaos, two tin mugs still rested on the table where Tato had probably sat with Yosyp, discussing the situation in the village or the upcoming marriage of their children.

Her gaze dropped to Pavlo, stretched out on the floor right inside the door, his face turned away from her and his shoulder soaked in blood. Pavlo’s mother lay face down over his chest, her arms splayed out around him.

A strangled sob lodged in Katya’s throat. Tears rolled out of her eyes and their heat on her cold cheeks surprised her. The ice she’d imagined running through her couldn’t keep her safe from this pain. She was melting.