The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII, стр. 238
It was the end of summer when Ulya met the young woman again. She was with an officer. Hahn, as she learned later. A Wehrmacht Communications Officer of the occupying Administration. And this time, the young woman’s light summer dress revealed a little bump at her midriff.
In her mind, Ulya connected those two with Nathan. Could their affiliation be a key to the failures of the Underground?
In the weeks that followed, she kept a close eye on both the young woman and Hahn. She would change into the baggy man’s suit and hide in a half-destroyed building across from Hahn’s lodging or opposite the German officers’ restaurant, which the couple frequented.
While spending time in the young woman’s company, Hahn, she noted, behaved with coolness. As for the woman, whose name she learned was Natasha Ivanova, she showed her devotion out of place. Ulya’s spying on her brought a disturbing revelation: Nathan visited Natasha on Kommunisticheskaya Street 11 on several occasions. Was she his messenger or . . .? Ulya tried weighing the whole structure of events and caught herself in an unfamiliar feeling akin to resentment.
Could she question Nathan about the young woman? No. It would expose her private investigation. But how could she warn him? How? Or maybe . . . What if Nathan . . .? Her mouth went dry at the suspicion her mind led her to.
Weeks after weeks, the indecision of the situation haunted her.
With time, the woman became plumper, a belt around her waist defining its fullness. This detail particularly stuck in Ulya’s mind. Even if she was an Underground worker, now pregnant, she’d do whatever it would take to spare her future child in case of an arrest. Wouldn’t Ulya herself? Or maybe, she was already turned by SD?
Rumors of blown up German trains and rail tracks, killed troops and Polizei, circulated in the city. The partisan leaflets The Soviet Union lives and fights! Death to the fascists! Long live the Red Army! added richly to that. The Germans built more gallows and the autumn was abundant with the new ones. Nathan. Just thinking of him in that connection brought a sensation of her hair lifting on the nape of her neck.
It looked like hanging people was not enough for the occupiers. They forced the civil population to attend at all public executions. Hundreds of placards inundated the city, all concluding with, “Failure to attend will be subject to extreme punishment.”
44
Ulya
January 1943
When one day Hammerer mentioned that the night before five people from the Underground were arrested, Ulya decided it was time to act.
The temperature dropped that night.
Ulya looked up at the dark sky and hoped the falling snow would fall fast enough to fill the tracks she’d make.
From the street corner, a small woman appeared. Even her winter coat couldn’t conceal her petite, reed-like figure, her hips swiveling with every scurrying step, her heeled shoes cutting prints in the virgin snow. In a short brown coat, the dark shawl wrapping her head, she disturbingly reminded Ulya of that sparrow from her childhood. An easy prey.
Although in this part of town Germans didn’t show up often, still, she should exercise extreme caution. After a brief glance around, she picked up the Walther with a silencer from her pocket and looked down at it. A quiet thought came, demanding an answer. Why did she want to kill her? From hate? From duty? What if Rita’s death resulted from her actions? Ulya could not save the ones executed, but she still could save others. Feeling suddenly sick, she startled at the shock of discovery. Nathan. She hadn’t even noticed when he became so important to her.
Ulya lifted the revolver. Her thumb found the hammer, her finger threading through the trigger guard. She pointed the barrel at the narrow back some fifty paces away from her and, without giving herself time to hesitate, pulled the trigger.
The woman threw up her arms and turned halfway as though curious about who it could be. Her legs doubled and her body fell to the right, twitching twice then softening, her head slumping sideways on the snow.
Ulya sneezed at the reek of cordite in the air and froze, straining to listen to the deadly silence. Suddenly, a movement caught her eye, a subtle shift in the rubble’s shadow. She felt rather than saw it at the edge of her vision. Swinging round, she stepped back, tight to the wall. If there was someone, he’d seen her, and maybe could describe her. She crept to the corner and peered round it.
A man in a black Polizei greatcoat rushed to the woman crumpled on the ground. Looked around. Squatted. Pushed his hand under her rabbit fur collar.
From behind her hide, Ulya closed the gap between them in two seconds and watched his eyes widen. “You?” His expression was tantamount to terror as if he’d just encountered a ghost. She, too, was surprised at the recognition. Kanankov. He flinched, looking up. His bottom lip trembled. She breathed in, steadied her heart rate, and trained the gun muzzle on him, taking care not to touch his skin. An easy kill. With a bullet between his eyes—a star-shaped hole and a shocked stupor on his face, his body slumped sideways, covering the little sparrow like a crow with its folded-up wings.
Two enemies less. Ulya slipped the revolver into her pocket, looked around, then allowed herself one last glance at the two lifeless bodies . . . Big downy snowflakes descended slowly onto Kanankov’s black Polizei greatcoat and his exposed cheek. For a moment, she felt dizzy and nauseous. She turned around and hastened through a gateway that led to another street, keeping to the side where the snow was thinnest, the wind having driven most of it to the wall as though to cover her tracks.
Home, already in bed, in