In the pearly grey light, we had stumbled outside clutching our bags, Leelo snuggled in a blanket against Etti’s chest, and helped each other up into the back of the truck where a middle-aged woman and her two daughters were seated. One of the girls, around seventeen, had offered Etti a half-smile while the German officer shouted at the driver. The girls’ mother had frowned and the smile vanished, wiped clean like chalk from a slate.
The woman and her daughters had not spoken a word since. I understood their reticence as we made this second stop. Everything we said now could be misconstrued and twisted.
The officer disappeared, and moments later more women had clambered up beside us. They had to squash themselves into the cramped space. Kati’s knee pressed against my thigh as she wriggled closer to make space.
The truck doors banged closed, leaving us in partial darkness again. The only light came from the small pockets where the green tent canvas covering was not fixed down. As well as light, the pockets let in drafts of fresh air; a welcome respite from the prickly scent of sweat and the earthy tang of potatoes.
‘Surely they can’t fit many more of us in,’ a woman in a green kerchief grumbled. She lifted a hand to wipe away the sweat that glittered on her lip. ‘I feel as if we’re off to a labour camp! Not heading off to do our bit for the war effort.’
‘You had a choice, did you?’ another woman said. In the sparse light, her face was craggy, lined with age. She gripped her carpet bag in her lap, lurching sideways into her neighbour as the truck began to roll forward again. A shawl was tied around her hair, hanging in a triangle down her back. She reminded me of Olga. I almost smiled until the memory of Olga – her arm lifted in farewell, her face set – punctured my heart and I dropped my gaze to my lap, my throat clogged with unshed tears. ‘Of course I did.’ The woman in the kerchief glowered. ‘I couldn’t stand to see the Soviets come back. Stinking Russians. They would stab you in the back as soon as speak to you. Any small thing we can do to help the Germans is worth doing.’
Her words cut me deeply but I heard the truth in them. How wrong I had been about my fathers, the real one and the one who had claimed me as his own. Perhaps I was no better than what this woman suggested: a betrayer. I could not hope to atone for the misery my family had caused. The best I could do was to keep my worst secret hidden, reducing the danger to Kati and Etti. Sometimes I wondered if I dared confide in Kati. She had accepted so much about me already. But then her words would swim up from memory to haunt me, bringing back with awful clarity that last day we had shared in the refugee camp before the Russians burnt it down.
Stalin is a monster. As is anyone associated with him.
It was enough to make the courage drain out of me.
‘You could have stayed back in Tartu,’ Etti suggested. Her tone was cool. I looked over at her in surprise. Etti was never confrontational. But since the decision had been made to leave Tartu, she had seemed stronger, more sure of herself. Perhaps it was because she felt some small measure of control over what was happening. Even her colour looked better, her eyes brighter. She’d tied on an apron and cleaned the whole apartment after we’d told her our plans, scrubbing it from top to bottom with lemon-scented cleaning fluid.
‘If I am going to leave it behind,’ she said, ‘I want to make sure Mama would have been proud of it.’
She had cooked up the last of the grain into small cakes and then washed the clothes we could not take and hung them back in the wardrobe, hoping that Helle or one of the others from the knitting circle would find a use for them when we were gone. The other women would be glad of the extra layers as winter settled in.
‘Helle will never forgive us when she finds out we are not coming back,’ Etti had said as she clattered the last hanger into the wardrobe.
‘One day we will send word to her,’ Kati said. ‘When it’s safe.’
Etti had nodded, pushing the stray hairs off her face with the heel of her hand and marching off to check that she had packed enough warm clothes for Leelo for the months ahead. When the Germans had arrived this morning, Etti had not shown fear but been the first to tie on her coat and pick up her bag. She had not looked back as we climbed into the truck, too focused on her own survival and Leelo’s to allow sentiment to endanger them.
Now she bounced the gurgling Leelo up and down vigorously on her lap. ‘No need to travel all the way to Narva to do your duty, is there?’
Green Kerchief clicked her tongue but stayed silent. The woman with the carpet bag said nothing, but when our gazes connected I saw her give the slightest nod to me and a tiny smile pinched the corners of her mouth. White hair peeped out beneath her shawl like tufts of sheep’s wool.
The truck’s wheels rumbled over the road. And then suddenly it halted. Voices were heard from the front, asking questions in German. My skin prickled.
Green Kerchief sniffed. ‘Another delay?’ she said.
I exchanged looks with Kati. Together, we lifted the flap of the canvas behind us and peeped through.
Outside, the sun struggled to shine through a smattering of clouds. The truck had stopped on the side of the road near some grey paddocks. A few cars had also halted. German soldiers leaned into the driver’s side windows, speaking rapid German before waving them on. I heard Kati’s sharp intake of breath, and when I followed her gaze my own heart began to flutter wildly. Next to the road beside us lay dozens of bodies. They were piled into an open ditch, their clothing stained with mud from the recent rain. Women and children, hands splayed at odd angles like the limbs of broken dolls. Yellow stars were still tacked to their chests.
As we watched, a German officer standing guard tumbled one of the smallest bodies into the ditch with his boot. Clods of earth scattered over the child’s pale face. It was clear that the ditch the Soviets had desperately dug out before they left – to prevent tanks from reaching Tartu – provided a convenient place to dispose of Jewish bodies.
‘What is it?’ Etti asked. She was feeding Leelo cow’s milk from a bottle. Leelo’s wide blue eyes stared up at the truck’s ceiling, her mouth slowly moving around the teat. She had grown so long in the legs that Etti had to lie her flat to drink her milk. She could lift her head now and look about and bring her tiny toes to her mouth.
I saw Kati give the slightest shake of her head.
‘It’s nothing,’ I said quickly. ‘An accident. They will sort it out.’
I turned back, trying to appear relaxed but inside I was sobbing.
What if Oskar and Jakob had been forced to take part in this terrible act? I prayed that Oskar had found a way for them to slip away and return to the forest where they would be safe until they could find us again.
As the truck began to move again, Kati shifted, climbing over Etti until we were side by side. In the rocking darkness, her damp fingers found mine. We held hands, not speaking, as the truck bounced and juddered over the road, racing towards Narva.
Hours passed; we lost track of the number. At some point in the darkness Kati told me what she knew of Narva.
‘It’s an old place, Narva. Older than Tartu. It belonged to the Danes once, then the Germans and the Russians. The Narva Fortress runs all the way along the river, connected by stone passageways carved out of the ground. I have never been, but Papa took my mother sightseeing there once. She said she didn’t care for it. All those dark passageways made her feel as if she’d entered the underworld. She said she was glad to come back out into the light and find the world still waiting for her…’