Chapter 25

 

Author’s note: Kiev was almost as badly damaged in the terrible battle of 1943 a the city of Dresden. Most of the suburbs and a large portion of the business district were completely rebuilt after World War II, but Podol remains to this day more or less in its original state.

 

Warning: There are some anti-semitic comments in this chapter.

 

*Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Deuteronomy 11:13-21

 

*****************

 

The convoy reached Kiev as night fell, the big GAZ trucks rumbling north into the rubble-strewn and crater-pocked city.

 

The temperature was dropping swiftly and the once-slushy and mud-churned road was now a slippery, rutted sheet of ice. As Lubov drove the lead truck into what was still recognisable as the centre of the city, they passed huddled camps of army tents and fires kindled outside, the warm glow of the flames flickering on bullet-riddled ruins.

 

Rivka sat beside a semi-conscious Nikitin in the back of the truck, listening to the snatches of conversation and occasional drifts of song as soldiers relaxed around the fires. Through a gap in the tarpaulin hanging over the rear of the truck she saw groups of soldiers trudging through the rubble, heading either to their billets or to their evening watches. Their rifles were slung over their shoulders, arms swinging in slapping hugs, trying to beat some warmth into frozen bodies. But she was struck by their cheerfulness. Stalingrad had a feeling of desperation about it still, but here in Kiev she saw how the huge push to force the Germans back over the steppes was lifting morale.

 

“Uhnh ... Missus ...” Nikitin groaned, shifting painfully. He was drifting awake as the truck lurched over the ruts, and Rivka leaned over him to check his wound.

 

“Shhh, Ivan, don’t talk. It won’t be long now, I promise ...”

 

And even as she spoke she felt the truck slow and stop. Then she heard the window being opened and Nikolai’s voice raised in enquiry. He was apparently asking some passing soldiers for directions to the hospital, and Rivka could not contain a smile when she heard the shuffling of feet and nervous replies as the soldiers realised Nikolai was a colonel. Then she felt the slight shift of the truck as one of the soldiers stepped up onto the running board and clung on to the door, saying he would show the colonel’s driver exactly where the hospital was situated.

 

Rivka squeezed Nikitin’s hand and tucked the blankets tighter around the grubby little soldier. Brushing back one of his unruly dark curls she let him know he was not alone.

 

“We’re nearly there, Ivan. Hang on for me … we’ll be there very soon and the doctors will take good care of you.”

 

Nikitin’s eyes fluttered open and he gave her a tight little grin.

 

“I … I know, Missus … it’s just … it bloody hurts …”

 

“I know, Ivan … I know …”

 

Settling back against the crates stacked around them, Rivka just hoped to God that they got to the hospital in time to save Ivan Grigorvich Nikitin’s life.

 

*****************

 

The hospital was a veritable cavern of a building. Pock-marked and ragged, its once grand exterior now looked crumbling and, in places, decidedly unsafe.

 

Lubov brought the big GAZ truck to a halt outside the building’s partially shattered Georgian steps and the young mechanic was out of the truck before Nikolai could stop him, the lad taking the steps two at a time. Within minutes he returned with two stretcher-bearers and a nurse in tow, followed by a harassed-looking young doctor.

 

Nikolai by this time had slipped wearily out of the passenger door and walked around to the rear of the truck, lifting the flap and letting down the tail-gate. Rivka peered out at him anxiously, her dark eyes shadowed by tiredness and worry.

 

With great care Nikitin was gently lifted from the back of the truck, Rivka beside him holding his hand and quietly reassuring him as he was settled on the stretcher. The young doctor quickly checked his wound then nodded to the stretcher-bearers who carefully carried Nikitin inside, Rivka walking beside him.

 

Nikolai could hear her murmuring to him, trying to comfort the little corporal who had put his life on the line to save both Vasha and herself.

 

The doctor turned tired eyes to Nikolai and noted his rank, but made nothing of it.

 

“Comrade colonel, I take it the corporal is one of your men?”

 

Nikolai nodded. It was too much bother explaining that he was merely tagging along with the motor pool – Nikitin had taken his orders and acquitted himself well, and the least Nikolai could do was to take responsibility for the grubby mechanic’s wound. He owed Nikitin a lot.

 

“The corporal helped destroy a Panzer, doctor – he’s a brave man. Do what you can for him ... I would appreciate it.”

 

The doctor smiled wearily.

 

“Every soldier I get in here is a brave man, comrade.” His smile turned wry. “The corporal is not too badly wounded, I don’t think. I won’t really know until I give him a full examination, but the injury did not compromise any vital organs so barring infection, he has a good chance of a full recovery. But we’ll see how things are in a little while once we’ve got him cleaned up.” He looked up into Nikolai’s blue gaze. “Are you all right, comrade colonel? You look a little pale ... feverish.”

 

Nikolai felt awful. His joints ached and his head throbbed, but right now he couldn’t allow himself to give in to the fever that still doggedly clung to him. He waved a hand dismissively.

 

“It’s nothing, doctor ...”

 

“Pyotr Chekov.” He grinned. “Like the writer.”

 

Nikolai cocked an eyebrow at him.

 

“Doctor Chekov it is, then,” he said. Turning to Razov who was standing beside him holding little Vasha, he noticed the rest of the convoy grinding to a halt behind the truck. “Razov, can you take my son to my wife? I’ll be back soon, but I’ll have to go and report our arrival to headquarters and sort out billets for the men. When you’ve done that, come out and tell the men I won’t be long. Then we can rest and get something to eat, all right?”

 

Razov nodded, his flat, Mongolian features showing little emotion, but Nikolai knew the man was as worried as hell about Nikitin – for all of his rough and apparently insensitive treatment of his crew, the motley group of mechanics were very fond of Ivan Grigorvich Nikitin. He made sure they came first in everything he did – he kept them fed, made sure the officers left them alone, and most of all ensured they were as safe as he could keep them.

 

Nikolai leaned over and kissed his son who chuckled happily at his papa’s attention. Stroking Vasha’s cheek for a moment, he took a deep breath and looked back at the hospital. He could not suppress a shudder of fear as he studied the old, shattered building.

 

It’s not changed … not changed at all …

 

He was swamped for a moment by memories of pain and fever … of darkened rooms and whispered words which he could not quite hear. This was the place to which he had been brought after the unspeakable time in the labour camp, and it was in this old, decaying building that he had fought a long, slow battle to regain his health. But he still had nightmares of shadowed corridors and barely-glimpsed faces riddled with suffering and anguish. God, he hated hospitals …

 

But he shook off the feeling and cleared his throat. Now was not the time to remember such things … as if there ever was a right time, he decided grimly.

 

He headed for the jeep and levered himself into the driver’s seat. He gestured to the young soldier who had shown them where the hospital was, and the lad slipped into the passenger seat beside him.

 

“Righto, boy. I need to go to headquarters – which way?”

 

Pale blue eyes, wide with awe, looked back at him and for a moment Nikolai felt a pang of loss – he thought of Vassili Zaitsev, and of how much he missed their friends back in Stalingrad. He turned the key in the ignition and the vehicle roared into life as the young soldier gestured silently, telling him which way to go.

 

Wearily he let out the hand-brake, and putting the jeep into gear he drove off into the darkened streets of Kiev.

 

***************

 

It took him nearly an hour to sort out billets for his men and to report the incident with the Panzer. A rather officious-looking sergeant in the battered building that served as the Red Army headquarters in the city looked bored as Nikolai related everything that had occurred, then passed him on to one of the administrative staff who quietly and efficiently found somewhere for Nikolai’s weary soldiers to rest and recoup their strength. He also smiled politely at Nikolai as he told this big, exhausted Colonel with the metal teeth that a small house had been assigned to him for his stay in Kiev – a house big enough for the Colonel’s wife and baby son too.

 

Nikolai just raised an eyebrow and said nothing – he knew very well that Igor Semyonovich Danilov probably had something to do with it.

 

He was also introduced to his driver, a good-looking young man with spectacles who came running into the building still stuffing his shirt into his pants and stood before Nikolai, red-faced and puffing with exertion. Saluting raggedly, he introduced himself as Sergeant Yuriy Romanovich Sorokin from Moscow.  He looks soft, Nikolai thought. Soft and weak, like a spoiled brat.

 

As Sorokin drove him back to the hospital, Nikolai sat silently gazing  at the ruined city. Kiev was – no, he corrected himself – had been a beautiful city, full of wide promenades and magnificent, ancient buildings. But even in the dark of a winter’s night he could see the devastation wrought upon its very fibre. Kiev was all rubble and bombed-out buildings, and occasionally he saw the ragged tatters of a Nazi swastika still clinging to a shattered façade where it had been unreachable by furious Soviet soldiers.

 

Sorokin tentatively tried to converse with him, but Nikolai was not in the mood. He was tired to his very bones ... exhausted, sick and desperately needing to curl up next to his wife and son and sink into a deep, healing sleep. Only Rivka’s touch would drive away the fear, he knew ... only her murmured words of reassurance and love would finally enable him to sleep and regain his energy, ready for his task of teaching a new group of students to kill Germans.

 

He did not want to be here in Kiev. Of all the places in the world he could have ended up, the last place he would ever have wished to be was here in Kiev. His stomach roiled and nausea swept through him. My God, I’ve brought Rivka and Vasha here. I should never have allowed it ...

 

“ ... my father, well he’s high up in the Party in Moscow – he’s working for one of the ministers in Stalin’s war cabinet – I can’t say who, of course, that would be treason, comrade Colonel, but ... anyway, he decided being in the Army would do me good ... make a man of me. But you’d think he could have got me a commission, wouldn’t you? I mean, a political officer or something ...” Sorokin prattled on, taking Nikolai’s silence for rapt attention. “Mother tried to convince him, of course, but he wouldn’t have it. So I had to go through boot camp, and all of that stupidity, and then as luck would have it Mother had a cousin here in Kiev working in Administration and Transport, so he managed to get me seconded here. It’s not bad. I get all the little perks, and the local girls ... well, they like a man in uniform. I can get them stuff from supplies, that sort of thing ... you know how it is, comrade Colonel ... the silly bitches will do anything for a loaf of bread ...”

 

Nikolai could see Sorokin’s dissipated features leer at him in the darkness, and decided he disliked this fatuous young man intensely. He opened his mouth to say something, to take Sorokin down a peg or two, but he suddenly could not be bothered. He was too tired. Tomorrow ... he thought. Tomorrow I’ll have a word at headquarters and get another driver. Hell, I can bloody well drive myself, for that matter ...

 

And leaving Sorokin to ramble on, he leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes.

 

*************

 

As Nikolai strode down the long, dim corridors of the hospital his mind would not let him ignore the memories that were now coming thick and fast. He remembered the sickly yellow-brown of the dingy walls and the overwhelming smell of disinfectant and the underlying odour of urine and human waste. In one of these spartan, grim wards he had lain for weeks as his body battled against terrible infection and the bloody wreck Krylov had made of his lungs.

 

At one point he had been riven with nightmares only to awaken and hear a doctor conversing with a colleague, both of them convinced the damage to his body was irreparable and that Lieutenant Nikolai Koulikov would have been better off dead. They had seen damage like this before all too often, and even if the victims survived, they had said, they were nothing but wrecks. It had been at that point Nikolai had decided enough was enough. He was going to live. He would live and breath and walk again in the sunshine, and in living, Nikolai reckoned, Krylov would have finally lost.

 

Two months later he was deemed fit enough to return to duty and had rejoined his regiment with his body barely healed and a set of gleaming steel teeth, but ... he was alive.

 

But he had to put his memories aside as he turned into the corridor where the young nurse at the desk had told him Rivka and the motor pool crew were awaiting news of Nikitin.

 

There, he discovered, everything was in uproar.

 

Rivka stood with Vasha in her arms and the grubby crew of mechanics around her, faces tight with anger.

 

The object of their ire was a tall, middle-aged woman in a senior nurse’s uniform. Her strong chin was set with defiance and her grey-green eyes were sparking indignantly.

 

“ – I have already told you! No, you may not talk to the doctor! He will discuss the corporal’s condition with your officer, and not before! And as for you ...” her haughty gaze settled on Rivka. “I am not in the habit of imparting information to women such as you! Nothing but a camp follower, if I’m not mistaken!”

 

There was a rumble of anger from the little gathering of soldiers and Lubov had to be restrained by Putin, the young mechanic making a lunge for the tall woman. Although Lubov was a gentle soul at heart, he would defend Rivka to the death if need be, and snotty, bitchy nurses deserved everything they got in Lubov’s opinion.

 

Rivka drew herself up to her full height and fixed a wintry glare on the nurse. She was on the point of delivering a particularly ripe and succinctly insulting reply when the door opened behind the nurse and young Doctor Chekov appeared. His angular, Siberian face was tense with annoyance.

 

“Just what on earth is all this noise about, comrade Slevka?”

 

The nurse turned at the interruption and scowled. She obviously had as little regard for the doctor as she had for Rivka and the motor pool crew.

 

“These ... these soldiers want to know about that corporal that was brought in a while ago. This woman says - ”

 

“This woman,” said Nikolai as the mechanics parted respectfully to let him through and stand beside Rivka, “ – happens, nurse, to be my wife.” His voice was velvet-smooth, but no one could ignore the menace in its tone. “And,” he continued, jaw tense with anger, “ she deserves respect from you whoever she is – as do my men.”

 

Senior Nurse Irina Slevka, to her credit, stood her ground, but even so she was shaken as she noticed Nikolai’s rank. He chin jutted out a little further and her hands clenched at her sides.

 

“Comrade Colonel ... I was not aware that the lady” she emphasised the word “was your wife. She did not inform me of that, and if she had then I would have been pleased to tell her of the corporal’s condition.”

 

But before Nikolai could reply Chekov glared at Irina Slevka.

 

“I don’t care who the hell they are, nurse, you tell them about their comrade! You, as a devoted Party member, should know better than that – these men blew up a Panzer tank and destroyed its crew today, and you should treat them like the heroes of the Motherland they are!” He waved a hand at her, dismissing her as though she was no better than a servant. Turning away from the now obviously embarrassed nurse, he pointedly ignored her as she stalked away. He grinned. “Bloody woman. Nothing but a menace. I’d try to get rid of her if I could, but nurses are hard to come by, especially efficient ones - and one thing comrade Slevka is, is efficient, dammit.” His grin softened. “She’s also been in the Party since her youth and it can do no wrong in her eyes. She can be dangerous, that woman. Be wary of her, that’s all I can say.”

 

Rivka smiled at the young doctor, seeing how tired he was.

 

“That’s all right, Doctor Chekov. I’ve dealt with worse. Now, can you tell us how Ivan – Corporal Nikitin, I mean – can you tell us how he is?”

 

Chekov nodded, and ushered Rivka to a seat, where she cradled Vasha in her lap. Nikolai stood protectively beside her and the motor pool crew gathered around her. They all waited expectantly.

 

“The bullet went through the fleshy part above the hip, missing all of the vital organs but causing some heavy bleeding. We’ve patched him up and given him a litre of blood, but he’s heavily sedated at the moment so you can come and see him in the morning. But he was very lucky – it narrowly missed his kidney and a main artery. Whoever took care of him did a good job – if he’d been left he would have bled to death pretty quickly.”

 

Nikolai’s hand dropped onto Rivka’s shoulder and she felt a gentle squeeze of his long fingers.

 

“My wife, doctor. Rivka took care of him.” Nikolai’s voice was rough with love and pride. Around him, the soldiers grinned with delight, and Rivka ducked her head as she blushed furiously.

 

Chekov’s eyebrows hitched as he studied the woman before him.

 

“You’re a nurse?” he asked.

 

Rivka shook her head and cleared her throat.

 

“No, not at all. I just helped out in a field hospital in Stalingrad, that’s all.”

 

Chekov’s lips pursed speculatively.

 

“Hmm. Your skills would be much appreciated here, Mrs  - um. I’m sorry Colonel. Madam, I forgot to ask you your name!” He grinned, his face becoming boyish.

 

Rivka cuddled Vasha closer to her, charmed by Chekov’s ingenuousness.

 

“Koulikova, doctor – Rivka Koulikova. My husband, Colonel Nikolai Koulikov of the 284^th Rifle Division.” She could not keep the pride from her voice.

 

Chekov’s eyes widened. Koulikov! Nikolai Koulikov, the man they called ‘The Bear’!

 

“Well, sir! It’s an honour to meet you, so it is!” Chekov stood up and shook Nikolai’s hand vigorously. “And are these your students?”

 

The members of the motor pool snorted collectively in amusement, but didn’t reply.

 

“Nah,” said Nikolai, relaxing a little. “This bunch? Snipers? God help us, that’s all I can say. But they did well today, Doc. Very well indeed, and I’d be proud to call ‘em ‘my’ men.” He could sense the swelling of chests even as he spoke. “But if you ever need anything fixing ...”

 

Chekov looked at the eager, grimy faces of the little group of mechanics.

 

“You men come and see the corporal in the morning. I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you, so you’re very welcome.”

 

Nikolai leaned down and took Vasha from Rivka’s arms, the child leaning sleepily against his father’s broad chest.

 

“We have to go, Rivka. I have billets sorted out for the lads here, and we have to get settled in and this boy of ours fed.”

 

Rivka looked up into her husband’s worn face and smiled. She too was on the point of exhaustion after such a difficult and traumatic day. So she stood and shook hands with the young doctor, then accompanying her husband, young son and a motley gaggle of tired, muddy mechanics, they slowly walked along the depressing corridors and out of the huge doorway into the chill cold night beyond.

 

**************

 

Rivka could barely keep awake as the jeep lurched through the narrow streets. She tried to peer out of the window but only caught glimpses of the world outside, often reflected in the lights of braziers and small bonfires. There were one or two buildings that obviously had electric light, and as the jeep rumbled on these became more frequent.

 

She noticed the occasional church, but she didn’t take much notice until the jeep seemed to reach the top of a hill and there, battered and torn but still standing, was the most beautiful building she had ever seen.  Tall and proud in this devastated city, the single-domed cathedral – for that was surely what it was – towered over five lesser cupolas, and it gleamed still in the insignificant light from a single, working street lamp beside it.

 

Sorokin heard her gasp of admiration and grinned as he slowed the jeep down, the road beginning to descend into what seemed to be a house-cluttered valley.

 

“Andreevskaya Church,” he said. “A bit ironic, really, considering where it is.”

 

Rivka wanted to ask him what he meant, but Vasha woke up and began to grizzle. He had a new tooth coming through and his little cheeks were red with irritation, so Rivka dug a small bottle of oil of cloves out of her knapsack and rubbed it on his gums, soothing him.

 

Sorokin checked in his rear view mirror to make sure that the convoy was still following, then sent the jeep down a long boulevard fringed by bare trees and shell-pocked houses. Surprisingly these were more often than not lit up, and for the first time in a long while Rivka saw electric lights. As they reached the bottom of the boulevard – ‘Andreesvsky Spusk’ it was called, Sorokin told her cheerily – he turned into narrower streets, where the houses closed in upon them.

 

“Bloody rabbit warren, this place,” Sorokin said as he slowed the jeep almost to a halt and turned sharply. Within moments Rivka realised they were travelling along the banks of the Dnepr River, the frozen surface gleaming in the bouncing, hooded lights of the vehicles behind them. “The single officers get billeted down here because the houses are better. The electricity got put back on first in Podol. Bloody typical.” He added, his tone making it obvious that he should have been one of those officers.

 

Soon they were winding their way through the narrowest streets Rivka had ever seen, the houses closing in on them until she began to feel almost claustrophobic, and she was relieved when Sorokin finally brought the jeep to a shuddering halt outside a darkened building. The trucks, struggling through the twisting, overhanging buildings, slowed and stopped behind them. Lubov, driving the truck immediately behind the jeep, left his hooded lights on so that Sorokin could find his way to the door.

 

Rummaging in his pocket he brought out a set of keys and mounted the three steps up to the old wooden door. As he struggled with the keys, Rivka tried to make out what she could of her new home.

 

From what she could see, the brick walls were painted a deep, dull burgundy, or so it seemed by the truck’s headlights. She smiled with pleasure as she spotted the tall, rectangular windows with heavy oak shutters covering them. There was every chance that the glass was still intact, and for the first time in over six years, Rivka would live in a home with real windows that let in light and fresh air. Looking upwards she thought the building had three stories, but she couldn’t be sure, but she did know it had a cellar as she saw the trapdoor beside the steps. For a moment she felt a twinge of longing to be back in her cellar in Stalingrad, with Nikolai and Vasha beside her, sleeping in safety and warmth.

 

“Ah! There we go!” Sorokin jiggled the key free of the lock and opened the door, then scrabbled around in his pocket for a match. Reaching onto an unseen shelf inside the doorway, he lit a lamp and led them into the house. “The electricity isn’t on in this district yet, but it will be soon. Hang on a minute while I light more lamps, and then you can come in.”

 

As Sorokin wandered into the house, lighting lamps as he went, Rivka looked up at the doorway beside her.

 

“Oh, Niko, look!”

 

She pointed to a chunk taken out of the door frame. Still clinging to it was a tiny piece of coloured wood, attached by the remnants of a little brass nail. Rivka’s finger touched the damaged wood. A Mezuzah had rested there, a tiny box carrying the small scroll inscribed with the words of God that sanctified every Jewish home.

 

“And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thy house and upon thy gates*.” She murmured, smiling wistfully. Even though the Mezuzah was long gone, she brought her fingers to her lips and kissed them reverently, as she had done countless times before during her life in the schtetl.   She smiled at Sorokin as he emerged from the house interior. “Sergeant – this was a Jewish home, wasn’t it?”

 

Sorokin grimaced as he handed Nikolai the keys.

 

“This whole area was Jewish, comrade Koulikova. Nice houses, aren’t they? Bloody Yids. Always managed to get the best houses.”

 

Rivka blinked, then heard Nikolai’s soft growl of fury as he stood beside her. But before he could give Sorokin a dressing down and a punch in the teeth, Rivka touched his arm, stopping him.

 

“No Niko, hist love,” she said, her voice so low it was almost a whisper. “It’s all right.” She turned to Sorokin, who had been oblivious to the reaction to his remark. Swallowing her anger, Rivka kept her voice as level as she could as she looked at the young sergeant. “What happened to them? I mean, where are they now? The people that lived here?”

 

Sorokin grinned at her.

 

“Germans, that’s what happened to ‘em. From what I’ve heard, when the Fritzes moved into Kiev they cleared out the Jews and the gypsies as soon as they could. God knows where they went to, mind. Probably shipped ‘em off to Germany to one of those camps. And bloody good riddance, if you ask me.” And before Rivka could answer, Sorokin was heading down the steps and into the jeep. He turned back to Nikolai and scratched his nose thoughtfully. “Hope you don’t mind living in a Yid house – there’s some furniture and stuff, so you should be comfortable, and you can get some extras from supplies in the morning – I’ll show you where it is if you like.”

 

Rivka kissed her son then smiled sweetly at Sorokin.

 

“That would be very kind of you, Sergeant, thank you. Oh, and Sergeant …” she added, as Sorokin slid into the driver’s seat.  She waited until he looked at her expectantly then continued. “The supplies officer … do you think he’ll know where I can get some gefilte fish? Or some blintz, perhaps? I make a very good knish … perhaps, Sergeant, when we’re settled, you would like to come for a meal?” Rivka’s smile faded and her face became set.

 

For a moment Sorokin sniggered, thinking Rivka was having some sort of joke with him … until he realised no-one was laughing. The motor pool crew were now standing beside him, grim-faced, and as for that big, brawny colonel Koulikov with the metal teeth … well, he looked positively murderous. The smile on Sorokin’s handsome face and was replaced first with a look of shock, and then his eyes narrowed. This woman standing before him with the child in her arms was a Jew. A Jew married to a high-ranking Russian officer at that, and she had bred a half-Jewish brat to him. His face changed in the wink of an eye, and the hatred that marred his even features made Rivka almost wince. But she stood her ground and gazed steadily back at him, and Sorokin broke first. His face flushed and his eyes dropped, and slamming the door he drove the jeep down the narrow street and out of sight.

 

“Creepy little shit!” Nikolai was incensed, and Rivka could se his fists clenching and unclenching as they hung at his side.

 

“Niko, love,” she said soothingly, “Don’t’ even give him another thought. It doesn’t matter one little bit, and you know it. Now, let’s get inside and settle in – oh! I’ve just realised! Sorokin didn’t tell us where the men were to be billeted!”

 

Lubov was beside her in a moment.

 

“Don’t worry about us, Missus – we can sleep in the trucks for tonight, I’m sure. We’ve done it before and we’ll probably have to do it again before the war’s over, so stop fretting.”

 

Rivka looked fondly at the young mechanic.

 

“Nonsense,” she replied. “The house looks big enough to fit you all in at a pinch. Come on – let’s go and see what we can do, shall we?” And linking her free arm in her husband’s, she entered the house that was now her new home.

 

**************

 

“Small house, my arse!” said Colonel Nikolai Koulikov as he finished his exploration of the building. “That young bugger at headquarters has given us a bloody mansion!”

 

Rivka had to agree. There were four medium-sized bedrooms for a start, all with fireplaces, and a further three tiny bedrooms in the attic, although one room had a hole in the roof from a shell blast. There was also a dining room, a living room and a big kitchen. Off the kitchen was a small laundry room complete with water pump and mangle, and – best of all, in Nikolai’s opinion – a spacious bathroom with a deep, enamelled bath and white enamel toilet. His delight was ten-fold when he realised the plumbing was still intact. Rivka almost wept when she entered the smallest of the bedrooms. It was a nursery, still equipped with toys and a neat, oak children’s bed. A rocking horse stood, dust-covered and neglected, in the corner. All of the bedrooms had beds, and Rivka chose the one next to the nursery for herself and Nikolai. She would install her own furniture in due course, but for this one night, they would make do.

 

Digging out sheets and blankets from a crate on Lubov’s truck, she made up the bare bed and Nikolai made the fire with wood and a little coal he found in the tiny yard outside.

 

But Rivka cried out with pleasure as she went into the huge old kitchen. Taking up a good section of one wall was a black-lead closed range with two ovens, a back boiler for heating water, and a massive expanse of hotplates. Putin and Razov quickly checked it out and pronounced it safe, then filled the boiler with water from the pump in the laundry room.

 

Soon the kitchen was as warm as toast as the range heated up and the water began to boil. Rivka made tea and brought out cheese, bread and some cold ham. The mechanics and Nikolai joined her and all of them found somewhere to sit as they ate their supper, the tension and fear of the day beginning to fade as their bellies became full and sleep began to beckon.

 

One by one they drifted away and found a bed to fall into, and soon Nikolai and Rivka were alone. She cleared away the debris of the meal, and then lifted her sleeping son from his papa’s arms.

 

“Come on, Nikolai – time for bed. You look worn out, love, and you’re still not well.”

 

Nikolai nodded. He was still fuming over that little arse of a driver Sorokin, but he decided he was too tired to care about that right now. He yawned and stretched, then got to his feet and lifted the one remaining lamp. Pushing the dampers closed on the range so that the fire would still be hot in the morning, he caught Rivka in his free arm and kissed her thoroughly.

 

“Bed time it is, my lady.”

 

Releasing her, he took her hand in his and guided her up the stairs and into their new bedroom. He closed the dusty curtains and put more coal on the fire, then covered it with a shovel full of dross to damp it down and keep it glowing. By the time he had done that, Rivka had undressed and slipped into her nightgown. She was already under the covers and giving Vasha his night-time feed, the boy suckling at her full breast lustily.

 

Smiling to himself, Nikolai sat on the edge of the bed and slowly undressed. God, he was so tired! He felt feverish and achy, and stripping down to his undershirt and longjohns he slipped into bed beside his wife. Turning on his side, he snuggled into her shoulder and draped an arm over her, his big hand stroking her breast as Vasha nursed. He felt Rivka kiss his brow.

 

“Sleep, my Niko. If you don’t rest you’ll get sick again – are you listening, you big fool?”

 

He let a small grin twitch his lips.

 

“Mmm-hmm. I hear you.” His voice was slurred with sleep. “Tired … ‘night, my lady …”

 

And before Rivka could answer he was sound asleep.

 

**************