Antanas Sileika - Underground

Elena was unsure of what to make of the news, but the same was not true of the other partisans. Once they had understood properly what Lukas had said, they took the explosion of the atomic bomb as very good news, the best news they had heard in a long time. They began to cheer and applaud.

Elena elbowed her way through them to Lukas. She took him by the sleeve and pulled him aside.

“What are they so happy about? Think of all those dead civilians.”

Lukas was flushed and happy. “We hoped the Americans would go to war with the Reds once the Germans were beaten, but they didn’t. Probably this means they weren’t strong enough to finish off the Japanese while taking on a new enemy. But now they are. Now that the Americans have this bomb, they can destroy the Reds. They can beat them back. We might be on the verge of freedom.”

“In that case, God bless the Americans.”

He looked at her and found her beautiful. How had he missed this before? All it took was a moment of hope and he could see clearly again.

“Do you think you could help me?” Lukas asked.

“To do what?”

“You work in an office. Your typing is probably better than mine. If I wrote out the news story, could you type it up on the stencil for me?”

“Yes, I can do that.”

Elena waited as Lukas wrote out his summary of what he had heard on the news. The entire camp was buzzing with conversations about the announcement and how soon their lives would be changing. She listened for a while to the news from Warsaw, but there was no mention of the bomb on that station. Moscow said nothing about the bomb, but it did repeat word of its declaration of war against Japan.

Elena typed out the stencil with a typewriter set on the stump, with Lukas hovering over her. He was so anxious about getting the words right that he kept suggesting changes to his own handwritten article. She drove him away until she was done. When he returned, he read over her work carefully.

“I’ll start printing these up now,” said Lukas, and then he paused, slightly unsure of himself. “Will you wait? If you do, I can walk you to the train station.”

By the time Lukas finished the printing and set the newspapers out to dry, evening was drifting into night. The men who had been scanning the radio stations for fresh news had heard nothing and tuned back to Warsaw, which was playing popular music, a foxtrot with a fast beat.

Lukas felt regret that he could not quite understand when another man asked Elena to dance. There were no other women in the camp, but three other couples formed, the men dancing the women’s roles, hamming up their femininity, others waiting their turn as the only woman was passed from one partner to another through foxtrots, polkas and waltzes until she broke the heel of her shoe and had to sit down to rest. Lukas would have liked to dance with her too, but there were too many men who wanted her attention.

Soon it would be dark and the dew would settle on the newspapers Lukas had printed. He walked over to where they lay in the fading light, like rectangles of snow on the grass. The ink was not as dry as he would have wished, but the papers had been printed on one side only, so he stacked them back to front, trying hard not to shuffle them so they wouldn’t smudge. He put the typewriter back in its case and cleaned the press.

Euphoric, the partisans celebrated by building a bonfire. They sang and danced like a forest hunting party, wishing they could drink as well. Lukas was just finishing when Elena came to him, limping slightly on one foot.

“Are the papers ready?”

“Do you still want them?” he asked, unable to keep out of his voice his envy of the men who had danced with her.

“Of course I still want them. Do you still want to walk with me to the train station?”

“You’re limping.”

“I broke my shoe, but I can go barefoot if you come along with me.”

His envy evaporated in a moment. “You city people aren’t used to walking barefoot, especially at night. I have a pair of bast slippers I could give you.”

“But how would I return them?”

“They’re made out of bark. You could throw them away, or you could return them to me when you come back.”

“Do you want me to return?”

“I do.”

“Then I will.”

Lukas brought the bast slippers for her, but she was unaccustomed to bark shoes and, sitting on the stump in the darkness, could not see how they were fastened.

“Let me help you,” said Lukas. He knelt at her feet. The slippers were too large, but he could fold them in a way that would do to get her back to town. The straps were of bast as well and needed to be wound in a particular way to hold the slippers tight.

Lukas felt a slight tingle as he handled her feet. She was shy of her feet, but Lukas delighted in their touch. “How do the slippers feel?” he asked when he was done and she stood up in them.

“Very well. Thank you.”

Lukas told Flint his intentions and received reluctant approval to walk Elena back to the train station as long as he stayed off the main road and did not approach the station itself. Like a shepherd, Flint liked to keep his flock close; Reds and slayers prowled day and night.

It was not good to speak while travelling at night because one needed to listen for the snap of branches under other feet, and to keep one’s own feet as quiet as possible. But they talked a little in murmurs when they passed running water, which helped to cover the sound of their voices and the noise of the forest floor underfoot.

It was hard to see because there were only stars in the sky and no moon. Elena put her free hand under Lukas’s arm and he pressed it to his side. He had not been touched in a very long time and he enjoyed the pressure of her hand on his arm.

“I’m very happy about the news of this gigantic bomb,” whispered Elena, “but I hope they use it soon. I can’t go on like this much longer.” She stepped on a branch that broke with a loud crack, and the noise set off the baying of a farm dog somewhere not far away.

Lukas touched her shoulder to make her stand still as he listened for other sounds. She stirred and he touched her again to keep her still. He removed his rifle from his shoulder and waited, listening intensely, but after the dog stopped howling all he could hear was the sound of her breath in the night, and he stood still a little longer in order to drink in the sound. He bent toward her to tell her quietly that they could go on now, but as he moved forward she turned her face up to him, and with her lips so close to his he kissed her.

He set the rifle against a tree and she put down her sack and leaned back against another tree. The touch of her felt very fine, the smell of her hair something vaguely sweet and feminine mixed with woodsmoke from the fire and the outdoor smells of leaves and grass. They kissed for a long time, and he let his lips go across her cheek and up her neck to her ear.

“Let’s sit down,” he said.

It was dry on the earth and for a moment he wondered if she would permit him to continue to kiss her. She did, and more than that, she put her arms around him and they lay side by side, sometimes kissing and sometimes just holding each other. After a while he shifted a little, but she pulled him in tight.

“Don’t let me go,” she said.

“I won’t.”

He squeezed her very hard and she did the same, and something about the tightness squeezed out some of the pain of the death of his brother.

“Let’s sit up now,” she said after a while.

“Be very quiet. We’re not far from the road.” And then, after they had sat up, “Can you stay here a little longer?” he asked.

“Not much. There’s only one more train to Marijampole tonight.”