Chapter 20

There was nothing in the woods that hinted at the change of regime. The trees, now full of life in the sunshine of early summer why no different to those trees they had passed one mile, two miles or even ten miles before. The air was filled with the sounds of birds singing for mates, marking out territory, and making the most of the short summer to forage for food. Despite the momentous rhetoric in distant lands, there was nothing to indicate that in fact they were safe.

They continued to walk onwards, not daring to stop until shortly before dusk, they reached a road. It was a little more than a track winding its muddy tyre gouged way though the endless stands of birch trees.Saenz crept forward to the tree line to check for signs of activity. Crouching low in the ferns he scanned in both directions, but there was nothing. He returned to where Tom was sitting.

"Well?" asked Tom, his voice hopeful.

"I don't know," replied Saenz. "Perhaps we take a chance."

Tom checked his watch, and glanced at the sun. "The road is heading westwards. And if has to be easier than walking through these woods. If we keep our eyes peeled and our wits about us, then we will at least stand a chance."

Saenz nodded.

The biggest fear that had eaten away at each of them, but remained unspoken, was that they had been moving in circles. Despite their best efforts to maintain direction by use of the sun and the position of the stars, this niggle had nagged away at the back of their brain. Logically each man reasoned that they must have been moving away from their pursuers: they had not seen or heard a reconnaissance plane since early morning. But another doubt had persisted, one that carried an equal weight; they had not encountered anything that resembled a border.

"We better get moving before we seize up," said Tom, using Saenz's shoulder as a prop. He took the water bottle from his knack sack and took a sip. Tom swirled it around his gums and spat it out. The water had a brackish taste. "We need to find some water soon."

Saenz smiled, "and a feather bed."

Soon they were lost in a conversation about all the things they would do when they got home. They both agreed that a bath would be top of their list. But they differed over the food they craved. Tom wanted Yorkshire pudding, crisp golden Yorkshire pudding with braised beef in gravy and roast potatoes. Saenz's list was longer, reflecting his years in captivity. And these years had sharpened his memories. He began to describe in great detail the exact salami and cheese sandwich he dreamed of: the exact type of rye bread and the baker he wanted to make it. The idea of food seemed to galvanise him. His longing was no longer for a meal, to fill his empty belly, but for a feast to fill the void of wasted years. Years of abuse and neglect in which he had literally fought and died for green potatoes. His banquet was vast. Out of the simple dream of a cheese and salami sandwich grew a menu of roasted and grilled meats, stews, soups, breads, and cakes of every kind. His low whispered talk reached heights of almost ecstasy as he talked of his perfect peach: teeth sinking softly through the tufted skin, aggravating the juiced of the flesh to break over his lips and run in streams down his chin. The sheer messy delight of holding the points of the stone as his eager tongue and teeth picked and flicked at the pits to release the last strand of orange prink sweetness. And then the childlike pleasure of licking his sticky fingers before wiping them on the seam of his trousers.

And as they walked, and Saenz talked, the sun set and the new moon rose and luminescence spread over the lower sky from the refracted lights of the myriad lakes. The road slipped from the daytime strip of dusty mud into a silver trail. Only once were they shaken from this romantic seen, which acting like aspirin to balm their aching legs and swollen feet. And even this alarm was almost a signal of hope. A young white-tailed deer, which had stayed to, long on the opposite side of the road from it's mother, broke cover at the sound of their approach and rushed across the road. The suddenly burst of activity startled the men and they instinctively stopped in their tracks, hearts temporarily in mouth, both poised to run for the trees and escape.But the moment of panic passed and they resumed their journey westward: Saenz continuing to daydream about food, and family, the small Bavarian town he had grown up in.

It was while discussing this town that an awkward question.

Whilst a prisoner, Saenz had learned of the nature and extent of the allied bombing and he asked Tom if it were true.

"Yes, I'm afraid it is," was Tom's blunt answer.

"I can't say if the particular town you lived in was bombed, but I can tell you that Germany was in a pretty bad shape at the end of the war."

Saenz pondered this reply for a moment. "I figured as much," he said, sadly, "but I don't understand why. We are cousins: the English and the Germans. I don't understand why we should have rained some destruction on each other. It makes no sense."

"It was war."

"War explains the fighting between armies but it doesn't explain the destruction of towns."

"You bombed us, so we bombed you; it's pretty simple really."

"Simple yes: but it does not make it right."

"Matters of right and wrong do not enter into such things. Was it right for the Luftwaffe to destroy Coventry? Besides none of this explains the treatment by the German's of the Jews."

"The Jews? What about the Jews?"

Tom turned his head to look at Saenz, who was staring at the road ahead. "Surely you know what happened to the Jews? About the gas chambers and the extermination camps."

Saenz shook his head, "I don't know what you are talking about."

"Didn't they tell you anything?"

"We were told what they wanted us to hear. And it was best to know nothing. I know that the Furher is dead and that Germany lost the war but after that I choose not to know a damn thing more. Besides what does it matter? Any of it? What you have done has avenged us all, and I am just happy to have played a small part."

"I fear you are in for a shock."

"How so?"

"The world has changed more than you know."

"That maybe so. I do not expect that all of the people I knew will still be around. And those that are, will be as shocked to see me, as I to see them. But I know that every day that passes cannot be worse than the days I have lived through. You forgot comrade that I have been dead for nearly ten years. If they catch me now all that will happen is that they will make an actual fact of something that until now has only been a beaurocratic regulation. Don't you worry about me. I am a survivor. And my country will service, just as we did for centuries when people tried to crush us."

Saenz stopped dead in his tracks. So suddenly that Tom continued walking.

"What?" demanded Tom, half turning.

"Look," said Saenz pointing, an aura of beatification spreading across his open mouthed expression.

Tom followed the direction of the pointed finger and at first saw nothing but the out-stretched road and the darkened gloom of the surrounding trees. Suddenly Saenz broke into a trot, and then a canter and finally a sprint. Tom hurried after him. And as he drew near to Saenz he could see the object that had caused so much excitement: a signpost, on which was written, beneath a picture of a running deer, something in Finnish.

Saenz began to laugh, a loud full-throated laugh that split the silence of the night. And then he began to dance a little jig which developed into something which mimicked a Cossack dance, his hands held above his head, his feet drawing patterns in the dusty dried mud of the road. Then suddenly he turned on Tom, cried, "we have done it!" before embracing him in a rib cracking bear hug.

All caution gone, and hope enflamed, they quickened their pace down the road. Shortly before ten o clock they saw what they dreamed of: the light of house. This quickened their pace even more, and they ran toward the light: stopping only when about fifty yards away at the barking of a large dog. The chained hound's barking grew more furious and angry as they continued to approach the farmhouse.

When they were nearly at the gate, the farmhouse door opened and a man appeared, silhouetted in the thin yellow light of an oil lamp. He was about to shout at the dog when he saw the two men.There followed a brief period of confusion as Saenz and the farmer tried to find a language to converse in: they finally settled on German.

Although suspicious, the farmer invited them into the house. His wife eyed them warily as she gave them vodka to drink and some horse sausage and bread. Tom was struck by the Mongolian features of the pair, high forehead, and wide slanted eyes. But Saenz was too hungry to worry about such matters. He ate the food with gusto and greedily eyed the food on Tom's plate.

Between mouthfuls Saenz talked to the farmer about the nearest telephone, the distance to the Soviet border, though he was careful to avoid describing in detail the circumstances in which he and Tom had come to be wandering in so remote a region. He winked at Tom, as he explained that they were academics from Cambridge University studying the flora and fauna of the region, but that they had got lost. The farmer told him that there was a telephone in the nearby town, and that he would take them there in the morning. When his wife learned that the two men were academics with an interest in flowers, her rectitude subsided: so much so that she went to get her collection of embroidered flowers.

The following morning Saenz awoke Tom at dawn. They washed and breakfasted with the farmer and his wife. Then the farmer got his pony and trap and took them into the town.

The farmer dropped them at the railway station, assuring them that they could telephone from there.

"What will happen when you ring?" asked Saenz, after the farmer had driven away.

"Someone will come and collect me, I suspect."

Saenz nodded. "I understand."

"If it is a lift you want, I am sure it can be arranged."

"I don't think so. I have been thinking." Saenz looked back towards the Russian border. "I'm not much of a man. But there is someone who needs me. It would not be right for me to just walk away."

"You are not thinking of going back?"

"It is the only thing to do."

"But that would be suicide."

"Maybe; and maybe not. But it is the correct thing to do. And therefore I must do it." Saenz held out his hand, and reluctantly Tom took it. For a moment the two men stood, holding hands, before self-consciousness over took them. "You are a good man Tom. You have shown me that there is more to being human than baseness. Without you I would still be dead."

"Get on with you."

"I shall go now. Olga needs me."

And in saying Saenz turned on his heals and set off back towards the border. Tom watched him until he turned the corner and was gone. In his heart they both knew that Saenz would never survive, the chances of seeing Olga and the baby again was practically nil. The police would have renewed their searches of the woods, and anyway, Saenz was walking towards them and not away.

Two hours after making the call, Tom was picked up by a car from the British Embassy. The military attache sent to meet him chattered excitiedly about the successful mission and how he was the talk of the town. He didn't feel much like it. All he walked now was to return to normal life. To get out of the navy. For the promises made to him to be kept.

As Tom was being driven in the British Embassy in Helsinki, Maxim was also making a car journey. His was less comfortable. Three days of interrogation at the hands of the security police had robbed him of all dignity. His head was swollen from being beaten by rubber truncheons, he could no longer see out of his left eye. His body was twisted and shrunken. So beaten down was he that he was totally unrecognisable as the person he had been a short while before.

His journey was also brief. He was driven from the interrogation centre, crammed between two policemen. He sat between them like a crumbled coat. He had no strenght or energy to resist them, and instead sank into the seat, a shadow: another piece of refuse being driven to the place of disposal.

The car drove into a culvet and came to a stop by a clearing. Maxim was bundled from the car and frogmarched to a stand before a narrow pit. A group of bored soldiers stood by their truck smoking. They appeared not to even notice he was there.

One of the policeman told him to kneel. This Maxim did with great difficulty. So weak was he that he would have tumbled forward into it, had not the policeman dragged him back by the scruff of his coat.

As he knelt there, searching for sight through his still functioning eye, a few thoughts recurred and span in his mind. The first was of his mother. She was in an apple tree and he was carrying a crate of apples. She smiled at him and called him her 'little man'. The second was of standing in Red Square in 1937, watching the parade scrunch past and looking up to the mausoleum. There he still saw the smiling Stalin, hand raised to acknowledge the crowd. The cheers of the people rose and rang in his ears. The third, which was accompanied by the sound of the cocking of a pistol and the sensation of a ring of coldness pressing against the base of his skull, was of his daughter. Of her sitting on his wife's knee. An infant, a dribbling infant....

At the sound of the pistol shot the soldiers tapped out their cigarettes, picked up their shovels and wandered lazily across to the pit.

At the orphange school a Lara sat but the domitary window and looked out at the passing crowds and traffic. A deep sadness welled in her stomach. A deep sadness that only comrade Stalin could cure: and now he was gone.