May 31, 1949
There is nothing quite so merry as the nights when villagers offer us sanctuary and bring pails of fresh baked breads and soup and vodka with them. Those nights are becoming scarce, because the Soviets, having realised they cannot destroy us at first hand, have taken to tyrannising innocent citizens instead, and we're losing their support. They are so ill with war and hunger and fear that I can't blame them.
I look upon evenings like the one spread before me now with a sacred, worshipful sense of gratitude.
Mykolas is drunk as a fish, grinning at the liaisons as he leans heavily against the bunker's makeshift table. There's hardly any room in the cramped space for dancing, but someone has tuned in the shortwave radio to a popular British swing station and two or three pairs of evening darlings are trying their hand at it. I can see Jonas standing guard at the open door, only half-illuminated in the lantern light and looking like he dearly wishes he could join in the cheer.
Tom is sitting on the bench next to me, frowning crossly with a thick slice of black bread in one hand and a folded newspaper in the other.
"Daft halfwits."
"Oh hush, Tom. Let them have their fun."
He huffs, but I can see the tiniest tilt at the corners of his lips.
"I'm gonna end up stitching Mykolas' head when he finally falls over."
"Dan will catch him."
"Maybe I'll bash his head in myself. I don't know how much longer I stand the sound of that accordion."
I laugh because Mykolas' accordion is untuned enough when he's sober, and now he's struggling to force some strange song out of it.
I still wonder how no Soviets ever stumbled upon our noisy festivities, and I also wonder if any sections in the LLKS were quite as daring as we were. It was just as well either way, because we were so lashed with headstrong courage at the time that it wouldn't have mattered if we were caught or not.
People tell stories of the Armia Krajowa as if they are Greek legends you know, even after the Augustów Chase in '45. I wonder, Poland, if at this very moment, you too are watching your brothers dance to shoddy British swing and an incapacitated accordionist. Probably not; I bet you're the one dancing.
Lietuvos.
Armia Krajowa (Home Army, AK): Polish resistance movement during WWII/early Soviet occupation
Augustów Chase: 1945 NKVD-led anti-guerrilla movement that took place largely in Poland but bled into a good portion of occupied Lithuania as well; over 2,000 Polish partisans were captured and detained in Russian internment camps.
Lithuanian and Polish anticommunist fighters actually had a good deal of bad dirt with each other between 1940-1953, if the inconsistency of Liet's correspondence is any indication. Feisty children didn't know how to forgive OR forget.