Ch 21 A Silly Girl
Wang Yao couldn't hear Ivan's reply excpet Lerika's broken words repeating in his ears. "Last night I saw that shadow and I was so frightened… how could I have thought it was you… I'm just staying with Mr. Fritz. I never sold out any other people to him…"
"You only sold out two people." still hiding himself behind those long eyelashes, "Me, and yourself."
"I've always known there's something great in you, but me…I'm just the most ordinary girl. You see, this is what I thought before the war: graduate, work, and then marry to…" Lerika hurriedly casted a tender glance of misery at him between her fingers and swallowed that unspoken word. "…marry to…a good man, bear him children and live a simple peaceful life. I wouldn't think of anything else, Yao…I'm scared of fighting…But when the war came, it's all ruined…"
"You ruined it with your own hands, silly girl!" He suddenly opened the black and white eyes, "When your own people come back, life will start over again. By then, if they asked you what you were doing during the war, how do you respond?"
"But where are you?" the girl raised her red tearful eyes, "Why haven't you come yet? This place is occupied for months. It was livable at first, but how can anyone keep sufferring like this? Yes, I'm a weak person and I can't stand the suffering, but what is there for me to believe that you people will eventually come?"
Until then, Lerika noticed his arms tied back by the coarse rope were covered with whipping marks. She reached out her hands to untie him. The second her fingertip touched him, his body twitched as if being biten.
"Don't touch me. It'll only hurt me more."
But Lerika didn't hear what he said. She jumped to the door and listened intently to the sound outside. "Mr. Fritz is back." She turned back to him, whisperring into his ears. The fragrance from her face almost made him shudder, "I'm going to beg him now, to release you…He always listens to me!" Her voice contained a child-like naiveness and rejoice.
Wang Yao turned away his face.
"Silly girl. So you don't understand war afterall…How silly!"
"What are you saying…" Lerika stared at him with a pale face, "I want to save you…The sun is setting. By then, they will hang you at the end of the village…"
"Listen to me, Lerika. For the sake that I have carried around the pouch you made for me—go outside and bring me my uniform. I want to die like a soldier…"
When she sobbed and hurried out of the door, boundless dizziness along with cold and extreme pain got hold of him once again.
"I'm going to die." He said to himself in Chinese.
Death. When he uttered that dreadful word in his mother tongue, a sudden rush of hot tears almost suffocated him. For a moment, he couldn't bear it and hid his face between his knees.
From the day he volunteered to the front, he told himself to stare death in the face. In fact, back then, he never believed that he would die. Dying at eighteen—how cruel, how absurd and how unimaginable! But, today when the sun set, he would be rushed over to the gibet at the end of the village, joining into the heavy darkness and nonbeing. Tomorrow, or maybe the day after, Rogachevo—Bereza region would be back to the hands of their own people, and the village would also welcome their son Ivan Braginsky. Maybe that pair of artistic hands could set him free from the gibet. And this foreign land could bring him into its deep embrace. Like a family.
No, it didn't matter to him anymore. He shall use this last bit of time to think about the people he missed. Think about mother and sister, think about Toris and Natasha, think about "General" Elizaveta, think about all the friends he had in China and Russia, think about…Vanya. These kind and tender faces brought serenity to his mind. And so he raised his head, just seeing mama Braginsky walking in.
"Good boy, let me warm up these clothes on fire. They're thrown out on the snow for a day, frozen solid…"
"No, good mama." He tiredly smiled to her, "I don't feel cold anymore. Just put them on like this. I don't have much time."
The old mama silently knelt down beside him and untied the rope. His arms were numb and senseless from the rope and coldness. She put him in her arms like an infant still in his swaddle, and put on the frozen hard winter jacket on him with great care.
"I could only get the jacket and the pants. They took the boots and the coat. What wouldn't they take? Even my daughter Natasha's favorite fur coat was taken away and givent to that mistress." Her voice was filled with outrage, tears rolling down her aging face. "I ran into that wicked girl. She wanted to bring you the clothes and I grabbed them! Did she think she's worthy of touching them? And her eyes look like she cried. One day, we'll teach her to cry! We'll let her regret it a hundred times! Why didn't they finish her off then?"
"Good mama…please say no more…"
When he was escorted by three Nazi soldiers out of the farm house, walking in his frozen uniforms, bare-footed, onto the snowy road, the sunglow was about to sink into the sullen night. Wang Yao remembered the first time he met Ivan. It was an evening, too. Ivan riding on Kostya's back, galloped towards him—oh, the golden rider and the golden steed…
Ice chips on the road abraded the bottom of his feet like broken glass, but he didn't feel the cold nor the pain. Only profound dizziness continued torturing him. Hurry. Hurry to the hanging pole—only not passing out on the road to let the enemy think that he fainted from fright! This road leading to the end of his life was exactly the one where little boy Vanya learned to walk, went to school and into the woods to play. Right here at this moment, he felt as if Ivan's entire childhood and adolescent years were gazing upon him on both sides of the road, to see what kind of person he was in front of the most severe test.
Hurry, hurry. Go around the bush at the corner and it would be the hanging pole. He felt relieved—but please do not pass out from the sense of relief! Even with these last few steps, he must walk over with his own two feet.
When they just turned the corner, a silver light of dagger coming from the obscure bush flashed through, and the three soldiers fell on the ground without even a sound of cry. His already numb body sensed a solid warm hug. The string tightened at his heart snapped a crisp sound. He finally passed out.