Authors: Belinda Alexandra
He stepped forward to embrace his son, but old habits prevented him from showing affection and he stopped short as if he’d walked into a wall. Instead he reached out his hand, took Leonid’s arm and squeezed it.
L
ily sensed that she’d opened a Pandora’s box with her question to Svetlana. But she just didn’t know what would unfold because of it.
Svetlana’s eyes turned dark. ‘Why would the government have killed one of the Soviet Union’s best pilots in the middle of a war?’ she repeated with a bitter smile.
‘Stalin was a monster. He could treat you with such warmth one moment and the next sign your arrest warrant without a second glance. His favourite game was to make his victims fear that they were about to be arrested and then shower them with gifts and favours. Then, having lulled them into a false sense of security, he would send the NKVD to arrest them. He did that to Natasha’s father, who was a kind and generous man. When Stalin paid someone attention, it was like the light in heaven shone upon them. But when he turned cold, that person was doomed.’
Svetlana exhaled a long rattling breath. Lily didn’t like the sound of it. Oksana took her hand. ‘Don’t go on now. Rest. We can talk about this later — and only if you want to.’
But Svetlana now couldn’t be stopped. Her story was bursting out of her.
When Natasha didn’t return from her mission and there were no reports of a Soviet plane being downed on our side, I couldn’t stand idly by. I went to look for her.
‘What are you doing?’ Sharavin demanded when he caught me packing a knapsack with food and supplies.
‘I’m going to find Natasha.’
‘Don’t be stupid!’ he told me.
I knew Captain Orlov wouldn’t give me permission to leave the airfield so I didn’t ask him. I could have been shot as a deserter. Sharavin only let me go because he didn’t think that I would have enough courage to get past the Russian sentries, let alone the German guards. He expected me to return in a few hours. But I was determined to find my friend. I moved across the frontline, avoiding both the Russian and German patrols. I met a partisan group operating in the German territory and when I told them who I was searching for they willingly helped me.
We travelled the rest of the night, and when morning came they took me to a safe house while they made inquiries among the villagers about any Soviet plane to fly over or be shot down. The villagers told them that indeed a Soviet plane had come down, in the vicinity of the Trofimovsky Forest. The partisans had much to do in preparation for the Soviet advance, so they assigned a peasant to help me on my search.
‘Be careful,’ the villagers warned me. ‘You’re not the only one looking for a Soviet pilot. Several farms in the area have been searched by the Germans.’
The peasant and I were making our way through the forest at dusk when we heard voices. Something was going on in the trees ahead of us. The peasant held me back.
My eyes sought out a group of people not a hundred metres away from us. I saw a kneeling figure dressed in a Russian Air Force uniform and realised it was Natasha. A man in civilian clothes stood behind her, pointing a gun at the back of her head. I rose up to scream but the peasant pulled me down and covered my mouth with his hand. A single shot rang out into the night air and the men moved quickly away.
I struggled from my companion’s grip and ran towards Natasha, but in my panic I slammed into a low branch and knocked myself out. I came to after a minute or so, but I’d hit my forehead so hard that I was nauseous and confused. The peasant lifted me over his shoulder and I passed out again. The next thing I knew, I awoke in a house in a nearby village.
‘Listen, the NKVD has executed Natalya Azarova,’ the peasant told me. ‘There are Russian spies operating all over the enemy territory. You can’t trust anybody. Her body wasn’t there when I checked this morning. They must have come back and removed her, or the Germans found her.’
When I realised that Natasha was dead, and that she had been murdered by the Soviet government, my strength drained away. I knew why the NKVD had killed her. Someone had found out that her father had been executed as an enemy of the people. There were thousands of people with that record in the armed services but they weren’t famous fighter aces venerated by the Soviet people. Natasha had to be eliminated. When neither her body nor her plane were found, it was easy to discredit her by insinuating that she’d been a German spy.
Oksana was staring at Svetlana open-mouthed. ‘But then what happened to you?’ she asked.
Svetlana’s eyes filled with tears. Laika rested her head on her mistress’s knee as if to comfort her.
‘After Natasha’s death, I couldn’t return to my regiment,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t bear to work for the Soviet Air Force or to be a mechanic for another pilot. If I was going to be part of the war effort, then it was going to be for the people and not for the government. I stayed with the partisans and they gave me the identity of a village woman, Zinaida Glebovna Rusakova, who had died a few years earlier. I helped them by smuggling messages and repairing equipment. The Russians were advancing rapidly by now and the Germans were becoming even more ruthless. Our group was betrayed by a village spy. The leaders were hanged and I was arrested and sent to Auschwitz.’
Auschwitz! In her mind, Lily saw skeletal figures, furnaces and piles of clothing. She didn’t have to ask what had happened to Svetlana there. She could only wonder how anyone survived the place.
Oksana tightened her grip on Svetlana’s hand. ‘Thank you, dear woman, for sharing this very sad story with us. It’s been a draining day for you and I think you should rest. As Lily and I promised, we will keep your story to ourselves. Thank you for trusting us with it. I hope in some way it helps you to know that there are people who know the truth.’
On the way home, Oksana and Lily stopped off at the building site in Zamoskvorechye to feed the colony cats.
‘Parts of Svetlana’s story don’t ring true,’ Oksana said to Lily when they got back in the car. ‘While it’s plausible the partisans helped her to find Natasha, it’s too much of a coincidence that she and the peasant discovered her at the moment the NKVD carried out its execution.’
‘I was thinking the same thing,’ said Lily. ‘But the pain in Svetlana’s voice was genuine. Something happened but maybe not the way she described.’
Back in her apartment, Lily mulled over Svetlana’s story while cleaning the kitchen and sorting her washing. She noticed Laika watching her. ‘What about you?’ she asked, looking into the dog’s eyes. ‘Do you know something I don’t?’
She was jolted back to reality by the telephone ringing. She picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’
‘Lily? It’s Luka. The hotel said you’d taken the day off so I thought I’d try you at home.’
‘I wanted to see the funeral of Natalya Azarova this morning. The book you lent me was fascinating.’
‘Well, that’s a coincidence,’ Luka said. ‘I told Yefim about your interest and he said he has some new information from the files. Would you like to join us for dinner? He lives in the Bogorodskoye district and I know a good Georgian restaurant there. I can pick you up.’
Lily felt instantly alert. ‘What time?’
As Lily and Luka entered the restaurant, Lily hoped Yefim would tell her something that she didn’t already know. She had finished his book in three nights. It was engagingly written, but Lily had heard the story from someone who had known Natasha personally. Could Yefim have found anything new in the Kremlin files? Was the government really so much more open these days?
The restaurant’s interior was rustic with wooden tables and stone walls. Yefim was waiting for them in a booth in the corner. Lily took a liking to him straight away; with his smiling face, dishevelled hair, and the fleshy body of someone who spent a lot of time in libraries, he gave the impression of being intelligent yet approachable. Whether or not he could tell her anything new about Natalya Azarova, she sensed their conversation that evening would be interesting.
‘You speak Russian perfectly,’ Yefim said to Lily after Luka had introduced them and they’d made small talk about Australia and Russia. ‘I was worried I was going to have to struggle with my poor English.’
‘My parents are Russians who were born in China,’ Lily explained. ‘They went to Australia after the Communist takeover. I spoke English at school, of course, but at home we spoke Russian.’
They ordered a Georgian salad, stuffed eggplants and red beans with coriander and garlic.
‘The
khachos khinkali
are very good here,’ Luka told them.
Lily looked at the menu and saw that
khachos khinkali
were dumplings filled with ricotta and mint. ‘They must eat well in Georgia,’ she said. ‘That sounds delicious!’
‘Lily read your book about Natalya Azarova and watched the funeral on television today,’ Luka said to Yefim after the food arrived. ‘Did you discover anything new in the Kremlin files?’
‘Yes and no,’ replied Yefim, heaping some beans onto his plate. ‘The Soviets destroyed information as they pleased but the Kremlin archivist was helpful and I believe she handed me everything that was available on Natalya Azarova. She also gave me the file on her father, Stepan Azarov. The most intriguing thing was what I learned about Natalya Azarova’s mechanic during the war — Svetlana Novikova.’
Lily’s heart skipped a beat.
‘And what was that?’ asked Luka, passing the eggplant dish around.
‘She and Azarova went to school together before the war. Their families knew each other.’
Lily let out a breath and tried not to show her disappointment. She wasn’t at liberty to reveal anything she’d learned from Svetlana but there was a childish part of her that wanted to say, ‘I could have told you that!’
Yefim took a sip of wine before continuing. ‘It was Novikova’s father who denounced Stepan Azarov to the NKVD. He accused Azarov of praising foreign countries and mocking the Soviet system of production. He even insinuated that Azarov was spying for France.’
Time stood still for Lily. ‘Stepan Azarov was arrested because of Novikova’s father’s report?’ she asked.
‘Oh, it gets worse than that,’ said Yefim. ‘After Azarov was arrested and his family was evicted from their apartment, Novikova’s family moved in. The apartment was a reward for Azarov’s denunciation. Natalya and her family had to live in communal housing.’
Lily struggled to absorb the new information. Svetlana hadn’t said anything about that, but she had said that she had a dark secret: it was clear what that was now.
‘Yefim,’ Lily began, thinking about how to ask her question without giving away something that wasn’t in his book, ‘I imagine the relationship between a pilot and their mechanic is very close in a combat situation. Do you think Natalya Azarova ever found out what Novikova’s family had done?’
Yefim shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I doubt it, don’t you? Could you be friends with someone whose family had destroyed yours?’
For dessert, Yefim recommended walnut cake accompanied by fresh mint tea. Lily’s thoughts raced around in circles. What Svetlana’s parents had done cast a strange interpretation over everything Svetlana had said about her friendship with Natasha. It also highlighted the niggling doubt Lily had about whether the NKVD had really killed Natasha. Perhaps Yefim would know something about that.
‘It’s still a mystery who actually killed Natalya Azarova, isn’t it?’ she ventured. ‘Did you find anything in the files that told you more about her death?’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘But I tend to agree with the Ministry of Defence’s conclusion that she was shot by the Germans.’
Again Lily was careful how she framed her next question. ‘Is it possible that Natalya Azarova was killed by the NKVD?’
Yefim stared at her before breaking into a smile. ‘So you have read the article by Vladimir Zassoursky and his conspiracy theory? He claims that the three planes that chased Natalya Azarova into enemy territory were captured Messerschmitts flown by Russian agents.’
The waitress set out their tea and cake slices on the table. Yefim waited for her to leave before adding, ‘In any other country that might be a laughable theory, but Russia has a history of bizarre political assassinations. Personally, however, I don’t believe that’s what happened in Natalya Azarova’s case.’
‘Why not?’ Luka asked.
Yefim took a sip of tea. ‘There is no doubt that Azarova was being watched by the NKVD. But everyone was being watched by the NKVD in those days. Famous pilots like Natalya Azarova, Valery Chkalov and Alexander Pokryshkin were deified by the Soviet population. While that could be seen as a threat to Stalin, Natalya Azarova wasn’t so big a target that she’d be worth that kind of elaborate operation.’
‘Isn’t there a theory that Valery Chkalov was bumped off after displeasing Stalin? Also that Yuri Gagarin died after his plane was tampered with on the order of a jealous Leonid Brezhnev?’ asked Luka.
Yefim grinned. ‘Yes, there are many conspiracy theories, but I think they stem from the idea that we don’t like to believe that our heroes sometimes make stupid mistakes. There were branches of the NKVD that were assigned “black work” that left no paper trails. But think about what a strategic operation it would have been to kill Natalya Azarova in combat. You’d have to train three Russian pilots to fly German planes and then send them into enemy territory. We now know from the eyewitness report that Natalya Azarova downed two of those planes before she bailed out herself. It would have been much easier to poison her soup.’
Yefim and Luka shared a laugh. It was obvious that they enjoyed discussing the topic. But to Lily it had personal significance. She’d grown fond of Svetlana and now she wasn’t sure what to believe.
‘That third plane — what about that?’ Luka asked his friend. ‘Natalya Azarova was a prize target yet there are no military reports of a German pilot claiming the victory of downing her.’
Yefim sat back and patted his stomach. ‘I guess that is why I am a boring academic and not a Hollywood director. I stick to the facts. The most plausible explanation of why that German pilot didn’t claim the victory is because he never made it back to his base. The day that Natalya Azarova went down was one of the worst days of the war — confusion and exhaustion reigned. While there is no report of a German pilot claiming victory over Natalya Azarova, there are three reports of German Messerschmitts being downed by friendly fire.’