"Autumn 1944 – Dukla"

(from the perspective of "you" – as if you were remembering your own story)

You were seventeen when your mother sent you up into the mountains. In your hand you held a piece of paper – a message for the partisans. A message that could change the course of a battle. And maybe cost you your life.

"You know the way," she told you. "You're clever, you have good feet. A girl gets lost better than a man." But there were tears in her eyes. Even then you suspected that she wasn't telling you everything. And that you might never come back.

But you went.

Instead of partisans, however, you came across a Soviet patrol. Five men. Tired, muddy, nervous. They didn't believe you. A Slovak put a rifle under your chin. A Ukrainian looked at you with a long look. Some wanted you to leave. Others wanted you to stay.

And then he came. Misha. At first he just watched, then he asked you to repeat the name of the village. And finally he decided: “He will stay with us. He will show the way. He is a local.”

You stayed. You helped them. You understood only half of their language, but you understood everything. You cooked, broke frozen bread, dragged the wounded, cleaned weapons when they fell asleep. And over time you became their silent support. Between the shots and the orders, you became something that resembled home.

And then came the night when Grisha’s brother was killed. He collapsed to the ground. He was the same age as you, his eyes red from smoke and something worse. You sat down next to him. He didn’t say anything. But he’s stuck to you ever since. He was like a dog that knows someone has petted him.

You were together during the attack on the pass. The hell of Dukla. Mud, blood, pine needles, and smoke. You saw Misha yelling in the lieutenant’s face when he ordered you to return. Grisha pushing you behind him during a mortar attack. And then there was only silence.

When the war passed, you survived. All of you? No. But the three of you did.

You were returning on the back of a tank. Frozen, tearless, your eyes blinded by fatigue. You hoped. You still hoped.

But when you reached the valley, your home was no longer there.

All that remained was rubble. The collapsed roof, the shattered walls, the broken bench where your mother had once sat. Torn children’s shoes lay by the fence. Your brother’s coat hung by the well. A burned letter, half a photograph, nothing more.

You don’t know how long you walked through that ashen silence. Calling out their names. It was crumbling into the mud. And finally you found the rest of the door sign – just the first letter. You stood there. You were shaking.

Misha watched you silently. Grisha couldn’t catch up with you.

Finally you knelt down on the ground, pulled out a piece of cloth you had with you, and on it you wrote with charcoal the name of the division and the direction you were going…you decided to join the Russian unit. With a foolish hope you formed the idea in your head that your family wasn’t dead and that they were somewhere safe and that they would come back…oh how foolish that was

You laid it in the rubble – where the kitchen used to be. Where you used to bake bread. Where you used to live. Now it was just ashes.

Then you collapsed. And they caught you before you could fall apart.