hunger. They fished when they could, cut down trees in which ravens had built nests, and snared whatever rabbits lived nearby. Their damp surroundings and lack of food made them pale and watchful. Persecuted by mosquitoes, they either grew indifferent to their bites or went mad.
The bog and forest partisans preyed on caravans heading east. Now that Germany was defeated, the Reds were stripping it to feed their own people. Disassembled German factories rolled by on trains, as did houses, including doors and windows and even nails, straightened by prisoners of war before being set in boxes. Food went the same way. No one thought too much about what the remaining Prussians would eat. They were going to be driven out of the country anyway, and if some died, there would be fewer to move.
At present the local partisans had robbed a food train of sugar, and sprinkled it on everything the other partisans had brought, from barley soup to cucumbers. A year later, when the sugar had all been eaten, they would regret the lack of partisan dentists, and cure themselves with pliers.
Lastly there were Town Partisans , but these were few. They lived legally, or semi-legally with false documents, and helped to bring word of army movements and deportations, as well as lists of traitors who had signed up to become slayers or Red functionaries. The city partisans were mice, secretive and silent, but susceptible to capture in the traps set for them.
Elena was a town partisan, an underground courier who had come into the realm of the forest partisans first in order to visit her brother and then to collect copies of the underground newspaper to circulate back in her hometown. Now that Ungurys was dead, her visits to the free realm of the countryside were coloured by melancholy.
She slowly became aware that her workplace lay in the heart of an experimental agronomical project, an attempt to uproot the native growth and to sow the land with seeds that made a new sort of person. But the uprooting was an ongoing problem. The native growth was stubborn. And she came to realize she was an ally in this project of uprooting, or, if not an ally, then at least a functionary in the apparatus of destruction.
She would have to get out. She hated them all, from the affable but slovenly Gedrius, who was to be avoided in the cloakroom, to her roommate, the born-again Komsomol girl. It amused her sometimes that so many important officials of the new regime did not know they had an enemy in their midst, the quiet woman working the abacus and adding columns of numbers.
At first she had enjoyed the thought that her brother fought against these people in the forest. After his death, her loathing of the functionaries grew so much that she knew she wouldnât be able to disguise it much longer.
Elena had very large brown eyes and was aware that men found her eyes attractive, but she usually masked them with unnecessary glasses when she was at work. In any case, she did not normally look up very much, because her workplace was full of wolves that could tear her apart. Even Antanas Snieckus, the chairman of the Lithuanian Communist Party and a hard-core Stalinist if ever there was one, the man who had deported his own brother to Siberia in 1940, the man whose own mother fled Lithuania in 1944 before he returned with the Redsâeven he had paused to look at Elenaâs eyes during an official visit.
Now she was sorry she had not taken the opportunity to kill him.
Elenaâs gentleness and simplicity were fading, and she was transforming into something different, hardening around the lips. She kept her shoulders square and wore a working womanâs business suit and carried a leather satchel, altogether like a secretary on her way to work.
The partisan newspaper that Elena was supposed to pick up was three days late due to a lack of ink for the rotary printer, and the parliament of partisans was four days late because the bog partisans had had to make it
The bog and forest partisans preyed on caravans heading east. Now that Germany was defeated, the Reds were stripping it to feed their own people. Disassembled German factories rolled by on trains, as did houses, including doors and windows and even nails, straightened by prisoners of war before being set in boxes. Food went the same way. No one thought too much about what the remaining Prussians would eat. They were going to be driven out of the country anyway, and if some died, there would be fewer to move.
At present the local partisans had robbed a food train of sugar, and sprinkled it on everything the other partisans had brought, from barley soup to cucumbers. A year later, when the sugar had all been eaten, they would regret the lack of partisan dentists, and cure themselves with pliers.
Lastly there were Town Partisans , but these were few. They lived legally, or semi-legally with false documents, and helped to bring word of army movements and deportations, as well as lists of traitors who had signed up to become slayers or Red functionaries. The city partisans were mice, secretive and silent, but susceptible to capture in the traps set for them.
Elena was a town partisan, an underground courier who had come into the realm of the forest partisans first in order to visit her brother and then to collect copies of the underground newspaper to circulate back in her hometown. Now that Ungurys was dead, her visits to the free realm of the countryside were coloured by melancholy.
She slowly became aware that her workplace lay in the heart of an experimental agronomical project, an attempt to uproot the native growth and to sow the land with seeds that made a new sort of person. But the uprooting was an ongoing problem. The native growth was stubborn. And she came to realize she was an ally in this project of uprooting, or, if not an ally, then at least a functionary in the apparatus of destruction.
She would have to get out. She hated them all, from the affable but slovenly Gedrius, who was to be avoided in the cloakroom, to her roommate, the born-again Komsomol girl. It amused her sometimes that so many important officials of the new regime did not know they had an enemy in their midst, the quiet woman working the abacus and adding columns of numbers.
At first she had enjoyed the thought that her brother fought against these people in the forest. After his death, her loathing of the functionaries grew so much that she knew she wouldnât be able to disguise it much longer.
Elena had very large brown eyes and was aware that men found her eyes attractive, but she usually masked them with unnecessary glasses when she was at work. In any case, she did not normally look up very much, because her workplace was full of wolves that could tear her apart. Even Antanas Snieckus, the chairman of the Lithuanian Communist Party and a hard-core Stalinist if ever there was one, the man who had deported his own brother to Siberia in 1940, the man whose own mother fled Lithuania in 1944 before he returned with the Redsâeven he had paused to look at Elenaâs eyes during an official visit.
Now she was sorry she had not taken the opportunity to kill him.
Elenaâs gentleness and simplicity were fading, and she was transforming into something different, hardening around the lips. She kept her shoulders square and wore a working womanâs business suit and carried a leather satchel, altogether like a secretary on her way to work.
The partisan newspaper that Elena was supposed to pick up was three days late due to a lack of ink for the rotary printer, and the parliament of partisans was four days late because the bog partisans had had to make it
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