Underground by Antanas Sileika Page A

Lukas’s throat. He did not really smoke much, and when the tobacco scratched his throat like this he wondered why he ever bothered.
    â€œWhy did you join the partisans?” Lukas asked Ungurys.
    â€œThey tried to put me in the army to fight the Germans, but as far as I’m concerned, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
    Lukas looked at Elena. “How do you find life in Marijampole?”
    â€œIt wears on me. I feel unanchored with our parents gone. I was going to be a teacher, like my father, but I can’t get into teachers’ college anymore because they’ll be more careful about checking my background. All I have left is my little brother here and my sister. Sometimes I wish I could do something to strike back at them.”
    Her brother laughed.
    â€œDon’t think I couldn’t do it. I’m fierce, you know.”
    â€œI know, I know,” Ungurys said. “When I was little, she’d beat up all the bullies who tried to hit me or our sister. Half the boys in my class were terrified of her.”
    This description of Elena was hard to credit. Her curly hair made her face look soft. There was humour at the corners of her lips and a little of it in her eyes too. Whatever fierceness she had was well hidden. Lukas’s skepticism must have shown.
    â€œI’d do anything to defend my family, and anything to avenge it.”
    Lukas shrugged. They finished their cigarettes and threw the butts into the bonfire, whose centre had collapsed and was now burning less intensely. Elena asked Lukas many questions about his life on the farm, and he told her about it.
    â€œWhy are you so interested in all this?” asked Lukas.
    â€œI’m sick of life in town. It’s so dreary there, and we have all these party meetings and education sessions we have to go to. I’d prefer to be on a farm or in the forest.”
    â€œThat’s the romanticism of city folk speaking,” said Lukas. “I knew people in the countryside who lived in houses without chimneys, just a hole in the roof, and they walked around barefoot most of the year. Life’s not so wonderful in the country.”
    â€œDon’t patronize me, Dumas. I’m capable of almost anything.”
    â€œIt sounds funny to me to hear my code name. Call me Lukas.”
    â€œAll right. Don’t patronize me, Lukas.”
    She had used his name, and it sounded good on her lips.
    They talked for a while longer, and then she stood up.
    â€œLeaving so soon?” asked Lukas.
    â€œI’m going back tonight. My brother is going to walk me partway.”
    â€œWe’ve barely had a chance to meet.”
    â€œI come by every once in a while. Are you going to be stationed here, with this band?”
    â€œI think so.”
    â€œThen take care of my brother, will you?”
    â€œShe says that to everyone,” said Ungurys. “It’s embarrassing.”
    The fireside felt empty after they left. The songs the men sang became melancholy as the evening wore on, and Lukas did not want to let himself fall into that mood. He roused his brother and they returned to their lean-to for the night, but Lukas could not fall asleep for a long time.

FOUR
    FEBRUARY 1945
    L IKE BEARS in hibernation, many of the partisans hunkered down during the winter, moving as little as possible to keep their footprints off the snow. Vincentas and Lukas were moved to a bunker three kilometres away where the rotary press, typewriter and radio were kept. Here they studied English grammar and practised listening to the BBC, and finally typed up the underground broadsheets and printed them for distribution to the villages.
    Learning English was very difficult because the voice that came over the radio made noises that were barely comprehensible to someone who had only a grammar book to study from. Lukas and Vincentas began to take language lessons with the American farmer. This helped a little, but the American’s