“You’re going to take backwoods trails all the way across Germany, with no maps? What about when it gets cold?”
Nina laughed. “I’m from Siberia, malysh. It won’t get cold enough to kill me.”
“Don’t call me little boy. All I want is not to get caught, and for you not to get caught.” His long-lashed eyes held hers. “I owe you my life, Nina. If you hadn’t come along, that German would have shot me, or if I’d got away from him, I’d have stumbled around in these trees till I died of thirst or some other Kraut scooped me. I owe you, and if we both get pinched, I can’t ever pay you back.”
Nina opened her mouth. The little English snail is right about one thing, her father remarked. Your plan is mad.
“We hide here,” Seb persisted. “In the woods, something better than a camp clearing. Near enough to Posen to forage, keep our ear to the ground for news. Why move on? We won’t find anywhere better to wait out the war.”
“Wait out—!”
“It can’t be long now,” Seb rushed on. “A few months, maybe even before the end of the year, and this country is running over with Allied instead of German sentries—”
“Running over with Soviets, when our forces arrive. I won’t wait for that.”
“We’ll tell everyone you’re Polish instead. You lost your papers. The Red Cross will help, at the very least.”
“What do we do until then? Sit around embroidering?” That brought Yelena painfully to mind, unpicking blue threads from state-issued men’s briefs so she could embroider stars into a scarf.
“I’ve spent four years doing nothing but pass time. If we can stay warm, stay secret, and feed ourselves—”
“We.” Nina glared again. “You mean me.” Two weeks in the woods, and this city boy still couldn’t light a fire without wasting half the kindling.
“Until the war ends, I need you,” Seb acknowledged. “After the war, you’ll need me.”
Nina raised her eyebrows.
“I’m a British subject. Once the Germans are finished, I can get myself shipped back to England. I’ll take you with me.”
Nina blinked. “How?”
He shrugged. “My brother has connections everywhere; he can sponsor you. You could get British citizenship eventually. You just have to know people, and believe me, we Grahams know people. You keep me alive till the war ends,” Sebastian Graham repeated, “and I’ll get you to England and see you settled there. I owe you that.”
Nina hesitated. What did she know about England except that it was full of fog and capitalists?
“England,” Seb wheedled. “As far west as you can go without leaving Europe. Not to mention that we’ve got Piccadilly. The Egypt wing of the British Museum. Fish and chips—you haven’t lived till you’ve had fish and chips, Nina. No Komsomols, no gulags, no collective apartments. A nice king with a stammer who doesn’t go in for mass executions. It’s a big improvement on the Soviet Union, believe me, and you can call it home. All we have to do is hunker down and stick together.”
Nina had no idea what fish and chips was, or Piccadilly. Where her mind lingered was on the words as far west as you can go without leaving Europe.
“Survival now for citizenship later,” Sebastian said. “What do you say?”
IT WAS A STRANGE THING, Nina reflected, to have nothing in the world but a single partner. She had lived so long among hundreds of women, then she had been alone among the trees with no company but hallucinations. Now she had Sebastian Graham, and could any alliance have been stranger?
“I wanted to join the RAF,” Seb said. “Spitfires and glamour. But the recruiting bastard laughed in my face.”
“Flying bombing runs isn’t glamorous.” Nina pushed a leaf across the flat stone between them. Seb was teaching her poker, having patiently marked up a variety of leaves with a charred stick to make a deck of cards. “Are oak leaves hearts or spades?”
“Spades.” He cocked his head, listening. “That’s a nuthatch.”
“What?”
He imitated a birdcall.
“You don’t know anything about the woods, but you know birds?” Nina pushed the oak leaf that was the queen of spades across the rock.
“I like birds.” He linked his hands together, made a curious little gesture imitating flight. “My brother, Ian, gave me my first bird book. The other boys said it was sissy, until I punched them. Ian showed me how to punch the same day he gave me the book. He said I could