Roads

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IN THE END, getting away was easy.

They set off across the field through ankle-high summer-browned grass, heading for the road, Filip’s shovel swinging by his side. Ilya set the pace, purposeful but not too fast. They walked abreast, heads down.

“Keep walking,” Ilya said softly, glancing sideways at his son-in-law. “Don’t look back. He’ll think we’re going to work on the road.”

With a rucksack and all our belongings? Filip thought, but merely grunted in reply, refusing to look at the older man, expecting at any moment a shout, a bullet in the back. The old man had to be crazy, thinking two Russian men in German uniform, ROA insignia on their sleeves, could expect to survive in this alien land, even if the war was over. Wasn’t the American camp they had just left behind their best hope?

When they reached the shade of the linden trees that lined the road, the men stopped and turned. Across the field they had just crossed, the camp looked small, a forlorn grouping of gray barracks, a dusty yard, a neglected watchtower, a wisp of smoke rising from the kitchen chimney, where even now the next meal they would not eat was being prepared.

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