The Boy from Reactor 4

Nadia thanked him and checked into the Hotel Rus. The drab concrete exterior of the former Soviet property conjured images of a soulless country. Her room was small but clean.

After a quick shower, Nadia dialed Clementine Seelick’s number in Kyiv and got the same beauty salon she and her mother had reached before. She gathered her valuables in her bag and asked the concierge for directions to Clementine’s address. Just in case the taxi driver tried to take her for a ride or she ended up on foot for whatever reason.

In the taxi, she asked the driver if Start Stadium was on the way. He said it was a slight detour. Nadia asked him to drive by so she could see it. He obliged and stopped at a monument at the front. It was a bronze of a muscular athlete kicking a soccer ball into the beak of a wounded eagle. Nadia felt a lump in her throat. She could hear her father tell the story for the umpteenth time.

On August 9, 1942, Kyiv was under Nazi occupation. A group of German officers believed to be members of artillery and Luftwaffe units challenged a local soccer team consisting primarily of bakery employees. Some of those employees, however, had been members of Kyiv’s elite Dynamo team. The local team was warned about the risks of defeating a team consisting of Nazi soldiers, but as one Ukrainian player put it, “Sport is sport.” The game that followed would become known as the Death Match.

Before the match started, a Gestapo officer visited the Ukrainians in their locker room and instructed them to give the Nazi salute in a pregame ceremony. The players agreed, but then refused to follow through on the field. The match was tied 3–3 until the Ukrainians rallied for two more goals. They won 5–3.

Within six months, four of the Ukrainian players died. Among them, their three stars.

Yes, exaggerations followed. The Germans probably didn’t incapacitate the Ukrainian goalie by kicking him in the head. There was no evidence a Gestapo officer warned them to lose at halftime or face execution. It was unclear if the players’ deaths were a function of retribution. And director John Huston’s Victory, with Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone, where the players earned a victory and escaped to freedom, was pure Hollywood.

But they were legitimate Ukrainian heroes from World War II. A war during which eight million Ukrainians died, more than in any other European country, and one during which Ukrainians were often collectively labeled Nazi sympathizers.

After the detour, the driver turned back and dropped her off on Yaroslaviv Val. It was a narrow, cozy street. Elaborate balustrades and balconies adorned the facades of architectural masterpieces. Nadia walked for five minutes until she found the five-story neoclassical apartment building. She buzzed the door to Seelick, 8B, took a deep breath, and waited.

No one answered.

A minute later, she buzzed again. No one was home. After two more tries, she buzzed the button for deliveries and asked to speak with the super.

A stout man with a handlebar mustache opened the door. Nadia told him she was looking for Clementine Seelick.

The super soured as soon as he heard the name. “She’s gone,” he said.

“Gone?”

“This is a monthly rental. She left at the end of March.”

“Did she leave a forwarding address?”

The super looked Nadia over from head to toe and turned away as though he was insulted. “No. I don’t think she lived here.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She had visitors. Male visitors, if you know what I mean. And now she’s gone. Are you interested in renting an apartment?”

“Who, me?” Nadia said. “No, thank you.”

The super grunted and slammed the door in her face.

CHAPTER 21

KIRILO ANDRE HOISTED himself to his feet, circled his Louis XIV desk, and faced his daughter. He’d been waiting for this moment since the British kid had asked Isabella to marry him. Kirilo clutched the antique music jewelry box.

“For you,” he said in Ukrainian, his voice cracking. “To wear on your wedding day.”

“What? For me? For real, Papa?” Isabella said.

“Yes, sunshine. For you.”

Tears welled in her eyes. She didn’t rush to open it. Instead, she caressed the mother-of-pearl inlay with her elegant fingers, taking pleasure in it.

Kirilo caught his breath. With each passing year, she looked more like her mother. Her black hair fell in silken strands to her shoulders. Her innocent oval face appeared sculpted by God himself from Venetian white marble.

After her mother died when she was sixteen, she told him she wasn’t going to be like all the other girls her age. She was saving herself for the man she loved. How proud he had been. Now she was twenty-one, and the time had come. Why did it have to happen so fast?

Isabella opened the box. It sprang to life with the melody of “Lara’s Theme.”

“Doctor Zhivago,” Kirilo said. “It was your mother’s favorite—”

“Oh, Papa. They’re beautiful.” Isabella pulled the strand of white pearls out of the box and gasped.