Tilting the Balance

The anti-Tolokonnikovite with the pistol, the one who’d fired first, took a fatal moment too long to realize his comrade had been disposed of. Ludmila wasn’t sure what was happening because she couldn’t see, but she heard another grenade, a rifle shot, a pistol shot, and then two rifle shots closer together; After that came silence all the more deafening because of the clamor that had gone before.

“Now what?” Ludmila asked.

“I think we wait some more,” Sholudenko answered. “After they got cute when I fired at them, I don’t fancy taking any more chances, thank you very much.”

The highly charged silence persisted. At last, from out of the village, came a cautious call: “Ludmila, bist du da?”

She shook her head. “Someone here knows you?” Sholudenko asked quietly. “Someone German here knows you?” That was not a good thing to admit to an NKVD man, but she did not see she had much choice.

“Georg, is that you?” she asked, also in German. If Sholudenko spoke it, well and good. If he didn’t, she’d already become an object of suspicion in his eyes, and so had little more to lose.

“Ja,” he answered, still not showing himself. “Tell me the name of the general who commands our base, so I can be sure it is truly you.”

“Tovarishch Feofan Karpov is a colonel, as you know perfectly well,” she said. “He is also certain to be furious with you for leaving the base without his leave, as I guess you did-you’re the best mechanic he has.”

“I begin to see,” Sholudenko said-so he did understand German, then. “Is he your, ah, special friend?”

“No,” Ludmila answered angrily. “But he wishes he were, which sometimes makes him a nuisance.” Then, as if she were reading the NKVD man’s mind, she added hastily, “Don’t harm him for that. He is an excellent mechanic, and has given the Red Air Force good service even if he is a fascist.”

“This I will hear,” Sholudenko said. “Had you been sentimental-” He let the sentence hang, but Ludmila had no trouble completing it for herself.

Through the front window of the hut where Schultz had disposed of the second anti-Tolokonnikovite, Ludmila spied something move. She couldn’t quite tell what it was. A few seconds later Georg Schultz came out, still holding an old rag on the end of a stick. Ludmila realized that was what she’d seen. Had anyone fired at it, Schultz would have sat tight. Yes, he’s been through combat once or twice, hasn’t he? she thought with reluctant admiration.

Schultz certainly looked like a veteran. He wore his usual mixture of Russian and German gear, though the Nazi helmet on his head gave his nonuniform uniform a Germanic cast Stuffed into his belt, along with a couple of potato-masher grenades, was a pistol He held a Soviet PPSh-41 submachine gun, and had slung his rifle over his back.

The panzer gunner’s teeth showed in a grin that seemed all the whiter because of the beard surrounding it-a beard that did nothing to hinder his piratical aspect “Who’s your Kamerad?” he asked Ludmila.

Sholudenko answered for himself, giving his name and patronymic but not announcing he was NKVD (Ludmila would have been astonished had he admitted it). He went on in German: “So what’s this? Did you desert your post to seek the fair maiden here? Your colonel will not be happy with you.”

Shultz shrugged. “Fuck him. It s not my army or even my air force, If you know what I mean. And when I get back with her”-he jerked a thumb at Ludmila-“old man Karpov’ll be glad enough to see both of us that he won’t bellyache all that much. You should have heard him-“My best pilot gone. Whatever shall I do?’ ” He raised his voice to a falsetto nothing like the colonel’s but comically effective all the same.

“How did you know where to look for me?” Ludmila asked.

“I can follow a compass bearing, and I figured you were smart enough to be doing the same if you were able.” Schultz sounded affronted. Then his face cleared. “You mean, how did I find out which bearing to follow?” He set a finger alongside his nose. “Believe me, there are ways.”

Ludmila glanced over at Sholudenko, who was undoubtedly taking all that in. But the NKVD man just asked, “How far from the airstrip are we?”

“Eighty, ninety kilometers, something like that.” Schultz looked from him to Ludmila and back again before asking her, “Who is this fellow?”

“The man I was supposed to meet. Instead of bringing back the information he had, I find I’m bringing him, too.”

By way of reply, Schultz just grunted. Ludmila felt like laughing at him. If he’d found her alone on the steppe, as he’d probably figured he would, he’d have had several days to try to seduce her or, failing that, just to rape her. Now he had to be wondering if she’d slept with Sholudenko.