Sasha, with her baby brother Denys in her arms, stood in the same spot Katya had sat with Sasha on her sister Olha’s wedding day only a few months before. Sasha’s older brother, Serhiy, nearly a grown man, stood behind them, closer to the house. When his mother struggled in the snow, he moved to help her.
“Stay right there!” The younger activist pointed his gun at Serhiy. It wobbled in his grip. “Or this time we shoot to kill!”
“She’s sick. That’s why she didn’t come out with us.” Serhiy held his hands up in the air while he took slow steps toward his mother. “I’m just going to help her.”
The younger activist lowered his arm slightly, as if he accepted Serhiy’s response. The other activist did not. He pointed his weapon and shot Serhiy.
When the gun went off, Katya lunged forward, her lips parting to yell for Serhiy to run, even though it was too late. Before she could get a sound out, Alina’s hand clamped over her mouth. She pulled Katya against her chest, her heart pounding in Katya’s ear, as they watched Serhiy fall. He landed on a bed of fresh, untouched snow. His blood spilled fast, spreading into a circle of scarlet around his motionless body.
“Never accept insolence from these people. It makes you look weak,” barked the man who had pulled the trigger. The young man nodded, his mouth hanging open and his eyes glued to the pool of blood seeping out around Katya’s cousin.
Aunt Oksana’s guttural wail pierced Katya like a knife. Her aunt struggled to get to her firstborn son, but Uncle Marko, agony carved on his face, pulled her away from their home and their dead child.
Sasha whimpered and turned away from Serhiy’s body. Her eyes, wide with shock, blinked rapidly as she stared out into the night. Katya ached to call out to her, to save her, but she didn’t. She couldn’t.
Katya’s bravado faltered, and her lower lip wavered as three of the men ushered the family away. The young one stayed back to drag Serhiy’s body to the woods. Katya and Alina sat in the cold, clinging to each other, until they marched out of sight.
Katya’s voice, hoarse from holding back screams, shattered the silence. “We must go tell Mama and Tato what happened.”
Alina nodded, and they made their way down the path back home, picking up the bread and broken jar of soup along the way and stepping over the streak of spilled red borscht that stained the snow, just like Serhiy’s blood had.
Katya squeezed her eyes shut as the possibilities of what Sasha and her family would endure flashed through her mind. The tears she had done so well to contain now dripped down her face and froze into frosty crystals on her cheeks. The sharp report of the gun had finally stopped ringing in her ears, but the image of Serhiy and the red snow still burned in her eyes as they entered their yard.
Small but pleasant, their home was typical for the village. Wattle constructed walls hugged the ground under a thatched roof. An entry area served as a storage space and led into an open main room that housed a large, whitewashed pich stove. Decorated with painted flowers, the pich served as the heart of their home. The thick brick walls kept the whole house warm in the winter and jutted out into the room with ledges and alcoves.
Katya stepped into her home and looked at it with new eyes. The kitchen sat on the far side of the room where the oven opened up and a shelf held spots for kettles and pots. On the other side of the pich, tucked on a long bench, was Katya and Alina’s bed. The rest of the open space held a bed for her parents and a table and chairs. Fragrant dried flowers and herbs hung in bunches from the ceiling, and brightly colored embroidered pictures decorated the walls. Before today, she’d felt safe here.
Mama sank into a chair as they relayed their story, then buried her face in a handkerchief. “My sweet sister. And those poor children.”
“Did the activists think they were kulaks?” Katya fought to keep her voice steady.
“Probably.” Tato rubbed his jaw. “The bar is low these days.”
“But they did nothing wrong!” Katya cried. “Where does this end? People are disappearing in the middle of the night. Families deported. Where do they go? Are they even still alive?”
“Katya, lower your voice,” Tato said. “Stalin wants kulaks to be eliminated by any means necessary. It doesn’t matter how. He just wants them gone.”
Mama gave a strangled cry as Katya paced angrily.
“What can we do now? We can’t sit here while they’re taken away.” Katya clapped a hand over her mouth as the words spewed from it. Her faced flamed with her own hypocrisy. She had done just that, only a few minutes ago.