Field of Blackbirds - Clayton Jeppsen & Lindsey Jeppsen (me reader txt) 📗

time and talents. He got me into sports. He found me jobs. He even spent time with me on the weekends. He and my father and I would go camping, hunting and fishing. When I was sixteen Lazar, I started to live again. I started to laugh again. Petrovich trained me in many things; helped me develop many of my abilities and told me I could be anything I wanted to be. I did some serious thinking.
My mother’s death was inevitable. The cancer would have taken her sooner or later. But the doctor she had seen in the beginning had misdiagnosed her disease. He didn’t catch the cancer. If the cancer had been detected earlier, the treatments would have been more effective. It meant that she could have stayed with us longer; years, months, maybe only days. But it would have been worth a lifetime to me.
She wouldn’t have to say anything. She had this smile that told me everything I wanted to know. Just one more, I needed one more of those smiles. I told Petrovich I wanted to be a lawyer, to prevent medical malpractice. The technology was there, Lazar. If I can help grant one more year, one more month or even that one more day to that man or woman or child with their loved one, then Lazar, I will have lived a pretty good life.”
Radenko paused, taking in and blowing out an uneven breath. “She’d be proud of me, don’t you think?”
“I’m sorry about your mother, Radenko. You must really love her.”
“Yeah,” Radenko nodded his head. “I wish I could have known her better.”
Lazar reached and gave Radenko a cheerful slug in the shoulder. “In a way, I understand. My father died when I was ten. I wanted to be just like him. But he wasn’t around much. He was always off fighting and only came home for short periods of time. I always begged him to take me with him. I’m glad that he never did, because now I understand. But I was lucky to have Mr. Nowak around. He definitely filled in the holes.”
Radenko returned the cheerful slug to Lazar, only this time with a little more punch. “We’ve got a lot in common, Lazar. After the war, I’m going to look you up. A trouble maker like you will definitely need a good lawyer.” They both laughed.
Radenko looked over at Reed and his team. “Here’s what I’ve been thinking Corporal.”
Lazar interrupted him. “I know what you’re thinking Radenko. They too, have families. They too, seem like decent young guys. If we turn them over to Nikola, they’re all dead. How will you ever live with yourself when all you ever wanted to be was a good person? Am I right? That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”
Radenko didn’t respond. He was unsure of the new tone Lazar had commandeered. But Lazar had nailed it. It was exactly what he was thinking.
“It’s too dangerous, Radenko. We could be shot for treason, or maybe worse. Who knows what Nikola’s capable of? I am just within arm’s reach from winning my life back. I don’t want to blow it all. I want to see Milla again. And you need to see your father.” Lazar caught himself and lowered his tone a little, worried they were being overheard. “We’ve got to think about that.” he warned.
Radenko had thought about it. It was on his mind constantly. But he knew someday, he would have to look into his mother’s eyes again. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sustain the façade. He would melt at her feet and evaporate into a fog of guilt. He would have broken the most costly gift she’d left him . . . . . . . Love.
Lazar felt the disappointment resonating over the table. He hoped it was because Radenko understood the impossibility of it all. But he knew the truth. He knew Radenko was disappointed in him. Radenko must have felt that, up until now, they were so much alike and now Lazar was flying his true colors. The shame was making him uncomfortable.
“Radenko, this is why we are told not to befriend the enemy. It prevents us from doing what we are told, what we are trained to do. We kill. It’s the reality of war. But we aren’t pulling the trigger here, Radenko. We’re just following orders.”
Enraged, Radenko stood and walked toward the window, biting his lip, not saying anything. Then he sat back down and whispered to Lazar.
“Can I speak to you off the record, Lazar?”
“Radenko, you don’t need permission.” assured Lazar.
“I respect what you’re saying, Lazar, and I understand the dangers of engaging in enemy relations. I haven’t gone soft. We don’t know they’re the enemy. We don’t know who they are. They don’t understand what could happen to them. America, look at him. He doesn’t know hate. He doesn’t know blood. He doesn’t know how horrible life can get, how dark it can be. Not the way we do, Lazar. He’s lived life in a bubble, unexposed. The most pain he’s ever felt was the week they took the training wheels off his bike, or when he found out he wasn’t picked as captain of the football team. He knows honor. He wants to make everyone proud and come back a hero. I can see that he’s trying to be strong for his men. It’s a good life to waste, Lazar. And I’m sorry, ‘we’re just following orders’ is a cop-out that nearly wiped out the whole Jewish race of 1940. Orders, what are they really, if not for the greater good, then what, Lazar?”
Lazar sat silent. He couldn’t possibly formulate a response so quickly.
“At this point, orders are of such little significance to me.” avowed Radenko. “I’m talking about looking my Maker in the eye and being able to stand on my own two feet.”
It wasn’t long ago when Lazar sat across from a man he so revered and heard a similar testimony. He had known these things all along. Mr. Nowak had instilled these truths over many father-son exchanges in ‘The Time Machine’. Mr. Nowak knew full well that Lazar would someday be suspended by this very thread and would need the moral clarity, the moral courage to pad his landing.
Lazar peeled his pride from the floor and smiled. “Damn it, Radenko! You’re going to get us killed.”
“No Lazar, you’ll be responsible. You’re the Corporal.” Radenko also found a smile.
“It figures. You saved my life too.” reminded Lazar. “It’s just the kind of person you are.”
Lazar reached forward and clasped Radenko’s hand firmly in his own. “There’s no turning back now. We’re in this together - until the end.”
Chapter 36 – In Ruins


As time passed, rays of sunlight began to douse the stubborn morning chill. But with each warming minute the somber mood thickened. Reed was sitting next to Marcielli and kept asking him what Lazar and Radenko were saying at the table. Marcielli’s only response was that they were speaking too quietly to understand.
What Marcielli didn’t admit, was that he had tuned them out with random thoughts of his mother’s cooking. Marcielli could feel the acid churning in his stomach as it was teased with each dry swallow. It had only been eighteen hours since he’d eaten last. Nevertheless, he stared at the torn MRE wrapper on the ground, as if it were a bubbling, golden-brown calzone.
He remembered coming home from school and smelling fresh garlic and basil before opening the door. Sometimes he wouldn’t even be hungry until the microscopic particles in the air mocked his appetite. Cooking made Rianna happy. It was the crutch that got her through. It allowed her to be busy during Dominico’s inebriated spells of anger. It satisfied her need to explore and create; her need to please others and her need for accomplishment. And sometimes it just satisfied her need to pass time. She hated government protection. It stripped her of life’s normalcies, lengthy visits from relatives, extended periods outside the home or an unexpected trip to Venice or Florence or just somewhere along the coast. Marcielli knew that, as soon as he could, he would have to bring Marianna and the baby down to Tivoli. Rianna deserved it. She was always a good mother to Marcielli.
Marcielli had to stop thinking of food. He could feel himself shrinking with every thought. But the thoughts were simpler and less risky than the ones standing like an iron wall in front of him, the ones baring the likelihoods, the possibilities of the unknown and the undesired. Marcielli became anxious to see Marianna and hoped to be next to her when the baby was born.
Radenko stood and grabbed his rifle that was leaning against the table. He racked the slide, getting everyone’s attention. Then he walked over and positioned himself in front of Reed and the others. The barrel of his gun studied each of them.
Reed became apprehensive and didn’t understand the behavior. Maybe he underestimated them. Maybe Lazar and Radenko thought it was easier just to get rid of them. Would it end like this? Would he stand by useless, and watch his men die? Then Reed thought of his family, then Lindsey. His stomach crumbled, cutting short his breath and allowing him to feel every pulse of his heart.
Lazar remained seated but pulled his knife from his boot. He couldn’t believe he was doing this. But Radenko was right. It would be a heavy weight to muscle through life. Sooner or later, it would rot him from the inside out. Although he feared the consequences, the idea was morally pacifying. He looked into the blade of his knife. It returned a vibrant image. Lazar could see life in his own eyes. Life, of which he was sure of its absence only minutes ago.
A proposition manifested its way into his thoughts. Lazar remembered a time when he felt so low, so unclean; so evil. On the banks of the Danube River, he had thought about ending it all to slay the beast inside, to ease the pain and settle the betrayal. Then he met Radenko, someone generous enough to share his burden, someone who was willing to listen without turning away. Radenko helped him find Milla, feeding his paranoia a spoonful of harmony. But a portion of the pain he suffered on the Danube, resonated from his first taste of innocent blood. Coincidently, it proved to be the most poisonous fruit he had ever consumed. He watched God’s benevolent gift of life spill to the ground. The man’s only desire was to defend his family and demand liberty from the adversary; nothing malice, nothing unnatural. As Lazar looked over at Reed