Franz seemed to read her unspoken reaction. “This was three years ago, before the Russian bombing. It is not so lovely now. But listen, please. After the war we can marry. I am in love with you, Galina.”
He still held his hat in his hand, like a supplicant, but he looked at her with unwavering confidence, the blue of his eyes clear as morning light. She did not question the honesty of his admiration, and his love of music was clearly genuine. But how did those things translate into love?
These boys—Filip, Franz, Borya, even Vova, the reckless soldier—they seemed to play at everything, their games growing more complicated, with higher stakes and greater risks as they grew older. When would they become men? How did that happen? She wondered what incident, what irrefutable knowledge would turn them into stalwart, dependable people capable of tenderness. Like her father.
Surely Franz could see that she would never be more than an indentured servant to the woman in the picture. His idea was no more than a dreamy vision that had nothing to do with anyone’s happiness but his own. She, Galina, was the answer to several of the pressing problems in his life. How fortunate for him, she thought, that he also found her appealing enough to love.
Maybe he imagined a placid domestic scene, playing chess with his grandfather, his Mutti sipping her coffee while she, his wife, sang the babies to sleep before washing the dinner dishes and making sure the chickens were safe in their coop for the night. Or maybe his world was full of easy camaraderie, frequent gatherings, boisterous card games. Bring more beer for our friends, Galina. And sing for us! And where, exactly, did her family, with their own customs and expectations, fit into either picture? She was ashamed, now, of ever having harbored the beginnings of affection for his open, naive, overconfident nature.
She had also moved toward her own solutions.
“Thank you, but this is no proposal, Franz,” she said, meeting his eyes with a flash of her own, matching his lapse into the familiar form of address. “This is a plan. I cannot help you feed your people while mine starve at the hands of your government. And I am already married.”
She moved off to stand with her back to him, ready to board the approaching streetcar, her face raised to catch the fading rays of the setting sun. From her seat by the window, she saw Franz put his cap on, using both hands to center it properly on his head. He squared his shoulders, spun on his heel, and walked away in the opposite direction.
6
SHE MIGHT AS WELL make it true, now that the words were spoken. It was as if Galina had needed the release, the confessing out loud to someone other than Filip what had weighed on her mind since her impetuous pronouncement. Then we must marry. So why not marry Filip?
She knew him better than any of her friends. Galina had never been one to trade secrets with other girls. She preferred the anonymity of social gatherings, being one of the group without having to reveal many of her thoughts or expose the details of her life. With Filip, there was no need of much talk; they had been the closest of friends since early childhood. They understood each other.
She knew his bookish nature. He could bury himself in his stamp collection to the point of oblivion—an occupation for which, admittedly, she had little patience. He was self-centered but also deeply sensitive to beauty; she had learned to see art, music, literature in new ways through his eyes. If he was inept at solving problems of daily living, well, they were both young. They would mature together. She had enough practicality for them both.
If marriage would save Filip from forced labor, what was the harm in it for her? It was just a matter of living together, sharing meals and obligations. The other thought, the one about the bedroom, frightened her. She banished it from her mind. Eventually, she would know about that, too. But it could wait.
*
Filip turned eighteen in mid-May. On his birthday, a Wednesday, they arranged to meet downtown early, skipping school for the first time in both their lives. “Don’t forget your documents,” Galina had admonished. “And bring a witness.”
By nine o’clock they were outside the building, its limestone facade austere in its respectable solidity, an emblem of order and calm. Borya, their witness, was late. Out on the street, Filip stood rooted, an air of vague anxiety on his face, his shoulders slightly hunched.
Galina paced. “Did you tell him Wednesday? Are you sure?”
Filip nodded.
“What will we do if he doesn’t come? And why won’t you talk to me?”
“He will come. He promised,” Filip answered dully after a lengthy pause, his voice hoarse. With a quick glance, he consulted a wristwatch pulled surreptitiously from his pants pocket. “It’s only quarter past.”
Galina stopped pacing. She could feel the day’s warmth beginning to radiate from the building’s rough-hewn exterior. “Is that yours? For your birthday? Let me see it.” She admired the brushed silver case and elegant face. “Umm, nice,” she said, holding the leather band up to her nose, then handing the watch back to Filip, who slipped it quickly back into his pants pocket.
They stood side by side in silence a few minutes. Along the Black Sea wall, the palm trees swayed in the breeze, waving their leafy fronds like handkerchiefs to unseen departing travelers.
“Do you want to do this?” she said finally, looking straight ahead, her voice low but steady. “Can you see me as your wife? I mean, we could just go to school, and only miss a class or two.”
Filip lowered his head. He spoke softly. “It’s not . . . yes . . . I’m sure you will be a fine wife. But this is not how it happens, is it? We are so young; we know nothing. I have no work. There are no rooms for us. It’s just not . . . normal.”
“Normal.” Galina repeated the word as if considering it for the first time, trying to fathom its meaning. “Normal. And is it normal to stand in line for hours for paltry handouts? Is it normal to wonder what happened to your neighbors who were there yesterday and are gone today, without a word to anyone? Is it normal to share the streets and shops with bands of foreign soldiers who can do anything they please with us? What is normal now? Tell me.”
“I know. And I know that I cannot join the army. It’s not the politics. You know I’m neither a monarchist, like your parents, nor a Communist, like my father. I just can’t see myself fighting, at all. And I know the risks if I stay single, the almost certain conscription to work in Germany.” He took a deep breath, then raised his head and faced Galina. “But we haven’t even asked our parents. How will we live? And where?”
“Is that what worries you?” She twisted her mouth into a crooked smile. “If we ask our parents, they will say no. So I think we should just do this, and stay where we are, each with our own parents, for now. Don’t you? We are young, as you say, and there is nowhere we can go, but your legally married status will protect you from the work transport, at least for a while. Yes?” She placed a hand on his arm. The touch of her fingers, cool on his feverish skin, was feathery, tentative. Its intimacy sent a shiver through his entire body.
“Yes,” he said, finally meeting her eyes. Then, firmly, “Yes. Here comes Borya.”
They turned to watch their friend weave his way through the morning’s pedestrian traffic, everyone intent on some urgent mission, some personal business or family matter of great immediate importance. People barely spoke to one another, embracing a new kind of rudeness that seemed to exclude all civility. Galina reflected how, even a few short years ago, it had all been different. Life had been hard, but people had stopped, exchanged a few words, smiled. Or was it only because a few years ago she had been a child, protected from the worst of the famine years by her mother’s lifesaving frugality, her father’s tireless industriousness?
Galina stroked the brooch pinned modestly at her throat: a swallow in flight, every detail of beak, feather, eye, neatly forked tail etched impeccably into the polished ivory, ringed with intricately carved miniature flowers. An Easter gift, the work of her father’s hand. She knew he could easily have sold it, that someone
else, a girl or woman far away, perhaps in another country, could be wearing it with casual pleasure, with no inkling of the dangers of life in an occupied city.
This premature marriage, this urgent mission, while it was clearly a desperate solution to an intolerable situation, surely there was something undeniably humane, something inevitable about it. We two were meant to be together, sooner or later, she thought. So why not now?
“Sorry to be so late,” Borya panted, coming to a stop in front of the waiting couple. “I—”
“Don’t tell me. You lost your papers,” Filip interrupted, tapping his friend’s shoulder playfully with the back of his hand.
“No. I . . . well, I overslept, actually,” Borya admitted. He pushed a lock of unruly hair out of his eyes and dazzled them with a sheepish smile.
They laughed then, deeply and joyfully, relieved at this most mundane of all excuses, feeling for an unguarded moment like the children they still were. “You will never succeed in today’s world if you persist in being so honest,” Filip said, pulling a stern face before dissolving into a new fit of laughter.
Still smiling, they approached the desk clerk in the vestibule. “We would like to get married,” Galina said, her confidence bolstered by good cheer.
The humorless matron behind the desk barely looked at the little group. “Which of you?”
“Filip—I mean, this . . . man and I,” Galina replied, tripping over the alien-sounding word and pointing to her speechless fiancé.
“Your papers?” The clerk held out her hand, took the documents, moved her eyes rapidly over the text. She glanced up sharply to compare the applicants with their photographs. “And your witness?”
“Here.” Borya placed his own document on the desk.
She studied the paper, folded it, and gave it back. “Due to wartime conditions, the Commissariat has permitted women to marry at seventeen,” she pronounced, oozing self-importance. “But the witness must be eighteen years of age, which you, Comrade, are not.” She skewered Borya with an accusing stare. “Therefore, your request is denied. Next?”
“But Madam, I mean Comrade,” Galina persisted, flustered but not ready to give up, “he will be eighteen in only one month. Surely—”
“Then come back in one month. Please step away from the desk. You are interfering with the business of others.”
Back in the street, they stood chastened, silent. What recourse did three adolescents have against this unfeeling bureaucracy?
Filip spoke first. “So we must wait. You may as well go, old man,” he said to his friend. “Thanks just the same.”
Yet no one moved; they didn’t know how to take up the rhythm of this singular day. Go to school, as if they, like Borya, had simply overslept, forced by their parents to accept the consequences? Or spend several hours at the beach or in the park, hoping not to be seen by anyone they knew, or noticed by anyone with the authority to question their aimless behavior?
Galina brushed the thought aside. Why should anyone care what they were up to? Everyone had something to hide, avoiding each other’s eyes whenever possible lest they give themselves away—from the merely shady to the fully illegal schemes and enterprises that kept people going from one day to the next.
She was no child. Even without chronological majority, she refused to surrender to helpless frustration. Something had changed in her when she told Franz, I am already married. Then, saying to the clerk this morning, We would like to get married, she had felt a strength rise in her, a buoyant sense of control that still simmered under the surface of her disappointment. It was as if, by voicing it, it was already done. She would not have her plan so easily thwarted.
“Next month, then?” Borya asked, ready to make his escape. “My birthday is on the twenty-seventh. At least I’ll never forget your wedding anniversary.” His smile, though still disarming, was more tentative now. His eyes held a question. Then he was gone, absorbed by the midmorning crowd.
“No,” Galina said softly. “Filip. We can’t wait. You cannot hide for six weeks. Any Fascist can check your papers, right now, today, and have you sent away.” She scanned the street, pivoting in all directions with a dancer’s grace. “All we need is a witness.”
“Exactly,” Filip started to say, “but—where are you going?”
Galina chose a clean-shaven middle-aged man wearing glasses and a gray fedora and carrying a scuffed leather briefcase. She was already deep in conversation with him when Filip approached them. He noticed the man’s slightly wrinkled trousers; his shirt, while clean, was fraying at the cuffs, his mismatched black suit coat shiny with wear. He heard the words war orphan . . . prisoner . . . disabled. Just what was Galina up to?
“And this is my Filip,” she said, extending her hand, drawing him closer. “My fiancé. He is quite alone in the world. No family left at all.”
“I see,” the man said, glancing from one to the other. The corners of his thin mouth twitched, as if not sure whether to be amused or suspicious. “That’s quite a tale you’re spinning here. But why the hurry? Why must it be today?”
“Well, nu, not today—maybe—but . . . soon.” She bowed her head and blushed.
“So. Couldn’t wait for the wedding day? Too much sorrow in your young lives?” He raised an ironic eyebrow, pushed his glasses down his nose with one finger, and appraised the young couple. “Well, what’s it to me. And what have you got—”
“Oh. Here.” Galina unpinned the brooch from her blouse. “It’s ivory, hand carved. You can get a good price for it.”
The man took the brooch, flipped it nonchalantly from hand to hand, squinting at the intricately wrought details, passing his thumb over the smooth surface of the back, still warm from contact with Galina’s body. “I don’t know. This is no small matter. It’s a nice pin, but . . .”
“Filip,” Galina said firmly, “give him your watch.”
Stunned, Filip obeyed, handing over his father’s birthday present as if in a trance, amazed at this audacious display of Galina’s ingenuity. When had she become such an accomplished liar? “It’s new,” he offered weakly. “Austrian.”
“Well, then.” The man pocketed the items with a smirk. “And who am I, exactly?”
“My uncle, twice removed, from my mother’s second marriage,” Galina replied, with no hint of hesitation.
“Tak. We are all related now, da? Twice removed,” their conspirator remarked, following them through the oak doors into the government building.
And so it was done.
7
ALL THAT WAS LEFT now was to tell the parents. Simple enough, Galina thought, ignoring the momentary dread that flashed through her like summer lightning. What could parents do to them now? She and Filip had taken charge of their own lives. She had the document to prove it.
They decided to see Ilya and Ksenia first. “My father should be home. He just came back from Sevastopol last night,” Galina said.
“What was he doing in Sevastopol?” Filip asked, trying to match her rapid pace. “Slow down a little. Why do you walk so fast?”
“Listen to you! Not married ten minutes and finding fault already. I always walk fast. It’s just a habit. It never bothered you before.” She glanced at him, but he was looking the other way, where a convoy of open trucks had come into view, approaching at full speed. Filip took her arm and pulled her away from the curb, keeping a firm grip on her elbow while the trucks, each carrying four armed soldiers, a pile of axes and saws, and a stack of empty burlap sacks, rumbled past.
“I wonder what they do all day, the Germans,” Galina mused when the trucks had disappeared around the corner. “There’s no fighting here, no battles.”
“They drill, I guess. Clean their rifles and pistols. Polish their boots. Go out and intimidate people,” Filip speculated, guiding her now safely across the street.
“And spend money. My father was delivering orders, brooches and the little carved wooden boxes they like so much.” Her hand went involuntarily to the bar
e neck of her blouse. Had Ilya seen her wearing the pin this morning? Would he notice it was gone? Even if he did not, she felt its loss in a moment of regret so keen, so physical, that she abruptly stopped walking. Like each of her father’s creations, the pin was unique; there was no other in the world like it. Like innocence, once gone there was no way to replace it.
She leaned against Filip, one hand to her head as if to arrest the feelings spinning within. “What is it? Are you not well?” he inquired when he noticed her agitation.
“No. I mean, it’s nothing. The sun . . . Will your father mind terribly about the watch?”
“Yes. He is not so very influential; he can’t get things as easily as you might think. And I know he will not buy me another, even if he could.” And I mind about the watch, Filip thought petulantly. It was my birthday present.
“When this war is over and you are a famous architect, you will have many watches, one for every day and two for Sundays,” Galina said brightly, as though reading his mind. He, too, had lost something he valued. “Let’s have ice cream, to celebrate.”
They pooled their pocket change to buy one treat from the vender’s cart, passing the little paper cup back and forth between them, Galina licking the last sweet drops off the rim with undisguised childish pleasure. “I will know that hard times are behind us,” she pronounced, “when you always know what time it is, and there is ice cream every day.”
Walking slowly, side by side but not touching, they talked easily, laughing at nothing in particular, zigzagging through the midmorning downtown crowd in the general direction of Galina’s home.
“Look out!” someone shouted, and they turned to see the convoy return, slow down, then stop in the middle of the road. Several of the trucks now held, along with the guards, half a dozen or so civilians.
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