Galina and Marfa found each other again purely by chance. When their eyes locked across a sea of faces, they rushed forward, embraced in joyful silence followed by a torrent of words. How are you? Where did you go? Where are you going? Let me see your baby.
Now they sat, their bodies touching to conserve warmth, each holding her wrapped infant close to her own skin. The babies, miraculously, slept.
“The heavens weep,” Marfa said, “for our sins and misdeeds.”
“Our sins? What could we possibly have done to deserve this endless rain? And what kind of God would drown the innocent along with the sinners?” Under the tented blanket, Galina moved slightly, out of the line of droplets dripping rapidly onto her neck. “You, for instance. How can you be to blame for anything that happened?”
“I was not unwilling. He said he needed me, he would help me. He called me lovely. Can you imagine? I believed. I wanted to believe.”
Marfa lifted her head. Galina looked at her heart-shaped face, with its pointed chin, small close-set eyes, and wide mouth, framed with brittle unruly hair the color of flaking rust. Lovely? More like a cruel joke, nature at play, falling just short of sketching in her features in pleasing proportions. Her character, too, that self-effacing meekness that worked against her, provoking, if she was noticed at all, a kind of fury that led to abuse from men. Marfa had told her how her own widowed father could not help browbeating her, while also enjoying the domestic labor of her hands; neither, it seemed, could the aging Fascist who had fathered her child.
“You were deceived! And anyway, you said he was a high-ranking officer, used to command, older and stronger than you. He didn’t have to wait for you to make up your mind. You in his rooms all the time, cleaning, serving his food. It was only a matter of time. The sin is on his head, not yours.”
Galina fell silent, her head troubled with memories. If she had worked for Franz, if she had washed his shirts and cooked his meals, the way Marfa had served her officer, how would her life have turned out? How brave she had been, and how foolish. Walking away from him and his marriage proposal, trusting that he would not pursue, not insist, not shoot her down right there in the street. And knowing, in her heart of hearts, that she, too, could have been “willing.” She shuddered, not from the cold and damp but from the burden of her secret, the tinge of guilt that lay like a shadow, light but undeniable, across her soul. Unlike Marfa, she had not succumbed, and yet . . . You are right; we are all sinners, she thought, and squeezed her friend’s hand.
“At least you have a husband. Your Katya has a father, somewhere. My Tolik, my own little boy, he is a . . .” Marfa hesitated, unable to say the word. “He is alone in the world.”
“He has us.” Ksenia declared, opening the sodden flap that served as a door to their shelter. “As long as we stay together.” She sat down heavily on the trampled grass. “I have bread, and news.”
She produced the quarter loaf she had kept nearly dry beneath her sweater, tore it in uneven thirds, handed the young women the larger share. “We can’t stay here,” she began, leaning in to keep the rain from running down her back. “The locals are impatient to have us gone, and who can blame them? They have enough on their hands without having to deal with bands of impoverished vagrants. Food is short. Destruction is everywhere—”
“Yes, yes, Mama,” Galina cut in. “We know. But where can we go? Three women with two babies, wearing nothing but these soggy clothes and carrying a few shabby things, our men who knows where.”
As if on cue, both infants woke and wailed while thunder rolled like punctuation in the distance; the lightning that followed lit the circle of worried faces, then plunged them back into the dusk.
“I heard there would be refugee camps,” Marfa’s thin, high voice offered. She ducked her head as if she had spoken out of turn in class.
“Where did you hear this?” Galina demanded. “You didn’t tell me.”
“Some women talking.” She busied herself with the baby at her breast, stroking his cheek, pulling her sweater close around his shivering body.
“It’s true,” Ksenia nodded. “They’re calling us DPs now—displaced persons. The British and Americans—the French, too, I heard—are dividing Germany into zones and setting up processing centers.”
“Another labor camp,” Galina sniffed. She tucked Katyusha’s smooth warm head under the bodice of her dress to finish feeding. “Haven’t we had enough of those?”
They sat quietly for a while, rain falling through the newly leafed trees, sheeting down the sides of their tent, carving rivulets around the fledgling grass. The babies suckled, making throaty little noises, sighs and barely audible moans, skin to skin with their mothers, each radiating and absorbing the other’s warmth. Even Ksenia was still, caught in the contentment of the moment, sharing in the miracle.
“It will be better,” she said. “We are not prisoners. Our side won the war.” She watched each mother take a clean square of cloth from inside her dress and, laying the infant on her lap, quickly change the diaper and return the child to the shelter of the shawl tied across her body. How fast we learn, she thought. How much we know. Stepping outside, she draped the soiled diapers over a bush, where the rain would wash them clean.
“It will be better,” she repeated, settled back inside the cramped dampness of the tent. “They want to help us settle. But first we have to cross the river.” She said it casually, as if it was as simple as taking a trolley to town to do the shopping.
Galina’s mouth fell open. She glanced at Marfa, who, still busy with Tolik, did not see. “Cross the river? The Danube? Mama, why? The bridge . . .”
“It was bombed, yes. But it still stands. And it leads to the American sector. Here, on this side, we are at the mercy of England and France.”
“What does it matter? We can’t go home.” Marfa’s voice was expressionless.
Ksenia explained: “The French cannot be trusted. Everyone knows they collaborated with the Fascists, some say eagerly. The British have their own country to rebuild after the bombing they endured. The last thing they need is more refugees, especially women and children. And Comrade Stalin wants us back. All is forgiven! Your motherland needs you!
“But we can’t go back. Like it or not, we worked for the enemy. Returning is certain death, or Siberian hard labor.” She paused to survey her audience as if measuring the effect of her words. “Only the Americans are strong enough to stand up for us,” she finished. “Their cities are not scarred by bombs. Now that the war is over, they don’t need Stalin’s goodwill.” She raised a hand to stop Galina’s protest. “We can’t wait for clear weather. We go tonight.”
*
It was true. The bridge had been bombed but remained standing, as it had since Roman times. Word of the exodus spread rapidly along the shore; well over a hundred women milled about, forming into groups. They sorted their remaining things and tied them into bundles they could carry more easily in the wind and rain.
Ksenia, Galina, and Marfa joined a circle that had gathered around two German women, nurses returning home from their shift at the hospital. “The Strudel are very strong, with so much rain,” one of them was saying. “Very dangerous.”
Strudel? What Strudel? Galina thought. What’s so dangerous about pastry?
Sensing the confusion, the woman explained. “Strong currents that go around, like this,” she made a stirring motion with one hand. “Some very deep. Bad for boats and people. Our Danube is famous for this.”
“Whirlpools,” a voice in the crowd said, and the word traveled from mouth to ear like a flame through dry brush. From their position at the foot of the bridge, some peered toward the river, hoping to see this phenomenon, but by now a nearly impenetrable darkness had obscured the boundaries between water and sky.
“We’re not planning to swim across,” someone shouted. “Let’s go.” They surged toward the bridge, to be stopped almost immediately by a pair of British soldiers.
This bridge was for
military vehicles only. Their crowd was too large. “Go back and wait,” one guard suggested. “Your camp will be ready when the rain lets up.”
The refugees fell back, angry, disappointed, feeling helpless once again in the face of authoritarian commands spoken in a language not their own. Ksenia raised her face to the rain. “So we just stay here and do nothing, wait to be sent back to die? No. We are not under anyone’s rule just now! There must be another way.”
“There is another bridge two or three kilometers from here,” the German nurse said. “But it is damaged, no good for trucks. It would be risky.”
*
They set off, walking in small groups to avoid looking like a mob. Some, especially those with small children, decided to stay and wait for better weather. Inevitably, more women left the ranks as the marching became difficult, choosing to take their chances with whatever nation was to determine their fates rather than stake their future on an uncertain venture that had begun to seem risky and perhaps unnecessarily desperate.
But a small column, with Ksenia in the lead, persevered. They marched, driven by her tireless energy, plodding step by painful step along the washed-out road, their feet sinking into ankle-deep mud that sucked at their shoes and clung to their legs like a clammy second skin.
And still it rained.
High above, in a sinister sky, a full moon shone dimly through breaks in sooty clouds, then disappeared, drawing a celestial curtain on the scene below, as if ashamed of its part in the human misery.
They reached the second bridge well after midnight. Unlike the stone bridge, which rose majestically high above the water, this one was narrow, the wooden bed spanning the Danube where the river ran straight for several kilometers, with no visible obstacle to its fluid progress.
The women stopped, their heavy breathing after the exertion of the last five hours’ walking drowned out by the noise of the rushing river. They looked at the bridge, its span curving slightly upward toward the center before falling away into the murky distance of the far shore. Numbingly cold waves lapped at their feet in an ominous parody of playfulness.
Galina stepped onto the walkway. She felt the wood shift under her tread; a sudden gust of wind pushed at her skirt, forcing her to grasp the handrail for balance. “Mama. Tell me again why we need to get to the other side. Tonight.”
“For our protection. For our children. How do you think Katyusha will do in a Siberian labor camp, or a Soviet orphanage? We must reach the American sector because they believe in liberty. Svoboda.” She pronounced the word softly, then repeated it with greater emphasis. “Svoboda. Tonight because tomorrow, when the sky clears, it may be too late.”
The rain-swollen river ran dark only a handsbreadth beneath the slippery planks, its notorious swirls and eddies outlined with black iridescent foam, the bubbles bursting only to form new clusters downstream. The bridge swayed perceptibly, the wooden slats and handrails creaking against slender steel girders, reminding them that somewhere in the gloom, beyond the visible distance, there was bomb damage whose extent they would not know until they reached it.
Some lightened their loads yet again, leaving abandoned belongings on the shore: blankets, a square pillow, a small rolled rug, a broken doll. Ignoring Katyusha’s frightened wailing, Ksenia wrapped the child in her own shawl and tied her to Galina’s back, knotting the crossed ends securely across her daughter’s chest. She turned to Marfa to do the same with Tolik.
“No.” Marfa clutched her child and took a step back, her feet sinking in riverbank mud.
“He’ll be safer that way,” Ksenia explained. “You’ll need your hands free for the crossing.”
“No!” Marfa shouted. “Do you think I can’t protect him? My own child, my treasure?” She pressed the infant closer while he squirmed in protest at the tightness of her grasp. “He will be safe here, next to my heart.” Her voice broke and dropped to a whisper. In the end, she allowed Ksenia to tie the ends of her shawl at her back, for some measure of security.
They set off, walking close together, keeping to the sides near the handrails, bowing their heads into the wind, which intensified as they moved into the open, away from the shelter of the keening trees. It was slow going, the incline toward the center of the structure made steeper by the rain, the planks slick as newly formed ice, the wind’s howling reaching satanic proportions in its intensity.
At the crest, they stopped to rest, waiting for the women at the end of the queue to catch up. “Mother of God,” someone exclaimed, while the rest surveyed the scene before them in stupefied silence. The bridge fell away toward the shore, the downhill incline mirroring the climb they had just completed. It fell away, then disappeared under black, roiling water, coming up again at the far end onto the riverbank.
“Wait here,” Ksenia said, though no one was prepared to move. She edged along the rail toward the submerged section, so close that Galina cried out, “Mama, come back! Please, Mama, come back!”
“The bridge is still there, only part of it underwater, with a rope rail across the damaged section. People must have crossed here to the other side,” Ksenia announced on her return. “I think we can do it.”
Galina held the back of one hand to her mouth, gripped the slippery rail with the other. “I am afraid,” she said softly, so the other women would not hear, but Marfa heard and grasped her by the elbow in silent solidarity.
Ksenia had heard, too. Eyes blazing, she turned on her daughter. “The men who took your father and your husband were headed south,” she hissed. “Remember? The camps on this side are deserted. We will find them over there, in the American sector. And I intend to go.”
Galina was not alone in her fear. A few women went back to shore, holding children close, preferring to take their chances with human bureaucracy rather than risk defeat by the forces of nature. She watched them go, a huddle of retreating backs dissolving into the stormy night. Bozhe moi, she thought. My God. What will happen to them? To us?
“Leave anything you don’t need,” Ksenia instructed. “Anything that can weigh you down. Tie down anything you take. When we get to the rope, you will need both hands.” She glared at Marfa, who still held Tolik in her arms, read the obstinacy in her face, and said nothing more. To lead by example, she tossed their last cooking pot into the river. Soon a variety of objects rained down from the bridge: boxes, baskets, bedding. All floated for a moment on the simmering surface before they sank or disappeared downstream. A teakettle bobbed gaily, then passed under the bridge, adding a note of incongruous cheer no one was prepared to appreciate.
“Maybe someone will find this and wonder about us,” Marfa murmured, letting a baby pillow embroidered with lavender flowers slip from her fingers.
“Maybe,” Galina replied. “Or maybe it will just be so much trash littering the banks of the beautiful blue Danube.” No one cares about us, she wanted to scream into the wind. Don’t you know that?
The planks began to sink almost immediately beneath their weight. Twenty intrepid women peered into the gloom ahead and inched along. Twenty determined hands grasped the iron rail like so many birds on a wire. Soon they were wading, as the incline steepened and the creaking bridge fell away into the water. Someone started a chant—Gospodi pomilui, Lord have mercy—and others took it up, accompanied by the wind’s sustained howling, the staccato drumming of rain. Little Katyusha cried fitfully, her voice muffled against her mother’s back. Tolik, his face loosely covered by Marfa’s wrap, though wide awake, made no sound.
When they reached the broken section, Ksenia stopped. “Hold the rope with both hands and don’t let go. I can see the shore. God willing, we’ll soon be safe.” A murmur rose up from the women, already up to their knees in water that swirled rapidly around their skirts.
They moved in, Ksenia in the lead, then Galina and Marfa, with the others close behind. Almost at once, they were waist-deep, shuffling their numbed feet to find the broken timbers, scrambling for balance. “Keep moving,” Ksenia called ove
r her shoulder. “Hold the rope and keep moving!”
There was no going back. The river seethed and rolled around them, a frigid boiling thing that took the breath from their lungs and emptied their minds of all thought. The end of the bridge rose out of the water just a short distance ahead, but who could look up to see it? Under the surface, they felt the whirling currents pull at their bodies, twisting their clothing as if demanding ransom for the passage. I am stronger than you, the river proclaimed. Just let go—while Ksenia exhorted them to hold on, hold on and keep moving.
She had reached the end, grasped the knot that unknown helping hands had tied to the remaining iron rail. Turning to the others, she started to say, “Vot. Be strong. We are here,” when Marfa, with a wind-piercing scream, let go of the rope.
Galina and Ksenia, each holding the rope with one hand, reached instinctively for her, clawing at the ends of her coat, taking her back while she struggled, arms extended toward the rapidly receding bundle the river had wrenched from her side. Marfa roared and yelped like an animal while little Tolik bounced a few times on the crest of a wave and disappeared under the water, his wrap trailing along the surface like false hope before a whirling eddy took it, spinning, into the deep.
* * *
The rain stopped at dawn. A shameless sun, concealed behind rapidly receding clouds, burst through their cover, rising as if nothing had happened, its light reflected by countless quivering droplets that clung to every surface before vanishing into steamy air. The river ran as cold and blue as its celebrated popular image.
The other women moved off, busied themselves with their own concerns, hiding their relief at their own successful crossing, reluctant to share a stranger’s trouble. The day wore on, warming with spring’s promise. Sparrows pecked at the damp ground, chirping; a pair of squirrels chased each other around the base of a tree, then disappeared, chattering, into the upper branches.
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