Marfa said nothing. She sat down on a fallen tree, her back to the group. She made no attempt to dry her clothes or comb her hair. She sat straight-backed, head bent, staring vacantly dry-eyed at her shoes.
Galina and Ksenia glanced at one another. What was there to say? What comfort can anyone offer for the senseless death of a child? As if the death of this child, the pitiful bundle rocking on the river, spinning in a sinister game, the flash of one tiny hand outlined against the vortex like the veins of a leaf—as if that could be anything but senseless.
It was past midday when Marfa spoke. She rose from her seat and confronted her stunned companions. “Why did you make me come?” Her voice was as flat as her face was blank. “I have no man to find. No husband, no father. No one. In my village there is an auntie. She is old and sick and childless. We could have helped each other, raised my little—” Marfa stopped, unable to utter her son’s name. She raised her hands to push away any argument. “Znayu. I know, I know. How could I be sure I would return to my village? Well, why not? Who would stop me? I am nobody.” She looked up, her eyes wide. “Nobody. Nikto.”
“If only you had . . . ,” Ksenia started to say, stopped, tried again. “It didn’t have to . . . You could have . . .”
“Tied my baby to my back, like you said, like she did,” she pointed to Galina, with no hint of the warmth they had so recently shared. “Well, haven’t I listened enough to you already?” Marfa shouted, so loud that some of the other women stopped wringing out their clothing and looked at them, though none dared approach or intervene.
It was a desperate outcry, spoken with the rage of a child cornered by her own helplessness and guilt, a child left with nothing but feral instinct, snarling and gnashing her teeth in her own defense. Marfa went back to the seclusion of her log, shaking in wrathful tearless silence.
It was Galina who could not stop weeping. She held her own infant close, ignoring the child’s squirming. “Katyusha,” she whispered, tears spilling from her eyes in an endless stream, coursing down her swollen cheeks. “Katyusha.”
She paced like an animal marking out territory, careful to keep her back to the unforgiven river; her footsteps soon wore a path in the newly sprouted grass, from tree to budding tree. River of death, she accused. Her heart filled with hate for its heedless sparkling beauty, hate and frustration that brought on ever more copious tears.
After her outburst, Marfa remained silent, her eyes stone dead, her mouth a thin grim line in a face pale as chalk. The other women had gathered in groups, talking and even laughing among themselves, speculating about the future and its unknown possibilities. “When they rebuild the factories they will need workers . . .” “I know a family in Antwerp . . .” “My godfather’s son lives in New York . . .”
“Why won’t they talk to us, Mama? It’s been two days since we crossed,” Galina whined. She lifted a restless Katya up to her shoulder to stop her rooting at Galina’s clothing, the child’s mouth an O of insatiable appetite.
“Feed her,” Ksenia instructed. “As for the women, I don’t know. Maybe they think grief is contagious.”
Galina collapsed in a fresh torrent of tears. “I fed her. I have no more”—she hiccupped loudly, catching her breath as each explosion left her chest—“no more milk.”
Ksenia took the baby and walked with her. “Nu, nu, little one. Sleep now,” she crooned, offering the tip of her finger, dipped in water, to suck. “Dochenka, my daughter, you must temper your grief. Stop crying. God has taken Tolik. We must accept the tragedy and care for the living.”
Marfa’s head snapped up at the sound of her son’s name. Her back stiffened; the disheveled halo of her hair stirred in the breeze. After a few minutes, she rose and approached them. Her dress, distended by engorged breasts, was damp, the leaking milk staining her bodice in dark irregular patches, like rings around a submerged stone. Without a word, she took Katyusha from Ksenia’s arms and went back to her log. The baby resisted at first, then hunger won out and she gave in, gulping the strange milk in large mouthfuls, waving one small fist in the air as a last bastion of defiance.
“God had nothing to do with it,” Marfa said without turning around. “It was my fault. Only mine.”
PART VI
The Men
1
ON LEAVING THE TRAIN at Plattling the men were trucked several kilometers to an abandoned farmhouse, already widely encircled with barbed wire and occupied by several hundred laborers. They were put to work building additional barracks and watchtowers.
“Schnell,” the guards prodded. “The sooner you finish, the sooner you sleep inside.” They worked steadily, unloading materials, sawing boards, pounding nails, tarring roofs, and hanging doors. No one was permitted to use the new buildings until four of the six were finished. The men slept outdoors, huddled together, each with only a thin camp-issue blanket and his own clothing to protect him from the late February cold. Some never got to use the beds they made; they succumbed to the milder but still wintry weather, their own persistent assortment of ailments made worse by low spirits and malnutrition.
The barn had been converted into a dormitory for the guards. Meals were dispensed behind the house, at the kitchen door; each man took his portion and did his best to find a place to eat it, leaning against a wall or squatting on the ground in the yard. Taking food into the barracks was forbidden.
“Why are we here? What do they want with us?” someone grumbled.
“Who knows? Maybe they have a new plan. At least we have something to do.”
Filip’s knowledge of German saved him, again, from the heaviest labor. He was assigned to the camp supervisor’s staff as interpreter, but slept in the barracks with the others, working with them when he wasn’t needed in the office.
The German staff numbered only two dozen or so and did not seem to care how the barracks were built. If the roof leaked or the walls were not straight, it made no difference; the shelters were for Slavs, who deserved no better. There were enough men among the newcomers who knew about building; to his surprise, Filip enjoyed working with them. Watching a pile of lumber and a bucket of nails become a house, however simple, was fascinating, as long as he didn’t have to swing a hammer all day.
As to their questions—Why are we here? At whose command? Are we prisoners? What happens when we finish the barracks? Where are our women and children?—no answers were forthcoming in any language.
Two weeks into their captivity, Filip met Ilya in the yard at dinnertime. Squatting next to the older man without looking at him, he said, “I found out.”
“What?” Ilya, also looking straight ahead, asked softly.
“Why we’re here and the women are not.” Filip stirred his soup, pushing the turnip bits around, skimming the rapidly congealing fat, what there was of it, onto his spoon. He rubbed the fat onto his bread and chewed.
Finally, Ilya lost patience. “Nu? Well?” he exclaimed, far louder than he intended.
“The Reds are on the move, sweeping in from the east, making gains every day against the Nazis. The Germans are afraid we’ll join forces with them and give away what we’ve learned of the land, the enemy positions.”
“How do you know this?”
“I overheard two guards complaining. Building these barracks is fool’s work. We should slow down. They’re just waiting for orders to shoot us when we’re done, so they don’t have to keep feeding us.”
“That’s stupid. Why waste the materials? Why not shoot us now? We could be useful yet, for reconstruction projects, or a prisoner exchange when this war ends. And that will be soon. I feel it.” Ilya tipped the rest of his broth into his mouth. “What I wouldn’t give for a plate—no, just a spoonful—of my Ksenia’s cooking.” He closed his eyes, resting his head against the wall. There were signs of early spring in the air, a hint of mildness, the sun spreading a welcoming warmth on his upturned face. “You’re sure about this? About the Reds?”
“I know what I heard.” Filip bristled
, startled from his own reminiscence: Galina’s body nestled against him, her honey hair parted to reveal the back of her neck, her rhythmic breathing like the whisper of receding waves on the pebbled beach of the Black Sea.
Ilya grunted. “If our boys start liberating the camps, we’re all dead men, tainted with the stain of collaboration whether we’ve worked with the Fascists or not. You know that, don’t you?”
“Maybe.” But they might need interpreters, too, he thought. “Here comes Grisha. We know what’s on his mind.”
“Nu, parni, kak dela? How goes it, fellows?” Grisha, his soup bowl empty, towered over the two men from his considerable height. Though only in his midforties, he was nearly bald, with eyes round as billiard balls looking large behind thick wire-rimmed glasses. “Are you ready to join us?”
Ilya stood up. “Yes. I am. But I’m no fighter. I had enough of it in the last war.”
“Times have changed, old man. We have better weapons now, no more mustard gas. And we need numbers, a show of force. I’ve spoken with the camp commander.” He glanced at Filip as if to say, You’re not the only one who speaks German here. “They will back us up, provide uniforms, and help with training.”
“Huh.” Filip, still squatting, rolled a cigarette, careful not to spill a speck of the precious leaf. He licked the edge of the paper and pinched the ends closed. “They’ll say anything now to keep us from going to the Reds.”
“Oh, you young ones,” Grisha exclaimed with evident frustration. “You’ve never known anything but Communism. With our passion and Hitler’s manpower, we can unseat Stalin and his cronies, loosen their grip on our country. It is the ultimate act of patriotism. Just say it—‘Russkaya Osvoboditel’naya Armiya, Russian Liberation Army’—and you can be part of it.”
“I know what ROA stands for.” Filip stood up. Shorter than the older man, he had to tilt his head back to look him in the eye. “And let’s say this insane plot succeeds. Then what? Who will form the new government? How do you know the people will support you? Are you counting on the monarchists to bring the surviving Romanovs out of hiding? What if you start another civil war?” He rolled the cigarette gently between fingers and thumb. “I don’t see a plan here. What if you win and the Germans choose to stay?”
“Andrei Andreevich Vlasov is perfectly able to form a government. He is a decorated general with many years of Red Army experience, and used to command. He was instrumental in the defense of Moscow, turning the enemy back within sight of the city limits.” Grisha closed his eyes, as if explaining a self-evident concept to an obtuse student. “And the monarchists will follow anyone who can replace the Bolsheviks. Isn’t that so, Ilya Nikolaevich?”
“Command!” Filip interrupted before Ilya could reply. “That’s fine for military operations, but can it make good government? Command? If so, we should stay with what we have.”
“We can argue the finer points forever,” Grisha said, his voice betraying a trace of impatience. “The truth is, we have no time. The movement is well under way, with over a million men signed up in Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, ready to fight. The time is now. Will you join us?”
In the end, after a few more heated recruiting efforts, they joined the ROA. Ilya, with the wholehearted enthusiasm of the newly converted, believing that not all monarchists were out of touch with modern times, kept his hopes to himself. Look at England or Sweden or Holland, he thought. Are they not proof enough that constitutional monarchy is not only possible but also good for people and rulers alike?
Filip overcame his reluctance more gradually. A million men? He doubted there could be that many. He could understand if refugees and POWs signed up, eager to band together for any hope of stability in their fractured lives. The promise of a hot daily meal and a good coat, plus a measure of protection from the capricious brutality of camp overseers—men had sold their souls for less.
So perhaps a million recruits. But if they were holed up throughout Europe, how would they ever mass together to mount a meaningful offensive? And how many among them were fit for battle? He didn’t know if he himself had the discipline or the stamina to be a soldier. Or the courage.
But he could see that holding out labeled him as a Red among men who had ceased to believe in the great Socialist experiment. It could work, he thought. Stalin was an anomaly. Remove the dictator; return power to the people—the principles were sound, weren’t they? But he also believed that the Reds, together with the Allies, would defeat the Nazis. When that happened, they, his countrymen, would see him as a traitor, no matter what he did now.
He joined so as not to draw attention to himself among these sheep bleating platitudes of a new kind, which he doubted many of them understood. As events heated up, there was bound to be confusion; he had only to watch for an opportunity to escape to the West. He would be vigilant. In the meantime, as a member of the resistance army, he might get to carry a gun—a possibility he found as exciting as it was unsettling.
They sewed the ROA patches on the sleeves of their German-issue uniforms, fingering the fine gray wool with positively sensual pleasure, glad to exchange their tattered jackets and mud-splattered trousers for this superior clothing. They mended the tears and patched the occasional bullet holes with care.
“I wonder which one of our boys shot this poor bastard,” Filip asked, holding up the jacket he had been issued. An oblong hole in the upper chest area lined up neatly with a similar one in the left sleeve. He wiggled his fingers through the holes.
“Nu,” one of the men remonstrated, as if correcting a foolish child. “No need for such talk.”
For the next month or so the new recruits were permitted to drill and even engage in some target practice, using wax bullets aimed at a plywood board bolstered with hay. There were not enough guns to go around. After the first day, when the men rushed from all sides at the pile of weapons laid out on a trestle table, as if playing a grimly comical version of musical chairs, the corporal in charge established a strict rotation, giving each trainee more or less equal shooting time.
Ilya, though not yet fifty, was deemed too old for combat due to his persistent cough, and assigned to the rear guard; his job would be to feed the troops, manage supplies, and care for the wounded. “That suits me,” he told his son-in-law. He was glad to be of use but not on the front lines.
Filip was hopelessly inept with a rifle, but liked the heft of a pistol in his hand, and was able to hit the target with a passable degree of accuracy. As long as it’s a bale of hay, he thought, and the gun holds blanks, not at all sure that shooting a man would yield the same kind of satisfaction.
His resolve was tested in a combat exercise that matched the trainees against each other in pairs. Filip’s opponent, though larger and stronger, was unarmed. They circled each other for a few minutes, Filip ducking or sidestepping most of the other man’s blows, though landing none of his own. Then the larger man moved in and caught Filip in a clinch. They grappled awkwardly, grunting and wheezing, Filip’s chin wedged into the other man’s shoulder, his buckling knees forcing them to fall to the ground.
A small crowd had gathered around the two men rolling in the dust. Filip was only dimly aware of their jeers—“Durak! Use your gun, fool!”—drowned out by the blood roaring in his ears, his only thought to escape his opponent’s viselike embrace.
And then the man sneezed. Filip took advantage of his loosened grip, rolled away, and lay facedown, barely breathing, his left arm pinned under his body, the right covering his head in a childlike pose of submission. “Get up!” the men yelled. “Get up! Use your gun!”
Filip didn’t hear them. He was only aware of his opponent kneeling over him, pressing the barrel of Filip’s own gun against his temple. Then nothing.
“Let’s go, malysh.” Two men were lifting him off the ground, their tone both derisive and strangely affectionate. “They can use you in the kitchen.” Malysh. Little one. His gorge started to rise at the insult, but he was too embarrassed to take serious
offense.
“Ach, ja,” he heard one of the German guards remark, laughing, to another when he limped past. “Send that one to fight for Comrade Stalin. We have nothing to fear from such a soldier.”
Let them laugh, he thought. When it came time to talk or decipher documents, no one in this camp knew both languages better than he. I’ll show them yet. All of them.
The kitchen assignment didn’t last. Filip proved as useless at peeling potatoes as he was at hand-to-hand combat, and soon returned to his clerical duties.
Among the German camp personnel, after the initial taunts, no one mentioned his ignominious failure, at least in his hearing. Did they expect no more from a Slav, a member of a race they considered inferior beyond contempt? But I am not all Slav, he argued, addressing an imaginary interlocutor. My mother is Greek. They gave the world some epic warriors, in their day. Also scientists, mathematicians. Thinkers. That’s part of my legacy, too.
The only one to mention the incident was Becker, the young lieutenant in charge of office administration. Not much older than Filip, he treated him with something close enough to respect to put them at ease with each other. “A man can’t know his limits until he is faced with the thing he cannot do,” Becker said a few days after the training episode. “I asked for you. I know this is work you can do well.” He gestured around the office, the desks, files, typewriter—even the telephone Filip was not permitted to touch. “Here. I got two letters from home last week. Do you want the stamps?”
“Thank you. Danke.” Filip felt the blood rise to his face. He was touched by the officer’s candid remark. Maybe I can’t fight, but surely we can get along with Germans like these, work together toward ending this war? Maybe joining the ROA was not such a bad idea.
Roads Page 24