Filip stood up. He felt the blood drain from the rapid movement, leaving him light-headed; he reached out to grasp the door frame to steady himself until the faintness passed.
“Ach, you people. Why don’t you go home?” The woman turned away but did not close the door. A moment later, she handed him a small bowl filled with potatoes and cabbage. She stood watching, arms folded across her chest, while he devoured the food. Filip gave her the empty bowl, licking the fork one last time. “Danke,” he said, backing away from the house. “Thank you.”
Back on the road, now in near-total moonless darkness, he went on, refreshed by the simple food and energized by fresh information. Cabbage and potatoes. Peasant food. Had anything ever tasted so good? His mouth relived the profound satisfaction of boiled potatoes, the rich surprise of crisped bacon slivers flavoring shredded cooked cabbage. He was not blind to the woman’s act of gratuitous kindness; with all those children to feed, she could have closed the door on him, and no one would have blamed her. She did not. Maybe it was a mother’s instinct or plain human compassion, but she had responded to a stranger’s unspoken need instinctively and without fanfare. Would he have done the same?
“Ach, ja, the man with the box.” The woman in a house farther down the road nodded. She pulled her sweater close around her body. “Ja. My Otto found him, near the road. So sick, so much fever!”
“I thought he was dead.” A man, presumably Otto, came to stand next to the woman. They were the same height, equally thin and gray-haired, with deeply creased weathered faces and large, work-rough hands. “But when I tried to take the box from him, to look inside, you know, in case there was a gun . . .”
“Pah!” the woman exclaimed. “How you talk!”
“Anyway. He came alive quick, holding that box like it had treasure in it.” The man shook his head from side to side.
Filip did not bother to explain about the toolbox. “Where is he? Do you have him here?” He had all but given up, his search taking him from house to house until, due to the lateness of the hour, people stopped opening their doors to his knock.
“Here? No. We took him, and the box, too, in the wagon, to the Sisters of Perpetual Mercy. They have a small infirmary. They helped many people in the war.”
“Is it far?”
“Not far. But it is late now. You will not see the road. Go in the morning. We will tell you the way.” Otto had one hand on the door.
“Wait,” the woman said. She peered up at Filip as if appraising the risk of helping him. “You have eaten?”
“A little,” he admitted, which was true enough.
She disappeared into the house, came back with a piece of cheese and a wedge of coarse bread. “Sleep in the barn,” she said, handing him the food wrapped in a cloth. “We are up with the chickens.”
In the morning, the woman gave him milk and porridge, letting him sit at the kitchen table while she went about her work. He was well aware of the trust she displayed by allowing him, a vagrant, to enter her house. He repaid her by telling a little of his story, of the wife and child—had she seen them?—he was eager to find. She had not, at least from the sketchy description he gave, but she told him of her own wartime experience: a son felled in Berlin, a daughter perished in a fire caused by Allied bombing, their farm raided first by retreating German troops, then by marauding Soviet soldiers on a spree. “But they left me enough chickens to start again, and did not burn the field. Now the Americans are here. They leave us alone. Otto and I, we work hard. We will survive,” she said without emotion, setting a pan of dried beans to soak at the back of the stove.
4
THE INFIRMARY OCCUPIED one wing of the convent’s main building; the rest of the one-story structure held a chapel, laundry, administrative office, kitchen, and dining hall. A separate house, surrounded by vegetable and flower gardens studded with beehives, was set back against a screen of poplars and birches. Filip assumed this served as the sisters’ residence. There were signs of recent damage here, too, but, just as in the village, things were clearly in the process of being repaired. Nearly everything, from spotless louvered windows to freshly whitewashed walls, seemed to sparkle in the morning sun.
A tall nun greeted him at the door. Her face, smooth as a baby’s, hinted at maturity with a fine web of wrinkles around the eyes and mouth. A stiff wimple concealed her hair.
“Yes, he is here, your friend. Ilya is his name, yes?” She led him past a long room with white iron beds arranged dormitory style, a few of them occupied by reclining or seated patients. Across the hall, he saw a similar room; this one had several cribs along one wall and bassinets next to some of the beds. The wail of an infant and a muffled cough punctured the otherwise total silence.
The air here was clean. A fresh breeze from several open windows mingled with the scent of starched linen, taking him home again, his mother ironing sheets, making up his cot, plumping his pillow for him, her hands smelling of rosewater. What was her life like? Would he see her again?
The nun stopped outside a closed door, her hand on the handle. “Your friend is very sick,” she said, looking at him gravely. “The doctor only comes on Friday, but in the meantime we put Ilya in this room, alone. We think it might be tuberculosis. When he coughs, there is blood.”
“Wait.” Filip leaned against the wall, his stomach gripped by cold fear, his head aflame. Who had decided he could manage this responsibility? He wanted to turn and run, to be anywhere but here, far from this developing melodrama. He wanted to lose himself in a crowd, to walk a city street, to think about nothing but which café was likely to have a chess game going, what film was playing at the movie theater. It was all too much, the specter of this illness, the search for his wife and child, the past a montage of memories, the future a blank. He could not do this. He wanted his life back.
And yet. This man had, in so many wise decisions, so many seemingly small ways, saved his life. He was the father of Galya, his Galya, who loved her father beyond imagining. Ilya could be unyielding in his insistent judgments; his goodness was unquestionably annoying, his stolid habits boring in the extreme. Even his craftsman’s work, fine as it was, was predictably routine. But if this moment was not the very definition of duty, then what was? Duty was not some high-flown patriotic principle, as he had been taught in school. It was this—a hand extended to one in need, an honorable carrying through of human obligation.
He was not at all sure he could do it. “He is not my friend. He is my father-in-law. We have been traveling together for many weeks, looking for the rest of the family. His wife and his daughter, my wife. And our child.”
The nun looked at him expectantly. He hesitated, covered his eyes with his hand. “I think I know where I might find them.” He turned and walked rapidly back down the hall, past the men’s and women’s wards, ignoring the sounds of food preparation drifting out the open kitchen door, scarcely aware of the sisters going about their tasks. He only heard the echo of Father Stefan’s words: Come tomorrow. There will be more people. He didn’t dare hope, but he had to see.
The Sunday Mass was a long service, interminable when he was small, attending with Zoya, surrounded by kerchiefed women in dark dresses, thin candles filling the room with a smoky hypnotic haze, the priest chanting ancient Slavonic words he could not understand. He didn’t know what time it was, but surely, if he hurried, he could reach the church before the service ended.
The church doors were wide open. Filip ran up, panting, and stood outside listening while his breathing returned to normal. He heard singing, the high female voices underlaid with a single harmonizing bass line, the man’s voice so deep it seemed to ignite a reciprocal resonance in his own body. How could these people, who had lost everything, still sing?
It was a modest gathering, thirty or so people, most of them women. All were thin, shabbily dressed, their heads covered with a variety of simple scarves or kerchiefs. The few children he saw looked scrawny, legs protruding from their short pants and dresses l
ike twigs on a sapling. It struck Filip for the first time that refugee life must be impossibly difficult for children, whose small bodies and need for care made them especially vulnerable. It seemed miraculous that any of them survived at all.
On the men’s side, to the right, he saw just four, three of them bent with age, standing with caps in hand in nearly identical reverential poses. The younger man was on crutches. There had been many younger men in the camps, both in the German Arbeitslager and in the American DP facilities. Were they still wandering, like himself, looking for loved ones, for a way to start a new life in a strange place? How many had gone back, willingly or by force? Maybe they were lying low, afraid to tempt fate by drawing unwanted attention to themselves, or maybe, among the young ones who had grown up in Soviet Russia, church was simply not a place they would go. What would bring me here but the hope of finding my family? he thought.
He scanned the women’s backs. Some were stooped, many heads bent low. They crowded in; their small number did not fill the available space. They stood like wary animals, gazelles ready to flee or defend one another from attack by banding together. Their motley clothing—flowered dresses, skirts in shades of blue, gray, or brown, dingy white blouse collars, frayed sweaters—made them look pitiful and, without seeing the faces, indistinguishable from one another. Their feet were a study in how much footwear can fall apart before becoming completely unwearable.
One woman did stand out. Taller than the rest, she wore a long black coat, her short hair covered with a gauzy beige scarf. When she turned halfway, as if in response to his questioning gaze, he recognized Ksenia’s stern profile.
Filip stepped back outside. The sight of his mother-in-law, the knowledge of her presence there, just a few steps away, filled him with relief. He could relinquish his responsibility for Ilya. He would soon be reunited with Galina. At the same time, he was anxious; there would be a reckoning, and he would fall short of everybody’s expectations. His life was about to undergo another monumental change, a bend in the road around which he could see nothing but impenetrable fog.
Ksenia was among the last to leave the church. Filip, from his vantage point at the bottom of the stone stairs, scanned the women’s faces filing past him for the one he wanted to see. The women glanced at him, some curious, others expressionless; they talked to each other in low voices or walked alone, silent and self-absorbed. How weary they looked, how plain! He looked for Galya’s quick lively eye, anticipated her ready smile, hungered for her loveliness. She was not there.
At last, his mother-in-law emerged, in conversation with a short, bearded man in a worn black cassock; on his chest, he wore a carved wood Orthodox cross suspended from a heavy brass chain. The visiting priest, Filip guessed, here on his monthly circuit. Father Stefan, the deacon, followed close behind, his own robes unadorned, and locked the doors.
Ksenia looked up when Filip stepped forward. He stood tongue-tied, uncertain what to say or do. So much had happened since February, since their separation, since Dresden. The usual pleasantries seemed insultingly banal. The fact that each of them was alive and standing was proof enough of their relative well-being. Embracing was completely out of the question.
Ksenia recovered first. “Filip,” she said. She removed her scarf and dropped her arms to her sides. “I am glad to see you.” She used the familiar t’y form of address.
“And I you, Ksenia Semyonovna,” he replied, taking refuge in formality with an uneasy smile. “We have been looking for you, you and Galina, that is. How fortunate . . .” He trailed off, losing all confidence under her steady gaze.
“She is not here. Katya, the baby, was awake most of the night, teething.” She volunteered nothing more, stood waiting for him to speak. Filip’s mind flooded with questions: How did you survive? What did you endure? Where are you staying, how do you live, what does my daughter look like?
Instead, he blurted out, remembering his mission and his burden, “Ah, you must come, Ksenia Semyonovna. Ilya Nikolaevich is very sick. I don’t know what to do.” He sketched out the symptoms, told her about the infirmary.
“I have heard of this infirmary. Galina and I will meet you there this afternoon.” Ksenia nodded and turned away, striding toward the main road.
Filip stood rooted. What had he expected? With his own mother, there would have been tears and kisses, sympathetic exclamations, tender solicitude. Comfort. This woman, the grandmother of his child, froze him with her hardness, her stoic endurance as incomprehensible to him as Ilya’s infernal optimism. But things had never been warm between them and were not likely to change. Galina, and curiosity about Katya, were the only reasons he did not now walk away, strike out on his own in the other direction.
He headed back to the infirmary, his conflicted mind a jumble of relief, anticipation, and dread.
5
GALINA WAS BONE THIN. When they embraced, Filip could feel her ribs under his fingers through the cloth of her loose dress. He closed his eyes, absorbing the warmth of her, her hips hard as stone against his own diminished body. Her face, framed by a fringe of rough-cut hair, was exquisite in an ethereal way, the cheekbones sculpted, the eyes large and serious, ringed with fatigue but luminous and alive. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered, echoing the words spoken just a few years ago, both of them schoolchildren showered with spray from the breaking waves of the Black Sea, cocooned in the purity of their innocence.
She wept, silently, intensely, without sobbing. With a visible effort, she pulled herself together and stepped away from him, wiping at the damp spot on his shirt with a fragile-looking hand. “I left Katya with my friend Marfa,” she said, before he could ask about the child. “She finally fell asleep and I didn’t want to wake her. Where is my father?”
“Yes.” Ksenia, standing a few paces away, moved closer to the young couple. She held a small cloth-wrapped bundle. “Where is Ilya?”
The tall nun recognized Filip. “He drank a little broth yesterday. Nothing today, only water. If only the doctor could come sooner . . .” She opened the door and stood aside while they filed into the room. “There may be some danger of contagion, we believe. Please be careful.”
“Papa!” Galina exclaimed, too loud for the small, neat room. She knelt by the bed, pressing her cheek to Ilya’s dry hand. “Papochka,” she said, softly now. “I have missed you so.”
Ilya stirred, turned his head in her direction. “Galya,” he breathed. “Dochenka. My daughter. Don’t cry.” Gently, he freed his hand and placed it on her head, stroking her hair, barely aware of his own tears. “And your mother?”
He raised his eyes. Ksenia moved to the other side of the narrow bed, wiped his face gently with the back of her hand. He smiled. “My family. I was afraid I would not see you again. I was afraid for you. But you have come? This is not a dream?” He tried to raise himself on one elbow but fell back heavily, his breath catching in his throat.
When the coughing began, Ksenia reached instinctively for the basin on the floor next to the bedside table, raising Ilya to a sitting position. She supported his back with one arm while he surrendered to wave after wave of spasmodic hacking, spitting bloody mucus into the waiting receptacle. Galina stepped back to stand near the window with Filip, her hand to her mouth in horror. Filip stood awkwardly, one arm around his wife’s waist, his eyes fixed distractedly on a line of geese moving across the sky in precise geometric formation.
The nun came in with fresh water, bathed the patient’s face and hands when the episode subsided and he lay exhausted, eyes closed, his breathing rapid and shallow. “Schwester,” Ksenia began, her German hesitant, “sister . . . Tell her, Filip. I brought a clean shirt and some shaving soap. Also bread and fruit. Plums. I cannot pay. Tell her.”
“God will provide. We are grateful for your kindness,” the nun replied, accepting the bundle with her free hand. “The soap, yes. We will shave him. But I don’t know what your husband can eat.”
“Give it to someone else, then, or use it yours
elves. I will try to bring more tomorrow.”
“Papa.” Galina sat on the edge of the bedside chair, her knees touching the mattress. “Can you hear me?”
Ilya made a throaty sound, but did not speak.
“I heard a new song, just yesterday, in the beer hall where Mama and I work.”
“What song?” Ksenia cut in. “I heard no song.”
“You were in the kitchen. It was a busy night, remember? I was helping at the bar.” Galina frowned, annoyed at the interruption. “Anyway. A young Russian soldier was singing. He was so young! Really just a boy, with a beautiful tenor voice that made me want to cry.”
“Your father is tired, Galya. He needs to rest,” Ksenia said softly.
Galina raised a protesting hand. If I keep talking to him, he will not die, she thought, and fervently believed. “It’s a war song, but not about glory or pride. It’s about men, people far from home; about danger and loss. About not knowing what will happen next, where the road leads.”
“Like us,” Filip said unexpectedly, moving from the window to stand at her back.
Ilya looked at his daughter with clouded eyes, the lids coming down as if of their own leaden weight. “The song?” he whispered.
“I don’t know all the verses, but I have the tune and the refrain. Shall I sing it for you?” She took his hand, warming it between her palms.
Ilya nodded.
“Ekh, dorogi . . . pyl’ da tuman,” she began, her voice wavering a little. “Oh, roads . . . dust and fog,” she sang, gaining confidence, filling the room with images of snow and wind, of flame and battle and brotherhood. She sang of homesickness and longing for loved ones, and of remembrance.
The echo of the melancholy melody lingered when she was done, each person in the room alone with their thoughts and feelings, beyond the reach of speech.
Roads Page 30