Galina’s hands slid down his coat sleeves, found his, and held them, her fingers warm against his smooth palms. Filip looked at his wife. She had inherited her father’s optimism and her mother’s practicality, he realized, blended with a sweetness all her own and a seemingly inexhaustible reserve of hope. He loved her.
They crossed the street, Galina’s hand tucked under his arm, and headed back toward their lodging. “Mama says we should try to get as far as possible from the Soviets,” she continued in a calmer tone. “That’s why I brought up the work in Belgium.”
Filip could not deny the logic of such a plan. “What kind of work is it, then?”
She bent her head, studied their feet moving along the cobbled street as if absorbed in counting their steps. “Coal mining.”
8
HE WAS STILL as handsome as Satan, his sunken cheeks accentuating the flashing eyes, the tawny warmth of his smoothly shaved face set off by shoulder-length hair slick as raven’s feathers.
They met him by chance, in the cafeteria. He looked a little less scruffy than the others, his unrumpled clothes less dusty, the one tear in his shirt neatly patched. Standing behind him in the soup line, they recognized his profile when he removed his leather cap and ran a hand through his hair, scanning the room as if looking for someone.
Filip, holding his daughter, was first to speak. “Musa?”
Musa faced them, treating them to the full dazzle of his smile. “Filip. Galina. How good to see you again. I guess we all come here sooner or later.” He gestured around the dining hall. “Our home away from home.”
Filip handed Katya to Galina and clasped Musa’s extended hand, the mixed emotions of their parting forgotten in the pleasure of seeing a familiar face.
“Let’s sit outside,” Musa suggested. “Enjoy the last of this autumn sunshine.”
The men talked while Galina fed the child, helping her dip bread crusts into her soup, spooning carrot slices and bits of meat into her mouth. “What are you doing now,” she heard Filip ask, “with the war over?”
Musa shrugged. “I . . . procure things.”
“Things?” Filip scraped the last of his buckwheat kasha onto his fork and offered it to Katya, who leaned forward to receive it.
“Whatever’s needed. Papers. Clothing. Rooms. Promises of work. I get by.”
They went on like this, the men engaged in conversation that Galina followed only sporadically. Katya, seated on her lap, was absorbed in following the single-minded progress of an ant across the table’s uneven surface, her finger tracing its stops and starts, her mouth opening to accept bites of cooked apple as if on cue.
Finally, aggravated by the mindless topics, Galina could stand it no longer. “Dresden,” she interrupted. “How did you survive?”
Musa stopped in midsentence. “I soaked a blanket at a burst water pipe, threw it over my head, and ran.”
“Ran? Ran where?”
“Ha! To the zoo. Remember the zoo?”
“Wasn’t that burning, too?”
“Of course. But with more open space and all that concrete, it didn’t go up quite as fast.”
“Musa”—Galina took a deep breath—“what happened to the animals?”
“The animals. Most of them roasted in their cages. The keepers did what they could; they opened some of the cages to give the captive beasts a chance to escape, but I doubt any survived. What’s a giraffe to do, loose in a city savaged by bombs, fire everywhere, pandemonium rampant? There were rumors of a leopard on the prowl in the hills outside the city, but I never saw it, and don’t know anyone who did.”
He stopped talking, laid a hand on the table for Katya to explore. She patted his palm with a squeal of delight, then lost interest and went back to tracking the ant’s industrious wanderings.
“Honestly,” Musa resumed. “No one was thinking about the animals. People were dying everywhere, screaming in agony. Parents, their own clothing on fire, ran with charred, lifeless children in their arms. Others lay crushed under the rubble of collapsing buildings, with no hope of rescue.”
He pulled deeply on his cigarette, blew a plume of smoke over Galina’s head. “I saw one house, the outer wall demolished, the rooms exposed like a child’s dollhouse—beds, dining tables, sofas crashing through the floors to apartments below, the occupants mere darting shadows backlit by burning draperies and exploding glass.”
“How horrible . . . ,” she started to say, but he went on gravely, with none of the carefree arrogance she remembered from their previous encounter.
“Death. Death was everywhere. The air, thick with gritty smoke, filled my mouth and burned my eyes; my lungs felt too big for my chest, hot against my ribs. I ran blindly, tripping over bodies, fearing the open spaces as much as the flaming houses.”
“Why?” Filip asked. “Wouldn’t you be a little safer out in the open, away from the falling buildings?”
“They came back, our allies. After the first wave of bombing, there was another. I learned later they targeted the hospital, intent on killing wounded soldiers and medical personnel, along with incidental sick women and old people. Then, before leaving the area, the planes turned, flying low, and strafed the visible survivors with machine guns—people who had crowded into parks and outlying areas, believing they might have escaped the worst, mowed down like ducks in a carnival shooting gallery. Or so I heard.”
They sat, Filip and Galina unable to speak, or even to look at each other, their own travails receding into irrelevance. “Ababalalalammm,” the child babbled, her expression as serious as the adults around her.
“Sha,” Galina whispered. “Katyusha, hush.”
“I thought about you,” Musa said after a while. “I wondered what happened, whether you got away. Whether I could have helped you.”
Katya’s ant had found a bread crumb and disappeared with its treasure into a crack between two boards. The child squirmed and pushed against her mother, her feet planted on the table’s edge. She let out a wail. Galina rose to walk with her, past the dining hall’s open door, to the end of the row of weatherworn tables and their mismatched chairs.
She came back as Musa was saying, “Maybe I can help you now. What do you need?”
Filip thought a moment. “Galina earns a little money. We have new papers, clothes, this cafeteria, and a room . . .”
“Work.” Galina faced Musa, holding Katya’s head against her shoulder, rocking the child to quiet her crying. “My husband needs work.”
“What can you do, Filip?”
“Nothing.” Filip spread his hands, then dropped them into his lap. What wouldn’t he do to avoid the filthy subterranean entombment of coal mining? He caught Galina’s sharp glance and sighed. “Anything.”
What, really, could he do? Germany’s factories were still in shambles; there might be salvage work, but there were many German hands to do it, and to fill the jobs once the reconstruction was done. As it should be, he thought. It’s their country.
He had no trade, not enough education, none of the credentials needed to gain entry into the professional world for which he felt destined. His book of sketches, his knowledge of literature and languages, his inclination toward art—all these amounted to nothing that could be turned into a way to support himself and his family in a country reeling from defeat and destruction.
So, yes, he would take anything for now, until he found the door leading to the future, where his tools would be a sharp pencil, a T square, India ink, and the imaginative capacity of his own mind.
Musa did not find any better prospects. He advised Filip to sign up for Belgium. “It’s dirty work, but steady,” he said. “And you’ll be safer there than in Germany. Once you and your family settle in, you can see what else turns up.”
Filip’s heart sank. Another derailment, his life’s course again controlled by others with only their own benefit in mind. He felt trapped; he might as well already be underground, struggling to breathe foul, thin air, his skin and clothes grimy
with coal dust, with no relief from the ache in his muscles and bones. “What about America?” he asked, desperate for any alternative.
“Be patient, old man,” Musa sighed. “This war was bigger than any catastrophe we’ve ever known. So much chaos, so many impoverished displaced people. It will take time to return to any kind of normal life. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but so far the American relief effort is focused on food and clothing. Cornflakes and powdered milk. Go to Belgium. Take your wife and child—”
“And my mother-in-law,” Filip interrupted.
“Of course. The grandmother. She can be a big help. Don’t look at me like that. Just keep your ear to the ground.” He twisted a corner of his mouth in a rueful grin at Filip’s stricken expression. “Sorry. You know what I mean. You’re a smart boy.”
9
“WILL YOU TAKE THESE?” Galina rested her hand on the stamp albums lying on the table. Everything else—his shirts, pants, shaving brush, and other essentials—was already packed.
Filip reached for the albums, pulled them closer. “My father gave me these when I was ten,” he said. “The red one for Russia and Europe, the blue for the rest of the world. When did I last open them? I haven’t had much to add.” He fingered the cracked covers, touched the corners worn through the faded leather to the cardboard beneath. “I can hardly believe they’ve come through the war with me.”
“Will you take them?” Galina repeated. “It’s getting late, and you leave early tomorrow.”
Filip sighed. “No. You may as well keep them for me. Musa said families are to follow us to the mining villages within a month or so.”
He opened the blue album, turned its glossy pages one by one, pausing to study the few stamps displayed among the gaps of missing exemplars. “So many places,” he said. “Galya, imagine going to all these places, seeing these buildings and monuments, these plants and animals, learning about these people.”
Galina shook her head and smiled. “You’re such a dreamer. I’ve seen enough places for now. Katya and I need a home.” Katya, on her cot next to the bed, slept.
Filip glanced at his wife, saw no sign of anger or irritation, and continued turning pages. Galina rose to hang freshly laundered diapers and shirts on the clothesline near the stove. “You could bring me a little coal before you go. But no, there won’t be time. I’ll go with Marfa after work.”
Filip wasn’t listening. “Galya, look. Look what I found.” He pushed his chair back from the table and faced her, a pencil box in his hand. “It was between the pages. I thought I had lost it.”
Galina stared at him, watched joy and sadness chase each other across his face in quick succession. He looked as if he might cry. “What?”
“My pencil box. The one Avram—you remember Avram, the grocer?—he gave it to me on my seventh birthday. Look, here’s the Gull’s Nest Sanatorium painted on the lid.” He passed the box from hand to hand, slid the lid back in its grooves to expose several smooth brown pencils, their points dulled by the friction of many months’ travel within the box.
They could have fallen overboard in the barge crossing, those pencils, and washed up somewhere on the rocky coast of the Black Sea. They could have burned in Dresden, their ashes mingled with the detritus of wanton destruction. They could have ended up in hostile hands, helping the enemy complete sordid nefarious projects. But here they were, scuffed and scarred, but intact. Ready.
Filip, unable to say any of that, looked at the floor. “It was my birthday. Mama baked me a cake.”
Galina left the laundry in its basin. She knelt in front of Filip, took the box from him, and laid it on the table. She held his hands in her cool ones, still damp from the washing. “Have you heard from them, your parents?”
“No. I send a postcard every week, but—no. Months ago I heard a rumor that they might have left Yalta. But I don’t know. They could be anywhere.”
“We’ll find them”
“It would be a miracle.” Filip raised his head and looked at her with troubled eyes.
“We found each other. The war is over. We’ll find them, too.”
She got to her feet and sat down in the other chair. For some minutes, neither spoke; they listened to Katya’s breathing rise and fall like water lapping gently against wet sand.
Filip picked up the pencil box and held it out to his wife. “I want Katya to have this.” He stood abruptly and paced the little room. “I want her to have everything. Books and dolls and puzzles and music lessons.” He covered the space between bed and table in three strides, waved his arms in the air, one hand barely missing the clothesline. “I want her to sing like you and dance and laugh, to learn poems and to always, always have hope.” He took a deep breath. “I want her to have enough.”
Galina smiled. “All in good time. Now go to bed, or you’ll miss the transport in the morning. I need to finish hanging the washing.”
10
“DO YOU LOVE ME?” Filip lay on his back, the pulsating glow of the cigarette cradled on his chest the only light in the room. Did she? He suddenly needed to know.
Had he imagined the expression of mournful understanding on her face the first time they had made love after their reunion? She had said nothing, neither questioning nor accusing. The Galina he knew, the spirited girl who looked at life’s realities with a spark of humor, might have teased him about his new confidence. Gone was the awkward innocence of their newlywed encounters and the desperate urgency of camp coupling. If she had noticed, or enjoyed, the smoother way he used his hands, his mouth, she gave no sign.
She had been silent, rising quickly to tend to her women’s business, showing that she, too, had learned something in the intervening months. This was no time to have another child.
She was silent now, too. Filip grew uneasy. It was not a question that required much reflection, to his mind, and her hesitation was surely a bad omen. Was she sleeping? He glanced in her direction, admiring again the smooth planes of her face, the tendrils of loose hair, which appeared white in the darkness, her open eyes directed at the ceiling. He coughed, put out the cigarette, and considered whether to risk asking again.
“I was walking with my mother the other day,” she said, her voice soft and low so as not to wake the baby sleeping in her cot alongside their bed. “You were out. I had finished my job early, and Mama’s shift did not begin for another hour or so. We were going to a farmhouse just out of town to buy eggs and milk.”
Filip was puzzled. What was the point of this storytelling? Why not just answer the question? No, he did not understand women, after all.
“On the way, at the side of the road, we saw a pair of gray geese. They were the common wild ones, the kind you see everywhere, flying in formation, or flocking at lakes and ponds: grayish-brown feathers, pink feet, speckled bellies. Nothing unusual.” She tugged at the blanket, pulling it up to her neck against the chill in the room. She angled her head slightly away from him, watching the sky fill with storm clouds, their menacing shapes rolling past the small square window like film scenes in a movie theater.
“Geese? You saw geese? And what?”
“I will tell you what. One of the geese was lying on the ground, its wing sticking up strangely, broken, the breeze ruffling the feathers into ragged tufts. It was dead, or dying. The other goose stood next to its partner, its neck stretched out full length, orange beak pointing to the sky, wings partly spread. It also was not moving. You know that geese stay together for life. I don’t believe that animals don’t suffer. It was heartbreaking.”
Filip turned to his wife, his annoyance arrested by the edge of sadness in her voice. She wiped a tear sliding down her cheek, using the edge of the blanket.
“My mother said, ‘I am this goose. In leaving me now, my Ilya has taken a piece of my soul.’”
“Is that why . . . the ring . . . she was going with him,” Filip said.
“Yes. I didn’t know what to say to her.”
“Because it was so personal?”
<
br /> “Because I do not understand that kind of love. Not because I’m young; they married young, too, and lived through some terrifying years together.” She paused while the thought unwound in her head: My parents shared something wider and deeper, something eternal that I doubt I will ever know. I have seen love, and while I can’t say I know what it is, I know that it is not what I feel for you.
They lay together, not touching, listening to Katya’s quick, shallow breathing.
“So I’m not sure how to answer your question,” Galina went on after a while. Katya stirred, whimpered, but did not wake. “When we were apart, I was frightened and anxious. I missed you and wondered what was happening to you, how you were getting on. Of course, I suffered. But I did not lose a piece of my soul.”
Filip lit another cigarette, just to quiet the restlessness stirred up by Galina’s unexpected confession. It had seemed a simple question, a question he would never have asked if he had any idea it would unleash such an intimate response, such complicated thoughts.
But he was in it now, and needed to know. The work transport was leaving in the morning, taking him to unimagined unpleasant, and dangerous, experiences. Who knew how long this separation would last?
“So then,” he prompted.
It had begun to snow. Galina turned away again, watching large feathery flakes drift on the night air, buffeted by invisible currents into a dance that was as timeless as it was new.
“Yes.” She spoke without facing him, suppressing more words she could not say aloud: Now, here, in this place, after all that has happened to us. Yes. If love means forgetting some things and forgiving others, not asking questions to which the answer is better left unsaid. “Yes, I love you. Now go to sleep. You’ll wake the baby.”
Filip extinguished his half-smoked cigarette, taking care to leave the butt unbroken. How had he wandered into such hazardous territory? Did she know about, or guess at, his infidelities? Did it matter? In using the word love she clearly was admitting to a lesser form, separate from the bedrock of her parents’ bond—a serene, abiding emotion for which there seemed to be no verbal expression. Where did this leave him? His head ached from the unexpected intensity of this conversation; he knew less now than he did before.
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