Suddenly we heard cars coming. And they drove straight into the camp. But not trucks, light passenger cars. Three cars. Shiny black, beautiful. They drove up and Germans got out of them. Just like the cars, all dressed in black. One of them, the most important — was very tall; he wore a black leather coat and gloves. All the other Germans saluted him.
He saluted too, walked over to us, crossed his arms on his stomach, and looked. He was handsome, fair-haired. He looked and said, “Gut. Sehr gut.”
Then he said something to the Germans. The lady who spoke Russian said, “Remove all headgear.”
I didn’t understand at first. I understood when the fellows took off their caps and hats and the girls started untying their scarves.
I thought: Here we go, now they’re going to shave my head. And sure enough, the German lady said, “Whoever has hair — step forward.”
There was nothing to be done — I took a step. Another fifteen or so people stepped forward: boys and girls. All of us they hadn’t shaved. The strange thing was that everyone was tow-headed, like me! It was even funny.
The German lady said, “Line up!”
So everyone stood side by side.
That German, the important one, walked over and looked at us. His look was sort of...I don’t know how to say it. Long and slow. And then he came up to each of us. He’d come close, lift our chins with two fingers, and stare. Then he’d move on. He didn’t speak.
He came up to me. He lifted my chin and stared at my eyes. He had a face that was...well, I’d never seen anything like it. Like Christ on an icon. Skinny, tow-headed, with blue blue eyes. Very clean, not a speck of dust or dirt. He wore a black peaked cap, and on the top of it — was a skull.
He looked at me, then at the rest. And he pointed to three of us.
“Dieses, dieses, dieses.”
Then he touched his nose with his glove, as if he was thinking. He pointed at me.
“Und dieses.”
He turned and went back to the cars.
And the German lady said, “Those who were chosen by his honor the Oberfürher — follow him immediately!”
So we went, the four of us.
The German went to the first car; the door was opened for him and he got in. Another German nodded for us to go to the second car. He opened the door. We walked over and climbed in. He closed the door and sat down in the front with the driver.
We took off.
I had never ridden in a passenger car. Only in trucks, when we transported the grain. And when we had the cattle plague in Koliubakino, they brought us calves in two cars for breeding. The Party raikom provided the cars. And Mamanya and I rode after those calves with the cattle worker Pyotr Abramych, all the way to Lompadi. I saw a passenger car in Kirov once. When we went to the movies. That car just stood there, because it had driven into the mud and gotten stuck. And everyone was standing around thinking how to get it out. The fat man who arrived in the car swore at the other one, from the raikom. The fat man yelled real loud: “Up your ass, Borisov, you have to go and drive in the ice.”
Borisov stood there, silent, staring at the car.
Well, then. I looked around the Germans’ car. It was all so beautiful! The driver sat in front with the German, we sat in the back. Everything was shiny and clean, the seats were made from leather, there were all sorts of handles. And it smelled like airplanes — the way it does in the city.
That car ran real easy. You didn’t feel it driving, it just rocked over the potholes, you coulda thought you’re in a cradle. That’s when I understood why they call those cars “light” passenger cars.
There were two other girls with me and one young fellow. We drove and drove. Who knows where.
We drove about two versts, then turned into the forest and stopped. The German jumped up, opened the door and said, “Aussteigen!”
We got out. We looked and saw the two other cars nearby. There was new forest all around.
The important German stepped out of his car. He said something to the other Germans. They tied our hands behind our backs. So quick and crafty that I didn’t understand what was happening, and — poof — they’d already got me! They pulled us along with a rope and led us over to four trees. They tied us to the trees.
The girls began to whimper. So did I. It was clear as day — we wouldn’t get out of this forest. We’re wailing, one girl started praying, and the boy, who was older than us, he shouted: “Sir, sir, I’m not a lousy Yid! Please, sir!”
But they just tied us up to the trees. And then they gagged us so we couldn’t shout. Then they waited. The important one looked at us — and pointed to the boy. Two of the Germans went to the car.
I realized that they were going to kill us here and now. For what — I didn’t know. Lord almighty, could it really be because we hadn’t had our heads shaved?! Was that really our fault? It was those horrible Germans who forgot to shave our heads, not me who refused! I didn’t care! Was I really going to end up underground because of my hair?! Mama, Mama mine. So this is how everything would end! I was going into the wet earth here, and no one would ever know where the grave of Varka Samsikova was!
I stood there thinking. Tears filled my eyes.
The Germans were getting something out of the car. They carried an iron trunk toward us. They set it down, opened it, and took out a sort of ax or sledgehammer — I couldn’t tell at first. So, they weren’t going to shoot us, just chop us to bits alive. Oh, how evil!
They went over to the young man. He struggled against his ropes, poor dear guy, like a little bird. The German pulled open the fellow’s coat — whap! Then his shirt — rrrip! He tore it open. His undershirt, too — rip! They bared his chest.
The important one nodded. “Gut.”
He reached out his gloved hand. The other German handed him the sledgehammer. I looked at it — it wasn’t exactly a sledgehammer, it wasn’t clear what it was. It looked as though it was made of ice. Or salt, like the kind they give cows to lick on the farm. No metal. The important German swung the sledgehammer back and hit the young fellow in the chest with all his might — bam! His whole body shuddered.
Another German put a kind of pipe to the fellow’s chest, like a doctor, and listened. The important one stood by with the sledgehammer. The German shook his head. “Nichts.”
Again, the important one swung back, and — bam! The other German listened again. Once again he said, “Nichts.”
The important one smashed the fellow’s chest again. They had beaten him to death. He just hung there on the rope. The Germans tossed the sledgehammer, took a new one from the box — and went over to the girl who was tied to a birch tree next to me. She sobbed wordlessly and trembled all over. They unbuttoned her plush jacket, slashed her sweater with a knife, and tore her undershirt. I looked — she had a little cross around her neck. My grandma put one on me, too, but the schoolteacher Nina Sergeevna took it off. “You are Pioneers,” she said, “and there’s no God. So we’re going to tear up religious prejudice by the roots.” She pulled the crosses off every student who had one and threw them into the weeds. Grandma said: “Unbelievers never die.” I think that’s the truth.
The important German again picked up the sledgehammer that wasn’t made of metal, swung back easily, and slammed the girl on the chest — crack! Her bones seemed to crunch. The fiend stood back, while the other one put the tube on her and listened. He listened to the girl dying. After the first blow, she just hung unconscious on the ropes, her head all floppy. Then the third German lifted her head and held it, so it wasn’t in the way. Again — crack! crack! crack! They beat her so hard that her blood splattered on my cheek.
The beasts.
Then they beat the other girl. She was only about fifteen, I think, like me. And the same height as me. But her breasts were already big, nothing like what I had. They beat her, beat her until blood spurted from her nose. She had a gag in her mouth.
I was the only one left.
When they’d finished beat
ing the busty girl they threw down the sledgehammer. They took out cigarettes, stood in a circle, and lit up to take a break. They talked. The most important German wasn’t happy. He said nothing. Then he shook his head and said, “Schon wieder taube Nuss...”
The other Germans nodded.
I stood there, I could see them smoking. I was thinking: any minute now, any minute, these fiends will finish their smoke — and that’ll be it. I didn’t feel afraid or sad, deep down. It was more like everything was as clear as the blue sky when there aren’t any clouds. Like in a dream and I wasn’t alive at all. Like everything had been a dream: Mama, the village, and the war. And these Germans.
They finished smoking and tossed their butts. They crowded around me.
They unbuttoned my jacket and took a knife to my sweater, the one that Grandma knit out of goat’s wool. They pulled it back. I had my green dress on under my sweater. Father bought it for me at the county store in Lompadi. They slashed my dress with the knife, and then the German undershirt I’d been given at the camp. One German rolled the ripped edges of my dress and sweater back, sticking them under the rope, so that my chest was bared.
The important man stood with the sledgehammer and looked at me. He mumbled something, and handed the sledgehammer to another German. Then he took his cap off his head and gave it to the one behind him. He stood just to my right.
The other German hauled back, grunted like he was splitting firewood, and bashed me right in the chest! I saw sparks. It took my breath away.
The important man suddenly dropped to his knees in front of me and put his ear to my chest.
His ear was cold, but his cheek was warm. His head was very, very close, fair and smooth, like it had been rubbed with cooking oil. His hair laid straight and flat, and stank of perfume.
I looked at his head from above, looked, and looked, and looked. Like it was a dream. Here I was dying, and I felt so calm. I even stopped bellowing.
He called to the German with the sledgehammer. “Noch einmal, Willi!”
Willi heaved once more — wham!
The important German pressed his ear to me again, listening.
“Noch einmal!”
Oof! He hit me so hard that chips flew off of the sledgehammer. I realized that it really was made of ice.
Everything swam before my eyes.
The important guy pressed his ear to me again. His ear was already covered with my blood. And suddenly he shouted, “Ja! Ja! Herr Laube, sofort!”
And the German with the doctor’s tube rushed over to me. He stuck the tube to my chest and listened. He mumbled something, squinching his sour face.
The important German pushed him away.
“Noch einmal!”
And they slammed me again. I felt as though I was falling asleep: my lips filled with lead, and my mouth grew numb and heavy, like it was someone else’s; it felt fuzzy, like the inside of a stove. Then I was so, so light, like a cloud, and the only thing in my chest was my heart and that was all. No stomach — I wasn’t breathing, or swallowing. This heart in me seemed to move. That is, it was just...I couldn’t tell what. Like some little creature. It stirred, fluttered. It muttered something sweet as honey: khrr, khrr, khrr. Not the way it used to — from fear, you know, or joy. This was completely different, as though it had just awoken and before it was really deep, deep asleep. Here they were, killing me, and my heart woke up. There wasn’t any fear in it, not the tiniest smidgen. There was only this sweet muttering. Just everything good, honest, and so tender that I felt petrified. The hair on my head moved: that’s how good I felt. All the fear drained away: What is there to be afraid of, if my heart is with me!
Nothing of the sort had ever happened to me.
I froze stiff and didn’t breathe.
The German with the tube started listening to me again. He spoke very loud, “Khra...Khra...Khram!”
The important one grabbed the tube from him and put it on my chest himself.
“Khram! Genau! Khram!”
And he began to shake with joy.
“Herrschaften, Khram! Khram! Sie ist Khram! Hören Sie! Hören Sie! Hören Sie!”
They all started blabbering and fussing around me. They cut the ropes off. But suddenly everything about them was disgusting to me — their horrible nasty voices, and hands, and faces, and their vehicles, and this drooling forest, everything all around. I stiffened so as not to scare off my heart, so that it would keep on muttering so sweet, so that the heart sweetness would take all of me in through my guts. But they started pulling me out of the ropes like a doll, grabbing me. My heart suddenly fell quiet.
I fainted dead away.
I don’t know how much time passed.
I came to.
I hadn’t even opened my eyelids, and I could feel — everything was rocking. They were taking me somewhere.
I opened my eyes: I saw that the room was small. It swayed slightly. I looked around — there was a window next to me, with a curtain on it. There was a little gap in the curtain and I could see the forest going by.
I realized I was on a train.
As soon as I realized this, my head became sort of empty. As though it wasn’t a head, but a hay barn in spring — not a stick of straw, not a blade of grass. The cattle had gobbled everything up over the winter.
Emptiness. Enormous, no end to it. In all directions. But this emptiness didn’t scare me or anything, it was sort of good. It was — whoosh! Like racing down an icy hill on a sled — whoosh! You start and you’re already at the bottom. This emptiness was the same — whoosh! It rode into my head. And my head was empty, completely empty, though I understood everything and acted the right way.
I freed my hand from under the blanket. I looked at it — my left hand. I’d seen it thousands of times. But I looked at it — as though seeing it for the first time. Even though I knew everything about it! I remembered all the little scars, the one where I cut myself on the sickle, and where I hit a nail. I remembered so well, like someone was showing me a movie. That blue spot on my pinkie over there: Where did it come from? Well, it was from the time that Uncle Semyon returned from the army, he’d made himself a badge he pinned on his chest: a heart with an arrow. And he was teaching the boys how to make them: you had to nail a picture to a bit of wood, then burn a boot heel, take the soot, and rub it on the nails. That was it! You pinned the wood on your chest. Our neighbor Kolka made one, but father scolded him and threw the wood out, and then I pricked my pinkie on that wood with the nails. On one nail.
That’s what.
The little room I was in was so lovely, all wood. And the screws in the wall were shiny. Two beds, a little table in the middle, a yellow ceiling. Warm. And it smelled clean, like in the hospital.
Someone was lying on the other bed. In a uniform. Turned toward the wall.
I freed my hand from under the blanket and sat up. I saw that I was only wearing my underclothes. And my chest was bandaged.
Then I suddenly remembered everything. At first, it was like my memory was lost: who I was, where I was — I couldn’t understand anything: I was just riding and riding.
I looked around: there was an iron box on the table. A book.
I lifted the curtain: woods, woods, and more woods. Trees were the only things flashing by.
I sat up and hung my legs over the edge of the bed. I looked down — my cowhide boots weren’t there. There were no clothes to be seen. I hung my head down, looking in the corners. Then my throat got scratchy and I started coughing. It made my chest hurt terribly.
I moaned and grabbed my chest.
The guy who was dozing jumped up and rushed to me. It was the same German who had brought the ice sledgehammers. He fussed about, embraced me by the shoulders and mumbled, “Ruhe, ganz Ruhe, Schwesterchen...”
He laid me down on the bed and covered me with the blanket. He leaped up, buttoned his collar, straightened his tunic, unlocked the door, and ran out, closing the door. I had barely managed to think a thought when t
he important German came in.
He was still the same — tall and fair. But not wearing black anymore. He wore a blue robe.
He sat on my bed and smiled. He took my hand, lifted it to his lips, and kissed it.
Then he took off his robe. Under the robe he had on a shirt and pants. He took off the shirt. His skin was so white. Then he started taking off his pants. I turned away.
Now he’s going to go and make a woman of me, I thought. I lay there, listening to his trousers rustling, and wasn’t even afraid. I lay there senseless. What did I care? I’d just lived through so much in that grove that nothing mattered anymore.
He got undressed. He threw the blanket off me and started taking off my underclothes.
I looked at the wall, at the new screws.
He undressed me all the way. And then he lay down next to me. He patted my head. And turned me toward him. I closed my eyes.
He turned me to him carefully, wrapping his long arms around me. He pressed his whole body to mine, pressed his chest to mine.
And that was it! He lay there, that’s all. I thought, that’s the way the Germans do it, they’re careful with girls, first they calm them down, and then — bam! In our village they do it right off, I’d been told.
I lay there. Suddenly I felt a shock, a jolt through my whole body, as though I’d been hit by lightning. My heart stirred once again. Like some little creature. At first I felt strange, anxious, as if I’d been hung upside down like a piece of meat in the cellar. Then it felt good. I felt I was floating down a stream, riding a wave that carried me, faster and faster. Suddenly I could feel his heart as if it were my own. His heart began to tug at my heart. It was so incredibly sweet. So dear and familiar.
It burned clear through me.
Even my mama hadn’t ever been so close to me. No one had.
I stopped breathing, and plunged into the feeling as into a well.
He kept on plucking and pulling at my heart with his heart. Like it was a hand. He’d squeeze it, or open it up. I grew numb. I completely stopped thinking. I wanted only one thing — for it to never stop.
Ice Trilogy Page 42