The Knife Sharpener's Bell

by Rhea Tregebov

  Ben and I couldn’t stay out of the water, though we weren’t used to the salt, which crusted in our hair if we didn’t rinse it off. The sand there was a beautiful gold colour, much finer than the sand at Winnipeg Beach, which was all pebbles and stone. So much of Odessa that summer seemed to me perfect: beautiful, and warm, the way things were supposed to be. I’d never believed my mother when she told me how beautiful it was. The whole summer in Odessa felt like a holiday, the streets full of tourists. But I didn’t want to love my mother’s city. It made me feel like a traitor, an enemy of my own people, my real country. And I didn’t want to hate Winnipeg. I wanted to remember good things, remember the columns at the Bank of Montreal. Because it wasn’t true that all the buildings in Winnipeg were sad. The Bank of Montreal was the most beautiful building in Winnipeg, Joseph told me. It was designed by McKim, Mead and White, Joseph said, the best architects in America. He took me inside once to see the height of the ceiling, the marble columns, that hush inside, everyone sitting at their broad wooden desks. I used to imagine Mr. Spratt at one of those desks, like the lead in a movie; Mr. Spratt with his suit and tie, before he lost his job. When Joseph took me inside, shushing me, holding my hand, it was like being inside a movie. All the people who worked there looked like they were waiting for the clapperboard to bang, the cameras to roll – everything perfect.

  I carried around like a talisman in my beach-jacket pocket all that summer the single scrunched sheet of paper, its blue ink smeared, of the letter Joseph had sent me. In the almost six months since we’d left, he’d written me twice. That sheet also has been preserved, amidst my papers, its blue scratches scarred by the salt spray and my hands.

  No, Annette, I haven’t been able to go to University. No dough. Mr. Pollock, who owns the hardware store – I was working for him for a while – he was real nice, though. Said he’d try and help me out with a loan for tuition, but I just couldn’t make it work. So for now, evenings I’m going to Depression College. They give free classes, isn’t that great? The teachers are the best, terrific guys. So I’m still learning. Tell Pa I’m not turning into a hooligan. Nope, not much in the way of work either. The last month has been really tough, so we’re staying with Sarah Katz again. I think of you with every poppyseed cookie! Daisy sends her love.

  I would read and try to imagine Joseph hunched over a History essay in an upstairs room in Sarah Katz’s apartment, wearing his sailor top, the navy blue and white striped jersey that I’d always loved. What if what I remembered had nothing to do with what was? What if Joseph didn’t have that shirt any more, if he was thinner or stouter? If I never went back to Winnipeg all I’d have to hold onto of Joseph was what I could remember. And what if I remembered wrong?

  Chapter Three

  That first year in Odessa, I clung to Winnipeg. Everything about Odessa reminded me of something else, as if I were living in two places at once, or no place. But bit by bit, the present overtook me. My life lost its strangeness, became ordinary to me. And since my parents had returned to their past, at least in some portion, it seemed to me they made their way more quickly, comfortably, through this new old life.

  On their free days, my parents would get on the trolley to drink tea and eat at Manya and Lev’s comfortable quarters, the samovar polished, hot, Manya catering to my mother with china cups of tea and exquisite purchased cakes. Sipping her tea, my mother read from the paper, lecturing Ben on the latest of what Comrade Stalin had said about education:

  Only petit-bourgeois windbags could think that the elimination of the antithesis between mental labour and physical labour could be achieved by lowering the cultural and technical level of engineers and technicians to the level of average skilled workers. In reality, such equality could only be brought about by raising the cultural and technical level of the working class to the level of engineers and technical workers. Such achievements were entirely feasible under the Soviet system, where the productive forces of the country had been freed from the fetters of capitalism, where labour had been freed from the yoke of exploitation, where the working class was in power and where the younger generation of the working class had every opportunity of obtaining an adequate technical education.

  Which meant, Poppa added, that Ben had to concentrate on his studies, and not spend so much time smoking cigarettes with his friends.

  Because the Soviet people were united in solidarity with the struggle of the freedom fighters of Spain, at school we were collecting money for food and medicine for the people of Spain. What good did our solidarity do for the children and women and animals killed in the bombing of Guernica? Poppa didn’t want me to see them, but the newspapers were filled with images of the Spanish Civil War. The photograph that frightened me most was the one of a boy whose eyes were open, even though he was dead. Dead, with his eyes open, he seemed more than himself; not lost or gone, but solid, permanent. Why did they call it liquidation?

  Because it’s a free day, everyone is at Auntie Manya’s, Poppa with his feet up on the ottoman, reading the paper, my mother resting on the davenport with a damp cloth over her forehead. Lev takes a last sip of his tea and then, despite the mild weather, puts his suit jacket over his striped vest. Over the jacket, his camel hair coat and a burgundy paisley scarf. He wears shiny wingtip shoes, and a cream fedora. Lev is going to the kiosk for a Pravda, and I’m going with him, despite my mother’s objections, which by now, where Lev is concerned, have become perfunctory. The walk to the kiosk takes two minutes, but when we get there, there’s the usual lineup for the paper. “Well, this isn’t such a long line, is it?” Lev says. “Though it’s good to have a sensible person like yourself to converse with while we wait.”

  “We never had to line up for a paper back home.”

  “I wouldn’t think so. But it’s a small sacrifice for living in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, isn’t it?” I can tell by his voice that he’s teasing. “Your school’s going well? Your poppa says that your marks are all ‘excellent’ this term.”

  “Almost all of them. I only got a ‘good’ in Natural Science.”

  “Still, your poppa’s very proud of you. And Auntie Manya and me too – we’re all very proud of you.” He tucks a curl behind my ear. “So what do you like best about school?”

  “I liked it when our class decorated a tree for New Year’s, like a Christmas tree. Poppa said it was fine for me to help decorate the tree and learn the song because New Year’s here is not a religious holiday.”

  “You never had a Christmas tree at home?”

  “Of course not. Jewish families don’t have Christmas trees. But I always liked them. I always liked the way you could look at them and look at them and always keep seeing more, always have surprises.”

  “So if you didn’t have a Christmas tree, did you light a menorah for Chanukah?”

  “Uncle Lev, of course we never lit a menorah. My mother doesn’t believe in superstition. All that –”

  “– I know: all that mumbo-jumbo. Well, your mother’s mother used to light a menorah.”

  “She did?”

  “That’s what Auntie Manya says. But your mother never got along with her.”

  I remember what my mother told me, how her mother would use her fists, the broomstick, how she broke my mother’s arm once. Like an animal. That’s what my mother said when she told me about her mother.

  When we get home, I go to the mirror in the hallway of Manya and Lev’s apartment to see if my face has changed, if it’s any better. Lev has told me that I’m a nice-looking person. Manya comes up behind me, puts a hand on each shoulder. “You’ve got a heart-shaped face. See the way the hairline comes to a point? That’s called a widow’s peak.”

  “Manya, sh,” my mother says. “It’s bad luck. Don’t make a widow of her when she’s not yet eleven.”

  I shiver when she says it; I can’t help it. Something bad is going to happen.

  “Don’t be silly,” Manya says. “It’s very attractive. Annette has such beauti
ful dark curls, such a lovely little face.”

  “Don’t make her vain, Manya. She doesn’t have anything to be vain about.” And then my mother walks away.

  At first neither of us says anything, then Manya pulls me into a hug. “It’s just a superstition, Annette, not to give out compliments. She doesn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  I can feel the lace on Manya’s linen blouse pressing into my cheek.

  Lev is in the front room talking to Poppa. “You should read this article. They’re talking about closing down the Yiddish theatre in Moscow.”

  “What’s this about the theatre in Moscow?” my mother asks.

  “They might be closing it,” Lev says. “I don’t like this, Avram. It’s not good.”

  “What are you worrying about, Lev?” My mother’s face starts to go red. “You’re worrying about anti-Semitism?”

  “Exactly. That’s exactly what I’m worrying about. It’s an old habit that dies hard.”

  “This is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. There is no anti-Semitism. Closing the theatre isn’t anti-Semitism.”

  Lev starts to go red too. “And what precisely is it, then?”

  “Just like Pravda said,” my mother says. “Yiddish theatre is a bourgeois nationalistic institution. We don’t need petty nationalism in a Soviet society.” Lev opens his mouth to answer, but my mother doesn’t let him. “What are you making a fuss about? You hardly know what being a Jew is. You hardly understand a word of Yiddish. You’ve always spoken Russian, just like me until I went to Canada.”

  “That’s scarcely the point.” Lev’s voice is very quiet, very calm. “The fact is – ”

  My mother doesn’t let him finish. “You’re a Party member, Lev. You should know you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.”

  “But what if you’re one of the eggs?” Lev looks furious now, all his plentiful good humour vanished.

  “Annette.” Till now, Poppa hasn’t said a word. “This is not a conversation for children. Please go and play outside.”

  Go outside and play; this is not a conversation for children. They said it all the time, the grown-ups. All those conversations that were not for children – so many words, phrases, jokes, even (we heard them laughing, sometimes) that we weren’t supposed to hear. But we knew what they were talking about: the show trials, the purges. And the Terror. Terror – an ordinary word until they started using it in frightened voices, in whispers. Something bad was happening. It was happening to someone else, not us, but what if were to happen to us? When the grown-ups told us to leave the room, we went. Because we didn’t want to know, even though we did know. And then the day came when Poppa told us to go, and we knew that the something bad was happening to us.

  Back of the head, a sound, metal clapper against the bronze mouth, tarnished brass, grey wooden handle. It fills me up. Blue eyes with no malice no interest no questions no expectations, the wheel for sharpening, circling, skating. It wouldn’t take long. It comes swaying, bellying up to me. Worn grey suit jacket, navy turtleneck sweater, and the cold gnaws, comes to claw inside me. Dark grey suit white shirt black shoes. Rich, yes, rich and strange. Nothing’s easy: I don’t want to waste anything, the wooden spoon circling. The wind whirlpools and the grey, muddy water fills up my mouth.

  I sit up in bed screaming.

  Poppa wraps the sheets around me. “Poppa’s here, shush now, sha. She’s having a nightmare,” he tells my mother. “I can’t wake her up.”

  “Annette!” My mother moves to slap me on the face. “Wake up!”

  “Don’t!” Poppa stops her hand before it touches me.

  “Let go of my arm,” my mother says. “I’m just trying to wake her.”

  “Don’t.”

  The drama circle at school is going to be presenting a play of Pushkin’s The Fisherman and the Fish. Elena and I are helping make the sets. Elena keeps telling me that I draw even better than her, but I don’t believe her. I’m trying to read the poem again to get some ideas for my sketches, but I can’t concentrate. Poppa’s in the front room on the davenport. I sit down and snuggle in beside him. He’s not even reading Pravda; he’s just sitting there, staring at the wall, the light catching in the bevelled edge of the mirror.

  “Poppa.” I touch his shoulder. “I was talking to Elena.”

  “What? Elena?” His hands have been loose in his lap as if they were asleep. He opens them slightly now, as if he’s suddenly remembered that they were there. “You were at Elena’s today?” His voice is dull and worried at the same time.

  I nod. Lots of days I go over to Elena’s after school. Her mother works an early shift at the factory, so she’s home when school finishes. “Elena was telling me about Young Pioneer camp. We have to sign me up soon, Poppa.” He’s not looking at me, not looking at anything at all, not even the light. “We get to wear our whole uniform every day, not just the red neckerchief.” I’ve worked hard on my uniform, pressed it, sewed the detachment badge on the blouse myself. “And we get to sleep in these nice little wooden cabins, just like Switzerland, and we go hiking and swimming and Elena said the food’s so good she gained five pounds last summer. Every single day you get up at seven o’clock for drill. At seven fifteen you wash and make the beds – Poppa, it would be a shandeh if I couldn’t go . . .”

  “Annette, your momma has told you that you’re not supposed to use Yiddish all the time like that.”

  It’s still difficult for me to distinguish which words are Yiddish and which are Russian – at home we mixed everything up together. “Shandeh is Yiddish?”

  “A shame. Say ‘a shame.’”

  “But, Poppa? Uncle Lev says I should go to Young Pioneer camp; he says it’s a good idea.”

  “Uncle Lev?” Poppa says.

  “And I need shoes, Poppa. The ones Momma found in the market were no good, there were nails coming up right through the soles. The shoemaker said he couldn’t fix them. Maybe Uncle Lev can find me new ones.” Whatever it is we need – shoes, saucepans – Lev can always conjure up.

  “Lev?” He says again, as if it’s the only thing he can say.

  “Don’t talk to your father about your uncle Lev.” My mother is standing in the doorway, watching us. “You’ll just get him more upset.”

  “Why?” Ben asks, in the doorway behind her. “What’s wrong?”

  “Lev’s in trouble,” she says. “ – in the middle of the night, in his dressing gown and slippers – didn’t even have a chance to get dressed.”

  “What are you talking about, Ma? What happened in the middle of the night?” Ben asks.

  “They took him away.”

  “Who took him away?”

  “Who do you think?” she says.

  And then I know.

  We all know.

  “It has to be a mistake,” Poppa says.

  “Avram. They don’t make mistakes, the NKVD. They know what’s what.”

  “Anya, what are you saying?”

  “I told you he was a wheeler-dealer.”

  “He’s a good man, Anya. What can he have done?”

  “Whatever it was he did, it got him in trouble. The NKVD, they’re looking out for the Soviet people. Everywhere you look – spies, traitors, enemies of the people. If they took him away, he must have done something . . .”

  “How can you talk like that?”

  “I’m not saying anything bad about Lev. But when wood is cut, the chips fly. That’s how it is. Sometimes people – you wouldn’t think they’d done anything so terrible – they end up in jail.”

  “He’s an innocent man.”

  “If he was so innocent, how come he was arrested?”

  It never happened. That’s what my mother said. Lev wasn’t arrested. It was a mistake, just like Poppa said. They took Lev in to ask him a few questions. A week he was gone and then everything was fine. He came home pale, a bit thinner, but he could lose a pound or two, his new suit jacket was getting tight. And they didn’t take him away – they
don’t just take people away, my mother said, it wasn’t like that. Everything was done according to regulations, it was all written down, you signed a piece of paper. They even had somebody who wasn’t in trouble there to sign as a witness that everything had been done just right. Everything according to regulations. That was the law. If once in a while they make a little mistake, someone cools his heels for a week or so being questioned – it can’t be helped. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. If you didn’t do anything wrong, it’d all come out right. Everything was fine. It was nothing, my mother said afterwards. It never happened.

  In April, the empty lot across the street from my school was always full of daffodils – hundreds of yellow cups open to the sun – and for my thirteenth birthday Manya and Lev had bought a cake with daffodil-yellow icing that could have come from a Paris pastry shop. But at the party at Manya and Lev’s, no one was paying attention to the cake, because that was the spring we could speak only of war. Though the loudspeakers that broadcast the news on every corner kept reminding us that the Soviet Union was a peace-loving nation, the Soviet people talked of the war they knew, but didn’t want to know, was coming. And the enemies that we had felt like a vapour all around us – enemies of the people, enemies of the Revolution, foreign enemies, the enemy within – were beginning to condense. Our enemies were to shift swiftly in the war that was coming, but that spring we talked war and wanted peace.

  What kind of peace did we want? The “peace” in Spain had begun: Franco had declared victory. The solidarity of the Soviet people with the struggle of the Spanish people had done nothing. My mother was certain of her peace. Comrade Stalin had been on the radio and had promised that Soviet citizens would never become cannon fodder in a capitalist war. And Molotov had written an article in Izvestia. All Soviet citizens could rest assured that Comrade Stalin would not let the USSR be pulled into another capitalist conflict by warmongers who were used to having others pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them. So there was no reason to worry. She was sure, my mother, as if she sat in Stalin’s pocket. And in reply, Poppa would say nothing, as usual – no arguing. He seemed to be nurturing silence.