“Annette, wake up. You’re in Moscow. It’s Raisa. We have to go down to the Metro station; we’ll be safe there. Come, Annette. We have to go.”
Underground? I won’t go. Pavel’s in the room. He has Vladimir in his arms, half-asleep. Ben’s beside me on the davenport, pulling on his sandals.
“Ben, what is it?”
“An air raid. We’ll be safe in the Metro station. Get up.”
Ben takes my arm and I’m outside, part of a river of people pouring out of the apartment buildings that moves for me, carrying me away into the night, the cool July air. The people in the crowd have no faces, only shoulders and backs, pyjamas and robes, some with their day clothes hastily put on. Just the determined set of those shoulders and backs as they move towards safety. Then I see that there are faces, a few, children like Vladimir still little enough to be carried, their small tousled heads bobbing on their parents’ shoulders, sleepy, pale. And the roar, the wailing of the air-raid siren as it moves through the night and through it the noise of the German bombers above us. The streets are dark but the sky is criss-crossed by the light of the searchlights.
Then we hear a noise so loud the ground shudders and I shudder with it, and suddenly the sky is full of coloured bits of light. I stop, feel the current of people flow past me, and I become myself again, someone. Ben grabs me from the centre of the street, holds me against the warm brick wall of a building, presses me against it, his body between me and whatever is out there. I can feel the concussion from the bomb reverberating in the wall.
“We’re all right,” he says. “Let’s keep going. It’s not that close.” And he’s pulling me back into the street. We’re propelled along with the crowd. I twist around: Raisa’s right behind us, Pavel with Vladimir just ahead. We cross the street.
Another explosion. I stop again, feeling myself separate out once more from the crowd. I want to look up: only a few stars. Then the whine. The notes diminish and suddenly there are more stars, a huge blossom of light right on top of me. The light expands from its centre, coming closer and closer till I feel the sky coming down to touch me, till I feel the light inside my own chest –
“Annette!” Ben grabs me again, this time by the scruff of my nightgown, pulls me into the safety of a doorway. “Are you nuts?” He’s speaking English. “Why do you keep stopping in the middle of the street?”
There’s no point answering because the roaring has grown louder, not just the sirens but the sound of bombs, of falling, of everything collapsing. Just across the street one of the walls of a building abruptly sags, then the whole structure crumples, falls in on itself. The dust immediately layers my face, my throat. I’m coughing, choking.
Then Ben is pulling me along again, silent. We’re safe; we can see the mouth of the Metro opening for us all, the big M. Vladimir’s pale face over Pavel’s shoulder is about half a block ahead, and beside him what must be the back of Raisa’s head. I don’t have to decide anything: the crowd courses down the steep polished steps and I’m part of it, going into the Metro station, down to the workers’ palace underground. The bad things are happening up on the streets now; it’s the streets of Moscow which may become the city of the dead. And underground is where the living are kept safe.
Summer’s gone. The September sky bears down on us. It’s a steady rain, untiring. My clothes are heavy with it. The truck takes a corner and the woman I’m sitting beside is flung against me, a warm solid body. I shiver, and the woman, her smile glinting silver, puts an arm across my shoulder. “Not as good as your boyfriend, but I’ll do for now. I’m Katya.”
“Annette.”
“The work will soon warm you.”
An older woman on the bench across from me offers her flask of vodka, but I shake my head. The girl beside her looks no older than me but she’s stocky, bundled in so many layers she’s almost egg shaped. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall . . . the words run through my head in English. The rocking of the truck lulls me. My eyes close and I lean against my neighbour’s solid shoulder, still foggy with the bad dreams of the night before.
Raisa and Pavel got up before dawn, making me breakfast and layering me in old sweaters, a jacket Ben’s outgrown, mittens over gloves. I’d been afraid that Pavel wouldn’t let me volunteer for the women’s brigade, tens of thousands of them digging immense anti-tank trenches at the outskirts of the city. But he said yes right off. He’d been on the streets himself every day, filling sandbags for hours. Everyone with a free day volunteered. All the shops and monuments and public buildings were being barricaded. School had been suspended. When I got to the square, I worried again that they wouldn’t take me. But there were other volunteers just as young, and none of us were told to leave. We piled into the trucks, handed up with a few words of encouragement. And now the truck is carrying us beyond the edges of the city to where the anti-tank ditches are being dug.
When I open my eyes – it can’t have been more than a minute – the egg-shaped girl is munching on a piece of bread, the kind of black rye Poppa used to eat. The kind he eats, would eat, will eat. Poppa. Think of something else. Food. I’m still full from breakfast, but I feel in my pocket for the fat lunch Raisa packed, three thick sandwiches of bread and cheese. “You’ll be surprised how hungry you get,” she’d said, stuffing them in my pocket. “You haven’t ever done physical work before.”
Never worked. It’s true. What use have I been, what have I ever done with my body? Hide. Listen. Watch. I’m not a worker. And something in me believes that if I’m not a worker, I’m not real. I want to do something hard.
I must have dozed again because the truck has jerked to a stop and Katya, the silver-toothed woman, is shaking me. We scramble out of the truck and over to the crest of a low hill. In the cold rain, a bit lighter now, rank upon rank of earlier shifts of women are already at work with shovels and wheelbarrows. It’s the measured, even pace of work I’ve seen before: the girl plucking a chicken back in Winnipeg, scrubbing the back stairs on her hands and knees; my father unpacking cans in the delicatessen. And in Odessa, women sweeping the streets with their twig brooms, construction workers gnawing at the streets with pickaxes. Here there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of women.
The immense ditch seems to deepen as I watch, the work taking on an intricate pattern communicated from body to body as each row of women fills the wheelbarrows and baskets of those above them, who in turn lug the loose earth away. It’s as if their bodies were of one mind, each individual woman’s will blended to become a single will that is both hers and that of all the others around her, their lives belonging to each other now. Just beyond the horizon, invisible still, there’s the greater army against which this inverse dike is being built, a presence these women already feel. The hard lean male bodies in their steel boxes have also left their individual, their private lives to join into a single will.
We’re called to a makeshift shack where we’re given our shovels. The egg-shaped girl and I are led along one of the muddy paths, our boots slipping on the soggy ground, and assigned to a section of the trench that’s no more than rain-sodden string sagging from stakes. The rain has become a fine mist dampening the back of my neck. I set my foot on the flat of the shovel. Dig. That’s what I’m here for. I step down on it, wait for the bite into firm soil. But the ground here is saturated, and I have to lean hard into it as the blade skips along the slippery mud.
Damn, damn. On a second try, I manage a half load but can barely lift it, my boots sliding in the muck. I can’t get a solid enough grip with my feet to fling it off, and the mud clings to the blade. I slide a half-hearted cupful off with my boot, feel the emptiness open inside me. The girl in the layers is working steadily beside me, her feet planted wide, a shallow ditch already forming at her feet.
A fury rushes into me, flooding the empty space. I lean into the shovel, manage a half load, whack it against the ground behind me so that it loosens and falls. Dig in again, get another half load, and this time I fling so hard the handle slips from
my hands. I lose my balance, my feet sliding out so that I fall heavily, though my long jacket cushions me, the back of it coated with mud. Stumbling to my feet, I find Katya beside me.
“Come this way; we need you over here.”
Shouldering my shovel, head down, I run a quick mitten across my cheeks that doubtless leaves a smear of mud. I don’t deserve to be with these people – my useless body, useless ideas. Katya leads me to a corrugated tin roof sheltering a pile of sand, empty burlap bags stacked to one side.
“We need you to fill the bags. See?” She points to the end of the trench that’s completed, the wall of sandbags above it.
The tears still in my throat, I can’t say anything; nod, wipe again at my face. Her hand rests for a moment on my shoulder, then she turns back to where the trench is taking shape. The roof has kept the sand mostly dry. I start with small loads, holding the bag open with one hand and the shovel in the other. Do something hard. By the third bag I’m working smoothly, filling bags and then dragging them to the side. The work has warmed me so that I’m damp with sweat. Got to slow down a bit, or I won’t be able to keep it up all day. As the minutes pass, sand filling the rough burlap bags, I feel myself fall into that even rhythm of work.
A hand on my shoulder again. Katya. I didn’t even hear her come up. “Annette, come. It’s time for lunch.”
I must have been working three, no, four hours. The stack of filled sandbags marks my labour. I’ve done something.
The women are gathered at an improvised kitchen, drawn by the smell of soup. I peer into the pot: beef and barley. Not a shred of meat, but there must have been bones; I can smell it, and there are bits of fat at the surface. I take my tin bowl and spoon and eat. It’s so good. Katya and I sit on a couple of filled sandbags where we’re out of the rain and soon we’re joined by other women. I take out my sandwiches, offer some to Katya, who refuses and pulls her own lunch, bread and sausage, from her pocket. The woman from the truck offers me vodka again and this time I take a sip, choke as it burns down my throat. The women laugh, pat me on the back. I feel the delicious heat run through me.
A hand shakes me awake. I’ve fallen asleep on the truck ride home – most of the women have. We’re back in the city. My legs tremble as I climb down. Pavel’s waiting, soaked through. How long has he been waiting?
“How’d it go?”
I grimace. “I was no good at shovelling. But they had me filling sandbags.”
“I’m proud of you.” He squeezes me, hard. The rain has plastered his thin blond hair against his skull. He must be losing weight; he looks skinnier than ever. “Come on, let’s get you home. You must be freezing.”
We walk home in silence.
The apartment’s cold and I’m shivering even more. Raisa wipes her hands on a tea towel. “I want you in the bath right now. The water is already heated. And when you get out, you’re eating soup.”
“Yes, Comrade Doctor!”
She smiles. “You have to forgive the military tone. But I don’t want you sick.”
“Yes, Captain.”
I strip off the sodden, filthy clothes – so many layers I’m almost clean beneath them. Slip into the tub. The sand got inside my work gloves and the skin on my hands feels raw. My arms are tingling. They don’t belong to me. I float them on the water. Somebody else’s arms.
September faded. Moscow itself was fading, being beaten into the ground by the bombing, and by rain. As the Moscow River curved its wide grey road through the city, rain battered the last leaves from the trees. It was a season nothing like the crisp, dry autumns in Winnipeg, their spicy smell of fallen leaves – cinnamon, nutmeg – the smell of beginnings. In Moscow the days dissolved in freezing rain; rain bleached the city of colour, bleached it grey. I hadn’t seen my parents in three months.
The streets of Moscow were full of foreigners, people who were once the enemy – British, Australians, Canadians. Some Americans as well, though America still hadn’t entered the war. And not just military personnel: diplomats, officials, journalists, other undefined civilians, their faces both familiar and unfamiliar, their voices, clothes. English, the forbidden language, was spoken casually on the sidewalks, as if my old life had come back, translated, mine and not mine, just as these strangers were and were not the enemy. Every night we’d close the blackout curtains, locking out the night, locking in the light. Locking out the enemy, locking in the family, though it was hard for me, in those days, to tell one from the other.
Pavel and Raisa kept Vladimir close by them. Evenings, often as not, he’d be sitting on Pavel’s lap in the armchair as Pavel read him a story, but the words sounded sluggish, exhausted, as though there were a shortage of language, oxygen, along with all the other shortages. Vladimir in turn kept close to me whenever I was home, seemed never to be more than a few feet away from me. Since early August Odessa also had been under siege, cut off, and Vladimir was always bringing me good news, the good news the papers insisted on printing. He’d point to a headline: The Triumph of Odessa. Pavel had told him that we could hold Odessa indefinitely. We were still getting supplies through the Black Sea, and the wounded could be evacuated by ship. The shelling hadn’t been that bad. Though we’d gotten two more letters from Joseph in Winnipeg, even a snapshot of Daisy and their son, we’d heard nothing more from Odessa, no letters since July. But Vladimir pored over the newspapers, eagerly reading us stories of Red Army soldiers, of Partisans behind the German lines. Fairy tales where the princess divided gold dust from flax seed, and the hero lived, or died a good death.
In Moscow, where we could see through the newspapers’ fairy tales, death was everywhere. The bombs had begun falling again. Nights were the worst, the air raids almost continuous, the darkness broken by searchlights, filled with the noise of fire engines, the shuddering rumble of the big black bombers overhead, the air-raid sirens. Countering this was the comforting pattern of our own anti-aircraft guns – four staccato booms, then a pause, then another series of four deep booms. Every night buildings fell to the bombs that did make it through, and every day work crews cleared the rubble, trying to keep pace with the damage, to keep up appearances. Mostly I was numb, unbelieving, though my nights were torn by nightmares, new ones this time. It was the shelter of Pavel and Raisa’s care, as much as the bomb shelters, that kept me from coming apart with fear.
But soon we didn’t bother going into the Metro stations any more, though others would line up early in the evening, blankets and pillows under their arms, waiting quietly to settle in for the night. But after a bomb fell right into the mouth of one of the Metro escalators, Pavel said there wasn’t much point in going out onto the street where we had no protection at all. Our chances were just as good at home. It was only when I was at work on the women’s brigades that I felt good about our chances. Three days a week I reached into the open truck, took the others’ hands and was hauled up onto the wooden benches and driven to the outskirts where the trenches were expanding, growing deeper. Raisa didn’t want me working that much, said I’d wear myself out, especially with food rationing becoming more and more stringent. But I wouldn’t listen. I could feel myself growing stronger, felt my body changing because of the work, my clothes fitting differently, my arms, which had been like sticks, becoming rounder, muscled.
When I was with the others, I believed we couldn’t be beaten, would never be beaten. But when the truck dropped me off in the city square, I was afraid again. Afraid for Odessa, though Odessa still held. And afraid for myself, for Moscow, as the Wehrmacht moved steadily towards us. And although in Pravda and Izvestia there was nothing but good news, though there was no shortage of proud headlines, no shortage of official broadcasts from the loudspeakers on every corner, the voices permanently cheerful, confident, no one could keep the rumours in check. Moscow seethed with them.
I lug my parcels up the stairs to the apartment. Raisa gave me the family’s ration books to take to the Central Market. The caretaker’s wife is on the landing, deep in conversa
tion with Pavel.
“I’m sure it’s nothing, Comrade Polankova.” Pavel’s almost on tiptoe, poised to escape, but round little Comrade Polankova is leaning into him, willing him to stay. It would be comical if they didn’t both look so wretched.
“That Olga Moiseyevna, from the fourth floor, she told me they’ve taken Lenin’s body on a special train all the way east to Tyumen! How could they?”
I’ve seen Olga Moiseyevna on the landing, deep in discussion with the other tenants. A solid, sturdy-looking woman, despite her bright red nail polish, her heavy earrings and elaborately tailored suits.
“They’ve taken Lenin’s body east?” Pavel says. “Well, if it is true, it may be a necessary precaution . . .”
“It’s nonsense! It’s not true, it can’t be! The sentries are still posted at the Mausoleum, just as they always are.”
“Well, then –
” “And then she says that Comrade Stalin has sent his daughter where it’s safe. She says that Svetlana has been sent all the way east to Kuybyshev, while the people of Moscow are left dodging bombs!”
“Oh, I’d very much doubt that – ”
“They say even Comrade Stalin himself has left Moscow!”
“Now, I really can’t believe –
” “Lies, all lies.” Her face is contorted with terror. “Comrade Stalin will never abandon Moscow.” The colour rises into her face.
Pavel pats her hand. “It’s all right,” he says. “I’m sure it can’t be true.”
There-there, I think. There-there.
When we finally get in the door, Raisa is sitting leaden at the table, her coat still on. “The water’s boiling for tea,” she says.
“Raisa,” Pavel asks, “is something wrong?”
“I’m fine. I’m just tired, so I came home early.”
She’s silent again, so Pavel makes the tea, sets a glass in front of her. “There was a woman at the clinic,” she says. “A Jewish woman, a refugee. I was treating her for shock. She kept telling this far-fetched story over and over again. The same story in the same words in the same wooden fashion. She claimed she’d been living in a village that the Germans had occupied.” Raisa stops.
The Knife Sharpener's Bell Page 13