by Ann Charney
“Do you like it? Take it. I made it for you. It’s yours to keep. Forever. There’s only one thing you have to do. You must promise to tell Kazia everything that she asks you.” I promised eagerly.
“All right. Did you ever see your mother or your aunt putting anything in the ground? Think hard for a moment. This is very important.”
I did as Kazia told me, but there was nothing for me to remember. I shook my head.
“Did you ever hear them talk of hiding anything? No? But it’s not possible. They must have put it somewhere. You see little one, I know who your grandfather was. His estate was not too far from this village. He and his family must have buried all kinds of treasures. Try again. Promise me if it ever comes to you, you’ll come right away and tell me. Kazia will be very good to you. I’ll make more dolls and I’ll make you pretty clothes for them.”
At that moment I still loved Kazia. I would have done anything to please her, without a second thought for my mother’s warnings. But I had never heard of any buried treasure. There was nothing I could tell.
She finally released me, with my new doll, and I never mentioned the incident to my mother. From then on, however, I was uncomfortable in her presence. I was afraid that she might press me again for information, and still I would have nothing to tell her. I dreaded the thought of disappointing her and from then on I tried to avoid being alone with Kazia.
IV
My days in the village were so different from what had preceded them that it often seemed to me as if my real life began at the moment of liberation. It pleased me to think I had been born into the world at the age of five in this farmhouse. Like the newborn, I was quick to forget my previous existence.
The first few days were very simple and alike. I was too weak to do more than rest and eat and sleep. But even then, at the very beginning, each new day began as a strange adventure in discovery. Every morning, as I lay under a light eiderdown cover, surrounded by unfamiliar sounds and odours, I gave myself over to the pleasures of anticipation. Everything seemed possible in those moments, and I was content to let the waiting go on forever. The mood of those mornings set a pattern for the future: in the years to come the feeling of anticipation became more pleasurable for me than its realization.
My first explorations began with food. The taste of food alone, food other than the bread or potatoes that had kept me alive in the loft, provided me with more stimulus than I could cope with at the start.
The first morning, Marisia, the old woman, brought me some fresh milk fortified by a raw egg. The mixture looked strange to me, and the odour made me feel faint, but I was so eager to begin my new life that I gulped it down quickly. The result was disastrous. Suddenly I was ill and vomiting, and it took hours for the attack to subside.
The violence of this beginning frightened the adults. As I lay weak and dizzy I heard them whispering about me. It was decided that I would have to be introduced to food as slowly as a baby. But I had no time for such procedures. I was impatient and greedy. Not so much for food itself but for what it represented to me—the richness and variety of my new life. I was propelled towards it by a powerful force that was set in motion the first time I stepped outside the world of the barn.
With food, there was soon the added pleasure of being able to stand upright. In our hiding place I had spent most of my time lying down or sitting. Our little loft was not very high and the eight of us, when we stretched out, filled it completely. Most of the time we had also been too weak to move around. Now I discovered the freedom of having space to move in.
The idea of endless space fascinated me. At first the main room of the house, where I remained most of the day, seemed to me infinite. Often, I explored its vastness with my eyes closed. Whenever my mother caught me doing this she became very annoyed with me. I could not make her understand the pleasure I found in the extended distances I created for myself by coming upon physical limits unexpectedly.
Once the interior became familiar and finite I ventured outside. At first it frightened me to go out of the house. Somehow it seemed to me a shameful exposure. But my desire to continue this adventure proved to be stronger than my timidity. My mother warned me not to wander away. I had to remain within sight of the house, but this did not restrict my pleasure. In any case, I don’t think I would have dared to go farther than the familiar landmarks of the farmyard.
When the weather was fine I stayed outside as much as I could. I was alone most of the time. The villagers avoided us through superstition. They had not yet made up their minds whether we would bring bad or good luck to the village. This was no trivial matter to them and they were not taking any chances. Sometimes I would feel that I was being stared at. Faces would appear, and disappear quickly when I looked in their direction.
Every day the children of the village would run past the house. But their curiosity was always restrained by the warnings their parents gave about strangers. They never failed, as they ran by, to shout insults and curses. For them these were spells to ward off the evil eye, but I began to wonder if indeed there was not something evil in our presence in this calm landscape.
One afternoon a man came to see us. He had a little girl with him. He was our first civilian visitor. Once he had worked in my grandfather’s stables and somehow he was not bound by the fears of the other villagers. He came, he said, to pay his respects to my mother and my aunt. While they talked, his daughter and I stared at each other. We were told to go outside and play, but both of us preferred to stay with the familiar.
This was the closest I had ever come to another child. I stared at her with such intensity that she became uneasy and hid in her father’s arms. Throughout the entire visit we never said a word to each other.
When it was time for them to leave the man leaned over my aunt and kissed her hand. He repeated this gesture with my mother. Then he turned to his daughter and asked her to do the same. I watched with fascination as she obeyed.
During these farewells I noticed that my mother and my aunt suddenly looked different. The presence of this man, a brief reminder of the past, had greatly affected them. A forgotten sense of pride seemed to have straightened their bodies and rearranged their shabby clothes.
Instinctively I adopted their pose. I felt my body stretching and becoming taller. I turned to the little girl and held out my hand. For a moment she hesitated, and then she imitated her father. The grownups smiled at us. From that moment on I felt more comfortable about my presence in the village. Now when the children rushed by our yard I stared at them openly. Their insults no longer meant anything to me.
Other thoughts held my interest. I found myself preoccupied by what seemed to me endless views of continuous space. Where did they begin or end, I wondered. What lay beyond these fields, these woods, at the point where details blurred on the horizon?
The village of Ochorna stood on a hilltop. Below it stretched the farmers’ fields, subdivided by tall poplars. The wooden houses, leaning close together, formed a humble circle around the village church. I had never been near the church, but I could see its spire from our yard. It was the tallest structure in the village. I often tried to imagine how the land would look from such a height. In the distance I saw the bell tower of the next village. I visualized long rows of tall spires marching away from me to some unknown point. At other times I saw them as masts of ships, while the hills on which they stood became rolling waves, without beginning or end.
The more I thought about it the surer I became that this house, this yard, the animals, I and the people around me, were all at the very centre of the world. I promised myself that one day I would explore all the directions that radiated from me.
In this way the days passed, outwardly monotonous and alike. But inside myself I treasured the greatest of secrets. I had discovered a world beyond fear. I had also discovered my own being, just as another child might in his own house come upon a magnificent new toy whose existence he had never suspected.
V
&nb
sp; Two months later, the Russians were ready to advance. We were told to prepare to leave the village.
An army doctor came to see us towards the end of our stay. We were all examined. The news of my recovery was very good. The coughing had stopped, the lesions in my lungs were healing, and bones that had been twisted were growing straight. Everyone watched as the doctor made his diagnosis.
The old woman Marisia was there too. She crossed herself when the doctor spoke, and repeated “Thank God for this miracle” as a form of punctuation to his sentences.
He laughed at her. “No, old woman, your God had nothing to do with this. We all did it together. One day she will make us proud.” He put an arm around me. “This child will grow up to do great things. Remember, I said so.”
Every face smiled at me. I felt very fortunate. It seemed to me then that there was something special about my life. I readily accepted the doctor’s prophecy. With time it became a family theme. It was only when I grew up that I felt the full weight of the burden I had accepted so easily.
The Russian soldiers who came to see us were delighted with the change they saw. I had become their pet. They vied with each other in bringing me treats, in playing with me, and in making me laugh. They were all as proud of me as parents, but I had my favourite among them, Yuri, who had protected me the first day in the barn. When the time came to leave the village, I had no regrets. Yuri was going with us.
We set out early one morning. This time we were travelling with the soldiers in an army truck. The other survivors had left earlier with a convoy going in another direction. We were the only ones who wanted to return to Dobryd.
At last I was part of the noise and the laughter I had listened to with such wonder two months ago. So much had happened since then. We were about to resume the journey that began the day we left our loft. Yet now everything seemed different. In my mind the two were separated by a lifetime of change.
Djunek, Marisia and Kazia accompanied me to the truck. The old man gave us a bag of food for the trip, and the women cried. When the time came to say good-bye, their sobs and shouts of grief became more intense. “Pant, pant,” they cried as they clutched at my mother and my aunt. “Tell the Russians how we helped you. Don’t forget us in the city.”
My mother and my aunt, for all their suspicions, could not resist the mood of that morning. Even earlier in fact, towards the end of our stay, I had sensed a change in their attitude. These were after all the first people, after the soldiers, to treat us like human beings. Now they embraced us with feeling and promised to write. If any more proof were needed, this confirmed to all of us that fate had at last tipped its balance in our favour.
On the road, the village and farmhouse were quickly forgotten. The soldiers were eager to return to the front after their long rest. During this trip they were elated and full of confidence. While they joked and laughed together, my mother and my aunt sat tense and silent. I knew little of the fears and memories that preoccupied them as we travelled towards Dobryd. But I felt their tension and anxiety, and it affected me. Hope and dread mingled in my heart as I thought of our destination.
Yuri sat beside us. Like us, he felt the significance of this journey. To help the time pass he began to tell stories of the battles he had fought. Each one of the medals that he wore with such pride on his ragged uniform represented an incident of great courage. All his stories were simple, heroic tales of Russian daring. He told of the cowardice of the Germans who always became powerless in the end, faced with the courage of the Soviets. He told of the bravery and sacrifice of the Russian people, of their unsurpassable strength when their actions were directed by a common goal.
Throughout his narrative there was a message of confidence: we had all suffered and struggled but now the bad times were over. Now it was our turn to live in freedom and be happy. I had learned enough Russian in the last two months to understand the promise of Yuri’s story. I believed it with all my heart. Much of it had already been fulfilled during the first weeks of freedom. Now that I was strong, I wanted to be as brave as Yuri and his comrades.
Two of his companions were women. It was the voice of one of them I had heard singing a familiar song the day we were liberated. Since then I had played with them many times. They were both young and cheerful, and very fond of playing tricks on the others. They seemed more like school girls than soldiers. Yet in battle, Yuri had assured us, they were often among the bravest in their unit. I looked at these girls as I listened to Yuri’s stories and I promised myself that I would grow up like them—strong and unafraid. Ready to fight for a world where people lived free and happy.
A few hours later we entered the town. I knew immediately that something was not right. What I saw did not fit in with the glorious schemes Yuri had just drawn for our future.
In the morning we had left a village untouched by war. Now, a few hours later, we were driving through a town that was almost levelled. The village and the town seemed worlds apart.
Everywhere we looked we saw only ruins. Not one building appeared to be intact. Fires smouldered. Smoke hung in the air. We seemed to have arrived just at the end of some final battle.
The soldiers were as affected as the rest of us. For the first time I saw fear in their faces. Their rifles were raised and their eyes scanned the bombed-out buildings and the remaining rooftops. We met no resistance. In fact, it seemed we were the only ones alive in the town. People had either fled or remained trapped beneath the ruins which became their tombs. It was hard to imagine there had ever been any life here.
My mother and my aunt watched this spectacle as silently as the others. Occasionally, a hand would tremble or a shudder go through them when we passed the ruins of some familiar landmark. There was no longer any thought of finding their family home.
Their long ordeal was over but a new one was about to begin. Their hope of returning home died at the sight of the ruins. They were now truly homeless, condemned to live out the rest of their lives in a state of exile.
VI
“You can’t stay in the town without our protection,” Yuri was trying to explain to my mother. “There’s nowhere you can go right now. You must come with us to the army camp. In a few days we’ll clear away some of this mess and we’ll find you a place to stay. Believe me, it looks worse than it is. I know. We’ve come into towns like this before, and in no time the place is rebuilt and bustling with life. You’ll see, it will be the same here.”
Yuri’s face revealed the pain he felt as he spoke. It did not fit his words of optimism. It seemed almost comical to me to see him downcast like this. Was it a game, I wondered. Would he break into his usual smile in a minute and tease me about being fooled? I looked at his friends but their faces were also grim and closed. I withdrew further into our corner.
Now and then I heard Yuri curse to himself, softly, and his expression changed then from pain to anger. Again he turned to my mother and my aunt. It wasn’t the destruction itself which upset him, he explained. He had seen little else in the last months of war. What angered him was that he and his comrades could not spare us this last blow.
“We’ll build another Dobryd here. Finer than anything the Germans destroyed. We’ll start from scratch. Everything will be new, modern. You’ll see—we know how to build in Russia. We’ll build a new town for a new kind of life. Yes, today is a sad day for you. But in six months, I promise you, we’ll all be working so hard rebuilding this town that no one will have time to grieve.”
If my mother and my aunt heard him, they gave no sign. They remained impassive, like the ruins about us. They were beyond words, beyond sympathy, cut off from other people’s feelings by the darkness of their own.
We reached the army camp in the late afternoon. Yuri helped us out of the truck and we followed him inside. There we saw a large room with cots and blankets covering the floor space. The room was filled with people, other civilians, refugees like us who had nowhere to go.
People squeezed themselves together a
nd somehow a corner was made for us. We were given straw mattresses. Someone brought us food and blankets. All the attention of the room was focused on us. After a few minutes some people came over to greet my mother and my aunt, but they received no response. They soon withdrew and after a while everyone left us alone.
In the days that followed the soldiers did their best to make us feel comfortable and welcome. They shared what they had and tried very hard to cheer everyone up. In the evening, one of them was always ready with a harmonica or a story. We were given daily bulletins on the progress of the war, and the victories of the Soviets were told in every detail.
My mother and my aunt took no part in this. They ate when food was brought, and they no longer cried, but they spoke to no one. Even the soldiers, all except Yuri, left them alone. Something about their withdrawal into grief made all attempts at consolation seem grotesque.
The grim foreboding of their entry into Dobryd was confirmed in the next few days. Most of their family was dead—parents, sisters, a brother, nieces, nephews and my father. Several people in the camp had witnessed his death.
At that time the news of his death meant nothing to me. We had been separated when I was just over two years old. I couldn’t remember him at all. My mother had tried very hard to keep him alive for me, but I became uneasy whenever she spoke of him. I think it was because she herself could not speak of him without becoming very upset. My father had been her first love, the only one who had mattered. After the war there were other men, even one whom she married, yet throughout her life she continued to mourn for him, to talk of him, especially to me, his only child.
There were many stories, I remember, to illustrate his intelligence, his kindness, his love for her and for me. By the time I was an adolescent I had heard them all endless times. Her words became part of a family ritual, and I responded to them automatically, not listening, and without feeling. It was only when I grew up and left home that I thought of him as a real person. Someone who had actually lived. A man who had loved his wife, his child, his work. A man who had suffered, and died so young, at the age of thirty.