The war ended, but we spent another whole year demining fields, lakes, rivers. During the war people dumped everything into the water; the main thing was to go ahead, to make it to the goal in time…But now we had to think about other things…About life…For the sappers the war ended several years later; they fought longer than everybody else. And what is it to wait for an explosion after the Victory? To wait for that moment…No, no! Death after the Victory was the most terrible. A double death.
Well, so…As a New Year’s present in 1946 I was issued ten yards of red sateen. I laughed: “What do I need that for? Unless I make myself a red dress after demobilization. A Victory dress.” As if I was reading the future…Soon the order came for my demobilization. As was customary, the battalion organized a festive farewell party for me. At the party the officers offered me a big, finely knitted dark blue shawl as a present. I had to redeem the shawl by singing a song about a blue shawl. I sang for them the whole evening.
On the train I developed a high fever. My face was swollen; I couldn’t open my mouth. My wisdom teeth were growing…I was returning from the war…
And now there will be a story about love…
Love is the only personal event in wartime. All the rest is common—even death.
What came unexpectedly for me? The fact that they spoke about love less candidly than about death. There was always this reticence, as if they were protecting themselves, stopping each time at a certain line. Guarding it vigilantly. There was an unspoken agreement among them—no further. The curtain fell. I understood what they were protecting themselves against: postwar insults and slander. And there was plenty of it! After the war they had to fight another war, no less terrible than the one they had returned from. If one of them resolved to be totally sincere, if a desperate confession escaped them, there was always a request at the end: “Change my last name,” or “In our time it wasn’t acceptable to talk about it aloud…indecent…” I heard more about the romantic and the tragic.
Of course, it is not the whole of life and not the whole truth. But it is their truth. As one of the writers of the war generation admitted honestly: “Cursed be the war—our stellar hour!” That is the watchword, the general epigraph to their lives.
But all the same, what was love like there? Near death…
* * *
OF A DAMNED WENCH AND THE ROSES OF MAY
* * *
Efrosinya Grigoryevna Breus
CAPTAIN, DOCTOR
The war took my love from me…My only love…
The city was being bombed. My sister Nina came running to say goodbye. We thought we weren’t going to see each other again. She said to me, “I’ll join the medical volunteers, if only I can find them.” I remember looking at her. It was summertime, she was wearing a light dress, and I saw a small birthmark on her left shoulder, here, by the neck. She was my sister, but it was the first time I noticed it. I looked and thought, “I’ll recognize you anywhere.”
And such a keen feeling…Such love…Heartrending…
Everybody was leaving Minsk. The roads were being shelled; we went through the forests…Somewhere a girl cried, “Mama, it’s war!” Our unit was in retreat. We marched past a vast, wide field, the rye had come into ear, and there was a low peasant cottage by the road. It was already the Smolensk region…A woman was standing by the road, and it seemed as if this woman was taller than her house. She was wearing a linen dress embroidered with a national Russian pattern. Her arms were crossed on her chest; she kept bowing low. The soldiers marched past her, and she bowed to them and repeated, “May the Lord bring you home.” She bowed to each of them and said the same thing. Everybody had tears in their eyes…
I remembered her all through the war…And another thing, this was in Germany, when we drove the Germans back. In some village…Two German women wearing bonnets were sitting in a courtyard having coffee…It looked as if there was no war…And I thought, “My God, our country is in ruins, our people live in dugouts and eat grass, and you sit here having coffee.” Our trucks drive by, carrying our soldiers…And they drink coffee…
Then I rode through our land. And what did I see? All that remains of a village is a single stove. An old man sits there and three grandchildren stand behind him. He has evidently lost his son and daughter-in-law. The old woman collects dead coals to start the stove. She has hung up her coat, meaning she came from the forest. And there is nothing cooking in this stove…
And such a keen feeling…Such love…
…Our train stopped. I don’t remember what it was—railroad repairs, or they changed the engine. I sit there with a nurse and next to us two soldiers are cooking kasha. From somewhere two German prisoners come to us and ask for food. We had some bread. We took a loaf, divided it and gave them some. I hear the soldiers who are cooking say, “Look how much bread our doctors gave to the enemy!” And then something like, “Ah, as if they know what real war is, they sit in their hospitals, how would they know…”
Some time later other prisoners came to those same soldiers who were cooking kasha. And the same soldier who disapproved of us just before says to a German, “What—want some grub?”
The man stands there…Waits. Our other soldier gives a loaf to his friend and says, “All right, cut him some.”
The other cut them a slice each. The Germans take the bread and stand there—they see that there’s kasha cooking.
“Well, all right,” the one soldier says, “give him some kasha.”
“It’s not ready yet.”
“You hear?”
And the Germans stand there as if they understand the language. Waiting. The soldiers added some lard to the kasha and gave it to them in empty tin cans.
There’s the soul of a Russian soldier for you. First they denounced us, then they themselves gave the Germans bread and kasha as well, and only after adding some lard. I remember that…
And such a keen feeling…So strong…
The war was long over…I was going to a resort…Just then came the Caribbean crisis.*1 Again the world was uneasy. Everything became unstable. I packed my suitcase, put in dresses, blouses. So, did I forget anything? I fetched a folder with my papers in it and took out my army card. I thought, “If anything happens, I’ll go straight to the recruiting office.”
I was already on the seashore, resting, and I happened to tell someone at the table in the dining room that, in preparing to come here, I took along my army card. I said it without any ulterior motive or wish to show off. But a man at our table got all excited: “No, only a Russian woman can take her army card with her as she leaves for a resort, and think that if anything happens she’ll go straight to the recruiting office.”
I remember the man’s ecstasy. His admiration. He looked at me the way my husband used to. With the same eyes…
Forgive me the long introduction…I don’t know how to tell it in good order. My thoughts always jump, my feelings burst out…
My husband and I went to the front. The two of us together.
There’s a lot I’ve forgotten. Though I think about it every day…
The end of a battle…It was so quiet, we could hardly believe it. He caressed the grass with his hands, it was so soft…and he looked at me. Looked…With those eyes…
He left with a reconnaissance team. We waited two days for them…I didn’t sleep for two days…I dozed off. I woke up because he was sitting next to me and looking at me. “Go to sleep.”
“It’s a pity to sleep.”
And such a keen feeling…Such love…Heartrending…
I’ve forgotten a lot, almost everything. I thought I wouldn’t forget. Not for anything.
We were already passing through East Prussia, everybody was already talking about Victory. He was killed…killed instantly…by shrapnel…An instant death. In a second. I was told they had all been brought, I came running…I put my arms around him, I wouldn’t let them take him away. To be buried. They buried quickly during the war: the battle is over, the
y gather all those who were killed and dig a big hole. They cover them with earth. Another time it was just dry sand. And if you look at this sand for a long time, you think it’s moving. Quivering. The sand heaves. Because there…For me they’re alive, these people had just been alive…I see them, I talk with them…I don’t believe…We go on walking, and don’t believe yet that they’re there…Where?
So I didn’t allow them to bury him at once. I wanted us to have one more night. To sit next to him. To look…To caress…
Morning…I decided I would take him home. To Belarus. Several thousand miles away. War roads…Confusion…Everybody thought I’d lost my mind from grief. “You must calm down. Get some sleep.” No! No! I went from one general to another and got as far as Rokossovsky, the commander in chief of the front.*2 At first he refused…Some sort of abnormal creature! So many men had been buried in common graves, in foreign lands…
I managed to obtain another meeting with him.
“Do you want me to kneel before you?”
“I understand you…But he’s already dead…”
“We had no children. Our house burned down. No photographs are left. There’s nothing. If I bring him home, there will at least be a grave. And I’ll have somewhere to go back to after the war.”
He said nothing. Paced the office. Paced.
“Have you ever loved, Comrade Marshal? I’m not burying my husband, I’m burying my love.”
He said nothing.
“Then I, too, want to die here. Why should I live without him?”
He said nothing for a long time. Then came up to me and kissed my hand.
I was given a special plane for one night. I boarded the plane…Put my arms around the coffin…And fainted…
Liubov Fominichna Fedosenko
PRIVATE, NURSE-AIDE
We were separated by the war…My husband was at the front. I was evacuated first to Kharkov, then to Tataria. Found a job there. Once I discovered they were looking for me. My maiden name was Lisovskaya. Everybody was shouting, “Sovskaya! Sovskaya!” I shouted, “It’s me!” They told me, “Go to the NKVD, take a pass and go to Moscow.” Why? Nobody told me anything, and I knew nothing. It was wartime…I thought maybe my husband had been wounded and they were summoning me to see him. I hadn’t had any letters from him for four months. I was determined that if I found him crippled, without arms, without legs, I’d take him and go back home. We’d live somehow.
I arrived in Moscow and went to the appointed address. It says: CCCPB (Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belorussia)…That is, it was our Belorussian government, and there were many women there like myself. We asked, “What? Why? What had they summoned us for?” They said, “You’ll find everything out.” We were gathered in a big auditorium. Ponomarenko, the secretary of our Central Committee, is there, and other leaders. They ask me, “Do you want to go back where you come from?” Well, where I come from is Belorussia. Of course I want to. And they send me to a special school. To prepare me for going to the enemy’s rear.
Today we finish training, tomorrow they put us in trucks and drive us to the front line. Then we walk. I didn’t know what the front was and what “no-man’s-land” meant. The order: “Ready! Fire number one.” Bang! Flares were fired off. I saw the snow, very, very white, and then a row of people—it was us all suddenly lying down. There were lots of us. The flares died out, there was no shooting. A new command: “Run!” and we ran…And so we went through…
While I was in the partisan unit, I received a letter from my husband by some miracle. This was such a joy, so unexpected, because for two years I had heard nothing from him. And then a plane dropped some food, ammunition…And the mail…And in the mail, in this canvas bag, there was a letter—for me. Then I wrote a letter to the Central Committee. I wrote that I would do anything so long as my husband and I were together. I gave this letter to a pilot in secret from the commander of our unit. Soon there was news, sent by radio—once our mission was accomplished, our group was expected in Moscow. Our entire special group. We’d be sent to another place…Everybody must be on the flight, and especially Fedosenko.
We waited for the plane, it was nighttime and pitch-dark. And some sort of plane was circling over us, and then it dumped bombs on us. It was a Messerschmitt. The German had spotted our camp and circled back again. And at the same time our plane, a U-2, arrived and landed just by the fir tree where I was standing. The pilot barely landed and immediately began to take off again, because he saw that the German was circling back and would start shooting again. I took hold of the wing and shouted, “I must go to Moscow, I have permission.” He even swore: “Get in!” And we flew together, just the two of us. There were no wounded…Nobody.
I was in Moscow in May and I went around in felt boots. I came to a theater in felt boots. It was wonderful anyway. I wrote to my husband: How are we going to meet? I’m in the reserves for now…But they promise…I ask everywhere: send me where my husband is, give me at least two days, just to look at him once, and then I’ll come back, and you can send me wherever you like. Everybody shrugs. Still, I figured out from the postal code where my husband was fighting, and I went to him. First I go to the regional party committee, show my husband’s address, the papers showing I’m his wife, and say that I want to see him. They tell me it’s impossible, he’s on the front line, go back, but I was so beaten down, so hungry, what was this—go back? I went to the military commandant. He looked at me and gave an order to issue me some sort of clothes. They gave me an army shirt, put a belt on me. And he began to talk me out of it.
“You know, it’s very dangerous where your husband is…”
I sat there and wept, so he took pity on me and gave me the pass.
“Go out to the highway,” he said. “There’ll be a traffic controller, he’ll tell you how to go.”
I found the highway, found the traffic controller. He put me on a truck, and I went. I arrive at the unit, everybody’s surprised, they’re all military. “Who are you?” they ask. I couldn’t say I was a wife. How could I say it? There were bombs exploding…I tell them—his sister. I don’t even know why I said it. “Wait,” they tell me, “it’s a four-mile walk there.” How could I wait, since I’d already traveled so far. Just then a car came from there to pick up food. There was a sergeant major with them, red-haired, freckled. He says, “Oh, I know Fedosenko. But he’s in the trenches.”
Well, I insisted and he took me. We drive, I can’t see anything anywhere…There’s a forest…A forest road…A new thing for me: the front line. But nobody anywhere. Only some shooting somewhere from time to time. We arrive. The sergeant asks, “Where’s Fedosenko?”
They reply, “They went on a scouting mission yesterday. They stayed till daylight, and now they’re waiting it out.”
But they had communications. They told him that his sister had arrived. What sister? They say, “The redhead.” His sister had black hair. So he figured out at once what sister. I don’t know how he managed to crawl out of there, but he came soon, and he and I met. What joy…
I stayed one day, then two, and then decided: “Go to headquarters and report. I’m staying here with you.”
He went to the superiors, and I held my breath: what if they tell me to clear out within twenty-four hours? It’s the front, I know that. Suddenly I see the superiors coming to the dugout: the major, the colonel. Everybody shakes my hand. Then, of course, we sat down in the dugout, drank, and each of them said something about a wife finding her husband in the trenches. That’s a real wife, she has papers. What a woman! Let me set eyes on such a woman! They said things like that, and they all wept. I’ll remember that evening all my life…What else have I got left?
They enlisted me as a nurse-aide. I went on scouting missions with him. A mortar fires, I see him fall down. “Killed or wounded?” I think. I run there, the mortar goes on firing, and the commander shouts, “Where do you think you’re going, you damned wench!” I crawled to him—he was alive…Alive!
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br /> By the Dnieper, on a moonlit night, they gave me the Order of the Red Banner. The next day my husband was wounded, badly wounded. We ran together, we waded together through some swamp, we crawled together. The machine guns kept rattling, and we kept crawling, and he got wounded in the hip. With an exploding bullet, and try bandaging that—it was in the buttock. It was all torn open, and mud and dirt all over. We were encircled and tried to break out. There was nowhere to take the wounded, and there were no medications. When we did break through, I took my husband to the hospital. By the time we got there, he had a general blood infection. It was the New Year…1944 was beginning. He was dying…I knew he was dying…He had many decorations; I took all his medals and put them next to him. The doctor was making his rounds, and he was asleep.
The doctor came up. “You should leave here. He’s already dead.”
I reply, “Quiet, he’s still alive.”
My husband opened his eyes just then and said, “The ceiling has turned blue.”
I looked: “No, it’s not blue, Vasya. The ceiling’s white.” But he thought it was blue.
His neighbor says to him, “Well, Fedosenko, if you survive, you’ll have to carry your wife in your arms.”
“And so I will,” he agrees.
I don’t know, he probably felt he was dying, because he took me by the hands, pulled me to him and kissed me. The way one kisses for the last time.
“Liubochka, what a pity, everybody’s celebrating the New Year, and you and I are here…But don’t be sorry, we’ll still have everything…”
And when he had only a few hours left to live…He had an accident, and I had to change his bed…I gave him a clean sheet, bandaged his leg, but I had to pull him up to lay him on the pillow, and he was a man, he was heavy. I was pulling him up, I bent very low, and I felt that that was it, another minute or two and he’d be no more…It was in the evening. A quarter past ten…I remember it to the minute. I wanted to die myself…But I was carrying our child under my heart, and only that held me back. I survived those days. I buried him on January 1, and thirty-eight days later I gave birth to a son. He was born in 1944; he has children himself now. My husband’s name was Vassily, my son is Vassily Vassilyevich, and I have a grandson, Vasya…Vassilek…
The Unwomanly Face of War Page 25