by Olga Chaplin
“Over here, Petro!” an official waved him to an inner courtyard. Peter drew a deep breath and glanced surreptitiously at the disorganised battalion. He guessed, correctly, that all those horse-mounted soldiers streaming into the grounds were also to be drilled for duty, although they were ignorant of where they would be sent. And their horses had to be checked, made ready, for the unexplained army manoeuvre.
“So these will be my ‘unspecified urgent duties’,” he realised. There could only be one explanation for this. Stalin and his henchmen were planning a flash strike on someone, somewhere. Such numbers here, at this junction, meant the army contingents were well-placed to be sent to any other part of this Oblast. It was even likely they could be sent to Kiev, where wrangling over the bureaucrats’ and NKVD’s overlapping authorities had been whispered in dark corners. Peter braced himself. He determined to work speedily, complete his work and remove himself from the Talalaivka cauldron as quickly as possible. His travel documents, hidden deep in his coat pocket, specified the date of his young family’s return to Popivshchena kolkhoz and, since the draconian work conditions were now enforced, his officials here were unlikely to challenge. He moved quickly, hiding his instinctive concerns, his face presenting the veneer of officialdom, intent not to become involved in the conflicting factions and rivalries that were brewing.
Late in the night, a quarter-moon smiled pensively, reminding him he could carry on no longer, wanly nodding its approval at his compassion for the burdened beasts. He secured the bolt of the inner door of the stables shed and moved to heave the large heavy frame of the outer door. In the black night, a hand touched his shoulder. He jerked, about to turn, to defend himself. “Petro,” a low voice whispered to him, “don’t call out … I am a friend.” He slowly turned, to face the stranger. In the darkness, he could not recognise the bearded man, but forced himself to stay calm. “Petro, I am Viktor Vasilevich. We can talk here … there is no-one left, now. I have watched you all night but so many others were coming and going …” They slumped to the earthy floor inside, resting against the closed outer door. Even if someone had espied them, the darkness and lateness of night gave some protection.
“Your father, Vasily, has asked me to give you his greetings … also his concerns, Viktor.” Peter clasped his arm in the dark, in reassurance. “But he has fears for you … he says ‘things are not as they should be,’ in your situation.”
“He has guessed well, my friend …” He hesitated, as if gauging Peter’s trust through the dark, then finally spoke. “I am a marked man, Petro … on two counts. I shook Marshal Tukhachevsky’s hand at the Military College, earlier this year.” He half-laughed at the absurdity of such a crime against the State. “And then … how unlucky can one be? … the stupid officials sent an encrypted army notification to my senior—who’s been removed without notice—and handed it to me, next in line!” He leant to whisper in Peter’s ear, distrustful of the dark night’s refuge, his soft breath in contrast to his steeliness of nerve at his calculated future. “The encrypted message … it mentioned Khrushchev and Uspensky ‘favourably’, which hints at coming changes, sometime soon!”
He sighed in resignation, preparing himself in the late night for the darkness about to engulf his own young life. “There are no proper trials, you know … only the odd ‘show trial’, to give that air of justice.” He wiped his clammy brow. “They will sentence me to a labour camp, for being a subversive, or Trotskyite, or Nazi spy … if I am not to be shot first. It will all depend on Yezhov, or his underlings … whatever ‘looks good’ for the Party, on that particular day … And no-one comes back from the gulags … they make sure of that, these days.”
Peter’s heart felt too heavy; he could not speak. His eyes welled in the protective dark. His stomach tightened painfully at his inability to help Viktor, their days of innocent belief in Lenin’s opening egalitarianism now a lost dream, like the pile of dust scattered at their feet. Nothing, it seemed, could stop the tyrant Stalin from eliminating—‘liquidating’—whichever person, whatever layer of his newly-devised regime, that his monstrous mind constantly created as potential rivals.
They stood and hugged as brothers in the damp dark. Each knew they would not meet again. Viktor’s sentence, his certain death from one of Stalin’s bullets, or wasted moments in the gulag would, like millions of other unnecessary deaths, go unrecorded. Peter felt torn: he grasped Viktor’s shoulders one last time, tears of sadness, regret, hopelessness, escaping him, as he finally closed shut the huge unwieldy door. His friend disappeared into the night, to await a new day of service to his country and the regime, before the ‘guillotine’ came down on him, as on so many innocent others. He hoped Viktor’s suffering would be short: prayed this, to his Maker, into the blackened night, to ease the pain he felt for yet another luckless victim of the Terror.
* * *
Peter waited a little longer as Evdokia said her farewell to her elders. His heart reached out to Klavdina as she clung to her daughter, unable to let her go, her diminutive frame more fragile as her shoulders heaved with emotion. At last, as he helped Evdokia into the buggy, he noted her pallor. The heavy man’s harvesting work enforced on her this past week by a new supervisor at her parents’ kolkhoz, who had disregarded her leave conditions and her present delicate disposition, had exhausted her and had placed her health at risk. He silently prayed for her wellbeing: a full day’s journey on these unstable country roads in the heat of summer could worsen her condition. He had a deadline to meet, their travel documents specifying their date of return. He had memorised the date: ‘12th June, 1937’, should unscrupulous officials in this kolkhoz confiscate the documents. But his wife’s condition could not be further endangered. If need be, he would risk reprisal from his own kolkhoz officials to ensure Evdokia’s safety. Their own soviet bureaucrats had somehow, inexplicably, not been tarnished with cruelty of late, as some of these others. He would appeal to them, if necessary.
The last moments of Klavdina’s waving scarf, as she farewelled them from the farmhouse, were heart-wrenching for him, and for Evdokia. In her emotional state only the rough country lane distracted her, forcing her to protect herself and to settle Manya and Mykola. A cooling breeze temporarily comforted them, enabling him to make reasonable progress as he steered his muscled horse to their Popivshchena kolkhoz. Yet the sense of foreboding remained. For good reason. Too much had happened in recent weeks to suppose Stalin’s torment of the masses would remain subdued.
Even as Peter reined his horse onto the familiar road in sight of Popivshchena, Marshal Tukhachevsky’s execution was announced. Vasily had lost his Viktor to the insatiable Stalinist Terror scourge; Evdokia had lost her hoped-for child, the price for such harsh work at the behest of cruel kolkhoz officials. The Ukraine, and Russia, had lost the young charismatic Marshal Tukhachevsky, the last visionary leader still imbued with Lenin’s ideals and a sense of right and honour, and who also could have protected them from a future military catastrophe that was to befall them. The price paid was personal, and national. Too many unclaimed souls could testify to that.
PART II
Chapter 17
June 1941
Munificent morning sunlight, in the swansong of unfettered collectivisation, bathed and blessed the fields of wheat and the kolkhoz workers who had back-breakingly sown them. Evdokia picked her way carefully along the well-worn path as it wended its way towards the hallowed cemetery grounds, lifting her precious embroidered petticoat so tenderly sewn all those many summers ago in the comfort and security of her parents’ home in Yakemovich. She paused momentarily, catching her breath. She could still hear the voices of her little family ahead of her: Peter in animated conversation with a fellow kolkhoz neighbour, Manya and Mykola laughing and teasing each other as they ran towards the familiar meeting place.
“Catch me, Kola, if you can!” Manya called out gleefully as she darted back and forth from the pathway, tickling her younger brother and disappearing through the tall g
rasses again. Evdokia smiled as she adjusted her headscarf, and silently gave thanks for her healthy family. She cherished the Sunday pilgrimage in their controlled lives on the Popivshchena kolkhoz, which had become their home, their way of life, this past decade.
As she drew closer to the ancient cemetery grounds, golden heads of sunflowers bowed their approval at her as they swayed gently in summer’s breeze. She always experienced an inexplicable sense of spiritual transformation as she negotiated this familiar path. With her back to the old dark kolkhoz farmhouse, she could temporarily shut out the discomforts of their kolkhoz life, the cramped living conditions that until recently four families had endured. Vanya, Peter’s firstborn, was now a man of fourteen. She smiled, remembering the day Peter victoriously negotiated a separate bed for them, their first symbolic act of privacy, upon the death of the elder of the farmhouse.
Those same local soviet officials, who now allowed three remaining families to occupy the kolkhoz farmhouse, had also grudgingly approved the Sunday cemetery gatherings. They need not have worried. The local priest, a survivor of the purges and more flexible than his peers, had pragmatically become a soviet official, blessing his flock whilst cautioning them to remain faithful to the ideals of the Bolshevik revolution. The Ukrainian population had long been subdued, the continuous Five Year Plans were now entrenched as a way of life and Stalin’s purges of every strata of society, in the name of dogma and revolution, were now complete. All that lay before them was the predictability of the kolkhoz life, unattainable workers’ quotas for grain and food from the regime’s breadbasket of the Ukraine, and the certainty that dissent or personal misfortune inevitably led to imprisonment and execution. Six million Ukrainian souls had learnt this tragic lesson.
The priest had already begun his familiar liturgical prayers. Peter moved towards Evdokia as she stepped around overgrown mounds of graves, crosses missing, towards the fresh burial plots. “So there you are,” he murmured, eyes teasing, his confident smile disarming her, as it always did. She beckoned to Manya and little Mykola, held their hands in solemn acknowledgement of the official prayers, then nodded to them as they hurried off to join their friends, at play in the ruins of the church, destroyed in the fervour of Stalin’s collectivisation.
An invisible hand of blessing passed over her as the priest sang the ritual final prayer. It was this ritual, this pilgrimage to the ancient grounds, which gave her sustenance to face each coming week: ahead were six days of back-breaking work on the kolkhoz farm, lack of comforts, perpetual bickering among the kolkhoz farmhouse families. The slender shape of an elderly woman, scarf hiding her face, reminded Evdokia of her dear, gentle mother. Her eyes pricked with tears. Several years had passed since her last permit to visit her parents in their kolkhoz on the farther reaches of Talalaivka. Such a short distance for Stalin and Khrushchev’s soviet officials, wanting for nothing, travelling freely for their comforts, yet such an impenetrable distance for her. Peter, though valued in his capacity as veterinary practitioner for their kolkhoz area, could not plead Evdokia’s case and he knew certain risks were not worth taking now. Stalin’s purges had conveniently ended with the outbreak of war in western Europe, but the NKVD maintained a ruthless vigilance.
A long way off a child’s cry, short and seemingly insignificant, pierced the hazy air. Evdokia, lightheaded from hunger at service end, did not fully comprehend its meaning. The children returned. Manya, limping and ashen faced, smiled at her tired, pregnant mother. She could not tell her of their forbidden play at the antiquated rusty maypole. She had always tried to please her mother, and in a few short weeks, some little gift might come when she reached her ninth birthday. Hiding her pain, she bent among the grasses and picked a handful of delicate wildflowers for her patient mother.
“Dopobachenya, staroste,” Evdokia smiled as she farewelled several elders from the neighbouring kolkhoz. She hesitated, breathing in the warmth of late morning and watched nature’s winged creatures at work as she waited for her husband. Peter, frowning and in serious conversation with a trusted friend, stood back as they turned homeward to the kolkhoz farmhouse. She sensed something was disturbing him but, already at a short distance from the men, she was unable to distinguish their words. “Another kolkhoz matter …” she conjectured, “he will tell me, in good time, at home.” She continued slowly, heavily, back to the dim dwelling.
With only the seasons to guide her, in a kolkhoz and regime intent on controlling even the drudgery of daily work life, she was unaware of the date, of its significance: Sunday 22nd June, 1941. Peter knew better. Aware of the war in western Europe, he understood the political implications of that singular date. Concerned for her delicate condition, he did not tell her, that day. He knew too well what it meant for Russia, and especially for the Ukraine. To her eternal sorrow, Evdokia would soon know, always remember that date.
Chapter 18
An uneasy drone of loaded aircraft, until recent days unheard of over the kolkhoz fields of Popivshchena, caught Evdokia’s attention. She looked up, squinting into the late afternoon sun. A dozen angry fighter planes cut westward across the sun’s rays, dotting its deceptively warming vista with moth-like precision. She straightened, arched her back and leaned on the heavy primitive hoe for support. Elderly workers passed her as they chopped at their own endless rows of sugar beet. She could not complain. It was tiring work, but tolerable compared to the heavy lifting and threshing the able-bodied workers were subjected to, since Comrade Stalin’s edict that harvesting be completed at breakneck speed.
Everywhere about them, hues of red and gold rays of the setting sun sprayed the kolkhoz fields, showering workers with unspoken praise for their back-breaking work, their excelled quotas, their devotion to the cause, at Stalin’s behest. She shuddered as she thought of these same red hues that must have vaingloriously splayed the fields surrounding Lvov with human carnage and sacrifice, before that proud city and its inhabitants prepared to surrender to the German armies. “Hospode; Hospode,” she prayed silently, “protect my little brother Makar.” It was one of a million silent prayers for the safe return of the conscripted men throughout the Ukraine and Russia. She shook her head, wondering what was to become of these Russian fighter planes, and of their pilots.
Reports were so limited, so unreliable. Stalin’s propaganda was so effective that even the soviet officials of the trusted bureaucracy, barking Stalin’s orders almost daily, knew little of the fierce battles raging in the west of the Ukraine, of the real carnage and loss of patriotic lives so soon after Hitler’s three-pronged invasion of their lands. Instead, the panic was conveyed in urgent quotas for production and harvesting, longer hours of work on the kolkhoz fields, and appeals to patriotism for the Motherland interspersed with threats of reprisal for disloyalty and cowardice. This propaganda, passed on daily by grim-faced soviet officials on the dilapidated army truck that collected the wary workers, assured them the German menace had been halted and the enemy would soon be forced back to its own territory, the Motherland would be victorious once again.
“Kincheyete tyt!” the foreman shouted at last, signalling to them to stop work. Evdokia climbed onto the waiting truck, grateful her pregnant condition permitted her return to the kolkhoz farmhouse in its first load. She was anxious about Manya, who was still ailing and had remained at the farmhouse with an elder. It was uncharacteristic of her little daughter not to want to join Vanya and Mykola in the stacking of hay in these fields, the only outward sign of youth and merriment for the kolkhoz workers, as children played and sang and helped with the growing haystacks. She determined to speak to Peter about Manya’s condition. She knew that he, too, was burdened with excessive work, returning home later and later each night, his responsibilities of veterinary supervision extending far beyond his previously allocated areas.
* * *
Manya, looking gaunt and exhausted, limped towards her mother the moment Evdokia came through the farmhouse door. She threw her fevered body and thin arms around h
er mother’s neck. “Mama, Mama, thank heaven you are here,” she whimpered. A sense of panic wrenched through Evdokia. Manya had always been so placid, so undemanding. Even though her troublesome knee did not seem to be healing, her little girl, in grown-up fashion, had bandaged it, saying, “It is nothing, nothing, just a little fall; it will heal, you will see, Mama.” Evdokia puzzled at what next to do. All these past years of good fortune in the health of their children had left her ill-equipped to sense this emergency.
The farmhouse door flew open. Evdokia rushed to see if Peter had arrived, hopefully earlier that evening. It was Hresha, the senior kolkhoz official, with urgent news. Comrade Stalin had just broadcast his first national speech, from the safety of the Kremlin. Evdokia, exhausted and anxious over Manya’s condition, could not fully comprehend what this madman was saying. Comrade Stalin could not possibly mean they were to prepare for a battle, for packing and loading what possessions they could carry, and to burn their ancient farmhouses, the only shelter they had in this Sumskaya Oblast, and to then retreat eastward to Russia and the Ural Mountains with whatever livestock they could tether. There had to be some mistake. Hresha was a highly-strung man, imbued with Stalinist ideals. He must have misunderstood Stalin’s orders. The totalitarian dictator of Russia would not have pursued collectivisation all these years, only to destroy the very farms and crops that fed his empire. Their lives, and region, could not be in the kind of danger this mad zealot was preaching.