The Man From Talalaivka

by Olga Chaplin

  Peter, pushing back exhaustion, came in thoughtfully as the kolkhoz families, panicked by the turn of events, argued with the soviet official. He put his arm gently on Evdokia’s shoulder, averting his eyes from the distressed babushka crying, “Oi Boje mie; oi Boje mie” nearby. He, too, had earlier heard of Stalin’s speech. He fully understood its import. It was the tyrant’s strategy to stop Hitler’s armies taking Moscow, and possibly Russia. Stalin was using another previous Tsar’s strategy, used so effectively against Napoleon’s huge armies, the ‘scorched earth’ policy, to stop the enemy’s advancing armies, regardless of the human cost. Peter knew the Ukraine’s value to both Hitler and Stalin was far too great. Either way, his Ukraine, and its hapless people, would pay a shocking price for being vital to the ambitions of these two totalitarian tyrants.

  The nightmare did not leave them that night. Manya’s cries and moans revealed her burning temperature and the full extent of her injury. Evdokia had tried all the homemade potions, to no avail. Peter knew fast action was needed, regardless of the military panic from without. Even in the dim flicker of candlelight, his little daughter’s swollen, discoloured knee meant it was a deep infection, even, possibly, septicaemia. Evdokia, tired and overworked, and accepting their little daughter’s assurances, had not been fully aware how quickly this injury had changed.

  He knew what they must do, and immediately. Already medical supplies, and surgeons, were being rushed west and north in Stalin’s empire to cope with the carnage of the continuing battles against Hitler’s advancing armies. There was little point in heading to the nearby makeshift clinic, some ten kilometres hence: it was already stripped of any remaining medical supplies and abandoned by the staff, who were hastily transported westward in the direction of Kiev, where fierce fighting was taking place at this very time. Their only hope was the large hospital at Romny, thirty kilometres from their kolkhoz. Every hour counted, both for their sickly child, and as the military situation deteriorated.

  Dawn was barely breaking as Peter readied his tired, trusty horse and secured the cart that would carry Manya. He had spoken to the elder, and clasped Vanya’s hand, leaving little Mykola still sleeping. Evdokia, quietly weeping as she dragged pillows to the cart for Manya, glanced at Peter through her tears. She tried to stay calm. He looked convincingly in control, assured. She consoled herself. He would ensure their little firstborn would soon be well again.

  They made their way in the grey morning light past the fields that had shown so much joy and promise only hours earlier. The haystacks, uneven and ghostly grey in the dim light, evoked a sense of foreboding, as though a grim reaper had cloned itself over and over in warning to unsuspecting passers-by. The sunflowers, so ripe and heavy, and ready for next day’s harvesting, stooped helplessly, hiding their faces with tears of morning dew. Evdokia’s own distress held Peter back from revealing his worst fears. The Romny hospital was their only hope. But it, too, may have been depleted of supplies and surgeons, on Stalin’s orders. Ukrainian lives were, in the tyrant’s estimation, always expendable. His orders of ‘ruthless priorities’ subjected everyone, regardless of their creeds, to Stalin’s needs. Peter realised that Evdokia, so politically unaware of these things, did not need to suffer unnecessarily.

  Evdokia glanced again at her husband, his attractive face outlined against the lightening grey of the new day. She remembered the gift she had readied for Manya. Her firstborn will be nine within days. She calmed herself, in the certainty that Manya would return well again, and even run to the farmhouse for her little trinket.

  Their old horse passed another grey haystack, another clone of the grim reaper eyeing them menacingly. Evdokia shuddered, as her childhood superstitions surfaced. Those same malevolent spirits hovered over, and followed them, as they left their kolkhoz fields and turned westward, in the direction of Romny.

  Chapter 19

  A harried soviet official checked Peter’s papers, then hastily waved him through the hospital gates, his instructions drowned by another squadron of heavily-laden Russian bombers heading to Kiev. Military trucks followed Peter’s cart, their engines growling impatiently. Evdokia, too anxious for Manya’s deteriorating condition, did not understand the commotion in the hospital grounds, as soldiers shouted orders. Peter’s heart sank. There was an air of haste, confusion and panic as hospital staff hurriedly loaded medical supplies, and soldiers and soviet workers lifted heavy machinery into the waiting trucks.

  Stalin’s Committee on Evacuation, hastily formed just days after Hitler began his invasion of Russia, had its desired effects: workers did whatever was required of them, now with patriotic zeal to save the Motherland, regardless of the human sacrifice. These medical supplies were heading westward and northward, to Kiev and Leningrad; every piece of heavy equipment that could be moved, was being transported east, to the safety of the Ural Mountains and Siberia regions. Romny was not a major centre, but was still required to give all it had to Stalin and Hitler’s war. “O God!” Peter cried silently as he steeled himself, his earlier hope of the hospital’s capacity to save little Manya now tempered with the realisation that they may have arrived too late.

  The desk attendant looked fleetingly at them, at Manya in Peter’s arms, and pointed to a grubby lounge nearby as he continued his telephone conversation. “No, no, we cannot take them …. Don’t bring them here,” he pleaded, his voice resounding to the high ceiling of the grand old room that had once known nobility. He shook his head, carefully placing the telephone back on its cradle. “It is not possible …” he murmured, as if to himself, “soon there will be no-one here for the sick.” He sighed, then beckoned Peter and Evdokia to follow him, his shuffling club foot excusing him temporarily from the compulsory army call-up that Stalin’s directives required.

  The old doctor, seasoned with the experience of revolution and political upheavals, remained calm as he inspected Manya’s wound. Evdokia, relieved at help being administered to her child at last, stood quietly crying, oblivious of the surroundings. Peter’s heart sank further. The ward was almost devoid of any medical equipment, the few remaining beds unused. The doctor, though kind and attentive, was hesitant, unhurried, as if he already knew he could do little for their child. Nursing staff stood back, patiently awaiting the doctor’s decision. At last, they placed Manya on a long trolley that would serve as an operating table and wheeled her to the operating room. The old doctor looked sadly at Evdokia as she wept and said gently, “We will do all we can to make your little daughter well … as you can see, the war priorities … there is very little here.”

  Hours of waiting became blurred for Evdokia, as she leant on Peter’s shoulder for support on the grubby lounge in the large reception room. From somewhere, she was handed some soup and hard rye bread, the strong smell of the onion broth reminding her she had not brought food for their journey. She forced herself to sip the soup, for some sustenance, watched as her husband ate his meal thoughtfully, even heartily. She comforted herself that he would need that strength to guide them and Manya home once their little child had recovered.

  Shafts of late afternoon sun pierced through the high windows of the great old room, waking Evdokia and Peter from a fitful sleep as the old doctor approached them. He spoke quietly, cautiously. They could now see their little daughter. She had survived the operation, but she was still fighting a fever. Evdokia took heart that her little daughter was safe. But she could not see, through her tears of relief, the grave look he gave Peter. Both men knew there were no miracle supplies left to fight infection and septicaemia.

  Manya, pale and feverish, eyelids flickering as she murmured in pain, became aware of her parents’ presence. They waited at her side, praying separately and silently into the night. In the dimness, the familiar smell of candle-wax and wispy smoke effused a church-like aura on the bare surroundings, which hid the harsh reality. At one time in the despairing hours, Evdokia remembered the gentle tones of a long ago lullaby she had sung to her Manya. Clasping hope as she
stroked Manya’s limp hands, willing them to recovery, she whispered her comforting lullaby kaska: “Sleep quietly now, little kukla, for when you wake the day is full of play once again …” She stopped and held back a sob as Manya’s face contorted. The pain had become too much for the child. Staff, like mute and ghostly figures in white garb, moved back and forth in the night, administering whatever they could to abate her pain and fever. In the abyss of the darkness, Manya had a moment of clarity and tried to raise herself, calling out, “Mama, Mama, why did you bring me here? Take me home, Mama, please, take me home.” Evdokia broke down, wept inconsolably. Nurse and husband comforted her, removed her as more local potions were administered to ease the child’s fever and pain.

  Deep grey dawn surrendered to clear early morning light. It was summer, but the large austere reception room was icy. The old doctor, shoulders hunched, stood before Evdokia and Peter as they stirred from their slumped state. Still hopeful of Manya’s recovery, Evdokia at first did not fully comprehend. Peter, with his army and veterinarian’s training, sensed the worst. He had watched his adored first wife Hanya and infant son Mischa take their last breath in the horror year of 1930. He had steeled himself for this.

  But Evdokia had not prepared herself, or her heart. Numb with shock and disbelief, Evdokia allowed her husband to take her to Manya, who lay pale and calm as if only in a deep sleep, then to lead her away, take her back to the kolkhoz farmhouse. The old doctor, concerned for Evdokia and her condition, used his dwindling authority to have Manya returned separately.

  * * *

  Evdokia, supported by the women from the kolkhoz farmhouse, followed Peter and their sons along the familiar path to the kolkhoz cemetery. Still numb, unable to accept the loss of her firstborn, she moved like a sleepwalker in an unending nightmare. The priest was already waiting for them; the gravediggers stood back from the mourners, their shovels ready. For a final time the coffin lay open, the priest sang his blessings for Manya’s soul. “Hospode pomelyue, Hospode pomelyue,” the mourners responded, crossing themselves; then, one by one, they passed by the little coffin and bowed their respects.

  Peter, eyes filled with tears of anguish and loss, and pain stabbing at his heart, kissed Manya’s forehead, and moved closer to his wife. Evdokia leant for the last time to say goodbye to her little daughter, her beautiful little white kukla, in sleep forever. She touched the little hands, placed the tiny birthday trinket between the perfect, cold kukla fingers, kissed her little daughter goodbye, a silent prayer remaining permanently locked in her broken heart.

  The well-worn pathway pointed Evdokia back to the kolkhoz farmhouse, to the cold wake, the tearful mourners, the sombre children. She let go of little Mykola’s hand, watched as he joined the other children ahead, glanced at the fields around her. The sunflowers were gone, the countryside almost denuded, desecrated, according to Comrade Stalin’s orders for the early harvest, for his war. There was little else to take from this countryside, in his ‘scorched earth’ policy.

  She looked at Peter who, seemingly composed, was in deep conversation with other kolkhoz men, his attention momentarily diverted from her, from her personal grief. She could not know that their future life on the kolkhoz, and their safety, depended on his discussion with the soviet officials. Suffering, seemingly alone, her immense grief was too much to bear. Somewhere deep in her subconscious, an irrational logic buried itself: her gallant, capable husband, who had achieved so much despite the odds, had not found a way to save their child. It was this firstborn that she had willed herself to live for and give birth to in the horror famine years of 1931–1932, as she lay starving, before her husband’s desperate measures saved her. It could not have been for nothing.

  The pain of the loss of Manya was never truly addressed. The tumultuous upheaval of Stalin’s war against Hitler, and the consequent occupation of her beloved Ukraine by Hitler’s armed forces, made insignificant a woman’s cry for help in her own personal despair. Thus there remained, deep within her, that invisible worm: of resentment, discontent, bitter disappointment, that ate at her unknowingly. It was to one day resurface from its dark core, to mark husband and wife irrevocably, permanently.

  Chapter 20

  A rustle, an indistinct sound somewhere in the dark pierced Peter’s subconscious, alerting him from fitful sleep. Blinking at his dream-state, he peered into the murky cavity of the kolkhoz farmhouse. A shadowy shape wavered, paused, moved silently to the door. Peter felt the pre-dawn chill of dewy air circle nearby, almost imperceptibly, as the shadowy figure disappeared into the night.

  Peter shuddered, awakening, and hesitated. He crept across the hollowed room, his breath shallow, cupped his hand to the misted pane. All was black, silent, desolate. The grey night owl had long given its last cautioning call: it had already winged itself to another safety, its reflexed senses attuned to the warning drones.

  Even before early morning light smeared the night sky, he quickly dressed to check his horse and staked the farmhouse parameter for any sign of tampering. All was unchanged. Heaving a sigh as he shrugged off his unease, he returned inside, reassured it was the dream. Then he noticed the gnarled wooden hook protruding from the far wall. The coat was missing.

  “Dimitri never leaves without it,” he murmured, tensing again. He felt his way in the camouflaging darkness to check the soviet official’s bed behind its curtain. The panic bolted through him as the realisation hit, his intuition confirmed.

  “He knows they’re close, now … that’s why he’s gone … without telling …”

  He knew what this signified. Dimitri had slunk away to join Hresha, his senior kolkhoz official operating between the vital Talalaivka and Konotop railway junctions. As Bolshevik Party members, both these men knew it was paramount they retreat with the Russian troops before Hitler’s army overtook this region as it forged deeper and deeper into the Ukraine towards Moscow and Stalingrad.

  “Then they must know the German army’s movements,” he calculated. He realised how hollow Stalin’s propaganda was in assuring all kolkhoz workers through these officials that the German armies had been stopped and were even retreating. Now he fully understood the import of those secretive gatherings between these soviet officials and frequent strangers who inexplicably called through the Talalaivka office these past weeks. And Stalin’s efficient spies were everywhere, reporting daily to the dictator through intermediaries, protected, at this pinnacle, by Khrushchev himself, Ukraine’s political commissar since the German invasion erupted.

  Most importantly, Stalin’s men were warned ahead of all others of the panzer and light military ‘advance units’ fanning out hundreds of kilometres east of the barbarous fighting that was raging in and around Kiev right now, as a million soldiers from each side attacked each other. There was no knowing when these German advance units would strike. But Hresha and Dimitri knew they could not afford to be caught by these swift-moving soldiers in their lightning-like strikes: they would be summarily executed as Stalin’s Communist agents.

  “My God, they’re really coming this way! Any time now they could be upon us!” he whispered to himself, looked again at Dimitri’s unslept-in bed. Even a few hours’ gain in distancing themselves from this region could give these officials advantage, protection out of reach of the Nazi invasion. His stomach felt the sickening pain of fear as he contemplated the likely consequences for all those remaining workers. He had to mentally prepare himself, after all those hollow assurances, and try to prepare Evdokia and the children. Everyone left at the farmhouse needed to stay fast, whatever befell them.

  He looked about the emptied room, into the purple-grey darkness: the exposed bare rafters, all spare timbers and possessions gone. There was no place to hide, now. The kolkhoz farmhouse, stripped of everything that could be useful to Stalin’s war effort, was but a shell of its original dilapidated state. It was only saved from ‘scorched earth’ torching by these very same soviet officials who were now escaping to safety behind the ‘Stalin Line�
�. Peter shook his head, confronting the reality. The able-bodied men and soldiers were all gone to fight Stalin’s war; there was no-one left to protect these workers. He knew too well what risks lay ahead for all those remaining to guard the farms without even the ancient hoes with which to protect themselves. Now, like Hitler’s belligerent warnings, coming conveniently too late, Dimitri’s disappearance was prophetic.

  * * *

  “Dyna, leave the milking to me this morning … I’m already dressed … rest a little longer,” Peter whispered as Evdokia stirred, wincing in discomfort as she pulled at her straining petticoat.

  He made his way to the barn and, with practised hands, attended to the waiting creature. Still pondering, he strode back to the farmhouse to wash at the trough. Suddenly his heart missed a beat. The sounds of crackling dried leaves nearby, of a distant motor rumbling on hardened earth, were unmistakable. He wiped the drops of water and clammy perspiration from his face and straightened, straining to hear.

  “Vehod syde! Vehod syde!” The guttural command in unfamiliar Ukrainian confused him, but he understood its meaning. He raised his arms slowly, in submission. Another soldier appeared from the barn, then another, their rifles pointed at Peter and the farmhouse door.

  “Everyone come out! Everyone come out!” the soldier shouted again. Peter nodded and gestured to himself, then to the door.

  “I will call everyone,” he reacted instinctively, fearing a bloodbath in the panic. The soldier, eyes hidden behind the steely rim, jerked his helmet in consent. With one arm still raised as he cautiously pushed at the heavy door, Peter called to each occupant.