Her grandfather had constructed the feeding bed, a rectangular wood frame set on legs, with a wire grid bottom which allowed the worms’ refuse to drop onto paper spread across the floor. Refuse which she took away, twice a day. He’d bought clusters of minuscule pearly eggs from Penner’s store, and set them on mulberry leaves to incubate in the heat of the attic. Within a week, the bed was crawling with what looked like bristly pieces of black wire with large heads.
Katya had brought fresh mulberry leaves for the silkworms and now began spreading them overtop the old leaves, which glistened with the threads the worms secreted when they’d made their short journeys from leaf to leaf. She knew that tomorrow the worms would be released from their trance and wearing their new skins like wrinkled stockings, the attic filled with the sound of their feeding, a sound like rain against the roof. Over the weeks the worms had become beautiful, their pleated bodies thick and cream-coloured, and holding a sheen. The sound of band music rose above the rustle of fresh leaves as she emptied the sacks, the scuffle of paper as she gathered it from the floor.
All the hot summer of 1918 there had been weekly military band concerts, and the sound of brass instruments made her throat constrict; the hollow thump of a bass drum seemed to mark her steps as she moved through the rooms of the house. The entire summer had the air of a celebration – the band music; victims of thievery riding with the troops to reclaim what had been stolen from them, returning in a high mood, their wagons filled, trailing livestock that raised a cloud of dust and bawled when familiar barnyards came into sight. The concerts always began with the hymn “Groszer Gott, Wir Loben Dich,” and in her mind she could see the band assembled under the old oak tree on chairs arranged in a semi-circle by people living near to the tree, young women whose fairness entranced the German and Austrian men.
The soldiers were billeted in homes in both towns. The seamstress Tina Funk had several staying with her, and she had reported that they were taken by the immaculate gardens and swept paths, the wholesome cleanliness of the houses and barns, which made them nostalgic. Such a sight they never imagined possible, German villages in Little Russia similar to their own. The Mennonite women reminded them of their mothers and sisters. They’d held a Ludendorf festival, which proved to be a day of picnics, music, and games of soccer. All were invited to attend, bringing a warning from the Ältester in church that young women must not be allowed to go. But several had attended the festivities, and took part in an evening of dancing, and the following day, rumours abounded that couples had gone walking in the oak grove after dark, which brought an upset to the streets as great as that of the previous spring, when cannons had shelled them from Alexandrovsk, across the river.
During the festival, she’d sat with Nela on the Siemenses’ veranda after dark, listening as the band played Viennese waltzes, the music faint until carried to them by a gust of wind in brief flares of sound. The war had brought the outside world into the centre of the colony, German and Austrian men in their spotless, tailored uniforms, shoulders squared as they strolled along the streets of the towns, stopping to bow over the hand of a woman. She suspected that in comparison to these bright, shiny soldiers, their own boys and men had begun to look homespun to the women who were recipients of the soldiers’ compliments.
Moths had buffeted the veranda screens trying to get in, and she thought they were smelling the odour of the silkworms on her clothing. She would one day see photographs of the silkworm moths, their feathery antennae, their bow-tie wings that were powerless to lift their velvet body. She would learn about pheromones, an odourless perfume that signalled the female moth was ready to mate, and brought the males to her in a fluttering frenzy. What if Kornelius were not separated from the brethren, and her grandparents gave him permission to approach her, she suddenly wondered. And she in turn gave him permission to come calling. She was expected to bestow a kiss at such a moment, but she didn’t know what lay beyond the kiss. When she thought of Kornelius Heinrichs, his strong and stocky body, fair skin, the red curly hair at his wrists, she felt nothing more than gratitude. She sat out on the veranda with Nela Siemens, listening to the dry flutter of wings against the window screens, and, as though her heartsoft friend had read her mind out of nowhere, Nela said that she’d noticed a certain person had come calling in spring, and she hadn’t seen him since.
“Ja, that’s so,” Katya said. Everyone in the village knew as much, and likely more than she, about Kornelius’s visit.
“They say that when Kornelius’s wife died, his heart was bent,” Nela said. Everyone knew the sad story. Kornelius, while on a trip to Switzerland, had been smitten by love and returned home with his bride. He had built a house for her on a hill outside the village of Arbusovka, a two-storey wood house in the style of the Swiss. They’d been married less than a year when his young wife went visiting in a nearby village. On the way home, she met up with a band of hooligans, and, frightened, she foolishly turned her horses from the road to go across land. One of the horses stumbled into a rabbit hole, and the carriage tipped.
She knew Nela hoped for a reply that would give her a clue to what she was thinking.
“Some are saying that Kornelius Heinrichs believes because he was close by when you were in danger, you and he are meant to be. In my opinion, when he came to church, he should have been allowed to stay.”
In the silence that followed, Katya mulled over Nela’s startling words, you and he.
“I was there that day, too. I was in danger, too,” Nela said softly.
She realized Nela was referring to the day at the train station when the madman Trifon had attacked them. She was relieved now to learn that not everyone knew Kornelius had found her and Sara, and taken them out of the hole. That he had found Lydia wandering in a field beyond the Orlov estate. She reached for Nela’s hand, and held it.
Now, as she cleared away the soiled papers from under the silkworm-feeding table, she heard the military band playing “Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden,” and knew that the concert was about to end. The band would leave the semi-circle of chairs and march back to the churchyard, where they had earlier mustered. She stood still, listened as, through the marching song, voices rose from a room below. Moments later Oma’s voice filled the stairwell as she called for Katya to come downstairs. She should fix herself, and then come to the parlour, as they had visitors.
When she went down the stairs, Sara was waiting for her. She held up a doll she’d been reverently cradling. The doll’s features were scratched and mottled where its paint had peeled, but Katya recognized the dress and bonnet as ones she’d sewn.
“Franz Pauls brought it to me. Tante Lena is here, also,” Sara said.
Katya went to her bedroom and poured water into a basin. Her hands shook as she cupped the tepid water and dipped her face into it, cooling her cheeks. When she went to the bureau for a fresh blouse and apron, she was stopped at the sight of the middle drawer, which had been left open when she was certain it had been closed, a crumple of silk stockings, a heel scuffed and rounded, still holding the shape of Greta’s foot. Sara, she thought. Like her, wanting the scent of Greta, tangible proof that Greta had not been a dream.
She stood before the window in her room as she tied her apron strings and watched her aunt Susa at the water pump, her children standing and waiting for the pail to fill so they might carry it for her. In the distance the ridge of the valley met the sky, wild roses growing up its gentle slope a smudge of pink among variegated green. Rosenthal was home now, the other had been put far enough away that it didn’t often come back to her, except in her dreams. She dreaded having to face part of it now.
When she entered the parlour, her grandparents turned towards her simultaneously, their faces brightening as if to say, Here she is at last. There was Franz Pauls across the room sitting on a sofa, and Helena Sudermann beside him with Njuta on her lap, turning the pages of a storybook.
She could see at once how Helena had aged, and that she was dressed all in
black, as though in mourning. She had become a Baptist, but still wore the Mennonite haube, and, she noticed, Helena was without her moustache. The skin of her upper lip was smooth and shiny, as though the hairs had only just been soaped and scraped off with a razor. Katya tried not to stare, thinking that the woman’s face looked bland without it, her jaw longer and heavy, eyes more deeply set in her head.
“Katya,” Helena said.
Her voice was filled with sorrow that seemed to demand a response of tenderness. Once upon a time Helena had said, You and I are alike. Helena had let a bird out of a cage, and Katya had thrown a cup in a well. The consequence of Helena’s act was a bird killed by the weather. Katya had confessed before God and man, and still, she’d been punished. She’d been punished with silence.
“Katherine,” Franz said to Helena, correcting her.
Her grandmother nodded as if to say, You see, I told them. They’re to call you Katherine, and not Katya.
Yes, Katherine, she thought. She had emerged from the hole fully grown.
Franz got up from the bench and came to greet her, his hand extended. Then his foot caught on a curled edge of a runner in the centre of the floor, and he flew across the room, and beyond her. He landed on his hands and knees in the parlour doorway, which Sara was about to enter. When Sara recovered from her astonishment, she stooped to peer into his face.
“He doesn’t have cow eyes,” she pronounced to the room.
Helena’s hand flew up to cover her mouth, and her shoulders began shaking with suppressed laughter.
Laughter bubbled up from Katya’s stomach, huge sounds breaking at the back of her throat, her body caught in spasms, and she had to hold her stomach while Franz got up from the floor, dusted his knees and returned to the sofa. When at last she was able to stop laughing, her knees were shaking, and she had to sit down.
“Well now, let me see what I can find,” her grandfather said loudly, filling the ensuing silence. “Now that everyone is here at last, let’s see what old Opa can find, eh? I think I must have something – do I, Oma?” he asked, turning to her and winking.
Njuta’s storybook dropped to the floor as she slid from Helena’s lap and ran to him.
Katya’s sisters went with her grandfather to a corner cupboard, where he took a key from his waist pocket and fitted it into a keyhole on a cabinet door. He took down a sack of roasted pumpkin seeds. Then, reaching far into the recesses of the cupboard, he brought out a cube wrapped in brown paper that was slick with oil.
“Halvah,” Sara said with a sigh of pleasure.
“Go to the kitchen,” their grandmother began to say, but before she could finish, Sara and Njuta had left the room to fetch a knife and a plate. She went over to the curled-up spot in the sisal runner, muttering as she stamped on it, as if to punish it for having curled, while the red-faced Franz looked on.
“So, Katherine, why don’t you tell us what you’ve been doing,” Franz said, his voice brisk, Sara’s comment no doubt still lingering in his mind.
When she told him about the silkworms, he was eager to see them.
As they went up the stairs to the attic, she dreaded each step that took them farther away from the others. She feared he would have a message, that he might use this opportunity to assume his teacher’s role and come alongside her with words of encouragement, which she didn’t require, or want.
Because she had just put down fresh mulberry leaves, the worms were covered, and there was little for him to see. She explained why the silkworms were motionless, and he nodded enthusiastically and made noises of interest, but she knew his mind was somewhere else.
The thick heat of the attic made him sweat, and beads of perspiration broke and ran down the side of his neck over the red swellings he had there. The beginnings of boils, she thought. He removed his jacket and tucked it under an arm, pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and began dabbing at his forehead.
When she had finished explaining the silkworms’ cycle, their voracious feeding, growth and shedding of skin, she started to leave the room, but Franz went over to the window and the crate of china dishes on the floor.
He squatted and picked up a plate, and with his handkerchief wiped dust from it. Sara’s doll had been given to him by Sophie, he said. She had begun to attend their tent services, and seemed to have a hunger for the gospel.
Sophie’s conscience had caught up to her, Franz Pauls said. And went on to tell Katya what she already knew, that Sophie, along with the other wives, the children of the workers, had run off to Lubitskoye at the appearance of Pravda and his men.
“At first she said they were afraid. Then she admitted that they’d gone there to wait for word that they could come and move into the Big House. But she never once thought …” Franz Pauls said, letting the sentence go unfinished. “Apparently she was inconsolable, and couldn’t eat or sleep for days.”
“So then she’s at Privol’noye,” Katya said, wanting to keep her voice flat, but her eyes had grown moist with tears. Her grandparents had kept gossip from reaching her, she knew.
“Sophie? No, but her family’s there. Sophie refused. And Kolya went off to join the Makhnovites,” Franz Pauls said. Rumour had it that he’d been seen in Ekaterinoslav in a hotel that had become Makhno’s headquarters.
And Vera? Katya wondered.
Franz set the dinner plate back into the crate. Some people were burying china in their gardens, he went on to say. Winter clothing, silver, bedding. They thought burying was safer than hiding things in the attic and hayloft. “But the brutes seem to possess a devilish instinct that tells them where to dig for the buried treasure,” he said.
She studied him, took in his apparent satisfaction at knowing these things, as though the knowledge increased his stature, and she realized that his comment had been made without thinking about her, that he hadn’t been referring to the buried treasure in Abram Sudermann’s garden.
“Well, Katherine, won’t you at last tell us what happened?” he asked after a moment of silence.
He, along with everyone else, knew more about what happened that day than she did, she would one day come to learn. Most people would have read the account of the massacre in the Odessaer Zeitung that her grandparents had kept from her, a vivid description which she later read in archives, All of the victims had either been shot or had their throats cut. Gerhard Vogt was found slain on a field near a haystack, where it is believed the bandits caught up with him as he attempted to escape.
And yet, when her father’s brothers had come to see her after the funeral, they had expected she would tell them more. When later she recalled the questions they had put to her, their questions seemed, in the light of the present day, almost preposterous. Had her father raised his hand against the men? Did he defend himself, or anyone else? She couldn’t reassure them that this had not been the case. She couldn’t ease their minds, tell them that her father had turned the other cheek while his wife and children were struck down. And so she had told them what little she knew. He’d tried to defend them with words. Tried to get them away from the scene by saying they would milk the cows. He’d tried to defuse Pravda with an invitation to come for a meal.
“Katherine, won’t you tell me about Lydia? Was Lydia laid on the ground, too?” Franz asked, his voice lowered and cajoling.
She was confused, rooted by the phrase he’d used, and couldn’t repeat it. She could only ask, “Too?”
At her question, he drew inward and stuffed his handkerchief into his pocket. Then he went over to the feeding table, becoming lively and jovial, rocking on his heels, his teacher’s enthusiasm for the silkworm venture taking over. As though he hadn’t asked her about Lydia, and left her muddled and worrying over the phrase he’d used.
When they returned to the parlour the table had been set for faspa, the samovar was heating water, and on the table were plates of buns and ham, a dish of apricot jam. The halvah was sliced and arranged on a plate.
As they talked, Katya only ha
lf-listened, thinking, laid on the ground, a phrase she’d heard whispered between women, its connotation ugly and something to be feared. She heard Franz tell her grandparents that Tsar Nicholas, the tsarina, and all their children had been murdered. She felt the room go still, heard water simmering in the samovar, saw steam curl from the spout of the teapot. If they can kill the tsar, then who is safe? Helena said, repeating a question that, wherever she went, she said, people were asking.
“There’s the new Mennonite look,” Franz later said with a wryness, as he and Helena were about to leave. Young men no older than Gerhard would have been came marching down the street. They were being drilled by a German officer in the rudiments of marching before going off to the Second Colony to join the Selbstschutz, a self-defence unit of young men. Her grandfather looked on, shaking his head. “Those who live by the sword,” he said, and turned away.
“Some of those fellows are going around boasting how they’re going to knock out teeth. Maim and pulverize, which doesn’t sound like self-defence to me,” Franz Pauls said.
“Violence begets violence,” her grandfather said. “Wait and see.”
Katya waited until evening, after she had set a basin of water on the floor and sponged her sisters’ bodies clean and washed their feet. When she was sure they were asleep, she went to the family room where her grandmother sat at the table mending, and Opa across from her, a wooden box set before him, its lid open, and what looked to be letters and photographs spread around him on the table.
“What does it mean when a woman is laid on the ground?” She knew if she had taken the time to sit down, her courage would have left.
The Russlander Page 29