Ancient Furies

by Anastasia V. Saporito

  It had always worked magically, and I would happily skip alongside, holding his hand and forgetting the hurt or disappointment or doubt. But it no longer worked. I heard his words then and knew that he was trying to explain, soften the news about Aunt ’Lyena, but the words were jumbled, meaningless to me. I was no longer the happy child skipping at his side. I had grown up with full awareness of the hurts, real disappointments, and endless tragedy that this war had brought. I was eighteen years old, but emotionally I felt as old as Father. We both knew that we could not bring back the past. The words and tender looks which had meant so much then could never be reestablished. Too much had happened to both of us.

  “What are your plans?” he asked after a moment. “Have you thought of going to Paris? Perhaps to live with my friend, Father Gregórii, and his family and continue your education?”

  “No, Papa,” I answered. “I’ve never considered Paris. I have a good job now. I’m going to transfer to the new U.S. Headquarters Division in Heidelberg very soon, and I’m seriously thinking of going to the United States.”

  “But America is so far away,” he said, “and we don’t have anyone there.”

  “That’s all right,” I answered. “The office I work for processes immigration applications for refugees from all over Europe who apply, and I understand that it’s not difficult to get a visa if you are healthy and have no criminal record.”

  “America—I thought that would be a good thing when we were together in Blankenburg, but now . . .” he said thoughtfully. “Well, I hear that a lot of refugees are trying to get to America. Many have already left. It’s just that it’s so far away, and we have no money, no friends there. But Paris, well, there are several Russian families there that I know besides Father Gregórii and his family. Well, we can talk about it later,” he said, embracing me again.

  “Papa,” I said without thinking, “why don’t you come back with me? We can find a small place to live, and that way we could be together.”

  “No, Asinka,” he said thoughtfully. “You could move here. I have a good job and have established a new set of acquaintances here. And I might still go on to Paris. I think I need the company of my good friend, Father Gregórii. There are a lot of things I can’t explain, there is a doubt in my heart . . . divine questions that I cannot find an answer to. I think he must have gone through this after the Russian Revolution, when he left our circle and began a new life as a priest. Perhaps he too went through what I am going through now, although I’m twenty-five years behind him in facing these doubts. Maybe he would hear me, understand my soul and explain.”

  “Are you thinking of becoming an Orthodox priest, Papa?”

  “Oh, no,” he answered quickly. “It is too late for that now. My heart is heavy and my soul is troubled. I just want to be close to him, to be able to talk things over. We were very close and shared good times in the Academy, and later during the revolution we shared tragedy. We understand one another. You know,” he continued as though talking to himself, “you know, my philosophy of life used to be that there is no such thing as a bad person. Why? We are all the creation of God, and everything God created is good. If by some chance you come upon a bad person, well, there are some miscalculations that God perhaps made in the past. Prehistoric animals, the dinosaurs, for example, could not support life because of their hugeness, or whatever reason, so they died off. But man is such perfection that it is almost impossible to find a bad one. Well, the Russian Revolution and this war have brought out some bad ones. But in general, if I came upon a bad person, I used to say, ‘Bank it, it will draw interest. Bank it in your mind and your heart, and from the interest you accumulate you add to your experience and it helps you to grow and mature.’ But lately, my philosophy has reversed. I believe it’s almost impossible to find a good person, someone upright and decent. Of course, I could ‘bank’ that, too, add it to my total experience.

  “But, you see, Asinka, I’m old now. I’m fifty-two and I have no time, no patience to wait for the interest to grow in the bank of my mind and heart and soul. I want to understand where I went wrong. I want some answers from my friend. He’s a man of God. But,” he paused, his finger raised as the stern expression I remembered from years before formed on his face, “but I still maintain, despite my many doubts about the human race, I still maintain, and I want you to remember . . . that I strongly believe in the importance of a good foundation, in the soul of a person, in the ship tossed about on rough seas that we discussed so many years ago. I still firmly believe that a strong foundation can withstand almost . . . no, not almost, a strong foundation can withstand all the storms that life brings. The core, the foundation, the soul is there, and you and you alone can build around it. And if it’s imbedded deeply enough—and yours is—it can withstand anything and become whole.”

  He grew silent as I looked at him, remembering all the loving, happy times of my childhood.

  “So you want to go to America, eh?” he said after a moment. “Well, maybe it’s not such a bad idea. Tell me, Asinka, have you met anyone you really like? Are you still ‘Papa’s little girl’?”

  Suddenly I saw not the Papa I had just been talking to but the vacant stare I remembered from the garage rooms in Belgrade, and I remembered being sent alone to Vienna, then, even worse, to Hamburg. I knew exactly what he was asking. It would have been so easy to answer truthfully . . . to answer simply, ‘Yes Papa, I haven’t met anyone like that yet.’ Instead I looked directly into his eyes and replied coldly, “Really, Father, that’s of no importance at all now, is it?”

  The words were not out of my mouth before I regretted them, wished that I could take them back. The sadness that came over him twisted his face and reflected the deep hurt that he was feeling, and I have regretted that moment all my life. He leaned over then, kissed my forehead, and suggested that we go out.

  We ate in a tiny cozy restaurant that Father knew, indulging in only small talk as we sat there. When we had finished, Father took me to the train station.

  It had been good to see Papa again, good for my soul to have his reassurance and his trust. I had begun to have so many doubts lately that the meeting had been like medicine to my own inner well-being. My own faith had begun to falter, and Father’s strong faith had strengthened me. But I was so very, very sorry about the way I had answered his “Papa’s little girl” question. Whatever brought about the incident in the garage in Belgrade, I had long ago forgiven him, even if I still did not understand it. In the following weeks we exchanged letters. Nothing important was said. The letters were simply a way of maintaining contact.

  I finally understood Papa’s determination to keep Mother and me from the Soviets. Aunt ’Lyena’s horrible death weighed heavily on my mind for many years. Many Soviet divisions included a political officer whose duties included searching for expatriate White Russians. Of course, I don’t know if that led to the tragedy of Aunt ’Lyena. I have never been able to face squarely, to comprehend, and to accept her final days. I hope as was her custom she was deep in prayer at the village chapel when the Soviet troops passed our house in Yaintse, and that she was at least spared the anxiety of hearing the shouts and voices of Ukrainian Soviet soldiers passing so close.

  Aunt ’Lyena was the kindest, gentlest person I have ever known. Her entire life had been spent in devotion to God. Thankfully, I cannot imagine the class hatreds that led the perpetrators to commit such a horrible crime, but I know without doubt that in Aunt ’Lyena’s final moments, she forgave them. While she did not die in defense of her faith, I believe she received a martyr’s welcome in Heaven, and that belief has provided some solace. And I believe that she has watched over me all these years.

  My nineteenth birthday would have passed in 1947 without notice, but a letter from Papa wishing me a happy birthday had arrived a day or two before. I moved to Heidelberg with the Headquarters Division and began my new job. The Marshall Plan swung into full action, and the change throughout Western Europe was remarkable. I
n Germany, rubble removal began in earnest, forests and green areas were picked up and cleaned, and rebuilding began everywhere. I became more and more convinced that I would like to emigrate to America. But I loved Europe so very much. Europe was where my roots were, where I felt so much at home.

  Then one Saturday evening in early December I was sitting in the parlor of my new rooming house, reading something when I heard the doorbell. I went to the door and opened it to find a messenger.

  “I have a telegram for Asya Popoff.”

  I stood motionless. Time stood still. I knew the contents of the telegram without looking, and I would not take it. I knew at once that the telegram was from Munich. I felt it.

  “Would you please read it to me?” I said softly. “All I want to know is when he died.”

  “Your father died at 7:00 p.m. Saturday, December 13, 1947. Funeral scheduled December 16. Dr. Shernadze.”

  I remembered Dr. Shernadze from my visit with Father in August.

  The last person in the world had gone. Papa was dead. I was truly alone in the world now.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The End of the Beginning

  I went to my office the following morning, Sunday, to ask for a few days off. Captain-Chaplain Goodwin was the only officer I could find. He was very sympathetic and offered to help, assuring me that he would inform my boss, Bob Baker. Since my payday was a week away, he gave me Marks so that I could purchase my ticket and have a little money for incidentals.

  I called my friends from Vermont to tell them what had taken place and that I would be unable to be at the office on Monday. They picked me up right away, insisting that I come to their apartment to stay until I left for Munich. While Margie did her best to console me, her husband called to find out the train schedule and left briefly to get my ticket for the following morning.

  We were unable to reach Dr. Shernadze by telephone. The sergeant sent him a telegram giving him my arrival time the following day and to tell him that I would make arrangements for Father’s burial when I arrived. Bless their hearts, they knew that I had little or no money, and they called everyone they knew in order to round up cigarettes that could be bartered for funeral expenses. When my train left, I had twenty cartons of American cigarettes in my suitcase. I had managed to save almost a thousand Marks. That was not very much in 1947 Germany, but I hoped it would help.

  I don’t know what I would have done without the help of my Vermont friends. My dresses were all showing signs of wear by then, and Margie insisted that I take a suit of hers. We were the same size, and she loaned me a soft, light beige, almost peach colored wool suit. It was the dressiest thing she had, she explained, apologizing that she had nothing in dark colors. She had sewn a black armband which she placed in the pocket of the suit jacket and explained that I could put that on for the funeral. She also loaned me a pair of loafers because my shoes had almost no soles left; even the cardboard liner was little help. At the train station I was overwhelmed with grief and terribly nervous knowing that my suitcase contained American cigarettes.

  Seated on the train I looked out at the bleak landscape. Low gray clouds hung over the fields. A mixture of snow and rain beat against the windows, and the compartment was cold. It was a three and a half hour ride, and the bleak December scenery matched my mood and my thoughts. I looked again at the telegram: “Your father died.” “It must be true,” I thought. “But when I saw him in late August he was fine, so relieved that we had found each other through UNRRA.”

  In the two years that we had lost track of each other I had begun to accept that he was dead, but deep in my heart I believed that Father was out there someplace, that one day we would find one another. That conviction sustained me, kept me strong, firmly believing that the “foundation” Father always spoke of was beneath my feet and entrenched in my heart. Somehow I knew that, although badly battered during the war years, the foundation he and Mother had helped me to build was still very much intact.

  After I saw him in August, I made up my mind to have a talk with him at our next meeting. In the two years of believing he was dead, I had come to understand that Father was just a man, not the super being I had made him out to be when I was a child, simply a human being with human faults and weaknesses.

  I had been carrying the hurt in my heart for too long. I had rehearsed how to say it, and I had resolved to tell him that although I could not understand his actions that day in the garage, I wanted to put it behind us, that I had long ago forgiven him and wanted to start a new father-daughter relationship. Yes, that was what I intended to do at our next meeting. But this was our next meeting.

  My eyes filled with tears as I looked out the window of the train. Mother had been killed just twelve hours before we were liberated and lay buried in Blankenburg City Cemetery, now the Soviet zone, lost to me forever. Aunt ’Lyena, murdered, hanged by unknown persons driven mad by ignorance or some insane class divisions, real or imagined, perhaps buried in Yaintse, was also lost to me forever. Now Father was to be buried in Munich. What was once such a close, small family would now lie in graves scattered throughout Europe.

  I looked at my watch. It was the dainty gold watch with six diamonds that Mother had tearfully passed through the iron fence at Luftwaffe headquarters in Belgrade just before I left on the train bound for Vienna in October 1944. I had kept it in my shoe, wrapped in paper and hidden under the arch of my foot, because I was so afraid that the Germans would take it from me. I looked at the watch now and thought it so sad that a man-made object such as a watch could weather war, occupation, and bombing. And yet God’s creation, a human being, was so vulnerable, so helpless in war, so easily killed. I wondered how my favorite nun at Hopova would explain this to me. The conductor’s voice broke the silence of the car.

  “Karten, bitte.”

  I gave him my ticket, afraid that he would ask me to open my suitcase, but thank goodness he punched my ticket and left the compartment without a word.

  The train finally pulled into the Munich station. It was only a short walk from the trolley stop to the hospital, but it was still raining and I was soaked and shivering from the cold when I arrived to knock at Dr. Shernadze’s door.

  “Ah, you made it, Asya, but you’re soaked. Come in, come in. Give me your jacket to hang up,” he said, shaking my hand warmly, taking my suitcase, and helping me with my jacket.

  “Doctor,” I asked, “is Father really dead? What happened?”

  “He died of angina pectoris, Asya. It happened very fast. He did not suffer.”

  “Was he alone when he died?” I asked, silently praying that someone had been with him.

  “Not exactly. It was my night off, and he and I were going out to dinner. We were planning to go dancing with two of the nurses later that evening. I was already in my car when your father came out and said that he had forgotten something and that it would take him only a minute. After several minutes, when he did not return, I shut the car off and went to find him.

  “Your father was slumped across his desk gasping for air. I removed his coat and jacket, and when I took his shirt off I could see a large dark bruise on the left side of his back. I rushed to my room for my bag and gave him an injection, but it was too late. He expired just then. He didn’t suffer, Asya; in fact, he was in very good spirits and looking forward to our night out.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He is in Room 5, down in the basement. You can go down and have a few moments with him.”

  I made my way along a dark basement corridor toward the number 5 that I could see lit above one of the doors. I knocked softly, opened the door, and went in. In a very narrow room a single, dim light bulb protruding from the wall above a gurney lit the room. I took a couple of steps toward it, toward Father lying there with his hands folded on his chest, his blue eyes open.

  He wore a dark blue suit and a white shirt with a dark blue tie. My heart began to race, “He isn’t dead . . .” I thought. He was lying there with his eyes wide ope
n. I stepped closer; his eyes were fixed straight ahead. “Is he trying to trick me?” I wondered as, God forgive me, a picture of him kissing me, pressing against me as I struggled to push him away that day in the garage, flashed in my mind.

  “Papa?”

  The sound of my own heartbeat thundered in my ears and sweat poured from my forehead as I took one step closer.

  “Papa, Papa,” I cried, as I reached for his folded hands.

  His hands were icy cold and damp, just like the body I had kissed when I was a toddler. Goose bumps covered my body. I felt faint and sweaty and ran out of the room. I leaned against the cold wall of the basement corridor, gasping for air, my heart beating wildly. “Yes,” I thought, “now I know. He is dead. Oh Papa, Papa.”

  Tears were streaming down my face, and I was shaking with sobs as I felt the doctor’s arm tighten around my shoulders.

  “Come, you must rest now. Tomorrow will be a very hard day for you.” he said. “I have an empty hospital room, and you can stay there. I’ll send my nurse in to help you, and I’ll see you later.”

  I entered the room he indicated and saw my jacket hanging on the back of the chair. A bathrobe lay across the bed, and I sat on the bed as a nurse walked in.

  “The doctor said you might need some help. Do you need anything?” she asked sympathetically.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Of course you do,” she insisted softly. “First, take off your wet clothes and put that bathrobe on. Did you bring a nightgown?”

  “No,” I answered absently. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about a nightgown.”

  “Of course not, you have too much on your mind. We’ll have your clothes all cleaned and dried so that you’ll have fresh clothes for the funeral.”