The Silence of Trees

by Valya Dudycz Lupescu

  Mama Paraska turned around and looked at me through the darkness.

  “Now you are my daughter,” she said. She brought together her thumb and first two fingers, kissed them and then lifted them up to my cheek. “I give you a piece of my soul.”

  She took back the brush, put it away and settled into her bed. I heard her breath fall into the rhythms of sleep; but for me, sleep never came that easily. Instead I lay back and stared up at the ghosts gathering around all our heads.

  Sleeping around me were twenty-three broken hearts. Like mist, heartache hovered above the floor. Guilt slept in tight shoulders, clenched jaws, fists. Fear filled the room with whimpers and silent trembling.

  Above hovered spirits. Slipping through cracks, they came each night. I grew to recognize those closest: Maria’s father, who smelled of the pipe and played violin over and over again–the same song each night as she wept into the wood, whispering his name. Olena’s sister, Ivanka, who ripped at her clothes, tore at her face. Tatiana’s lover, who watched from near her head and hummed a song I did not know. Even Mama Paraska’s husband came to her side. He sat on the bed beside her, his hands on his heart, tears in his blinded eyes.

  All their voices began to mingle into a rich, deep hum. I kept my eyes closed tight once their chanting began to thicken. Names were whispered and repeated. Their tone grew more anxious as dawn crept close—these were the names of those hoping to breach the veil of dreams, to reach the memories of dreamers. These dead were afraid to be forgotten: Hanusia Dzyuba, Franz Foter, Vasil Zinoviev, Marusia Vishnevsky, Kolia Dombrovsky, Lyda Lukich, Anna Katz, Pavlo Romanchuk . . . so many names. They whirled and swirled until they formed a hum like a factory, a tired machine, a hum that drifted away when the sun slipped through the windows.

  Never my ghosts.

  Each night, I waited. I looked. I listened. Perhaps others saw my mama, heard her sing a lullaby. Perhaps others could not see their own dead either. We never spoke of it. But in the mornings, I was not the only one with tired eyes and dark shadows.

  We tried to hide our fears beneath our clothes, inside our fists and tight jaws. We even took comfort in those blue identification patches that we were forced to wear, emblazoned with the “O” for Ost, for East. They united us, reminded us that we were not alone.

  Some nights, when the moon was bright enough to light our beds, and the nightmares were fierce enough to combat our exhaustion, we would lie there and confide in our sisters beside us. We never sat up, never looked to claim whose story rushed by our ears, never had faces to connect with the whispered histories. On those nights it was the living, not the dead, whose voices floated thick around us. Our living voices—to keep away the crying, pleading voices of the dead. And as we spoke, it was one voice truly. One story with different names but filled with ripped blouses, swollen bellies, bloody lips, tattered hands, broken hearts and corpses. Always corpses.

  But in the mornings, we needed life, not death. Laughter, not tears. In the darkness we spoke our truths, but in the light we spoke of hope, of love, of an end to the war. We looked to each other for signs of life, and we treasured Mama Paraska for her affection, her stories, her support, her vitality. She was our second mother. Twenty-three daughters in that bunkhouse would have died for her, and I was somehow blessed to be her favorite. So she took it upon herself to try and seal my fate with a happy ending.

  Mama Paraska’s husband had been killed in the war after joining the Cossacks in the Austrian Alps to fight the Germans. Her son, Andriy, had left their village before the Germans came, fleeing North to join the Russian army. Mama Paraska decided that my happiness was dependent upon her son. She spent most of her time bragging about Andriy and trying to convince me that I should marry him.

  “Ah, sweetie, how you would love my Andriyko. Everybody loves my son. In the army, he proved to them how smart he was with their machines. He always had a special touch with things mechanical. The big army generals will thank him generously. So by now, he must be very rich, and when he finds me, he will buy us a nice house on the Black Sea where you can have lots of babies and take care of me when I am old.”

  Because there was no way for Mama Paraska to send letters during the war, she would kneel by her bed at night and pray, convinced that God would forward her messages to Andriy.

  When I asked her about it, she explained, “Nadya, God and I have a good relationship. My father was a priest, as was his father before him. So God listens extra special to my prayers. That’s why he keeps my son safe, and that’s why I know I’ll see him again after the war.”

  Then Mama Paraska got down on her knees beside her bed, and after crossing herself three times, she said, “Hello God, this is Bohdan Shupinski’s daughter, Paraska, praying to you, so listen carefully. I am sending this to my son, Andriy, who would have also been a priest if it were not for this war. Please send him this message in his dreams:

  “Hello, my beloved Andriyko. This is your Mama. I love you very much. I have found a nice girl for you to marry. I’m looking at her now, so you will see her in your dreams.”

  At this she opened her eyes, took my hand, and stared at me for a long time. Then she continued, “You see, Andriyko. She is beautiful and smart too. You will like to talk with her and dance with her. Hurry and find your Mama so I can introduce you, before somebody else steals her heart. Don’t forget to say your prayers, and be good: God watches you extra close. Time for me to sleep. I love you.

  “God, that is my message. Please have the Angel Gabriel deliver it for me. Keep my son safe, and he will make us both proud. Amen and good night.”

  Then she crossed herself three more times and laid down in her bed.

  Those nights and days stretched on and on in a pattern of working and eating and sleeping and working and eating and sleeping and working. We barely ate, seldom slept, and always worked. Then one day, the Germans fled and the Americans arrived. The war was over.

  Peace.

  We were left without orders, without guidance, without purpose.

  It happened so quickly. One day we had received our usual dose of ridicule, abuse, and violence. The next morning we awoke to the sound of a loud shoom: the sound of cars and tanks and trucks all fleeing without us.

  We stood there until even the dust stopped swirling. We stood there in shock, uncertain what to do next. We stood there until one woman let out a loud whistle. Then we all charged the square, the center of the camp where we had so often stood for inspection. Every soldier was gone.

  Many women wept, some fainted, others yelled and cheered. I hated them for their happiness, for their relief. What did peace change for me? Nothing. I lay down in the sun and took in a long, deep breath.

  This peace was not mine.

  “Freedom” they shouted. “God Bless the Americans!”

  Freedom? I could not go home. What good was this freedom?

  The American soldiers arrived that afternoon and moved us into the old Neustadt tank center. We were not the only work camp to be emptied into the maneuver field. Hordes of people came from nearby camps, combined with displaced crowds rounded up as the Allies swept through Germany. We were all brought to that dusty place where the soldiers took inventory.

  Refugees. Displaced persons.

  That was the first time I heard those words.

  I stood holding Mama Paraska’s hand and stared out at the hundreds of people gathered there. The field was a silent still life of questions. Unspoken questions that brought breath to gray faces and skeletal bodies. They emerged everywhere, growing out from the sun-baked field, creeping out from behind yellow and blue and red patches, painting the moment with a painful, strained hope.

  And fear.

  Faced with the chance to find those we had lost, we were frozen with fear. Childish hopes had kept so many of us alive during bloody days and hungry nights: the thought that someone lost could someday be found. That someone believed to be dead could somehow have been spared.

  But the possib
ility of undeniable truth was more terrifying than our nightmares. If not hope, what would we have left to hold onto in sleep, in quiet moments when the ghosts would come?

  With questions ultimately came answers, as the first brave few crossed over invisible boundaries to connect with strangers–once family and friends. Some lucky ones looked around the field to find a wife, a brother, a daughter, a neighbor. The rest watched in envy.

  I had no one left to look for.

  The soldiers called for order, and somehow received enough of it to begin the process of registration.

  After those first moments of careful questioning, after the soldiers had taken all our names and given us general assignments, something wild swept through the camp like fire. Emotions stored away during the past few years rushed to the surface and burst out as people began to run about the field. Hands outstretched, they moved through the crowds. Some found lips, sweaty palms, lonely flesh. Others found fists, clenched jaws, angry glares. As the sun set on my first night in Neustadt, everywhere there were bodies entangled in hungry embraces. Here a caress, there a punch, and everywhere moaning.

  Mama Paraska and I left the field with a few other women from the work camp and found a dorm room large enough for us to share. She called us together and immediately took charge to ensure the safety of “her girls.”

  “These men,” Mama Paraska said, walking back and forth, “are like pigs and dogs in heat, locked away for so long without women. It will not be safe for you, especially at night. So if you want to stay here with me, you follow my rules, and I will try to keep you safe.”

  The work camps had been divided into male and female sections, closely monitored by guards and separated by barbed wire. Yet now that the war was over, danger and possibility lurked around every dark corner. Mama Paraska set down her rules: curfew at dusk, no walking alone with a man, no men back in the dorm, no smoking in the room, and–unless a girl was sick–everyone was required to dine together in the evening. If any of us broke any one of her rules, we would lose the privilege of staying in her dorm.

  “This is going to be a crazy time, now that the war is over.” Mama Paraska shook her head. “My daughters, you must be careful. Men are worthless. And men in heat are dangerous. They fight or rape without a thought because they have been shamed and beaten. And broken. Beware the broken man who sings sweetly but punches after his caress. Remember, they are all lovers and poets before the first kiss.”

  She looked each of us in the eye as she spoke, this tiny woman with her rosy cheeks who knew our deepest fears and desires.

  There were eight of us then, but two girls left that night and didn’t come back. Mama Paraska shook her head and said only, “Pity, like the good Lord, I too must lose some sheep.”

  To further ensure our well-being–physical and spiritual–Mama Paraska made arrangements with Father Petro Petrenko, an Orthodox priest whom she had met while in line waiting to record her name in the books. She had been leaning over the shoulder of the old man in front of her to hear how he answered his questions. Afterwards, she said it was because he looked so familiar. It turned out they came from neighboring villages near Kyiv.

  I had been trembling and sweating as I stood in the registration line, trying to decide what to say, how to answer the soldiers’ questions. All the rumors I heard rushed through my mind: that the Americans were going to force us all to go home; that the Russians were having us sent to Siberia; that we would “disappear” en route to Ukraine and turn up in ditches; that Ukraine had been demolished in the War, and there were few people left alive. So many nightmares, and we had no way of knowing the truth.

  Standing in line, I thought I saw Liliana, the vorozhka, in the distance, walking toward the barracks. She walked with that same sway of her hips, her long hair down around her waist. I stepped out of line and rushed over to her. I could smell berries and mint, her distinct smell. Of course she had survived; she was a warrior! I had so many questions to ask her. I reached out to touch her elbow, and Liliana turned around to look at me, her face thinner; her eyes still bright.

  “You survived, farmer girl,” she said. “Now it’s time to start living.”

  “Nadya!” A voice called and I looked back. Mama Paraska had been saving my place in line. “It’s your turn.”

  I looked back toward Liliana, but she was gone. I hurried back to my place. When it came time for me to give my name, I lied. I gave Stephan’s last name as my own. Nadya Palyvoda. It was the same name I had given in Slovakia, before they took him away. I decided never again to use my father’s name. I wanted no connection made to my family. If any of them were still somehow alive, I wanted them to be safe. To have family alive in Germany could only mean one thing to the Russians: Treason.

  After I wiped away traces of my past, Mama Paraska began working to convince Father Petrenko and his traveling companion, Brother Taras Moroz, to stay in the room beside ours to be on hand if there was any trouble. In return, she promised to embroider some vestments for Father for Sunday services. She impressed Father Petro with her spiritual pedigree, and in time the two of them grew to be good friends, spending endless Saturday afternoons arguing about the authorship of the Gospels and other spiritual mysteries.

  Word of our little safe haven spread, and more Ukrainian girls sought refuge in Mama Paraska’s dorm. By the end of that first week, she was responsible for a dozen girls. But Mama was overjoyed, not overwhelmed. She was happiest when taking care of other people; and as for us, the motherless daughters, we craved someone to look out for us, to worry if we didn’t come home, to hold us when we wept. Given the choice between freedom or safety, we twelve chose safety. The war had already provided us with a lifetime of adventures.

  One of the oldest girls, Natalia, had also come with us from the women’s barracks. She had been a poet and teacher; the only one of seven daughters to survive the war. Left for dead among her sisters’ corpses in the schoolyard, she had awoken to wild dogs gnawing on her fingers. Despite her own disfigurement—or maybe because of it—Natalia insisted that we “create beauty” around us and suggested that we find a name for our new home. We called our dorm “Nebo,” or Sky, and referred to each other as “the Star Sisters.”

  Even though everyone ate together in the great dining hall, we were each responsible for preparing our own dinners. Eventually, the Red Cross came and relieved us of that chore, but in those first few weeks, we prepared our food outside in pots and garbage cans, using whatever we could find in the dirty abandoned kitchen. Because everyone was looking for supplies and utensils, people fought over ladles and knives. The Star Sisters worked together and took turns preparing meals. As a result, we survived better than many around us, thanks to Mama Paraska and Father Petro.

  “The secret to peace is sharing meals,” Mama Paraska said before our first official camp dinner of mashed potatoes and spinach. “We will always gather together for the last meal of the day. With food, we feed our bodies. With family, we feed our spirits. And we are family.” Then Father Petrenko would bless our meal with a prayer of thanks.

  After each meal, Father would stretch back, rub his belly, and say, “The bread of life, the bread of life.”

  He became for us like a kindly grandfather, full of stories and advice. As time passed, he eventually performed marriages for nine Star Sisters and baptized several of our children.

  If he was our new grandfather, his traveling companion, Brother Taras, was our godfather. In a camp filled with “heat-stricken pigs and dogs,” Brother Taras and his bright blue eyes, thick blonde curls and strong shoulders was for us an untouchable saint: someone whom we could confide in, dream about, and never fear. He called us his sisters and kissed our cheeks each morning. The first few weeks, he even slept outside our door to keep us safe and in doing so, forever endeared himself to us. Several times, when drunken admirers came searching for “their girls,” Brother Taras chased them away, risking stolen guns, dull knives and bloody fists. To us he was the gentlest of
men, but to anyone who troubled us, he was our avenger. Many of the Star Sisters swore to name firstborn sons after him.

  Together with Mama Paraska, Father Petro, Brother Taras and the Star Sisters, I had a family. It could not replace all I had lost, but I was safe and loved and cared for. Even the nightmares seemed less frightening, and for a while, even the ghosts seemed to be at peace.

  But Mama Paraska never gave up hope that she would be reunited with her precious Andriy. Each morning as the sun rose, she and I would take a walk around the camp to the Wall of Words. An outside wall of the cafeteria, it had been transformed with messages and photos left by wives looking for husbands, sons looking for fathers, mothers looking for daughters. Refugees wrote their names and home villages with the hope that someone might find them with news, good or bad:

  “This is my uncle, he was taken from the village of Tallinn. Is he alive?”

  “Is there anyone here from Drohobych?”

  “Here is my wife and son. I have not seen them in four years. Has anyone?”

  Eventually these efforts would become more sophisticated as the camp put together a newspaper and began receiving radio broadcasts. But during those first few months, we had nothing but that wall. So we walked and read and hoped.

  It was through the wall that Mama Paraska got word of her son’s whereabouts. I helped her write a letter and then asked a kind American soldier to send it for us. Together we waited; and as we waited, summer turned to fall, fall turned to winter, and then one glorious day, winter teased us with a taste of spring.

  The unexpected February sun had set the snow aglow, and that radiance soaked into our skins, into our moods. After weeks of gray skies and icy winds, the midday rays breaking through the clouds brought a change to all our attitudes. Around me I heard hints of singing, humming, and whistling. The change was soft and subtle, like a whisper in a cathedral, but it was amazing because in the DP camps people were still grieving. Those who had lost loved ones or had lost hope put most of their energy into work and forgetting. Some chose to try and erase time with drinking, fighting, weeping, and empty embraces. Others buried the past in silence.