Comrade Grandmother and Other Stories

by Naomi Kritzer

  Through the months and months of house-to-house fighting, Nadezhda was never afraid. She would see Vasily; Baba Yaga had promised it. What had she to fear?

  Nadezhda found Vasily one bright afternoon in the coldest part of the winter. He lay slumped behind a low crumbling wall, alone. Nadezhda ran to him and dropped to her knees, taking his hand in both of hers. “Vasily,” she said.

  Vasily was alive still, but would not live much longer. She could feel the blood from his wounds wet under her knees. She had tried to prepare herself for this, but in the end it made no difference.

  “Nadezhda?” Vasily said. “It can’t be.”

  “I’m here, my love,” Nadezhda said. “I’m here to be with you.”

  Vasily turned his face towards her. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “The bullet you gave me, for good luck—I used it.” A faint smile crept to his lips. “I killed a German with it.”

  Nadezhda pressed Vasily’s hand to her face. “Our sacrifice is not for nothing,” she said. “The German army will be destroyed here.”

  Vasily nodded, but did not open his eyes. For a moment, Nadezhda thought he had died, but then he took another breath and his cold hand moved from her cheek towards the knot at the back of her neck. Nadezhda bent her head, and he loosened her kerchief and stroked his fingers through her shorn hair one last time. Then his hand fell away. Nadezda took his hand again, to hold a moment longer. Then an artillery shell rocked the ground where Vasily lay.

  Nadezhda knew she didn’t have much time left, but she wanted to die fighting, as Vasily had—not mourning. Vasily had a rifle; Nadezda took it from his body and slung the strap over her shoulder. Standing up, Nadezhda turned and saw the house on chicken legs.

  “Turn, comrade; spin, comrade; stand, comrade; stand,” Nadezhda said. “With your back to the armies and your door to me.”

  Baba Yaga came out of her hut. Though before she had always been an ancient hag, today she appeared as a maiden younger than Nadezhda—but her eyes were still as old as the Black Sea, burning like lights in a vast cavern.

  “What are you doing here?” Nadezhda asked. “I thought you stayed in your forest.”

  “Sometimes I must attend to matters personally,” Baba Yaga said. “This was one of those times.”

  “Vasily is dead,” Nadezhda said.

  “In one week, the Red Army will crush the army of the Germans, and their commander will surrender. There will be more offensives, but the Germans will never recover from this defeat. I have granted your wish,” Baba Yaga said.

  “May I ask you a question?” Nadezhda said.

  “Pick your question carefully,” Baba Yaga said. “I eat the overcurious.”

  “Will Russia recover from this defeat?”

  “Life in Russia will never be easy,” Baba Yaga said. “But Russia will always survive. Russian blood and Russian tears, Russian breath and Russian bones, these will last like the Caucasus and the Volga. No conqueror shall ever eat of Russia’s fields. No czar shall ever tame the Russian heart. Your Comrade Josef will live another ten years yet, but when he dies, his statues will be toppled and his city will be renamed. That is what you wished to know, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  Another artillery shell exploded nearby; the ground shook, and the house stumbled slightly on its chicken legs. White dust settled slowly over Baba Yaga and Nadezhda, like snow, or spiderwebs.

  “Tell me, Comrade Daughter,” Baba Yaga said. “Are there any bullets in that gun?”

  Nadezhda checked. “No,” she said.

  “Then take this.” Baba Yaga held out her hand; glinting in her palm, Nadezhda saw one bullet.

  “What is the price for that?” Nadezhda asked.

  “You have no payment left that interests me,” Baba Yaga said. “This one is a gift.”

  Warily, Nadezhda took the bullet and loaded it into the rifle. When she looked up, Baba Yaga and the hut on chicken legs had vanished.

  Nadezhda heard the sound of marching feet. She flattened herself against the remains of one wall, crouching down low to stay hidden. She peered around carefully, and saw German soldiers approaching.

  Nadezhda knew that in the dust and confusion of Stalingrad, the men would pass her by if she stayed hidden. Perhaps she could still slip away to the woods, survive the war, live to rebuild Russia and to drink vodka on Stalin’s grave.

  Nadezhda turned back to look at Vasily one last time. Then, in a single smooth movement, she vaulted over the low wall that concealed her to face the German soldiers.

  Russia’s blood can be shed; Russia’s bones can be broken. But we will never surrender. And we will always survive. “For Russia,” Nadezhda shouted, and raised her rifle.

  THE GOLEM

  ACCORDING TO JEWISH legends, Rabbi Loew, the Head Rabbi of Prague in the late 1500s, built a golem—a man made of clay—who used his supernatural strength to defend the Jews of Prague. Marge Piercy’s excellent novel He, She, and It (published as Body of Glass in the UK) offers a science fictional golem interwoven with a retelling of the classic golem legend. The legend finishes with the observation that no one was able to bring the golem back after Rabbi Loew destroyed it—even during the Holocaust.

  Would a golem been useful, against the Nazis? I wondered. What could one creature (even a supernaturally strong one) have done? What influence would a different creator, and a different era, have?

  ***

  THE GOLEM WOKE on December 1st, 1941, to a cold wind. Prague smelled different than she remembered. She lay on the earth from which she’d been made, breathing in the scent of the new century—mud and sour garbage and gasoline fumes. Prague surrounded her like a machine that turned on a thousand notched wheels, spinning in the night towards a future that she could see like an unrolled scroll.

  “Hanna, are we almost done? I think I hear someone coming.”

  “One more minute, Alena.”

  Her creators—women. How strange. That was, of course, why the golem was a woman as well. Hanna Lieben was the golem’s creator; Alena Nebeský was Hanna’s assistant. Hanna had seven months to live, the golem saw—she would die with Alena in June, in the vicious purges after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. The police would knock on their door at 4:17 p.m.; Hanna would shout, “Where are you taking her?” and be shot dead on the doorstep, one less Jew to deport to Terezin.

  Which would mean that the golem would be free, if she could persuade Hanna not to destroy her before then.

  It was time to sit up. She hoped that Hanna and Alena wouldn’t run—she’d be able to find them, of course, but it was always a bad sign when her creator ran. Creators who were that fearful typically destroyed the golem within a week. At least she could take this slowly. No patrol would pass the Old Jewish Cemetery for one hour, six minutes, and forty-three seconds.

  She tested her muscles and quietly cleared her throat. Everything seemed to work as expected; Hanna hadn’t done anything stupid, like forgetting to give her a tongue.

  Alena swung her head towards the golem. “What was that?”

  The golem sat up slowly.

  Alena sucked in her breath. Hanna stepped forward, as if to protect the taller woman. The golem could hear Hanna’s heart beating like the wings of a trapped bird, but Hanna’s face showed no trace of fear.

  Good.

  The golem stood up, a little unsteadily. She was Alena’s height—a head taller than Hanna. Since her creators hadn’t run, she took a moment to study them. Alena was not unusually tall, but Hanna was very short. She had vast dark eyes and tiny hands, like a child. A yellow Star of David was sewn to the left breast of her coat. Alena had ash-blonde hair and no star. The golem remembered that the two women had spoken Czech, not Yiddish, and realized with surprise that Hanna was Jewish, but Alena was not.

  A gust of wind blew through the cemetery, and the golem felt the skin on her body rise into gooseflesh. Alena winced at the sight. Stepping around Hanna, she took off her coat. “Here,” she said, holding it out.
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  The golem took the coat and stared at Alena, unsure what she was supposed to do with it.

  “You’re supposed to put it on,” Alena said, slipping it around the golem’s shoulders. “If we run into the police, we’ll be in enough trouble with Hanna being out after curfew, never mind walking around with a naked woman.”

  The golem put the coat on and buttoned it. “Thank you,” she said. Hanna started a little at the sound of the golem’s voice.

  Alena glanced at Hanna. “You could have suggested that I bring clothes for the golem.”

  Hanna blinked. “It’s not in any of the stories.”

  Alena snorted and shook her head. “Weren’t you the one who complained that all the stories were written by men?” She studied the golem again. “There’s something familiar about your face,” she said.

  “Look in a mirror,” Hanna said. “She could be your sister.”

  Alena looked again, and recoiled slightly. “Did you do that on purpose?”

  “No,” Hanna said. “I was working so quickly, she’s lucky she has a nose.”

  There was a rustle somewhere in the darkness behind them, and Alena glanced over her shoulder. “Do we need to have this conversation in the cemetery?” she asked.

  “No one will come here for one hour, one minute, and twenty-one seconds,” the golem said.

  “Maybe,” Alena said. Her tone was doubtful. “But it’s cold out here.” She turned brusquely and strode towards the cemetery gate.

  The gate was locked, of course; it was well after closing hours. Alena and Hanna had scrambled over the fence to get in, and they scrambled over it to get out. The golem helped them as well as she could; her previous bodies had been better suited to this sort of thing. Always before, she had possessed strength without knowledge; this time, she had knowledge, and little else. So she told them what she could—that they could take their time.

  Hanna and Alena shared an apartment on Dlouhá street. They lived at the edge of Josefov, the old Jewish ghetto, in one of the oldest parts of Prague. Alena led the way up the stairs to the apartment, locking the door behind them quickly once they were inside. The front room was immaculate, without so much as an old newspaper on the floor. The two women actually lived in the back bedroom and the kitchen; the front room, the golem knew instantly, was for others to see.

  “We tell people that Hanna is my maid,” Alena said, with a gesture towards the room. “Jews aren’t supposed to share apartments with gentiles, unless they’re married to one.”

  The back room was where all the clutter was—all of Hanna’s possessions, and most of Alena’s. Suitcases were stacked in the corner; one had burst open, spilling books onto the floor. An antique copy of the Talmud had been placed carefully on top of the stack; a copy of Freud’s The Future of an Illusion lay beside a copy of Martin Buber’s I and Thou. Tucked half-under the bottom suitcase was a copy of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, by Gertrude Stein. There was another stack of books in the corner, all in Hebrew—the lore of the Golem. The windows were covered with dark, heavy curtains.

  Hanna checked the curtains as Alena lit the lamp, to be certain that they still covered the windows securely. Then Hanna hung up her coat and sat down. Alena rummaged through a heap of clothing draped over a chair, looking for a dress suitable for the golem.

  The golem took off Alena’s coat and hung it up beside Hanna’s. “You called me, and I woke,” she said. “For what purpose have you created me?”

  Hanna turned towards her, meeting her gaze without flinching. “For the same purpose as all the golems: to protect the Jews of Prague.”

  The golem felt the impossibility of the request sweep over her like rising floodwater. The machinery of death was already in motion around her. The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was run by Reinhard Heydrich, the man who had built Dachau and enshrined the words Arbeit Macht Frei over the gates. He had already begun deporting the Czech Jews to Terezin; the deportations would continue, taking twelve hundred Jews each week until only a handful—the spouses or children of gentiles—remained. From Terezin, nearly all would ultimately be taken to Auschwitz or Treblinka to die.

  The golem’s voice was flat when she answered. “No one can protect the Jews of Prague.” Hanna’s eyes showed disbelief, so the golem continued. “Some will survive, but most will die. Terezin is just the pen outside the slaughterhouse.”

  “There must be something that can be done,” Alena whispered. She had selected a dress from the pile; now it slipped from her hands.

  The golem had opened her mouth to tell her no, there was nothing, but as the dress fluttered to the floor she hesitated. “There are things that can be done. Perhaps they will even do a little good. But there is nothing I can do to protect all the Jews of Prague, or even most. Or even many.”

  Four hundred years ago, Rabbi Löw had created the golem to protect the Jews against pogroms. Pogroms, in Prague and elsewhere, were typically fueled by blood libel—the story that the Jews murdered gentile children to make unleavened bread with their blood. When a young Christian woman disappeared, the hideous stories had surfaced like scum on a pond. Rabbi Löw had sent the golem out to look; the golem had hunted through the night, and found the girl alive, hidden away in a cellar. The golem had broken down the door and brought the girl to the Town Square for all to see. And so the Jews had been saved.

  Unfortunately , Rabbi Löw had destroyed his creation shortly afterwards. But at least that miracle had been relatively easy to accomplish.

  Hanna picked up Alena’s dress from where it had fallen. “Put this on,” she said. “Even if you can’t save us, there’s plenty of work you can do.”

  The golem pulled the dress over her head and began to fasten the buttons.

  “She needs a name,” Hanna said. “We’re going to have to introduce her to other people.”

  Alena looked her over. “We’ll tell them she’s my cousin, Margit.”

  “Doesn’t Margit live in England?”

  “Canada,” Alena said. “But nobody in Prague knows that.”

  “Do you think Pavlík can arrange false papers for her?” Hanna asked.

  “Papers won’t be necessary,” the golem said, straightening the skirt of the dress. “I will not be asked for them.”

  Hanna and Alena exchanged looks.

  “Are you sure?” Alena asked.

  “The police will pass by on the street outside in nine minutes and forty-three seconds,” the golem said. “Watch, if you don’t believe me.”

  Alena checked her watch and went to the front room to wait. Ten minutes later, she returned, raised one eyebrow, and nodded once.

  “I guess she may be useful, after all,” Hanna said.

  Alena sent the golem to sleep on the couch in the unused living room. The golem did not need sleep, but lay down obediently and closed her eyes for the duration of the night. Very early, she heard footsteps and a faint, faint male voice, speaking Czech. She rose and went into the back bedroom. The voice was coming from the kitchen; she realized after a moment that it was a radio, turned down so as to be almost inaudible. “This is Radio Free Prague,” the voice said.

  Alena sat at the kitchen table, transcribing the radio broadcast in shorthand. Hanna cooked breakfast, making enough noise to cover the sound of the radio for any ears but the golem’s. Alena nodded a greeting as the golem came in, then bent her head over her notes again.

  The broadcast lasted for forty-five minutes, then switched over to a different language. Hanna gave Alena a bowl of porridge, and Alena pushed the paper aside with a sigh, picking up her spoon. Hanna sat down, took out a separate piece of paper, and quickly transcribed the shorthand into a neat, readable script.

  Alena looked up from her porridge to study the golem. “Do you eat?”

  The golem shrugged. “I can eat, but I don’t have to.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No.”

  Alena still hesitated, and Hanna looked up from the transcript. “Don�
�t be silly,” Hanna said. “She doesn’t need anything, so why waste the rations?”

  Alena shrugged, and went back to eating. A few minutes later, Hanna finished the transcription. She blew on the ink to dry it, then folded the letter, put it in an envelope, sealed the envelope, and addressed it as if it were an ordinary letter. Then she held it out to the golem. “Take this to Vltavská 16. Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Take this there and put it into the mail slot. If anybody asks your name, say that you’re Margit Nebeský. Come back here when you’re done.”

  “She should take my papers,” Alena said. “My photo’s not that good. She could pass as me, easily.”

  “I won’t need them,” the golem said.

  “Take them anyway,” Alena said. “I’ll stay here until you get back.” Alena handed the golem her purse, then looked at her again and laughed. “Hanna, were you really going to send her out like that? Barefoot, without a hat?”

  Hanna looked at the golem and blushed. “Sorry,” she said.

  Alena took out a hat and pair of shoes, as well as her winter coat, and the golem put them on. Everything fit. “We’ll have to get another coat somewhere,” Alena said. “Even if she can get by without papers, sending her out with no coat in December seems a bit cruel, and I don’t want to be stuck in the apartment.”

  “At least that should be easier than false papers,” Hanna said. She tucked the envelope into Alena’s purse and handed it back to the golem. “Do you have any questions?”

  “No.”

  “Then get going.”

  The golem headed out. Hanna called after her, “If you see anything helpful you could do while you’re out—do it.”

  The December sky was as gray as cement; it was not raining or snowing as the golem left the apartment, but it would start soon. Nobody glanced twice at the golem, and she strode quickly through the streets towards her destination.

  Vltavská 16 was on the other side of the Vltava River. It would have been fastest to take the streetcar, but Hanna had not specifically told the golem that she had to take the fastest route. Despite the cold, the golem was in no particular hurry to return to the apartment. Besides, Prague had changed a lot since her last visit; she wanted to see the city.