Something Unbelievable

by Maria Kuznetsova

  “Where did you go, my sweetness?” my sister cried into the void, madly waving an old bread crust as bait. Just a hint of pink and purple bled through the dark sky.

  The Orlovs’ car had arrived at last, followed by a car containing the Orlov family. I did not realize a Black Maria would be coming. This made our journey feel even more official and solemn. Still, my heart fluttered at the notion that Misha Orlov, the older son, was right there, waiting in the shadows.

  I heard the pitter-patter of my sister’s faithful cat just as the cars’ headlights flooded our courtyard. Polina lurched toward her creature while Mama grabbed her by the scruff of her neck like she herself was a wayward kitten.

  “Hurry up, silly girl! If we miss this train, there will be no other,” she said, but Polya gave Papa her irresistible look and he nodded and lifted a hand. My sister smiled weakly and crouched down toward the vile, stinky thing.

  “Good boy,” Polya said, letting him lap the bread crust out of her hand as she stroked his fur. “You’ll always be my good boy, won’t you?”

  “Unbelievable,” muttered Baba Tonya as she adjusted her boa. She was Polya’s ally about all things except Timofey—she, like me, did not care for animals. It might have been the only thing we agreed on.

  “Really, Fedya,” Mama said, shaking her head at my father, but she did not chastise my sister again.

  “You’ll have to be good without me now. Can you do that?” my sister told the creature.

  “He can’t talk,” I snapped, but she ignored me. The engines of the Black Marias hummed loudly. Uncle Konstantin stepped out of the passenger seat and lifted a hand in our direction. Even his silhouette was formidable.

  Papa opened his mouth to tell Polya it was time to go, but she got up on her own, turned around, and put on her best version of a brave face, like she was some big hero for leaving a stray behind. I could have put up an equal fuss over the shelf of books I was forced to leave, but did I let my lip tremble like a baby’s due to our family’s unknowable circumstances? Of course not, because I was grown.

  We gave our bags to a stone-faced driver, and the women crammed in the back while Papa sat in the front. The Orlov car pulled away and ours followed suit. I could just make out the cat’s yellow eyes against the last vestiges of darkness and my sister put her hand to the other window. I could hardly breathe in the stuffy car, but I tried to carve out a sanctified space from which to gaze out and say goodbye to my beloved city. As the car pulled away, I looked up at our balcony one last time, a place where Papa and I would chat in the evenings, where I would read on warm summer days. It was impossible to believe that the one-room apartment attached to it would no longer be witness to our footsteps, complaints, and laughter.

  There was no time for a proper farewell. Our car would not drive languidly along the banks of the Dnieper, passing the gold-domed Lavra and the beaches of my youth, the endless parks, chestnut trees, and green hills. We lived just two kilometers from the station. In fact, our apartment was only a few blocks from the tracks that ran up and down our city, and every hour we would hear the screech of the train and feel our apartment tremble as it roared by. The noise was a comfort, in a way. We drove through Zhilyansky Street, past rows of tan apartment buildings nearly identical to our own. Normally the street was not particularly crowded, but that morning it was packed, and we moved slowly.

  “Don’t worry, dears,” said Mama. “The Institute will put us in a decent home and keep us fed. And you girls will still go to school,” she reminded us. This last part was a relief to me but made Polya choke a little bit.

  “We shouldn’t be gone too long,” Papa added from the front seat. He did not turn around to look us in the eye to emphasize his point.

  “We will return before you know it,” Mama said, but I knew she was bluffing. The night before, I saw her sneak our winter clothes into her suitcase and understood it would not be a quick jaunt.

  “It will be far safer out there than here,” Mama said. “It is the best way. It is a privilege, to be able to leave.”

  “It is our patriotic duty,” Papa added, but this didn’t take.

  “But what about my friends?” Polya cried. “What will happen to my friends?”

  “Your friends will forget all about you in no time,” I offered, which was my best effort to distract her.

  “Easy for you to say—you don’t have any!” she said. I yanked her hair and watched her bottom lip tremble again. It was true. I had no friends to my name, but I had my books, my city, and my beloved literature teacher, Marina Igorevna, who was always sneaking me books the way Polina snuck scraps of food to old Timofey. While my sister loved caring for Timofey, she also thrived on the attention she received from her friends and the endless stream of slightly older boys who walked her to school, though Mama made sure they did nothing more.

  My grandmother, who had withered considerably since moving in with us, was swaying back and forth, as if in a trance, hypnotized by Rasputin himself. “It’s just like the start of the Revolution,” she whispered. “Nobody knows what will happen next.”

  Mama jolted upright, her hat hitting the roof of the car. She was morally opposed to chaos.

  “Antonina Nikolaevna,” she said. “If I were you, I would put the boa and rubies away. We don’t know who will be at the station or—out there, and it is best to be careful.” Mama chose to berate her over something else entirely to avoid discussion of the unknown.

  My grandmother snorted. “I can take care of myself,” she said, which was complete hogwash.

  “Just be careful, Mama,” said Papa, and my grandmother sighed and looked out at the traffic congesting toward the station, as well as more and more families approaching on foot, weighed down by suitcases. A buzzing reached my ears as I saw the chaos up ahead. Papa had already warned us: the ride would be two weeks long, and it would not be pleasant. Our train was meant for cargo, nothing like the comfortable wagons we had taken to Yalta in the summers. We should be grateful to be allowed to leave at all, and so on. But as we arrived at the station, I was scared and angry, not grateful. What did we do to deserve this madness?

  The Orlovs’ Black Maria stopped in front of ours and the members of its clan emerged with their luggage. Uncle Konstantin Orlov was a tall and competent man of few words who hardly seemed ruffled by the day’s, or the year’s, events. He wore a tan hat and light coat and was more imposing than Papa but not as handsome. He was one of the only grown men I knew who did not need glasses, yet another sign that he was above the drudgery of humanity. His wife, Aunt Tamara, walked beside him in a black frock and purple beret. She was a brittle, snobbish, and unattractive woman who ignored me and Polya whenever our families spent time together.

  Their sons helped the fathers retrieve the luggage from the trunk. Even in the midst of this maddening scene, the world slowed down when I saw striking, dashing Misha, a handsome and square-jawed boy with neatly trimmed dark hair who was just one year my senior. He had consumed me ever since a family gathering where I saw him standing at his balcony window, hand pressed against the glass as he watched the snow falling outside for a full hour without moving, and decided I would give anything for the secret to his stillness. We did not speak much, and when we did, we discussed our studies in an exceedingly polite manner that Polya teased me for, but I believed there was an understanding between us, placid but knowing, like the underbelly of a lake.

  Misha’s only flaw was being related to Bogdan, his smug and excitable younger brother, who even in this solemn situation was jerking his messy-haired head this way and that like a demented prairie dog, in search of any distraction from his family. He was nearly fourteen like yours truly but behaved like a schoolchild, wandering off and getting into trouble with the neighborhood boys when our families convened. The only thing I could say in his favor was that he bestowed his smug charm on me and Polina in equal measure, witho
ut preferring her for her beauty. He was not like our groundskeeper, Maxim, who once looked me and my sister over and told my mother, “Polina could be a film star!” while I waited for him to declare what I should be before I saw the conversation was over.

  We carried our luggage toward the train, approaching the fray. As the sun crept above the horizon, hinting at the sweltering day to come, the station swarmed with engineers and their frantic families trying to shove onto the cars, and workers who shoved metal equipment into the cars in the back of the train. Police officers attempted to keep people in line with their batons, shouting into the void. Our greetings with the Orlovs were brief and businesslike, though when Misha nodded and said, “Larissa,” I felt a bit faint. “Mikhail,” I answered stupidly.

  “Ladies,” said Bogdan, tipping his head toward me and my sister, and we dully repeated his name.

  Mama and Papa and even Baba were stony, while Polya was on the brink of tears, and I mimicked the adults instead of my weak baby sister.

  Uncle Konstantin arranged for us to have the first car, closest to the conductor, which was a privilege, though it meant dragging our things through the hordes all the way to the other side of the station. Mama and Papa followed him and his wife inside the car. My parents had much in common, but physically they made an odd couple. Mama was a tall, handsome, plump, and broad-shouldered woman with thick brows, and my father was a thin-haired man of average build who was quite good-looking in spite of the thick frames covering his sparkling green eyes.

  Our families were joined by the Garanins, the other family that would be sharing the car with us, which consisted of Uncle Nikita, Uncle Konstantin’s third in command, his pretty wife, Aunt Yulia, and their sweet four-year-old blond, pigtailed daughter, Yaroslava. I did not much care for children, but this girl was an exception. She was exceedingly sweet and curious, gazing about her like she was on a carnival ride instead of fleeing a war. “So many people!” she kept saying, hopefully, like it was a blessing.

  I only encountered the girl and her parents during Institute celebrations, and my parents were always friendly to them, though once, I heard them whisper that they found them dull, and I had to wonder if Mama’s true aversion to Aunt Yulia came from the fact that, though the woman dressed modestly and kept her hair pinned back, she was a dark, Mongolian beauty. Mama distrusted any woman with good looks, though this did not mean she was any kinder to me or any more cruel to Polya as a result.

  The parents moved ahead of the children, while Baba Tonya stayed by Polya’s side, muttering that her dress was getting trampled. My sister managed to attract attention even under duress; a man in front of us turned back to admire her until his wife yanked him ahead. The crowd swelled as we lurched forward and I grabbed my sister’s delicate hand and squeezed hard.

  “You’re hurting me,” she said.

  “Good,” I said, moving away from her, reminding myself what happened whenever I tried to be nice to the girl. Why bother?

  “It is important to remain calm,” shouted Uncle Konstantin as we followed him through the chaos.

  “I’m about as calm as a rabbit on fire,” said his wife, shaking her head, and for once, I agreed with her.

  “I am exhausted,” muttered my grandmother, to no one.

  The car where our three families attempted to settle was meant for cargo, all right. Slabs of wood that would serve as bunk beds jutted out of the walls, and there were only two small windows in the entire car; I knew I would go mad without a view and jumped on the bottom bunk near the window, which left Polya to take the top. Everyone else coupled off, and Baba splayed out on her very own bed, her boa feathers fluttering on either side of her like defeated wings. The brothers chose the bed next to ours, and I was not disappointed. Misha was on the bottom bunk just as I was, so he and I would be sleeping only centimeters apart; perhaps, late into the night, if we were turned toward each other, I would feel his hot breath on my face, a more welcome intrusion than the stinky sister breath I was accustomed to. Bogdan had collapsed on the bed on top of his with a smug little grin, arms crossed behind his head like we were taking a trip to the country and this was all a grand adventure.

  Mama snuck me and Polya some bread and honey she had packed up from the apartment, and it tasted heavenly. After I ate, I glued myself to the window as the train chugged away from the station, watching my city recede. I caught one last glimpse of the Dnieper. In the morning light, the river where I learned to swim and picnicked with my family looked majestic and whole. I wished I could run to it one last time, to bathe in its loving waters. The maple trees lining the embankment were in full glory, and I would not see them shedding their leaves. I loved walking by them after school in the fall, watching their propellers spin to the ground. Would there be maple trees in Lower Turinsk? Would there be trees at all? I had never been so far east. From my books, I imagined it to be a beautiful, terrifying, barren place. I wondered if I would die in it.

  * * *

  —

  After a so-called lunch consisting of black bread and black tea was served and the train made its first stop, Mama and Papa left us to see if they could be of use. Papa found a cloth to bundle a baby and some valerian root for a hysterical woman and Mama found work in the kitchen, which meant she would prepare food and frantically serve it whenever the train stopped. Papa also rushed around, helping out factory workers, many of them complete strangers to him, his old orphanage-help-others-at-all-costs instincts kicking right in.

  Just once, in the evening, Papa found time for us. He crouched down and kissed Polina and me on our foreheads. It had been a draining day, the air in the car as thick as butter, melting all of us.

  “My strong young women,” he said, stroking our hair like we were children. “How proud you make me.”

  “If we make you so proud, Papa, then why don’t you stay with us?” said my sister.

  “Because there are many people here who need more help than you. There’s a newborn who is so scared she refuses to eat,” he told her, but she was not convinced. He tousled her hair again and left to speak solemnly with Uncle Konstantin, plotting his next move the next time the train stopped. When I felt a hand on my shoulder a little while later, I hoped it was Papa returning, but I was not disappointed to find Misha hovering above us.

  “Do you girls need anything?” he asked. His hair was slick and resolute, like the rest of him.

  I looked around the compartment, with everyone rustling about and trying to unpack and create some order to face this unknowable day and the ones that would come after it. We were as beaten down and sunless as mushrooms stocked away deep in a forest.

  “What more could we need?” I said, and this got him to smile.

  “Of course,” he said, giving me a nod as he walked toward his father and Uncle Nikita. “Well, you know where to find me.”

  The boy was more handsome than his father, but he had the same imposing nose and broad shoulders; I could see him one day manning a factory, a tank, a platoon. Our situation had hardened his jaw and he was even more appealing under duress. And now he was hoping the men would let him into the adult sphere as they conferenced about the bombs falling on Leningrad, speculating that the worst would come for the city once winter set in because the Germans had surrounded it; even if its people didn’t run out of food, they could freeze to death.

  When he was just out of earshot, my sister batted her eyes at me and lowered her voice. “Do you need anything?” she said, imitating Misha in a husky voice and giggling at herself. She had teased me about Misha before, but I did not mind it until that moment. Normally, I enjoyed the flattery, even if I did not quite believe her. Not many boys had paid attention to me the way they did to Polya and it did not hurt to have it pointed out. But her joking around just then was downright inappropriate.

  “Shut up, idiotic girl,” I said. “He was just trying to help.”

 
“Are you kidding? Misha is so in love with you. Now more than ever,” she said.

  “Who can think of love at a time like this?” I said, smacking her scrawny arm harder than I intended. “Silly girl, we could die any minute, and here you have your head in the clouds.”

  Her bottom lip trembled and I braced myself for the floodgates to open, but they did not. “I have to keep busy somehow, don’t I?”

  “Read a book,” I told her, and then I reached into my bag and pulled out The Idiot, perhaps to justify hefting such a heavy tome to the mountains.

  But she did not ask to borrow a book. She just crossed her arms and pouted for an impressively long time. She let me see her hurting, just to punish me. Eventually, she joined our grandmother, who was fanning her face and muttering, “This will not do, this will not do….”

  Polya put her arm around her and said, “We’ll be fine, Baba, you’ll see.” It was strange to see my sister in the caretaking position, but perhaps that was why she liked being with my grandmother instead of me, feeling like the stronger one under these circumstances.