Something Unbelievable

by Maria Kuznetsova

  She reached into her pocket and took out a roll—no, two bread rolls! But she was not done. She ripped them open and took out a cloth napkin with a sliver of butter inside and rubbed the butter into the center of the rolls with her steady fingers. This was pure ecstasy, you understand. I took a bite of my bread, and Polya took a bite of hers. Only when I got down to my last bite did I see Mama looking at us with almost joy, as if she were the one eating the bread. I realized how hungry she herself must be, how hard it must have been for her to steal those rolls and that butter for us without saving a shred for herself.

  I extended my last mouthful toward her but she pushed my hand away.

  “Nonsense, kitten. You need to eat, you’re still growing.”

  I expected my sister to glare at me for making her look like the selfish daughter she had always been, but she had a drugged, happy look on her face and even smiled at me, a faint trace of butter gleaming on her lips. As we shoved the crumbs into our mouths and licked our fingers, I felt as if my sister and I were allies, that maybe we even loved each other in our way. Perhaps that was what made Mama so fleetingly happy, more than the food. Or maybe she was just relieved her daughters were still alive, and it didn’t matter what we did.

  We returned to our bed, and I watched the mountains rising up before us, mountains that had long replaced the flat fields on the outskirts of Kiev. Then I heard the faint sounds of Aunt Yulia mourning her daughter, accompanied by the quiet whispers of her husband. Just as I began to drift off, a hand cradling my butter-filled belly, I heard a rustling and saw my sister tugging my grandmother’s hand and offering half of her roll, which she had managed to squirrel away. When Baba saw her small but significant offering, she clutched her bread-holding hand with her own shaking, sinewy fingers and kissed it before devouring it in two bites.

  “You are my angel,” she told her, wiping her mouth, but toward her lips, not away, so that any leftover rogue crumbs made their way in. “My absolute angel.” And then she turned back around and retreated into dreamland.

  Of course, I reminded myself, my sister and grandmother were as thick as thieves, would always be as thick as thieves for as long as the old woman lived. I would never come that close to Polya, even if we had smiled at each other over some butter. Though I knew that the majority of my lifetime was still ahead of me if I was lucky, I could not fight off the feeling that whatever had happened between Polya and me had already happened, and that it was too late to fix things between us, that there was no use trying, that I should save my reservoirs of hope for the horrors to come.

  * * *

  —

  The train deposited us at a desolate platform at last. It was a warm day and it was a joy just to be outside, to be free of the bodies and their insuppressible stink. The platform was marked by a wooden sign with LOWER TURINSK written on it, heaps of dirt, branches, and bird dung. On one side of the tracks loomed the factory where the fathers would work, a gray building with tiny windows and three massive columns releasing smoke into the air; already, some workers were carrying the heavy equipment they had packed up from the Kiev factory off the train onto trucks to haul them to their new workplace. On the other side of the tracks stood a field leading to rows of apartment buildings. They did not appear all that different from the homes we had abandoned; I had expected a village, with huts and horses dotting the landscape as they had in the places the train had passed. Where was the steppe I had dreamed about? What was the point of leaving one place for another that looked just like it? There were mountains in the distance, sure, but I was otherwise unimpressed.

  Grim-looking men in army fatigues spotted Uncle Konstantin and waved us over to the registration tent, gave each family our daily bread coupons, and told us we were living in Building 32. We were introduced to Uncle Ivan, a Black Maria–sized man with a rectangular, hair-covered face who was in charge of our building; he would take us and the diminished Garanins to our new home.

  “Lower Turinsk welcomes you with open arms,” he said, bowing slightly as the fathers introduced themselves, and I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

  As we followed him, he explained that the next day was Sunday, so we could settle in, but the following day, all men fifteen and older would report to the factory—so Misha qualified, but Bogdan did not. This pleased them both equally. Misha held his head higher, like the declaration had made him even more adult, while Bogdan pumped a fist in the air at being excluded from the hard labor. The women would work in the factory kitchen, while Bogdan, Polya, and I would go to school, like Mama promised. School! What a relief it would be to return to the land of learning.

  Aunt Tamara tugged on Uncle Ivan’s arm as we followed him down a paved road lined with poplars. “Is there a maximum age for the women’s work?” she asked.

  Ivan laughed and looked her over and said, “Don’t worry, you’ll do.” Then he added, “Unless you are of unsound mind.”

  “I can certainly prove that if I try hard enough,” she grumbled, but her husband silenced her with his gaze.

  Baba, on the other hand, could easily be proven mentally infirm, and who knew what she would do all day. She followed us in a daze with a faint smile on her lips, her now-gray boa trailing her, thinking she was some kind of debutante, as if all the men in town were staring at her. Perhaps some were, but not for the reasons a woman would want to be stared at. Faithful Polya kept pace behind our grandmother, lifting her boa and draping it over her shoulders whenever it hit the ground. Maybe she hoped our grandmother would draw some eyes toward her in turn. There were men everywhere, but for once none of them were looking at Polina. I pictured Dimitrev senior, twirling his mustache while gazing at my sister—there was no one who had the luxury to do that here, and though her red mane was still somewhat beguiling, she looked a bit too haggard for wandering eyes.

  I turned from all of them and gazed at the factory, which looked majestic and imposing from farther away. Papa caught me looking and winked. He put a hand on my shoulder and said, “I’d rather be in school.”

  “We can trade, then,” I said, though of course I did not mean it. I thought school would be the highlight of my time there, though I was curious about the factory. Though I did not think making tanks and other instruments of war would suit my father, who was by nature a peaceful man.

  “If school gets dull enough for you, I can take you for a tour. How does that sound?” Papa said.

  I told him it sounded nice, but did not expect much. It was nearly impossible to get Papa alone, even during peacetime.

  I was even more filthy by the time we reached the first of the apartments, my sweat mixing with the remains of the mud stuck to my body. The apartments weren’t nearly as tall as the ones in Kiev; just three or four stories at most, with more poplars and orderly fences and wooden benches in their courtyards. In the center of the apartments was a row of functional buildings, which included a post office, a small, squat school building, the grocery where the mothers would get our family’s daily bread with their coupons, which apparently was run by one famed Madame Renata, who lived in our building. “Get on her good side and stay on it,” was all Uncle Ivan said about her. Other Ivans dropped other passengers off at their new homes, and it seemed ours was the farthest away. My grandmother was not pleased by the trek.

  “I may faint at any moment,” she warned us.

  “Be our guest,” said Aunt Tamara, rolling her eyes. My grandmother ignored her. The women had much in common, so naturally they had already become enemies.

  I walked beside Misha, distancing myself from the complainers.

  “We’ll miss you in school,” I told him.

  “I’ll be more useful at the factory, I’m certain,” he said, but he gave me a little smile. “Though I will miss you when I’m working. We will all miss you, I mean,” he said, clearing his throat and looking serious again, though I felt my face flushing, getting ev
en warmer under the bright sun. Then he gazed ahead like a soldier like the parents were doing.

  Bogdan was flopping his head around, looking at this and that like an overheated puppy, while my sister and Baba dawdled behind us with linked arms. We had reached the edge of the earth, the final apartment building, which had a few benches and a swing set out front and abutted a forest of pines, in front of which flowed a small but mighty stream. The long trek was worth it. I would take trees over more neighbors any day. I was drenched in sweat by then. The sun was high in the sky and there was no breeze to offer relief.

  Our new home was on the second floor of a three-story building. Our families and the Garanins followed Ivan up the stairs, and the Garanins were the first to be dropped off in a one-room home next door to the apartment of Madame Renata. Aunt Yulia looked like a sleepwalker, the loose strands from her ponytail cascading down her shoulders like elegant seaweed. Though Bogdan walked near her, no one spoke to her, and her husband was equally vacant. Which was perhaps for the best in one regard, which was that, when they encountered the formidable Madame Renata, they hardly seemed to take her in. She was a nasty silver-haired woman with deeply arched brows who peeked her head out her door and gave us a once-over.

  “I would shower now while the water is running,” she offered, and then she returned to her lair.

  If we hadn’t been so exhausted, I might have exchanged a look with Papa and laughed at this woman’s expense.

  Instead, we parted with the diminished Garanins and followed Ivan down the hall, where he showed us our living quarters: two fairly large rooms with stoves, a balcony, and a shared kitchen for all of us. The apartments had minimal furniture, a few beds, a heap of blankets in the corner, a few dull lamps and landscapes, pale-orange wallpaper, and in one of the rooms, an empty bookshelf that broke my heart. The Orlovs were given the larger of the two rooms, though either room was substantially bigger than the one I was used to. In my opinion, my parents won out because their balcony looked straight out onto the pines.

  This was a downgrade for the Orlovs. Once, when my family visited their massive apartment in Kiev, Polya and I pretended to search for the restroom and wandered down their endless hallway, counting six different bedrooms, such a tremendous number of rooms that I could not even imagine what could be done in all of them. Polina had even jumped on the Orlovs’ bed and cried, “A whole family could sleep on this bed! An entire family!” We were much younger then.

  Then, next to the bathroom, Ivan showed us another room that used to be a closet but which had a bunk bed in it, which we were welcome to use, if we needed it. Improbably, it had a tiny window. This was the room where Polina, Baba Tonya, and I would stay, it was decided. The brothers would sleep in an alcove in their family’s room.

  “We thank you. It is more than suitable,” Uncle Konstantin said.

  “It’s the best we’ve got,” Ivan said, bowing as he left us standing back in the main room. A mouse scurried past, and Polya and Baba Tonya shrieked while Aunt Tamara jumped.

  “More roommates,” Bogdan said, trying to ease the tension, but nobody laughed.

  “This is where I will meet my end—I just know it,” Aunt Tamara said.

  “And I mine,” said Baba, who was not to be topped in her misery.

  “Enough with the theatrics,” Uncle Konstantin told his wife. “This is home now. This is where we will serve our country, and there’s no use in fighting it.” He slammed a fist against the wooden coffee table by the stove and seemed almost human for a moment, capable of frustration. Even Misha jumped a little, at this. I had never heard Uncle Konstantin raise his voice.

  His words lingered, but no one responded. We were all ready to collapse, too tired to think of Nazis or our strange new living arrangement. Mama paced around the main apartment, running her hands along the walls, kicking at the scant furniture with a strained, ferocious smile. “It is quite a nice apartment,” she said with desperate near-cheer. “Much larger than I expected. It just needs a bit of attention, that’s all.”

  Mama began settling in, which meant placing the clothes she and Papa had packed in drawers, putting the finery she would sell under their bed, and taking out a single framed photograph she brought of herself and Papa and placing it on the bookshelf near the stove. In the photograph, she and Papa stand in the kitchen of their first apartment, holding a pot of dumplings, looking impossibly young and wildly proud of what they had made. This must have been before I was born, because I had never seen such unabashed joy in my weary parents’ eyes.

  Papa ran a hand along the metal bunk bed in the corner and smiled grimly.

  “Funny,” Papa said. “These are the same beds we had in the orphanage. The exact same beds, it’s like they’ve lifted them out of Kharkov and brought them here. Well, it wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be there, and this will be more of the same. I made it through that and we will make it through this. If we stick together, we will do just fine here.”

  Polya and I exchanged a rare sisterly glance. Papa never mentioned the orphanage, though it cast a shadow over our family that no present-day joy or sunshine could dispel. This showed how desperate he was to create order, though I knew it was a false comparison: his orphanage was in the center of a real city during peacetime, not in the steppe during an unknowable war. And perhaps the one-roomed orphanage was the reason he had insisted our family live in such close quarters in the past—it might have comforted him, to have everyone in such proximity, as it reassured him now to see the cozy space where we would live together, even if we all did have separate rooms. Or at least I hoped Papa was mentioning his orphan past to calm himself and us, instead of a more troubling alternative—that he was already losing his grip, that he no longer cared about what he did or did not say, because the rules we were accustomed to had been thrown out the window the moment we boarded the train.

  * * *

  —

  How I dreamed of food during those early days! Flaky Napoleon. Airy meringues. Salty caviar on buttery blini. Herring sprinkled with pungent onions. I did not even particularly care for herring, but those early evenings I dreamed that my tongue had become a salty slice of fish, that I could soak in its rich juices with every swallow. Most of the foods I dreamed of, I must admit, were delicacies we were served at the Orlovs’ home, or even at my grandmother’s before her fall from grace, instead of the potatoes and salami my family had eaten in the communalka. I was not alone in my fantasies. All of us spent our time dreaming about food, making our meals last as long as possible, or scheming up ways to procure it.

  The Sunday market was one source. This was all Baba Tonya lived for, linking arms with me and my sister on our way there like we were going to a ball, her head high in the air in spite of the smelly, dirt-stained boa trailing her, as if she were balancing a plate on the tip of her nose. Polina flirted with the aged radish brothers and got us a bit more food, but not enough to make a difference. Aunt Tamara was used to being waited on hand and foot and mostly sat around the house fanning herself while Mama bartered the few pieces of finery she had brought.

  Bogdan made a heartier contribution than the market, becoming our savior early on. He would skulk away after dinner and return several hours later with a folded cloth napkin of goods without explanation—a few slices of bread here, a jar of jam there, which kept us from falling into complete starvation. Aunt Yulia began working for the government store of the aging but still mighty Madame Renata, which served a brick of black bread for each family every day, though everyone knew it was mixed with glue and sawdust. To her credit, though Aunt Yulia ignored us during the week, every Sunday morning she came to our door with a burlap sack of salvageable food. A few times, Polya and I had even rattled her doorknob out of desperation when she was out, hoping to find some extra fare, but she kept it firmly locked.

  So it was only natural that when I spotted the interloper about a month into o
ur stay, my first thought was that we could not afford another mouth to feed. He was a sight to behold. Just as the mothers were making dinner, the kitty entered the room with his tail high in the air and sauntered toward us like he was an invited guest, or even a visiting dignitary. He was an ugly-looking thing. A mangy gray-brown ball of fur, dirt all over his face, golden brown fluff around his belly. His eyes were huge, honey-colored, and he looked like he had never seen humans before. He was squinting a bit, as if blinded by the dim lights in the apartment.

  Polya’s eyes lit up, but if she got any big ideas and tried to slip him any of our measly rations, I would yank all the hair off her head and stuff it in her mouth. Dinner consisted of what Mama managed to scrounge from the morning’s market, where she had bartered her last porcelain plate. What did one plate manage to get us? Three loaves of black bread, a handful of carrots, and a stack of dried fish to split among the nine of us—adding another stomach to the mix was out of the question. But my sister was already enraptured. She put a hand to her mouth and knelt to meet the creature at eye level.

  “What a darling,” she said.

  “A joy,” said Aunt Tamara.

  “A mouser,” said Mama.

  “A guard,” declared Uncle Konstantin.

  “A comrade,” said Papa.

  “A rascal,” said Bogdan.

  “A brother,” said Misha.

  “A toy,” said my grandmother.

  I alone remained quiet, seeing no need in making a vapid declaration about the creature. I hardly had the strength to be cruel to my sister, which meant I was in a dire state.

  Polya knelt down and crawled toward the abomination. Bogdan joined her in welcoming the beast, proving once more that he, too, was a simple creature. My sister reached out her hand while Mama told her to be careful, that this was a feral mountain kitty, that he was no Timofey from the courtyard and was liable to bite her nose off, but Polya giggled as the kitty came toward her and licked and licked her trembling hand. My sister had become the weakest of all of us, since she had so little weight to spare to begin with, and it almost felt good to see her happy.