The Singing Forest

by Judith McCormack

  The floor is covered with a woven rug, and the shelves on the wall hold rows of jars — runner beans, yellow peppers, onions, relish. A whole shelf of dark beets alone, floating in brine, like jars of pickled rubies. On the other side is the fireplace, surrounded by white ceramic tiles, a metal firebox below. And over in the corner, soft cheese in a cloth, hanging over a bucket, a giant larva.

  The KDB officer is already there, young, square-faced, a dark blond crewcut. He introduces himself tensely. The interpreter — call me Polina — is livelier, her glossy black hair pulled back into a clip, her fingernails bitten down, her voice with a stretchy, violin-like quality. She mocks the officer a little, as if his stiffness was a personal dare. He does his best to ignore her, although his eyes follow her around the room as she sets up a recorder, puts out lapel microphones. She ignores his eyes, although she moves her hips a little more than necessary. But when she puts on her headset, clears her throat, she is serious, capable.

  Testing, she says. Her voice changes as she begins to recite a strand of words in a slight singsong.

  When she is satisfied, they begin.

  Tell us what happened.

  I was named by someone, says the man in a raspy voice. I am not sure who, even now. Although I have my suspicions.

  He glances at the elderly woman, who nods at him — go on.

  My father and mother were Ukrainian Jews, from the Homyel voblast in southern Belarus — there were many of us there. I was born in Homyel city, but moved to Minsk to get a job. I married my wife — he gestures to the woman — and we had three boys. I worked in the municipal archives as a senior clerk for eleven years, never a complaint. Some of those years were good years for Jews in Minsk — we had the State Yiddish Theatre, heders and yeshivas everywhere, a hundred synagogues. Almost half the population, we were, Yiddish was one of the official languages. Can you imagine?

  No. She makes an attempt to imagine this, to envision walking down streets, mingling in crowds, knowing that she was surrounded by Jews. A tiny sense of relief comes over her, a relaxation of muscles, the loosening of a hidden tension — a tension she hadn’t known was there.

  But then it all changed, says the man. They closed the synagogues, they banned the heders and yeshivas, they went after the kosher grocers, the Jewish tradesmen. They banned the Sabbath. We could see it happening, but we never thought it would get worse, each new measure was a shock. We steeled ourselves to bear each change, thinking that it was the last, hoping that it was all temporary. Clearly this cannot continue, we thought. A new government will come in. Or they will come to their senses. Then in 1938, three NKVD officers came to my apartment, and told me to confess that I was a traitor, a wrecker, a member of the fifth column, that I was sending information to the Bund.

  Never, I said. Impossible. I am entirely loyal to the revolution. I would never do such a thing. What information could I possibly send anyway? The marriage register? Tax records? I know nothing important, there is no military information here, nothing worth anything.

  But they arrested me despite this, and took me to the NKVD building, where an officer beat me with a club around the head and ribs, beat me until my clothes were covered in blood.

  The old man coughs, a wet cough that seems to shake his frail body, and then spits into a basin beside his chair. The woman gets up from her chair, pulls aside a grubby curtain under the firebox to reveal logs, some old pans. She takes a log and adds it to the fire, stirring it up.

  The next day, says the man, the officer beat me again, this time with a chair leg. He hit me so hard on the side of my face that he took out my eye.

  He gestures to his puckered socket.

  He made me crawl on all fours, he forced me to bark like a dog. He threatened to beat me with barbed wire. He told me he would kill me, he would shoot me in the head if I did not confess. If I confessed, if I named others, they would send me to a forced labour camp, but at least I would not be executed. He made me stand for five days without sleeping, without sitting or lying down, stoiki, he called it. When I could not stand up any longer, when I kept falling over, he would beat me again. He brought in a younger man, a clerk, so they could take turns.

  Finally, I confessed, although I still refused to name others, to this day I have never named anyone else. The clerk wrote up a confession, which they forced me to sign, admitting that I had attempted to create an uprising, that I was a spy, that I was guilty of anti-Soviet agitation. Then they sent me to a labour camp.

  In the labour camp, I had to cut down trees with an axe so dull it took hours to get through the trunk of one tree. The rations were so scanty, I had to catch rats and eat them to stay alive. Most of the prisoners had dysentery, frostbite, scurvy, lice — the lice alone almost drove me mad. People died every day from tuberculosis or typhus, every day there were more bodies. I was not released until 1948.

  She asks him about the NKVD officer, the clerk.

  They were men, they were police, the elderly man says, shrugging.

  Did you recognize either of them at the time?

  No.

  Did they refer to each other by names?

  Not that I remember.

  Did they have any identifying numbers or badges?

  Not that I remember.

  She shows him a photograph of Drozd. Was he one of the men?

  The man squints at the picture, turning it this way and that.

  Yes, Todar showed me this, he says in his cracked voice. I think it might be the clerk, I think it might be him. Although he was much younger then. And his hair was different. His eyebrows were thicker then, too.

  This is important, says the investigator. These men should pay for beating you, for sending you to the labour camp, for what they did to other people as well.

  The KDB official raps sharply on the table.

  If you are not sure it was him, do not say that it was.

  The man looks at the official as if seeing him for the first time. He takes in his uniform, his insignia, his scowl. Then he seems to shrink a little.

  I might be mistaken, he says. These things are difficult to say.

  He looks down at the cat, strokes him a few times, and coughs again.

  She almost groans. What had she expected in a place where facts had been malleable for so long, where they had become saleable commodities? Things that could be created, exchanged for survival, for protection, for relief from torture or death.

  She asks more questions, but the man becomes vaguer with each one.

  On the way back, she watches the countryside flow by, the countryside where Drozd grew up. Is there anything here, some element in this terrain, in this soil that gave rise to him, that poisoned him, deadened him? But this sleeping landscape seems placid enough, lovely — a light rain falling, the soft grey mist still there. Clumps of ghostly birches, the fields stretching out, blurred into delicate greens beside the road.

  She closes her eyes for a minute, puts her head back against the seat.

  These stories — first the affidavits, now these recitals — are wearing her down. Their details are beginning to creep into her everyday life, when she dozes, when she dreams, into any gaps in her thoughts. When I could not stand up any longer. Where the space was the size of a grave. When every day there were more bodies. And they leave an imprint of sadness on her, spongy impressions on her arms, her legs, her mind.

  But the testimony of this witness would not help them much. His evidence would not survive even the mildest cross-examination.

  You’ll have to do better than that, says Louis.

  ···

  Does he expect you to snap your fingers, conjure something out of thin air? says Nate. No, ignore that, he probably does.

  From a distance, Nate seems to have expanded, spread out, drifting through the telephone. She is still waiting for this thing — whatever it is — to assume a
real shape, to cohere and harden into something with edges, folds, corners. She is puzzled by its formlessness, but not impatient — she has fallen into this as softly and easily as rolling over. If she starts trying to shape it herself, to impose some form on it, she might end up with a version of her past relationships, instead of something with its own unique contours. But soon, very soon, she hopes that it will become more tangible, a thing she can press against her face, clasp to her chest. Something that she can touch, that she can wrap around herself, that she can hold in her hands.

  She feels a warm, silvery cramp in her chest.

  Are you still there? he says.

  ···

  She is crouched beside the row of leafy plants and her legs are beginning to ache. The basket in front of her is only half filled with strawberries.

  Law school, the end of second year. Nate has persuaded her, has convinced her she will have a good time. We need to get out of the library, we need the fresh air. And I have a recipe for jelly, strawberry with basil.

  But the sun, at first a welcome warmth, is now hot, drilling across her back, and her hands are sticky with juice. She stands up, shakes out her legs, and moves to the next row. Here she tries pulling the glistening berries off in handfuls, but she crushes too many of them this way, the smell almost spicy. All she has to do is fill this basket, she reminds herself. But the basket is filling so slowly that she lifts it up to see if there might be a hole in it.

  She rubs the back of her neck, then stands up again to stretch her legs. Nate, in the next row, his basket almost full, looks up at her.

  This is too much like work, she says.

  Only a row or two more, he says encouragingly.

  Let’s make less jelly.

  What a thought.

  One more row, she says.

  Three, he says.

  She picks up her basket as if to throw the strawberries at him.

  You wouldn’t dare, he says doubtfully.

  A long, slow arc, brilliant red in the sun.

  ···

  An hour, a day, week. How long has she been sitting there, in this room or another, Polina’s singsong running through her ears? Watching the investigator study his fingernails, the KDB official tapping his pen. The investigator is a smoker and the familiar smell makes her more receptive, she feels she can listen to almost any story, no matter how weak, how flawed, with a nicotine-stained equanimity. So far: a farmer, a welder, a mathematician, a teacher. Each with a harrowing tale, each with only the most dubious identification of Drozd.

  They are compelling despite this, so different from each other, but alike in their underlying bluntness, their clarity. As if the horrors they experienced had burned away an outer covering, and left them with a shell-hard core. Undaunted afterwards, persisting in creating new lifetimes for themselves. Even now, they continue in these uneven duets with the world, still closely — valiantly — coupled to their lives. What kind of fortitude, what kind of nerve does that take?

  Not many possible witnesses left, says the investigator. So many of them were executed, or they died of their injuries, or died in the labour camps, or died since then, infirmity, age. Not many left.

  She is surprised at how fiercely she wants to win this case now, something that has crept up on her. She is convinced there should be some moral compensation for the destruction this man helped to wreak, some redistribution of circumstance and consequence. Particularly since there is no sign of any remorse on his part, no sign of regret, nothing that might be a form of atonement. Unless living an ordinary life, a humble life, the small virtues of it, a thousand tiny moments over time, unless these things have their own redemptive force.

  No, this is not enough. At least in his case.

  Perhaps this is not the way to think about it, though, the idea that someone’s good deeds and bad deeds are linked at all. Or that there is some formula, some equation that can be applied to come up with a tally, an accounting. A moral netting out. Particularly since good and bad must be ever-changing configurations.

  Some things are unredeemable, say the spiders. Some people owe a permanent debt to justice.

  But justice requires evidence.

  We’re not alchemists.

  ···

  The doctrine of frustration. A man rented a music hall (“God’s will permitting”) to hold a series of fêtes and concerts, including a quadrille band, a wizard, tightrope performers, rifle galleries, and boats on the lake. The music hall burned down before the event, and the man sued the owners for failing to provide the hall. The Court of Appeal found that the owners were excused from their obligations in the same manner as if a painter commissioned to do a portrait had been struck blind. The perishing of the hall, said Lord Blackburn, made the thing impossible.

  ···

  There’s no one else, Ida says again.

  Sure, says Marvin, and begins setting up the rented mourner chairs.

  She was my closest friend. I owe her this. And those uncles are hopeless.

  Sure, says Marvin.

  The shiva. She is eleven, almost twelve, she refuses to sit in one of the short chairs, to be there for the Kaddish. She refuses to wear the torn black ribbon.

  She wouldn’t want this, she says. She wouldn’t want this.

  Her voice is thin, she is shocked, reeling inside.

  Yes, she would, says Ida wisely. She puts her arm around the girl, who stays stiff for a second or two, then shrugs her off.

  Then I don’t want it.

  The prayers, the hand washing, the candles. In her dazed state, the girl feels as if a small cloud of Jewishness has engulfed her, something unknown, murky — not her aunt’s familiar rhythms.

  Marvin winks, an empty gesture, as if they are on the same side, even though they are not. But she knows he means to be kind.

  She still insists on staying outside, refusing to talk to people, throwing a ball against the side of the house — off the wall, off the paved driveway.

  Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

  Leg under the ball. Leg over the ball. One, two, three alairy, kick the cat out of the dairy.

  I’m so cold, her aunt had said. I’m so cold. Tell that nurse to bring me another blanket. I’m so cold.

  Her laboured breathing, the tremors in her hands.

  Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Seven, eight, nine alairy, meet me then in January.

  Ida plays music — wistful, beautiful songs — to entice her inside. Marvin raises an eyebrow — during a shiva? — but she shrugs. What’s the harm?

  Nothing will bring her in, though, except to eat and sleep.

  Between the thuds, she hears voices she knows. Here come the uncles now, in a clump, walking up the front path. Nervous, they have banded together for protection, Gus smoking hard.

  She agrees to go inside with them, only because they look so worried, as if they might be subjected to some ritual against their will.

  Finally, says Ida reproachfully to them.

  They sit at the dining room table, dark mahogany so burnished she thinks that plates might slide right off it — she imagines them skating around its surface, people grabbing frantically for them with both hands.

  Sweet potato kugel, says Ida, setting out dishes and forks.

  They are drowning in a mountain of kugel dishes — noodle, cheese, potato — people bring it every day. As if this starchy dish were a cure for mortality, a remedy for death.

  The uncles glance at the covered mirror on the wall, look at their plates suspiciously. Then Rudy begins nibbling on his piece, and Gus starts eating with his eyes closed, a test of his mettle.

  Delicious, Malcolm says, smiling at Ida, and she pats her hair involuntarily.

  Come home, says Gus.

  Soon, says Ida. She’ll be home soon. It’s good to mourn.

  She puts her arm around Leah again.

/>   But Leah is not mourning. All her energy is focused on shutting it out of her mind, sealing it away.

  The yellowing skin. The muscle cramps. Her metallic breath.

  Why the hell don’t they heat this place? her aunt had said.

  Someone had brought a box of teas to the hospital for her, tea samples in small round tins, a metal tea egg with a small chain. Every day, Leah brewed it — the nurses let her use their electric kettle — as precisely as possible, according to the instructions. She put fresh cold water in the kettle, she shut it off as soon as it boiled, she added a teaspoon of tea to the tea egg. Then she carefully steeped it — three minutes for white tea, two minutes for black and green tea. They were working her way through the box: Oolong, Orange Pekoe, Assam, Darjeeling, Ceylon White.

  This one is supposed to be malty and smooth, she said, reading the description.

  Her aunt made a sound, half cough, half laugh.

  I’ll drink it later, she said. Leave it on the tray table.

  Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Seven, eight, nine alairy, sitting in a cemetery, ten, eleven, twelve.

  Midway through Darjeeling, on the way to her aunt’s room, a nurse headed her off in the corridor.

  I’m so sorry, honey. Let me call someone for you.

  Incomprehensible. Unimaginable. Unbearable.

  An ocean of pain swamped her. Her mind snapped shut.

  Outside, a flock of starlings burst into the air, twittering fiercely.

  ···

  Rain is coming down in warm gusts as the investigator parks the car. She has slept badly, her eyes feel roughened, tired.

  This is a good one, you will see, he says. But he has said this before each witness, so she only nods.

  Irina Novik. A doctor, although she is in her eighties now, and no longer works. This is a country, a place of old women, they say, the men dead before their time — executed, worked to death, blown up in wars. She lives in an apartment, she is standing in the doorway, a dress of blue linen, a cardigan on her shoulders. Her black eyes watchful, the skin translucent over the veins on her hands, the rings on her fingers sunken into the flesh.